Search Results

Search found 2083 results on 84 pages for 'paper tray'.

Page 78/84 | < Previous Page | 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84  | Next Page >

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, April 10, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, April 10, 2010New ProjectsAlan Platform: Платформа, позволяющая создавать окружение для искусственного интеллекта.Eksploracja test: testowy projekt gry eksploracjaGeoJSON.NET: GeoJSON .NETIhan sama... vaihdan myöhemmin: Testaillaan...mailfish: pop mailMiBiblioteca: Aplicación muy simple para realizar búsquedas en un listado de libros en una aplicación de escritorio y en una móvil.ServiceManagementConsole: The Service Management Console is a data-driven web app which I'm setting up to help me learn a bit about ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio 2010, TFS and ...SimpleGeo.NET: SimpleGeo .NET clientSimplexEngine: a 3D game development framework base on Microsoft XNA. it contains game level editor, 3d model exporters and some other tools which is helpful to c...sosql: A standalone osql clone designed to replicate the functionality of SQL Server's osql. The current release of SoSql supports the basic switches tha...SpearHead: A basic app thingspikie: spikie's codeTwitter Directory: A twitter directory for your organization. Allows users to list their twitter username and any other information you want. The directory is searcha...Weather forecast for handheld internet capable device: Small PHP-project. Display wind speed and temperature for one preconfigured location. Using XML weather data aquired from the popular weather forec...New ReleasesAStar.net: AStar.net 1.12 downloads: AStar.net 1.12 Version detailsChanged framework version requirement to 2.0 to increase compatibility, removed the icon from the dll to decrease spa...BackUpAnyWhere: Milestone 0 - Documentation: First milestone for us is the documentation period when we are working on the documents starting from project presentationBB Scheduler - BroadBand Scheduler: BroadBand Scheduler v3.0: - Broadband service has some of the cheap and best monthly plans for the users all over the nation. And some of the plans include unlimited night d...BizTalk Software Factory: BizTalk Software Factory v1.7: Version 1.7 for BizTalk Server 2006 (R2). This is a service release for the BSF to support updated versions of tools. Most important is the suppor...Braintree Client Library: Braintree-1.2.0: Includes support for Subscription Search and minor bugfixes.Data Access Component: version 2.8: implement linq to dac on .net cf 2.0 and .net cf 3.5. generate dynamic data proxy use reflection.emit.DNA Workstation: DNA Workstation 0.6: Physical memory manager added Grub supportDotNetNuke Russian Language packs: Russian Core Language Pack for DotNetNuke 05.03.01: Russian Core Language Pack for DotNetNuke 05.03.01 Русский языковый пакет для ядра DotNetNuke версии 05.03.01.DotNetNuke® Gallery: 04.03.01 Release Candidate: This is a RELEASE CANDIDATE of an update to fix a showstopper issue related to a mal-formed assembly: tagPrefix attribute that causes an exception ...DotNetNuke® Store: 02.01.31 RC: What's New in this release? Bugs corrected: - The PayPal gateway has been completly rewrited. Security fixes: - Several security fixes has been ap...EnhSim: Release v1.9.8.4: Release v1.9.8.4 Various fixes in GUI only for missing trinkets in dropdowns and mis-spelling of trinket names that would have caused sim to ignore...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts 3.0.6 beta 2 Released: Hi, This release contains following enhancements. * It implements “Zoom out” and “Show all” functionality over Zooming. Now, user will be abl...GeoJSON.NET: GeoJSON.NET 0.1: GeoJSON.NET 0.1Goblin XNA: Goblin XNA v3.4: This is Goblin XNA Version 3.4 release. The installation process is much simpler now!! Updates: 1. Inlcuded DShowNET.dll and Lidgren.Network.dll...jQuery UI DotNetNuke integration: jQuery Core module 0.6.0: This module package contains the core functionality for the jQuery UI integration. It includes the web controls, infrastructural code for including...jQuery UI DotNetNuke integration: jQUI library 0.6.0 for developers (DEBUG): This release includes the debug built .dll, .pdb, and .xml files for developers wanting to build DNN components using the jQuery UI widgets. The .d...jQuery UI DotNetNuke integration: jQUI library 0.6.0 for developers (RELEASE): This release includes the release built .dll and .xml files for developers wanting to build DNN components using the jQuery UI widgets. The .dll is...Kooboo blog: Kooboo CMS Blog Module for 2.1.0.0: Compatible with Kooboo cms 2.1.0.0 Upgrade to MVC 2Numina Application/Security Framework: Numina.Framework Core 50018: Added bulk import user page Added General settings page for updating Company Name, Theme, and API Key Add/Edit application calls Full URL to h...Open NFe: DANFe v1.9.8.1: Contribuições de Marco Aurélio (McSoft) e Leandro (Studio Classic). Melhorias de menus de contexto, tray icon, tela de configurações, correção do e...Pocket Wiki: wiki71.sbp: Incremental version (source .70 to .71) included changes are: disappearing horizontal bar fixed if you enter an invalid home page directory, you...PowerExt: v1.0 (Alpha 1): v1.0 (Alpha 1). PowerExt can display information such as assembly name, assembly version, public key etc in Explorer's File Properties dialog.RIA Services DataFilter Control for Silverlight: April 2010: Whats new?Updated to RC Added localizer for FilterOperator's (look at documentation) Added localizer for SortDirection's (look at documentation...SharePoint Labs: SPLab4006A-FRA-Level100: SPLab4006A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the 6th best practice you should apply when writing code with the SharePoint API. Lab La...SharePoint Labs: SPLab6002A-FRA-Level300: SPLab6002A-FRA-Level300 This SharePoint Lab will teach you how to create a reusable and distributable project model for developping Feature Receive...SharePoint Labs: SPLab6003A-FRA-Level100: SPLab6003A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you how to create a custom Permission Level within Visual Studio. Lab Language : French Lab ...SimpleGeo.NET: SimpleGeo.NET 0.1: SimpleGeo.NET 0.1sosql: SoSql v1.0.0: Initial release of SoSql. This supports most of the basic parameters that osql does. sosql - SQL Server Command Line Tool Version 1.0.0.28646 usa...Syringe: Syringe 1.0 (source): Source code for Syringe 1.0Toast (for ASP.NET MVC): Toast (for ASP.NET MVC) 0.2.1: First releasetrx2html: trx2html 0.6: This version supports VS2005, VS2008 and VS2010 trx generated files with the same binaries targeting .Net 2.0Twitter Directory: TwitterDirectory 44240: Initial release See Numina Application/Security Framework for info on how to setup this application.Unit Test Specification Generator: TestDocs 1.0.2.1: Improved the performance when locating dependencies.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30409.0: Automatic drop of latest buildvisinia: visinia_BETA_Src: The beta version is on its way, now you can drag a module and drop it on the webpage, all this dynamic side of visinia is built through the jquery,...Windows Azure - PHP contributions: PhpAzureExtensions (Azure Drives) - 0.1.1: Extension for use with Windows Azure SDK 1.1! Usage is described here.Most Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesFacebook Developer ToolkitMost Active ProjectsnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.Shweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with PexRawrAutoPocopatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleFacebook Developer ToolkitFarseer Physics EngineNcqrs Framework - The CQRS framework for .NET

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 16, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 16, 2010New Projects[C#] UML Touch: This project is my master thesis project for Msc Software Engineering at Oxford Brookes univesity. The goal of this project is to develop a UML Edi...3D Chart Reports, using ASP.NET 2.0: Project focuses on the visibility of internal supply chain management process. The objective is materialized, using MSChart and hence provides asse...Active Directory Health: ActiveDirectoryHealth (ADHealth) Aim: To create a suite of tools to allow an Active Directory administrator monitor and identify problems, particu...Art4Desktop: Aplicação desktop simplesAuto Increment field for any entity in MS CRM: Auto Increment field for any entity in MS CRM will add an attribute in any entity which will be auto increment type.Convection Game Engine (Basic Edition): A basic 2D game engine written in C# using XNA 3.1CSharp Intellisense: VS 2010 IntelliSense plug-in Provides custom IntelliSense for the CSharp Editor that is capable to filter out events, preoperties or methods. ...EP: Generic platform for enterprise applications developed on .NETFile Change Checker: A simple windows form application that checks and copies all modified files given a specified date. It aims to help developers that use Visual Stu...Folder: Folder is a puzzle platformer game, which provides you a whole new experience. You can fold objects in game play; a wall becomes a road, a high sti...Industrial Dashboard: WCF service that allows executing SQL Server stored procedures straight from javascript code, enabling sending and receiving structured data withou...kafrilion: Open Source Platform GameLogikBug.Injection: LogikBug.Injection is an IOC container and is very light weight. It is very simple to use and yet very roboust, there are many options and ways to ...MongoMvc: NoSql with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC. For more details check out the blog post http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/2010/04/16/nosql-wi...MOSSDAL: MOSS Data Access Layer for data from the Sharepoint Lists Service: MOSSDAL is a lightweight framework for working with Sharepoint MOSS List data using the List web Service. It can be used with silverlight or regul...Should: This is a set of test framework agnostic extensions assetion extensions. This project was born because test runners Should be independent of the...Software Localization Tool: summaryTIMETABLEASY: planning managerTR9: implementions of t9 technologies from mobile device to personal computer and laptopTrp net tools: net toolTwep: Twep is a JavaScript lib.Using PowerPivot to analyze MS Dynamics NAV: Project show how to prepare MS Dynamics NAV data for analyzing in PowerPivot for Excel. Project include Data Warehouse demo database, sql procedure...vmware virtual mashines management system for education: System for management many classes with PC and VMware virtual mashines (bad english,sorry)WebSite: Mr. John's projectsWebtrends DX and DC Services Libraries: This project is setup to provide assemblies to simplify access to the REST based DX and DC Web Services that Webtrends Provides. For access you ne...YetAnotherFileRenamer: Searches a directory and/or sub-directories for files matching a certain extension and copies and renames them to the same folder. The intent is a...New Releases3D Chart Reports, using ASP.NET 2.0: Beta iscm1.0.0.1: Its first release, might be a tolerant to bugs.A Guide to Parallel Programming: Drop 2 - Guide Chapters 2 and 5, accompanying code: This is Drop 2 with just the Guide Chapters 2 and 5 and the accompanying code samples. This drop requires Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 or later in ord...AnimeJ: AnimeJ 1.1: This new release features reversible animations. It is fully backward compatible, and by simply specifying an additional parameter to Run() you can...AutoPoco: AutoPoco 0.4: A load of additions to the convention system Inheritance precedence added And a pile of extra data sourcesCSharp Intellisense: V1.5: CSharpIntellisensePresenter(Free) Created by: Bnaya Eshet (Bnaya Eshet (credit to Karl Shifflett)) Last Updated: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 Version...DevTreks -social budgeting that improves lives and livelihoods: Social Budgeting Web Software, DevTreks alpha 4: Alpha 4 upgrades all story-telling with one very basic, simple, 'story' data pattern, schema, and stylesheet. Basic, simple, stories and eBook pa...ESPEHA: Espeha 4.3: Deletion of categories and tasks via F8 Saving on CtrlS, CtrlShiftS Navigating to search on CtrlF Hiding on CtrlQ, CtrlX, CtrlH, Q, X, H + Drag ...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4.4: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4.4), with general improvements. It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My...HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls alpha 0.9.1: Version 0.9.1 alpha release of HouseFly controlsIndustrial Dashboard: 2.0 Beta: 2.0 Beta includes : IndustrialDashboard Framework Sample widgets : TabularReport, DropDownPicker, DatePicker, ScopePicker Sample html pageskdar: KDAR 0.0.20: KDAR - Kernel Debugger Anti Rootkit - signature's bases updated - many bugs fixedLogikBug.Injection: Initial Release: This project is dependent upon Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.IServiceLocator and must be referenced when referencing LogikBug.Injection.Mesopotamia Experiment: Mesopotamia 1.2.72: New Features - Select organims to load in sim or in hw mode Fixes - fixed robotics engine not shutting down properly - selects new robotics port o...MobySharp: MobySharp 1.1: Fixed GetComments Added the new Likes featureMongoMvc: NoSQL with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC: A demo on NoSQL with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC. To run the demo application do the ollowing actions. 1. Create a directory call C:\data\...NetMassDownloader: Release 1.6.0.0: Mass Downloader For .Net Framework which allows you do download .Net Framework source code all at once.Offline debugging for VS2005 , VS2008 , Code...Nito.KitchenSink: Version 4: Features added in this release: PDBs are source-indexed to CodePlex, so it should be possible to step through the code (with on-demand downloads) w...Nito.KitchenSink: Version 5: The only feature for this release is support of the .NET 4.0 platform. Dependencies Nito.Linq 0.4 Beta (released 2010-04-15) Rx 1.0.2441.0 (rele...Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.4): Rx version The "with Rx" versions of Nito.LINQ are built against Rx 1.0.2441.0, released 2010-04-15. Breaking changes IEnumerable<T>.Min and IEnum...N-Twill Twitter Client for VB.NET: NTWILL PROJECT 15-abril-2010: Este archivo es un Zip que contiene el proyecto hasta este punto editado... tiene algunas que otras funciones, pero lo cuelgo para tener un referen...PanBrowser: 1.2.0: added screensaver support, hit a key to exit, up/down keys cycle through images.PersianDateTimePicker, PersianMonthCalendar: PersianDatetimePicker,PersianMonthCalendar: PersianDatetimePicker,PersianMonthCalendar 1.1 releasesPokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v03: New Features! Client MessageLog Management Added CrossBrowser Script Injector Added to work with non ajax supported browsers and activeX disabled...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Sample VS09: Sample Project of PokeIn VS09. Contains version 0.3 of LibraryPokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Sample VS10: Sample Visual Studio 10 project for PokeIn. Contains v03 Library of PokeInSilverlight Toolkit: April 2010: Suggestions? Features? Questions? Ask questions in our Silverlight Toolkit forum on Silverlight.net. The forum is the best resource for Silverlig...Software Localization Tool: SharpSLT 0.9: This is the first release of SharpSLT. Features Framework: .Net 3.5 UI language: English Works as standalone and External Tool for Visual C# Ex...Star Trooper for XNA 2D Tutorial: Lesson two content: Here is Lesson two original content for the StarTrooper 2D XNA tutorial. The blog tutorial has now started over on http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgen...StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.0.14714.1: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.0.14714.1 o StyleCop 4.3.3.0 o ReSharper 5.0.1659.36 o Visual Studio 2008 / Visual Studio 2010 Installation Instructi...TaskUnZip for SSIS: TaskUnZip for SSIS 1.1.1.0 (beta 2): Ver. 1.1.1.0 (beta2) Bug: Correct installation bug. Add: Support SQL SERVER 2008 / 2005 Minor corrections Ver. 1.1.0.0 (Tnx to: Kevin Wendler)...TaskUnZip for SSIS: TaskUnZip for SSIS 1.2.0.0: Ver. 1.2.0.0 Add: Support SQL SERVER 2008 / 2005. Add: recursive compress.* Add: filter option for extract e compress file.* Add: Test archiv...Test Project (ignore): abcde: aaaaadaTR9: TR9 Beta: this setup is first release of the program.TR9: TR9 Source Code: TR9 Source CodeUsing PowerPivot to analyze MS Dynamics NAV: GL sql procedures and demo DB: For using sql procedures and creating DW database, please see Documentation.VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.1.1: Version 7.1.1 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.1.1 rel...WPF Inspirational Quote Management System: Release 1.1.1: - Changed to only allow one running instance a time. - Custom icon in system tray popup removed for now as this breaks when text size is set to gr...WPF ShaderEffect Generator: WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.6.1: Just a minor release to fix the problem with resource Uri generation in the C# Shadereffect files. ChangesThe Uri should be correctly generated no...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationIndustrial DashboardFarseer Physics EngineIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDotRas

  Read the article

• Why It Is So Important to Know Your Customer

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Over the years, I endured enough delayed flights, air turbulence and misadventures in airport security clearance to watch my expectations for the air travel experience fall to abysmally low levels. The extent of my loyalty to any one carrier had more to do with the proximity of the airport parking garage to their particular gate than to any effort on the airline’s part to actually earn and retain my business. That all changed one day when I found myself at the airport hoping to catch a return flight home a few hours earlier than expected, using an airline I had flown with for the first time just that week.  When you travel regularly for business, being able to catch a return flight home that’s even an hour or two earlier than originally scheduled is a big deal. It can mean the difference between having a normal evening with your family and having to sneak in like a cat burglar after everyone is fast asleep. And so I found myself on this particular day hoping to catch an earlier flight home. I approached the gate agent and was told that I could go on standby for their next flight out. Then I asked how much it was going to cost to change the flight, knowing full well that I wouldn’t get reimbursed by my company for any change fees. “Oh, there’s no charge to fly on standby,” the gate agent told me. I made a funny look. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This airline was going to let my fly on standby, at no additional charge, even though I was a new customer with no status or points. It had been years since I’d seen an airline pass up a short term revenue generating opportunity in favor of a long term loyalty generating one.  At that moment, this particular airline gained my loyal business. Since then, this airline has had the opportunity to learn a lot about me. They know where I live, where I fly from, where I usually fly to, and where I like to sit on the plane. In general, I’ve found their customer service to be quite good whether at the airport, via call center and even through social channels. They email me occasionally, and when they do, they demonstrate that they know me by promoting deals for flights from where I live to places that I’d be interested in visiting. And that’s part of why I’m always so puzzled when I visit their website.Does this company with the great service, customer friendly policies, and clean planes demonstrate that they know me at all when I visit their website? The answer is no. Even when I log in using my loyalty program credentials, it’s pretty obvious that they’re presenting the same old home page and same old offers to every single one of their site visitors. I mean, those promotional offers that they’re featuring so prominently  -- they’re for flights that originate thousands of miles from where I live! There’s no way I’d ever book one of those flights and I’m sure I’m not the only one of their customers to feel that way.My reason for recounting this story is not to pick on the one customer experience flaw I've noticed with this particular airline, in fact, they do so many things right that I’ll continue to fly with them. But I did want to illustrate just how glaringly obvious it is to customers today when a touch point they have with a brand is impersonal, unconnected and out of sync. As someone who’s spent a number of years in the web experience management and online marketing space, it particularly peeves me when that out of sync touch point is a brand’s website, perhaps because I know how important it is to make a customer’s online experience relevant and how many powerful tools are available for making a relevant experience a reality. The fact is, delivering a one-size-fits-all online customer experience is no longer acceptable or particularly effective in today’s world. Today’s savvy customers expect you to know who they are and to understand their preferences, behavior and relationship with your brand. Not only do they expect you to know about them, but they also expect you to demonstrate this knowledge across all of their touch points with your brand in a consistent and compelling fashion, whether it be on your traditional website, your mobile web presence or through various social channels.Delivering the kind of personalized online experiences that customers want can have tremendous business benefits. This is not just about generating feelings of goodwill and higher customer satisfaction ratings either. More relevant and personalized online experiences boost the effectiveness of online marketing initiatives and the statistics prove this out. Personalized web experiences can help increase online conversion rates by 70% -- that’s a huge number.1  And more than three quarters of consumers indicate that they’ve made additional online purchases based on personalized product recommendations.2Now if only this airline would get on board with delivering a more personalized online customer experience. I’d certainly be happier and more likely to spring for one of their promotional offers. And by targeting relevant offers on their home page to appropriate segments of their site visitors, I bet they’d be happier and generating additional revenue too. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}  ***** If you're interested in hearing more perspectives on the benefits of demonstrating that you know your customers by delivering a more personalized experience, check out this white paper on creating a successful and meaningful customer experience on the web.  Also catch the video below on the business value of CX in attracting new customers featuring Oracle's VP of Customer Experience Strategy, Brian Curran. 1 Search Engine Watch 2 Marketing Charts

