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• My Codemash 2011 Retrospective

  - by Greg Malcolm

  I just got back from Codemash yesterday, and still on an adrenaline buzz. Here's my take on this years encounter: The Awesome Nearly everybody in one place Codemash is the ultimate place to catch up with community friends. This is my 3rd year visiting and I've got to know a great number of very cool people through various conferences, Give Camps and other community events. I'm finding more and more that Codemash is the best place to catch up with everybody regardless of technology interest or location. Of course I always make a whole bunch more friends while I'm there! Yay! Open Spaced I found the open spaces didn't work so well last year. This year things went a lot smoother and the topics were engaging and fresh. While I miss Alan Steven's approach of running it like an agile project, it was very cool to see that it evolving. Laptops were often cracked open, not just once but frequently! For example: Jasmine - Paired on a javascript kata using the Jasmine javascript test runner J - Sat in on a J demo from local J enthusiast, Tracy Harms Watir - More pairing, this time using Ruby with the watir-webdriver through cucumber. I'd mostly forgotten that Cucumber runs just fine without Rails. It made a change to do without. The other spaces were engaging too, but I think that's enough for that topic. Javascript Shenanigans I've already mentioned that I attended a Jasmine kata session. Jasmine is close to my heart right now every since I discovered it while on the hunt for a decent Javascript testing framework for a javascript koans project earlier this year. Well, it also got covered in the Java Precompiler and Pillar's vendor session, which was great to see. Node.js was also a reoccurring theme. Node.js in a nutshell? It's an extremely scalable Event based I/O server which runs on Javascript. I'd already encountered through a Startup Weekend project and have been noticing increasing interest of late. After encountering more node.js driven excitement from my peers at codemash I absolutely had to attend the open space on it. At least 20 people turned up and by the end we had some answers, a whole ton of new questions and an impromptu user group in the form of a twitter channel (#nodemash). I have no idea where this is going to go or how big it is going to become, but if it can cross the chasm into the enterprise it could become huge... Scala Koans I'm a bit of a Koans addict, and I really need more exposure to functional languages so I gave the Scala Koans precompiler a try. Great fun! I'm really glad I attended because I found I had a whole ton of questions. Currently the koans are available here, and the answers are here. Opportunities While we're on the subject can we change the subject now? Hai Gregory, You really need to keep the drinking for later in the day. I mean seriously, you're 34 and you still do this every single time! Sure, you made it to Chad Fowler keynote ok, but you looking a rather pale weren't you? Also might have been nice to attend 'Netflicks in the Cloud' instead of 'Sleeping It Off For People Who Should Know Better'. Kthxbye PS: Stop talking to yourself Not that I entirely regret it, I've had some of my greatest insights through late night drunken conversations at the CodeMash bar. Just might be nice to reign it in a little and get something out of the next morning too. Diversity This is something that is in the back of my mind because of conversations at Codemash as well as throughout the year; I'm realizing more and more how discouraging the IT profession is for women. I notice in the community there has been a lot of attention paid to stamping out harrasment, which is good, but there also seems to be a massive PR issue. I really don't have any solutions, but I figure it can't hurt to pay more attention to whats going on... And in Other News I now have a picture of Chad Fowler giving me more cowbell! Sadly I managed to lose the cowbell later on. Hopefully it's gone to a Better Place. The Womack Family Band joined in with the musicians jam this year. There's my cowbell again! Why must you hide from me? I also finally went in the water for the first time in all the I've been coming to codemash. Why did I wait so long?!?

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• Closing the gap between strategy and execution with Oracle Business Intelligence 11g

  - by manan.goel(at)oracle.com

  Wikipedia defines strategy as a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. An example of this is General Electric's acquisitions and divestiture strategy (plan) designed to propel GE to number 1 or 2 place (goal) in every business segment that it operated in. Execution on the other hand can be defined as the actions taken to getting things done. In GE's case execution will be steps followed for mergers/acquisitions or divestiture. Business press has written extensively about the importance of both strategy and execution in achieving desired business objectives. Perhaps the quote from Thomas Edison says it best - "vision without execution is hallucination". Conversely, it can be said that "execution without vision" is well may be "wishful thinking". Research overwhelmingly point towards the wide gap between strategy and execution. According to a published study, 49% of surveyed executives perceive a gap between their organizations' ability to develop and communicate sound strategies and their ability to implement those strategies. Further, of these respondents, 64% don't have full confidence that their companies will be able to close the gap. Having established the severity and importance of the problem let's talk about the reasons for the strategy-execution gap. The common reasons include: -        Lack of clearly defined goals -        Lack of consistent measure of success -        Lack of ownership -        Lack of alignment -        Lack of communication -        Lack of proper execution -        Lack of monitoring       There are multiple approaches to solving the problem including organizational development practices, technology enablement etc. In most cases a combination of approaches is required to achieve the desired result. For the purposes of this discussion, I'll focus on technology.  Imagine an integrated closed loop technology platform that automates the entire management cycle from defining strategy to assigning ownership to communicating goals to achieving alignment to collaboration to taking actions to monitoring progress and achieving mid course corrections. Besides, for best ROI and lowest TCO such a system should also have characteristics like:  Complete -        Full functionality -        Rich end user access Open -        Any data source -        Any business application -        Any technology stack  Integrated -        Common metadata -        Common security -        Common system management From a capabilities perspective the system should provide the following capabilities: Define -        Strategy -        Objectives -        Ownership -        KPI's Communicate -        Pervasive -        Collaborative -        Role based -        Secure Execute -        Integrated -        Intuitive -        Secure -        Ubiquitous Monitor -        Multiple styles and formats -        Exception based -        Push & Pull Having talked about the business problem and outlined the blueprint for a technology solution, let's talk about how Oracle Business Intelligence 11g can help. Oracle Business Intelligence is a comprehensive business intelligence solution for reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP, dashboards and scorecards. Oracle's best in class BI platform is based on an architecturally integrated technology foundation that provides a unified end user experience and features a Common Enterprise Information Model, with common security, query request generation and optimization, and system management. The BI platform is ·         Complete - meaning it delivers all modes and styles of BI including reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP, dashboards and scorecards with a rich end user experience that includes visualization, collaboration, alerts and notifications, search and mobile access. ·         Open - meaning the BI platform integrates with any data source, ETL tool, business application, application server, security infrastructure, portal technology as well as any ODBC compliant third party analytical tool. The suite accesses data from multiple heterogeneous sources--including popular relational and multidimensional data sources and major ERP and CRM applications from Oracle and SAP. ·         Integrated - meaning the BI platform is based on an architecturally integrated technology foundation built on an open, standards based service oriented architecture.  The platform features a common enterprise information model, common security model and a common configuration, deployment and systems management framework. To summarize, Oracle Business Intelligence is a comprehensive, integrated BI platform that lets you define strategy, identify objectives, assign ownership, define KPI's, collaborate, take action, monitor, report and do course corrections all form a single interface and a single system. The platform's integrated metadata model and task based design ensures that the entire workflow from defining strategy to execution to monitoring is completely integrated delivering end to end visibility, transparency and agility. Click here to learn more about Oracle BI 11g. 

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• SOA, Governance, and Drugs

  Why is IT governance important in service oriented architecture (SOA)? IT Governance provides a framework for making appropriate decisions based on company guidelines and accepted standards. This framework also outlines each stakeholder’s responsibilities and authority when making important architectural or design decisions. Furthermore, this framework of governance defines parameters and constraints that are used to give context and perspective when making decisions. The use of governance as it applies to SOA ensures that specific design principles and patterns are used when developing and maintaining services. When governance is consistently applied systems the following benefits are achieved according to Anne Thomas Manes in 2010. Governance makes sure that services conform to standard interface patterns, common data modeling practices, and promotes the incorporation of existing system functionality by building on top of other available services across a system. Governance defines development standards based on proven design principles and patterns that promote reuse and composition. Governance provides developers a set of proven design principles, standards and practices that promote the reduction in system based component dependencies.  By following these guidelines, individual components will be easier to maintain. For me personally, I am a fan of IT governance, and feel that it valuable part of any corporate IT department. However, depending on how it is implemented can really affect the value of using IT governance.  Companies need to find a way to ensure that governance does not become extreme in its policies and procedures. I know for me personally, I would really dislike working under a completely totalitarian or laissez-faire version of governance. Developers need to be able to be creative in their designs and too much governance can really impede the design process and prevent the most optimal design from being developed. On the other hand, with no governance enforced, no standards will be followed and accepted design patterns will be ignored. I have personally had to spend a lot of time working on this particular scenario and I have found that the concept of code reuse and composition is almost nonexistent.  Based on this, too much time and money is wasted on redeveloping existing aspects of an application that already exist within the system as a whole. I think moving forward we will see a staggered form of IT governance, regardless if it is for SOA or IT in general.  Depending on the size of a company and the size of its IT department,  I can see IT governance as a layered approach in that the top layer will be defined by enterprise architects that focus on abstract concepts pertaining to high level design, general  guidelines, acceptable best practices, and recommended design patterns.  The next layer will be defined by solution architects or department managers that further expand on abstracted guidelines defined by the enterprise architects. This layer will contain further definitions as to when various design patterns, coding standards, and best practices are to be applied based on the context of the solutions that are being developed by the department. The final layer will be defined by the system designer or a solutions architect assed to a project in that they will define what design patterns will be used in a solution, naming conventions, as well as outline how a system will function based on the best practices defined by the previous layers. This layered approach allows for IT departments to be flexible in that system designers have creative leeway in designing solutions to meet the needs of the business, but they must operate within the confines of the abstracted IT governance guidelines.  A real world example of this can be seen in the United States as it pertains to governance of the people in that the US government defines rules and regulations in the abstract and then the state governments take these guidelines and applies them based on the will of the people in each individual state. Furthermore, the county or city governments are the ones that actually enforce these rules based on how they are interpreted by local community.  To further define my example, the United States government defines that marijuana is illegal. Each individual state has the option to determine this regulation as it wishes in that the state of Florida determines that all uses of the drug are illegal, but the state of California legally allows the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes only. Based on these accepted practices each local government enforces these rules in that a police officer will arrest anyone in the state of Florida for having this drug on them if they walk down the street, but in California if a person has a medical prescription for the drug they will not get arrested.  REFERENCESThomas Manes, Anne. (2010). Understanding SOA Governance: http://www.soamag.com/I40/0610-2.php

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• Using XMLDecoder to cast Encoded XML to List<>

  - by Ender

  I am writing an application that reads in a large number of basic user details in the following format; once read in it then allows the user to search for a user's details using their email: NAME ROLE EMAIL --------------------------------------------------- Joe Bloggs Manager [email protected] John Smith Consultant [email protected] Alan Wright Tester [email protected] ... The problem I am suffering is that I need to store a large number of details of all people that have worked at the company. The file containing these details will be written on a yearly basis simply for reporting purposes, but the program will need to be able to access these details quickly. The way I aim to access these files is to have a program that asks the user for the name of the unique email of the member of staff and for the program to then return the name and the role from that line of the file. I've played around with text files, but am struggling with how I would handle multiple columns of data when it comes to searching this large file. What is the best format to store such data in? A text file? XML? The size doesn't bother me, but I'd like to be able to search it as quickly as possible. The file will need to contain a lot of entries, probably over the 10K mark over time. EDIT: I've decided to go with the XML serialisation method. I've managed to get the code for Encoding working perfectly, but the Decoding code below does not work. XMLDecoder d = new XMLDecoder( new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream("data.xml"))); List<Employee> list = (List<Employee>) d.readObject(); d.close(); for(Employee x : list) { if(x.getEmail().equals(userInput)) { // do stuff } } When the program hits List<Employee> list = (List<Employee>) d.readObject(); an exception is thrown claiming that "Employee cannot be cast to java.util.List". I've added a bounty to this and anyone that can help me solve this problem once and for all will get lots of lovely points. EDIT 2: I've looked a bit more into the problem and have come across Serialization as a potential answer. If anyone can look into this for me as I've no experience with Serialization or Deserialization I'd be very grateful. It can provide an Object with no problems whatsoever, but I really need to return it in the same format as it went in (List). EDIT 3: Ugh, this problem is really starting to drive me crazy and to be honest I'm starting to think that it's an unsolvable problem. If possible, could someone take a look at the code and help provide a solution for me?

