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• List of blogs - year 2010

  - by hajan

  This is the last day of year 2010 and I would like to add links to all blogs I have posted in this year. First, I would like to mention that I started blogging in ASP.NET Community in May / June 2010 and have really enjoyed writing for my favorite technologies, such as: ASP.NET, jQuery/JavaScript, C#, LINQ, Web Services etc. I also had great feedback either through comments on my blogs or in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn where I met many new experts just as a result of my blog posts. Thanks to the interesting topics I have in my blog, I became DZone MVB. Here is the list of blogs I made in 2010 in my ASP.NET Community Weblog: (newest to oldest) Great library of ASP.NET videos – Pluralsight! NDepend – Code Query Language (CQL) NDepend tool – Why every developer working with Visual Studio.NET must try it! jQuery Templates in ASP.NET - Blogs Series jQuery Templates - XHTML Validation jQuery Templates with ASP.NET MVC jQuery Templates - {Supported Tags} jQuery Templates – tmpl(), template() and tmplItem() Introduction to jQuery Templates ViewBag dynamic in ASP.NET MVC 3 - RC 2 Today I had a presentation on "Deep Dive into jQuery Templates in ASP.NET" jQuery Data Linking in ASP.NET How do you prefer getting bundles of technologies?? Case-insensitive XPath query search on XML Document in ASP.NET jQuery UI Accordion in ASP.NET MVC - feed with data from database (Part 3) jQuery UI Accordion in ASP.NET WebForms - feed with data from database (Part 2) jQuery UI Accordion in ASP.NET – Client side implementation (Part 1) Using Images embedded in Project’s Assembly Macedonian Code Camp 2010 event has finished successfully Tips and Tricks: Deferred execution using LINQ Using System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch class to measure the elapsed time Speaking at Macedonian Code Camp 2010 URL Routing in ASP.NET 4.0 Web Forms Conflicts between ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanels & jQuery functions Integration of jQuery DatePicker in ASP.NET Website – Localization (part 3) Why not to use HttpResponse.Close and HttpResponse.End Calculate Business Days using LINQ Get Distinct values of an Array using LINQ Using CodeRun browser-based IDE to create ASP.NET Web Applications Using params keyword – Methods with variable number of parameters Working with Code Snippets in VS.NET  Working with System.IO.Path static class Calculating GridView total using JavaScript/JQuery The new SortedSet<T> Collection in .NET 4.0 JavaScriptSerializer – Dictionary to JSON Serialization and Deserialization Integration of jQuery DatePicker in ASP.NET Website – JS Validation Script (part 2) Integration of jQuery DatePicker in ASP.NET Website (part 1) Transferring large data when using Web Services Forums dedicated to WebMatrix Microsoft WebMatrix – Short overview & installation Working with embedded resources in Project's assembly Debugging ASP.NET Web Services Save and Display YouTube Videos on ASP.NET Website Hello ASP.NET World... In addition, I would like to mention that I have big list of blog posts in CodeASP.NET Community (total 60 blogs) and the local MKDOT.NET Community (total 61 blogs). You may find most of my weblogs.asp.net/hajan blogs posted there too, but there you can find many others. In my blog on MKDOT.NET Community you can find most of my ASP.NET Weblog posts translated in Macedonian language, some of them posted in English and some other blogs that were posted only there. By reading my blogs, I hope you have learnt something new or at least have confirmed your knowledge. And also, if you haven't, I encourage you to start blogging and share your Microsoft Tech. thoughts with all of us... Sharing and spreading knowledge is definitely one of the noblest things which we can do in our life. "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime" HAPPY NEW 2011 YEAR!!! Best Regards, Hajan

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• Travelling MVP #1: Visit to SharePoint User Group Finland

  - by DigiMortal

  My first self organized trip this autumn was visit to SharePoint User Group Finland community evening. As active community leaders who make things like these possible they are worth mentioning and on spug.fi side there was Jussi Roine the one who invited me. Here is my short review about my trip to Helsinki. User group meeting As Helsinki is near Tallinn I went there using ship. It was easy to get from sea port to venue and I had also some minutes of time to visit academic book store. Community evening was held on the ground floor of one city center hotel and room was conveniently located near hotel bar and restaurant. Here is the meeting schedule: Welcome (Jussi Roine) OpenText application archiving and governance for SharePoint (Bernd Hennicke, OpenText) Using advanced C# features in SharePoint development (Alexey Sadomov, NED Consulting) Optimizing public-facing internet sites for SharePoint (Gunnar Peipman) After meeting, of course, local dudes doesn’t walk away but continue with some beers and discussion. Sessions After welcome words by Jussi there was session by Bernd Hennicke who spoke about OpenText. His session covered OpenText history and current moment. After this introduction he spoke about OpenText products for SharePoint and gave the audience good overview about where their SharePoint extensions fit in big picture. I usually don’t like those vendors sessions but this one was good. I mean vendor dudes were not aggressively selling something. They were way different – kind people who introduced their stuff and later answered questions. They acted like good guests. Second speaker was Alexey Sadomov who is working on SharePoint development projects. He introduced some ways how to get over some limitations of SharePoint. I don’t go here deeply with his session but it’s worth to mention that this session was strong one. It is not rear case when developers have to make nasty hacks to SharePoint. I mean really nasty hacks. Often these hacks are long blocks of code that uses terrible techniques to achieve the result. Alexey introduced some very much civilized ways about how to apply hacks. Alex Sadomov, SharePoint MVP, speaking about SharePoint coding tips and tricks on C# I spoke about how I optimized caching of Estonian Microsoft community portal that runs on SharePoint Server and that uses publishing infrastructure. I made no actual demos on SharePoint because I wanted to focus on optimizing process and share some experiences about how to get caches optimized and how to measure caches. Networking After official part there was time to talk and discuss with people. Finns are cool – they have beers and they are glad. It was not big community event but people were like one good family. Developers there work often for big companies and it was very interesting to me to hear about their experiences with SharePoint. One thing was a little bit surprising for me – SharePoint guys in Finland are talking actively also about Office 365 and online SharePoint. It doesn’t happen often here in Estonia. I had to leave a little bit 21:00 to get to my ship back to Tallinn. I am sure spug.fi dudes continued nice evening and they had at least same good time as I did. Do I want to go back to Finland and meet these guys again? Yes, sure, let’s do it again! :)

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• Add Microsoft Core Fonts to Ubuntu

  - by Matthew Guay

  Have you ever needed the standard Microsoft fonts such as Times New Roman on your Ubuntu computer?  Here’s how you can easily add the core Microsoft fonts to Ubuntu. Times New Roman, Arial, and other core Microsoft fonts are still some of the most commonly used fonts in documents and websites.  Times New Roman especially is often required for college essays, legal docs, and other critical documents that you may need to write or edit.  Ubuntu includes the Liberation alternate fonts that include similar alternates to Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New, but these may not be accepted by professors and others when a certain font is required.  But, don’t worry; it only takes a couple clicks to add these fonts to Ubuntu for free. Installing the Core Microsoft Fonts Microsoft has released their core fonts, including Times New Roman and Arial, for free, and you can easily download these from the Software Center.  Open your Applications menu, and select Ubuntu Software Center.   In the search box enter the following: ttf-mscorefonts Click Install on the “Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts” directly in the search results. Enter your password when requested, and click Authenticate. The fonts will then automatically download and install in a couple minutes depending on your internet connection speed. Once the install is finished, you can launch OpenOffice Writer to try out the new fonts.  Here’s a preview of all the fonts included in this pack.  And, yes, this does included the infamous Comic Sans and Webdings fonts as well as the all-important Times New Roman. Please Note:  By default in Ubuntu, OpenOffice uses Liberation Serif as the default font, but after installing this font pack, the default font will switch to Times New Roman. Adding Other Fonts In addition to the Microsoft Core Fonts, the Ubuntu Software Center has hundreds of free fonts available.  Click the Fonts link on the front page to explore these, and install the same as above. If you’ve downloaded another font individually, you can also install it easily in Ubuntu.  Just double-click it, and then click Install in the preview window. Conclusion Although you may prefer the fonts that are included with Ubuntu, there are many reasons why having the Microsoft core fonts can be helpful.  Thankfully it’s easy in Ubuntu to install them, so you’ll never have to worry about not having them when you need to edit an important document. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Enable Smooth fonts on Ubuntu LinuxEmbed True Type Fonts in Word and PowerPoint 2007 DocumentsNew Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-lineStupid Geek Tricks: Enable More Fonts for the Windows Command PromptAdding extra Repositories on Ubuntu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook Recycle !

