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Web Self Service installation on Windows

- by Rajesh Sharma

Web Self Service (WSS) installation on windows is pretty straight forward but you might face some issues if deployed under tomcat. Here's a step-by-step guide to install Oracle Utilities Web Self Service on windows. Below installation steps are done on: Oracle Utilities Framework version 2.2.0 Oracle Utilities Application - Customer Care & Billing version 2.2.0 Application server - Apache Tomcat 6.0.13 on default port 6500 Other settings include: SPLBASE = C:\spl\CCBDEMO22 SPLENVIRON = CCBV22 SPLWAS = TCAT Follow these steps for a Web Self Service installation on windows: Download Web Self Service application from edelivery. Copy the delivery file Release-SelfService-V2.2.0.zip from the Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing version 2.2.0 Web Self Service folder on the installation media to a directory on your Windows box where you would like to install the application, in our case it's a temporary folder C:\wss_temp. Setup application environment, execute splenviron.cmd -e <ENVIRON_NAME> Create base folder for Self Service application named SelfService under %SPLEBASE%\splapp\applications Install Oracle Utilities Web Self Service C:\wss_temp\Release-SelfService-V2.2.0>install.cmd -d %SPLEBASE%\splapp\applications\SelfService Web Self Service installation menu. Populate environment values for each item. ******************************************************** Pick your installation options: ******************************************************** 1. Destination directory name for installation. | C:\spl\CCBDEMO22\splapp\applications\SelfService 2. Web Server Host. | CCBV22 3. Web Server Port Number. | 6500 4. Mail SMTP Host. | CCBV22 5. Top Product Installation directory. | C:\spl\CCBDEMO22 6. Web Application Server Type. | TCAT 7. When OAS: SPLWeb OC4J instance name is required. | OC4J1 8. When WAS: SPLWeb server instance name is required. | server1 P. Process the installation. Each item in the above list should be configured for a successful installation. Choose option to configure or (P) to process the installation: P Option 7 and Option 8 can be ignored for TCAT. Above step installs SelfService.war file in the destination directory. We need to explode this war file. Change directory to the installation destination folder, and C:\spl\CCBDEMO22\splapp\applications\SelfService>jar -xf SelfService.war Review SelfServiceConfig.properties and CMSelfServiceConfig.properties. Change any properties value within the file specific to your installation/site. Generally default settings apply, for this exercise assumes that WEB user already exists in your application database. For more information on property file customization, refer to Oracle Utilities Web Self Service Configuration section in Customer Care & Billing Installation Guide. Add context entry in server.xml located under tomcat-base folder C:\spl\CCBDEMO22\product\tomcatBase\conf ...  <Context path="" docBase="C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/root" debug="0" privileged="true"/> <Context path="/appViewer" docBase="C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/appViewer" debug="0" privileged="true"/> <Context path="/help" docBase="C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/help" debug="0" privileged="true"/> <Context path="/XAIApp" docBase="C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/XAIApp" debug="0" privileged="true"/> <Context path="/SelfService" docBase="C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/SelfService" debug="0" privileged="true"/> ... Add User in tomcat-users.xml file located under tomcat-base folder C:\spl\CCBDEMO22\product\tomcatBase\conf <user username="WEB" password="selfservice" roles="cisusers"/> Note the password is "selfservice", this is the default password set within the SelfServiceConfig.properties file with base64 encoding. Restart the application (spl.cmd stop | start) 12. Although Apache Tomcat version 6.0.13 does not come with the admin pack, you can verify whether SelfService application is loaded and running, go to following URL http://server:port/manager/list, in our case it'll be http://ccbv22:6500/manager/list Following output will be displayed OK - Listed applications for virtual host localhost /admin:running:0:C:/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.13/webapps/ROOT/admin /XAIApp:running:0:C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/XAIApp /host-manager:running:0:C:/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.13/webapps/host-manager /SelfService:running:0:C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/SelfService /appViewer:running:0:C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/appViewer /manager:running:1:C:/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.13/webapps/manager /help:running:0:C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/help /:running:0:C:/spl/CCBDEMO22/splapp/applications/root Also ensure that the XAIApp is running. Run Oracle Utilities Web Self Service application http://server:port/SelfService in our case it'll be http://ccbv22:6500/SelfService Still doesn't work? And you get '503 HTTP response' at the time of customer registration? This is because XAI service is still unavailable. There is initialize.waittime set for a default value of 90 seconds for the XAI Application to come up. Remember WSS uses XAI to perform actions/validations on the CC&B database.

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What's up with LDoms: Part 4 - Virtual Networking Explained

- by Stefan Hinker

I'm back from my summer break (and some pressing business that kept me away from this), ready to continue with Oracle VM Server for SPARC ;-) In this article, we'll have a closer look at virtual networking. Basic connectivity as we've seen it in the first, simple example, is easy enough. But there are numerous options for the virtual switches and virtual network ports, which we will discuss in more detail now. In this section, we will concentrate on virtual networking - the capabilities of virtual switches and virtual network ports - only. Other options involving hardware assignment or redundancy will be covered in separate sections later on. There are two basic components involved in virtual networking for LDoms: Virtual switches and virtual network devices. The virtual switch should be seen just like a real ethernet switch. It "runs" in the service domain and moves ethernet packets back and forth. A virtual network device is plumbed in the guest domain. It corresponds to a physical network device in the real world. There, you'd be plugging a cable into the network port, and plug the other end of that cable into a switch. In the virtual world, you do the same: You create a virtual network device for your guest and connect it to a virtual switch in a service domain. The result works just like in the physical world, the network device sends and receives ethernet packets, and the switch does all those things ethernet switches tend to do. If you look at the reference manual of Oracle VM Server for SPARC, there are numerous options for virtual switches and network devices. Don't be confused, it's rather straight forward, really. Let's start with the simple case, and work our way to some more sophisticated options later on. In many cases, you'll want to have several guests that communicate with the outside world on the same ethernet segment. In the real world, you'd connect each of these systems to the same ethernet switch. So, let's do the same thing in the virtual world: root@sun # ldm add-vsw net-dev=nxge2 admin-vsw primary root@sun # ldm add-vnet admin-net admin-vsw mars root@sun # ldm add-vnet admin-net admin-vsw venus We've just created a virtual switch called "admin-vsw" and connected it to the physical device nxge2. In the physical world, we'd have powered up our ethernet switch and installed a cable between it and our big enterprise datacenter switch. We then created a virtual network interface for each one of the two guest systems "mars" and "venus" and connected both to that virtual switch. They can now communicate with each other and with any system reachable via nxge2. If primary were running Solaris 10, communication with the guests would not be possible. This is different with Solaris 11, please see the Admin Guide for details. Note that I've given both the vswitch and the vnet devices some sensible names, something I always recommend. Unless told otherwise, the LDoms Manager software will automatically assign MAC addresses to all network elements that need one. It will also make sure that these MAC addresses are unique and reuse MAC addresses to play nice with all those friendly DHCP servers out there. However, if we want to do this manually, we can also do that. (One reason might be firewall rules that work on MAC addresses.) So let's give mars a manually assigned MAC address: root@sun # ldm set-vnet mac-addr=0:14:4f:f9:c4:13 admin-net mars Within the guest, these virtual network devices have their own device driver. In Solaris 10, they'd appear as "vnet0". Solaris 11 would apply it's usual vanity naming scheme. We can configure these interfaces just like any normal interface, give it an IP-address and configure sophisticated routing rules, just like on bare metal. In many cases, using Jumbo Frames helps increase throughput performance. By default, these interfaces will run with the standard ethernet MTU of 1500 bytes. To change this, it is usually sufficient to set the desired MTU for the virtual switch. This will automatically set the same MTU for all vnet devices attached to that switch. Let's change the MTU size of our admin-vsw from the example above: root@sun # ldm set-vsw mtu=9000 admin-vsw primary Note that that you can set the MTU to any value between 1500 and 16000. Of course, whatever you set needs to be supported by the physical network, too. Another very common area of network configuration is VLAN tagging. This can be a little confusing - my advise here is to be very clear on what you want, and perhaps draw a little diagram the first few times. As always, keeping a configuration simple will help avoid errors of all kind. Nevertheless, VLAN tagging is very usefull to consolidate different networks onto one physical cable. And as such, this concept needs to be carried over into the virtual world. Enough of the introduction, here's a little diagram to help in explaining how VLANs work in LDoms: Let's remember that any VLANs not explicitly tagged have the default VLAN ID of 1. In this example, we have a vswitch connected to a physical network that carries untagged traffic (VLAN ID 1) as well as VLANs 11, 22, 33 and 44. There might also be other VLANs on the wire, but the vswitch will ignore all those packets. We also have two vnet devices, one for mars and one for venus. Venus will see traffic from VLANs 33 and 44 only. For VLAN 44, venus will need to configure a tagged interface "vnet44000". For VLAN 33, the vswitch will untag all incoming traffic for venus, so that venus will see this as "normal" or untagged ethernet traffic. This is very useful to simplify guest configuration and also allows venus to perform Jumpstart or AI installations over this network even if the Jumpstart or AI server is connected via VLAN 33. Mars, on the other hand, has full access to untagged traffic from the outside world, and also to VLANs 11,22 and 33, but not 44. On the command line, we'd do this like this: root@sun # ldm add-vsw net-dev=nxge2 pvid=1 vid=11,22,33,44 admin-vsw primary root@sun # ldm add-vnet admin-net pvid=1 vid=11,22,33 admin-vsw mars root@sun # ldm add-vnet admin-net pvid=33 vid=44 admin-vsw venus Finally, I'd like to point to a neat little option that will make your live easier in all those cases where configurations tend to change over the live of a guest system. It's the "id=<somenumber>" option available for both vswitches and vnet devices. Normally, Solaris in the guest would enumerate network devices sequentially. However, it has ways of remembering this initial numbering. This is good in the physical world. In the virtual world, whenever you unbind (aka power off and disassemble) a guest system, remove and/or add network devices and bind the system again, chances are this numbering will change. Configuration confusion will follow suit. To avoid this, nail down the initial numbering by assigning each vnet device it's device-id explicitly: root@sun # ldm add-vnet admin-net id=1 admin-vsw venus Please consult the Admin Guide for details on this, and how to decipher these network ids from Solaris running in the guest. Thanks for reading this far. Links for further reading are essentially only the Admin Guide and Reference Manual and can be found above. I hope this is useful and, as always, I welcome any comments.