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• Django & google openid authentication with socialauth

  - by Zayatzz

  Hello I am trying to use django-socialauth (http://github.com/uswaretech/Django-Socialauth) for authenticating users for my django project. This is firs time working with openid and i've had to figure out how exactly this open id works. I have more or less understood it, by now, but there are few things that elude me. The authentication process starts when the request is put together in in django-socialauth.openid_consumer.views.begin. I can see that the outgoing authentication request is more or less something like this: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud?openid.assoc_handle=AOQobUckRThPUj3K1byG280Aze-dnfc9Iu6AEYaBwvHE11G0zy8kY8GZ& openid.ax.if_available=fname& openid.ax.mode=fetch_request& openid.ax.required=email& openid.ax.type.email=http://axschema.org/contact/email& openid.ax.type.fname=http://example.com/schema/fullname& openid.claimed_id=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/identifier_select& openid.identity=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/identifier_select& openid.mode=checkid_setup&openid.ns=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0& openid.ns.ax=http://openid.net/srv/ax/1.0& openid.ns.sreg=http://openid.net/extensions/sreg/1.1& openid.realm=http://localhost/& openid.return_to=http://localhost/social/gmail_login/complete/?janrain_nonce=2010-03-20T11%3A19%3A44ZPZCjNc&openid.sreg.optional=postcode,country,nickname,email This is lot like 2nd example here: http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OpenID.html#Samples The problem is, that the request, i get back, is nothing like the corresponding example from code.google.com (look at the 3rd example in example responses. Response dict i get is like this: { 'openid.op_endpoint': 'https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud', 'openid.sig': 'QWMa4x4ruMUvSCfLwKV6CZRuo0E=', 'openid.ext1.type.email': 'http://axschema.org/contact/email', 'openid.return_to': 'http://localhost/social/gmail_login/complete/?janrain_nonce=2010-03-20T17%3A54%3A06ZHV4cqh', 'janrain_nonce': '2010-03-20T17:54:06ZHV4cqh', 'openid.response_nonce': '2010-03-20T17:54:06ZdC5mMu9M_6O4pw', 'openid.claimed_id': 'https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOghawkFz0aNzk91vaQWhD-DxRJo6sS09RwM3SE', 'openid.mode': 'id_res', 'openid.ns.ext1': 'http://openid.net/srv/ax/1.0', 'openid.signed': 'op_endpoint,claimed_id,identity,return_to,response_nonce,assoc_handle,ns.ext1,ext1.mode,ext1.type.email,ext1.value.email', 'openid.ext1.value.email': '[email protected]', 'openid.assoc_handle': 'AOQobUfssTJ2IxRlxrIvU4Xg8HHQKKTEuqwGxvwwuPR5rNvag0elGlYL', 'openid.ns': 'http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0', 'openid.identity': 'https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkghgfhf1FkvaQWhD-DxRJo6sS09RwMKjASE', 'openid.ext1.mode': 'fetch_response'} The socialauth itself has been built to accept my email address this way: elif request.openid and request.openid.ax: email = request.openid.ax.get('email') And obviously this fails. Why i am asking all this is, that perhaps i am doing something wrong and my outgoing request is wrong? Or am i doing all correctly and should change the socialaouth module to accept info in a new way and then commit the change? Alan

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• Django & google openid authentication (openid.ax) with socialauth

  - by Zayatzz

  Hello I am trying to use django-socialauth (http://github.com/uswaretech/Django-Socialauth) for authenticating users for my django project. This is firs time working with openid and i've had to figure out how exactly this open id works. I have more or less understood it, by now, but there are few things that elude me. The authentication process starts when the request is put together in in django-socialauth.openid_consumer.views.begin. I can see that the outgoing authentication request is more or less something like this: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud?openid.assoc_handle=AOQobUckRThPUj3K1byG280Aze-dnfc9Iu6AEYaBwvHE11G0zy8kY8GZ& openid.ax.if_available=fname& openid.ax.mode=fetch_request& openid.ax.required=email& openid.ax.type.email=http://axschema.org/contact/email& openid.ax.type.fname=http://example.com/schema/fullname& openid.claimed_id=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/identifier_select& openid.identity=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/identifier_select& openid.mode=checkid_setup&openid.ns=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0& openid.ns.ax=http://openid.net/srv/ax/1.0& openid.ns.sreg=http://openid.net/extensions/sreg/1.1& openid.realm=http://localhost/& openid.return_to=http://localhost/social/gmail_login/complete/?janrain_nonce=2010-03-20T11%3A19%3A44ZPZCjNc&openid.sreg.optional=postcode,country,nickname,email This is lot like 2nd example here: http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OpenID.html#Samples The problem is, that the request, i get back, is nothing like the corresponding example from code.google.com (look at the 3rd example in example responses. Response dict i get is like this: { 'openid.op_endpoint': 'https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud', 'openid.sig': 'QWMa4x4ruMUvSCfLwKV6CZRuo0E=', 'openid.ext1.type.email': 'http://axschema.org/contact/email', 'openid.return_to': 'http://localhost/social/gmail_login/complete/?janrain_nonce=2010-03-20T17%3A54%3A06ZHV4cqh', 'janrain_nonce': '2010-03-20T17:54:06ZHV4cqh', 'openid.response_nonce': '2010-03-20T17:54:06ZdC5mMu9M_6O4pw', 'openid.claimed_id': 'https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOghawkFz0aNzk91vaQWhD-DxRJo6sS09RwM3SE', 'openid.mode': 'id_res', 'openid.ns.ext1': 'http://openid.net/srv/ax/1.0', 'openid.signed': 'op_endpoint,claimed_id,identity,return_to,response_nonce,assoc_handle,ns.ext1,ext1.mode,ext1.type.email,ext1.value.email', 'openid.ext1.value.email': '[email protected]', 'openid.assoc_handle': 'AOQobUfssTJ2IxRlxrIvU4Xg8HHQKKTEuqwGxvwwuPR5rNvag0elGlYL', 'openid.ns': 'http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0', 'openid.identity': 'https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkghgfhf1FkvaQWhD-DxRJo6sS09RwMKjASE', 'openid.ext1.mode': 'fetch_response'} The socialauth itself has been built to accept my email address this way: elif request.openid and request.openid.ax: email = request.openid.ax.get('email') And obviously this fails. Why i am asking all this is, that perhaps i am doing something wrong and my outgoing request is wrong? Or am i doing all correctly and should change the socialaouth module to accept info in a new way and then commit the change? Alan

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• Silverlight with MVVM Inheritance: ModelView and View matching the Model

  - by moonground.de

  Hello Stackoverflowers! :) Today I have a special question on Silverlight (4 RC) MVVM and inheritance concepts and looking for a best practice solution... I think that i understand the basic idea and concepts behind MVVM. My Model doesn't know anything about the ViewModel as the ViewModel itself doesn't know about the View. The ViewModel knows the Model and the Views know the ViewModels. Imagine the following basic (example) scenario (I'm trying to keep anything short and simple): My Model contains a ProductBase class with a few basic properties, a SimpleProduct : ProductBase adding a few more Properties and ExtendedProduct : ProductBase adding another properties. According to this Model I have several ViewModels, most essential SimpleProductViewModel : ViewModelBase and ExtendedProductViewModel : ViewModelBase. Last but not least, according Views SimpleProductView and ExtendedProductView. In future, I might add many product types (and matching Views + VMs). 1. How do i know which ViewModel to create when receiving a Model collection? After calling my data provider method, it will finally end up having a List<ProductBase>. It containts, for example, one SimpleProduct and two ExtendedProducts. How can I transform the results to an ObservableCollection<ViewModelBase> having the proper ViewModel types (one SimpleProductViewModel and two ExtendedProductViewModels) in it? I might check for Model type and construct the ViewModel accordingly, i.e. foreach(ProductBase currentProductBase in resultList) if (currentProductBase is SimpleProduct) viewModels.Add( new SimpleProductViewModel((SimpleProduct)currentProductBase)); else if (currentProductBase is ExtendedProduct) viewModels.Add( new ExtendedProductViewModels((ExtendedProduct)currentProductBase)); ... } ...but I consider this very bad practice as this code doesn't follow the object oriented design. The other way round, providing abstract Factory methods would reduce the code to: foreach(ProductBase currentProductBase in resultList) viewModels.Add(currentProductBase.CreateViewModel()) and would be perfectly extensible but since the Model doesn't know the ViewModels, that's not possible. I might bring interfaces into game here, but I haven't seen such approach proven yet. 2. How do i know which View to display when selecting a ViewModel? This is pretty the same problem, but on a higher level. Ended up finally having the desired ObservableCollection<ViewModelBase> collection would require the main view to choose a matching View for the ViewModel. In WPF, there is a DataTemplate concept which can supply a View upon a defined DataType. Unfortunately, this doesn't work in Silverlight and the only replacement I've found was the ResourceSelector of the SLExtensions toolkit which is buggy and not satisfying. Beside that, all problems from Question 1 apply as well. Do you have some hints or even a solution for the problems I describe, which you hopefully can understand from my explanation? Thank you in advance! Thomas

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• Loop through children and display each, as3

  - by VideoDnd

  How do I loop through all of my children, and display each? I would like to know the best way to do this. my children and containerfive children, one plays every sec, 1,2,3, etc. var square1:Square1 = new Square1; var square2:Square2 = new Square2; var square3:Square3 = new Square3; var square4:Square4 = new Square4; var square5:Square5 = new Square5; var container:Sprite = new Sprite; addChild(container); container.addChild(square1) container.addChild(square2) container.addChild(square3) container.addChild(square4) container.addChild(square5) my timer var timly:Timer = new Timer(1000, 5); timly.start(); timly.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onLoop); Note: Tried for loop, numChildren -1, and visibility ERROR 'access of undefined property' //Thomas's idea var timly:Timer = new Timer(1000, 10); timly.start(); timly.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onLoop, false, 0, true); // var square1:Square1 = new Square1; square1.visible = false container.addChild(square2) var square2:Square2 = new Square2; square2.visible = false container.addChild(square3) var square3:Square3 = new Square3; square3.visible = false container.addChild(square3) var square4:Square4 = new Square4; square4.visible = false container.addChild(square4) var square5:Square5 = new Square5; square5.visible = false container.addChild(square5) var container:Sprite = new Sprite; this.addChild(container); var curCount:Number = 100; // function collectChildren(container:DisplayObjectContainer):Array { var len:int = container.numChildren; var mySquaresArray:Array = []; for (var i:int = 0; i < len; i++) { mySquaresArray.push(container.getChildAt(i).name); } return mySquaresArray; } // function onLoop( e:Event ) { curCount = e.target.currentCount; if( curCount > 1 ) { var previous_square = curCount -2; mySquaresArray[previous_square].visible = false; } var current_square = curCount - 1; mySquaresArray[current_square].visible = true; }

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• Mootools 1.2.4 delegation not working in IE8...?

