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  • What to do if you were scammed by a web hosting company? [on hold]

    - by Cain Nuke
    I was recently scammed by a web hosting company. Is there anything i can do about it? I would like to sue them but that doesn't sound realistic to me since they are not based on the same country as me. I would like to at least be able to have them blacklisted or something so other people don't get scammed too. I would appreciate if you can tell me how to proceed in these cases. They promise 24/7 support which is not true because its only one guy managing the whole thing and your server can go down for days and he doesn't do anything, he wont even reply your tickets. My server is been offline for over a week now and he only ignores me. I paid for this month and shortly after that my server went offline. I used Paypal to pay. He is in Bulgaria (that's what he says) i'm in Japan. I paid $55 USD.

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  • Freelancing - Share the source code?

    - by Tec
    I have developed a couple of form based windows application in vb.net for a client and they all work well and he paid me through a freelance site. I have handed over the executable and the setup to the client and all was well. Now the client wants the source code for the application. Is there a general practice on sharing the source code with the client? Please note - the client never mentioned he needs the source code and he is now asking for it after a week after the app was completed and he made the payment. I don't mind sharing the source code, but I am not sure if I should. This probably means the client would not hire me again and the bigger question is the source code really his property? This question may have been asked a few times, but I cannot still draw a conclusion on what is right. update To answer some of the questions: The source code was not mentioned at all. There was no exclusive contract signed except for the usual agreement of the freelance site. I am not sure if software development comes under work for hire and is it valid for users outside of the US? The reason for not sharing the source code was this was a very small project and I got paid for a mere few hours. So if I have an option then definitely I would want to keep the source code to myself as that gives a possibility of the client coming back. The application works flawlessly and the code is solid. Also, the task that the client wanted to achieve was very challenging and I would not like other programmers (competitors) to know how I achieved it. So unless I get the confirmation that the source code is purely the property of the client, I would not be willing to share it.

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  • When runs a product out of support?

    That is a question I get regularly from customers. Microsoft has a great site where you can find that information. Unfortunately this site is not easy to find, and a lot of people are not aware of this site. A good reason to promote it a little. So if you ever get a question on this topic, go to http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/Default.aspx. At that site, you can find also the details of the policy Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy The Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy took effect in October 2002, and applies to most products currently available through retail purchase or volume licensing and most future release products. Through the policy, Microsoft will offer a minimum of: 10 years of support (5 years Mainstream Support and 5 years Extended Support) at the supported service pack level for Business and Developer products 5 years Mainstream Support at the supported service pack level for Consumer/Hardware/Multimedia products 3 years of Mainstream Support for products that are annually released (for example, Money, Encarta, Picture It!, and Streets & Trips) Phases of the Support Lifecycle Mainstream Support Mainstream Support is the first phase of the product support lifecycle. At the supported service pack level, Mainstream Support includes: Incident support (no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims) Security update support The ability to request non-security hotfixes Please note: Enrollment in a maintenance program may be required to receive these benefits for certain products Extended Support The Extended Support phase follows Mainstream Support for Business and Developer products. At the supported service pack level, Extended Support includes: Paid support Security update support at no additional cost Non-security related hotfix support requires a separate Extended Hotfix Support Agreement to be purchased (per-fix fees also apply) Please note: Microsoft will not accept requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features during the Extended Support phase Extended Support is not available for Consumer, Hardware, or Multimedia products Enrollment in a maintenance program may be required to receive these benefits for certain products Self-Help Online Support Self-Help Online Support is available throughout a product's lifecycle and for a minimum of 12 months after the product reaches the end of its support. Microsoft online Knowledge Base articles, FAQs, troubleshooting tools, and other resources, are provided to help customers resolve common issues. Please note: Enrollment in a maintenance program may be required to receive these benefits for certain products (source: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#tab1)

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  • Does it matter to you that a software is "available source" but not "open source"

    - by ccpod
    You probably know the list of open source licenses officially approved by the OSI. Most notably I guess would be the GPL, MIT, [insert your favorite license here]. I recently ran into a project which although was open source (the creator made all source code available), was not officially open source under one of those official licenses. It released the source, but made no promise to release the source in the future. It allowed modification suggestions, but made no promises to accept patches and disallowed external distribution of externally-patched versions. It allowed the use of the software in commercial or paid projects, but disallowed the sale of the software itself. I suppose it could be called "available source" not open source as we like to think of it. I can see why the management team of a company wouldn't want to do business with this software. They can't fork it, they can't sell it, they can't create their own version of the software and distribute it or sell it. But would it matter to you as part of a software engineering team who's just using this software? I can still get my work done with it, I can use it in a project for which I'm paid (but I can't sell the software itself, which I'm not in the business of doing anyway), and I can make changes to the code to make it behave differently for my needs (but I can't make those modifications public), and if I do want those modifications officially made available to others, the approval is up to the project itself and they choose whether to incorporate them in an official release or not. So we know that a company that wants to base its business on this "available source" software can't do that, but as someone from the software engineering team, would those differences matter to you or do they seem less relevant? Curious what others think of this.

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  • Does it matter to you that a software is "available source" but not "open source"

    - by ccpod
    You probably know the list of open source licenses officially approved by the OSI. Most notably I guess would be the GPL, MIT, [insert your favorite license here]. I recently ran into a project which although was open source (the creator made all source code available), was not officially open source under one of those official licenses. It released the source, but made no promise to release the source in the future. It allowed modification suggestions, but made no promises to accept patches and disallowed external distribution of externally-patched versions. It allowed the use of the software in commercial or paid projects, but disallowed the sale of the software itself. I suppose it could be called "available source" not open source as we like to think of it. I can see why the management team of a company wouldn't want to do business with this software. They can't fork it, they can't sell it, they can't create their own version of the software and distribute it or sell it. But would it matter to you as part of a software engineering team who's just using this software? I can still get my work done with it, I can use it in a project for which I'm paid (but I can't sell the software itself, which I'm not in the business of doing anyway), and I can make changes to the code to make it behave differently for my needs (but I can't make those modifications public), and if I do want those modifications officially made available to others, the approval is up to the project itself and they choose whether to incorporate them in an official release or not. So we know that a company that wants to base its business on this "available source" software can't do that, but as someone from the software engineering team, would those differences matter to you or do they seem less relevant? Curious what others think of this.

