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• Are there any NOSQL-compatible CMS projects?

  - by Michael

  This question is partially related to an older question (Any CMS is Google App Engine compatible?) , but is slightly more general. It seems that in most CMS systems, the most fragile failure point is the database. Traditional database implementations scale poorly and will never be able to handle unforeseen spikes of traffic. Since Google App Engine was designed to help even small businesses overcome that problem, I had the same question that was asked earlier this year with less than satisfactory answers. But more generally, where are the CMS projects that support NOSQL databases? Looking over Wikipedia's list of CMS platforms, I see without much effort that only traditional RDBMS are supported by every single vendor on the list. I would have expected to see at least one or two projects handling CouchDB or similar engines. I understand the complexities of implementing a NOSQL solution to a problem that is typically solved using the relations cleanly expressed in any RDBMS, but there seems to be a rather wide market gap. Since databases are, today, easily outsourced to Google, Amazon, and others which use NOSQL models, I am amazed that there are not more projects actively pursuing this path. Am I simply not aware? Can someone please point me to projects that have real momentum that are developing on this path? I'm looking for two things: a CMS that has as its backbone a NOSQL database enabling easy database outsourcing (hosted MySQL clusters and similar solutions are not what I'm looking for) a project that is built to run on either a PaaS architecture like Google App Engine or an IaaS architecture like Amazon EC2 Any pointers in that direction would be most welcome.

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• Image Gurus: Optimize my Python PNG transparency function

  - by ozone

  I need to replace all the white(ish) pixels in a PNG image with alpha transparency. I'm using Python in AppEngine and so do not have access to libraries like PIL, imagemagick etc. AppEngine does have an image library, but is pitched mainly at image resizing. I found the excellent little pyPNG module and managed to knock up a little function that does what I need: make_transparent.py pseudo-code for the main loop would be something like: for each pixel: if pixel looks "quite white": set pixel values to transparent otherwise: keep existing pixel values and (assuming 8bit values) "quite white" would be: where each r,g,b value is greater than "240" AND each r,g,b value is within "20" of each other This is the first time I've worked with raw pixel data in this way, and although works, it also performs extremely poorly. It seems like there must be a more efficient way of processing the data without iterating over each pixel in this manner? (Matrices?) I was hoping someone with more experience in dealing with these things might be able to point out some of my more obvious mistakes/improvements in my algorithm. Thanks!

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• Resources for setting up a Visual Studio/C++ development environment

  - by Tom H.

  I haven't done much "front-end" development in about 15 years since moving to database development. I'm planning to start work on a personal project using C++ and since I already have MSDN I'll probably end up doing it in Visual Studio 2010. I'm thinking about using Subversion as a version control system eventually. Of course, I'd like to get up and running as quickly as I can, but I'd also like to avoid any pitfalls from a poorly organized project environment. So, my question is, are there any good resources with common best practices for setting up a development environment? I'm thinking along the lines of where to break down a solution into multiple projects if necessary, how to set up a unit testing process, organizing resources, directories, etc. Are there any great add-ons that I should make sure I have set up from the start? Most tutorials just have one simple project, type in your code and click on build to see that your new application says, "Hello World!". This will be a Windows application with several DLLs as well (no web development), so there doesn't need to be a deploy to a web server kind of process. Mostly I just want to make sure that I don't miss anything big and then have to extensively refactor because of it. Thanks!

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• Merging ILists to bind on datagridview to avoid using a database view

  - by P.Bjorklund

  In the form we have this where IntaktsBudgetsType is a poorly named enum that only specifies wether to populate the datagridview after customer or product (You do the budgeting either after product or customer) private void UpdateGridView() { bs = new BindingSource(); bs.DataSource = intaktsbudget.GetDataSource(this.comboBoxKundID.Text, IntaktsBudgetsType.PerKund); dataGridViewIntaktPerKund.DataSource = bs; } This populates the datagridview with a database view that merge the product, budget and customer tables. The logic has the following method to get the correct set of IList from the repository which only does GetTable<T>.ToList<T> public IEnumerable<IntaktsBudgetView> GetDataSource(string id, IntaktsBudgetsType type) { IList<IntaktsBudgetView> list = repository.SelectTable<IntaktsBudgetView>(); switch (type) { case IntaktsBudgetsType.PerKund: return from i in list where i.kundId == id select i; case IntaktsBudgetsType.PerProdukt: return from i in list where i.produktId == id select i; } return null; } Now I don't want to use a database view since that is read-only and I want to be able to perform CRUD actions on the datagridview. I could build a class that acts as a wrapper for the whole thing and bind the different table values to class properties but that doesn't seem quite right since I would have to do this for every single thing that requires "the merge". Something pretty important (and probably basic) is missing the the thought process but after spending a weekend on google and in books I give up and turn to the SO community.

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• Can I share code & resources between Android projects without using a library?

  - by Tom

  The standard advice for sharing code & resources between Android projects is to use a library. Personally I find this works poorly if (a) the shared code changes a lot, or (b) your computer isn't fast enough. I also don't want to get into deploying multiple APK's, which seems to be necessary when I use dependent projects (i.e. Java Build Path, Projects Tab). On the other hand, sharing a folder of source code by using the Eclipse linked source feature works great (Java Build Path, Source tab, Link Source button), but for these two issues: 1) I can't use the same technique to share resources. I can create the link to the resources parent folder but then things get wonky and the shared resources don't get compiled (I'm using ADT 21). 2) So then I settle for copying the shared resources into each project, but this doesn't work because either. The shared code can't import the copy of its resources because it doesn't know the package name of the project that uses it. The solution I've been using is to access the resources dynamically, but that has become cumbersome as the number of resources grows. So, I need a solution to either (1) or (2), or I'll have to go back to a library project. (Or maybe there is another option I haven't thought of?)

