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• Reorganizing many to many relationships in Django

  - by Galen

  I have a many to many relationship in my models and i'm trying to reorganize it on one of my pages. My site has videos. On each video's page i'm trying to list the actors that are in that video with links to each time they are in the video(the links will skip to that part of the video) Here's an illustration Flash Video embedded here Actors... Ted smith: 1:25, 5:30 jon jones: 5:00, 2:00 Here are the pertinent parts of my models class Video(models.Model): actor = models.ManyToManyField( Actor, through='Actor_Video' ) # more stuff removed class Actor_Video(models.Model): actor = models.ForeignKey( Actor ) video = models.ForeignKey( Video) time = models.IntegerField() Here's what my Actor_Video table looks like, maybe it will be easier to see what im doing id actor_id video_id time (in seconds) 1 1 3 34 2 1 3 90 i feel like i have to reorganize the info in my view, but i cant figure it out. It doesn't seem to be possible in the template using djangos orm. I've tried a couple things with creating dictionaries/lists but i've had no luck. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

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• Complex behavior generated by simple computation

  - by Yuval A

  Stephen Wolfram gave a fascinating talk at TED about his work with Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha. Amongst other things, he pointed out how very simple computations can yield extremely complex behaviors. (He goes on to discuss his ambition for computing the entire physical universe. Say what you will, you gotta give the guy some credit for his wild ideas...) As an example he showed several cellular automata. What other examples of simple computations do you know of that yield fascinating results?

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• Does Python work in larger teams?

  - by Kugel

  I read this post last night and it got me thinking. I like python and "batteries", pypi and such. But I've only done python solo. Never tried it in a team. Are the points that Ted mentions valid? If they are how do teams cope with them? Does Python work in teams or even large teams? Or it kills productivity? I personally see the problems he mentions when I come back to my old code. Even when working with other modules sometimes I need to peek inside. I would like to hear people with experience on this.

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• How to insert an integer into a database through command prompt

  - by jpavlov

  I am trying to insert a integer into a database in C# using the code below, but everytime I run the compiler informs me that my integer is not a valid column "Invalid Column Name UserID" Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks. Console.WriteLine("Please enter a new User Id"); string line = Console.ReadLine(); int UserID; if (int.TryParse(line, out UserID)) { Console.WriteLine(UserID); Console.ReadLine(); } //Prepare the command string string insertString = @"INSERT INTO tb_User(ID,f_Name, l_Name) VALUES (UserID,'Ted','Turner')";

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• Gracefully trap error on dos start cmd

  - by diehlted

  On a cmd prompt or bat file, I issue the following: start textpad myfile.txt and it works fine. If the program textpad does not exist on the computer, then an error sound and a popup occurs which the OK button must be pushed. I desire to trap this error so that I could do something like start textpad myfile.txt || start notepad myfile.txt where the || implies that if the start of textpad is not successful, then the start of notepad should occur. HOWEVER, I still get the error sound and requirement of hitting OK. My intent is to avoid the sound and the requirement of any user intervention. I have also tried the following bat approach below, to no avail. start textpad if not %ERRORLEVEL% == 0 GOTO END start notepad :END Any help would be great. thanks ted

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• How to specify unique container styles for heterogenous hierarchies using SL3 and TreeView control

  - by rcecil

  Hello, Just look for strategies that have been successful in rendering hierarchies that represent inheritance structures using SL3/4 TreeViews. I need to render certain nodes differently than others, depending upon what kind of container they are (a choice between things, or simply a list of related things, etc.) So far, I've been very successful with the DataTemplate route: I've been able to use a technique described in Ted Glaza's post "Easy DataTemplateSelectors in Silverlight" (you may have retrieve a Google cache of this page). SO what I'm trying to discover is something on the order of a StyleSelector, not a DataTemplateSelector. I'm considering leveraging my current implementations of Glaza's pattern of selector objects to somehow detect the node type and set the ItemContainerStyle there, but it doesn't seem clear right now. Thanks for your thoughts.

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• System.NullReferenceException with WhoCanHelpMe Unit Test

  - by tlum

  I'm working with a test project based on WhoCanHelpMe, which is based on Sharp Architecture, NHibernateValidator, etc. As its written the when_the_profile_tasks_is_asked_to_create_a_profile unit test creates the profile object and saves it without issue. Now the profile object is a CreateProfileDetails type that derives from their own ValidatableValueObject which inherits the IValidatable interface. The problem surfaces when my class is based on an Entity rather than their ValidatableValueObject. When the test is run a System.NullReferenceException because Validate() is null. I'm afraid that I'm at a loss to resolve this bad behavior. Does anyone have some suggestions to get to the bottom of this? Thanks, -Ted-

