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• SQL SERVER – Find Details for Statistics of Whole Database – DMV – T-SQL Script

  - by pinaldave

  I was recently asked is there a single script which can provide all the necessary details about statistics for any database. This question made me write following script. I was initially planning to use sp_helpstats command but I remembered that this is marked to be deprecated in future. Again, using DMV is the right thing to do moving forward. I quickly wrote following script which gives a lot more information than sp_helpstats. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT DISTINCT OBJECT_NAME(s.[object_id]) AS TableName, c.name AS ColumnName, s.name AS StatName, s.auto_created, s.user_created, s.no_recompute, s.[object_id], s.stats_id, sc.stats_column_id, sc.column_id, STATS_DATE(s.[object_id], s.stats_id) AS LastUpdated FROM sys.stats s JOIN sys.stats_columns sc ON sc.[object_id] = s.[object_id] AND sc.stats_id = s.stats_id JOIN sys.columns c ON c.[object_id] = sc.[object_id] AND c.column_id = sc.column_id JOIN sys.partitions par ON par.[object_id] = s.[object_id] JOIN sys.objects obj ON par.[object_id] = obj.[object_id] WHERE OBJECTPROPERTY(s.OBJECT_ID,'IsUserTable') = 1 AND (s.auto_created = 1 OR s.user_created = 1); If you have better script to retrieve information about statistics, please share here and I will publish it with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Statistics, Statistics

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• VSNewFile: A Visual Studio Addin to More Easily Add New Items to a Project

  - by InfinitiesLoop

  My first Visual Studio Add-in! Creating add-ins is pretty simple, once you get used to the CommandBar model it is using, which is apparently a general Office suite extensibility mechanism. Anyway, let me first explain my motivation for this. It started out as an academic exercise, as I have always wanted to dip my feet in a little VS extensibility. But I thought of a legitimate need for an add-in, at least in my personal experience, so it took on new life. But I figured I can’t be the only one who has felt this way, so I decided to publish the add-in, and host it on GitHub (VSNewFile on GitHub) hoping to spur contributions. Adding Files the Built-in Way Here’s the problem I wanted to solve. You’re working on a project, and it’s time to add a new file to the project. Whatever it is – a class, script, html page, aspx page, or what-have-you, you go through a menu or keyboard shortcut to get to the “Add New Item” dialog. Typically, you do it by right-clicking the location where you want the file (the project or a folder of it): This brings up a dialog the contains, well, every conceivable type of item you might want to add. It’s all the available item templates, which can result in anywhere from a ton to a veritable sea of choices. To be fair, this dialog has been revamped in Visual Studio 2010, which organizes it a little better than Visual Studio 2008, and adds a search box. It also loads noticeably faster.   To me, this dialog is just getting in my way. If I want to add a JavaScript script to my project, I don’t want to have to hunt for the script template item in this dialog. Yes, it is categorized, and yes, it now has a search box. But still, all this UI to swim through when all I need is a new file in the project. I will name it. I will provide the content, I don’t even need a ‘template’. VS kind of realizes this. In the add menu in a class library project, for example, there is a “Add Class…” choice. But all this really does is select that project item from the dialog by default. You still must wait for the dialog, see it, and type in a name for the file. How is that really any different than hitting F2 on an existing item? It isn’t. Adding Files the Hack Way What I often find myself doing, just to avoid going through this dialog, is to copy and paste an existing file, rename it, then “CTRL-A, DEL” the content. In a few short keystrokes I’ve got my new file. Even if the original file wasn’t the right type, it doesn’t matter – I will rename it anyway, including the extension. It works well enough if the place I am adding the file to doesn’t have much in it already. But if there are a lot of files at that level, it sucks, because the new file will have the name “Copy of xyz”, causing it to be moved into the ‘C’ section of the alphabetically sorted items, which might be far, far away from the original file (and so I tend to try and copy a file that starts with ‘C’ *evil grin*). Using ‘Export Template’ To be completely fair I should at least mention this feature. I’m not even sure if this is new in VS 2010 or not (I think so). But it allows you to export a project item or items, including potential project references required by it. Then it becomes a new item in the available ‘installed templates’. No doubt this is useful to help bootstrap new projects. But that still requires you to go through the ‘New Item’ dialog. Adding Files with VSNewFile So hopefully I have sufficiently defined the problem and got a few of you to think, “Yeah, me too!”… What VSNewFile does is let you skip the dialog entirely by adding project items directly to the context menu. But it does a bit more than that, so do read on. For example, to add a new class, you can right-click the location and pick that option. A new .cs file is instantly added to the project, and the new item is selected and put into the ‘rename’ mode immediately. The default items available are shown here. But you can customize them. You can also customize the content of each template. To do so, you create a directory in your documents folder, ‘VSNewFile Templates’. In there, you drop the templates you want to use, but you name them in a particular way. For example, here’s a template that will add a new item named “Add TITLE”. It will add a project item named “SOMEFILE.foo” (or ‘SOMEFILE1.foo’ if that exists, etc). The format of the file name is: <ORDER>_<KEY>_<BASE FILENAME>_<ICON ID>_<TITLE>.<EXTENTION> Where: <ORDER> is a number that lets you determine the order of the items in the menu (relative to each other). <KEY> is a case sensitive identifier different for each template item. More on that later. <BASE FILENAME> is the default name of the file, which doesn’t matter that much, since they will be renaming it anyway. <ICON ID> is a number the dictates the icon used for the menu item. There are a huge number of built-in choices. More on that later. <TITLE> is the string that will appear in the menu. And, the contents of the file are the default content for the item (the ‘template’). The content of the file can contain anything you want, of course. But it also supports two tokens: %NAMESPACE% and %FILENAME%, which will be replaced with the corresponding values. Here is the content of this sample: testing Namespace = %NAMESPACE% Filename = %FILENAME% I kind went back and forth on this. I could have made it so there’d be an XML or JSON file that defines the templates, instead of cramming all this data into the filename itself. I like the simplicity of this better. It makes it easy to customize since you can literally just throw these files around, copy them from someone else, etc, without worrying about merge data into a central description file, in whatever format. Here’s our new item showing up: Practical Use One immediate thing I am using this for is to make it easier to add very commonly used scripts to my web projects. For example, uh, say, jQuery? :) All I need to do is drop jQuery-1.4.2.js and jQuery-1.4.2.min.js into the templates folder, provide the order, title, etc, and then instantly, I can now add jQuery to any project I have without even thinking about “where is jQuery? Can I copy it from that other project?”   Using the KEY There are two reasons for the ‘key’ portion of the item. First, it allows you to turn off the built-in, default templates, which are: FILE = Add File (generic, empty file) VB = Add VB Class CS = Add C# Class (includes some basic usings) HTML = Add HTML page (includes basic structure, doctype, etc) JS = Add Script (includes an immediately-invoking function closure) To turn one off, just include a file with the name “_<KEY>”. For example, to turn off all the items except our custom one, you do this: The other reason for the key is that there are new Visual Studio Commands created for each one. This makes it possible to bind a keyboard shortcut to one of them. So you could, for example, have a keyboard combination that adds a new web page to your website, or a new CS class to your class library, etc. Here is our sample item showing up in the keyboard bindings option. Even though the contents of the template directory may change from one launch of Visual Studio to the next, the bindings will remain attached to any item with a particular key, thanks to it taking care not to lose keyboard bindings even though the commands are completely recreated each time. The Icon Face ID Visual Studio uses a Microsoft Office style add-in mechanism, I gather. There are a predetermined set of built-in icons available. You can use your own icons when developing add-ins, of course, but I’m no designer. I just wanted to find appropriate-ish icons for the built-in templates, and allow you to choose from an existing built-in icon for your own. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot out there on the interwebs that helps you figure out what the built-in types are. There’s an MSDN article that describes at length a way to create a program that lists all the icons. But I don’t want to write a program to figure them out! Just show them to me! Sheesh :) Thankfully, someone out there felt the same way, and uses a novel hack to get the icons to show up in an outlook toolbar. He then painstakingly took screenshots of them, one group at a time. It isn’t complete though – there are tens of thousands of icons. But it’s good enough. If anyone has an exhaustive list, please let me, and the rest of the add-in community know. Icon Face ID Reference Installing the Add-in It will work with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010. Just unzip the release into your Documents\Visual Studio 20xx\Addins folder. It contains the binary and the Visual Studio “.addin” file. For example, the path to mine is: C:\Users\InfinitiesLoop\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Addins Conclusion So that’s it! I hope you find it as useful as I have. It’s on GitHub, so if you’re into this kind of thing, please do fork it and improve it! Reference: VSNewFile on GitHub VSNewFile release on GitHub Icon Face ID Reference

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• Best Practices for MVC Architecture

  - by Mystere Man

  There are a number of questions on StackOverflow regard MVC best practices, but most of those seem to revolve around things like using Dependancy Injection, or creating helper functions, or do's and don'ts of what to do in views and controllers. My question is more about how to architect an MVC application. For example, we are encouraged to use DI with the Repository pattern to decouple data access from the controller, however very little is said on HOW to do that specifically for MVC. Where would we place the Repository classes, for instance? They don't seem to be model related specifically, since the model should likewise be relatively decoupled from the actual data access technologies. A second question involves how to structure the layers or tiers. Most example applications (Nerd dinner, Music Store, etc..) all seem to use a single tier, 2 layer approach (not counting tests) that typically has controllers directly calling L2S or EF code. If I want to create a multi-tier/layer aplication what are some of the best practices there in regards to MVC? This question is one-part standard q-a, but another part best-practices, so it could go either here or programmers.se, I am marking it CW. If you feel it would be better suited to programmers.se then it can be migrated. EDIT: What happened to the Community Wiki option? It seems to be gone.