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• How can I get my business objects layer to use the management layer in their methods?

  - by Tom Pickles

  I have a solution in VS2010 with several projects, each making up a layer within my application. I have business entities which are currently objects with no methods, and I have a management layer which references the business entities layer in it's project. I now think I have designed my application poorly and would like to move methods from helper classes (which are in another layer) into methods I'll create within the business entities themselves. For example I have a VirtualMachine object, which uses a helper class to call a Reboot() method on it which passes the request to the management layer. The static manager class talks to an API that reboots the VM. I want to move the Reboot() method into the VirtualMachine object, but I will need to reference the management layer: public void Reboot() { VMManager.Reboot(this.Name); } So if I add a reference to my management project in my entities project, I get the circular dependency error, which is how it should be. How can I sort this situation out? Do I need to an yet another layer between the entity layer and the management layer? Or, should I just forget it and leave it as it is. The application works ok now, but I am concerned my design isn't particularly OOP centric and I would like to correct this.

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• Form.Show() is not showing it's child controls

  - by Refracted Paladin

  I have a form, frmPleaseWait, that has a MarqueeProgressBar and a Label that I want to use when the UI is loading the data in a poorly structured app we have. The problem is that frmPleaseWait.Show() shows the form but not the controls in it. It is just a white rectangle. Now frmPleaseWait.ShowDialog() shows the child controls but doesn't let the UI load it's data. What am I missing? Below is a code snippet from where I am trying this. PleaseWait = new frmPleaseWait(); PleaseWait.Show(this); // Set all available HUD values in HUD Object HUD.LastName = GetCurrentRowVal("LastName").Trim(); HUD.FirstName = GetCurrentRowVal("FirstName").Trim(); HUD.PersonId = Convert.ToInt32(GetCurrentRowVal("PersonID").Trim()); HUD.SSn = GetCurrentRowVal("SSN").Trim(); HUD.MiddleName = GetCurrentRowVal("MiddleName").Trim(); HUD.MasterID = ConnectBLL.BLL.DriInterface.CheckForDriId(HUD.PersonId).ToString(); // This loads numerous UserControls with data shellForm.FormPaint(HUD.PersonId); PleaseWait.Close();

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• Is there a set based solution for this problem?

  - by NYSystemsAnalyst

  We have a table set up as follows: |ID|EmployeeID|Date |Category |Hours| |1 |1 |1/1/2010 |Vacation Earned|2.0 | |2 |2 |2/12/2010|Vacation Earned|3.0 | |3 |1 |2/4/2010 |Vacation Used |1.0 | |4 |2 |5/18/2010|Vacation Earned|2.0 | |5 |2 |7/23/2010|Vacation Used |4.0 | The business rules are: Vacation balance is calculated by vacation earned minus vacation used. Vacation used is always applied against the oldest vacation earned amount first. We need to return the rows for Vacation Earned that have not been offset by vacation used. If vacation used has only offset part of a vacation earned record, we need to return that record showing the difference. For example, using the above table, the result set would look like: |ID|EmployeeID|Date |Category |Hours| |1 |1 |1/1/2010 |Vacation Earned|1.0 | |4 |2 |5/18/2010|Vacation Earned|1.0 | Note that record 2 was eliminated because it was completely offset by used time, but records 1 and 4 were only partially used, so they were calculated and returned as such. The only way we have thought of to do this is to get all of the vacation earned records in a temporary table. Then, get the total vacation used and loop through the temporary table, deleting the oldest record and subtracting that value from the total vacation used until the total vacation used is zero. We could clean it up for when the remaining vacation used is only part of the oldest vacation earned record. This would leave us with just the outstanding vacation earned records. This works, but it is very inefficient and performs poorly. Also, the performance will just degrade over time as more and more records are added. Are there any suggestions for a better solution, preferable set based? If not, we'll just have to go with this.

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• What choices do I have for a future in software development?

  - by user354892

  After graduating from college with a degree in mathematics and a minor in computer science, I took over a year to find my first programming job. I very much enjoy my work environment, but sometimes I feel like I'm not developing professionally as quickly as I am capable of. My company does mostly web programming. The project that I work on is basically a front-end for a SQL database. The entire project is (AFAIK) coded is VB.NET. I've been working on the back-end logic of the program. After some time on the job, we decided that designing web pages is not my cup of tea. It seems like the thing that I spend more time on than anything else is searching the web and SO for information about poorly documented .net and web APIs. This does not make me happy; is this normal for a programming job; I don't think it is. It really hit me the other day when i saw a question about math asked here and I didn't know the answer; I feel like my knowledge is going stale! I was previously almost hired by another company where they design graphic-intensive battle simulations for the military. I sometimes wonder what my life might be like if I had that job. I feel like my math and problem solving skills might have been a better fit at this other company. Within the wide field of software development, there are a number of directions in which to go as evidenced by the huge variety of topics discussed here on StackOverflow. I would like to feel like I'm going in the direction where I will make the most of my skills and have a satisfying career. Let me word this question as clearly as possible: given the wide breadth of the field of software development, how does it break down into sub-fields and what are the considerations for developing a software development career. I do not want to manage my career by default.

