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• SQL Server: Writing CASE expressions properly when NULLs are involved

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  We’ve all written a CASE expression (yes, it’s an expression and not a statement) or two every now and then. But did you know there are actually 2 formats you can write the CASE expression in? This actually bit me when I was trying to add some new functionality to an old stored procedure. In some rare cases the stored procedure just didn’t work correctly. After a quick look it turned out to be a CASE expression problem when dealing with NULLS. In the first format we make simple “equals to” comparisons to a value: SELECT CASE <value> WHEN <equals this value> THEN <return this> WHEN <equals this value> THEN <return this> -- ... more WHEN's here ELSE <return this> END Second format is much more flexible since it allows for complex conditions. USE THIS ONE! SELECT CASE WHEN <value> <compared to> <value> THEN <return this> WHEN <value> <compared to> <value> THEN <return this> -- ... more WHEN's here ELSE <return this> END Now that we know both formats and you know which to use (the second one if that hasn’t been clear enough) here’s an example how the first format WILL make your evaluation logic WRONG. Run the following code for different values of @i. Just comment out any 2 out of 3 “SELECT @i =” statements. DECLARE @i INTSELECT  @i = -1 -- first resultSELECT  @i = 55 -- second resultSELECT  @i = NULL -- third resultSELECT @i AS OriginalValue, -- first CASE format. DON'T USE THIS! CASE @i WHEN -1 THEN '-1' WHEN NULL THEN 'We have a NULL!' ELSE 'We landed in ELSE' END AS DontUseThisCaseFormatValue, -- second CASE format. USE THIS! CASE WHEN @i = -1 THEN '-1' WHEN @i IS NULL THEN 'We have a NULL!' ELSE 'We landed in ELSE' END AS UseThisCaseFormatValue When the value of @i is –1 everything works as expected, since both formats go into the –1 WHEN branch. When the value of @i is 55 everything again works as expected, since both formats go into the ELSE branch. When the value of @i is NULL the problems become evident. The first format doesn’t go into the WHEN NULL branch because it makes an equality comparison between two NULLs. Because a NULL is an unknown value: NULL = NULL is false. That is why the first format goes into the ELSE Branch but the second format correctly handles the proper IS NULL comparison.   Please use the second more explicit format. Your future self will be very grateful to you when he doesn’t have to discover these kinds of bugs.

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• Cookies not present after using XMLHttpRequest

  - by Joe B

  I'm trying to make a bookmarklet to download videos off of YouTube, but I've come across a little problem. To detect the highest quality video available, I use a sort of brute force method, in which I make requests using the XMLHttpRequest object until a 404 isn't returned (I can't do it until a 200 ok is returned because YouTube redirects to a different server if the video is available, and the cross-domain policy won't allow me to access any of that data). Once a working URL is found, I simply set window.location to the URL and the download should start, right? Wrong. A request is made, but for reasons unknown to me, the cookies are stripped and YouTube returns a 403 access denied. This does not happen if the XML requests aren't made before it, i.e. if I just set the window.location to the URL everything works fine, it's when I do the XMLHttpRequest that the cookies aren't sent. It's hard to explain so here's the script: var formats = ["37", "22", "35", "34", "18", ""]; var url = "/get_video?video_id=" + yt.getConfig('SWF_ARGS')['video_id'] + "&t=" + (unescape(yt.getConfig('SWF_ARGS')['t'])) + "&fmt="; for (var i = 0; i < formats.length; i++) { xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest; xmlhttp.open("HEAD", url + formats[i], false); xmlhttp.send(null); if (xmlhttp.status != 404) { document.location = url + formats[i]; break } } That script does not send the cookies after setting the document.location and thus does not work. However, simply doing this: document.location = /get_video?video_id=" + yt.getConfig('SWF_ARGS')['video_id'] + "&t=" + (unescape(yt.getConfig('SWF_ARGS')['t'])) DOES send the cookies along with the request, and does work. The only downside is I can't automatically detect the highest quality, I just have to try every "fmt" parameter manually until I get it right. So my question is: why is the XMLHttpRequest object removing cookies from subsequent requests? This is the first time I've ever done anything in JS by the way, so please, go easy on me. ;)

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• How to set ExportMetaData with multiple values as well as single w/ custom attribute ?