  - by michael

  Hey there everybody-- So I have a listbox next to a form. When the user clicks an option in the select box, I make a request for the related data, returned in a JSON object, which gets put into the form elements. When the form is saved, the request goes thru and the listbox is rebuilt with the updated data. Since it's being rebuilt I'm trying to use delegation on the listbox's parent div for the onchange code. The trouble I'm having is with IE8 (big shock) not firing the delegated event. I have the following HTML: <div id="listwrapper" class="span-10 append-1 last"> <select id="list" name="list" size="20"> <option value="86">Adrian Franklin</option> <option value="16">Adrian McCorvey</option> <option value="196">Virginia Thomas</option> </select> </div> and the following script to go with it: window.addEvent('domready', function() { var jsonreq = new Request.JSON(); $('listwrapper').addEvent('change:relay(select)', function(e) { alert('this doesn't fire in IE8'); e.stop(); var status= $('statuswrapper').empty().addClass('ajax-loading'); jsonreq.options.url = 'de_getformdata.php'; jsonreq.options.method = 'post'; jsonreq.options.data = {'getlist':'<?php echo $getlist ?>','pkey':$('list').value}; jsonreq.onSuccess = function(rObj, rTxt) { status.removeClass('ajax-loading'); for (key in rObj) { status.set('html','You are currently editing '+rObj['cname']); if ($chk($(key))) $(key).value = rObj[key]; } $('lalsoaccomp-yes').set('checked',(($('naccompkey').value > 0)?'true':'false')); $('lalsoaccomp-no').set('checked',(($('naccompkey').value > 0)?'false':'true')); } jsonreq.send(); }); }); (I took out a bit of unrelated stuff). So this all works as expected in firefox, but IE8 refuses to fire the delegated change event on the select element. If I attach the change function directly to the select, then it works just fine. Am I missing something? Does IE8 just not like the :relay? Sidenote: I'm very new to mootools and javascripting, etc, so if there's something that can be improved code-wise, please let me know too.. Thanks!

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• ajaxSubmit options success & error functions aren't fired

  - by Thommy Tomka

  jQuery 1.7.2 jQuery Validate 1.1.0 jQuery Form 3.18 Wordpress 3.4.2 I am trying to code a contact/ mail form in above environment/ with above jQuery libs. Now I am having a problem with the jQuery Form JS: I have taken the original code from the developers page for ajaxSubmit and only altered the target option to an ID which exists in my HTML source and replaced $ with jQuery in function showRequest. The problem is, that the function namend after success: does not fire. I tried the same with error: and again nothing fired. Only complete: did and the function I placed there alerted the responseText from the receiving script. Does anyone has an idea whats going wrong? Thanks in advance! Thomas jQuery(document).ready(function() { var options = { target: '#mail-status', // target element(s) to be updated with server response beforeSubmit: showRequest, // pre-submit callback success: showResponse, // post-submit callback // other available options: //url: url // override for form's 'action' attribute //type: type // 'get' or 'post', override for form's 'method' attribute //dataType: null // 'xml', 'script', or 'json' (expected server response type) //clearForm: true // clear all form fields after successful submit //resetForm: true // reset the form after successful submit // $.ajax options can be used here too, for example: //timeout: 3000 }; jQuery("#mailform").validate( { submitHandler: function(form) { jQuery(form).ajaxSubmit(options); }, errorPlacement: function(error, element) { }, rules: { author: { minlength: 2, required: true }, email: { required: true, email: true }, comment: { minlength: 2, required: true } }, highlight: function(element) { jQuery(element).addClass("e"); jQuery(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").addClass("e"); }, unhighlight: function(element) { jQuery(element).removeClass("e"); jQuery(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").removeClass("e"); } }); }); // pre-submit callback function showRequest(formData, jqForm, options) { // formData is an array; here we use $.param to convert it to a string to display it // but the form plugin does this for you automatically when it submits the data var queryString = jQuery.param(formData); // jqForm is a jQuery object encapsulating the form element. To access the // DOM element for the form do this: // var formElement = jqForm[0]; alert('About to submit: \n\n' + queryString); // here we could return false to prevent the form from being submitted; // returning anything other than false will allow the form submit to continue return true; } // post-submit callback function showResponse(responseText, statusText, xhr, $form) { // for normal html responses, the first argument to the success callback // is the XMLHttpRequest object's responseText property // if the ajaxSubmit method was passed an Options Object with the dataType // property set to 'xml' then the first argument to the success callback // is the XMLHttpRequest object's responseXML property // if the ajaxSubmit method was passed an Options Object with the dataType // property set to 'json' then the first argument to the success callback // is the json data object returned by the server alert('status: ' + statusText + '\n\nresponseText: \n' + responseText + '\n\nThe output div should have already been updated with the responseText.'); }

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• Layout issue regarding a JQuery smoothDivScroll

  - by MichaelMcCabe

  Hi all. I have been scratching my head for a while on this one. I dont really play around with HTML formatting that often. I have a smoothDivScroll using JQuery (http://maaki.com/thomas/SmoothDivScroll/) to scroll through dynamically generated images. What I want it for, is to have multiple small images lined up right next to each other, and each image has a section of writting underneath. about 25 images, 140px width each in a 7560px span. I acheived this great by putting a table inside the div, and each image inside a<td>.This works problem i have, is that i need the slider to start from the furthest RIGHT image, and slide automatically left. This is acheived by (if you look at the link above) - startAtElementId: But if I am using a table inside the div, it is taking the TABLE as a element and not the TD... so it doesnt work. I know this because if I change every image to be inside tables (i.e 25 tables), it works... but obviously then the formatting is not how I want. Can anyone think of a way I can use this slider (modifications to the js code or not), with 25 images that NEED to be right next to each other, no gap. I guess this is more of a formatting question, than about the slider. Because I only know ONE way of doing what I want, and thats to have below which will not alow me to set startAtElementId. <div class="scrollableArea"> <table width="7560px" class="index-body"> <tr> <td width="140px"><center><a onclick="__doPostBack('getEarlierDate');" ><img src="../images/olderGraphs.gif" width="140" height="60"></a>Click for more</center></td> <td width="300px"><center><a onclick="__doPostBack('chartClicked25');" ><cewolf:img chartid="verticalbar25" renderer="cewolf" width="300" height="60"/></a><c:out value="${date25}"/></center></td> <td width="300px"><center><a onclick="__doPostBack('chartClicked24');" ><cewolf:img chartid="verticalbar24" renderer="cewolf" width="300" height="60"/></a><c:out value="${date24}"/></center></td> and so on

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• Database design advice needed.

  - by user346271

  Hi all, I'm a lone developer for a telecoms company, and am after some database design advice from anyone with a bit of time to answer. I am inserting into one table ~2 million rows each day, these tables then get archived and compressed on a monthly basis. Each monthly table contains ~15,000,000 rows. Although this is increasing month on month. For every insert I do above I am combining the data from rows which belong together and creating another "correlated" table. This table is currently not being archived, as I need to make sure I never miss an update to the correlated table. (Hope that makes sense) Although in general this information should remain fairly static after a couple of days of processing. All of the above is working perfectly. However my company now wishes to perform some stats against this data, and these tables are getting too large to provide the results in what would be deemed a reasonable time. Even with the appropriate indexes set. So I guess after all the above my question is quite simple. Should I write a script which groups the data from my correlated table into smaller tables. Or should I store the queries result sets in something like memcache? I'm already using mysqls cache, but due to having limited control over how long the data is stored for, it's not working ideally. The main advantages I can see of using something like memcache: No blocking on my correlated table after the query has been cashed. Greater flexibility of sharing the collected data between the backend collector and front end processor. (i.e custom reports could be written in the backend and the results of these stored in the cache under a key which then gets shared with anyone who would want to see the data of this report) Redundancy and scalability if we start sharing this data with a large amount of customers. The main disadvantages I can see of using something like memcache: Data is not persistent if machine is rebooted / cache is flushed. The main advantages of using MySql Persistent data. Less code changes (although adding something like memcache is trivial anyway) The main disadvantages of using MySql Have to define table templates every time I want to store provide a new set of grouped data. Have to write a program which loops through the correlated data and fills these new tables. Potentially will still grow slower as the data continues to be filled. Apologies for quite a long question. It's helped me to write down these thoughts here anyway, and any advice/help/experience with dealing with this sort of problem would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks. Alan

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• PeopleSoft Upgrades, Fusion, & BI for Leading European PeopleSoft Applications Customers