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Java Spotlight Episode 97: Shaun Smith on JPA and EclipseLink

- by Roger Brinkley

Interview with Java Champion Shaun Smith on JPA and EclipseLink. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link: Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News Project Jigsaw: Late for the train: The Q&A JDK 8 Milestone schedule The Coming M2M Revolution: Critical Issues for End-to-End Software and Systems Development JSR 355 passed the JCP EC Final Approval Ballot on 13 August 2012 Vote for GlassFish t-shirt design GlassFish on Openshift JFokus 2012 Call for Papers is open Who do you want to hear in the 100 JavaSpotlight feature interview Events Sep 3-6, Herbstcampus, Nuremberg, Germany Sep 10-15, IMTS 2012 Conference, Chicago Sep 12, The Coming M2M Revolution: Critical Issues for End-to-End Software and Systems Development, Webinar Sep 30-Oct 4, JavaONE, San Francisco Oct 3-4, Java Embedded @ JavaONE, San Francisco Oct 15-17, JAX London Oct 30-Nov 1, Arm TechCon, Santa Clara Oct 22-23, Freescale Technology Forum - Japan, Tokyo Nov 2-3, JMagreb, Morocco Nov 13-17, Devoxx, Belgium Feature InterviewShaun Smith is a Principal Product Manager for Oracle TopLink and an active member of the Eclipse community. He's Ecosystem Development Lead for the Eclipse Persistence Services Project (EclipseLink) and a committer on the Eclipse EMF Teneo and Dali Java Persistence Tools projects. He’s currently involved with the development of JPA persistence for OSGi and Oracle TopLink Grid, which integrates Oracle Coherence with Oracle TopLink to provide JPA on the grid. Mail Bag What’s Cool James Gosling and GlassFish (youtube video) Every time I see a piece of C code I need to port, my heart dies a little. Then I port it to 1/4 as much Java, and feel better. Tweet by Charles Nutter #JavaFX 2.2 is really looking like a great alternative to Flex. SceneBuilder + NetBeans 7.2 = Flash Builder replacement. Tweet by Danny Kopping

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Navigating the Unpredictable Swinging of the Financial Regulation Pendulum

- by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP

Written by Guest Blogger: Maureen Clifford, Sr Product Marketing Manager, Oracle The pendulum of the regulatory clock is constantly in motion, albeit often not in any particular rhythm. Nevertheless, given what many insurers have been through economically, any movement can send shock waves through critical innovation and operational plans. As pointed out in Deloitte’s 2012 Global Insurance Outlook, the impact of regulatory reform can cause major uncertainty in the area of costs. As the reality of increasing government regulations settles in, the change that comes along with it creates more challenges in compliance and ultimately on delivering the optimum return on investment. The result of this changing environment is a proliferation of compliance projects that must be executed with an already constrained set of resources, budget and time. Insurers are confronted by the need to gain visibility into all of their compliance efforts and proactively manage them. Currently that is very difficult to do as these projects often are being managed by groups across the enterprise and they lack a way to coordinate their efforts and drive greater synergies. With limited visibility and equally limited resources it is no surprise that reporting on project status and determining realistic completion of these projects is only a dream. As a result, compliance deadlines are missed, penalties are incurred, credibility with key stakeholders and the public is jeopardized and returns and competitive advantage go unrealized. Insurers need to ask themselves some key questions: Do I have “one stop” visibility into all of my compliance efforts? If not, what can I do to change that? What is top priority and how does that impact my already taxed resources? How can I figure out how to best balance my resources to get these compliance projects done as well as keep key innovation and operational efforts on track? How can ensure that I have all the requisite documentation for each compliance project I undertake? Dealing with complying with regulatory efforts is a necessary evil. Don't let the regulatory pendulum sideline your efforts to generate the greatest return on investment for your key stakeholders.

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Throttling in OSB

- by Knut Vatsendvik

Technorati Tags: soa,integration,osb,throttling,overload protection A common problem with integration is the risk of overloading a particular web service. When the capacity of a web service is reached and it continues to accept connections, it will most likely start to deteriorate. Fortunately there are 2 techniques, with Oracle Service Bus, that you can apply for protecting this from happening. You can either limit the concurrent number of requests for a Business Service (outbound requests) or you can limit the number of threads processing the requests for a Proxy Service (inbound requests). Limiting the Concurrent Number of Requests Limiting the concurrent requests for a Business Service cannot be set at design time so you have to use the built-in Oracle Service Bus Administration Console to do it (/sbconsole). Follow these steps to enable it: In Change Center, click Create to start a new Session Select Project Explorer, and navigate to the Business Service you want to limit Select the Operational Settings tab of the View a Business Service page In this tab, under Throttling, select the Enable check box. By enabling throttling you Specify a value for Maximum Concurrency Specify a positive integer value for Throttling Queue to backlog messages that has exceeded the message concurrency limit Specify the maximum time in milliseconds for Message Expiration a message can spend in Throttling Queue Click Update Click Active in Change Center to active the new settings If you re-publish the service, it will not overwrite the settings. Only if the resource is renamed or moved, it will. Please note that a throttling queue is an in-memory queue. Messages that are placed in this queue are not recoverable when a server fails or when you restart a server. Limiting the Number of Threads A better approach, in my opinion, is to limit the number of threads that can work with request. Follow these steps to do it: Open the WebLogic Server Console (/console) In Change Center, click Create to start a new Session In the left pane expand Environment and select Work Managers In the Global Work Managers page, click New Click the Work Manager radio button, then click Next Enter a Name for the new Work Manager, and click Next In the Available Targets list, select server instances or clusters on which you will deploy applications that reference the Work Manager Click Finish. The new Work Manager now appears in the Global Work Managers page. Select the new Work Manager Right next to the Maximum Threads Constraint drop-down box, click New Click the Maximum Threads Constraint radio button, then click Next Enter a Name and a thread Count to be the maximum size to allocate for requests. Click Next In the Available Targets list, select server instances or clusters on which you will deploy applications that reference the Work Manager Click Finish Click Save Click Active in Change Center to active your changes. A restart may be necessary. Puh! Almost there. Start a new session. Go to the Service Bus Console (/sbconsole) and find your consuming Proxy Service. Click the Edit button of the Transport Configuration tab. Click Next Set the Dispatch Policy to the new Work Manager Click Last Click Save Click Active in Change Center to active your changes.

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ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: How to Deploy Web Apps Using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part I

- by mbridge

First, you can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com. The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial. public class Category { public int CategoryId { get; set; } [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")] [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")] public string Name { get; set;} public string Description { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } } Expense Class public class Expense { public int ExpenseId { get; set; } public string Transaction { get; set; } public DateTime Date { get; set; } public double Amount { get; set; } public int CategoryId { get; set; } public virtual Category Category { get; set; } } Define Domain Model Let’s create domain model for our simple web application Category Class We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. In this post, we will be focusing on CRUD operations for the entity Category and will be working on the Expense entity with a View Model object in the later post. And the source code for this application will be refactored over time. The above entities are very simple POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) classes and the entity Category is decorated with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. Now we want to use these entities for defining model objects for the Entity Framework 4. Using the Code First approach of Entity Framework, we can first define the entities by simply writing POCO classes without any coupling with any API or database library. This approach lets you focus on domain model which will enable Domain-Driven Development for applications. EF code first support is currently enabled with a separate API that is runs on top of the Entity Framework 4. EF Code First is reached CTP 5 when I am writing this article. Creating Context Class for Entity Framework We have created our domain model and let’s create a class in order to working with Entity Framework Code First. For this, you have to download EF Code First CTP 5 and add reference to the assembly EntitFramework.dll. You can also use NuGet to download add reference to EEF Code First. public class MyFinanceContext : DbContext { public MyFinanceContext() : base("MyFinance") { } public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; } public DbSet<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } } The above class MyFinanceContext is derived from DbContext that can connect your model classes to a database. The MyFinanceContext class is mapping our Category and Expense class into database tables Categories and Expenses using DbSet<TEntity> where TEntity is any POCO class. When we are running the application at first time, it will automatically create the database. EF code-first look for a connection string in web.config or app.config that has the same name as the dbcontext class. If it is not find any connection string with the convention, it will automatically create database in local SQL Express database by default and the name of the database will be same name as the dbcontext class. You can also define the name of database in constructor of the the dbcontext class. Unlike NHibernate, we don’t have to use any XML based mapping files or Fluent interface for mapping between our model and database. The model classes of Code First are working on the basis of conventions and we can also use a fluent API to refine our model. The convention for primary key is ‘Id’ or ‘<class name>Id’. If primary key properties are detected with type ‘int’, ‘long’ or ‘short’, they will automatically registered as identity columns in the database by default. Primary key detection is not case sensitive. We can define our model classes with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and it automatically enforces validation rules when a model object is updated or saved. Generic Repository for EF Code First We have created model classes and dbcontext class. Now we have to create generic repository pattern for data persistence with EF code first. If you don’t know about the repository pattern, checkout Martin Fowler’s article on Repository Let’s create a generic repository to working with DbContext and DbSet generics. public interface IRepository<T> where T : class { void Add(T entity); void Delete(T entity); T GetById(long Id); IEnumerable<T> All(); } RepositoryBasse – Generic Repository class protected MyFinanceContext Database { get { return database ?? (database = DatabaseFactory.Get()); } } public virtual void Add(T entity) { dbset.Add(entity); } public virtual void Delete(T entity) { dbset.Remove(entity); } public virtual T GetById(long id) { return dbset.Find(id); } public virtual IEnumerable<T> All() { return dbset.ToList(); } } DatabaseFactory class public class DatabaseFactory : Disposable, IDatabaseFactory { private MyFinanceContext database; public MyFinanceContext Get() { return database ?? (database = new MyFinanceContext()); } protected override void DisposeCore() { if (database != null) database.Dispose(); } } Unit of Work If you are new to Unit of Work pattern, checkout Fowler’s article on Unit of Work . According to Martin Fowler, the Unit of Work pattern "maintains a list of objects affected by a business transaction and coordinates the writing out of changes and the resolution of concurrency problems." Let’s create a class for handling Unit of Work public interface IUnitOfWork { void Commit(); } UniOfWork class public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork { private readonly IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory; private MyFinanceContext dataContext; public UnitOfWork(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory) { this.databaseFactory = databaseFactory; } protected MyFinanceContext DataContext { get { return dataContext ?? (dataContext = databaseFactory.Get()); } } public void Commit() { DataContext.Commit(); } } The Commit method of the UnitOfWork will call the commit method of MyFinanceContext class and it will execute the SaveChanges method of DbContext class. Repository class for Category In this post, we will be focusing on the persistence against Category entity and will working on other entities in later post. Let’s create a repository for handling CRUD operations for Category using derive from a generic Repository RepositoryBase<T>. public class CategoryRepository: RepositoryBase<Category>, ICategoryRepository { public CategoryRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory) : base(databaseFactory) { } } public interface ICategoryRepository : IRepository<Category> { } If we need additional methods than generic repository for the Category, we can define in the CategoryRepository. Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 If you are new to Inversion of Control/ Dependency Injection or Unity, please have a look on my articles at http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/tags/IoC/default.aspx. I want to create a custom lifetime manager for Unity to store container in the current HttpContext. public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable { public override object GetValue() { return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName]; } public override void RemoveValue() { HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName); } public override void SetValue(object newValue) { HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName] = newValue; } public void Dispose() { RemoveValue(); } } Let’s create controller factory for Unity in the ASP.NET MVC 3 application. 404, String.Format( "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" + "or it does not implement IController.", reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path)); if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType)) throw new ArgumentException( string.Format( "Type requested is not a controller: {0}", controllerType.Name), "controllerType"); try { controller= container.Resolve(controllerType) as IController; } catch (Exception ex) { throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format( "Error resolving controller {0}", controllerType.Name), ex); } return controller; } } Configure contract and concrete types in Unity Let’s configure our contract and concrete types in Unity for resolving our dependencies. private void ConfigureUnity() { //Create UnityContainer IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer() .RegisterType<IDatabaseFactory, DatabaseFactory>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IDatabaseFactory>()) .RegisterType<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IUnitOfWork>()) .RegisterType<ICategoryRepository, CategoryRepository>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<ICategoryRepository>()); //Set container for Controller Factory ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory( new UnityControllerFactory(container)); } In the above ConfigureUnity method, we are registering our types onto Unity container with custom lifetime manager HttpContextLifetimeManager. Let’s call ConfigureUnity method in the Global.asax.cs for set controller factory for Unity and configuring the types with Unity. protected void Application_Start() { AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas(); RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters); RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); ConfigureUnity(); } Developing web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 We have created our domain model for our web application and also have created repositories and configured dependencies with Unity container. Now we have to create controller classes and views for doing CRUD operations against the Category entity. Let’s create controller class for Category Category Controller public class CategoryController : Controller { private readonly ICategoryRepository categoryRepository; private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork; public CategoryController(ICategoryRepository categoryRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork) { this.categoryRepository = categoryRepository; this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork; } public ActionResult Index() { var categories = categoryRepository.All(); return View(categories); } [HttpGet] public ActionResult Edit(int id) { var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id); return View(category); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection collection) { var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id); if (TryUpdateModel(category)) { unitOfWork.Commit(); return RedirectToAction("Index"); } else return View(category); } [HttpGet] public ActionResult Create() { var category = new Category(); return View(category); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(Category category) { if (!ModelState.IsValid) { return View("Create", category); } categoryRepository.Add(category); unitOfWork.Commit(); return RedirectToAction("Index"); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Delete(int id) { var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id); categoryRepository.Delete(category); unitOfWork.Commit(); var categories = categoryRepository.All(); return PartialView("CategoryList", categories); } } Creating Views in Razor Now we are going to create views in Razor for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application. Let’s create a partial view CategoryList.cshtml for listing category information and providing link for Edit and Delete operations. CategoryList.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @using MyFinance.Domain; @model IEnumerable<Category> <table> <tr> <th>Actions</th> <th>Name</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> @foreach (var item in Model) { <tr> <td> @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.CategoryId }) @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.CategoryId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divCategoryList" }) </td> <td> @item.Name </td> <td> @item.Description </td> </tr> } </table> <p> @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create") </p> The delete link is providing Ajax functionality using the Ajax.ActionLink. This will call an Ajax request for Delete action method in the CategoryCotroller class. In the Delete action method, it will return Partial View CategoryList after deleting the record. We are using CategoryList view for the Ajax functionality and also for Index view using for displaying list of category information. Let’s create Index view using partial view CategoryList Index.chtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Category> @{ ViewBag.Title = "Index"; } <h2>Category List</h2> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <div id="divCategoryList"> @Html.Partial("CategoryList", Model) </div> We can call the partial views using Html.Partial helper method. Now we are going to create View pages for insert and update functionality for the Category. Both view pages are sharing common user interface for entering the category information. So I want to create an EditorTemplate for the Category information. We have to create the EditorTemplate with the same name of entity object so that we can refer it on view pages using @Html.EditorFor(model => model) . So let’s create template with name Category. Category.cshtml @model MyFinance.Domain.Category <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Name) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Description) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Description) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Description) </div> Let’s create view page for insert Category information @model MyFinance.Domain.Category @{ ViewBag.Title = "Save"; } <h2>Create</h2> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.ValidationSummary(true) <fieldset> <legend>Category</legend> @Html.EditorFor(model => model) <p> <input type="submit" value="Create" /> </p> </fieldset> } <div> @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> ViewStart file In Razor views, we can add a file named _viewstart.cshtml in the views directory and this will be shared among the all views with in the Views directory. The below code in the _viewstart.cshtml, sets the Layout page for every Views in the Views folder. @{ Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; } Tomorrow, we will cotinue the second part of this article. :)