  Read the article

• I want to change DPI with Imagemagick without changing the actual byte-size of the image data

  - by user1694803

  I feel so horribly sorry that I have to ask this question here, but after hours of researching how to do an actually very simple task I'm still failing... In Gimp there is a very simple way to do what I want. I only have the German dialog installed but I'll try to translate it. I'm talking about going to "Picture-PrintingSize" and then adjusting the Values "X-Resolution" and "Y-Resolution" which are known to me as so called DPI values. You can also choose the format which by default is "Pixel/Inch". (In German the dialog is "Bild-Druckgröße" and there "X-Auflösung" and "Y-Auflösung") Ok, the values there are often "72" by default. When I change them to e.g. "300" this has the effect that the image stays the same on the computer, but if I print it, it will be smaller if you look at it, but all the details are still there, just smaller - it has a higher resolution on the printed paper (but smaller size... which is fine for me). I am often doing that when I am working with LaTeX, or to be exact with the command "pdflatex" on a recent Ubuntu-Machine. When I'm doing the above process with Gimp manually everything works just fine. The images will appear smaller in the resulting PDF but with high printing quality. What I am trying to do is to automate the process of going into Gimp and adjusting the DPI values. Since Imagemagick is known to be superb and I used it for many other tasks I tried to achieve my goal with this tool. But it does just not do what I want. After trying a lot of things I think this actually is be the command that should be my friend: convert input.png -density 300 output.png This should set the DPI to 300, as I can read everywhere in the web. It seems to work. When I check the file it stays the same. file input.png output.png input.png: PNG image data, 611 x 453, 8-bit grayscale, non-interlaced output.png: PNG image data, 611 x 453, 8-bit grayscale, non-interlaced When I use this command, it seems like it did what I wanted: identify -verbose output.png | grep 300 Resolution: 300x300 PNG:pHYs : x_res=300, y_res=300, units=0 (Funny enough, the same output comes for input.png which confuses me... so this might be the wrong parameters to watch?) But when I now render my TeX with "pdflatex" the image is still big and blurry. Also when I open the image with Gimp again the DPI values are set to "72" instead of "300". So there actually was no effect at all. Now what is the problem here. Am I getting something completely wrong? I can't be that wrong since everything works just fine with Gimp... Thanks for any help in this. I am also open to other automated solutions which are easily done on a Linux system...

  Read the article

• Combination of Operating Mode and Commit Strategy

  - by Kevin Yang

  If you want to populate a source into multiple targets, you may also want to ensure that every row from the source affects all targets uniformly (or separately). Let’s consider the Example Mapping below. If a row from SOURCE causes different changes in multiple targets (TARGET_1, TARGET_2 and TARGET_3), for example, it can be successfully inserted into TARGET_1 and TARGET_3, but failed to be inserted into TARGET_2, and the current Mapping Property TLO (target load order) is “TARGET_1 -> TARGET_2 -> TARGET_3”. What should Oracle Warehouse Builder do, in order to commit the appropriate data to all affected targets at the same time? If it doesn’t behave as you intended, the data could become inaccurate and possibly unusable.                                               Example Mapping In OWB, we can use Mapping Configuration Commit Strategies and Operating Modes together to achieve this kind of requirements. Below we will explore the combination of these two features and how they affect the results in the target tables Before going to the example, let’s review some of the terms we will be using (Details can be found in white paper Oracle® Warehouse Builder Data Modeling, ETL, and Data Quality Guide11g Release 2): Operating Modes: Set-Based Mode: Warehouse Builder generates a single SQL statement that processes all data and performs all operations. Row-Based Mode: Warehouse Builder generates statements that process data row by row. The select statement is in a SQL cursor. All subsequent statements are PL/SQL. Row-Based (Target Only) Mode: Warehouse Builder generates a cursor select statement and attempts to include as many operations as possible in the cursor. For each target, Warehouse Builder inserts each row into the target separately. Commit Strategies: Automatic: Warehouse Builder loads and then automatically commits data based on the mapping design. If the mapping has multiple targets, Warehouse Builder commits and rolls back each target separately and independently of other targets. Use the automatic commit when the consequences of multiple targets being loaded unequally are not great or are irrelevant. Automatic correlated: It is a specialized type of automatic commit that applies to PL/SQL mappings with multiple targets only. Warehouse Builder considers all targets collectively and commits or rolls back data uniformly across all targets. Use the correlated commit when it is important to ensure that every row in the source affects all affected targets uniformly. Manual: select manual commit control for PL/SQL mappings when you want to interject complex business logic, perform validations, or run other mappings before committing data. Combination of the commit strategy and operating mode To understand the effects of each combination of operating mode and commit strategy, I’ll illustrate using the following example Mapping. Firstly we insert 100 rows into the SOURCE table and make sure that the 99th row and 100th row have the same ID value. And then we create a unique key constraint on ID column for TARGET_2 table. So while running the example mapping, OWB tries to load all 100 rows to each of the targets. But the mapping should fail to load the 100th row to TARGET_2, because it will violate the unique key constraint of table TARGET_2. With different combinations of Commit Strategy and Operating Mode, here are the results ¦ Set-based/ Correlated Commit: Configuration of Example mapping:                                                     Result:                                                      What’s happening: A single error anywhere in the mapping triggers the rollback of all data. OWB encounters the error inserting into Target_2, it reports an error for the table and does not load the row. OWB rolls back all the rows inserted into Target_1 and does not attempt to load rows to Target_3. No rows are added to any of the target tables. ¦ Row-based/ Correlated Commit: Configuration of Example mapping:                                                   Result:                                                  What’s happening: OWB evaluates each row separately and loads it to all three targets. Loading continues in this way until OWB encounters an error loading row 100th to Target_2. OWB reports the error and does not load the row. It rolls back the row 100th previously inserted into Target_1 and does not attempt to load row 100 to Target_3. Then, if there are remaining rows, OWB will continue loading them, resuming with loading rows to Target_1. The mapping completes with 99 rows inserted into each target. ¦ Set-based/ Automatic Commit: Configuration of Example mapping: Result: What’s happening: When OWB encounters the error inserting into Target_2, it does not load any rows and reports an error for the table. It does, however, continue to insert rows into Target_3 and does not roll back the rows previously inserted into Target_1. The mapping completes with one error message for Target_2, no rows inserted into Target_2, and 100 rows inserted into Target_1 and Target_3 separately. ¦ Row-based/Automatic Commit: Configuration of Example mapping: Result: What’s happening: OWB evaluates each row separately for loading into the targets. Loading continues in this way until OWB encounters an error loading row 100 to Target_2 and reports the error. OWB does not roll back row 100th from Target_1, does insert it into Target_3. If there are remaining rows, it will continue to load them. The mapping completes with 99 rows inserted into Target_2 and 100 rows inserted into each of the other targets. Note: Automatic Correlated commit is not applicable for row-based (target only). If you design a mapping with the row-based (target only) and correlated commit combination, OWB runs the mapping but does not perform the correlated commit. In set-based mode, correlated commit may impact the size of your rollback segments. Space for rollback segments may be a concern when you merge data (insert/update or update/insert). Correlated commit operates transparently with PL/SQL bulk processing code. The correlated commit strategy is not available for mappings run in any mode that are configured for Partition Exchange Loading or that include a Queue, Match Merge, or Table Function operator. If you want to practice in your own environment, you can follow the steps: 1. Import the MDL file: commit_operating_mode.mdl 2. Fix the location for oracle module ORCL and deploy all tables under it. 3. Insert sample records into SOURCE table, using below plsql code: begin     for i in 1..99     loop         insert into source values(i, 'col_'||i);     end loop;     insert into source values(99, 'col_99'); end; 4. Configure MAPPING_1 to any combinations of operating mode and commit strategy you want to test. And make sure feature TLO of mapping is open. 5. Deploy Mapping “MAPPING_1”. 6. Run the mapping and check the result.

  Read the article

• 8 Reasons Why Even Microsoft Agrees the Windows Desktop is a Nightmare

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Let’s be honest: The Windows desktop is a mess. Sure, it’s extremely powerful and has a huge software library, but it’s not a good experience for average people. It’s not even a good experience for geeks, although we tolerate it. Even Microsoft agrees about this. Microsoft’s Surface tablets with Windows RT don’t support any third-party desktop apps. They consider this a feature — users can’t install malware and other desktop junk, so the system will always be speedy and secure. Malware is Still Common Malware may not affect geeks, but it certainly continues to affect average people. Securing Windows, keeping it secure, and avoiding unsafe programs is a complex process. There are over 50 different file extensions that can contain harmful code to keep track of. It’s easy to have theoretical discussions about how malware could infect Mac computers, Android devices, and other systems. But Mac malware is extremely rare, and has  generally been caused by problem with the terrible Java plug-in. Macs are configured to only run executables from identified developers by default, whereas Windows will run everything. Android malware is talked about a lot, but Android malware is rare in the real world and is generally confined to users who disable security protections and install pirated apps. Google has also taken action, rolling out built-in antivirus-like app checking to all Android devices, even old ones running Android 2.3, via Play Services. Whatever the reason, Windows malware is still common while malware for other systems isn’t. We all know it — anyone who does tech support for average users has dealt with infected Windows computers. Even users who can avoid malware are stuck dealing with complex and nagging antivirus programs, especially since it’s now so difficult to trust Microsoft’s antivirus products. Manufacturer-Installed Bloatware is Terrible Sit down with a new Mac, Chromebook, iPad, Android tablet, Linux laptop, or even a Surface running Windows RT and you can enjoy using your new device. The system is a clean slate for you to start exploring and installing your new software. Sit down with a new Windows PC and the system is a mess. Rather than be delighted, you’re stuck reinstalling Windows and then installing the necessary drivers or you’re forced to start uninstalling useless bloatware programs one-by-one, trying to figure out which ones are actually useful. After uninstalling the useless programs, you may end up with a system tray full of icons for ten different hardware utilities anyway. The first experience of using a new Windows PC is frustration, not delight. Yes, bloatware is still a problem on Windows 8 PCs. Manufacturers can customize the Refresh image, preventing bloatware rom easily being removed. Finding a Desktop Program is Dangerous Want to install a Windows desktop program? Well, you’ll have to head to your web browser and start searching. It’s up to you, the user, to know which programs are safe and which are dangerous. Even if you find a website for a reputable program, the advertisements on that page will often try to trick you into downloading fake installers full of adware. While it’s great to have the ability to leave the app store and get software that the platform’s owner hasn’t approved — as on Android — this is no excuse for not providing a good, secure software installation experience for typical users installing typical programs. Even Reputable Desktop Programs Try to Install Junk Even if you do find an entirely reputable program, you’ll have to keep your eyes open while installing it. It will likely try to install adware, add browse toolbars, change your default search engine, or change your web browser’s home page. Even Microsoft’s own programs do this — when you install Skype for Windows desktop, it will attempt to modify your browser settings t ouse Bing, even if you’re specially chosen another search engine and home page. With Microsoft setting such an example, it’s no surprise so many other software developers have followed suit. Geeks know how to avoid this stuff, but there’s a reason program installers continue to do this. It works and tricks many users, who end up with junk installed and settings changed. The Update Process is Confusing On iOS, Android, and Windows RT, software updates come from a single place — the app store. On Linux, software updates come from the package manager. On Mac OS X, typical users’ software updates likely come from the Mac App Store. On the Windows desktop, software updates come from… well, every program has to create its own update mechanism. Users have to keep track of all these updaters and make sure their software is up-to-date. Most programs now have their act together and automatically update by default, but users who have old versions of Flash and Adobe Reader installed are vulnerable until they realize their software isn’t automatically updating. Even if every program updates properly, the sheer mess of updaters is clunky, slow, and confusing in comparison to a centralized update process. Browser Plugins Open Security Holes It’s no surprise that other modern platforms like iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Windows RT, and Windows Phone don’t allow traditional browser plugins, or only allow Flash and build it into the system. Browser plugins provide a wealth of different ways for malicious web pages to exploit the browser and open the system to attack. Browser plugins are one of the most popular attack vectors because of how many users have out-of-date plugins and how many plugins, especially Java, seem to be designed without taking security seriously. Oracle’s Java plugin even tries to install the terrible Ask toolbar when installing security updates. That’s right — the security update process is also used to cram additional adware into users’ machines so unscrupulous companies like Oracle can make a quick buck. It’s no wonder that most Windows PCs have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed. Battery Life is Terrible Windows PCs have bad battery life compared to Macs, IOS devices, and Android tablets, all of which Windows now competes with. Even Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 2 has bad battery life. Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air, which has very similar hardware to the Surface Pro 2, offers double its battery life when web browsing. Microsoft has been fond of blaming third-party hardware manufacturers for their poorly optimized drivers in the past, but there’s no longer any room to hide. The problem is clearly Windows. Why is this? No one really knows for sure. Perhaps Microsoft has kept on piling Windows component on top of Windows component and many older Windows components were never properly optimized. Windows Users Become Stuck on Old Windows Versions Apple’s new OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade is completely free to all Mac users and supports Macs going back to 2007. Apple has also announced their intention that all new releases of Mac OS X will be free. In 2007, Microsoft had just shipped Windows Vista. Macs from the Windows Vista era are being upgraded to the latest version of the Mac operating system for free, while Windows PCs from the same era are probably still using Windows Vista. There’s no easy upgrade path for these people. They’re stuck using Windows Vista and maybe even the outdated Internet Explorer 9 if they haven’t installed a third-party web browser. Microsoft’s upgrade path is for these people to pay $120 for a full copy of Windows 8.1 and go through a complicated process that’s actaully a clean install. Even users of Windows 8 devices will probably have to pay money to upgrade to Windows 9, while updates for other operating systems are completely free. If you’re a PC geek, a PC gamer, or someone who just requires specialized software that only runs on Windows, you probably use the Windows desktop and don’t want to switch. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean the Windows desktop is actually a good experience. Much of the burden falls on average users, who have to struggle with malware, bloatware, adware bundled in installers, complex software installation processes, and out-of-date software. In return, all they get is the ability to use a web browser and some basic Office apps that they could use on almost any other platform without all the hassle. Microsoft would agree with this, touting Windows RT and their new “Windows 8-style” app platform as the solution. Why else would Microsoft, a “devices and services” company, position the Surface — a device without traditional Windows desktop programs — as their mass-market device recommended for average people? This isn’t necessarily an endorsement of Windows RT. If you’re tech support for your family members and it comes time for them to upgrade, you may want to get them off the Windows desktop and tell them to get a Mac or something else that’s simple. Better yet, if they get a Mac, you can tell them to visit the Apple Store for help instead of calling you. That’s another thing Windows PCs don’t offer — good manufacturer support. Image Credit: Blanca Stella Mejia on Flickr, Collin Andserson on Flickr, Luca Conti on Flickr     

  Read the article

• Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM by Brian Mozinski (Accenture)

