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• questions about dual-boot install Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7 on same hard drive

  - by Tim

  I'd like to dual-boot install Ubuntu 10.04 on the same hard drive as Windows 7 which has already been installed. As to sources on the internet: I found a website iinet about dual-boot installation of Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7 on the same hard drive, which I think more specific than the one on Ubuntu Community without specific version of the OSes. Since I am installing Ubuntu 10.04 instead of 10.10, my question is whether their installers are same or almost same and if I can follow iinet for my dual-boot installation? Or are there better websites for information about dual-boot installtion of Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7? As to shrinking Windows partitions to make free space for Ubuntu partitions: iinet uses the partition software in Ubuntu's installer to shrink the Windows partition. But I saw in many website that the partition software in Ubuntu's installer cannot guarantee shrinking Windows 7 partitions successfully, so they recommended in general to shrink Windows partitions under Windows itself using its softwares. For example, in Ubuntu Community, it says: Some people think that the Windows partition must be resized only from within Windows Vista and Windows 7 using the shrink/resize option. ... If you use GParted Partition Editor in the Ubuntu Live CD be careful. So I was wondering which way to go in my situation? As to partition for bootloader files: In iinet, I don't see there is a partition created and dedicated to boot files (i.e. Grub files). However, I saw in many websites strongly suggesting using a boot partition for Grub files, especially for the purpose of separation and protection from installed OS files. I was wondering which way I should choose and why? As to installing bootloader Grub, in iinet, I see that to install Grub it only needs to specify the hard drive device for bootloader installation. However, in ubuntuguide(for more than 2 OSes and Ubuntu 9.04), some commands are needed to run in order to put Grub configuration files in MBR, and OS partition, for the chain-load process (where to find the files for the next stage). In Ubuntu Community, there are some related sentences which I don't quite understand how to do in practice: the only thing in your computer outside of Ubuntu that needs to be changed is a small code in the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the first hard disk. The MBR code is changed to point to the boot loader in Ubuntu. If you have a problem with changing the MBR code, you might prefer to just install the code for pointing to GRUB to the first sector of your Ubuntu partition instead. If you do that during the Ubuntu installation process, then Ubuntu won't boot until you configure some other boot manager to point to Ubuntu's boot sector. Windows Vista no longer utilizes boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and ntldr when booting. Instead, Vista stores all data for its new boot manager in a boot folder. Windows Vista ships with an command line utility called bcdedit.exe, which requires administrator credentials to use. You may want to read http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=112156 about it. Using a command line utility always has its learning curve, so a more productive and better job can be done with a free utility called EasyBCD, developed and mastered in during the times of Vista Beta already. EasyBCD is user friendly and many Vista users highly recommend EasyBCD. In what is quoted above, I was wondering how exactly I should change the MBR code to point to the bootloader in Ubuntu? if I fail to change MBR code, are the other suggested boot managers being bcdedit.exe and EasyBCD in Windows? With the three sources above, which one shall I follow? Thanks and regards

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• Question on the implementation of my Entity System

  - by miguel.martin

  I am currently creating an Entity System, in C++, it is almost completed (I have all the code there, I just have to add a few things and test it). The only thing is, I can't figure out how to implement some features. This Entity System is based off a bit from the Artemis framework, however it is different. I'm not sure if I'll be able to type this out the way my head processing it. I'm going to basically ask whether I should do something over something else. Okay, now I'll give a little detail on my Entity System itself. Here are the basic classes that my Entity System uses to actually work: Entity - An Id (and some methods to add/remove/get/etc Components) Component - An empty abstract class ComponentManager - Manages ALL components for ALL entities within a Scene EntitySystem - Processes entities with specific components Aspect - The class that is used to help determine what Components an Entity must contain so a specific EntitySystem can process it EntitySystemManager - Manages all EntitySystems within a Scene EntityManager - Manages entities (i.e. holds all Entities, used to determine whether an Entity has been changed, enables/disables them, etc.) EntityFactory - Creates (and destroys) entities and assigns an ID to them Scene - Contains an EntityManager, EntityFactory, EntitySystemManager and ComponentManager. Has functions to update and initialise the scene. Now in order for an EntitySystem to efficiently know when to check if an Entity is valid for processing (so I can add it to a specific EntitySystem), it must recieve a message from the EntityManager (after a call of activate(Entity& e)). Similarly the EntityManager must know when an Entity is destroyed from the EntityFactory in the Scene, and also the ComponentManager must know when an Entity is created AND destroyed. I do have a Listener/Observer pattern implemented at the moment, but with this pattern I may remove a Listener (which is this case is dependent on the method being called). I mainly have this implemented for specific things related to a game, i.e. Teams, Tagging of entities, etc. So... I was thinking maybe I should call a private method (using friend classes) to send out when an Entity has been activated, deleted, etc. i.e. taken from my EntityFactory void EntityFactory::killEntity(Entity& e) { // if the entity doesn't exsist in the entity manager within the scene if(!getScene()->getEntityManager().doesExsist(e)) { return; // go back to the caller! (should throw an exception or something..) } // tell the ComponentManager and the EntityManager that we killed an Entity getScene()->getComponentManager().doOnEntityWillDie(e); getScene()->getEntityManager().doOnEntityWillDie(e); // notify the listners for(Mouth::iterator i = getMouth().begin(); i != getMouth().end(); ++i) { (*i)->onEntityWillDie(*this, e); } _idPool.addId(e.getId()); // add the ID to the pool delete &e; // delete the entity } As you can see on the lines where I am telling the ComponentManager and the EntityManager that an Entity will die, I am calling a method to make sure it handles it appropriately. Now I realise I could do this without calling it explicitly, with the help of that for loop notifying all listener objects connected to the EntityFactory's Mouth (an object used to tell listeners that there's an event), however is this a good idea (good design, or what)? I've gone over the PROS and CONS, I just can't decide what I want to do. Calling Explicitly: PROS Faster? Since these functions are explicitly called, they can't be "removed" CONS Not flexible Bad design? (friend functions) Calling through Listener objects (i.e. ComponentManager/EntityManager inherits from a EntityFactoryListener) PROS More Flexible? Better Design? CONS Slower? (virtual functions) Listeners can be removed, i.e. may be removed and not get called again during the program, which could cause in a crash. P.S. If you wish to view my current source code, I am hosting it on BitBucket.

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• Setting up a Carousel Component in ADF Mobile

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  The Carousel component is one of the slickier ways of showing collections of data, and on a mobile device it works really great with the finger swipe gesture. Using the Carousel component in ADF Mobile is similar to using it in regular web ADF applications, with one major change - right now you can't drag a collection from the data control palette and drop it as a carousel. So here is a quick work around for that, and details about setting up carousels in your application. First thing you'll need is a data control that returns an array of records. In my demo I'm using the Emps collection that you can get from following this tutorial. Then you drag the emps and drop it in your amx page as an ADF mobile iterator. We are doing this as a short cut to getting the right binding needed for a carousel in our page. If you look now in your page's binding you'll see something like this: You can now remark the whole iterator code in your page's source. Next let's add the carousel From the component palette drag the carousel (from the data view category) to the page. Next drag a carousel item and drop it in the nodestamp facet of the carousel. Now we'll hook up the carousel to the binding we got from the iterator - this is quite simple just copy the var and value attributes from the iterator tag to the carousel tag: var="row" value="#{bindings.emps.collectionModel}" Next drop a panelForm, or another layout panel in to the carousel item. Into that panelForm you can now drop items and bind their value property to row.attributeNames - basically copying the way it is in the fields in the iterator for example: value="#{row.hireDate}". By the way you can also copy other attributes like the label. And that's it. Your code should end up looking something like this:     <amx:carousel id="c1" var="row" value="#{bindings.emps.collectionModel}">      <amx:facet name="nodeStamp">        <amx:carouselItem id="ci1">          <amx:panelFormLayout id="pfl1">            <amx:inputText label="#{bindings.emps.hints.salary.label}" value="#{row.salary}" id="it1"/>            <amx:inputText label="#{bindings.emps.hints.name.label}" value="#{row.name}" id="it2"/>          </amx:panelFormLayout>        </amx:carouselItem>      </amx:facet>    </amx:carousel> And when you run your application it will look like this:

