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  • AWS .NET SDK v2: setting up queues and topics

    - by Elton Stoneman
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2013/10/13/aws-.net-sdk-v2-setting-up-queues-and-topics.aspxFollowing on from my last post, reading from SQS queues with the new SDK is easy stuff, but linking a Simple Notification Service topic to an SQS queue is a bit more involved. The AWS model for topics and subscriptions is a bit more advanced than in Azure Service Bus. SNS lets you have subscribers on multiple different channels, so you can send a message which gets relayed to email address, mobile apps and SQS queues all in one go. As the topic owner, when you request a subscription on any channel, the owner needs to confirm they’re happy for you to send them messages. With email subscriptions, the user gets a confirmation request from Amazon which they need to reply to before they start getting messages. With SQS, you need to grant the topic permission to write to the queue. If you own both the topic and the queue, you can do it all in code with the .NET SDK. Let’s say you want to create a new topic, a new queue as a topic subscriber, and link the two together. Creating the topic is easy with the SNS client (which has an expanded name, AmazonSimpleNotificationServiceClient, compare to the SQS class which is just called QueueClient): var request = new CreateTopicRequest(); request.Name = TopicName; var response = _snsClient.CreateTopic(request); TopicArn = response.TopicArn; In the response from AWS (which I’m assuming is successful), you get an ARN – Amazon Resource Name – which is the unique identifier for the topic. We create the queue using the same code from my last post, AWS .NET SDK v2: the message-pump pattern, and then we need to subscribe the queue to the topic. The topic creates the subscription request: var response = _snsClient.Subscribe(new SubscribeRequest { TopicArn = TopicArn, Protocol = "sqs", Endpoint = _queueClient.QueueArn }); That response will give you an ARN for the subscription, which you’ll need if you want to set attributes like RawMessageDelivery. Then the SQS client needs to confirm the subscription by allowing the topic to send messages to it. The SDK doesn’t give you a nice mechanism for doing that, so I’ve extended my AWS wrapper with a method that encapsulates it: internal void AllowSnsToSendMessages(TopicClient topicClient) { var policy = Policies.AllowSendFormat.Replace("%QueueArn%", QueueArn).Replace("%TopicArn%", topicClient.TopicArn); var request = new SetQueueAttributesRequest(); request.Attributes.Add("Policy", policy); request.QueueUrl = QueueUrl; var response = _sqsClient.SetQueueAttributes(request); } That builds up a policy statement, which gets added to the queue as an attribute, and specifies that the topic is allowed to send messages to the queue. The statement itself is a JSON block which contains the ARN of the queue, the ARN of the topic, and an Allow effect for the sqs:SendMessage action: public const string AllowSendFormat= @"{ ""Statement"": [ { ""Sid"": ""MySQSPolicy001"", ""Effect"": ""Allow"", ""Principal"": { ""AWS"": ""*"" }, ""Action"": ""sqs:SendMessage"", ""Resource"": ""%QueueArn%"", ""Condition"": { ""ArnEquals"": { ""aws:SourceArn"": ""%TopicArn%"" } } } ] }"; There’s a new gist with an updated QueueClient and a new TopicClient here: Wrappers for the SQS and SNS clients in the AWS SDK for .NET v2. Both clients have an Ensure() method which creates the resource, so if you want to create a topic and a subscription you can use:  var topicClient = new TopicClient(“BigNews”, “ImListening”); And the topic client has a Subscribe() method, which calls into the message pump on the queue client: topicClient.Subscribe(x=>Log.Debug(x.Body)); var message = {}; //etc. topicClient.Publish(message); So you can isolate all the fiddly bits and use SQS and SNS with a similar interface to the Azure SDK.

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  • Planning development when academic research is involved

    - by Another Anonymous User
    Dear fellow programmers, how do you do "software planning" when academic research is involved? And, on a side note, how do you convince your boss that writing software is not like building a house and it's more like writing a novel? The gory details are below. I am in charge of a small dev team working in a research lab. We started developing a software with the purpose of going public one day (i.e. sell and make money off that). Such software depends on, amongst other things, at least two independent research lines: that is, there are at least two Ph.D. candidates that will, hopefully, one day come out with a working implementation of what we need. The main software depends also on other, more concrete resources that we as developers can take care of: graphics rendering, soft bodies deformation, etc. My boss asked me to write the specifications, requirements AND a bloody GANTT chart of the entire project. Faced with the fact that I don't have a clue about the research part, and that such research is fundamental for the software, he said "make assumptions." For the clarity of the argument, he is a professor whose Ph.D. students should come up with the research we need. And he comes from a strictly engineering background: plan everything first, write down specifications and only then write down code that "it's the last part". What I am doing now: I broke down the product in features; each 'feature' is, de facto, a separate product; Each feature is built on top of the previous one; Once a feature (A) has a working prototype the team can start working on the next feature (B), while QA for is being done for A (if money allows, more people can be brought in, etc.); Features that depend on research will come last: by then, hopefully, the research part will be completed (when is still a big question) ; Also, I set the team to use SCRUM for the development of 'version 1.0', due in a few months. This deadline could be set based on reasonable assumptions: we listed all required features, we counted our availability, and we gave a reasonable estimate. So my questions, again, are: How do I make my boss happy while at the same time get something out the door? How do I write specifications for something we -the developers- have no clue whether it's possible to do or not? (We still haven't decided which libraries to use for some tasks; we'll do so when we'll need to) How do I get the requirements for that, given that there are yet no clients nor investors, just lots of interests and promises? How do I get peace in the world? I am sure at least one of my questions will be answered :) ps: I am writing this anonymously since a potential investor might backfire if this is discovered. Hope you'll understand. However I must say I do not like this mentality of 'hiding the truth': this program will likely benefit many, and not being able to talk openly about this (with my name and my reputation attached) feels like censorship. But alas, I care more about your suggestions now.

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  • How Can I Start an Incognito/Private Browsing Window from a Shortcut?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Sometimes you just want to pop the browser open for a quick web search without reloading all your saved tabs; read on as we show a fellow reader how to make a quick private-browsing shortcut. Dear How-To Geek, I came up with a solution to my problem, but I need your help implementing it. I typically have a ton of tabs open in my web browser and, when I need to free up system resources when gaming or using a resource intense application, I shut down the web browser. The problem arises when I find myself needing to do quick web search while the browser is shut down. I don’t want to open it up, load all the tabs, and waste the resources in doing so all for a quick Google search. The perfect solution, it would seem, is to open up one of Chrome’s Incognito windows: it loads separate, it won’t open up all the old tabs, and it’s perfect for a quick Google search. Is there a way to launch Chrome with a single Incognito window open without having to open the browser in the normal mode (and load the bazillion tabs I have sitting there)? Sincerely, Tab Crazy That’s a rather clever work around to your problem. Since you’ve already done the hard work of figuring out the solution you need, we’re more than happy to help you across the finish line. The magic you seek is available via what are known as “command line options” which allow you to add additional parameters and switches onto a command.   By appending the command the Chrome shortcut uses, we can easily tell it to launch in Incognito mode. (And, for other readers following along at home, we can do the same thing with other browsers like Firefox). First, let’s look at Chrome’s default shortcut: If you right click on it and select the properties menu, you’ll see where the shortcut points: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" If you run that shortcut, you’ll open up normal browsing mode in Chrome and your saved tabs will all load. What we need to do is use the command line switches available for Chrome and tell it that we want it to launch an Incognito window instead. Doing so is as simple as appending the end of the “Target” box’s command line entry with -incognito, like so: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" -incognito We’d also recommend changing the icon to it’s easy to tell the default Chrome shortcut apart from your new Incognito shortcut. When you’re done, make sure to hit OK/Apply at the button to save the changes. You can recreate the same private-browsing-shortcut effect with other major web browsers too. Repeat shortcut editing steps we highlighted above, but change out the -incognito with -private (for Firefox and Internet Explorer) and -newprivatetab (for Opera). With just a simple command line switch applied, you can now launch a lightweight single browser window for those quick web searches without having to stop your game and load up all your saved tabs. Have a pressing tech question? Email us at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to answer it.