  - by Greg Jensen

  Today, technical requirements for IAM are evolving rapidly, and the bar is continuously raised for high performance IAM solutions as organizations look to roll out high volume use cases on the back of legacy systems.  Existing solutions were often designed and architected to support offline transactions and manual processes, and the business owners today demand globally scalable infrastructure to support the growth their business cases are expected to deliver. To help IAM practitioners address these challenges and make their organizations and themselves more successful, this series we will outline the: • Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM The explosive growth in expectations for IAM infrastructure, and the business cases they support to gain investment in new security programs. • "Necessity is the mother of invention": Technical solutions developed in the field Well proven tricks of the trade, used by IAM guru’s to maximize your solution while addressing the requirements of global organizations. • The Art & Science of Performance Tuning of Oracle IAM 11gR2 Real world examples of performance tuning with Oracle IAM • No Where to go but up: Extending the benefits of accelerated IAM Anything is possible, compelling new solutions organizations are unlocking with accelerated Oracle IAM Let’s get started … by talking about the changing dynamics driving these discussions. Big Companies are getting bigger everyday, and increasingly organizations operate across state lines, multiple times zones, and in many countries or continents at the same time.  No longer is midnight to 6am a safe time to take down the system for upgrades, to run recon’s and import or update user accounts and attributes.  Further IT organizations are operating as shared services with SLA’s similar to telephone carrier levels expected by their “clients”.  Workers are moved in and out of roles on a weekly, daily, or even hourly rate and IAM is expected to support those rapid changes.  End users registering for services during business hours in Singapore are expected their access to be green-lighted in custom apps hosted in Portugal within the hour.  Many of the expectations of asynchronous systems and batched updates are not adequate and the number and types of users is growing. When organizations acted more like independent teams at functional or geographic levels it was manageable to have processes that relied on a handful of people who knew how to make things work …. Knew how to get you access to the key systems to get your job done.  Today everyone is expected to do more with less, the finance administrator previously supporting their local Atlanta sales office might now be asked to help close the books for the Johannesburg team, and access certification process once completed monthly by Joan on the 3rd floor is now done by a shared pool of resources in Sao Paulo.   Fragmented processes that rely on institutional knowledge to get access to systems and get work done quickly break down in these scenarios.  Highly robust processes that have automated workflows for connected or disconnected systems give organizations the dynamic flexibility to share work across these lines and cut costs or increase productivity. As the IT industry computing paradigms continue to change with the passing of time, and as mature or proven approaches become clear, it is normal for organizations to adjust accordingly. Businesses must manage identity in an increasingly hybrid world in which legacy on-premises IAM infrastructures are extended or replaced to support more and more interconnected and interdependent services to a wider range of users. The old legacy IAM implementation models we had relied on to manage identities no longer apply. End users expect to self-request access to services from their tablet, get supervisor approval over mobile devices and email, and launch the application even if is hosted on the cloud, or run by a partner, vendor, or service provider. While user expectations are higher, they are also simpler … logging into custom desktop apps to request approvals, or going through email or paper based processes for certification is unacceptable.  Users expect security to operate within the paradigm of the application … i.e. feel like the application they are using. Citizen and customer facing applications have evolved from every where, with custom applications, 3rd party tools, and merging in from acquired entities or 3rd party OEM’s resold to expand your portfolio of services.  These all have their own user stores, authentication models, user lifecycles, session management, etc.  Often the designers/developers are no longer accessible and the documentation is limited.  Bringing together underlying directories to scale for growth, and improve user experience is critical for revenue … but also for operations. Job functions are more dynamic.... take the Olympics for example.  Endless organizations from corporations broadcasting, endorsing, or marketing through the event … to non-profit athletic foundations and public/government entities for athletes and public safety, all operate simultaneously on the world stage.  Each organization needs to spin up short-term teams, often dealing with proprietary information from hot ads to racing strategies or security plans.  IAM is expected to enable team’s to spin up, enable new applications, protect privacy, and secure critical infrastructure.  Then it needs to be disabled just as quickly as users go back to their previous responsibilities. On a more technical level … Optimized system directory; tuning guidelines and parameters are needed by businesses today. Business’s need to be making the right choices (virtual directories) and considerations via choosing the correct architectural patterns (virtual, direct, replicated, and tuning), challenge is that business need to assess and chose the correct architectural patters (centralized, virtualized, and distributed) Today's Business organizations have very complex heterogeneous enterprises that contain diverse and multifaceted information. With today's ever changing global landscape, the strategic end goal in challenging times for business is business agility. The business of identity management requires enterprise's to be more agile and more responsive than ever before. The continued proliferation of networking devices (PC, tablet, PDA's, notebooks, etc.) has caused the number of devices and users to be granted access to these devices to grow exponentially. Business needs to deploy an IAM system that can account for the demands for authentication and authorizations to these devices. Increased innovation is forcing business and organizations to centralize their identity management services. Access management needs to handle traditional web based access as well as handle new innovations around mobile, as well as address insufficient governance processes which can lead to rouge identity accounts, which can then become a source of vulnerabilities within a business’s identity platform. Risk based decisions are providing challenges to business, for an adaptive risk model to make proper access decisions via standard Web single sign on for internal and external customers,. Organizations have to move beyond simple login and passwords to address trusted relationship questions such as: Is this a trusted customer, client, or citizen? Is this a trusted employee, vendor, or partner? Is this a trusted device? Without a solid technological foundation, organizational performance, collaboration, constituent services, or any other organizational processes will languish. A Single server location presents not only network concerns for distributed user base, but identity challenges. The network risks are centered on latency of the long trip that the traffic has to take. Other risks are a performance around availability and if the single identity server is lost, all access is lost. As you can see, there are many reasons why performance tuning IAM will have a substantial impact on the success of your organization.  In our next installment in the series we roll up our sleeves and get into detailed tuning techniques used everyday by thought leaders in the field implementing Oracle Identity & Access Management Solutions.

  Read the article

• A New Threat To Web Applications: Connection String Parameter Pollution (CSPP)

  - by eric.maurice

  Hi, this is Shaomin Wang. I am a security analyst in Oracle's Security Alerts Group. My primary responsibility is to evaluate the security vulnerabilities reported externally by security researchers on Oracle Fusion Middleware and to ensure timely resolution through the Critical Patch Update. Today, I am going to talk about a serious type of attack: Connection String Parameter Pollution (CSPP). Earlier this year, at the Black Hat DC 2010 Conference, two Spanish security researchers, Jose Palazon and Chema Alonso, unveiled a new class of security vulnerabilities, which target insecure dynamic connections between web applications and databases. The attack called Connection String Parameter Pollution (CSPP) exploits specifically the semicolon delimited database connection strings that are constructed dynamically based on the user inputs from web applications. CSPP, if carried out successfully, can be used to steal user identities and hijack web credentials. CSPP is a high risk attack because of the relative ease with which it can be carried out (low access complexity) and the potential results it can have (high impact). In today's blog, we are going to first look at what connection strings are and then review the different ways connection string injections can be leveraged by malicious hackers. We will then discuss how CSPP differs from traditional connection string injection, and the measures organizations can take to prevent this kind of attacks. In web applications, a connection string is a set of values that specifies information to connect to backend data repositories, in most cases, databases. The connection string is passed to a provider or driver to initiate a connection. Vendors or manufacturers write their own providers for different databases. Since there are many different providers and each provider has multiple ways to make a connection, there are many different ways to write a connection string. Here are some examples of connection strings from Oracle Data Provider for .Net/ODP.Net: Oracle Data Provider for .Net / ODP.Net; Manufacturer: Oracle; Type: .NET Framework Class Library: - Using TNS Data Source = orcl; User ID = myUsername; Password = myPassword; - Using integrated security Data Source = orcl; Integrated Security = SSPI; - Using the Easy Connect Naming Method Data Source = username/password@//myserver:1521/my.server.com - Specifying Pooling parameters Data Source=myOracleDB; User Id=myUsername; Password=myPassword; Min Pool Size=10; Connection Lifetime=120; Connection Timeout=60; Incr Pool Size=5; Decr Pool Size=2; There are many variations of the connection strings, but the majority of connection strings are key value pairs delimited by semicolons. Attacks on connection strings are not new (see for example, this SANS White Paper on Securing SQL Connection String). Connection strings are vulnerable to injection attacks when dynamic string concatenation is used to build connection strings based on user input. When the user input is not validated or filtered, and malicious text or characters are not properly escaped, an attacker can potentially access sensitive data or resources. For a number of years now, vendors, including Oracle, have created connection string builder class tools to help developers generate valid connection strings and potentially prevent this kind of vulnerability. Unfortunately, not all application developers use these utilities because they are not aware of the danger posed by this kind of attacks. So how are Connection String parameter Pollution (CSPP) attacks different from traditional Connection String Injection attacks? First, let's look at what parameter pollution attacks are. Parameter pollution is a technique, which typically involves appending repeating parameters to the request strings to attack the receiving end. Much of the public attention around parameter pollution was initiated as a result of a presentation on HTTP Parameter Pollution attacks by Stefano Di Paola and Luca Carettoni delivered at the 2009 Appsec OWASP Conference in Poland. In HTTP Parameter Pollution attacks, an attacker submits additional parameters in HTTP GET/POST to a web application, and if these parameters have the same name as an existing parameter, the web application may react in different ways depends on how the web application and web server deal with multiple parameters with the same name. When applied to connections strings, the rule for the majority of database providers is the "last one wins" algorithm. If a KEYWORD=VALUE pair occurs more than once in the connection string, the value associated with the LAST occurrence is used. This opens the door to some serious attacks. By way of example, in a web application, a user enters username and password; a subsequent connection string is generated to connect to the back end database. Data Source = myDataSource; Initial Catalog = db; Integrated Security = no; User ID = myUsername; Password = XXX; In the password field, if the attacker enters "xxx; Integrated Security = true", the connection string becomes, Data Source = myDataSource; Initial Catalog = db; Integrated Security = no; User ID = myUsername; Password = XXX; Intergrated Security = true; Under the "last one wins" principle, the web application will then try to connect to the database using the operating system account under which the application is running to bypass normal authentication. CSPP poses serious risks for unprepared organizations. It can be particularly dangerous if an Enterprise Systems Management web front-end is compromised, because attackers can then gain access to control panels to configure databases, systems accounts, etc. Fortunately, organizations can take steps to prevent this kind of attacks. CSPP falls into the Injection category of attacks like Cross Site Scripting or SQL Injection, which are made possible when inputs from users are not properly escaped or sanitized. Escaping is a technique used to ensure that characters (mostly from user inputs) are treated as data, not as characters, that is relevant to the interpreter's parser. Software developers need to become aware of the danger of these attacks and learn about the defenses mechanism they need to introduce in their code. As well, software vendors need to provide templates or classes to facilitate coding and eliminate developers' guesswork for protecting against such vulnerabilities. Oracle has introduced the OracleConnectionStringBuilder class in Oracle Data Provider for .NET. Using this class, developers can employ a configuration file to provide the connection string and/or dynamically set the values through key/value pairs. It makes creating connection strings less error-prone and easier to manager, and ultimately using the OracleConnectionStringBuilder class provides better security against injection into connection strings. For More Information: - The OracleConnectionStringBuilder is located at http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/win.111/b28375/OracleConnectionStringBuilderClass.htm - Oracle has developed a publicly available course on preventing SQL Injections. The Server Technologies Curriculum course "Defending Against SQL Injection Attacks!" is located at http://st-curriculum.oracle.com/tutorial/SQLInjection/index.htm - The OWASP web site also provides a number of useful resources. It is located at http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Main_Page

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Thinking about Deprecated, Discontinued Features and Breaking Changes while Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 – Guest Post by Nakul Vachhrajani

  - by pinaldave

  Nakul Vachhrajani is a Technical Specialist and systems development professional with iGATE having a total IT experience of more than 7 years. Nakul is an active blogger with BeyondRelational.com (150+ blogs), and can also be found on forums at SQLServerCentral and BeyondRelational.com. Nakul has also been a guest columnist for SQLAuthority.com and SQLServerCentral.com. Nakul presented a webcast on the “Underappreciated Features of Microsoft SQL Server” at the Microsoft Virtual Tech Days Exclusive Webcast series (May 02-06, 2011) on May 06, 2011. He is also the author of a research paper on Database upgrade methodologies, which was published in a CSI journal, published nationwide. In addition to his passion about SQL Server, Nakul also contributes to the academia out of personal interest. He visits various colleges and universities as an external faculty to judge project activities being carried out by the students. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are his own personal opinions and do not represent his employer’s view in anyway. Blog | LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ Let us hear the thoughts of Nakul in first person - Those who have been following my blogs would be aware that I am recently running a series on the database engine features that have been deprecated in Microsoft SQL Server 2012. Based on the response that I have received, I was quite surprised to know that most of the audience found these to be breaking changes, when in fact, they were not! It was then that I decided to write a little piece on how to plan your database upgrade such that it works with the next version of Microsoft SQL Server. Please note that the recommendations made in this article are high-level markers and are intended to help you think over the specific steps that you would need to take to upgrade your database. Refer the documentation – Understand the terms Change is the only constant in this world. Therefore, whenever customer requirements, newer architectures and designs require software vendors to make a change to the keywords, functions, etc; they ensure that they provide their end users sufficient time to migrate over to the new standards before dropping off the old ones. Microsoft does that too with it’s Microsoft SQL Server product. Whenever a new SQL Server release is announced, it comes with a list of the following features: Breaking changes These are changes that would break your currently running applications, scripts or functionalities that are based on earlier version of Microsoft SQL Server These are mostly features whose behavior has been changed keeping in mind the newer architectures and designs Lesson: These are the changes that you need to be most worried about! Discontinued features These features are no longer available in the associated version of Microsoft SQL Server These features used to be “deprecated” in the prior release Lesson: Without these changes, your database would not be compliant/may not work with the version of Microsoft SQL Server under consideration Deprecated features These features are those that are still available in the current version of Microsoft SQL Server, but are scheduled for removal in a future version. These may be removed in either the next version or any other future version of Microsoft SQL Server The features listed for deprecation will compose the list of discontinued features in the next version of SQL Server Lesson: Plan to make necessary changes required to remove/replace usage of the deprecated features with the latest recommended replacements Once a feature appears on the list, it moves from bottom to the top, i.e. it is first marked as “Deprecated” and then “Discontinued”. We know of “Breaking change” comes later on in the product life cycle. What this means is that if you want to know what features would not work with SQL Server 2012 (and you are currently using SQL Server 2008 R2), you need to refer the list of breaking changes and discontinued features in SQL Server 2012. Use the tools! There are a lot of tools and technologies around us, but it is rarely that I find teams using these tools religiously and to the best of their potential. Below are the top two tools, from Microsoft, that I use every time I plan a database upgrade. The SQL Server Upgrade Advisor Ever since SQL Server 2005 was announced, Microsoft provides a small, very light-weight tool called the “SQL Server upgrade advisor”. The upgrade advisor analyzes installed components from earlier versions of SQL Server, and then generates a report that identifies issues to fix either before or after you upgrade. The analysis examines objects that can be accessed, such as scripts, stored procedures, triggers, and trace files. Upgrade Advisor cannot analyze desktop applications or encrypted stored procedures. Refer the links towards the end of the post to know how to get the Upgrade Advisor. The SQL Server Profiler Another great tool that you can use is the one most SQL Server developers & administrators use often – the SQL Server profiler. SQL Server Profiler provides functionality to monitor the “Deprecation” event, which contains: Deprecation announcement – equivalent to features to be deprecated in a future release of SQL Server Deprecation final support – equivalent to features to be deprecated in the next release of SQL Server You can learn more using the links towards the end of the post. A basic checklist There are a lot of finer points that need to be taken care of when upgrading your database. But, it would be worth-while to identify a few basic steps in order to make your database compliant with the next version of SQL Server: Monitor the current application workload (on a test bed) via the Profiler in order to identify usage of features marked as Deprecated If none appear, you are all set! (This almost never happens) Note down all the offending queries and feature usages Run analysis sessions using the SQL Server upgrade advisor on your database Based on the inputs from the analysis report and Profiler trace sessions, Incorporate solutions for the breaking changes first Next, incorporate solutions for the discontinued features Revisit and document the upgrade strategy for your deployment scenarios Revisit the fall-back, i.e. rollback strategies in case the upgrades fail Because some programming changes are dependent upon the SQL server version, this may need to be done in consultation with the development teams Before any other enhancements are incorporated by the development team, send out the database changes into QA QA strategy should involve a comparison between an environment running the old version of SQL Server against the new one Because minimal application changes have gone in (essential changes for SQL Server version compliance only), this would be possible As an ongoing activity, keep incorporating changes recommended as per the deprecated features list As a DBA, update your coding standards to ensure that the developers are using ANSI compliant code – this code will require a change only if the ANSI standard changes Remember this: Change management is a continuous process. Keep revisiting the product release notes and incorporate recommended changes to stay prepared for the next release of SQL Server. May the power of SQL Server be with you! Links Referenced in this post Breaking changes in SQL Server 2012: Link Discontinued features in SQL Server 2012: Link Get the upgrade advisor from the Microsoft Download Center at: Link Upgrade Advisor page on MSDN: Link Profiler: Review T-SQL code to identify objects no longer supported by Microsoft: Link Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 by Vinod Kumar: Link Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Upgrade