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• Chicago SQL Saturday

  - by Johnm

  This past Saturday, April 17, 2010, I journeyed North to the great city of Chicago for some SQL Server fun, learning and fellowship. The Chicago edition of this grassroots phenomenon was the 31st scheduled SQL Saturday since the program's birth in late 2007. The Chicago SQL Saturday consisted of four tracks with eight sessions each and was a very energetic and fast paced day for the 300+/- SQL Server enthusiasts in attendance. The speaker line up included national notables such as Kevin Kline, Brent Ozar, and Brad McGehee. My hometown of Indianapolis was well represented in the speaker line up with Arie Jones, Aaron King and Derek Comingore. The day began with a very humorous keynote by Kevin Kline and Brent Ozar who emphasized the importance of community events such as SQL Saturday and the monthly user group meetings. They also brilliantly included the impact that getting involved in the SQL community through social media can have on your professional career. My approach to the day was to try to experience as much of the event as I could, so there were very few sessions that I attended for their full duration. I leaped from session to session like a bumble bee, gleaning bits of nectar from each session. Amid these leaps I took the opportunity to briefly chat with some of the in-the-queue speakers as well as other attendees that wondered the hallways. I especially enjoyed a great discussion with Devin Knight about his plans regarding the upcoming Jacksonville SQL Saturday as well as an interesting SQL interpretation of the Iron Chef, which I think would catch on like wild-fire. There were two sessions that stood out as exceptional. So much so that I could not pull myself away: Kevin Kline presented on "SQL Server Internals and Architecture". This session could have been classified as one that is intended for the beginner. Kevin even personally warned me of such as I entered the room. I am a believer in revisiting the basics regardless of the level of your mastery, so I entered into this session in that spirit. It was a very clear and precise presentation. Masterfully illustrated and demonstrated. Brad McGehee presented on "How and When to Use Indexed Views". This was a topic that I was recently exploring and was considering to for use in an integration project. Brad effectively communicated the complexity of this feature and what is involved to gain their full benefit. It was clear at the conclusion of this session that it was not the right feature for my specific needs. Overall, the event was a great success. The use of volunteers, from an attendee's perspective was masterful. The only recommendation that I would have for the next Chicago SQL Saturday would be to include more time in between sessions to permit some level of networking among the attendees, one-on-one questions for speakers and visits to the sponsor booths. Congratulations to Wendy Pastrick, Ted Krueger, and Aaron Lowe for their efforts and a very successful SQL Saturday!

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• The 2010 Life Insurance Conference - Washington, DC

  - by [email protected]

  How ironic to be in Washington, DC on April 15 - TAX DAY! Fortunately, I avoided IRS offices and attended the much more enjoyable 2010 Life Insurance Conference, presented by LIMRA, LOMA SOA and ACLI. This year's conference offered a variety of tracks focused on the Life Industry including Distribution/Marketing Marketing, Administration, Actuarial/Product Development, Regulatory, Reinsurance and Strategic Management. President and CEO of the ACLI, Frank Keating, opened the event by moderating a session titled "Executive Viewpoint on new Opportunities." Guest speakers included Ted Mathas, President and CEO of NY Life, and John Walters, President and CEO of Hartford Life. Both speakers were insightful as they shared the challenges and opportunities each company faces and the key role life insurance companies play in our society and the global economy. There were several key themes that were reiterated in multiple sessions throughout the conference - the economy is on the rebound, optimism is growing, consumer spending is up and an uptick in employment is likely to follow. The threat of a double dip recession has seemed to passed. Good news for our industry, and welcomed by all in attendance. Of special interest to me, given my background, was some research shared by both The Nolan Group and Novarica in separate sessions. Both firms indicate that policy administration upgrades/replacement projects remain a top priority in 2010. Carriers continue to invest in modern technology. Modern ultra-configurable systems enable carriers to switch from a waterfall to an agile project methodology, which often entails a "culture change" within an organization. Other themes heard throughout the two-day event: Virtually all sessions focused on People, Process and Technology! Product innovation, agility and speed to market are as important as ever. Social Networks and Twitter are becoming more popular ways of communicating with both field and dispersed staff. Several sessions focused on the application, new business and underwriting process. Companies continue looking for ways to increase market agility, accelerate speed to market, address cost issues and improve service levels across the process. They recognize the need to ease the way to do business with both producers and consumers. Author and economic futurist Jeff Thredgold presented an entertaining, informative and humorous general session on Wednesday afternoon that focused on the US and global economies, financial markets and retirement outlook. Thredgold did not disappoint anyone with his message! The Thursday morning general session was keynoted by Therese Vaughan (CEO - NAIC) and Thomas Crawford (President of C2 Group). Both speakers gave a poignant view of the recent financial crisis and discussed "Putting the Pieces Back Together." Therese spoke of the recent financial turmoil and likely changes to regulations to the financial services sector. Tom's topics focused on economic recovery and the political environment in Washington, and how that impacts our industry. Next year's event will be April 11-13, 2011 in Las Vegas. Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• Exam 70-541 - TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development

  - by DigiMortal

  Today I passed Microsoft exam 70-541: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development. This exam gives you MCTS certificate. In this posting I will talk about the exam and also give some suggestions about books to read when preparing for exam. About exam This exam was good one I think. The questions were not hard and also not too easy. Just enough to make sure you really know what you do when working with SharePoint. Or at least to make sure you how things work. After couple of years active SharePoint coding this exam needs no additional preparation. The questions covered very different topics like alerts, features, web parts, site definitions, event receivers, workflows, web services and deployments. There are 59 questions in the exam (this information is available in internet) and you have time a little bit more than two hours. It took me about 40 minutes to get questions answered and reviewed. I strongly suggest you to study the parts of WSS 3.0 you don’t know yet and write some code to find out how to use these things through SharePoint API. Good reading For guys with less experience there are some good books to suggest. Take one or both of these books because there are no official study materials or training kits available for this exam. One of my colleagues who is less experienced than me suggested Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson. He told me that he found this book most useful for him to pass this exam.   When I started with SharePoint Services 3.0 my first book was Developer’s Guide To The Windows SharePoint Services v3 Platform by Todd C. Bleeker. It helped me getting started and later it was my main handbook for some time. Of course, there are many other good books and I suggest you to take what you find. Of course, before buying something I suggest you to discuss with guys who have read the book before. And make sure you mention that you are preparing for exam.   Conclusion If you are experienced SharePoint developer then this exam needs no preparation. Okay, some preparation is always good but if you don’t have time you are still able to pass this exam. If you are not experienced SharePoint developer then study before taking this exam – it is not easy stuff for novices. But if you pass this exam you can proudly say – yes, I know something about SharePoint! :)