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  • Apprentice Boot Camp in South Africa (Part 2)

    - by Tim Koekkoek
    By Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK) Today we have the second part of the adventures of seven apprentices from all over Europe in South-Africa!  Kruger National Park & other experiences Going to the Kruger National Park was definitely an experience we will all remember for the rest of our lives. This trip,organised by Patrick Fitzgerald, owner of the Travellers Nest (where we all stayed), took us from the hustle and bustle of Joburg to experience what Africa is all about, the wild! Although the first week’s training we had prior to this trip to the Kruger was going very well, we all knew this was to be a very nice break before we started the second week of training. And we were right, the animals, scenery and sights we saw were just simply incredible and like I said something we will remember for the rest of our lives. To see lions, elephants, cheetahs and rhinos and many more in a zoo is one thing, but to see them in the wild, in their natural habitat is very special and I personally only realised this from the early 5 am start on the first morning in the Kruger, which was definitely worth it. Not only was it all about the safari, we ate some wonderful food, in particular on the Saturday night, Patrick made us a traditional South African Braai which was one of my favourite meals of the whole two weeks. After the Kruger National Park we had a whole day of traveling back to Johannesburg but even this was made to be a good day by our hosts. Despite the early start on the road it was all worth it by the time we reached God's Window. The walk to the top was made a lot harder by all the steaks we had eaten in the first week but the hard walk was worth it at the top, with views that stretched for miles. The Food The food in South Africa is typically meat and in big amounts, while there we ate a lot of big beef steaks, ribs and kudu sausage. All of the meat we ate was usually cooked with a sauce such as a Barbeque glaze. The restaurants we visited were: Upperdeck Restaurant, with live music and a great terrace to eat, the atmosphere was good for enjoying the music and eating our food. Most of us ate  Spare ribs that weighed 600 kg, with barbecue sauce that was delicious. Die Bosvelder Pub & Restaurant is a restaurant with a very surprising decor, this is because the walls had many of south Africa’s famous animals on them. The food was maybe the best we ate in South Africa. Our orders were: Springbokvlakte Lambs' Neck Stew, beef in gravy and steaks topped with cheese and then more meat on top! All meals were accompanied by a selection of white sauce cauliflower, spinach and zanhorias. Pepper Chair Restaurant, where the specialty is T-Bone steaks of 1.4 kg, but most of us were happy to attempt the 1 kg. Cooked with barbecue sauce over the meat, it was very good!  The only problem was their size causing the  the meat to get cold if you did not eat it very fast! We’re all waiting for our 1.0 kg t-bone steak including our Senior Director EMEA Systems Support Germany & Switzerland: Werner Hoellrigl The Godfather Restaurant, the food here was more meat in abundance. We ate: great ribs, hamburgers, steaks and all accompanied with a small plates of carrot and sauteed spinach, very good. We had two great weeks in South-Africa! If you want to join Oracle, then check http://campus.oracle.com 

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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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  • Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c Update 1 is available now

    - by Anand Akela
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Following the announcement of Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c on April 4th, we are happy to announce the release of Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c update 1. This is a bundled patch release for Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center.  Here are the key features of the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c update 1 : Oracle VM SPARC Server Pool HA Policy  Automatically Upgrade from Ops Center 11g update 3 and Ops Center 12c  Oracle Linux 5.8 and 6.x Support  Oracle VM SPARC IaaS (Virtual Datacenters) WANBoot Improvements with OBP Handling Enhancements SPARC SuperCluster Support Stability fixes This new release contains significant enhancements in the update provisioning, bare metal OS provisioning, shared storage management, cloud/virtual datacenter, and networking management sections of the product.  With this update, customers can achieve better handling of ASR faults, add networks and storage to virtual guests more easily, understand IPMP and VLAN configurations better, get a more robust LDAP integration, get  virtualization aware firmware patching, and observe improved product performance across the board.  Customers can now accelerate Oracle VM SPARC and T4 deployments into production . Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g and Ops Center 12c customers will now notice the availability of new product update under the Administration tab within the  Browser User Interface (BUI) .  Upgrade process is explained in detail within the Ops Center Administration Guide under “Chapter 10: Upgrading”.  Please be sure to read over that chapter and the Release Notes before upgrading.  During the week of July 9th,  the full download of the product will be available from the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center download website.  Based on the customer feedback, we have changed the updates to include the entire product. Customers no longer need to install Ops Center 12c and then upgrade to the update 1 release.  The can simply install Ops Center 12c update 1 directly.  Here are some of the resources that can help you learn more about the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center and the new update 1. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center OTN site Bi-Monthly Product Demos Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Forum Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center MOS Community Watch the recording of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c launch webcast by clicking the following banner. Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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  • Open source adventures with... wait for it... Microsoft

    - by Jeff
    Last week, Microsoft announced that it was going to open source the rest of the ASP.NET MVC Web stack. The core MVC framework has been open source for a long time now, but the other pieces around it are also now out in the wild. Not only that, but it's not what I call "big bang" open source, where you release the source with each version. No, they're actually committing in real time to a public repository. They're also taking contributions where it makes sense. If that weren't exciting enough, CodePlex, which used to be a part of the team I was on, has been re-org'd to a different part of the company where it is getting the love and attention (and apparently money) that it deserves. For a period of several months, I lobbied to get a PM gig with that product, but got nowhere. A year and a half later, I'm happy to see it finally treated right. In any case, I found a bug in Razor, the rendering engine, before the beta came out. I informally sent the bug info to some people, but it wasn't fixed for the beta. Now, with the project being developed in the open, I was able to submit the issue, and went back and forth with the developer who wrote the code (I met him once at a meet up in Bellevue, I think), and he committed a fix. I tried it a day later, and the bug was gone. There's a lot to learn from all of this. That open source software is surprisingly efficient and often of high quality is one part of it. For me the win is that it demonstrates how open and collaborative processes, as light as possible, lead to better software. In other words, even if this were a project being developed internally, at a bank or something, getting stakeholders involved early and giving people the ability to respond leads to awesomeness. While there is always a place for big thinking, experience has shown time and time again that trying to figure everything out up front takes too long, and rarely meets expectations. This is a lesson that probably half of Microsoft has yet to learn, including the team I was on before I split. It's the reason that team still hasn't shipped anything to general availability. But I've seen what an open and iterative development style can do for teams, at Microsoft and other places that I've worked. When you can have a conversation with people, and take ideas and turn them into code quickly, you're winning. So why don't people like winning? I think there are a lot of reasons, and they can generally be categorized into fear, skepticism and bad experiences. I can't give the Web stack teams enough credit. Not only did they dream big, but they changed a culture that often seems immovable and hopelessly stuck. This is a very public example of this culture change, but it's starting to happen at every scale in Microsoft. It's really interesting to see in a company that has been written off as dead the last decade.