  - by Mark Rosenberg

  With so many industry-leading services firms around the globe managing their businesses with PeopleSoft, it’s always an adventure setting up times and meetings for us to keep in touch with them, especially those outside of North America who often do not get to join us at Oracle OpenWorld. Fortunately, during the first two weeks of May, Nigel Woodland (Oracle’s Service Industries Director for the EMEA region) and I successfully blocked off our calendars to visit seven different customers spanning four countries in Western Europe. We met executives and leaders at four Staffing industry firms, two Professional Services firms that engage in consulting and auditing, and a Financial Services firm. As we shared the latest information regarding product capabilities and plans, we also gained valuable insight into the hot technology topics facing these businesses. What we heard was both informative and inspiring, and I suspect other Oracle PeopleSoft applications customers can benefit from one or more of the following observations from our trip. Great IT Plans Get Executed When You Respect the Users Each of our visits followed roughly the same pattern. After introductions, Nigel outlined Oracle’s product and technology strategy, including a discussion of how we at Oracle invest in each layer of the “technology stack” to provide customers with unprecedented business management capabilities and choice. Then, I provided the specifics of the PeopleSoft product line’s investment strategy, detailing the dramatic number of rich usability and functionality enhancements added to release 9.1 since its general availability in 2009 and the game-changing capabilities slated for 9.2. What was most exciting about each of these discussions was that shortly after my talking about what customers can do with release 9.1 right now to drive up user productivity and satisfaction, I saw the wheels turning in the minds of our audiences. Business analyst and end user-configurable tools and technologies, such as WorkCenters and the Related Action Framework, that provide the ability to tailor a “central command center” to the exact needs of each recruiter, biller, and every other role in the organization were exactly what each of our customers had been looking for. Every one of our audiences agreed that these tools which demonstrate a respect for the user would finally help IT pole vault over the wall of resistance that users had often raised in the past. With these new user-focused capabilities, IT is positioned to definitively partner with the business, instead of drag the business along, to unlock the value of their investment in PeopleSoft. This topic of respecting the user emerged during our very first visit, which was at Vital Services Group at their Head Office “The Mill” in Manchester, England. (If you are a student of architecture and are ever in Manchester, you should stop in to see this amazingly renovated old mill building.) I had just finished explaining our PeopleSoft 9.2 roadmap, and Mike Code, PeopleSoft Systems Manager for this innovative staffing company, said, “Mark, the new features you’ve shown us in 9.1/9.2 are very relevant to our business. As we forge ahead with the 9.1 upgrade, the ability to configure a targeted user interface with WorkCenters, Related Actions, Pivot Grids, and Alerts will enable us to satisfy the business that this upgrade is for them and will deliver tangible benefits. In fact, you’ve highlighted that we need to start talking to the business to keep up the momentum to start reviewing the 9.2 upgrade after we get to 9.1, because as much as 9.1 and PeopleTools 8.52 offers, what you’ve shown us for 9.2 is what we’ve envisioned was ultimately possible with our investment in PeopleSoft applications.” We also received valuable feedback about our investment for the Staffing industry when we visited with Hans Wanders, CIO of Randstad (the second largest Staffing company in the world) in the Netherlands. After our visit, Hans noted, “It was very interesting to see how the PeopleSoft applications have developed. I was truly impressed by many of the new developments.” Hans and Mike, sincere thanks for the validation that our team’s hard work and dedication to “respecting the users” is worth the effort! Co-existence of PeopleSoft and Fusion Applications Just Makes Sense As a “product person,” one of the most rewarding things about visiting customers is that they actually want to talk to me. Sometimes, they want to discuss a product area that we need to enhance; other times, they are interested in learning how to extract more value from their applications; and still others, they want to tell me how they are using the applications to drive real value for the business. During this trip, I was very pleased to hear that several of our customers not only thought the co-existence of Fusion applications alongside PeopleSoft applications made sense in theory, but also that they were aggressively looking at how to deploy one or more Fusion applications alongside their PeopleSoft HCM and FSCM applications. The most common deployment plan in the works by three of the organizations is to upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.1 or 9.2, and then adopt one of the new Fusion HCM applications, such as Fusion Performance Management or the full suite of  Fusion Talent Management. For example, during an applications upgrade planning discussion with the staffing company Hays plc., Mark Thomas, who is Hays’ UK IT Director, commented, “We are very excited about where we can go with the latest versions of the PeopleSoft applications in conjunction with Fusion Talent Management.” Needless to say, this news was very encouraging, because it reiterated that our applications investment strategy makes good business sense for our customers. Next Generation Business Intelligence Is the Key to the Future The third, and perhaps most exciting, lesson I learned during this journey is that our audiences already know that the latest generation of Business Intelligence technologies will be the “secret sauce” for organizations to transform business in radical ways. While a number of the organizations we visited on the trip have deployed or are deploying Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and the associated analytics applications to provide dashboards of easy-to-understand, user-configurable metrics that help optimize business performance according to current operating procedures, what’s most exciting to them is being able to use Business Intelligence to change the way an organization does business, grows revenue, and makes a profit. In particular, several executives we met asked whether we can help them minimize the need to have perfectly structured data and at the same time generate analytics that improve order fulfillment decision-making. To them, the path to future growth lies in having the ability to analyze unstructured data rapidly and intuitively and leveraging technology’s ability to detect patterns that a human cannot reasonably be expected to see. For illustrative purposes, here is a good example of a business problem where analyzing a combination of structured and unstructured data can produce better results. If you have a resource manager trying to decide which person would be the best fit for an assignment in terms of ensuring (a) client satisfaction, (b) the individual’s satisfaction with the work, (c) least travel distance, and (d) highest margin, you traditionally compare resource qualifications to assignment needs, calculate margins on past work with the client, and measure distances. To perform these comparisons, you are likely to need the organization to have profiles setup, people ranked against profiles, margin targets setup, margins measured, distances setup, distances measured, and more. As you can imagine, this requires organizations to plan and implement data setup, capture, and quality management initiatives to ensure that dependable information is available to support resourcing analysis and decisions. In the fast-paced, tight-budget world in which most organizations operate today, the effort and discipline required to maintain high-quality, structured data like those described in the above example are certainly not desirable and in some cases are not feasible. You can imagine how intrigued our audiences were when I informed them that we are ready to help them analyze volumes of unstructured data, detect trends, and produce recommendations. Our discussions delved into examples of how the firms could leverage Oracle’s Secure Enterprise Search and Endeca technologies to keyword search against, compare, and learn from unstructured resource and assignment data. We also considered examples of how they could employ Oracle Real-Time Decisions to generate statistically significant recommendations based on similar resourcing scenarios that have produced the desired satisfaction and profit margin results. --- Although I had almost no time for sight-seeing during this trip to Europe, I have to say that it may have been one of the most energizing and engaging trips of my career. Showing these dedicated customers how they can give every user a uniquely tailored set of tools and address business problems in ways that have to date been impossible made the journey across the Atlantic more than worth it. If any of these three topics intrigue you, I’d recommend you contact your Oracle applications representative to arrange for more detailed discussions with the appropriate members of our organization.

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• Fragmented Log files could be slowing down your database

  - by Fatherjack

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

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• Week in Geek: IPv6 Capable Smartphones Compromise User Privacy Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to “clone a disk, resize static windows, and create system function shortcuts”, use 45 different services, sites, and apps to help read favorite sites, add MP3 support to Audacity (for saving in MP3 format), install a Wii game loader for easy backups and fast load times, create a Blue Screen of Death in any color, and more. Photo by legofenris. Weekly News Links Photo by The H Security. IPv6: Smartphones compromise users’ privacy Since version 4 of the iOS operating system, Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods have been capable of handling IPv6, and most Android devices have been capable since version 2.1. However, the operating systems transfer an ID that discloses information about their users. Dumb phones can be attacked too Much of the discussion of security threats to mobile phones revolves around smartphones, but researchers have found that less advanced “feature phones,” still used by the majority of people around the world, also are vulnerable to attack. SCADA exploit – the dragon awakes The recent publication of an exploit for KingView, a software package for visualising industrial process control systems, appears to be having an effect. Threatpost reports that both the Chinese vendor Wellintech and Chinese CERT (CN-CERT) have now reacted. Sophos: Spam to get more malicious Spam is becoming more malicious in nature as trickery tactics change in line with current user interests, according to a new report released Tuesday by Sophos. Global spam traffic rebounds as Rustock wakes Spam is on the rise after the Rustock botnet awoke from its Christmas slumber, according to Symantec. Cracking WPA keys in the cloud At the forthcoming Black Hat conference, blogger Thomas Roth plans to demonstrate how weak WPA PSKs can be cracked quickly and easily using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. Microsoft Security Advisory: Vulnerability in Internet Explorer could allow remote code execution Provides a link to more details about the vulnerability and shows a work-around/fix for the problem. Adobe plans to make it easier to delete Flash cookies in web browsers The new API, NPAPI:ClearSiteData, will allow Flash cookies – also known as Local Shared Objects (LSO) – to be deleted directly in the browser’s settings. Firefox beta getting new database standard The ninth beta version of Firefox is set to get support for a standard called IndexedDB that provides a database interface useful for offline data storage and other tasks needing information on a browser’s computer. MetroPCS accused of blocking certain Net content MetroPCS is violating the FCC’s recently approved Net neutrality rules by blocking certain Internet content, say several public interest groups. Server and Tools chief Muglia to leave Microsoft in summer 2011 Microsoft veteran and Server & Tools Business (STB) President Bob Muglia is leaving Microsoft, according to an email that CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees on January 10. Report: DOJ nearing decision on Google-ITA The U.S. Department of Justice is gearing up for a possible formal antitrust investigation into whether or not Google should be allowed to purchase travel software company ITA Software, according to a report. South Korea says Google Street View broke law Police in South Korea reportedly say Google broke the country’s law when its Street View service captured personal data from unsecure Wi-Fi networks. The backlash over Google’s HTML5 video bet Choosing strategies based on what you believe to be long-term benefits is generally a good idea when running a business, but if you manage to alienate the world in the process, the long term may become irrelevant. Google answers critics on HTML5 Web video move Google responded to critics of its decision to drop support for a popular HTML5 video codec by declaring that a royalty-supported standard for Web video will hold the Web hostage. Random TinyHacker Links A Special GiveAway: a Great Book & Great Security Software The team from 7 Tutorials has a special giveaway running during the month of January. Signed copies of their latest book, full 1-year licenses of BitDefender Internet Security 2011 and free 3-month trials for everyone willing to participate. One Click Rooting For Android Phones Here’s a nice tool that helps you root your Android phone effortlessly. New Angry Birds Free version 1.0 Available in the App Store. Google Code University Learn programming at Google Code University. Capture and Share Your Favorite Part Of a YouTube Video SnipSnip.it lets you share only the part of the video that you like. Super User Questions More great questions and answers from this past week’s popular topics at Super User. What are the Windows A: and B: drives used for? Does OS X support linux-like features? What is the easiest way to make a backup of an entire hard disk? Will shifting from Wireless to Wired network result in better performance? Is it legal to install Windows 7 Home Premium Retail inside VMware virtual machine? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Enjoy reading through our hottest articles from this past week. The 50 Best Ways to Disable Built-in Windows Features You Don’t Want The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal One Year Ago on How-To Geek More great articles from one year ago filled with helpful geeky goodness for you to enjoy. Share Text & Images the Easy Way with JustPaste.it Start Portable Firefox in Safe Mode Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate Available, Here’s How to Fix Your Incompatible Extensions Protect Your Computer from “Little Hands” with KidSafe Lock Prying Eyes Out of Your Minimized Windows Custom Crocheted Cylon-Cthulhu Hybrid What happens when you let your Cylon Centurion figure and your crocheted Cthulhu spend too many lonely nights together? A Cylon-Cthulhu hybrid, of course! You can get your own from the Cthulhu Chick store over on Etsy. Note: This is not an ad…Ruth is a friend of ours, and this Cylon-Cthulhu hybrid makes the perfect guard for the new MVP trophy in our office. The Geek Note Whether it is a geeky indoor project or just getting outside, we hope that you and your families have a terrific fun-filled weekend! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by qwrrty. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal Install a Wii Game Loader for Easy Backups and Fast Load Times The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy Firefox 4.0 Beta 9 Available for Download – Get Your Copy Now The Frustrations of a Computer Literate Watching a Newbie Use a Computer [Humorous Video] Season0nPass Jailbreaks Current Gen Apple TVs IBM’s Jeopardy Playing Computer Watson Shows The Pros How It’s Done [Video] Tranquil Juice Drop Abstract Wallpaper Pulse Is a Sleek Newsreader for iOS and Android Devices

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• Pre-rentrée Oracle Open World 2012 : à vos agendas

