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• Looking for advice on Hyper-v storage replication

  - by Notre1

  I am designing a 2-host Hyper-V R2 cluster with 6-10 guests stored on a SMB iSCSI SAN device (probably Promise VessRAID). I will be getting at least two of the SAN devices and need to eliminate the storage a single point of failure. Ideally, that would involve real-time failover for the storage, like the Windows failover clustering does for the hosts. This design will be used at around six of our sites, and I would like to allow for us to eventually setup a cluster at colocation site and replicate each site's VMs there for DR. (Ideally a live multi-site cluster, but a manual import of the VMs would be fine for this sort of DR.) The tools that come with enterprise SANs, like EMC and NetApp, seem to be the most commonly used items for a Hyper-V cluster, but I can't afford their prices with my budget. Outside of them, the two tools that seem to be most common for Hyper-V storage replication are SteelEye (now SIOS) DataKeeper Cluster Edition and Double-Take Availability. Originally, I was planning on using Clustered Shared Volume(s) (CSV), but it seems like replication support for these is either not available or brand new in both these products. It looks like CSVs are supported in Double-Take 5.22, see this discussion, but I don't think I want to run something that new in production. Right now, it seems like the best option for me is not to implement CSVs, implement some sort of storage replication, and upgrade to CSVs at a later date once replicating them is more mature. I would love to have live migration, and CSVs are not required for live migration if you are using one LUN per VM, so I guess this is what I'll do. I would prefer to stick to the using the Microsoft Windows Server and Hyper-V tools and features as much as possible. From that standpoint, SteelEye looks more appealing than Double-Take because they make the DataKeeper volume(s) available to the Failover Clustering Manager and then failover clustering is all configured and managed through the native Microsoft tools. Double-Take says that "clustered Hyper-V hosts are not supported," and Double-Take Availability itself seems to be what is used for the actual clustering and failover. Does anyone know if any of these replication tools work with more than two hosts in the cluster? All the information I can find on the web only uses two hosts in their examples. Are there any better tools than SteelEye and Double-Take for doing what I am trying to do, which is eliminate the storage as as single point of failure? Neverfail, AppAssure, and DataCore all seem to offer similar functionality, but they don't seems to be as popular as SteelEye and Double-Take. I have seen a number of people suggest using Starwind iSCSI SAN software for the shared storage, which includes replication (and CSV replication at that). There are a couple of reasons I have not seriously considered this route: 1) The company I work for is exclusively a Dell shop and Dell does not have any servers with that I can pack with more than six 3.5" SATA drives. 2) In the future, it could be advantegous for us to not be locked into a particular brand or type of storage and third-party replication softwares all allow replication to heterogeneous storage devices. I am pretty new to iSCSI and clustering, so please let me know if it looks like I am planning something that goes against best practices or overlooking/missing something.

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• Randomly displayed flashing lines, no response to all shortcuts, just power off. [syslog included]

  - by B. Roland

  Hello! I have an old machine, and I want to use for that to learn employees how to use Ubuntu, and to be easyer to switch from Windows. I've been installed 10.04, and updated, but this strange stuff is happend. Graphical installion failed, same strange thing. With alternate workd. Sometimes, when I boot up, a boot message displayed: Keyboard failure..., often diplayed after reboot, and after shutdown, when I haven't plugged off from AC. I replaced the keyboard yet, same failure... If I powered off, and plugged off from AC, no keyboard problems displayed in boot time. Details Configuration: Dell OptiPlex GX60 - in original cover, no changes. 256 MB DDR 166 MHz Intel® Celeron® Processor 2.40 GHz Dell 0C3207 Base Board I know, that is not enough, but I have three other Nec compuers, with nearly similar config, and they works well with 9.10, 10.04, 10.10. Live CDs I've been tried with 10.04 and 10.10, but the problem is displayed too. With 9.10 no strange things displayed, but it froze, during a simple apt-get install. Syslog An error loop is logged here, but I paste the whole startup and error lines. The flashing lines are displayed sometimes immediately after login, but sometimes after 10 minutes, but once occured, that nothing happend. Strange thing is displayed immediately after login: here. An other boot, after some minutes, strange lines, and loop in log appeard: here. The loop should be that: Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 46.782212] [drm:i915_gem_entervt_ioctl] *ERROR* Reenabling wedged hardware, good luck Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 47.100033] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 47.100045] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 47.101487] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 16 at 9) Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name kernel: [ 49.152020] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name gdm-simple-slave[1245]: WARNING: Unable to load file '/etc/gdm/custom.conf': No such file or directory Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name acpid: client 1239[0:0] has disconnected Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name acpid: client connected from 1247[0:0] Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name acpid: 1 client rule loaded UPDATE Added syslog things: before errors, error loop, the complete shutdown(after the big updates): Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully called chroot. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully dropped privileges. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully limited resources. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Running. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Watchdog thread running. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Canary thread running. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully made thread 1337 of process 1337 (n/a) owned by '1001' high priority at nice level -11. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully made thread 1345 of process 1337 (n/a) owned by '1001' RT at priority 5. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Supervising 2 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully made thread 1349 of process 1337 (n/a) owned by '1001' RT at priority 5. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jan 28 20:40:37 machine_name pulseaudio[1337]: ratelimit.c: 2 events suppressed Jan 28 20:41:33 machine_name AptDaemon: INFO: Initializing daemon Jan 28 20:41:44 machine_name kernel: [ 167.691563] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 20:47:33 machine_name AptDaemon: INFO: Quiting due to inactivity Jan 28 20:47:33 machine_name AptDaemon: INFO: Shutdown was requested Jan 28 20:59:50 machine_name kernel: [ 1253.840513] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 21:17:02 machine_name CRON[1874]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jan 28 21:17:38 machine_name kernel: [ 2321.553239] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 22:07:44 machine_name kernel: [ 5327.840254] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 22:17:02 machine_name CRON[2665]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jan 28 22:32:38 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: Called Jan 28 22:32:38 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: username = [some_user] Jan 28 22:32:38 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: /home/some_user is already mounted Jan 28 22:57:03 machine_name kernel: [ 8286.641472] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 22:57:24 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: Called Jan 28 22:57:24 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: username = [some_user] Jan 28 22:57:24 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: /home/some_user is already mounted Jan 28 23:07:42 machine_name kernel: [ 8925.272030] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 28 23:07:42 machine_name kernel: [ 8925.272048] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 28 23:07:42 machine_name kernel: [ 8925.272093] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 171453 at 171452) Jan 28 23:07:45 machine_name kernel: [ 8928.868041] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged Jan 28 23:08:10 machine_name acpid: client 925[0:0] has disconnected Jan 28 23:08:10 machine_name acpid: client connected from 8127[0:0] Jan 28 23:08:10 machine_name acpid: 1 client rule loaded Jan 28 23:08:11 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.046248] [drm:i915_gem_entervt_ioctl] *ERROR* Reenabling wedged hardware, good luck Jan 28 23:08:12 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.364016] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 28 23:08:12 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.364027] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 28 23:08:12 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.364407] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 171457 at 171452) Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name kernel: [ 8957.472025] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name acpid: client 8127[0:0] has disconnected Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name acpid: client connected from 8141[0:0] Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name acpid: 1 client rule loaded Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.671722] [drm:i915_gem_entervt_ioctl] *ERROR* Reenabling wedged hardware, good luck Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.988015] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.988026] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.989400] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 171459 at 171452) Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty4 main process (848) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty5 main process (856) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name NetworkManager: nm_signal_handler(): Caught signal 15, shutting down normally. Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty2 main process (874) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty3 main process (875) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty6 main process (877) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: cron main process (890) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty1 main process (1146) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name avahi-daemon[644]: Got SIGTERM, quitting. Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name avahi-daemon[644]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 10.238.11.134. Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name acpid: exiting Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: avahi-daemon main process (644) terminated with status 255 Jan 28 23:08:17 machine_name kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped. Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name kernel: imklog 4.2.0, log source = /proc/kmsg started. Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.2.0" x-pid="516" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] (re)start Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 103 Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101 Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd-2039: Could no open output file '/dev/xconsole' [try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2039 ] When I hit the On/Off button, the system shuts down normally. May be it a hardware problem, but I don't know... Can you say something useful to solve my problem?

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• Cost Comparison Hard Disk Drive to Solid State Drive on Price per Gigabyte - dispelling a myth!