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• Connecting to a new installation of TFS 2010

  - by Enrique Lima

  When the installation and configuration for TFS 2010 is completed, the next step is to connect and use TFS.  There is a Web Access component, but in order for it to serve useful you need to create a project into the Team Project Collection.  This is where Visual Studio 2010 comes in. Open Visual Studio 2010, then click on the Team Explorer Tab (red arrow pointing to it) or go to View > Team Explorer. Once there, click the Connect to Team Project toolbar button This will open up the Connect to Team Project dialog, click on Servers … On the Add/Remove Team Foundation Server dialog, click Add … On the Add Team Foundation Server, enter the name of your server and click ok. If you are prompted for credentials, provide the credentials needed. Once accepted, the server will be listed on the Add/Remove Team Foundations Server dialog, click close. You will be back at the Connect to Team Project dialog, assuming you have one Collection, click Connect. (In the event you have more than one project collection, select the appropriate collection and then click Connect) Your Team Explorer tab will look something like the image below.

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• Caching NHibernate Named Queries

  - by TStewartDev

  I recently started a new job and one of my first tasks was to implement a "popular products" design. The parameters were that it be done with NHibernate and be cached for 24 hours at a time because the query will be pretty taxing and the results do not need to be constantly up to date. This ended up being tougher than it sounds. The database schema meant a minimum of four joins with filtering and ordering criteria. I decided to use a stored procedure rather than letting NHibernate create the SQL for me. Here is a summary of what I learned (even if I didn't ultimately use all of it): You can't, at the time of this writing, use Fluent NHibernate to configure SQL named queries or imports You can return persistent entities from a stored procedure and there are a couple ways to do that You can populate POCOs using the results of a stored procedure, but it isn't quite as obvious You can reuse your named query result mapping other places (avoid duplication) Caching your query results is not at all obvious Testing to see if your cache is working is a pain NHibernate does a lot of things right. Having unified, up-to-date, comprehensive, and easy-to-find documentation is not one of them. By the way, if you're new to this, I'll use the terms "named query" and "stored procedure" (from NHibernate's perspective) fairly interchangeably. Technically, a named query can execute any SQL, not just a stored procedure, and a stored procedure doesn't have to be executed from a named query, but for reusability, it seems to me like the best practice. If you're here, chances are good you're looking for answers to a similar problem. You don't want to read about the path, you just want the result. So, here's how to get this thing going. The Stored Procedure NHibernate has some guidelines when using stored procedures. For Microsoft SQL Server, you have to return a result set. The scalar value that the stored procedure returns is ignored as are any result sets after the first. Other than that, it's nothing special. CREATE PROCEDURE GetPopularProducts @StartDate DATETIME, @MaxResults INT AS BEGIN SELECT [ProductId], [ProductName], [ImageUrl] FROM SomeTableWithJoinsEtc END The Result Class - PopularProduct You have two options to transport your query results to your view (or wherever is the final destination): you can populate an existing mapped entity class in your model, or you can create a new entity class. If you go with the existing model, the advantage is that the query will act as a loader and you'll get full proxied access to the domain model. However, this can be a disadvantage if you require access to the related entities that aren't loaded by your results. For example, my PopularProduct has image references. Unless I tie them into the query (thus making it even more complicated and expensive to run), they'll have to be loaded on access, requiring more trips to the database. Since we're trying to avoid trips to the database by using a second-level cache, we should use the second option, which is to create a separate entity for results. This approach is (I believe) in the spirit of the Command-Query Separation principle, and it allows us to flatten our data and optimize our report-generation process from data source to view. public class PopularProduct { public virtual int ProductId { get; set; } public virtual string ProductName { get; set; } public virtual string ImageUrl { get; set; } } The NHibernate Mappings (hbm) Next up, we need to let NHibernate know about the query and where the results will go. Below is the markup for the PopularProduct class. Notice that I'm using the <resultset> element and that it has a name attribute. The name allows us to drop this into our query map and any others, giving us reusability. Also notice the <import> element which lets NHibernate know about our entity class. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <hibernate-mapping xmlns="urn:nhibernate-mapping-2.2"> <import class="PopularProduct, Infrastructure.NHibernate, Version=1.0.0.0"/> <resultset name="PopularProductResultSet"> <return-scalar column="ProductId" type="System.Int32"/> <return-scalar column="ProductName" type="System.String"/> <return-scalar column="ImageUrl" type="System.String"/> </resultset> </hibernate-mapping>  And now the PopularProductsMap: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <hibernate-mapping xmlns="urn:nhibernate-mapping-2.2"> <sql-query name="GetPopularProducts" resultset-ref="PopularProductResultSet" cacheable="true" cache-mode="normal"> <query-param name="StartDate" type="System.DateTime" /> <query-param name="MaxResults" type="System.Int32" /> exec GetPopularProducts @StartDate = :StartDate, @MaxResults = :MaxResults </sql-query> </hibernate-mapping>  The two most important things to notice here are the resultset-ref attribute, which links in our resultset mapping, and the cacheable attribute. The Query Class – PopularProductsQuery So far, this has been fairly obvious if you're familiar with NHibernate. This next part, maybe not so much. You can implement your query however you want to; for me, I wanted a self-encapsulated Query class, so here's what it looks like: public class PopularProductsQuery : IPopularProductsQuery { private static readonly IResultTransformer ResultTransformer; private readonly ISessionBuilder _sessionBuilder;   static PopularProductsQuery() { ResultTransformer = Transformers.AliasToBean<PopularProduct>(); }   public PopularProductsQuery(ISessionBuilder sessionBuilder) { _sessionBuilder = sessionBuilder; }   public IList<PopularProduct> GetPopularProducts(DateTime startDate, int maxResults) { var session = _sessionBuilder.GetSession(); var popularProducts = session .GetNamedQuery("GetPopularProducts") .SetCacheable(true) .SetCacheRegion("PopularProductsCacheRegion") .SetCacheMode(CacheMode.Normal) .SetReadOnly(true) .SetResultTransformer(ResultTransformer) .SetParameter("StartDate", startDate.Date) .SetParameter("MaxResults", maxResults) .List<PopularProduct>();   return popularProducts; } }  Okay, so let's look at each line of the query execution. The first, GetNamedQuery, matches up with our NHibernate mapping for the sql-query. Next, we set it as cacheable (this is probably redundant since our mapping also specified it, but it can't hurt, right?). Then we set the cache region which we'll get to in the next section. Set the cache mode (optional, I believe), and my cache is read-only, so I set that as well. The result transformer is very important. This tells NHibernate how to transform your query results into a non-persistent entity. You can see I've defined ResultTransformer in the static constructor using the AliasToBean transformer. The name is obviously leftover from Java/Hibernate. Finally, set your parameters and then call a result method which will execute the query. Because this is set to cached, you execute this statement every time you run the query and NHibernate will know based on your parameters whether to use its cached version or a fresh version. The Configuration – hibernate.cfg.xml and Web.config You need to explicitly enable second-level caching in your hibernate configuration: <hibernate-configuration xmlns="urn:nhibernate-configuration-2.2"> <session-factory> [...] <property name="dialect">NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2005Dialect</property> <property name="cache.provider_class">NHibernate.Caches.SysCache.SysCacheProvider,NHibernate.Caches.SysCache</property> <property name="cache.use_query_cache">true</property> <property name="cache.use_second_level_cache">true</property> [...] </session-factory> </hibernate-configuration> Both properties "use_query_cache" and "use_second_level_cache" are necessary. As this is for a web deployement, we're using SysCache which relies on ASP.NET's caching. Be aware of this if you're not deploying to the web! You'll have to use a different cache provider. We also need to tell our cache provider (in this cache, SysCache) about our caching region: <syscache> <cache region="PopularProductsCacheRegion" expiration="86400" priority="5" /> </syscache> Here I've set the cache to be valid for 24 hours. This XML snippet goes in your Web.config (or in a separate file referenced by Web.config, which helps keep things tidy). The Payoff That should be it! At this point, your queries should run once against the database for a given set of parameters and then use the cache thereafter until it expires. You can, of course, adjust settings to work in your particular environment. Testing Testing your application to ensure it is using the cache is a pain, but if you're like me, you want to know that it's actually working. It's a bit involved, though, so I'll create a separate post for it if comments indicate there is interest.