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• How to store arbitrary data for some HTML tags

  - by nickf

  I'm making a page which has some interaction provided by javascript. Just as an example: links which send an AJAX request to get the content of articles and then display that data in a div. Obviously in this example, I need each link to store an extra bit of information: the id of the article. The way I've been handling it in case was to put that information in the href link this: <a class="article" href="#5"> I then use jQuery to find the a.article elements and attach the appropriate event handler. (don't get too hung up on the usability or semantics here, it's just an example) Anyway, this method works, but it smells a bit, and isn't extensible at all (what happens if the click function has more than one parameter? what if some of those parameters are optional?) The immediately obvious answer was to use attributes on the element. I mean, that's what they're for, right? (Kind of). <a articleid="5" href="link/for/non-js-users.html"> In my recent question I asked if this method was valid, and it turns out that short of defining my own DTD (I don't), then no, it's not valid or reliable. A common response was to put the data into the class attribute (though that might have been because of my poorly-chosen example), but to me, this smells even more. Yes it's technically valid, but it's not a great solution. Another method I'd used in the past was to actually generate some JS and insert it into the page in a <script> tag, creating a struct which would associate with the object. var myData = { link0 : { articleId : 5, target : '#showMessage' // etc... }, link1 : { articleId : 13 } }; <a href="..." id="link0"> But this can be a real pain in butt to maintain and is generally just very messy. So, to get to the question, how do you store arbitrary pieces of information for HTML tags?

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• SQL query select from table and group on other column...

  - by scaryjones

  I'm phrasing the question title poorly as I'm not sure what to call what I'm trying to do but it really should be simple. I've a link / join table with two ID columns. I want to run a check before saving new rows to the table. The user can save attributes through a webpage but I need to check that the same combination doesn't exist before saving it. With one record it's easy as obviously you just check if that attributeId is already in the table, if it is don't allow them to save it again. However, if the user chooses a combination of that attribute and another one then they should be allowed to save it. Here's an image of what I mean: So if a user now tried to save an attribute with ID of 1 it will stop them, but I need it to also stop them if they tried ID's of 1, 10 so long as both 1 and 10 had the same productAttributeId. I'm confusing this in my explanation but I'm hoping the image will clarify what I need to do. This should be simple so I presume I'm missing something.

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• [deb-5.0] Setup DNS on my server so I can put my IPs in as nameservers of my domain provider

  - by Maurycy Zarzycki

  Basically, my unmanaged VPS provider doesn't supply me with nameserver which I can use with my domain provider to route domain to my server. As I've been told: You need to configure the custom DNS server in your VPS, to setup the custom nameservers. Please refer the following article that would help: http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch18_:_Configuring_DNS Once you configure the nameserver records, please update the domain registrar panel with the custom nameserver details. I tried to follow this guide but it seems to be a bit outdated, and I am complete newb with non-windows systems. I also scanned the google for other articles which could help me with this problem but, alas, nothing I found was of any value for someone who doesn't know this stuff better than his own pockets. I realize this is quite a complex thing to do, but maybe there is some way to automate it? Or a better solution, like a paid service which would act as my nameservers (this one would be interesting), or even hoped to find some company which "rents" people to do stuff like that. Blah, any help will be appreciated, I am at a complete loss here. I can follow some of these steps, but then I soon find that half of the files which are mentioned in the article are somehow not existing anywhere on the server which confuses me, and once we get to the point of creating Zone I can't really decipher all the things written there :/. As per title, my system is Debian 5.0.

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• [deb-5.0] Setup DNS on my server so I can put my IPs in as nameservers of my domain provider

  - by Maurycy Zarzycki

  Basically, my unmanaged VPS provider doesn't supply me with nameserver which I can use with my domain provider to route domain to my server. As I've been told: You need to configure the custom DNS server in your VPS, to setup the custom nameservers. Please refer the following article that would help: http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch18_:_Configuring_DNS Once you configure the nameserver records, please update the domain registrar panel with the custom nameserver details. I tried to follow this guide but it seems to be a bit outdated, and I am complete newb with non-windows systems. I also scanned the google for other articles which could help me with this problem but, alas, nothing I found was of any value for someone who doesn't know this stuff better than his own pockets. I realize this is quite a complex thing to do, but maybe there is some way to automate it? Or a better solution, like a paid service which would act as my nameservers (this one would be interesting), or even hoped to find some company which "rents" people to do stuff like that. Blah, any help will be appreciated, I am at a complete loss here. I can follow some of these steps, but then I soon find that half of the files which are mentioned in the article are somehow not existing anywhere on the server which confuses me, and once we get to the point of creating Zone I can't really decipher all the things written there :/. As per title, my system is Debian 5.0.

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• Sending 10,000 emails?

  - by Philipp Lenssen

  (I don't know whether to submit this to SuperUser or StackOverflow.) My friend and I have a subscriber list -- strictly opt-in, for people interested when we release new projects -- and we may want to send out a first email this year. How would one best send an email to over 10,000 people? Perhaps there is a good, I suppose paid service, which would do this for one? The key being that the emails ought arrive, with good chances of not being immediately labeled as spam due to the sender or something (as it's definitely not spam). When I simply send emails from my 1&1 server, they often immediately make it into the spam folder, even though when sending the same email through say Google Appspot, it arrives fine. FWIW, the email addresses are not yet verified (people simply signed up for the list by providing an email, and optionally a name). Analyzing what bounced may be a pro. BTW, we will provide an opt-out link with every mail. Thanks for any pointers, and sorry if this doesn't fit to ServerFault 100%!

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• int foo(type& bar); is a bad practice?