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  • Logical progressions through the job market

    - by Philluminati
    I'm 5 years out of a unrecognised university where I did Software Engineering. First job was VB.NET, one job was Python, Linux and Web development. I feel cast as a web developer. I'd love a role doing C but no one is interested in juniors if the applicant hasn't got 3 years of C development experience already. I've done some C and a drop of open source coding but I'll never have the confidence to convince someone I know absolutely what I'm doing. Do I just spend more and more time letting life pass me by as I sit in my room on a friday night writing a C problem "for the sake of learning more C" Basically I'm just not sure I want to continue my career if it's going to involve nothing but high level, machine abstracted, business logic and as interested as I am in low level development and enjoy reading books by Taunembaum I struggle to see how I can make the jump and I just feel life would be easier if I got a job in a cafe in Amsterdam rolling spliffs for customers. My ideal job, being a paid member of the Fedora development team seems so far away, without anyone to pay me to learn the skills to get there, and the only way would be to literally spend weeks and weeks of my life contributing code without recognition for free and without any guarentees at the end. Not that I've contributed anything at all so far. Are there any career paths that are logically set out so that jumping between roles is "correctly" incremental and where hard work and learning does eventually lead to the kind of places I might want to go? [ and also getting paid at the same time? ]

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  • Read Wall Street Journal for free using Google Search

    - by Gopinath
    Wall Street Journal publishes very informative articles and most of them are available for paid subscribers. But it is very easy to defeat the pay wall of Wall Street Journal and read the articles for free with the help of Google. The trick is to Google for Wall Street Journal article and click the link displayed on search results to read the article for free. It’s very simple and easy if you are using Google Chrome browser, but it should be straight forward in Firefox and Internet Explorer. Here is a walk through of unlocking today’s Wall Street Journal paid article   1. When you are on online.wsj.com, select the title of subscribers only article you want to read 2. Right on the selected title and choose the option Search Google for “<article title>” 3. Locate the WSJ article on Google search results and click on the article link   4. Boom! You got full access to the article and enjoy reading it for free.   I’ve been using this trick for a while from US to access WSJ articles for free. Most likely this should work for users located outside USA as well.

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  • Legal Web Fonts & Licensing

    - by Phill
    So I'm a little confused in regards to legality of using fonts for web. Often from designers I get a PSD file and it uses a special font, and the font is supplied. However attempting to convert the font using: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface/generator Ends up with a message saying it's blocked by Adobe. Not only that sometimes if the font can be converted, it often looks like crap when viewed in a browser. I assume that the generator is primarily for people to convert their own fonts, but if you purchase the use of a font then you can only use it for Web if the terms allows you to? The fonts used in PSD's are often Adobe Fonts, I can't find anything that suggests I can convert those and use them on the web. So I'm wondering if anyone knows the legal rights around using Photoshop supplied fonts on the web? In addition I'm wondering what resources are available (free/paid) that provide fonts that can be used on the web. Free: http://www.fontsquirrel.com http://www.google.com/webfonts Paid: http://www.fontshop.com This is the only one's I've found so far that aren't cartoon type fonts like what's primarily on www.dafont.com

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  • Avoiding the Anaemic Domain - How to decide what single responsibility a class has

    - by thecapsaicinkid
    Even after reading a bunch I'm still falling into the same trap. I have a class, usually an enity. I need to implement more than one, similar operations on this type. It feels wrong to (seemingly arbitrarily) choose one of these operations to belong inside the entity and push the others out to a separate class; I end up pushing all operations to service classes and am left with an anaemic domain. As a crude example, imagine the typical Employee class with numeric properties to hold how many paid days the employee is entitled to for both sickness and holiday and a collection of days taken for each. public class Employee { public int PaidHolidayAllowance { get; set; } public int PaidSicknessAllowance { get; set; } public IEnumerable<Holiday> Holidays { get; set; } public IEnumerable<SickDays> SickDays { get; set; } } I want two operations, one to calculate remaining holiday, another for remaining paid sick days. It seems strange to include say, CalculateRemaingHoliday() in the Employee class and bump CalculateRemainingPaidSick() to some PaidSicknessCalculator class. I would end up with a PaidSicknessCalculator and a RemainingHolidayCalculator and the anaemic Employee entity as seen above. The other alternative would be to put both operations in the Employee class and kick Single Responsibility to the curb. That doesn't make for particularly maintainable code. I suppose the Employee class should have some initialisation/validation logic (not accepting negative alowances etc.) So maybe I just stick to basic initialisation and validation in the entities themselves and be happy with my separate calculator classes. Or maybe I should be asking myself if Anaemic Domain is actually causing me some tangible problems with my code.

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  • Old programmer disappeared. About to hire another programmer. How do I approach this?