  - by Matthew M.

  I have the following ExportMetaData attributes set on my class: [Export(typeof(IDocumentViewer))] [ExportMetadata("Name", "MyViewer")] [ExportMetadata("SupportsEditing", true)] [ExportMetadata("Formats", DocFormat.DOC, IsMultiple = true)] [ExportMetadata("Formats", DocFormat.DOCX, IsMultiple = true)] [ExportMetadata("Formats", DocFormat.RTF, IsMultiple = true)] I also have a supporting interface: public interface IDocumentViewerMetaData { /// <summary> /// Gets the format. /// </summary> /// <value>The format.</value> IEnumerable<DocFormat> Formats { get; } /// <summary> /// Gets the name of the viewer /// </summary> /// <value>The name.</value> string Name { get; } /// <summary> /// Gets a value indicating whether this viewer supports editing /// </summary> /// <value><c>true</c> if [supports editing]; otherwise, <c>false</c>.</value> bool SupportsEditing { get; } } And of course my ImportMany: [ImportMany(typeof(IDocumentViewer))] public IEnumerable<Lazy<IDocumentViewer, IDocumentViewerMetaData>> _viewers { get; set; } What I would like to do is use a strongly-typed attribute class instead of using the ExportMetaData attribute. I have not figured out a way to do this while also supporting single values (Name, SupportsEditing, in the example above). I envision doing something similiar the following (or whatever is suggested as best): [Export(typeof(IDocumentViewer))] [DocumentViewerMetadata(Name = "MyViewer")] [DocumentViewerMetadata(SupportsEditing = true)] [DocumentViewerMetadata(Format = DocFormat.DOC)] [DocumentViewerMetadata(Format = DocFormat.DOCX)] I am fairly certain that there IS a way to do this, I just haven't found the right way to connect the dots. :) Thank you, Matthew

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• Creating ODT and PDF files as end result

  - by Bill Zimmerman

  Hello, I've been working on an app to create various document formats for a while now, and I've had limited success. Ideally, I'd like to dynamically create a fairly simple ODT/PDF/DOC file. I've been focusing my efforts on ODT, because it is editable, and open enough that there are several tools which will convert it to any of the other formats I need. The problem is that the ODT XML files are NOT simple, and there aren't any good-quality API's I could find (especially in python). So far, I've had the most success creating a template ODT file, and then manipulating the DOM in python as needed. This is ok generally, but is quickly becoming inadequate and requires too much tweaking every single time I need to alter one of the templates. The requirements are: 1) Produce a simple document that will have lists, paragraphs, and the ability to draw simple graphics on the page (boxes, circles, etc...) 2) The ability to specify page size, and the different formats should generally print the exact same output when sent to a printer My questions: 1) Are there any other ways I can produce ODT/PDF/DOC files? 2) Would LaTeX be acceptable? I've never really used it, does anyone have experience converting LaTeX files into other formats? 3) Would it be possible to use HTML? There are a lot of converters online. Technically you can specify dimensions in mm/cm, etc..., but I am worried that the printed output will differ between browsers/converters.... Any other ideas?

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• Adding multiple data importers support to web applications