  - by tonyrogerson

  It is often said that Hard Disk Drive storage is significantly cheaper per GiByte than Solid State Devices – this is wholly inaccurate within the database space. People need to look at the cost of the complete solution and not just a single component part in isolation to what is really required to meet the business requirement. Buying a single Hitachi Ultrastar 600GB 3.5” SAS 15Krpm hard disk drive will cost approximately £239.60 (http://scan.co.uk, 22nd March 2012) compared to an OCZ 600GB Z-Drive R4 CM84 PCIe costing £2,316.54 (http://scan.co.uk, 22nd March 2012); I’ve not included FusionIO ioDrive because there is no public pricing available for it – something I never understand and personally when companies do this I immediately think what are they hiding, luckily in FusionIO’s case the product is proven though is expensive compared to OCZ enterprise offerings. On the face of it the single 15Krpm hard disk has a price per GB of £0.39, the SSD £3.86; this is what you will see in the press and this is what sales people will use in comparing the two technologies – do not be fooled by this bullshit people! What is the requirement? The requirement is the database will have a static size of 400GB kept static through archiving so growth and trim will balance the database size, the client requires resilience, there will be several hundred call centre staff querying the database where queries will read a small amount of data but there will be no hot spot in the data so the randomness will come across the entire 400GB of the database, estimates predict that the IOps required will be approximately 4,000IOps at peak times, because it’s a call centre system the IO latency is important and must remain below 5ms per IO. The balance between read and write is 70% read, 30% write. The requirement is now defined and we have three of the most important pieces of the puzzle – space required, estimated IOps and maximum latency per IO. Something to consider with regard SQL Server; write activity requires synchronous IO to the storage media specifically the transaction log; that means the write thread will wait until the IO is completed and hardened off until the thread can continue execution, the requirement has stated that 30% of the system activity will be write so we can expect a high amount of synchronous activity. The hardware solution needs to be defined; two possible solutions: hard disk or solid state based; the real question now is how many hard disks are required to achieve the IO throughput, the latency and resilience, ditto for the solid state. Hard Drive solution On a test on an HP DL380, P410i controller using IOMeter against a single 15Krpm 146GB SAS drive, the throughput given on a transfer size of 8KiB against a 40GiB file on a freshly formatted disk where the partition is the only partition on the disk thus the 40GiB file is on the outer edge of the drive so more sectors can be read before head movement is required: For 100% sequential IO at a queue depth of 16 with 8 worker threads 43,537 IOps at an average latency of 2.93ms (340 MiB/s), for 100% random IO at the same queue depth and worker threads 3,733 IOps at an average latency of 34.06ms (34 MiB/s). The same test was done on the same disk but the test file was 130GiB: For 100% sequential IO at a queue depth of 16 with 8 worker threads 43,537 IOps at an average latency of 2.93ms (340 MiB/s), for 100% random IO at the same queue depth and worker threads 528 IOps at an average latency of 217.49ms (4 MiB/s). From the result it is clear random performance gets worse as the disk fills up – I’m currently writing an article on short stroking which will cover this in detail. Given the work load is random in nature looking at the random performance of the single drive when only 40 GiB of the 146 GB is used gives near the IOps required but the latency is way out. Luckily I have tested 6 x 15Krpm 146GB SAS 15Krpm drives in a RAID 0 using the same test methodology, for the same test above on a 130 GiB for each drive added the performance boost is near linear, for each drive added throughput goes up by 5 MiB/sec, IOps by 700 IOps and latency reducing nearly 50% per drive added (172 ms, 94 ms, 65 ms, 47 ms, 37 ms, 30 ms). This is because the same 130GiB is spread out more as you add drives 130 / 1, 130 / 2, 130 / 3 etc. so implicit short stroking is occurring because there is less file on each drive so less head movement required. The best latency is still 30 ms but we have the IOps required now, but that’s on a 130GiB file and not the 400GiB we need. Some reality check here: a) the drive randomness is more likely to be 50/50 and not a full 100% but the above has highlighted the effect randomness has on the drive and the more a drive fills with data the worse the effect. For argument sake let us assume that for the given workload we need 8 disks to do the job, for resilience reasons we will need 16 because we need to RAID 1+0 them in order to get the throughput and the resilience, RAID 5 would degrade performance. Cost for hard drives: 16 x £239.60 = £3,833.60 For the hard drives we will need disk controllers and a separate external disk array because the likelihood is that the server itself won’t take the drives, a quick spec off DELL for a PowerVault MD1220 which gives the dual pathing with 16 disks 146GB 15Krpm 2.5” disks is priced at £7,438.00, note its probably more once we had two controller cards to sit in the server in, racking etc. Minimum cost taking the DELL quote as an example is therefore: {Cost of Hardware} / {Storage Required} £7,438.60 / 400 = £18.595 per GB £18.59 per GiB is a far cry from the £0.39 we had been told by the salesman and the myth. Yes, the storage array is composed of 16 x 146 disks in RAID 10 (therefore 8 usable) giving an effective usable storage availability of 1168GB but the actual storage requirement is only 400 and the extra disks have had to be purchased to get the  IOps up. Solid State Drive solution A single card significantly exceeds the IOps and latency required, for resilience two will be required. ( £2,316.54 * 2 ) / 400 = £11.58 per GB With the SSD solution only two PCIe sockets are required, no external disk units, no additional controllers, no redundant controllers etc. Conclusion I hope by showing you an example that the myth that hard disk drives are cheaper per GiB than Solid State has now been dispelled - £11.58 per GB for SSD compared to £18.59 for Hard Disk. I’ve not even touched on the running costs, compare the costs of running 18 hard disks, that’s a lot of heat and power compared to two PCIe cards!Just a quick note: I've left a fair amount of information out due to this being a blog! If in doubt, email me :)I'll also deal with the myth that SSD's wear out at a later date as well - that's just way over done still, yes, 5 years ago, but now - no.

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• HTG Explains: Should You Build Your Own PC?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  There was a time when every geek seemed to build their own PC. While the masses bought eMachines and Compaqs, geeks built their own more powerful and reliable desktop machines for cheaper. But does this still make sense? Building your own PC still offers as much flexibility in component choice as it ever did, but prebuilt computers are available at extremely competitive prices. Building your own PC will no longer save you money in most cases. The Rise of Laptops It’s impossible to look at the decline of geeks building their own PCs without considering the rise of laptops. There was a time when everyone seemed to use desktops — laptops were more expensive and significantly slower in day-to-day tasks. With the diminishing importance of computing power — nearly every modern computer has more than enough power to surf the web and use typical programs like Microsoft Office without any trouble — and the rise of laptop availability at nearly every price point, most people are buying laptops instead of desktops. And, if you’re buying a laptop, you can’t really build your own. You can’t just buy a laptop case and start plugging components into it — even if you could, you would end up with an extremely bulky device. Ultimately, to consider building your own desktop PC, you have to actually want a desktop PC. Most people are better served by laptops. Benefits to PC Building The two main reasons to build your own PC have been component choice and saving money. Building your own PC allows you to choose all the specific components you want rather than have them chosen for you. You get to choose everything, including the PC’s case and cooling system. Want a huge case with room for a fancy water-cooling system? You probably want to build your own PC. In the past, this often allowed you to save money — you could get better deals by buying the components yourself and combining them, avoiding the PC manufacturer markup. You’d often even end up with better components — you could pick up a more powerful CPU that was easier to overclock and choose more reliable components so you wouldn’t have to put up with an unstable eMachine that crashed every day. PCs you build yourself are also likely more upgradable — a prebuilt PC may have a sealed case and be constructed in such a way to discourage you from tampering with the insides, while swapping components in and out is generally easier with a computer you’ve built on your own. If you want to upgrade your CPU or replace your graphics card, it’s a definite benefit. Downsides to Building Your Own PC It’s important to remember there are downsides to building your own PC, too. For one thing, it’s just more work — sure, if you know what you’re doing, building your own PC isn’t that hard. Even for a geek, researching the best components, price-matching, waiting for them all to arrive, and building the PC just takes longer. Warranty is a more pernicious problem. If you buy a prebuilt PC and it starts malfunctioning, you can contact the computer’s manufacturer and have them deal with it. You don’t need to worry about what’s wrong. If you build your own PC and it starts malfunctioning, you have to diagnose the problem yourself. What’s malfunctioning, the motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card, or power supply? Each component has a separate warranty through its manufacturer, so you’ll have to determine which component is malfunctioning before you can send it off for replacement. Should You Still Build Your Own PC? Let’s say you do want a desktop and are willing to consider building your own PC. First, bear in mind that PC manufacturers are buying in bulk and getting a better deal on each component. They also have to pay much less for a Windows license than the $120 or so it would cost you to to buy your own Windows license. This is all going to wipe out the cost savings you’ll see — with everything all told, you’ll probably spend more money building your own average desktop PC than you would picking one up from Amazon or the local electronics store. If you’re an average PC user that uses your desktop for the typical things, there’s no money to be saved from building your own PC. But maybe you’re looking for something higher end. Perhaps you want a high-end gaming PC with the fastest graphics card and CPU available. Perhaps you want to pick out each individual component and choose the exact components for your gaming rig. In this case, building your own PC may be a good option. As you start to look at more expensive, high-end PCs, you may start to see a price gap — but you may not. Let’s say you wanted to blow thousands of dollars on a gaming PC. If you’re looking at spending this kind of money, it would be worth comparing the cost of individual components versus a prebuilt gaming system. Still, the actual prices may surprise you. For example, if you wanted to upgrade Dell’s $2293 Alienware Aurora to include a second NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 graphics card, you’d pay an additional $600 on Alienware’s website. The same graphics card costs $650 on Amazon or Newegg, so you’d be spending more money building the system yourself. Why? Dell’s Alienware gets bulk discounts you can’t get — and this is Alienware, which was once regarded as selling ridiculously overpriced gaming PCs to people who wouldn’t build their own. Building your own PC still allows you to get the most freedom when choosing and combining components, but this is only valuable to a small niche of gamers and professional users — most people, even average gamers, would be fine going with a prebuilt system. If you’re an average person or even an average gamer, you’ll likely find that it’s cheaper to purchase a prebuilt PC rather than assemble your own. Even at the very high end, components may be more expensive separately than they are in a prebuilt PC. Enthusiasts who want to choose all the individual components for their dream gaming PC and want maximum flexibility may want to build their own PCs. Even then, building your own PC these days is more about flexibility and component choice than it is about saving money. In summary, you probably shouldn’t build your own PC. If you’re an enthusiast, you may want to — but only a small minority of people would actually benefit from building their own systems. Feel free to compare prices, but you may be surprised which is cheaper. Image Credit: Richard Jones on Flickr, elPadawan on Flickr, Richard Jones on Flickr     