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• SQL SERVER – Transcript of Learning SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics – Interview of Vinod Kumar by Pinal Dave

  - by pinaldave

  Recently I just wrote a blog post on about Learning SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics and I received lots of request that if we can share some insight into the course. Here is 200 seconds interview of Vinod Kumar I took right after completing the course. We have few free codes to watch the course, please your comment at http://facebook.com/SQLAuth and we will few of first ones, we will send the code. There are many people who said they would like to read the transcript of the video. Here I have generated the same. Pinal: Vinod, we recently released this course, SQL Server Indexing. It is about performance tuning. So tell me – how do indexes help performance? Vinod: I think what happens in the industry when it comes to performance is that developers and DBAs look at indexes first.  So that’s the first step for any performance tuning exercise, indexing is one of the most critical aspects and it is important to learn it the right way. Pinal: Correct. So what you mean to say is that if you know indexing you can pretty much tune any server and query. Vinod: So I might contradict my false statement now. Indexing is usually a stepping stone but it does not lead you to the end. But it’s good to start with indexing and there are lots of nuances to indexing that you need to understand, like how SQL uses indexing and how performance can improve because of the strategies that you have made. Pinal: But now I’m confused. First you said indexes are good, and then you said that indexes can degrade your performance.  So what is this course about?  I mean how does this course really make an impact? Vinod: Ok -so from the course perspective, what we are trying to do is give you a capsule which gives you a good start. Every journey needs a beginning, you need that first step.  This course is that first step in understanding. This is the most basic, fundamental course that we have tried to attack. This is the fundamentals of indexing, some of the key things that you must know about indexing.   Some of the basics of indexing are lesser known and so I think this course is geared towards each and every one of you out there who wants to understand little bit more about indexing. Pinal: So what I understand is that if I enrolled in this course I will have a minimum understanding about indexing when dealing with performance tuning.  Right? Vinod: Exactly. In this course is we have tried to give you a nice summary. We are talking about clustered indexing, non clustered indexing, too many indexes, too few indexes, over indexing, under indexing, duplicate indexing, columns tune indexing, with SQL Server 2012. There’s lot’s to learn. Pinal: You can see the URL [http://bit.ly/sql-index] of the course on the screen. Go ahead, attend, and let us know what you think about it. Thank you. Vinod: Thank you. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• How To Clear An Alert - Part 2

  - by werner.de.gruyter

  There were some interesting comments and remarks on the original posting, so I decided to do a follow-up and address some of the issues that got raised... Handling Metric Errors First of all, there is a significant difference between an 'error' and an 'alert'. An 'alert' is the violation of a condition (a threshold) specified for a given metric. That means that the Agent is collecting and gathering the data for the metric, but there is a situation that requires the attention of an administrator. An 'error' on the other hand however, is a failure to collect metric data: The Agent is throwing the error because it cannot determine the value for the metric Whereas the 'alert' guarantees continuity of the metric data, an 'error' signals a big unknown. And the unknown aspect of all this is what makes an error a lot more serious than a regular alert: If you don't know what the current state of affairs is, there could be some serious issues brewing that nobody is aware of... The life-cycle of a Metric Error Clearing a metric error is pretty much the same workflow as a metric 'alert': The Agent signals the error after it failed to execute the metric The error is uploaded to the OMS/repository, where it becomes visible in the Console The error will remain active until the Agent is able to execute the metric successfully. Even though the metric is still getting scheduled and executed on a regular basis, the error will remain outstanding as long as the Agent is not capable of executing the metric correctly Knowing this, the way to fix the metric error should be obvious: Take the 'problem' away, and as soon as the metric is executed again (based on the frequency of the metric), the error will go away. The same tricks used to clear alerts can be used here too: Wait for the next scheduled execution. For those metrics that are executed regularly (like every 15 minutes or so), it's just a matter of waiting those minutes to see the updates. The 'Reevaluate Alert' button can be used to force a re-execution of the metric. In case a metric is executed once a day, this will be a better way to make sure that the underlying problem has been solved. And if it has been, the metric error will be removed, and the regular data points will be uploaded to the repository. And just in case you have to 'force' the issue a little: If you disable and re-enable a metric, it will get re-scheduled. And that means a new metric execution, and an update of the (hopefully) fixed problem. Database server-generated alerts and problem checkers There are various ways the Agent can collect metric data: Via a script or a SQL statement, reading a log file, getting a value from an SNMP OID or listening for SNMP traps or via the DBMS_SERVER_ALERTS mechanism of an Oracle database. For those alert which are generated by the database (like tablespace metrics for 10g and above databases), the Agent just 'waits' for the database to report any new findings. If the Agent has lost the current state of the server-side metrics (due to an incomplete recovery after a disaster, or after an improper use of the 'emctl clearstate' command), the Agent might be still aware of an alert that the database no longer has (or vice versa). The same goes for 'problem checker' alerts: Those metrics that only report data if there is a problem (like the 'invalid objects' metric) will also have a problem if the Agent state has been tampered with (again, the incomplete recovery, and after improper use of 'emctl clearstate' are the two main causes for this). The best way to deal with these kinds of mismatches, is to simple disable and re-enable the metric again: The disabling will clear the state of the metric, and the re-enabling will force a re-execution of the metric, so the new and updated results can get uploaded to the repository. Starting 10gR5, the Agent performs additional checks and verifications after each restart of the Agent and/or each state change of the database (shutdown/startup or failover in case of DataGuard) to catch these kinds of mismatches.

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• Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud

  - by Asian Angel

  Backing up important files is something that all of us should do on a regular basis, but may not have given as much thought to as we should. This week we would like to know if you use local storage, cloud storage, or a combination of both to back your files up. Photo by camknows. For some people local storage media may be the most convenient and/or affordable way to back up their files. Having those files stored on media under your control can also provide a sense of security and peace of mind. But storing your files locally may also have drawbacks if something happens to your storage media. So how do you know whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages or not? Here are some possible pros and cons that may affect your decision to use local storage to back up your files: Local Storage Pros You are in control of your data Your files are portable and can go with you when needed if using external or flash drives Files are accessible without an internet connection You can easily add more storage capacity as needed (additional drives, etc.) Cons You need to arrange room for your storage media (if you have multiple externals drives, etc.) Possible hardware failure No access to your files if you forget to bring your storage media with you or it is too bulky to bring along Theft and/or loss of home with all contents due to circumstances like fire If you are someone who is always on the go and needs to travel as lightly as possible, cloud storage may be the perfect way for you to back up and access your files. Perhaps your laptop has a hard-drive failure or gets stolen…unhappy events to be sure, but you will still have a copy of your files available. Perhaps a company wants to make sure their records, files, and other information are backed up off site in case of a major hardware or system failure…expensive and/or frustrating to fix if it happens, but once again there is a nice backup ready to go once things are fixed. As with local storage, here are some possible pros and cons that may influence your choice of cloud storage to back up your files: Cloud Storage Pros No need to carry around flash or bulky external drives All of your files are accessible wherever there is an internet connection No need to deal with local storage media (or its’ upkeep) Your files are still safe if your home is broken into or other unfortunate circumstances occur Cons Your files and data are not 100% under your control Possible hardware failure or loss of files on the part of your cloud storage provider (this could include a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc) No access to your files if you do not have an internet connection The cloud storage provider may eventually shutdown due to financial hardship or other unforeseen circumstances The possibility of your files and data being stolen by hackers due to a security breach on the part of your cloud storage provider You may also prefer to try and cover all of the possibilities by using both local and cloud storage to back up your files. If something happens to one, you always have the other to fall back on. Need access to those files at or away from home? As long as you have access to either your storage media or an internet connection, you are good to go. Maybe you are getting ready to choose a backup solution but are not sure which one would work better for you. Here is your chance to ask your fellow HTG readers which one they would recommend. Got a great backup solution already in place? Then be sure to share it with your fellow readers! How-To Geek Polls require Javascript. Please Click Here to View the Poll. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know Winter Sunset by a Mountain Stream Wallpaper Add Sleek Style to Your Desktop with the Aston Martin Theme for Windows 7 Awesome WebGL Demo – Flight of the Navigator from Mozilla Sunrise on the Alien Desert Planet Wallpaper Add Falling Snow to Webpages with the Snowfall Extension for Opera [Browser Fun] Automatically Keep Up With the Latest Releases from Mozilla Labs in Firefox 4.0

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• A Few of My Favorite HTML5 and CSS3 Online Tools

