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  • How do I delete duplicates between two excel sheets quickly vba

    - by MainTank
    I am using vba and I have two sheets one is named "Do Not Call" and has about 800,000 rows of data in column A. I want to use this data to check column I in the second sheet, named "Sheet1". If it finds a match I want it to delete the whole row in "Sheet1". I have tailored the code I have found from a similar question here: Excel formula to Cross reference 2 sheets, remove duplicates from one sheet and ran it but nothing happens. I am not getting any errors but it is not functioning. Here is the code I am currently trying and have no idea why it is not working Option Explicit Sub CleanDupes() Dim wsA As Worksheet Dim wsB As Worksheet Dim keyColA As String Dim keyColB As String Dim rngA As Range Dim rngB As Range Dim intRowCounterA As Integer Dim intRowCounterB As Integer Dim strValueA As String keyColA = "A" keyColB = "I" intRowCounterA = 1 intRowCounterB = 1 Set wsA = Worksheets("Do Not Call") Set wsB = Worksheets("Sheet1") Dim dict As Object Set dict = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary") Do While Not IsEmpty(wsA.Range(keyColA & intRowCounterA).Value) Set rngA = wsA.Range(keyColA & intRowCounterA) strValueA = rngA.Value If Not dict.Exists(strValueA) Then dict.Add strValueA, 1 End If intRowCounterA = intRowCounterA + 1 Loop intRowCounterB = 1 Do While Not IsEmpty(wsB.Range(keyColB & intRowCounterB).Value) Set rngB = wsB.Range(keyColB & intRowCounterB) If dict.Exists(rngB.Value) Then wsB.Rows(intRowCounterB).delete intRowCounterB = intRowCounterB - 1 End If intRowCounterB = intRowCounterB + 1 Loop End Sub I apologize if the above code is not in a code tag. This is my first time posting code online and I have no idea if I did it correctly.

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  • Where to create/keep secret files for license information/trials on Windows/Mac OS X/Linux?

    - by BastiBense
    I'm writing a commercial product which uses a simple registration mechanism and allows the user to use the application for a demo period before purchasing. My application must somewhere store the registration information (if entered) and/or the date of the first launch to calculate if the user is still within the demo/trail period. While I'm pretty much finished with the registration mechanism itself, I now have to find a good way to store the registration information on the user's disk. The most obvious idea would be to store the trial period in the preferences file, but since user tend to delete/tinker with those from time to time, it might be a good idea to keep the registration information in a separate, more hidden file. So here's my question: What is the best place/strategy to keep and create such hidden files on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux? Here is what came to my mind so far: Linux/Mac OS X Most Unix-like systems are rather locked down when it comes to places a user can write files to. In most cases this is only the /tmp directory and the user's home directory. I guess the easiest here is probably to create a file with a dot-prefix to make it less visible, then give it a name that won't make it obvious that it's associated with my application. Windows Probably much like Linux/Mac OS X - more recent Windows versions become more restrictive when it comes to file system permissions. Anyway, I'd like to hear your ideas and thoughs. Even better if you have already implemented something similar in the past. Thanks! Update For me the places for such files is more relevant than the discussion of the question if this way for copy protection is good or bad.

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  • PHP shell_exec() - Run directly, or perform a cron (bash/php) and include MySQL layer?

    - by Jimbo
    Sorry if the title is vague - I wasn't quite sure how to word it! What I'm Doing I'm running a Linux command to output data into a variable, parse the data, and output it as an array. Array values will be displayed on a page using PHP, and this PHP page output is requested via AJAX every 10 seconds so, in effect, the data will be retrieved and displayed/updated every 10 seconds. There could be as many as 10,000 characters being parsed on every request, although this is usually much lower. Alternative Idea I want to know if there is a better* alternative method of retrieving this data every 10 seconds, as multiple users (<10) will be having this command executed automatically for them. A cronjob running on the server could execute either bash or php (which is faster?) to grab the data and store it in a MySQL database. Then, any AJAX calls to the PHP output would return values in the MySQL database rather than making a direct call to execute server code every 10 seconds. Why? I know there are security concerns with running execs directly from PHP, and (I hope this isn't micro-optimisation) I'm worried about CPU usage on the server. The server is running a sempron processor. Yes, they do still exist. Having this only execute when the user is on the page (idea #1) means that the server isn't running code that doesn't need to be run. However, is this slow and insecure? Just in case the type of linux command may be of assistance in determining it's efficiency: shell_exec("transmission-remote $host:$port --auth $username:$password -l"); I'm hoping that there are differences in efficiency and level of security with the two methods I have outlined above, and that this isn't just micro-micro-optimisation. If there are alternative methods that are better*, I'd love to learn about these! :)

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  • Design Advice Needed For Synonyms Database

    - by James J
    I'm planning to put together a database that can be used to query synonyms of words. The database will end up huge, so the idea is to keep things running fast. I've been thinking about how to do this, but my database design skills are not up to scratch these days. My initial idea was to have each word stored in one table, and then another table with a 1 to many relationship where each word can be linked to another word and that table can be queried. The application I'm developing allows users to highlight a word, and then type in, or select some synonyms from the database for that word. The application learns from the user input so if someone highlights "car" and types in "motor" the database would be updated to link the relationship if it don't exist already. What I don't want to happen is for a user to type in the word "shop" and link it to the word car. So I'm thinking I will need to add some sort of weight to each relationship. Eventually the synonyms the users enter will be used so they can auto select common synonyms used with a certain word. The lower weight words will not be displayed so shop could never be a synonym of car unless it had a very high weight, and chances are nobody is going to do that. Does the above sound right? Can you offer any suggestions or improvements?

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  • Best way to store this data?