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  • You Probably Already Have a “Private Cloud”

    - by BuckWoody
    I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of the word “Cloud”. It’s too marketing-oriented, gimmicky and non-specific. A better definition (in many cases) is “Distributed Computing”. That means that some or all of the computing functions are handled somewhere other than under your specific control. But there is a current use of the word “Cloud” that does not necessarily mean that the computing is done somewhere else. In fact, it’s a vector of Cloud Computing that can better be termed “Utility Computing”. This has to do with the provisioning of a computing resource. That means the setup, configuration, management, balancing and so on that is needed so that a user – which might actually be a developer – can do some computing work. To that person, the resource is just “there” and works like they expect, like the phone system or any other utility. The interesting thing is, you can do this yourself. In fact, you probably already have been, or are now. It’s got a cool new trendy term – “Private Cloud”, but the fact is, if you have your setup automated, the HA and DR handled, balancing and performance tuning done, and a process wrapped around it all, you can call yourself a “Cloud Provider”. A good example here is your E-Mail system. your users – pretty much your whole company – just logs into e-mail and expects it to work. To them, you are the “Cloud” provider. On your side, the more you automate and provision the system, the more you act like a Cloud Provider. Another example is a database server. In this case, the “end user” is usually the development team, or perhaps your SharePoint group and so on. The data professionals configure, monitor, tune and balance the system all the time. The more this is automated, the more you’re acting like a Cloud Provider. Lots of companies help you do this in your own data centers, from VMWare to IBM and many others. Microsoft's offering in this is based around System Center – they have a “cloud in a box” provisioning system that’s actually pretty slick. The most difficult part of operating a Private Cloud is probably the scale factor. In the case of Windows and SQL Azure, we handle this in multiple ways – and we're happy to share how we do it. It’s not magic, and the algorithms for balancing (like the one we started with called Paxos) are well known. The key is the knowledge, infrastructure and people. Sure, you can do this yourself, and in many cases such as top-secret or private systems, you probably should. But there are times where you should evaluate using Azure or other vendors, or even multiple vendors to spread your risk. All of this should be based on client need, not on what you know how to do already. So congrats on your new role as a “Cloud Provider”. If you have an E-mail system or a database platform, you can just put that right on your resume.

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  • Antenna Aligner Part 4: Role'ing in the deep

    - by Chris George
    Since last time I've been trying to sort out the general workflow of the app. It's fundamentally not hard, there is a list of transmitters, you select a transmitter and it shows the compass view. Having done quite a bit of ajax/asp.net/html in the past, I immediately started off by creating two divs within my 'page', one for the list, one for the compass. Then using the onClick event in the list, this will switch the display attribute on the divs. This seemed to work, but did lead to some dodgy transitional redrawing artefacts which I was not happy with. So after some Googling I realised I was doing it all wrong! JQuery mobile has the concept of giving an object in html a data-role. By giving a div the attribute data-role="page" it is then treated as a separate page on the mobile device. Within the code, this is referenced like a html anchor in the form #mypage. Using this system, page transitions such as fade or slide are automatically applied which adds to the whole authenticity of the app! Here is a simple example: . <a href="#'compasspage">compass</a> . <div data-role="page" id="compasspage" data-add-back-btn="true"> But I don't want just a static link, I want to dynamically create my list, and get each list elements to switch to the compass page with the right information. So here is the jquery that I used to dynamically inject new <li> rows into the <ul> block. $('ul').append($('<li/>', {    //here appendin `<li>`     'data-role': "list-divider" }).append($('<a/>', {    //here appending `<a>` into `<li>`     'href': '#compasspage',     'data-transition': 'none',     'onclick': 'selectTx(' + i + ')',     'html': buttonHtml }))); $('ul').listview('refresh'); This is called within a for loop so the first 5 appropriate transmitters are used. There are several things of interest to note here. Firstly, I could not find a more elegant way to tell the target page which transmitter I've clicked on, so I have used the onclick event as well as the href attribute. The onclick event fires 'selectTx' which simply sets a global member variable to the specific index number I've clicked on. Yes it's not nice, but it works. Secondly, the data-transition attribute is set to 'none'. I wanted the transition between the pages to be a whooshy slidey effect. However this worked going to the compass page, but returning to the list page gave some undesirable visual artefacts (flickering, redrawing etc.). So I decided to remove the transitions all together, which was a shame. Thirdly, rather than embedding loads of html into the append command, I removed this out into a variable 'buttonHtml'. Doing this really tidied up my code. Until next time!

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  • SQL Server Date Comparison Functions

    - by HighAltitudeCoder
    A few months ago, I found myself working with a repetitive cursor that looped until the data had been manipulated enough times that it was finally correct.  The cursor was heavily dependent upon dates, every time requiring the earlier of two (or several) dates in one stored procedure, while requiring the later of two dates in another stored procedure. In short what I needed was a function that would allow me to perform the following evaluation: WHERE MAX(Date1, Date2) < @SomeDate The problem is, the MAX() function in SQL Server does not perform this functionality.  So, I set out to put these functions together.  They are titled: EarlierOf() and LaterOf(). /**********************************************************                               EarlierOf.sql   **********************************************************/ /**********************************************************   Return the later of two DATETIME variables.   Parameter 1: DATETIME1 Parameter 2: DATETIME2   Works for a variety of DATETIME or NULL values. Even though comparisons with NULL are actually indeterminate, we know conceptually that NULL is not earlier or later than any other date provided.   SYNTAX: SELECT dbo.EarlierOf('1/1/2000','12/1/2009') SELECT dbo.EarlierOf('2009-12-01 00:00:00.000','2009-12-01 00:00:00.521') SELECT dbo.EarlierOf('11/15/2000',NULL) SELECT dbo.EarlierOf(NULL,'1/15/2004') SELECT dbo.EarlierOf(NULL,NULL)   **********************************************************/ USE AdventureWorks GO   IF EXISTS       (SELECT *       FROM sysobjects       WHERE name = 'EarlierOf'       AND xtype = 'FN'       ) BEGIN             DROP FUNCTION EarlierOf END GO   CREATE FUNCTION EarlierOf (       @Date1                              DATETIME,       @Date2                              DATETIME )   RETURNS DATETIME   AS BEGIN       DECLARE @ReturnDate     DATETIME         IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = NULL             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NOT NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NOT NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             IF @Date2 < @Date1                   SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         EndOfFunction:       RETURN @ReturnDate   END -- End Function GO   ---- Set Permissions --GRANT SELECT ON EarlierOf TO UserRole1 --GRANT SELECT ON EarlierOf TO UserRole2 --GO                                                                                             The inverse of this function is only slightly different. /**********************************************************                               LaterOf.sql   **********************************************************/ /**********************************************************   Return the later of two DATETIME variables.   Parameter 1: DATETIME1 Parameter 2: DATETIME2   Works for a variety of DATETIME or NULL values. Even though comparisons with NULL are actually indeterminate, we know conceptually that NULL is not earlier or later than any other date provided.   SYNTAX: SELECT dbo.LaterOf('1/1/2000','12/1/2009') SELECT dbo.LaterOf('2009-12-01 00:00:00.000','2009-12-01 00:00:00.521') SELECT dbo.LaterOf('11/15/2000',NULL) SELECT dbo.LaterOf(NULL,'1/15/2004') SELECT dbo.LaterOf(NULL,NULL)   **********************************************************/ USE AdventureWorks GO   IF EXISTS       (SELECT *       FROM sysobjects       WHERE name = 'LaterOf'       AND xtype = 'FN'       ) BEGIN             DROP FUNCTION LaterOf END GO   CREATE FUNCTION LaterOf (       @Date1                              DATETIME,       @Date2                              DATETIME )   RETURNS DATETIME   AS BEGIN       DECLARE @ReturnDate     DATETIME         IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = NULL             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NULL AND @Date2 IS NOT NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE IF (@Date1 IS NOT NULL AND @Date2 IS NULL)       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         ELSE       BEGIN             SET @ReturnDate = @Date1             IF @Date2 > @Date1                   SET @ReturnDate = @Date2             GOTO EndOfFunction       END         EndOfFunction:       RETURN @ReturnDate   END -- End Function GO   ---- Set Permissions --GRANT SELECT ON LaterOf TO UserRole1 --GRANT SELECT ON LaterOf TO UserRole2 --GO                                                                                             The interesting thing about this function is its simplicity and the built-in NULL handling functionality.  Its interesting, because it seems like something should already exist in SQL Server that does this.  From a different vantage point, if you create this functionality and it is easy to use (ideally, intuitively self-explanatory), you have made a successful contribution. Interesting is good.  Self-explanatory, or intuitive is FAR better.  Happy coding! Graeme