  - by dwahlin

  I really enjoy coding up HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript applications but there are some things that I’m better off writing with the help of a development tool. For example, CSS3 gradients aren’t exactly the most fun thing to write by hand and the same could be said for animations, transforms, or styles that require various vendor extensions. There are a lot of online tools that can simplify building HTML5/CSS3 sites and increase productivity in the process so I thought I’d put together a post on a few of my favorites tools. HTML5 Boilerplate HTML5 Boilerplate provides a great way to get started building HTML5 sites. It includes many best practices out of the box and even includes a few tricks that many people don’t even know about. The custom download option allows you to pick the features that you want to include in the files that’s generated. You can read more about it here.   Initializr Although HTML5 Boilerplate provides a great foundation for starting HTML5 sites, it focuses on providing a starting shell structure (namely an html page, JavaScript files, and a CSS stylesheet) and doesn’t include much in the way of page content to get started with. Initializer builds on HTML5 Boilerplate and provides an initial test page that can be tweaked to meet your needs. It also provides several different customization options to include/exclude features. CSS3 Maker CSS3 provides a lot of great features ranging from gradient support to rounded corners. Although many of the features are fairly straightforward there are some that are pretty involved such as gradients, animations, and really any styles that require custom vendor extensions to use across browsers. Sure, you can type everything by hand, but sites such as CSS3 Maker provide a visual way to generate CSS3 styles. CSS3, Please! CSS3, Please! is a code generation tool that can be used to generate cross-browser CSS3 styles quickly and easily. All of the main things you can do with CSS3 are available including a clever way to visually generate CSS3 transform styles.       Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator CSS3 Maker (above) has a gradient generator built-in but my favorite tool for creating CSS3 gradients is the Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator. If you’ve created gradients in tools like Photoshop then you’ll love what this tool has to offer especially since it makes it extremely straightforward to work with different gradient stops. @font-face Fonts Although @font-face has been available for awhile, I think fonts are cool and wanted to mention a site that provides a lot of font choices. When used correctly fonts can really enhance a page and when used incorrectly (think Comic Sans) they can absolutely ruin a page. Several sites exist that provide fonts that can be used with @font-face definitions in CSS style sheets. One of my favorites is Font Squirrel.   HTML5 & CSS3 Support and Tests Interested in knowing what HTML5 and CSS3 features a given browser supports? Want to know how various browsers stack up with each other as far as HTML5/CSS3 support. Look no further than the HTML5 & CSS3 Support page or the HTML5 Test page.   CSS3 Easing Animation Tool CSS3 animations aren’t widely supported across browsers right now (I’m not really using them at this point) but they do offer a lot of promise. Creating easings for animations can definitely be a challenge but they’re something that are critical for adding that “professional touch” to your animations. Fortunately you can use the Ceaser CSS Easing Animation Tool to simplify the process and handle animation easing with…...ease.   There are several other online tools that I like but these are some of the ones I find myself using the most. If you have any favorite online tools that simplify working with HTML5 or CSS3 let me know.     For more information about onsite or online training, mentoring and consulting solutions for HTML5, jQuery, .NET, SharePoint or Silverlight please visit http://www.thewahlingroup.com.

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• How to prepare for an interview presentation!

  - by Tim Koekkoek

  During an interview process you might be asked to prepare a presentation as one of the steps in the recruitment process. Below, we want to give you some tips to help you prepare for what might be considered a daunting aspect of a recruitment process. Main purpose of the presentation Always keep in mind the main purpose of what the presentation is meant to convey. Generally speaking, an interview presentation is for the company to check if you have the ability to represent and sell the organization (and yourself), to the internal and external stakeholders in the position you are applying for. A presentation is often also part of the recruitment process to check whether you can structure and explain your experience and thoughts in a convincing manner. If you are unsure about the purpose of the presentation, feel free to ask your recruiter for more information. Preparation As with every task you do, preparation is key, so is the case with an interview presentation. It is important to know who your audience is. You have to adapt your presentation to your audience, ensuring that you are presenting the facts which they would want to hear. Furthermore, make sure you practice your presentation beforehand; this will make you more confident in your presenting skills. Also, estimate the length of your presentation as presentations or pitches during the recruitment process are often capped to a certain time limit. Structure Every presentation should have a beginning, middle and an end. Make sure you give an overview of your presentation and tell the audience what they can expect. Your presentation should have a logical order and a clear message. Always build up to your key message with strong arguments and evidence. When speaking about the topic, make sure you convey your points with conviction. Also be sure you believe the message you bring forward, if you don’t believe it yourself, then the audience definitely won’t! Delivery When you think back on successful presentations you have seen, the presenter was most likely always standing up. So if asked to do a presentation, follow this example and make sure you stand up as well. Standing up when you are doing your presentation shows confidence and control. Another important aspect in the delivery of the presentation is to relax and speak slowly and with enough volume for the audience to hear you. Speaking slowly allows the audience the time to absorb the information you are providing to them. Visual Using PowerPoint, or an equivalent, makes it very easy to have a visually attractive presentation. Make sure however that you take into account that the visual aids you use are there to support you, not for you to read word for word what is on the slides! Questions When starting your presentation, it is a good idea to tell your audience that you will deal with any questions they might have at the end of the presentation. This way it doesn’t interrupt your train of thought and the flow of your presentation. Answering questions at the end may give you additional opportunities to further expand on your facts in the topic. Some people might play the “devil’s advocate” role and confront you with opposing opinions, if this is the case, take your time to reiterate your points and remain professional in your response. A good way to deal with this is to start interacting with other members of the audience and ask for their opinions, so it will become a group discussion. This will also shows strong leadership skills, as you are open to discuss and ask for other opinions. If you are interested in more tips and tricks for your interview process, have a look at Competency Based Interview Tips and How to prepare for a Telephone Interview. For more information about Oracle and our vacancies, please visit our Facebook community and our careers website.

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• Silverlight Cream for April 16, 2010 -- #838

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Alan Beasley(-2-, -3-, -4-, -5-), Brian, Rishi, Pete Brown, Yavor Georgiev, and David Anson. Shoutouts: As usual, Tim Heuer has all the scoop on all the hot-off-the-presses releases: Silverlight 4 released. Availability of tools announcement. He covers all the main parts of interest. Tim Heuer also discusses Backward Compatibility with Silverlight 4 applications And before you ask, Tim Heuer announced the Silverlight Client for Facebook updated for Silverlight 4 release If you're having trouble with the install, Peter Bromberg has a post up to help bail you out: Get Silverlight 4 Installed: Tips and Tricks Christian Schormann has a link to probably the fastest intro to SketchFlow I've seen: Video: SketchFlow in 90 seconds, with Jon Harris Chris Rouw has a Summary of Silverlight at DevConnections on his site. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Chris and we had some good discussions. Rene Schulte describes how to get started with the new final Silverlight 4 RTW build and announces that he updated his samples and open source projects. He also shares what he wishes for the next Silverlight version: Silverlight 4 Up and Running From SilverlightCream.com: Building Better Buttons in Expression Blend and Silverlight I generally end up missing articles embedded at CodeProject, so Alan Beasley emailed me a link to these, they were new to me. In this first one, he's got a very nice tutorial up on making some awesome buttons in Expression Blend Arcade Button in Expression Blend and Silverlight Alan Beasley's second Expression Blend Button tutorial is the classic 'arcade button' ... this is great stuff.. check it out. Picture Frame Control in Expression Blend and Silverlight I wasn't going to do the full list Alan Beasley had sent me in one post, but they're all so good! This third takes an excursion away from buttons to do a Picture Frame control. Styled to the max, and another great Blend tutorial! The last building buttons article (Part1), in Expression Blend and Silverlight Alan Beasley finishes what may be a definitive work on buttons in Blend... even if you don't want to follow the tutorials (and why wouldn't you??) ... he's got 10 buttons you can download! ListBox Styling (Part1-ScrollBars) in Expression Blend & Silverlight In Alan Beasley's 5th post at Code Project, He has a great long tutorial on Styling Listbox Scrollbars in Expression Blend ... the ScrollBars are Part 1 of a series. Some Notes on DRM in Silverlight 4 Brian at Silverlight SDK has a post up on DRM ... WMDRM and PlayReady. If you're planning on utilizing this, Brian's post looks like a good starting point. nRoute: Now, More Wholesome Rishi has a detailed post up explaining the latest nRoute release now supporting Silverlight 4, WP7, and WPF. What a piece of work! Scanning an Image from Silverlight 4 using WIA Automation Pete Brown demonstrates using VS2010 and SL4 to lash up to his scanner. Lots of code and external links... all good stuff, Pete! Dealing with those pesky WCF CommunicationException “NotFound” errors in Silverlight Yavor Georgiev has a quick post up discussing WCF CommunicationException errors in Silverlight with a couple external links to explain the solution. New Silverlight 4 Toolkit released with today's Silverlight 4 RTW! David Anson blogged about the new Toolkit release that is live right now along with the Silverlight 4 Release, and has some release notes up on the Toolkit. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Review: ComponentOne Studio for Entity Framework