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• Time management and self improvement

  - by Filip

  I hope I can open a discussion on this topic as this is not a specific problem. It's a topic I hope to get some ideas on how people in similar situation as mine manage their time. OK, I'm a single developer on a software project for the last 6-8 months. The project I'm working on uses several technologies, mainly .net stuff: WPF, WF, NHibernate, WCF, MySql and other third party SDKs relevant for the project nature. My experience and knowledge vary, for example I have a lot of experience in WPF but much less in WCF. I work full time on the project and im curios on how other programmers which need to multi task in many areas manage their time. I'm a very applied type of person and prefer to code instead of doing research. I feel that doing research "might" slow down the progress of the project while I recognize that research and learning more in areas which I'm not so strong will ultimately make me more productive. How would you split up your daily time in productive coding time and time to and experiment, read blogs, go through tutorials etc. I would say that Im coding about 90%+ of my day and devoting some but very little time in research and acquiring new knowledge. Thanks for your replies. I think I will adopt a gradual transition to Dominics block parts. I kinda knew that coding was taking up way to much of my time but it feels good having a first version of the project completed and ready. With a few months of focused hard work behind me I hope to get more time to experiment and expand my knowlegde. Now I only hope my boss will cut me some slack and stop pressuring me for features...

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• Advanced Oracle SOA Suite Oracle Open World 2012 SOA Presentations

  - by JuergenKress

  The list below only includes SOA presentations delivered or moderated by Oracle SOA Product Management. For a complete list of Oracle Open World 2012 presentations, please go here. Oracle SOA Suite, the Most Capable Tool for Every Possible Integration Challenge Using the Right Tools, Techniques, and Technologies for Integration Projects Administration and Management Essentials for Oracle SOA Suite 11g Extreme Performance and Scale Delivered by SOA on Oracle Exalogic Successful Application Integration and SOA Projects: Customer Panel How to Integrate Cloud Applications with Oracle SOA Suite Transforming the Utilities Industry with Oracle Fusion Middleware Cloud and On-Premises Applications Integration, Using Oracle Integration Adapters Delivering High Value B2B Gateways with Oracle SOA Suite 11g Implementing Successful Healthcare Applications with Oracle SOA Suite Migrating to Oracle SOA Suite: A Sun Java CAPS Customer Experience If Mobile Enablement Is on Your Mind, Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Service Bus Can Help Building Shared Services Infrastructure with Oracle Service Bus: Customer Panel SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: OOW,OOW presentations,OOW soa ppt,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Column Headers from Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #027 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Management Studio returns results in Grid View, Text View and to the file. When we copy results from Grid View to Excel there is a common complaint that the column  header displayed in resultset is not copied to the Excel. I often spend time in performance tuning databases and I run many DMV’s in SSMS to get a quick view of the server. In my case it is almost certain that I need all the time column headers when I copy my data to excel or any other place. SQL Server Management Studio have two different ways to do this. Method 1: Ad-hoc When result is rendered you can right click on the resultset and click on Copy Header. This will copy the headers along with the resultset. Additionally, you can use the shortcut key CTRL+SHIFT+C for coping column headers along with the resultset. Method 2: Option Setting at SSMS level This is SSMS level settings and I kept this option always selected as I often need the column headers when I select the resultset. Go Tools >> Options >> Query Results >> SQL Server >> Results to Grid >> Check the Box “Include column header when copying or saving the results.” Both of the methods are discussed in following SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Here is the code used in the video. Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Copy Column Headers in Query Analyzers in Result Set Getting Columns Headers without Result Data – SET FMTONLY ON If we like your idea we promise to share with you educational material. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• How did I get here? My route to Android, iPhone, Windows Phone 7, and interest in Mobile Devices

  - by Wallym

  I get asked all the time how/why I got interested in mobile and jumped on this fairly early.  I tend to give half answers because it wasn't just one thing that took me to mobile, but a whole host of separate ivents culminating in a specific event where I wasdoing market research in May/June 2008.  Let me throw out the events and the facts about me: I tend to like new, different, cool stuff.  I jumped on .NET early on.  I jumped on Ajax early on.  I don't jump on every new technology that comes down the road, I'm probably the only person on the planet that doesn't "get" MVC, though I acknowledge that a lot of people do and it solves a number of problems in the default settings of ASP.NET WebForms. I remember buying an early Windows CE device. It was interesting, but dang, this stylus thing sucks. After I lost my third stylus, i just gave up.  I got my first mobile phone in early 1999.  Reception was crappy, but I could see the value in being mobile. In 1999, I worked on a manufacturing systems project.  One piece of the projects was a set of handheld devices on the shop floor.  While the UI was a crappy DOS based, yes I said DOS as in Disk Operating System Version 6.22, I could see that the wireless world was a direction I wanted to be in. In 2000, Microsoft released the first public alpha of .NET.  Very cool stuff indeed.  One piece of the puzzle was a set of mobile controls for ASP.NET.  I build numerous test apps as well as mobile version using these mobile controls.  Now, the mobile UIs of the time were based on WML, which was crap. I could real all the analysis of mobile and read all about growth rates.  Now, you have to realize that growth rates can be impressive when dealing with small numbers, but I knew it was a comer. In our first book, I got talked out of mobile because of the line from the publisher "Wally, mobile doesn't sell." Blackberry was the dominant device of the mid 2000s.  Its users were referred to as "Crackberry addicts."  Unfortunately, the mobile development experience for native apps was crap and the web experience was fairly rough as well, but if they could get the ecosystem started, other phones and better blackberryies would come out.  I finally jumped into using a blackberry. Sometime around 2006, I heard "Wally, mobile doesn't sell" again.  Now, anyone that knows me knows that someone saying something like this to me means I'll keep trying it. The phones of the mid 2000s were moving to be more graphical, but there were too many that had this idea that they had to use a stylus.  Stylus suck.  They get lost too easily. I worked on a project in 2007 and 2008 for a startup trying to answer the question of "What is there to do where I am at?"  For some reason, they wanted to be tied to PCs.  As it became obvious that they were having problems, their investor asked us to do some market research and to figure out what the marketplace did want.  One of the important things that I figured out was the we lived in a mobile world and if you had a mobile app, it need to be on a mobile device, not tied to a desktop/laptop/netbook device.  If there was any single event, this was it - I was doing some market research and sat and talked to people in a bar/restaurant in Atlanta called "The Grove" on Lavista.  The consensus of the people that I talked to was that they wanted their data where ever they were at, laptop, pc, mobile, whereever. In 2007, Apple released the iPhone.  Wow, what an impressive device, even with all the problems of a 1st generation device.  I bought an iPod Touch 1st generation to understand touch better, one of the best decisions I ever made. I decided in late 2008, to make a move into cloud, for a number of reasons.  I was working on an example app.  In April, 2009, one of my friends at Microsoft said "don't mention my name with this, but you need an iPhone front end for this app."  How do you get on the iPhone.  Well, there are a number of ways including: ObjectiveC.  Its hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and this dog knows .NET, not ObjectiveC. HTML, web, javascript optimized interface.  yeah, this is possible. PhoneGap.  Now, this is interesting, take an html interface and get it to run on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and other platforms.  I thought that this way made the most sense for me until......... MonoTouch.  In May/June 2009, Novell announced a way for .NET/c# developers to write apps for the iPhone.  This is the way that made the most sense to me. Titanium by Appcelerator.  This is similar in concept to PhoneGap.  I haven't played with this much but do want to learn more about it. In July, 2009, I emailed one of my contacts at Wrox to see if they would be interested in a short MonoTouch ebook in their Wrox Blox format.  I fully expected another  response along the lines of "Wally, mobile doesn't sell."  The response I got was "Wally, iPhone is H O T, get started immediately, can you have this to me before Labor Day."  Not quite the response I expected.  Thankfully, we didn't make the Labor Day, first draft date. I kept pushing back because I had a feeling that things were not going to be quite as polished and feature rich as necessary.  After all, Novell doesn't have the resouces of Microsoft's developer division. The ebook shipped on November 30, 2009. On about December, 15, 2009, my editor emailed and said "Your ebook is selling really well, lets do a full book and it by March 1 so get started."  Thankfully, guys like Craig Dunn and Chris Hardy were interested along with Martin and Ror joinged us later on. I bought my wife an iPhone 3Gs in early 2010 to go along with all my iPod Touch devices. I tried to pretend in 2010 that I wasn't that interested in mobile and still had interest in the desktop technologies.  I love the technologies and continue to use them today, but that isn't where my interest is right now.  I'm just about all mobile all the time with my energies.  Our book shipped in the beginning of July, 2010 right in the middle of the Apple FUD.I've been looking at Mobile Web as a way around the AppStores and Apple FUD problems of 2010. With all the Apple self FUD, we became interested in Android.I went up to Dino Esposito at DevConnections in Las Vegas at introduced myself. I've always tried to keep up with what Dino has been doing. I was shocked, he wanted to meet me.  We must have talked for 1.5 hours. It was way more time than I deserved. If you get a chance, go and introduce yourself to Dino. He's a great guy. Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 in the Fall of 2010.  I'm not doing development on that platform at this time.  I think they have a very interesting user interface.  The devices are being positively reviewed.  For my purposes, the devices are limited at this point in time.  We'll see what 2011 brings as far as updates to the operating system.  I need multitasking/background processing and html5 in the browser. Add that as well as acceptance in the marketplace and I'll be more interested in the device. Obviosuly, I'm now working on a MonoDroid book . I own Android and iPhone/iOS devices.  I am currently working on some startup ideas and am exploring as much in that area as I can. For 2011, I'm planning on speaking at Android Developer's Conference (AnDevCon) and Mobile Connections.  I'm really excited about this. I have a couple of magazine articles coming out in 2011 on Android and iPhone development with the Mono technologies.is Mono "The Answer"? What's "The Question?" I think it will work for me.  It might work for you, it might not.  it depends on your situation.  Its the current horse that I am riding. I might find a better horse tomorrow. So, that's how I got here.  I'm in love with mobile.  Mobile native apps on the device as well as mobile web.  I'm into all this cool stuff.  Where are you at?

