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• How to use instances with s3 load balancing?

  - by Slay

  I have some questions about instances and load balancing in amazon s3. I can configured an instances in s3, but i do not understand how to deal with many instances in s3. Currently, my instance is loaded with mysql, php etc (ALL IN ONE). However how do i ensure my instances is scaling? E.g if i have a site that is suppose to be handled using 3 instances and using amazon rds. Do i need to host my code base in the 3 instances? how do people normally do this? like facebook has 1000+ servers. Do they host their code base in all the 1000+ servers? Thanks

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• Sending SPAM free mail through my website

  - by Sara

  Hi, I've been battling with this issue for couple of months. I need to send bulk mail (not spam) through my social network to users in situations like newsletters, site invitations (when user imports their address book contacts) I'm using shared hosting and it limits 500 mails per hour. Even though i manage to send mails most of them end up in user's spam box. After researching these are the solutions that i finally came up with. 1) Use Google Apps SMTP (http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html) 2) Move into VPS 3) Use shared hosting with throttle enabled Please advise me on what to choose. Will using Google Apps prevent mail being sent as spam? I can't use other 3rd party SMTP like iContact or Aweber as "invitation sending script" will send emails to thousands of contacts, depending on user's addressbook. Thanks in advance

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 22, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 22, 2013Popular ReleasesLINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter v2.1.10: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, Windows Phone 8, Client Profile, Windows 8, and Windows Azure. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also supports Twitter API v1.1! Also on NuGet.Grauers Hide Ribbon Items: Grauers Hide Ribbon Items: Hiding ribbon items in a SharePoint libraryMedia Companion: Media Companion MC3.584b: IMDB changes fixed. Fixed* mc_com.exe - Fixed to using new profile entries. * Movie - fixed rename movie and folder if use foldername selected. * Movie - Alt Edit Movie, trailer url check if changed and confirm valid. * Movie - Fixed IMDB poster scraping * Movie - Fixed outline and Plot scraping, including removal of Hyperlink's. * Movie Poster refactoring, attempts to catch gdi+ errors Revision HistoryJayData -The unified data access library for JavaScript: JayData 1.3.4: JayData is a unified data access library for JavaScript to CRUD + Query data from different sources like WebAPI, OData, MongoDB, WebSQL, SQLite, HTML5 localStorage, Facebook or YQL. The library can be integrated with KendoUI, Angular.js, Knockout.js or Sencha Touch 2 and can be used on Node.js as well. See it in action in this 6 minutes video KendoUI examples: JayData example site Examples for map integration JayData example site What's new in JayData 1.3.4 For detailed release notes check ...TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7.2 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: Added "Check for Update" button Hopefully fixed Windows XP issue You can now backspace in Item stack fieldsIsWiX: IsWiX 2.2.13293.1: This a minor enhancement of the 2.1 release. IsWiX Merge Module projects now include a second wxs fragment file that is useful for inserting `custom` components not supposed by the IsWiX UI.Simple Injector: Simple Injector v2.3.6: This patch releases fixes one bug concerning resolving open generic types that contain nested generic type arguments. Nested generic types were handled incorrectly in certain cases. This affects RegisterOpenGeneric and RegisterDecorator. (work item 20332)Virtual Wifi Hotspot for Windows 7 & 8: Virtual Router Plus 2.6.0: Virtual Router Plus 2.6.0Fast YouTube Downloader: Fast YouTube Downloader 2.3.0: Fast YouTube DownloaderMagick.NET: Magick.NET 6.8.7.101: Magick.NET linked with ImageMagick 6.8.7.1. Breaking changes: - Renamed Matrix classes: MatrixColor = ColorMatrix and MatrixConvolve = ConvolveMatrix. - Renamed Depth method with Channels parameter to BitDepth and changed the other method into a property.VidCoder: 1.5.9 Beta: Added Rip DVD and Rip Blu-ray AutoPlay actions for Windows: now you can have VidCoder start up and scan a disc when you insert it. Go to Start -> AutoPlay to set it up. Added error message for Windows XP users rather than letting it crash. Removed "quality" preset from list for QSV as it currently doesn't offer much improvement. Changed installer to ignore version number when copying files over. Should reduce the chances of a bug from me forgetting to increment a version number. Fixed ...MSBuild Extension Pack: October 2013: Release Blog Post The MSBuild Extension Pack October 2013 release provides a collection of over 480 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Active Directory, Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, FTP, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, AsyncExec, CAB Files, Code Signing, DynamicExecute, File Detokenisation, GUI...VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: VG-Ripper 2.9.49: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageTeam.org links NEW: Added Support for "ImgNext.com" links NEW: Added Support for "HostUrImage.com" links NEW: Added Support for "3XVintage.com" linksMoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): MoreTerra 1.11.3.1: Release 1.11.3.1 ================ = New Features = ================ Added markers for Copper Cache, Silver Cache and the Enchanted Sword. ============= = Bug Fixes = ============= Use Official Colors now no longer tries to change the Draw Wires option instead. World reading was breaking for people with a stock 1.2 Terraria version. Changed world name reading so it does not crash the program if you load MoreTerra while Terraria is saving the world. =================== = Feature Removal = =...patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Cloud Design Patterns: 1st drop of Cloud Design Patterns project. It contains 14 patterns with 6 related guidance.Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows and WP (v1.3): Includes all changes in v1.3 beta 1 and v1.3 beta 2 Support for Windows 8.1 RTM and VS2013 RTM Xaml: New property: AutoLoadPluginTypes to help control which stock plugins are loaded by default (requires AutoLoadPlugins = true). Support for SystemMediaTransportControls on Windows 8.1 JS: Support for visual markers in the timeline. JS: Support for markers collection and markerreached event. JS: New ChaptersPlugin to automatically populate timeline with chapter tracks. JS: Audio an...Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 8: Fix - Fixed not writing string quotes when QuoteName is falsePowerShell Community Extensions: 3.1 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 3.1 Release NotesOct 17, 2013 This version of PSCX supports Windows PowerShell 3.0 and 4.0 See the ReleaseNotes.txt download above for more information.Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.9): This new version includes: - Download latest status update and use it as vertex tooltip - Limit the timelines to parse to me, my friends or both - Fixed some reported bugs about the fan page and group importer - Fixed the login bug reported latelyPython Tools for Visual Studio: 2.0: PTVS 2.0 We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.0 RTM. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, Edit/Intellisense/Debug/Profile, Cloud, IPython, and cross platform and cross language debugging support. QUICK VIDEO OVERVIEW For a quick overview of the general IDE experience, please watch this v...New Projects40FINGERS NB_Store Menumanipulator: This component allows you to add the categories of your NB_Store webshop to your DotNetNuke website's menu.ABCat: ??????? ?????????? ???????????? ????????, ?????????????? ??????? ??? ????????? ????????? ?????????? ? ?????????? ????? ?????????.AUTOFIX: This is a project related to Web Application development for University of HertfordshireAutomated service accounts creation for SharePoint 2010 and 2013 and SQL Server: Purpose of this project is just to automate the creation of SharePoint Service accounts in Active Directory.BeatportPro: Windows version of Beatport ProCasaNet: CasaNetFree Cascaded Dropdown lists JQuery Plugin for SharePoint Forms: SPCascade lets you create multi-level cascaded dropdown lists on a SharePoint form using easy JQuery code.GODspeed - FTP client for JTAG/RGH Xbox 360 consoles: Total Commander like FTP client designed to fasten and clarify file management of JTAG/RGH/DevKit Xbox 360 consoles.HCI Web Search: This project seaches for using alternative ways to handle and to visualize Web search results in a 3D environment, by interacting with gestures and speech reco.HengbeiVillage: ASP.Net + EF + AjaxToolkit ControlsIntegração Cielo Nopcommerce: Realizar a integração nopcommerce com a Cielo. Maiores detalhes são bem vindo.juzgadosdelaciudad: Mapa con Juzgados de la ciudad de buenos airesLeapJanken: LeapMotion?????、Windows Store Apps??????????????????。Looking tester for Template Engine: -VALIDATE TEMPLATE SYNTAX - no template parsing overhead, only compiles once. - unlimited nesting of sections, conditionals, etc.MQTT Broker for .NET: Project to develop a broker (server) for the MQTT protocol, an M2M Internet-of-Things communication protocol.NC MKT DNT: NC MKTNet Imobiliaria: Projeto Integrador IV SenacNewBiz: NewBiz Java Web ApplicationOAuthServer: OAuthServer is an Open Authentication server that allows you to securely authenticate your Active Directory users directly on the internet.QlikBar SDK for .NET 2.0: QlikBar SDK for .NET 2.0RainNoise - The Sound of Rain, without the wet feet.: Making some rain noise for Android device.Redsys / Sermepa gateway for Asp.Net MVC4: Coming soon....Restore Exchange 2003 Data to Exchange 2010: SysTools Exchange Recovery tool which proffers efficient and beneficial features in order to restore or migrate Exchange mailboxes from one server to anotherTimely: A library to fluently work with DateTime and TimeSpan objectstutorials_online: This is a project that is associated with my progress in tutorials in Web Scripting and Application Development in for the University of HertfordshireUQBuy ?????: ??????，?????，????，??????Voxel To Mesh Converter: Converts voxel models into mesh models.