  - by Earlz

  Well, here we are. Yet another proposed practice that my C++ book has an opinion on. It says "a returning-value(non-void) function should not take reference types as a parameter." So basically if you were to implement a function like this: int read_file(int& into){ ... } and used the integer return value as some sort of error indicator (ignoring the fact that we have exceptions) then that function would be poorly written and it should actually be like void read_file(int& into, int& error){ } Now to me, the first one is much clearer and nice to use. If you want to ignore the error value, you do so with ease. But this book suggests the later. Note that this book does not say returning value functions are bad. It rather says that you should either only return a value or you should only use references. What are your thoughts on this? Is my book full of crap? (again)

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• SQL SERVER – History of SQL Server Database Encryption

  - by pinaldave

  I recently met Michael Coles and Rodeney Landrum the author of one of the kind book Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption at SQLPASS in Seattle. During the conversation we ended up how Microsoft is evolving encryption technology. The same discussion lead to talking about history of encryption tools in SQL Server. Michale pointed me to page 18 of his book of encryption. He explicitly give me permission to re-produce relevant part of history from his book. Encryption in SQL Server 2000 Built-in cryptographic encryption functionality was nonexistent in SQL Server 2000 and prior versions. In order to get server-side encryption in SQL Server you had to resort to purchasing or creating your own SQL Server XPs. Creating your own cryptographic XPs could be a daunting task owing to the fact that XPs had to be compiled as native DLLs (using a language like C or C++) and the XP application programming interface (API) was poorly documented. In addition there were always concerns around creating wellbehaved XPs that “played nicely” with the SQL Server process. Encryption in SQL Server 2005 Prior to the release of SQL Server 2005 there was a flurry of regulatory activity in response to accounting scandals and attacks on repositories of confidential consumer data. Much of this regulation centered onthe need for protecting and controlling access to sensitive financial and consumer information. With the release of SQL Server 2005 Microsoft responded to the increasing demand for built-in encryption byproviding the necessary tools to encrypt data at the column level. This functionality prominently featured the following: Support for column-level encryption of data using symmetric keys or passphrases. Built-in access to a variety of symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms, including AES, DES, Triple DES, RC2, RC4, and RSA. Capability to create and manage symmetric keys. Key creation and management. Ability to generate asymmetric keys and self-signed certificates, or to install external asymmetric keys and certificates. Implementation of hierarchical model for encryption key management, similar to the ANSI X9.17 standard model. SQL functions to generate one-way hash codes and digital signatures, including SHA-1 and MD5 hashes. Additional SQL functions to encrypt and decrypt data. Extensions to the SQL language to support creation, use, and administration of encryption keys and certificates. SQL CLR extensions that provide access to .NET-based encryption functionality. Encryption in SQL Server 2008 Encryption demands have increased over the past few years. For instance, there has been a demand for the ability to store encryption keys “off-the-box,” physically separate from the database and the data it contains. Also there is a recognized requirement for legacy databases and applications to take advantage of encryption without changing the existing code base. To address these needs SQL Server 2008 adds the following features to its encryption arsenal: Transparent Data Encryption (TDE): Allows you to encrypt an entire database, including log files and the tempdb database, in such a way that it is transparent to client applications. Extensible Key Management (EKM): Allows you to store and manage your encryption keys on an external device known as a hardware security module (HSM). Cryptographic random number generation functionality. Additional cryptography-related catalog views and dynamic management views. SQL language extensions to support the new encryption functionality. The encryption book covers all the tools in its various chapter in one simple story. If you are interested how encryption evolved and reached to the stage where it is today, this book is must for everyone. You can read my earlier review of the book over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Encryption, SQL Server Encryption, SQLPASS

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• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship – book review

  - by DigiMortal

     Writing code that is easy read and test is not something that is easy to achieve. Unfortunately there are still way too much programming students who write awful spaghetti after graduating. But there is one really good book that helps you raise your code to new level – your code will be also communication tool for you and your fellow programmers. “Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship” by Robert C. Martin is excellent book that helps you start writing the easily readable code. Of course, you are the one who has to learn and practice but using this book you have very good guide that keeps you going to right direction. You can start writing better code while you read this book and you can do it right in your current projects – you don’t have to create new guestbook or some other simple application to start practicing. Take the project you are working on and start making it better! My special thanks to Robert C. Martin I want to say my special thanks to Robert C. Martin for this book. There are many books that teach you different stuff and usually you have markable learning curve to go before you start getting results. There are many books that show you the direction to go and then leave you alone figuring out how to achieve all that stuff you just read about. Clean Code gives you a lot more – the mental tools to use so you can go your way to clean code being sure you will be soon there. I am reading books as much as I have time for it. Clean Code is top-level book for developers who have to write working code. Before anything else take Clean Code and read it. You will never regret your decision. I promise. Fragment of editorial review “Even bad code can function. But if code isn’t clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What kind of work will you be doing? You’ll be reading code—lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what’s right about that code, and what’s wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft. Readers will come away from this book understanding How to tell the difference between good and bad code How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes How to format code for maximum readability How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic How to unit test and practice test-driven development This book is a must for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst with an interest in producing better code.” Table of contents Clean code Meaningful names Functions Comments Formatting Objects and data structures Error handling Boundaries Unit tests Classes Systems Emergence Concurrency Successive refinement JUnit internals Refactoring SerialDate Smells and heuristics A Concurrency II org.jfree.date.SerialDate Cross references of heuristics Epilogue Index

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• Where Next for Google Translate? And What of Information Quality?