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• unexplainable packet drops with 5 ethernet NICs and low traffic on Ubuntu

  - by jon

  I'm stuck on problem where my machine started to drops packets with no sign of ANY system load or high interrupt usage after an upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04. My server is a network monitoring sensor, running Ubuntu LTS 12.04, it passively collects packets from 5 interfaces doing network intrusion type stuff. Before the upgrade I managed to collect 200+GB of packets a day while writing them to disk with around 0% packet loss depending on the day with the help of CPU affinity and NIC IRQ to CPU bindings. Now I lose a great deal of packets with none of my applications running and at very low PPS rate which a modern workstation NIC would have no trouble with. Specs: x64 Xeon 4 cores 3.2 Ghz 16 GB RAM NICs: 5 Intel Pro NICs using the e1000 driver (NAPI). [1] eth0 and eth1 are integrated NICs (in the motherboard) There are 2 other PCI-X network cards, each with 2 Ethernet ports. 3 of the interfaces are running at Gigabit Ethernet, the others are not because they're attached to hubs. Specs: [2] http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe2850/en/ug/t1390aa.htm uptime 17:36:00 up 1:43, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 # uname -a Linux nms 3.2.0-29-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 27 17:03:23 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux I also have the CPU governor set to performance mode and irqbalance off. The problem still occurs with them on. # lspci -t -vv -[0000:00]-+-00.0 Intel Corporation E7520 Memory Controller Hub +-02.0-[01-03]--+-00.0-[02]----0e.0 Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID controller 4 | \-00.2-[03]-- +-04.0-[04]-- +-05.0-[05-07]--+-00.0-[06]----07.0 Intel Corporation 82541GI Gigabit Ethernet Controller | \-00.2-[07]----08.0 Intel Corporation 82541GI Gigabit Ethernet Controller +-06.0-[08-0a]--+-00.0-[09]--+-04.0 Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) | | \-04.1 Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) | \-00.2-[0a]--+-02.0 Digium, Inc. Wildcard TE210P/TE212P dual-span T1/E1/J1 card 3.3V | +-03.0 Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) | \-03.1 Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) +-1d.0 Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 +-1d.1 Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 +-1d.2 Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 +-1d.7 Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller +-1e.0-[0b]----0d.0 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE] +-1f.0 Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge \-1f.1 Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller I believe the NIC nor the NIC drivers are dropping the packets because ethtool reports 0 under rx_missed_errors and rx_no_buffer_count for each interface. On the old system, if it couldn't keep up this is where the drops would be. I drop packets on multiple interfaces just about every second, usually in small increments of 2-4. I tried all these sysctl values, I'm currently using the uncommented ones. # cat /etc/sysctl.conf # high net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 3000000 net.core.rmem_max = 16000000 net.core.rmem_default = 8000000 # defaults #net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 1000 #net.core.rmem_max = 131071 #net.core.rmem_default = 163480 # moderate #net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 10000 #net.core.rmem_max = 33554432 #net.core.rmem_default = 33554432 Here's an example of an interface stats report with ethtool. They are all the same, nothing is out of the ordinary ( I think ), so I'm only going to show one: ethtool -S eth2 NIC statistics: rx_packets: 7498 tx_packets: 0 rx_bytes: 2722585 tx_bytes: 0 rx_broadcast: 327 tx_broadcast: 0 rx_multicast: 1504 tx_multicast: 0 rx_errors: 0 tx_errors: 0 tx_dropped: 0 multicast: 1504 collisions: 0 rx_length_errors: 0 rx_over_errors: 0 rx_crc_errors: 0 rx_frame_errors: 0 rx_no_buffer_count: 0 rx_missed_errors: 0 tx_aborted_errors: 0 tx_carrier_errors: 0 tx_fifo_errors: 0 tx_heartbeat_errors: 0 tx_window_errors: 0 tx_abort_late_coll: 0 tx_deferred_ok: 0 tx_single_coll_ok: 0 tx_multi_coll_ok: 0 tx_timeout_count: 0 tx_restart_queue: 0 rx_long_length_errors: 0 rx_short_length_errors: 0 rx_align_errors: 0 tx_tcp_seg_good: 0 tx_tcp_seg_failed: 0 rx_flow_control_xon: 0 rx_flow_control_xoff: 0 tx_flow_control_xon: 0 tx_flow_control_xoff: 0 rx_long_byte_count: 2722585 rx_csum_offload_good: 0 rx_csum_offload_errors: 0 alloc_rx_buff_failed: 0 tx_smbus: 0 rx_smbus: 0 dropped_smbus: 01 # ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:43:e0:e2:8c UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP PROMISC ALLMULTI MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:373348 errors:16 dropped:95 overruns:0 frame:16 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:356830572 (356.8 MB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:43:e0:e2:8d UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP PROMISC ALLMULTI MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:13616 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:8690528 (8.6 MB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) eth2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:04:23:e1:77:6a UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP PROMISC ALLMULTI MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:7750 errors:0 dropped:471 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:2780935 (2.7 MB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) eth3 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:04:23:e1:77:6b UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP PROMISC ALLMULTI MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:5112 errors:0 dropped:206 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:639472 (639.4 KB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) eth4 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:04:23:b6:35:6c UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP PROMISC ALLMULTI MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:961467 errors:0 dropped:935 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:958561305 (958.5 MB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) eth5 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:04:23:b6:35:6d inet addr:192.168.1.6 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:4264 errors:0 dropped:16 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:699 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:572228 (572.2 KB) TX bytes:124456 (124.4 KB) I tried the defaults, then started to play around with settings. I wasn't using any flow control and I increased the RxDescriptor count to 4096 before the upgrade as well without any problems. # cat /etc/modprobe.d/e1000.conf options e1000 XsumRX=0,0,0,0,0 RxDescriptors=4096,4096,4096,4096,4096 FlowControl=0,0,0,0,0 debug=16 Here's my network configuration file, I turned off checksumming and various offloading mechanisms along with setting CPU affinity with heavy use interfaces getting an entire CPU and light use interfaces sharing a CPU. I used these settings prior to the upgrade without problems. # cat /etc/network/interfaces # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary network interface auto eth0 iface eth0 inet manual pre-up /sbin/ethtool -G eth0 rx 4096 tx 0 pre-up /sbin/ethtool -K eth0 gro off gso off rx off pre-up /sbin/ethtool -A eth0 rx off autoneg off up ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 -arp promisc mtu 1500 allmulti txqueuelen 0 up post-up echo "4" > /proc/irq/48/smp_affinity down ifconfig eth0 down post-down /sbin/ethtool -G eth0 rx 256 tx 256 post-down /sbin/ethtool -K eth0 gro on gso on rx on post-down /sbin/ethtool -A eth0 rx on autoneg on auto eth1 iface eth1 inet manual pre-up /sbin/ethtool -G eth1 rx 4096 tx 0 pre-up /sbin/ethtool -K eth1 gro off gso off rx off pre-up /sbin/ethtool -A eth1 rx off autoneg off up ifconfig eth1 0.0.0.0 -arp promisc mtu 1500 allmulti txqueuelen 0 up post-up echo "4" > /proc/irq/49/smp_affinity down ifconfig eth1 down post-down /sbin/ethtool -G eth1 rx 256 tx 256 post-down /sbin/ethtool -K eth1 gro on gso on rx on post-down /sbin/ethtool -A eth1 rx on autoneg on auto eth2 iface eth2 inet manual pre-up /sbin/ethtool -G eth2 rx 4096 tx 0 pre-up /sbin/ethtool -K eth2 gro off gso off rx off pre-up /sbin/ethtool -A eth2 rx off autoneg off up ifconfig eth2 0.0.0.0 -arp promisc mtu 1500 allmulti txqueuelen 0 up post-up echo "1" > /proc/irq/82/smp_affinity down ifconfig eth2 down post-down /sbin/ethtool -G eth2 rx 256 tx 256 post-down /sbin/ethtool -K eth2 gro on gso on rx on post-down /sbin/ethtool -A eth2 rx on