    - by Malfist
    I have just been assigned to renovate an old website, and I get to move it from some old archaic system to drupal. The only problem is that it's a real-estate system and a lot of data is stored. Currently all the information is stored in a single table, an id represents the house and then everything else is key/value pairs. There are a possible 243 keys per estate, there are 23840 estates in the system. As you can imagine the system is slow and difficult to query. I don't think a table with 243 rows would be a very good idea, and probably worse than the current situation. I've done some investigating and here's what I've found out: Missing data does not indicate a 0 value, data is merged from two, unique sources/formats. Some guessing is involved. I have no control over the source of the data. There are 4 keys that are common to all estates, all values look like something that is commonly searched for and could be indexed There are 10 keys that are in the [90-100)% range 8 of these are information like who's selling it, and it's address. The other two seem to belong with the below range There are 80 keys that are in the [80-90)% range This range seems to mostly just list room types and how many the house has (e.g. bedrooms_possible, bathrooms, family_room_3rd, etc) This range also includes some minor information like school districts, one or two more pieces of data on the address. The 179 keys that are in the [0-80)% range include all sorts of miscellaneous information about the estate My best idea was a hybrid approach, create a table that stores important, common information and keep a smaller key/value table. How would you store this information?

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  • How to synchronize access to many objects

    - by vividos
    I have a thread pool with some threads (e.g. as many as number of cores) that work on many objects, say thousands of objects. Normally I would give each object a mutex to protect access to its internals, lock it when I'm doing work, then release it. When two threads would try to access the same object, one of the threads has to wait. Now I want to save some resources and be scalable, as there may be thousands of objects, and still only a hand full of threads. I'm thinking about a class design where the thread has some sort of mutex or lock object, and assigns the lock to the object when the object should be accessed. This would save resources, as I only have as much lock objects as I have threads. Now comes the programming part, where I want to transfer this design into code, but don't know quite where to start. I'm programming in C++ and want to use Boost classes where possible, but self written classes that handle these special requirements are ok. How would I implement this? My first idea was to have a boost::mutex object per thread, and each object has a boost::shared_ptr that initially is unset (or NULL). Now when I want to access the object, I lock it by creating a scoped_lock object and assign it to the shared_ptr. When the shared_ptr is already set, I wait on the present lock. This idea sounds like a heap full of race conditions, so I sort of abandoned it. Is there another way to accomplish this design? A completely different way?

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  • ObjectDataSource firing twice, or on its own

    - by LoveMeSomeCode
    Can someone explain exactly how/when an ObjectDataSource fires? I have an ASP.NET page, with a GridView, which is referencing an ODS. I put a breakpoint in the method the ODS is using, and noticed it was firing twice. I looked into the code and the answer seemed obvious at first. I had Page_Load() { if(!Page.IsPostBack) { MethodA(); MethodB(); } } where MethodA and MethodB were both eventually calling gv.DataBind(). This made sense because I assume that each call to GridView.DataBind() would result in asking the ODS for data, and therefore running my data access method. The weird thing is that when comment out the call to MethodA, it still fires twice. Checking the call stack shows the method being run first as a result of MethodB, and then again, with no trail except [External Code]. This mystery load does not happen when I let MethodA and MethodB both execute. Any idea what's going on here? Any idea what other code I might have that is asking the ODS for data? I'm starting to think all these 'no code' data controls are more obfuscation and BS than they're worth.

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  • Data base design with Blob

    - by mmuthu
    Hi, I have a situation where i need to store the binary data into database as blob column. There are three different table exists in my database where in i need to store a blob data for each record. Not every record will have the blob data all the time. It is time and user based. The table one will have to store the *.doc files almost for all the record The table two will have to store the *.xml optionally. The table three will have to store images (not sure what is frequency, etc) Now my questions is whether it is a good idea to maintain a separate table to store the blob data pointing it to the respective table PK's (Yes, there will be no FK's and assuming program will maintain it). It will be some thing like below, BLOB|PK_ID|TABLE_NAME Alternatively, is it a good idea to keep the blob column in respective tables. As for as my application runtime is concerned, The table 2 will be read very frequently. Though the blob column will not be required. The table 2 record will gets deleted frequently. Similarly other blob data in respective table will not be accessed frequently. All of the blob content will be read on-demand basis. I'm thinking first approach will work better for me. What do you guys think? Btw, I'm using Oracle.

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  • Python, lambda, find minimum

    - by qba
    I have foreach function which calls specified function on every element which it contains. I want to get minimum from thise elements but I have no idea how to write lambda or function or even a class that would manage that. Thanks for every help. I use my foreach function like this: o.foreach( lambda i: i.call() ) or o.foreach( I.call ) I don't like to make a lists or other objects. I want to iterate trough it and find min. I manage to write a class that do the think but there should be some better solution than that: class Min: def __init__(self,i): self.i = i def get_min(self): return self.i def set_val(self,o): if o.val < self.i: self.i = o.val m = Min( xmin ) self.foreach( m.set_val ) xmin = m.get_min() Ok, so I suppose that my .foreach method is non-python idea. I should do my Class iterable because all your solutions are based on lists and then everything will become easier. In C# there would be no problem with lambda function like that, so I though that python is also that powerful.

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  • Winlibre - An Aptitude-Synaptic for Windows. Would that be useful?

    - by acadavid
    Hi everyone. Last year, in 2009 GSoC, I participated with an organization called Winlibre. The basic idea is having a project similar to Aptitude (or Apt-get) and a GUI like Synaptic but for Windows and just to hold (initially), only open source software. The project was just ok, we finished what we considered was a good starting point but unfortunately, due to different occupations of the developers, the project has been idle almost since GSoC finished. Now, I have some energy, time and interest to try to continue this development. The project was divided in 3 parts: A repository server (which i worked on, and which was going to store and serve packages and files), a package creator for developers, and the main app, which is apt-get and its GUI. I have been thinking about the project, and the first question that came to my mind is.. actually is this project useful for developers and Windows users? Keep in mind that the idea is to solve dependencies problems, and install packages "cleanly". I'm not a Windows developer and just a casual user, so i really don't have a lot of experience on how things are handled there, but as far as I have seen, all installers handle those dependencies. Will windows developers be willing to switch from installers to a packages way of handling installations of Open source Software? Or it's just ok to create packages for already existing installers? The packages concept is basically the same as .deb or .rpm files. I still have some other questions, but basically i would like to make sure that it's useful in someway to users and Windows developers, and if developers would find this project interesting. If you have any questions, feedback, suggestions or criticisms, please don't mind about posting them. Thanks!!