  - by Tim Murphy

  While I have always been a fan of libraries that improve coding efficiency and reduce code redundancy I have mostly been using ones that were in the public domain.  As part of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program a got my hands on ComponentOne’s Studio for Entity Framework.  Below are my thought after working with the product for several weeks. My coding preference has always been maintainable code that is reusable across an enterprises protfolio.  Because of this my focus in reviewing this product is less on the RAD components and more on its benefits for layered applications using code first Entity Framework. Before we get into the pros and cons here is a summary of the main feature listed for SEF. Unified Data Context Virtual Data Access More Powerful Data Binding Pros The first thing that I found to my liking is the C1DataSource. It basically manages a cache for your Entity Model context.  Under RAD conditions this is setup automatically when you drop the object on a your design surface.  If you are like me and want to abstract you data management into a library it takes a little more work, but it is still acceptable and gains the same benefits. The second feature that I found beneficial is the definition of views with improved sorting and filtering.  Again the ease of use of these features is greater on the RAD side but no capabilities are missing when manipulating object in code. Linq has become my friend over the last couple of years and it was great to see that ComponentOne had ensured that it remained a first class citizen in their design.  When you look into this product yourself I would suggest taking a dive into LiveLinq which allow the joining of different data source types. As I went through discovering the features of this framework I appreciated the number of examples that they supplied for different uses.  Besides showing how to use SEF with WinForms, WPF and Silverlight they also showed how to accomplish tasks both RAD, code only and MVVM approaches. Cons The only area that I would really like to see improvement is in there level of detail in their documentation.  Specifically I would like to have seen some of the supporting code explained, such as what some supporting object did, in the examples instead of having to go to the programmer’s reference. I did find some times where currently existing projects had some trouble determining scope that the RAD controls were allowed, but I expect this is something that is in part end user related. Summary Overall I found the Studio for Entity Framework capable and well thought out.  If you are already using the Entity Framework this product will fit into your environment with little effort in return for greater flexibility and greater robustness in your solutions. Whether the $895 list price for a standard version works for you will depend on your return on investment. Smaller companies with only a small number of projects may not be able to stomach it, you get a full featured product that is supported by a well established company.  The more projects and the more code you have the greater your return on investment will be. Personally I intend to apply this product to some production systems and will probably have some tips and tricks in the future. del.icio.us Tags: ComponentOne,Studio for Entity Framework,Geeks With Blogs,Influencers,Product Reviews

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• Earn $10 for each friend you refer to FREE Amazon Mom Account

  - by Gopinath

  If you are looking for options to earn some handful of referral bonuses then here is a great deal from Amazon. You can earn $10 for every friend/family member you refer to join free Amazon Mom trail account. What is Amazon Mom by the way? Amazon Mom is a free membership program created especially for parents and caretakers of small children. It gives free 2 days shipping of products purchased on Amazon.com, 20% discount on diapers, wipes and other baby stuff.  Though the name says Mom, it’s open to any one who has children. It does not matter whether you are father, grand parent, aunty or uncle. You can join the program and avail all the benefits of the program. It costs nothing to join FREE 3 months trail Amazon Mom costs $79/year, but anyone can join FREE 3 months trail and explore it with no cost. At the end of your 3 months trail you may either continue the program by paying the required amount or just opt out of it without any charges. You can learn more details about the Amazon Mom program benefits over here. To earn bonus you need to refer friends to join the free 3 months trail and as soon as they join Amazon will automatically credit $10 bonus to your Amazon.com account. Did you ever make money? Couple of weeks ago I saw this promotion and referred my friends. They loved the program as it gives a lot of discounts on baby diapers, wipes and they immediately joined. Within a 10 days they joined the program, Amazon sent emails to me confirming referral bonus. Here is a screen grab of one such referral email and my Amazon bonus are adding up every day as referrals pulling more people in to this program     How to refer friends and earn bonus? So you are ready to refer your friends and here are the steps to be followed Sign in to your Amazon.com account Go to Amazon Mom Referral page and copy the referral link displayed on screen Start sharing the link with your friends and request them to join the free trail If you own a blog or website, write about the program and let your readers know about it. You can also have a image banner on your website with referral link. Facebook and Twitter are the other two places where you can share the referral links and bring your friends on board. Know the rules and don’t gamble Amazon Mom referral program has few conditions that must be satisfied. Make sure that you read and understand all of them. Final and most important one is not to gamble Amazon! Yes, don’t play tricks like referring yourself or creating fake Amazon Mom accounts  in order to earn money. By gambling you may be able to cheat Amazon for a while, but as soon as Amazon detects the fraud  you will be booted out of their system.  Being on the good side always takes you in right direction and helps you earn money.

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• Experience the iPad UI On Your PC

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to test drive iPad without heading over to an Apple store?  Here’s a way you can experience some of the iPad UI straight from your browser! The iPad is the latest gadget from Apple to wow the tech world, and people even waited in line all night to be one of the first to get their hands on one.  Thanks to a simple JavaScript trick, however, you can get a feel for some of its new features without leaving your computer.  This won’t let you try out everything on the iPad, but it will let you see how the new lists and pop-over menus work just like they do in the new apps. Test drive the iPad’s UI from your browser Normally, the Apple iPhone developer library online looks like a standard webpage. But, on the iPad, it looks and feels like a full-blown native iPad app.  With a nifty JavaScript trick from boredzo.org you can use this same interface on your PC.  Since the iPad uses the Safari browser, we ran this test in Safari for Windows.  If you don’t already have it installed, you can download it from Apple (link below) and setup as normal. Now, open Safari and browse to Apple’s developer page at: http://www.developer.apple.com   Now, enter the following in the address bar, and press Enter. javascript:localStorage.setItem('debugSawtooth', 'true')   Finally, click this link to go to the iPhone OS documentation. http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/iPad/ After a short delay, it should open in full iPad style! The left menu works just like the menus on the iPad, complete with transitions.  It feels entirely like a native application, instead of a webpage.  To scroll through text, click and pull up or down similar to the way you would use it on a touch screen. Some pages even include a pop-over menu like many of the new iPad apps use. Note that the page will be rendered for the size of your browser, and if you resize your window the page will not resize with it.  Simply press F5 to reload the page, and it will resize to fit the new window size.  If you resize your window to be tall and narrow, like the iPad in horizontal mode, the webpage will change and the left menu will disappear in lieu of a drop-down menu just like it would if you rotated the iPad. This works in Chrome as well, since it, like Safari, is based on Webkit.  However, it didn’t seem to work in our test on Firefox or other browsers. We’ve previously covered how you can experience some of the iPhone’s UI with the online iPhone user guide.  Check it out if you haven’t yet: View Mobile Websites in Windows with Safari 4 Developer Tools Conclusion Although this doesn’t let you really try out all of the iPad’s interface, it at least gives you a taste of how it works.  It’s exciting to see how much functionality can be packed into webapps today.  And don’t forget, How-to Geek is giving away an iPad to a random fan!  Head over to our Facebook page and fan How-to Geek if you haven’t already done so. Win an iPad on the How-To Geek Facebook Fan Page Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Want an iPad? How-To Geek is Giving One Away!Why Wait? Amazing New Add-on Turns Your iPhone into an iPad! [Comic]The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and TutorialsShare Your Windows Vista Experience Index ScoreAnother Blog You Should Subscribe To TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Awesome Lyrics Finder for Winamp & Windows Media Player Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images Get Wildlife Photography Tips at BBC’s PhotoMasterClasses

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• Having fun with Reflection

  - by Nick Harrison

  I was once asked in a technical interview what I could tell them about Reflection.   My response, while a little tongue in cheek was that "I can tell you it is one of my favorite topics to talk about" I did get a laugh out of that and it was a great ice breaker.    Reflection may not be the answer for everything, but it often can be, or maybe even should be.     I have posted in the past about my favorite CopyTo method.   It can come in several forms and is often very useful.   I explain it further and expand on the basic idea here  The basic idea is to allow reflection to loop through the properties of two objects and synchronize the ones that are in common.   I love this approach for data binding and passing data across the layers in an application. Recently I have been working on a project leveraging Data Transfer Objects to pass data through WCF calls.   We won't go into how the architecture got this way, but in essence there is a partial duplicate inheritance hierarchy where there is a related Domain Object for each Data Transfer Object.     The matching objects do not share a common ancestor or common interface but they will have the same properties in common.    By passing the problems with this approach, let's talk about how Reflection and our friendly CopyTo could make the most of this bad situation without having to change too much. One of the problems is keeping the two sets of objects in synch.   For this particular project, the DO has all of the functionality and the DTO is used to simply transfer data back and forth.    Both sets of object have parallel hierarchies with the same properties being defined at the corresponding levels.   So we end with BaseDO,  BaseDTO, GenericDO, GenericDTO, ProcessAreaDO,  ProcessAreaDTO, SpecializedProcessAreaDO, SpecializedProcessAreaDTO, TableDo, TableDto. and so on. Without using Reflection and a CopyTo function, tremendous care and effort must be made to keep the corresponding objects in synch.    New properties can be added at any level in the inheritance and must be kept in synch at all subsequent layers.    For this project we have come up with a clever approach of calling a base GetDo or UpdateDto making sure that the same method at each level of inheritance is called.    Each level is responsible for updating the properties at that level. This is a lot of work and not keeping it in synch can create all manner of problems some of which are very difficult to track down.    The other problem is the type of code that this methods tend to wind up with. You end up with code like this: Transferable dto = new Transferable(); base.GetDto(dto); dto.OfficeCode = GetDtoNullSafe(officeCode); dto.AccessIndicator = GetDtoNullSafe(accessIndicator); dto.CaseStatus = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatus); dto.CaseStatusReason = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatusReason); dto.LevelOfService = GetDtoNullSafe(levelOfService); dto.ReferralComments = referralComments; dto.Designation = GetDtoNullSafe(designation); dto.IsGoodCauseClaimed = GetDtoNullSafe(isGoodCauseClaimed); dto.GoodCauseClaimDate = goodCauseClaimDate;       One obvious problem is that this is tedious code.   It is error prone code.    Adding helper functions like GetDtoNullSafe help out immensely, but there is still an easier way. We can bypass the tedious code, by pass the complex inheritance tricks, and reduce all of this to a single method in the base class. TransferObject dto = new TransferObject(); CopyTo (this, dto); return dto; In the case of this one project, such a change eliminated the need for 20% of the total code base and a whole class of unit test cases that made sure that all of the properties were in synch. The impact of such a change also needs to include the on going time savings and the improvements in quality that can arise from them.    Developers who are not worried about keeping the properties in synch across mirrored object hierarchies are freed to worry about more important things like implementing business requirements.