  Read the article

• Improved Performance on PeopleSoft Combined Benchmark using SPARC T4-4

  - by Brian

  Oracle's SPARC T4-4 server running Oracle's PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 combined online and batch benchmark achieved a world record 18,000 concurrent users experiencing subsecond response time while executing a PeopleSoft Payroll batch job of 500,000 employees in 32.4 minutes. This result was obtained with a SPARC T4-4 server running Oracle Database 11g Release 2, a SPARC T4-4 server running PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 application server and a SPARC T4-2 server running Oracle WebLogic Server in the web tier. The SPARC T4-4 server running the application tier used Oracle Solaris Zones which provide a flexible, scalable and manageable virtualization environment. The average CPU utilization on the SPARC T4-2 server in the web tier was 17%, on the SPARC T4-4 server in the application tier it was 59%, and on the SPARC T4-4 server in the database tier was 47% (online and batch) leaving significant headroom for additional processing across the three tiers. The SPARC T4-4 server used for the database tier hosted Oracle Database 11g Release 2 using Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) for database files management with I/O performance equivalent to raw devices. Performance Landscape Results are presented for the PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service and Payroll combined benchmark. The new result with 128 streams shows significant improvement in the payroll batch processing time with little impact on the self-service component response time. PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service and Payroll Benchmark Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) SPARC T4-4 (db) 18,000 0.988 0.539 32.4 128 SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) SPARC T4-4 (db) 18,000 0.944 0.503 43.3 64 The following results are for the PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service benchmark that was previous run. The results are not directly comparable with the combined results because they do not include the payroll component. PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service 9.1 Benchmark Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) 2x SPARC T4-2 (db) 18,000 1.048 0.742 N/A N/A The following results are for the PeopleSoft Payroll benchmark that was previous run. The results are not directly comparable with the combined results because they do not include the self-service component. PeopleSoft Payroll (N.A.) 9.1 - 500K Employees (7 Million SQL PayCalc, Unicode) Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-4 (db) N/A N/A N/A 30.84 96 Configuration Summary Application Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-4 server with 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 512 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 PeopleTools 8.52 PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 Oracle Tuxedo, Version 10.3.0.0, 64-bit, Patch Level 031 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Database Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-4 server with 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 256 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 PeopleTools 8.52 Oracle Tuxedo, Version 10.3.0.0, 64-bit, Patch Level 031 Micro Focus Server Express (COBOL v 5.1.00) Web Tier Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server with 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 256 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 PeopleTools 8.52 Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.4 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Server X2-4 as a COMSTAR head for data 4 x Intel Xeon X7550, 2.0 GHz 128 GB memory 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (80 flash modules) 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (40 flash modules) 1 x Sun Fire X4275 as a COMSTAR head for redo logs 12 x 2 TB SAS disks with Niwot Raid controller Benchmark Description This benchmark combines PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 HR Self Service online and PeopleSoft Payroll batch workloads to run on a unified database deployed on Oracle Database 11g Release 2. The PeopleSoft HRSS benchmark kit is a Oracle standard benchmark kit run by all platform vendors to measure the performance. It's an OLTP benchmark where DB SQLs are moderately complex. The results are certified by Oracle and a white paper is published. PeopleSoft HR SS defines a business transaction as a series of HTML pages that guide a user through a particular scenario. Users are defined as corporate Employees, Managers and HR administrators. The benchmark consist of 14 scenarios which emulate users performing typical HCM transactions such as viewing paycheck, promoting and hiring employees, updating employee profile and other typical HCM application transactions. All these transactions are well-defined in the PeopleSoft HR Self-Service 9.1 benchmark kit. This benchmark metric is the weighted average response search/save time for all the transactions. The PeopleSoft 9.1 Payroll (North America) benchmark demonstrates system performance for a range of processing volumes in a specific configuration. This workload represents large batch runs typical of a ERP environment during a mass update. The benchmark measures five application business process run times for a database representing large organization. They are Paysheet Creation, Payroll Calculation, Payroll Confirmation, Print Advice forms, and Create Direct Deposit File. The benchmark metric is the cumulative elapsed time taken to complete the Paysheet Creation, Payroll Calculation and Payroll Confirmation business application processes. The benchmark metrics are taken for each respective benchmark while running simultaneously on the same database back-end. Specifically, the payroll batch processes are started when the online workload reaches steady state (the maximum number of online users) and overlap with online transactions for the duration of the steady state. Key Points and Best Practices Two PeopleSoft Domain sets with 200 application servers each on a SPARC T4-4 server were hosted in 2 separate Oracle Solaris Zones to demonstrate consolidation of multiple application servers, ease of administration and performance tuning. Each Oracle Solaris Zone was bound to a separate processor set, each containing 15 cores (total 120 threads). The default set (1 core from first and third processor socket, total 16 threads) was used for network and disk interrupt handling. This was done to improve performance by reducing memory access latency by using the physical memory closest to the processors and offload I/O interrupt handling to default set threads, freeing up cpu resources for Application Servers threads and balancing application workload across 240 threads. A total of 128 PeopleSoft streams server processes where used on the database node to complete payroll batch job of 500,000 employees in 32.4 minutes. See Also Oracle PeopleSoft Benchmark White Papers oracle.com SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN SPARC T4-4 Server oracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Managementoracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management (Payroll) oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 8 November 2012.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, July 03, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, July 03, 2012Popular ReleasesMini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query: Just a bug fix release for when the connections try to refresh after an edit. Make sure you read the http://pksoftware.net/Content/MiniSqlQuery/Help/MiniSqlQueryQuickStart.docx for an introduction.Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.58: Fix for Issue #18296: provide "ALL" value to the -ignore switch to ignore all error and warning messages. Fix for issue #18293: if encountering EOF before a function declaration or expression is properly closed, throw an appropriate error and don't crash. Adjust the variable-renaming algorithm so it's very specific when renaming variables with the same number of references so a single source file ends up with the same minified names on different platforms. add the ability to specify kno...LogExpert: 1.4 build 4566: This release for the 1.4 version line contains various fixes which have been made some times ago. Until now these fixes were only available in the 1.5 alpha versions. It also contains a fix for: 710. Column finder (press F8 to show) Terminal server issues: Multiple sessions with same user should work now Settings Export/Import available via Settings Dialog still incomple (e.g. tab colors are not saved) maybe I change the file format one day no command line support yet (for importin...DynamicToSql: DynamicToSql 1.0.0 (beta): 1.0.0 beta versionCommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.8.5 - Final Release: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 4.0 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars, Logging, Authentication, and much more. FluentscriptCommonLibrary.NET 0.9.8 contains a scripting language called FluentScript. Releases notes for FluentScript located at http://fluentscript.codeplex.com/wikipage?action=Edit&title=Release%20Notes&referringTitle=Documentation Fluentscript - 0.9.8.5 - Final ReleaseApplication: FluentScript Versio...SharePoint 2010 Metro UI: SharePoint 2010 Metro UI8: Please review the documentation link for how to install. Installation takes some basic knowledge of how to upload and edit SharePoint Artifact files. Please view the discussions tab for ongoing FAQsBack-Propagation Neural Networks Simulation: Back-Propagation Neural Networks Simulation: This is the first release application for Back-Propagation Neural Networks Simulation. It is required .NET Framework 4.0. Check this to use http://backpronn.codeplex.comnopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.60: Highlight features & improvements: • Significant performance optimization. • Use AJAX for adding products to the cart. • New flyout mini-shopping cart. • Auto complete suggestions for product searching. • Full-Text support. • EU cookie law support. To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/releasenotes.aspx).THE NVL Maker: The NVL Maker Ver 3.51: http://download.codeplex.com/Download?ProjectName=nvlmaker&DownloadId=371510 ????：http://115.com/file/beoef05k#THE-NVL-Maker-ver3.51-sim.7z ????：http://www.mediafire.com/file/6tqdwj9jr6eb9qj/THENVLMakerver3.51tra.7z ======================================== ???? ======================================== 3.51 beta ???： ·?????????????????????? ·?????????，?????????0，?????????????????????? ·??????????????????????????? ·?????????????TJS????（EXP??） ·??4:3???，???????????????，??????????? ·?????????...????: ????2.0.3: 1、???????????。 2、????????。 3、????????????。 4、bug??，????。Generic enumeration: Enumeration.zip: Generic enumeration dll with a test console application.Apworks: Apworks (v2.5.4563.21309, 30JUN2012): Installation Prerequisites: 1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 SP1 2. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SP1 3. Other required libraries & assemblies are now included in the installation package so no more prerequisites needed Functional Updates: 1. Refactor the identity field of the IEntity interface from 'Id' to 'ID' 2. Changed the MySql Storage to use the MySql NetConnector version 6.4.4. 3. Implemented the paging support for the repositories. 4. Added the Eager Loading Property specification t...AssaultCube Reloaded: 2.5 Intrepid: Linux has Ubuntu 11.10 32-bit precompiled binaries and Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit precompiled binaries, but you can compile your own as it also contains the source. If you are using Mac or other operating systems, download the Linux package. Try to compile it. If it fails, download a virtual machine. The server pack is ready for both Windows and Linux, but you might need to compile your own for Linux (source included) You should delete /home/config/saved.cfg to reset binds/other stuff If you us...WallSwitch: WallSwitch 1.0.4: Version 1.0.4 Changes: Changes in previous version broke hotkey support; fixed this. When minimizing the window to tray, if there are unsaved changes, then prompt to save first. When changing the path on a folder location, reset the file list. Fixed app not shutting down properly when closed externally. Improved installer to shut down app instead of requiring reboot. Clear History action now clears all history, rather than just the current theme.List Form Manipulation Framework (LFMF) for SharePoint 2010: LFMF v1.1: Added new SPFieldIO field type to reference filenamesSystem.Net.FtpClient: API Reference 2012.06.29: Updated with new file listing example as well as any API changes since the last release.Magelia WebStore Open-source Ecommerce software: Magelia WebStore 2.0: User Right Licensing ContentType version 2.0.267.1Designing Windows 8 Applications with C# and XAML: Chapters 1 - 7 Release Preview: Source code for all examples from Chapters 1 - 7 for the Release PreviewSQL Server FineBuild: Version 3.1.0: Top SQL Server FineBuild Version 3.1.0This is the stable version of FineBuild for SQL Server 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005 Documentation FineBuild Wiki containing details of the FineBuild process Known Issues Limitations with this release FineBuild V3.1.0 Release Contents List of changes included in this release Please DonateFineBuild is free, but please donate what you think FineBuild is worth as everything goes to charity. Tearfund is one of the UK's leading relief and de...EasySL: RapidSL V2: Rewrite RapidSL UI Framework, Using Silverlight 5.0 EF4.1 Code First Ria Service SP2 + Lastest Silverlight Toolkit.New Projects2DoTasks: This is a simple Dnn Module for Project/Tasks/time management. I hope you all found it useful.AOPify: AOPify lightweight fluent AOP framework that provides basic AOP features both before,after,onerror etc with fluent syntax..Capacitacion: This is my first Project - mvillasecoCLFiling: Client filing with search functionsContoso University MVC NTier: This is first version reference application for ASP.NET MVC NTier.DynamicToSql: DynamicToSql is a lightweight API that maps dynamically typed entities to a database and vice versa. It works against any database that has ADO.NET drivers.Enlightener: Deobfuscator target at Confuser. Child project of http://netdeob0.codeplex.com/Excel Adjacency List to Dot: Excel add-in to generate graphs in GraphViz dot file format from an adjacency list in Excel.FFXIV Job Bar: This is a little utility to help with Job changes in FFXIV. Gallery: A simple javascript/jquery based image gallery. Just include the Gallery.js and jquery in your html page.Grocery Droid: Transfer your P.C. designed shopping list to androidLOCOL: Locol is a internet medium to provide local information and services to district local residents.Meter: Log communal meters dataNthDownload: NthDownload is yet another attempt at a download manager.Paginacion de un objeto en un gridview: Como paginar un objeto con multiples resultados en un gridviewRunman game: "Runman" is port of "Pac-Man" game writing on C# and XNASB01: Project will be a startup for a warehouse management and easy to extend by any developer. Plug n play kind of setup.SC2Ranks API: A .NET 4.0 SC2Ranks APISharePoint 2010 Cookie Approval Control: If you need to comply with EU cookie law this control displays a message to each user that cookies are in use on the site and allows them to accept the messageSharePoint Advanced Visibility Options: Advanced Visibility Options - is an extension to SharePoint providing configurable List Field Iterator with PowerShell scripts.smtools2: Add-on tools for Service MonsterSparqube Picture Column Lite for SharePoint 2010: Sparqube Picture Column Lite is simple component for uploading and displaying images in SharePoint 2010 lists.SpudloFizzBuzz: This project is part of a job application process.SwiftMVVM: An extremely fast, easily refactorable implementation of INotifyPropertyChanged/ing, using dynamic proxy generation, as well as a robust change tracking engine.ZPL Converter: ZPL Converter converts Zune Playlists (.ZPL) easily and fast into other playlist formats, e.g. '.M3U' or '.PLS'.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, December 17, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, December 17, 2012Popular ReleasesMove Mouse: Move Mouse 2.5.3: FIXED - Issue where it errors on load if the screen saver interval is over 333 minutes.LINUX????????: LINUX????????: LINUX????????cnbeta: cnbeta: cnbetaCSDN ??: CSDN??????: CSDN??????PowerShell Community Extensions: 2.1.1 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 2.1.1 Release NotesDec 16, 2012 This version of PSCX supports both Windows PowerShell 2.0 and 3.0. Bug fix for HelpUri error with the Get-Help proxy command. See the ReleaseNotes.txt download above for more information.CRM 2011 Navigation UI Record Counter: Navigation UI Record Counter v1.3.1: Fixes Bug with Chrome Bug with parseXml - reverted to good old indexOfVidCoder: 1.4.11 Beta: Added Hungarian translation, thanks to Brechler Zsolt. Update HandBrake core to SVN 5098. This update should fix crashes on some files. Updated the enqueue split button to fit in better with the active Windows theme. Updated presets to use x264 preset/profile/level.???: Cnblogs: CNBLOGSSandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.6.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...Electricity, Gas and Temperature Monitoring with Netduino Plus: V1.0.1 Netduino Plus Monitoring: This is the first stable release from the Netduino Plus Monitoring program. Bugfixing The code is enhanced at some places in respect to the V0.6.1 version There is a possibility to add multiple S0 meters Website for realtime display of data Website for configuring the Netduino Comments are welcome! Additions will not be made to this version. This is the first and last major Netduino Plus V1 release. The new development will take place with the Netduino Plus V2 development board in mi...CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1116.8): [FIX] Fixed issue not displaying CRM system button images correctly (incorrect path in file VisualRibbonEditor.exe.config)My Expenses Windows Store LOB App Demo: My Expenses Version 1: This is version 1 of the MyExpenses Windows 8 line of business demo app. The app is written in XAML and C#. It calls a WCF service that works with a SQL Server database. The app uses the Callisto toolkit. You can get it at https://github.com/timheuer/callisto. The Expenses.sql file contains the SQL to create the Expenses database. The ExpensesWCFService.zip file contains the WCF service, also written in C#. You should create a WCF service. Create an Entity Framework model and point it to...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.4: 2012.12.13 Ver5.7.4 (1)Web???????、???????????????????????????????????????????VFPX: ssClasses A1.0: My initial release. See https://vfpx.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=ssClasses&referringTitle=Home for a brief description of what is inside this releaseLayered Architecture Solution Guidance (LASG): LASG 1.0.0.8 for Visual Studio 2012: PRE-REQUISITES Open GAX (Please install Oct 4, 2012 version) Microsoft® System CLR Types for Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Shared Management Objects Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 (for the generated code) Windows Azure SDK (for layered cloud applications) Silverlight 5 SDK (for Silverlight applications) THE RELEASE This release only works on Visual Studio 2012. Known Issue If you choose the Database project, the solution unfolding time will be slow....Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 2.0: Prva prava produkcijska verzija - Zakon je tu, ova je verzija uskladena sa trenutno važecom Tehnickom specifikacijom (v1.2. od 04.12.2012.) i spremna je za produkcijsko korištenje. Verzije iza ove ce ovisiti o naknadnim izmjenama Zakona i/ili Tehnicke specifikacije, odnosno, o eventualnim greškama u radu/zahtjevima community-a za novim feature-ima. Novosti u v2.0 su: - That assembly does not allow partially trusted callers (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/699) - scheme IznosType...Bootstrap Helpers: Version 1: First releaseDirectX Tool Kit: December 11, 2012: December 11, 2012 Ex versions of DDSTextureLoader and WICTextureLoader Removed use of ATL's CComPtr in favor of WRL's ComPtr for all platforms to support VS Express editions Updated VS 2010 project for official 'property sheet' integration for Windows 8.0 SDK Minor fix to CommonStates for Feature Level 9.1 Tweaked AlphaTestEffect.cpp to work around ARM NEON compiler codegen bug Added dxguid.lib as a default library for Debug builds to resolve GUID link issuesArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap: ArcGIS Editor for OSM 2.1 Final for 10.1: We are proud to announce the release of ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap version 2.1. This download is compatible with ArcGIS 10.1, and includes setups for the Desktop Component, Desktop Component when 64 bit Background Geoprocessing is installed, and the Server Component. Important: if you already have ArcGIS Editor for OSM installed but want to install this new version, you will need to uninstall your previous version and then install this one. This release includes support for the ArcGIS 1...SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8.2: This release just contains some fixes that have been done since the last release. Plus, this is strong named as well. I apologize for the lack of updates but my free time is less these days.New ProjectsAzke: New: Azke is a portal developed with ASP.NET MVC and MySQL. Old: Azke is a portal developed with ASP.net and MySQL.BasicallyNot Visual Studio 2010 Extension: "BasicallyNot" is a new Visual Studio 2010 Extension. It is designed to "drastically improve your VB.Net productivity", and of course make you think happy thoughts about cookies.Beautiful Code: These are collections of random code that I have written, which I believe are "beautiful" in some respects (algorithm, usage of language features etc.).bjyxl2: a csla project for myself.Buscayasminas: Buscayasminas is an open source "Minesweeper" alike game totally written in DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML) that uses mouse and keyboard optionally. This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Linux, *BSD, Windows and others.Check if Knowledge Base fix is installed script: A handy script that checks if a knowledge base fix is installed or not.cnbeta: CNBETA ???????CSDN ??: CSDN????????IT??DateTime Class: DateTime Class with several methods: -NumberOfBusinessDaysFrom -IsWorkDay -NextBusinessDay -PreviousBusinessDayECSE6770: An web application for Software Engineering at RPI Hartford.Google+ for Windows Phone 7: Nothing here now.Koch Curve in Silverlight: This program generates the Koch curve using the Silverlight browser plugin.LINUX????????: LINUX????????longchang capture project: this is the project of longchang traffic police capture.Luna Programming Editor: Luna Programming Editor aims to be a simple but very functional, open source programming editor for developers who want to be more productive.markgrovestest: Azure TestMerge PDF Files: This class implement the merge of PDF filesMetroWeb: Metro web is a new modern web browser that provide a different experience for web browsing it just show any traditional web site as a metro designed websiteMinecraft 1.4.4 -- Learning Java: But a simple attempt at modding Minecraft over two different computers not on the same network.Nhóm CKT11: chia s? code nhóm ckt11Orchard.DecoratorField: Orchard Module to add new fieldsPhysic Engine: Physic EnginePixentration: UIS projectPomidoro: Windows store app: timer, which can be used in the application of 'Pomodoro Technique'.ROBO XERO Control: ROBO XERO ??????????????????????。ruc: Buscar en RUC de Paraguay.Send Email Class: Generic class to send emailsServiceProcessManagement: ?????SPMSeven Zip Wrapper: This small application which allows to call 7zip to create an archive, but skip compression for specific file extensions, which are usually already compressed.SharpShell: SharpShell is a .NET class library that lets you build Windows Shell Extensions using C# or VB.Silverseed.Core: Silverseed.Core is planned to be a common library for a variety of tools I'm planning to write, one of which is already available at Codeplex: [url:RepoCop|http://repocop.codeplex.com].Sistemas De Seguridad: integrantes jorge sara marieta douglassSomeTD: someSourPresser: komprese zdrojoveho kodu, zakodovani do B64 a oznaceni jako "nekompiluj" pro CIL kompilator. ....nekdy uzitecne.....The Curse: The Curse UO. Helping make the runUO community better.TIF Manipulation (Image): Tif Image Manipulation (Split, GetPage, Save Tif format...)Tiny Image Filters: This is a basic image processing library for Windows Phone. It is going to help developing photo effect app on Windows Phone.TrainGroup: This LightSwitch Project aims to be a simple management tool for any kind of training groups.Windows 7 Logon Tweaker: A Simple Software Used To Change The Logon Background Of Windows 7Windows Disguiser: Windows Disguiser is a little program that allows to automatically disguise minimized windows into the system tray.Windows Forms Metro: This project aims to create a library of controls & templates of Windows 8 Metro Style UI elements, for those who still using/loves windows forms.WPF Open Dialog: WPF Open Dialog is a simple and free open file/folder dialog for WPF using MVVM pattern. ???: ????????