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Transparency and AlphaBlending

- by TechTwaddle

In this post we'll look at the AlphaBlend() api and how it can be used for semi-transparent blitting. AlphaBlend() takes a source device context and a destination device context (DC) and combines the bits in such a way that it gives a transparent effect. Follow the links for the msdn documentation. So lets take a image like, and AlphaBlend() it on our window. The code to do so is below, (under the WM_PAINT message of WndProc) HBITMAP hBitmap=NULL, hBitmapOld=NULL; HDC hMemDC=NULL; BLENDFUNCTION bf; hdc = BeginPaint(hWnd, &ps); hMemDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc); hBitmap = LoadBitmap(g_hInst, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDB_BITMAP1)); hBitmapOld = SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap); bf.BlendOp = AC_SRC_OVER; bf.BlendFlags = 0; bf.SourceConstantAlpha = 80; //transparency value between 0-255 bf.AlphaFormat = 0; AlphaBlend(hdc, 0, 25, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, bf); SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmapOld); DeleteDC(hMemDC); DeleteObject(hBitmap); EndPaint(hWnd, &ps); The code above creates a memory DC (hMemDC) using CreateCompatibleDC(), loads a bitmap onto the memory DC and AlphaBlends it on the device DC (hdc), with a transparency value of 80. The result is: Pretty simple till now. Now lets try to do something a little more exciting. Lets get two images involved, each overlapping the other, giving a better demonstration of transparency. I am also going to add a few buttons so that the user can increase or decrease the transparency by clicking on the buttons. Since this is the first time I played around with GDI apis, I ran into something that everybody runs into sometime or the other, flickering. When clicking the buttons the images would flicker a lot, I figured out why and used something called double buffering to avoid flickering. We will look at both my first implementation and the second implementation just to give the concept a little more depth and perspective. A few pre-conditions before I dive into the code: - hBitmap and hBitmap2 are handles to the two images obtained using LoadBitmap(), these variables are global and are initialized under WM_CREATE - The two buttons in the application are labeled Opaque++ (make more opaque, less transparent) and Opaque-- (make less opaque, more transparent) - DrawPics(HWND hWnd, int step=0); is the function called to draw the images on the screen. This is called from under WM_PAINT and also when the buttons are clicked. When Opaque++ is clicked the 'step' value passed to DrawPics() is +20 and when Opaque-- is clicked the 'step' value is -20. The default value of 'step' is 0 Now lets take a look at my first implementation: //this funciton causes flicker, cos it draws directly to screen several times void DrawPics(HWND hWnd, int step) { HDC hdc=NULL, hMemDC=NULL; BLENDFUNCTION bf; static UINT32 transparency = 100; //no point in drawing when transparency is 0 and user clicks Opaque-- if (transparency == 0 && step < 0) return; //no point in drawing when transparency is 240 (opaque) and user clicks Opaque++ if (transparency == 240 && step > 0) return; hdc = GetDC(hWnd); if (!hdc) return; //create a memory DC hMemDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc); if (!hMemDC) { ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc); return; } //while increasing transparency, clear the contents of screen if (step < 0) { RECT rect = {0, 0, 240, 200}; FillRect(hdc, &rect, (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH)); } SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap2); BitBlt(hdc, 0, 25, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY); SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap); transparency += step; if (transparency >= 240) transparency = 240; if (transparency <= 0) transparency = 0; bf.BlendOp = AC_SRC_OVER; bf.BlendFlags = 0; bf.SourceConstantAlpha = transparency; bf.AlphaFormat = 0; AlphaBlend(hdc, 0, 75, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, bf); DeleteDC(hMemDC); ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc); } In the code above, we first get the window DC using GetDC() and create a memory DC using CreateCompatibleDC(). Then we select hBitmap2 onto the memory DC and Blt it on the window DC (hdc). Next, we select the other image, hBitmap, onto memory DC and AlphaBlend() it over window DC. As I told you before, this implementation causes flickering because it draws directly on the screen (hdc) several times. The video below shows what happens when the buttons were clicked rapidly: Well, the video recording tool I use captures only 15 frames per second and so the flickering is not visible in the video. So you're gonna have to trust me on this, it flickers (; To solve this problem we make sure that the drawing to the screen happens only once and to do that we create an additional memory DC, hTempDC. We perform all our drawing on this memory DC and finally when it is ready we Blt hTempDC on hdc, and the images are displayed in one go. Here is the code for our new DrawPics() function: //no flicker void DrawPics(HWND hWnd, int step) { HDC hdc=NULL, hMemDC=NULL, hTempDC=NULL; BLENDFUNCTION bf; HBITMAP hBitmapTemp=NULL, hBitmapOld=NULL; static UINT32 transparency = 100; //no point in drawing when transparency is 0 and user clicks Opaque-- if (transparency == 0 && step < 0) return; //no point in drawing when transparency is 240 (opaque) and user clicks Opaque++ if (transparency == 240 && step > 0) return; hdc = GetDC(hWnd); if (!hdc) return; hMemDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc); hTempDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc); hBitmapTemp = CreateCompatibleBitmap(hdc, 240, 150); hBitmapOld = (HBITMAP)SelectObject(hTempDC, hBitmapTemp); if (!hMemDC) { ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc); return; } //while increasing transparency, clear the contents if (step < 0) { RECT rect = {0, 0, 240, 150}; FillRect(hTempDC, &rect, (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH)); } SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap2); //Blt hBitmap2 directly to hTempDC BitBlt(hTempDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY); SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap); transparency += step; if (transparency >= 240) transparency = 240; if (transparency <= 0) transparency = 0; bf.BlendOp = AC_SRC_OVER; bf.BlendFlags = 0; bf.SourceConstantAlpha = transparency; bf.AlphaFormat = 0; AlphaBlend(hTempDC, 0, 50, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, bf); //now hTempDC is ready, blt it directly on hdc BitBlt(hdc, 0, 25, 240, 150, hTempDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY); SelectObject(hTempDC, hBitmapOld); DeleteObject(hBitmapTemp); DeleteDC(hMemDC); DeleteDC(hTempDC); ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc); } This function is very similar to the first version, except for the use of hTempDC. Another point to note is the use of CreateCompatibleBitmap(). When a memory device context is created using CreateCompatibleDC(), the context is exactly one monochrome pixel high and one monochrome pixel wide. So in order for us to draw anything onto hTempDC, we first have to set a bitmap on it. We use CreateCompatibleBitmap() to create a bitmap of required dimension (240x150 above), and then select this bitmap onto hTempDC. Think of it as utilizing an extra canvas, drawing everything on the canvas and finally transferring the contents to the display in one scoop. And with this version the flickering is gone, video follows: If you want the entire solutions source code then leave a message, I will share the code over SkyDrive.

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Java Spotlight Episode 99: Daniel Blaukopf on JavaFX for Embedded Systems

- by Roger Brinkley

Interview with Daniel Blaukopf on JavaFX for Embedded Systems Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link: Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News Top 5 Reasons to go to JavaOne 5. Chance to see the future of Java Technical Keynotes and sessions The pavillion The new Embedded@JavaOne conference 4. The meetings outside the scope of the conference Top 10 Reasons to Attend the Oracle Appreciation Event GlassFish Community Event at JavaOne 2012 Sundays User Group Forum 3. It’s like drinking from firehose Less keynotes more sessions - 20% more 60% of the talks are external to HOLs Tutorials OracleJava University classes on Sunday - Top Five Reasons You Should Attend Java University at JavaOne 2. Students are free 1. It’s not what you see it’s who you will meet Events Sep 10-15, IMTS 2012 Conference, Chicago Sep 12, The Coming M2M Revolution: Critical Issues for End-to-End Software and Systems Development, Webinar Sep 30-Oct 4, JavaONE, San Francisco Oct 3-4, Java Embedded @ JavaONE, San Francisco Oct 15-17, JAX London Oct 30-Nov 1, Arm TechCon, Santa Clara Oct 22-23, Freescale Technology Forum - Japan, Tokyo Oct 31, JFall, Netherlands Nov 2-3, JMagreb, Morocco Nov 13-17, Devoxx, Belgium Feature InterviewDaniel Blaukopf is the Embedded Java Client Architect at Oracle, working on JavaFX. Daniel's focus in his 14 years in the Java organization has been mobile and embedded devices, including working with device manufacturers to port and tune all levels of the Java stack to their hardware and software environments. Daniel's particular interests are: graphics, performance optimization and functional programming.

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Change Comes from Within

- by John K. Hines

I am in the midst of witnessing a variety of teams moving away from Scrum. Some of them are doing things like replacing Scrum terms with more commonly understood terminology. Mainly they have gone back to using industry standard terms and more traditional processes like the RAPID decision making process. For example: Scrum Master becomes Project Lead. Scrum Team becomes Project Team. Product Owner becomes Stakeholders. I'm actually quite sad to see this happening, but I understand that Scrum is a radical change for most organizations. Teams are slowly but surely moving away from Scrum to a process that non-software engineers can understand and follow. Some could never secure the education or personnel (like a Product Owner) to get the whole team engaged. And many people with decision-making authority do not see the value in Scrum besides task planning and tracking. You see, Scrum cannot be mandated. No one can force a team to be Agile, collaborate, continuously improve, and self-reflect. Agile adoptions must start from a position of mutual trust and willingness to change. And most software teams aren't like that. Here is my personal epiphany from over a year of attempting to promote Agile on a small development team: The desire to embrace Agile methodologies must come from each and every member of the team. If this desire does not exist - if the team is satisfied with its current process, if the team is not motivated to improve, or if the team is afraid of change - the actual demonstration of all the benefits prescribed by Agile and Scrum will take years. I've read some blog posts lately that criticise Scrum for demanding "Big Change Up Front." One's opinion of software methodologies boils down to one's perspective. If you see modern software development as successful, you will advocate for small, incremental changes to how it is done. If you see it as broken, you'll be much more motivated to take risks and try something different. So my question to you is this - is modern software development healthy or in need of dramatic improvement? I can tell you from personal experience that any project that requires exploration, planning, development, stabilisation, and deployment is hard. Trying to make that process better with only a slightly modified approach is a mistake. You will become completely dependent upon the skillset of your team (the only variable you can change). But the difficulty of planned work isn't one of skill. It isn't until you solve the fundamental challenges of communication, collaboration, quality, and efficiency that skill even comes into play. So I advocate for Big Change Up Front. And I advocate for it to happen often until those involved can say, from experience, that it is no longer needed. I hope every engineer has the opportunity to see the benefits of Agile and Scrum on a highly functional team. I'll close with more key learnings that can help with a Scrum adoption: Your leaders must understand Scrum. They must understand software development, its inherent difficulties, and how Scrum helps. If you attempt to adopt Scrum before the understanding is there, your leaders will apply traditional solutions to your problems - often creating more problems. Success should be measured by quality, not revenue. Namely, the value of software to an organization is the revenue it generates minus ongoing support costs. You should identify quality-based metrics that show the effect Agile techniques have on your software. Motivation is everything. I finally understand why so many Agile advocates say you that if you are not on a team using Agile, you should leave and find one. Scrum and especially Agile encompass many elegant solutions to a wide variety of problems. If you are working on a team that has not encountered these problems the the team may never see the value in the solutions. Having said all that, I'm not giving up on Agile or Scrum. I am convinced it is a better approach for software development. But reality is saying that its adoption is not straightforward and highly subject to disruption. Unless, that is, everyone really, really wants it.