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  • Hardware wireless switch has no effect after suspend and 13.10 upgrade

    - by blaineh
    This seems to be a fairly chronic problem, as shown by the following questions: How do I fix a "Wireless is disabled by hardware switch" error? Wireless disabled by hardware switch "Wireless disabled by hardware switch" after suspend and other hardware buttons ineffective - how can I solve this? but no good solutions have been found! Wireless works fine after a reboot, but after a suspend the hardware switch (for my laptop this is f12) has no effect on the wireless, it is just permanently off, and shows that it is with a red LED. All My rfkill list all reads: 0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: yes 1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: yes Any combination with rfkill <un>block wifi doesn't work, although one time first blocking then unblocking actually turned it on again. sudo lshw -C network reads: *-network DISABLED description: Wireless interface product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) vendor: Qualcomm Atheros physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0 logical name: wlan0 version: 01 serial: 78:e4:00:65:2e:3f width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.11.0-12-generic firmware=N/A ip=155.99.215.79 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn resources: irq:17 memory:90100000-9010ffff *-network DISABLED description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 02 serial: c8:0a:a9:89:b4:30 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 100Mbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:42 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:90010000-90010fff memory:90000000-9000ffff memory:90020000-9002ffff Also, adding a /etc/pm/sleep.d/brcm.sh file as recommended here simply prevents the laptop from suspending at all, which of course is no good. This question has an answer urging to install the original driver, but it wasn't an "accepted answer" so I'd rather not take a chance on it. Also I'll admit I'm a bit lost on that and would like help doing so with the specific information I've given. xev shows that no internal event is triggered for my wireless switch (f12), but other function keys also acting as hardware switches work fine. I would be happy to provide more information, so long as you're willing to help me find it for you! This is a very annoying bug. I have a Compaq Presario CQ62. Edit. I just tried to reload bios defaults (or something) as shown by this video. Didn't work. Edit. I tried the contents of this answer, and it didn't work. Edit. I made a pastebin of dmesg. I couldn't even begin to understand the contents. Edit. Output of lspci | grep Network: 02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

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  • More Free Apps Bound for the Marketplace

    - by Scott Kuhl
    Microsoft has announced they are raising the limit of free applications a developer can submit from 5 to 100.  But what does that really mean? First, lets look at the reason for the limitation.  The iTunes Store and the Android Market both have a lot more applications available than the Windows Phone Marketplace.  But that says nothing about the quality of those applications.  I attended a couple of pre-launch events and Microsoft representatives were clearly told to send a message. We don’t want a bunch of junky applications that do nothing but spam the marketplace.  That was the reason for the 5 free application limit. Okay, so now what has the result been?  Well, there are still fart apps, but there is no sign of a developer flooding the marking with 1500 wallpaper applications or 1000 of the same application all pointed at different RSS feeds.   On the other hand there are developers who want to release real free apps but are constrained by the 5 app limit. So why did Microsoft change it’s mind?  Is it to get the count of applications up, or is to make developers happy?  Windows Phone Marketplace is growing fast but it’s a long way behind the other guys.   I don’t think Microsoft wants to have 100,000 apps show up in the next 3 months if they are loaded with copy cat apps.  Those numbers will get picked apart quickly and the press will start complaining about  the same problems the Android Market has.  I do think the bump was at developer request.  Microsoft is usually good about listening to developer feedback, but has been pretty slow about it at times.  And from a financial perspective, there will me more apps that Microsoft has to review that they will see no profit on.  At least not until they bake in a advertising model connected to Bing. Ultimately, what does this mean for the future? Well, there are developers out there looking to release more than 5 simple free apps, so I think we will see more hobby apps.  And there are developers out there trying to make money from advertising instead of sales, so I think we will see more of those also.  But the category that I think will grow the fastest is free versions of paid applications that are the same as the trial version of the application.  While technically that makes no sense, its purely a marketing move.  Free apps get downloaded a lot more than paid apps, even with a trial mode.  It always surprises me how little consumers are willing to spend on mobile apps.  How many reviews of applications have you seen that says something like “a bit pricey at $1.99”.  Really?  Have you looked at how much you spend on your phone and plan?  I always thought the trial mode baked into Windows Marketplace was a good idea.  So I’m not sure how the more open free market will play out. In the long run though, I won’t be surprised to see a Bing ad mobile ad model show up so Microsoft can capitalize on the more open and free Windows Marketplace. Bonus: The Oatmeal on How I Feel About Buying Apps

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  • New spreadsheet accompanying SmartAssembly 6.0 provides statistics for prioritizing bug fixes

    - by Jason Crease
    One problem developers face is how to prioritize the many voices providing input into software bugs. If there is something wrong with a function that is the darling of a particular user, he or she tends to want action - now! The developer's dilemma is how to ascertain that the problem is major or minor, and when it should be addressed. Now there is a new spreadsheet accompanying SmartAssembly that provides exactly that information in an objective manner. This might upset those used to getting their way by being the loudest or pushiest, but ultimately it will ensure that the biggest problems get the priority they deserve. Here's how it works: Feature Usage Reporting (FUR) in SmartAssembly 6.0 provides a wealth of data about how your software is used by its end-users, but in the SmartAssembly UI the data isn't mined to its full extent. The new Excel spreadsheet for FUR extracts statistics from that data and presents them in easy-to-understand forms. I developed the spreadsheet feature in Microsoft Excel, using a fair amount of VBA. The spreadsheet connects directly to the database which stores the feature-usage data, and shows a wide variety of statistics and tables extracted from that data.  You want to know what percentage of users have used the 'Export as XML' button?  No problem.  How popular is v5.3 is compared to v5.1?  There's graphs for that. You need to know whether you have more users in Russia or Brazil? There's a big pie chart for that. I recently witnessed the spreadsheet in use here at Red Gate Software. My bug is exposed as minor While testing new features in .NET Reflector, I found a usability bug in the Refresh button and filed it in the Red Gate bug-tracking system. The bug was labelled "V.NEXT MINOR," which means it would be fixed in the next point release. Although I'm a professional tester, I'm not much different than most software users when they discover a bug that affects them personally: I wanted it fixed immediately. There was an ulterior motive at play here, of course. I would get to see my colleagues put the spreadsheet to work. The Reflector team loaded up the spreadsheet to view the feature-usage statistics that SmartAssembly collected for the refresh button. The resulting statistics showed that only 8% of users have ever pressed the Refresh button, and only 2.6% of sessions involve pressing the button. When Refresh is used, it's only pressed on average 1.6 times a session, with a maximum of 8 times during a session. This was in stark contrast to what I was doing as a conscientious tester: pressing it dozens of times per session. The spreadsheet provides evidence that my bug was a minor one. On to more serious things Based on the solid evidence uncovered by the spreadsheet, the Reflector team concluded that my experience does not represent that of the vast majority of Reflector's recorded users. The Reflector team had ample data to send me back to my desk and keep the bug classified as "V.NEXT MINOR." The team then went back to fixing more serious bugs. If I'm in the shoes of the user, I might not be thoroughly happy, but I cannot deny that the evidence clearly placed me in a very small minority. Next time I'm hoping the spreadsheet will prove that my bug is more important. Find out more about Feature-Usage Reporting here. The spreadsheet is available for free download here.