  - by ultan o'broin

  Fascinating article in the UK Guardian newspaper called Can Google break the computer language barrier? In it, Andreas Zollman, who works on Google Translate, comments that the quality of Google Translate's output relative to the amount of data required to create that output is clearly now falling foul of the law of diminishing returns. He says: "Each doubling of the amount of translated data input led to about a 0.5% improvement in the quality of the output," he suggests, but the doublings are not infinite. "We are now at this limit where there isn't that much more data in the world that we can use," he admits. "So now it is much more important again to add on different approaches and rules-based models." The Translation Guy has a further discussion on this, called Google Translate is Finished. He says: "And there aren't that many doublings left, if any. I can't say how much text Google has assimilated into their machine translation databases, but it's been reported that they have scanned about 11% of all printed content ever published. So double that, and double it again, and once more, shoveling all that into the translation hopper, and pretty soon you get the sum of all human knowledge, which means a whopping 1.5% improvement in the quality of the engines when everything has been analyzed. That's what we've got to look forward to, at best, since Google spiders regularly surf the Web, which in its vastness dwarfs all previously published content. So to all intents and purposes, the statistical machine translation tools of Google are done. Outstanding job, Googlers. Thanks." Surprisingly, all this analysis hasn't raised that much comment from the fans of machine translation, or its detractors either for that matter. Perhaps, it's the season of goodwill? What is clear to me, however, of course is that Google Translate isn't really finished (in any sense of the word). I am sure Google will investigate and come up with new rule-based translation models to enhance what they have already and that will also scale effectively where others didn't. So too, will they harness human input, which really is the way to go to train MT in the quality direction. But that aside, what does it say about the quality of the data that is being used for statistical machine translation in the first place? From the Guardian article it's clear that a huge humanly translated corpus drove the gains for Google Translate and now what's left is the dregs of badly translated and poorly created source materials that just can't deliver quality translations. There's a message about information quality there, surely. In the enterprise applications space, where we have some control over content this whole debate reinforces the relationship between information quality at source and translation efficiency, regardless of the technology used to do the translation. But as more automation comes to the fore, that information quality is even more critical if you want anything approaching a scalable solution. This is important for user experience professionals. Issues like user generated content translation, multilingual personalization, and scalable language quality are central to a superior global UX; it's a competitive issue we cannot ignore.

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• Tough Decisions

  - by Johnm

  There was once a thriving business that employed two Database Administrators, Sam and Jim. Both DBAs were certified, educated and highly talented in their skill sets. During lunch breaks these two DBAs were often found together discussing best practices, troubleshooting techniques and the latest release notes for the upcoming version of SQL Server. They genuinely loved what they did. The maintenance of the first database was the responsibility of Sam. He was the architect of this server's setup and he was very meticulous in its configuration. He regularly monitored the health of the database, validated backup files and regularly adhered to the best practices that were advocated by well respected professionals. He was very proud of the fact that there was never a database that he managed that lost data or performed poorly. The maintenance of the second database was the responsibility of Jim. He too was the architect of this server's setup. At the time that he built this server, his understanding of the finer details of configuration were not as clear as they are today. The server was build on a shoestring budget and with very little time for testing and implementation. Jim often monitored the health of the database; but in more of a reactionary mode due to user complaints of slowness or failed transactions. Deadlocks abounded and the backup files were never validated. One day, the announcement was made that revealed that the business had hit financially hard times. Budgets were being cut, limitation on spending was implemented and the reduction in full-time staff was required. Since having two DBAs was regarded a luxury by many, this meant that either Sam or Jim were about to find themselves out of a job. Sam and Jim's boss, Frank, was faced with a very tough decision. Sam's performance was flawless. His techniques and practices were perfection. The databases he managed were reliable and efficient. His solutions are "by the book". When given a task it is certain that, while it may take a little longer, it will be done right the first time. Jim's techniques and practices were not perfect; but effective and responsive. He made mistakes regularly; but he shows that he learns from them and they often result in innovative solutions. When given a task it is certain that, while the results may require some tweaking, it will be done on time and under budget. You are Frank's best friend. He approaches you and presents this scenario. He must layoff one of his valued DBAs the very next morning. Frank asks you: "All else being equal, who would you let go? and Why?" Another pertinent question is raised: "Regardless of good times or bad, if you had to choose, which DBA would you want on your team when tough challenges arise?" Your response is. (This is where you enter a comment below)

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• Clustering for Mere Mortals (Pt2)