autoneg on auto eth3 iface eth3 inet manual pre-up /sbin/ethtool -G eth3 rx 4096 tx 0 pre-up /sbin/ethtool -K eth3 gro off gso off rx off pre-up /sbin/ethtool -A eth3 rx off autoneg off up ifconfig eth3 0.0.0.0 -arp promisc mtu 1500 allmulti txqueuelen 0 up post-up echo "2" > /proc/irq/83/smp_affinity down ifconfig eth3 down post-down /sbin/ethtool -G eth3 rx 256 tx 256 post-down /sbin/ethtool -K eth3 gro on gso on rx on post-down /sbin/ethtool -A eth3 rx on autoneg on auto eth4 iface eth4 inet manual pre-up /sbin/ethtool -G eth4 rx 4096 tx 0 pre-up /sbin/ethtool -K eth4 gro off gso off rx off pre-up /sbin/ethtool -A eth4 rx off autoneg off up ifconfig eth4 0.0.0.0 -arp promisc mtu 1500 allmulti txqueuelen 0 up post-up echo "4" > /proc/irq/77/smp_affinity down ifconfig eth4 down post-down /sbin/ethtool -G eth4 rx 256 tx 256 post-down /sbin/ethtool -K eth4 gro on gso on rx on post-down /sbin/ethtool -A eth4 rx on autoneg on auto eth5 iface eth5 inet static pre-up /etc/fw.conf address 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 gateway 192.168.1.1 dns-nameservers 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.3 up ifconfig eth5 up post-up echo "8" > /proc/irq/77/smp_affinity down ifconfig eth5 down Here's a few examples of packet drops, i ran one after another, probabling totaling 3 or 4 seconds. You can see increases in the drops from the 1st and 3rd. This was a non-busy time, very little traffic. # awk '{ print $1,$5 }' /proc/net/dev Inter-| face drop eth3: 225 lo: 0 eth2: 505 eth1: 0 eth5: 17 eth0: 105 eth4: 1034 # awk '{ print $1,$5 }' /proc/net/dev Inter-| face drop eth3: 225 lo: 0 eth2: 507 eth1: 0 eth5: 17 eth0: 105 eth4: 1034 # awk '{ print $1,$5 }' /proc/net/dev Inter-| face drop eth3: 227 lo: 0 eth2: 512 eth1: 0 eth5: 17 eth0: 105 eth4: 1039 I tried the pci=noacpi options. With and without, it's the same. This is what my interrupt stats looked like before the upgrade, after, with ACPI on PCI it showed multiple NICs bound to an interrupt and shared with other devices such as USB drives which I didn't like so I think i'm going to keep it with ACPI off as it's easier to designate sole purpose interrupts. Is there any advantage I would have using the default i.e. ACPI w/ PCI. ? # cat /etc/default/grub | grep CMD_LINE GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="ipv6.disable=1 noacpi pci=noacpi" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # cat /proc/interrupts CPU0 CPU1 CPU2 CPU3 0: 45 0 0 16 IO-APIC-edge timer 1: 1 0 0 7936 IO-APIC-edge i8042 2: 0 0 0 0 XT-PIC-XT-PIC cascade 6: 0 0 0 3 IO-APIC-edge floppy 8: 0 0 0 1 IO-APIC-edge rtc0 9: 0 0 0 0 IO-APIC-edge acpi 12: 0 0 0 1809 IO-APIC-edge i8042 14: 1 0 0 4498 IO-APIC-edge ata_piix 15: 0 0 0 0 IO-APIC-edge ata_piix 16: 0 0 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb2 18: 0 0 0 1350 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb4, radeon 19: 0 0 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb3 23: 0 0 0 4099 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb1 38: 0 0 0 61963 IO-APIC-fasteoi megaraid 48: 0 0 1002319 4 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth0 49: 0 0 38772 3 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth1 77: 0 0 130076 432159 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth4 78: 0 0 0 23917 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth5 82: 1329033 0 0 4 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth2 83: 0 4886525 0 6 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth3 NMI: 5 6 4 5 Non-maskable interrupts LOC: 61409 57076 64257 114764 Local timer interrupts SPU: 0 0 0 0 Spurious interrupts IWI: 0 0 0 0 IRQ work interrupts RES: 17956 25333 13436 14789 Rescheduling interrupts CAL: 22436 607 539 478 Function call interrupts TLB: 1525 1458 4600 4151 TLB shootdowns TRM: 0 0 0 0 Thermal event interrupts THR: 0 0 0 0 Threshold APIC interrupts MCE: 0 0 0 0 Machine check exceptions MCP: 16 16 16 16 Machine check polls ERR: 0 MIS: 0 Here's sample output of vmstat, showing the system. Barebones system right now. root@nms:~# vmstat -S m 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 0 0 0 14992 192 1029 0 0 56 2 419 29 1 0 99 0 0 0 0 14992 192 1029 0 0 0 0 922 27 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 14991 192 1029 0 0 0 36 763 50 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 14991 192 1029 0 0 0 0 646 35 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 14991 192 1029 0 0 0 0 722 54 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 14991 192 1029 0 0 0 0 793 27 0 0 100 0 ^C Here's dmesg output. I can't figure out why my PCI-X slots are negotiated as PCI. The network cards are all PCI-X with the exception of the integrated NICs that came with the server. In the output below it looks as if eth3 and eth2 negotiated at PCI-X speeds rather than PCI:66Mhz. Wouldn't they all drop to PCI:66Mhz? If your integrated NICs are PCI, as labeled below (eth0,eth1), then wouldn't all devices on your bus speed drop down to that slower bus speed? If not, I still don't know why only one of my NICs ( each has two ethernet ports) is labeled as PCI-X in the output below. Does that mean it is running at PCI-X speeds are is it showing that it's capable? # dmesg | grep e1000 [ 3678.349337] e1000: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.3.21-k8-NAPI [ 3678.349342] e1000: Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation. [ 3678.349394] e1000 0000:06:07.0: PCI->APIC IRQ transform: INT A -> IRQ 48 [ 3678.409725] e1000 0000:06:07.0: Receive Descriptors set to 4096 [ 3678.409730] e1000 0000:06:07.0: Checksum Offload Disabled [ 3678.409734] e1000 0000:06:07.0: Flow Control Disabled [ 3678.586409] e1000 0000:06:07.0: eth0: (PCI:66MHz:32-bit) 00:11:43:e0:e2:8c [ 3678.586419] e1000 0000:06:07.0: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 3678.586642] e1000 0000:07:08.0: PCI->APIC IRQ transform: INT A -> IRQ 49 [ 3678.649854] e1000 0000:07:08.0: Receive Descriptors set to 4096 [ 3678.649859] e1000 0000:07:08.0: Checksum Offload Disabled [ 3678.649863] e1000 0000:07:08.0: Flow Control Disabled [ 3678.826436] e1000 0000:07:08.0: eth1: (PCI:66MHz:32-bit) 00:11:43:e0:e2:8d [ 3678.826444] e1000 0000:07:08.0: eth1: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 3678.826627] e1000 0000:09:04.0: PCI->APIC IRQ transform: INT A -> IRQ 82 [ 3679.093266] e1000 0000:09:04.0: Receive Descriptors set to 4096 [ 3679.093271] e1000 0000:09:04.0: Checksum Offload Disabled [ 3679.093275] e1000 0000:09:04.0: Flow Control Disabled [ 3679.130239] e1000 0000:09:04.0: eth2: (PCI-X:133MHz:64-bit) 00:04:23:e1:77:6a [ 3679.130246] e1000 0000:09:04.0: eth2: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 3679.130449] e1000 0000:09:04.1: PCI->APIC IRQ transform: INT B -> IRQ 83 [ 3679.397312] e1000 0000:09:04.1: Receive Descriptors set to 4096 [ 3679.397318] e1000 0000:09:04.1: Checksum Offload Disabled [ 3679.397321] e1000 0000:09:04.1: Flow Control Disabled [ 3679.434350] e1000 0000:09:04.1: eth3: (PCI-X:133MHz:64-bit) 00:04:23:e1:77:6b [ 3679.434360] e1000 0000:09:04.1: eth3: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 3679.434553] e1000 0000:0a:03.0: PCI->APIC IRQ transform: INT A -> IRQ 77 [ 3679.704072] e1000 0000:0a:03.0: Receive Descriptors set to 4096 [ 3679.704077] e1000 0000:0a:03.0: Checksum Offload Disabled [ 3679.704081] e1000 0000:0a:03.0: Flow Control Disabled [ 3679.738364] e1000 0000:0a:03.0: eth4: (PCI:33MHz:64-bit) 00:04:23:b6:35:6c [ 3679.738371] e1000 0000:0a:03.0: eth4: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 3679.738538] e1000 0000:0a:03.1: PCI->APIC IRQ transform: INT B -> IRQ 78 [ 3680.046060] e1000 0000:0a:03.1: eth5: (PCI:33MHz:64-bit) 00:04:23:b6:35:6d [ 3680.046067] e1000 0000:0a:03.1: eth5: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 3682.132415] e1000: eth0 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Half Duplex, Flow Control: None [ 3682.224423] e1000: eth1 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Half Duplex, Flow Control: None [ 3682.316385] e1000: eth2 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Half Duplex, Flow Control: None [ 3682.408391] e1000: eth3 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None [ 3682.500396] e1000: eth4 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None [ 3682.708401] e1000: eth5 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX At first I thought it was the NIC drivers but I'm not so sure. I really have no idea where else to look at the moment. Any help is greatly appreciated as I'm struggling with this. If you need more information just ask. Thanks! [1]http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~baker/devices/lxr/http/source/linux/Documentation/networking/e1000.txt?v=2.6.11.8 [2] http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe2850/en/ug/t1390aa.htm

