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  • [ruby] How to convert STDIN contents to an array?

    - by miketaylr
    I've got a file INPUT that has the following contents: 123\n 456\n 789 I want to run my script like so: script.rb < INPUT and have it convert the contents of the INPUT file to an array, splitting on the new line character. So, I'd having something like myArray = [123,456,789]. Here's what I've tried to do and am not having much luck: myArray = STDIN.to_s myArray.split(/\n/) puts field.size I'm expecting this to print 3, but I'm getting 15. I'm really confused here. Any pointers?

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  • Removing a character from JSONObject?

    - by RandomlyKnighted
    My JSONObject has some random characters contained within the string so I'm trying to remove them. I've tried this but with no luck. String result = s.substring(1, s.length() - 2); JSONObject json_data = new JSONObject(result); if (json_data.has("[")) { json_data.remove("["); } if (json_data.has("]")) { json_data.remove("]"); } if (json_data.has(",")) { json_data.remove(","); } It's still not removing the characters from the JSONObject. Am I checking the JSONObject for the characters incorrectly?

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  • Show the specific field on mysql table based on active date

    - by mrjimoy_05
    Suppose that I have 3 tables: A) Table UsrHeader ----------------- UsrID | UsrName ----------------- 1 | Abc 2 | Bcd B) Table UsrDetail ------------------------------- UsrID | UsrLoc | Date ------------------------------- 1 | LocA | 10 Aug 2012 1 | LocB | 15 Aug 2012 2 | LocA | 10 Aug 2012 C) Table Trx ----------------------------- TrxID | TrxDate | UsrID ----------------------------- 1 | 10 Aug 2012 | 1 2 | 16 Aug 2012 | 1 3 | 11 Aug 2012 | 2 What I want to do is to show the table like: --------------------------------------- TrxID | TrxDate | UsrID | UsrLoc --------------------------------------- 1 | 10 Aug 2012 | 1 | LocA 2 | 16 Aug 2012 | 1 | LocB 3 | 11 Aug 2012 | 2 | LocA Notice that there is one user but different location. That's based on the UsrDetail table that the user on a specified date has moved to another location. So, it should be show the user specific location on that date on every transaction. I have try this code but it is no luck: SELECT trx.TrxID, trx.TrxDate, trx.UsrID, User.UsrName, User.UsrLoc FROM trx INNER JOIN ( SELECT UsrHeader.UsrID, UsrHeader.UsrName, UserDetail.UsrLoc FROM UsrHeader INNER JOIN ( SELECT UsrDetail.UsrID, UsrDetail.UsrLoc, UsrDetail.Date FROM UsrDetail ) AS UserDetail ON UserDetail.UsrID = UsrHeader.UsrID ) AS User ON User.UsrID = trx.UsrID AND trx.TrxDate >= User.Date How to do that? Thanks..

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  • match word '90%' using regular expression

    - by amadhu
    Hi All, I want word '90%' to be matched with my String "I have 90% shares of this company". how can I write regular expression for same? I tried something like this: Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\b90\\%\\b", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE); Matcher m = p.matcher("I have 90% shares of this company"); while (m.find()){ System.out.println(m.group()); } but no luck. Can any one thow some lights on this? Many thanks, Archi

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  • Installing the Updated XP Mode which Requires no Hardware Virtualization

    - by Mysticgeek
    Good news for those of you who have a computer without Hardware Virtualization, Microsoft had dropped the requirement so you can now run XP Mode on your machine. Here we take a look at how to install it and getting working on your PC. Microsoft has dropped the requirement that your CPU supports Hardware Virtualization for XP Mode in Windows 7. Before this requirement was dropped, we showed you how to use SecureAble to find out if your machine would run XP Mode. If it couldn’t, you might have gotten lucky with turning Hardware Virtualization on in your BIOS, or getting an update that would enable it. If not, you were out of luck or would need a different machine. Note: Although you no longer need Hardware Virtualization, you still need Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate version of Windows 7. Download Correct Version of XP Mode For this article we’re installing it on a Dell machine that doesn’t support Hardware Virtualization on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit version. The first thing you’ll want to do is go to the XP Mode website and select your edition of Windows 7 and language. Then there are three downloads you’ll need to get from the page. Windows XP Mode, Windows Virtual PC, and the Windows XP Mode Update (All Links Below). Windows genuine validation is required before you can download the XP Mode files. To make the validation process easier you might want to use IE when downloading these files and validating your version of Windows. Installing XP Mode After validation is successful the first thing to download and install is XP Mode, which is easy following the wizard and accepting the defaults. The second step is to install KB958559 which is Windows Virtual PC.   After it’s installed, a reboot is required. After you’ve come back from the restart, you’ll need to install KB977206 which is the Windows XP Mode Update.   After that’s installed, yet another restart of your system is required. After the update is configured and you return from the second reboot, you’ll find XP Mode in the Start menu under the Windows Virtual PC folder. When it launches accept the license agreement and click Next. Enter in your log in credentials… Choose if you want Automatic Updates or not… Then you’re given a message saying setup will share the hardware on your computer, then click Start Setup. While setup completes, you’re shown a display of what XP Mode does and how to use it. XP Mode launches and you can now begin using it to run older applications that are not compatible with Windows 7. Conclusion This is a welcome news for many who want the ability to use XP Mode but didn’t have the proper hardware to do it. The bad news is users of Home versions of Windows still don’t get to enjoy the XP Mode feature officially. However, we have an article that shows a great workaround – Create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Versions & Vista. Download XP Mode, Windows Virtual PC, and Windows XP Mode Update Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Our Look at XP Mode in Windows 7Run XP Mode on Windows 7 Machines Without Hardware VirtualizationInstall XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUnderstanding the New Hyper-V Feature in Windows Server 2008How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of) TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10 New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV Replace Your Windows Task Manager With System Explorer

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  • Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Superman

    - by Pinal Dave
    I enjoyed comparing developers to Spiderman so much, that I have decided to continue the trend and encourage some of my favorite people (developers) with another favorite superhero – Superman.  Superman is probably the most famous superhero – and one of the most inspiring. Everyone has their own favorite, but Superman has been the longest enduring of all comic book characters.  Clark Kent has inspired multiple movie series, TV shows, books, cartoons, and costumes.  Superman’s enduring popularity has been attributed to his superhuman strength, integrity, dedication to good, and his humility in keeping his identity a secret. So how are developers like Superman? Well, read on my list of reasons. Secret Identities They have secret identities.  I’m not saying that all developers wear thick glasses and go by an alias like “Clark Kent.”  But developers certainly work in the background, making sure everything runs smoothly, often without recognition.  Like Superman, when they have done their job right, no one knows they were there. Working Alone You don’t have to work alone.  Superman doesn’t have a sidekick like Robin or Bat Girl, but he is a major player in the Justice League.  Developers have amazing skills, and they shouldn’t be afraid to unite those skills to solve some of the world’s major problems (like slow networks). Daily Inspiration Developers are inspiring.  Clark Kent works at The Daily Planet, Metropolis’ newspaper, which is lucky because he can keep some of the publicity Superman inspires under wraps.  Developers might go unnoticed sometimes, but when people hear about some of the tasks they accomplish on a daily basis, it inspires awe. Discover Your Superpowers You have to discover your superpowers.  Clark Kent didn’t just wake up one morning with the full understanding that he could fly, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and was stronger than a speeding locomotive.  He slowly discovered these powers (after a few comic book-worthy misunderstandings!).  Developers are always learning and growing as well.  You probably won’t wake up with super powers, either, but years of practice and continuing education can get you close. Every Day is a New Day The story continues.  The Superman comic books are still being printed, and have been in print since 1938.  There have been two TV series, (one, Smallville, was on TV for ten seasons) and multiple cartoon adaptations.  There have been multiple movies, with many different actors.  A new reboot came out last year, and another is set to premier in 2016.   So, developers, when you are having a bad day or a problem seems unsolvable – remember, the story will continue!  There is always tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying reading about developers-as-superheroes as much as I am enjoying writing about them.  Please tell me how else developers are like Superheroes in the comments – especially if you know any developers who are faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Developer, Superhero