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  Planning. I could stop there and let that be the entirety post #2 in this series.  Planning is the single most important element in building a cluster and the Laptop Demo Cluster is no exception.  One of the more awkward parts of actually creating a cluster is coordinating information between Windows Clustering and SQL Clustering.  The dialog boxes show up hours apart, but still have to have matching and consistent information. Excel seems to be a good tool for tracking these settings.  My workbook has four pages: Systems, Storage, Network, and Service Accounts.  The systems page looks like this:   Name Role Software Location East Physical Cluster Node 1 Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Laptop VM West Physical Cluster Node 2 Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Laptop VM North Physical Cluster Node 3 (Future Reserved) Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Laptop VM MicroCluster Cluster Management Interface N/A Laptop VM SQL01 High-Performance High-Security Instance SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64 SP1 Laptop VM SQL02 High-Performance Standard-Security Instance SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64 SP1 Laptop VM SQL03 Standard-Performance High-Security Instance SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64 SP1 Laptop VM Note that everything that has a computer name is listed here, whether physical or virtual. Storage looks like this: Storage Name Instance Purpose Volume Path Size (GB) LUN ID Speed Quorum MicroCluster Cluster Quorum Quorum Q: 2     SQL01Anchor SQL01 Instance Anchor SQL01Anchor L: 2     SQL02Anchor SQL02 Instance Anchor SQL02Anchor M: 2     SQL01Data1 SQL01 SQL Data SQL01Data1 L:\MountPoints\SQL01Data1 2     SQL02Data1 SQL02 SQL Data SQL02Data1 M:\MountPoints\SQL02Data1       Starting at the left is the name used in the storage array.  It is important to rename resources at each level, whether it is Storage, LUN, Volume, or disk folder.  Otherwise, troubleshooting things gets complex and difficult.  You want to be able to glance at a resource at any level and see where it comes from and what it is connected to. Networking is the same way:   System Network VLAN  IP Subnet Mask Gateway DNS1 DNS2 East Public Cluster1 10.97.230.x(DHCP) 255.255.255.0 10.97.230.1 10.97.230.1 10.97.230.1 East Heartbeat Cluster2   255.255.255.0       West Public Cluster1 10.97.230.x(DHCP) 255.255.255.0 10.97.230.1 10.97.230.1 10.97.230.1 West Heartbeat Cluster2   255.255.255.0       North Public Cluster1 10.97.230.x(DHCP) 255.255.255.0 10.97.230.1 10.97.230.1 10.97.230.1 North Heartbeat Cluster2   255.255.255.0       SQL01 Public Cluster1 10.97.230.x(DHCP) 255.255.255.0       SQL02 Public Cluster1 10.97.230.x(DHCP) 255.255.255.0       One hallmark of a poorly planned and implemented cluster is a bunch of "Local Network Connection #n" entries in the network settings page.  That lets me know that somebody didn't care about the long-term supportabaility of the cluster.  This can be critically important with Hyper-V Clusters and their high NIC counts.  Final page:   Instance Service Name Account Password Domain OU SQL01 SQL Server SVCSQL01 Baseline22 MicroAD Service Accounts SQL01 SQL Agent SVCSQL01 Baseline22 MicroAD Service Accounts SQL02 SQL Server SVC_SQL02 Baseline22 MicroAD Service Accounts SQL02 SQL Agent SVC_SQL02 Baseline22 MicroAD Service Accounts SQL03 (Future) SQL Server SVC_SQL03 Baseline22 MicroAD Service Accounts SQL03 (Future) SQL Agent SVC_SQL03 Baseline22 MicroAD Service Accounts             Installation Account           administrator            Yes.  I write down the account information.  I secure the file via NTFS, but I don't want to fumble around looking for passwords when it comes time to rebuild a node. Always fill out the workbook COMPLETELY before installing anything.  The whole point is to have everything you need at your fingertips before you begin.  The install experience is so much better and more productive with this information in place.

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• Top Tier, A-Game Talent - How to Land em'

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  Recently the question came up from a close friend of mine, "will my PhD help me attain a higher income in the north west?"  I had to tell him, that it might get him a little more, but it won't get him in the top income brackets for the occupation.  Another time, a few days later, someone else asked this too.  Then again, I see a job posting that requires a Bachelors Degree and some other nonsense.  The job posting even states they want "A-Game" talent. I am almost shocked at how poorly part of this industry doesn't realize how unimportant a degree is to getting real top tier, a-game talent.  (and yes, I get a little riled up about this matter) You Can't Make Good Software Developers.  No college out there is going to train someone to be in the top 10%, and absolutely not to be in the top 5% of skill levels.  Colleges can NOT do this.  It is up to the individual, and the individual alone.  If top tier talent seems to come from a college, one should check their premise and look at the motivations the individuals have to go to that school.  There is most likely a reason that top tier talent appears to be made there.  The college however, can only guide or assist, but I repeat that "top tier talent is a very individualistic endeavor". Some might say, well a group is needed, support is needed, this and that are needed.  True, an individual needs a support system and a college can provide that, but it generally ends there.  The support group helps, provides a sounding wall, and provides correlation to good ideas for the a-game top tier geek.  But again, the endeavor is the individuals desire. top tier talent is a very individualistic endeavor - Me Hiring Top Tier, A-Game Talent There are a few things when trying to hire this level of game player. The first thing is to not require a degree of any sort.  Sure, it looks good, but it won't dictate anything other than the individual was able to go through the regimented steps of college. List the skills and ideas that you would like to find in an individual.  Think of two people meeting for the first time, what do you want to know about the other individual.  Team fit is absolutely fundamental for top tier talent.  That support group that I mentioned above, top tier talent works best with a solid group of players. Keep your technology up to date, moving forward, and don't bore your top talent if you manage to get it.  If the company slows down, they will leave.  The more valuable they find out they are, the lower tolerance they'll have for this.  For managers, directors, and leaders in an organization this is THE challenge for them. Provide opportunities not just for advancement, but ways for them to advance their knowledge such as training, a book budget, or other means.  Even if some software they want to use isn't used ton the project, get it for them (within reason of course ? couple $100 or even a few $1000 for a good software license to MSDN, Tellerik, or other suite of software is ideal). Don't push them to, and don't let them overwork themselves into burnout.  This, as a leader in an organization is easy to do if one finds themselves actually hiring top talent.  Because top talent just provides results and more results.  But they are human, they will break, don't be the cause of that or you'll lose your talent. For now, that is it from me on this topic, back to the revenue, code, projects, and pushing forward. For the original entry, check out my personal blog with other juicy tech tidbits, rants, raves, and the like. Agilist Mercenary

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• SQLSaturday 33 Observations