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• Consuming Hello World pagelet in WebCenter Spaces

  - by astemkov

  Introduction The goal of this exercise is to show you how can you use Hello World pagelet that you just created from your web space. Assumptions Let's assume the following: Pagelet Producer is running on http://pageletserver.company.com:8889/pagelets/ WebCenter is running on http://webcenter.company.com:8888/webcenter/ You created Hello_World pagelet as described here. For our exercise we will need a space created. So let's login into WebCenter Portal and create a space called "myspace" using "Portal Site" template: Registering Pagelet Producer with WebCenter portal In order to use our newly created pagelet from WebCenter Spaces, we first need to register Pagelet Producer: Click "Administraion" link on WebCenter toolbar Open the "Configuration" tab Click on "Services" link on the upper-left corner of the page Click on "Portlet Producers" link on the right hand pane of the screen Click on "Register" button Select "Pagelet Producer" radio button and type Producer Name = "MyPageletProducer" Server URL = http://pageletserver.company.com:8889/pagelets/ Click "Test" button If everything is succesful you will see the following screen: Now click "OK'. Pagelet producer is registered: Inserting Hello World pagelet to WebCenter Space Now let's insert Hello World pagelet into "myspace" page: Let's go back to "myspace", click on the icon in a upper-right corner of the page and select "Edit Page" Click on one of the "Add Content" buttons: Select "Mash-Ups": Select "Pagelet Producers: You will see the MyPageletProducer that we just registered: Click on it. You will see the library "MyLib" that contains our "Hello_World" pagelet. Click on "MyLib" and you will see "Hello_World" pagelet. Click on "Add" button, and then "Close" button. Click "Save" button, and then "Close". Now we see that our "Hello World" pagelet is inserted into "myspace" page:

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• How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  When it comes time to switch from using one application to another on your Android device it isn’t immediately clear how to do so. Follow along as we walk you through swapping the default application for any Android task. Initially changing the default application in Android is a snap. After you install the new application (new web browser, new messaging tool, new whatever) Android prompts you to pick which application (the new or the old) you wish to use for that task the first time you attempt to open a web page, check your text message, or otherwise trigger the event. Easy! What about when it comes time to uninstall the app or just change back to your old app? There’s no helpful pop-up dialog box for that. Read on as we show you how to swap out any default application for any other with a minimum of fuss. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally Now Together and Complete – McBain: The Movie [Simpsons Video] Be Creative by Using Hex and RGB Codes for Crayola Crayon Colors on Your Next Web or Art Project [Geek Fun] Flash Updates; Finally Supports Full Screen Video on Multiple Monitors 22 Ways to Recycle an Altoids Mint Tin Make Your Desktop Go Native with the Tribal Arts Theme for Windows 7 A History of Vintage Transformers: Decepticons Edition [Infographic]

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• June 22-24, 2010 in London City Level 400 SQL Server Performance Monitoring & Tuning Workshop

  - by sqlworkshops

  We are organizing the “3 Day Level 400 SQL Server Performance Monitoring & Tuning Workshop” for the 1st time in London City during June 22-24, 2010.Agenda is located @ www.sqlworkshops.com/workshops & you can register @ www.sqlworkshops.com/ruk. Charges: £ 1800 (5% discount for those who register before 21st May, £ 1710).In this 3 Day Level 400 hands-on workshop, unlike short SQLBits sessions, we go deeper on the tuning topics. Not sure if this will be a good use of your time & money? Watch our webcasts @ www.sqlworkshops.com/webcasts.We are trying to balance these commercial offerings with our free community contributions. Financially: These workshops are essential for us to stay in business!Feedback from Finland workshop posted by Jukka, Wärtsilä Oyj on February 23, 2010 to the LinkedIn SQL Server User Group Finland (more feedbacks @ www.sqlworkshops.com/feedbacks):Just want to start this thread and give some feedback on the Workshop that I attended last week at Microsoft.Three days in a row, deep dive into the query optimization and performance monitoring :-) I must say, that the SQL guru Ramesh has all the tricks up in his sleeves.The workshop was very helpful and what's most important: no slide show marathon: samples after samples explained very clearly and with our own class room SQL servers we can try the same stuff while Ramesh typed his own samples.If the workshop will be rearranged, I can most willingly recommend it to anyone who wants to know what's "under the hood" of SQL Server 2008.Once again, thank you Microsoft and Ramesh to make this happen. May the force be with us all :-)Hope to see you @ the Workshop. Feel free to pass on this information to your SQL Server colleagues.-ramesh-www.sqlbits.com/speakers/r_meyyappan/default.aspx