  - by Eric Bezille

  A maintenant moins d'un mois de l’événement majeur d'Oracle, qui se tient comme chaque année à San Francisco, fin septembre, début octobre, les spéculations vont bon train sur les annonces qui vont y être dévoilées... Et sans lever le voile, je vous engage à prendre connaissance des sujets des "Key Notes" qui seront tenues par Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd, Thomas Kurian (responsable des développements logiciels) et John Fowler (responsable des développements systèmes) afin de vous donner un avant goût. Stratégie et Roadmaps Oracle Bien entendu, au-delà des séances plénières qui vous donnerons  une vision précise de la stratégie, et pour ceux qui seront sur place, je vous engage à ne pas manquer les séances d'approfondissement qui auront lieu dans la semaine, dont voici quelques morceaux choisis : "Accelerate your Business with the Oracle Hardware Advantage" avec John Fowler, le lundi 1er Octobre, 3:15pm-4:15pm "Why Oracle Softwares Runs Best on Oracle Hardware" , avec Bradley Carlile, le responsable des Benchmarks, le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-13:15pm "Engineered Systems - from Vision to Game-changing Results", avec Robert Shimp, le lundi 1er Octobre 1:45pm-2:45pm "Database and Application Consolidation on SPARC Supercluster", avec Hugo Rivero, responsable dans les équipes d'intégration matériels et logiciels, le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Oracle’s SPARC Server Strategy Update", avec Masood Heydari, responsable des développements serveurs SPARC, le mardi 2 Octobre, 10:15am - 11:15am "Oracle Solaris 11 Strategy, Engineering Insights, and Roadmap", avec Markus Flier, responsable des développements Solaris, le mercredi 3 Octobre, 10:15am - 11:15am "Oracle Virtualization Strategy and Roadmap", avec Wim Coekaerts, responsable des développement Oracle VM et Oracle Linux, le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-1:15pm "Big Data: The Big Story", avec Jean-Pierre Dijcks, responsable du développement produits Big Data, le lundi 1er Octobre, 3:15pm-4:15pm "Scaling with the Cloud: Strategies for Storage in Cloud Deployments", avec Christine Rogers,  Principal Product Manager, et Chris Wood, Senior Product Specialist, Stockage , le lundi 1er Octobre, 10:45am-11:45am Retours d'expériences et témoignages Si Oracle Open World est l'occasion de partager avec les équipes de développement d'Oracle en direct, c'est aussi l'occasion d'échanger avec des clients et experts qui ont mis en oeuvre  nos technologies pour bénéficier de leurs retours d'expériences, comme par exemple : "Oracle Optimized Solution for Siebel CRM at ACCOR", avec les témoignages d'Eric Wyttynck, directeur IT Multichannel & CRM  et Pascal Massenet, VP Loyalty & CRM systems, sur les bénéfices non seulement métiers, mais également projet et IT, le mercredi 3 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Tips from AT&T: Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Database, and SPARC Enterprise", avec le retour d'expérience des experts Oracle, le mardi 2 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm "Creating a Maximum Availability Architecture with SPARC SuperCluster", avec le témoignage de Carte Wright, Database Engineer à CKI, le mercredi 3 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm "Multitenancy: Everybody Talks It, Oracle Walks It with Pillar Axiom Storage", avec le témoignage de Stephen Schleiger, Manager Systems Engineering de Navis, le lundi 1er Octobre, 1:45pm-2:45pm "Oracle Exadata for Database Consolidation: Best Practices", avec le retour d'expérience des experts Oracle ayant participé à la mise en oeuvre d'un grand client du monde bancaire, le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Oracle Exadata Customer Panel: Packaged Applications with Oracle Exadata", animé par Tim Shetler, VP Product Management, mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Big Data: Improving Nearline Data Throughput with the StorageTek SL8500 Modular Library System", avec le témoignage du CTO de CSC, Alan Powers, le jeudi 4 Octobre, 12:45pm-1:45pm "Building an IaaS Platform with SPARC, Oracle Solaris 11, and Oracle VM Server for SPARC", avec le témoignage de Syed Qadri, Lead DBA et Michael Arnold, System Architect d'US Cellular, le mardi 2 Octobre, 10:15am-11:15am "Transform Data Center TCO with Oracle Optimized Servers: A Customer Panel", avec les témoignages notamment d'AT&T et Liberty Global, le mardi 2 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm "Data Warehouse and Big Data Customers’ View of the Future", avec The Nielsen Company US, Turkcell, GE Retail Finance, Allianz Managed Operations and Services SE, le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Extreme Storage Scale and Efficiency: Lessons from a 100,000-Person Organization", le témoignage de l'IT interne d'Oracle sur la transformation et la migration de l'ensemble de notre infrastructure de stockage, mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm Echanges avec les groupes d'utilisateurs et les équipes de développement Oracle Si vous avez prévu d'arriver suffisamment tôt, vous pourrez également échanger dès le dimanche avec les groupes d'utilisateurs, ou tous les soirs avec les équipes de développement Oracle sur des sujets comme : "To Exalogic or Not to Exalogic: An Architectural Journey", avec Todd Sheetz - Manager of DBA and Enterprise Architecture, Veolia Environmental Services, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 2:30pm-3:30pm "Oracle Exalytics and Oracle TimesTen for Exalytics Best Practices", avec Mark Rittman, de Rittman Mead Consulting Ltd, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 10:30am-11:30am "Introduction of Oracle Exadata at Telenet: Bringing BI to Warp Speed", avec Rudy Verlinden & Eric Bartholomeus - Managers IT infrastructure à Telenet, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 1:15pm-2:00pm "The Perfect Marriage: Sun ZFS Storage Appliance with Oracle Exadata", avec Melanie Polston, directeur, Data Management, de Novation et Charles Kim, Managing Director de Viscosity, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 9:00am-10am "Oracle’s Big Data Solutions: NoSQL, Connectors, R, and Appliance Technologies", avec Jean-Pierre Dijcks et les équipes de développement Oracle, le lundi 1er Octobre, 6:15pm-7:00pm Testez et évaluez les solutions Et pour finir, vous pouvez même tester les technologies au travers du Oracle DemoGrounds, (1133 Moscone South pour la partie Systèmes Oracle, OS, et Virtualisation) et des "Hands-on-Labs", comme : "Deploying an IaaS Environment with Oracle VM", le mardi 2 Octobre, 10:15am-11:15am "Virtualize and Deploy Oracle Applications in Minutes with Oracle VM: Hands-on Lab", le mardi 2 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm (il est fortement conseillé d'avoir suivi le "Hands-on-Labs" précédent avant d'effectuer ce Lab. "x86 Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure with Oracle VM 3.x and Sun ZFS Storage Appliance", le mercredi 3 Octobre, 5:00pm-6:00pm "StorageTek Tape Analytics: Managing Tape Has Never Been So Simple", le mercredi 3 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Oracle’s Pillar Axiom 600 Storage System: Power and Ease", le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-1:15pm "Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure for SPARC with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c", le lundi 1er Octobre, 1:45pm-2:45pm "Managing Storage in the Cloud", le mardi 2 Octobre, 5:00pm-6:00pm "Learn How to Write MapReduce on Oracle’s Big Data Platform", le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-1:15pm "Oracle Big Data Analytics and R", le mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Reduce Risk with Oracle Solaris Access Control to Restrain Users and Isolate Applications", le lundi 1er Octobre, 10:45am-11:45am "Managing Your Data with Built-In Oracle Solaris ZFS Data Services in Release 11", le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Virtualizing Your Oracle Solaris 11 Environment", le mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Large-Scale Installation and Deployment of Oracle Solaris 11", le mercredi 3 Octobre, 3:30pm-4:30pm En conclusion, une semaine très riche en perspective, et qui vous permettra de balayer l'ensemble des sujets au coeur de vos préoccupations, de la stratégie à l'implémentation... Cette semaine doit se préparer, pour tailler votre agenda sur mesure, à travers les plus de 2000 sessions dont je ne vous ai fait qu'un extrait, et dont vous pouvez retrouver l'ensemble en ligne.

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• Scripting Language Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect, 2012

  - by cj

  This posts highlights some great scripting language sessions coming up at the Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect conferences. These events are happening in San Francisco from the end of September. You can search for other interesting conference sessions in the Content Catalog. Also check out what is happening at JavaOne in that event's Content Catalog (I haven't included sessions from it in this post.) To find the timeslots and locations of each session, click their respective link and check the "Session Schedule" box on the top right. GEN8431 - General Session: What’s New in Oracle Database Application Development This general session takes a look at what’s been new in the last year in Oracle Database application development tools using the latest generation of database technology. Topics range from Oracle SQL Developer and Oracle Application Express to Java and PHP. (Thomas Kyte - Architect, Oracle) BOF9858 - Meet the Developers of Database Access Services (OCI, ODBC, DRCP, PHP, Python) This session is your opportunity to meet in person the Oracle developers who have built Oracle Database access tools and products such as the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Oracle C++ Call Interface (OCCI), and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers; Transparent Application Failover (TAF); Oracle Database Instant Client; Database Resident Connection Pool (DRCP); Oracle Net Services, and so on. The team also works with those who develop the PHP, Ruby, Python, and Perl adapters for Oracle Database. Come discuss with them the features you like, your pains, and new product enhancements in the latest database technology. CON8506 - Syndication and Consolidation: Oracle Database Driver for MySQL Applications This technical session presents a new Oracle Database driver that enables you to run MySQL applications (written in PHP, Perl, C, C++, and so on) against Oracle Database with almost no code change. Use cases for such a driver include application syndication such as interoperability across a relationship database management system, application migration, and database consolidation. In addition, the session covers enhancements in database technology that enable and simplify the migration of third-party databases and applications to and consolidation with Oracle Database. Attend this session to learn more and see a live demo. (Srinath Krishnaswamy - Director, Software Development, Oracle. Kuassi Mensah - Director Product Management, Oracle. Mohammad Lari - Principal Technical Staff, Oracle ) CON9167 - Current State of PHP and MySQL Together, PHP and MySQL power large parts of the Web. The developers of both technologies continue to enhance their software to ensure that developers can be satisfied despite all their changing and growing needs. This session presents an overview of changes in PHP 5.4, which was released earlier this year and shows you various new MySQL-related features available for PHP, from transparent client-side caching to direct support for scaling and high-availability needs. (Johannes Schlüter - SoftwareDeveloper, Oracle) CON8983 - Sharding with PHP and MySQL In deploying MySQL, scale-out techniques can be used to scale out reads, but for scaling out writes, other techniques have to be used. To distribute writes over a cluster, it is necessary to shard the database and store the shards on separate servers. This session provides a brief introduction to traditional MySQL scale-out techniques in preparation for a discussion on the different sharding techniques that can be used with MySQL server and how they can be implemented with PHP. You will learn about static and dynamic sharding schemes, their advantages and drawbacks, techniques for locating and moving shards, and techniques for resharding. (Mats Kindahl - Senior Principal Software Developer, Oracle) CON9268 - Developing Python Applications with MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python This session discusses MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and explains how to write MySQL applications in Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features of MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities library, along with example code to illustrate the concepts. Those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features will benefit from the tips and tricks from the experts. This session also provides an opportunity to meet directly with the engineers and provide feedback on your issues and priorities. You can learn what exists today and influence future developments. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle) BOF9141 - MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python: Python Developers, Unite! Come to this lively discussion of the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and MySQL Connector/Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features and dives into the code for those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features. This is an audience-driven session, so put on your best Python shirt and let’s talk about MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle. Charles Bell - Senior Software Developer, Oracle) CON3290 - Integrating Oracle Database with a Social Network Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps. There are many social network sites, each with their own APIs for sharing data with them. Most developers do not realize that Oracle Database has base tools for communicating with these sites, enabling all manner of information, including multimedia, to be passed back and forth between the sites. This technical presentation goes through the methods in PL/SQL for connecting to, and then sending and retrieving, all types of data between these sites. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3291 - Storing and Tuning Unstructured Data and Multimedia in Oracle Database Database administrators need to learn new skills and techniques when the decision is made in their organization to let Oracle Database manage its unstructured data. They will face new scalability challenges. A single row in a table can become larger than a whole database. This presentation covers the techniques a DBA needs for managing the large volume of data in a standard Oracle Database instance. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3292 - Using PHP, Perl, Visual Basic, Ruby, and Python for Multimedia in Oracle Database These five programming languages are just some of the most popular ones in use at the moment in the marketplace. This presentation details how you can use them to access and retrieve multimedia from Oracle Database. It covers programming techniques and methods for achieving faster development against Oracle Database. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) UGF5181 - Building Real-World Oracle DBA Tools in Perl Perl is not normally associated with building mission-critical application or DBA tools. Learn why Perl could be a good choice for building your next killer DBA app. This session draws on real-world experience of building DBA tools in Perl, showing the framework and architecture needed to deal with portability, efficiency, and maintainability. Topics include Perl frameworks; Which Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) modules are good to use; Perl and CPAN module licensing; Perl and Oracle connectivity; Compiling and deploying your app; An example of what is possible with Perl. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON3153 - Perl: A DBA’s and Developer’s Best (Forgotten) Friend This session reintroduces Perl as a language of choice for many solutions for DBAs and developers. Discover what makes Perl so successful and why it is so versatile in our day-to-day lives. Perl can automate all those manual tasks and is truly platform-independent. Perl may not be in the limelight the way other languages are, but it is a remarkable language, it is still very current with ongoing development, and it has amazing online resources. Learn what makes Perl so great (including CPAN), get an introduction to Perl language syntax, find out what you can use Perl for, hear how Oracle uses Perl, discover the best way to learn Perl, and take away a small Perl project challenge. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON10332 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect PHP API: Intro, What’s New, and Roadmap Connect PHP is a public API that enables developers to build solutions with the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform. This API is used primarily by developers working within the Oracle RightNow Customer Portal Cloud Service framework who are looking to gain access to data and services hosted by the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform through a backward-compatible API. Connect for PHP leverages the same data model and services as the Connect Web Services for SOAP API. Come to this session to get an introduction and learn what’s new and what’s coming up. (Mark Rhoads - Senior Principal Applications Engineer, Oracle. Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle) CON10330 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs and Frameworks Overview Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs are available in the following areas: desktop UI, Web services, customer portal, PHP, and knowledge. These frameworks provide access to Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect Common Object Model and custom objects. This session provides a broad overview of capabilities in all these areas. (Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle)