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  • Using AJAX to POST data to PHP database, then refresh

    - by cb74656
    Currently I have a button: <ul> <li><button onclick="display('1')">1</button></li> <li><button onclick="display('2')">2</button></li> <li><button onclick="display('3')">3</button></li> </ul> That when pressed, calls a javascript function, and displays PHP based on which button is pressed using AJAX. I figured this out all on my own. The AJAX gets a PHP file with a postgres query that outputs a table of data to a div. Now I want to be able to add, via form, new data and have it refresh (without reloading the page, yannknow?). I've tried a couple of things, and have hit roadblocks every time. My initial idea was to have the form submit the data using a javascript function and AJAX, then call my "display()" function after the query to reload the content. I just can't figure it out using GoogleFu. Based on my current idea, I'd like help with the following: How do I pass the form data to a javascript function. How do I use POST to pass that data to PHP using AJAX? I'm super new to javascript and AJAX. I've looked into jquery as it seems like that's the way to go, but I can't figure it out. If there's a better way to do this, I'm open to suggestions. Please forgive any misuse of nomenclature. EDIT: Once I solve this problem..., I'll have all the tools needed to finish the project preliminarily.

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  • Can't call an object method. PHP reports variable undefined

    - by user1285697
    This is the weirdest bug! It is probably something silly, but I have no idea how to fix it. If anyone could help, I would be most grateful! I have three files, one is called items.php, another is called tableFunctions.php, and the third is called mysql.php. I use two global objects called 'mysql' and 'tableFunctions'. They are stored in the files 'mysql.php', and 'tableFunctions.php', respectively. In each file, I create an instance of its object, assigning it to the global variable $_mysql, or $_table. like this: In the file mysql.php: global $_mysql; $_mysql = new mysql(); In the file tableFunctions.php: global $_table; $_table = new tableFunctions(); Here's how it is supposed to work: The items.php file includes the tableFunctions.php file... Which in turn, needs the mysql.php file, so it includes it too. In the items.php file, I call the method getTable(), which is contained in the object tableFunctions.(and in the variable $_table.) Like this: $t = $_table->getTable('items'); The getTable function calls the method, arrayFromResult(), which is contained within in the object mysql.(and in the variable $_mysql.) Like this: $result = $_mysql->arrayFromResult($r); That's where I get the error. PHP says that the variable '$_mysql' is undefined, but I defined it in the 'mysql.php' file.(see above) I also included mysql.php with the following code: include_once 'mysql.php'; I have no idea what is wrong! If anyone can help that would be much appreciated. The source files can be downloaded with the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bjj2gyjsybym89r/YLxqyNvQdn

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  • Recurrent yearly date alert in Python

    - by coulix
    Hello Hackerz, Here is the idea A user can set a day alert for a birthday. (We do not care about the year of birth) He also picks if he wants to be alerted 0, 1, 2, ou 7 days (Delta) before the D day. Users have a timezone setting. I want the server to send the alerts at 8 am on the the D day - deleta +- user timezone Example: 12 jun, with "alert me 3 days before" will give 9 of Jun. My idea was to have a trigger_datetime extra field saved on the 'recurrent event' object. Like this a cron Job running every hour on my server will just check for all events matching irs current time hour, day and month and send to the alert. The problem from a year to the next the trigger_date could change ! If the alert is set on 1st of March, with a one day delay that could be either 28 or 29 of February .. Maybe i should not use the trigger date trick and use some other kind of scheme. All plans are welcome.

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  • Any point in subclassing UIButton to create a custom looking button?

    - by glitch
    I want to create a set of buttons that would work and feel very much like the Metro-style tiles that are available on Windows Phones. I would like to allow the user to tap them to access their underlying functionality (open a modal or something or that sort). I'm concerned that subclassing UIButton will not get me there. I need square corners and dynamic content inside the tiles themselves. The posts I've found around SO seem to suggest that subclassing a UIButton would not be a good idea for several reasons and that I should instead use UIView. That reply is from 2010, and I have no idea if in the 2+ years since then there have been considerable changes to how one would achieve that effect. Most users these days will have iOS 5.1+ if not 6.0 soon. Let's say I do go the UIView route. Should I implement UIResponder's touch events or should I instead go the UITapGestureRecognizer route? What's the better practice in 2012? Thank you!

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  • BizTalk 2009 - BizTalk Benchmark Wizard: Installation