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• SQL Contests – Solution – Identify the Database Celebrity

  - by Pinal Dave

  Last week we were running contest Identify the Database Celebrity and we had received a fantastic response to the contest. Thank you to the kind folks at NuoDB as they had offered two USD 100 Amazon Gift Cards to the winners of the contest. We had also additional contest that users have to download and install NuoDB and identified the sample database. You can read about the contest over here. Here is the answer to the questions which we had asked earlier in the contest. Part 1: Identify Database Celebrity Personality 1 – Edgar Frank “Ted” Codd (August 19, 1923 – April 18, 2003) was an English computer scientist who, while working for IBM, invented the relational model for database management, the theoretical basis for relational databases. He made other valuable contributions to computer science, but the relational model, a very influential general theory of data management, remains his most mentioned achievement. (Wki) Personality 2 – James Nicholas “Jim” Gray (born January 12, 1944; lost at sea January 28, 2007; declared deceased May 16, 2012) was an American computer scientist who received the Turing Award in 1998 “for seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation.” (Wiki) Personality 3 – Jim Starkey (born January 6, 1949 in Illinois) is a database architect responsible for developing InterBase, the first relational database to support multi-versioning, the blob column type, type event alerts, arrays and triggers. Starkey is the founder of several companies, including the web application development and database tool company Netfrastructure and NuoDB. (Wiki) Part 2: Identify NuoDB Samples Database Names In this part of the contest one has to Download NuoDB and install the sample database Hockey. Hockey is sample database and contains few tables. Users have to install sample database and inform the name of the sample databases. Here is the valid answer. HOCKEY PLAYERS SCORING TEAM Once again, it was indeed fun to run this contest. I have received great feedback about it and lots of people wants me to run similar contest in future. I promise to run similar interesting contests in the near future. Winners Within next two days, we will let winners send emails. Winners will have to confirm their email address and NuoDB team will send them directly Amazon Cards. Once again it was indeed fun to run this contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• An Unstoppable Force!

  - by TammyBednar

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Building a high-availability database platform presents unique challenges. Combining servers, storage, networking, OS, firmware, and database is complicated and raises important concerns: Will coordination between multiple SME’s delay deployment? Will it be reliable? Will it scale? Will routine maintenance consume precious IT-staff time? Ultimately, will it work? Enter the Oracle Database Appliance, a complete package of software, server, storage, and networking that’s engineered for simplicity. It saves time and money by simplifying deployment, maintenance, and support of database workloads. Plus, it’s based on Intel Xeon processors to ensure a high level of performance and scalability. Take a look at this video to compare Heather and Ted’s approach to building a server for their Oracle database! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os4RDVclWS8 If you missed the “Compare Database Platforms: Build vs. Buy” webcast or want to listen again to find out how Jeff Schulte - Vice President at Yodlee uses Oracle Database Appliance.

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• ServerName not working in Apache2 and Ubuntu

  - by CreativeNotice

  Setting up a dev LAMP server and I wish to allow dynamic subdomains, aka ted.servername.com, bob.servername.com. Here's my sites-active file <VirtualHost *:80> # Admin Email, Server Name, Aliases ServerAdmin [email protected] ServerName happyslice.net ServerAlias *.happyslice.net # Index file and Document Root DirectoryIndex index.html DocumentRoot /home/sysadmin/public_html/happyslice.net/public # Custom Log file locations LogLevel warn ErrorLog /home/sysadmin/public_html/happyslice.net/log/error.log CustomLog /home/sysadmin/public_html/happyslice.net/log/access.log combined And here's the output from sudo apache2ctl -S VirtualHost configuration: wildcard NameVirtualHosts and default servers: *:80 is a NameVirtualHost default server happyslice.net (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:1) port 80 namevhost happyslice.net (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:1) port 80 namevhost happyslice.net (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/happyslice.net:5) Syntax OK The server hostname is srv.happyslice.net. As you can see from apache2ctl when I use happyslice.net I get the default virtual host, when I use a subdomain, I get the happyslice.net host. So the later is working how I want, but the main url does not. I've tried all kinds of variations here, but it appears that ServerName just isn't being tied to the correct location. Thoughts? I'm stumped. FYI, I'm running Apache2.1 and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

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• Power Outage Interrupted Upgrade from Windows Vista Ultimate to 7 Ultimate, Reverted to Vista, Now Vista is failing... What Next?