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• Using JQuery tabs in an HTML 5 page

  - by nikolaosk

  In this post I will show you how to create a simple tabbed interface using JQuery,HTML 5 and CSS.Make sure you have downloaded the latest version of JQuery (minified version) from http://jquery.com/download.Please find here all my posts regarding JQuery.Also have a look at my posts regarding HTML 5.In order to be absolutely clear this is not (and could not be) a detailed tutorial on HTML 5. There are other great resources for that.Navigate to the excellent interactive tutorials of W3School.Another excellent resource is HTML 5 Doctor.Two very nice sites that show you what features and specifications are implemented by various browsers and their versions are http://caniuse.com/ and http://html5test.com/. At this times Chrome seems to support most of HTML 5 specifications.Another excellent way to find out if the browser supports HTML 5 and CSS 3 features is to use the Javascript lightweight library Modernizr.In this hands-on example I will be using Expression Web 4.0.This application is not a free application. You can use any HTML editor you like.You can use Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. You can download it here. Let me move on to the actual example.This is the sample HTML 5 page<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en">  <head>    <title>Liverpool Legends</title>    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" >    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">    <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.8.2.min.js"> </script>     <script type="text/javascript" src="tabs.js"></script>       </head>  <body>    <header>        <h1>Liverpool Legends</h1>    </header>     <section id="tabs">        <ul>            <li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=9143136#first-tab">Defenders</a></li>            <li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=9143136#second-tab">Midfielders</a></li>            <li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=9143136#third-tab">Strikers</a></li>        </ul>   <div id="first-tab">     <h3>Liverpool Defenders</h3>     <p> The best defenders that played for Liverpool are Jamie Carragher, Sami Hyypia , Ron Yeats and Alan Hansen.</p>   </div>   <div id="second-tab">     <h3>Liverpool Midfielders</h3>     <p> The best midfielders that played for Liverpool are Kenny Dalglish, John Barnes,Ian Callaghan,Steven Gerrard and Jan Molby.        </p>   </div>   <div id="third-tab">     <h3>Liverpool Strikers</h3>     <p>The best strikers that played for Liverpool are Ian Rush,Roger Hunt,Robbie Fowler and Fernando Torres.<br/>      </p>   </div> </div></section>            <footer>        <p>All Rights Reserved</p>      </footer>     </body>  </html>  This is very simple HTML markup. I have styled this markup using CSS.The contents of the style.css file follow* {    margin: 0;    padding: 0;}header{font-family:Tahoma;font-size:1.3em;color:#505050;text-align:center;}#tabs {    font-size: 0.9em;    margin: 20px 0;}#tabs ul {    float: left;    background: #777;    width: 260px;    padding-top: 24px;}#tabs li {    margin-left: 8px;    list-style: none;}* html #tabs li {    display: inline;}#tabs li, #tabs li a {    float: left;}#tabs ul li.active {    border-top:2px red solid;    background: #15ADFF;}#tabs ul li.active a {    color: #333333;}#tabs div {    background: #15ADFF;    clear: both;    padding: 15px;    min-height: 200px;}#tabs div h3 {    margin-bottom: 12px;}#tabs div p {    line-height: 26px;}#tabs ul li a {    text-decoration: none;    padding: 8px;    color:#0b2f20;    font-weight: bold;}footer{background-color:#999;width:100%;text-align:center;font-size:1.1em;color:#002233;}There are some CSS rules that style the various elements in the HTML 5 file. These are straight-forward rules. The JQuery code lives inside the tabs.js file $(document).ready(function(){$('#tabs div').hide();$('#tabs div:first').show();$('#tabs ul li:first').addClass('active'); $('#tabs ul li a').click(function(){$('#tabs ul li').removeClass('active');$(this).parent().addClass('active');var currentTab = $(this).attr('href');$('#tabs div').hide();$(currentTab).show();return false;});}); I am using some of the most commonly used JQuery functions like hide , show, addclass , removeClass I hide and show the tabs when the tab becomes the active tab. When I view my page I get the following result Hope it helps!!!!!

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• Creating a Training Lab on Windows Azure

  - by Michael Stephenson

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/michaelstephenson/archive/2013/06/17/153149.aspxThis week we are preparing for a training course that Alan Smith will be running for the support teams at one of my customers around Windows Azure. In order to facilitate the training lab we have a few prerequisites we need to handle. One of the biggest ones is that although the support team all have MSDN accounts the local desktops they work on are not ideal for running most of the labs as we want to give them some additional developer background training around Azure. Some recent Azure announcements really help us in this area: MSDN software can now be used on Azure VM You don't pay for Azure VM's when they are no longer used  Since the support team only have limited experience of Windows Azure and the organisation also have an Enterprise Agreement we decided it would be best value for money to spin up a training lab in a subscription on the EA and then we can turn the machines off when we are done. At the same time we would be able to spin them back up when the users need to do some additional lab work once the training course is completed. In order to achieve this I wanted to create a powershell script which would setup my training lab. The aim was to create 18 VM's which would be based on a prebuilt template with Visual Studio and the Azure development tools. The script I used is described below The Start & Variables The below text will setup the powershell environment and some variables which I will use elsewhere in the script. It will also import the Azure Powershell cmdlets. You can see below that I will need to download my publisher settings file and know some details from my Azure account. At this point I will assume you have a basic understanding of Azure & Powershell so already know how to do this. Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestrictedcls $startTime = get-dateImport-Module "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Azure\PowerShell\Azure\Azure.psd1"# Azure Publisher Settings $azurePublisherSettings = '<Your settings file>.publishsettings'  # Subscription Details $subscriptionName = "<Your subscription name>" $defaultStorageAccount = "<Your default storage account>"  # Affinity Group Details $affinityGroup = '<Your affinity group>' $dataCenter = 'West Europe' # From Get-AzureLocation  # VM Details $baseVMName = 'TRN' $adminUserName = '<Your admin username>' $password = '<Your admin password>' $size = 'Medium' $vmTemplate = '<The name of your VM template image>' $rdpFilePath = '<File path to save RDP files to>' $machineSettingsPath = '<File path to save machine info to>'    Functions In the next section of the script I have some functions which are used to perform certain actions. The first is called CreateVM. This will do the following actions: If the VM already exists it will be deleted Create the cloud service Create the VM from the template I have created Add an endpoint so we can RDP to them all over the same port Download the RDP file so there is a short cut the trainees can easily access the machine via Write settings for the machine to a log file  function CreateVM($machineNo) { # Specify a name for the new VM $machineName = "$baseVMName-$machineNo" Write-Host "Creating VM: $machineName"       # Get the Azure VM Image      $myImage = Get-AzureVMImage $vmTemplate   #If the VM already exists delete and re-create it $existingVm = Get-AzureVM -Name $machineName -ServiceName $serviceName if($existingVm -ne $null) { Write-Host "VM already exists so deleting it" Remove-AzureVM -Name $machineName -ServiceName $serviceName }   "Creating Service" $serviceName = "bupa-azure-train-$machineName" Remove-AzureService -Force -ServiceName $serviceName New-AzureService -Location $dataCenter -ServiceName $serviceName   Write-Host "Creating VM: $machineName" New-AzureQuickVM -Windows -name $machineName -ServiceName $serviceName -ImageName $myImage.ImageName -InstanceSize $size -AdminUsername $adminUserName -Password $password  Write-Host "Updating the RDP endpoint for $machineName" Get-AzureVM -name $machineName -ServiceName $serviceName ` | Add-AzureEndpoint -Name RDP -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 3389 -PublicPort 550 ` | Update-AzureVM    Write-Host "Get the RDP File for machine $machineName" $machineRDPFilePath = "$rdpFilePath\$machineName.rdp" Get-AzureRemoteDesktopFile -name $machineName -ServiceName $serviceName -LocalPath "$machineRDPFilePath"   WriteMachineSettings "$machineName" "$serviceName" }    The delete machine settings function is used to delete the log file before we start re-running the process.  function DeleteMachineSettings() { Write-Host "Deleting the machine settings output file" [System.IO.File]::Delete("$machineSettingsPath"); }    The write machine settings function will get the VM and then record its details to the log file. The importance of the log file is that I can easily provide the information for all of the VM's to our infrastructure team to be able to configure access to all of the VM's    function WriteMachineSettings([string]$vmName, [string]$vmServiceName) { Write-Host "Writing to the machine settings output file"   $vm = Get-AzureVM -name $vmName -ServiceName $vmServiceName $vmEndpoint = Get-AzureEndpoint -VM $vm -Name RDP   $sb = new-object System.Text.StringBuilder $sb.Append("Service Name: "); $sb.Append($vm.ServiceName); $sb.Append(", "); $sb.Append("VM: "); $sb.Append($vm.Name); $sb.Append(", "); $sb.Append("RDP Public Port: "); $sb.Append($vmEndpoint.Port); $sb.Append(", "); $sb.Append("Public DNS: "); $sb.Append($vmEndpoint.Vip); $sb.AppendLine(""); [System.IO.File]::AppendAllText($machineSettingsPath, $sb.ToString());  } # end functions    Rest of Script In the rest of the script it is really just the bit that orchestrates the actions we want to happen. It will load the publisher settings, select the Azure subscription and then loop around the CreateVM function and create 16 VM's  Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile $azurePublisherSettings Set-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $subscriptionName -CurrentStorageAccount $defaultStorageAccount Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $subscriptionName  DeleteMachineSettings    "Starting creating Bupa International Azure Training Lab" $numberOfVMs = 16  for ($index=1; $index -le $numberOfVMs; $index++) { $vmNo = "$index" CreateVM($vmNo); }    "Finished creating Bupa International Azure Training Lab" # Give it a Minute Start-Sleep -s 60  $endTime = get-date "Script run time " + ($endTime - $startTime)    Conclusion As you can see there is nothing too fancy about this script but in our case of creating a small isolated training lab which is not connected to our corporate network then we can easily use this to provision the lab. Im sure if this is of use to anyone you can easily modify it to do other things with the lab environment too. A couple of points to note are that there are some soft limits in Azure about the number of cores and services your subscription can use. You may need to contact the Azure support team to be able to increase this limit. In terms of the real business value of this approach, it was not possible to use the existing desktops to do the training on, and getting some internal virtual machines would have been relatively expensive and time consuming for our ops team to do. With the Azure option we are able to spin these machines up for a temporary period during the training course and then throw them away when we are done. We expect the costing of this test lab to be very small, especially considering we have EA pricing. As a ball park I think my 18 lab VM training environment will cost in the region of $80 per day on our EA. This is a fraction of the cost of the creation of a single VM on premise.

