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• Ann Arbor Day of .NET 2010 Recap

  - by PSteele

  Had a great time at the Ann Arbor Day of .NET on Saturday.  Lots of great speakers and topics.  And chance to meet up with friends you usually only communicate with via email/twitter. My Presentation I presented "Getting up to speed with C# 3.5 — Just in time for 4.0!".  There's still a lot of devs that are either stuck in .NET 2.0 or just now moving to .NET 3.5.  This presentation gave highlights of a lot of the key features of 3.5.  I had great questions from the audience.  Afterwards, I talked with a few people who are just now getting in to 3.5 and they told me they had a lot of "A HA!" moments when something I said finally clicked and made sense from a code sample they had seen on the web.  Thanks to all who attended! A few people have asked me for the slides and demo.  The slides were nothing more than a table of contents.  90% of the presentation was spent inside Visual Studio demo'ing new techniques.  However, I have included it in the ZIP file with the sample solution.  You can download it here. Dennis Burton on MongoDB I caught Dennis Burton's presentation on MongoDB.  I was really interested in this one as I've missed the last few times Dennis had given it to local user groups.  It was very informative and I want to spend some time learning more about MongoDB.  I'm still an old-school relational guy, but I'm willing to investigate alternatives. Brian Genisio on Prism Since I'm not a Silverlight/WPF guy (yet), I wasn't sure this would interest me.  But I talked with Brian for a couple of minutes before the presentation and he convinced me to catch it.  And I'm glad he did.  Prism looks like a very nice framework for "composable UI's" in Silverlight and WPF.  I like the whole "dependency injection" feel to it.  Nice job Brian! GiveCamp Planning I spent some time Saturday working on things for the upcoming GiveCamp (which is why I only caught a few sessions).  Ann Arbor's Day of .NET and GiveCamp have both been held at Washtenaw Community College so I took some time (along with fellow GiveCamp planners Mike Eaton and John Hopkins) to check out the new location for Ann Arbor GiveCamp this year! In the past, WCC has let us use the Business Education (BE) building for our GiveCamp's.  But this year, they're moving us over to the Morris Lawrence (ML) building.  Let me tell you – this is a step UP!  In the BE building, we were spread across two floors and spread out into classrooms.  Plus, our opening and closing ceremonies were held in the Liberal Arts (LA) building – a bit of a walk from the BE building. In the ML building, we're together for the whole weekend.  We've got a large open area (which can be sectioned off if needed) for everyone to work in:   Right next to that, we have a large area where we can set up tables and eat.  And it helps that we have a wonderful view while eating (yes, that's a lake out there with a fountain): The ML building also has showers (which we'll have access to!) and it's own auditorium for our opening and closing ceremonies. All in all, this year's GiveCamp will be great! Stay tuned to the Ann Arbor GiveCamp website.  We'll be looking for volunteers (devs, designers, PM's, etc…) soon! Technorati Tags: .NET,Day of .NET,GiveCamp,MongoDB,Prism

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• List of Upcoming Appearances

  - by Chris Gardner

  Greetings. I know I have been in work sponsored hiding lately. We are working furiously on a beta project to secure a contract, and I can't really talk about it yet. Hopefully, the contracts will be soon signed. Not only will we then have money, but I can talk about all this really cool tech with which I have been playing. However, since the contract is not signed, I need to bring you people up to date with where I will be during the summer. Let's face it, you can't be a speaker / blogger without pandering to shameless self-promotion. First, I will, once again, be staffing the Hands-on-Labs at TechEd North America. Unfortunately, TechEd North America is already sold out for this year. However, if you're already going, drop by the labs and say Hi. Also, keep an eye on Twitter to track me throughout the event. Also, look for a post in a few hours with my specific picks for what content I'm looking forward to seeing this year. Immediately following TechEd North America, I will be flying into Knoxville to speak at CodeStock. I will be presenting my introduction and intermediate Xbox 360 development talks. There are a TON of great content at CodeStock this year, but there are only about 50 tickets left. After that whirlwind of work, things settle for awhile. That means I'm available to speak at your User Group, luncheon, bowling league, birthday party, anniversary, or bat mitzvah. Mid August brings us to That Conference. This one is going to be a blast. If you haven't heard of That Conference yet, you should really check it out. This will also be my introduction and intermediate Xbox 360 development talks. This is a new conference, and it looks like it will be a great one. Finally, we will turn our attention to DevLink. DevLink has the distinction of picking up my newest talk, Creating Stereoscopic 3D Graphics in XNA. On top of that, I'm giving an general Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 talk. DevLink has added an new "XNA and Kinect" track, so there will me a ton of great game content. That should bring us through the summer. As I solidify the Stereoscopic talk, look for some content on that to creep up on here. I will say it's the first topic I've played around with that is easier in 3D than 2D. Also, the organizers of Alabama Code Camp are still trying to reschedule the event. When that happens, I'll get that information out. Also, we are looking to expand our development team. If you are interested in working for / with me, keep an eye on the T & W Operations website. I know we're immediately looking for a junior level developer, but I think a few higher level position may come up soon. You MUST apply through the website, but drop me a personal line if you do apply. I'll keep an eye out for the application.

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• Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Change in the Healthcare System Explored at America’s Health Insurance Plans Exchange Conference and Institute 2013

  - by elaine blog

  The program theme at the June America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Exchange Conference and AHIP’s Institute 2013 was Transforming Our Health Care System: Navigating and Succeeding in the New Marketplace.  Topics included care delivery transformation, innovation for a new healthcare eco system, Health Insurance Exchanges, the nexus of consumerism, retail and healthcare, driving value through improved operations and leveraging technology, data and innovation to transform care. Oracle participated as a sponsor of both conferences, signaling the significant investment and activity Oracle continues to make in helping health plans, providers and government agencies become more efficient and more relevant in the healthcare market place. AHIP is a national trade association representing the health insurance industry. AHIP’s members provide health and supplemental benefits to more than 200 million Americans through employer-sponsored coverage, the individual insurance market and public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.   AHIP advocates for public policies that expand access to affordable health care. Health plans are focusing on the Health Insurance Exchanges and the opportunities they offer to provide better access and higher quality healthcare.  With the opportunities come operational challenges to implementation and innovative technology solutions to consider.   At the Exchange Conference, Oracle hosted a breakfast symposium on “Strategies for Success:  Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market”. With Health Insurance Exchanges as catalysts for change, attendees learned about how to achieve integration within an Exchange and deploy new business strategies to support health reform initiatives. Discussion covered steps and processes to successfully establish and implement enrollment systems, quote to card activities, program pricing, claims billing, automated claims processing and new customer service tools. Piyush Pushkar, COO of Benefitalign, an Oracle partner that provides solutions to adopt innovative business models for retail, HIX, consumer-centric health plan and benefits administration, spoke on the state of the Exchanges in the U.S. and the activities health plans are engaged in to support individuals entering the healthcare system, including sales automation, member enrollment automation/portals and integration strategies with the Exchanges. The Oracle and Benefitalign partnership allows seamless integration between a health plan enrollment solution with the HIX individual market and allows for the health plan to customize and characterize the offerings available to the HIX that may or may not be available through other channels.  This approach can benefit the health plan through separation of interests, but also because some state-run HIXs require such separation. Janice W. Young, Program Director, Payer IT Strategies, IDC Health Insights, reviewed a survey of health plans on their investment priorities for this last year as well as this year.  She also identified the 2013-2015 strategies of go/get to market with front end and compliance investments; leveraging existing business processes and internal technologies; and establishing best practices.  Of key interest to the audience was a reform era payer solutions platform overview mapping technologies to support the business operations. David Bonham of the Oracle Health Insurance organization moderated the panel and spoke on Oracle’s presence in healthcare and products for payers to help them drive efficiencies and gain a competitive advantage in an ever changing market. Oracle serves healthcare stakeholders with applications such as billing, rating and underwriting, analytics, CRM, enrollment, and products for processing of health insurance claims including pricing and benefits administration, as well as payment of providers through alternative, non-fee for service reimbursement methods. Oracle in Healthcare….Did you know? More than 80 healthcare payers run Oracle applications. More than 300 leading healthcare providers run Oracle applications. 10 out of the top 12 fortune Global 500 healthcare organizations run Oracle applications. For more information on Oracle solutions for healthcare payers, please visit oracle.com/insurance or these individual solution pages: Oracle Health Insurance Components Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting Oracle Insurance Revenue Management and Billing Oracle Documaker Oracle Healthcare Oracle CRM Related Resources Webcast On Demand: Strategies for Success: Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market Strategy Brief: Executing on the Individual Mandate: Opportunities and Challenges for Healthcare Payers White Paper: White paper: Navigating Alternative Provider Reimbursement Models of the Future Strategy Brief: Enterprise Rating Agility Improves Payer Response to Healthcare Reform Podcast: Technology Implications of Healthcare Reform Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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• OOW 2013 Summary for Fusion Middleware Architects & Administrators by Simon Haslam