  - by tednewk

  I was in the midst of what seemed to be a successful upgrade from Vista Ultimate to 7 Ultimate when there was a brief blackout. The upgrade failed and Windows reverted back to Vista. Now Vista is very slow to boot, has problems waking back-up from inactivity and quickly loses it's wireless connection. The wake-up problem manifests itself as the mouse is clearly shown on a black screen but I have no access to the Desktop or Taskbar or Explorer. Even Alt-Ctrl-Delete doesn't seem to work. No task menu, no reboot. Hitting the reset button reboots the machine with the usual Black Screen warnings offering Safe Mode. I tried to do a system restore to a point before the upgrade. That didn't seem to work. My guess is that my system is a mutant with parts of Vista and parts of 7 crashing each other. I would like avoid a clean install if at all possible to avoid reinstalling other software. What should I try now? My thoughts are: My a system back-up to lock the computer in place Trying a second 7 upgrade If that appears to be working make another back-up If not reload back-up and try a repairing Vista from DVD. If that appears to work make another back-up, let system stablize about a week then try 7 install again If that doesn't work are there any other options to try before settling for a clean install? Another complication, I am doing this by "remote control". I'm traveling with my job and I'll be talking my son through it over the phone. (Kind of like the landing the 747 cliche from all the 70's adventure shows!) So is there a way of simplifying the steps? Thanks Ted

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• How can I dynamically change auto complete entries in a C# combobox or textbox?

  - by Sam Hopkins

  I have a combobox in C# and I want to use auto complete suggestions with it, however I want to be able to change the auto complete entries as the user types, because the possible valid entries are far too numerous to populate the AutoCompleteStringCollection at startup. As an example, suppose I'm letting the user type in a name. I have a list of possible first names ("Joe", "John") and a list of surnames ("Bloggs", "Smith"), but if I have a thousand of each, then that would be a million possible strings - too many to put in the auto complete entries. So initially I want to have just the first names as suggestions ("Joe", "John") , and then once the user has typed the first name, ("Joe"), I want to remove the existing auto complete entries and replace them with a new set consisting of the chosen first name followed by the possible surnames ("Joe Bloggs", "Joe Smith"). In order to do this, I tried the following code: void InitializeComboBox() { ComboName.AutoCompleteMode = AutoCompleteMode.SuggestAppend; ComboName.AutoCompleteSource = AutoCompleteSource.CustomSource; ComboName.AutoCompleteCustomSource = new AutoCompleteStringCollection(); ComboName.TextChanged += new EventHandler( ComboName_TextChanged ); } void ComboName_TextChanged( object sender, EventArgs e ) { string text = this.ComboName.Text; string[] suggestions = GetNameSuggestions( text ); this.ComboQuery.AutoCompleteCustomSource.Clear(); this.ComboQuery.AutoCompleteCustomSource.AddRange( suggestions ); } However, this does not work properly. It seems that the call to Clear() causes the auto complete mechanism to "turn off" until the next character appears in the combo box, but of course when the next character appears the above code calls Clear() again, so the user never actually sees the auto complete functionality. It also causes the entire contents of the combo box to become selected, so between every keypress you have to deselect the existing text, which makes it unusable. If I remove the call to Clear() then the auto complete works, but it seems that then the AddRange() call has no effect, because the new suggestions that I add do not appear in the auto complete dropdown. I have been searching for a solution to this, and seen various things suggested, but I cannot get any of them to work - either the auto complete functionality appears disabled, or new strings do not appear. Here is a list of things I have tried: Calling BeginUpdate() before changing the strings and EndUpdate() afterwards. Calling Remove() on all the existing strings instead of Clear(). Clearing the text from the combobox while I update the strings, and adding it back afterwards. Setting the AutoCompleteMode to "None" while I change the strings, and setting it back to "SuggestAppend" afterwards. Hooking the TextUpdate or KeyPress event instead of TextChanged. Replacing the existing AutoCompleteCustomSource with a new AutoCompleteStringCollection each time. None of these helped, even in various combinations. Spence suggested that I try overriding the ComboBox function that gets the list of strings to use in auto complete. Using a reflector I found a couple of methods in the ComboBox class that look promising - GetStringsForAutoComplete() and SetAutoComplete(), but they are both private so I can't access them from a derived class. I couldn't take that any further. I tried replacing the ComboBox with a TextBox, because the auto complete interface is the same, and I found that the behaviour is slightly different. With the TextBox it appears to work better, in that the Append part of the auto complete works properly, but the Suggest part doesn't - the suggestion box briefly flashes to life but then immediately disappears. So I thought "Okay, I'll

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• Nepotism In The SQL Family