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 23, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 23, 2010New Projects3D TagCloud for SharePoint 2010: 3D Flash TagCloud WebPart for SharePoint 2010AnyCAD.Net: AnyCAD.NetCassandraemon: Cassandraemon is LINQ Provider for Apache Cassandra.CCLI SongSelect Importer for PowerPoint: CCLI SongSelect Importer for PowerPoint ® is an Add-in for Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® that allows CCLI SongSelect (USR) files to be turned into slide...Compactar Arquivo Txt, Flat File, em Pipeline Decoder Customizado: Objetivo do projeto: Desenvolver um componente do tipo Pipeline Receiver Decoder, onde compacta o conteúdo, cria uma mensagem em XML e transforma ...Console Calculator: Console calculator is a simple, yet useful, mathematical expression calculator, supporting functions and variables. It was created to demonstrate ...CRM Dynamics Excel Importer: CRM Dynamics Excel Importercubace: The standard audio composer software with just single difference: this is CLR compilation.deneb: deneb projectDrive Backup: Drive Backup is an easy to use, automatic backup program. Simply insert a USB drive, and the program will backup either files on the drive to your ...eWebMVCCMS: this is the start of eWeb MVC CMS.Fix.ly: Small app that allows for URL rewriting before passing to the browser. Accepts MEF plugins that make themselves available by informing the applicat...GArphics: GArphics uses a genetic algorithm to produce graphics and animation with the assitance of the user.JDS Toolkit: An experimental toolkit geared to make richer applications with less effort. It will include controls such as the cubeoid and the serializedmenu. ...KrashSRC - MapleStory v.75 Emulator: KrashSRC - MapleStory v.75 EmulatorLast.fm Api: Last.fm api writen in Visaul Basic 2010.MIX 10 DVR and Downloader: A Silverlight application that will manage downloading the sessions and slide decks from the MIX '10 Conference utilizing the MIX OData feed for in...NSIS Autorun: This is a graphical CD/DVD/USB autorun engine that launches installers made with NSIS. Non-rectangular windows and animation are supported. Can be ...Pillbox: Windows Phone 7 sample application for tracking medications.PowerSharp: Very simple application that executes a snippet of PowerShell against C#. This will eventually be used with Live@EDU.Project Halosis: mmorpgProyecto Cero: Proyecto CeroSharePoint XSL Templates: This project is a place to share useful XSL templates that can be reused in SharePoint CQWPs and DVWPs.Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu spsearch: This project provides useful enhancements to Search using the SharePoint platform.StereoVision: StereVision es un proyecto que estudia un algoritmo de visión estereocopicaThe Stoffenmanager: The Stoffenmanager is a tool for prioritizing worker health risks to dangerous substances. But also a quantitative inhalation exposure tool and a ...Transcriber: Transcribe text from one character set to another. Extensible, plug-in based architecture. Default plug-in uses XML rules files with regular expres...Wavelets experiments: эксперименты с вейвлетамиWindows Phone 7 World of Warcraft Armory Browser: A test project to learn a little about Windows Phone development and do a decent armory browserXAML Based Chat: Xaml based chat. A simple chat systemNew Releases#Nose: SharpNose v1.1: Configuration is now done by updating SharpNose.exe.config MEF support added - you can also add your favorite test framework discovery Two tes...Baml Localizer: Version 0.1 (alpha): This is the first release which should show the capabilities of Baml Localizer. The code might still change a lot, but the file formats should be q...BibWord : Microsoft Word Citation and Bibliography styles: APA with DOI - Proof of Concept: IntroductionThis release is a proof of concept (POC) demonstrating a possible way of adding a digital object identifier (DOI) field to the APA styl...Chargify.NET: Chargify.NET v0.685: Releasing Version 0.685 - Changed customer reference ID from Guid to String for systems that don't use Guid as the unique key. - Added method for g...Compactar Arquivo Txt, Flat File, em Pipeline Decoder Customizado: SampleZipDecodePipeline: Solution contem Projeto com o Decoder Pipeline. Projeto para usar o Componente. Classes SharpZipLib para compactar e descompactar arquivosConsole Calculator: Console Calculator: Initial source code release.CSharp Intellisense: V1.6: UPDATE: 2010/04/05: description was added 2010/04/07: single selection + reset filter 20010/04/15: source code available at http://csharpintellis...Drive Backup: Drive Backup: Drive Backup allows you to automatically backup a USB device to your computer, or backup files/directories on your computer to a USB. Once you have...Event Scavenger: Thread recycling changes - Version 3.1: Change the location of where the settings for thread recycling is stored - Moved from config file to database for easier management. Version of dat...Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.013: Added Houses QuizExtend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.014: fixed a bug in Tortoise.approve rearranged the Houses Quiz to be more funFix.ly: Fix.ly 0.1: Initial test releaseFix.ly: Fix.ly 0.11: Fixed a couple bugs, including missing files in the previous releaseGArphics: Beta: This is the beta-version of the program. Version 1.0 shall be relased soon and will include a lot of improvements.HouseFly: HouseFly alpha 0.2.0.5: HouseFly alpha release 0.2.0.5HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls alpha 0.9.4: Version 0.9.4 alpha release of HouseFly controlsHTML Ruby: 6.21.8: Change Math.floor to round for text spacingHTML Shot: 0.1: Solved problems with some URLsJDS Toolkit: JDS Toolkit 0.1: Beta 0.1 version. Almost nothing in these librariesManaged Extensibility Framework: WebForms and MEF Sample: This sample demonstrates the use of these two technologies together in a non-invasive way. Information on how to use it on your own projects is inc...Microsoft - Domain Oriented N-Layered .NET 4.0 App Sample (Microsoft Spain): V0.7 - N-Layer DDD Sample App (VS.2010 RTM compat): Required Software (Microsoft Base Software needed for Development environment) Visual Studio 2010 RTM & .NET 4.0 RTM (Final Versions) Unity Applic...MvcContrib Portable Areas: Portable Areas: First Release of some portable areasNSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun: Initial release.OgmoXNA: OgmoXNA Alpha Source Tree: Zipped version of the source tree in case you don't want to go through the SVN!Particle Plot Pivot: Particle Plot Pivot v1.0.0: Generates a Pivot collection of unpublished plots from the particle physics exeriments DZERO, CDF, ATLAS, and CMS. It can be found at http://deepta...patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance: SPG2010 Drop9: SharePoint Guidance Drop Notes Microsoft patterns and practices ****************************************** ***************************************...Rich Ajax empowered Web/Cloud Applications: 6.3.15: New Visual WebGui rich applications platform versionSilverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: PopupMenu for Silverlight 4: This is the first release of the popup menu class for Silverlight 4.0Silverlight Flow Layouts library: SL and WPF Flow Layouts library April 2010: This release introduces WPF 4.0 RTM and Silverlight 4 RTM support, as well as an additional layout algorithm and some minor bug fixes. Some changes...Spackle.NET: 3.0.0.0 Release: In this release: Spackle.dll now targets the 4.0 version of the .NET Framework SecureRandom implements IDisposable ActionExtensions have been ...Splinger FrameXi: Splinger 1.1: Welcome to a whole new way of learning! Go to release 1.0 for the non .zip packaged files.SQL Server Metadata Toolkit 2008: SQL Server Metadata Toolkit Alpha 6: This release addresses issues 10665, 10678 and 10679. The SQL Parser now understands CAST functions (the AS was causing issues), and is installed ...Star Trooper for XNA 2D Tutorial: Lesson four content: Here is Lesson four original content for the StarTrooper 2D XNA tutorial. It also includes the XNA version of Lesson four source. The blog tutori...Thales Simulator Library: Version 0.8.6: The Thales Simulator Library is an implementation of a software emulation of the Thales (formerly Zaxus & Racal) Hardware Security Module cryptogra...Transcriber: Transcriber v0.1: Initial alpha release. Very nearly useful. :-) This version includes rules files for Mode of Beleriand, Sindarin Tehtar, Quenya, and Black Speech. ...Visual Studio DSite: Picture Box Viewer (Visual F sharp 2008): A simple picturebox viewer made in visual f sharp 2008.Web/Cloud Applications Development Framework | Visual WebGui: 6.4 Beta 2d: Further stabilization of the cutting-edge web applications frameworkWebAssert: WebAssert 0.1: Initial release. Supports HTML & CSS validation using MSTest/Visual Studio testing.XAML Based Chat: Test release: A test releaseすとれおじさん(仮): すとれおじさん β 0.02: ・デザインを大幅に変更 ・まだかなり動作が重いです ・機能も少ないですMost Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: Databasepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrParticle Plot PivotBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationFarseer Physics EngineDotNetZip LibraryFluent Ribbon Control SuiteN2 CMS

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• OTN Virtual Developer Day for WebLogic Server and WebLogic Developer Broadcasts

  - by mike.lehmann

  To further move the new year of 2011 underway for WebLogic Server, quite a series of hands on technical online events and broadcasts are about to get underway from the WebLogic team. The first is Virtual Developer Day: Oracle WebLogic Server which is an online event that combines hands on labs with WebLogic Server through a series of Virtual Box images. This event will cover things like the new Java EE 6 capabilities one can use on WebLogic Server, using Maven and Hudson with WebLogic Server, developing with Web services on WebLogic Server and even upgrading from Oracle Application Server. Very technical, very hands on. And its global - multiple geographies covered.  Nice! James Bayer has put out a full agenda for this on his blog as well as links on how to register. The second is a 5 week long weekly technical broadcast under the umbrella of Accelerate Your Development with Oracle WebLogic Suite walking through topics like working with JPA, designing distributed caching strategies with WebLogic Server, advanced JMS topics and UI topics like JQuery as well restful Web services with Jersey and JAX-RS.  Again in James' blog the full agenda is available to check out if it is interesting for you to attend including a brief video introduction outlining in a bit more detail exactly what will be covered. Hopefully between these two events and the release of WebLogic Server 10.3.4 earlier in January, we are kicking off 2011 in a good fashion.  Looking forward to sharing more as we go forward in 2011.