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VSDB to SSDT Part 2 : SQL Server 2008 Server Project … with SSDT

- by Etienne Giust

With Visual Studio 2012 and the use of SSDT technology, there is only one type of database project : SQL Server Database Project. With Visual Studio 2010, we used to have SQL Server 2008 Server Project which we used to define server-level objects, mostly logins and linked servers. A convenient wizard allowed for creation of this type of projects. It does not exists anymore. Here is how to create an equivalent of the SQL Server 2008 Server Project with Visual Studio 2012: Create a new SQL Server Database Project : it will be created empty Create a new SQL Schema Compare ( SQL menu item > Schema Compare > New Schema Comparison ) As a source, select any database on the SQL server you want to mimic Set the target to be your newly Database Project In the Schema Compare options (cog-like icon), Object Types pane, set the options as below. You might want to tweak those and select only the object types you want. Then, run the comparison, review and select your changes and apply them to the project.

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Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET

- by user647124

This year I embarked on a journey to migrate a group of ASP.NET web applications developed to integrate with WebLogic Portal 9.2 via the AquaLogic® Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.0 to instead use the Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET and integrated with WebLogic Portal 10.3.4. It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings. Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there. For the Curious From the perspective of necessity, this section would be better at the end. If it were there, though, it would probably be read by far fewer people, including those that are actually interested in these types of sections. Those in a hurry may skip past and be none the worst for it in dealing with the hands-on bits of performing a migration from .NET Accelerator to WSRP Producer. For others who want to talk about why they did what they did after they did it, or just want to know for themselves, enjoy. A Brief (and edited) History of the WSRP for .NET Technologies (as Relevant to the this Post) Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration path is not as simple as many other Oracle technologies. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The currently deployed architecture that was to be migrated and upgraded achieved initial integration between .NET and J2EE over the WSRP protocol through the use of The AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator. The .NET Accelerator allowed the applications that were written in ASP.NET and deployed on a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to interact with a WebLogic Portal application deployed on a WebLogic (J2EE application) Server (both version 9.2, the state of the art at the time of its creation). At the time this architectural decision for the application was made, both the AquaLogic and WebLogic brands were owned by BEA Systems. The AquaLogic brand included products acquired by BEA through the acquisition of Plumtree, whose flagship product was a portal platform available in both J2EE and .NET versions. As part of this dual technology support an adaptor was created to facilitate the use of WSRP as a communication protocol where customers wished to integrate components from both versions of the Plumtree portal. The adapter evolved over several product generations to include a broad array of both standard and proprietary WSRP integration capabilities. Later, BEA Systems was acquired by Oracle. Over the course of several years Oracle has acquired a large number of portal applications and has taken the strategic direction to migrate users of these myriad (and formerly competitive) products to the Oracle WebCenter technology stack. As part of Oracle’s strategic technology roadmap, older portal products are being schedule for end of life, including the portal products that were part of the BEA acquisition. The .NET Accelerator has been modified over a very long period of time with features driven by users of that product and developed under three different vendors (each a direct competitor in the same solution space prior to merger). The Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET was introduced much more recently with the key objective to specifically address the needs of the WebCenter customers developing solutions accessible through both J2EE and .NET platforms utilizing the WSRP specifications. The Oracle Product Development Team also provides these insights on the drivers for developing the WSRP Producer: ***************************************** Support for ASP.NET AJAX. Controls using the ASP.NET AJAX script manager do not function properly in the Application Accelerator for .NET. Support 2 way SSL in WLP. This was not possible with the proxy/bridge set up in the existing Application Accelerator for .NET. Allow developers to code portlets (Web Parts) using the .NET framework rather than a proprietary framework. Developers had to use the Application Accelerator for .NET plug-ins to Visual Studio to manage preferences and profile data. This is now replaced with the .NET Framework Personalization (for preferences) and Profile providers. The WSRP Producer for .NET was created as a new way of developing .NET portlets. It was never designed to be an upgrade path for the Application Accelerator for .NET. .NET developers would create new .NET portlets with the WSRP Producer for .NET and leave any existing .NET portlets running in the Application Accelerator for .NET. ***************************************** The advantage to creating a new solution for WSRP is a product that is far easier for Oracle to maintain and support which in turn improves quality, reliability and maintainability for their customers. No changes to J2EE applications consuming the WSRP portlets previously rendered by the.NET Accelerator is required to migrate from the Aqualogic WSRP solution. For some customers using the .NET Accelerator the challenge is adapting their current .NET applications to work with the WSRP Producer (or any other WSRP adapter as they are proprietary by nature). Part of this adaptation is the need to deploy the .NET applications as a child to the WSRP producer web application as root. Differences between .NET Accelerator and WSRP Producer Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration is not as pluggable as something such as changing security providers in WebLogic Server. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The basic terminology used to describe the participating applications in a WSRP environment are the same when applied to either the .NET Accelerator or the WSRP Producer: Producer and Consumer. In both cases the .NET application serves as what is referred to as a WSRP environment as the Producer. The difference lies in how the two adapters create the WSRP translation of the .NET application. The .NET Accelerator, as the name implies, is meant to serve as a quick way of adding WSRP capability to a .NET application. As such, at a high level, the .NET Accelerator behaves as a proxy for requests between the .NET application and the WSRP Consumer. A WSRP request is sent from the consumer to the .NET Accelerator, the.NET Accelerator transforms this request into an ASP.NET request, receives the response, then transforms the response into a WSRP response. The .NET Accelerator is deployed as a stand-alone application on IIS. The WSRP Producer is deployed as a parent application on IIS and all ASP.NET modules that will be made available over WSRP are deployed as children of the WSRP Producer application. In this manner, the WSRP Producer acts more as a Request Filter than a proxy in the WSRP transactions between Producer and Consumer. Highly Recommended Enabling Logging Note: You can skip this section now, but you will most likely want to come back to it later, so why not just read it now? Logging is very helpful in tracking down the causes of any anomalies during testing of migrated portlets. To enable the WSRP Producer logging, update the Application_Start method in the Global.asax.cs for your .NET application by adding log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(); IIS logs will usually (in a standard configuration) be in a sub folder under C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC. WSRP Producer logs will be found at C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\Logs\WSRPProducer.log InputTrace.webinfo and OutputTrace.webinfo are located under C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault and can be useful in debugging issues related to markup transformations. Things You Must Do Merge Web.Config Note: If you have been skipping all the sections that you can, now is the time to stop and pay attention J Because the existing .NET application will become a sub-application to the WSRP Producer, you will want to merge required settings from the existing Web.Config to the one in the WSRP Producer. Use the WSRP Producer Master Page The Master Page installed for the WSRP Producer provides common, hiddenform fields and JavaScripts to facilitate portlet instance management and display configuration when the child page is being rendered over WSRP. You add the Master Page by including it in the <@ Page declaration with MasterPageFile="~/portlets/Resources/MasterPages/WSRP.Master" . You then replace: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" > <HTML> <HEAD> With <asp:Content ID="ContentHead1" ContentPlaceHolderID="wsrphead" Runat="Server"> And </HEAD> <body> <form id="theForm" method="post" runat="server"> With </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="ContentBody1" ContentPlaceHolderID="Main" Runat="Server"> And finally </form> </body> </HTML> With </asp:Content> In the event you already use Master Pages, adapt your existing Master Pages to be sub masters. See Nested ASP.NET Master Pages for a detailed reference of how to do this. It Happened to Me, It Might Happen to You…Or Not Watch for Use of Session or Request in OnInit In the event the .NET application being modified has pages developed to assume the user has been authenticated in an earlier page request there may be direct or indirect references in the OnInit method to request or session objects that may not have been created yet. This will vary from application to application, so the recommended approach is to test first. If there is an issue with a page running as a WSRP portlet then check for potential references in the OnInit method (including references by methods called within OnInit) to session or request objects. If there are, the simplest solution is to create a new method and then call that method once the necessary object(s) is fully available. I find doing this at the start of the Page_Load method to be the simplest solution. Case Sensitivity .NET languages are not case sensitive, but Java is. This means it is possible to have many variations of SRC= and src= or .JPG and .jpg. The preferred solution is to make these mark up instances all lower case in your .NET application. This will allow the default Rewriter rules in wsrp-producer.xml to work as is. If this is not practical, then make duplicates of any rules where an issue is occurring due to upper or mixed case usage in the .NET application markup and match the case in use with the duplicate rule. For example: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(href=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> May need to be duplicated as: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(HREF=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> While it is possible to write a regular expression that will handle mixed case usage, it would be long and strenous to test and maintain, so the recommendation is to use duplicate rules. Is it Still Relative? Some .NET applications base relative paths with a fixed root location. With the introduction of the WSRP Producer, the root has moved up one level. References to ~/ will need to be updated to ~/portlets and many ../ paths will need another ../ in front. I Can See You But I Can’t Find You This issue was first discovered while debugging modules with code that referenced the form on a page from the code-behind by name and/or id. The initial error presented itself as run-time error that was difficult to interpret over WSRP but seemed clear when run as straight ASP.NET as it indicated that the object with the form name did not exist. Since the form name was no longer valid after implementing the WSRP Master Page, the likely fix seemed to simply update the references in the code. However, as the WSRP Master Page is external to the code, a compile time error resulted: Error 155 The name 'form1' does not exist in the current context C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\portlets\legacywebsite\module\Screens \Reporting.aspx.cs 51 52 legacywebsite.module Much hair-pulling research later it was discovered that it was the use of the FindControl method causing the issue. FindControl doesn’t work quite as expected once a Master Page has been introduced as the controls become embedded in controls, require a recursion to find them that is not part of the FindControl method. In code where the page form is referenced by name, there are two steps to the solution. First, the form needs to be referenced in code generically with Page.Form. For example, this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(frmManualEntry, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Becomes this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(Page.Form, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Generally the form id is referenced in most ASP.NET applications as a path to a control on the form. To reach the control once a MasterPage has been added requires an additional method to recurse through the controls collections within the form and find the control ID. The following method (found at Rick Strahl's Web Log) corrects this very nicely: public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control Root, string Id) { if (Root.ID == Id) return Root; foreach (Control Ctl in Root.Controls) { Control FoundCtl = FindControlRecursive(Ctl, Id); if (FoundCtl != null) return FoundCtl; } return null; } Where the form name is not referenced, simply using the FindControlRecursive method in place of FindControl will be all that is necessary. Following the second part of the example referenced earlier, the method called with Page.Form changes its value extraction code block from this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label)frmRef.FindControl("lblBRMsg" To this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label) FunctionLibrary.FindControlRecursive(frmRef, "lblBRMsg" The Master That Won’t Step Aside In most migrations it is preferable to make as few changes as possible. In one case I ran across an existing Master Page that would not function as a sub-Master Page. While it would probably have been educational to trace down why, the expedient process of updating it to take the place of the WSRP Master Page is the route I took. The changes are highlighted below: … <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="wsrphead" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body leftMargin="0" topMargin="0"> <form id="TheForm" runat="server"> <input type="hidden" name="key" id="key" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="formactionurl" id="formactionurl" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="handle" id="handle" value="" /> <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" EnablePartialRendering="true" > </asp:ScriptManager> This approach did not work for all existing Master Pages, but fortunately all of the other existing Master Pages I have run across worked fine as a sub-Master to the WSRP Master Page. Moving On In Enterprise Portals, even after you get everything working, the work is not finished. Next you need to get it where everyone will work with it. Migration Planning Providing that the server where IIS is running is adequately sized, it is possible to run both the .NET Accelerator and the WSRP Producer on the same server during the upgrade process. The upgrade can be performed incrementally, i.e., one portlet at a time, if server administration processes support it. Those processes would include the ability to manage a second producer in the consuming portal and to change over individual portlet instances from one provider to the other. If processes or requirements demand that all portlets be cut over at the same time, it needs to be determined if this cut over should include a new producer, updating all of the portlets in the consumer, or if the WSRP Producer portlet configuration must maintain the naming conventions used by the .NET Accelerator and simply change the WSRP end point configured in the consumer. In some enterprises it may even be necessary to maintain the same WSDL end point, at which point the IIS configuration will be where the updates occur. The downside to such a requirement is that it makes rolling back very difficult, should the need arise. Location, Location, Location Not everyone wants the web application to have the descriptively obvious wsrpdefault location, or needs to create a second WSRP site on the same server. The instructions below are from the product team and, while targeted towards making a second site, will work for creating a site with a different name and then remove the old site. You can also change just the name in IIS. Manually Creating a WSRP Producer Site Instructions (NOTE: all executables used are the same ones used by the installer and “wsrpdev” will be the name of the new instance): 1. Copy C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault to C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev. 2. Bring up a command window as an administrator 3. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\IISAppAccelSiteCreator.exe install WSRPProducers wsrpdev "C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev" 8678 2.0.50727 4. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev "NETWORK SERVICE" 3 1 5. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev EVERYONE 1 1 6. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev 7. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\2.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev Tests: 1. Bring up a browser on the host itself and go to http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/wsdl/1.0/WSRPService.wsdl and make sure that the URLs in the XML returned include the wsrpdev changes you made in step 6. 2. Bring up a browser on the host itself and see if the default sample comes up: http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/portlets/ASPNET_AJAX_sample/default.aspx 3. Register the producer in WLP and test the portlet. Changing the Port used by WSRP Producer The pre-configured port for the WSRP Producer is 8678. You can change this port by updating both the IIS configuration and C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\[WSRP_APP_NAME]\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl. Do You Need to Migrate? Oracle Premier Support ended in November of 2010 for AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.x and Extended Support ends in November 2012 (see http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/lifetime-support-software-342730.html for other related dates). This means that integration with products released after November of 2010 is not supported. If having such support is the policy within your enterprise, you do indeed need to migrate. If changes in your enterprise cause your current solution with the .NET Accelerator to no longer function properly, you may need to migrate. Migration is a choice, and if the goals of your enterprise are to take full advantage of newer technologies then migration is certainly one activity you should be planning for.