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  • Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.3 now available

    - by user12609056
    Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.3 The Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool Team is happy to announce the availability of release 5.3.  This release addresses bugs discovered since the release of 5.2 plus enhancements to support Oracle Solaris 11 and updates to Oracle Solaris versions 7 through 10. The packages are available on My Oracle Support - simply search for Patch 13365310 to find the downloadable packages. Release Notes General blast support The blast GUI has been removed and is no longer supported. Oracle Solaris 2.6 Support As of Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.3, support for Oracle Solaris 2.6 has been dropped. If you have systems running Solaris 2.6, you will need to use Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool 5.2 or earlier to read its crash dumps. New Commands Sanity Command Though one can re-run the sanity checks that are run at tool start-up using the coreinfo command, many users were unaware that they were. Though these checks can still be run using that command, a new command, namely sanity, can now be used to re-run the checks at any time. Interface Changes scat_explore -r and -t option The -r option has ben added to scat_explore so that a base directory can be specified and the -t op[tion was added to enable color taggging of the output. The scat_explore sub-command now accepts new options. Usage is: scat --scat_explore [-atv] [-r base_dir] [-d dest] [unix.N] [vmcore.]N Where: -v Verbose Mode: The command will print messages highlighting what it's doing. -a Auto Mode: The command does not prompt for input from the user as it runs. -d dest Instructs scat_explore to save it's output in the directory dest instead of the present working directory. -r base_dir Instructs scat_explore to save it's under the directory base_dir instead of the present working directory. If it is not specified using the -d option, scat_explore names it's output file as "scat_explore_system_name_hostid_lbolt_value_corefile_name." -t Enable color tags. When enabled, scat_explore tags important text with colors that match the level of importance. These colors correspond to the color normally printed when running Oracle Solaris Crash Analysis Tool in interactive mode. Tag Name Definition FATAL An extremely important message which should be investigated. WARNING A warning that may or may not have anything to do with the crash. ERROR An error, usually printer with a suggested command ALERT Used to indicate something the tool discovered. INFO Purely informational message INFO2 A follow-up to an INFO tagged message REDZONE Usually used when prnting memory info showing something is in the kernel's REDZONE. N The number of the crash dump. Specifying unix.N vmcore.N is optional and not required. Example: $ scat --scat_explore -a -v -r /tmp vmcore.0 #Output directory: /tmp/scat_explore_oomph_833a2959_0x28800_vmcore.0 #Tar filename: scat_explore_oomph_833a2959_0x28800_vmcore.0.tar #Extracting crash data... #Gathering standard crash data collections... #Panic string indicates a possible hang... #Gathering Hang Related data... #Creating tar file... #Compressing tar file... #Successful extraction SCAT_EXPLORE_DATA_DIR=/tmp/scat_explore_oomph_833a2959_0x28800_vmcore.0 Sending scat_explore results The .tar.gz file that results from a scat_explore run may be sent using Oracle Secure File Transfer. The Oracle Secure File Transfer User Guide describes how to use it to send a file. The send_scat_explore script now has a -t option for specifying a to address for sending the results. This option is mandatory. Known Issues There are a couple known issues that we are addressing in release 5.4, which you should expect to see soon: Display of timestamps in threads and clock information is incorrect in some cases. There are alignment issues with some of the tables produced by the tool.

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  • Working and Studying in Oracle, how I balance my time....

    - by anca.rosu
    Hi, my name is Laura. I am working as an Intern within Executive Administration at Oracle Denmark, whilst studying Information Management at Copenhagen Business school. I have recently handeding a paper on Information Systems which gave me exposure to Oracle. Once completing this paper I came across a job posting on my University’s intranet site and I applied directly online. When I submitted my application for the job offer, I wondered about what language I should use for the application form, as the job posting was in Danish, but the contact person and number looked Irish. I therefore chose English. Later that same day, Fiona, one of Oracle’s Graduates Recruitment Consultants based in Ireland, contacted me. This shows how global Oracle truly is. I went for my face-to-face interview in Oracle Denmark with Charlotte, one of the team managers. I spent 5 minutes waiting in the lobby, just looking around, thinking to myself, I really want to work here. The atmosphere seemed so pleasant with a relaxed approach between colleagues, employees and guests. The interview took about an hour, but we touched on a lot of different subjects. The profile I got of Oraclewas that this is a place where you are encouraged to think for yourself, and you are given the freedom to use your ideas. Later that evening, Fiona called and offered me the job. I was very happy. At Oracle Denmark we have 4 different zones: a Quiet Zone, a Project Zone, a Dialogue Zone and a Call Zone. Everyday when you arrive you consider what will be the most productive for the day’s task, and you take your toolbox and go find a desk in the zone you have decided on. It is therefore very unusual to be next to the same person two days in a row. At Oracle, people are located all over the world, and everybody has team members, colleagues or leaders in other countries, or even other time zones. Initially,I was worried about how I would adapt to this approach but I soon realized I had nothing to worry about and now I appreciate working this way. My colleagues have been very supportive and they have openly welcomed me into my new role. I typically work two days a week and have three days at University. During exam periods, I have the flexibility to work less hours and focus on the exams, in return for putting in more hours at work when needed. The first time I had to ask for time off before handing in a paper, my boss looked at me and said, ”Of course! Your education is the most important!” I hope that by sharing my experiences with you, I can inspire or encourage you to consider Oracle as a potential employer, where you can grow both professionally and personally. If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact  [email protected].  You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com Technorati Tags: Intern,Oracle Denmark,Information Systems,Business school,Copenhagen,Graduates Recruitment,Ireland,Quiet Zone,Project Zone,Dialogue Zone,Call Zone,University,flexibility

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  • Single page not appearing in Google Search

    - by Dan
    Description I have a static franchise website which has various sub pages each dedicated to an individual franchisee. For each franchisee the page, the only thing slightly similar between all of them are the page titles, they follow this structure: <title> Welcome to THE_COMPANY - PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION Services, THE_LOCATION </title> THE_COMPANY and PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION are the same across all franchisees, however THE_LOCATION changes depeding on where they are located in the UK. Each franchisee page has the following <meta /> tags: <meta name="DC.creator" content="user"/> <meta name="DC.format" content="text/html"/> <meta name="DC.language" content="en"/> <meta name="DC.date.modified" content="2014-01-23T11:22:31+00:00"/> <meta name="DC.date.created" content="2014-01-23T11:22:09+00:00"/> <meta name="DC.type" content="Page"/> <meta name="DC.distribution" content="Global"/> <meta name="robots" content="ALL"/> <meta name="distribution" content="Global"/> The main content on each franchisee page is completely different. The Problem There is one particular franchisee page, located in Area A.. Which will not appear in Google Search results at all. However every single other franchisee (if you Google Search for "THE_COMPANY, THE_LOCATION" is number 1). And if I do the same search on Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo, the Area A franchisee is the first result on all of them. Has Google for some reason black listed one page on the site? What I Have Tried Ensuring the page is referenced in my sitemap.xml file 'Fetching as Google Bot' the link www.the_company.co.uk/areaa When that came back as OK I would submit to index Resubmitting the sitemap.xml file in Webmaster Tools Linking to the Area A page from another pages content For this I also waited about 3 weeks before checking again to give Google time to re-index Making a change to the page content and waiting another 2 / 3 weeks Removing the page completely and recreating it with an alternative URL The closest thing I have found to this issue is this StackOverflow question but this particular franchisee has existed for almost a year, it used to appear on Google searches however no longer does. I'm guessing the Panda update wasn't too happy with something on the page, but it hasn't effected anything else on the site and I am at a loss for things to try. I would greatly appreciate any information or thoughts as to what could have caused this Thanks. Update In line with Daniel Fukudas answer below, I have followed some of his steps but everything seems to check out alright: HTTP Headers HTTP/1.1 200 OK => Date => Tue, 25 Feb 2014 16:31:29 GMT Server => Zope/(2.12.16, python 2.6.6, linux2) ZServer/1.1 Content-Length => 40078 Expires => Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT Content-Type => text/html;charset=utf-8 Content-Language => en Vary => Accept-Encoding Connection => close Robots <meta /> tag: <meta name="robots" content="ALL"/> I have updated this <meta /> tag to read content="INDEX" instead now. robots.txt: User-agent: * Disallow: User-Agent: Googlebot Disallow: /*sendto_form$ Disallow: /*folder_factories$ Using site:THE_COMPANY.co.uk: Searching for 'AREA A site:THE_COMPANY.co.uk' does not return the page, but regardless of that searching just for site:THE_COMPANY.co.uk will not necessarily return every indexed page, or so I understand... Update It appears Google likes to drop pages every now and then from the index, despite my steps above, I left the site alone and the page appeared back in the SERPs by itself.