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• You Probably Already Have a “Private Cloud”

  - by BuckWoody

  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of the word “Cloud”. It’s too marketing-oriented, gimmicky and non-specific. A better definition (in many cases) is “Distributed Computing”. That means that some or all of the computing functions are handled somewhere other than under your specific control. But there is a current use of the word “Cloud” that does not necessarily mean that the computing is done somewhere else. In fact, it’s a vector of Cloud Computing that can better be termed “Utility Computing”. This has to do with the provisioning of a computing resource. That means the setup, configuration, management, balancing and so on that is needed so that a user – which might actually be a developer – can do some computing work. To that person, the resource is just “there” and works like they expect, like the phone system or any other utility. The interesting thing is, you can do this yourself. In fact, you probably already have been, or are now. It’s got a cool new trendy term – “Private Cloud”, but the fact is, if you have your setup automated, the HA and DR handled, balancing and performance tuning done, and a process wrapped around it all, you can call yourself a “Cloud Provider”. A good example here is your E-Mail system. your users – pretty much your whole company – just logs into e-mail and expects it to work. To them, you are the “Cloud” provider. On your side, the more you automate and provision the system, the more you act like a Cloud Provider. Another example is a database server. In this case, the “end user” is usually the development team, or perhaps your SharePoint group and so on. The data professionals configure, monitor, tune and balance the system all the time. The more this is automated, the more you’re acting like a Cloud Provider. Lots of companies help you do this in your own data centers, from VMWare to IBM and many others. Microsoft's offering in this is based around System Center – they have a “cloud in a box” provisioning system that’s actually pretty slick. The most difficult part of operating a Private Cloud is probably the scale factor. In the case of Windows and SQL Azure, we handle this in multiple ways – and we're happy to share how we do it. It’s not magic, and the algorithms for balancing (like the one we started with called Paxos) are well known. The key is the knowledge, infrastructure and people. Sure, you can do this yourself, and in many cases such as top-secret or private systems, you probably should. But there are times where you should evaluate using Azure or other vendors, or even multiple vendors to spread your risk. All of this should be based on client need, not on what you know how to do already. So congrats on your new role as a “Cloud Provider”. If you have an E-mail system or a database platform, you can just put that right on your resume.

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• SQL Server Date Comparison Functions

  - by HighAltitudeCoder

  A few months ago, I found myself working with a repetitive cursor that looped until the data had been manipulated enough times that it was finally correct.  The cursor was heavily dependent upon dates, every time requiring the earlier of two (or several) dates in one stored procedure, while requiring the later of two dates in another stored procedure. In short what I needed was a function that would allow me to perform the following evaluation: WHERE MAX(Date1, Date2) < @SomeDate The problem is, the MAX() function in SQL Server does not perform this functionality.  So, I set out to put these functions together.  They are titled: EarlierOf() and LaterOf(). /**********************************************************                               EarlierOf.sql   **********************************************************/ /**********************************************************   Return the later of two DATETIME variables.   Parameter 1: DATETIME1 Parameter 2: DATETIME2   Works for a variety of DATETIME or NULL values. Even though comparisons with NULL are actually indeterminate, we know conceptually that NULL is not earlier or later than any other date provided.   SYNTAX: SELECT dbo.EarlierOf('1/1/2000','12/1/2009') SELECT dbo.EarlierOf('2009-12-01 00:00:00.000','2009-12-01 00:00:00.521') SELECT dbo.EarlierOf('11/15/2000',NULL) SELECT dbo.EarlierOf(NULL,'1/15/2004') SELECT dbo.EarlierOf(NULL,NULL)   **********************************************************/ USE AdventureWorks GO   IF EXISTS       (SELECT *       FROM sysobjects       WHERE name = 'EarlierOf'       AND xtype = 'FN'       ) BEGIN             DROP FUNCTION EarlierOf END GO   CREATE FUNCTION EarlierOf (       @Date1                              DATETIME,       @Date2                              DATETIME )   RETURNS DATETIME   AS BEGIN       DECLARE @ReturnDate     DATETIME         IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = NULL             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NOT NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NOT NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             IF @Date2 < @Date1                   SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         EndOfFunction:       RETURN @ReturnDate   END -- End Function GO   ---- Set Permissions --GRANT SELECT ON EarlierOf TO UserRole1 --GRANT SELECT ON EarlierOf TO UserRole2 --GO                                                                                             The inverse of this function is only slightly different. /**********************************************************                               LaterOf.sql   **********************************************************/ /**********************************************************   Return the later of two DATETIME variables.   Parameter 1: DATETIME1 Parameter 2: DATETIME2   Works for a variety of DATETIME or NULL values. Even though comparisons with NULL are actually indeterminate, we know conceptually that NULL is not earlier or later than any other date provided.   SYNTAX: SELECT dbo.LaterOf('1/1/2000','12/1/2009') SELECT dbo.LaterOf('2009-12-01 00:00:00.000','2009-12-01 00:00:00.521') SELECT dbo.LaterOf('11/15/2000',NULL) SELECT dbo.LaterOf(NULL,'1/15/2004') SELECT dbo.LaterOf(NULL,NULL)   **********************************************************/ USE AdventureWorks GO   IF EXISTS       (SELECT *       FROM sysobjects       WHERE name = 'LaterOf'       AND xtype = 'FN'       ) BEGIN             DROP FUNCTION LaterOf END GO   CREATE FUNCTION LaterOf (       @Date1                              DATETIME,       @Date2                              DATETIME )   RETURNS DATETIME   AS BEGIN       DECLARE @ReturnDate     DATETIME         IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = NULL             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NOT NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NOT NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             IF @Date2 > @Date1                   SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         EndOfFunction:       RETURN @ReturnDate   END -- End Function GO   ---- Set Permissions --GRANT SELECT ON LaterOf TO UserRole1 --GRANT SELECT ON LaterOf TO UserRole2 --GO                                                                                             The interesting thing about this function is its simplicity and the built-in NULL handling functionality.  Its interesting, because it seems like something should already exist in SQL Server that does this.  From a different vantage point, if you create this functionality and it is easy to use (ideally, intuitively self-explanatory), you have made a successful contribution. Interesting is good.  Self-explanatory, or intuitive is FAR better.  Happy coding! Graeme

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• Sparse virtual machine disk image resizing weirdness?

  - by Matt H

  I have a partitioned virtual machine disk image created by vmware. What I want to do is resize that by 10GB. The file size is showing as 64424509440. Or 60GB. So I ran this: dd if=/dev/zero of=./win7.img seek=146800640 count=0 It ran without errors and I can verify the new size is in fact 75161927680 bytes or 70GB. This is where it gets a little odd. I started the guest domain in xen which is a Windows 7 enterprise machine. What I was expecting to see in diskmgmt.msc is 2 partitions. 1 system partition at the start of around 100MB and near 60GB partition (which is C drive) followed by around 10GB of free space. Actually what I saw was a 70GB partition!?! That confused me... so I decided to run the Check Disk which when you set it on the C drive it asks you to reboot so it'll run on boot. So I did that and during the boot it ran the checks. It got all the way through stage 3 and didn't show any errors at all. Looked at the partitions in disk manager and now C drive has shrunk back to 60GB and there is no free space. What gives? Ok, I thought I'd try mounting it under Dom0 and examining it with fdisk. This is what I get when mounted sudo xl block-attach 0 tap:aio:/home/xen/vms/otoy_v1202-xen.img xvda w sudo fdisk -l /dev/xvda Disk /dev/xvda: 64.4 GB, 64424509440 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7832 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x582dfc96 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/xvda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/xvda2 13 7833 62810112 7 HPFS/NTFS Note the cylinder boundary comment. When I run sudo cfdisk /dev/xvda I get: FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 1: Partition ends in the final partial cylinder Press any key to exit cfdisk So I guess this is a bigger problem than first thought. How can I fix this? EDIT: Oops, the cylinder boundary thing is not a problem at all since disks have used LBA etc. So that threw me for a moment... still the problem exists... Now this output looks a little different. sudo sfdisk -uS -l /dev/xvda Disk /dev/xvda: 7832 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0 Device Boot Start End #sectors Id System /dev/xvda1 * 2048 206847 204800 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/xvda2 206848 125827071 125620224 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/xvda3 0 - 0 0 Empty /dev/xvda4 0 - 0 0 Empty BTW: I do have a backup of the image so if you help me mess it up that's ok. EDIT: sudo parted /dev/xvda print free Model: Xen Virtual Block Device (xvd) Disk /dev/xvda: 64.4GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 32.3kB 1049kB 1016kB Free Space 1 1049kB 106MB 105MB primary ntfs boot 2 106MB 64.4GB 64.3GB primary ntfs 64.4GB 64.4GB 1049kB Free Space Cool. Linux is showing free space is 10GB which is what I expect. The problem is windows isn't seeing this?