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Big Data’s Killer App…

- by jean-pierre.dijcks

Recently Keith spent some time talking about the cloud on this blog and I will spare you my thoughts on the whole thing. What I do want to write down is something about the Big Data movement and what I think is the killer app for Big Data... Where is this coming from, ok, I confess... I spent 3 days in cloud land at the Cloud Connect conference in Santa Clara and it was quite a lot of fun. One of the nice things at Cloud Connect was that there was a track dedicated to Big Data, which prompted me to some extend to write this post. What is Big Data anyways? The most valuable point made in the Big Data track was that Big Data in itself is not very cool. Doing something with Big Data is what makes all of this cool and interesting to a business user! The other good insight I got was that a lot of people think Big Data means a single gigantic monolithic system holding gazillions of bytes or documents or log files. Well turns out that most people in the Big Data track are talking about a lot of collections of smaller data sets. So rather than thinking "big = monolithic" you should be thinking "big = many data sets". This is more than just theoretical, it is actually relevant when thinking about big data and how to process it. It is important because it means that the platform that stores data will most likely consist out of multiple solutions. You may be storing logs on something like HDFS, you may store your customer information in Oracle and you may store distilled clickstream information in some distilled form in MySQL. The big question you will need to solve is not what lives where, but how to get it all together and get some value out of all that data. NoSQL and MapReduce Nope, sorry, this is not the killer app... and no I'm not saying this because my business card says Oracle and I'm therefore biased. I think language is important, but as with storage I think pragmatic is better. In other words, some questions can be answered with SQL very efficiently, others can be answered with PERL or TCL others with MR. History should teach us that anyone trying to solve a problem will use any and all tools around. For example, most data warehouses (Big Data 1.0?) get a lot of data in flat files. Everyone then runs a bunch of shell scripts to massage or verify those files and then shoves those files into the database. We've even built shell script support into external tables to allow for this. I think the Big Data projects will do the same. Some people will use MapReduce, although I would argue that things like Cascading are more interesting, some people will use Java. Some data is stored on HDFS making Cascading the way to go, some data is stored in Oracle and SQL does do a good job there. As with storage and with history, be pragmatic and use what fits and neither NoSQL nor MR will be the one and only. Also, a language, while important, does in itself not deliver business value. So while cool it is not a killer app... Vertical Behavioral Analytics This is the killer app! And you are now thinking: "what does that mean?" Let's decompose that heading. First of all, analytics. I would think you had guessed by now that this is really what I'm after, and of course you are right. But not just analytics, which has a very large scope and means many things to many people. I'm not just after Business Intelligence (analytics 1.0?) or data mining (analytics 2.0?) but I'm after something more interesting that you can only do after collecting large volumes of specific data. That all important data is about behavior. What do my customers do? More importantly why do they behave like that? If you can figure that out, you can tailor web sites, stores, products etc. to that behavior and figure out how to be successful. Today's behavior that is somewhat easily tracked is web site clicks, search patterns and all of those things that a web site or web server tracks. that is where the Big Data lives and where these patters are now emerging. Other examples however are emerging, and one of the examples used at the conference was about prediction churn for a telco based on the social network its members are a part of. That social network is not about LinkedIn or Facebook, but about who calls whom. I call you a lot, you switch provider, and I might/will switch too. And that just naturally brings me to the next word, vertical. Vertical in this context means per industry, e.g. communications or retail or government or any other vertical. The reason for being more specific than just behavioral analytics is that each industry has its own data sources, has its own quirky logic and has its own demands and priorities. Of course, the methods and some of the software will be common and some will have both retail and service industry analytics in place (your corner coffee store for example). But the gist of it all is that analytics that can predict customer behavior for a specific focused group of people in a specific industry is what makes Big Data interesting. Building a Vertical Behavioral Analysis System Well, that is going to be interesting. I have not seen much going on in that space and if I had to have some criticism on the cloud connect conference it would be the lack of concrete user cases on big data. The telco example, while a step into the vertical behavioral part is not really on big data. It used a sample of data from the customers' data warehouse. One thing I do think, and this is where I think parts of the NoSQL stuff come from, is that we will be doing this analysis where the data is. Over the past 10 years we at Oracle have called this in-database analytics. I guess we were (too) early? Now the entire market is going there including companies like SAS. In-place btw does not mean "no data movement at all", what it means that you will do this on data's permanent home. For SAS that is kind of the current problem. Most of the inputs live in a data warehouse. So why move it into SAS and back? That all worked with 1 TB data warehouses, but when we are looking at 100TB to 500 TB of distilled data... Comments? As it is still early days with these systems, I'm very interested in seeing reactions and thoughts to some of these thoughts...

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Oracle Australia Supports MS Sydney to Gong Ride by Chris Sainsbury

- by user769227

What is the Sydney to Gong Ride? The Gong Ride is a one of a kind fundraising event. You can pedal 90 km from Sydney to Wollongong on any day of the year but it's only on the first Sunday of November that you'll experience the camaraderie, fellowship, unity, safey, scenery and sense of achievement for pedalling in support of people living with MS. Well done to the 22 members of the Oracle Sydney to Gong ride on Sunday 6 November. For many, this was the first time riding over distance – officially a 90km event, by GPS about 84km. The event started in Sydney Park, Newtown. We left in a few separate groups between 6.30 and 7.30am – and finished with times between 2 hours 45 mins and 6 hours. With 10,000 riders there was a lot of congestion at the start but that soon thinned out as we left Sydney. It was a great spring day for the event but at 34 degrees it was getting pretty warm once we left the shade of the Royal National Park and carried on over the Sea Cliff bridge and down the coast road towards Wollongong. Unfortunately Dan managed to get himself a facial scrub when someone clipped his front wheel on the descent from Bald Hill lookout. No major incidents thankfully and Dan soldiered on. Most importantly everyone had a good time (even Dan) and we raised $5,800 for Multiple Sclerosis Australia. In total more than $3.7m was raised for this good cause.

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OWB 11gR2 – Flexible and extensible

- by David Allan

The Oracle data integration extensibility capabilities are something I love, nothing more frustrating than a tool or platform that is very constraining. I think extensibility and flexibility are invaluable capabilities in the data integration arena. I liked Uli Bethke's posting on some extensibility capabilities with ODI (see Nesting ODI Substitution Method Calls here), he has some useful guidance on making customizations to existing KMs, nice to learn by example. I thought I'd illustrate the same capabilities with ODI's partner OWB for the OWB community. There is a whole new world of potential. The LKM/IKM/CKM/JKMs are the primary templates that are supported (plus the Oracle Target code template), so there is a lot of potential for customizing and extending the product in this release. Enough waffle... Diving in at the deep end from Uli's post, in OWB the table operator has a number of additional properties in OWB 11gR2 that let you annotate the column usage with ODI-like properties such as the slowly changing usage or for your own user-defined purpose as in Uli's post, below you see for the target table SALES_TARGET we can use the UD5 property which when assigned the code template (knowledge module) which has been modified with Uli's change we can do custom things such as creating indices - provides The code template used by the mapping has the additional step which is basically the code illustrated from Uli's posting just used directly, the ODI 10g substitution references also supported from within OWB's runtime. Now to see whether this does what we expect before we execute it, we can check out the generated code similar to how the traditional mapping generation and preview works, you do this by clicking on the 'Inspect Code' button on the execution units code template assignment. This then creates another tab with prefix 'Code - <mapping name>' where the generated code is put, scrolling down we find the last step with the indices being created, looks good, so we are ready to deploy and execute. After executing the mapping we can then use the 'Audit Information' panel (select the mapping in the designer tree and click on View/Audit Information), this gives us a view of the execution where we can drill into the tasks that were executed and inspect both the template and the generated code that was executed and any potential errors. Reflecting back on earlier versions of OWB, these were the kinds of features that were always highly desirable, getting under the hood of the code generation and tweaking bit and pieces - fun and powerful stuff! We can step it up a bit here and explore some further ideas. The example below is a daisy-chained set of execution units where the intermediate table is a target of one unit and the source for another. We want that table to be a global temporary table, so can tweak the templates. Back to the copy of SQL Control Append (for demo purposes) we modify the create target table step to make the table a global temporary table, with the option of on commit preserve rows. You can get a feel for some of the customizations and changes possible, providing some great flexibility and extensibility for the data integration tools.