  - by DigiMortal

  I’m building web application for customer and there is requirement that users must be able to import data in different formats. Today we will support XLSX and ODF as import formats and some other formats are waiting. I wanted to be able to add new importers on the fly so I don’t have to deploy web application again when I add new importer or change some existing one. In this posting I will show you how to build generic importers support to your web application. Importer interface All importers we use must have something in common so we can easily detect them. To keep things simple I will use interface here. public interface IMyImporter {     string[] SupportedFileExtensions { get; }     ImportResult Import(Stream fileStream, string fileExtension); } Our interface has the following members: SupportedFileExtensions – string array of file extensions that importer supports. This property helps us find out what import formats are available and which importer to use with given format. Import – method that does the actual importing work. Besides file we give in as stream we also give file extension so importer can decide how to handle the file. It is enough to get started. When building real importers I am sure you will switch over to abstract base class. Importer class Here is sample importer that imports data from Excel and Word documents. Importer class with no implementation details looks like this: public class MyOpenXmlImporter : IMyImporter {     public string[] SupportedFileExtensions     {         get { return new[] { "xlsx", "docx" }; }     }     public ImportResult Import(Stream fileStream, string extension)     {         // ...     } } Finding supported import formats in web application Now we have importers created and it’s time to add them to web application. Usually we have one page or ASP.NET MVC controller where we need importers. To this page or controller we add the following method that uses reflection to find all classes that implement our IMyImporter interface. private static string[] GetImporterFileExtensions() {     var types = from a in AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()                 from t in a.GetTypes()                 where t.GetInterfaces().Contains(typeof(IMyImporter))                 select t;       var extensions = new Collection<string>();     foreach (var type in types)     {         var instance = (IMyImporter)type.InvokeMember(null,                        BindingFlags.CreateInstance, null, null, null);           foreach (var extension in instance.SupportedFileExtensions)         {             if (extensions.Contains(extension))                 continue;               extensions.Add(extension);         }     }       return extensions.ToArray(); } This code doesn’t look nice and is far from optimal but it works for us now. It is possible to improve performance of web application if we cache extensions and their corresponding types to some static dictionary. We have to fill it only once because our application is restarted when something changes in bin folder. Finding importer by extension When user uploads file we need to detect the extension of file and find the importer that supports given extension. We add another method to our page or controller that uses reflection to return us importer instance or null if extension is not supported. private static IMyImporter GetImporterForExtension(string extensionToFind) {     var types = from a in AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()                 from t in a.GetTypes()                 where t.GetInterfaces().Contains(typeof(IMyImporter))                 select t;     foreach (var type in types)     {         var instance = (IMyImporter)type.InvokeMember(null,                        BindingFlags.CreateInstance, null, null, null);           if (instance.SupportedFileExtensions.Contains(extensionToFind))         {             return instance;         }     }       return null; } Here is example ASP.NET MVC controller action that accepts uploaded file, finds importer that can handle file and imports data. Again, this is sample code I kept minimal to better illustrate how things work. public ActionResult Import(MyImporterModel model) {     var file = Request.Files[0];     var extension = Path.GetExtension(file.FileName).ToLower();     var importer = GetImporterForExtension(extension.Substring(1));     var result = importer.Import(file.InputStream, extension);     if (result.Errors.Count > 0)     {         foreach (var error in result.Errors)             ModelState.AddModelError("file", error);           return Import();     }     return RedirectToAction("Index"); } Conclusion That’s it. Using couple of ugly methods and one simple interface we were able to add importers support to our web application. Example code here is not perfect but it works. It is possible to cache mappings between file extensions and importer types to some static variable because changing of these mappings means that something is changed in bin folder of web application and web application is restarted in this case anyway.

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• Import/rip/convert DVD to Adobe Premiere Pro for Mac