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• PowerShell: Read Excel to Create Inserts

  - by BuckWoody

  I’m writing a series of articles on how to migrate “departmental” data into SQL Server. I also hold workshops on the entire process – from discovering that the data exists to the modeling process and then how to design the Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) process. Finally I write about (and teach) a few methods on actually moving the data. One of those options is to use PowerShell. There are a lot of ways even with that choice, but the one I show is to read two columns from the spreadsheet and output statements that would insert the data using a stored procedure. Of course, you could re-write this as INSERT statements, out to a text file for bcp, or even use a database connection in the script to move the data directly from Excel into SQL Server. This snippet won’t run on your system, of course – it assumes a Microsoft Office Excel 2007 spreadsheet located at c:\temp called VendorList.xlsx. It looks for a tab in that spreadsheet called Vendors. The statement that does the writing just uses one column: Vendor Code. Here’s the breakdown of what I’m doing: In the first block, I connect to Microsoft Office Excel. That connection string is specific to Excel 2007, so if you need a different version you’ll need to look that up. In the second block I set up a selection from the entire spreadsheet based on that tab. Note that if you’re only after certain data you shouldn’t get the whole spreadsheet – that’s just good practice. In the next block I create the text I want, inserting the Vendor Code field as I go. Finally I close the connection. Enjoy! $ExcelConnection= New-Object -com "ADODB.Connection" $ExcelFile="c:\temp\VendorList.xlsx" $ExcelConnection.Open("Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;` Data Source=$ExcelFile;Extended Properties=Excel 12.0;") $strQuery="Select * from [Vendors$]" $ExcelRecordSet=$ExcelConnection.Execute($strQuery) do { Write-Host "EXEC sp_InsertVendors '" $ExcelRecordSet.Fields.Item("Vendor Code").Value "'" $ExcelRecordSet.MoveNext()} Until ($ExcelRecordSet.EOF) $ExcelConnection.Close() Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Company wants to write custom project management tool, rather then use third party product.

  - by Jason Evans

  At the company I work, we are really wanting to get into the agile methodology for developing software. One thing that I'm not excited about is the fact that management wants us to build a custom project management feature inside the company's Intranet. I think this is a total waste of time. There are many great third party tools available (e.g. Axosoft OnTime) that can do everything we need, and more. For how much development time it would cost us to build our own project management module, we could buy numerous licences for a third party product. One concern is that, whilst we are writing code for a client, and using our custom Intranet project management module, we find bugs in the module that need fixing ASAP. That means having to stop work on the client code to fix the Intranet. That just puts shivers down my spine. Another worry I have is lack of functionality. This custom module is going to be so basic, that it will just feel really crap to use. That might sound a bit snooty, but for goodness sake, many third party tools are so feature rich, that the idea of having to write our own tool makes feel very uneasy. In fact, I can't be bothered. What do you guys think? I'm going to raise this issue with my boss, since I feel it's such an important topic to talk about. EDIT: Thanks for the great responses, much appreciated. To summarize some of them: Money Naturally my boss does want to save money, by not forking out a few hundred £'s for licences. However, for us to write a custom tool, it will take x number of days, multiplied by approx £500, which is our costs. I don't see the business value in this. Management have mentioned that they want to sell the Intranet as a product in the future, but it's so custom to our needs (and downright basic), that in order to give it to another client, I can see us having to fork a version of the code and rebuild the majority of it anyway. So it's not like we're gaining anything there in reuse. Features Having our own custom module means not feature bloat - only the functionality we require will be in the product. My issue is that there are plenty of free, open-source project management tools out there with minimal features already. So even if cost is an issue, we could look into open-source. Again it all boils down to the fact that I don't see the point in writing a project management tool in this day and age. It's a bit like writing your own web browser - why?, what's the point? Although management are asking for this tool, just because they are, it does not mean I'm going to please them and do it just because they asked for it. If something does not make sense, then I will raise it as a concern. At the end of the day, it's the developers who write the code, it's the developers who make money for a business. Thus, as far I'm concerned, the devs have a very big role in deciding how a company should manage projects and what tools are used. "I am Spartan, argh!" :) Hmm, I've not been able to make this question a wiki for some reason, thus I'm going to have to pick an answer to accept. Cheers. Jas.

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• To SYNC or not to SYNC – Part 4

  - by AshishRay

  This is Part 4 of a multi-part blog article where we are discussing various aspects of setting up Data Guard synchronous redo transport (SYNC). In Part 1 of this article, I debunked the myth that Data Guard SYNC is similar to a two-phase commit operation. In Part 2, I discussed the various ways that network latency may or may not impact a Data Guard SYNC configuration. In Part 3, I talked in details regarding why Data Guard SYNC is a good thing, and the distance implications you have to keep in mind. In this final article of the series, I will talk about how you can nicely complement Data Guard SYNC with the ability to failover in seconds. Wait - Did I Say “Seconds”? Did I just say that some customers do Data Guard failover in seconds? Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Data Guard has an automatic failover capability, aptly called Fast-Start Failover. Initially available with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 for Data Guard SYNC transport mode (and enhanced in Oracle Database 11g to support Data Guard ASYNC transport mode), this capability, managed by Data Guard Broker, lets your Data Guard configuration automatically failover to a designated standby database. Yes, this means no human intervention is required to do the failover. This process is controlled by a low footprint Data Guard Broker client called Observer, which makes sure that the primary database and the designated standby database are behaving like good kids. If something bad were to happen to the primary database, the Observer, after a configurable threshold period, tells that standby, “Your time has come, you are the chosen one!” The standby dutifully follows the Observer directives by assuming the role of the new primary database. The DBA or the Sys Admin doesn’t need to be involved. And - in case you are following this discussion very closely, and are wondering … “Hmmm … what if the old primary is not really dead, but just network isolated from the Observer or the standby - won’t this lead to a split-brain situation?” The answer is No - It Doesn’t. With respect to why-it-doesn’t, I am sure there are some smart DBAs in the audience who can explain the technical reasons. Otherwise - that will be the material for a future blog post. So - this combination of SYNC and Fast-Start Failover is the nirvana of lights-out, integrated HA and DR, as practiced by some of our advanced customers. They have observed failover times (with no data loss) ranging from single-digit seconds to tens of seconds. With this, they support operations in industry verticals such as manufacturing, retail, telecom, Internet, etc. that have the most demanding availability requirements. One of our leading customers with massive cloud deployment initiatives tells us that they know about server failures only after Data Guard has automatically completed the failover process and the app is back up and running! Needless to mention, Data Guard Broker has the integration hooks for interfaces such as JDBC and OCI, or even for custom apps, to ensure the application gets automatically rerouted to the new primary database after the database level failover completes. Net Net? To sum up this multi-part blog article, Data Guard with SYNC redo transport mode, plus Fast-Start Failover, gives you the ideal triple-combo - that is, it gives you the assurance that for critical outages, you can failover your Oracle databases: very fast without human intervention, and without losing any data. In short, it takes the element of risk out of critical IT operations. It does require you to be more careful with your network and systems planning, but as far as HA is concerned, the benefits outweigh the investment costs. So, this is what we in the MAA Development Team believe in. What do you think? How has your deployment experience been? We look forward to hearing from you!