  - by Rob Farley

  There’s a bunch of sayings about nepotism. It’s unpopular, unless you’re the family member who is getting the opportunity. But of course, so much in life (and career) is about who you know. From the perspective of the person who doesn’t get promoted (when the family member is), nepotism is simply unfair; even more so when the promoted one seems less than qualified, or incompetent in some way. We definitely get a bit miffed about that. But let’s also look at it from the other side of the fence – the person who did the promoting. To them, their son/daughter/nephew/whoever is just another candidate, but one in whom they have more faith. They’ve spent longer getting to know that person. They know their weaknesses and their strengths, and have seen them in all kinds of situations. They expect them to stay around in the company longer. And yes, they may have plans for that person to inherit one day. Sure, they have a vested interest, because they’d like their family members to have strong careers, but it’s not just about that – it’s often best for the company as well. I’m not announcing that the next LobsterPot employee is one of my sons (although I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of getting them involved), but actually, admitting that almost all the LobsterPot employees are SQLFamily members… …which makes this post good for T-SQL Tuesday, this month hosted by Jeffrey Verheul (@DevJef). You see, SQLFamily is the concept that the people in the SQL Server community are close. We have something in common that goes beyond ordinary friendship. We might only see each other a few times a year, at events like the PASS Summit and SQLSaturdays, but the bonds that are formed are strong, going far beyond typical professional relationships. And these are the people that I am prepared to hire. People that I have got to know. I get to know their skill level, how well they explain things, how confident people are in their expertise, and what their values are. Of course there people that I wouldn’t hire, but I’m a lot more comfortable hiring someone that I’ve already developed a feel for. I need to trust the LobsterPot brand to people, and that means they need to have a similar value system to me. They need to have a passion for helping people and doing what they can to make a difference. Above all, they need to have integrity. Therefore, I believe in nepotism. All the people I’ve hired so far are people from the SQL community. I don’t know whether I’ll always be able to hire that way, but I have no qualms admitting that the things I look for in an employee are things that I can recognise best in those that are referred to as SQLFamily. …like Ted Krueger (@onpnt), LobsterPot’s newest employee and the guy who is representing our brand in America. I’m completely proud of this guy. He’s everything I want in an employee. He’s an experienced consultant (even wrote a book on it!), loving husband and father, genuine expert, and incredibly respected by his peers. It’s not favouritism, it’s just choosing someone I’ve been interviewing for years. @rob_farley

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• Is Microsoft&rsquo;s Cloud Bet Placed on the Ground?

  - by andrewbrust

  Today at the Unversity of Washington, Steve Ballmer gave a speech on Microsoft’s cloud strategy.  Significantly, Azure was only briefly mentioned and was not shown.  Instead, Ballmer spoke about what he called the five “dimensions” of the cloud, and used that as the basis for an almost philosophical discussion.  Ballmer opined on how the cloud should be distinguished from the Internet.as well as what the cloud will and should enable.  Ballmer worked hard to portray the cloud not as a challenger to Windows and PCs (as Google would certainly suggest it is) but  really as just the latest peripheral that adds value to PCs and devices. At one point during his speech, Ballmer said “We start with Windows at Microsoft.  It’s the most popular smart device on the planet.  And our design center for the future of Windows is to make it one of those smarter devices that the cloud really wants.”  I’m not sure I agree with Ballmer’s ambition here, but I must admit he’s taken the “software + services” concept and expanded on it in more consumer-friendly fashion. There were demos too.  For example, Blaise Aguera y Arcas reprised his Bing Maps demo from the TED conference held last month.  And Simon Atwell showed how Microsoft has teamed with Sky TV in the UK to turn Xbox into something that looks uncannily like Windows Media Center.  Specifically, an Xbox console app called Sky Player provides full access to Sky’s on-demand programming but also live TV access to an array of networks carried on its home TV service, complete with an on-screen programming guide.  Windows Phone 7 Series was shown quickly and Ballmer told us that while Windows Mobile/Phone 6.5 and earlier were designed for voice and legacy functionality, Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for the cloud. Over and over during Ballmer’s talk (and those of his guest demo presenters), the message was clear: Microsoft believes that client (“smart”) devices, and not mere HTML terminals, are the technologies to best deliver on the promise of the cloud.  The message was that PCs running Windows, game consoles and smart phones  whose native interfaces are Internet-connected offer the most effective way to utilize cloud capabilities.  Even the Bing Maps demo conveyed this message, because the advanced technology shown in the demo uses Silverlight (and thus the PCs computing power), and not AJAX (which relies only upon the browser’s native scripting and rendering capabilities) to produce the impressive interface shown to the audience. Microsoft’s new slogan, with respect to the cloud, is “we’re all in.”  Just as a Texas Hold ‘em player bets his entire stash of chips when he goes all in, so too is Microsoft “betting the company” on the cloud.  But it would seem that Microsoft’s bet isn’t on the cloud in a pure sense, and is instead on the power of the cloud to fuel new growth in PCs and other client devices, Microsoft’s traditional comfort zone.  Is that a bet or a hedge?  If the latter, is Microsoft truly all in?  I don’t really know.  I think many people would say this is a sucker’s bet.  But others would say it’s suckers who bet against Microsoft.  No matter what, the burden is on Microsoft to prove this contrarian view of the cloud is a sensible one.  To do that, they’ll need to deliver on cloud-connected device innovation.  And to do that, the whole company will need to feel that victory is crucial.  Time will tell.  And I expect to present progress reports in future posts.