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• Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Batman

  - by Pinal Dave

  Batman is one of the darkest superheroes in the fantasy canon.  He does not come to his powers through any sort of magical coincidence or radioactive insect, but through a lot of psychological scarring caused by witnessing the death of his parents.  Despite his dark back story, he possesses a lot of admirable abilities that I feel bear comparison to developers. Batman has the distinct advantage that his alter ego, Bruce Wayne is a millionaire (or billionaire in today’s reboots).  This means that he can spend his time working on his athletic abilities, building a secret lair, and investing his money in cool tools.  This might not be true for developers (well, most developers), but I still think there are many parallels. So how are developers like Batman? Well, read on my list of reasons. Develop Skills Batman works on his skills.  He didn’t get the strength to scale Gotham’s skyscrapers by inheriting his powers or suffering an industrial accident.  Developers also hone their skills daily.  They might not be doing pull-ups and scaling buldings, but I think their skills are just as impressive. Clear Goals Batman is driven to build a better Gotham.  He knows that the criminal who killed his parents was a small-time thief, not a super villain – so he has larger goals in mind than simply chasing one villain.  He wants his city as a whole to be better.  Developers are also driven to make things better.  It can be easy to get hung up on one problem, but in the end it is best to focus on the well-being of the system as a whole. Ultimate Teamplayers Batman is the hero Gotham needs – even when that means appearing to be the bad guys.  Developers probably know that feeling well.  Batman takes the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, and developers often have to deliver bad news about the limitations of their networks and servers.  It’s not always a job filled with glory and thanks, but someone has to do it. Always Ready Batman and the Boy Scouts have this in common – they are always prepared.  Let’s add developers to this list.  Batman has an amazing tool belt with gadgets and gizmos, and let’s not even get into all the functions of the Batmobile!  Developers’ skills might be the knowledge and skills they have developed, not tools they can carry in a utility belt, but that doesn’t make them any less impressive. 100% Dedication Bruce Wayne cultivates the personality of a playboy, never keeping the same girlfriend for long and spending his time partying.  Even though he hides it, his driving force is his deep concern and love for his friends and the city as a whole.  Developers also care a lot about their company and employees – even when it is driving them crazy.  You do your best work when you care about your job on a personal level. Quality Output Batman believes the city deserves to be saved.  The citizens might have a love-hate relationship with both Batman and Bruce Wayne, and employees might not always appreciate developers.  Batman and developers, though, keep working for the best of everyone. I hope you are all enjoying reading about developers-as-superheroes as much as I am enjoying writing about them.  Please tell me how else developers are like Superheroes in the comments – especially if you know any developers who are faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Developer, Superhero

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• Airtel 3G in Chennai – User experience, Price & What’s the catch?

  - by Boonei

  Finally ! Here we are with Airtel 3G in India. Now Airtel customers can have a go at real 3G speed. Sources suggest that the delay in rolling out 3G was due to hardware problems. It was provided by Ericsson. Now first things first. Let me get to the point. I had subscribed to Airtel’s 3G pack Rs.100 for 100 MB. This is to check out how good it is, did not want to pay a hefty sum at the first instance. It was pretty smooth upgrading.. After the upgrade I did see the much awaited 3G signal bar on my phone. Ok! now its testing time. User experience First I did a bit of browsing, boy ! it was pretty quick, web pages loaded in a jiffy. I really did not time it because it loaded really quick. I loaded a YouTube Video, no buffering, watched the 4 min Video with no problems, it took around 6 MB of data usage Made a Skype call for about 6 min, voice clarity was really good and data usage was around 4-5 MB Tried Google Maps everything was so fast could not see the difference between computer and my phone, used it for about couple of minutes. Did listen to an Online Radio for about 5 min took about 8 MB of data usage Guess there is no need to say about Facebook or Twitter. It was good obviously. Video Call – Not yet tested Price – Do you get what you pay for ? 3G speed is fantastic, you have to really feel it to enjoy it. But currently in Airtel, 3G is available only in 3 places wiz. Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore. ok ! Its not even there in all the metros? hmmm. 3G signal was not available in all parts of Chennai, often in many places it changed to 2G. Let alone all the places, even in my house when walking from one room to another sometimes its shows 2G. When it chaged from 3G to 2G there was lag in the application when it was loading data which often made me wonder if the application hanged. Currently prices not low. 2G plans in Airtel is Rs.98 for 2GB and for Rs.100 its only 100MB in 3G. Now you decide please, it’s quite a debate. The Catch – There is always a catch right ? If you have bought 3G connection and in places where 3G is not available (2G) and use any application that requires data connections (youtube, browse, chat etc) its changed with 3G!. Meaning if you have bought 100MB of 3G by paying Rs.100 like I did, suppose you used the connection for about 10MB using 2G, then it would reduce from the 100MB to 90 MB….That’s bad ! You cannot have 2G and 3G plans activated at the same point of time in your phone. You will pay 3G price for using 2G. This article titled,Airtel 3G in Chennai – User experience, Price & What’s the catch?, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Building a Mafia&hellip;TechFest Style

  - by David Hoerster

  It’s been a few months since I last blogged (not that I blog much to begin with), but things have been busy.  We all have a lot going on in our lives, but I’ve had one item that has taken up a surprising amount of time – Pittsburgh TechFest 2012.  After the event, I went through some minutes of the first meetings for TechFest, and I started to think about how it all came together.  I think what inspired me the most about TechFest was how people from various technical communities were able to come together and build and promote a common event.  As a result, I wanted to blog about this to show that people from different communities can work together to build something that benefits all communities.  (Hopefully I've got all my facts straight.)  TechFest started as an idea Eric Kepes and myself had when we were planning our next Pittsburgh Code Camp, probably in the summer of 2011.  Our Spring 2011 Code Camp was a little different because we had a great infusion of some folks from the Pittsburgh Agile group (especially with a few speakers from LeanDog).  The line-up was great, but we felt our audience wasn’t as broad as it should have been.  We thought it would be great to somehow attract other user groups around town and have a big, polyglot conference. We started contacting leaders from Pittsburgh’s various user groups.  Eric and I split up the ones that we knew about, and we just started making contacts.  Most of the people we started contacting never heard of us, nor we them.  But we all had one thing in common – we ran user groups who’s primary goal is educating our members to make them better at what they do. Amazingly, and I say this because I wasn’t sure what to expect, we started getting some interest from the various leaders.  One leader, Greg Akins, is, in my opinion, Pittsburgh’s poster boy for the polyglot programmer.  He’s helped us in the past with .NET Code Camps, is a Java developer (and leader in Pittsburgh’s Java User Group), works with Ruby and I’m sure a handful of other languages.  He helped make some e-introductions to other user group leaders, and the whole thing just started to snowball. Once we realized we had enough interest with the user group leaders, we decided to not have a Fall Code Camp and instead focus on this new entity. Flash-forward to October of 2011.  I set up a meeting, with the help of Jeremy Jarrell (Pittsburgh Agile leader) to hold a meeting with the leaders of many of Pittsburgh technical user groups.  We had representatives from 12 technical user groups (Python, JavaScript, Clojure, Ruby, PittAgile, jQuery, PHP, Perl, SQL, .NET, Java and PowerShell) – 14 people.  We likened it to a scene from a Godfather movie where the heads of all the families come together to make some deal.  As a result, the name “TechFest Mafia” was born and kind of stuck. Over the next 7 months or so, we had our starts and stops.  There were moments where I thought this event would not happen either because we wouldn’t have the right mix of topics (was I off there!), or enough people register (OK, I was wrong there, too!) or find an appropriate venue (hmm…wrong there, too) or find enough sponsors to help support the event (wow…not doing so well).  Overall, everything fell into place with a lot of hard work from Eric, Jen, Greg, Jeremy, Sean, Nicholas, Gina and probably a few others that I’m forgetting.  We also had a bit of luck, too.  But in the end, the passion that we had to put together an event that was really about making ourselves better at what we do really paid off. I’ve never been more excited about a project coming together than I have been with Pittsburgh TechFest 2012.  From the moment the first person arrived at the event to the final minutes of my closing remarks (where I almost lost my voice – I ended up being diagnosed with bronchitis the next day!), it was an awesome event.  I’m glad to have been part of bringing something like this to Pittsburgh…and I’m looking forward to Pittsburgh TechFest 2013.  See you there!