  - by alexyu2010

  For those who want to edit their videos, Adobe Premiere Pro will inevitably a good choice, it is a professional, real time, timeline based video editing software application that supports many video editing cards and plug-ins for accelerated processing, additional file format support and video/audio effects. Although Adobe Premiere Pro is said to be for professionals, is not so complicated that a hobbyist can't excel at using it in an hour or so. General file formats supported by Adobe Premiere Pro Up to now, Adobe Creative Suite has released several versions of Adobe Premiere Pro, including Adobe Premiere 1.0, Adobe Premiere 2.0, Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and the newly published Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. Although I saw diversity in file formats they support, I did find some common file formats supported by all of them, such as AVI, MOV, MPG. Importing DVD, Adobe Premiere Pro says "NO" It is obvious to all of us that Adobe Premiere Pro will never give DVD a hug, and it isn't rare to see that many people are really confused when they want to import their DVDs to Adobe Premiere Pro for editing. What to do? Yes, you may have noticed that, there is only a way out, that is ripping your DVDs to some formats workable with Adobe Premiere Pro natively, and this is what DVD to Adobe Premiere Pro can do. Importing DVD to Adobe Premiere Pro on Mac DVD to Adobe Premiere Pro converter for Mac is the specially designed application for ripping/converting DVD movies, DVD VOB files or DVD clips to Adobe Premiere Pro compatible AVI, MOV, MPG files with either DVD ripping tool and video converting tool within the versatile DVD to Adobe Premiere Pro converter who is a powerful program for dealing with DVD and videos perfectly. Mac DVD to Adobe Premiere Pro converter can work with a wide variety of files including DVD, VOB, AVI, WMV, MPG, MOV, MP4, DV, FLV, MKV, ASF, SWF, HD video for using with other editing tools like iMovie, FCP etc, play on QuickTime, iTunes, put on portable devices like iPod, iPhone, iPad, iRiver, BlackBerry, Gphone, Mobile Phone or upload to webistes such as YouTube, MySpace. DVD to Adobe Premiere Pro converter for Mac can also help you do some basic editing. You can trim, crop your DVD movie or DVD clip, apply special effect to make it more artistic, merge several DVD clips to a single one or tweak the output parameters for video and audio separately to get a better quality rendering. Besides, to get a good common of the process the preview widnows is also available for you.

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• Package visible in Synaptic but not in aptitude?

  - by sleepycat

  I can see libfreeimage3-dev in synaptic and have installed it from there, but what is it that I can't see it from the command line? I tried sudo aptitude update... mike@sleepycat:~$ sudo aptitude search '~n.*freeimage3.*' i libfreeimage3 - Support library for graphics image formats p libfreeimage3-dbg - Support library for graphics image formats Any ideas?

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• How to enjoy DVD on Apple iPad

  - by user44251

  I believe many people spent a sleepless night yesterday waiting for the new Apple Tablet to come, just a few days ago or perhaps longer I noticed fierce debate about it, its name, size, capacity, processor, main features, price etc. And now, they can take a long breath with the new Apple Tablet named iPad officially released on 28, January, 2010 (Beijing Time). But I know a new battle just begins. iPad, sounds somewhat like iPod and it really shares some similarities in terms of shape like smart, light and portable. It has a 9.7-inch, LED-backlit, IPS display with a remarkable precise Multi-Touch screen. And yet, at just 1.5 lbs and 0.5 inches thin, it's easy to carry and use everywhere. It can greatly facilitates your experience with the web, emails, photos and videos. Right now, it can run almost 140.000 of the apps on the Apple store. It can even run the apps you have downloaded for your iPhone or iPod touch. But so far, I haven't seen any possibility that it can work with DVD, probability there is no built-in DVD-ROM or DVD player which can play DVD directly. As Apple iPad states, the video formats supported are MPEG-4 (MP4, M4V), H.264, MOV etc and audio formats accepted are AAC, Proteceted AAC, MP3, AIFF and WAV etc, those are formats that are commonly used with iMac. This could really a hard nut to crack if you want to watch your favourite DVD on this magic Apple iPad. But don't worry, there is still way out, you just need a few steps for ripping and importing DVD movies to Apple iPad with a simple application DVD to iPad converter What's on DVD to iPad Converter for Mac DVD to iPad converter for Mac is a powerful and professional application designed for the newly released Apple iPad which can rip, convert your DVD contents to Apple iPad compatible MPEG-4 (MP4, M4V), H.264, MOV etc, and other popular file formats like AVI, WMV, MPG, MKV, VOB, 3GP, FLV etc can also be converted so that you can put on your portable devices like iPod, iPhone, iRiver, BlackBerry etc. Besides, it can also extract audio from DVD videos and save as MP3, AIFF, AAC, WAV etc. Mac DVD to iPad converter has also been enhanced that can run both on PowerPC and Intel (Snow Leopard included). It can offer versatile editing features which allows you to make your own DVD videos. For example, you can cut your DVD to whatever length you like by Trim, crop off unwanted parts from DVD clips by Crop, add special effect like Gray, Emboss and Old film to make your videos more artistic. Besides, its built-in merging feature and batch mode allows you to join several DVD clips into a single one and do batch conversion. And more features can be expected if you afford a few minutes to try.