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• WebCenter Marketing and Upcoming Events

  - by rituchhibber

  Events: Events: Date Event Name Location/Country October 30, 2012 ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter Webcast November 1, 2012 Paper Burying Your HR Processes? Dig Your Way Out With Oracle WebCenter! Webcast November 15, 2012 Social Business Thought Leader Webcast: Three Ways to Fix Your Broken Organization, featuring Christian Finn Webcast Marketing: Marketing: WebCenter Sites Sales eVite:Embrace the Base: Create an Exceptional Online Customer Experience with Oracle WebCenter Sites Directs recipients to the Connected Customer Experience Resource Center to see the latest demos, analyst reports, and customer webcasts promoting WebCenter Sites. For more information Click  here. WebCenter Social Business Thought Leaders Series: Digital Darwinism: How Brands Can Survive the Rapid Evolution of Society and TechnologyBrian Solis, Altimeter Group digital analyst and futuristDecember 13, 2012 10am PDTRegistration available soon, find other content from this speaker here. Webcast: WebCenter Sites for Applications: Disconnected Online Customer Experience? Connect it with Oracle WebCenter November 8, 2012  eVite | Registration Page WebCenter in Action Customer & Partner webcast series: Started earlier in FY13, a new webcast series featuring WebCenter customer deployments that are executed by a partner.The next webcast in the series will be November 14th:Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety Lowers Customer Service Costs with Oracle WebCenter Click here to learn more. OnDemand Webcast: ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenterComplex documents must be created, assembled, reviewed, and tracked. To avoid fragmented, chaotic information processes, organizations must adopt an integrated set of strategies, standards, best practices, and technologies for managing information. Attend this webcast to learn how Oracle WebCenter has allowed ResCare to: solve content lifecycle challenges, reduce compliance and business risks and increase adoption of intranet as primary business communication tool. On-Demand Assets Date Event Name Location/Country On Demand Avoid Social Media Fatigue - Learn the 9 C’s of Customer Engagement, featuring Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research Webcast On Demand WebCenter in Action Series: Hitachi Data Systems Improves Global Web Experience with Oracle WebCenter, presented by Hitachi Data Systems and Lingotek. Webcast On Demand Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise, featuring Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst, Altimeter Group and Reggie Bradford, Vice President, Oracle Webcast On Demand Oracle’s Vision for the Social-Enabled Enterprise, presented by Mark Hurd, Thomas Kurian and Reggie Bradford Webcast On Demand WebCenter in Action Series: Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter, presented by Qualcomm and Keste. Webcast On Demand Social Business Thought Leaders Series: 6 Counterintuitive Best Practices for Social Collaboration Adoption, featuring John Brunswick, Oracle. Webcast On Demand Oracle WebCenter Connects Patients and Researchers in Cancer Control Mission, presented by Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and App-Systems Webcast On Demand Oracle WebCenter: Modernize, Aggregate and Extend Your Portals Webcast On Demand Top 10 Technology Trends Driving Business Innovation, featuring Andy Mulholland, CTO, Capgemini Webcast On Demand Ancestry.com Helps Families Uncover History with Oracl e WebCenter Webcast On Demand Organic Business Networks: Doing Business in a Hyper-Connected World, featuring Mike Fauscette, GVP, IDC Webcast On Demand Social Business and Innovation, featuring John Mancini, President, AIIM Webcast On Demand Do More with Oracle WebCenter: Expand Beyond Web Experience Management Webcast On Demand Race Against the Machine, featuring Andrew McAfee, author and principal scientist at MIT Webcast On Demand Introducing Oracle WebCenter Sites 11gR1: Transforming the Online Experience Webcast On Demand Mobile is the New Face of Engagement, featuring Ted Schadler, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Inc Webcast Analyst Report: IDC Research: Oracle Debuts New Release of Oracle WebCenter Sites.

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• T-SQL Tuesday - the swag

  - by Rob Farley

  This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Kendal van Dyke (@SQLDBA), and is on the topic of swag. He asks about the best SQL Server swag that we’ve ever received from a conference. I can’t say I ever focus on getting the swag at conferences, as I see some people doing. I know there are plenty of people that get around all the sponsors as soon as they’ve arrived, collecting whatever goodies they can, sometimes as token gifts for those at home, sometimes as giveaways for the user groups they attend. I remember a few years ago at my first PASS Summit, the SQLCAT team gave me a large pile of leftover SQL Server swag to give away to my user group – piles of branded things to stop your phone sliding off your car dashboard, and other things. The user group members thought it was great, and over the course of a few months, happily cleared me out of it all. I tend to consider swag to be something that you haven’t earned except by being at a conference, and there was no winning associated with it, it was simply a giveaway item at a sponsor booth. That means I don’t include the HP Mini laptop that was given away at TechEd Australia a few years ago to every attendee, or the SQL Server bag and Camelbak bottle that I was given as a thank-you for writing a guest blog post (which I use as my regular laptop bag and water bottle for work). I don’t even include the copy of Midtown Madness that I got as a door prize at my vey first TechEd event in 1999 (that was a really good game, and even meant that when I went to Chicago last year, I felt a strange familiarity about the place). I don’t want to include shirts in the mix either. I was given a nice SQL Server shirt about five years ago TechEd Australia. It’s a business shirt (buttons, cuffs, pocket on the chest), black with the SQL Server logo on it. It was such a nice shirt that I commented about it to the Product Marketing Manager for Australia (Christine, at the time), who unexpectedly arranged for me to get another one. That was certainly an improvement on the tent I was given at one of the MVP conference I attended. So when I consider these ‘rules’, two pieces of swag come to mind, and I think both were at PASS Summits (although I can’t be sure). One was a hand-warmer from HP, one of the “crystallisation-type” ones, which proved extremely popular when I got home, until one day when it didn’t survive being recharged – not overly SQL related, but still it was good swag. The other was an umbrella, from expressor, which was from the PASS Summit in 2010, my first PASS Summit. I remember it well – Blythe Morrow (now Gietz) (@blythemorrow) was working the booth, having stopped working for PASS some time before, but she’d been on my list of people to meet, as I’d had plenty of contact with her while she’d worked at PASS, my being a chapter leader and general volunteer. There had been an expressor dinner on one of the first evenings, which I’d been asked to be at, which is when I’d met lots of SQL people in person for the first time, including Ted Krueger (@onpnt), Jessica Moss (@jessicamoss) and Blythe. Anyway, at some point the next day I swung by their booth to say hello and thank them for the dinner, and Blythe says “Oh, we have the best swag – here!” and handed me an umbrella. And she was right. It’s excellent. @rob_farley

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• PASS summit 2013. We do not remember days. We remember moments.