  - by JuergenKress

  OOW 2013 Summary for Fusion Middleware Architects & Administrators by Simon Haslam This September during Oracle OpenWorld 2013 the weather in San Francisco, as you see can from the photo, was exceptionally sunny. The dramatic final few days of the Americas Cup sailing competition, being held every day in the bay, coincided with the conference and meant that there was almost a holiday feel to the whole event. Here's my annual round-up of what I think was most interesting at OpenWorld 2013 for Fusion Middleware architects and administrators; I hope you find it useful and if you think I've missed something please add a comment! WebLogic and Cloud Application Foundation (CAF) The big WebLogic release of the year has already happened a few months ago with 12.1.2 so I won't duplicate that here. Will Lyons discussed the WebLogic and Coherence roadmap which essentially is that 12.1.3 will probably be released to coincide with SOA 12c next year and that 12.1.4, the next feature-rich WebLogic release, is more likely to be in 2015. This latter release will probably include full Java EE 7 support, have enhancements for multi-tenancy and further auto-scaling features to support increased density (i.e. more WebLogic usage for the same amount of hardware). There's a new Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder (OVAB) out already and an Oracle Traffic Director (OTD) 12c release round the corner too. Also of relevance to administrators is that Oracle has increased the support lifetime for Fusion Middleware 11g (e.g. WebLogic 10.3.6) so that Premier Support will now run to the end of 2018 and Extended Support until 2021 - this should remove any Oracle-driven pressure to upgrade at least. Java Mission Control Java Mission Control (JMC) is the HotSpot Java 7 version of JRockit 6 Mission Control, a very nice performance monitoring tool from Oracle's BEA acquisition. Flight Recorder is a feature built into the JVM which records diagnostic events into, typically, a circular buffer which can then be used for historical analysis, particularly in the case of a JVM crash or hang. It's been available separately for WebLogic only for perhaps a year now but, more significantly, it now includes JVM events and was bundled in with JDK7 Update 40 a few weeks ago. I attended a couple of interesting Java One sessions on JMC/Flight Recorder and have to say it's looking really good - it has all the previous JRMC features except for memory leak detector, plus some enhancements around operative sets and ECID filtering I think. Marcus also showed how you could add your own events into flight recorder by building your own event class - they are then available for graphing alongside all the other events in JMC. This uses a currently an unsupported/undocumented API, but it's also the same one that WebLogic uses for WLDF events so I imagine it is stable. I'm not sure quite whether this would be useful to custom applications, as opposed to infrastructure services or ISV packaged applications, but it was a very nice demonstration. I've been testing JMC / FR enabling on several environments recently and my confidence is growing - it feels robust and I think could very soon be part of my standard builds. Read the full article here. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: OOW,Simon Haslam,Oracle OpenWorld,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Are there too many qualified software development engineers chasing too few jobs?

  - by T Gregory

  I am trying to write this question in a non-argumentative way, but it is quite emotionally charged for some, so please bear with me. In the U.S., we hear constantly from CEOs that they cannot find enough qualified software engineers. In fact, it is the position of the U.S. government that demand for software engineering talent outpaces supply. This position can be clearly seen in the granting of tens of thousands of H1B visas, but also in the following excerpt from the official 2010-11 Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook: Employment of computer software engineers is expected to increase by 32 percent from 2008-2018, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. In addition, this occupation will see a large number of new jobs, with more than 295,000 created between 2008 and 2018. Demand for computer software engineers will increase as computer networking continues to grow. For example, expanding Internet technologies have spurred demand for computer software engineers who can develop Internet, intranet, and World Wide Web applications. Likewise, electronic data-processing systems in business, telecommunications, healthcare, government, and other settings continue to become more sophisticated and complex. Implementing, safeguarding, and updating computer systems and resolving problems will fuel the demand for growing numbers of systems software engineers. New growth areas will also continue to arise from rapidly evolving technologies. The increasing uses of the Internet, the proliferation of Web sites, and mobile technology such as the wireless Internet have created a demand for a wide variety of new products. As more software is offered over the Internet, and as businesses demand customized software to meet their specific needs, applications and systems software engineers will be needed in greater numbers. In addition, the growing use of handheld computers will create demand for new mobile applications and software systems. As these devices become a larger part of the business environment, it will be necessary to integrate current computer systems with this new, more mobile technology. However, from the the employee side of the equation, we often hear the opposite. Many of the stories of SDEs with graduate degrees and decades of experience on the unemployment line, or the big tech interview war stories, are anecdotal, for sure. But, there is one piece of data that is neither anecdotal nor transitory, and that is the aggregate decisions of millions of undergraduates of what degree to pursue. Here, a different picture emerges from the data, and that picture is not good for the software profession. According the most recent Taulbee Survey from Computer Research Association, undergrad degree production in CS and CE has fallen nearly 60% since 2004. (Undergrad enrollments have ticked up in the past two years, but only modestly). Here we see that a basic disconnect between what corporate CEOs and the US government are saying and what potential employees really think about job prospects in software engineering. So my questions are these. Who are we to believe? Is there an acute talent shortage, or is there a long-term structural oversupply in the SDE labor market? Can anyone provide reliable data on long-term unemployment among SDEs? How many are leaving the profession due to lack of work? Real data is most helpful. Thanks.

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• Red Gate's on the road in 2012 - Will you catch us?

  - by RedAndTheCommunity

  Annabel Bradford, our Communities and Events Manager, tells all about her experience of our 1st SQL Saturday of the year. The first stop this year was SQL Saturday #104 Colorado Springs, back in early January. I made the trip across from the UK just for this SQL Saturday event, and I'm so glad I did. I picked up Max from Red Gate's Pasadena office and we flew into Colorado Springs airport late on Friday evening to be greeted by freezing temperatures, which was quite a shock after the California sunshine. Rising before the sun, we arrived at Mr Biggs, the venue for the event, in the darkness. It was great to see so many smiling attendees so bright and early on a Saturday morning. Everyone was eager to learn more about SQL Server, and hundreds of people came and chatted with us at the table, saw demos and learnt more about Red Gate tools. The event highlights for the attendees were definitely the unlimited lazer quest, bowling and pool available during the break times. For Max, Grant Fritchey and I on the Red Gate table, the highlights have to be meeting customers and getting the opportunity to meet attendees who'd heard of, but wanted to know more about, Red Gate. We were delighted to hear lots of valuable feedback that we took back to share with the team. As a thank you for sharing insights about their work lives and how they use SQL Server and Red Gate tools, attendees are able to take away Red Gate SQL Server books. We aim to have a range of titles available when we exhibit, so that attendees can choose a book that's going to be most interesting to them, and that they can use as a reference back at the office. Every time I meet a Red Gate user or a member of the SQL community, I'm always overwhelmed by the enthusiasm they have for their industry. Everyone who gives up their time to learn more about their job should be rewarded, and at Red Gate we like to do just that. Red Gate has long supported the SQL community through sponsorship to facilitate user group meetings and community events, but it's only though face-to-face contact that we really get a chance to see the impact of our support. I hope we'll have the chance to see you on the road at some point this year. We'll be at a range of events, including free SQL Saturdays, one day free events 'the Red Gate way', two-day Rallys, and full-week conferences. Next stop is SQL Saturday #109 Silicon Valley on March 3rd where you'll meet Jeff and Arneh, two of our US-based SQL team members. Be sure to ask them any questions you've got about the Red Gate tools, as these guys will be delighted to hear your questions, show you the options, and will make a note of your feedback to send through to the development team. Until the next time. Happy learning! Annabel                         Grant, Max and Annabel at SQL Saturday #104 Colorado Springs

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• Java in Flux: Utopia or Deuteranopia?