    - by StuartBrierley
    As previously detailed, I have completed a single server installation of BizTalk Server 2009 standard on my development laptop; a MacBook Pro Core2Duo running at 2.16Ghz with 2Gb of RAM.  Following this I also posted on my use of the BizTalk Server Best Practices Anaylser and how to configure the BizTalk SQL Server Jobs.  All of which means that I should have some confidence that I have a decent working BizTalk Server 2009 environment, Next I thought that it would be a good idea to try and get some idea of how this setup performs by carrying out some baseline tests that can then be replicated on the test and live servers. The aim of this would be to allow confident predictions to be made of how any solutions developed on a single "server" installation may be expected to perform when deployed to these multi-server BizTalk Server 2009 standard installations. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard would seem to be the perfect tool for the job. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard is a ultility that can be used to gain some validation of a BizTalk installation, giving a level of guidance on whether it is performing as might be expected. This utility should be used after BizTalk Server has been installed and before any solutions are deployed to the environment.  This will ensure that you are getting consistent and clean results from the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard applies load to the BizTalk Server environment under a choice of specific scenarios. During these scenarios performance counter information is collected and assessed against statistics that are appropriate to the BizTalk Server environment: "The executed scenarios may or may not be relative to any realistic scenario, and is only intended for testing. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard has been developed in relation to the BizTalk Server 2009 Scale Out Testing Study. More information about the study can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee377068(BTS.10).aspx" After downloading and installing the wizard you will need set up the Hosts, Instances and Adapter handlers.  This is done by running a script file using the “cscript” detailed below.  To do this you will need to open a command prompt window and navigate to the script folder; assuming the default installation location this would be C:\Program Files\Blogical\BizTalk Benchmark Wizard\Artefacts\BizTalk. In this folder you should find an InstallHosts.vbs file which can be executed using the following parameters: NTGroupName - The name of the Windows NT group. UserName – The name of the user account running the service instances. Password – The password of the user account running the service instances. Receive Host – The name of the server where you want to run the receive host instance.  Send Host - The name of the server where you want to run the sen host instance. Processing Host - The name of the server where you want to run the process host instance. By default the script is set up for 64 bit hosts, so if you are running in 32 bit environment make sure that you change the following line in the script before continuing: from:   objHS.IsHost32BitOnly = False to:    objHS.IsHost32BitOnly = True If you have a single box installation, your script command might look like this: cscript InstallHosts.vbs "BizTalk Application Users" “\MyUser” “MyPassword” “BtsServer1” “BtsServer1” “BtsServer1” If you have a multi server installation, your script command might look like this: cscript InstallHosts.vbs "MyDomain\BizTalk Application Users" “MyDomain\MyUser” “MyPassword” “BtsServer1” “BtsServer2” “BtsServer2” Running this script will create: Three hosts (BBW_RxHost, BBW_TxHost and BBW_PxHost) Three host instances One send and one receive adapter handler for the WCF NetTcp adapter. You will then need to import the BizTalk MSI via the BizTalk Administration Console.  Open the BizTalk Administration Console, point to the “Applications” node and import the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard.msi found in the same folder as the script above. This will create a “BizTalk Benchmark Wizard” application along with all ports and orchestrations needed. To finish the installation you will need to run the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard.msi on all BizTalk servers to add the assemblies to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). Next I will look at running the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard.

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  • JustMock and Moles – A short overview for TDD alpha geeks

    - by RoyOsherove
    People have been lurking near my house, asking me to write something about Moles and JustMock, so I’ll try to be as objective as possible, taking in the fact that I work at Typemock. If I were NOT working at Typemock I’d write: JustMock JustMock tries to be Typemock at so many levels it’s not even funny. Technically they work the same and the API almost looks like it’s a search and replace work based on the Isolator API (awesome compliment!), but JustMock still has too many growing pains and bugs to be usable. Also, JustMock is missing alot of the legacy abilities such as Non public faking, faking all types and various other things that are really needed in real legacy code. Biggest thing (in terms of isolation integration) is that it does not integrate with other profilers such as coverage, NCover etc.) When JustMock comes out of beta, I feel that it should cost about half as Isolator costs, as it currently provides about half the abilities. Moles Moles is an addon of Pex and was originally only intended to work within the Pex environment. It started as a research project and now it’s a power-tool for VS (so it’s a separate install) Now it’s it’s own little stubbing framework. It’s not really an Isolation framework in the classic sense, because it does not provide any kind of API built in to verify object interactions. You have to use manual flags all on your own to do that. It generates two types of classes per assembly: Manual Stubs(just like you’d hand code them) and Mole classes. Each Mole class is a special API to change and break the behavior that the corresponding type. so MDateTime is how you change behavior for DateTime. In that sense the API is al over the place, and it can become highly unreadable and unmentionable over time in your test. Also, the Moles API isn’t really designed to deal with real Legacy code. It only deals with public types and methods. anything internal or private is ignored and you can’t change its behavior. You also can’t control static constructors. That takes about 95% of legacy scenarios out of the picture if that’s what you’re trying to use it for. Personally, I found it hard to get used to the idea of two parallel APIs for different abilities, and when to choose which. and I know this stuff. I would expect more usability from the API to make it more widely used. I don’t think that Moles in planning to go that route. Publishing it as an Isolation framework is really an afterthought of a tool that was design with a specific task in mind, and generic Isolation isn’t it. it’s only hope is DEQ – a simple code example that shows a simple Isolation API built on the Moles generic engine. Moles can and should be used for very simple cases of detouring functionality such a simple static methods or interfaces and virtual functions (like rhinomock and MOQ do).   Oh, Wait. Ah, good thing I work at Typemock. I won’t write all that. I’ll just write: JustMock and Moles are great tools that enlarge the market space for isolation related technologies, and they prove that the idea of productivity and unit testing can go hand in hand and get people hooked. I look forward to compete with them at this growing market.