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• Hell and Diplomacy: Notes on Software Integration

  - by ericajanine

  Well, I'm getting cabin fever and short-timer's ADD all at the same time. I haven't been anywhere outside of my greater city area in FOREVER and I'm only days away from my vacation. I have brainlock because the last few days have been non-stop diffusing amazingly hostile conversations. I think I'll write about that. So then, I "do" software. At the end of the day, software is pretty straightforward. Software is that thing we love and try to make do things not currently in play, in existence. If a process around getting software to do something is broken (like most actually are), then we should acknowledge it and move on. We are professional. We are helpful beyond the normal call of duty. We live and breathe making the lives better for those apps being active in the world. But above all--the shocker: We are SERVICE. In a service frame of mind, all perspectives shift to what is best overall for system stabilization vs. what must be in production to meet business objectives. It doesn't matter how much you like or dislike the creator of said software. It doesn't matter what time you went to bed last night or if your mate appreciates your Death March attitude. Getting a product in and when is an age-old dilemma in a software environment where more than, say, 3 people are involved. We know this. Taking a servant's perspective eliminates the drama surrounding what a group of half-baked developers forgot to tell each other in the 11th hour about their trampling changes before check-in. We, my counterparts in society, get paid to deal with that drama. I get paid to diffuse that drama and make everything integrate as smoothly as possible. At the end of the day, attacking someone over a minor detail not only makes things worse, it's against the whole point of our real existence. Being in support or software integration means you are to keep your eyes on the end game. That end game? It's making a solution work for all stakeholders, not just you or your immediate superior. Development and technology groups exist because business groups need them to exist and solve their issues. The end game? Doing what is best for those business groups ultimately. Period. Note: That does not mean you let your business users solely dictate when and if something gets changed in an environment you ultimately own. That's just crazy. Software and its environments are legitimately owned by those who manage it directly, no matter how important a business group believes it is to the existence of mankind. So, you both negotiate the terms of changing that environment and only do so upon that negotiation. Diplomacy is in order. So, to finish my thoughts: If you have no ability to keep your mouth shut in a situation where a business or development group truly need your help to make something work even beyond a deadline, find another profession. Beating up someone verbally because they screw up means a service attitude is not at the forefront of your motivation for doing what is ultimately their work and their product. Software, especially integration, requires a strong will and a soft touch to keep it on track. Not a hammer covered in broken glass.

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• Handling "related" work within a single agile work item

  - by Tesserex

  I'm on a project team of 4 devs, myself included. We've been having a long discussion on how to handle extra work that comes up in the course of a single work item. This extra work is usually things that are slightly related to the task, but not always necessary to accomplish the goal of the item (that may be an opinion). Examples include but are not limited to: refactoring of the code changed by the work item refactoring code neighboring the code changed by the item re-architecting the larger code area around the ticket. For example if an item has you changing a single function, you realize the entire class now could be redone to better accommodate this change. improving the UI on a form you just modified When this extra work is small we don't mind. The problem is when this extra work causes a substantial extension of the item beyond the original feature point estimation. Sometimes a 5 point item will actually take 13 points of time. In one case we had a 13 point item that in retrospect could have been 80 points or more. There are two options going around in our discussion for how to handle this. We can accept the extra work in the same work item, and write it off as a mis-estimation. Arguments for this have included: We plan for "padding" at the end of the sprint to account for this sort of thing. Always leave the code in better shape than you found it. Don't check in half-assed work. If we leave refactoring for later, it's hard to schedule and may never get done. You are in the best mental "context" to handle this work now, since you're waist deep in the code already. Better to get it out of the way now and be more efficient than to lose that context when you come back later. We draw a line for the current work item, and say that the extra work goes into a separate ticket. Arguments include: Having a separate ticket allows for a new estimation, so we aren't lying to ourselves about how many points things really are, or having to admit that all of our estimations are terrible. The sprint "padding" is meant for unexpected technical challenges that are direct barriers to completing the ticket requirements. It is not intended for side items that are just "nice-to-haves". If you want to schedule refactoring, just put it at the top of the backlog. There is no way for us to properly account for this stuff in an estimation, since it seems somewhat arbitrary when it comes up. A code reviewer might say "those UI controls (which you actually didn't modify in this work item) are a bit confusing, can you fix that too?" which is like an hour, but they might say "Well if this control now inherits from the same base class as the others, why don't you move all of this (hundreds of lines of) code into the base and rewire all this stuff, the cascading changes, etc.?" And that takes a week. It "contaminates the crime scene" by adding unrelated work into the ticket, making our original feature point estimates meaningless. In some cases, the extra work postpones a check-in, causing blocking between devs. Some of us are now saying that we should decide some cut off, like if the additional stuff is less than 2 FP, it goes in the same ticket, if it's more, make it a new ticket. Since we're only a few months into using Agile, what's the opinion of all the more seasoned Agile veterans around here on how to handle this?

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• Best Practices - Core allocation

  - by jsavit

  This post is one of a series of "best practices" notes for Oracle VM Server for SPARC (also called Logical Domains) Introduction SPARC T-series servers currently have up to 4 CPU sockets, each of which has up to 8 or (on SPARC T3) 16 CPU cores, while each CPU core has 8 threads, for a maximum of 512 dispatchable CPUs. The defining feature of Oracle VM Server for SPARC is that each domain is assigned CPU threads or cores for its exclusive use. This avoids the overhead of software-based time-slicing and emulation (or binary rewriting) of system state-changing privileged instructions used in traditional hypervisors. To create a domain, administrators specify either the number of CPU threads or cores that the domain will own, as well as its memory and I/O resources. When CPU resources are assigned at the individual thread level, the logical domains constraint manager attempts to assign threads from the same cores to a domain, and avoid "split core" situations where the same CPU core is used by multiple domains. Sometimes this is unavoidable, especially when domains are allocated and deallocated CPUs in small increments. Why split cores can matter Split core allocations can silenty reduce performance because multiple domains with different address spaces and memory contents are sharing the core's Level 1 cache (L1$). This is called false cache sharing since even identical memory addresses from different domains must point to different locations in RAM. The effect of this is increased contention for the cache, and higher memory latency for each domain using that core. The degree of performance impact can be widely variable. For applications with very small memory working sets, and with I/O bound or low-CPU utilization workloads, it may not matter at all: all machines wait for work at the same speed. If the domains have substantial workloads, or are critical to performance then this can have an important impact: This blog entry was inspired by a customer issue in which one CPU core was split among 3 domains, one of which was the control and service domain. The reported problem was increased I/O latency in guest domains, but the root cause might be higher latency servicing the I/O requests due to the control domain being slowed down. What to do about it Split core situations are easily avoided. In most cases the logical domain constraint manager will avoid it without any administrative action, but it can be entirely prevented by doing one of the several actions: Assign virtual CPUs in multiples of 8 - the number of threads per core. For example: ldm set-vcpu 8 mydomain or ldm add-vcpu 24 mydomain. Each domain will then be allocated on a core boundary. Use the whole core constraint when assigning CPU resources. This allocates CPUs in increments of entire cores instead of virtual CPU threads. The equivalent of the above commands would be ldm set-core 1 mydomain or ldm add-core 3 mydomain. Older syntax does the same thing by adding the -c flag to the add-vcpu, rm-vcpu and set-vcpu commands, but the new syntax is recommended. When whole core allocation is used an attempt to add cores to a domain fails if there aren't enough completely empty cores to satisfy the request. See https://blogs.oracle.com/sharakan/entry/oracle_vm_server_for_sparc4 for an excellent article on this topic by Eric Sharakan. Don't obsess: - if the workloads have minimal CPU requirements and don't need anywhere near a full CPU core, then don't worry about it. If you have low utilization workloads being consolidated from older machines onto a current T-series, then there's no need to worry about this or to assign an entire core to domains that will never use that much capacity. In any case, make sure the most important domains have their own CPU cores, in particular the control domain and any I/O or service domain, and of course any important guests. Summary Split core CPU allocation to domains can potentially have an impact on performance, but the logical domains manager tends to prevent this situation, and it can be completely and simply avoided by allocating virtual CPUs on core boundaries.