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  • SQL SERVER – How to Get SQL Server Restart Notification?

    - by Pinal Dave
    Few days back my friend called me to know if there is any tool which can be used to get restart notification about SQL in their environment. I told that SQL Server can do it by itself with some configurations. He was happy and surprised to know that he need not spend any extra money. In SQL Server, we can configure stored procedure(s) to run at start-up of SQL Server. This blog would give steps to achieve how to achieve it. There are many situations where this feature can be used. Below are few. Logging SQL Server startup timings Modify data in some table during startup (i.e. table in tempdb) Sending notification about SQL start. Step 1 – Enable ‘scan for startup procs’ This can be done either using T-SQL or User Interface of Management Studio. EXEC sys.sp_configure N'Show Advanced Options', N'1' GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE GO EXEC sys.sp_configure N'scan for startup procs', N'1' GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE GO Below is the interface to change the setting. We need to go to “Server” > “Properties” and use “Advanced” tab. “Scan for Startup Procs” is the parameter under “Miscellaneous” section as shown below. We need to make value as “True” and hit OK. Step 2 – Create stored procedure It’s important to note that the procedure is executed after recovery is finished for ALL databases. Here is a sample stored procedure. You can use your own logic in the procedure. CREATE PROCEDURE SQLStartupProc AS BEGIN CREATE TABLE ##ThisTableShouldAlwaysExists (AnyColumn INT) END Step 3 – Set Procedure to run at startup We need to use sp_procoption to mark the procedure to run at startup. Here is the code to let SQL know that this is startup proc. sp_procoption 'SQLStartupProc', 'startup', 'true' This can be used only for procedures in master database. Msg 15398, Level 11, State 1, Procedure sp_procoption, Line 89 Only objects in the master database owned by dbo can have the startup setting changed. We also need to remember that such procedure should not have any input/output parameter. Here is the error which would be raised. Msg 15399, Level 11, State 1, Procedure sp_procoption, Line 107 Could not change startup option because this option is restricted to objects that have no parameters. Verification Here is the query to find which procedures is marked as startup procedures. SELECT name FROM sys.objects WHERE OBJECTPROPERTY(OBJECT_ID, 'ExecIsStartup') = 1 Once this is done, I have restarted SQL instance and here is what we would see in SQL ERRORLOG Launched startup procedure 'SQLStartupProc'. This confirms that stored procedure is executed. You can also notice that this is done after all databases are recovered. Recovery is complete. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. After few days my friend again called me and asked – I want to turn this OFF? Use comments section and post the answer for him.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL

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  • Projet Doneness and Einstein's Razor

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} I’ve started working on a series of articles about the value of having testers involved in requirements gathering.  Today I was reminded of a useful tool that has provided value to me for at least 20 years.  To those of you who already use this tool, I’m interested in your stories where it has made a difference for you, and to those of you who have never heard of it, I hope sharing it will make a difference in your careers.   I was reminded of it because I just finished a 3 month set of personal projects and was reviewing the success of those projects while putting together my next set of 3 month projects.  During this review, I noticed that a good number of my projects did not have the level of success that I wanted.  The results were good, but they could have been better.  Then it hit me, I didn’t have clear enough doneness criteria.  As a Scrum Practitioner, I wouldn’t think of running a sprint without reviewing the backlog with Einstein's Razor, so why wouldn’t I do the same for my own projects?    I can hear a few of you asking "What's Einstein's Razor?"   I'm glad you asked.  I was once told that Einstein told an audience, "If you can't explain what you do to a relatively bright six year old, you probably don't understand it yourself."    This quote had an impact on me, especially early in my career as a solo developer.  At the time, I was mostly doing end to end software development.  I found that I saved myself a lot of pain and trouble by turning that quote around to “If you can't explain your project's doneness criteria in such a way that a relatively bright six year old can't competently determine your projects success or failure, then you have not broken it down to a fine enough level.”  There are more negatives in that quote than I’m happy with, but it still gives me tons of value to this day.     In your opinion, in your current projects, could a 6 year old competently pass or fail your next sprint?  What risks are you running if your answer is “No” ?

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  • Reducing Deadlocks - not a DBA issue ?

    - by steveh99999
     As a DBA, I'm involved on an almost daily basis troubleshooting 'SQL Server' performance issues. Often, this troubleshooting soon veers away from a 'its a SQL Server issue' to instead become a wider application/database design/coding issue.One common perception with SQL Server is that deadlocking is an application design issue - and is fixed by recoding...  I see this reinforced by MCP-type questions/scenarios where the answer to prevent deadlocking is simply to change the order in code in which tables are accessed....Whilst this is correct, I do think this has led to a situation where many 'operational' or 'production support' DBAs, when faced with a deadlock, are happy to throw the issue over to developers without analysing the issue further....A couple of 'war stories' on deadlocks which I think are interesting :- Case One , I had an issue recently on a third-party application that I support on SQL 2008.  This particular third-party application has an unusual support agreement where the customer is allowed to change the index design on the third-party provided database.  However, we are not allowed to alter application code or modify table structure..This third-party application is also known to encounter occasional deadlocks – indeed, I have documentation from the vendor that up to 50 deadlocks per day is not unusual !So, as a DBA I have to support an application which in my opinion has too many deadlocks - but, I cannot influence the design of the tables or stored procedures for the application. This should be the classic - blame the third-party developers scenario, and hope this issue gets addressed in a future application release - ie we could wait years for this to be resolved and implemented in our production environment...But, as DBAs  can change the index layout, is there anything I could do still to reduce the deadlocks in the application ?I initially used SQL traceflag 1222 to write deadlock detection output to the SQL Errorlog – using this I was able to identify one table heavily involved in the deadlocks.When I examined the table definition, I was surprised to see it was a heap – ie no clustered index existed on the table.Using SQL profiler to see locking behaviour and plan for the query involved in the deadlock, I was able to confirm a table scan was being performed.By creating an appropriate clustered index - it was possible to produce a more efficient plan and locking behaviour.So, less locks, held for less time = less possibility of deadlocks. I'm still unhappy about the overall number of deadlocks on this system - but that's something to be discussed further with the vendor.Case Two,  a system which hadn't changed for months suddenly started seeing deadlocks on a regular basis. I love the 'nothing's changed' scenario, as it gives me the opportunity to appear wise and say 'nothings changed on this system, except the data'.. This particular deadlock occurred on a table which had been growing rapidly. By using DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS - the DBA team were able to see that the deadlocks seemed to be occurring shortly after auto-update stats had regenerated the table statistics using it's default sampling behaviour.As a quick fix, we were able to schedule a nightly UPDATE STATISTICS WITH FULLSCAN on the table involved in the deadlock - thus, greatly reducing the potential for stats to be updated via auto_update_stats, consequently reducing the potential for a bad plan to be generated based on an unrepresentative sample of the data. This reduced the possibility of a deadlock occurring.  Not a perfect solution by any means, but quick, easy to implement, and needed no application code changes. This fix gave us some 'breathing space'  to properly fix the code during the next scheduled application release.   The moral of this post - don't dismiss deadlocks as issues that can only be fixed by developers...