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• video player recommendation (hardware)

  - by Fuxi

  hi all, i'm looking for a hardware-videoplayer with the following features: support for all kind of video formats from the web (xvid, divx, mpeg ..) w/o problems slots for memory cards like cf/sd usb connector for external devices like hd/usb sticks updateable firmware support for .srt files (subtitles) - option to change eg. fontsize currently i'm having a dvd player with memory slot but it only supports a few formats and it's very annoying having to convert anything - mostly it doesn't work. thx in advance

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• DateTime: Require the user to enter a time component

  - by Heinzi

  Checking if a user input is a valid date or a valid "date + time" is easy: .NET provides DateTime.TryParse (and, in addition, VB.NET provides IsDate). Now, I want to check if the user entered a date including a time component. So, when using a German locale, 31.12.2010 00:00 should be OK, but 31.12.2010 shouldn't. I know I could use DateTime.TryParseExact like this: Dim formats() As String = {"d.M.yyyy H:mm:ss", "dd.M.yyyy H:mm:ss", _ "d.MM.yyyy H:mm:ss", "d.MM.yyyy H:mm:ss", _ "d.M.yyyy H:mm", ...} Dim result = DateTime.TryParseExact(userInput, formats, _ Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, ..., result) but then I would hard-code the German format of specifying dates (day dot month dot year), which is considered bad practice and will make trouble should we ever want to localize our application. In addition, formats would be quite a large list of all possible combinations (one digit, two digits, ...). Is there a more elegant solution?

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• Date in textboxes changing format

  - by AWinters

  I have an application (asp.net 3.5) that support 4 different languages. Along with other cultural changes, the date formats must match the current culture on out reporting pages. We set the date formats of each of the textboxes like: string date = DateTime.Today.ToString("d"); //returns the date portion only textbox1.Text = date; textbox2.Text = date; etc... When the user selects Spanish or British English the format should be dd/mm/yyyy. However, then I navigate to the page it displays in mm/dd/yyyy. After a postback it then displays dd/mm/yyyy. After another postback it switches to the mm/dd/yyyy format and on and on. I have debugged through this and I see that the culture is correct for the application and the date formats are returned to me correctly, yet when it displays, it displays incorrectly. Has anyone ever seen this or know what is happening?

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• Storage for large gridded datasets

  - by nullglob

  I am looking for a good storage format for large, gridded datasets. The application is meteorology, and we would prefer a format that is common within this field (to help exchange data with others). I don't need to deal with special data structures, and there should be a Fortran API. I am currently considering HDF5, GRIB2 and NetCDF4. How do these formats compare in terms of data compression? What are their main limitations? How steep is the learning curve? Are there any other storage formats worth investigating? I have not found a great deal of material outlining the differences and pros/cons of these formats (there is one relevant SO thread, and a presentation comparing GRIB and NetCDF).

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• Oracle Business Intelligence integration with Oracle Open Office

  - by Harald Behnke

  A highlight of the latest Oracle Office product launches are the first Oracle application connectors introduced with Oracle Open Office 3.3. The Oracle Open Office Connector for Oracle Business Intelligence perfectly demonstrates the advantages of enterprise and office productivity software engineered to work together. The connector enables you to access and run Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition requests directly within Oracle Open Office. The refreshable requests leverage not only native Open Office functionality but also the scalability and performance of the Oracle Oracle Business Intelligence server (R10.x). The requests reference a single source of information as defined in the Oracle Business Intelligence server data thus ensuring consistent information across the enterprise. See how it works in the demo video: Beyond the dramatic license cost savings for Oracle Business Intelligence customers using Oracle Open Office, the joint engineering efforts result in usability and efficiency benefits not available with Microsoft Office: Import styles and conditional formats defined in Business Intelligence answersApply customized styles, direct or conditional formats to Oracle Business Intelligence data - all changes are preserved during refreshChange chart properties for Oracle Open Office charts - all changes are preserved during refresh Read more about the Oracle Open Office enterprise features.