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• How to give my user permission to add/edit files on local apache server? [duplicate]

  - by Logan

  Possible Duplicate: How to make Apache run as current user I'm setting up my local test server again, and I seem to have forgotten how to successfully set up the LAMP server. I have installed LAMP server via tasksel command and I have configured the /var/www directory according to a guide I've found: After the lamp server installation you will need write permissions to the /var/www directory. Follow these steps to configure permissions. Add your user to the www-data group sudo usermod -a -G www-data <your user name> now add the /var/www folder to the www-data group sudo chgrp -R www-data /var/www now give write permissions to the www-data group sudo chmod -R g+w /var/www So logan user is now part of www-data group and the file/folder permissions look like the output below: logan@computer:/var/www$ ls -lart total 172 -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 1997 Oct 23 2010 wp-links-opml.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 3177 Nov 1 2010 wp-config-sample.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 3700 Jan 8 2012 wp-trackback.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 271 Jan 8 2012 wp-blog-header.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 395 Jan 8 2012 index.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 3522 Apr 10 2012 wp-comments-post.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 19929 May 6 2012 license.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 18219 Sep 11 08:27 wp-signup.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 2719 Sep 11 16:11 xmlrpc.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 2718 Sep 23 12:57 wp-cron.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 7723 Sep 25 01:26 wp-mail.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 2408 Oct 26 15:40 wp-load.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 4663 Nov 17 10:11 wp-activate.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 9899 Nov 22 04:52 wp-settings.php -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 9175 Nov 29 19:57 readme.html -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 29310 Nov 30 08:40 wp-login.php drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Dec 24 17:41 .. drwx------ 9 www-data www-data 4096 Dec 26 16:11 wp-admin drwx------ 9 www-data www-data 4096 Dec 26 16:11 wp-includes -rw-rw-rw- 1 www-data www-data 3448 Dec 26 16:14 wp-config.php drwxrwxr-x 5 www-data www-data 4096 Dec 26 16:14 . drwx------ 6 www-data www-data 4096 Dec 26 16:19 wp-content Things work perfectly at http://localhost, I can view the website fine. The thing with this is that I will be working on a plugin for wordpress and I don't want to deal with separate owners under www directory to create or modify files/folders. When I give my user the ownership of /var/www recursively as logan:www-data I can create/modify files but cannot view the http://localhost. I get a Forbidden error. I'm assuming that this is because of the Apache's configuration? Which one is healthier or easier considering this is just a local test website, configuring apache to give user logan to view website and chmod /var/www logan:logan so that I can create files etc. without any sudo commands; or is it easier to configure user groups to get www-data user to act like my logan user? (Idk how that's possible, maybe putting www-data user under logan group?) Please shed some light to this subject. All I want is to be able to create/modifiy files under my user, and yet to be able to successfully view http://localhost I appreciate the help!

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• VirtualBox Clone Root HD / Ubuntu / Network issue

  - by john.graves(at)oracle.com

  When you clone a root Ubuntu disk in VirtualBox, one thing that gets messed up is the network card definition.  This is because Ubuntu (as it should) uses UDEV IDs for the network device.  When you boot your new disk, the network device ID has changed, so it creates a new eth1 device.  Unfortunately, this conflicts with the VirtualBox network setup.  What to do? Boot the box (no network) Edit the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules Delete the eth0 line and modify the eth1 line to be eth0 --------- Example OLD ----------- # This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules # program, run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file. # # You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single # line, and change only the value of the NAME= key. # PCI device 0x8086:0x100e (e1000) <-------------------- Delete these two lines SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="08:00:27:d8:8d:15", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0" # PCI device 0x8086:0x100e (e1000) ---Modify the next line and change eth1 to be eth0 SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="08:00:27:89:84:98", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1" .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } ---------------------------------------- --------- Example NEW ----------- # This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules # program, run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file. # # You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single # line, and change only the value of the NAME= key. # PCI device 0x8086:0x100e (e1000) SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="08:00:27:89:84:98", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0" .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } ----------------------------------------

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• Logging errors caused by exceptions deep in the application

  - by Kaleb Pederson

  What are best-practices for logging deep within an application's source? Is it bad practice to have multiple event log entries for a single error? For example, let's say that I have an ETL system whose transform step involves: a transformer, pipeline, processing algorithm, and processing engine. In brief, the transformer takes in an input file, parses out records, and sends the records through the pipeline. The pipeline aggregates the results of the processing algorithm (which could do serial or parallel processing). The processing algorithm sends each record through one or more processing engines. So, I have at least four levels: Transformer - Pipeline - Algorithm - Engine. My code might then look something like the following: class Transformer { void Process(InputSource input) { try { var inRecords = _parser.Parse(input.Stream); var outRecords = _pipeline.Transform(inRecords); } catch (Exception ex) { var inner = new ProcessException(input, ex); _logger.Error("Unable to parse source " + input.Name, inner); throw inner; } } } class Pipeline { IEnumerable<Result> Transform(IEnumerable<Record> records) { // NOTE: no try/catch as I have no useful information to provide // at this point in the process var results = _algorithm.Process(records); // examine and do useful things with results return results; } } class Algorithm { IEnumerable<Result> Process(IEnumerable<Record> records) { var results = new List<Result>(); foreach (var engine in Engines) { foreach (var record in records) { try { engine.Process(record); } catch (Exception ex) { var inner = new EngineProcessingException(engine, record, ex); _logger.Error("Engine {0} unable to parse record {1}", engine, record); throw inner; } } } } } class Engine { Result Process(Record record) { for (int i=0; i<record.SubRecords.Count; ++i) { try { Validate(record.subRecords[i]); } catch (Exception ex) { var inner = new RecordValidationException(record, i, ex); _logger.Error( "Validation of subrecord {0} failed for record {1}", i, record ); } } } } There's a few important things to notice: A single error at the deepest level causes three log entries (ugly? DOS?) Thrown exceptions contain all important and useful information Logging only happens when failure to do so would cause loss of useful information at a lower level. Thoughts and concerns: I don't like having so many log entries for each error I don't want to lose important, useful data; the exceptions contain all the important but the stacktrace is typically the only thing displayed besides the message. I can log at different levels (e.g., warning, informational) The higher level classes should be completely unaware of the structure of the lower-level exceptions (which may change as the different implementations are replaced). The information available at higher levels should not be passed to the lower levels. So, to restate the main questions: What are best-practices for logging deep within an application's source? Is it bad practice to have multiple event log entries for a single error?

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• Find Rules and Defaults using the PowerShell for SQL Server 2008 Provider

  - by BuckWoody

  I ran into an issue the other day where I couldn't set up some features in SQL Server 2008 because they ddon't support the use of Rules or Defaults. Let me explain a little more about that. In older versions of SQL Server, you could decalre a "Rule" or "Default" just like you do with a Table Constraint today. You would then "bind" these rules or defaults to the tables you wanted them to apply to. Sure, there are advantages and disadvantages to this approach, but it certainly isn't standard Data Definition Language (DDL), so they are deprecated and many features don't work with them any more. Honestly, it's been so long since I've seen them in use I had forgotten to even check for them. My suspicion is that this was a new database created with an older script. Nevertheless, the feature failed when it ran into one. Immediately I thought that I had better build some logic into my process to try and catch those - but how? Lots of choices here, but since I was using PowerShell to do the rest of the work, I thought I would investigate how easy it would be just to do it there. And using the SQL Server 2008 provider, this could not be simpler. I won't show all of the scrupt here, because I was testing for these as a condition and then bailing out of the script and sending a notification, but all it is using is the DIR command! Here's an example on my "UNIVAC" computer for the "pubs" database: Find Rules using PowerShell: dir SQLSERVER:\SQL\UNIVAC\DEFAULT\Databases\pubs\Rulesdir SQLSERVER:\SQL\UNIVAC\DEFAULT\Databases\pubs\Defaults And this one will look in all databases:  #All Databases:dir SQLSERVER:\SQL\UNIVAC\DEFAULT\Databases | select-object -property Name, Rules, Defaults Awesome. Love me some PowerShell. Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately.       Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• The Power to Control Power