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  • Oracle Spatial and Graph – A year in review

    - by Mandy Ho
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} What a great year for Oracle Spatial! Or shall I now say, Oracle Spatial and Graph, with our official name change this summer. There were so many exciting events and updates we had this year, and this blog will review and link to some of the events you may have missed over the year. We kicked off 2012 with our webinar: Situational Analysis at OnStar with Oracle Spatial and Graph. We collaborated with OnStar’s Emergency Strategy and Outreach expert, Jeff Joyner ,on how Onstar uses Google Earth Visualization, NAVTEQ data and Oracle Database to deliver fast, accurate emergency services to its customers. In the next webinar in our 2012 series, Oracle partner TARGUSinfo showcased how to build a robust, scalable and secure customer relationship management systems – with built-in mapping and spatial analysis, and deployed in the cloud. This is a very cool system using all Oracle technologies including Oracle Database and Fusion Middleware MapViewer. Attendees learned how to gather market insight, score prospects and customers and perform location analysis. The replay is available here. Our final webinar of the year focused on using Oracle Business Intelligence tools, along with Oracle Spatial and Graph to perform location-aware predictive analysis. Watch the webcast here: In June, we joined up with the Location Intelligence conference in Washington, DC, and had a very successful 2012 Oracle Spatial User Conference. Customers and partners from the US, as well as from EMEA and Asia, flew in to share experiences and ideas, and get technical updates from Oracle experts. Users were excited to hear about spatial-Exadata performance, and advances in MapViewer and BI. Peter Doolan of Oracle Public Sector kicked off the event with a great keynote, and US Census, NOAA, and Ordnance Survey Great Britain were just a few of the presenters. Presentation archive here. We recognized some of the most exceptional partners and customers for their contributions to advancing mainstream solutions using geospatial technologies. Planning for 2013’s conference has already started. Please contribute your papers for consideration here. http://www.locationintelligence.net/ We also launched a new Oracle PartnerNetwork Spatial Specialization – to enable partners to get validated in the marketplace for their expertise in taking solutions to market. Individuals can also get individual certifications. Learn more here. Oracle Open World was not to disappoint, with news regarding our next Oracle Spatial and Graph release, as well as the announcement of our new Oracle Spatial and Graph SIG board! Join the SIG today. One more exciting event as we look to 2013. Spatial and location technologies have a dedicated track at the January BIWA SIG Summit – on January 9-10 in Redwood Shores, CA. View the agenda and register here: www.biwasummit.org. We thank you for all your support during the year of 2012 and look towards an even more exciting 2013! Wishing you and your family a prosperous New Year and Happy Holidays!

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  • Type of computer for a developer on the road

    - by nabucosound
    Hi developers: I am planning to be traveling through eurasia and asia (russia, china, korea, japan, south east asia...) for a while and, although there are plenty of marvelous things to see and to do, I must keep on working :(. I am a python developer, dedicated mainly to web projects. I use django, sqlite3, browsers, and ocassionaly (only if I have no choice) I install postgres, mysql, apache or any other servers commonly used in the internets. I do my coding on vim, use ssh to connect, lftp to transfer files, IRC, grep/ack... So I spend most of my time in the terminal shells. But I also use IM or Skype to communicate with my clients and peers, as well as some other software (that after all is not mandatory for my day-to-day work). I currently work with a Macbook Pro (3 years old now) and so far I am very happy with the performance. But I don't want to carry it if I am going to be "on transit" for long time, it is simply huge and heavy for what I am planning to load in my rather small backpack (while traveling, less is more, you know). So here I am reading all kind of opinions about netbooks, because at first sight this is the kind of computer I thought I had to choose. I am going to use Linux for it, Microsoft is not my cup of tea and Mac is not available for them, unless I were to buy a Macbook air, something that I won't do because if I am robbed or rain/dust/truck loaders break it I would burst in tears. I am concerned about wifi performance and connectivity, I am going to use one of those linux distros/tools to hack/test on "open" networks (if you know what I mean) in case I am not in a place with real free wifi access and I find myself in an emergency. CPU speed should be acceptable, but since I don't plan to run Photoshop or expensive IDEs, I guess most of the time I won't be overloading the machine. Apart from this, maybe (surely) I am missing other features to consider. With that said (sorry about the length) here it comes my question, raised from a deep ignorance regarding the wars betweeb betbooks vs notebooks (I assume tablet PCs are not for programming yet): If I buy a netbook will I have to throw it away after 1 month on the road and buy a notebook? Or will I be OK? Thanks! Hector Update I have received great feedback so far! I would like to insist on the fact that I will be traveling through many different countries and scenarios. I am sure that while in Japan I will be more than fine with anything related to technology, connectivity, etc. But consider that I will be, for example, on a train through Russia (transsiberian) and will cross Mongolia as well. I will stay in friends' places sometimes, but most of the time I will have to work from hostel rooms, trains, buses, beaches (hey this last one doesn't sound too bad hehe!). I think some of your answers guys seem to focus on the geek part but loose the point of this "on the road" fact. I am very aware and agree that netbooks suck compared to notebooks, but what I am trying to do here is to find a balance and discover your experiences with netbooks to see first hand if a netbook will be a fail in the mid-long term of the trip for my purposes. So I have resumed the main concepts expressed here on this small list, in no particular order: keyboard/touchpad feel: I use vim so no need of moving mouse pointers that much, unless I am browsing the web, but intensive use of keyboard screen real state: again, terminal work for most of the time battery life: I think something very important weight/size: also very important looks not worth stealing it, don't give a shit if it is lost/stolen/broken: this may depend on kind of person, your economy, etc. Also to prevent losing work, I will upload EVERYTHING to the cloud whenever I'll have a chance. wifi: don't want to discover my wifi is one of those that cannot deal with half the routers on this planet or has poor connectivity. Thanks again for your answers and comments!

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  • MPI Cluster Debugger launch integration in VS2010

    Let's assume that you have all the HPC bits installed and that you have existing MPI code (or you created a "Hello World" project using the MPI project template). Of course, you create a single MPI application and at runtime it will correspond to multiple processes (of the same app) launched on multiple nodes (i.e. machines) on the cluster. So how do you debug such a situation by simply hitting the familiar "F5" keystroke (i.e. Debug - Start Debugging)?WATCH IT INSTEAD OF READING ABOUT ITIf you can't bear to read through all the details below, just watch this 19-minute screencast explaining this VS2010 feature. Alternatively, or even additionally, keep on reading.REQUIREMENTWhen you debug an MPI application, you would want the copying of resources from your client machine (where Visual Studio is installed) to each compute node (where Windows HPC Server is installed) to take place automatically for you. 'Resources' in the previous sentence includes your application binary, plus any binary or data dependencies it may have, plus PDBs if needed, plus the debug CRT of the correct bitness, plus msvsmon for remote debugging to work. You would also want, after copying is complete, to have your app and msvsmon launched and attached so that you can hit breakpoints back in Visual Studio on your client machine. All these thing that you would want are delivered in VS2010.STEPS TO F51. In your MPI project where you have placed a breakpoint go to Project Properties - Configuration Properties - Debugging. Ensure the "Debugger to launch" combo box value is set to MPI Cluster Debugger.2. There are a whole bunch of properties here and typically you can ignore all of them except one: Run Environment. By default it is set to run 1 process on your local machine and if you change the number after that to, for example, 4 it will launch 4 processes of your app on your local machine.You want this to run on your cluster though, so go to the dropdown arrow at the end of the Run Environment cell and open it to expose the "Edit Hpc node" menu which opens the Node Selector dialog:In this dialog you can enter (or pick from a list) the cluster head node name and then the number of processes you want to execute on the cluster and then hit OK and… you are done.3. Press F5 and watch your breakpoint get hit (after giving it some time for copying, remote execution, attachment and symbol resolution to take place).GOING DEEPERIn the MPI Cluster Debugger project properties above, you can see many additional properties to the Run Environment. They are all optional, but you may want to understand them in order to fine tune your cluster debugging. Read all about each one of these on the MSDN page Configuration Properties for the MPI Cluster Debugger.In the Node Selector dialog above you can see more options than just the Head Node name and Number of Process to run. They should be self-explanatory but I also cover them in depth in my screencast showing you an example of why you would choose to schedule processes per core versus per node. You can also read about these options on MSDN as part of the page How to: Configure and Launch the MPI Cluster Debugger.To read through an example that touches on MPI project creation, project properties, node selector, and also usage of MPI with OpenMP plus MPI with PPL, read the MSDN page Walkthrough: Launching the MPI Cluster Debugger in Visual Studio 2010.Happy MPI debugging! Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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  • How do I make a firefox extension execute script on page open/load? [migrated]