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• Pimp my Silverlight Firestarter

  - by mbcrump

  So Silverlight Firestarter is over and your sitting on your couch thinking… what now? Well its time to So how exactly can you pimp the Silverlight Firestarter? Well read below and you will find out: 1) Pimp the videos: First we are going to use a program named Juice to download all of the Silverlight Firestarter videos. Go ahead and point your browser to http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/ and download the application. It works on Mac, Linux and PC. After it is downloaded you are going to want to add an RSS feed by clicking the button highlighted below. At this point you are going to want to add the following URL inside the textbox and hit Save: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Silverlight-Firestarter/RSS This RSS feed includes all the Silverlight Firestarter Labs and Presentations located below. The Future of Silverlight Data Binding Strategies with Silverlight and WP7 Building Compelling Apps with WCF using REST and LINQ Building Feature Rich Business Apps Today with RIA Services MVVM: Why and How? Tips and Patterns using MVVM and Service Patterns with Silverlight and WP7 Tips and Tricks for a Great Installation Experience Tune Your Application: Profiling and Performance Tips Performance Tips for Silverlight Windows Phone 7 Select all the videos and click the Download button located below (has blue arrow): Once all the videos are downloaded you will have about 4.64GB of Silverlight fun. You can now move these videos to your MediaServer and watch them with whatever device you want. Put it on an iPad, iPhone.. emm wait I mean WP7 or WMC7.  2) Pimp the Training Material – Download the offline installer for the labs here. This will give you almost a gig of free training materials. Here is the topics covered: Level 100: Getting Started Lab 01 - WinForms and Silverlight Lab 02 - ASP.NET and Silverlight Lab 03 - XAML and Controls Lab 04 - Data Binding Level 200: Ready for More Lab 05 - Migrating Apps to Out-of-Browser Lab 06 - Great UX with Blend Lab 07 - Web Services and Silverlight Lab 08 - Using WCF RIA Services Level 300: Take me Further Lab 09 - Deep Dive into Out-of-Browser Lab 10 - Silverlight Patterns: Using MVVM Lab 11 - Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 You will notice that it install Firestarter to the default of C:\Firestarter. So you will have to navigate to that folder and double click on Default.htm to get started. Now if you followed part one of the pimping guide then you will already have all the videos on your pc. You will notice that once you go into the lab you will get a Lab Document and Source at the bottom of the article. Now instead of opening the Source Folder in a web browser you can just copy the folder C:\Firestarter\Labs into your Visual Studio 2010 Project Folder. This will save a lot of time later.   3) Pimp my Silverlight 5 Knowledge – Always keep reading as much as possible and remember that the Silverlight 5 Beta should come Q1 of 2011 and the final release at the end of 2011. Here are 5 great blog post on Silverlight 5. Scott Gu’s Blog Mary Jo’s Article on Silverlight 5 The Future of Silverlight (Official) Kunal Chowdhury Blog Tim Heuer’s Blog Thats all that I got for now. Have fun with all the new Silverlight content.  Subscribe to my feed

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• Monitor and Control Memory Usage in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Do you want to know just how much memory Google Chrome and any installed extensions are using at a given moment? With just a few clicks you can see just what is going on under the hood of your browser. How Much Memory are the Extensions Using? Here is our test browser with a new tab and the Extensions Page open, five enabled extensions, and one disabled at the moment. You can access Chrome’s Task Manager using the Page Menu, going to Developer, and selecting Task manager… Or by right clicking on the Tab Bar and selecting Task manager. There is also a keyboard shortcut (Shift + Esc) available for the “keyboard ninjas”. Sitting idle as shown above here are the stats for our test browser. All of the extensions are sitting there eating memory even though some of them are not available/active for use on our new tab and Extensions Page. Not so good… If the default layout is not to your liking then you can easily modify the information that is available by right clicking and adding/removing extra columns as desired. For our example we added Shared Memory & Private Memory. Using the about:memory Page to View Memory Usage Want even more detail? Type about:memory into the Address Bar and press Enter. Note: You can also access this page by clicking on the Stats for nerds Link in the lower left corner of the Task Manager Window. Focusing on the four distinct areas you can see the exact version of Chrome that is currently installed on your system… View the Memory & Virtual Memory statistics for Chrome… Note: If you have other browsers running at the same time you can view statistics for them here too. See a list of the Processes currently running… And the Memory & Virtual Memory statistics for those processes. The Difference with the Extensions Disabled Just for fun we decided to disable all of the extension in our test browser… The Task Manager Window is looking rather empty now but the memory consumption has definitely seen an improvement. Comparing Memory Usage for Two Extensions with Similar Functions For our next step we decided to compare the memory usage for two extensions with similar functionality. This can be helpful if you are wanting to keep memory consumption trimmed down as much as possible when deciding between similar extensions. First up was Speed Dial”(see our review here). The stats for Speed Dial…quite a change from what was shown above (~3,000 – 6,000 K). Next up was Incredible StartPage (see our review here). Surprisingly both were nearly identical in the amount of memory being used. Purging Memory Perhaps you like the idea of being able to “purge” some of that excess memory consumption. With a simple command switch modification to Chrome’s shortcut(s) you can add a Purge Memory Button to the Task Manager Window as shown below.  Notice the amount of memory being consumed at the moment… Note: The tutorial for adding the command switch can be found here. One quick click and there is a noticeable drop in memory consumption. Conclusion We hope that our examples here will prove useful to you in managing the memory consumption in your own Google Chrome installation. If you have a computer with limited resources every little bit definitely helps out. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stupid Geek Tricks: Compare Your Browser’s Memory Usage with Google ChromeMonitor CPU, Memory, and Disk IO In Windows 7 with Taskbar MetersFix for Firefox memory leak on WindowsHow to Purge Memory in Google ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default Browser TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs

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• regarding the Windows Phone 7 series, XNA and Visual Basic

  - by Chris Williams

  as long as we're talking about VB... I figured I would share this as well. Hi everyone, I'm about to express a sentiment that might ruffle a few feathers, but I think most of you know me well enough to know I love like accept VB for what it is and that what I'm about to say is with good intentions. (The rest of you, who don't know me, please take my word for it.) The world is full of VB developers, I was one of them for a long time. I think it's safe to assume that none of us are ignorant people who require handholding. We're working professionals, making a living by using our skills as developers. I'm also willing to bet that quite a few of us are fluent in C# as well as VB. It may not be your preferred language, but many of you can do it and you prove that nearly every day. Honestly, I don't know ANY developers or consultants that have only known ONE language ever. So it pains me greatly when I see the word "CAN'T" being tossed around like a crutch... as in "we CAN'T develop for the windows phone or we CAN'T develop XNA games." At MIX, Microsoft hath decreed that C# is the language of choice for developing for the Windows Phone 7. I think it's a safe bet that you won't see VB support if it isn't there already. (Just like XNA... which is up to version 4.0 by now.)  So what? (Yeah... I said it.) I think everyone here can agree that actual coding is only one part of software design and development. There is nothing stopping ANY of you from beginning the process of designing your killer phone app, writing up specs, requirements, doing UI design, workflow, mockups, storyboards, art, etc.... None of these things are language dependent. IF by the time you've got that stuff out of the way, and there's still no VB support, then start doing some rapid prototyping of your app in C# (I know, I know... heresy!)  You still have to spend time learning how the phone does things, what UI tricks do what, what paradigms make sense, how to use to accelerometer and the tilt and the multitouch functionality. I can guarantee you that time spent doing this is a great investment, no matter WHAT extension your code files have. Eventually, you may have a working prototype. IF by this time, there's STILL no VB support... fret not, you've made significant progress on your app. You've designed it, prototyped it, figured out how to use the phone specific features... so you might as well finish it and pat yourself on the back for learning something new... and possibly being first to market with your new app. I'll be happy to argue any and all of these points online or off with anyone who cares to do so, but there is one undeniable point that you simply can't argue:  Your potential customers do not care AT ALL what programming language you used to write the app they are about to purchase. They care that it works. If your biggest concern is being first to market, than stop complaining and get busy because you're running out of time and the 3000+ people who were at MIX certainly aren't waiting for you. They've already started working on their apps.