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  Along with a lot of my colleagues, I went to SQLSaturday #33 in Charlotte this last weekend.  Overall a really good event, especially for a first-time organizer.  There is some controversy over certain events where my name got mentioned so I thought I would clear the air. Before I get to the core controversy, let's get the details out of the way.  The Microsoft Offices in Charlotte were an excellent venue for this event.  I really appreciated the Microsoft employees that helped out by letting us in and out of normally secure areas.  This is definitely above and beyond on their part. Thanks to the organizers (especially Greg and Peter) for the great hospitality they showed to the speakers.  Now for the specifics.  Like most events of this type, there was a raffle at the end for some cool swag.  As a speaker I got raffle tickets just like any other attendee.  The raffle was clearly promoted as "must be present to win".  The problem is that for various reasons, the raffle kicked off immediately after the last speaker finished in the largest room.  That room was across the parking lot from all the other rooms for the event.  I happened to have one of the last sessions of the day, and not in the main room.  I also ran long since the audience was very interactive and there were a lot of follow-up questions.  (BTW, thanks to everyone who came and stayed for my session.  Sorry it cost you the chance to win too.).  My name was drawn for an very nice piece of swag (iPod Touch if you insist).  Since I wasn't there, I didn't win. Several folks mentioned I was still speaking and was "here" (as in at the event) just not "here in the room". Yes, I was mad when I found out about it. I think that was handled poorly.  I personally lost out as did my audience (dunno if anyone specific lost anything, but it is the idea that counts).  It was a mistake. Mistakes happen.  Nobody acted maliciously.  Heck, the guys running the event who made the decision are my friends and remain so.  I got over my mad.  We talked about this privately and we are all OK with what happened.  I am not going to let a gadget get in the way of a couple of good friendships. I think the mistake was mostly due to a lack of unity between the venue buildings   Pam Shaw had a similar challenge in Tampa a few weeks ago, including a speaker who ran long on the last session (not me that time).  She had a couple of teenage volunteers to act as gofers/runners.  They counted heads in sessions, pointed people to last-minute room and session changes, and generally helped connect the organizers to what was actually happening.  Note that this was not Pam's first SQLSaturday event.  She knew but the knowledge had not been institutionalized.  We (The SQL community in general and SQLSaturday organizers in particular) now know how essential gofers are to success. I know I spent most of this post focusing on the controversy, but I wanted to clear everything up.  I don't want to let a minor mistake, made in good faith, overshadow what was a tremendously good event for the community. As for the iPod Touch, someone in the SQL community is enjoying it, so it is not a total loss.  And if losing out on it is the price I pay so we can learn this, then that is what a community leader does.  Consider it a gift.  Besides, I really wanted a Zune 120 :)

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• Floating Panels and Describe Windows in Oracle SQL Developer

  - by thatjeffsmith

  One of the challenges I face as I try to share tips about our software is that I tend to assume there are features that you just ‘know about.’ Either they’re so intuitive that you MUST know about them, or it’s a feature that I’ve been using for so long I forget that others may have never even seen it before. I want to cover two of those today - Describe (DESC) – SHIFT+F4 Floating Panels My super-exciting desktop SQL Developer and Describe DESC or Describe is an Oracle SQL*Plus command. It shows what a table or view is composed of in terms of it’s column definition. Here’s an example: SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Fri Sep 21 14:25:37 2012 Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved. Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - Production With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options SQL> desc beer; Name Null? Type ----------------------------------------- -------- ---------------------------- BREWERY NOT NULL VARCHAR2(100) CITY VARCHAR2(100) STATE VARCHAR2(100) COUNTRY VARCHAR2(100) ID NUMBER SQL> You can get the same information – and a good bit more – in SQL Developer using the SQL Developer DESC command. You invoke it with SHIFT+F4. It will open a floating (non-modal!) window with the information you want. Here’s an example: I can see my column definitions, constratins, stats, privs, etc A few ‘cool’ things you should be aware of: I can open as many as I want, and still work in my worksheet, browser, etc. I can also DESC an index, user, or most any other database object I can of course move them off my primary desktop display The DESC panel’s are read-only. I can’t drop a constraint from within the DESC window of a given table. But for dragging columns into my worksheet, and checking out the stats for my objects as I query them – it’s very, very handy. Try This Right Now Type ‘scott.emp’ (or some other table you have), place your cursor on the text, and hit SHIFT+F4. You’ll see the EMP object open. Now click into a column name in the columns page. Drag it into your worksheet. It will paste that column name into your query. This is an alternative for those that don’t like our code insight feature or dragging columns off the connection tree (new for v3.2!) Got it? SQL Developer’s Floating Panels Ok, let’s talk about a similar feature. Did you know that any dockable panel from the View menu can also be ‘floated?’ One of my favorite features is the SQL History. Every query I run is recorded, and I can recall them later without having to remember what I ran and when. And I USUALLY use the keyboard shortcuts for this. Let your trouble float away…if only it were so easy as a right-click in the real world. But sometimes I still want to see my recall list without having to give up my screen real estate. So I just mouse-right click on the panel tab and select ‘Float.’ Then I move it over to my secondary display – see the poorly lit picture in the beginning of this post. And that’s it. Simple, I know. But I thought you should know about these two things!

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• How do I deal with a third party application that has embedded hints that result in a sub-optimal execution plan in my environment?