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Cryptographic Validation Explained

- by MarkPearl

We have been using LogicNP’s CryptoLicensing for some of our software and I was battling to understand how exactly the whole process worked. I was sent the following document which really helped explain it – so if you ever use the same tool it is well worth a read. Licensing Basics LogicNP CryptoLicensing For .Net is the most advanced and state-of-the art licensing and copy protection system you can use for your software. LogicNP CryptoLicensing System uses the latest cryptographic technology to generate and validate licenses. The cryptographic algorithm used is the RSA algorithm which consists of a pair of keys called as the generation key and the validation key. Data encrypted using the generation key can only be decrypted using the corresponding validation key. How does cryptographic validation work? When a new license project is created, a unique validation-generation key pair is created for the project. When LogicNP CryptoLicensing For .Net generates licenses, it encrypts the license settings using the generation key. The validation key can be safely distributed with your software and is used during validation. During license validation, LogicNP CryptoLicensing For .Net attempts to decrypt the encrypted license code using the validation key. If the decryption is successful, this means that the data was encrypted using the generation key, since only the corresponding validation key can decrypt data encrypted with the generation key. This further means that not only is the license valid but that it was generated by you and only you since nobody else has access to the generation key. Generation Key This key is used by CryptoLicensing Generator to generate encrypted license codes. This key is stored in the license project file, so the license project file must be kept secure and confidential and must be accorded the same care as any other critical asset such as source code. Validation Key This key is used for validating generated license codes. It is the same key displayed in the 'Get Validation Key And Code' dialog (Ctrl+K) and is used by your software when validating license codes (using LogicNP.CryptoLicensing.dll). Unlike the generation key, it is not necessary to keep this key secure and confidential. Note that the generation key pair is stored in the project file created by LogicNP CryptoLicensing For .Net, so it is very important to backup this file and to keep it secure. Once the file is lost, it is not possible to retrieve the key pair. FAQ Do I use the same validation key to validate all license codes? Yes, the validation key (and generation key) for the project remains the same; you use the same key to validate all license codes generated using the project. You can retrieve the validation key using the "Project" menu --> "Get Validation Key & Code" menu item. Can license codes generated using generation key from one project be validated using validation key of another project? No! Q. Is every generated license code unique? A. Yes, every license code generated by CryptoLicensing is guaranteed to be unique, even if you generate thousands of codes at a time. Q. What makes CryptoLicensing so secure? A. CryptoLicensing uses the latest cryptographic technology to generate and validate licenses. The cryptographic algorithm used is the RSA asymmetric key algorithm which can use upto 3072-bit keys. Given current computing power, it takes years to break a 3072-bit key. Q. Is is possible for a hacker to develop a keygen for my software? A. Impossible. The cryptographic algorithm used by CryptoLicensing consists of a pair of keys called as the generation key and the validation key. Data encrypted with one key can only be decrypted by the other key and vice versa. Licenses are generated using the generation key and validated using the validation key. Without the generation key, it is impossible to generate valid licenses. Q. What is the difference between validation key and generation key? Generation Key This key is used by CryptoLicensing Generator to generate encrypted license codes. This key is stored in the license project file, so the license project file must be kept secure and confidential and must be accorded the same care as any other critical asset such as source code. Validation Key This key is used for validating generated license codes. It is the same key displayed in the 'Get Validation Key And Code' dialog (Ctrl+K) and is used by your software when validating license codes (using LogicNP.CryptoLicensing.dll). Unlike the generation key, it is not necessary to keep this key secure and confidential. Q. Do I have to include the license project file (.licproj) with my software? A. No!!! This goes against the very essence of the security of the asymmetric cryptographic scheme because the project file contains both the validation and generation key. With your software, you only need to include the validation key which will be used to validate licenses generated by CryptoLicensing using the generation key. The license project file should be treated as any other valuable and confidential asset such as your source code. Q. Does the license service need the license project file? A. Yes. The license project file is needed whenever new licenses are generated (via the UI, via the API or via the license service). As just one example, the license service generates new machine-locked licenses when activated licenses are presented to it for activation, therefore the license service needs the license project file. Q. Is it possible to embed my own data in the generated licenses? A. Yes. You can embed any amount of additional data in the licenses. This data will have the same amount of security as the license code itself and will be tamper-proof. The embedded user data can be retrieved from your software. Q. What additional steps can I take to ensure that my software does not get cracked? A. There are many methods and techniques which can make it extremely difficult for a hacker to crack your software. See Writing Effective License Checking Code And Designing Effective Licenses for more information. Q. Why is the license service not working? A. The most common cause is not setting the CryptoLicense.LicenseServiceURL property before trying to validate a license. Make sure that this property is set to the correct URL where your license service is hosted. The most common cause after this is that the license project file on the web server where your license service is hosted is not the latest. This happens if you make changes to the license project (for example, set the 'Enable With Serials' setting for a profile), but don't upload the updated project file to your web server. Q. Why are my serials not working? Serial codes require the user of a license service. See Using Serial Codes for more details. Also see the earlier question 'Why is the license service not working?' Q. Is the same validation key used to validate license codes generated from different profiles. A. Yes. Profiles are just pre specified license settings for quickly generating licenses having those settings. The actual license code is still generated using the license project's cryptographic generation key and thus, can be validated using the project's validation key. Q. Why are changes made to a profile not getting saved? A. Simply changing license settings via UI and saving the license project does not save those license settings to the active profile. You must first save the license settings to a profile using the Save/Save As command from the Profiles menu (see above). Q. Why is validation of activated licenses failing from CryptoLicensing Generator, but works from my software? A. Make sure that you have specified the URL of the license service using the Project Properties Dialog. Also see the earlier question 'Why is the license service not working?' Q. How can I extend the trial period of my customer? A. To extend the evaluation period of the customer, simply send him a new license code specifying the desired evaluation limits. Evaluation information such as the current used days, executions, etc are stored in garbled form in a registry location which is derived from the license code. Therefore, when a new license code is used, the old evaluation information will not be used and a new evaluation period will be started.

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Leaks on Wikis: "Corporations...You're Next!" Oracle Desktop Virtualization Can Help.

- by adam.hawley

Between all the press coverage on the unauthorized release of 251,287 diplomatic documents and on previous extensive releases of classified documents on the events in Iraq and Afghanistan, one could be forgiven for thinking massive leaks are really an issue for governments, but it is not: It is an issue for corporations as well. In fact, corporations are apparently set to be the next big target for things like Wikileaks. Just the threat of such a release against one corporation recently caused the price of their stock to drop 3% after the leak organization claimed to have 5GB of information from inside the company, with the implication that it might be damaging or embarrassing information. At the moment of this blog anyway, we don't know yet if that is true or how they got the information but how did the diplomatic cable leak happen? For the diplomatic cables, according to press reports, a private in the military, with some appropriate level of security clearance (that is, he apparently had the correct level of security clearance to be accessing the information...he reportedly didn't "hack" his way through anything to get to the documents which might have raised some red flags...), is accused of accessing the material and copying it onto a writeable CD labeled "Lady Gaga" and walking out the door with it. Upload and... Done. In the same article, the accused is quoted as saying "Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain." Now think about all the confidential information in your company or non-profit... from credit card information, to phone records, to customer or donor lists, to corporate strategy documents, product cost information, etc, etc.... And then think about that last quote above from what was a very junior level person in the organization...still feeling comfortable with your ability to control all your information? So what can you do to guard against these types of breaches where there is no outsider (or even insider) intrusion to detect per se, but rather someone with malicious intent is physically walking out the door with data that they are otherwise allowed to access in their daily work? A major first step it to make it physically, logistically much harder to walk away with the information. If the user with malicious intent has no way to copy to removable or moble media (USB sticks, thumb drives, CDs, DVDs, memory cards, or even laptop disk drives) then, as a practical matter it is much more difficult to physically move the information outside the firewall. But how can you control access tightly and reliably and still keep your hundreds or even thousands of users productive in their daily job? Oracle Desktop Virtualization products can help.Oracle's comprehensive suite of desktop virtualization and access products allow your applications and, most importantly, the related data, to stay in the (highly secured) data center while still allowing secure access from just about anywhere your users need to be to be productive. Users can securely access all the data they need to do their job, whether from work, from home, or on the road and in the field, but fully configurable policies set up centrally by privileged administrators allow you to control whether, for instance, they are allowed to print documents or use USB devices or other removable media. Centrally set policies can also control not only whether they can download to removable devices, but also whether they can upload information (see StuxNet for why that is important...)In fact, by using Sun Ray Client desktop hardware, which does not contain any disk drives, or removable media drives, even theft of the desktop device itself would not make you vulnerable to data loss, unlike a laptop that can be stolen with hundreds of gigabytes of information on its disk drive. And for extreme security situations, Sun Ray Clients even come standard with the ability to use fibre optic ethernet networking to each client to prevent the possibility of unauthorized monitoring of network traffic.But even without Sun Ray Client hardware, users can leverage Oracle's Secure Global Desktop software or the Oracle Virtual Desktop Client to securely access server-resident applications, desktop sessions, or full desktop virtual machines without persisting any application data on the desktop or laptop being used to access the information. And, again, even in this context, the Oracle products allow you to control what gets uploaded, downloaded, or printed for example.Another benefit of Oracle's Desktop Virtualization and access products is the ability to rapidly and easily shut off user access centrally through administrative polices if, for example, an employee changes roles or leaves the company and should no longer have access to the information.Oracle's Desktop Virtualization suite of products can help reduce operating expense and increase user productivity, and those are good reasons alone to consider their use. But the dynamics of today's world dictate that security is one of the top reasons for implementing a virtual desktop architecture in enterprises.For more information on these products, view the webpages on www.oracle.com and the Oracle Technology Network website.

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Megjelent a Berkeley DB 11gR2 verziója

- by Lajos Sárecz

Kedden jelent meg az Oracle Berkeley DB legújabb, 11gR2 verziója. A Berkeley DB a piacvezeto nyílt forráskódú beágyazható adatbázis-kezelo. Mivel a Berkeley DB egy library formájában érheto el, így közvetlenül az alkalmazásba linkelheto, ennek köszönheto a rendkívül nagy teljesítmény és a zéró adminisztráció igény. Az új verzió újdonságai: - SQLite támogatás - JDBC és ODBC kapcsolat támogatása - Android platform támogatása A közelmúltban írtam az Oracle Lite új verziójáról is, amely ugyancsak támogatja az SQLite-ot. Nem véletlen a hasonlóság, szándékos cél volt a fejlesztok részérol hogy mostantól az Oracle Database Lite Mobile Server egyszerubben szinkronizálható lesz Oracle Berkeley DB mobil alkalmazásokkal. Az új verzió 2010 március 31-tol lesz letöltheto.

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Save the Date for Oracle’s 2015 JD Edwards Summit

- by Catalin Teodor

If you’re part of the JD Edwards community, you won’t want to miss our 6th annual JD Edwards Summit. Please save the date for this event in Broomfield, Colorado on Monday, February 2 through Thursday, February 5. Formal invitation and registration to come soon.We welcome the opportunity to hear from you regarding any specific topics you would like to see covered during this valuable exchange. Please send your ideas to Sheila Ebbitt at sheila.ebbitt-AT-oracle-DOT-com.Partners interested in sponsorship should contact Rene Chapman at rene.chapman-AT-oracle-DOT-com.