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• Why does a group policy not applied to the domain administrator account?

  - by Saariko

  I have a working policy on my entire domain. I just found out, when logging with the domain administrator, that this policy is not applied (EDIT: Running : gpresult shows that the GPO's are applied - but, this GPO is for Drive Mappings, and the actual drive mappings are NOT shown) The administrator account - does not have any login script on his profile tab. My GPO's are mainly small/atomic settings: single GPO to handle each settings: UAC, Firewall, printers. GPO status for the object is enabled That's an overview of the Drive Maps: Reading on MS support site, I checked the delegation tab, and it is marked as applied to domain and enterprise admins. Every user gets these policies correctly. The OU that is set is the root of the domain. (for testing purpose - I did that to eliminate hierarchy issues - did not help) Block Inheritance is disabled. (never used it anyway) GPO link GPO Security Filterings

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• What is your favorite password storage tool?

  - by Marcel Levy

  Aside from personal passwords, I'm always juggling a number of project-specific passwords, including those for network, web and database authentication. Some authentication can be managed with ssh keys and the like, but everywhere I've worked I also faced the need for the management of passwords that need to be available to a number of different people. So what do you use, either for personal or team-based password management? Personally I'd like to hear about cross-platform tools, but I'm sure other people would be satisfied with Windows-only solutions. I know the stackoverflow podcast tackled this issue in #7 and #9, but I'm hoping we can come up with the definitive answer here. Update: Even though this question was asked before its sibling site existed, you should probably add your two cents to the more active question over at superuser, which is a more appropriate venue for this.

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• Why does SEO based code tips not appear to affect ranking?

  - by Ben

  I've been researching various methods for SEO where pages have precise titles, keywords are highlighted with h tags and tick the many boxes stated in good page mark up for SEO. However when looking at some top ranked search sites on google for key terms they have terrible SEO based mark up. Really long page titles, no tags, limited appearance of keywords in the text and so on. SEO analysis services rate them lower than other sites, yet these sites rank really high. Even with a low number of back-links they are high, so I don't understand how these sites earn the position when they appear inferior to those below them which have better mark up and links. I don't want to cause trouble my mentioning sites or keywords etc. but looking in google at 'executive search' the roughly 5th placed site makes no sense why it should be highly rank, especially with all the added .swfs. The same applies for the top of 'Japan Executive Search'. My main point is that these sites seem to not have all the important structural rules stated in seo page rating applications and general suggested best practice, nor do they show large back-links. It makes me feel like there is no point bothering to write decent mark up if it really doesn't matter. Can anyone explain how sites with such mark-up, and low back-links can outrank well written and structured sites with greater linkage? Sorry if this is a fuzzy question, I want to avoid singling out any sites for example, but it really has me perplexed that sites which appear to ignore the suggested best practices rank so well.