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• SQLAuthority News – Various Microsoft SQL Server Documentations Available for Download

  - by pinaldave

  Microsoft has recently released various SQL Server related documentations and here I have listed them here for quick reference. Microsoft SQL Server Protocol Documentation The Microsoft SQL Server protocol documentation provides technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols that are implemented and used in Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Microsoft SQL Server Protocol Documentation The SQL Server data portability documentation explains various mechanisms by which user-created data in SQL Server can be extracted for use in other software products. These mechanisms include import/export functionality, documented APIs, industry standard formats, or documented data structures/file formats. SQL Server Standards Support Documentation The SQL Server standards support documentation provides detailed support information for certain standards that are implemented in Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft Product Support Reports Download the scripted system configuration gathering tools. The Microsoft Product Support Reports utility facilitates the gathering of critical system and logging information used in troubleshooting support issues. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Why is there nobody talking about an alternative to HTML & CSS? [closed]

  - by Nic

  HTML is such an old and cumbersome language, which was intended just to markup text. Today it's very rare to see a static HTML website, or a site with only text or a very simple layout. As a web developer I find it inconvenient to use HTML & CSS, very repetitive and cumbersome. I think that for a lot of website it could be simplified a lot. Tim Berners-Lee (W3) wrote a document named "The World Wide Web: Past, Present and Future" in August 1996 ... though HTML will be considered part of the established infrastructure (rather than an exciting new toy), there will always be new formats coming along, and it may be that a more powerful and perhaps a more consistent set of formats will eventually displace HTML. So, more than 15 years later, HTML is still here and it's here to stay. Why? Why searching for xml alternatives brings so much relevant result, but searching for html alternatives brings almost none relevant results? Answers like "it's too hard to change a standard" aren't answering the question since a lot of new standards emerged since the initiation of the web. I'm also not searching for answers that suggest using tools to simplify the process or formats that anyhow depends on HTML or CSS, technologies that currently require a plugin and not even trying to become an open standards (like Flash) aren't an answer neither. BTW, here are 2 articles written more than two years ago as food for thought, it might help with writing a better answers. "HTML, CSS, and Web Development Practices: Past, Present, and Future" describing a very related problem, by Jens O. Meiert. "A Brief History of HTML" by Scott Reynen, Here is a quote from the end: So now you can answer questions about HTML5 without even looking at the draft, which is handy, because the draft is 400+ pages long. Why is there a new tag in HTML5? Because some browser vendor (maybe the one that also owns a large video site) wanted it. Why are there so many scriptable interface elements in HTML5? Because some browser vendor (maybe the one selling phones without Flash support) wants them. Why is there no support for RDFa in HTML5? Apparently no browser vendor wanted it. Is that the future?

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• February OTN Member Offers

  - by Cassandra Clark

  This month we have a lot of NEW book discounts and another from Oracle Store. See full list below or go right to OTN Member Discount Page to get codes. Books Discounts - Apress Offers - 25% off eBooks bought @ apress.com. Book of the Month - Pro Oracle Database 11g Administration. Pearson - 35% off and free shipping in US C# 4.0 Unleashed Multicore Application Programming Oracle Press - 40% off and sample chapters of following titles. Oracle Streams 11g Data Replication JavaFX, A Beginner's Guide Oracle CRM on Demand Embedded Analytics Oracle CRM On Demand Combined Analyses Packt Publishing - 20% off print and 45% off ebook of below Oracle APEX titles. Oracle APEX 4.0 Cookbook Oracle Application Express 4.0 with Ext JS Oracle Application Express 3.2 - The Essentials and More Oracle Application Express Forms Converter Manning - 40% off all formats of books below: • The Joy of Clojure • Specification by Example  Manning is also offering a book excerpt and 42% off all formats of the following titles: • Portlets in Action • Tuscany SCA in Action                                                                   Oracle Store - OTN Member Exclusive: 15% off Oracle Open Office Enterprise Edition at Oracle Store To get discount codes please visit the OTN Member Discount Page.

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• Books are Dead! Long Live the Books!