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• SOA Implementation Challenges

  Why do companies think that if they put up a web service that they are doing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)? Unfortunately, the IT and business world love to run on the latest hype or buzz words of which very few even understand the meaning. One of the largest issues companies have today as they consider going down the path of SOA, is the lack of knowledge regarding the architectural style and the over usage of the term SOA. So how do we solve this issue?I am sure most of you are thinking by now that you know what SOA is because you developed a few web services.  Isn’t that SOA, right? No, that is not SOA, but instead Just Another Web Service (JAWS). For us to better understand what SOA is let’s look at a few definitions.Douglas K. Bary defines service-oriented architecture as a collection of services. These services are enabled to communicate with each other in order to pass data or coordinating some activity with other services.If you look at this definition closely you will notice that Bary states that services communicate with each other. Let us compare this statement with my first statement regarding companies that claim to be doing SOA when they have just a collection of web services. In order for these web services to for an SOA application they need to be interdependent on one another forming some sort of architectural hierarchy. Just because a company has a few web services does not mean that they are all interconnected.SearchSOA from TechTarget.com states that SOA defines how two computing entities work collectively to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another. Once again, just because a company has a few web services does not guarantee that they are even working together let alone if they are performing work for each other.SearchSOA also points out service interactions should be self-contained and loosely-coupled so that all interactions operate independent of each other.Of all the definitions regarding SOA Thomas Erl’s seems to shed the most light on this concept. He states that “SOA establishes an architectural model that aims to enhance the efficiency, agility, and productivity of an enterprise by positioning services as the primary means through which solution logic is represented in support of the realization of the strategic goals associated with service-oriented computing.” (Erl, 2011) Once again this definition proves that a collection of web services does not mean that a company is doing SOA. However, it does mean that a company has a collection of web services, and that is it.In order for a company to start to go down the path of SOA, they must take  a hard look at their existing business process while abstracting away any technology so that they can define what is they really want to accomplish. Once a company has done this, they can begin to factor out common sub business process like credit card process, user authentication or system notifications in to small components that can be built independent of each other and then reassembled to form new and dynamic services that are loosely coupled and agile in that they can change as a business grows.Another key pitfall of companies doing SOA is the fact that they let vendors drive their architecture. Why do companies do this? Vendors’ do not hold your company’s success as their top priority; in fact they hold their own success as their top priority by selling you as much stuff as you are willing to buy. In my experience companies tend to strive for the maximum amount of benefits with a minimal amount of cost. Does anyone else see any conflicts between this and the driving force behind vendors.Mike Kavis recommends in an article written in CIO.com that companies need to figure out what they need before they talk to a vendor or at least have some idea of what they need. It is important to thoroughly evaluate each vendor and watch them perform a live demo of their system so that you as the company fully understand what kind of product or service the vendor is actually offering. In addition, do research on each vendor that you are considering, check out blog posts, online reviews, and any information you can find on the vendor through various search engines.Finally he recommends companies to verify any recommendations supplied by a vendor. From personal experience this is very important. I can remember when the company I worked for purchased a $200,000 add-on to their phone system that never actually worked as it was intended. In fact, just after my departure from the company started the process of attempting to get their money back from the vendor. This potentially could have been avoided if the company had done the research before selecting this vendor to ensure that their product and vendor would live up to their claims. I know that some SOA vendor offer free training regarding SOA because they know that there are a lot of misconceptions about the topic. Superficially this is a great thing for companies to take part in especially if the company is starting to implement SOA architecture and are still unsure about some topics or are looking for some guidance regarding the topic. However beware that some companies will focus on their product line only regarding the training. As an example, InfoWorld.com claims that companies providing deep seminars disguised as training, focusing more about ESBs and SOA governance technology, and less on how to approach and solve the architectural issues of the attendees.In short, it is important to remember that we as software professionals are responsible for guiding a business’s technology sections should be well informed and fully understand any new concepts that may be considered for implementation. As I have demonstrated already a company that has a few web services does not mean that they are doing SOA.  Additionally, we must not let the new buzz word of the day drive our technology, but instead our technology decisions should be driven from research and proven experience. Finally, it is important to rely on vendors when necessary, however, always take what they say with a grain of salt while cross checking any claims that they may make because we have to live with the aftermath of a system after the vendors are gone.   References: Barry, D. K. (2011). Service-oriented architecture (SOA) definition. Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from Service-Architecture.com: http://www.service-architecture.com/web-services/articles/service-oriented_architecture_soa_definition.html Connell, B. (2003, 9). service-oriented architecture (SOA). Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from SearchSOA: http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/service-oriented-architecture Erl, T. (2011, 12 12). Service-Oriented Architecture. Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from WhatIsSOA: http://www.whatissoa.com/p10.php InfoWorld. (2008, 6 1). Should you get your SOA knowledge from SOA vendors? . Retrieved 12 12, 2011, from InfoWorld.com: http://www.infoworld.com/d/architecture/should-you-get-your-soa-knowledge-soa-vendors-453 Kavis, M. (2008, 6 18). Top 10 Reasons Why People are Making SOA Fail. Retrieved 12 13, 2011, from CIO.com: http://www.cio.com/article/438413/Top_10_Reasons_Why_People_are_Making_SOA_Fail?page=5&taxonomyId=3016  

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• Microsoft Enterprise Library Caching Application Block not thread safe?!

  - by AlanR

  Good aftenoon, I created a super simple console app to test out the Enterprise Library Caching Application Block, and the behavior is blaffling. I'm hoping I screwed something that's easy to fix in the setup. Have each item expire after 5 seconds for testing purposes. Basic setup -- "every second pick a number between 0 and 2. if the cache doesn't already have it, put it in there -- otherwise just grab it from the cache. Do this inside a LOCK statement to ensure thread safety. APP.CONFIG: <configuration> <configSections> <section name="cachingConfiguration" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.Configuration.CacheManagerSettings, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> </configSections> <cachingConfiguration defaultCacheManager="Cache Manager"> <cacheManagers> <add expirationPollFrequencyInSeconds="1" maximumElementsInCacheBeforeScavenging="1000" numberToRemoveWhenScavenging="10" backingStoreName="Null Storage" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.CacheManager, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" name="Cache Manager" /> </cacheManagers> <backingStores> <add encryptionProviderName="" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.BackingStoreImplementations.NullBackingStore, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" name="Null Storage" /> </backingStores> </cachingConfiguration> </configuration> C#: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common; using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching; using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.Expirations; namespace ConsoleApplication1 { class Program { public static ICacheManager cache = CacheFactory.GetCacheManager("Cache Manager"); static void Main(string[] args) { while (true) { System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000); // sleep for one second. var key = new Random().Next(3).ToString(); string value; lock (cache) { if (!cache.Contains(key)) { cache.Add(key, key, CacheItemPriority.Normal, null, new SlidingTime(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5))); } value = (string)cache.GetData(key); } Console.WriteLine("{0} --> '{1}'", key, value); //if (null == value) throw new Exception(); } } } } OUPUT -- How can I prevent the cache to returning nulls? 2 --> '2' 1 --> '1' 2 --> '2' 0 --> '0' 2 --> '2' 0 --> '0' 1 --> '' 0 --> '0' 1 --> '1' 2 --> '' 0 --> '0' 2 --> '2' 0 --> '0' 1 --> '' 2 --> '2' 1 --> '1' Press any key to continue . . . Thanks in advance, -Alan.

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• Increase RGB components every Hour (r), Minute (g), Second (b) for digital clock

  - by TJ Fertterer

  So I am taking my first javascript class (total noob) and one of the assignments is to modify a digital clock by assigning the color red to hours, green minutes, blue to seconds, then increase the respective color component when it changes. I have successfully assigned a decimal color value (ex. "#850000" to each element (hours, minutes, seconds), but my brain is fried trying to figure out how to increase the brightness when hours, minutes, seconds change, i.e. red goes up to "#870000" changing from 1:00:00 pm to 2:00:00 pm. I've searched everywhere with no help on how to successfully do this. Here is what I have so far and any help on this would be greatly appreciated. TJ <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- function updateClock() { var currentTime = new Date(); var currentHours = currentTime.getHours(); var currentMinutes = currentTime.getMinutes(); var currentSeconds = currentTime.getSeconds(); // Pad the minutes with leading zeros, if required currentMinutes = ( currentMinutes < 10 ? "0" : "" ) + currentMinutes; // Pad the seconds with leading zeros, if required currentSeconds = ( currentSeconds < 10 ? "0" : "" ) + currentSeconds; // Choose either "AM" or "PM" as appropriate var timeOfDay = ( currentHours < 12 ) ? "AM" : "PM"; // Convert the hours component to 12-hour format currentHours = ( currentHours > 12 ) ? currentHours - 12 : currentHours; // Convert an hours component if "0" to "12" currentHours = ( currentHours == 0 ) ? 12 : currentHours; // Get hold of the html elements by their ids var hoursElement = document.getElementById("hours"); document.getElementById("hours").style.color = "#850000"; var minutesElement = document.getElementById("minutes"); document.getElementById("minutes").style.color = "#008500"; var secondsElement = document.getElementById("seconds"); document.getElementById("seconds").style.color = "#000085"; var am_pmElement = document.getElementById("am_pm"); // Put the clock sections text into the elements' innerHTML hoursElement.innerHTML = currentHours; minutesElement.innerHTML = currentMinutes; secondsElement.innerHTML = currentSeconds; am_pmElement.innerHTML = timeOfDay; } // --> </script> </head> <body onload="updateClock(); setInterval( 'updateClock()', 1000 )"> <h1 align="center">The JavaScript digital clock</h1> <h2 align="center">Thomas Fertterer - Lab 2</h2> <div id='clock' style="text-align: center"> <span id="hours"></span>: <span id='minutes'></span>: <span id='seconds'></span> <span id='am_pm'></span> </div> </body> </html>

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• Increasing speed of python code

  - by Curious2learn

  Hi, I have some python code that has many classes. I used cProfile to find that the total time to run the program is 68 seconds. I found that the following function in a class called Buyers takes about 60 seconds of those 68 seconds. I have to run the program about 100 times, so any increase in speed will help. Can you suggest ways to increase the speed by modifying the code? If you need more information that will help, please let me know. def qtyDemanded(self, timePd, priceVector): '''Returns quantity demanded in period timePd. In addition, also updates the list of customers and non-customers. Inputs: timePd and priceVector Output: count of people for whom priceVector[-1] < utility ''' ## Initialize count of customers to zero ## Set self.customers and self.nonCustomers to empty lists price = priceVector[-1] count = 0 self.customers = [] self.nonCustomers = [] for person in self.people: if person.utility >= price: person.customer = 1 self.customers.append(person) else: person.customer = 0 self.nonCustomers.append(person) return len(self.customers) self.people is a list of person objects. Each person has customer and utility as its attributes. EDIT - responsed added ------------------------------------- Thanks so much for the suggestions. Here is the response to some questions and suggestions people have kindly made. I have not tried them all, but will try others and write back later. (1) @amber - the function is accessed 80,000 times. (2) @gnibbler and others - self.people is a list of Person objects in memory. Not connected to a database. (3) @Hugh Bothwell cumtime taken by the original function - 60.8 s (accessed 80000 times) cumtime taken by the new function with local function aliases as suggested - 56.4 s (accessed 80000 times) (4) @rotoglup and @Martin Thomas I have not tried your solutions yet. I need to check the rest of the code to see the places where I use self.customers before I can make the change of not appending the customers to self.customers list. But I will try this and write back. (5) @TryPyPy - thanks for your kind offer to check the code. Let me first read a little on the suggestions you have made to see if those will be feasible to use. EDIT 2 Some suggested that since I am flagging the customers and noncustomers in the self.people, I should try without creating separate lists of self.customers and self.noncustomers using append. Instead, I should loop over the self.people to find the number of customers. I tried the following code and timed both functions below f_w_append and f_wo_append. I did find that the latter takes less time, but it is still 96% of the time taken by the former. That is, it is a very small increase in the speed. @TryPyPy - The following piece of code is complete enough to check the bottleneck function, in case your offer is still there to check it with other compilers. Thanks again to everyone who replied. import numpy class person(object): def __init__(self, util): self.utility = util self.customer = 0 class population(object): def __init__(self, numpeople): self.people = [] self.cus = [] self.noncus = [] numpy.random.seed(1) utils = numpy.random.uniform(0, 300, numpeople) for u in utils: per = person(u) self.people.append(per) popn = population(300) def f_w_append(): '''Function with append''' P = 75 cus = [] noncus = [] for per in popn.people: if per.utility >= P: per.customer = 1 cus.append(per) else: per.customer = 0 noncus.append(per) return len(cus) def f_wo_append(): '''Function without append''' P = 75 for per in popn.people: if per.utility >= P: per.customer = 1 else: per.customer = 0 numcustomers = 0 for per in popn.people: if per.customer == 1: numcustomers += 1 return numcustomers