    - by pocto
    After spending over one year working on a social network project for me using WordPress and BuddyPress, my programmer has disappeared, even though he got paid every single week, for the whole period. Yes, he's not dead as I used an email tracker to confirm and see he opens my emails, but he doesn't respond. It seems he got another job. I wonder why he just couldn't say so. And I even paid him an advance salary for work he hasn't done. The problem is that I never asked for full documentation for most of the functions he coded in. And there were MANY functions for this 1+ year period, and some of them have bugs that he still didn't fix. Now it seems all confusing. What's the first thing I should do now? How do I proceed? I guess the first thing to do will be to get another programmer, but I want to start on the right foot by having all the current code documented so that any programmer can work on all the functions without issues. Is that the first thing I should do? If yes, how do I go about it? What's the standard type of documentation required for something like this? Can I get a programmer that will just do the documentation for all the codes and fix the bugs or is documentation not really important? Also, do you think getting another "individual" programmer is better or get a company that has programmers working for them, so that if the programmer assigned to my project disappears, another can replace him, without my involvement? I feel this is the approach I should have taken in the beginning.

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  • Software Licencing [closed]

    - by Craig
    A colleague of mine wanted a means to do something, so it was suggested that I write some software to do this. The software has turned into more than the original specification and is now something rather complex, however it is not fully functional still. My colleague has not paid me anything so far and I am unwilling to continue writing the software until some faith has been reciprocated in my direction, as I have put a lot of effort into writing the software. I am also unwilling to finish the software as I do not want to give away a huge chunk of my time and effort away as free, neither do I want to be under compensated for my efforts. Some concerns I have. If I finish the software, what if the client doesn't pay me anything or pays too little, or what if I write the software to a usable level, but not complete and the client pays me a too little. I have lost my motivation to finish the software, as more and more specifications have been added to the software and I have developed a substantially complex piece of software and been effectively paid nothing. To finish the software, I need motivation, money would do this, however the client doesn't want to pay for something that isn't complete, yet keeps adding more requirements. I seem to be in a catch 22 with this, as I have developed some software on faith and have had no faith reciprocated in my direction. I'm really not sure how to get some payment from the client or on how to develop a licencing model so that I get some money from the client and development resumes.

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  • Maintaining Two Separate Software Versions From the Same Codebase in Version Control

    - by Joseph
    Let's say that I am writing two different versions of the same software/program/app/script and storing them under version control. The first version is a free "Basic" version, while the second is a paid "Premium" version that takes the codebase of the free version and expands upon it with a few extra value-added features. Any new patches, fixes, or features need to find their way into both versions. I am currently considering using master and develop branches for the main codebase (free version) along side master-premium and develop-premium branches for the paid version. When a change is made to the free version and merged to the master branch (after thorough testing on develop of course), it gets copied over to the develop-premium branch via the cherry-pick command for more testing and then merged into master-premium. Is this the best workflow to handle this situation? Are there any potential problems, caveats, or pitfalls to be aware of? Is there a better branching strategy than what I have already come up with? Your feedback is highly appreciated! P.S. This is for a PHP script stored in Git, but the answers should apply to any language or VCS.

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  • Working as a contractor--questions part II

    - by universe_hacker
    This is a follow-up to this discussion: Working as a contractor--questions I still would like to get more info on the following points, when working as a contractor as opposed to direct employee: Housing: for short-term contracts (let's say 6 months or less) that are not in your home area, where and how do you search for short-term, flexible housing? Especially since an employer would typically want you to start immediately, so you don't have the time to go out and explore. Also, would you typically look for furnished apartments because the cost transporting your own furniture for a few months is not justified? Work hours and pay: are contractors more strictly supervised (as far as getting specified work done) because they get paid by the hour? There are also supposed to get overtime pay (at a higher rate) if they work more than 40 hours per week, does this really happen? Or do they work unpaid extra hours just like many regular employees? Some potential employers have mentioned paying the "per diem", which is essentially a non-taxable daily allowance, which is supposed to be used for living expenses. This money gets subtracted from you per-hour rate, but the advantage is that you pay less tax. However, from the information I have seen, the per diem can only be paid if you maintain a "permanent" residence you intend to return to. Is this checked in practice, and if yes, how?

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  • client problems - misaligned expectations & not following SDLC protocols