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Book Review: Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide

- by Frank Nimphius

Recently PACKT Publishing published "Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide" by Jobinesh Purushothaman, a product manager in our team. Though already the sixth book dedicated to Oracle ADF, it has a lot of great information in it that none of the previous books covered, making it a safe buy even for those who own the other books published by Oracle Press (McGrwHill) and PACKT Publishing. More than the half of the "Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide" book is dedicated to Oracle ADF Business Components in a depth and clarity that allows you to feel the expertise that Jobinesh gained in this area. If you enjoy Jobinesh blog (http://jobinesh.blogspot.co.uk/) about Oracle ADF, then, no matter what expert you are in Oracle ADF, this book makes you happy as it provides you with detail information you always wished to have. If you are new to Oracle ADF, then this book alone doesn't get you flying, but, if you have some Java background, accelerates your learning big, big, big times. Chapter 1 is an introduction to Oracle ADF and not only explains the layers but also how it compares to plain Java EE solutions (page 13). If you are new to Oracle JDeveloper and ADF, then at the end of this chapter you know how to start JDeveloper and begin your ADF development Chapter 2 starts with what Jobinesh really is good at: ADF Business Components. In this chapter you learn about the architecture ingredients of ADF Business Components: View Objects, View Links, Associations, Entities, Row Sets, Query Collections and Application Modules. This chapter also provides a introduction to ADFBC SDO services, as well as sequence diagrams for what happens when you execute queries or commit updates. Chapter 3 is dedicated to entity objects and is one of many chapters in this book you will enjoy and never want to miss. Jobinesh explains the artifacts that make up an entity object, how to work with entities and resource bundles, and many advanced topics, including inheritance, change history tracking, custom properties, validation and cursor handling. Chapter 4 - you guessed it - is all about View objects. Comparable to entities, you learn about the XM files and classes that make a view object, as well as how to define and work with queries. List-of-values, inheritance, polymorphism, bind variables and data filtering are interesting - and important topics that follow. Again the chapter provides helpful sequence diagrams for you to understand what happens internally within a view object. Chapter 5 focuses on advanced view object and entity object topics, like lifecycle callback methods and when you want to override them. This chapter is a good digest of Jobinesh's blog entries (which most ADF developers have in their bookmark list). Really worth reading ! Chapter 6 then is bout Application Modules. Beside of what application modules are, this chapter covers important topics like properties, passivation, activation, application module pooling, how and where to write custom logic. In addition you learn about the AM lifecycle and request sequence. Chapter 7 is about the ADF binding layer. If you are new to Oracle ADF and got lost in the more advanced ADF Business Components chapters, then this chapter is where you get back into the game. In very easy terms, Jobinesh explains what the ADF binding is, how it fits into the JSF request lifecycle and what are the metadata file involved. Chapter 8 then goes into building data bound web user interfaces. In this chapter you get the basics of JavaServer Faces (e.g. managed beans) and learn about the interaction between the JSF UI and the ADF binding layer. Later this chapter provides advanced solutions for working with tree components and list of values. Chapter 9 introduces bounded task flows and ADF controller. This is a chapter you want to read if you are new to ADF of have started. Experts don't find anything new here, which doesn't mean that it is not worth reading it (I for example, enjoyed the controller talk very much) Chapter 10 is an advanced coverage of bounded task flow and talks about contextual events Chapter 11 is another highlight and explains error handling, trains, transactions and more. I can only recommend you read this chapter. I am aware of many documents that cover exception handling in Oracle ADF (and my Oracle Magazine article for January/February 2013 does the same), but none that covers it in such a great depth. Chapter 12 covers ADF best practices, which is a great round-up of all the tips provided in this book (without Jobinesh to repeat himself). Its all cool stuff that helps you with your ADF projects. In summary, "Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide" by Jobinesh Purushothaman is a great book and addition for all Oracle ADF developers and those who want to become one. Frank

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XNA Notes 011

- by George Clingerman

Even with a lot of the XNA community working on Dream Build Play entries ( I swear I’m going to finish mine this year!) people are still finding time to do side projects and be amazingly active in the XNA and XBLIG community. With my one eye on my code and one eye on the community, here’s what I noticed these over achievers doing this past week! Time Critical XNA News: Xbox LIVE Indie Games sales data will be delayed March 17-20th due to some schedule maintenance http://create.msdn.com/en-us/news/indie_games_data_delay_march2011 GameMarx is releasing a series of videos to help raise donations for victims of the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan. Help out if you can! http://www.gamemarx.com/video/special/29/help-japan-sushido.aspx XNA MVPs: Catalin Zima shares his thoughts on the MVP summit and my book! http://www.catalinzima.com/2011/03/mvp-summit-2011/ Glenn Wilson (@mykre) helps the XNA team announce some new educational content that you don’t want to miss if you’re porting your app or game to Windows Phone 7 http://www.virtualrealm.com.au/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/653/Porting-your-App-or-Game-to-Windows-Phone-7.aspx and Windows Phone 7 from scratch http://www.virtualrealm.com.au/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/654/Windows-Phone-from-Scratch.aspx and shares a link to some free architectural models and textures http://twitter.com/#!/Mykre/status/46410160784158720 George (that’s me!) shares his MVP Summit 2011 summary and XBLIG thoughts http://geekswithblogs.net/clingermangw/archive/2011/03/15/144366.aspx XNA Developers: @SmallCaveGames shares a Code of Ethics for Xbox LIVE Indie Game Developers http://smallcavegames.blogspot.com/2011/03/unofficial-xblig-developers-code-of.html Derek S adds more Xbox LIVE Indie Game studios to his master list of XBLIG links http://twitter.com/#!/Mr_Deeke/status/46140996056125440 http://xbl-indieverse.blogspot.com/p/xblig-links.html Making games and want to help kids? Then share your story with GameFace: America! http://gameitupinitiative.com/about-the-initiative/programs/gameface-america/ Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): XonaGames shares some video footage of their booth from GDC 2011 Video 1: http://youtu.be/lxIV9nk3Gq4 Video 2: http://youtu.be/GgfrjqkxR_o Video 3: http://youtu.be/yVcpXrTX7SQ Joystiq on Mommy’s Best Games Serious Sam Double D http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/16/the-most-important-thing-about-serious-sam-double-d/ And The Escapist recommends that gamers start learning to avoid cleavage now http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108543-Boobie-Bomber-Makes-First-Appearance-in-Serious-Sam-Double-D Magiko Gaming started a blog on the XBLIG dashboard daily Top 10 games in the US. Good way to go back in time and look at the history of which games were in the the Top 10. http://dailytop10indiegames.wordpress.com/ Where are they going now? XBLIG developers at a crossroads.. http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/where_are_they_going_now_xblig.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33527/InDepth_Where_Are_They_Going_Now_XBLIG_Developers_At_A_Crossroads_.php BinaryTweed’s Clover: A Curious Tail is Xbox LIVE’s Deal of the Week! http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/15/what-luck-clover-a-curious-tale-is-half-price-this-week/ Looking for an Xbox LIVE Indie Game to buy? Writings of Mass Deduction has over 125 suggestions at this point! http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/ SkaStudios shares Vampire Smile Achievements AND their PAX East 2011 Both Setup video http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/14/vampire-smile-achievement/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/15/pax-booth-setup-time-lapse/ MasterBlud and VVGTV starts a new community for XBLIG developers and gamers to join http://vvgtv.forumotion.com/ Raymond Matthews (@DrakstarMatryx) covers Mommy’s Best Games getting Serious http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=286 XNA Development: Dave Henry (@mort8088) posts the 4th tutorial in his series XNA 4.0 SpriteBatch extended http://mort8088.com/2011/03/11/xna-4-0-tutorial-4-spritebatch-extended/ Tutorial 5 - Creating a manual blank texture http://mort8088.com/2011/03/13/xna-4-tutorial-5-manual-blank-texture/ XNA 4.0 Tutorial 6 - Spritesheet Object http://mort8088.com/2011/03/18/xna-4-0-tutorial-6-spritesheet-object/ Jason Mitchell shares a tutorial on setting the alpha value for spritebatch in XNA 4.0 http://www.jason-mitchell.com/index.php/2011/03/13/setting-alpha-value-for-spritebatch-draw-in-xna-4/ XNA for Silverlight Developers: Part 7 - Collision Detection http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-7-Collision-detection.aspx Markus Ewald (@Cygon4) shares the full Ninject 2.0 binding for XNA and Sunburn http://twitter.com/#!/Cygon4/status/48330203826622464 Michael B. McLaughlin shares an AccelerometerInput XNA GameComponent he created (which I’m probably going to snag for a game I’m working on...) http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/17/accelerometerinput-xna-gamecomponent.aspx Extra Credit tackles the building of a good tutorial. Must watch for all Indie game devs (thanks for pointing it out Evan Johnson!) http://twitter.com/#!/johnsonevan/status/48452115680604160 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2921-Tutorials-101 ExEn is fully funded at this point so definitely something for XBLIG developers to keep an eye on as they consider releasing their games on other platforms http://rockethub.com/projects/752-exen-xna-for-iphone-android-and-silverlight Channel 9 and Greg Duncan post Mixing the Game State Management and Platformer XNA Recipes http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Mixing-the-Game-State-Management-and-Platformer-XNA-Recipes Sgt. Conker has noticed Mike McLaughlin has been crazy productive and has done a recap of his recent posts http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/03/recap-of-mikebmcls-posts/

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Nerdstock 2012: A photo review of Microsoft TechEd North America 2012

- by The Un-T Guy

Not only could I not fathom that I would ever be attending a tech event of the magnitude of TechEd, neither could any of my co-workers. As the least technical person in the history of Information Technology ever, I felt as though I were walking into the belly of the beast, fearing I’d not be allowed out until I could write SSIS packages, program in Visual Basic, or at least arm wrestle a DBA. Most of my fears were unrealized. But I made it. I was here. I even got to wear the Mark of the Geek neck package with schedule, eyeglass cleaners, name badge (company name obfuscated so they don’t fire me), and a pen. The name badge was seemingly the key element, as every vendor in the place wanted to scan it to capture name, email address, and numbers to show their bosses back home. It also let me eat the food and drink the coffee so that’s a fair trade. A recurring theme throughout the presentations and vendor demos was “the Cloud” and BYOD (bring your own device). The below was a common site throughout the week, as attendees from all over the world brought their own devices and were able to (seemingly) seamlessly connect to the Worldwide Innerwebs. Apparently proof that Microsoft and the event organizers were practicing what they were preaching. “Cavernous” is one way to describe the downstairs facility itself. “Freaking cavernous” might be more accurate. Work sessions were held in classrooms on the second and third floors but the real action was happening downstairs. Microsoft bookstore, blogger hub (shoutout to Geekswithblogs.net), The Wall (sans Pink Floyd, sadly), couches, recharging stations… …a game zone with pool and air hockey tables, pinball machines, foosball… …vintage video games… …and a even giant chess board. Looked like this guy was opening with the Kaspersky parry. The blend of technology and fantasy even went so far as to bring childhood favorites to life. Assuming, of course, your childhood was pre-video games (like mine) and you were stuck with electric football and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robots: And, lest the “combatants” become unruly or – God forbid – afternoon snacks were late, Orange County’s finest was on the scene to keep the peace. On a high-tech mode of transport, of course. She wasn’t the only one to think this was a swell way to transition from one concourse to the next. Given the level of support provided by the entire Orange County Convention Center staff, I knew they had to have some secret. Here’s one entrance to the vendor zone/”Technical Learning Center.” Couldn’t help but think of them as the remora attached to the Whale Shark that is Microsoft… …or perhaps planets orbiting the sun. Microsoft is just that huge and it seemed like every vendor in the industry looks forward to partnering with the tech behemoth. Aside from the free stuff from the vendors, probably the most popular place in the house was the dining area. Amazing spreads every day, multiple times a day. While no attendance numbers were available at press time, literally thousands of attendees were fed, and fed well, every day. And lest you think my post from earlier in the week exaggerated about the backpacks… …or that I’m exaggerating about the lunch crowds. This represents only about between 25-30% of the lunch crowd – it was all my camera could capture at once. No one went away hungry. The only thing missing was a a vat of Red Bull but apparently organizers went old school, with probably 100 urns of the original energy drink – coffee – all around the venue. Of course, following lunch and afternoon sessions, some preferred the even older school method of re-energizing. There were rumors that Microsoft was serving graham crackers and milk in this area. But they were only rumors. Cannot overstate the wonderful service provided by the Orange County Convention Center staff. Coffee, soft drinks, juice, and water were available always. Buffet meals were delicious with a wide range of healthy options available, in addition to hundreds (at least) special meal requests supported every day. Ever tried to keep up with an estimated 9,000 hungry and thirsty IT-ers? These folks did. Kudos to all of the staff and many thanks! And while I occasionally poke fun at the Whale Shark, if nothing else this experience convinced me of one thing: Microsoft knows how to put on a professional event. Hundreds of informative, professionally delivered sessions, covering a wide range of topics set at varying levels of expertise (some that even I was able to follow), social activities, vendor partnerships…they brought everything you could ask for to inform, educate, and inspire an entire IT industry. So as I depart the belly of the beast, I can both take pride in the fact that I survived the week and marvel at the brilliance surrounding me. The IT industry – or at least the segment associated with Microsoft – is in good, professional hands. And what won’t fit in their hands can be toted in the Microsoft provided backpacks. Win-win. Until New Orleans…