  - by Tori Wieldt

  What a difference a year makes, indeed. Steve Harris, Senior VP, App Server Dev, Oracle and Adam Messinger, VP, Fusion Middleware Group, Oracle presented an informative keynote at the TheServerSide Java Symposium today. With a title "Java in Flux: Utopia or Deuteranopia?" you know things are going to be interesting (see Aeon Flux if you don't get the title reference).What a YearThey started with a little background, explaining that the reactions to Oracle's acquisition of Sun (and therefore Java) one year ago varied greatly, from "Freak Out!" to "Don't Panic." From the Oracle perspective, being the steward of and key contributor to Java requires a lot of sausage making.  They admitted to Oracle's fair share of Homer Simpson-esque "D'oh" moments in the past year, which was complicated by Oracle's communication style.   "Oracle has a tradition has a saying a few things and sticking by then, in contrast to Sun who was much more open," Adam explained. "We laid out the Java roadmap and are executing on it, and we hope that speaks to our commitment."Java SEAdam talked about having a long term perspective on the Java language (20+ years), letting ideas mature in more experimental languages, then bringing them into Java. Current priorities include: JVM convergence (getting the best features of JRockit into Hotspot); support of parallel/multi-core programming, and of course, all the improvements in JDK7. The JDK7 Developer Preview is underway (please download now and report bugs!). The Oracle development team is also working on Lambda and modularity (Jigsaw) for SE 8. Less certain, but also under discussion are improvements for Java SE 9. Adam is thinking of it as a "back to basics" release. He mentioned reworking JNI, improving data integration and improved device support.Java EE To provide context about Java EE, Steve said Java EE was great at getting businesses on the internet. The success of Java EE resulted in an incredible expansion of the middleware marketplace for developers and vendors.  But with success, came more. Java EE kept piling on capabilities, but that created excess baggage.  Doing simple things was no longer so simple. That's where Java community is so valuable: "When Java EE was too complex and heavyweight, many people were happy to tell us what we were doing wrong and popularize solutions," Steve explained. Because of that feedback, the Java EE teams focused on making things simple again: POJOs and annotations, and leveraging changes in Java SE.  Steve said that "innovation doesn't happen in expert groups, it happens on the ground where developers are solving problems," and platform stewards need to pay attention and take advantage of changes that are taking place.Enter the Cloud "Developers are restless, they want cloud functionality from their own IT dept" Steve explained. With the cloud, the scope of problem has expanded to include the data center itself, with multiple tenants. To move forward, existing APIs in Java EE need to be updated to be tenant-aware, service-enabled, and EE needs to support various styles of deployment. The goal is to get all that done in Java EE 8.Adam questioned Steve about timing and schedule. "Yes, the schedule is aggressive, but it'll work" Steve said. Then Adam asked about modularization. If Java SE 8 comes out at the end of 2012, when can Java EE deliver modularization? Steve suggested that key stakeholders can come with up some pre-SE 8 agreement on how to expose the metadata about modules. He then alluded to Mark Reinhold and John Duimovich's keynote at EclipseCON next week. Stay tuned.Evil Master PlanIn conclusion, Adam finally admitted to Oracle's Evil Master Plan: 1) Invest in and improve Java SE and EE 2) Collaborate with the community 3) Broaden the marketplace for Java development. Bwaaaaaaaaahahaha! <rubs hands together>Key LinksJDK7 Developer Preview  http://jdk7.java.net/preview/Oracle Technology Network http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/index.htmlTheServerSide Java Symposium  http://javasymposium.techtarget.com/"Utopia or Deuteranopia?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeon_Flux

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• Top 10 Linked Blogs of 2010

  - by Bill Graziano

  Each week I send out a SQL Server newsletter and include links to interesting blog posts.  I’ve linked to over 500 blog posts so far in 2010.  Late last year I started storing those links in a database so I could do a little reporting.  I tend to link to posts related to the OLTP engine.  I also try to link to the individual blogger in the group blogs.  Unfortunately that wasn’t possible for the SQLCAT and CSS blogs.  I also have a real weakness for posts related to PASS. These are the top 10 blogs that I linked to during the year ordered by the number of posts I linked to. Paul Randal – Paul writes extensively on the internals of the relational engine.  Lots of great posts around transactions, transaction log, disaster recovery, corruption, indexes and DBCC.  I also linked to many of his SQL Server myths posts. Glenn Berry – Glenn writes very interesting posts on how hardware affects SQL Server.  I especially like his posts on the various CPU platforms.  These aren’t necessarily topics that I’m searching for but I really enjoy reading them. The SQLCAT Team – This Microsoft team focuses on the largest and most interesting SQL Server installations.  The regularly publish white papers and best practices. SQL Server CSS Team – These are the top engineers from the Microsoft Customer Service and Support group.  These are the folks you finally talk to after your case has been escalated about 20 times.  They write about the interesting problems they find. Brent Ozar – The posts I linked to mostly focused on the relational engine: CPU, NUMA, SSD drives, performance monitoring, etc.  But Brent writes about a real variety of topics including blogging, social networking, speaking, the MCM, SQL Azure and anything else that seems to strike his fancy.  His posts are always well written and though provoking. Jeremiah Peschka – A number of Jeremiah’s posts weren’t about SQL Server.  He’s very active in the “NoSQL” area and I linked to a number of those posts.  I think it’s important for people to know what other technologies are out there. Brad McGehee – Brad writes about being a DBA including maintenance plans, DBA checklists, compression and audit. Thomas LaRock – I linked to a variety of posts from PBM to networking to 24 Hours of PASS to TDE.  Just a real variety of topics.  Tom always writes with an interesting style usually mixing in a movie theme and/or bacon. Aaron Bertrand – Many of my links this year were Denali features.  He also had a great series on bad habits to kick. Michael J. Swart – This last one surprised me.  There are some well known SQL Server bloggers below Michael on this list.  I linked to posts on indexes, hierarchies, transactions and I/O performance and a variety of other engine related posts.  All are interesting and well thought out.  Many of his non-SQL posts are also very good.  He seems to have an interest in puzzles and other brain teasers.  Michael, I won’t be surprised again!

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• AdventureWorks2012 now available for all on SQL Azure

  - by jamiet

  Three days ago I tweeted this: Idea. MSFT could host read-only copies of all the [AdventureWorks] DBs up on #sqlazure for the SQL community to use. RT if agree #sqlfamily — Jamie Thomson (@jamiet) March 24, 2012 Evidently I wasn't the only one that thought this was a good idea because as you can see from the screenshot that tweet has, so far, been retweeted more than fifty times. Clearly there is a desire to see the AdventureWorks databases made available for the community to noodle around on so I am pleased to announce that as of today you can do just that - [AdventureWorks2012] now resides on SQL Azure and is available for anyone, absolutely anyone, to connect to and use* for their own means. *By use I mean "issue some SELECT statements". You don't have permission to issue INSERTs, UPDATEs, DELETEs or EXECUTEs I'm afraid - if you want to do that then you can get the bits and host it yourself. This database is free for you to use but SQL Azure is of course not free so before I give you the credentials please lend me your ears eyes for a short while longer. AdventureWorks on Azure is being provided for the SQL Server community to use and so I am hoping that that same community will rally around to support this effort by making a voluntary donation to support the upkeep which, going on current pricing, is going to be $119.88 per year. If you would like to contribute to keep AdventureWorks on Azure up and running for that full year please donate via PayPal to [email protected]: Any amount, no matter how small, will help. If those 50+ people that retweeted me beforehand all contributed $2 then that would just about be enough to keep this up for a year. If the community contributes more that we need then there are a number of additional things that could be done: Host additional databases (Northwind anyone??) Host in more datacentres (this first one is in Western Europe) Make a charitable donation That last one, a charitable donation, is something I would really like to do. The SQL Community have proved before that they can make a significant contribution to charitable orgnisations through purchasing the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book and I harbour hopes that AdventureWorks on Azure can continue in that vein. So please, if you think AdventureWorks on Azure is something that is worth supporting please make a contribution. OK, with the prickly subject of begging for cash out of the way let me share the details that you need to connect to [AdventureWorks2012] on SQL Azure: Server mhknbn2kdz.database.windows.net  Database AdventureWorks2012 User sqlfamily Password sqlf@m1ly That user sqlfamily has all the permissions required to enable you to query away to your heart's content. Here is the code that I used to set it up: CREATE USER sqlfamily FOR LOGIN sqlfamily;CREATE ROLE sqlfamilyrole;EXEC sp_addrolemember 'sqlfamilyrole','sqlfamily';GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON Database::AdventureWorks2012 TO sqlfamilyrole;GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE ON Database::AdventureWorks2012 TO sqlfamilyrole;GRANT SHOWPLAN TO sqlfamilyrole;EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_datareader','sqlfamilyrole'; You can connect to the database using SQL Server Management Studio (instructions to do that are provided at Walkthrough: Connecting to SQL Azure via the SSMS) or you can use the web interface at https://mhknbn2kdz.database.windows.net: Lastly, just for a bit of fun I created a table up there called [dbo].[SqlFamily] into which you can leave a small calling card. Simply execute the following SQL statement (changing the values of course): INSERT [dbo].[SqlFamily]([Name],[Message],[TwitterHandle],[BlogURI])VALUES ('Your name here','Some Message','your twitter handle (optional)','Blog URI (optional)'); [Id] is an IDENTITY field and there is a default constraint on [DT] hence there is no need to supply a value for those. Note that you only have INSERT permissions, not UPDATE or DELETE so make sure you get it right first time! Any offensive or distasteful remarks will of course be deleted :) Thank you for reading this far and have fun using AdventureWorks on Azure. I hope it proves to be useful for some of you. @jamiet AdventureWorks on Azure - Provided by the SQL Server community, for the SQL Server community!