  - by Maria Zakourdaev

    "Business or pleasure?" barked the security officer in the Charlotte International Airport. "I’m not sure, sir," I whimpered, immediately losing all courage. "I'm here for the database technologies summit called PASS”. "Sounds boring. Definitely a business trip." Boring?! He couldn’t have been more wrong. If he only knew about the countless meetings throughout the year where I waved my hands at my great boss and explained again and again how fantastic this summit is and how much I learned last year. One by one, the drops of water began eating away at the stone. He finally approved of my trip just to stop me from torturing him. Time moves as slow as a turtle when you are waiting for something. Time runs as fast as a cheetah when you are there. PASS has come...and passed. It’s been an amazing week. Enormous sqlenergy has filled the city, filled the convention center and the surrounding pubs and restaurants. There were awesome speakers, great content, and the chance to meet most inspiring database professionals from all over the world. Some sessions were unforgettable. Imagine a fully packed room with more than 500 people in awed silence, catching each and every one of Paul Randall's words. His tremendous energy and deep knowledge were truly thrilling. No words can describe Rob Farley's unique presentation style, captivating and engaging the audience. When the precious session minutes were over, I could tell that the many random puzzle pieces of information that his listeners knew had been suddenly combined into a clear, cohesive picture. I was amazed as always by Paul White's great sense of humor and his phenomenal ability to explain complicated concepts in a simple way. The keynote by the brilliant Dr. DeWitt from Microsoft in front of the full summit audience of 5000 deeply listening people was genuinely breathtaking. The entire conference throughout offered excellent speakers who inspired me to absorb the knowledge and use it when I got home. To my great surprise, I found that there are other people in this world who like replication as much I do. During the Birds of a Feather Luncheon, SQL Server MVP Ted Krueger was writing a script for replicating the food to other tables. I learned many things at PASS, and not all of them were about SQL. After three summits, this time I finally got the knack of networking. I actually went up and spoke to people, and believe me, that was not easy for an introvert. But this is what the summit is all about. Sqlpeople. They are the ones who make it such an exciting experience. I will be looking forward to the next year. Till then I have my notes and new ideas. How long was the summit? Thousands of unforgettable moments.

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• Get Ready for Anytime, Anywhere Engagement

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Are you ready for 2015?  According to IDC, 2015 is the year when more users are projected to access the internet using mobile devices than with PC’s or other wired devices.  It’s no doubt that mobile devices are a critical means of communication today, and are on track to become increasingly more important in the coming years. However, device formats are so varied that delivering a mobile web experience that will engage site visitors and enhance your brand can be a daunting task. Solutions that empower organizations to easily extend their web presence to the mobile channel, while saving significant time and effort in managing mobile sites, are now essential in our ever connected mobile world. So what are some of the things organizations should look for in such a solution? Mobile device form factors, networks, protocols, and browsers vary widely, and reformatting web content for thousands of different device and software combinations is a prohibitive task. An effective mobile solution can make this process seamless by automatically formatting designated web content for mobile delivery.  By automatically detecting a site visitor’s device configuration, the selected web content can be sized and formatted for optimal display on that particular device. This can save tremendous time involved in building, formatting, and maintaining individual websites or mobile applications for different mobile devices. It’s not enough to simply support the thousands of different mobile device types that are out there. It’s also critical to make it easy for marketers and other business users to manage mobile sites and mobile content. Those responsible for maintaining an organization’s web and mobile experiences need the ability to edit content using rich text editor tools and then preview that content directly in the context of the mobile website and the traditional website, ideally from the same business user interface. Powerful capabilities such as these make managing the web experience for mobile devices easy, even with frequently changing content, across a multitude of different devices. This saves tremendous time involved in building, formatting, and maintaining individual websites or mobile applications for different mobile devices. When content or business needs change, the business user needs only to change site content once, and it is seamlessly deployed to the web and all mobile channels.Geo-location is another critical input to making the online experience engaging and relevant for web visitors who are increasingly mobile. A mobile solution should enable use of device GPS data to deliver location-based content and services to mobile website visitors. Organizations can provide mobile site visitors with location-sensitive search results, location-based offers and recommendations, integration of maps and directions into site content, and much more – all critical for meeting the needs of those on the go.To hear more about how mobile is changing the game, check out our recent webcast with Ted Schadler, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester, where he discussed why mobile is the new face of engagement, or learn more about how to extend your web presence to the mobile channel with Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle WebCenter Sites Mobility Server.