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• What Counts For a DBA: Imagination

  - by drsql

  "Imagination…One little spark, of inspiration… is at the heart, of all creation." – From the song "One Little Spark", by the Sherman Brothers I have a confession to make. Despite my great enthusiasm for databases and programming, it occurs to me that every database system I've ever worked on has been, in terms of its inputs and outputs, downright dull. Most have been glorified e-spreadsheets, many replacing manual systems built on actual spreadsheets. I've created a lot of database-driven software whose main job was to "count stuff"; phone calls, web visitors, payments, donations, pieces of equipment and so on. Sometimes, instead of counting stuff, the database recorded values from other stuff, such as data from sensors or networking devices. Yee hah! So how do we, as DBAs, maintain high standards and high spirits when we realize that so much of our work would fail to raise the pulse of even the most easily excitable soul? The answer lies in our imagination. To understand what I mean by this, consider a role that, in terms of its output, offers an extreme counterpoint to that of the DBA: the Disney Imagineer. Their job is to design Disney's Theme Parks, of which I'm a huge fan. To me this has always seemed like a fascinating and exciting job. What must an Imagineer do, every day, to inspire the feats of creativity that are so clearly evident in those spectacular rides and shows? Here, if ever there was one, is a role where "dull moments" must be rare indeed, surely? I wanted to find out, and so parted with a considerable sum of money for my wife and I to have lunch with one; I reasoned that if I found one small way to apply their secrets to my own career, it would be money well spent. Early in the conversation with our Imagineer (Cindy Cote), the job did indeed sound magical. However, as talk turned to management meetings, budget-wrangling and insane deadlines, I came to the strange realization that, in fact, her job was a lot more like mine than I would ever have guessed. Much like databases, all those spectacular Disney rides bring with them a vast array of complex plumbing, lighting, safety features, and all manner of other "boring bits", kept well out of sight of the end user, but vital for creating the desired experience; and, of course, it is these "boring bits" that take up much of the Imagineer's time. Naturally, there is still a vital part of their job that is spent testing out new ideas, putting themselves in the place of a park visitor, from a 9-year-old boy to a 90-year-old grandmother, and trying to imagine what experiences they'd like to have. It is these small, but vital, sparks of imagination and creativity that have the biggest impact. The real feat of a successful Imagineer is clearly to never to lose sight of this fact, in among all the rote tasks. It is the same for a DBA. Not matter how seemingly dull is the task at hand, try to put yourself in the shoes of the end user, and imagine how your input will affect the experience he or she will have with the database you're building, and how that may affect the world beyond the bits stored in your database. Then, despite the inevitable rush to be "done", find time to go the extra mile and hone the design so that it delivers something as close to that imagined experience as you can get. OK, our output still can't and won't reach the same spectacular heights as the "Journey into The Imagination" ride at EPCOT Theme Park in Orlando, where I first heard "One Little Spark". However, our imaginative sparks and efforts can, and will, make a difference to the user who now feels slightly more at home with a database application, or to the manager holding a report presented with enough clarity to drive an interesting decision or two. They are small victories, but worth having, and appreciated, or at least that's how I imagine it.

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• Kill all the project files!

  - by jamiet

  Like many folks I’m a keen podcast listener and yesterday my commute was filled by listening to Scott Hunter being interviewed on .Net Rocks about the next version of ASP.Net. One thing Scott said really struck a chord with me. I don’t remember the full quote but he was talking about how the ASP.Net project file (i.e. the .csproj file) is going away. The rationale being that the main purpose of that file is to list all the other files in the project, and that’s something that the file system is pretty good at. In Scott’s own words (that someone helpfully put in the comments): A file that lists files is really redundant when the OS already does this Romeliz Valenciano correctly pointed out on Twitter that there will still be a project.json file however no longer will there be a need to keep a list of files in a project file. I suspect project.json will simply contain a list of exclusions where necessary rather than the current approach where the project file is a list of inclusions. On the face of it this seems like a pretty good idea. I’ve long been a fan of convention over configuration and this is a great example of that. Instead of listing all the files in a separate file, just treat all the files in the directory as being part of the project. Ostensibly the approach is if its in the directory, its part of the project. Simple. Now I’m not an ASP.net developer, far from it, but it did occur to me that the same approach could be applied to the two Visual Studio project types that I am most familiar with, SSIS & SSDT. Like many people I’ve long been irritated by SSIS projects that display a faux file system inside Solution Explorer. As you can see in the screenshot below the project has Miscellaneous and Connection Managers folders but no such folders exist on the file system: This may seem like a minor thing but it means useful Solution Explorer features like Show All Files and Open Folder in Windows Explorer don’t work and quite frankly it makes me feel like a second class citizen in the Microsoft ecosystem. I’m a developer, treat me like one. Don’t try and hide the detail of how a project works under the covers, show it to me. I’m a big boy, I can handle it! Would it not be preferable to simply treat all the .dtsx files in a directory as being part of a project? I think it would, that’s pretty much all the .dtproj file does anyway (that, and present things in a non-alphabetic order – something else that wildly irritates me), so why not just get rid of the .dtproj file? In the case of SSDT the .sqlproj actually does a whole lot more than simply list files because it also states the BuildAction of each file (Build, NotInBuild, Post-Deployment, etc…) but I see no reason why the convention over configuration approach can’t help us there either. Want to know which is the Post-deployment script? Well, its the one called Post-DeploymentScript.sql! Simple! So that’s my new crusade. Let’s kill all the project files (well, the .dtproj & .sqlproj ones anyway). Are you with me? @Jamiet

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• Personal Financial Management – The need for resuscitation

  - by Salil Ravindran

  Until a year or so ago, PFM (Personal Financial Management) was the blue eyed boy of every channel banking head. In an age when bank account portability is still fiction, PFM was expected to incentivise customers to switch banks. It still is, in some emerging economies, but if the state of PFM in matured markets is anything to go by, it is in a state of coma and badly requires resuscitation. Studies conducted around the year show an alarming decline and stagnation in PFM usage in mature markets. A Sept 2012 report by Aite Group – Strategies for PFM Success shows that 72% of users hadn’t used PFM and worse, 58% of them were not kicked about using it. Of the rest who had used it, only half did on a bank site. While there are multiple reasons for this lack of adoption, some are glaringly obvious. While pretty graphs and pie charts are important to provide a visual representation of my income and expense, it is simply not enough to encourage me to return. Static representation of data without any insightful analysis does not help me. Budgeting and Cash Flow is important but when I have an operative account, a couple of savings accounts, a mortgage loan and a couple of credit cards help me with what my affordability is in specific contexts rather than telling me I just busted my budget. Help me with relative importance of each budget category so that I know it is fine to go over budget on books for my daughter as against going over budget on eating out. Budget over runs and spend analysis are post facto and I am informed of my sins only when I return to online banking. That too, only if I decide to come to the PFM area. Fundamentally, PFM should be a part of my banking engagement rather than an analysis tool. It should be contextual so that I can make insight based decisions. So what can be done to resuscitate PFM? Amalgamation with banking activities – In most cases, PFM tools are integrated into online banking pages and they are like chapter 37 of a long story. PFM needs to be a way of banking rather than a tool. Available balances should shift to Spendable Balances. Budget and goal related insights should be integrated with transaction sessions to drive pre-event financial decisions. Personal Financial Guidance - Banks need to think ground level and see if their PFM offering is really helping customers achieve self actualisation. Banks need to recognise that most customers out there are non-proficient about making the best value of their money. Customers return when they know that they are being guided rather than being just informed on their finance. Integrating contextual financial offers and financial planning into PFM is one way ahead. Yet another way is to help customers tag unwanted spending thereby encouraging sound savings habits. Mobile PFM – Most banks have left all those numbers on online banking. With access mostly having moved to devices and the success of apps, moving PFM on to devices will give it a much needed shot in the arm. This is not only about presenting the same wine in a new bottle but also about leveraging the power of the device in pushing real time notifications to make pre-purchase decisions. The pursuit should be to analyse spend, budgets and financial goals real time and push them pre-event on to the device. So next time, I should know that I have over run my eating out budget before walking into that burger joint and not after. Increase participation and collaboration – Peer group experiences and comments are valued above those offered by the bank. Integrating social media into PFM engagement will let customers share and solicit their financial management experiences with their peer group. Peer comparisons help benchmark one’s savings and spending habits with those of the peer group and increases stickiness. While mature markets have gone through this learning in some way over the last one year, banks in maturing digital banking economies increasingly seem to be falling into this trap. Best practices lie in profiling and segmenting customers, being where they are and contextually guiding them to identify and achieve their financial goals. Banks could look at the likes of Simple and Movenbank to draw inpiration from.