    - by louism
    hi guys, im having some serious problems with a client on a project - i could use some advice please the short version i have been working with this client now for almost 6 months without any problems (a classified website project in the range of 500 hours) over the last few days things have drastically deteriorated to the point where ive had to place the project on-hold whilst i work-out what to do (this has pissed the client off even more) to be simplistic, the root cause of the issue is this: the client doesnt read the specs i make for him, i code the feature, he than wants to change things, i tell him its not to the agreed spec and that that change will have to be postponed and possibly charged for, he gets upset and rants saying 'hes paid for the feature' and im not keeping to the agreement (<- misalignment of expectations) i think the root cause of the root cause is my clients failure to take my SDLC protocols seriously. i have a bug tracking system in place which he practically refuses to use (he still emails me bugs), he doesnt seem to care to much for the protocols i use for dealing with scope creep and change control the whole situation came to a head recently where he 'cracked it' (an aussie term for being fed-up). the more terms like 'postponed for post-launch implementation', 'costed feature addition', and 'not to agreed spec' i kept using, the worse it got finally, he began to bully me - basically insisting i shut-up and do the work im being paid for. i wrote a long-winded email explaining how wrong he was on all these different points, and explaining what all the SDLC protocols do to protect the success of the project. than i deleted that email and wrote a new one in the new email, i suggested as a solution i write up a list of grievances we both had. we than review the list and compromise on different points: he gets some things he wants, i get some things i want. sometimes youve got to give ground to get ground his response to this suggestion was flat-out refusal, and a restatement that i should just get on with the work ive been paid to do so there you have the very subjective short version. if you have the time and inclination, the long version may be a little less bias as it has the email communiques between me and my client the long version (with background) the long version works by me showing you the email communiques which lead to the situation coming to a head. so here it is, judge for yourself where the trouble started... 1. client asked me why something was missing from a feature i just uploaded, my response was to show him what was in the spec: it basically said the item he was looking for was never going to be included 2. [clients response...] Memo Louis, We are following your own title fields and keeping a consistent layout. Why the big fuss about not adding "Part". It simply replaces "model" and is consistent with your current title fields. 3. [my response...] hi [client], the 'part' field appeared to me as a redundancy / mistake. i requested clarification but never received any in a timely manner (about 2 weeks ago) the specification for this feature also indicated it wasnt going to be included: RE: "Why the big fuss about not adding "Part" " it may not appear so, but it would actually be a lot of work for me to now add a 'Part' field it could take me up to 15-20 minutes to properly explain why its such a big undertaking to do this, but i would prefer to use that time instead to work on completing your v1.1 features as a simplistic explanation - it connects to the change in paradigm from a 'generic classified ad' model to a 'specific attributes for specific categories' model basically, i am saying it is a big fuss, but i understand that it doesnt look that way - after all, it is just one ity-bitty field :) if you require a fuller explanation, please let me know and i will commit the time needed to write that out also, if you recall when we first started on the project, i said that with the effort/time required for features, you would likely not know off the top of your head. you may think something is really complex, but in reality its quite simple, you might think something is easy - but it could actually be a massive trauma to code (which is the case here with the 'Part' field). if you also recalled, i said the best course of action is to just ask, and i would let you know on a case-by-case basis 4. [email from me to client...] hi [client], the online catalogue page is now up live (see my email from a few days ago for information on how it works) note: the window of opportunity for input/revisions on what data the catalogue stores has now closed (as i have put the code up live now) RE: the UI/layout of the online catalogue page you may still do visual/ui tweaks to the page at the moment (this window for input/revisions will close in a couple of days time) 5. [email from client to me...] *(note: i had put up the feature & asked the client to review it, never heard back from them for a few days)* Memo Louis, Here you go again. CLOSED without a word of input from the customer. I don't think so. I will reply tomorrow regarding the content and functionality we require from this feature. 5. [from me to client...] hi [client]: RE: from my understanding, you are saying that the mini-sale yard control would change itself based on the fact someone was viewing for parts & accessories <- is that correct? this change is outside the scope of the v1.1 mini-spec and therefore will need to wait 'til post launch for costing/implementation 6. [email from client to me...] Memo Louis, Following your v1.1 mini-spec and all your time paid in full for the work selected. We need to make the situation clear. There will be no further items held for post-launch. Do not expect us to pay for any further items other than those we have agreed upon. You have undertaken to complete the Parts and accessories feature as follows. Obviously, as part of this process the "mini search" will be effected, and will require "adaption to make sense". 7. [email from me to client...] hi [client], RE: "There will be no further items held for post-launch. Do not expect us to pay for any further items other than those we have agreed upon." a few points to consider: 1) the specification for the 'parts & accessories' feature was as follows: (i.e. [what] "...we have agreed upon.") 2) you have received the 'parts & accessories' feature free of charge (you have paid $0 for it). ive spent two days coding that feature as a gesture of good will i would request that you please consider these two facts carefully and sincerely 8. [email from client to me...] Memo Louis, I don't see how you are giving us anything for free. From your original fee proposal you have deleted more than 30 hours of included features. Your title "shelved features". Further you have charged us twice by adding back into the site, at an addition cost, some of those "shelved features" features. See v1.1 mini-spec. Did include in your original fee proposal a change request budget but then charge without discussion items included in v1.1 mini-spec. Included a further Features test plan for a regression test, a fee of 10 hours that would not have been required if the "shelved features" were not left out of the agreed fee proposal. I have made every attempt to satisfy your your uneven business sense by offering you everything your heart desired, in the v1.1 mini-spec, to be left once again with your attitude of "its too hard, lets leave it for post launch". I am no longer accepting anything less than what we have contracted you to do. That is clearly defined in v1.1 mini-spec, and you are paid in advance for delivering those items as an acceptable function. a few notes about the above email... i had to cull features from the original spec because it didnt fit into the budget. i explained this to the client at the start of the project (he wanted more features than he had budget hours to do them all) nothing has been charged for twice, i didnt charge the client for culled features. im charging him to now do those culled features the draft version of the project schedule included a change request budget of 10 hours, but i had to remove that to meet the budget (the client may not have been aware of this to be fair to them) what the client refers to as my attitude of 'too hard/leave it for post-launch', i called a change request protocol and a method for keeping scope creep under control 9. [email from me to client...] hi [client], RE: "...all your grievances..." i had originally written out a long email response; it was fantastic, it had all these great points of how 'you were wrong' and 'i was right', you would of loved it (and by 'loved it', i mean it would of just infuriated you more) so, i decided to deleted it start over, for two reasons: 1) a long email is being disrespectful of your time (youre a busy businessman with things to do) 2) whos wrong or right gets us no closer to fixing the problems we are experiencing what i propose is this... i prepare a bullet point list of your grievances and my grievances (yes, im unhappy too about how things are going - and it has little to do with money) i submit this list to you for you to add to as necessary we then both take a good hard look at this list, and we decide which areas we are willing to give ground on as an example, the list may look something like this: "louis, you keep taking away features you said you would do" [your grievance 2] [your grievance 3] [your grievance ...] "[client], i feel you dont properly read the specs i prepare for you..." [my grievance 2] [my grievance 3] [my grievance ...] if you are willing to give this a try, let me know will it work? who knows. but if it doesnt, we can always go back to arguing some more :) obviously, this will only work if you are willing to give it a genuine try, and you can accept that you may have to 'give some ground to get some ground' what do you think? 10. [email from client to me ...] Memo Louis, Instead of wasting your time listing grievances, I would prefer you complete the items in v1.1 mini-spec, to a satisfactory conclusion. We almost had the website ready for launch until you brought the v1.1 mini-spec into the frame. Obviously I expected you could complete the v1.1 mini-spec in a two-week time frame as you indicated and give the site a more profession presentation. Most of the problems have been caused by you not following our instructions, but deciding to do what you feel like at the time. And then arguing with us how the missing information is not necessary. For instance "Parts and Accessories". Why on earth would you leave out the parts heading, when it ties-in with the fields you have already developed. It replaces "model" and is just as important in the context of information that appears in the "Details" panel. We are at a stage where the the v1.1 mini-spec needs to be completed without further time wasting and the site is complete (subject to all features working). We are on standby at this end to do just that. Let me know when you are back, working on the site and we will process and complete each v1.1 mini-spec, item by item, until the job is complete. 11. [last email from me to client...] hi [client], based on this reply, and your demonstrated unwillingness to compromise/give any ground on issues at hand, i have decided to place your project on-hold for the moment i will be considering further options on how to over-come our challenges over the next few days i will contact you by monday 17/may to discuss any new options i have come up with, and if i believe it is appropriate to restart work on your project at that point or not told you it was long... what do you think?