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  • 11 Types of Developers

    - by Lee Brandt
    Jack Dawson Jack Dawson is the homeless drifter in Titanic. At one point in the movie he says, “I figure life’s a gift, and I don’t intend on wasting it.” He is happy to wander wherever life takes him. He works himself from place to place, making just enough money to make it to his next adventure. The “Jack Dawson” developer clings on to any new technology as the ‘next big thing’, and will find ways to shoe-horn it in to places where it is not a fit. He is very appealing to the other developers because they want to try the newest techniques and tools too, He will only stay until the new technology either bores him or becomes problematic. Jack will also be hard to find once the technology has been implemented, because he will be on to the next shiny thing. However, having a Jack Dawson on your team can be beneficial. Jack can be a great ally when attempting to convince a stodgy, corporate entity to upgrade. Jack usually has an encyclopedic recall of all the new features of the technology upgrade and is more than happy to interject them in any conversation. Tom Smykowski Tom is the neurotic employee in Office Space, and is deathly afraid of being fired. He will do only what is necessary to keep the status quo. He believes as long as nothing changes, his job is safe. He will scoff at anything new and be the naysayer during any change initiative. Tom can be useful in off-setting Jack Dawson. Jack will constantly be pushing for change and Tom will constantly be fighting it. When you see that Jack is getting kind of bored with a new technology and Tom has finally stopped wetting himself at the mere mention of it, then it is probably the sweet spot of beginning to implement that new technology (providing it is the right tool for the job). Ray Consella Ray is the guy who built the Field of Dreams. He took a risk. Sometimes he screwed it up, but he knew he didn’t want to end up regretting not attempting it. He constantly doubted himself, but he knew he had to keep going. Granted, he was doing what the voices in his head were telling him to do, but my point is he was driven to do something that most people considered crazy. Even when his friends, his wife and even he told himself he was crazy, somewhere inside himself, he knew it was the right thing to do. These are the innovators. These are the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world. The take risks, they fail, they learn and the get better. Obviously, this kind of person thrives in start-ups and smaller companies, but that is due to their natural aversion to bureaucracy. They want to see their ideas put into motion quickly, and withdrawn quickly if it doesn’t work. Short feedback cycles are essential to Ray. He wants to know if his idea is working or not. He wants to modify or reverse his idea if it is not working or makes things worse. These are the agilistas. May I always be one.

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  • Is Agile the new micromanagement?

    - by Smith James
    Hi, This question has been cooking in my head for a while so I wanted to ask those who are following agile/scrum practices in their development environments. My company has finally ventured into incorporating agile practices and has started out with a team of 4 developers in an agile group on a trial basis. It has been 4 months with 3 iterations and they continue to do it without going fully agile for the rest of us. This is due to the fact that management's trust to meet business requirements with a quite a bit of ad hoc type request from high above. Recently, I talked to the developers who are part of this initiative; they tell me that it's not fun. They are not allowed to talk to other developers by their Scrum master and are not allowed to take any phone calls in the work area (which maybe fine to an extent). For example, if I want to talk to my friend for kicks who is in the agile team, I am not allowed without the approval of the Scrum master; who is sitting right next to the agile team. The idea of all this or the agile is to provide a complete vacuum for agile developers from any interruptions and to have them put in good 6+ productive hours. Well, guys, I am no agile guru but what I have read Yahoo agile rollout document and similar for other organizations, it gives me a feeling that agile is not cheap. It require resources and budget to instill agile into the teams and correct issue as they arrive to put them back on track. For starters, it requires training for developers and coaching for managers and etc, etc... The current Scrum master was a manager who took a couple days agile training class paid by the management is now leading this agile team. I have also heard in the meeting that agile manifesto doesn't dictate that agile is not set in stones and is customized differently for each company. Well, it all sounds good and reason. In conclusion, I always thought the agile was supposed to bring harmony in the development teams which results in happy developers. However, I am getting a very opposite feeling when talking to the developers in the agile team. They are unhappy that they cannot talk anything but work, sitting quietly all day just working, and they feel it's just another way for management to make them work more. Tell me please, if this is one of the examples of good practices used for the purpose of selfish advantage for more dollars? Or maybe, it's just us the developers like me and this agile team feels that they don't like to work in an environment where they only breathe work because they are at work. Thanks. Edit: It's a company in healthcare domain that has offices across US, but we're in Texas. It definitely feels like a cowboy style agile which makes me really not wanting to go for agile at all, esp at my current company. All of it has to do with the management being completely cheap. Cutting out expensive coffee for cheaper version, emphasis on savings and being productive while staying as lean as possible. My feeling is that someone in the management behind the door threw out this idea, that agile makes you produce more so we can show our bosses we're producing more with the same headcount. Or, maybe, it will allow us to reduce headcount if that's the case. EDITED: They are having their 5 min daily meeting. But not allowed to chat or talk with someone outside of their team. All focus is on work.

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  • Free SQL Server training? Now you’re talking.

    - by Fatherjack
    SQL Server user groups are everywhere, literally all over the globe there are SQL Server professionals meeting on a regular basis, sharing ideas, solving problems, learning about how to do new stuff and new ways to do old stuff and it’s all for free. I don’t have detailed figures but of all the SQL Server professionals there are only a small number of them attend these user groups. Those people are the people that are taking the time and making then effort to make themselves better at their chosen trade, more employable and having a good time. For free. I don’t know why but there are many people that don’t seem to want to be the best they can be. Some of you enlightened people that do already attend could be doing more though. Have you ever spoken at  your group? Not just in the break while you have a mouthful of pizza and a drink in your hand but had the attention of the whole group listen to you speak. It doesn’t need to be a full hour, it doesn’t need to be some obscure deeply technical demonstration of SQL Server internals, just a few minutes on something that you do that might help other people with their daily work. A neat process that helps you get from Problem A to Solution B. There is no need to get concerned that becoming a speaker means that you suddenly have to know more than anyone else in the room. This is you talking about something that you experienced. What you did, what you would repeat, what you might do differently next time. No one in the audience can pick you up on a technicality. If someone comes out with a great idea that you hadn’t thought of, say “That’s a great idea, I didn’t think of that while we had the problem on our hands. I’ll try to remember that for next time”. If someone is looking to show you up for picking the wrong decision (and this, in my experience, is very uncommon indeed) then you simply give a reply like “Well, at the time we chose that option. Perhaps another time then we would tackle things differently but we were happy with how our solution worked”. It’s sharing things like this that makes user groups have a real value, talking about how you coped with or averted a disaster, a handy little section of code or using a tool in a particular way that you take for granted that might, just might, be something that other people haven’t thought of that solves a problem or saves some time for them. At the next meeting you might get the same benefit from a different person and so it goes on. As individuals benefits so the community benefits. For free. Things I encourage you to do; If you are a chapter or user group leader; encourage someone from your group who has never spoken before to start speaking. If you are a chapter or user group attendee that hasn’t spoken before; speak for at least 5 minutes on something related to SQL Server at any group meeting. If you don’t currently attend a user group; please go along to you nearest one when they are meeting next and invest in yourself and your future. UK user group details are here: http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/national_ug.htm , PASS chapters outside the UK are found via http://www.sqlpass.org/PASSChapters/LocalChapters.aspx. If you are unsure of how you might achieve any of these things then get in touch with me*, I’ll give you specific advice on getting started on any of the above points and help you prove to yourself what you are capable of. SQL Community – be part of it and make it better. Let me know how you get on in the comments.