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  • SQL SERVER – Free Print Book on SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Kit

    - by pinaldave
    Rick Morelan and I were discussing earlier this month that what we can give back to the community. We believe our books are very much successful and very well received by the community. The five books are a journey from novice to expert. The books have changed many lives and helped many get jobs as well pass the SQL Certifications. Rick is from Seattle, USA and I am from Bangalore, India. There are 12 hours difference between us. We try to do weekly meeting to catch up on various personal and SQL related topics. Here is one of our recent conversations. Rick and Pinal Pinal: Good Morning Rick! Rick: Good Morning…err… Good Evening to you – Pinal! Pinal: Hey Rick, did you read the recent email which I sent you – one of our reader is thanking us for writing Joes 2 Pros series. He wants to dedicate his success to us. Can you believe it? Rick: Yeah, he is very kind but did you tell him that it is all because of his hard work on learning subject and we have very little contribution in his success. Pinal: Absolutely, I told him the same – I said we just wrote the book but it is he who learned from it and proved himself in his job. It is all him! We were just igniters. Rick: Good response. Pinal: Hey Rick! Are we doing enough for the community? What can we do more? Rick: Hmmm… Let us do something more. Pinal: Remember once we discussed the idea of if anyone who buys our Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit in the next 2 weeks – we will send them SQL Wait Stats for free. What do you say? Rick: I agree! Great Idea! Let us do it. Free Giveaway Well Rick and I liked the idea of doing more. We have decided to give away free SQL Server Wait Stats books to everybody who will purchase Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit between today (Oct 15, 2012) and Oct 26, 2012. This is not a contest or a lucky winner opportunity. Everybody who participates will qualify for it. Combo Availability USA – Amazon India - Flipkart | Indiaplaza Note1: USA kit contains FREE 5 DVDs. India Kit does not contain 5 DVDs due to legal issues. Note2: Indian Kit is priced at special Indian Economic Price. Qualify for Free Giveaway You must have purchased our Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit of 5 books between Oct 15, 2012 and Oct 26, 2012. Purchase before Oct 15, 2012 and after Oct 26, 2012 will not qualify for this giveaway. Send your original receipt (email, order details) to following addresses: “[email protected];[email protected]” with the subject line “Joes 2 Pros Kit Promotion Free Offer”. Do not change the subject line or your email may be missed.  Clearly mention your shipping address with phone number and pin/zip code. Send your receipt before Oct 30, 2012. We will not entertain any conversation after Oct 30, 2012 cut off date. The Free books will be sent to USA and India address only. Availability USA - Amazon | India - Flipkart | Indiaplaza Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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  • Know Your Audience, And/Or Your Customer

    - by steve.diamond
    Yesterday I gave an internal presentation to about 20 Oracle employees on "messaging," not messaging technology, but embarking on the process of building messages. One of the elements I covered was the importance of really knowing and understanding your audience. As a humorous reference I included two side-by-side photos of Oakland A's fans and Oakland Raiders fans. The Oakland A's fans looked like happy-go-lucky drunk types. The Oakland Raiders fans looked like angry extras from a low budget horror flick. I then asked my presentation attendees what these two groups had in common. Here's what I heard. --They're human (at least I THINK they're human). --They're from Oakland. --They're sports fans. After that, it was anyone's guess. A few days earlier we were putting the finishing touches on a sales presentation for one of our product lines. We had included an upfront "lead in" addressing how the economy is improving, yet that doesn't mean sales executives will have any more resources to add to their teams, invest in technology, etc. This "lead in" included miscellaneous news article headlines and statistics validating the slowly improving economy. When we subjected this presentation to internal review two days ago, this upfront section in particular was scrutinized. "Is the economy really getting better? I (exclamation point) don't think it's really getting better. Haven't you seen the headlines coming out of Greece and Europe?" Then the question TO ME became, "Who will actually be in the audience that sees and hears this presentation? Will s/he be someone like me? Or will s/he be someone like the critic who didn't like our lead-in?" We took the safe route and removed that lead in. After all, why start a "pitch" with a component that is arguably subjective? What if many of our audience members are individuals at organizations still facing a strong headwind? For reasons I won't go into here, it was the right decision to make. The moral of the story: Make sure you really know your audience. Harness the wisdom of the information your organization's CRM systems collect to get that fully informed "customer view." Conduct formal research. Conduct INFORMAL research. Ask lots of questions. Study industries and scenarios that have nothing to do with yours to see "how they do it." Stop strangers in coffee shops and on the street...seriously. Last week I caught up with an old friend from high school who recently retired from a 25 year career with the USMC. He said, "I can learn something from every single person I come into contact with." What a great way of approaching the world. Then, think about and write down what YOU like and dislike as a customer. But also remember that when it comes to your company's products, you are most likely NOT the customer, so don't go overboard in superimposing your own world view. Approaching the study of customers this way adds rhyme, reason and CONTEXT to lengthy blog posts like this one. Know your audience.

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  • WEB203 &ndash; Jump into Silverlight!&hellip; and Become Effective Immediately with Tim Huckaby, Fou