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• Serial plans: Threshold / Parallel_degree_limit = 1

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  As a very short follow up on the previous post. So here is some more on getting a serial plan and why that happens Another reason - compared to the auto DOP is not on as we looked at in the earlier post - and often more prevalent to get a serial plan is if the plan simply does not take long enough to consider a parallel path. The resulting plan and note looks like this (note that this is a serial plan!): explain plan for select count(1) from sales; SELECT PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY()); PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plan hash value: 672559287 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Id  | Operation            | Name  | Rows  | Cost (%CPU)| Time     | Pstart| Pstop | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |   0 | SELECT STATEMENT     |       |     1 |     5   (0)| 00:00:01 |       |     | |   1 |  SORT AGGREGATE      |       |     1 |            |          |       |     | |   2 |   PARTITION RANGE ALL|       |   960 |     5   (0)| 00:00:01 |     1 |  16 | |   3 |    TABLE ACCESS FULL | SALES |   960 |     5   (0)| 00:00:01 |     1 |  16 | Note -----    - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of parallel threshold 14 rows selected. The parallel threshold is referring to parallel_min_time_threshold and since I did not change the default (10s) the plan is not being considered for a parallel degree computation and is therefore staying with the serial execution. Now we go into the land of crazy: Assume I do want this DOP=1 to happen, I could set the parameter in the init.ora, but to highlight it in this case I changed it on the session: alter session set parallel_degree_limit = 1; The result I get is: ERROR: ORA-02097: parameter cannot be modified because specified value is invalid ORA-00096: invalid value 1 for parameter parallel_degree_limit, must be from among CPU IO AUTO INTEGER>=2 Which of course makes perfect sense...

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• Oracle OpenWorld Update: Demo Pods and Hands-on Labs

  - by Doug Reid

  0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Less than one week away until the start of Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and the Data Integration Solutions team is ready to go!  We have an exciting line up for you this year which we have summarized for you in the Oracle OpenWorld Focus on Data Integration Solutions document. In past posts we have discussed session themes and our customer panel, but today I would like to summarize our Hands-on Labs and Demo Pods that we have available for attendees. For Oracle GoldenGate Hands-On Labs we have two labs that we are running this year. Deep Dive into Oracle GoldenGate Thursday October 4th at 11:15AM in the Marriott Marquis Salon 1/2 Oracle GoldenGate provides real-time log-based change data capture and delivery between heterogeneous systems. It enables cost-effective, low-impact, real-time data integration and continuous availability solutions. This session covers Oracle GoldenGate 11g’s internal product architecture and includes a hands-on lab that covers configuration examples for target database instantiation and real-time change data capture and delivery. The participants will configure Oracle GoldenGate to instantiate a secondary database that can be used for disaster recovery or a reporting instance. Come learn how easy it is to use and how this can be a very valuable and easy technology solution for your organization. Introduction to Oracle GoldenGate Veridata Wednesday October 3rd 10:15AM in the Marriott Marquis Sales 1/2 Oracle GoldenGate Veridata compares one set of data with another and identifies data that is out of synchronization. In this hands-on lab, you will be introduced to the key features of this product. Using the Oracle GoldenGate Veridata Web client, you will have the opportunity to configure comparison objects and rules, initiate a comparison, review the status and output of a comparison, and review out-of-sync data. As a bonus this year, we have recorded the labs and made them available on youtube.com/oraclegoldengate. These will be available the day of the labs. Our demo pods are an opportunity for attendees to see our products but more so to meet the product management and development teams. I would like to point out that we have two Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 demo pods, one in the database camp and the other in the middleware camp. The one in the middleware camp will be focused on all platforms while the one in the database camp will have a focus on the Oracle platform. The other two I would like to point out are the Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate and the Oracle Enterprise Manager demo pods; both of these pods will focus on methods to monitor GoldenGate but the OEM demo pod will have a specific focus on the Oracle GoldenGate Management Pack plug-in for OEM. Below is a list of our demo pods and their locations. Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate for End-to-End Visibility Moscone South, Right - S-241 Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate for Oracle Applications Moscone South, Right - S-240 Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 New Features Moscone South, Right - S-239 Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2: Real-Time, Transactional Database Replication     Moscone South, Left - S-027 Oracle GoldenGate Veridata and Adapters Moscone South, Right - S-242 Oracle Enterprise Manager Moscone South, Left - S-040 Keep tuned to our blog during the show for news and highlights from the Data Integration Solutions team. See you there.

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• export web page data to excel using javascript [on hold]

  - by Sreevani sri

  I have created web page using html.When i clicked on submit button it will export to excel. using javascript i wnt to export thadt data to excel. my html code is 1. Please give your Name:<input type="text" name="Name" /><br /> 2. Area where you reside:<input type="text" name="Res" /><br /> 3. Specify your age group<br /> (a)15-25<input type="text" name="age" /> (b)26-35<input type="text" name="age" /> (c)36-45<input type="text" name="age" /> (d) Above 46<input type="text" name="age" /><br /> 4. Specify your occupation<br /> (a) Student<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="student" /> (b) Home maker<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="home" /> (c) Employee<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="emp" /> (d) Businesswoman <input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="buss" /> (e) Retired<input type="checkbox" name="occ" value="retired" /> (f) others (please specify)<input type="text" name="others" /><br /> 5. Specify the nature of your family<br /> (a) Joint family<input type="checkbox" name="family" value="jfamily" /> (b) Nuclear family<input type="checkbox" name="family" value="nfamily" /><br /> 6. Please give the Number of female members in your family and their average age approximately<br /> Members Age 1 2 3 4 5<br /> 8. Please give your highest level of education (a)SSC or below<input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="ssc" /> (b) Intermediate<input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="int" /> (c) Diploma <input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="dip" /> (d)UG degree <input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="deg" /> (e) PG <input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="pg" /> (g) Doctorial degree<input type="checkbox" name="edu" value="doc" /><br /> 9. Specify your monthly income approximately in RS <input type="text" name="income" /><br /> 10. Specify your time spent in making a purchase decision at the outlet<br /> (a)0-15 min <input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="0-15 min" /> (b)16-30 min <input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="16-30 min" /> (c) 30-45 min<input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="30-45 min" /> (d) 46-60 min<input type="checkbox" name="dis" value="46-60 min" /><br /> <input type="submit" onclick="exportToExcel()" value="Submit" /> </div> </form>

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• OEG11gR2 integration with OES11gR2 Authorization with condition

  - by pgoutin

  Introduction This OES use-case has been defined originally by Subbu Devulapalli (http://accessmanagement.wordpress.com/).  Based on this OES museum use-case, I have developed the OEG11gR2 policy able to deal with the OES authorization with condition. From an OEG point of view, the way to deal with OES condition is to provide with the OES request some Environmental / Context Attributes.   Museum Use-Case  All painting in the museum have security sensors, an alarm goes off when a person comes too close a painting. The employee designated for maintenance needs to use their ID and disable the alarm before maintenance. You are the Security Administrator for the museum and you have been tasked with creating authorization policies to manage authorization for different paintings. Your first task is to understand how paintings are organized. Asking around, you are surprised to see that there isno formal process in place, so you need to start from scratch. the museum tracks the following attributes for each painting 1. Name of the work 2. Painter 3. Condition (good/poor) 4. Cost You compile the list of paintings  Name of Painting  Painter  Paint Condition  Cost  Mona Lisa  Leonardo da Vinci  Good  100  Magi  Leonardo da Vinci  Poor  40  Starry Night  Vincent Van Gogh  Poor  75  Still Life  Vincent Van Gogh  Good  25 Being a software geek who doesn’t (yet) understand art, you feel that price(or insurance price) of a painting is the most important criteria. So you feel that based on years-of-experience employees can be tasked with maintaining different paintings. You decide that paintings worth over 50 cost should be only handled by employees with over 20 years of experience and employees with less than 10 years of experience should not handle any painting. Lets us start with policy modeling. All paintings have a common set of attributes and actions, so it will be good to have them under a single Resource Type. Based on this resource type we will create the actual resources. So our high level model is: 1) Resource Type: Painting which has action manage and the following four attributes a) Name of the work b) Painter c) Condition (good/poor) d) Cost 2) To keep things simple lets use painting name for Resource name (in real world you will try to use some identifier which is unique, because in future we may end up with more than one painting which has the same name.) 3) Create Resources based on the previous table 4) Create an identity attribute Experience (Integer) 5) Create the following authorization policies a) Allow employees with over 20 years experience to access all paintings b) Allow employees with 10 – 20 years of experience to access painting which cost less than 50 c) Deny access to all paintings for employees with less than 10 year of experience OES Authorization Configuration We do need to create 2 authorization policies with specific conditions a) Allow employees with over 20 years experience to access all paintings b) Allow employees with 10 – 20 years of experience to access painting which cost less than 50 c) Deny access to all paintings for employees with less than 10 year of experience We don’t need an explicit policy for Deny access to all paintings for employees with less than 10 year of experience, because Oracle Entitlements Server will automatically deny if there is no matching policy. OEG Policy The OEG policy looks like the following The 11g Authorization filter configuration is similar to :  The ${PAINTING_NAME} and ${USER_EXPERIENCE} variables are initialized by the "Retrieve from the HTTP header" filters for testing purpose. That's to say, under Service Explorer, we need to provide 2 attributes "Experience" & "Painting" following the OES 11g Authorization filter described above.