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  • Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2

    - by pinaldave
    Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 If you have been reading this series of posts about Developer Training, you can probably determine where my mind lies in the matter – firmly “pro.”  There are many reasons to think that training is an excellent idea for the company.  In the end, it may seem like the company gets all the benefits and the employee has just wasted a few hours in a dark, stuffy room.  However, don’t let yourself be fooled, this is not the case! Training, Company and YOU! Do not forget, that as an employee, you are your company’s best asset.  Training is meant to benefit the company, of course, but in the end, YOU, the employee, is the one who walks away with a lot of useful knowledge in your head.  This post will discuss what to do with that knowledge, how to acquire it, and who should pay for it. Eternal Question – Who Pays for Training? When the subject of training comes up, money is often the sticky issue.  Some companies will argue that because the employee is the one who benefits the most, he or she should pay for it.  Of course, whenever money is discuss, emotions tend to follow along, and being told you have to pay money for mandatory training often results in very unhappy employees – the opposite result of what the training was supposed to accomplish.  Therefore, many companies will pay for the training.  However, if your company is reluctant to pay for necessary training, or is hesitant to pay for a specific course that is extremely expensive, there is always the art of compromise.  The employee and the company can split the cost of the training – after all, both the company and the employee will be benefiting. [Click on following image to answer important question] Click to Enlarge  This kind of “hybrid” pay scheme can be split any way that is mutually beneficial.  There is the obvious 50/50 split, but for extremely expensive classes or conferences, this still might be prohibitively expensive for the employee.  If you are facing this situation, here are some example solutions you could suggest to your employer:  travel reimbursement, paid leave, payment for only the tuition.  There are even more complex solutions – the company could pay back the employee after the training and project has been completed. Training is not Vacation Once the classes have been settled on, and the question of payment has been answered, it is time to attend your class or travel to your conference!  The first rule is one that your mothers probably instilled in you as well – have a good attitude.  While you might be looking forward to your time off work, going to an interesting class, hopefully with some friends and coworkers, but do not mistake this time as a vacation.  It can be tempting to only have fun, but don’t forget to learn as well.  I call this “attending sincerely.”  Pay attention, have an open mind and good attitude, and don’t forget to take notes!  You might be surprised how many people will want to see what you learned when you go back. Report Back the Learning When you get back to work, those notes will come in handy.  Your supervisor and coworkers might want you to give a short presentation about what you learned.  Attending these classes can make you almost a celebrity.  Don’t be too nervous about these presentations, and don’t feel like they are meant to be a test of your dedication.  Many people will be genuinely curious – and maybe a little jealous that you go to go learn something new.  Be generous with your notes and be willing to pass your learning on to others through mini-training sessions of your own. [Click on following image to answer important question] Click to Enlarge Practice New Learning On top of helping to train others, don’t forget to put your new knowledge to use!  Your notes will come in handy for this, and you can even include your plans for the future in your presentation when you return.  This is a good way to demonstrate to your bosses that the money they paid (hopefully they paid!) is going to be put to good use. Feedback to Manager When you return, be sure to set aside a few minutes to talk about your training with your manager.  Be perfectly honest – your manager wants to know the good and the bad.  If you had a truly miserable time, do not lie and say it was the best experience – you and others may be forced to attend the same training over and over again!  Of course, you do not want to sound like a complainer, so make sure that your summary includes the good news as well.  Your manager may be able to help you understand more of what they wanted you to learn, too. Win-Win Situation In the end, remember that training is supposed to be a benefit to the employer as well as the employee.  Make sure that you share your information and that you give feedback about how you felt the sessions went as well as how you think this training can be implemented at the company immediately. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • why MVC instead of good old asp.net? Still not grasping why I should go this route??

    - by RJ
    I know this question has been asked before and I read all the answers but they still don't give me the answers I am looking for. I need something concrete. I volunteered to give a presentation on MVC to other developers in our group which forces me to learn it. The big question everyone has is: "What can MVC bring to the table that we can't do in asp.net or MVC can do faster. I have just gone through Nerd Dinner and actually created a complete website that sort of mimics Nerd Dinner. But as great a job that Scott Guthrie did on it, there are big gaps that aren't answered such as, how do I throw a textbox on the listing page with a button and do a simple search. In asp.net, I would throw a textbox, button and grid on the page and bind it to a sproc and away I go. What is the equivalent in MVC. I guess I need a really good tutorial on how to use MVC without using Linq-to-Sql. I know I am sort of babbling on about this but it is a very serious question that still seems to go unanswered. On a side note, the View page of MVC brings back nightmares of classic asp with all the in-line code that we got away from way back when with code behind pages. Yes, MVC has Controller and Model classes which are great but I still don't like the classic asp tags in the html. Help me out here, I really like the concept of MVC and want it to be successful but I need more!