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• The ship "shudders" in scrolling Asteroids

  - by Ciaran

  In my Asteroids game the user can scroll through space. When scrolling, the ship is drawn in the centre of the window. I use interpolation. I scroll the window uing glOrtho, centering it around the centre of the ship. On my first machine (7 years old, Windows XP, NVIDIA), I am doing 50 updates and 76 frames per second. This is smooth. My other machine an old compaq laptop (Pentium III) with Linux and Radeon OpenGL driver delivers 50 updates and 30 frames per second. The ship regularly seems to "shudder" back and forth when at maximum thrust. When you position the mouse cursor beside the ship it is obvious that its relative position in the window changes. Also, the stars seem blurred into short "lines". Playing the game in non-scrolling mode, the ship moves within the window, glOrtho is therefore not called repeatedly and there is no problem. I suspect a bug in my positioning of the ship and the window but I have dumped out these values and they seem to only go forward, not forward-back-forward. The driver does support double buffering. I guess if it is my bug I need to slow the frame-rate down to debug properly. My question: is this an obvious driver bug or is the slower machine uncovering a bug in my stuff and if so, some debugging tips would be appreciated. I am drawing in world co-ordinates and letting OpenGL do the scaling and translation so if I had a quick way of verifying what pixel co-ordinates OpenGL produces for the ship centre, that would help clarify this.

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• Fix: Azure Disabled over 49 cents? Beware of using a Java Virtual Machine on Microsoft Azure

  - by Ken Cox [MVP]

  I love my MSDN Azure account. I can spin up a demo/dev app or VM in seconds. In fact, it is so easy to create a virtual machine that Azure shut down my whole account! Last night I spun up a Java Virtual Machine to play with some Android stuff. My mistake was that I didn’t read the Virtual Machine pricing warning: “I have a MSDN Azure Benefit subscription. Can I use my monthly Azure credits to purchase Oracle software?” “No, Azure credits in our MSDN offers are not applicable to Oracle software. In order to purchase Oracle software in the MSDN Azure Benefit subscription, customers need to turn off their {0} spending limit and pay at the regular pay-as-you-go rate. Otherwise, Oracle usage will hit the {1} spending limit and the subscription will be immediately disabled.”  Immediately disabled? Yup. Everything connected to the subscription was shut off, deallocated, rendered useless - even the free Web sites and the free Sendgrid email service.  The fix? I had to remove the spending limit from my account so I could pay $0.49 (49 cents) for the JVM usage. I still had $134.10 in credits remaining for regular usage with 6 days left in the billing month.  Now the restoration/clean-up begins… figuring out how to get the web sites and services back online.  To me, the preferable way would be for Azure to warn me when setting up a JVM that I had no way of paying for the service. In the alternative, shut down just the offending services – the ones that can’t be covered by the regular credits. What a mess.

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• The future for Microsoft

  - by Scott Dorman

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/sdorman/archive/2013/10/16/the-future-for-microsoft.aspxMicrosoft is in the process of reinventing itself. While some may argue that it’s “too little, too late” or that their growing consumer-focused strategy is wrong, the truth of the situation is that Microsoft is reinventing itself into a new company. While Microsoft is now calling themselves a “devices and services” company, that’s not entirely accurate. Let’s look at some facts: Microsoft will always (for the long-term foreseeable future) be financially split into the following divisions: Windows/Operating Systems, which for FY13 made up approximately 24% of overall revenue. Server and Tools, which for FY13 made up approximately 26% of overall revenue. Enterprise/Business Products, which for FY13 made up approximately 32% of overall revenue. Entertainment and Devices, which for FY13 made up approximately 13% of overall revenue. Online Services, which for FY13 made up approximately 4% of overall revenue. It is important to realize that hardware products like the Surface fall under the Windows/Operating Systems division while products like the Xbox 360 fall under the Entertainment and Devices division. (Presumably other hardware, such as mice, keyboards, and cameras, also fall under the Entertainment and Devices division.) It’s also unclear where Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Nokia’s handset division will fall, but let’s assume that it will be under Entertainment and Devices as well. Now, for the sake of argument, let’s assume a slightly different structure that I think is more in line with how Microsoft presents itself and how the general public sees it: Consumer Products and Devices, which would probably make up approximately 9% of overall revenue. Developer Tools, which would probably make up approximately 13% of overall revenue. Enterprise Products and Devices, which would probably make up approximately 47% of overall revenue. Entertainment, which would probably make up approximately 13% of overall revenue. Online Services, which would probably make up approximately 17% of overall revenue. (Just so we’re clear, in this structure hardware products like the Surface, a portion of Windows sales, and other hardware fall under the Consumer Products and Devices division. I’m assuming that more of the income for the Windows division is coming from enterprise/volume licenses so 15% of that income went to the Enterprise Products and Devices division. Most of the enterprise services, like Azure, fall under the Online Services division so half of the Server and Tools income went there as well.) No matter how you look at it, the bulk of Microsoft’s income still comes from not just the enterprise but also software sales, and this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. So, now that the stage is set…what’s the future for Microsoft? The future I see for Microsoft (again, this is just my prediction based on my own instinct, gut-feel and publicly available information) is this: Microsoft is becoming a consumer-focused enterprise company. Let’s look at it a different way. Microsoft is an enterprise-focused company trying to create a larger consumer presence.  To a large extent, this is the exact opposite of Apple, who is really a consumer-focused company trying to create a larger enterprise presence. The major reason consumer-focused companies (like Apple) have started making in-roads into the enterprise is the “bring your own device” phenomenon. Yes, Apple has created some “game-changing” products but their enterprise influence is still relatively small. Unfortunately (for this blog post at least), Apple provides revenue in terms of hardware products rather than business divisions, so it’s not possible to do a direct comparison. However, in the interest of transparency, from Apple’s Quarterly Report (filed 24 July 2013), their revenue breakdown is: iPhone, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 51% of revenue. iPad, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 18% of revenue. Mac, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 14% of revenue. iPod, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 2% of revenue. iTunes, Software, and Services, which for the 3 months ending 29 June 2013 made up approximately 11% of revenue. Accessories, which for the 3 months ending 29 July 2013 made up approximately 3% of revenue. From this, it’s pretty clear that Apple is a consumer-and-hardware-focused company. At this point, you may be asking yourself “Where is all of this going?” The answer to that lies in Microsoft’s shift in company focus. They are becoming more consumer focused, but what exactly does that mean? The biggest change (at least that’s been in the news lately) is the pending purchase of Nokia’s handset division. This, in combination with their Surface line of tablets and the Xbox, will put Microsoft squarely in the realm of a hardware-focused company in addition to being a software-focused company. That can (and most likely will) shift the revenue split to looking at revenue based on software sales (both consumer and enterprise) and also hardware sales (mostly on the consumer side). If we look at things strictly from a Windows perspective, Microsoft clearly has a lot of irons in the fire at the moment. Discounting the various product SKUs available and painting the picture with broader strokes, there are currently 5 different Windows-based operating systems: Windows Phone Windows Phone 7.x, which runs on top of the Windows CE kernel Windows Phone 8.x+, which runs on top of the Windows 8 kernel Windows RT The ARM-based version of Windows 8, which runs on top of the Windows 8 kernel Windows (Pro) The Intel-based version of Windows 8, which runs on top of the Windows 8 kernel Xbox The Xbox 360, which runs it’s own proprietary OS. The Xbox One, which runs it’s own proprietary OS, a version of Windows running on top of the Windows 8 kernel and a proprietary “manager” OS which manages the other two. Over time, Windows Phone 7.x devices will fade so that really leaves 4 different versions. Looking at Windows RT and Windows Phone 8.x paints an interesting story. Right now, all mobile phone devices run on some sort of ARM chip and that doesn’t look like it will change any time soon. That means Microsoft has two different Windows based operating systems for the ARM platform. Long term, it doesn’t make sense for Microsoft to continue supporting that arrangement. I have long suspected (since the Surface was first announced) that Microsoft will unify these two variants of Windows and recent speculation from some of the leading Microsoft watchers lends credence to this suspicion. It is rumored that upcoming Windows Phone releases will include support for larger screen sizes, relax the requirement to have a hardware-based back button and will continue to improve API parity between Windows Phone and Windows RT. At the same time, Windows RT will include support for smaller screen sizes. Since both of these operating systems are based on the same core Windows kernel, it makes sense (both from a financial and development resource perspective) for Microsoft to unify them. The user interfaces are already very similar. So similar in fact, that visually it’s difficult to tell them apart. To illustrate this, here are two screen captures: Other than a few variations (the Bing News app, the picture shown in the Pictures tile and the spacing between the tiles) these are identical. The one on the left is from my Windows 8.1 laptop (which looks the same as on my Surface RT) and the one on the right is from my Windows Phone 8 Lumia 925. This pretty clearly shows that from a consumer perspective, there really is no practical difference between how these two operating systems look and how you interact with them. For the consumer, your entertainment device (Xbox One), phone (Windows Phone) and mobile computing device (Surface [or some other vendors tablet], laptop, netbook or ultrabook) and your desktop computing device (desktop) will all look and feel the same. While many people will denounce this consistency of user experience, I think this will be a good thing in the long term, especially for the upcoming generations. For example, my 5-year old son knows how to use my tablet, phone and Xbox because they all feature nearly identical user experiences. When Windows 8 was released, Microsoft allowed a Windows Store app to be purchased once and installed on as many as 5 devices. With Windows 8.1, this limit has been increased to over 50. Why is that important? If you consider that your phone, computing devices, and entertainment device will be running the same operating system (with minor differences related to physical hardware chipset), that means that I could potentially purchase my sons favorite Angry Birds game once and be able to install it on all of the devices I own. (And for those of you wondering, it’s only 7 [at the moment].) From an app developer perspective, the story becomes even more compelling. Right now there are differences between the different operating systems, but those differences are shrinking. The user interface technology for both is XAML but there are different controls available and different user experience concepts. Some of the APIs available are the same while some are not. You can’t develop a Windows Phone app that can also run on Windows (either Windows Pro or RT). With each release of Windows Phone and Windows RT, those difference become smaller and smaller. Add to this mix the Xbox One, which will also feature a Windows-based operating system and the same “modern” (tile-based) user interface and the visible distinctions between the operating systems will become even smaller. Unifying the operating systems means one set of APIs and one code base to maintain for an app that can run on multiple devices. One code base means it’s easier to add features and fix bugs and that those changes become available on all devices at the same time. It also means a single app store, which will increase the discoverability and reach of your app and consolidate revenue and app profile management. Now, the choice of what devices an app is available on becomes a simple checkbox decision rather than a technical limitation. Ultimately, this means more apps available to consumers, which is always good for the app ecosystem. Is all of this just rumor, speculation and conjecture? Of course, but it’s not unfounded. As I mentioned earlier, some of the prominent Microsoft watchers are also reporting similar rumors. However, Microsoft itself has even hinted at this future with their recent organizational changes and by telling developers “if you want to develop for Xbox One, start developing for Windows 8 now.” I think this pretty clearly paints the following picture: Microsoft is committed to the “modern” user interface paradigm. Microsoft is changing their release cadence (for all products, not just operating systems) to be faster and more modular. Microsoft is going to continue to unify their OS platforms both from a consumer perspective and a developer perspective. While this direction will certainly concern some people it will excite many others. Microsoft’s biggest failing has always been following through with a strong and sustained marketing strategy that presents a consistent view point and highlights what this unified and connected experience looks like and how it benefits consumers and enterprises. We’ve started to see some of this over the last few years, but it needs to continue and become more aggressive and consistent. In the long run, I think Microsoft will be able to pull all of these technologies and devices together into one seamless ecosystem. It isn’t going to happen overnight, but my prediction is that we will be there by the end of 2016. As both a consumer and a developer, I, for one, am excited about the future of Microsoft.