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• Sharepoint Services 3.0: 403 Forbidden fun

  - by gravyface

  Can't get to the Administration or the "companyweb" site itself; was working up to a week ago. Old threads, blog posts, etc. indicate that there was an issue with a KB update but was resolved when .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 was deployed/installed. Running Process Monitor, I can see a lot of PATH NOT FOUND','NAME NOT FOUND for c:\inetpub\companyweb\Default.aspx, \_themes\ice\...\foo.css, etc. for the w3wp.exe process on CreateFileorQueryOpenoperations. These files do not exist in the location specified. I don't recall these files actually existing in that folder, but I believe they're "created" when requested, pulled in from Common Files/Shared or whatever, in typically-awesome Microsoft Web architecture land (</rant>). Besides reinstalling (which I'm sure will be as much fun as migrating from one server to another was), anyone know what's going on? Google-fu has alluded me.

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• Apache whitelist a single location, but require basic auth for everything else

  - by Chris Lawlor

  I'm sure this is simple, but Google is not my friend this morning. The goal is: /public... is openly accessible everything else (including /) requires basic auth. This is a WSGI app, with a single WSGI script (it's a django site, if that matters..) I have this: <Location /public> Order deny,allow Allow from all </Location> <Directory /> AuthType Basic AuthName "My Test Server" AuthUserFile /path/to/.htpasswd Require valid-user </Directory> With this configuration, basic auth works fine, but the Location directive is totally ignored. I'm not surprised, as according to this (see How the Sections are Merged), the Directory directive is processed first. I'm sure I'm missing something, but since Directory applies to a filesystem location, and I really only have the one Directory at /, and it's a Location that I wish to allow access to, but Directory always overrides Location... EDIT I'm using Apache 2.2, which doesn't support AuthType None.

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• Proper management of PGPool II

  - by Cathy

  Currently I have a site, with one Postgres database server. It is just for a select number of users (less than ten) but it needs the maximum uptime possible. I would like some kind of automatic failover for the database. So I was thinking something like: one server running PGPool II, one running Postgres as master, one running Postgres as slave. But then, if wherever PGPool is running suddenly loses power (or dies, or whatever), there's a single point of failure and the whole thing goes down. Is there a solution, assuming that outsourcing this to someone else isn't possible?

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• Linux EC2 Instance Security Consideration

  - by Amzath

  I am going to host a web site in Amazon EC2 instance which would be a Linux instance. My web application will be developed using PHP, Apache and MySql. As I am new to Linux and Amazon EC2 environment, what are key areas in security should I consider to protect my server? This may be very very generic question as the security itself a vast area. But I need to kick start with most imporant points. That way I would be able to track down all those areas one by one.

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• Linux EC2 Instance Security Consideration

  - by Amzath

  I am going to host a web site in Amazon EC2 instance which would be a Linux instance. My web application will be developed using PHP, Apache and MySql. As I am new to Linux and Amazon EC2 environment, what are key areas in security should I consider to protect my server? This may be very very generic question as the security itself a vast area. But I need to kick start with most imporant points. That way I would be able to track down all those areas one by one.

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• How to use auto-discovery with iDRAC Enterprise?

  - by jwiz

  All I want to do is: have "auto discovery" enabled on my iDRAC enterprise at the factory rack the server, cable iDRAC to dhcp-enabled management network have the iDRAC DHCP, find the "Provisioning Server", and get updated with login credentials (for us to use with racadm, idrac webui, etc.) I don't need to do any configuring of the system, install OS, or anything else. I just want idrac to dhcp out of the box, and end up with an account that can be used to login. All the docs I can find on Dell's site refer to a "Provisioning Server", but I honestly can't tell if they have some reference product, or if they only have software that "integrates" with other vendor's existing management systems. I'd be happy to set up whatever is needed, I just can't find something that explicitly describes the process (only references to the fact that it is supported).