  - by speakjava

  I'm currently working on a number of projects using embedded Java on the Raspberry Pi and Beagle Board.  These are nice and small, so don't take up much room on my desk as you can see in this picture. As you can also see I have power and network connections emerging from under my desk.  One of the (admittedly very minor) drawbacks of these systems is that they have no on/off switch.  Instead you insert or remove the power connector (USB for the RasPi, a barrel connector for the Beagle).  For the Beagle Board this can potentially be an issue; with the micro-SD card located right next to the connector it has been known for people to eject the card when trying to power off the board, which can be quite serious for the hardware. The alternative is obviously to leave the boards plugged in and then disconnect the power from the outlet.  Simple enough, but a picture of underneath my desk shows that this is not the ideal situation either. This made me think that it would be great if I could have some way of controlling a mains voltage outlet using a remote switch or, even better, from software via a USB connector.  A search revealed not much that fit my requirements, and anything that was close seemed very expensive.  Obviously the only way to solve this was to build my own.Here's my solution.  I decided my system would support both control mechanisms (remote physical switch and USB computer control) and be modular in its design for optimum flexibility.  I did a bit of searching and found a company in Hong Kong that were offering solid state relays for 99p plus shipping (£2.99, but still made the total price very reasonable).  These would handle up to 380V AC on the output side so more than capable of coping with the UK 240V supply.  The other great thing was that being solid state, the input would work with a range of 3-32V and required a very low current of 7.5mA at 12V.  For the USB control an Arduino board seemed the obvious low-cost and simple choice.  Given the current requirments of the relay, the Arduino would not require the additional power supply and could be powered just from the USB.Having secured the relays I popped down to Homebase for a couple of 13A sockets, RS for a box and an Arduino and Maplin for a toggle switch.  The circuit is pretty straightforward, as shown in the diagram (only one output is shown to make it as simple as possible).  Originally I used a 2 pole toggle switch to select the remote switch or USB control by switching the negative connections of the low voltage side.  Unfortunately, the resistance between the digital pins of the Arduino board was not high enough, so when using one of the remote switches it would turn on both of the outlets.  I changed to a 4 pole switch and isolated both positive and negative connections. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to follow my design, please be aware that it requires working with mains voltages.  If you are at all concerned with your ability to do this please consult a qualified electrician to help you.It was a tight fit, especially getting the Arduino in, but in the end it all worked.  The completed box is shown in the photos. The remote switch was pretty simple just requiring the squeezing of two rocker switches and a 9V battery into the small RS supplied box.  I repurposed a standard stereo cable with phono plugs to connect the switch box to the mains outlets.  I chopped off one set of plugs and wired it to the rocker switches.  The photo shows the RasPi and the Beagle board now controllable from the switch box on the desk. I've tested the Arduino side of things and this works fine.  Next I need to write some software to provide an interface for control of the outlets.  I'm thinking a JavaFX GUI would be in keeping with the total overkill style of this project.

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• How to remove synaptic without installing all the unwanted packages?

  - by Jay

  I am trying to uninstall synaptic. I prefer using apt-get and other command line tools to manage my packages. So I do not need synaptic and the software manager. I'm trying to remove both of them using apt-get. Its a new box. Recently installed Linux Mint mate 15. After installation, the only thing I did was, sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get dist-upgrade After that, I did this command for removing synaptic, sudo apt-get remove --purge synaptic But this gives me a very weird output, Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: apturl-kde icoutils kate-data katepart kde-runtime kde-runtime-data kdelibs-bin kdelibs5-data kdelibs5-plugins kdesudo kdoctools kubuntu-debug-installer libattica0.4 libdlrestrictions1 libkactivities-bin libkactivities-models1 libkactivities6 libkatepartinterfaces4 libkcmutils4 libkde3support4 libkdeclarative5 libkdecore5 libkdesu5 libkdeui5 libkdewebkit5 libkdnssd4 libkemoticons4 libkfile4 libkhtml5 libkidletime4 libkio5 libkjsapi4 libkjsembed4 libkmediaplayer4 libknewstuff3-4 libknotifyconfig4 libkntlm4 libkparts4 libkpty4 libkrosscore4 libktexteditor4 libkxmlrpcclient4 libnepomuk4 libnepomukcore4abi1 libnepomukquery4a libnepomukutils4 libntrack-qt4-1 libntrack0 libphonon4 libplasma3 libpolkit-qt-1-1 libpoppler-qt4-4 libqapt2 libqapt2-runtime libqca2 libqt4-qt3support libsolid4 libsoprano4 libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libthreadweaver4 libvirtodbc0 nepomuk-core nepomuk-core-data ntrack-module-libnl-0 odbcinst odbcinst1debian2 oxygen-icon-theme phonon phonon-backend-gstreamer plasma-scriptengine-javascript qapt-batch shared-desktop-ontologies soprano-daemon virtuoso-minimal virtuoso-opensource-6.1-bin virtuoso-opensource-6.1-common Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: apturl-kde icoutils kate-data katepart kde-runtime kde-runtime-data kdelibs-bin kdelibs5-data kdelibs5-plugins kdesudo kdoctools kubuntu-debug-installer libattica0.4 libdlrestrictions1 libkactivities-bin libkactivities-models1 libkactivities6 libkatepartinterfaces4 libkcmutils4 libkde3support4 libkdeclarative5 libkdecore5 libkdesu5 libkdeui5 libkdewebkit5 libkdnssd4 libkemoticons4 libkfile4 libkhtml5 libkidletime4 libkio5 libkjsapi4 libkjsembed4 libkmediaplayer4 libknewstuff3-4 libknotifyconfig4 libkntlm4 libkparts4 libkpty4 libkrosscore4 libktexteditor4 libkxmlrpcclient4 libnepomuk4 libnepomukcore4abi1 libnepomukquery4a libnepomukutils4 libntrack-qt4-1 libntrack0 libphonon4 libplasma3 libpolkit-qt-1-1 libpoppler-qt4-4 libqapt2 libqapt2-runtime libqca2 libqt4-qt3support libsolid4 libsoprano4 libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libthreadweaver4 libvirtodbc0 libxml2-utils nepomuk-core nepomuk-core-data ntrack-module-libnl-0 odbcinst odbcinst1debian2 oxygen-icon-theme phonon phonon-backend-gstreamer plasma-scriptengine-javascript qapt-batch shared-desktop-ontologies soprano-daemon virtuoso-minimal virtuoso-opensource-6.1-bin virtuoso-opensource-6.1-common Suggested packages: libterm-readline-gnu-perl libterm-readline-perl-perl djvulibre-bin finger hspell libqca2-plugin-cyrus-sasl libqca2-plugin-gnupg libqca2-plugin-ossl phonon-backend-vlc phonon-backend-xine phonon-backend-mplayer The following packages will be REMOVED: aptoncd* apturl* mintupdate* mintwelcome* synaptic* The following NEW packages will be installed: apturl-kde icoutils kate-data katepart kde-runtime kde-runtime-data kdelibs-bin kdelibs5-data kdelibs5-plugins kdesudo kdoctools kubuntu-debug-installer libattica0.4 libdlrestrictions1 libkactivities-bin libkactivities-models1 libkactivities6 libkatepartinterfaces4 libkcmutils4 libkde3support4 libkdeclarative5 libkdecore5 libkdesu5 libkdeui5 libkdewebkit5 libkdnssd4 libkemoticons4 libkfile4 libkhtml5 libkidletime4 libkio5 libkjsapi4 libkjsembed4 libkmediaplayer4 libknewstuff3-4 libknotifyconfig4 libkntlm4 libkparts4 libkpty4 libkrosscore4 libktexteditor4 libkxmlrpcclient4 libnepomuk4 libnepomukcore4abi1 libnepomukquery4a libnepomukutils4 libntrack-qt4-1 libntrack0 libphonon4 libplasma3 libpolkit-qt-1-1 libpoppler-qt4-4 libqapt2 libqapt2-runtime libqca2 libqt4-qt3support libsolid4 libsoprano4 libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libthreadweaver4 libvirtodbc0 libxml2-utils nepomuk-core nepomuk-core-data ntrack-module-libnl-0 odbcinst odbcinst1debian2 oxygen-icon-theme phonon phonon-backend-gstreamer plasma-scriptengine-javascript qapt-batch shared-desktop-ontologies soprano-daemon virtuoso-minimal virtuoso-opensource-6.1-bin virtuoso-opensource-6.1-common 0 upgraded, 78 newly installed, 5 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 60.9 MB of archives. After this operation, 146 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n Abort. As you can see, apt-get is trying to install the same packages that it is asking me to autoremove. Could someone please tell me, how to uninstall synaptic properly? Or am I missing something? Just for the record, I also did, sudo apt-get autoremove --purge like it asked me to ... and this is what I got, Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.