    - by Will Mc
    Thanks in advance! I am creating my first extension (A firefox extension). See below for full description of final product. I need help starting off. I have looked and studied the HelloWorld.xpi example found on Mozilla's site so I am happy to edit that to learn. In the example, when you click a menu item it runs script to display an alert message. My question is, how would I edit this extension to run the script on page load? I am guessing I need to insert some code in the browserOverlay as it loads on page load so, here is the browserOverlay.xpi from the example I am editing to learn: <?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="chrome://global/skin/" ?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="chrome://xulschoolhello/skin/browserOverlay.css" ?> <!DOCTYPE overlay SYSTEM "chrome://xulschoolhello/locale/browserOverlay.dtd"> <overlay id="xulschoolhello-browser-overlay" xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"> <script type="application/x-javascript" src="chrome://xulschoolhello/content/browserOverlay.js" /> <stringbundleset id="stringbundleset"> <stringbundle id="xulschoolhello-string-bundle" src="chrome://xulschoolhello/locale/browserOverlay.properties" /> </stringbundleset> <menubar id="main-menubar"> <menu id="xulschoolhello-hello-menu" label="&xulschoolhello.hello.label;" accesskey="&xulschoolhello.helloMenu.accesskey;" insertafter="helpMenu"> <menupopup> <menuitem id="xulschoolhello-hello-menu-item" label="&xulschoolhello.hello.label;" accesskey="&xulschoolhello.helloItem.accesskey;" oncommand="XULSchoolChrome.BrowserOverlay.sayHello(event);" /> </menupopup> </menu> </menubar> <vbox id="appmenuSecondaryPane"> <menu id="xulschoolhello-hello-menu-2" label="&xulschoolhello.hello.label;" accesskey="&xulschoolhello.helloMenu.accesskey;" insertafter="appmenu_addons"> <menupopup> <menuitem id="xulschoolhello-hello-menu-item-2" label="&xulschoolhello.hello.label;" accesskey="&xulschoolhello.helloItem.accesskey;" oncommand="XULSchoolChrome.BrowserOverlay.sayHello(event);" /> </menupopup> </menu> </vbox> </overlay> I hope you can help me. I need to know what code I should use and where I should put it... Here is the gist of my overall extension - I am creating a click to call extension. This extension will search any new page for a phone number whether just refreshed, new page, new tab etc... Each phone number when clicked will open a new tab and direct user to a custom URL. Thanks again!

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  • Antenna Aligner Part 4: Role'ing in the deep

    - by Chris George
    Since last time I've been trying to sort out the general workflow of the app. It's fundamentally not hard, there is a list of transmitters, you select a transmitter and it shows the compass view. Having done quite a bit of ajax/asp.net/html in the past, I immediately started off by creating two divs within my 'page', one for the list, one for the compass. Then using the onClick event in the list, this will switch the display attribute on the divs. This seemed to work, but did lead to some dodgy transitional redrawing artefacts which I was not happy with. So after some Googling I realised I was doing it all wrong! JQuery mobile has the concept of giving an object in html a data-role. By giving a div the attribute data-role="page" it is then treated as a separate page on the mobile device. Within the code, this is referenced like a html anchor in the form #mypage. Using this system, page transitions such as fade or slide are automatically applied which adds to the whole authenticity of the app! Here is a simple example: . <a href="#'compasspage">compass</a> . <div data-role="page" id="compasspage" data-add-back-btn="true"> But I don't want just a static link, I want to dynamically create my list, and get each list elements to switch to the compass page with the right information. So here is the jquery that I used to dynamically inject new <li> rows into the <ul> block. $('ul').append($('<li/>', {    //here appendin `<li>`     'data-role': "list-divider" }).append($('<a/>', {    //here appending `<a>` into `<li>`     'href': '#compasspage',     'data-transition': 'none',     'onclick': 'selectTx(' + i + ')',     'html': buttonHtml }))); $('ul').listview('refresh'); This is called within a for loop so the first 5 appropriate transmitters are used. There are several things of interest to note here. Firstly, I could not find a more elegant way to tell the target page which transmitter I've clicked on, so I have used the onclick event as well as the href attribute. The onclick event fires 'selectTx' which simply sets a global member variable to the specific index number I've clicked on. Yes it's not nice, but it works. Secondly, the data-transition attribute is set to 'none'. I wanted the transition between the pages to be a whooshy slidey effect. However this worked going to the compass page, but returning to the list page gave some undesirable visual artefacts (flickering, redrawing etc.). So I decided to remove the transitions all together, which was a shame. Thirdly, rather than embedding loads of html into the append command, I removed this out into a variable 'buttonHtml'. Doing this really tidied up my code. Until next time!

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  • How much is a subscriber worth?

    - by Tom Lewin
    This year at Red Gate, we’ve started providing a way to back up SQL Azure databases and Azure storage. We decided to sell this as a service, instead of a product, which means customers only pay for what they use. Unfortunately for us, it makes figuring out revenue much trickier. With a product like SQL Compare, a customer pays for it, and it’s theirs for good. Sure, we offer support and upgrades, but, fundamentally, the sale is a simple, upfront transaction: we’ve made this product, you need this product, we swap product for money and everyone is happy. With software as a service, it isn’t that easy. The money and product don’t change hands up front. Instead, we provide a service in exchange for a recurring fee. We know someone buying SQL Compare will pay us $X, but we don’t know how long service customers will stay with us, or how much they will spend. How do we find this out? We use lifetime value analysis. What is lifetime value? Lifetime value, or LTV, is how much a customer is worth to the business. For Entrepreneurs has a brilliant write up that we followed to conduct our analysis. Basically, it all boils down to this equation: LTV = ARPU x ALC To make it a bit less of an alphabet-soup and a bit more understandable, we can write it out in full: The lifetime value of a customer equals the average revenue per customer per month, times the average time a customer spends with the service Simple, right? A customer is worth the average spend times the average stay. If customers pay on average $50/month, and stay on average for ten months, then a new customer will, on average, bring in $500 over the time they are a customer! Average spend is easy to work out; it’s revenue divided by customers. The problem comes when we realise that we don’t know exactly how long a customer will stay with us. How can we figure out the average lifetime of a customer, if we only have six months’ worth of data? The answer lies in the fact that: Average Lifetime of a Customer = 1 / Churn Rate The churn rate is the percentage of customers that cancel in a month. If half of your customers cancel each month, then your average customer lifetime is two months. The problem we faced was that we didn’t have enough data to make an estimate of one month’s cancellations reliable (because barely anybody cancels)! To deal with this data problem, we can take data from the last three months instead. This means we have more data to play with. We can still use the equation above, we just need to multiply the final result by three (as we worked out how many three month periods customers stay for, and we want our answer to be in months). Now these estimates are likely to be fairly unreliable; when there’s not a lot of data it pays to be cautious with inference. That said, the numbers we have look fairly consistent, and it’s super easy to revise our estimates when new data comes in. At the very least, these numbers give us a vague idea of whether a subscription business is viable. As far as Cloud Services goes, the business looks very viable indeed, and the low cancellation rates are much more than just data points in LTV equations; they show that the product is working out great for our customers, which is exactly what we’re looking for!

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