  - by smisner

  We live in interesting times with regard to the availability of technical material. We have lots of free written material online in the form of vendor documentation online, forums, blogs, and Twitter. And we have written material that we can buy in the form of books, magazines, and training materials. Online videos and training – some free and some not free – are also an option. All of these formats are useful for one need or another. As an author, I pay particular attention to the demand for books, and for now I see no reason to stop authoring books. I assure you that I don’t get rich from the effort, and fortunately that is not my motivation. As someone who likes to refer to books frequently, I am still a big believer in books and have evidence from book sales that there are others like me. If I can do my part to help others learn about the technologies I work with, I will continue to produce content in a variety of formats, including books. (You can view a list of all of my books on the Publications page of my site and my online training videos at Pluralsight.) As a consumer of technical information, I prefer books because a book typically can get into a topic much more deeply than a blog post, and can provide more context than vendor documentation. It comes with a table of contents and a (hopefully accurate) index that helps me zero in on a topic of interest, and of course I can use the Search feature in digital form. Some people suggest that technology books are outdated as soon as they get published. I guess it depends on where you are with technology. Not everyone is able to upgrade to the latest and greatest version at release. I do assume, however, that the SQL Server 7.0 titles in my library have little value for me now, but I’m certain that the minute I discard the book, I’m going to want it for some reason! Meanwhile, as electronic books overtake physical books in sales, my husband is grateful that I can continue to build my collection digitally rather than physically as the books have a way of taking over significant square footage in our house! Blog posts, on the other hand, are useful for describing the scenarios that come up in real-life implementations that wouldn’t fit neatly into a book. As many years that I have working with the Microsoft BI stack, I still run into new problems that require creative thinking. Likewise, people who work with BI and other technologies that I use share what they learn through their blogs. Internet search engines help us find information in blogs that simply isn’t available anywhere else. Another great thing about blogs, also, is the connection to community and the dialog that can ensue between people with common interests. With the trend towards electronic formats for books, I imagine that we’ll see books continue to adapt to incorporate different forms of media and better ways to keep the information current. At the moment, I wish I had a better way to help readers with my last two Reporting Services books. In the case of the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Reporting Services Step by Step book, I have heard many cases of readers having problems with the sample database that shipped on CD – either the database was missing or it was corrupt. So I’ve provided a copy of the database on my site for download from http://datainspirations.com/uploads/rs2005sbsDW.zip. Then for the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 Reporting Services Step by Step book, we decided to avoid the database problem by using the AdventureWorks2008 samples that Microsoft published on Codeplex (although code samples are still available on CD). We had this silly idea that the URL for the download would remain constant, but it seems that expectation was ill-founded. Currently, the sample database is found at http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/37109 but I have no idea how long that will remain valid. My latest books (#9 and #10 which are milestones I never anticipated), Building Integrated Business Intelligence Solutions with SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010 (McGraw Hill, 2011) and Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Microsoft Press, 2011), will not ship with a CD, but will provide all code samples for download at a site maintained by the respective publishers. I expect that the URLs for the downloads for the book will remain valid, but there are lots of references to other sites that can change or disappear over time. Does that mean authors shouldn’t make reference to such sites? Personally, I think the benefits to be gained from including links are greater than the risks of the links becoming invalid at some point. Do you think the time for technology books has come to an end? Is the delivery of books in electronic format enough to keep them alive? If technological barriers were no object, what would make a book more valuable to you than other formats through which you can obtain information?

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• Apps capable of mounting/unmounting CD/DVD Images with multi-sector or protected format

  - by Luis Alvarado

  What apps for Ubuntu exist that can mount/unmount CD/DVD images. Image formats like cue, bin, iso, nero format, etc... Needed features: Emulate protected CD/DVD like Daemon-Tools Mount multi-sector images Converting other formats (including multi-sector images) to ISO format. UPDATE - Updated question to "need the 3 features above instead of having them as optional". This 3 features are needed to be able to use images that have any of this features enable. For normal mounting/burning image apps you can see here: How can I graphically mount ISOs? Can I mount an ISO without administrative privileges? How burn or mount an ISO file?

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• Is imposing the same code format for all developers a good idea?