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• Passed: Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3

  First off: Mission accomplished successfully. And it was fun! Using the resources listed in my previous article about Learning Content, I'd like to thank Microsoft Technical Evangelists Jeremy Foster and Michael Palermo for their excellent jump start videos on Channel 9, and the various authors at Pluralsight. Local Prometric testing centre Back in November I chose a local testing centre which was the easiest to access from my office despite the horrible traffic you might experience here on the island. Actually, it was not the closest one. But due to their website, their awards as Microsoft Learning Center, and my general curiosity about the premises, I gave FRCI my priority. Boy, how should I regret this decision this morning... The official Prometric exam guide asks any attendee to show up at least 30 minutes prior to the scheduled time of the test. Well, this should have been the easier part but unfortunately due to heavier traffic than usual I arrived only 20 minutes before time. Not too bad but more to come. The building called 'le Hub' is nicely renovated and provides the right environment for an IT group of companies like FRCI. I think they have currently 5 independent IT departments over there. Even the handling at the reception was straight forward, welcoming and at my ease. But then... first shock: "We don't have any exam registration for today." - Hm, that's nice... Here's my mail confirmation from Prometric. First attack successfully handled and the lady went off again to check their records. Next shock: A couple of minutes later, another guy tries to explain me that "the staff of the testing centre is already on vacation and the centre is officially closed." - Are you kidding me? Here's the official confirmation by Prometric, and I don't find it funny that I take a day off today only to hear this kind of blubbering nonsense. I thought that I'll be on the safe side choosing a company with a good reputation here on the island. Another 40 (!) minutes later, they finally come back to the waiting area with a pre-filled form about the test appointment. And finally, after an hour of waiting, discussing, restarting the testing PC, and lots of talk, I am allowed to sit down and take the exam. Exam details Well, you know the rules. Signing an NDA doesn't allow me to provide you any details about the questions or topics that have been covered. Please check out the official exam description, and you're on the right way. Sorry, guys... ;-) The result "Congratulations! You have passed this Microsoft Certification exam." - In general, I have to admit that the parts on HTML5 and CSS3 were the easiest after all, and that I have to get myself a little bit more familiar with certain Javascript features like class definitions, inheritance and data security. Anyway, exam passed - who cares about the details? Next goal Of course, the journey to Microsoft Certifications continues and my next goal is to pass exams 70-481 - Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and 70-482 - Advanced Windows Store App Development using HTML5 and JavaScript. This would allow me to achieve the certification of MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5. I guess, during 2013 I'll be busy with various learning and teaching lessons.

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• Make the Time

  - by WonderOfItAll

  Took the little one to the pool tonight for swim lessons. Okay, Okay. They're not really lessons so much as they are "Hey, here's a few bucks, let me rent out a small section of your pool to swim around with my little one" Saw a dad at the pool. Bluetooth on, iPad in hand, and two year old somewhere around there. Saw a mom at the pool. Arguing with her five year old to NOT take a shower after swimming. Bluetooth on, iPad in hand, work laptop open on stadium seats. Her reasoning for not wanting the child to shower "Look, I have to get this stuff to the office by 6:30, we don't have time for you to shower. Let's go" Wait, isn't the whole point of this little experience called Mommy and Me (or, as in my case, Daddy and Me). Wherein Mommy/Daddy is supposed to spend time with little one. Not with the Bluetooth. Not with the work laptop. Dad (yeah, the same dad from earlier), in the pool. Bluetooth off (it's not waterproof or I'm sure he would've had it on), two year old in hand and iPad somewhere put away. Getting frustrated with kid because he won't 'perform' on command. Here's a little exchange Kid: "I don't wanna get in the water" Dad: "Well, we're here for 30 minutes, get in the water" Kid: "No, don't wanna" Dad: "Fine, I'm getting in" and, true to his word, in he goes, off to swim. Kid: Crying Dad: "Well, c'mon" Kid: Walking to stands Dad: Ignoring kid Kid: At stands Dad: Out of pool, drying off. Frustrated. Grabs bag, grabs kid, leaves How sad. It really seems like I am living in a generation of parents who view their children as one big scheduled distraction to another. It's almost like the dad was saying "Look, little 2 year old boy, I have a busy scheduled. Right now my Outlook Calendar tells me that I have 30 mins to spend with you, so, let's go kid: PERFORM because I have the time" Really? Can someone please tell me when the hell this happened? When did spending time with your kid, spending time with your family, spending time with your spouse, etc... become a distraction? I've seen people at work all day Tweeting throughout the day, checked in with Four Square, IM up and running constantly so they can 'stay in touch' only to see these same folks come home and be irritated because their kids or their spouse wants to connect with the. I've seen these very same people leave the house, go to the corner bar/store/you-name-the-place to be 'alone' only to find them there, plugged in, tweeting away, etc, etc, etc I LOVE technology. I love working with technology. But I also know that I am a human being. A person who, by very definition, is a social being. I needed social interactions and contact--and, no, I'm not talking about the Social Graph kind of connections, I'm talking about those interactions which, *GASP* involve eye to eye contact and human contact. A recent study found that the number one complaint of kids is that they feel they have to compete with technology for their parents time and attention. The number one wish from high school kids? That there parents would turn off the computer/tv/cell phone at dinner. This, coming from high school kids. Shouldn't that tell you a whole helluva lot? So, do yourself a favor tomorrow. Plug into technology all day. Throw yourself into it. Be passionate about what you do. When you walk through the door to your family, turn it all off for 30 mins and be there with your loved ones. If you can manage to play Angry Birds, I'm sure you can handle being disconnected for 30 minutes. Make the time

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• Javascript :(….. Oh!! So its jquery? Now what?? I’m a C# Guy

  - by Shekhar_Pro

  Hi guys I want you to Guide me here. This other day I was working out some AJAX for my ASP.Net website and handling client side code in Java was taking the hell out of me. Then I got my hands on this Book jQuery In Action 2nd Edition and solved my problem with the help of Example code in the book. Now as I checked the contents I got an overview that whatever I had ever thought of doing can be done by this jQuery so easily and quite cleanly. I am actually pretty new to web development (say abt 4months ) and from C# world where we have cool libraries and Simple and Elegant coding style. (yeah including those generic, Ienumerable, lambadas, chained statements.. you got it…) and you know what you’re doing when writing some code. And we have so great IntelliSense to care., and above all we have everything Strongly Typed. But in Javascript everything is so messy.. . (and I don’t know why they are not properly indented.. see page source ) Now tell me what should I do, go straight with jQuery or should I first learn Javascript (like a disciplined boy…I even have a book for that too… got in gift :) …. ) I have seen Is it a good idea to learn JavaScript before learning jQuery? but remember I have already got a project on my hand…

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• Java & Maven generating -and using- my own archetype

  - by Random

  Hello again! I have been busy in my project creating a webapp (in struts) that manages maven, using maven-2.2.1-uber.jar link text. The problem comes when the boss says it has to use some archetypes the company has created (so no predefined archetypes for you naughty boy!). So ok, I use the -DarchetypeRepository option (with ServletWrapper I get my complete web direction, becouse the repository will be inside the app), and the log seems to find it, but then the build fails -miserably- with this little text 'Build Failure - The defined artifact is not an archetype' as simple as that. Of course I have a lot of INFO lines that say abslutily nothig related. I have read the maven definitive guide searching for some kind of help, but it has been disapointing at best. My thoughts are thatmaybe I am missing in somewhere of all the folders tree some xml that actually sais maven that my pom.xml is an archetype not a project. But I really, really, can't find anything on the net or in the manuals that explains easy-handed how the archetype:generate (with special parameters) works and where I have to put every folder and/or file. So just to say my thoughts aloud (and hopefully you understand what I am trying to ask): I have a template where I do some xml changes (variables, etc...), then I have to call maen and do an archetype:generate with a variable project. The problem seems to be that my actual confuguration doesn't like what I am doing. After the generation of the archetype, witch luckly will create some directory trees and leave me a POM.xml somewhere I still have to do some variable changes and more xml manage stuff, so it whould be very kind from maven to don't destroy anything in this process. Any ideas why this maven-thing is not happly-ever-after asuming that my archetype is defintly an archetype? Allthought I think the code is ok, it could be wrong, as I am using maven-ubber and I call the actual CSMavenCli.main(String[, ClassWorld), I don't think it is the case this time. Thanks and all! :) Random.

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• How do I Handle Ties When Ranking Results in MySQL?

  - by Laxmidi

  Hi, How does one handle ties when ranking results in a mysql query? I've simplified the table names and columns in this example, but it should illustrate my problem: SET @rank=0; SELECT student_names.students, @rank := @rank +1 AS rank, scores.grades FROM student_names LEFT JOIN scores ON student_names.students = scores.students ORDER BY scores.grades DESC So imagine the the above query produces: Students Rank Grades Al 1 90 Amy 2 90 George 3 78 Bob 4 73 Mary 5 NULL William 6 NULL Even though Al and Amy have the same grade, one is ranked higher than the other. Amy got ripped-off. How can I make it so that Amy and Al have the same ranking, so that they both have a rank of 1. Also, William and Mary didn't take the test. They bagged class and were smoking in the boy's room. They should be tied for last place. The correct ranking should be: Students Rank Grades Al 1 90 Amy 1 90 George 3 78 Bob 4 73 Mary 5 NULL William 5 NULL If anyone has any advice, please let me know. Thank you! -Laxmidi

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• Doctesting functions that receive and display user input - Python (tearing my hair out)

  - by GlenCrawford

  Howdy! I am currently writing a small application with Python (3.1), and like a good little boy, I am doctesting as I go. However, I've come across a method that I can't seem to doctest. It contains an input(), an because of that, I'm not entirely sure what to place in the "expecting" portion of the doctest. Example code to illustrate my problem follows: """ >>> getFiveNums() Howdy. Please enter five numbers, hit <enter> after each one Please type in a number: Please type in a number: Please type in a number: Please type in a number: Please type in a number: """ import doctest numbers = list() # stores 5 user-entered numbers (strings, for now) in a list def getFiveNums(): print("Howdy. Please enter five numbers, hit <enter> after each one") for i in range(5): newNum = input("Please type in a number:") numbers.append(newNum) print("Here are your numbers: ", numbers) if __name__ == "__main__": doctest.testmod(verbose=True) When running the doctests, the program stops executing immediately after printing the "Expecting" section, waits for me to enter five numbers one after another (without prompts), and then continues. As shown below: I don't know what, if anything, I can place in the Expecting section of my doctest to be able to test a method that receives and then displays user input. So my question (finally) is, is this function doctestable?