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FAQ: GridView Calculation with JavaScript

- by Vincent Maverick Durano

In my previous post I wrote a simple demo on how to Calculate Totals in GridView and Display it in the Footer. Basically what it does is it calculates the total amount by typing into the TextBox and display the grand total in the footer of the GridView and basically it was a server side implemenation. Many users in the forums are asking how to do the same thing without postbacks and how to calculate both amount and total amount together. In this post I will demonstrate how to do this using JavaScript. To get started let's go ahead and set up the form. Just for the simplicity of this demo I just set up the form like this: <asp:gridview ID="GridView1" runat="server" ShowFooter="true" AutoGenerateColumns="false"> <Columns> <asp:BoundField DataField="RowNumber" HeaderText="Row Number" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="Description" HeaderText="Item Description" /> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Item Price"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="LBLPrice" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Price") %>'></asp:Label> </ItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Quantity"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="TXTQty" runat="server"></asp:TextBox> </ItemTemplate> <FooterTemplate> <b>Total Amount:</b> </FooterTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Sub-Total"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="LBLSubTotal" runat="server"></asp:Label> </ItemTemplate> <FooterTemplate> <asp:Label ID="LBLTotal" runat="server" ForeColor="Green"></asp:Label> </FooterTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> </Columns> </asp:gridview> As you can see there's no fancy about the mark up above. It just a standard GridView with BoundFields and TemplateFields on it. Now just for the purpose of this demo I just use a dummy data for populating the GridView. Here's the code below: public partial class GridCalculation : System.Web.UI.Page { private void BindDummyDataToGrid() { DataTable dt = new DataTable(); DataRow dr = null; dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("RowNumber", typeof(string))); dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Description", typeof(string))); dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Price", typeof(string))); dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["RowNumber"] = 1; dr["Description"] = "Nike"; dr["Price"] = "1000"; dt.Rows.Add(dr); dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["RowNumber"] = 2; dr["Description"] = "Converse"; dr["Price"] = "800"; dt.Rows.Add(dr); dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["RowNumber"] = 3; dr["Description"] = "Adidas"; dr["Price"] = "500"; dt.Rows.Add(dr); dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["RowNumber"] = 4; dr["Description"] = "Reebok"; dr["Price"] = "750"; dt.Rows.Add(dr); dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["RowNumber"] = 5; dr["Description"] = "Vans"; dr["Price"] = "1100"; dt.Rows.Add(dr); dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["RowNumber"] = 6; dr["Description"] = "Fila"; dr["Price"] = "200"; dt.Rows.Add(dr); //Bind the Gridview GridView1.DataSource = dt; GridView1.DataBind(); } protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!IsPostBack) { BindDummyDataToGrid(); } } } Now try to run the page. The output should look something like below: The Client-Side Calculation Here's the code for the GridView calculation: <script type="text/javascript"> function CalculateTotals() { var gv = document.getElementById("<%= GridView1.ClientID %>"); var tb = gv.getElementsByTagName("input"); var lb = gv.getElementsByTagName("span"); var sub = 0; var total = 0; var indexQ = 1; var indexP = 0; for (var i = 0; i < tb.length; i++) { if (tb[i].type == "text") { sub = parseFloat(lb[indexP].innerHTML) * parseFloat(tb[i].value); if (isNaN(sub)) { lb[i + indexQ].innerHTML = ""; sub = 0; } else { lb[i + indexQ].innerHTML = sub; } indexQ++; indexP = indexP + 2; total += parseFloat(sub); } } lb[lb.length -1].innerHTML = total; } </script> The code above calculates the sub-total by multiplying the price and the quantity and at the same time calculates the total amount by adding the sub-total values. Now you can simply call the JavaScript function above like this: <ItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="TXTQty" runat="server" onkeyup="CalculateTotals();"></asp:TextBox> </ItemTemplate> Running the code above will display something like below: That's it! I hope someone find this post useful! Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,JavaScript,GridView,TipsTricks

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You are probably NOT a SharePoint Development Expert if…

- by Mark Rackley

So, all you aspiring SharePoint experts out there (especially those of you who put “expert” in your resumes). It’s time for a cold cool splash of reality. More than likely you are NOT an expert (I know I’m not). Yes, you may have some expertise in certain aspects in SharePoint (it’s questionable if I have THAT some days), but make sure you’ve got the basics down before you start throwing that word “expert” around. I know that it becomes frustrating to those looking to hire SharePoint people and having to sift through all the resumes of those who think very highly of themselves and their skills only to find those gaping holes in common best practices. I’m much more willing to hire a decent dev who KNOWS they are not an expert than to hire a decent+ dev who THINKS they are an expert. So… I’ve compiled a small reality check for you SharePoint Devs. and a “red flag” check for those of you wishing to hire a SharePoint developer. If any of these apply to you, you are probably not a SharePoint Development Expert. You are not a SharePoint Development Expert if you manually copy your DLLs Seriously, I don’t care if you write the best code in the world. If you are manually copying files to each web front end you are NOT a SharePoint Development expert. Yes, I realize the admins are generally the ones who do the actual deployments, but if you don’t know how to create solution packages for your admins, you are going to end up doing more damage than good some day. There are TONS of tools out there to help generate deployable solutions for you. You have ZERO excuse. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you can’t tell me the main artifacts of a solution package Directly related to the first one. If you don’t know what the Manifest, DDF, WSP, and Feature files are and how they are used in a solution package, you are NOT a SharePoint development expert. I’m not asking you to be able to write them all from scratch (heck, I can’t even do that), but you MUST know what they are and how to tweak them if necessary. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know what a Content Type or a Site Column is You would be absolutely amazed at how many “Expert” SharePoint Developers have NEVER EVER created a Content Type or Site Column or even know what they are. I mean, why would you ever want to create those when you can just do everything as a custom list or custom field? right???? (that’s sarcasm). You also need to know how to package a Content Type and a Site Column into a deployable package by the way. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you have not created at least one Web Part, Workflow, Timer Job, and Event Handler. If you haven’t written at least one of each, you don’t fully understand what they do or their limitations. Again, I expect NO ONE to be able to write these things blind. I think the last time I wrote an application from scratch without copying and pasting from another project I had done before was back in 1994? Seriously, coding is like a Sour Dough starter, you get it from someone else and keep adding to it. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know how to properly dispose of objects Another biggie with zero excuse for getting it wrong. It is so well known that you must dispose of your SPWeb and SPSite objects that if you aren’t doing it then you are not an expert. Heck, if you utilize “using” when handling SPWeb and SPSite objects and don’t realize that it disposes of those objects for you, then you are not a SharePoint Development expert. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you do not know how to properly elevate privileges Just one of those development basics that any decent SharePoint Developer has got to have down and understand how and why it’s used You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know all of the development options available to SharePoint and when they should be used Okay… so all you hard core .NET SharePoint dev geeks take a moment to listen. You may be the most top not SharePoint .NET developer in the world, but if you are opening Visual Studio to solve every problem in SharePoint, then you are NOT a SharePoint development expert. The SharePoint developer’s tool kit is growing every day with tools like Visual Studio, Data View Web Parts, XSL, jQuery, SPServices, etc. etc… If you don’t have the ability to at least recognize that “hey, you can basically do the same thing here but just dropping in Easy Tabs instead of writing some weird web part” then you are NOT a SharePoint Development expert AND you are doing a huge disservice to your clients and customers. You are probably NOT a SharePoint Development expert if you call yourself an Expert So, truth telling time. I’m not an expert. There, I said it. I feel so much better. Now, I realize the word “expert” has been used with my name before, but I am quick to point out that I KNOW the experts and know that they will help me if I need it, but I’m not an expert in all things SharePoint. The minute you take on that moniker you are setting yourself up for a fall. It’s too big, there’s too much to know, and there’s WAY too much you can do wrong. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you are not involved in the community I expect to get the most flack for this one, but it’s always a huge red flag for me when someone says they are an expert and has ZERO knowledge of the SharePoint community. The SharePoint community is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to be an effective SharePoint developer, admin, architect, power user or whatever the heck you are!! The community keeps you sane, tells you when you are NOT using a best practice, recommends the best practice, and even knows when Microsoft is giving you the wrong information (*gasp* it does happen). If you can’t tell me who you are following on twitter, who's blog you read, what conferences you attend, or name the experts who you monitor to make sure you are not doing something stupid, then you are probably doing something stupid. Again, not asking you to be a speaker, blogger, or the least bit extroverted but you should be at LEAST stalking the experts. So… what’s the point? So… yeah… what’s my point in all this. Well, first of all let me point out that this is by far not a finished list and I could come up with a LOT more specific “deep dive” questions, but these should be high enough level that even non experts can recognize and ask them. If you have some common ones you run into let me know and add them in the comments below. Also, keep in mind I’m not saying you as a developer HAVE to know EVERYTHING, but you DO need to know what you don’t know and proudly and honestly state “I don’t know, but I’ll learn and find out”. Those of us hiring SharePoint developers and know and have a passion for SharePoint are not looking for that elusive “expert” who knows everything. We are looking for someone who “gets it”, has a similar passion, great attitude, an understanding that they DON’T know everything, and a desire to do it right. I would bet money that most SharePoint development disasters happen because of “experts” who think they know everything rather than the developer who is cautious and knows he doesn’t. Lastly, I know there’s a raging debate over what a “SharePoint Developer” is (I should know, as I keep bringing it up). So, obviously this blog post is more closely tied to the .NET side of SharePoint development and less towards the client side, middle tier, or whatever you want to call it. So, let’s please not get that argument going here as well… Thanks

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Discount Codes Galore

- by Cassandra Clark

Saving money is at the top of everyones list right now. With this in mind the Oracle Technology Network team has compiled a list of discounts available at the Oracle Store. We are also introducing an Oracle Technology Network member discount from O'Reilly Media. If you subscribe to any of the Oracle Technology newsletters you also saw special discounts from CRC Press, Packt Publishing and Apress. We are going to do our best to bring you more offers like this every month. Now on to the discounts... Oracle Store offers - all below expiring May 31st 2010. Don't miss out! Expand Your Productivity with Oracle Open Office and Save 15%? Enter OTNOffice at checkout. Buy Now! Drive Business Agility and Performance with Industry-leading Oracle Database Management Packs. Save 10% when you purchase them at the Oracle Store. Enter OTNDBMP at checkout. Buy Now! 15% Savings on Oracle Virtualization and Unbreakable Linux Support at the Oracle Store Enter code OTNLinuxVM at checkout. Buy Now! 20% Savings on Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Use OTNSQL at checkout. Buy Now! O'Reilly Oracle Technology Network Member Offer O'Reilly is generously offering Oracle Technology Network Members 35% off for print books and 40% off of eBooks. Browse Oracle titles at- http://oreilly.com/pub/topic/oracle. Use discount code TECNT at checkout.

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Die “AfterDark Reception” ist wieder da!

- by A&C Redaktion

In diesem Jahr erreicht die OPN Exchange “AfterDark” Reception neue Höhen! Denn diesmal findet der exklusive VIP-Event im 5. Stock des Metreon Building in San Francisco statt. Und zwar am Sonntag, 30. September, von 19.30 bis 22 Uhr. Genießen Sie in tollem Ambiente und bei einem Cocktail den sanften Sound von Macy Gray, während Sie den Tag beim Networking ausklingen lassen - mit Blick auf das 2012 live Music Festival. Und das Beste ist: Als Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange Teilnehmer können Sie exklusiv und kostenlos dabei sein! Begleiten Sie uns, wenn wir die Oracle OpenWorld 2012 mit guten Gesprächen und toller Musik beginnen. Wir sehen uns - nach Sonnenuntergang! Ihr OPN Communications Team

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