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• Windows 8.1 fresh install with Windows 8 licence

  - by typ1232

  I purchased Windows 8 online from Microsoft a while ago. Today Windows 8.1 was released as a free update to Windows 8 users over the Windows Store. I was planning to do a fresh install of Windows 8.1 to have a clean system again and UEFI support because I got new hardware since the Windows 8 installation. So my questions are: Where do I get the ISO installation medium for Windows 8.1 64-bit? I tried this microsoft site where I initially got my Windows 8 ISO from, but when entering my Windows 8 key in the Windows 8.1 installer, it says the key is wrong. Even if I get the ISO, will my old key work? I'm concerned because it didn't work in their installer (see previous point) Do they seriously want me to reinstall Windows 8 and after that upgrade to Windows 8.1 through their Store?!

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• Duplicating someone's content legitimately & writing HTML to support that

  - by Codecraft

  I want to add content from other blogs to my own (with the authors permission) to help build additional relevant content and support articles I've found useful that others have written. I'm looking into how to do this responsibly - ie, by giving the original content author a boost and not competing against them for search traffic which should go to their site. In order to keep my duplicate content out of search, and to hint to the search engines where the original content is to be found i've implemented: <head> <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'> <link rel='canonical' href='http://www.originalblog.com/original-post.html' /> </head> Additionally, to boost the original article and to let readers know where it came from i'll be adding something like this: <div> Article originally written by <a href='http://www.authorswebsite.com'>Authors Name</a> and reproduced with permission.<br/> <a href='http://www.originalblog.com/original-post.html' target='new'> Read the original article here. </a> </div> All that remains is a way to 'officially' credit the original author in the HTML for the search spiders to see. Can anyone tell me a way to do this possibly using rel="author" (as far as I can see thats only good for my own original content), or perhaps it doesn't matter given that the reproduced pages will be kept out of search engines? Also, have I overlooked anything in the approach?

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• Loading and unloading ISO files in Windows 8

  - by Mohd. Ismail

  I saw on one site that the new Windows 8 could load ISO images without the help of other programs. Is Windows 8 creating a new drive for every ISO? Or does it have one fake drive to load all ISOS in? How can I know if a file is really an ISO inside? Some PCs use UltraISO to open ISOs. If I just enter the ISO name in DOS, it is loading in UltraISO. How can I load the ISO only in Windows 8 on all PCs, whether they have UltraISO or not? How can I unload ISOs?

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• Macbook Pro 13" Retina (10,2): Keyboard and Touchpad don't work

  - by Dirk

  I'm dealing with Ubuntu since about 5 years and installed it on several laptops. Now I'm stuck when trying to install Ubuntu 12.04.1 on a brand new Macbook Pro 13" Retina (10,2). I sucessfully can start Ubuntu from an USB stick, the Ubuntu desktop is visible, a mouse cursor is visible. But there is no respond to keyboard or touchpad input. So I cannot really install Ubuntu on the Macbook. The details of my approach: Prepare an empty USB stick Download "ISO 2 USB EFI Booter for Mac" and copy the file bootX64.efi to the USB drive as /efi/boot/bootX64.efi. Download Ubuntu 12.04.1 Desktop for Mac from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/1-amd64+mac.iso and copy the iso the USB drive as /efi/boot/boot.iso Put the USB stick into the Macbook Press and hold the "alt" button while switching the Macbook on Select "EFI Boot" from the boot menu that appears and press the Return / Enter key Immediately a black terminal screen appears with the headline "Welcome to the Ubuntu ISO << - EFI booter". 30 seconds later the familiar Ubuntu startup graphics screen is showing. Further 20 seconds later Ubuntu has started and the desktop is visible - in wonderfully fine resolution Now the computer does not respond to any actions on the touchpad nor the keyboard Who did install Ubuntu on this Macbook Pro 13" Retina (10,2) successfully? On this site https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro this unit is not listed yet, anyway. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Dirk

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• What are the licensing issues involved in the Oracle/Apache java dispute?