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• Drive

  - by erikanollwebb

  Picking up where we left off, let's summarize.  People have both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, and whether reward works depends a bit on what you are rewarding.  Rewards don't decreased intrinsic motivation provided you know what you are getting and why, and when you reward high performance.  But as anyone who has watched the great animation of Dan Pink's TED talk knows, even that doesn't tell the whole story.  Although people may not be less intrinsically motivated by rewards, the impact of rewards on actual performance is a really odd questions.  Larger rewards don't necessarily lead to better performance and in fact, some times lead to worse performance.  Pink argues that people are driven and engaged when they have autonomy, mastery and purpose.  If they can self-direct and can be good at what they do and have a sense of purpose for what they are doing, they show the highest engagement.   (Personally, I would add progress to the list.  My experience is that if you have autonomy, mastery and a sense of purpose but don't get a feeling that you are making any progress day to day, your level of engagement will drop rapidly.) So Pink is arguing if we could set up work so that people have a sense of purpose in what they do, have some autonomy and the ability to build mastery, you'll have better companies.  And that's probably true in a lot of ways, but there's a problem.  Sometimes, you have things you need to do but maybe you don't really want to do.  Or that you don't really see the point of.  Or that doesn't have a lot of value to you at the end of the day.  Then what does a company do?  Let me give you an example.  I've worked on some customer relationship management (CRM) tools over the years and done user research with sales people to try and understand their world.  And there's a funny thing about sales tools in CRM.  Sometimes what the company wants a sales person to do is at odds with what a sales person thinks is useful to them.  For example, companies would like to know who a sales person talked to at the company and the person level.  They'd like to know what they talked about, when, and whether the deals closed.  Those metrics would help you build a better sales force and understand what works and what does not.  But sales people see that as busy work that doesn't add any value to their ability to sell.  So you have a sales person who has a lot of autonomy, they like to do things that improve their ability to sell and they usually feel a sense of purpose--the group is trying to make a quota!  That quota will help the company succeed!  But then you have tasks that they don't think fit into that equation.  The company would like to know more about what makes them successful and get metrics on what they do and frankly, have a record of what they do in case they leave, but the sales person thinks it's a waste of time to put all that information into a sales application. They have drive, just not for all the things the company would like.   You could punish them for not entering the information, or you could try to reward them for doing it, but you still have an imperfect model of engagement.  Ideally, you'd like them to want to do it.  If they want to do it, if they are motivated to do it, then the company wins.  If *something* about it is rewarding to them, then they are more engaged and more likely to do it.  So the question becomes, how do you create that interest to do something?

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• Parsing basic math equations for children's educational software?

  - by Simucal

  Inspired by a recent TED talk, I want to write a small piece of educational software. The researcher created little miniature computers in the shape of blocks called "Siftables". [David Merril, inventor - with Siftables in the background.] There were many applications he used the blocks in but my favorite was when each block was a number or basic operation symbol. You could then re-arrange the blocks of numbers or operation symbols in a line, and it would display an answer on another siftable block. So, I've decided I wanted to implemented a software version of "Math Siftables" on a limited scale as my final project for a CS course I'm taking. What is the generally accepted way for parsing and interpreting a string of math expressions, and if they are valid, perform the operation? Is this a case where I should implement a full parser/lexer? I would imagine interpreting basic math expressions would be a semi-common problem in computer science so I'm looking for the right way to approach this. For example, if my Math Siftable blocks where arranged like: [1] [+] [2] This would be a valid sequence and I would perform the necessary operation to arrive at "3". However, if the child were to drag several operation blocks together such as: [2] [\] [\] [5] It would obviously be invalid. Ultimately, I want to be able to parse and interpret any number of chains of operations with the blocks that the user can drag together. Can anyone explain to me or point me to resources for parsing basic math expressions? I'd prefer as much of a language agnostic answer as possible.

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• Java getInputStream 400 errors

  - by Bill Szerdy

  When I contact a web service using a Java HttpUrlConnection it just returns a 400 Bad Request (IOException). How do I get the XML information that the server is returning; it does not appear to be in the getErrorStream of the connection nor is it in any of the exception information. When I run the following PHP code against a web service: <?php $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.myclientaddress.com/here/" ); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 ); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1 ); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,"username=ted&password=scheckler&type=consumer&id=123456789&zip=12345"); $result=curl_exec ($ch); echo $result; ?> it returns the following: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <response> <status>failure</status> <errors> <error name="RES_ZIP">Zip code is not valid.</error> <error name="ZIP">Invalid zip code for residence address.</error> </errors> </response> so I know the information exists

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• Pull specific information from a long list with Perl

  - by melignus

  The file that I've got to work with here is the result of an LDAP extraction but I need to ultimately get the information formatted over to something that a spreadsheet can use. So, the data is as follows: DataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataData DataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataData displayName: John Doe name: ##userName DataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataData DataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataData displayName: Jane Doe name: ##userName DataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataData DataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataDataData displayName: Ted Doe name: ##userName The format that I need to export to is: firstName lastName userName firstName lastName userName firstName lastName userName Where the spaces are tabs so I can then impor that file into a database. I have experience doing this in VBScript but I'm trying to switch over to using Perl for as much server administration as possible. I'm not sure on the syntax for what I want which is basically while not endoffile{ detect "displayName: " & $firstName & " " & $lastName detect "name: ##" & $userName write $firstName tab $lastName tab $userName to file } Also if someone could point me to a resource specifically on the text parsing syntax that Perl uses, I'd be very grateful. Most of the resources that I've come across haven't been very helpful.

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