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  • From Bluehost to WP Engine, My WordPress Story

    - by thatjeffsmith
    This is probably the longest blog post I’ve written in a LONG time. And if you’re used to coming here for the Oracle stuff, this post is not about that. It’s about my blog, and the stuff under the hood that makes it run, AKA WordPress. If you want to skip to the juicy stuff, then use these shortcuts: My Site Slowed Down How I Moved to WP Engine How WP Engine ‘Hooked’ Me Why WP Engine? I started thatJeffSmith.com on May 28th, 2010. I had been already been blogging for several years, but a couple of really smart people I respected (Andy, Brent – thanks again!) suggested that I take ownership of my content and begin building my personal brand. I thought that was a good idea, and so I signed up for service with bluehost. Bluehost makes setting up a WordPress site very, very easy. And, they continued to be easy to work with for the past 2 years. I would even recommend them to anyone looking to host their own WordPress install/site. For $83.40, I purchased a year’s worth of service and my domain name registration – a very good value. And then last year I paid $107.40 for another year’s services. And when that year expired I paid another $190.80 for an additional two year’s service in advance. I had been up to that point, getting my money’s worth. And then, just a few weeks ago… My Site Slowed to a Crawl That spike was from an April Fool's Day Post, I think Why? Well, when I first started blogging, I had the same problem that most beginner bloggers have – not many readers. In my first year of blogging, I think the highest number of readers on a single day was about 125. I remember that day as I was very excited to break 100! Bluehost was very reliable, serving up my content with maybe a total of 3-4 outages in the past 2 years. Support was usually very prompt with answers and solutions, and I love their ‘Chat now’ technology – much nicer than message boards only or pay-to-talk phone support. In the past 6 months however, I noticed a couple of things: daily traffic was increasing – woohoo! my service was experiencing severe CPU throttling – doh! To be honest, I wasn’t aware the throttling was occuring, but I did know that the response time of my blog was starting to lag. Average load times were approaching 20-30 seconds. Not good when good sites are loading in 5 seconds or less. And just this past week, in getting ready to launch a new website for work that sucked in an RSS feed from my blog, the new page was left waiting for more than a minute. Not good! In fact my boss asked, why aren’t you blogging on Blogger? Ugh. I tried a few things to fix the problem: I paid for a premium WordPress theme – Themify’s Grido (thanks to @SQLRockstar for the heads-up) I installed a couple of WP caching plugins I read every WP optimization blog post I could get my greedy little eyes on However, at the same time I was also getting addicted to WordPress bloggers talking about all the cool things you could do with your blog. As a result I had at one point about 30 different plugins installed. WordPress runs on MySQL, and certain queries running via these plugins were starving for CPU. Plugins that would be called every page load meant that as more people clicked on my site, the more CPU I needed. I’m not stupid, so I eventually figured out that maybe less plugins was better, and was able to go down to just 20. But still, the site was running like a dog. CPU Throttling, makes MySQL wait to run a query Bluehost runs shared servers. Your site runs on the same box that several hundred (or thousand?) other services are running on. If you take more CPU than they think you should have, they will limit your service by making you stand in line for CPU, AKA ‘throttling.’ This is not bad. This business model allows them to serve many, many users for a very fair price. It works great until, well, until it doesn’t. I noticed in the last week that for every minute of service, I was being throttled between 60 and 300 seconds. If there were 5 MySQL processes running, then every single one of them were being held in check. The blog visitor notice this as their page requests would take a minute or more to be answered. Bluehost unfortunately doesn’t offer dedicated server hosting, so there was no real upgrade path for me follow and remain one of their customers. So what was I to do? Uninstall every plugin and hope the site sped up? Ask for people to take turns on my blog? I decided to spend my way out of the problem. I signed up for service with WP Engine and moved ThatJeffSmith.com The first 2 months are free, and after that it’s about $29/month to run my site on their system. My math tells me that’s a good bit more expensive than what Bluehost was charging me – to the tune of about 300% more a month. Oh, and I should just say that my blog is a personal blog even though I talk about work stuff here. I don’t get paid for blogging, I don’t sell ads, and I don’t expense the service fees – this is my personal passion. So is it worth it? In the first 4 days, it seems to be totally worth it. Load times have gone from 20-30 seconds to less than 5 seconds. A few folks have told me via Twitter that they notice faster page loads. I anticipate this will indirectly lead to more traffic as Google penalizes you in search results if your site is too slow, and of course some folks won’t even bother waiting more than 5-10 seconds. I noticed right away that writing posts, uploading pictures, and just using the WordPress dashboard in general was much more responsive. So writing is less of a chore now, which means I won’t have a good reason not to write How I Moved to WP Engine I signed up for the service and registered my domain. I then took a full export of my ‘old’ site by doing a FTP GET of all my files, then did a MySQL database backup, exported my WordPress Theme settings to a .zip file, and then finally used the WordPress ‘Export’ feature. I then used the WordPress ‘Import’ on the new site to load up my posts. Then I uploaded the theme .zip package from Themify. Then I FTP’d the ‘wp-content’ directory up to my new server using SFTP (WP Engine only supports secure FTP – good on them!) Using a temporary URL to see my new site, I was able to confirm that everything looked mostly OK – I’ll detail the challenges and issues of fixing the content next – but then it was time to ‘flip the switch.’ I updated the IP address that the DNS lookup tables use to route traffic to my new server. In a matter of minutes the DNS servers around the world were updated and it was time to see the new site! But It Was ‘Broken’ I had never moved a website before, and in my rush to update the DNS, I had changed the records without really finding out what I was supposed to do first. After re-reading the directions provided by WP Engine and following the guidance of their support engineer, I realized I had needed to set the CNAME (Alias) ‘www’ record to point to a different URL than the ‘www.thatjeffsmith.com’ entry I had set. Once corrected the site was up and running in less than a minute. Then It Was Only Mostly Broken Many of my plugins weren’t working. Apparently just ftp’ing the wp-content directory up wasn’t the proper way to re-install the plugin. I suspect file permissions or file ownership wasn’t proper. Some plug-ins were working, many had their settings wiped to the defaults, and a few just didn’t work again. I had to delete the directory of the plug-in manually via SFTP, and then use the WP Dashboard to install it from scratch. And here was my first ‘lesson’ – don’t switch the DNS records until you’ve completely tested your new site. I wasn’t able to navigate the old WP console to review my plug-in settings. Thankfully I was able to use the Wayback Machine to reverse engineer some things, and of course most plug-ins aren’t that complicated to setup to begin with. An example of one that I had to redo from scratch is the ‘Twitter @Anywhere Plus’ plugin that I use to create the form that allows folks to tweet a post they enjoyed at the end of each story. How WP Engine ‘Hooked’ Me I actually signed up with another provider first. They ranked highly in Google searches and a few Tweeps recommended them to me. But hours after signing up and I still didn’t have sever reyady, I was ready to give up on them. They offered no chat or phone support – only mail and message boards. And the message boards were rife with posts about how the service had gone downhill in the past 6 months. To their credit, they did make it easy to cancel, although I did have to do so via email as their website ‘cancel’ button was non-existent. Within minutes of activating my WP Engine account I had received my welcome message and directions on how to get started. I was able to see my staged website right away. They also did something very cool before I even got started – they looked at my existing site and told me by how much they could improve its performance. The proof is in the web pudding. I like this for a few reasons, but primarily I liked their business model. It told me they knew what they were doing, and that they were willing to put their money where their mouth was. This was further evident by their 60-day money back guarantee. And if I understand it correctly, they don’t even take your money until after that 60 day period is over. After a day, I was welcomed by the WP Engine social media team, and was given the opportunity to subscribe to their newsletter and follow their account on Twitter. I noticed their Twitter team is sure to post regular WordPress tips several times a day. It’s not just an account that’s setup for the sake of having a Twitter presence. These little things add up and give me confidence in my decision to choose them as my hosting partner. ‘Partner’ – that’s a lot nicer word than just ‘service provider,’ isn’t it? Oh, and they offered me a t-shirt. Don’t ever doubt the power of a ‘free’ t-shirt! How awesome is this e-mail, from a customer perspective? I wasn’t really expecting any of this. Exceeding expectations before I have even handed over a single dollar seems like a pretty good business plan. This is how you treat customers. Love them to death, and they reward you with loyalty. But Jeff, You Skipped a Piece Here, Why WP Engine? I found them on one of those ‘Top 10′ list posts, and pulled up their webpage. I noticed they offered a specialized service – they host WordPress installs, and that’s it. Their servers are tuned specifically for running WordPress. They had in bolded text, things like ‘INSANELY FAST. INFINITELY SCALABLE.’ and ‘LIGHTNING SPEED.’ And then they offered insurance against hackers and they took care of automatic backups and restores. The only drawbacks I have noticed so far relate to plugins I used that have been ‘blacklisted.’ In order to guarantee that ‘lightning’ speed, they have banned the use of the CPU-suckiest plugins. One of those is the ‘Related Posts’ plugin. So if you are a subscriber and are reading this in your email, you’ll notice there’s no links back to my blog to continue reading other related stories. Since that referral traffic is very small single-digit for my site, I decided that I’m OK with that. I’d rather have the warp-speed page loads. Again, I think that will lead to higher traffic down the road. In 50+ days I will need to decide if WP Engine is a permanent solution. I’ll be sure to update this post when that time comes and let y’all know how it turns out.