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• Oracle OpenWorld 2012: The Best Just Gets Better

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  For almost 30 years, Oracle OpenWorld has been the world's premier learning event for Oracle customers, developers, and partners. With more than 2,000 sessions providing best practices; demos; tips and tricks; and product insight from Oracle, customers, partners, and industry experts, Oracle OpenWorld provides more educational and networking opportunities than any other event in the world. 2011 Facts Attendees from 117 Countries Used Filtered Tap Water to Eliminate 22 Tons of Plastic Bottles Diverted Enough Trash to Fill 37 Dump Trucks 45,000+ Total Registered Attendees Oracle OpenWorld 2012: The Best Just Gets Better What's New? What's Different?  This year Oracle OpenWorld will include the Executive Edge @ OpenWorld (replacing Leaders Circle), the Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld, JavaOne, MySQL Connect, and the expanded Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange @ OpenWorld. More than 50,000 customers and partners will attend OpenWorld to see Oracle's newest hardware and software products at work, and learn more about our server and storage, database, middleware, industry, and applications solutions.  New This Year: The Executive Edge @ Oracle OpenWorld (Oct 1 - 2) New at Oracle OpenWorld this year, the Executive Edge @ OpenWorld (replacing Leaders Circle) will bring together customer, partner and Oracle executives for two days of keynote presentations, summits targeted to customer industries and organizational roles, roundtable discussions, and great new networking opportunities. The Customer Experience Revolution Is Here!Customer Experience Summit @ Oracle OpenWorld (Oct 3 - 5) This dynamic new program offers more than 60 keynotes, roundtables and networking sessions exploring trends, innovations and best practices to help companies succeed with a customer experience-driven business strategy.  All Things Java -- JavaOne (Sep 30 - Oct 4) JavaOne is the world's most important event for the Java developer community. Technical sessions cover topics that span the breadth of the Java universe, with keynotes from the foremost Java visionaries and expert-led hands-on learning opportunities.  Are you innovating with Oracle Fusion Middleware?  If you are, then you need to know that the Call for Nominations for the 2012 Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards is open now through July 17, 2012. Jointly sponsored by Oracle, AUSOUG, IOUG, OAUG, ODTUG, QUEST, and UKOUG, the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards honor organizations creatively using Oracle Fusion Middleware to deliver unique value to their enterprise.  Winning customers and partners will be hosted at Oracle OpenWorld 2012, where they can connect with Oracle executives, network with peers, and be featured in an upcoming edition of Oracle Magazine. Be sure to submit your WebCenter use case today! Oracle Music Festival his year, the first-ever Oracle Music Festival will debut, running from September 30 to October 4. In the tradition of great live music events like Coachella and SXSW, the streets of San Francisco—from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. for five nights-into-days—will vibrate with the music of some of today’s hottest name acts, emerging and local bands, and scratching DJs. Outdoor venues and clubs near Moscone Center and the Zone (including 111 Minna, DNA, Mezzanine, Roe, Ruby Skye, Slim’s, the Taylor Street Café, Temple, Union Square, and Yerba Buena Gardens) will showcase acts that range from reggae to rock, punk to ska, R&B to country, indie to honky-tonk. After a full day of sessions and networking, you'll be primed for some late-night relaxation and rocking out at one or more of these sets.  Please note that with awesome acts, thousands of music devotees, and a limited number of venues each night, access to Festival events is on a first-come, first-served basis. Join us at the Oracle Music Festival--it's going to be epic! Save $500 on Registration with Early Bird Pricing Early Bird pricing ends July 13! Save up to $500 on registration fees by registering by Friday. Will you be attending Oracle OpenWorld 2012? We hope to see you there! Be sure to follow @oraclewebcenter on Twitter for more information and use hashtags #webcenter and #oow!

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• Override ToString() in your Classes

  - by psheriff

  One of the reasons I love teaching is because of the questions that I get from attendees. I was giving a presentation at DevConnections and was showing a collection of Product objects. When I hovered over the variable that contained the collection, it looked like Figure 2. As you can see in the collection, I have actual product names of my videos from www.pdsa.com/videos being displayed. To get your data to appear in the data tips you must override the ToString() method in your class. To illustrate this, take the following simple Product class shown below: public class Product{  public string ProductName { get; set; }  public int ProductId { get; set; }} This class does not have an override of the ToString() method so if you create a collection of Product objects you will end up with data tips that look like Figure 1. Below is the code I used to create a collection of Product objects. I have shortened the code in this blog, but you can get the full source code for this sample by following the instructions at the bottom of this blog entry. List<Product> coll = new List<Product>();Product prod; prod = new Product()  { ProductName = "From Zero to HTML 5 in 60 Minutes",     ProductId = 1 };coll.Add(prod);prod = new Product()   { ProductName = "Architecting Applications …",     ProductId = 2 };coll.Add(prod);prod = new Product()  { ProductName = "Introduction to Windows Phone Development",    ProductId = 3 };coll.Add(prod);prod = new Product()   { ProductName = "Architecting a Business  …",     ProductId = 4 };coll.Add(prod);......   Figure 1: Class without overriding ToString() Now, go back to the Product class and add an override of the ToString() method as shown in the code listed below: public class Product{  public string ProductName { get; set; }  public int ProductId { get; set; }   public override string ToString()  {    return ProductName;  }} In this simple sample, I am just returning the ProductName property. However, you can create a whole string of information if you wish to display more data in your data tips. Just concatenate any properties you want from your class and return that string. When you now run the application and hover over the collection object you will now see something that looks like Figure 2. Figure 2: Overriding ToString() in your Class Another place the ToString() override comes in handy is if you forget to use a DisplayMemberPath in your ListBox or ComboBox. The ToString() method is called automatically when a class is bound to a list control. Summary You should always override the ToString() method in your classes as this will help you when debugging your application. Seeing relevant data immediately in the data tip without having to drill down one more layer and maybe scroll through a complete list of properties should help speed up your development process. NOTE: You can download the sample code for this article by visiting my website at http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Select “Tips & Tricks”, then select “Override ToString” from the drop down list.  

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• T-SQL in Chicago – the LobsterPot teams with DataEducation

  - by Rob Farley

  In May, I’ll be in the US. I have board meetings for PASS at the SQLRally event in Dallas, and then I’m going to be spending a bit of time in Chicago. The big news is that while I’m in Chicago (May 14-16), I’m going to teach my “Advanced T-SQL Querying and Reporting: Building Effectiveness” course. This is a course that I’ve been teaching since the 2005 days, and have modified over time for 2008 and 2012. It’s very much my most popular course, and I love teaching it. Let me tell you why. For years, I wrote queries and thought I was good at it. I was a developer. I’d written a lot of C (and other, more fun languages like Prolog and Lisp) at university, and then got into the ‘real world’ and coded in VB, PL/SQL, and so on through to C#, and saw SQL (whichever database system it was) as just a way of getting the data back. I could write a query to return just about whatever data I wanted, and that was good. I was better at it than the people around me, and that helped. (It didn’t help my progression into management, then it just became a frustration, but for the most part, it was good to know that I was good at this particular thing.) But then I discovered the other side of querying – the execution plan. I started to learn about the translation from what I’d written into the plan, and this impacted my query-writing significantly. I look back at the queries I wrote before I understood this, and shudder. I wrote queries that were correct, but often a long way from effective. I’d done query tuning, but had largely done it without considering the plan, just inferring what indexes would help. This is not a performance-tuning course. It’s focused on the T-SQL that you read and write. But performance is a significant and recurring theme. Effective T-SQL has to be about performance – it’s the biggest way that a query becomes effective. There are other aspects too though – such as using constructs better. For example – I can write code that modifies data nicely, but if I haven’t learned about the MERGE statement and the way that it can impact things, I’m missing a few tricks. If you’re going to do this course, a good place to be is the situation I was in a few years before I wrote this course. You’re probably comfortable with writing T-SQL queries. You know how to make a SELECT statement do what you need it to, but feel there has to be a better way. You can write JOINs easily, and understand how to use LEFT JOIN to make sure you don’t filter out rows from the first table, but you’re coding blind. The first module I cover is on Query Execution. Take a look at the Course Outline at Data Education’s website. The first part of the first module is on the components of a SELECT statement (where I make you think harder about GROUP BY than you probably have before), but then we jump straight into Execution Plans. Some stuff on indexes is in there too, as is simplification and SARGability. Some of this is stuff that you may have heard me present on at conferences, but here you have me for three days straight. I’m sure you can imagine that we revisit these topics throughout the rest of the course as well, and you’d be right. In the second and third modules we look at a bunch of other aspects, including some of the T-SQL constructs that lots of people don’t know, and various other things that can help your T-SQL be, well, more effective. I’ve had quite a lot of people do this course and be itching to get back to work even on the first day. That’s not a comment about the jokes I tell, but because people want to look at the queries they run. LobsterPot Solutions is thrilled to be partnering with Data Education to bring this training to Chicago. Visit their website to register for the course. @rob_farley