  - by Chris Knight

  I've just started following with interest the soap opera involving Oracle's acquisition of Java and the detriment of goodwill it seems to have generated in the open source community. Specifically, I'm now trying to get my head around the implications of Oracle's decision to refuse Apache an open source license for Harmony. My questions: 1) What is Harmony anyway? Their website states "Apache Harmony software is a modular Java runtime with class libraries and associated tools". How is this different than J2SE or J2EE? Or is Harmony akin to Andriod? 2) The crux of this issue is around the Java Technology Compatibility Kit (or TCK) which certifies that your implementation adheres to the JSR specifications. If I understand correctly, Oracle refuse to offer free or open source license access to the TCK, denying projects like Harmony from being released as open source. Why is this such a big deal for Apache? E.g. why can't (or don't) they release Harmony under a restricted license? 3) From this site is the following quote: It looks like Oracle’s plan is to restrict deployments of Java implementations in certain markets, particularly on mobile platforms, so that it can monetize its own Java offering in those markets without any competition. Presumably anything Oracle produced would be subject to the same restrictions it is imposing on others with respect to end-technology licensing, so how could they get a leg up on the competition? While no doubt distateful, wouldn't other competitors such as Google or Apache be able to release competing platforms under the same license as Oracle?

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• Recommendation for e-mail forwarding

  - by Paul Mrozowski

  We currently have a provider that we use to primarily forward our e-mails to both a hosted Exchange site and to outside e-mail addresses. We have a large # of forwards set-up (maybe 500). They work fine for us but the bandwidth costs are a getting pretty expensive (approx 80GB in email a month) so we're looking for a less expensive alternative (it costs us nearly $150/mo). I've looked at just hosting this here via a PostFix server and one of the nice front-ends available for it. However, I'm not thrilled with the prospect of being responsible for maintaining yet another server, backups, network connectivity, etc. So I'm leaning towards having this hosted by someone else if possible. Does anyone have any recommendations for hosting providers? Are there some I should stay away from?

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• CRM On Demand Performance Tips - Live Web Session on April 20, 2010

  - by Cheryl

  The CRM On Demand Customer Care specialists have another live Web session coming up - this one is about performance - issues, tips, and considerations. This is a part of their Web series, where they pick topics that they hear a lot of questions or concerns about from customers and run live (and free) 1-hour Web sessions about them. Here are the details for this event: Event Title: CRM On Demand Performance Brandon (Hank) Henrie will present some of the top CRM On Demand performance questions and issues that customers raise and some tips and tricks that you can use to avoid them. He will point out good resources that can help and tips for logging performance-related service requests, when all else fails. Date: April 20, 2010 Time: 10:00 am (UTC-07:00 Arizona) How to join: 1. Dial 1-866-682-4770 to access the conference line. 2. Enter the conference code - 6241996 and press # 3. Follow the instructions to record your name and press # 4. Enter the meeting passcode - 1212 and press # 5. Follow the instructions below to join the web portion of the conference. The Web Conference Go to the Oracle Web Conference site: https://strtc.oracle.com Prior to the event: Click the New User button then run the New User Test. (If you have difficulties installing the web conference software try downloading the conference software from the test status window and installing manually.) To join the event: 1. Enter the conference information In the Join Conference box: Conference ID: 6566623 Your Name 2. Click the Join Conference button. Watch for announcements of future sessions on different topics. And, let us know what you think!

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• Starting MySQL after installing MySQL 5.5 from .rpm

  - by user593294

  I m using Ubuntu 11.04. I have installed MySQL server and client ver 5.5.13. The problem i have is actually to start MySQL after installing it from the .rpm package obtained from the oracle site. I m not able to find any guide for configuring MySQL after completing its installation. I installed it using alien. I found some guides for older version of ubuntu which i find irrelevant. So Please help me in configuring and starting MySQL successfully.