    - by Robert Burger
    Getting ready for the good stuff. Definitely wish there were more Silverlight and WCF RIA sessions, but this is a start.  Was lucky to get a coveted power-enabled seat.  Luckily, due to my trustily slow Verizon data card, I can get these notes out amidst a total Internet outage here.  This is the second breakout session of the day, and is by far standing-room only.  I stepped out before the session started to get a cool Diet COKE and wouldn’t have gotten back in if I didn’t already have a seat. Tim says this is an intro session and that he’s been begging for intro sessions at TechEd for years and that by looking at this audience, he thinks the demand is there.  Admittedly, I didn’t know this was an intro session, or I might have gone elsewhere.  But, it was the very first Silverlight session, so I had to be here. Tim says he will be providing a very good comprehensive reference application at the end of the presentation.  He has just demoed it, and it is a full CRUD-based Sales Manager application based on…  AdventureWorks! Session Agenda What it is / How to get started Declarative Programming Layout and Controls, Events and Commands Working with Data Adding Style to Your Application   Silverlight…  “WPF Light” Why is the download 4.2MB?  Because the direct competitor is a 4.2MB download.  There is no technical reason it is not the entire framework.  It is purely to “be competitive”.   Getting Started Get all of the following downloads from www.silverlight.net/getstarted Install VS2010 or Visual Web Developer Express 2010 Install Silverlight 4 Tools for VS2010 Install Expression Blend 4 Install the Silverlight 4 Toolkit   Reference Application Features Uses MVVM pattern – a way to move data access code that would normally be inline within the UI and placing it in nice data access libraries Images loaded dynamically from the database, converting GIF to PNG because Silverlight does not support GIF. LINQ to SQL is the data access model WCF is the data provider and is using binary message encoding   Declarative Programming XAML replaces code for UI representation Attributes control Layout and Style Event handlers wired-up in XAML Declarative Data Binding   Layout Overview Content rendering flows inside of parent Fixed positioning (Canvas) is seldom used Panels are used to house content Margins and Padding over fixed size   Panels StackPanel – Arranges child elements into a single line oriented horizontally or vertically Grid – A flexible grid are that consists of rows and columns Canvas – An are where positions are specifically fixed WrapPanel (in Toolkit) – Positions child elements in sequential position left to right and top to bottom. DockPanel (in Toolkit) – Positions child controls within a dockable area   Positioning Horizontal and Vertical Alignment Margin – Separates an element from neighboring elements Padding – Enlarges the effective size of an element by a thickness   Controls Overview Not all controls created equal Silverlight, as a subset of WPF, so many WPF controls do not exist in the core Siverlight release Silverlight Toolkit continues to add controls, but are released in different quality bands Plenty of good 3rd party controls to fill the gaps Windows Phone 7 is to have 95% of controls available in Silverlight Core and Toolkit.   Events and Commands Standard .NET Events Routed Events Commands – based on the ICommand interface – logical action that can be invoked in several ways   Adding Style to Your Application Resource Dictionaries – Contains a hash table of key/value pairs.  Silverlight can only use Static Resources whereas WPF can also use Dynamic Resources Visual State Manager Silverlight 4 supports Implicit styles ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries combines many different file-based resources   Downloads

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  • Friday Fun: Spell Blazer

    - by Asian Angel
    Are you ready for some fun and adventure after a long week back at work? This week’s game combines jewel-matching style game play with an RPG story for an awesome mix of fun and fiction. Your goal is to help a young wizard reach the magic academy in Raven as the forces of darkness are building. Spell Blazer The object of the game is to help young Kaven reach the Lightcaster Academy in Raven alive, but he will encounter many dangers along the way. Are you ready to begin the quest? As soon as you click Start Game the intro will automatically begin. If this is your first time playing the game the intro provides a nice background story for the game and what is happening in the game environment. Once you are past the intro, you will see a map of the region with your starting point in the Farmlands, various towns and the roads connecting them, along with your final destination of Raven. Notice that some of the roads are different colors…those colors indicate the “danger levels” for each part of your journey (green = good, yellow = some danger, etc.). To begin your journey click on the Town of Goose with your mouse. You will encounter your first monster part of the way towards Goose. This first round takes you through the game play process step-by-step. Once you have clicked Okay you will see the details about the monster you have just encountered. It is very important that you do not click on Fight! or Flee! until viewing and noting the types of spells that the monster is resistant to or has a weakness against. Choose your spells wisely based on the information provided about the monster. Keep in mind that the healing spell can be very useful depending on the monster you meet and your current health status. Note: Spells shown in order here are Healing, Fireball, Icebolt, & Lightning. Ready to fight! The first battle will also explain how to fight…click Okay to get started. Once the main window is in full view there are details that you need to look at. Beneath each of the combatants you will see the three attacks that each brings to the battle and at the bottom you will see their respective health points. We got lucky and had an Icebolt attack that we could utilize on the first play! Note: You can exchange two squares without making a match in order to try and line up an attack. While it happened too quickly to capture in our screenshot, there will be cool lightning bolt effects shoot out from matched up squares to the opposite combatant. You will also see the amount of damage inflicted from a particular attack on top of the avatars. Victory! Once you have won a round of combat a window will appear showing the amount of gold coins left behind by the monster. When you reach a town you will have the opportunity to stop over and rest or directly continue on with your journey. On to Halgard after a good rest! Play Spell Blazer Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video] Convert or View Documents Online Easily with Zoho, No Account Required Build a Floor Scrubbing Robot out of Computer Fans and a Frisbee Serene Blue Windows Wallpaper for Your Desktop 2011 International Space Station Calendar Available for Download (Free) Ultimate Elimination – Lego Black Ops [Video]

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  • PDF Converter Elite Giveaway – Lets you create, convert and edit any type of PDF with ease

    - by Gopinath
    Are you looking for a PDF editing software that lets you create, edit and convert  any type of PDF with ease? Then here is a chance for you to win a lifetime free license of PDF Converter Elite software. Tech Dreams in partnership with pdfconverter.com  brings a giveaway contest exclusively for our readers. Continue reading to know the features of the application and giveaway contest details Adobe Acrobat  is the best software for creating, editing and converting PDF files, but you need spend a lot of money to buy it. PDF Converter Elite, which is priced at $100 has a rich set of features that satisfies most of your PDF management needs. Here is a quick run down of the feature of the application Create PDF files from almost every popular Windows file format – You can create a PDF  from almost 300 popular file formats supported by Windows. Want to convert a word document to PDF? It’s just a click away. How about converting Excels, PowerPoint presentations, text files, images, etc? Yes, with a single click you will be able to turn them to PDF Files. Convert PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, HTML – This is one of the best features i liked in this software. You can convert a PDF to any MS Office file format without loosing alignment and quality of the document. The converted documents looks exactly same as your PDF documents and you would be surprised to see near 100% layout replication in the converted document. I feel in love with the perfection at which the files are converted. Edit PDF files easily – You can rework with your PDF documents by inserting watermarks, numbers, headers, footers and more. Also you will be able to merge two PDF files, overlay pages, remove unwanted pages, split a single PDF in to multiple files. Secure PDF files by setting password – You can secure PDF files by limiting how others can use them – set password to open the documents, restrict various activities like printing, copy & paste, screen reading, form filling, etc.. If you are looking for an affordable PDF editing application then PDF Converter Elite is there for you. 10 x PDF Converter Elite Licenses Giveaway Here comes the details on wining a free single user license for our readers – we have 10 PDF Converter Elite single user licenses worth of $100 each. To win a license all you need to do is Like Tech Dreams Fan page on Facebook Tweet or Like this post – buttons are available just below the post heading in the top section of this page Finally drop a comment on how you would like to use PDF Converter Elite We will choose 10 winners through a lucky draw and the licenses will be sent to them in a personal email. Names of the winners will also be announced on Tech Dreams. So are you ready to grab a free copy of PDF Converter worth of $100?