  - by Stijn Geukens

  We are considering to impose a single standard code format in our project (auto format with save actions in Eclipse). The reason is that currently there is a big difference in the code formats used by several (10) developers which makes it harder for one developer to work on the code of another developer. The same Java file sometimes uses 3 different formats. So I believe the advantage is clear (readability = productivity) but would it be a good idea to impose this? And if not, why? UPDATE We all use Eclipse and everyone is aware of the plan. There already is a code format used by most but it is not enforced since some prefer to stick to their own code format. Because of the above reasons some would prefer to enforce it.

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• DMS Coordinates Converter

  This is a tool for people that have to work with "Decimal Degrees", "Degrees, Decimal Minutes" and "Degrees, Minutes, Seconds" formats.

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• Loading from Multiple Data Sources with Oracle Loader for Hadoop

  - by mannamal

  Oracle Loader for Hadoop can be used to load data from multiple data sources (for example Hive, HBase), and data in multiple formats (for example Apache weblogs, JSON files).   There are two ways to do this: (1) Use an input format implementation.  Oracle Loader for Hadoop includes several input format implementations.  In addition, a user can develop their own input format implementation for proprietary data sources and formats. (2) Leverage the capabilities of Hive, and use Oracle Loader for Hadoop to load from Hive. These approaches are discussed in our Oracle Open World 2013 presentation. 

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• AutoVue 20.2.1 is Now Available!

  - by Pam Petropoulos

  Oracle’s AutoVue Enterprise Visualization 20.2.1, a minor release within the 20.2 product family, has just been made available on the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. AutoVue release 20.2.1 includes the following new capabilities and improvements: Enhancements to the Augmented Business Visualization framework to connect documents and business data in enterprise applications and create rich, actionable visual-decision making environment. AutoVue now allows hotspots in 2D drawings and images to be defined as polygons, rather than only by text strings or boxes. Improved Documentation on Augmented Business Visualization and Hotspotting Optimize business process efficiency by integrating AutoVue and Oracle BPM to: Initiate interactive document reviews by the appropriate reviewer in a workflow Automate printing and conversion operations at the appropriate stage of a workflow Timely support for new MCAD and  ECAD formats Fidelity and performance improvements for a wide range of formats Click here to read about the latest features and their corresponding benefits. Click here to access the latest AutoVue Format Support Sheet.

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• What format should I convert my iTunes Videos to?

  - by Aequitarum Custos

  Recently got Daniusoft Media Converter, and was about to strip the DRM off my iTunes library, then I found I had a huge decision to make. Converting my music seems obvious, to MP3, however the video formats, I'm at a loss on. It has "optimized" formats for all types of video players such as iPhone, Zune, Droid (which I own), and just a huge list! I bought several seasons of House and a few movies, though I don't know which format would be optimal to not lose quality. While I love my Droid, I have no intention on watching full episodes or movies on it, and I have a feeling that would reduce quality. One of the options sections is HD Video, and it has HD MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4). That one seems like it would be the best format to convert to without losing quality, but again, I'm unsure. Has anyone used this software, or have general expertise in video formats to give a recommendation on what file format I should convert my videos to? Format requirements: No loss in quality Portability would be ideal (as in, will play on my Windows and potentially MAC, and streamable to a bigscreen).

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• Using Haskell's Parsec to parse binary files?

  - by me2

  Parsec is designed to parse textual information, but it occurs to me that Parsec could also be suitable to do binary file format parsing for complex formats that involve conditional segments, out-of-order segments, etc. Is there an ability to do this or a similar, alternative package that does this? If not, what is the best way in Haskell to parse binary file formats?

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• How to format this string in c#

  - by Rohit

  I have a setting stored in database which has a value .jpg|.gif|.png . I want to display it on frontend as ".jpg",".gif" and ".png" in a single string. for example Allowed formats are ".jpg",".gif" and ".png" I was able to seperate it using string fileTypes = String.Join(",", supportedFileTypes.Split('|')) How to specify and clause before the last string. It has to be dynamic. For example if we have .jpg|.gif in database, it should be Allowed formats are ".jpg" and ".gif".

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