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• SQL University: What and why of database testing

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  This is a post for a great idea called SQL University started by Jorge Segarra also famously known as SqlChicken on Twitter. It’s a collection of blog posts on different database related topics contributed by several smart people all over the world. So this week is mine and we’ll be talking about database testing and refactoring. In 3 posts we’ll cover: SQLU part 1 - What and why of database testing SQLU part 2 - What and why of database refactoring SQLU part 2 – Tools of the trade With that out of the way let us sharpen our pencils and get going. Why test a database The sad state of the industry today is that there is very little emphasis on testing in general. Test driven development is still a small niche of the programming world while refactoring is even smaller. The cause of this is the inability of developers to convince themselves and their managers that writing tests is beneficial. At the moment they are mostly viewed as waste of time. This is because the average person (let’s not fool ourselves, we’re all average) is unable to think about lower future costs in relation to little more current work. It’s orders of magnitude easier to know about the current costs in relation to current amount of work. That’s why programmers convince themselves testing is a waste of time. However we have to ask ourselves what tests are really about? Maybe finding bugs? No, not really. If we introduce bugs, we’re likely to write test around those bugs too. But yes we can find some bugs with tests. The main point of tests is to have reproducible repeatability in our systems. By having a code base largely covered by tests we can know with better certainty what a small code change can break in other parts of the system. By having repeatability we can make code changes with confidence, since we know we’ll see what breaks in other tests. And here comes the inability to estimate future costs. By spending just a few more hours writing those tests we’d know instantly what broke where. Imagine we fix a reported bug. We check-in the code, deploy it and the users are happy. Until we get a call 2 weeks later about a certain monthly process has stopped working. What we don’t know is that this process was developed by a long gone coworker and for some reason it relied on that same bug we’ve happily fixed. There’s no way we could’ve known that. We say OK and go in and fix the monthly process. But what we have no clue about is that there’s this ETL job that relied on data from that monthly process. Now that we’ve fixed the process it’s giving unexpected (yet correct since we fixed it) data to the ETL job. So we have to fix that too. But there’s this part of the app we coded that relies on data from that exact ETL job. And just like that we enter the “Loop of maintenance horror”. With the loop eventually comes blame. Here’s a nice tip for all developers and DBAs out there: If you make a mistake man up and admit to it. All of the above is valid for any kind of software development. Keeping this in mind the database is nothing other than just a part of the application. But a big part! One reason why testing a database is even more important than testing an application is that one database is usually accessed from multiple applications and processes. This makes it the central and vital part of the enterprise software infrastructure. Knowing all this can we really afford not to have tests? What to test in a database Now that we’ve decided we’ll dive into this testing thing we have to ask ourselves what needs to be tested? The short answer is: everything. The long answer is: read on! There are 2 main ways of doing tests: Black box and White box testing. Black box testing means we have no idea how the system internals are built and we only have access to it’s inputs and outputs. With it we test that the internal changes to the system haven’t caused the input/output behavior of the system to change. The most important thing to test here are the edge conditions. It’s where most programs break. Having good edge condition tests we can be more confident that the systems changes won’t break. White box testing has the full knowledge of the system internals. With it we test the internal system changes, different states of the application, etc… White and Black box tests should be complementary to each other as they are very much interconnected. Testing database routines includes testing stored procedures, views, user defined functions and anything you use to access the data with. Database routines are your input/output interface to the database system. They count as black box testing. We test then for 2 things: Data and schema. When testing schema we only care about the columns and the data types they’re returning. After all the schema is the contract to the out side systems. If it changes we usually have to change the applications accessing it. One helpful T-SQL command when doing schema tests is SET FMTONLY ON. It tells the SQL Server to return only empty results sets. This speeds up tests because it doesn’t return any data to the client. After we’ve validated the schema we have to test the returned data. There no other way to do this but to have expected data known before the tests executes and comparing that data to the database routine output. Testing Authentication and Authorization helps us validate who has access to the SQL Server box (Authentication) and who has access to certain database objects (Authorization). For desktop applications and windows authentication this works well. But the biggest problem here are web apps. They usually connect to the database as a single user. Please ensure that that user is not SA or an account with admin privileges. That is just bad. Load testing ensures us that our database can handle peak loads. One often overlooked tool for load testing is Microsoft’s OSTRESS tool. It’s part of RML utilities (x86, x64) for SQL Server and can help determine if our database server can handle loads like 100 simultaneous users each doing 10 requests per second. SQL Profiler can also help us here by looking at why certain queries are slow and what to do to fix them.   One particular problem to think about is how to begin testing existing databases. First thing we have to do is to get to know those databases. We can’t test something when we don’t know how it works. To do this we have to talk to the users of the applications accessing the database, run SQL Profiler to see what queries are being run, use existing documentation to decipher all the object relationships, etc… The way to approach this is to choose one part of the database (say a logical grouping of tables that go together) and filter our traces accordingly. Once we’ve done that we move on to the next grouping and so on until we’ve covered the whole database. Then we move on to the next one. Database Testing is a topic that we can spent many hours discussing but let this be a nice intro to the world of database testing. See you in the next post.