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  • The Oscar of Java Programming

    - by Tori Wieldt
    Why bother nominating a peer, yourself or your company for a Duke's Choice Award? I asked Duke's Choice Award winner Fabiane Nardon, whose team won in 2005 for the Healthcare Information System they created for the Brazilian government, what it was like winning the award and if it had any impact on her career. Here's what she told me: 1) What was it like to win a Duke's Choice Award? For me it was like winning an Oscar or a Grammy :-) I think that for a Java developer, a Duke's Choice Award is probably the highest award you can get, so it was really an honor. We had an amazing team working on that project and the team really deserved it. We were all very happy when we got that email with the announcement. That moment was one of the most important moments of my career. 2) What benefits have you gotten from being a "Duke's Choice Award Winner?" I think the most important benefit you get from winning a Duke is the fact that you become known by your peers. This opens many doors, since you are approached by more people, get invitations to speak in more conferences, you meet people with the same technical interests you have and so on. I certainly benefited a lot from it. We were lucky that in 2005, when we got our award, the winners were featured in the JavaOne keynote, with short documentaries produced about each one. So, we could be on the stage and talk a little about the project. We got lots of press at the time. We see  today's winners benefiting a lot from the press coverage. 3) How is the the Brazilian Healthcare Information System project doing today? Still running and getting new features every year. I'm not involved on the project anymore, but there are good people taking care of it. We opened the code since the beginning, so different cities could use and add features to it. There are many new developers working on that code base right now and I hope they can take the whole system to a new level. 4) What are you up to these days? I worked in the healthcare field for many years and a few years ago I decided that it was time to move on and take the experience I got designing large scale and mission critical systems to other fields. Since then I have been working with high access internet applications. I also co-founded ToolsCloud, a company that provides a development environment with open source tools in the cloud. We just launched ToolsCloud in USA, so other companies can get the same bundle of tools, hassle free, that several companies are successfully using in Brazil. Besides that, right now I'm personally working on the coolest project I ever worked on. It combines several technical challenges with a good dose of social impact. We should launch it in the second semester and I should keep it as a secret for now. Hopefully it will be useful to many people and disruptive enough to maybe get us a new Duke's Choice Award. Who knows? Read more about Fabiane in the "Heroes of Java" series by Markus Eisele. Her Twitter handle is @FabianeNardon. The Duke's Choice Awards celebrate extreme innovation in the world of Java technology. Nominate an individual, a group or company who show the best in Java innovation. Nominate via the easy online form at www.Java.net/dukeschoice. Nominations are open until June 15, 2012.

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  • A view from the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon

    - by Rob Foster
    I want to break away from my usual topic of something technical and talk about what I experienced tonight while working in the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon, which was broadcast on WSMV, CNN, and The Weather Channel.  We started receiving calls about 7pm local time and to be honest, I had no idea what to expect when going into this.  I mean, I'm a pretty good talker, but this is different...We had a good script of what to say and how we were supposed to say it, as well as paper forms and pens that we used to collect information from people who wanted to donate their money to help.  I took my first few calls pretty easily and it went pretty quick and easy.  Everyone was upbeat and happy to be in the call center as well as people happy to be donating money. Pizza, snacks, and soft drinks were flowing well.  Everyone is smiling and happy.  :) About 3 or 4 calls into my night, I got a call from a lady that had lost 2 family members in West Nashville who drowned in the floods.  She was crying when she called and I of course tried to console her.  She told me how bad her situation was, losing family members and much of her neighborhood.  After all this, she still just wanted to help other people.  She was donating all the money that she could to the telethon and I want to share a direct quote from her: "I want to donate this instead of buying flowers for my family members' funeral because people out there need help.". Please let me pause while I get myself together <again>.  That caught me so off guard (and still does). I had kids calling wanting to donate their allowance, open their piggy banks, whatever they could do.  These are kids.  Kids not much older than my boys.  Kids who should be focused on buying the next cool video game or toy or whatever but wanted to do something.  Everyone just seemed to want to help. I took calls from as far away as British Columbia as well and pretty much coast to coast.  how cool is that? Yet another thing that caught me off guard.  This kind lady that called from British Columbia told me how much she loved visiting Nashville and just hated to see this happen.  I belive that she said that she will be attending the CMA Fest this year too.  I was sure to tell her not to cancel her plans!  :) It felt like every call I took (and I took A LOT, as did everyone else) was very personal and heartfelt.  I've never had the privelage to do anything like this and fell lucky to have been able to help out with answering phones and logging donations.  Nashville will bounce back very quickly, people are out there day and night helping each other, and the spirits are very high here.  I hope that one day, my kids read this blog and better understand who they are, where they come from, and what the human spirt is and can be.  I love this city, I love the people here, I love the culture and even more than ever am proud to say that this is me.  This is us.  We are Nashville!

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  • Framework 4 Features: Login Id Support

    - by Anthony Shorten
    Given that Oracle Utilities Application Framework 4 is available as part of Mobile Work Force Management and other product progressively I am preparing a number of short but sweet blog entries highlighting some of the new functionality that has been implemented. This is the first entry and it is on a new security feature called Login Id. In past releases of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework, the userid used for authentication and authorization was limited to eight (8) characters in length. This mirrored what the market required in the past with LAN userids and even legacy userids being that length. The technology market has since progressed to longer userid lengths. It is very common to hear that email addresses are being used as credentials for production systems. To achieve this in past versions of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework, sites had to introduce a short userid (8 characters in length) as an alias in your preferred security store. You then configured your J2EE Web Application Server to use the alias as credentials. This sometimes was a standard feaure of the security store and/or the J2EE Web Application Server, if you were lucky. If not, some java code has to be written to implement the solution. In Oracle Utilities Application Framework 4 we introduced a new attribute on the user object called Login Id. The Login Id can be up to 256 characters in length and is an alternative to the existing userid stored on the user object. This means the Oracle Utilities Application Framework can support both long and short userids. For backward compatibility we use the Login Id for authentication but the short userid for authorization and auditing. The user object within the Oracle Utilities Application Framework holds the translation. Backward compatibility is always a consideration in any of our designs for future or changed functionality. You will see reference to this fact in the blog entries I will be composing over the next few months. We have also thought about the flexibility in implementing this feature. The Login Id can be the same value of the Userid (the default for backward compatibility) or can be different. Both the Login Id and Userid have to be unique. This avoids sharing of credentials and is also backward compatible. You can manually enter the Login Id or provision it from Oracle Identity Manager (or other tool). If you use the Login Id only, then we will not autogenerate a short userid automatically as the rules for this can vary from site to site. You have a number of options there. Most Identity provisioning tools can generate a short userid at user creation time and this can be used. If you do not use provisioning tools, then you can write a class extension using the SDK to autoegenerate the userid based upon your sites preference. When we designed the feature there were lots of styles of generating userids (random, initial and surname, numbers etc). We could not really see a clear winner in that respect so we just allowed the extension to be inserted in if necessary. Most customers indicated to us that identity provisioning was the preferred way. This is why we released an Oracle Identity Manager integration with the framework. The Login id is case sensitive now which was not supported under userid. The introduction of the Login Id allows the product to offer flexible options when configuring security whilst maintaining backward compatibility.