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  • Is Agile the new micromanagement?

    - by Smith James
    This question has been cooking in my head for a while so I wanted to ask those who are following agile/scrum practices in their development environments. My company has finally ventured into incorporating agile practices and has started out with a team of 4 developers in an agile group on a trial basis. It has been 4 months with 3 iterations and they continue to do it without going fully agile for the rest of us. This is due to the fact that management's trust to meet business requirements with a quite a bit of ad hoc type request from high above. Recently, I talked to the developers who are part of this initiative; they tell me that it's not fun. They are not allowed to talk to other developers by their Scrum master and are not allowed to take any phone calls in the work area (which maybe fine to an extent). For example, if I want to talk to my friend for kicks who is in the agile team, I am not allowed without the approval of the Scrum master; who is sitting right next to the agile team. The idea of all this or the agile is to provide a complete vacuum for agile developers from any interruptions and to have them put in good 6+ productive hours. Well, guys, I am no agile guru but what I have read Yahoo agile rollout document and similar for other organizations, it gives me a feeling that agile is not cheap. It require resources and budget to instill agile into the teams and correct issue as they arrive to put them back on track. For starters, it requires training for developers and coaching for managers and etc, etc... The current Scrum master was a manager who took a couple days agile training class paid by the management is now leading this agile team. I have also heard in the meeting that agile manifesto doesn't dictate that agile is not set in stones and is customized differently for each company. Well, it all sounds good and reason. In conclusion, I always thought the agile was supposed to bring harmony in the development teams which results in happy developers. However, I am getting a very opposite feeling when talking to the developers in the agile team. They are unhappy that they cannot talk anything but work, sitting quietly all day just working, and they feel it's just another way for management to make them work more. Tell me please, if this is one of the examples of good practices used for the purpose of selfish advantage for more dollars? Or maybe, it's just us the developers like me and this agile team feels that they don't like to work in an environment where they only breathe work because they are at work. Thanks. Edit: It's a company in healthcare domain that has offices across US. It definitely feels like a cowboy style agile which makes me really not wanting to go for agile at all, esp at my current company. All of it has to do with the management being completely cheap. Cutting out expensive coffee for cheaper version, emphasis on savings and being productive while staying as lean as possible. My feeling is that someone in the management behind the door threw out this idea, that agile makes you produce more so we can show our bosses we're producing more with the same headcount. Or, maybe, it will allow us to reduce headcount if that's the case. EDITED: They are having their 5 min daily meeting. But not allowed to chat or talk with someone outside of their team. All focus is on work.

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  • More SQL Smells

    - by Nick Harrison
    Let's continue exploring some of the SQL Smells from Phil's list. He has been putting together. Datatype mis-matches in predicates that rely on implicit conversion.(Plamen Ratchev) This is a great example poking holes in the whole theory of "If it works it's not broken" Queries will this probably will generally work and give the correct response. In fact, without careful analysis, you probably may be completely oblivious that there is even a problem. This subtle little problem will needlessly complicate queries and slow them down regardless of the indexes applied. Consider this example: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Page](     [PageId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,     [Title] [varchar](75) NOT NULL,     [Sequence] [int] NOT NULL,     [ThemeId] [int] NOT NULL,     [CustomCss] [text] NOT NULL,     [CustomScript] [text] NOT NULL,     [PageGroupId] [int] NOT NULL;  CREATE PROCEDURE PageSelectBySequence ( @sequenceMin smallint , @sequenceMax smallint ) AS BEGIN SELECT [PageId] , [Title] , [Sequence] , [ThemeId] , [CustomCss] , [CustomScript] , [PageGroupId] FROM [CMS].[dbo].[Page] WHERE Sequence BETWEEN @sequenceMin AND @SequenceMax END  Note that the Sequence column is defined as int while the sequence parameter is defined as a small int. The problem is that the database may have to do a lot of type conversions to evaluate the query. In some cases, this may even negate the indexes that you have in place. Using Correlated subqueries instead of a join   (Dave_Levy/ Plamen Ratchev) There are two main problems here. The first is a little subjective, since this is a non-standard way of expressing the query, it is harder to understand. The other problem is much more objective and potentially problematic. You are taking much of the control away from the optimizer. Written properly, such a query may well out perform a corresponding query written with traditional joins. More likely than not, performance will degrade. Whenever you assume that you know better than the optimizer, you will most likely be wrong. This is the fundmental problem with any hint. Consider a query like this:  SELECT Page.Title , Page.Sequence , Page.ThemeId , Page.CustomCss , Page.CustomScript , PageEffectParams.Name , PageEffectParams.Value , ( SELECT EffectName FROM dbo.Effect WHERE EffectId = dbo.PageEffects.EffectId ) AS EffectName FROM Page INNER JOIN PageEffect ON Page.PageId = PageEffects.PageId INNER JOIN PageEffectParam ON PageEffects.PageEffectId = PageEffectParams.PageEffectId  This can and should be written as:  SELECT Page.Title , Page.Sequence , Page.ThemeId , Page.CustomCss , Page.CustomScript , PageEffectParams.Name , PageEffectParams.Value , EffectName FROM Page INNER JOIN PageEffect ON Page.PageId = PageEffects.PageId INNER JOIN PageEffectParam ON PageEffects.PageEffectId = PageEffectParams.PageEffectId INNER JOIN dbo.Effect ON dbo.Effects.EffectId = dbo.PageEffects.EffectId  The correlated query may just as easily show up in the where clause. It's not a good idea in the select clause or the where clause. Few or No comments. This one is a bit more complicated and controversial. All comments are not created equal. Some comments are helpful and need to be included. Other comments are not necessary and may indicate a problem. I tend to follow the rule of thumb that comments that explain why are good. Comments that explain how are bad. Many people may be shocked to hear the idea of a bad comment, but hear me out. If a comment is needed to explain what is going on or how it works, the logic is too complex and needs to be simplified. Comments that explain why are good. Comments may explain why the sql is needed are good. Comments that explain where the sql is used are good. Comments that explain how tables are related should not be needed if the sql is well written. If they are needed, you need to consider reworking the sql or simplify your data model. Use of functions in a WHERE clause. (Anil Das) Calling a function in the where clause will often negate the indexing strategy. The function will be called for every record considered. This will often a force a full table scan on the tables affected. Calling a function will not guarantee that there is a full table scan, but there is a good chance that it will. If you find that you often need to write queries using a particular function, you may need to add a column to the table that has the function already applied.