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• Do you want to be an ALM Consultant?

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Northwest Cadence is looking for our next great consultant! At Northwest Cadence, we have created a work environment that emphasizes excellence, integrity, and out-of-the-box thinking.  Our customers have high expectations (rightfully so) and we wouldn’t have it any other way!   Northwest Cadence has some of the most exciting customers I have ever worked with and even though I have only been here just over a month I have already: Provided training/consulting for 3 government departments Created and taught courseware for delivering Scrum to teams within a high profile multinational company Started presenting Microsoft's ALM Engagement Program  So if you are interested in helping companies build better software more efficiently, then.. Enquire at [email protected] Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Consultant An ALM Consultant with a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience with Application Lifecycle Management, Visual Studio (including Visual Studio Team System) and software design is needed. Must provide thought leadership on best practices for enterprise architecture, understand the Microsoft technology solution stack, and have a thorough understanding of enterprise application integration. The ALM Practice Lead will play a central role in designing and implementing the overall ALM Practice strategy, including creating, updating, and delivering ALM courseware and consultancy engagements. This person will also provide project support, deliverables, and quality solutions on Visual Studio Team System that exceed client expectations. Engagements will vary and will involve providing expert training, consulting, mentoring, formulating technical strategies and policies and acting as a “trusted advisor” to customers and internal teams. Sound sense of business and technical strategy required. Strong interpersonal skills as well as solid strategic thinking are key. The ideal candidate will be capable of envisioning the solution based on the early client requirements, communicating the vision to both technical and business stakeholders, leading teams through implementation, as well as training, mentoring, and hands-on software development. The ideal candidate will demonstrate successful use of both agile and formal software development methods, enterprise application patterns, and effective leadership on prior projects. Job Requirements Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree (computer science, engineering, or math preferred). Locale / Travel: The Practice Lead position requires estimated 50% travel, most of which will be in the Continental US (a valid national Passport must be maintained).  This is a full time position and will be based in the Kirkland office. Preferred Education: Master’s Degree in Information Technology or Software Engineering; Premium Microsoft Certifications on .NET (MCSD) or MCPD or relevant experience; Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) or relevant experience. Minimum Experience and Skills: 7+ years experience with business information systems integration or custom business application design and development in a professional technology consulting, corporate MIS or software development environment. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Provide training, consulting, and mentoring to organizations on topics that include Visual Studio Team System and ALM. Create content, including labs and demonstrations, to be delivered as training classes by Northwest Cadence employees. Lead development teams through the complete ALM and/or Visual Studio Team System solution. Be able to communicate in detail how a solution will integrate into the larger technical problem space for large, complex enterprises. Define technical solution requirements. Provide guidance to the customer and project team with respect to technical feasibility, complexity, and level of effort required to deliver a custom solution. Ensure that the solution is designed, developed and deployed in accordance with the agreed upon development work plan. Create and deliver weekly status reports of training and/or consulting progress. Engagement Responsibilities: · Provide a strong desire to provide thought leadership related to technology and to help grow the business. · Work effectively and professionally with employees at all levels of a customer’s organization. · Have strong verbal and written communication skills. · Have effective presentation, organizational and planning skills. · Have effective interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team environment. Enquire at [email protected]

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• Hey Retailers, Are You Ready For The Holiday Season?

  - by Jeri Kelley

  With online holiday spending reaching $35.3 billion in 2011 and American shoppers spending just under $750 on average on their holiday purchases this year, how ready is your business for the 2012 holiday season?   ?? Today’s shoppers do not take their purchases lightly.  They are more connected, interact with more resources to make decisions, diligently compare products and services, seek out the best deals, and ask for input from friends and family.   This holiday season, as consumers browse for apparel, tablets, toys, and much more, they will be bombarded with retailer communication - from emails and commercials to countless search engine results and social recommendations.  With a flurry of activity coming at consumers from every channel and competitor, your success this year will rely on communicating a consistent, personalized message no matter where your customers are shopping.  Here are a few ideas to help with your commerce strategy this holiday season: CONSISTENCY COUNTS FOR MULTICHANNEL SHOPPERS??According to a November 2011 study commissioned by Oracle, “Channel Commerce 2011: The Consumer View,” 54% of consumers in the U.S. and Canada regularly employ two or more channels before they make a purchase.  While each channel has its own unique benefit, user profile, and purpose, it’s critical that your shoppers have a consistent core experience wherever they’re looking for information or making a purchase.  Be sure consumers can consistently search and browse the same product information and receive the same promotions online, on their mobile devices, and in-store.? USE YOUR CUSTOMER’S CONTEXT TO SURFACE RELEVANT CONTENTYour Web site is likely the hub of your holiday activity.  According to a Monetate infographic, 39% of shoppers will visit your Web site directly to find out about the best holiday deals.   Use everything you know about your customers from past purchase data to browsing history to provide a relevant experience at every click, and assemble content in a context that entices shoppers to buy online, or influences an offline purchase.? TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MOBILE BEHAVIOR?Having a mobile program is no longer a choice.   Armed with smartphones and tablets, consumers now have access to more and more product information and can compare products and prices from anywhere.  In fact, approximately 52% of smartphone users will use their device to research products, redeem coupons and use apps to assist in their holiday gift purchase.  At a minimum, be sure your mobile environment has store information, consistent pricing and promotions, and simple checkout capabilities. ARM IN-STORE ASSOCIATES WITH TABLETS?According to RISNews.com, 31% of retailers plan to begin testing tablets in stores in 2012, 22% have already begun such testing and 6% had fully deployed tablets within stores.   Take advantage of this compelling sales tool to get shoppers interacting with videos, user reviews, how-to guides, side-by-side product comparisons, and specs.  Automatically trigger upsell and cross sell suggestions for store associates to recommend for each product or category, build in alerts for promotions, and allow associates to place orders and check inventory from their tablet.  ? WISDOM OF THE CROWDS IS GOOD, BUT WISDOM FROM FRIENDS IS BETTER?Shoppers who grapple with options are looking for recommendations; they’d rather get advice from friends, and they’re more likely to spend more while doing so.    In fact, according to an infographic by Mr. Youth, 66% of social media users made a purchase on Black Friday or Cyber Monday as a direct result of social media interactions with brands or family.   This holiday season, be sure you are leveraging your social channels from Facebook to Pinterest to drive consistent promotions and help your brand to become part of the conversation. So, are you ready for the holidays this year?  