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  • Joy! | Important Information About Your iPad 3G

    - by Jeff Julian
    Looks like I was one of the lucky 114,000 who AT&T lost their email to “hackers”.  Why is “hackers” in “double quotes”.  I can just imagine some executive at AT&T in their “Oh No, We Messed Up Meeting” saying, what happened?  Then someone replied, well we have had a breach and “hackers” broke in (using the quote in the air gesture) and stole our iPad 3G customers emails. Oh well, I am sure my email has been sold and sold again by many different vendors, why not AT&T now.  At least Dorothy Attwood could have gave us her email to give to someone else instead of blinking it through a newsletter system. June 13, 2010 Dear Valued AT&T Customer, Recently there was an issue that affected some of our customers with AT&T 3G service for iPad resulting in the release of their customer email addresses. I am writing to let you know that no other information was exposed and the matter has been resolved.  We apologize for the incident and any inconvenience it may have caused. Rest assured, you can continue to use your AT&T 3G service on your iPad with confidence. Here’s some additional detail: On June 7 we learned that unauthorized computer “hackers” maliciously exploited a function designed to make your iPad log-in process faster by pre-populating an AT&T authentication page with the email address you used to register your iPad for 3G service.  The self-described hackers wrote software code to randomly generate numbers that mimicked serial numbers of the AT&T SIM card for iPad – called the integrated circuit card identification (ICC-ID) – and repeatedly queried an AT&T web address.   When a number generated by the hackers matched an actual ICC-ID, the authentication page log-in screen was returned to the hackers with the email address associated with the ICC-ID already populated on the log-in screen. The hackers deliberately went to great efforts with a random program to extract possible ICC-IDs and capture customer email addresses.  They then put together a list of these emails and distributed it for their own publicity. As soon as we became aware of this situation, we took swift action to prevent any further unauthorized exposure of customer email addresses.  Within hours, AT&T disabled the mechanism that automatically populated the email address. Now, the authentication page log-in screen requires the user to enter both their email address and their password. I want to assure you that the email address and ICC-ID were the only information that was accessible. Your password, account information, the contents of your email, and any other personal information were never at risk.  The hackers never had access to AT&T communications or data networks, or your iPad.  AT&T 3G service for other mobile devices was not affected. While the attack was limited to email address and ICC-ID data, we encourage you to be alert to scams that could attempt to use this information to obtain other data or send you unwanted email. You can learn more about phishing by visiting the AT&T website. AT&T takes your privacy seriously and does not tolerate unauthorized access to its customers’ information or company websites.   We will cooperate with law enforcement in any investigation of unauthorized system access and to prosecute violators to the fullest extent of the law. AT&T acted quickly to protect your information – and we promise to keep working around the clock to keep your information safe.  Thank you very much for your understanding, and for being an AT&T customer. Sincerely, Dorothy Attwood Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer for AT&T Technorati Tags: AT&T,iPad 3G,Email

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  • SQL SERVER – Puzzle #1 – Querying Pattern Ranges and Wild Cards

    - by Pinal Dave
    Note: Read at the end of the blog post how you can get five Joes 2 Pros Book #1 and a surprise gift. I have been blogging for almost 7 years and every other day I receive questions about Querying Pattern Ranges. The most common way to solve the problem is to use Wild Cards. However, not everyone knows how to use wild card properly. SQL Queries 2012 Joes 2 Pros Volume 1 – The SQL Queries 2012 Hands-On Tutorial for Beginners Book On Amazon | Book On Flipkart Learn SQL Server get all the five parts combo kit Kit on Amazon | Kit on Flipkart Many people know wildcards are great for finding patterns in character data. There are also some special sequences with wildcards that can give you even more power. This series from SQL Queries 2012 Joes 2 Pros® Volume 1 will show you some of these cool tricks. All supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. This example is from the SQL 2012 series Volume 1 in the file SQLQueries2012Vol1Chapter2.2Setup.sql. If you need help setting up then look in the “Free Videos” section on Joes2Pros under “Getting Started” called “How to install your labs” Querying Pattern Ranges The % wildcard character represents any number of characters of any length. Let’s find all first names that end in the letter ‘A’. By using the percentage ‘%’ sign with the letter ‘A’, we achieve this goal using the code sample below: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName LIKE '%A' To find all FirstName values beginning with the letters ‘A’ or ‘B’ we can use two predicates in our WHERE clause, by separating them with the OR statement. Finding names beginning with an ‘A’ or ‘B’ is easy and this works fine until we want a larger range of letters as in the example below for ‘A’ thru ‘K’: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName LIKE 'A%' OR FirstName LIKE 'B%' OR FirstName LIKE 'C%' OR FirstName LIKE 'D%' OR FirstName LIKE 'E%' OR FirstName LIKE 'F%' OR FirstName LIKE 'G%' OR FirstName LIKE 'H%' OR FirstName LIKE 'I%' OR FirstName LIKE 'J%' OR FirstName LIKE 'K%' The previous query does find FirstName values beginning with the letters ‘A’ thru ‘K’. However, when a query requires a large range of letters, the LIKE operator has an even better option. Since the first letter of the FirstName field can be ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’, ‘J’ or ‘K’, simply list all these choices inside a set of square brackets followed by the ‘%’ wildcard, as in the example below: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName LIKE '[ABCDEFGHIJK]%' A more elegant example of this technique recognizes that all these letters are in a continuous range, so we really only need to list the first and last letter of the range inside the square brackets, followed by the ‘%’ wildcard allowing for any number of characters after the first letter in the range. Note: A predicate that uses a range will not work with the ‘=’ operator (equals sign). It will neither raise an error, nor produce a result set. --Bad query (will not error or return any records) SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName = '[A-K]%' Question: You want to find all first names that start with the letters A-M in your Customer table and end with the letter Z. Which SQL code would you use? a. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE 'm%z' b. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE 'a-m%z' c. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE 'a-m%z' d. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]%z' e. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]z%' f. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]%z' g. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]z%' Contest Leave a valid answer before June 18, 2013 in the comment section. 5 winners will be selected from all the valid answers and will receive Joes 2 Pros Book #1. 1 Lucky person will get a surprise gift from Joes 2 Pros. The contest is open for all the countries where Amazon ships the book (USA, UK, Canada, India and many others). Special Note: Read all the options before you provide valid answer as there is a small trick hidden in answers. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Antenna Aligner Part 7: Connecting the dots

    - by Chris George
    The app is basically ready, so I eagerly started to sort out creating the application entry in iTunes Connect. It's mostly intuitive actually, although I did have to create yet another icon for iTunes sized 512x512 pixels, damn lucky I did the original graphics as vector! It took me longer to write the application description than anything else, I'm so not a tech author! I didn't like the way you have to 'make up' an SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) number. I have to do some googling to find out that it really doesn't matter what it is! It should be more obvious what to do from the actual website itself. That aside, the rest of it was actually fairly straightforward. As well as the details of the application, iPhone and iPad screenshots were also required. This posed somewhat of a problem. The iPhone ones were easy (as I have one!), but I do not (yet) own an iPad . So I thought I'd leave the iPad screenshots out for now. Once the application details were sorted, I moved onto the rights and pricing. At the start of the project I had made the decision that I wouldn't charge any more than the lowest amount £0.59. I believe there is a market for this, but as my first foray into app development I didn't want to take the mick. I did realise, however, that I had built my app with a developer certificate and provisioning profile. This was fairly quickly corrected, and again Nomad made this very easy to switch over to the distribution certificate and provisioning profile. With a sense of excitement I cracked open iTunes connect and clicked the upload button ... ...slight snag... . when the Nomad project was started, Apple allowed uploads of these binaries via iTunes Connect. But this is no longer possible, the only upload path is via the Application Loader available from the Apple Developer program. This itself has one limitation, it only runs on a mac! D'OH!!!  Actually my language was somewhat more colourful when this fact came to light. After picking my laptop up off the floor and putting it back together... ok only joking, but I did nearly throw it out of frustration!... I started to consider the options; I briefly entertained the idea of buying a cheap mac from ebay... no, that defeats the whole object of what I'm doing, plus my wife wouldn't be impressed there are some guys out there in the interweb who will upload your app for a small fee...but I don't really like the idea of giving some faceless email address my apple developer login details, as well as my app binary! find some willing friend with a mac who would kindly let me use it... obviously this is the only sensible option. In the meantime, I informed the Nomad team about this slight 'issue' and they are currently investigating possible solutions...