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• Slick2D Rendering Lots of Polygons

  - by Hazzard

  I'm writing an little isometric game using Slick. The world terrain is made up of lots of quadrilaterals. In a small world that is 128 by 128 squares, over 16,000 quadrilaterals need to be rendered. This puts my pretty powerful computer down to 30 fps. I've though about caching "chunks" of the world so only single chunks would ever need updating at a time, but I don't know how to do this, and I am sure there are other ways to optimize it besides that. Maybe I'm doing the whole thing wrong, surely fancy 3D games that run fine on my machine are more intensive than this. My question is how can I improve the FPS and am I doing something wrong? Or does it actually take that much power to render those polygons? -- Here is the source code for the render method in my game state. It iterates through a 2d array or heights and draws polygons based on the height. public void render(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game, Graphics gfx) throws SlickException { gfx.translate(offsetX * d + container.getWidth() / 2, offsetY * d + container.getHeight() / 2); gfx.scale(d, d); for (int y = 0; y < placeholder.length; y++) {// x & y are isometric // diag for (int x = 0; x < placeholder[0].length; x++) { Polygon poly; int hor = TestState.TILE_WIDTH * (x - y);// hor and ver are orthagonal int W = TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y) - 1 * heights[y + 1][x];//points to go off of int S = TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y) - 1 * heights[y + 1][x + 1]; int E = TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y) - 1 * heights[y][x + 1]; int N = TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y) - 1 * heights[y][x]; if (placeholder[y][x] == null) { poly = new Polygon();//Create actual surface polygon poly.addPoint(-TestState.TILE_WIDTH + hor, W); poly.addPoint(hor, S + TestState.TILE_HEIGHT); poly.addPoint(TestState.TILE_WIDTH + hor, E); poly.addPoint(hor, N - TestState.TILE_HEIGHT); float z = ((float) heights[y][x + 1] - heights[y + 1][x]) / 32 + 0.5f; placeholder[y][x] = new Tile(poly, new Color(z, z, z)); //ShapeRenderer.fill(placeholder[y][x]); } if (true) {//ONLY draw tile if it's on screen gfx.setColor(placeholder[y][x].getColor()); ShapeRenderer.fill(placeholder[y][x]); //gfx.fill(placeholder[y][x]); //placeholder[y][x]. //DRAW EDGES if (y + 1 == placeholder.length) {//draw South foundation edges gfx.setColor(Color.gray); Polygon found = new Polygon(); found.addPoint(-TestState.TILE_WIDTH + hor, W); found.addPoint(hor, S + TestState.TILE_HEIGHT); found.addPoint(hor, TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y + 1)); found.addPoint(-TestState.TILE_WIDTH + hor, TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y)); gfx.fill(found); } if (x + 1 == placeholder[0].length) {//north gfx.setColor(Color.darkGray); Polygon found = new Polygon(); found.addPoint(TestState.TILE_WIDTH + hor, E); found.addPoint(hor, S + TestState.TILE_HEIGHT); found.addPoint(hor, TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y + 1)); found.addPoint(TestState.TILE_WIDTH + hor, TestState.TILE_HEIGHT * (x + y)); gfx.fill(found); }//*/ } } } }

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• Exadata X3, 11.2.3.2 and Oracle Platinum Services

  - by Rene Kundersma

  Oracle recently announced an Exadata Hardware Update. The overall architecture will remain the same, however some interesting hardware refreshes are done especially for the storage server (X3-2L). Each cell will now have 1600GB of flash, this means an X3-2 full rack will have 20.3 TB of total flash ! For all the details I would like to refer to the Oracle Exadata product page: www.oracle.com/exadata Together with the announcement of the X3 generation. A new Exadata release, 11.2.3.2 is made available. New Exadata systems will be shipped with this release and existing installations can be updated to that release. As always there is a storage cell patch and a patch for the compute node, which again needs to be applied using YUM. Instructions and requirements for patching existing Exadata compute nodes to 11.2.3.2 using YUM can be found in the patch README. Depending on the release you have installed on your compute nodes the README will direct you to a particular section in MOS note 1473002.1. MOS 1473002.1 should only be followed with the instructions from the 11.2.3.2 patch README. Like with 11.2.3.1.0 and 11.2.3.1.1 instructions are added to prepare your systems to use YUM for the first time in case you are still on release 11.2.2.4.2 and earlier. You will also find these One Time Setup instructions in MOS note 1473002.1 By default compute nodes that will be updated to 11.2.3.2.0 will have the UEK kernel. Before 11.2.3.2.0 the 'compatible kernel' was used for the compute nodes. For 11.2.3.2.0 customer will have the choice to replace the UEK kernel with the Exadata standard 'compatible kernel' which is also in the ULN 11.2.3.2 channel. Recommended is to use the kernel that is installed by default. One of the other great new things 11.2.3.2 brings is Writeback Flashcache (wbfc). By default wbfc is disabled after the upgrade to 11.2.3.2. Enable wbfc after patching on the storage servers of your test environment and see the improvements this brings for your applications. Writeback FlashCache can be enabled  by dropping the existing FlashCache, stopping the cellsrv process and changing the FlashCacheMode attribute of the cell. Of course stopping cellsrv can only be done in a controlled manner. Steps: drop flashcache alter cell shutdown services cellsrv again, cellsrv can only be stopped in a controlled manner alter cell flashCacheMode = WriteBack alter cell startup services cellsrv create flashcache all Going back to WriteThrough FlashCache is also possible, but only after flushing the FlashCache: alter cell flashcache all flush Last item I like to highlight in particular is already from a while ago, but a great thing to emphasis: Oracle Platinum Services. On top of the remote fault monitoring with faster response times Oracle has included update and patch deployment services.These services are delivered by Oracle Advanced Customer Support at no additional costs for qualified Oracle Premier Support customers. References: 11.2.3.2.0 README Exadata YUM Repository Population, One-Time Setup Configuration and YUM upgrades  1473002.1 Oracle Platinum Services

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

  - by red@work

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

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• Detect Unicode Usage in SQL Column

  One optimization you can make to a SQL table that is overly large is to change from nvarchar (or nchar) to varchar (or char).  Doing so will cut the size used by the data in half, from 2 bytes per character (+ 2 bytes of overhead for varchar) to only 1 byte per character.  However, you will lose the ability to store Unicode characters, such as those used by many non-English alphabets.  If the tables are storing user-input, and your application is or might one day be used internationally, its likely that using Unicode for your characters is a good thing.  However, if instead the data is being generated by your application itself or your development team (such as lookup data), and you can be certain that Unicode character sets are not required, then switching such columns to varchar/char can be an easy improvement to make. Avoid Premature Optimization If you are working with a lookup table that has a small number of rows, and is only ever referenced in the application by its numeric ID column, then you wont see any benefit to using varchar vs. nvarchar.  More generally, for small tables, you wont see any significant benefit.  Thus, if you have a general policy in place to use nvarchar/nchar because it offers more flexibility, do not take this post as a recommendation to go against this policy anywhere you can.  You really only want to act on measurable evidence that suggests that using Unicode is resulting in a problem, and that you wont lose anything by switching to varchar/char. Obviously the main reason to make this change is to reduce the amount of space required by each row.  This in turn affects how many rows SQL Server can page through at a time, and can also impact index size and how much disk I/O is required to respond to queries, etc.  If for example you have a table with 100 million records in it and this table has a column of type nchar(5), this column will use 5 * 2 = 10 bytes per row, and with 100M rows that works out to 10 bytes * 100 million = 1000 MBytes or 1GB.  If it turns out that this column only ever stores ASCII characters, then changing it to char(5) would reduce this to 5*1 = 5 bytes per row, and only 500MB.  Of course, if it turns out that it only ever stores the values true and false then you could go further and replace it with a bit data type which uses only 1 byte per row (100MB  total). Detecting Whether Unicode Is In Use So by now you think that you have a problem and that it might be alleviated by switching some columns from nvarchar/nchar to varchar/char but youre not sure whether youre currently using Unicode in these columns.  By definition, you should only be thinking about this for a column that has a lot of rows in it, since the benefits just arent there for a small table, so you cant just eyeball it and look for any non-ASCII characters.  Instead, you need a query.  Its actually very simple: SELECT DISTINCT(CategoryName)FROM CategoriesWHERE CategoryName <> CONVERT(varchar, CategoryName) Summary Gregg Stark for the tip. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• what differs a computer scientist/software engineer to regular people who learn programming language and APIs?