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  • Adding to App Paths for 'Run' as a non-admin

    - by Cooper
    Is there a way to add a new App Path (for adding commands to Start-Run) without needing Admin? With admin, you can add an App Path to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths. I tried adding one under HKCU with no effect. I've added a new (user-writable) location to my user's PATH environment variable which lets me launch things from Start-Run, but the nerd in me still wants to know about the App Paths.

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  • Codeigniter and Paypal: How it works

    - by Abs
    Hello all, Two random question as I try to integerate Paypal IPN into my Codeigniter based web app. 1) Are these two lines the same? $data['pp_info'] = $this->input->post(); $data['pp_info'] = $_POST; 2) A user agrees to pay a monthly recurring fee to use your service using paypal - first payment you are aware they have paid as you get data returned from paypal. But how do you keep track if users has paid for the following months? How do you know the user has not cancelled from their paypal account? Thanks all for any help

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  • paypal redirect on successful checkout

    - by Graeme Leighfield
    I am trying to get my Paypal subscription to redirect to a custom page after a successful checkout. Before submitting to Paypal I overload the submit handler, run my own function (to store details) and return a unique id. I want to attach that id to my return URL. (as a GET or POST var so to speak) I have turned auto redirect "on" in my Paypal sandbox sellers preferences, but it only seems to re-direct to the URL that I HAVE to put in there. using the <input type="hidden" name="return" value="someurl" /> does no seem to work. I want it this way so that I can capture the user information when entered with a "non-paid" flag, then via the IPN I can update that record with a "PAID" flag, and I want to use the unique ID to tie it all together so to speak. Any advice or a different approach is welcomed. Many thanks!

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  • Different ways to query this search in SQL?