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  • How to recover after embarrassing yourself and your company?

    - by gaearon
    I work in an outsourcing company in Russia, and one of our clients is a financial company located in USA. For the last six months I have been working on several projects for this particular company, and as I was being assigned a larger project, I was invited to work onsite in USA in order to understand and learn the new system. Things didn't work out as well as I hoped because the environment was messy after original developers, and I had to spent quite some time to understand the quirks. However we managed to do the release several days ago, and it looks like everything's going pretty smooth. From technical perspective, my client seems to be happy with me. My solutions seem to work, and I always try to add some spark of creativity to what I do. However I'm very disorganized in a certain sense, as I believe many of you fellas are. Let me note that my current job is my first job ever, and I was lucky enough to get a job with flexible schedule, meaning I can come in and out of the office whenever I want as long as I have 40 hours a week filled. Sometimes I want to hang out with friends in the evening, and days after that I like to have a good sleep in the morning—this is why flexible schedule (or lack of one) is ideal fit for me. [I just realized this paragraph looks too serious, I should've decorated it with some UNICORNS!] Of course, after coming to the USA, things changed. This is not some software company with special treatment for the nerdy ones. Here you have to get up at 7:30 AM to get to the office by 9 AM and then sit through till 5 PM. Personally, I hate waking up in the morning, not to say my productivity begins to climb no sooner than at 5 o'clock, i.e. I'm very slow until I have to go, which is ironic. Sometimes I even stay for more than 8 hours just to finish my current stuff without interruptions. Anyway, I could deal with that. After all, they are paying for my trip, who am I to complain? They need me to be in their working hours to be able to discuss stuff. It makes perfect sense that fixed schedule doesn't make any sense for me. But it does makes sense that it does make sense for my client. And I am here for client, therefore sense is transferred. Awww, you got it. I was asked several times to come exactly at 9 AM but out of laziness and arrogance I didn't take these requests seriously enough. This paid off in the end—on my last day I woke up 10 minutes before final status meeting with business owner, having overslept previous day as well. Of course this made several people mad, including my client, as I ignored his direct request to come in time for two days in the row, including my final day. Of course, I didn't do it deliberately but certainly I could've ensured that I have at least two alarms to wake me up, et cetera...I didn't do that. He also emailed my boss, calling my behavior ridiculous and embarrassing for my company and saying “he's not happy with my professionalism at all”. My boss told me that “the system must work both in and out” and suggested me to stay till late night this day working in a berserker mode, fixing as many issues as possible, and sending a status email to my client. So I did, but I didn't receive the response yet. These are my questions to the great programmers community: Did you have situations where your ignorance and personal non-technical faults created problems for your company? Were you able to make up for your fault and stay in a good relationship with your client or boss? How? How would you act if you were in my situation?

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  • Production Access Denied! Who caused this rule anyways?

    - by Matt Watson
    One of the biggest challenges for most developers is getting access to production servers. In smaller dev teams of less than about 5 people everyone usually has access. Then you hire developer #6, he messes something up in production... and now nobody has access. That is how it always starts in small dev teams. I think just about every rule of life there is gets created this way. One person messes it up for the rest of us. Rules are then put in place to try and prevent it from happening again.Breaking the rules is in our nature. In this example it is for good cause and a necessity to support our applications and troubleshoot problems as they arise. So how do developers typically break the rules? Some create their own method to collect log files off servers so they can see them. Expensive log management programs can collect log files, but log files alone are not enough. Centralizing where important errors are logged to is common. Some lucky developers are given production server access by the IT operations team out of necessity. Wait. That's not fair to all developers and knowingly breaks the company rule!  When customers complain or the system is down, the rules go out the window. Commonly lead developers get production access because they are ultimately responsible for supporting the application and may be the only person who knows how to fix it. The problem with only giving lead developers production access is it doesn't scale from a support standpoint. Those key employees become the go to people to help solve application problems, but they also become a bottleneck. They end up spending up to half of their time every day helping resolve application defects, performance problems, or whatever the fire of the day is. This actually the last thing you want your lead developers doing. They should be working on something more strategic like major enhancements to the product. Having production access can actually be a curse if you are the guy stuck hunting down log files all day. Application defects are good tasks for junior developers. They can usually handle figuring out simple application problems. But nothing is worse than being a junior developer who can't figure out those problems and the back log of them grows and grows. Some of them require production server access to verify a deployment was done correctly, verify config settings, view log files, or maybe just restart an application. Since the junior developers don't have access, they end up bugging the developers who do have access or they track down a system admin to help. It can take hours or days to see server information that would take seconds or minutes if they had access of their own. It is very frustrating to the developer trying to solve the problem, the system admin being forced to help, and most importantly your customers who are not happy about the situation. This process is terribly inefficient. Production database access is also important for solving application problems, but presents a lot of risk if developers are given access. They could see data they shouldn't.  They could write queries on accident to update data, delete data, or merely select every record from every table and bring your database to its knees. Since most of the application we create are data driven, it can be very difficult to track down application bugs without access to the production databases.Besides it being against the rule, why don't all developers have access? Most of the time it comes down to security, change of control, lack of training, and other valid reasons. Developers have been known to tinker with different settings to try and solve a problem and in the process forget what they changed and made the problem worse. So it is a double edge sword. Don't give them access and fixing bugs is more difficult, or give them access and risk having more bugs or major outages being created!Matt WatsonFounder, CEOStackifyAgile Support for Agile Developers

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  • How the SPARC T4 Processor Optimizes Throughput Capacity: A Case Study