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• Standards Corner: Preventing Pervasive Monitoring

  - by independentid

   Phil Hunt is an active member of multiple industry standards groups and committees and has spearheaded discussions, creation and ratifications of industry standards including the Kantara Identity Governance Framework, among others. Being an active voice in the industry standards development world, we have invited him to share his discussions, thoughts, news & updates, and discuss use cases, implementation success stories (and even failures) around industry standards on this monthly column. Author: Phil Hunt On Wednesday night, I watched NBC’s interview of Edward Snowden. The past year has been tumultuous one in the IT security industry. There has been some amazing revelations about the activities of governments around the world; and, we have had several instances of major security bugs in key security libraries: Apple's ‘gotofail’ bug  the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug, not to mention Java’s zero day bug, and others. Snowden’s information showed the IT industry has been underestimating the need for security, and highlighted a general trend of lax use of TLS and poorly implemented security on the Internet. This did not go unnoticed in the standards community and in particular the IETF. Last November, the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) met in Vancouver Canada, where the issue of “Internet Hardening” was discussed in a plenary session. Presentations were given by Bruce Schneier, Brian Carpenter,  and Stephen Farrell describing the problem, the work done so far, and potential IETF activities to address the problem pervasive monitoring. At the end of the presentation, the IETF called for consensus on the issue. If you know engineers, you know that it takes a while for a large group to arrive at a consensus and this group numbered approximately 3000. When asked if the IETF should respond to pervasive surveillance attacks? There was an overwhelming response for ‘Yes'. When it came to 'No', the room echoed in silence. This was just the first of several consensus questions that were each overwhelmingly in favour of response. This is the equivalent of a unanimous opinion for the IETF. Since the meeting, the IETF has followed through with the recent publication of a new “best practices” document on Pervasive Monitoring (RFC 7258). This document is extremely sensitive in its approach and separates the politics of monitoring from the technical ones. Pervasive Monitoring (PM) is widespread (and often covert) surveillance through intrusive gathering of protocol artefacts, including application content, or protocol metadata such as headers. Active or passive wiretaps and traffic analysis, (e.g., correlation, timing or measuring packet sizes), or subverting the cryptographic keys used to secure protocols can also be used as part of pervasive monitoring. PM is distinguished by being indiscriminate and very large scale, rather than by introducing new types of technical compromise. The IETF community's technical assessment is that PM is an attack on the privacy of Internet users and organisations. The IETF community has expressed strong agreement that PM is an attack that needs to be mitigated where possible, via the design of protocols that make PM significantly more expensive or infeasible. Pervasive monitoring was discussed at the technical plenary of the November 2013 IETF meeting [IETF88Plenary] and then through extensive exchanges on IETF mailing lists. This document records the IETF community's consensus and establishes the technical nature of PM. The draft goes on to further qualify what it means by “attack”, clarifying that  The term is used here to refer to behavior that subverts the intent of communicating parties without the agreement of those parties. An attack may change the content of the communication, record the content or external characteristics of the communication, or through correlation with other communication events, reveal information the parties did not intend to be revealed. It may also have other effects that similarly subvert the intent of a communicator.  The past year has shown that Internet specification authors need to put more emphasis into information security and integrity. The year also showed that specifications are not good enough. The implementations of security and protocol specifications have to be of high quality and superior testing. I’m proud to say Oracle has been a strong proponent of this, having already established its own secure coding practices. 

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• DallasXAML.com – A New User Group for Silverlight, WPF, XBAP, etc.

  - by vblasberg

                                   http://DallasXAML.com   I’ve devoted much of last month to starting the DallasXAML User Group.  I finally got back into user group management after 2 years away from leading the Dallas C# SIG.  Now I’m having fun getting a Silverlight/WPF user group going strong for the Dallas / Ft. Worth community.  Our first meeting was March 3rd at the Improving Enterprises offices in North Dallas.  We had about 25 to 35 attendees in the first meeting and it went well.  We covered the most important topic that everyone should understand well – data binding.   So I chose the XAML user group so we can get together for a common group improvement in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area and learn cross-technology information that we can use now.  It is not a lecture hall.  The great thing is that we’ll provide hands-on experience with most every meeting.  The goal is to get the experience that we can use the next work day.  I unfortunately broke that rule by speaking all through the first meeting, but next month is part two with more hands-on data binding.   The differentiation is this group concentrates on XAML, not Silverlight or Windows Client alone.  What we learn in one area, we gain for all areas.  That includes the Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 coming later this year.  Next year it may be Windows Phone 8, 9, or whatever.    I started developing WPF seriously almost a year ago.  I experienced the painful learning curve.  Anyone who reports that there isn’t a big learning curve either thinks in XAML before it was developed, is on the Silverlight or WPF development team, or has already conquered the learning and forgot the pain.  So I wanted to share the pain or make it easier for others – same thing.  I have found that the more I learn and use good disciplined techniques, the more interesting and rewarding development is again.   A few months ago, I was sitting in the iPhone development session at the Dallas C# SIG.  After the meeting, the audience was polled for future topics.  After a few suggestions, Silverlight got the big hands up.  That makes sense because it’s still the hot topic for many Microsoft developers.  So I surfed around and found that there aren’t enough user groups to help in this area.  I polled a few local group leaders and did the work to start the group.  This week I got a telerik controls licence and improved the site with some great controls, namely the RadHtmlPlaceholder control.  It provides a Silverlight control to show HTML in an IFrame-like area.  On DallasXAML.com, the newsletters and resource pages display in HTML because Silverlight just isn’t there yet.  I’m looking forward to a Silverlight XPS viewer with flow documents.  There are some good commercial version available, but this is a non-profit group.    The DallasXAML.com site points to many other resources such as podcasts and webcasts.  I would rather give them the credit than try to out-do them.  So check out the DallasXAML user group site and attend our meetings if you can.  We meet the first Tuesday of the month.   -Vince DallasXAML User Group Leader  

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• Create a Remote Git Repository from an Existing XCode Repository

  - by codeWithoutFear

  Introduction Distributed version control systems (VCS’s), like Git, provide a rich set of features for managing source code.  Many development tools, including XCode, provide built-in support for various VCS’s.  These tools provide simple configuration with limited customization to get you up and running quickly while still providing the safety net of basic version control. I hate losing (and re-doing) work.  I have OCD when it comes to saving and versioning source code.  Save early, save often, and commit to the VCS often.  I also hate merging code.  Smaller and more frequent commits enable me to minimize merge time and effort as well. The work flow I prefer even for personal exploratory projects is: Make small local changes to the codebase to create an incrementally improved (and working) system. Commit these changes to the local repository.  Local repositories are quick to access, function even while offline, and provides the confidence to continue making bold changes to the system.  After all, I can easily recover to a recent working state. Repeat 1 & 2 until the codebase contains “significant” functionality and I have connectivity to the remote repository. Push the accumulated changes to the remote repository.  The smaller the change set, the less likely extensive merging will be required.  Smaller is better, IMHO. The remote repository typically has a greater degree of fault tolerance and active management dedicated to it.  This can be as simple as a network share that is backed up nightly or as complex as dedicated hardware with specialized server-side processing and significant administrative monitoring. XCode’s out-of-the-box Git integration enables steps 1 and 2 above.  Time Machine backups of the local repository add an additional degree of fault tolerance, but do not support collaboration or take advantage of managed infrastructure such as on-premises or cloud-based storage. Creating a Remote Repository These are the steps I use to enable the full workflow identified above.  For simplicity the “remote” repository is created on the local file system.  This location could easily be on a mounted network volume. Create a Test Project My project is called HelloGit and is located at /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit.  Be sure to commit all outstanding changes.  XCode always leaves a single changed file for me after the project is created and the initial commit is submitted. Clone the Local Repository We want to clone the XCode-created Git repository to the location where the remote repository will reside.  In this case it will be /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit. Open the Terminal application. Clone the local repository to the remote repository location: git clone /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Convert the Remote Repository to a Bare Repository The remote repository only needs to contain the Git database.  It does not need a checked out branch or local files. Go to the remote repository folder: cd /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Indicate the repository is “bare”: git config --bool core.bare true Remove files, leaving the .git folder: rm -R * Remove the “origin” remote: git remote rm origin Configure the Local Repository The local repository should reference the remote repository.  The remote name “origin” is used by convention to indicate the originating repository.  This is set automatically when a repository is cloned.  We will use the “origin” name here to reflect that relationship. Go to the local repository folder: cd /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit Add the remote: git remote add origin /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Test Connectivity Any changes made to the local Git repository can be pushed to the remote repository subject to the merging rules Git enforces. Create a new local file: date > date.txt /li> Add the new file to the local index: git add date.txt Commit the change to the local repository: git commit -m "New file: date.txt" Push the change to the remote repository: git push origin master Now you can save, commit, and push/pull to your OCD hearts’ content! Code without fear! --Don

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• Come see us at JavaU at JavaOne!