  - by Amumu

  In University, we learn and reinvent the wheel a lot to truly learn the programming concepts. For example, we may learn assembly language to understand, what happens inside the box, and how the system operates, when we execute our code. This helps understanding higher level concepts deeper. For example, memory management like in C is just an abstraction of manually managed memory contents and addresses. The problem is, when we're going to work, usually productivity is required more. I could program my own containers, or string class, or date/time (using POSIX with C system call) to do the job, but then, it would take much longer time to use existing STL or Boost library, which abstract all of those thing and very easy to use. This leads to an issue, that a regular person doesn't need to get through all the low level/under the hood stuffs, who learns only one programming language and using language-related APIs. These people may eventually compete with the mainstream graduates from computer science or software engineer and call themselves programmers. At first, I don't think it's valid to call them programmers. I used to think, a real programmer needs to understand the computer deeply (but not at the electronic level). But then I changed my mind. After all, they get the job done and satisfy all the test criteria (logic, performance, security...), and in business environment, who cares if you're an expert and understand how computer works or not. You may get behind the "amateurs" if you spend to much time learning about how things work inside. It is totally valid for those people to call themselves programmers. This makes me confuse. So, after all, programming should be considered an universal skill? Does programming language and concepts matter or the problems we solve matter? For example, many C/C++ vs Java and other high level language, one of the main reason is because C/C++ features performance, as well as accessing low level facility. One of the main reason (in my opinion), is coding in C/C++ seems complex, so people feel good about it (not trolling anyone, just my observation, and my experience as well. Try to google "C hacker syndrome"). While Java on the other hand, made for simplifying programming tasks to help developers concentrate on solving their problems. Based on Java rationale, if the programing language keeps evolve, one day everyone can map their logic directly with natural language. Everyone can program. On that day, maybe real programmers are mathematicians, who could perform most complex logic (including business logic and academic logic) without worrying about installing/configuring compiler, IDEs? What's our job as a computer scientist/software engineer? To solve computer specific problems or to solve problems in general? For example, take a look at this exame: http://cm.baylor.edu/ICPCWiki/attach/Problem%20Resources/2010WorldFinalProblemSet.pdf . The example requires only basic knowledge about the programming language, but focus more on problem solving with the language. In sum, what differs a computer scientist/software engineer to regular people who learn programming language and APIs? A mathematician can be considered a programmer, if he is good enough to use programming language to implement his formula. Can we programmer do this? Probably not for most of us, since we specialize about computer, not math. An electronic engineer, who learns how to use C to program for his devices, can be considered a programmer. If the programming languages keep being simplified, may one day the software engineers, who implements business logic and create softwares, be obsolete? (Not for computer scientist though, since many of the CS topics are scientific, and science won't change, but technology will).

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• Acceptance tests done first...how can this be accomplished?

  - by Crazy Eddie

  The basic gist of most Agile methods is that a feature is not "done" until it's been developed, tested, and in many cases released. This is supposed to happen in quick turnaround chunks of time such as "Sprints" in the Scrum process. A common part of Agile is also TDD, which states that tests are done first. My team works on a GUI program that does a lot of specific drawing and such. In order to provide tests, the testing team needs to be able to work with something that at least attempts to perform the things they are trying to test. We've found no way around this problem. I can very much see where they are coming from because if I was trying to write software that targeted some basically mysterious interface I'd have a very hard time. Although we have behavior fairly well specified, the exact process of interacting with various UI elements when it comes to automation seems to be too unique to a feature to allow testers to write automated scripts to drive something that does not exist. Even if we could, a lot of things end up turning up later as having been missing from the specification. One thing we considered doing was having the testers write test "scripts" that are more like a set of steps that must be performed, as described from a use-case perspective, so that they can be "automated" by a human being. This can then be performed by the developer(s) writing the feature and/or verified by someone else. When the testers later get an opportunity they automate the "script" for regression purposes mainly. This didn't end up catching on in the team though. The testing part of the team is actually falling behind us by quite a margin. This is one reason why the apparently extra time of developing a "script" for a human being to perform just did not happen....they're under a crunch to keep up with us developers. If we waited for them, we'd get nothing done. It's not their fault really, they're a bottle neck but they're doing what they should be and working as fast as possible. The process itself seems to be set up against them. Very often we end up having to go back a month or more in what we've done to fix bugs that the testers have finally gotten to checking. It's an ugly truth that I'd like to do something about. So what do other teams do to solve this fail cascade? How can we get testers ahead of us and how can we make it so that there's actually time for them to write tests for the features we do in a sprint without making us sit and twiddle our thumbs in the meantime? As it's currently going, in order to get a feature "done", using agile definitions, would be to have developers work for 1 week, then testers work the second week, and developers hopefully being able to fix all the bugs they come up with in the last couple days. That's just not going to happen, even if I agreed it was a reasonable solution. I need better ideas...

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• New Analytic settings for the new code

  - by Steve Tunstall

  If you have upgraded to the new 2011.1.3.0 code, you may find some very useful settings for the Analytics. If you didn't already know, the analytic datasets have the potential to fill up your OS hard drives. The more datasets you use and create, that faster this can happen. Since they take a measurement every second, forever, some of these metrics can get in the multiple GB size in a matter of weeks. The traditional 'fix' was that you had to go into Analytics -> Datasets about once a month and clean up the largest datasets. You did this by deleting them. Ouch. Now you lost all of that historical data that you might have wanted to check out many months from now. Or, you had to export each metric individually to a CSV file first. Not very easy or fun. You could also suspend a dataset, and have it not collect data at all. Well, that fixed the problem, didn't it? of course you now had no data to go look at. Hmmmm.... All of this is no longer a concern. Check out the new Settings tab under Analytics... Now, I can tell the ZFSSA to keep every second of data for, say, 2 weeks, and then average those 60 seconds of each minute into a single 'minute' value. I can go even further and ask it to average those 60 minutes of data into a single 'hour' value.  This allows me to effectively shrink my older datasets by a factor of 1/3600 !!! Very cool. I can now allow my datasets to go forever, and really never have to worry about them filling up my OS drives. That's great going forward, but what about those huge datasets you already have? No problem. Another new feature in 2011.1.3.0 is the ability to shrink the older datasets in the same way. Check this out. I have here a dataset called "Disk: I/O opps per second" that is about 6.32M on disk (You need not worry so much about the "In Core" value, as that is in RAM, and it fluctuates all the time. Once you stop viewing a particular metric, you will see that shrink over time, just relax).  When one clicks on the trash can icon to the right of the dataset, it used to delete the whole thing, and you would have to re-create it from scratch to get the data collecting again. Now, however, it gives you this prompt: As you can see, this allows you to once again shrink the dataset by averaging the second data into minutes or hours. Here is my new dataset size after I do this. So it shrank from 6.32MB down to 2.87MB, but i can still see my metrics going back to the time I began the dataset. Now, you do understand that once you do this, as you look back in time to the minute or hour data metrics, that you are going to see much larger time values, right? You will need to decide what size of granularity you can live with, and for how long. Check this out. Here is my Disk: Percent utilized from 5-21-2012 2:42 pm to 4:22 pm: After I went through the delete process to change everything older than 1 week to "Minutes", the same date and time looks like this: Just understand what this will do and how you want to use it. Right now, I'm thinking of keeping the last 6 weeks of data as "seconds", and then the last 3 months as "Minutes", and then "Hours" forever after that. I'll check back in six months and see how the sizes look. Steve 

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