  - by Maria Colgan

  I have gotten many variations on this question recently as folks begin to upgrade to Oracle Database 11g and there have been several posts on this blog and on others describing how to use SQL Plan Management (SPM) so that a non-hinted SQL statement can use a plan generated with hints. But what if the hint is supplied in the third party application and is causing performance regressions on your system? You can actually use a very similar technique to the ones shown before but this time capture the un-hinted plan and have the hinted SQL statement use that plan instead. Below is an example that demonstrates the necessary steps. 1. We will begin by running the hinted statement 2. After examining the execution plan we can see it is suboptimal because of a bad join order. 3. In order to use SPM to correct the problem we must create a SQL plan baseline for the statement. In order to create a baseline we will need the SQL_ID for the hinted statement. Easy place to get it is in V$SQL. 4. A SQL plan baseline can be created using a SQL_ID and DBMS_SPM.LOAD_PLANS_FROM_CURSOR_CACHE. This will capture the existing plan for this SQL_ID from the shared pool and store in the SQL plan baseline. 5. We can check the SQL plan baseline got created successfully by querying DBA_SQL_PLAN_BASELINES. 6. When you manually create a SQL plan baseline the first plan added is automatically accepted and enabled. We know that the hinted plan is poorly performing plan so we will disable it using DBMS_SPM.ALTER_SQL_PLAN_BASELINE. Disabling the plan tells the optimizer that this plan not a good plan, however since there is no alternative plan at this point the optimizer will still continue to use this plan until we provide a better one. 7. Now let's run the statement without the hint. 8. Looking at the execution plan we can see that the join order is different. The plan without the hint also has a lower cost (3X lower), which indicates it should perform better. 9. In order to map the un-hinted plan to the hinted SQL statement we need to add the plan to the SQL plan baseline for the hinted statement. We can do this using DBMS_SPM.LOAD_PLANS_FROM_CURSOR_CACHE but we will need the SQL_ID and  PLAN_HASH_VALUE for the non-hinted statement, which we can find in V$SQL. 10. Now we can add the non-hinted plan to the SQL plan baseline of the hinted SQL statement using DBMS_SPM.LOAD_PLANS_FROM_CURSOR_CACHE. This time we need to pass a few more arguments. We will use the SQL_ID and PLAN_HASH_VALUE of the non-hinted statement but the SQL_HANDLE of the hinted statement. 11. The SQL plan baseline for our statement now has two plans. But only the newly added plan (SQL_PLAN_gbpcg3f67pc788a6d8911) is enabled and accepted. This tells the Optimizer that this is the plan it should use for this statement. We can confirm that the correct plan (non-hinted) will be selected for the statement from now on by re-executing the hinted statement and checking its execution plan.

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• ArchBeat Top 10 for December 2-8, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The Top 10 most-clicked items shared on the OTN ArchBeat Facebook page for the week of December 2-8, 2012 Configure Oracle SOA JMSAdatper to Work with WLS JMS Topics Another of the four posts published on Dec 4 by the Fusion Middleware A-Team blogger identified as "fip" illlustrates "how to configure the JMS Topic, the JmsAdapter connection factory, as well as the composite so that the JMS Topic messages will be evenly distributed to same composite running off different SOA cluster nodes without causing duplication." Web Service Example - Part 3: Asynchronous Part 3 in this series from the Oracle ADF Mobile blog looks at "firing the web service asynchronously and then filling in the UI when it completes." Denis says, "This can be useful when you have data on the device in a local store and want to show that to the user while the application uses lazy loading from a web service to load more data." Advanced Oracle SOA Suite Oracle Open World 2012 SOA Presentations Oracle SOA & BPM Partner Community blogger Juergen Kress shares a list of 13 SOA presentations delivered or moderated by Oracle SOA Product Management at OOW12 in San Francisco. Oracle WebLogic Server WLS Domain Browser My colleague Jeff Davies, a frequent speaker at OTN Architect Day events and a genuinely nice guy, emailed me last night with this message: "I just came across this app on Google Play. It allows WebLogic administrators to browse WLS 12c domain information. I installed it on my phone and tried it out. Works very fast." I'm an iPhone guy, but I'm perfectly comfortable taking Jeff at his word. The app is called WLS Domain Browser. Follow the link for more info from the Google Play site. Retrieve Performance Data from SOA Infrastructure Database Another of the four blog posts published on Dec 4 by very busy Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member "fip," this one offers "examples of some basic SQL queries you can run against the infrastructure database of Oracle SOA Suite 11G to acquire the performance statistics for a given period of time." How to Achieve OC4J RMI Load Balancing "Having returned from a customer who faced challenges with OC4J RMI load balancing, I felt there is still some confusion in the field [about] how OC4J RMI load balancing works," says the Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member known only as "fip." "Hence I decide to dust off an old tech note that I wrote a few years back and share it with the general public." From XaaS to Java EE – Which damn cloud is right for me in 2012? Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele wrestles with a timely technical issue and shares his observations on several of the alternatives. Exalogic 2.0.1 Tea Break Snippets - Creating a ModifyJeOS VirtualBox "One of the main advantages of this is that Templates can be created away from the Exalogic Environment," explains The Old Toxophilist. (BTW: I had to look it up: a toxophilist is one who collects bows and arrows.) ADF Mobile - Implementing Reusable Mobile Architecture "Reusability was always a strong part of ADF," says Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis. "The same high reusability level is supported now in ADF Mobile." The objective of this post is "to prove technically that [the] reusable architecture concept works for ADF Mobile." Using BPEL Performance Statistics to Diagnose Performance Bottlenecks Someone had a busy day… This post, one of four published on DeC 4 by a member of the Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team identified only as "fip," offers details on how to "enable, retrieve and interpret the performance statistics, before the future versions provides a more pleasant user experience." Thought for the Day "If you're afraid to change something it is clearly poorly designed." — Martin Fowler Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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