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• Everything You Need to Know About Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate

  - by Irem Radzik

  By Joe deBuzna 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-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Having over 16 years of database replication experience with 6 of those split between complex Oracle GoldenGate installations across three continents and researching monitoring requirements for both GoldenGate core replication and the GoldenGate monitoring GUIs, I've seen GoldenGate used and monitored in every way conceivable. And definite patterns have emerged. Next week at OpenWorld, on Tuesday Oct 2nd at 5pm please come by to Mascone West-3005 for "Everything you need to know about Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate"session to hear me discuss how GoldenGate customers are monitoring their implementations today, common methods and tricks, what's new in the GUIs, and a what's on the roadmap ahead. As you may have seen in previous blog posts and in our launch webcast we have now Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager in addition to the new Oracle GoldenGate Monitor product. For those of you who won't be at OpenWorld, please check out our Management Pack for Oracle GoldenGate data sheet and Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 New Features white paper to learn more about the new Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 release. In this latest release we also have enhanced conflict detection and resolution. It is a cornerstone of any Active-Active database replication solution. And in the latest release we just took ours to the next level with built in optimized resolution routines (no more dependency on sqlexec!). At OpenWorld we have a session CON8557 - Best Practice for Conflict Detection & resolution 3:30-4:30 on Wed Oct 3rd at Mascone West- 3005. Oracle Development Manager Bharath Aleti and I will highlight the most commonly used options and best practices gained from our interaction with numerous customers and consultants. Hope you can join us next week. 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-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

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• Getting Started with StreamInsight 2.1

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  If you're just beginning to get familiar with StreamInsight, you may be looking for a way to get started. What are the basics? How can I get my first StreamInsight application running so I can see how it works? Where is the 'front door' that will get me going? If that describes you, then this blog entry might be just what you need. If you're already a StreamInsight wiz, keep reading anyway - you may find some helpful links here that you weren't aware of. But here's what we'd like from you experienced readers in particular: if you know of other good resources that we missed, please feel free to add them in the comments below. We appreciate you sharing your expertise. The Book The basic documentation for StreamInsight is located in the MSDN Library (Microsoft StreamInsight 2.1). You'll notice that previous versions of StreamInsight are still there (1.2 and 2.0), but if you're just getting started you can stick to the 2.1 section. The documentation has been organized to function as reference material, which is fine after you're familiar with the technology. But if you're trying to learn the basics, you might want to take a different path instead of just starting at the top. The following is one map you can use. What Is StreamInsight? Here is a sequence of topics that should give you a good overview of what StreamInsight is and how it works: Overview answers the question, "what is it?" StreamInsight Server Architecture gives you a quick look at a high-level architectural drawing StreamInsight Concepts lays out an overview of the basic components Deploying StreamInsight Entities to a StreamInsight Server describes the mechanics of how these components work together Getting an Example Running Once you have this background, go ahead and install StreamInsight and get a basic example up and running: Installation download and install the software StreamInsight Examples walk through a set of 3 simple StreamInsight applications that work together to demonstrate what you learned in the topics above; you can copy and paste the code into Visual Studio, compile, and run That's it - you now have a real, functioning StreamInsight system! Now that you have a handle on the basics, you might want to start digging deeper. Digging Deeper Here's a suggested path through the documentation to help you understand the next layer of StreamInsight technologies: Using Event Sources and Event Sinks sources supply data and sinks consume it; this topic gives you an overview of how they work Publishing and Connecting to the StreamInsight Server practical details on how to set up a StreamInsight server A Hitchhiker’s Guide to StreamInsight 2.1 Queries queries are the heart of how StreamInsight performs data analytics, and this whitepaper will help you really understand how they work Using StreamInsight LINQ root through this section for technical details on specific query components Using the StreamInsight Event Flow Debugger in addition to troubleshooting, the debugger is a great way to learn more about what goes on inside a StreamInsight application And Even Deeper Finally, to get a handle on some of the more complex things you can do with StreamInsight, dig into these: Input and Output Adapters adapters can be useful for handling more complex sources and sinks Building Resilient StreamInsight Applications a resilient application is able to recover from system failures Operations this section will help you monitor and troubleshoot a running StreamInsight system The StreamInsight Community As you're designing and developing your StreamInsight solutions, you probably will find it helpful to see working examples or to learn tips and tricks from others. Or maybe you need a place to post a vexing question. Here are some community resources that we have found useful. If you know of others, please add them in the comments below. Code samples and tools Official StreamInsight code samples Introduction to LinqPad Driver for StreamInsight 2.1 - LinqPad is a very useful tool for developing queries The following case studies are based on earlier versions of StreamInsight, but they still are useful examples: Microsoft Media Analytics - real-time monitoring and analytic Edgenet - responding to information from multiple source ICONICS - managing energy usage Blogs Microsoft StreamInsight Ruminations of J.net Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings pluralsight Forums MSDN StreamInsight Forum stackoverflow Training Microsoft StreamInsight Fundamentals (“Introducing StreamInsight” is free) from pluralsight Twitter @streaminsight   You’re a StreamInsight Expert That should get you going. Please add any other resources you have found useful in the comments below.   Regards, The StreamInsight Team

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• Oracle OpenWorld 2012: Oracle Developer Cloud, ADF-Essentials, ADF Mobile and ME!

  - by Dana Singleterry

  This year at OOW, like those from the past, will certainly be unforgettable. Lots of new announcements which I can't mention here and may not event know about are sure to surprise. I'll keep this short and sweet. For every session ADF, ADF Mobile, Oracle Developer Cloud, Integration with SOA Suite, etc... take a look at the ADF Focus Document listing all the sessions ordered by day providing time and location. For Mobile specifically check out the Mobile Focus Document. OOW 2012 actually kicks off on Sunday with Moscone North demogrounds hosting Cloud. There's also the ADF EMG User Day where you can pick up many technical tips & tricks from ADF Developers / ACE Directors from around the world. A session you shouldn't miss and a great starting point for the week if you miss Sunday's ADF EMG User Day for all of you TechoFiles is Chris Tonas's keynote for developers - Monday 10:45 am at Salon 8 in the Marriott - The Future of Development for Oracle Fusion - From Desktop to Mobile to Cloud. Then peruse the ADF Focus Document to fill out your day with the many sessions and labs on ADF. Don't forge that Wednesday afternoon (4:30 - 5:30) offers an ADF Meetup which is an excellent opportunity to catch up with the Shakers and Makers of ADF from Product Managent, to customers, to top developers leveraging the ADF technology, to ACE Directors themselves. Not to mention free beer is provided to help you wind down from a day of Techno Overload. Now for my schedule and I do hope to see some of you at one of these. OOW 2012 Schedule 10/1 Monday 9:30am – 12:00pm: JDev DemoGrounds 3:15pm – 4:15pm: Intro to Oracle ADF HOL; Marriott Marquis – Salon ¾ 4:00pm – 6:00pm: Cloud DemoGrounds 10/2 Tuesday 9:45am – 12:00pm: JDev DemoGrounds 2:00pm -4:00pm: Cloud DemoGrounds 7:30 – 9:30: Team Dinner @ Donato Enoteca; Redwood City 10/3 Wednesday 10:15pm – 11:15pm: Intro to Oracle ADF HOL; Marriott Marquis – Salon 3/4 1:15pm – 2:15pm: Oracle ADF – Lessons Learned in Real-World Implementations; Moscone South – Room 309This session takes the form of a panel that consists of three customer: Herbalife, Etiya, & Hawaii State Department of Education. During the first part of this session each customer will provide a high-level overview of their application. Following this overview I'll ask questions of the customers specific to their implementations and lessons learned through their development life-cycle. Here's the session abstract: CON3535 - Oracle ADF: Lessons Learned in Real-World Implementations This session profiles and interviews customers that have been successful in delivering compelling applications based on Oracle’s Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF). The session provides an overview of Oracle ADF, and then three customers explain the business drivers for their respective applications and solutions and if possible, provide a demonstration of the applications. Interactive questions posed to the customers after their overview will make for an exciting and dynamic format in which the customers will provide insight into real-world lessons learned in developing with Oracle ADF. 3:30pm – 4:30 pm: Developing Applications for Mobile iOS and Android Devices with Oracle ADF Mobile; Marriott Marquis – Salon 10A 4:30pm – 6:00pm: Meet and Greet ADF Developers/Customers; OTN Lounge 10/4 Thursday   11:15pm – 12:15pm: Intro to Oracle ADF HOL; Marriott Marquis – Salon 3/4 I'm sure our paths will cross at some point during the week and I look forward to seeing you at one of the many events. Enjoy OOW 2012!