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• Sign of a Good Game

  - by Matt Christian

  (Warning: This post contains spoilers about SILENT HILL 2.  If you haven't played this game, you are dumb) What is one sign of a great game? One of the signs I realized recently is when a game continues to stun and surprise you years and years after you've played and beaten it.  As a major Silent Hill fan, I recently was reminded of Silent Hill 2 and even though see it as one of my favorite Silent Hill games, there are still things I'm learning about it that are neat little additions that add to the atmosphere (atmosphere also makes a great game!). For instance, when you start the game you are given a letter by your wife who has been deceased for years and years.  You are directed to Silent Hill and start treking through hell all by your lonesome (with the exception of a few psychos).  As you continue through the game, pieces of the letter begin to fade and disappear until eventually it is completely non-existent, thus implying the letter was never real and the letter was a delusion you created. Another example is the game's use of imagery the player knows about but might not notice at first.  For me, the most apparent of these was the dress you find near the start when you find the flashlight, which is the same dress you see Mary (your wife) wearing in the flashback sequences.  However, one thing I didn't know was that several deceased bodies you encounter laying around Silent Hill are actually the body of the main character (James) which invokes an idea you've seen that body before but can't pinpoint where... It's amazing to see a game go to such unique lengths to provide a psychological horror game.  Sure, all the dead bodies could be randomly modelled and the dress could be any ol' dress, but just the idea of your brain knowing something deep down but you can't pinpoint it is a really unique idea.  In my opinion, it ties less into subconscious and more into natural tendencies, it taps into the fear hidden inside us all.

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• Building Web Applications with ACT and jQuery

  - by dwahlin

  My second talk at TechEd is focused on integrating ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery features into websites (if you’re interested in Silverlight you can download code/slides for that talk here). The content starts out by discussing ScriptManager features available in ASP.NET 3.5 and ASP.NET 4 and provides details on why you should consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN).  If you’re running an external facing site then checking out the CDN features offered by Microsoft or Google is definitely recommended. The talk also goes into the process of contributing to the Ajax Control Toolkit as well as the new Ajax Minifier tool that’s available to crunch JavaScript and CSS files. The extra fun starts in the next part of the talk which details some of the work Microsoft is doing with the jQuery team to donate template, globalization and data linking code to the project. I go into jQuery templates, data linking and a new globalization option that are all being worked on. I want to thank Stephen Walther, Dave Reed and James Senior for their thoughts and contributions since some of the topics covered are pretty bleeding edge right now.The slides and sample code for the talk can be downloaded below.     Download Slides and Samples

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• MySQL for Beginners Training-on-Demand First Hand Insight

  - by Antoinette O'Sullivan

  The MySQL for Beginners course is THE course to get you started with MySQL providing you a solid foundation in relational databases using MySQL as a learning tool. Oracle University recently released the Training-on-Demand option for this course.  Ben Krug from the MySQL product team is trying out the MySQL for Beginners Training-on-Demand course and reporting on his experience. You can follow Ben on MySQL Support Blogs. The MySQL for Beginners course is available as: Training-on-Demand: Follow streaming video of instructor delivery and perform hands-on exercises as your own pace. You can start training with 24 hours of purchase. Live-Virtual: Attend a live-instructor led class from your own desk. Hundreds of events on the schedule across timezones. In-Class: Travel to an education center to attend this instructor-led class. Some events on the schedule below:  Location  Date  Delivery Language  Warsaw, Poland  24 September 2012  Polish  Dublin, Ireland  15 October 2012  English  London, United Kingdom  11 September 2012  English  Rome, Italy  5 November 2012  Italian  Hamburg, Germany  3 December 2012  German  Lisbon, Portugal  5 November 2012  European Portugese  Amsterdam, Netherlands  10 December 2012  Dutch  Nieuwegein, Netherlands  18 February 2013  Dutch  Nairobi, Kenya  12 November 2012  English  Barcelona, Spain  5 November 2012  Spanish  Madrid, Spain  8 January 2013  Spanish  Latvia, Riga  12 November 2012  Latvian  Petaling Jaya, Malaysia  22 October 2012  English  Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal Canada  17 December 2012  English  Sao Paulo, Brazil  11 September 2012  Brazilian Portugese  Sao Paulo, Brazil  5 November 2012  Brazilian Portugese  For more information on the Authentic MySQL Curriculum, go to the Oracle University Portal - http://oracle.com/education/mysql

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• SQL SERVER – Winners – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198)

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this week we had contest ran over the blog where we are giving away USD 198 worth books of Joes 2 Pros. We had over 500+ responses during the five days of the contest. After removing duplicate and incorrect responses we had a total of 416 valid responses combined total 5 days. We got maximum correct answer on day 2 and minimum correct answer on day 5. Well, enough of the statistics. Let us go over the winners’ names. The winners have been selected randomly by one of the book editors of Joes 2 Pros. SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Learning Kit 5 Books Day 1 Winner USA: Philip Dacosta India: Sandeep Mittal Day 2 Winner USA: Michael Evans India: Satyanarayana Raju Pakalapati Day 3 Winner USA: Ratna Pulapaka India: Sandip Pani Day 4 Winner USA: Ramlal Raghavan India: Dattatrey Sindol Day 5 Winner USA: David Hall India: Mohit Garg I congratulate all the winners for their participation. All of you will receive emails from us. You will have to reply the email with your physical address. Once you receive an email please reply within 3 days so we can ship the 5 book kits to you immediately. Bonus Winners Additionally, I had announced that every day I will select a winner from the readers who have left comments with their favorite blog post. Here are the winners with their favorite blog post. Day 1: Prasanna kumar.D [Favorite Post] Day 2: Ganesh narim [Favorite Post] Day 3: Sreelekha [Favorite Post] Day 4: P.Anish Shenoy [Favorite Post] Day 5: Rikhil [Favorite Post] All the bonus winners will receive my print book SQL Wait Stats if your shipping address is in India or Pluralsight Subscription if you are outside India. If you are not winner of the contest but still want to learn SQL Server you can get the book from here. Amazon | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Flipkart | Indiaplaza Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #003