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  • 2010 April Fools Joke

    - by Dane Morgridge
    I started at my current job at the end of March last year and there were some pretty funny April fools jokes.  Nothing super crazy, but pretty funny.  One guy came in and there was a tree in his cube.  We (me and the rest of my team) were planning for a couple of weeks on what we could do that would be just awesome.  We had a lot of really good ideas but nothing was spectacular.  Then Steve Andrews had a brilliant idea (yes it's true).  Since we have internal DNS servers we could redirect DNS to our internal servers for a site such as cnn.com.  Then we would lift the code from the site and create our own home page that would contain news about people in the company.  Steve was actually laughing so hard when he thought of the idea that it took him almost 30 minutes to spit it out. I thought, "this is perfect". I had enlisted a couple of people to help come up with the stories and at the same time we were trying to figure out how to get everybody to the site the morning of the 1st.  Then it hit me.  We could have the main article be one of my getting picked up by the FBI on hacking charges.  Then Chris (my boss) could send an email out telling everyone that I would not be there today and direct them to the site.  That would for sure get everyone to go to cnn.com first thing and see our prank.  I begun the process of looking for photos I could crop myself into and found the perfect one.  Then my wife took a good pic with our Canon 40D and I went to work.  The night before I didn't have any other stories due to everyone being really busy at work, but I decided to go ahead with just the FBI bust on it's own.  I got everything working and tested and coordinated with Chris for me to come in late so no one would see me at the office until after everyone had seen the joke. And so the morning of April fools came and I was waiting at home and the email was perfect.  Chris told everyone that I wouldn't be in and that not to answer any questions if you got any calls from anybody.  The Photoshop job I did was not perfect, but good enough and I even wrote an article with it that went into more detail about how I had been classified as a terrorist and all kinds of stuff. People at work started getting the emails and a few people didn't realize it was a joke (as I had hoped), including some from senior management (one person in particular who shall remain nameless in this post).  Emails started flying around about how to contain the situation and how to handle bad PR.  He basically bought it hook, line and sinker and then went in to crisis mode.  It was awesome! He did finally realize it was a joke and I will likely print and frame the email he sent out.  In short, April fools this year was a huge success.

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  • What’s the use of code reuse?

    - by Tony Davis
    All great developers write reusable code, don’t they? Well, maybe, but as with all statements regarding what “great” developers do or don’t do, it’s probably an over-simplification. A novice programmer, in particular, will encounter in the literature a general assumption of the importance of code reusability. They spend time worrying about DRY (don’t repeat yourself), moving logic into specific “helper” modules that they can then reuse, agonizing about the minutiae of the class structure, inheritance and interface design that will promote easy reuse. Unfortunately, writing code specifically for reuse often leads to complicated object hierarchies and inheritance models that are anything but reusable. If, instead, one strives to write simple code units that are highly maintainable and perform a single function, in a concise, isolated fashion then the potential for reuse simply “drops out” as a natural by-product. Programmers, of course, care about these principles, about encapsulation and clean interfaces that don’t expose inner workings and allow easy pluggability. This is great when it helps with the maintenance and development of code but how often, in practice, do we actually reuse our code? Most DBAs and database developers are familiar with the practical reasons for the limited opportunities to reuse database code and its potential downsides. However, surely elsewhere in our code base, reuse happens often. After all, we can all name examples, such as date/time handling modules, which if we write with enough care we can plug in to many places. I spoke to a developer just yesterday who looked me in the eye and told me that in 30+ years as a developer (a successful one, I’d add), he’d never once reused his own code. As I sat blinking in disbelief, he explained that, of course, he always thought he would reuse it. He’d often agonized over its design, certain that he was creating code of great significance that he and other generations would reuse, with grateful tears misting their eyes. In fact, it never happened. He had in his head, most of the algorithms he needed and would simply write the code from scratch each time, refining the algorithms and tailoring the code to meet the specific requirements. It was, he said, simply quicker to do that than dig out the old code, check it, correct the mistakes, and adapt it. Is this a common experience, or just a strange anomaly? Viewed in a certain light, building code with a focus on reusability seems to hark to a past age where people built cars and music systems with the idea that someone else could and would replace and reuse the parts. Technology advances so rapidly that the next time you need the “same” code, it’s likely a new technique, or a whole new language, has emerged in the meantime, better equipped to tackle the task. Maybe we should be less fearful of the idea that we could write code well suited to the system requirements, but with little regard for reuse potential, and then rewrite a better version from scratch the next time.