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• Using a parser to locate faulty code

  - by ryan.riverside

  Lately I've been working a lot in PHP and have run into an abnormally large number of parsing errors. I realize these are my own fault and a result of sloppy initial coding on my part, but it's getting to the point that I'm spending more time resolving tags than developing. In the interest of not slamming my productivity, are there any tricks to locating the problem in the code? What I'd really be looking for would be a line to put in the code which would output the entire faulty tag in the parsing error, or something similar. Purely for reference sake, my current error is Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '}' in /home/content/80/9480880/html/cache/tpl_prosilver_viewtopic_body.html.php on line 50 (which refers to this): </dd><dd><?php if ($_poll_option_val['POLL_OPTION_RESULT'] == 0) { echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_NO_VOTES'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_NO_VOTES'] : ((isset($user->lang['NO_VOTES'])) ? $user->lang['NO_VOTES'] : '{ NO_VOTES }')); } else { echo $_poll_option_val['POLL_OPTION_PERCENT']; } ?></dd> </dl> <?php }} if ($this->_rootref['S_DISPLAY_RESULTS']) { ?> <dl> <dt>&nbsp;</dt> <dd class="resultbar"><?php echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_TOTAL_VOTES'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_TOTAL_VOTES'] : ((isset($user->lang['TOTAL_VOTES'])) ? $user->lang['TOTAL_VOTES'] : '{ TOTAL_VOTES }')); ?> : <?php echo (isset($this->_rootref['TOTAL_VOTES'])) ? $this->_rootref['TOTAL_VOTES'] : ''; ?></dd> </dl> <?php } if ($this->_rootref['S_CAN_VOTE']) { ?> <dl style="border-top: none;"> <dt>&nbsp;</dt> <dd class="resultbar"><input type="submit" name="update" value="<?php echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_SUBMIT_VOTE'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_SUBMIT_VOTE'] : ((isset($user->lang['SUBMIT_VOTE'])) ? $user->lang['SUBMIT_VOTE'] : '{ SUBMIT_VOTE }')); ?>" class="button1" /></dd> </dl> <?php } if (! $this->_rootref['S_DISPLAY_RESULTS']) { ?> <dl style="border-top: none;"> <dt>&nbsp;</dt> <dd class="resultbar"><a href="<?php echo (isset($this->_rootref['U_VIEW_RESULTS'])) ? $this->_rootref['U_VIEW_RESULTS'] : ''; ?>"><?php echo ((isset($this->_rootref['L_VIEW_RESULTS'])) ? $this->_rootref['L_VIEW_RESULTS'] : ((isset($user->lang['VIEW_RESULTS'])) ? $user->lang['VIEW_RESULTS'] : '{ VIEW_RESULTS }')); ?></a></dd> </dl> <?php } ?> </fieldset></div>

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• Too Clever for My Own Good

  - by AjarnMark

  Yesterday I caught myself being a little too clever for my own good with some ASP.NET code.  It seems that I have forgotten some of my good old classic HTML and JavaScript skills, and become too dependent on the .NET Framework and WebControls to do the work for me.  Here’s the scenario… In order to improve the User Interface and better communicate to the user when something is happening that they need to wait for, we have started to modify some of our larger (slower) pages to display messages like Processing… or Reloading… while they are cycling through a postback.  (Yes, I understand this could be improved by using AJAX / Callbacks and so on, but even then, you need to let your user know that they need to wait for that section to be re-rendered, so for the moment these pages will continue to use good ol’ Postbacks.)  It’s a very simple trick, really.  All I want to do is when some control triggers a postback, first run a little client-side JavaScript to hide the main contents of the page (such as a GridView) and display the appropriate message.  This lets the user know, “Hey, we’re doing something, don’t click another link or scroll and try to take action right now.” The first places I hooked this up were easy.  Most common cause of a postback:  Buttons.  And when you’re writing the markup or declarative code for an ASP:Button control, there is the handy OnClientClick property which is designed for just this purpose…to run client-side JavaScript before the postback occurs.  This is distinguished from the OnClick property which tells the control what Server-side code to run.  Great!  Done!  Easy! But then there are other controls like DropDownLists and CheckBoxes that we use on our pages with the AutoPostback=True setting which cause postbacks.  And these don’t have OnClientClick or OnClientSelectedIndexChanged events.  So I started getting creative, using an ASP:CustomValidator control in conjunction with setting the CausesValidation and ValidationGroup settings on these controls, which basically caused the action on the control to fire the Custom Validator, which was defined with a Client Side validation function which then did the hide content/show message code (and return a meaningless IsValid setting).  This also caused me to define a different ValidationGroup setting for my real data entry validator controls so that I could control them separately and only have them fire when I really wanted validation, and not just my show/hide trick. For a little while I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with this clever approach to get around what I considered to be a serious oversight on the DropDownList and CheckBox controls declarative syntax.  Then, in the midst of my smugness, just as I was about to commit my changes to the source code repository, it dawned on me that there is a much simpler and much more appropriate way to accomplish this.  All that I really needed to do was to put in my server-side code (I used the Page_Init section) a call to MyControl.Attributes.Add(“onClick”, “myJavaScriptFunctionName()”) for the checkboxes, and for the DropDownLists (which become select tags) use “onChange” instead of “onClick”.  This is exactly the type of thing that the Attributes collection is there for…so you can add attributes to be rendered with the control that you would have otherwise stuck right into the HTML markup if you had been doing this by hand in the first place. Ugh!  A few hours wasted on clever tricks that I ended up completely removing, but I did learn a lot more about custom validators and validation groups in the process.  And got a good reminder that all that stuff (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS) I learned back when I wrote classic ASP pages is still valuable today.  Oh, and one more thing…don’t get lulled into too much reliance on the the whiz-bang tool to do it for you.  After all, WebControls are just another layer of abstraction, and sometimes you need to dig down through the layers and get a little closer to the native language.

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• Conference networking for the socially awkward

  - by Melanie Townsend

  Do you approach a room full of strangers with excitement at all the new people you’re going to chat to over coffee and a muffin as you swap tales of how you convinced your manager to give you the day “off”? Or, do you find rooms full of strangers intimidating and begin by scouting out a place you can stand quietly and not be in someone’s way until the next session begins? If you’re on the train to extrovert city, that’s great, well done, move along. If, on the other hand, a room full of strangers who all seem to inexplicably know each other already is more challenge than opportunity, then making those connections with other professionals can be more difficult. So, here’s some advice, some gleaned from other things I’ve read online when trying to overcome my own discomfort in large groups (hopefully minus the infuriating condescension), others are just things I’ve found helpful over the years. Start small Smaller groups are less intimidating, and, now that you’ve taken the plunge to show up, it’s harder to remain inconspicuous. I find it’s easier to speak to new people once the option NOT to has been taken away. You’re there now, smile through the awkward and you’ll be forever grateful when the three people you’ve met and gotten to know here are also at that gigantic conference later on (ideally, introducing you to other people). Smile, or at the very least, stop scowling You probably don’t even know you’re doing it. If your resting face doesn’t come across as manically happy, tinge that with some social anxiety and you become one great ball of unapproachable. Normally, I wouldn’t suggest this as a problem that needs fixing, I have personally honed this face to use while travelling alone all the time. However, if you are indeed hoping to meet some useful people and get the most out of this conference, you may need to remind yourself to smile. Prepare some ice breakers This is going to sound stupid, like “no one does this right?” stupid, but, just, trust me a minute. It’s okay to prepare. You don’t need to write word-for-word questions to ask people and practice them in a mirror – that would be strange. I’m suggesting to just have an arsenal of questions to ask people if you get stuck, what session has been your favorite, which ones are you most looking forward to, have you heard X presenter speak before, what did you think of them? Even just thinking about these things in advance can help, and, as a bonus, while the other person is answering it gives you a moment to tamp down that panic, I mean breathe, I mean get to know them. You’re not alone (in the least creepy way possible) See that person in the corner clutching their phone with a mild deer in the headlights look?  That is potentially your new conference buddy. Starting with something along the lines of: I don’t know about you, the sessions here are great but I find the crowds a little tough to deal with. Mind if I park here for a second? is a decent opener. Just walking around and looking at exhibitors (if applicable) is fine, but it’s a little too easy to wander about and not actually speak to anyone if that’s all you’re doing. If joining a group of people talking is too much to start with, one-on-one can be easier. Have goals Are there people in particular you wanted to speak to? Did you have a personal goal of speaking to at least “x” new people? Are you trying to get a contact in a specific company because you want to work with them on something? Does the business have vague goals as well that you may or may not be judged on later? Making specific goals you can accomplish lets you know whether you’ve actually succeeded in your “networking pursuits” or what you need to work on more for next time. Everyone’s got their own coping technique. Some people are able to remind themselves that “humans are fundamentally social creatures” and somehow that helps them, others drink which is not really something I recommend for professional conferences but to each their own, and some focus on the fact that networking can play a big role in their career path. Just do what works for you, and if there’re any tricks you’ve found helpful over the years, please share em.

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