    - by Ruud
    This white paper demonstrates the architected latency hiding features of Oracle’s UltraSPARC T2+ and SPARC T4 processors That is the first sentence from this technical white paper, but what does it exactly mean? Let's consider a very simple example, the computation of a = b + c. This boils down to the following (pseudo-assembler) instructions that need to be executed: load @b, r1 load @c, r2 add r1,r2,r3 store r3, @a The first two instructions load variables b and c from an address in memory (here symbolized by @b and @c respectively). These values go into registers r1 and r2. The third instruction adds the values in r1 and r2. The result goes into register r3. The fourth instruction stores the contents of r3 into the memory address symbolized by @a. If we're lucky, both b and c are in a nearby cache and the load instructions only take a few processor cycles to execute. That is the good case, but what if b or c, or both, have to come from very far away? Perhaps both of them are in the main memory and then it easily takes hundreds of cycles for the values to arrive in the registers. Meanwhile the processor is doing nothing and simply waits for the data to arrive. Actually, it does something. It burns cycles while waiting. That is a waste of time and energy. Why not use these cycles to execute instructions from another application or thread in case of a parallel program? That is exactly what latency hiding on the SPARC T-Series processors does. It is a hardware feature totally transparent to the user and application. As soon as there is a delay in the execution, the hardware uses these otherwise idle cycles to execute instructions from another process. As a result, the throughput capacity of the system improves because idle cycles are no longer wasted and therefore more jobs can be run per unit of time. This feature has been in the SPARC T-series from the beginning, so why this paper? The difference with previous publications on this topic is in the amount of detail given. How this all works under the hood is fully explained using two example programs. Starting from the assembly language instructions, it is demonstrated in what way these programs execute. To really see what is happening we go down to the processor pipeline level, where the gaps in the execution are, and show in what way these idle cycles are filled by other copies of the same program running simultaneously. Both the SPARC T4 as well as the older UltraSPARC T2+ processor are covered. You may wonder why the UltraSPARC T2+ is included. The focus of this work is on the SPARC T4 processor, but to explain the basic concept of latency hiding at this very low level, we start with the UltraSPARC T2+ processor because it is architecturally a much simpler design. From the single issue, in-order pipelines of this processor we then shift gears and cover how this all works on the much more advanced dual issue, out-of-order architecture of the T4. The analysis and performance experiments have been conducted on both processors. The results depend on the processor, but in all cases the theoretical estimates are confirmed by the experiments. If you're interested to read a lot more about this and find out how things really work under the hood, you can download a copy of the paper here. A paper like this could not have been produced without the help of several other people. I want to thank the co-author of this paper, Jared Smolens, for his very valuable contributions and our highly inspiring discussions. I'm also indebted to Thomas Nau (Ulm University, Germany), Shane Sigler and Mark Woodyard (both at Oracle) for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Karen Perkins (Perkins Technical Writing and Editing) and Rick Ramsey at Oracle were very helpful in providing editorial and publishing assistance.

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  • Microsoft Certifications &ndash; how to prep? and why?

    - by Kelly Jones
    I often get asked by my colleagues, “how do you prepare for Microsoft exams?” Well, the answer for me is a little complicated, so I thought I’d write up here what I do. The first thing I do is go to Microsoft’s website to find the exam that I need to take.  If you’re looking to get a particular certification, then their site lists the exam or exams that you’ll need to pass.  If you’ve already taken an exam, you can log onto the MCP website and use their certification planner.  This little tool tells you what tests you need, based on the exams you’ve already passed.  It is very helpful with the certifications that are multiple tests and especially ones that have electives. Once you’ve identified the test, you can use Microsoft’s website to see the topics that it covers.  This is a good outline to follow when you study.  I’ll keep this handy to reference back throughout my studying to make sure that I’m covering all the topics I need to know. The next step is probably where I am a little different from others.  IF the exam outline covers material that I’ve already been working with, then I’ll skip a lot of the studying and go directly to the practice tests.  However, if I’m looking at the outline and wondering how in the world do you do that? – then it’s time to hit the books. So, where to find study materials?  Try typing in the exam number into any search engine.  You’ll typically find a ton of resources.  If you’re lucky, you’ll find books that others recommend based on their studying and exam experience.  As a Sogeti employee, I have access to three really good resources: an internal company list of all of the consultants who have passed particular tests (on our Connex website), Books 24x7, and Transcender practice exams. Once my studying is done (either through books or experience), I’ll go through the practice exams.  I find them really helpful in getting my knowledge lined up to the thinking process that the exam writers use.  If I’m relying on my experience, then this really helps me to identify gaps in my knowledge that I’ll need to fill. That’s about it.  If I’m doing ok on the practice exams, then I’ll take the real thing.  I’ve found that the practice exams are usually more difficult than then real thing. Oh – one other thing I do related to Microsoft exams – I try to take any beta exams that Microsoft makes available that fall into my skill set.  Microsoft has started a blog to announce these and the seats usually fill up really quick.  The blog is at http://blogs.technet.com/betaexams/ . You don’t get your results instantly, like a normal exam, instead you have to wait for everyone to finish taking the beta exams and for Microsoft to determine which questions they are using and which they are dropping.  So, be prepared to wait six to eight weeks for your results.

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  • Build 2012, the first post

    - by Dennis Vroegop
    Yes, I was one of the lucky few who made it to Build. Build, formerly known as the Professional Developers Conference (or PDC) is the place to be if you are a developer on the Microsoft platform. Since I take my job seriously I took out some time on my busy schedule, sighed at the thought of not seeing my family for another week and signed up for it. Now, before I talk about the amazing Surface devices (yes, this posting is written on one of them), the great Lumia 920 we all got, the long deserved love for touch, NUI and other things I have been talking about for years, I need to do some ranting. So if you are anxious to read about the technical goodies you’ll have to wait until the next post. Still here? Good. When I signed up for the Build conference during my holidays this summer it was pretty obvious that demand would be high. Therefor I made sure I was on time. But even though I registered only 7 minutes after the initial opening time the Early Bird discount for the first 500 attendees was already sold out. I later learned that registration actually started 5 minutes before the scheduled time but even though it is still impressive how fast things went. The whole event sold out in 57 minutes Or so they say… A lot of people got put on the waiting list. There was room for about 1500 attendees and I heard that at least 1000 people were on that waiting list, including a lot of people I know. Strangely, all of them got tickets assigned after 2 weeks. Here at the conference I heard from a guy from Nokia that they had shipped 2500 Lumia 920 phones. That number matches the rumors that the organization added 1000 extra tickets. This, of course is no problem. I am not an elitist and I think large crowds have a special atmosphere that I quite like. But…. The Microsoft Campus is not equipped for that sheer volume of visitors. That was painfully obvious during on-site registration where people had to stand in line for over 2 hours. The conference is spread out over 2 buildings, divided by a 15 minute busride (yes, the campus is that big). I have seen queues of over 200 people waiting for the bus and when that arrived it had a capacity of 16. I can assure you: that doesn’t fit. This of course means that travelling from one site to the other might take about 30 minutes. So you arrive at the session room just in time, only to find out it’s full. Since you can’ get into that session you try to find another one but now you’re even more late so you have no chance at all of entering. The doors are closed and you’re told: “Well, you can watch the live stream online”. Mmmm… So I spend thousands of dollars, a week away from home, family and work to be told I can also watch the sessions online? Are you fricking kidding me? I could go on but I won’t. You get the idea. It’s jus badly organized, something I am not really used to in my 20 years of experience at Microsoft events. Yes, I am disappointed. I hope a lot of people here in Redmond will also fill in the evals and that the organization next year will do a better job. Really, Build deserves better. </rantmode>

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  • Antenna Aligner Part 7: Connecting the dots