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  • Travelling MVP #4: DevReach 2012

    - by DigiMortal
    Our next stop after Varna was Sofia where DevReach happens. DevReach is one of my favorite conferences in Europe because of sensible prices and strong speakers line-up. Also they have VIP-party after conference and this is good event to meet people you don’t see every day, have some discussion with speakers and find new friends. Our trip from Varna to Sofia took about 6.5 hours on bus. As I was tired from last evening it wasn’t problem for me as I slept half the trip. After smoking pause in Velike Tarnovo I watched movies from bus TV. We had supper later in city center Happy’s – place with good meat dishes and nice service. And next day it begun…. :) DevReach 2012 DevReach is held usually in Arena Mladost. It’s near airport and Telerik office. The event is organized by local MVP Martin Kulov together with Telerik. Two days of sessions with strong speakers is good reason enough for me to go to visit some event. Some topics covered by sessions: Windows 8 development web development SharePoint Windows Azure Windows Phone architecture Visual Studio Practically everybody can find some interesting session in every time slot. As the Arena is not huge it is very easy to go from one sessions to another if selected session for time slot is not what you expected. On the second floor of Arena there are many places where you can eat. There are simple chunk-food places like Burger King and also some restaurants. If you are hungry you will find something for your taste for sure. Also you can buy beer if it is too hot outside :) Weather was very good for October – practically Estonian summer – 25C and over. Sessions I visited Here is the list of sessions I visited at DevReach 2012: DevReach 2012 Opening & Welcome Messsage with Martin Kulov and Stephen Forte Principled N-Tier Solution Design with Steve Smith Data Patterns for the Cloud with Brian Randell .NET Garbage Collection Performance Tips with Sasha Goldshtein Building Secured, Scalable, Low-latency Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform with Ido Flatow It’s a Knockout! MVVM Style Web Applications with Charles Nurse Web Application Architecture – Lessons Learned from Adobe Brackets with Brian Rinaldi Demystifying Visual Studio 2012 Performance Tools with Martin Kulov SPvNext – A Look At All the Exciting And New Features In SharePoint with Sahil Malik Portable Libraries – Why You Should Care with Lino Tadros I missed some sessions because of some death march projects that are going and that I have to coordinate but it was not big loss as I had time to walk around in session venue neighborhood and see Sofia Business Park. Next year again! I will be there again next year and hopefully more guys from Estonia will join me. I think it’s good idea to take short vacation for DevReach time and do things like we did this time – Bucharest, Varna, Sofia. It’s only good idea to plan some more free time so we are not very much in hurry and also we have no work stuff to do on the trip. This far this trip has been one of best trips I have organized and I will go and meet all those guys in this region again! :)

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  • Three Easy Ways of Providing Feedback to the Oracle AutoVue Team

    - by Celine Beck
    Customer feedback is essential in helping us deliver best-in-class Enterprise Visualization solutions which are centered around real-world usage. As the Oracle AutoVue Product Management team is busy prioritizing the next round of improvements, enhancements and new innovation to the AutoVue platform, I thought it would be a good idea to provide our blog-readers with a recap of how best to provide product feedback to the AutoVue Product Management team. This gives you the opportunity to help shape our future agenda and make our solutions better for you. Enterprise Visualization Special Interest Group (EV SIG): the AutoVue EV SIG is a customer-driven initiative that has recently been created to share knowledge and information between members and discuss common and best practices around Enterprise Visualization. The EV SIG also serves as a mechanism for establishing and communicating to AutoVue Product Management users’ collective priorities for the future development, direction and enhancement of the AutoVue product family with the objective of ensuring their continuous improvement. Essentially, EV SIG members meet in order to share and prioritize feedback and use this input to begin dialog with the AutoVue Product Management team on what they deem to be the most important improvements to Enterprise Visualization solutions. The AutoVue EV SIG is by far the best platform for sharing and relaying feedback to our Product Strategy / Management team regarding general product enhancements, industry-specific scenarios, new use cases, usability, support, deployability, etc, and helping us shape the future direction of Enterprise Visualization solutions. We strongly encourage ALL our customers to sign up for the SIG;  here is how you can do so: Sign up for the EVSIG mailing list b.    Visit the group’s website c.    Contact Dennis Walker at Harris Corporation directly should you have any questions: dwalke22-AT-harris-DOT-com Customer / Partner Advisory Boards: The AutoVue Product Strategy / Management team also periodically runs Customer and Partner Advisory Boards. These invitation-only events bring together individuals chosen from Oracle AutoVue’s top customers that are using AutoVue at the enterprise level, as well as strategic partners.  The idea here is to establish open lines of communication between top customers and partners and the Oracle AutoVue Product Strategy team, help us communicate AutoVue’s product direction, share perspectives on today and tomorrow’s challenges and needs for Enterprise Visualization, and validate that proposed additions to the product are valid industry solutions. Our next Customer / Partner Advisory Board will be held in San Francisco during Oracle Open World, please contact your account manager to find out more about the CAB Members’ nomination process. Enhancement Requests:  Enhancement requests are request logged by customers or partners with Product Development for a feature that is not currently available in Oracle AutoVue. Enhancement requests (ER) can be logged easily via the My Oracle Support portal. This is the best way to share feedback with us at the functionality level; for instance if you would like to see a new format supported in AutoVue or make suggestions as per how certain functionality can be improved or should behave. Once the ER is logged, it is then evaluated by Product Management based on feasibility, product adequation and business justification. Product Management then decides whether to consider this ER for future release or not. What helps accelerate the process is hearing from a large number of customers who urgently need a particular feature or configuration. Hence the importance of logging Metalink Service Requests, and describing in details your business expectations. You can include key milestones dates and justifications as to why this request is important and the benefits your organization stands to gain should this request be accepted. Again, feedback from customers and partners is critical to ensure we offer solutions that have the biggest impact on customers’ business processes and day-to-day operations. All feedback is welcome,. So please don’t be shy! 

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