  Read the article

• A Good Developer is So Hard to Find

  - by James Michael Hare

  Let me start out by saying I want to damn the writers of the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever – 2. It is eating every last shred of my free time! But as I've been churning through each puzzle and marvelling at the brain teasers and trivia within, I began to think about interviewing developers and why it seems to be so hard to find good ones.  The problem is, it seems like no matter how hard we try to find the perfect way to separate the chaff from the wheat, inevitably someone will get hired who falls far short of expectations or someone will get passed over for missing a piece of trivia or a tricky brain teaser that could have been an excellent team member.   In shops that are primarily software-producing businesses or other heavily IT-oriented businesses (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) there often exists a much tighter bond between HR and the hiring development staff because development is their life-blood. Unfortunately, many of us work in places where IT is viewed as a cost or just a means to an end. In these shops, too often, HR and development staff may work against each other due to differences in opinion as to what a good developer is or what one is worth.  It seems that if you ask two different people what makes a good developer, often you will get three different opinions.   With the exception of those shops that are purely development-centric (you guys have it much easier!), most other shops have management who have very little knowledge about the development process.  Their view can often be that development is simply a skill that one learns and then once aquired, that developer can produce widgets as good as the next like workers on an assembly-line floor.  On the other side, you have many developers that feel that software development is an art unto itself and that the ability to create the most pure design or know the most obscure of keywords or write the shortest-possible obfuscated piece of code is a good coder.  So is it a skill?  An Art?  Or something entirely in between?   Saying that software is merely a skill and one just needs to learn the syntax and tools would be akin to saying anyone who knows English and can use Word can write a 300 page book that is accurate, meaningful, and stays true to the point.  This just isn't so.  It takes more than mere skill to take words and form a sentence, join those sentences into paragraphs, and those paragraphs into a document.  I've interviewed candidates who could answer obscure syntax and keyword questions and once they were hired could not code effectively at all.  So development must be more than a skill.   But on the other end, we have art.  Is development an art?  Is our end result to produce art?  I can marvel at a piece of code -- see it as concise and beautiful -- and yet that code most perform some stated function with accuracy and efficiency and maintainability.  None of these three things have anything to do with art, per se.  Art is beauty for its own sake and is a wonderful thing.  But if you apply that same though to development it just doesn't hold.  I've had developers tell me that all that matters is the end result and how you code it is entirely part of the art and I couldn't disagree more.  Yes, the end result, the accuracy, is the prime criteria to be met.  But if code is not maintainable and efficient, it would be just as useless as a beautiful car that breaks down once a week or that gets 2 miles to the gallon.  Yes, it may work in that it moves you from point A to point B and is pretty as hell, but if it can't be maintained or is not efficient, it's not a good solution.  So development must be something less than art.   In the end, I think I feel like development is a matter of craftsmanship.  We use our tools and we use our skills and set about to construct something that satisfies a purpose and yet is also elegant and efficient.  There is skill involved, and there is an art, but really it boils down to being able to craft code.  Crafting code is far more than writing code.  Anyone can write code if they know the syntax, but so few people can actually craft code that solves a purpose and craft it well.  So this is what I want to find, I want to find code craftsman!  But how?   I used to ask coding-trivia questions a long time ago and many people still fall back on this.  The thought is that if you ask the candidate some piece of coding trivia and they know the answer it must follow that they can craft good code.  For example:   What C++ keyword can be applied to a class/struct field to allow it to be changed even from a const-instance of that class/struct?  (answer: mutable)   So what do we prove if a candidate can answer this?  Only that they know what mutable means.  One would hope that this would infer that they'd know how to use it, and more importantly when and if it should ever be used!  But it rarely does!  The problem with triva questions is that you will either: Approve a really good developer who knows what some obscure keyword is (good) Reject a really good developer who never needed to use that keyword or is too inexperienced to know how to use it (bad) Approve a really bad developer who googled "C++ Interview Questions" and studied like hell but can't craft (very bad) Many HR departments love these kind of tests because they are short and easy to defend if a legal issue arrises on hiring decisions.  After all it's easy to say a person wasn't hired because they scored 30 out of 100 on some trivia test.  But unfortunately, you've eliminated a large part of your potential developer pool and possibly hired a few duds.  There are times I've hired candidates who knew every trivia question I could throw out them and couldn't craft.  And then there are times I've interviewed candidates who failed all my trivia but who I took a chance on who were my best finds ever.    So if not trivia, then what?  Brain teasers?  The thought is, these type of questions measure the thinking power of a candidate.  The problem is, once again, you will either: Approve a good candidate who has never heard the problem and can solve it (good) Reject a good candidate who just happens not to see the "catch" because they're nervous or it may be really obscure (bad) Approve a candidate who has studied enough interview brain teasers (once again, you can google em) to recognize the "catch" or knows the answer already (bad). Once again, you're eliminating good candidates and possibly accepting bad candidates.  In these cases, I think testing someone with brain teasers only tests their ability to answer brain teasers, not the ability to craft code. So how do we measure someone's ability to craft code?  Here's a novel idea: have them code!  Give them a computer and a compiler, or a whiteboard and a pen, or paper and pencil and have them construct a piece of code.  It just makes sense that if we're going to hire someone to code we should actually watch them code.  When they're done, we can judge them on several criteria: Correctness - does the candidate's solution accurately solve the problem proposed? Accuracy - is the candidate's solution reasonably syntactically correct? Efficiency - did the candidate write or use the more efficient data structures or algorithms for the job? Maintainability - was the candidate's code free of obfuscation and clever tricks that diminish readability? Persona - are they eager and willing or aloof and egotistical?  Will they work well within your team? It may sound simple, or it may sound crazy, but when I'm looking to hire a developer, I want to see them actually develop well-crafted code.

  Read the article

• Top 5 Developer Enabling Nuggets in MySQL 5.6

  - by Rob Young

  MySQL 5.6 is truly a better MySQL and reflects Oracle's commitment to the evolution of the most popular and widelyused open source database on the planet.  The feature-complete 5.6 release candidate was announced at MySQL Connect in late September and the production-ready, generally available ("GA") product should be available in early 2013.  While the message around 5.6 has been focused mainly on mass appeal, advanced topics like performance/scale, high availability, and self-healing replication clusters, MySQL 5.6 also provides many developer-friendly nuggets that are designed to enable those who are building the next generation of web-based and embedded applications and services. Boiling down the 5.6 feature set into a smaller set, of simple, easy to use goodies designed with developer agility in mind, these things deserve a quick look:Subquery Optimizations Using semi-JOINs and late materialization, the MySQL 5.6 Optimizer delivers greatly improved subquery performance. Specifically, the optimizer is now more efficient in handling subqueries in the FROM clause; materialization of subqueries in the FROM clause is now postponed until their contents are needed during execution. Additionally, the optimizer may add an index to derived tables during execution to speed up row retrieval. Internal tests run using the DBT-3 benchmark Query #13, shown below, demonstrate an order of magnitude improvement in execution times (from days to seconds) over previous versions. select c_name, c_custkey, o_orderkey, o_orderdate, o_totalprice, sum(l_quantity)from customer, orders, lineitemwhere o_orderkey in (                select l_orderkey                from lineitem                group by l_orderkey                having sum(l_quantity) > 313  )  and c_custkey = o_custkey  and o_orderkey = l_orderkeygroup by c_name, c_custkey, o_orderkey, o_orderdate, o_totalpriceorder by o_totalprice desc, o_orderdateLIMIT 100;What does this mean for developers?  For starters, simplified subqueries can now be coded instead of complex joins for cross table lookups: SELECT title FROM film WHERE film_id IN (SELECT film_id FROM film_actor GROUP BY film_id HAVING count(*) > 12); And even more importantly subqueries embedded in packaged applications no longer need to be re-written into joins.  This is good news for both ISVs and their customers who have access to the underlying queries and who have spent development cycles writing, testing and maintaining their own versions of re-written queries across updated versions of a packaged app.The details are in the MySQL 5.6 docs. Online DDL OperationsToday's web-based applications are designed to rapidly evolve and adapt to meet business and revenue-generationrequirements. As a result, development SLAs are now most often measured in minutes vs days or weeks. For example, when an application must quickly support new product lines or new products within existing product lines, the backend database schema must adapt in kind, and most commonly while the application remains available for normal business operations.  MySQL 5.6 supports this level of online schema flexibility and agility by providing the following new ALTER TABLE online DDL syntax additions:  CREATE INDEX DROP INDEX Change AUTO_INCREMENT value for a column ADD/DROP FOREIGN KEY Rename COLUMN Change ROW FORMAT, KEY_BLOCK_SIZE for a table Change COLUMN NULL, NOT_NULL Add, drop, reorder COLUMN Again, the details are in the MySQL 5.6 docs. Key-value access to InnoDB via Memcached APIMany of the next generation of web, cloud, social and mobile applications require fast operations against simple Key/Value pairs. At the same time, they must retain the ability to run complex queries against the same data, as well as ensure the data is protected with ACID guarantees. With the new NoSQL API for InnoDB, developers have allthe benefits of a transactional RDBMS, coupled with the performance capabilities of Key/Value store.MySQL 5.6 provides simple, key-value interaction with InnoDB data via the familiar Memcached API.  Implemented via a new Memcached daemon plug-in to mysqld, the new Memcached protocol is mapped directly to the native InnoDB API and enables developers to use existing Memcached clients to bypass the expense of query parsing and go directly to InnoDB data for lookups and transactional compliant updates.  The API makes it possible to re-use standard Memcached libraries and clients, while extending Memcached functionality by integrating a persistent, crash-safe, transactional database back-end.  The implementation is shown here:So does this option provide a performance benefit over SQL?  Internal performance benchmarks using a customized Java application and test harness show some very promising results with a 9X improvement in overall throughput for SET/INSERT operations:You can follow the InnoDB team blog for the methodology, implementation and internal test cases that generated these results here. How to get started with Memcached API to InnoDB is here. New Instrumentation in Performance SchemaThe MySQL Performance Schema was introduced in MySQL 5.5 and is designed to provide point in time metrics for key performance indicators.  MySQL 5.6 improves the Performance Schema in answer to the most common DBA and Developer problems.  New instrumentations include: Statements/Stages What are my most resource intensive queries? Where do they spend time? Table/Index I/O, Table Locks Which application tables/indexes cause the most load or contention? Users/Hosts/Accounts Which application users, hosts, accounts are consuming the most resources? Network I/O What is the network load like? How long do sessions idle? Summaries Aggregated statistics grouped by statement, thread, user, host, account or object. The MySQL 5.6 Performance Schema is now enabled by default in the my.cnf file with optimized and auto-tune settings that minimize overhead (< 5%, but mileage will vary), so using the Performance Schema ona production server to monitor the most common application use cases is less of an issue.  In addition, new atomic levels of instrumentation enable the capture of granular levels of resource consumption by users, hosts, accounts, applications, etc. for billing and chargeback purposes in cloud computing environments.The MySQL docs are an excellent resource for all that is available and that can be done with the 5.6 Performance Schema. Better Condition Handling - GET DIAGNOSTICSMySQL 5.6 enables developers to easily check for error conditions and code for exceptions by introducing the new MySQL Diagnostics Area and corresponding GET DIAGNOSTICS interface command. The Diagnostic Area can be populated via multiple options and provides 2 kinds of information:Statement - which provides affected row count and number of conditions that occurredCondition - which provides error codes and messages for all conditions that were returned by a previous operation The addressable items for each are: The new GET DIAGNOSTICS command provides a standard interface into the Diagnostics Area and can be used via the CLI or from within application code to easily retrieve and handle the results of the most recent statement execution.  An example of how it is used might be:mysql> DROP TABLE test.no_such_table; ERROR 1051 (42S02): Unknown table 'test.no_such_table' mysql> GET DIAGNOSTICS CONDITION 1 -> @p1 = RETURNED_SQLSTATE, @p2 = MESSAGE_TEXT; mysql> SELECT @p1, @p2; +-------+------------------------------------+| @p1   | @p2                                | +-------+------------------------------------+| 42S02 | Unknown table 'test.no_such_table' | +-------+------------------------------------+ Options for leveraging the MySQL Diagnotics Area and GET DIAGNOSTICS are detailed in the MySQL Docs.While the above is a summary of some of the key developer enabling 5.6 features, it is by no means exhaustive. You can dig deeper into what MySQL 5.6 has to offer by reading this developer zone article or checking out "What's New in MySQL 5.6" in the MySQL docs.BONUS ALERT!  If you are developing on Windows or are considering MySQL as an alternative to SQL Server for your next project, application or shipping product, you should check out the MySQL Installer for Windows.  The installer includes the MySQL 5.6 RC database, all drivers, Visual Studio and Excel plugins, tray monitor and development tools all a single download and GUI installer.   So what are your next steps? Register for Dec. 13 "MySQL 5.6: Building the Next Generation of Web-Based Applications and Services" live web event.  Hurry!  Seats are limited. Download the MySQL 5.6 Release Candidate (look under the Development Releases tab) Provide Feedback <link to http://bugs.mysql.com/> Join the Developer discussion on the MySQL Forums Explore all MySQL Products and Developer Tools As always, thanks for your continued support of MySQL!

  Read the article

• Recap: Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategies Driving Business Innovation

  - by Harish Gaur

  Hasan Rizvi, Executive Vice President of Oracle Fusion Middleware & Java took the stage on Tuesday to discuss how Oracle Fusion Middleware helps enable business innovation. Through a series of product demos and customer showcases, Hassan demonstrated how Oracle Fusion Middleware is a complete platform to harness the latest technological innovations (cloud, mobile, social and Fast Data) throughout the application lifecycle. Fig 1: Oracle Fusion Middleware is the foundation of business innovation This Session included 4 demonstrations to illustrate these strategies: 1. Build and deploy native mobile applications using Oracle ADF Mobile 2. Empower business user to model processes, design user interface and have rich mobile experience for process interaction using Oracle BPM Suite PS6. 3. Create collaborative user experience and integrate social sign-on using Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle WebCenter Content, Oracle Social Network & Oracle Identity Management 11g R2 4. Deploy and manage business applications on Oracle Exalogic Nike, LA Department of Water & Power and Nintendo joined Hasan on stage to share how their organizations are leveraging Oracle Fusion Middleware to enable business innovation. Managing Performance in the Wrld of Social and Mobile How do you provide predictable scalability and performance for an application that monitors active lifestyle of 8 million users on a daily basis? Nike’s answer is Oracle Coherence, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Exadata. Fig 2: Oracle Coherence enabled data grid improves performance of Nike+ Digital Sports Platform Nicole Otto, Sr. Director of Consumer Digital Technology discussed the vision of the Nike+ platform, a platform which represents a shift for NIKE from a  "product"  to  a "product +" experience.  There are currently nearly 8 million users in the Nike+ system who are using digitally-enabled Nike+ devices.  Once data from the Nike+ device is transmitted to Nike+ application, users access the Nike+ website or via the Nike mobile applicatoin, seeing metrics around their daily active lifestyle and even engage in socially compelling experiences to compare, compete or collaborate their data with their friends. Nike expects the number of users to grow significantly this year which will drive an explosion of data and potential new experiences. To deal with this challenge, Nike envisioned building a shared platform that would drive a consumer-centric model for the company. Nike built this new platform using Oracle Coherence and Oracle Exadata. Using Coherence, Nike built a data grid tier as a distributed cache, thereby provide low-latency access to most recent and relevant data to consumers. Nicole discussed how Nike+ Digital Sports Platform is unique in the way that it utilizes the Coherence Grid.  Nike takes advantage of Coherence as a traditional cache using both cache-aside and cache-through patterns.  This new tier has enabled Nike to create a horizontally scalable distributed event-driven processing architecture. Current data grid volume is approximately 150,000 request per minute with about 40 million objects at any given time on the grid. Improving Customer Experience Across Multiple Channels Customer experience is on top of every CIO's mind. Customer Experience needs to be consistent and secure across multiple devices consumers may use.  This is the challenge Matt Lampe, CIO of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) was faced with. Despite being the largest utilities company in the country, LADWP had been relying on a 38 year old customer information system for serving its customers. Their prior system  had been unable to keep up with growing customer demands. Last year, LADWP embarked on a journey to improve customer experience for 1.6million LA DWP customers using Oracle WebCenter platform. Figure 3: Multi channel & Multi lingual LADWP.com built using Oracle WebCenter & Oracle Identity Management platform Matt shed light on his efforts to drive customer self-service across 3 dimensions – new website, new IVR platform and new bill payment service. LADWP has built a new portal to increase customer self-service while reducing the transactions via IVR. LADWP's website is powered Oracle WebCenter Portal and is accessible by desktop and mobile devices. By leveraging Oracle WebCenter, LADWP eliminated the need to build, format, and maintain individual mobile applications or websites for different devices. Their entire content is managed using Oracle WebCenter Content and secured using Oracle Identity Management. This new portal automated their paper based processes to web based workflows for customers. This includes automation of Self Service implemented through My Account -  like Bill Pay, Payment History, Bill History and Usage Analysis. LADWP's solution went live in April 2012. Matt indicated that LADWP's Self-Service Portal has greatly improved customer satisfaction.  In a JD Power Associates website satisfaction survey, results indicate rankings have climbed by 25+ points, marking a remarkable increase in user experience. Bolstering Performance and Simplifying Manageability of Business Applications Ingvar Petursson, Senior Vice Preisdent of IT at Nintendo America joined Hasan on-stage to discuss their choice of Exalogic. Nintendo had significant new requirements coming their way for business systems, both internal and external, in the years to come, especially with new products like the WiiU on the horizon this holiday season. Nintendo needed a platform that could give them performance, availability and ease of management as they deploy business systems. Ingvar selected Engineered Systems for two reasons: 1. High performance  2. Ease of management Figure 4: Nintendo relies on Oracle Exalogic to run ATG eCommerce, Oracle e-Business Suite and several business applications Nintendo made a decision to run their business applications (ATG eCommerce, E-Business Suite) and several Fusion Middleware components on the Exalogic platform. What impressed Ingvar was the "stress” testing results during evaluation. Oracle Exalogic could handle their 3-year load estimates for many functions, which was better than Nintendo expected without any hardware expansion. Faster Processing of Big Data Middleware plays an increasingly important role in Big Data. Last year, we announced at OpenWorld the introduction of Oracle Data Integrator for Hadoop and Oracle Loader for Hadoop which helps in the ability to move, transform, load data to and from Big Data Appliance to Exadata.  This year, we’ve added new capabilities to find, filter, and focus data using Oracle Event Processing. This product can natively integrate with Big Data Appliance or runs standalone. Hasan briefly discussed how NTT Docomo, largest mobile operator in Japan, leverages Oracle Event Processing & Oracle Coherence to process mobile data (from 13 million smartphone users) at a speed of 700K events per second before feeding it Hadoop for distributed processing of big data. Figure 5: Mobile traffic data processing at NTT Docomo with Oracle Event Processing & Oracle Coherence    