  - by tmcginn

  In just a little under a month, JavaOne will be in full swing (no pun intended) and thousands of Java developers will gather to hear the latest Java news, immerse themselves in Java technology and learn some new things. This year, I am fortunate enough to be able to attend, along with my Java curriculum development colleagues Matt Heimer and Mike Williams. We start our week at JavaOne teaching a one-day session at JavaU on Sunday morning. If you have never attended a training session through JavaU, you should check it out. There are some terrific sessions this year, and it might help to justify your trip to JavaOne if you can say it was for training! This year I am teaching a one day session on Java SE 7 New Features - a great session for anyone interested in the specific details of what is new in Java SE 7. Matt is teaching a one-day session on Developing Portable Java EE applications with the Enterprise JavaBeans 3.1 API and Java Persistence 2.0 API  EJB, and Mike is doing a one-day session on developing Rich Client applications with Java SE 7 using Java FX 2. I asked Matt and Mike to tell me what developers can expect from their sessions. Matt: "My session will get you up to speed on everything you need to know to create portable Java EE 6 applications using EJB 3.1 and JPA 2. I am going to cover why everyone can benefit from using EJBs (and why developers should relearn them if they haven't looked at them for years). Students who attend my session will see JPA examples showcasing how to use relational databases in an enterprise applications without programming to JDBC and without writing SQL statements. EJB and JPA benefit from being paired together, so I will also show how transaction management is easier in a container. I encourage students to bring a laptop and code as they learn!" Mike: "My session covers how to develop a rich client application using Java FX 2. Starting with the basic concepts of JavaFX, students will see how a JavaFX application is built from its layout, to its controls, to its data structures. In addition, more advanced controls like charts, smart tables, and transitions will be added to the application. Finally, a quick review of JavaFX concurrency and data binding is included. Blended with the core concepts the session will include some of the latest JavaFX technology. This includes using Scene Builder to create a JavaFX UI and connecting your XML UI definition to Java code.  In addition, packaging of the JavaFX application will be covered with some examples of the new native packaging features." As I mentioned, my session covers the changes in the Java for SE 7, including the  language changes that were voted into Java SE 7 from Project Coin. I will also look at how you can take advantage if the the new I/O library (NIO.2) for writing applications that work with files, directories and file systems. We will also look at the changes in Asynchronous I/O that are a part of the changes in NIO/2. We will spend some time looking at the changes to the Java Virtual Machine as well, including support for dynamically typed languages (JSR-292). We will spend some time looking at the Java Concurrency enhancements (JSR-166), including the new Fork/Join framework. And we'll round out the day with a look at changes in Swing, XML and a number of smaller changes in the API's. And, if these topics aren't grabbing your interest, take a look at the other 10 sessions that range from topics on architecture to how to pass the Oracle Certified Programmer I and II exams. See you soon!

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• If not now, then when?

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/10/25/if-not-now-then-when.aspx The time has been flying by this year. It seems like only yesterday that I mentioned the gorillagator, a simple construct of confusion to try to draw attention to my message. In reality, that message was sent over a month ago. During that time, the hours slipped to days and days to weeks. Many exciting things have happened to myself; I'm sure many exciting things have happened to you. I'm also sure that many terrifying things have happened to children and their families. 62 children enter treatment at a Children's Miracle Network Hospital every minute. That's nearly 60,000 children since I sent the last email. To put that number in perspective, that is more than the population of Greenland. If we expand that to the past year, they have been nearly 550,000 children treated. That is almost the population of Huntsville, Decatur, and all their suburbs combined. Over the past 4 years, I have raised a little more than $3,000 for Children's Hospital of Alabama. As a result, I received a call from the organizers of Extra Life thanking me for my dedicated work and informing me that I was the top supporters for Children's Hospital of Alabama ... with my measly three grand. We can do much better than that. It may sound like I'm trying to have fun by playing games for 24 hours. It is more than that. It is me using my time and body as a catalyst. It is me putting my passion to work for a cause. It is me turning my love into something tangible. I have been campaigning and fighting to give these children a chance for years. I have been asking you to help me support these children and families. I've been putting in countless hours of talking to people, impassioned emails, and carefully constructed tweets. I have been fighting with cutting edge, and sometimes expensive, technology to try to provide live streams of my marathons. I yearly put my body through 24 (and, this year, 25) hours of no sleep. I do this to represent the countless hours these families sit awake at their children's side. All I ask is a few minutes on a website and a few dollars. These few minutes and few dollars go a long way help people that are experiencing circumstances that only occur in our nightmares. I also ask that you take one extra step. Forward this plea to those that you know. I can only reach a small fraction of a percentage of the people that may be able to help. Together, we can reach the world. I raise money for Children's Hospital of Alabama. As this message branches out, people may wish to support a hospital closer to their area. I have included a link to the list of people that have dedicated their time and have received no donations. Find someone on the list supporting your local hospital and give them a donation. Let them know that their time and effort are appreciated. Together, we can do something great. Together, we can make a difference. Together, we all stand tall. Thank you. You can get more information at http://www.extra-life.org and http://childrensmiraclenetworkhospitals.org/" My donation page is http://www.extra-life.org/participant/cgardner The list of participants without donations is http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.eventParticipantList&page=629&eventID=512

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• It’s official – Red Gate is a great place to work!

  - by red@work

  At a glittering award ceremony last week, we found out that we’re officially the 14th best small company to work for in the whole of the UK! This is no mean feat, considering that about 1,000 companies enter the Sunday Times Top 100 best companies awards each year. Most of these are in the small companies category too. It's the fourth year in a row for us to be in the Top 100 list and we're tickled pink because the results are based on employee opinion. We’re particularly proud to be the best small company in Cambridge (in the whole of East Anglia, in fact) and the best small software development company in the entire UK. So how does it all work? Well, 90% of us took the time to answer over 70 questions on categories such as management, benefits, wellbeing, leadership, giving something back and what we think of Red Gate as a whole. It makes you think about every part of day to day working life and how you feel about it. Do you slightly or strongly agree or disagree that your manager motivates your to do your best every day, or that you have confidence in Red Gate's leaders, or that you’re not spending too much time working? It's great to see that we had one of the best scores in the country for the question "Do you think your company takes advantage of you?" We got particularly high scores for management, wellbeing and for giving something back too. A few of us got dressed up and headed to London for the awards; very excited about where we’d place but slightly nervous about having to get up on stage. There was a last minute hic up with a bow tie but the Managing Editor of the Sunday Times kindly stepped in to offer his assistance just before we had our official photo taken. We were nominated for two Special Recognition Awards. Despite not bringing them home this year, we're very proud to be nominated as there are only three nominations in each category. First we were up for the Training and Development award. Best Companies loved that we get together at lunchtimes to teach each other photography, cookery and French, as well as our book clubs and techie talks. And of course they liked our opportunities to go on training courses and to jet off to international conferences. Our other nomination was for the Wellbeing award. Best Companies loved our free food (and let’s face it, so do we). Porridge or bacon sandwiches for breakfast, a three course hot dinner, and free fruit and cereals all day long. If all that has an affect on the waistline then there are plenty of sporty activities for us all to get involved in, such as yoga, running or squash. Or if that’s not your thing then a relaxing massage helps us all to unwind every few months or so. The awards were hosted by news presenter Kate Silverton. She gave us a special mention during the ceremony for having great customer engagement as well as employee engagement, after we told her about Rodney Landrum (a Friend of Red Gate) tattooing our logo on his arm. We showed off our customised dinner jacket (thanks to Dom from Usability) with a flashing Red Gate logo on the back and she seemed suitability impressed. Back in the office the next day, we popped open the champagne and raised a glass to our success. Neil, our joint CEO, talked about how pleased he was with the award because it's based on the opinions of the people that count – us. You can read more about the Sunday Times awards here. By the way, we're still growing and are still hiring. If you’d like to keep up with our latest vacancies then why not follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/redgatecareers. Right now we're busy hiring in development, test, sales, product management, web development, and project management. Here's a link to our current job opportunities page – we'd love to hear from great people who are looking for a great place to work! After all, we're only great because of the people who work here. Post by: Alice Chapman

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• SQLAuthority News – Advantages of Distance Learning