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• Linq2sql code generator misbehaving

  - by Martin

  Sometime the linq2sql just makes its mind up about things. I've been pulling my hair for the past hours trying to work out what I'm doing differently from all the other times when I don't get ForeignKeyReferenceAlreadyHasValueException. Turns out that if (this._Activity.HasLoadedOrAssignedValue) { throw new System.Data.Linq.ForeignKeyReferenceAlreadyHasValueException(); } is present on my primary key in this particular table, and in no other. No matter what I do with the association, I've even tried deleting and dragging the thing back to the designer, it's still there and I'm sure it's not supposed to be. I know why, of course, but I don't know why, so to speak. A while back the association went the other way. Whereas I've left that era behind me, the code generator seems to exhibit phantom pains. The same phenomenon, is responsible for me having to change the namespace in the designer.cs everytime I make changes in the designer. I made the mistake of renaming my namespace and the code generator just doesn't get it. Somebody please help this poor boy out.

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• Techniques for sharing a value among classes in a program

  - by Kenneth Cochran

  I'm using Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData) + "\MyProgram" As the path to store several files used by my program. I'd like to avoid pasting the same snippet of code all over the my applcation. I need to ensure that: The path cannot be accidentally changed once its been set The classes that need it have access to it. I've considered: Making it a singleton Using constructor dependency injection Using property dependency injection Using AOP to create the path where its needed. Each has pros and cons. The singleton is everyone's favorite whipping boy. I'm not opposed to using one but there are valid reasons to avoid it if possible. I'm already heavily using constructor injection through Castle Windsor. But this is a path string and Windsor doesn't handle system type dependencies very gracefully. I could always wrap it in a class but that seems like overkill for something as simple as a passing around a string value. In any case this route would add yet another constructor argument to each class where it is used. The problem I see with property injection in this case is that there is a large amount of indirection from the where the value is set to where it is needed. I would need a very long line of middlemen to reach all the places where its used. AOP looks promising and I'm planning on using AOP for logging anyway so this at least sounds like a simple solution. Is there any other options I haven't considered? Am I off base with my evaluation of the options I have considered?

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• Moral fits the story or suggest me a nice moral?

  - by Gobi

  A 25 year old son was sitting beside his old father in a train one day. When the train was about to leave, all the passengers started settling down in their seats. The son was filled with joy and anxiety. He was seated by the window. He put his hand out and felt the breeze and screamed, “ Papa look at all the trees, they are moving behind”. The old father smiled and admired his son’s feelings. Beside the old man, a couple was also travelling and observed this strange behavior. They found something awkward and childish in the behavior of this 25 year old man. All of a sudden, the son shouted again “Papa see! The clouds are moving about; there is a pond down and many cows are drinking it’s water”. It soon started drizzling. Once again, the young man felt exited and said “papa, I can see and feel the rain drops touching my hand”. The couple seeing this and feeling concerned, asked the old man “why don’t you consult a good doctor and treat your son; don’t you find something abnormally different in him ?” The old man replied, “Yes, I have provided the best treatment for my only boy. We are just returning from the hospital. I am happy for today is the day he has received his sense of sight. It’s for the first time my son is seeing and relishing these little wonders which we have been watching and ignoring in our routine life!” The couple had no words to reply and felt sorry for their remarks. Moral of the story: “ “don’t judge a book by its cover”. is this the moral fits the story or provide me some moral for this story :)

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• E-Commerce Security: Only Credit Card Fields Encrypted?!

  - by bizarreunprofessionalanddangerous

  I'd like your opinions on how a major bricks-and-mortar company is running the security for its shopping Web site. After a recent update, when you are logged into your shopping account, the session is now not secured. No 'https', no browser 'lock'. All the personal contact info, shopping history -- and if I'm not mistaken submit and change password -- are being sent unencrypted. There is a small frame around the credit card fields that is https. There's a little notice: "Our website is secure. Our website uses frames and because of this the secure icon will not appear in your browser" On top of this the most prominent login fields for the site are broken, and haven't gotten fixed for a week or longer (giving the distinct impression they have no clue what's going on and can't be trusted with anything). Now is it just me -- or is this simply incomprehensible for a billion dollar company, significant shopping site, in the year 2010. No lock. "We use frames" (maybe they forget "Best viewed in IE4"). Customers complaining, as you can see from their FAQ "explaining" why you aren't seeing https. I'm getting nowhere trying to convince customer service that they REALLY need to do something about this, and am about to head for the CEO. But I just want to make sure this is as BIZARRE and unprofessional and dangerous a situation as I think it is. (I'm trying to visualize what their Web technical team consists of. I'm getting A) some customer service reps who were given a 3 hour training course on Web site maintenance, B) a 14 year old boy in his bedroom masquerading as a major technical services company, C) a guy in a hut in a jungle with an e-commerce book from 1996.)

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• Trouble making login page?

  - by Ken

  Okay, so I want to make a simple login page. I've created a register page successfully, but i can't get the login thing down. login.php: <?php session_start(); include("mainmenu.php"); $usrname = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['usrname']); $password = md5($_POST['password']); $con = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "g00dfor@boy"); if(!$con){ die(mysql_error()); } mysql_select_db("users", $con) or die(mysql_error()); $login = "SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE (usrname = '$usrname' AND password = '$password')"; $result = mysql_query($login); if(mysql_num_rows($result) == 1 { $_SESSION = true; header('Location: indexlogin.php'); } else { echo = "Wrong username or password." ; } ?> indexlogin.php just echoes "Login successful." What am I doing wrong? Oh, and just FYI- my database is "users" and my table is "data".

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• Database frontend for multiple db engines

  - by xeroxed_yeti

  Hey Stackoverflow, yeah it's spring and a lot of things happens to me... Also changing some software things at my computer, because suddenly everything seems to be boring after starting my laptop. I even changed my wallpaper!!! Besides I'm looking for a new database frontend and after using google with serveral queries I didn't find the right software. You have to know, my laptop and me are very very special :) I'm looking for a database frontend which should have following features can access PostgreSQL and MySQL databases can handle schemata overs a nice sql query tool supports an import and export functionality (something like tab separated text files) it for free looks awesome - every time when a college come to my office he must get the feeling: oh boy, this man really knows his job and should get more money! At the moment I used phpmyadmin, phppgadmin, pgadminIII, mysqladmin and dbVisualizer. Furthermore I was a big fan of the aqua datastudio until it became commercial. This tools offers a great variety of functionalities which can simplify programmes live. However, now you have to buy a license...I'm a scientist and money for software is limited =) So it's my first time (question) here at stackoverflow please be cheerful :)

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• How can i get HWND of external application's listview? In Windows Api using c++

  - by Marko29

  So i am trying to make app to get content of my explorer listviews and get item text etc.. from it but here are the problems... If i inspect windows explorer folder(using spy++) with listview, just for testing purposes i will use random folder. It shows me that caption of the window is "FolderView" with class "SysListView32" and the top level window where this listview is nested is called "reference", this is also the title of windows explorer folder where all the files are. So what i do is.. HWND hWndLV = FindWindow(NULL, TEXT("reference")); // first i get hwnd of the main window, this is where listview window is also nested according to spy++, thats why i do this first. HWND child = FindWindowEx(hWndLV, NULL,NULL,TEXT("FolderView")); // trying to get hwnd of the listview here but it fails, same happens if i also put the class name along as HWND child = FindWindowEx(hWndLV, NULL,TEXT("SysListView32"),TEXT("FolderView")); I am using bool test = IsWindow(child); to test for fail, also VS debugger shows 0x0000000000 each time so i am sure i am reading results well. So i am stuck on this probably simple thing for most of people:( p.s. i am on vista64(if that matters anyhow) edit: It appears that this function works only if i search the first nested level of a parent window i am searching. So i assume what i need is a way to get handle with some sort of deep nested level search. I also tried to go step by step by defining hwnd of every parent then i use findwindowex on it but oh boy then i get to the point where there are 5 nested windows all with the same name and only one of them contains my listview, so nice uh?

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• php error reporting - having trouble matching local & web server settings

  - by Andrew Heath

  I'm trying to add a custom error handler to my site, but in doing so have discovered that my webhost's PHP error reporting settings and those of my localhost (default XAMPP) vary considerably. While I thought I was programming to E_STRICT like a good little boy, adding the error handler to my webhost revealed craploads of Runtime Notices. Example: Runtime notice strtotime() [function.strtotime]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Chicago' for 'CST/-6.0/no DST' instead In /home/... Clearly this isn't a red-alert, showstopping error. But what bothers me is that it doesn't show up on my localhost. I'd certainly like to improve my code by addressing these sorts of issues if I could see them! I've looked through both php.ini files, and my webhost's setting is error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE whereas mine was error_reporting = E_STRICT, which I had thought was better. However, changing mine to match and rebooting the server doesn't seem to have accomplished anything. Could someone please point me in the right direction?

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