  Read the article

• Announcing: Great Improvements to Windows Azure Web Sites

  - by ScottGu

  I’m excited to announce some great improvements to the Windows Azure Web Sites capability we first introduced earlier this summer.  Today’s improvements include: a new low-cost shared mode scaling option, support for custom domains with shared and reserved mode web-sites using both CNAME and A-Records (the later enabling naked domains), continuous deployment support using both CodePlex and GitHub, and FastCGI extensibility.  All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately. New “Shared” Scaling Tier Windows Azure allows you to deploy and host up to 10 web-sites in a free, shared/multi-tenant hosting environment. You can start out developing and testing web sites at no cost using this free shared mode, and it supports the ability to run web sites that serve up to 165MB/day of content (5GB/month).  All of the capabilities we introduced in June with this free tier remain the same with today’s update. Starting with today’s release, you can now elastically scale up your web-site beyond this capability using a new low-cost “shared” option (which we are introducing today) as well as using a “reserved instance” option (which we’ve supported since June).  Scaling to either of these modes is easy.  Simply click on the “scale” tab of your web-site within the Windows Azure Portal, choose the scaling option you want to use with it, and then click the “save” button.  Changes take only seconds to apply and do not require any code to be changed, nor the app to be redeployed: Below are some more details on the new “shared” option, as well as the existing “reserved” option: Shared Mode With today’s release we are introducing a new low-cost “shared” scaling mode for Windows Azure Web Sites.  A web-site running in shared mode is deployed in a shared/multi-tenant hosting environment.  Unlike the free tier, though, a web-site in shared mode has no quotas/upper-limit around the amount of bandwidth it can serve.  The first 5 GB/month of bandwidth you serve with a shared web-site is free, and then you pay the standard “pay as you go” Windows Azure outbound bandwidth rate for outbound bandwidth above 5 GB. A web-site running in shared mode also now supports the ability to map multiple custom DNS domain names, using both CNAMEs and A-records, to it.  The new A-record support we are introducing with today’s release provides the ability for you to support “naked domains” with your web-sites (e.g. http://microsoft.com in addition to http://www.microsoft.com).  We will also in the future enable SNI based SSL as a built-in feature with shared mode web-sites (this functionality isn’t supported with today’s release – but will be coming later this year to both the shared and reserved tiers). You pay for a shared mode web-site using the standard “pay as you go” model that we support with other features of Windows Azure (meaning no up-front costs, and you pay only for the hours that the feature is enabled).  A web-site running in shared mode costs only 1.3 cents/hr during the preview (so on average $9.36/month). Reserved Instance Mode In addition to running sites in shared mode, we also support scaling them to run within a reserved instance mode.  When running in reserved instance mode your sites are guaranteed to run isolated within your own Small, Medium or Large VM (meaning no other customers run within it).  You can run any number of web-sites within a VM, and there are no quotas on CPU or memory limits. You can run your sites using either a single reserved instance VM, or scale up to have multiple instances of them (e.g. 2 medium sized VMs, etc).  Scaling up or down is easy – just select the “reserved” instance VM within the “scale” tab of the Windows Azure Portal, choose the VM size you want, the number of instances of it you want to run, and then click save.  Changes take effect in seconds: Unlike shared mode, there is no per-site cost when running in reserved mode.  Instead you pay only for the reserved instance VMs you use – and you can run any number of web-sites you want within them at no extra cost (e.g. you could run a single site within a reserved instance VM or 100 web-sites within it for the same cost).  Reserved instance VMs start at 8 cents/hr for a small reserved VM.  Elastic Scale-up/down Windows Azure Web Sites allows you to scale-up or down your capacity within seconds.  This allows you to deploy a site using the shared mode option to begin with, and then dynamically scale up to the reserved mode option only when you need to – without you having to change any code or redeploy your application. If your site traffic starts to drop off, you can scale back down the number of reserved instances you are using, or scale down to the shared mode tier – all within seconds and without having to change code, redeploy, or adjust DNS mappings.  You can also use the “Dashboard” view within the Windows Azure Portal to easily monitor your site’s load in real-time (it shows not only requests/sec and bandwidth but also stats like CPU and memory usage). Because of Windows Azure’s “pay as you go” pricing model, you only pay for the compute capacity you use in a given hour.  So if your site is running most of the month in shared mode (at 1.3 cents/hr), but there is a weekend when it gets really popular and you decide to scale it up into reserved mode to have it run in your own dedicated VM (at 8 cents/hr), you only have to pay the additional pennies/hr for the hours it is running in the reserved mode.  There is no upfront cost you need to pay to enable this, and once you scale back down to shared mode you return to the 1.3 cents/hr rate.  This makes it super flexible and cost effective. Improved Custom Domain Support Web sites running in either “shared” or “reserved” mode support the ability to associate custom host names to them (e.g. www.mysitename.com).  You can associate multiple custom domains to each Windows Azure Web Site.  With today’s release we are introducing support for A-Records (a big ask by many users). With the A-Record support, you can now associate ‘naked’ domains to your Windows Azure Web Sites – meaning instead of having to use www.mysitename.com you can instead just have mysitename.com (with no sub-name prefix).  Because you can map multiple domains to a single site, you can optionally enable both a www and naked domain for a site (and then use a URL rewrite rule/redirect to avoid SEO problems). We’ve also enhanced the UI for managing custom domains within the Windows Azure Portal as part of today’s release.  Clicking the “Manage Domains” button in the tray at the bottom of the portal now brings up custom UI that makes it easy to manage/configure them: As part of this update we’ve also made it significantly smoother/easier to validate ownership of custom domains, and made it easier to switch existing sites/domains to Windows Azure Web Sites with no downtime. Continuous Deployment Support with Git and CodePlex or GitHub One of the more popular features we released earlier this summer was support for publishing web sites directly to Windows Azure using source control systems like TFS and Git.  This provides a really powerful way to manage your application deployments using source control.  It is really easy to enable this from a website’s dashboard page: The TFS option we shipped earlier this summer provides a very rich continuous deployment solution that enables you to automate builds and run unit tests every time you check in your web-site, and then if they are successful automatically publish to Azure. With today’s release we are expanding our Git support to also enable continuous deployment scenarios and integrate with projects hosted on CodePlex and GitHub.  This support is enabled with all web-sites (including those using the “free” scaling mode). Starting today, when you choose the “Set up Git publishing” link on a website’s “Dashboard” page you’ll see two additional options show up when Git based publishing is enabled for the web-site: You can click on either the “Deploy from my CodePlex project” link or “Deploy from my GitHub project” link to walkthrough a simple workflow to configure a connection between your website and a source repository you host on CodePlex or GitHub.  Once this connection is established, CodePlex or GitHub will automatically notify Windows Azure every time a checkin occurs.  This will then cause Windows Azure to pull the source and compile/deploy the new version of your app automatically.  The below two videos walkthrough how easy this is to enable this workflow and deploy both an initial app and then make a change to it: Enabling Continuous Deployment with Windows Azure Websites and CodePlex (2 minutes) Enabling Continuous Deployment with Windows Azure Websites and GitHub (2 minutes) This approach enables a really clean continuous deployment workflow, and makes it much easier to support a team development environment using Git: Note: today’s release supports establishing connections with public GitHub/CodePlex repositories.  Support for private repositories will be enabled in a few weeks. Support for multiple branches Previously, we only supported deploying from the git ‘master’ branch.  Often, though, developers want to deploy from alternate branches (e.g. a staging or future branch). This is now a supported scenario – both with standalone git based projects, as well as ones linked to CodePlex or GitHub.  This enables a variety of useful scenarios.  For example, you can now have two web-sites - a “live” and “staging” version – both linked to the same repository on CodePlex or GitHub.  You can configure one of the web-sites to always pull whatever is in the master branch, and the other to pull what is in the staging branch.  This enables a really clean way to enable final testing of your site before it goes live. This 1 minute video demonstrates how to configure which branch to use with a web-site. Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. We’ll have even more new features and enhancements coming in the weeks ahead – including support for the recent Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 releases (we will enable new web and worker role images with Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 next month).  Keep an eye out on my blog for details as these new features become available. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, August 14, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, August 14, 2014Popular ReleasesWordMat: WordMat for Mac: WordMat for Mac has a few limitations compared to the Windows version - Graph is not supported (Gnuplot, GeoGebra and Excel works) - Units are not supported yet (Coming up) The Mac version is yet as tested as the windows version.Awake: Awake v1.4.0 (Stand-Alone-Exe): Awake is a tool, that resides in system tray and prevents the computer from entering the idle state, thus successfully preventing it from entering sleep/hibernation/the lock screen. It does not change any system settings, therefore it does not require administrative privileges. This tool is designed for those who cannot change the timings in their power settings, because of some corporate policy.Node.js Tools for Visual Studio: Latest dev build: An intermediate release with the latest changes and bug fixes.HP OneView PowerShell Library: HP OneView PowerShell Library 1.10.1193: Branch to HP OneView 1.10 Release. NOTE: This library version does not support older appliance versions. Fixed New-HPOVProfile to check for Firmware and BIOS management for supported platforms. Would erroneously error when neither -firmware or -bios were passed. Fixed Remove-HPOV* cmdlets which did not handle -force switch parameter correctly Fixed New-HPOVUplinkSet and New-HPOVNetwork Fixed Download-File where HTTP stream compression was not handled, resulting in incorrectly writt...Linq 4 Javascript: Version 2.3: Minor Changes Made In Queryable - don't check for collection length with >=. Use === (In The Next Method) TypeScript Change Only - Remove collection source and other inherit properties from all the chainables. Also in typescript add private - public to all properties. This should cleanup the typescript namespace a bit TypeScript Change Only - Change return type of ToDictionary to TKey, T instead of T, TKey Changed the unit test to Typescript so I can test how the caller experience is in...NeoLua (Lua for .net dynamic language runtime): NeoLua-0.8.17: Fix: table.insert Fix: table auto convert Fix: Runtime-functions were defined as private it should be internal. Fix: min,max MichaelSenko release.Azure Maching Learning Excel Add-In: Beta: Download the zip file and extract into your local directory. Then watch the video tutorials for installation steps.MFCMAPI: August 2014 Release: Build: 15.0.0.1042 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the MFCMAPI or MrMAPI, get the executables. If you want to debug them, get the symbol files and the source. The 64 bit builds will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010/2013 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit builds, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeOooPlayer: 1.1: Added: Support for speex, TAK and OptimFrog files Added: An option to not to load cover art Added: Smaller package size Fixed: Unable to drag&drop audio files to playlist Updated: FLAC, WacPack and Opus playback libraries Updated: ID3v1 and ID3v2 tag librariesEWSEditor: EwsEditor 1.10 Release: • Export and import of items as a full fidelity steam works - without proxy classes! - I used raw EWS POSTs. • Turned off word wrap for EWS request field in EWS POST windows. • Several windows with scrolling texts boxes were limiting content to 32k - I removed this restriction. • Split server timezone info off to separate menu item from the timezone info windows so that the timezone info window could be used without logging into a mailbox. • Lots of updates to the TimeZone window. • UserAgen...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 2.1 RC: Release notes for PTVS 2.1 RC We’re pleased to announce the release candidate for Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.1. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, editing, IntelliSense, interactive debugging, profiling, Microsoft Azure, IPython, and cross-platform debugging support. PTVS 2.1 RC is available for: Visual Studio Expre...Sense/Net ECM - Enterprise CMS: SenseNet 6.3.1 Community Edition: Sense/Net 6.3.1 Community EditionSense/Net 6.3.1 is an important step toward a more modular infrastructure, robustness and maintainability. With this release we finally introduce a packaging and a task management framework, and the Image Editor that will surely make the job of content editors more fun. Please review the changes and new features since Sense/Net 6.3 and give a feedback on our forum! Main new featuresSnAdmin (packaging framework) Task Management Image Editor OData REST A...Aspose for Apache POI: Missing Features of Apache POI SS - v 1.2: Release contain the Missing Features in Apache POI SS SDK in comparison with Aspose.Cells What's New ? Following Examples: Create Pivot Charts Detect Merged Cells Sort Data Printing Workbooks Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are available at Aspose Docs. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.MFCBDAINF: MFCBDAINF: Added recognition of TBS, Hauppauge, DVBWorld and FireDTV proprietary GUID'sFluffy: Fluffy 0.3.35.4: Change log: Text editorSKGL - Serial Key Generating Library: SKGL Extension Methods 4 (1.0.5.1): This library contains methods for: Time change check (make sure the time has not been changed on the client computer) Key Validation (this will use http://serialkeymanager.com/ to validate keys against the database) Key Activation (this will, depending on the settings, activate a key with a specific machine code) Key Activation Trial (allows you to update a key if it is a trial key) Get Machine Code (calculates a machine code given any hash function) Get Eight Byte Hash (returns an...Touchmote: Touchmote 1.0 beta 13: Changes Less GPU usage Works together with other Xbox 360 controls Bug fixesModern UI for WPF: Modern UI 1.0.6: The ModernUI assembly including a demo app demonstrating the various features of Modern UI for WPF. BREAKING CHANGE LinkGroup.GroupName renamed to GroupKey NEW FEATURES Improved rendering on high DPI screens, including support for per-monitor DPI awareness available in Windows 8.1 (see also Per-monitor DPI awareness) New ModernProgressRing control with 8 builtin styles New LinkCommands.NavigateLink routed command New Visual Studio project templates 'Modern UI WPF App' and 'Modern UI W...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.74.0: Multiple thread safe improvements including AdjustToContents XLHelper XLColor_Static IntergerExtensions.ToStringLookup Exception now thrown when saving a workbook with no sheets, instead of creating a corrupt workbook Fix for hyperlinks with non-ASCII Characters Added basic workbook protection Fix for error thrown, when a spreadsheet contained comments and images Fix to Trim function Fix Invalid operation Exception thrown when the formula functions MAX, MIN, and AVG referenc...SEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.042.019 Release 1: Added RadioAntenna broadcast name to ship name detail. Added two additional columns for Asteroid material generation for Asteroid Fields. Added Mass and Block number columns to main display. Added Ellipsis to some columns on main display to reduce name confusion. Added correct SE version number in file when saving. Re-added in reattaching Motor when drag/dropping or importing ships (KeenSH have added RotorEntityId back in after removing it months ago). Added option to export and r...New ProjectsAndroid PCM Audio Recording: Android PCM Audio Recording The source code records the PCM audio in android device.Azure Maching Learning Excel Add-In: The Azure ML Excel Add-In enables you to interact with Microsoft Azure Machine Learning WebServices through excel by adding the scoring endpoint as a function.bitboxx bbcontact: The bitboxx bbcontact module is a DNN module for providing a simple configurable contact form with easy setup and email notificationJD eSurvey Java Open Source Online Survey Application: JD eSurvey is an open source enterprise survey web application written in Java and based on the Spring Framework and Hibernate ORM developed by JD Software.Kobayashi Royale: A tactical space combat turn based game.OneApp Framework: Framework for building true cross platform application.Raspberry Pi Control Center: A GTK+ based Raspberry Pi Control Center. Made to be simple and fastSharePoint Farm's Logs Collector: Get Farm Logs from a centralized place. Sonar Snitch: Ferramenta para filtrar e monitorar aplicações no Sonar. Indica o quanto cada aplicação foi alterada em uma série de indicadores conhecidos.

  Read the article

• Is Apache 2.2.22 able to sustain 1.000 simultaneous connected clients?

  - by Fnux

  For an article in a news paper, I'm benchmarking 5 different web servers (Apache2, Cherokee, Lighttpd, Monkey and Nginx). The tests made consist of measuring the execution times as well as different parameters such as the number of request served per second, the amount of RAM, the CPU used, during a growing load of simultaneous clients (from 1 to 1.000 with a step of 10) each client sending 1.000.000 requets of a small fixed file, then of a medium fixed file, then a small dynamic content (hello.php) and finally a complex dynamic content (the computation of the reimbursment of a loan). All the web servers are able to sustain such a load (up to 1.000 clients) but Apache2 which always stops to respond when the test reach 450 to 500 simultaneous clients. My configuration is : CPU: AMD FX 8150 8 cores @ 4.2 GHz RAM: 32 Gb. SSD: 2 x Crucial 240 Gb SATA6 OS: Ubuntu 12.04.3 64 bit WS: Apache 2.2.22 My Apache2 configuration is as follows: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf LockFile ${APACHE_LOCK_DIR}/accept.lock PidFile ${APACHE_PID_FILE} Timeout 30 KeepAlive On MaxKeepAliveRequests 1000000 KeepAliveTimeout 2 ServerName "fnux.net" <IfModule mpm_prefork_module> StartServers 16 MinSpareServers 16 MaxSpareServers 16 ServerLimit 2048 MaxClients 1024 MaxRequestsPerChild 0 </IfModule> User ${APACHE_RUN_USER} Group ${APACHE_RUN_GROUP} AccessFileName .htaccess <Files ~ "^\.ht"> Order allow,deny Deny from all Satisfy all </Files> DefaultType None HostnameLookups Off ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log LogLevel emerg Include mods-enabled/*.load Include mods-enabled/*.conf Include httpd.conf Include ports.conf LogFormat "%v:%p %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" vhost_combined LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O" common LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent Include conf.d/ Include sites-enabled/ /etc/apache2/ports.conf NameVirtualHost *:8180 Listen 8180 <IfModule mod_ssl.c> Listen 443 </IfModule> <IfModule mod_gnutls.c> Listen 443 </IfModule> /etc/apache2/mods-available <IfModule mod_fastcgi.c> AddHandler php5-fcgi .php Action php5-fcgi /cgi-bin/php5.external <Location "/cgi-bin/php5.external"> Order Deny,Allow Deny from All Allow from env=REDIRECT_STATUS </Location> </IfModule> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default <VirtualHost *:8180> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost DocumentRoot /var/www/apache2 <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/www/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log LogLevel emerg ##### CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/" <Directory "/usr/share/doc/"> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 </Directory> <IfModule mod_fastcgi.c> AddHandler php5-fcgi .php Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -host 127.0.0.1:9000 -pass-header Authorization </IfModule> </VirtualHost> /etc/security/limits.conf * soft nofile 1000000 * hard nofile 1000000 So, I would trully appreciate your advice to setup Apache2 to make it able to sustain 1.000 simultaneous clients, if this is even possible. TIA for your help. Cheers.