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• Module Adminhtml blocks not loading

  - by David Tay

  I was working on a Magento module and it was working fine. At some point, I was trying to enable WYSIWYG in an edit form 'content' field and suddenly, my adminhtml grid and edit blocks stopped being generated. On my system are TinyMCE and Fontis FCKEditor WYSIWYG editors extensions. I'm not sure what I did wrong but my adminhtml blocks will no longer generate. Here's a dump of all the blocks from my module's adminhtml layout: array(17) { [0]=> string(4) "root" [1]=> string(4) "head" [2]=> string(13) "head.calendar" [3]=> string(14) "global_notices" [4]=> string(6) "header" [5]=> string(4) "menu" [6]=> string(11) "breadcrumbs" [7]=> string(7) "formkey" [8]=> string(12) "js_translate" [9]=> string(4) "left" [10]=> string(7) "content" [11]=> string(8) "messages" [12]=> string(2) "js" [13]=> string(6) "footer" [14]=> string(8) "profiler" [15]=> string(15) "before_body_end" [16]=> string(7) "wysiwyg" } As you can see, the last item is "wysiwyg" but on the layout output of other magento modules, there are more blocks. For example, on MathieuF's calendar extension, these are all the layout blocks: array(26) { [0]=> string(4) "root" [1]=> string(4) "head" [2]=> string(13) "head.calendar" [3]=> string(14) "global_notices" [4]=> string(6) "header" [5]=> string(4) "menu" [6]=> string(11) "breadcrumbs" [7]=> string(7) "formkey" [8]=> string(12) "js_translate" [9]=> string(4) "left" [10]=> string(7) "content" [11]=> string(8) "messages" [12]=> string(2) "js" [13]=> string(6) "footer" [14]=> string(8) "profiler" [15]=> string(15) "before_body_end" [16]=> string(7) "wysiwyg" [17]=> string(27) "adminhtml_event.grid.child0" [18]=> string(12) "ANONYMOUS_19" [19]=> string(27) "adminhtml_event.grid.child1" [20]=> string(12) "ANONYMOUS_21" [21]=> string(27) "adminhtml_event.grid.child2" [22]=> string(20) "adminhtml_event.grid" [23]=> string(12) "ANONYMOUS_24" [24]=> string(19) "ANONYMOUS_17.child1" [25]=> string(14) "content.child0" } Does anyone have any idea what's wrong? I've already tried Alan Storm's Layout and Config Viewers and cannot find any clues as to what I did wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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• Installing SharePoint 2010 and PowerPivot for SharePoint on Windows 7

  - by smisner

  Many people like me want (or need) to do their business intelligence development work on a laptop. As someone who frequently speaks at various events or teaches classes on all subjects related to the Microsoft business intelligence stack, I need a way to run multiple server products on my laptop with reasonable performance. Once upon a time, that requirement meant only that I had to load the current version of SQL Server and the client tools of choice. In today's post, I'll review my latest experience with trying to make the newly released Microsoft BI products work with a Windows 7 operating system.The entrance of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 into the BI stack complicated matters and I started using Virtual Server to establish a "suitable" environment. As part of the team that delivered a lot of education as part of the Yukon pre-launch activities (that would be SQL Server 2005 for the uninitiated), I was working with four - yes, four - virtual servers. That was a pretty brutal workload for a 2GB laptop, which worked if I was very, very careful. It could also be a finicky and unreliable configuration as I learned to my dismay at one TechEd session several years ago when I had to reboot a very carefully cached set of servers just minutes before my session started. Although it worked, it came back to life very, very slowly much to the displeasure of the audience. They couldn't possibly have been less pleased than me.At that moment, I resolved to get the beefiest environment I could afford and consolidate to a single virtual server. Enter the 4GB 64-bit laptop to preserve my sanity and my livelihood. Likewise, for SQL Server 2008, I managed to keep everything within a single virtual server and I could function reasonably well with this approach.Now we have SQL Server 2008 R2 plus Office SharePoint Server 2010. That means a 64-bit operating system. Period. That means no more Virtual Server. That means I must use Hyper-V or another alternative. I've heard alternatives exist, but my few dabbles in this area did not yield positive results. It might have been just me having issues rather than any failure of those technologies to adequately support the requirements.My first run at working with the new BI stack configuration was to set up a 64-bit 4GB laptop with a dual-boot to run Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. However, I was generally not happy with running Windows Server 2008 R2 on my laptop. For one, I couldn't put it into sleep mode, which is helpful if I want to prepare for a presentation beforehand and then walk to the podium without the need to hold my laptop in its open state along the way (my strategy at the TechEd session long, long ago). Secondly, it was finicky with projectors. I had issues from time to time and while I always eventually got it to work, I didn't appreciate those nerve-wracking moments wondering whether this would be the time that it wouldn't work.Somewhere along the way, I learned that it was possible to load SharePoint 2010 in a Windows 7 which piqued my interest. I had just acquired a new laptop running Windows 7 64-bit, and thought surely running the BI stack natively on my laptop must be better than running Hyper-V. (I have not tried booting to Hyper-V VHD yet, but that's on my list of things to try so the jury of one is still out on this approach.) Recently, I had to build up a server with the RTM versions of SQL Server 2008 R2 and Sharepoint Server 2010 and decided to follow suit on my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit laptop. The process is slightly different, but I'm happy to report that it IS possible, although I had some fits and starts along the way.DISCLAIMER: These products are NOT intended to be run in production mode on the Windows 7 operating system. The configuration described in this post is strictly for development or learning purposes and not supported by Microsoft. If you have trouble, you will NOT get help from them. I might be able to help, but I provide no guarantees of my ability or availablity to help. I won't provide the step-by-step instructions in this post as there are other resources that provide these details, but I will provide an overview of my approach, point you to the relevant resources, describe some of the problems I encountered, and explain how I addressed those problems to achieve my desired goal.Because my goal was not simply to set up SharePoint Server 2010 on my laptop, but specifically PowerPivot for SharePoint, I started out by referring to the installation instructions at the PowerPiovt-Info site, but mainly to confirm that I was performing steps in the proper sequence. I didn't perform the steps in Part 1 because those steps are applicable only to a server operating system which I am not running on my laptop. Then, the instructions in Part 2, won't work exactly as written for the same reason. Instead, I followed the instructions on MSDN, Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008. In general, I found the following differences in installation steps from the steps at PowerPivot-Info:You must copy the SharePoint installation media to the local drive so that you can edit the config.xml to allow installation on a Windows client.You also have to manually install the prerequisites. The instructions provides links to each item that you must manually install and provides a command-line instruction to execute which enables required Windows features.I will digress for a moment to save you some grief in the sequence of steps to perform. I discovered later that a missing step in the MSDN instructions is to install the November CTP Reporting Services add-in for SharePoint. When I went to test my SharePoint site (I believe I tested after I had a successful PowerPivot installation), I ran into the following error: Could not load file or assembly 'RSSharePointSoapProxy, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. I was rather surprised that Reporting Services was required. Then I found an article by Alan le Marquand, Working Together: SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Integration in SharePoint 2010,that instructed readers to install the November add-in. My first reaction was, "Really?!?" But I confirmed it in another TechNet article on hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2010. It doesn't refer explicitly to the November CTP but following the link took me there. (Interestingly, I retested today and there's no longer any reference to the November CTP. Here's the link to download the latest and greatest Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies 2010.) You don't need to download the add-in anymore if you're doing a regular server-based installation of SharePoint because it installs as part of the prerequisites automatically.When it was time to start the installation of SharePoint, I deviated from the MSDN instructions and from the PowerPivot-Info instructions:On the Choose the installation you want page of the installation wizard, I chose Server Farm.On the Server Type page, I chose Complete.At the end of the installation, I did not run the configuration wizard.Returning to the PowerPivot-Info instructions, I tried to follow the instructions in Part 3 which describe installing SQL Server 2008 R2 with the PowerPivot option. These instructions tell you to choose the New Server option on the Setup Role page where you add PowerPivot for SharePoint. However, I ran into problems with this approach and got installation errors at the end.It wasn't until much later as I was investigating an error that I encountered Dave Wickert's post that installing PowerPivot for SharePoint on Windows 7 is unsupported. Uh oh. But he did want to hear about it if anyone succeeded, so I decided to take the plunge. Perseverance paid off, and I can happily inform Dave that it does work so far. I haven't tested absolutely everything with PowerPivot for SharePoint but have successfully deployed a workbook and viewed the PowerPivot Management Dashboard. I have not yet tested the data refresh feature, but I have installed. Continue reading to see how I accomplished my objective.I unintalled SQL Server 2008 R2 and started again. I had different problems which I don't recollect now. However, I uninstalled again and approached installation from a different angle and my next attempt succeeded. The downside of this approach is that you must do all of the things yourself that are done automatically when you install PowerPivot as a new server. Here are the steps that I followed:Install SQL Server 2008 R2 to get a database engine instance installed.Run the SharePoint configuration wizard to set up the SharePoint databases.In Central Administration, create a Web application using classic mode authentication as per a TechNet article on PowerPivot Authentication and Authorization.Then I followed the steps I found at How to: Install PowerPivot for SharePoint on an Existing SharePoint Server. Especially important to note - you must launch setup by using Run as administrator. I did not have to manually deploy the PowerPivot solution as the instructions specify, but it's good to know about this step because it tells you where to look in Central Administration to confirm a successful deployment.I did spot some incorrect steps in the instructions (at the time of this writing) in How To: Configure Stored Credentials for PowerPivot Data Refresh. Specifically, in the section entitled Step 1: Create a target application and set the credentials, both steps 10 and 12 are incorrect. They tell you to provide an actual Windows user name and password on the page where you are simply defining the prompts for your application in the Secure Store Service. To add the Windows user name and password that you want to associate with the application - after you have successfully created the target application - you select the target application and then click Set credentials in the ribbon.Lastly, I followed the instructions at How to: Install Office Data Connectivity Components on a PowerPivot server. However, I have yet to test this in my current environment.I did have several stops and starts throughout this process and edited those out to spare you from reading non-essential information. I believe the explanation I have provided here accurately reflect the steps I followed to produce a working configuration. If you follow these steps and get a different result, please let me know so that together we can work through the issue and correct these instructions. I'm sure there are many other folks in the Microsoft BI community that will appreciate the ability to set up the BI stack in a Windows 7 environment for development or learning purposes. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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