    - by Chris George
    The app is basically ready, so I eagerly started to sort out creating the application entry in iTunes Connect. It's mostly intuitive actually, although I did have to create yet another icon for iTunes sized 512x512 pixels, damn lucky I did the original graphics as vector! It took me longer to write the application description than anything else, I'm so not a tech author! I didn't like the way you have to 'make up' an SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) number. I have to do some googling to find out that it really doesn't matter what it is! It should be more obvious what to do from the actual website itself. That aside, the rest of it was actually fairly straightforward. As well as the details of the application, iPhone and iPad screenshots were also required. This posed somewhat of a problem. The iPhone ones were easy (as I have one!), but I do not (yet) own an iPad . So I thought I'd leave the iPad screenshots out for now. Once the application details were sorted, I moved onto the rights and pricing. At the start of the project I had made the decision that I wouldn't charge any more than the lowest amount £0.59. I believe there is a market for this, but as my first foray into app development I didn't want to take the mick. I did realise, however, that I had built my app with a developer certificate and provisioning profile. This was fairly quickly corrected, and again Nomad made this very easy to switch over to the distribution certificate and provisioning profile. With a sense of excitement I cracked open iTunes connect and clicked the upload button ... ...slight snag... . when the Nomad project was started, Apple allowed uploads of these binaries via iTunes Connect. But this is no longer possible, the only upload path is via the Application Loader available from the Apple Developer program. This itself has one limitation, it only runs on a mac! D'OH!!!  Actually my language was somewhat more colourful when this fact came to light. After picking my laptop up off the floor and putting it back together... ok only joking, but I did nearly throw it out of frustration!... I started to consider the options; I briefly entertained the idea of buying a cheap mac from ebay... no, that defeats the whole object of what I'm doing, plus my wife wouldn't be impressed there are some guys out there in the interweb who will upload your app for a small fee...but I don't really like the idea of giving some faceless email address my apple developer login details, as well as my app binary! find some willing friend with a mac who would kindly let me use it... obviously this is the only sensible option. In the meantime, I informed the Nomad team about this slight 'issue' and they are currently investigating possible solutions...

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  • News From EAP Testing

    - by Fatherjack
    There is a phrase that goes something like “Watch the pennies and the pounds/dollars will take care of themselves”, meaning that if you pay attention to the small things then the larger things are going to fare well too. I am lucky enough to be a Friend of Red Gate and once in a while I get told about new features in their tools and have a test copy of the software to trial. I got one of those emails a week or so ago and I have been exploring the SQL Prompt 6 EAP since then. One really useful feature of long standing in SQL Prompt is the idea of a code snippet that is automatically pasted into the SSMS editor when you type a few key letters. For example I can type “ssf” and then press the tab key and the text is expanded to SELECT * FROM. There are lots of these combinations and it is possible to create your own really easily. To create your own you use the Snippet Manager interface to define the shortcut letters and the code that you want to have put in their place. Let’s look at an example. Say I am writing a blog about something and want to have the demo code create a temporary table. It might looks like this; The first time you run the code everything is fine, a lovely set of dates fill the results grid but run it a second time and this happens.   Yep, we didn’t destroy the temporary table so the CREATE statement fails when it finds the table already exists. No matter, I have a snippet created that takes care of this.   Nothing too technical here but you will see that in the Code section there is $CURSOR$, this isn’t a TSQL keyword but a marker for SQL Prompt to place the cursor in that position when the Code is pasted into the SSMS Editor. I just place my cursor above the CREATE statement and type “ifobj” – the shortcut for my code to DROP the temporary table – which has been defined in the Snippet Manager as below. This means I am right-away ready to type the name of the offending table. Pretty neat and it’s been very useful in saving me lots of time over many years.   The news for SQL Prompt 6 is that Red Gate have added a new Snippet Command of $PASTE$. Let’s alter our snippet to the following and try it out   Once again, we will type type “ifobj” in the SSMS Editor but first of all, highlight the name of the table #TestTable and copy it to your clipboard. Now type “ifobj” and press Tab… Wherever the string $PASTE$ is placed in the snippet, the contents of your clipboard are merged into the pasted TSQL. This means I don’t need to type the table name into the code snippet, it’s already there and I am seeing a fully functioning piece of TSQL ready to run. This means it is it even easier to write TSQL quickly and consistently. Attention to detail like this from Red Gate means that their developer tools stay on track to keep winning awards year after year and help take the hard work out of writing neat, accurate TSQL. If you want to try out SQL Prompt all the details are at http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-prompt/.

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  • Representing Mauritius in the 2013 Bench Games

    Only by chance I came across an interesting option for professionals and enthusiasts in IT, and quite honestly I can't even remember where I caught attention of Brainbench and their 2013 Bench Games event. But having access to 600+ free exams in a friendly international intellectual competition doesn't happen to be available every day. So, it was actually a no-brainer to sign up and browse through the various categories. Most interestingly, Brainbench is not only IT-related. They offer a vast variety of fields in their Test Center, like Languages and Communication, Office Skills, Management, Aptitude, etc., and it can be a little bit messy about how things are organised. Anyway, while browsing through their test offers I added a couple of exams to 'My Plan' which I would give a shot afterwards. Self-assessments Actually, I took the tests based on two major aspects: 'Fun Factor' and 'How good would I be in general'... Usually, you have to pay for any kind of exams and given this unique chance by Brainbench to simply train this kind of tests was already worth the time. Frankly speaking, the tests are very close to the ones you would be asked to do at Prometric or Pearson Vue, ie. Microsoft exams, etc. Go through a set of multiple choice questions in a given time frame. Most of the tests I did during the Bench Games were based on 40 questions, each with a maximum of 3 minutes to answer. Ergo, one test in maximum 2 hours - that sounds feasible, doesn't it? The Measure of Achievement While the 2013 Bench Games are considered a worldwide friendly competition of knowledge I was really eager to get other Mauritians attracted. Using various social media networks and community activities it all looked quite well at the beginning. Mauritius was listed on rank #19 of Most Certified Citizens and rank #10 of Most Master Level Certified Nation - not bad, not bad... Until... the next update of the Bench Games Leaderboard. The downwards trend seemed to be unstoppable and I couldn't understand why my results didn't show up on the Individual Leader Board. First of all, I passed exams that were not even listed and second, I had better results on some exams listed. After some further information from the organiser it turned out that my test transcript wasn't available to the public. Only then results are considered and counted in the competition. During that time, I actually managed to hold 3 test results on the Individuals... Other participants were merciless, eh, more successful than me, produced better test results than I did. But still I managed to stay on the final score board: An 'exotic' combination of exam, test result, country and person itself Representing Mauritius and the Visual FoxPro community in that fun event. And although I mainly develop in Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP2 and C# using .NET Framework from 2.0 to 4.5 since a couple of years I still managed to pass on Master Level. Hm, actually my Microsoft Certified Programmer (MCP) exams are dated back in June 2004 - more than 9 years ago... Look who got lucky... As described above I did a couple of exams as time allowed and without any preparations, but still I received the following mail notification: "Thank you for recently participating in our Bench Games event.  We wanted to inform you that you obtained a top score on our test(s) during this event, and as a result, will receive a free annual Brainbench subscription.  Your annual subscription will give you access to all our tests just like Bench Games, but for an entire year plus additional benefits!" -- Leader Board Notification from Brainbench Even fun activities get rewarded sometimes. Thanks to @Brainbench_com for the free annual subscription based on my passed 2013 Bench Games Master Level exam. It would be interesting to know about the total figures, especially to see how many citizens of Mauritius took part in this year's Bench Games. Anyway, I'm looking forward to be able to participate in other challenges like this in the future.

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