  Read the article

• tile_static, tile_barrier, and tiled matrix multiplication with C++ AMP

  - by Daniel Moth

  We ended the previous post with a mechanical transformation of the C++ AMP matrix multiplication example to the tiled model and in the process introduced tiled_index and tiled_grid. This is part 2. tile_static memory You all know that in regular CPU code, static variables have the same value regardless of which thread accesses the static variable. This is in contrast with non-static local variables, where each thread has its own copy. Back to C++ AMP, the same rules apply and each thread has its own value for local variables in your lambda, whereas all threads see the same global memory, which is the data they have access to via the array and array_view. In addition, on an accelerator like the GPU, there is a programmable cache, a third kind of memory type if you'd like to think of it that way (some call it shared memory, others call it scratchpad memory). Variables stored in that memory share the same value for every thread in the same tile. So, when you use the tiled model, you can have variables where each thread in the same tile sees the same value for that variable, that threads from other tiles do not. The new storage class for local variables introduced for this purpose is called tile_static. You can only use tile_static in restrict(direct3d) functions, and only when explicitly using the tiled model. What this looks like in code should be no surprise, but here is a snippet to confirm your mental image, using a good old regular C array // each tile of threads has its own copy of locA, // shared among the threads of the tile tile_static float locA[16][16]; Note that tile_static variables are scoped and have the lifetime of the tile, and they cannot have constructors or destructors. tile_barrier In amp.h one of the types introduced is tile_barrier. You cannot construct this object yourself (although if you had one, you could use a copy constructor to create another one). So how do you get one of these? You get it, from a tiled_index object. Beyond the 4 properties returning index objects, tiled_index has another property, barrier, that returns a tile_barrier object. The tile_barrier class exposes a single member, the method wait. 15: // Given a tiled_index object named t_idx 16: t_idx.barrier.wait(); 17: // more code …in the code above, all threads in the tile will reach line 16 before a single one progresses to line 17. Note that all threads must be able to reach the barrier, i.e. if you had branchy code in such a way which meant that there is a chance that not all threads could reach line 16, then the code above would be illegal. Tiled Matrix Multiplication Example – part 2 So now that we added to our understanding the concepts of tile_static and tile_barrier, let me obfuscate rewrite the matrix multiplication code so that it takes advantage of tiling. Before you start reading this, I suggest you get a cup of your favorite non-alcoholic beverage to enjoy while you try to fully understand the code. 01: void MatrixMultiplyTiled(vector<float>& vC, const vector<float>& vA, const vector<float>& vB, int M, int N, int W) 02: { 03: static const int TS = 16; 04: array_view<const float,2> a(M, W, vA); 05: array_view<const float,2> b(W, N, vB); 06: array_view<writeonly<float>,2> c(M,N,vC); 07: parallel_for_each(c.grid.tile< TS, TS >(), 08: [=] (tiled_index< TS, TS> t_idx) restrict(direct3d) 09: { 10: int row = t_idx.local[0]; int col = t_idx.local[1]; 11: float sum = 0.0f; 12: for (int i = 0; i < W; i += TS) { 13: tile_static float locA[TS][TS], locB[TS][TS]; 14: locA[row][col] = a(t_idx.global[0], col + i); 15: locB[row][col] = b(row + i, t_idx.global[1]); 16: t_idx.barrier.wait(); 17: for (int k = 0; k < TS; k++) 18: sum += locA[row][k] * locB[k][col]; 19: t_idx.barrier.wait(); 20: } 21: c[t_idx.global] = sum; 22: }); 23: } Notice that all the code up to line 9 is the same as per the changes we made in part 1 of tiling introduction. If you squint, the body of the lambda itself preserves the original algorithm on lines 10, 11, and 17, 18, and 21. The difference being that those lines use new indexing and the tile_static arrays; the tile_static arrays are declared and initialized on the brand new lines 13-15. On those lines we copy from the global memory represented by the array_view objects (a and b), to the tile_static vanilla arrays (locA and locB) – we are copying enough to fit a tile. Because in the code that follows on line 18 we expect the data for this tile to be in the tile_static storage, we need to synchronize the threads within each tile with a barrier, which we do on line 16 (to avoid accessing uninitialized memory on line 18). We also need to synchronize the threads within a tile on line 19, again to avoid the race between lines 14, 15 (retrieving the next set of data for each tile and overwriting the previous set) and line 18 (not being done processing the previous set of data). Luckily, as part of the awesome C++ AMP debugger in Visual Studio there is an option that helps you find such races, but that is a story for another blog post another time. May I suggest reading the next section, and then coming back to re-read and walk through this code with pen and paper to really grok what is going on, if you haven't already? Cool. Why would I introduce this tiling complexity into my code? Funny you should ask that, I was just about to tell you. There is only one reason we tiled our extent, had to deal with finding a good tile size, ensure the number of threads we schedule are correctly divisible with the tile size, had to use a tiled_index instead of a normal index, and had to understand tile_barrier and to figure out where we need to use it, and double the size of our lambda in terms of lines of code: the reason is to be able to use tile_static memory. Why do we want to use tile_static memory? Because accessing tile_static memory is around 10 times faster than accessing the global memory on an accelerator like the GPU, e.g. in the code above, if you can get 150GB/second accessing data from the array_view a, you can get 1500GB/second accessing the tile_static array locA. And since by definition you are dealing with really large data sets, the savings really pay off. We have seen tiled implementations being twice as fast as their non-tiled counterparts. Now, some algorithms will not have performance benefits from tiling (and in fact may deteriorate), e.g. algorithms that require you to go only once to global memory will not benefit from tiling, since with tiling you already have to fetch the data once from global memory! Other algorithms may benefit, but you may decide that you are happy with your code being 150 times faster than the serial-version you had, and you do not need to invest to make it 250 times faster. Also algorithms with more than 3 dimensions, which C++ AMP supports in the non-tiled model, cannot be tiled. Also note that in future releases, we may invest in making the non-tiled model, which already uses tiling under the covers, go the extra step and use tile_static memory on your behalf, but it is obviously way to early to commit to anything like that, and we certainly don't do any of that today. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 09, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 09, 2013Popular ReleasesCoolpy: CoolpyI: Coolpy???，????rom??????window phone????????????。???????????Praxis2: Especificaciones de Casos de Uso Iteracción 1: Especificaciones de Casos de Uso Iteracción 1 Responsables Anderson CU Buscar Obra CU Registrar Obra CU Registrar Alquiler Juan Victor CU Buscar Cliente CU Registrar Cliente CU Registrar EntregaMedia Companion: Media Companion MC3.586b: Tv - Multi-episodes restored to MCThere's been a plenty of bug fixes occuring lately, with IMDB changing their info, and some great feed-back by users. But Thanks to Billyad2000, Multi-episodes, are now displaying correctly in Media Companion, complete with all functionality. This was a hard effort, with more than a few dev's in the past having looked at this code to get it working. But, like a light-bulb going off, Billy's managed to massage the code, and restore this much missed function...Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Kitting: AX 2012 R2 CU7 release of Kitting: Here is the AX 2012 R2 CU7 release of kitting. Released both as a XPO and a model.PantheR's GraphX for .NET: GraphX for .NET RELEASE v1.0.1: PLEASE RATE THIS RELEASE IF YOU LIKED IT! THANKS! :) RELEASE 1.0.1 + Changed ExportToImage() parameters: added useZoomControlSurface param that enables zoom control parent visual space to be used for export instead whole GraphArea panel. Using this technique it is possible to export graphs with negative vertices coordinates. + Added common interface IZoomControl for all included Zoom controls + Added new method GraphArea.GenerateGraph() that accepts only optional parameters and will use in...ConEmu - Windows console with tabs: ConEmu 131107 [Alpha]: ConEmu - developer build x86 and x64 versions. Written in C++, no additional packages required. Run "ConEmu.exe" or "ConEmu64.exe". Some useful information you may found: http://superuser.com/questions/tagged/conemu http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/ConEmuFAQ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/TableOfContents If you want to use ConEmu in portable mode, just create empty "ConEmu.xml" file near to "ConEmu.exe"Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide: v3 - TFS 2013 Upgrade Guide: Welcome to the Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide Quality-Bar Details Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has not been through an independent technical review Known issues NoneUpgrading SharePoint section is not included yet. Independent technical review is pending.VidCoder: 1.5.12 Beta: Added an option to preserve Created and Last Modified times when converting files. In Options -> Advanced. Added an option to mark an automatically selected subtitle track as "Default". Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5878. Fixed auto passthrough not applying just after switching to it. Fixed bug where preset/profile/tune could disappear when reverting a preset.Toolbox for Dynamics CRM 2011/2013: XrmToolBox (v1.2013.9.25): XrmToolbox improvement Correct changing connection from the status dropdown Tools improvement Updated tool Audit Center (v1.2013.9.10) -> Publish entities Iconator (v1.2013.9.27) -> Optimized asynchronous loading of images and entities MetadataDocumentGenerator (v1.2013.11.6) -> Correct system entities reading with incorrect attribute type Script Manager (v1.2013.9.27) -> Retrieve only custom events SiteMapEditor (v1.2013.11.7) -> Reset of CRM 2013 SiteMap ViewLayoutReplicator (v1.201...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: SQL Server 2014 CTP2 In-Memory OLTP Sample, based: This sample showcases the new In-Memory OLTP feature, which is part of SQL Server 2014 CTP2. It shows the new memory-optimized tables and natively-compiled stored procedures, and can be used to show the performance benefit of in-memory OLTP. Installation instructions for the sample are included in the file ‘awinmemsample.doc’, which is part of the download. You can ask a question about this sample at the SQL Server Samples Forum Composite C1 CMS - Open Source on .NET: Composite C1 4.1: Composite C1 4.1 (4.1.5058.34326) Write a review for this release - help us improve, recommend us. Getting started If you are new to Composite C1 and want to install it: http://docs.composite.net/Getting-started What's new in Composite C1 4.1 The following are highlights of major changes since Composite C1 4.0: General user features: Drag-and-drop images and files like PDF and Word directly from own your desktop and folders into page content Allow you to install Composite Form Builder ...CS-Script for Notepad++ (C# intellisense and code execution): Release v1.0.9.0: Implemented Recent Scripts list Added checking for plugin updates from AboutBox Multiple formatting improvements/fixes Implemented selection of the CLR version when preparing distribution package Added project panel button for showing plugin shortcuts list Added 'What's New?' panel Fixed auto-formatting scrolling artifact Implemented navigation to "logical" file (vs. auto-generated) file from output panel To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.Home Access Plus+: v9.7: Updated: JSON.net Fixed: Issue with the Windows 8 App Added: Windows 8.1 App Added: Win: Self Signed HAP+ Install Support Added: Win: Delete File Support Added: Timeout for the Logon Tracker Removed: Error Dialogs on the User Card Fixed: Green line showing over the booking form Note: a web.config file update is requiredWPF Extended DataGrid: WPF Extended DataGrid 2.0.0.10 binaries: Now row summaries are updated whenever autofilter value sis modified.xUnit.net - Unit testing framework for C# and .NET (a successor to NUnit): xUnit.net Visual Studio Runner: A placeholder for downloading Visual Studio runner VSIX files, in case the Gallery is down (or you want to downgrade to older versions).VeraCrypt: VeraCrypt version 1.0c: Changes between 1.0b and 1.0c (11 November 2013) : Set correctly the minimum required version in volumes header (this value must always follow the program version after any major changes). This also solves also the hidden volume issueCaptcha MVC: Captcha MVC 2.5: v 2.5: Added support for MVC 5. The DefaultCaptchaManager is no longer throws an error if the captcha values was entered incorrectly. Minor changes. v 2.4.1: Fixed issues with deleting incorrect values of the captcha token in the SessionStorageProvider. This could lead to a situation when the captcha was not working with the SessionStorageProvider. Minor changes. v 2.4: Changed the IIntelligencePolicy interface, added ICaptchaManager as parameter for all methods. Improved font size ...Duplica: duplica 0.2.498: this is first stable releaseDNN Blog: 06.00.01: 06.00.01 ReleaseThis is the first bugfix release of the new v6 blog module. These are the changes: Added some robustness in v5-v6 scripts to cater for some rare upgrade scenarios Changed the name of the module definition to avoid clash with Evoq Social Addition of sitemap providerVG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: VG-Ripper 2.9.50: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageHostHQ.com" links NEW: Added Support for "ImgMoney.net" links NEW: Added Support for "ImgSavy.com" links NEW: Added Support for "PixTreat.com" links Bug fixesNew ProjectsAppBootloader: ???CS????????????? Let your C\S program more flexible for automatic updatesArduino Visual Studio: Purpose of this project is to demonstrate using Visual Studio 2012 with Atmel chip on a Arduino UNO board.ASP.NET Identity: ASP.NET Identity is the new membership system for building ASP.NET web applications. ASP.NET Identity allows you to add login features to your application and mAsset Maintenance Management Console: A.M.M.C is an attempt at creating an extremely versatile interface tool to maintain assets.AX 2012 R2 SYNC: SYNC for AX 2012 introduces a centralized company concept which holds and manages the enterprise-wide master data for synchronizing across multiple companies.BYOND - Build Your OwN Device (audio synths, effects, DSP, sequencer, VST): Byond is an environment for audio and midi programming in C#. It's available as VST plugin or standalone application.CoveSmushbox: A simple .NET library and a Windows CLI to the SMUSH Box.FORMULA 2.0: Formula specifications are highly declarative logic programs that can express rich synthesis and verification problems.Grostbite Engine: Free 3D game engine.hMailServer from RoundCube: A RoundCube plugin for interacting with hMailServer 5.4B1950. The plugin allows to configure vacation configuration of hMailServer from RoundCube.KDG's IP Reporter: Baisc reporter for local and private IP addresses.LADNS Service Watcher: LADNS Service WatcherLampguiden: LampguidenMedia Recommender Service: We are 6 software engineer students developing a media recommendation service as part of our 3rd semester project. photograp: SPA Photo gallery. Work in progress... Power Buddy: The Windows power tray icon only displays two power plans. If this has bothered you since 2009, Power Buddy is for you. Power Buddy displays all of them.Programming Demos: This project contains demonstration code that may be helpful to people learning VisualBasic .NET.Prototype : Traveling Alone Website: A website aiming to become an online community for solo travelers.ShowDBPool: ShowDBPoolThali: Thali is about making it falling off a log easy for users to run their own services on their own devices by building a peer to peer web.TiendaWebCursoAccentureNet: aWpf PdfReader: This is a pdf reader, development based WPF and MuPDF,You can use the keyboard to operate it.This is pdf reader can save the user's open records.

  Read the article

• Guide to MySQL & NoSQL, Webinar Q&A

  - by Mat Keep

  0 0 1 959 5469 Homework 45 12 6416 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} Yesterday we ran a webinar discussing the demands of next generation web services and how blending the best of relational and NoSQL technologies enables developers and architects to deliver the agility, performance and availability needed to be successful. Attendees posted a number of great questions to the MySQL developers, serving to provide additional insights into areas like auto-sharding and cross-shard JOINs, replication, performance, client libraries, etc. So I thought it would be useful to post those below, for the benefit of those unable to attend the webinar. Before getting to the Q&A, there are a couple of other resources that maybe useful to those looking at NoSQL capabilities within MySQL: - On-Demand webinar (coming soon!) - Slides used during the webinar - Guide to MySQL and NoSQL whitepaper  - MySQL Cluster demo, including NoSQL interfaces, auto-sharing, high availability, etc.  So here is the Q&A from the event  Q. Where does MySQL Cluster fit in to the CAP theorem? A. MySQL Cluster is flexible. A single Cluster will prefer consistency over availability in the presence of network partitions. A pair of Clusters can be configured to prefer availability over consistency. A full explanation can be found on the MySQL Cluster & CAP Theorem blog post.  Q. Can you configure the number of replicas? (the slide used a replication factor of 1) Yes. A cluster is configured by an .ini file. The option NoOfReplicas sets the number of originals and replicas: 1 = no data redundancy, 2 = one copy etc. Usually there's no benefit in setting it >2. Q. Interestingly most (if not all) of the NoSQL databases recommend having 3 copies of data (the replication factor).    Yes, with configurable quorum based Reads and writes. MySQL Cluster does not need a quorum of replicas online to provide service. Systems that require a quorum need > 2 replicas to be able to tolerate a single failure. Additionally, many NoSQL systems take liberal inspiration from the original GFS paper which described a 3 replica configuration. MySQL Cluster avoids the need for a quorum by using a lightweight arbitrator. You can configure more than 2 replicas, but this is a tradeoff between incrementally improved availability, and linearly increased cost. Q. Can you have cross node group JOINS? Wouldn't that run into the risk of flooding the network? MySQL Cluster 7.2 supports cross nodegroup joins. A full cross-join can require a large amount of data transfer, which may bottleneck on network bandwidth. However, for more selective joins, typically seen with OLTP and light analytic applications, cross node-group joins give a great performance boost and network bandwidth saving over having the MySQL Server perform the join. Q. Are the details of the benchmark available anywhere? According to my calculations it results in approx. 350k ops/sec per processor which is the largest number I've seen lately The details are linked from Mikael Ronstrom's blog The benchmark uses a benchmarking tool we call flexAsynch which runs parallel asynchronous transactions. It involved 100 byte reads, of 25 columns each. Regarding the per-processor ops/s, MySQL Cluster is particularly efficient in terms of throughput/node. It uses lock-free minimal copy message passing internally, and maximizes ID cache reuse. Note also that these are in-memory tables, there is no need to read anything from disk. Q. Is access control (like table) planned to be supported for NoSQL access mode? Currently we have not seen much need for full SQL-like access control (which has always been overkill for web apps and telco apps). So we have no plans, though especially with memcached it is certainly possible to turn-on connection-level access control. But specifically table level controls are not planned. Q. How is the performance of memcached APi with MySQL against memcached+MySQL or any other Object Cache like Ecache with MySQL DB? With the memcache API we generally see a memcached response in less than 1 ms. and a small cluster with one memcached server can handle tens of thousands of operations per second. Q. Can .NET can access MemcachedAPI? Yes, just use a .Net memcache client such as the enyim or BeIT memcache libraries. Q. Is the row level locking applicable when you update a column through memcached API? An update that comes through memcached uses a row lock and then releases it immediately. Memcached operations like "INCREMENT" are actually pushed down to the data nodes. In most cases the locks are not even held long enough for a network round trip. Q. Has anyone published an example using something like PHP? I am assuming that you just use the PHP memcached extension to hook into the memcached API. Is that correct? Not that I'm aware of but absolutely you can use it with php or any of the other drivers Q. For beginner we need more examples. Take a look here for a fully worked example Q. Can I access MySQL using Cobol (Open Cobol) or C and if so where can I find the coding libraries etc? A. There is a cobol implementation that works well with MySQL, but I do not think it is Open Cobol. Also there is a MySQL C client library that is a standard part of every mysql distribution Q. Is there a place to go to find help when testing and/implementing the NoSQL access? If using Cluster then you can use the [email protected] alias or post on the MySQL Cluster forum Q. Are there any white papers on this?  Yes - there is more detail in the MySQL Guide to NoSQL whitepaper If you have further questions, please don’t hesitate to use the comments below!