    - by Bart Terrell
    I am teaching myself MS-SQL and I am trying to find different ways to find the Count of Paid and Unpaid Claims for 2012 grouped by Region from these 3 tables. If there is a returned date, the claim is unpaid if the returned date is null then the claim is paid. I will attach the code I have ran, but I am not sure if there are better ways to do it. Thanks. Here is the code: SET dateformat ymd; CREATE TABLE Claims ( ClaimID INT, SubID INT, [Claim Date] DATETIME ); CREATE TABLE Phoneship ( ClaimID INT, [Shipping Number] INT, [Claim Date] DATETIME, [Ship Date] DATETIME, [Returned Date] DATETIME ); CREATE TABLE Enrollment ( SubID INT, Enrollment_Date DATETIME, Channel NVARCHAR(255), Region NVARCHAR(255), Status FLOAT, Drop_Date DATETIME ); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (102, 201, '2011-10-13 00:00:00', '2011-10-14 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (103, 202, '2011-11-02 00:00:00', '2011-11-03 00:00:00', '2011-11-20 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (103, 203, '2011-11-02 00:00:00', '2011-11-22 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (105, 204, '2012-01-16 00:00:00', '2012-01-17 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (106, 205, '2012-02-15 00:00:00', '2012-02-16 00:00:00', '2012-02-26 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (106, 206, '2012-02-15 00:00:00', '2012-02-27 00:00:00', '2012-03-06 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (107, 207, '2012-03-12 00:00:00', '2012-03-13 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (108, 208, '2012-05-11 00:00:00', '2012-05-12 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (109, 209, '2012-05-13 00:00:00', '2012-05-14 00:00:00', '2012-05-28 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (109, 210, '2012-05-13 00:00:00', '2012-05-30 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (101, 12345678, '2011-03-06 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (102, 12347190, '2011-10-13 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (103, 12348723, '2011-11-02 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (104, 12349745, '2011-11-09 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (105, 12347190, '2012-01-16 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (106, 12349234, '2012-02-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (107, 12350767, '2012-03-12 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (108, 12350256, '2012-05-11 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (109, 12347701, '2012-05-13 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (110, 12350256, '2012-05-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (111, 12350767, '2012-06-30 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12345678, '2011-01-05 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12346178, '2011-03-13 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12346679, '2011-05-19 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'Southeast', 0, '2012-03-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12347190, '2011-07-25 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Northeast', 0, '2012-05-21 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12347701, '2011-08-14 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12348212, '2011-09-30 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12348723, '2011-10-20 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12349234, '2012-01-06 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 0, '2012-02-14 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12349745, '2012-01-26 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Northeast', 0, '2012-04-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12350256, '2012-02-11 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12350767, '2012-03-02 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12351278, '2012-04-18 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Midwest', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12351789, '2012-05-08 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 0, '2012-07-04 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12352300, '2012-06-24 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Midwest', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12352811, '2012-06-25 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); And Query1 SELECT Count(ClaimID) AS 'Paid Claim', (SELECT Count(ClaimID) FROM dbo.phoneship WHERE [returned date] IS NOT NULL) AS 'Unpaid Claim' FROM dbo.Phoneship WHERE [Returned Date] IS NULL GROUP BY claimid Query2 SELECT Count(*) AS 'Paid Claims', (SELECT Count(*) FROM dbo.Phoneship WHERE [Returned Date] IS NOT NULL) AS 'Unpaid Claims' FROM dbo.Phoneship WHERE [Returned Date] IS NULL; Query3 Select Distinct(C.[Shipping Number]), Count(C.ClaimID) AS 'COUNT ClaimID', A.Region, A.SubID From dbo.HSEnrollment A Inner Join dbo.Claims B On A.SubId = B.SubId Inner Join dbo.Phoneship C On B.ClaimID = C.ClaimID Where C.[Returned Date] IS NULL Group By A.Region, A.Subid, C.ClaimID, C.[Shipping Number] Order By A.Region

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  • what POIs (Point of Interests) DB can I use for a commercial app

    - by Ellie
    Hi, I need a POI database for a startup project I am working on - it will be a free basic version and a premium paid for version in the sense that user will pay a monthly subscription. I would like to use foursquare type checkin to places and plancast type functionality to search for places (one-line search). Ie I need to: - perform a search for POIs around a location - associate users to that POI, with a time stamp - allow users to add own POIs - provide free-text search for POIs (a la google one-line search) Google API allows great search, but I understand there are limits in number of requests that can be done? This would prevent scaling, and may result in application breaking when too many users. Also what does google T&C say about using this in a paid for service? Openstreetmap I understand does not have these contstraints, but do they also provide a good one-line search type API? Or how could I solve this? Many thanks for any advice, Ellie

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  • Ruby Actions: How to avoid a bunch of returns to halt execution?

    - by Alexandre
    How can I DRY the code below? Do I have to setup a bunch of ELSEs ? I usually find the "if this is met, stop", "if this is met, stop", rather than a bunch of nested ifs. I discovered that redirect_to and render don't stop the action execution... def payment_confirmed confirm_payment do |confirmation| @purchase = Purchase.find(confirmation.order_id) unless @purchase.products_match_order_products?(confirmation.products) # TODO notify the buyer of problems return end if confirmation.status == :completed @purchase.paid! # TODO notify the user of completed purchase redirect_to purchase_path(@purchase) else # TODO notify the user somehow that thigns are pending end return end unless session[:last_purchase_id] flash[:notice] = 'Unable to identify purchase from session data.' redirect_to user_path(current_user) return end @purchase = Purchase.find(session[:last_purchase_id]) if @purchase.paid? redirect_to purchase_path(@purchase) return end # going to show message about pending payment end

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  • Paypal subscribe now button

    - by Bharadwaj
    Hi, I have built an information portal in PHP [Something like a recipe book], where the first few recipes are free to access. The advanced recipes are available only to paid members. I intend to use a simple subscribe now paypal button. When the user clicks on this button, he is directed to paypal website and upon payment redirected to my site. How do I collect the payment information from paypal? I do not want to use a wsdl. I need the information to update my user level field [0 for registered users, 1 for paid users] in the users table. Any pointers? Does IPN do the trick for this? Is there a better solution for this? Thanks, Bharadwaj

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