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• Shrink Partition on Production Server

  - by Campo

  SO our production server was only setup with one large partition. I have setup a standby server and properly partitioned it. Now the boss wants the production environment's partition shrunk. It is an HP DL380 G5 We have 4 hot swap drives in a raid 5. How best should I go about doing this. Seems like a bad idea to me. Should I use windows or HP to do the partitioning? What should I be aware of in a production environment? The idea is to put the site (Inetpub) on a separate partition instead of the C: drive. How much downtime should I expect? Is this a terrible idea? Anything else I have missed?

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• MacX DVD Ripper Pro is Free for How-To Geek Readers (Time Limited!)

  - by The Geek

  Want to rip a DVD to your hard drive, but don’t have a software package to do it? How-To Geek readers can get the normally non-free MacX DVD Ripper Pro for free, but only if you download your copy and install it before Saturday. Here’s how to get it. This time-limited offer is available to anybody for the next couple of days—just head to the download site, install the software package, and use the key provided. It’s as simple as that. Note: despite the confusion of the name, it’s available for both Mac and Windows. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC MacX DVD Ripper Pro is Free for How-To Geek Readers (Time Limited!) HTG Explains: What’s a Solid State Drive and What Do I Need to Know? How to Get Amazing Color from Photos in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? Save Files Directly from Your Browser to the Cloud in Chrome and Iron The Steve Jobs Chronicles – Charlie and the Apple Factory [Video] Google Chrome Updates; Faster, Cleaner Menus, Encrypted Password Syncing, and More Glowing Chess Set Combines LEDs, Chess, and DIY Electronics Fun Peaceful Alpine River on a Sunny Day [Wallpaper] Fast Society Creates Mini and Mobile Temporary Social Networks

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• Copyrights, Trademarks, Patents - Oh My!

  - by kennedysteve

  Good references when looking to see if someone really legally owns a name, copyright, etc. Copyrights = http://cocatalog.loc.gov/ Trademarks = http://tess2.uspto.gov Patents = http://patft.uspto.gov/ Website Address = http://www.internic.net/whois.html   Copyright Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.   Trademark A trademark protects words, phrases, symbols, or designs identifying the source of the goods or services of one party and distinguishing them from those of others.   Patents Set of exclusive rights to an inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention.   Website Address (aka "Domain name") The core portion of a website name (such as "apple.com" or "msn.com") of a web site, which is uniquely registered to an individual or company (also found to the right of the @ sign in an email address such as "[email protected]".)   Side note #1. LLC Company Names appear to be registered and maintained by state only. If you want to reserve a LLC name nation wide, you may have to register with each state.   Side note #2. The copyright office's FAQ has a question called "How do I protect my sighting of Elvis?". No kidding. Check it out. http://www.

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• How to record my voice on a Mac Mini with headphones?

  - by user718408

  I'm try to record my voice via the headphone on a Mac Mini, but it's not working. I saw on Apple's site that the Mac Mini can record voice, but it doesn't seem to be working for me. Here is a hardware overview: Model Name: Mac Mini Model Identifier: Macmini3,1 Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed: 2.26 GHz Number Of Processors: 1 Total Number Of Cores: 2 L2 Cache: 3 MB Memory: 4 GB Audio: Make: Intel High Definition Audio Audio ID: 65 Headphone connection: Combination Output Line Input connection: Combination Input Speaker connection: Internal S/PDIF Optical Digital Audio Output connection: Combination Output S/PDIF Optical Digital Audio Input connection: Combination Input Any ideas how I can successfully get recording working?

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