  Read the article

• What would make a noise in a PC on graphics operations on a passively-cooled system?

  - by T.J. Crowder

  I have this system based on the Intel D510MO motherboard, which is basically an Atom D510 (dual-core HT Atom w/built-in GPU), an Intel NM10 chipset, and a Realtek Gigabit LAN controller. It's entirely passively cooled. I noticed almost immediately that there was a kind of very, very soft noise that corresponded with graphics operations, sort of the noise you'd get if you had a sheet of flat paper and slid something really light across it — but more electronic than that. I wrote it off as observation error and/or disk activity triggered by the graphics operation (although the latter seemed like a lot of unnecessary disk activity). It isn't. I got curious enough that I finally did a few controlled experiments, and here's what I've determined: It isn't the HDD. For one thing, the sounds the HDD makes (when seeking, when reading or writing, when just sitting there spinning) is different. For another, I used sudo hdparm -y /dev/sda (I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) to temporarily put the disk on standby while making sure that non-disk graphics op was happening in a loop. The disk spun down, but the other sound continued, corresponding perfectly with the timing of the graphics op. (Then the disk spun up again, but it takes long enough that I could rule out the HDD.) It isn't the monitor; I ensured the two were well physically-separated and the sound was definitely coming from the main box. It isn't something else in the room; the sound is coming from the box. It isn't cross-talk to an audio circuit coming out the speakers. (It doesn't have any speakers.) It isn't my mouse (e.g., when I'm trying to make graphics ops happen); the sound happens if I set up a recurring operation and don't use the mouse at all, or if I lift the mouse off the table slightly (but enough that the laser still registers movement). It isn't the voices in my head; they never whisper like that. Other observations: It doesn't seem to matter what the graphics operation is; anything that changes what's on the screen seems to do it. I get the sound when moving the mouse over the Chromium tab bar (which makes the tab backgrounds change); I get it when a web page has a counter on it that changes the text on the page: I get it when dragging window contents around. The sound is very, very slightly louder if the graphics op is larger, like scrolling a text area when writing a question on superuser.com, than for smaller operations like the tick counter on the web page. But it's very slight. It's fairly loud (and of good duration) when the op involves color changes to substantial surface areas. For instance, when asking a question here on superuser and you move the cursor between the question box and the tag box, and the help to the right fades out, changes, and fades back in. (Yet another example related to the web browser, so let me say: I hear it when operations completely unrelated to the web browser as well.) It doesn't sound like arcing or anything like that (I'd've shut off the machine Right Quick Like if it did). Moving windows does it. Scrolling windows (by and large) doesn't. I have the feeling I've heard this sort of thing before, when all system fans were on low and such, with other systems — but (again) written it off as observational error. For all the world it's like I'm hearing the CPU working (as opposed to the GPU; note the window scroll thing above) or data being transferred somewhere, but that just seems...unlikely. So what am I hearing? This may seem like a very localized question, but perhaps other silent PC enthusiasts may be interested as well...

  Read the article

• Windows 8 Launch&ndash;Why OEM and Retailers Should STFU

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Microsoft has gotten a lot of flack for the Surface from OEM/hardware partners who create Windows-based devices and I’m sure, to an extent, retailers who normally stock and sell Windows-based devices. I mean we all know how this is supposed to work – Microsoft makes the OS, partners make the hardware, retailers sell the hardware. Now Microsoft is breaking the rules by not only offering their own hardware but selling them via online and through their Microsoft branded stores! The thought has been that Microsoft is trying to set a standard for the other hardware companies to reach for. Maybe. I hope, at some level, Microsoft may be covertly responding to frustrations associated with trusting the OEMs and Retailers to deliver on their part of the supply chain. I know as a consumer, I’m very frustrated with the Windows 8 launch. Aside from the Surface sales, there’s nothing happening at the retail level. Let me back up and explain. Over the weekend I visited a number of stores in hopes of trying out various Windows 8 devices. Out of three retailers (Staples, Best Buy, and Future Shop), not *one* met my expectations. Let me be honest with you Staples, I never really have high expectations from your computer department. If I need paper or pens, whatever, but computers – you’re not the top of my list for price or selection. Still, considering you flaunted Win 8 devices in your flyer I expected *something* – some sign of effort that you took the Windows 8 launch seriously. As I entered the 1910 Pembina Highway location in Winnipeg, there was nothing – no signage, no banners – nothing that would suggest Windows 8 had even launched. I made my way to the laptops. I had to play with each machine to determine which ones were running Windows 8. There wasn’t anything on the placards that made it obvious which were Windows 8 machines and which ones were Windows 7. Likewise, there was no easy way to identify the touch screen laptop (the HP model) from the others without physically touching the screen to verify. Horrible experience. In the same mall as the Staples I mentioned above, there’s a Future Shop. Surely they would be more on the ball. I walked in to the 1910 Pembina Highway location and immediately realized I would not get a better experience. Except for the sign by the front door mentioning Windows 8, there was *nothing* in the computer department pointing you to the Windows 8 devices. Like in Staples, the Win 8 laptops were mixed in with the Win 7 ones and there was nothing notable calling out which ones were running Win 8. I happened to hit up the St. James Street location today, thinking since its a busier store they must have more options. To their credit, they did have two staff members decked out in Windows 8 shirts and who were helping a customer understand Windows 8. But otherwise, there was nothing highlighting the Windows 8 devices and they were again mixed in with the rest of the Win 7 machines. Finally, we have the St. James Street Best Buy location here in Winnipeg. I’m sure Best Buy will have their act together. Nope, not even close. Same story as the others: minimal signage (there was a sign as you walked in with a link to this schedule of demo days), Windows 8 hardware mixed with the rest of the PC offerings, and no visible call-outs identifying which were Win 8 based. This meant that, like Future Shop and Staples, if you wanted to know which machine had Windows 8 you had to go and scrutinize each machine. Also, there was nothing identifying which ones were touch based and which were not. Just Another Day… To these retailers, it seemed that the Windows 8 launch was just another day, with another product to add to the showroom floor. Meanwhile, Apple has their dedicated areas *in all three stores*. It was dead simple to find where the Apple products were compared to the Windows 8 products. No wonder Microsoft is starting to push their own retail stores. No wonder Microsoft is trying to funnel orders through them instead of relying on these bloated retail big box stores who obviously can’t manage a product launch. It’s Not Just The Retailers… Remember when the Acer CEO, Founder, and President of Computer Global Operations all weighed in on how Microsoft releasing the Surface would have a “huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction”? Also remember the CEO stating “[making hardware] is not something you are good at so please think twice”? Well the launch day has come and gone, and so far Microsoft is the only one that delivered on having hardware available on the October 26th date. Oh sure, there are laptops running Windows 8 – but all in one desktop PCs? I’ve only seen one or two! And tablets are *non existent*, with some showing an early to late November availability on Best Buy’s website! So while the retailers could be doing more to make it easier to find Windows 8 devices, the manufacturers could help by *getting devices into stores*! That’s supposedly something that these companies are good at, according to the Acer CEO. So Here’s What the Retailers and Manufacturers Need To Do… Get Product Out The pivotal timeframe will be now to the end of November. We need to start seeing all these fantastic pieces of hardware ship – including the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro, the Acer Iconia, the Asus TAICHI 21, and the sexy Samsung Series 7 27” desktop. It’s not enough to see product announcements, we need to see actual devices. Make It Easy For Customers To Find Win8 Devices You want to make it easy to sell these things? Make it easy for people to find them! Have staff on hand that really know how these devices run and what can be done with them. Don’t just have a single demo day, have people who can demo it every day! Make It Easy to See the Features There’s touch screen desktops, touch screen laptops, tablets, non-touch laptops, etc. People need to easily find the features for each machine. If I’m looking for a touch-laptop, I shouldn’t need to sift through all the non-touch laptops to find them – at the least, I need to quickly be able to see which ones are touch. I feel silly even typing this because this should be retail 101 and I have no retail background (but I do have an extensive background as a customer). In Summary… Microsoft launching the Surface and selling them through their own channels isn’t slapping its OEM and retail partners in the face; its slapping them to wake the hell up and stop coasting through Windows launch events like they don’t matter. Unless I see some improvements from vendors and retailers in November, I may just hold onto my money for a Surface Pro even if I have to wait until early 2013. Your move OEM/Retailers. *Update – While my experience has been in Winnipeg, similar experiences have been voiced from colleagues in Calgary and Edmonton.

  Read the article

• Rapid Evolution of Society & Technology

  - by Michael Snow

  We caught up with Brian Solis on the phone the other day and Christie Flanagan had a chance to chat with him and learn a bit more about him and some of the concepts he'll be addressing in our Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast on Thursday 12/13/12. «--- Interview with Brian Solis  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Be sure and register for this week's webcast ---» ------------------- Guest post by Brian Solis. Reposted (Borrowed) from his posting of May 24, 2012 Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise? - Brian Solis You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive technology by your internal champions yet you’ve not tried to find the value for yourself. You’re a change agent and you truly wish to bring about change, but you’ve not invested time or resources to answer “why” in your endeavors to become a connected or social business. If we are to truly change, we must find purpose. We must uncover the essence of our business and the value it delivers to traditional and connected consumers. We must rethink the spirit of today’s embrace and clearly articulate how transformation is going to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships now and over time. Without doing so, any attempts at evolution will be thwarted by reality. In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed. These are undisciplined times which require alternative approaches to recognize and pursue new opportunities. But everything begins with acknowledging the 360 view of the world that you see today is actually a filtered view of managed and efficient convenience. Today, many organizations that were once inspired by innovation and engagement have fallen into a process of marketing, operationalizing, managing, and optimizing. That might have worked for the better part of the last century, but for the next 10 years and beyond, new vision, leadership and supporting business models will be written to move businesses from rigid frameworks to adaptive and agile entities. I believe that today’s executives will undergo a great test; a test of character, vision, intention, and universal leadership. It starts with a simple, but essential question…what is your promise? Notice, I didn’t ask about your brand promise. Nor did I ask for you to cite your mission and vision statements. This is much more than value propositions or manufactured marketing language designed to hook audiences and stakeholders. I asked for your promise to me as your consumer, stakeholder, and partner. This isn’t about B2B or B2C, but instead, people to people, person to person. It is this promise that will breathe new life into an organization that on the outside, could be misdiagnosed as catatonic by those who are disrupting your markets. A promise, for example, is meant to inspire. It creates alignment. It serves as the foundation for your vision, mission, and all business strategies and it must come from the top to mean anything. For without it, we cannot genuinely voice what it is we stand for or stand behind. Think for a moment about the definition of community. It’s easy to confuse a workplace or a market where everyone simply shares common characteristics. However, a community in this day and age is much more than belonging to something, it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter The next few years will force a divide where companies are separated by intention as measured by actions and words. But, becoming a social business is not enough. Becoming more authentic and transparent doesn’t serve as a mantra for a renaissance. A promise is the ink that inscribes the spirit of the relationship between you and me. A promise serves as the words that influence change from within and change beyond the halls of our business. It is the foundation for a renewed embrace, one that must then find its way to every aspect of the organization. It’s the difference between a social business and an adaptive business. While an adaptive business can also be social, it is the culture of the organization that strives to not just use technology to extend current philosophies or processes into new domains, but instead give rise to a new culture where striving for relevance is among its goals. The tools and networks simply become enablers of a greater mission You are reading this because you believe in something more than what you’re doing today. While you fight for change within your organization, remember to aim for a higher purpose. Organizations that strive for innovation, imagination, and relevance will outperform those that do not. Part of your job is to lead a missionary push that unites the groundswell with a top down cascade. Change will only happen because you and other internal champions see what others can’t and will do what other won’t. It takes resolve. It takes the ability to translate new opportunities into business value. And, it takes courage. “This is a very noisy world, so we have to be very clear what we want them to know about us”-Steve Jobs ----------------------------------------------------------------- So -- where do you begin to evaluate the kind of experience you are delivering for your customers, partners, and employees?  Take a look at this White Paper: Creating a Successful and Meaningful Customer Experience on the Web and then have a cup of coffee while you listen to the sage advice of Guy Kawasaki in a short video below.   An interview with Guy Kawasaki on Maximizing Social Media Channels 

  Read the article

• Developing a Cost Model for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Note - please pay attention to the date of this post. As much as I attempt to make the information below accurate, the nature of distributed computing means that components, units and pricing will change over time. The definitive costs for Microsoft Windows Azure and SQL Azure are located here, and are more accurate than anything you will see in this post: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/  When writing software that is run on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering like Windows Azure / SQL Azure, one of the questions you must answer is how much the system will cost. I will not discuss the comparisons between on-premise costs (which are nigh impossible to calculate accurately) versus cloud costs, but instead focus on creating a general model for estimating costs for a given application. You should be aware that there are (at this writing) two billing mechanisms for Windows and SQL Azure: “Pay-as-you-go” or consumption, and “Subscription” or commitment. Conceptually, you can consider the former a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan, where you pay by the unit used (at a slightly higher rate) and the latter as a standard cell phone plan where you commit to a contract and thus pay lower rates. In this post I’ll stick with the pay-as-you-go mechanism for simplicity, which should be the maximum cost you would pay. From there you may be able to get a lower cost if you use the other mechanism. In any case, the model you create should hold. Developing a good cost model is essential. As a developer or architect, you’ll most certainly be asked how much something will cost, and you need to have a reliable way to estimate that. Businesses and Organizations have been used to paying for servers, software licenses, and other infrastructure as an up-front cost, and power, people to the systems and so on as an ongoing (and sometimes not factored) cost. When presented with a new paradigm like distributed computing, they may not understand the true cost/value proposition, and that’s where the architect and developer can guide the conversation to make a choice based on features of the application versus the true costs. The two big buckets of use-types for these applications are customer-based and steady-state. In the customer-based use type, each successful use of the program results in a sale or income for your organization. Perhaps you’ve written an application that provides the spot-price of foo, and your customer pays for the use of that application. In that case, once you’ve estimated your cost for a successful traversal of the application, you can build that into the price you charge the user. It’s a standard restaurant model, where the price of the meal is determined by the cost of making it, plus any profit you can make. In the second use-type, the application will be used by a more-or-less constant number of processes or users and no direct revenue is attached to the system. A typical example is a customer-tracking system used by the employees within your company. In this case, the cost model is often created “in reverse” - meaning that you pilot the application, monitor the use (and costs) and that cost is held steady. This is where the comparison with an on-premise system becomes necessary, even though it is more difficult to estimate those on-premise true costs. For instance, do you know exactly how much cost the air conditioning is because you have a team of system administrators? This may sound trivial, but that, along with the insurance for the building, the wiring, and every other part of the system is in fact a cost to the business. There are three primary methods that I’ve been successful with in estimating the cost. None are perfect, all are demand-driven. The general process is to lay out a matrix of: components units cost per unit and then multiply that times the usage of the system, based on which components you use in the program. That sounds a bit simplistic, but using those metrics in a calculation becomes more detailed. In all of the methods that follow, you need to know your application. The components for a PaaS include computing instances, storage, transactions, bandwidth and in the case of SQL Azure, database size. In most cases, architects start with the first model and progress through the other methods to gain accuracy. Simple Estimation The simplest way to calculate costs is to architect the application (even UML or on-paper, no coding involved) and then estimate which of the components you’ll use, and how much of each will be used. Microsoft provides two tools to do this - one is a simple slider-application located here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing-calculator/  The other is a tool you download to create an “Return on Investment” (ROI) spreadsheet, which has the advantage of leading you through various questions to estimate what you plan to use, located here: https://roianalyst.alinean.com/msft/AutoLogin.do?d=176318219048082115  You can also just create a spreadsheet yourself with a structure like this: Program Element Azure Component Unit of Measure Cost Per Unit Estimated Use of Component Total Cost Per Component Cumulative Cost               Of course, the consideration with this model is that it is difficult to predict a system that is not running or hasn’t even been developed. Which brings us to the next model type. Measure and Project A more accurate model is to actually write the code for the application, using the Software Development Kit (SDK) which can run entirely disconnected from Azure. The code should be instrumented to estimate the use of the application components, logging to a local file on the development system. A series of unit and integration tests should be run, which will create load on the test system. You can use standard development concepts to track this usage, and even use Windows Performance Monitor counters. The best place to start with this method is to use the Windows Azure Diagnostics subsystem in your code, which you can read more about here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sumitm/archive/2009/11/18/introducing-windows-azure-diagnostics.aspx This set of API’s greatly simplifies tracking the application, and in fact you can use this information for more than just a cost model. After you have the tracking logs, you can plug the numbers into ay of the tools above, which should give a representative cost or in some cases a unit cost. The consideration with this model is that the SDK fabric is not a one-to-one comparison with performance on the actual Windows Azure fabric. Those differences are usually smaller, but they do need to be considered. Also, you may not be able to accurately predict the load on the system, which might lead to an architectural change, which changes the model. This leads us to the next, most accurate method for a cost model. Sample and Estimate Using standard statistical and other predictive math, once the application is deployed you will get a bill each month from Microsoft for your Azure usage. The bill is quite detailed, and you can export the data from it to do analysis, and using methods like regression and so on project out into the future what the costs will be. I normally advise that the architect also extrapolate a unit cost from those metrics as well. This is the information that should be reported back to the executives that pay the bills: the past cost, future projected costs, and unit cost “per click” or “per transaction”, as your case warrants. The challenge here is in the model itself - statistical methods are not foolproof, and the larger the sample (in this case I recommend the entire population, not a smaller sample) is key. References and Tools Articles: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/patrick_butler_monterde/archive/2010/02/10/windows-azure-billing-overview.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg213848.aspx http://blog.codingoutloud.com/2011/06/05/azure-faq-how-much-will-it-cost-me-to-run-my-application-on-windows-azure/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/johnalioto/archive/2010/08/25/10054193.aspx http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable/archive/2010/02/08/qampa-how-can-i-calculate-the-tco-and-roi-when.aspx   Other Tools: http://cloud-assessment.com/ http://communities.quest.com/community/cloud_tools

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84  | Next Page >