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 This was the first year of my blogging and lots of new things I was learning as I go. I was indeed an infant in blogging a few years ago. However, as time passed by I have learned a lot. This year was year of experiments and new learning. 2007 Working as a full time DBA I often encoutered various errors and I started to learn how to avoid those error and document the same. ERROR Msg 5174 Each file size must be greater than or equal to 512 KB Whenever I see this error I wonder why someone is trying to attempt a database which is extremely small. Anyway, it does not matter what I think I keep on seeing this error often in industries. Anyway the solution of the error is equally interesting – just created larger database. Dilbert Humor This was very first encounter with database humor and I started to love it. It does not matter how many time we read this cartoon it does not get old. Generate Script with Data from Database – Database Publishing Wizard Generating schema script with data is one of the most frequently performed tasks among SQL Server Data Professionals. There are many ways to do the same. In the above article I demonstrated that how we can use the Database Publishing Wizard to accomplish the same. It was new to me at that time but I have not seen much of the adoption of the same still in the industry. Here is one of my videos where I demonstrate how we can generate data with schema. 2008 Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History Deleting backup history is important too but should be done carefully. If this is not carried out at regular interval there is good chance that MSDB will be filled up with all the old history. Every organization is different. Some would like to keep the history for 30 days and some for a year but there should be some limit. One should regularly archive the database backup history. South Asia MVP Open Days 2008 This was my very first year Microsoft MVP. I had Indeed big blast at the event and the fun was incredible. After this event I have attended many different MVP events but the fun and learning this particular event presented was amazing and just like me many others are not able to forget the same. Here are other links related to the event: South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 1 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 2 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 3 2009 Enable or Disable Constraint  This is very simple script but I personally keep on forgetting it so I had blogged it. Till today, I keep on referencing this again and again as sometime a very little thing is hard to remember. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL 2008 – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administrative assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. SQLPASS 2009 – My Very First SQPASS Experience Just Brilliant! I never had an experience such a thing in my life. SQL SQL and SQL – all around SQL! I am listing my own reasons here in order of importance to me. Networking with SQL fellows and experts Putting face to the name or avatar Learning and improving my SQL skills Understanding the structure of the largest SQL Server Professional Association Attending my favorite training sessions Since last time I have never missed a single time this event. This event is my favorite event and something keeps me going. Here are additional post related SQLPASS 2009. SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4 2010 Get All the Information of Database using sys.databases Even though we believe that we know everything about our database, we do not know a lot of things about our database. This little script enables us to know so many details about databases which we may not be familiar with. Run this on your server today and see how much you know your database. Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database While engaging in a performance tuning consultation for a client, a situation occurred where they were facing a lot of CXPACKET Waits Stats. The client asked me if I could help them reduce this huge number of wait stats. I usually receive this kind of request from other client as well, but the important thing to understand is whether this question has any merits or benefits, or not. I discusses the same in this article – a bit long but insightful for sure. Error related to Database in Use There are so many database management operations in SQL Server which requires exclusive access to the database and it is not always possible to get it. When any database is online in SQL Server it either applications or system thread often accesses them. This means database can’t have exclusive access and the operations which required this access throws an error. There is very easy method to overcome this minor issue – a single line script can give you exclusive access to the database. Difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Developers have found the root reason of the problem when dealing with Date Functions – when data time values are converted (implicit or explicit) between different data types, which would lose some precision, so the result cannot match each other as expected. In this blog post I go over very interesting details and difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 History of SQL Server Database Encryption I recently met Michael Coles and Rodeney Landrum the author of one of the kind book Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption at SQLPASS in Seattle. During the conversation we ended up how Microsoft is evolving encryption technology. The same discussion lead to talking about history of encryption tools in SQL Server. Michale pointed me to page 18 of his book of encryption. He explicitly gave me permission to re-produce relevant part of history from his book. 2011 Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY Some time an interesting feature and smart audience make a total difference in places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. I created a puzzle which was very interesting and got many people attempt to resolve it. It was based on following two articles: Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause I even provided the hint about how one can solve this problem. The best part was many people solved the problem without using hints! Try your luck!  A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available This is a great problem and everybody would love to have it. We had it and we loved it. Our book got out of stock in 48 hours of releasing and stocks were empty. We faced many issues and learned many valuable lessons. Some we were able to avoid in the future and some we are still facing it as those problems have no solutions. However, since that day – our books never gone out of stock. This inspiring learning story for us and I am confident that you will love to read it as well. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This function accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. I had a fantastic time writing this blog post and I am very confident when you read it, you will like the same. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Inside Red Gate - Introduction

  - by Simon Cooper

  I work for Red Gate Software, a software company based in Cambridge, UK. In this series of posts, I'll be discussing how we develop software at Red Gate, and what we get up to, all from a dev's perspective. Before I start the series proper, in this post I'll give you a brief background to what I have done and continue to do as part of my job. The initial few posts will be giving an overview of how the development sections of the company work. There is much more to a software company than writing the products, but as I'm a developer my experience is biased towards that, and so that is what this series will concentrate on. My background Red Gate was founded in 1999 by Neil Davidson & Simon Galbraith, who continue to be joint CEOs. I joined in September 2007, and immediately set to work writing a new Check for Updates client and server (CfU), as part of a team of 2. That was finished at the end of 2007. I then joined the SQL Compare team. The first large project I worked on was updating SQL Compare for SQL Server 2008, resulting in SQL Compare 7, followed by a UI redesign in SQL Compare 8. By the end of this project in early 2009 I had become the 'go-to' guy for the SQL Compare Engine (I'll explain what that means in a later post), which is used by most of the other tools in the SQL Tools division in one way or another. After that, we decided to expand into Oracle, and I wrote the prototype for what became the engine of Schema Compare for Oracle (SCO). In the latter half of 2009 a full project was started, resulting in the release of SCO v1 in early 2010. Near the end of 2010 I moved to the .NET division, where I joined the team working on SmartAssembly. That's what I continue to work on today. The posts in this series will cover my experience in software development at Red Gate, within the SQL Tools and .NET divisions. Hopefully, you'll find this series an interesting look at what exactly goes into producing the software at Red Gate.

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• How to conciliate OOAD and Database Design?

  - by user1620696

  Recently I've studied about object oriented analysis and design and I liked a lot about it. In every place I've read people say that the idea is to start with the minimum set of requirements and go improving along the way, revisiting this each iteration and making it better as we contiuously develop and contact the customer interested in the software. In particular, one course from Lynda.com said a lot of that: we don't want to spend a lot of time planing everything upfront, we just want to have the minimum to get started and then improve this each iteration. Now, I've also seem a course from the same guy about database design, and there he says differently. He says that although when working with object orientation he likes the agile iterative approach, for database design we should really spend a lot of time planing things upfront instead of just going along the way with the minimum. But this confuses me a little. Indeed, the database will persist important data from our domain model and perhaps configurations of the software and so on. Now, if I'm going to continuously revist the analysis and design of the model, it seems the database design should change also. In the same way, if we plan all the database upfront it seems we are also planing all the model upfront, so the two ideas seems to be incompatible. I really like agile iterative approach, but I'm also looking at getting better design for the database also, so when working with agile iterative approach, how should we deal with the database design?

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• SQL SERVER – Get File Statistics Using fn_virtualfilestats

  - by pinaldave

  Quite often when I am staring at my SSMS I wonder what is going on under the hood in my SQL Server. I often want to know which database is very busy and which database is bit slow because of IO issue. Sometime, I think at the file level as well. I want to know which MDF or NDF is busiest and doing most of the work. Following query gets the same results very quickly. SELECT DB_NAME(vfs.DbId) DatabaseName, mf.name, mf.physical_name, vfs.BytesRead, vfs.BytesWritten, vfs.IoStallMS, vfs.IoStallReadMS, vfs.IoStallWriteMS, vfs.NumberReads, vfs.NumberWrites, (Size*8)/1024 Size_MB FROM ::fn_virtualfilestats(NULL,NULL) vfs INNER JOIN sys.master_files mf ON mf.database_id = vfs.DbId AND mf.FILE_ID = vfs.FileId GO When you run above query you will get many valuable information like what is the size of the file as well how many times the reads and writes are done for each file. It also displays the read/write data in bytes. Due to IO if there has been any stall (delay) in read or write, you can know that as well. I keep this handy but have not shared on blog earlier. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL View, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Statistics

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