  - by Pinal Dave

  Distance education is extremely popular – almost overnight, it seems.  Almost everyone has taken an online course, or knows someone who has, or is considering joining an online school.  There are many advantages and disadvantages to attending an online school – but the same can be said of attending a physical school!  Let’s take a look at the top reasons to use distance education. 1) Flexibility.  Physical universities are usually willing to make some concessions to student – like night classes, study hours, and online networks.  However, nothing is going to beat the flexibility of distance education.  You can attend classes and take notes anytime, anywhere, wearing anything you’d like! 2) Affordability.  We don’t need to get into hard numbers to understand how an expensive university can be.  Students are taking on more and more debt just to get an education.  Many of these fees pay for room, board, and facilities.   Distance education cuts out all these costs, and makes attending school much more affordable for the average student. 3) Try before you buy.  Did you know that the average college student changes his or her major 10 times before they graduate?  You can imagine that this kind of indecision plays a huge part in WHEN you graduate – not being able to make up your mind can cost you big bucks if you have to stay in school for extra years!  Distance education allows you to take different classes from a wide range of disciplines.  Do you want to study forensic science or English literature?  Now you don’t have to pay for classes you can’t afford just to find out. 4) Pace yourself.  Some students struggle in a traditional classroom setting – classes can be taught too fast, too slow, or there are too many distractions.  Distance education allows mature students to set the pace themselves.  They can rewatch lectures they didn’t catch the first time, or go through classes quickly if they are already familiar with the material – cutting out the chance of burning out or getting bored. 5) Lifelong learning.  Maybe you already have a degree, but would like to learn more about your field, or a related field, or maybe even about something completely unrelated – just because you are curious!  Distance education allows you to learn whatever you want ,whenever you want (and yes, wearing anything you’d like!). 6) Attend whatever college you want.  Because of the popularity of distance education, physical campuses are getting in on the game by offering online courses – often just uploaded versions of classes already taught at their campus.  Ever wanted to attend Harvard, but knew you couldn’t get in?  Take a class online!  Of course, you probably should not attempt to lie and say you have a Harvard degree, but Ivy League colleges are prestigious because they are the best in their field – take advantage of the best by taking an online course! I am a big believer in continuing education, whether it is online courses, returning to school, or even take informal classes online.  Distance education can be a great way to accomplish these goals and become a lifelong learner. My friends at provides training through virtual classrooms for students who want to avoid travelling. Distance learning course allows IT aspirants to connect with trainers using the internet.  I encourage everyone to check it out! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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• Five Key Trends in Enterprise 2.0 for 2011

  - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

  We recently sat down with Andy MacMillan, an industry veteran and vice president of product management for Enterprise 2.0 at Oracle, to get his take on the year ahead in Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0). He offered us his five predictions about the ways he believes E2.0 technologies will transform business in 2011. 1. Forward-thinking organizations will achieve an unprecedented level of organizational awareness. Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 technologies have already transformed the ways customers, employees, partners, and suppliers communicate and stay informed. But this year we are anticipating that organizations will go to the next step and integrate social activities with business applications to deliver rich contextual "activity streams." Activity streams are a new way for enterprise users to get relevant information as quickly as it happens, by navigating to that information in context directly from their portal. We don't mean syndicating social activities limited to a single application. Instead, we believe back-office systems will be combined with social media tools to drive how users make informed business decisions in brand new ways. For example, an account manager might log into the company portal and automatically receive notification that colleagues are closing business around a certain product in his market segment. With a single click, he can reach out instantly to these colleagues via social media and learn from their successes to drive new business opportunities in his own area. 2. Online customer engagement will become a high priority for CMOs. A growing number of chief marketing officers (CMOs) have created a new direct report called "head of online"--a senior marketing executive responsible for all engagements with customers and prospects via the Web, mobile, and social media. This new field has been dubbed "Web experience management" or "online customer engagement" by firms and analyst organizations. It is likely to rapidly increase demand for a host of new business objectives and metrics from Web content management solutions. As companies interface with customers more and more over the Web, Web experience management solutions will help deliver more targeted interactions to ensure increased customer loyalty while meeting sales and business objectives. 3. Real composite applications will be widely adopted. We expect organizations to move from the concept of a single "uber-portal" that encompasses all the necessary features to a more modular, component-based concept for composite applications. This approach is now possible as IT and power users are empowered to assemble new, purpose-built composite applications quickly from existing components. 4. Records management will drive ECM consolidation. We continue to see a significant shift in the approach to records management. Several years ago initiatives were focused on overlaying records management across a set of electronic repositories and physical storage locations. We believe federated records management will continue, but we also expect to see records management driving conversations around single-platform content management consolidation. 5. Organizations will demand ECM at extreme scale. We have already seen a trend within IT organizations to provide a common, highly scalable infrastructure to consolidate and support content and information needs. But as data sizes grow exponentially, ECM at an extreme scale is likely to spread at unprecedented speeds this year. This makes sense as regulations and transparency requirements rise. The model in which ECM and lightweight CMS systems provide basic content services such as check-in, update, delete, and search has converged around a set of industry best practices and has even been coded into new industry standards such as content management interoperability services. As these services converge and the demand for them accelerates, organizations are beginning to rationalize investments into a single, highly scalable infrastructure. Is your organization ready for Enterprise 2.0 in 2011? Learn more.

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• RPi and Java Embedded GPIO: Big Data and Java Technology

  - by hinkmond

  Java Embedded and Big Data go hand-in-hand, especially as demonstrated by prototyping on a Raspberry Pi to show how well the Java Embedded platform can perform on a small embedded device which then becomes the proof-of-concept for industrial controllers, medical equipment, networking gear or any type of sensor-connected device generating large amounts of data. The key is a fast and reliable way to access that data using Java technology. In the previous blog posts you've seen the integration of a static electricity sensor and the Raspberry Pi through the GPIO port, then accessing that data through Java Embedded code. It's important to point out how this works and why it works well with Java code. First, the version of Linux (Debian Wheezy/Raspian) that is found on the RPi has a very convenient way to access the GPIO ports through the use of Linux OS managed file handles. This is key in avoiding terrible and complex coding using register manipulation in C code, or having to program in a less elegant and clumsy procedural scripting language such as python. Instead, using Java Embedded, allows a fast way to access those GPIO ports through those same Linux file handles. Java already has a very easy to program way to access file handles with a high degree of performance that matches direct access of those file handles with the Linux OS. Using the Java API java.io.FileWriter lets us open the same file handles that the Linux OS has for accessing the GPIO ports. Then, by first resetting the ports using the unexport and export file handles, we can initialize them for easy use in a Java app. // Open file handles to GPIO port unexport and export controls FileWriter unexportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/unexport"); FileWriter exportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/export"); ... // Reset the port unexportFile.write(gpioChannel); unexportFile.flush(); // Set the port for use exportFile.write(gpioChannel); exportFile.flush(); Then, another set of file handles can be used by the Java app to control the direction of the GPIO port by writing either "in" or "out" to the direction file handle. // Open file handle to input/output direction control of port FileWriter directionFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/gpio" + gpioChannel + "/direction"); // Set port for input directionFile.write("in"); // Or, use "out" for output directionFile.flush(); And, finally, a RandomAccessFile handle can be used with a high degree of performance on par with native C code (only milliseconds to read in data and write out data) with low overhead (unlike python) to manipulate the data going in and out on the GPIO port, while the object-oriented nature of Java programming allows for an easy way to construct complex analytic software around that data access functionality to the external world. RandomAccessFile[] raf = new RandomAccessFile[GpioChannels.length]; ... // Reset file seek pointer to read latest value of GPIO port raf[channum].seek(0); raf[channum].read(inBytes); inLine = new String(inBytes); It's Big Data from sensors and industrial/medical/networking equipment meeting complex analytical software on a small constraint device (like a Linux/ARM RPi) where Java Embedded allows you to shine as an Embedded Device Software Designer. Hinkmond

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• Projet Doneness and Einstein's Razor

  - by Malcolm Anderson

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} I’ve started working on a series of articles about the value of having testers involved in requirements gathering.  Today I was reminded of a useful tool that has provided value to me for at least 20 years.  To those of you who already use this tool, I’m interested in your stories where it has made a difference for you, and to those of you who have never heard of it, I hope sharing it will make a difference in your careers.   I was reminded of it because I just finished a 3 month set of personal projects and was reviewing the success of those projects while putting together my next set of 3 month projects.  During this review, I noticed that a good number of my projects did not have the level of success that I wanted.  The results were good, but they could have been better.  Then it hit me, I didn’t have clear enough doneness criteria.  As a Scrum Practitioner, I wouldn’t think of running a sprint without reviewing the backlog with Einstein's Razor, so why wouldn’t I do the same for my own projects?    I can hear a few of you asking "What's Einstein's Razor?"   I'm glad you asked.  I was once told that Einstein told an audience, "If you can't explain what you do to a relatively bright six year old, you probably don't understand it yourself."    This quote had an impact on me, especially early in my career as a solo developer.  At the time, I was mostly doing end to end software development.  I found that I saved myself a lot of pain and trouble by turning that quote around to “If you can't explain your project's doneness criteria in such a way that a relatively bright six year old can't competently determine your projects success or failure, then you have not broken it down to a fine enough level.”  There are more negatives in that quote than I’m happy with, but it still gives me tons of value to this day.     In your opinion, in your current projects, could a 6 year old competently pass or fail your next sprint?  What risks are you running if your answer is “No” ?

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