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  • AMD processors witn graphics card bundled [closed]

    - by shybovycha
    Sorry for posting this question here - just don't know to which StackExchange website i should be writing. I've heard AMD created processors with video card bundled. So now these processors should work as fast as just usual processors with discrete video card but AMD's ones should use less power and spread less warm. Some googling around gave me the result like "AMD processors of A-series". They were mentioned to be build using that technology i described above. But on the other hand, we have a small rate of publishing and not-very-good quality of AMD drivers. I am a game-developer and web-developer so i need a powerful processor and graphics card and a lot of RAM on board (to make it possible to create a sample Grails application, for example or to create some 3D models in Maya/Cinema4D, for instance). Still i want my battery to be a long-living one, so power usage is a bit critical for me. So, my questions are: are there any processor building technology like i've described and which series they are (if they exist)? which processor shall fit the laptop the best: AMD one or i5/i7 on with nVidia graphics card for the purposes mentioned above?

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  • Bootable ISO to USB stick xp quickest method

    - by brux
    My dog took a leak on my PC when I went out (ye funny), now it reandomly restarts - I'm convinced the HDD is failing because the Windows seagate diagnostic program fails on a few tests. I want to run this prior to windows in an attempt to try and recover sectors, the program includes an iso which can be written to cd and booted, but i dont have any cd's. I tried using unetbootin to create the bootable usb from the iso file (SeaToolsDOS222ALL.576.ISO) but it doesnt work. When i boot from the usb hdd unetbootin loads with "default" in the menu. No joy booting though. I checked the usb hdd in windows and all the files are there, extracted from the iso file, wont boot though. Any ideas? Im using windows xp. More info - when the computer restarts (like i just did now) it constantly reaches the end of POST and then restarts in infinite loop. If I pull the power cable out it will get back into windows, the longer i leave it between attempts, the longer I am able to stay in windows until it restarts. i.e if i leave the power cable out 5 minutes it will stay operable for longer than if i had left it out for only a few seconds.

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  • Autossh startup on Ubuntu 10.04 - fails after powering off

    - by grant
    I'm using upstart to keep a reverse ssh tunnel alive using auto ssh similar to Using Upstart to Manage AutoSSH Reverse Tunnel. This works fine, except after a manual power down I can no longer connect to the machine through the "central server" using the tunnel. I receive "ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host". The autossh process is running on the client. I can connect again after re-starting networking. I'm trying to figure out why this is failing consistently after a manual shutdown. Is it possible that I need to do some cleanup on startup that would allow the tunnel to work in this situation, or are there some other debugging/troubleshooting steps I can take to determine the problem? Machine A is the client machine, using autossh. This machine sits behind a firewall and uses the following command in upstart to create an ssh tunnel: /usr/bin/autossh -fN -i /keyfile -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -R 20098:localhost:22 user@centralserver Machine B we'll call the "central server", which sits in the cloud and is the host. This machine is "centralserver" in the command above. When Machine A is hard powered off, and back on, I cannot connect to it by SSH'ing from my machine (C) to Machine B in the cloud, then using the following command to get to Machine A: ssh -p 2098 user@localhost Again, after a reboot of the client (A), this works fine. It is only after a hard power down that the problem occurs. There are autossh processes that are running on the client machine (A) after powering down and back up, but they just don't seem to doing their job.

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  • mdadm: Replacing array with entirely new drives

    - by hellfur
    I have a server with three 500GB drives, with most of my data in a RAID5 configuration spanning the three of them. I just purchased and installed four 1TB drives, and the intention is to move off of the old drives and onto the new ones. I have enough SATA ports and power connectors to power all seven of my drives at once, so I've kept the old RAID running while I figure out what to do with the new drives. My question is: Should I create a whole new array on the 1TB drives, then move everything over and reconfigure linux to boot from the new md arrays? Or should I just expand the array, swapping out each of the three 500GBs with the 1TB, then adding the final drive? I've read up on the mdadm extending drive setup, and it makes sense, but I imagine I would use one of the drives as a full backup while I move things over, then add that drive back into the array once things are up and running on three of the 1TB drives, so there's some complication in going that route as well... I'm just not sure which is safer/recommended.

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  • Are these hardwares compatible?

    - by Tom Kaufmann
    I am trying to upgrade my new machine but I want to do it myself. This is my 1st attempt at building system. After carefully reading reviewing feedback and my budget I have decided to select the below listed components. Can anybody let me know are they compatible or not? Transcend 64 GB 2.5" SATA Solid State Drive Asus GeForce GTX550 1GB DDR5 ENGTX550 TI DI/1GD5 Graphics Card Seagate Barracuda 1 TB HDD Internal Hard Drive Cooler Master eXtreme Power Pro 600 Power Supply Intel Core i5 2500K Sandy Bridge 3.30 GHz 95 W 4 Core Desktop Processor Intel DX79TO Motherboard Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1600 MHz Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Sony AD-7260S-ZS Internal DVD Writer - Black Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO Intel CPU Cooler Cooler Master Elite 335U Cabinet LG E2051T 20.1 Inch SuperSlim Monitor Is any of these hardware components incompatible with I5 2500K? If you have any other suggestions for selecting any other harwdware that can boost up my performance or lower my cost while having the same performance, please suggest. But my primary questions is whether they are compatible or not! Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

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  • Pc freezes then wont boot. The fans spin, but HDD activity light is off

    - by Stuart
    I'm having a problem with my PC and this isn't the first time it's happened. For a few days now, when I turned my PC on, it didn't immediately start to boot up. The monitor said "No signal" and the machine just sat there although the power light was on and the fans were running. Then, after a few minutes, it would begin to boot as if nothing was wrong. Today I started my machine and it ran ok for about 10 minutes. Then the whole thing froze up and I had to shut it down and restart by holding the power button. When it rebooted, the same thing happened again and again and now finally it wont boot up at all. This happened before about 8 months ago. I ended up taking it to the shop after getting a blue screen. They replaced the HDD and upgraded it to windows 7 and it has worked fine since then. However, they charged an arm and a leg for the work and I dont want to have to go back there again. As this is a recurring fault I figure its a mechanical problem of some sort but I'm not sure what. Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

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  • Which Cardbus/PCMCIA -> USB card works with external hard drive?

    - by Carl
    I have an HT-Link Cardbus/PCMCIA USB 2.0 2-port card (NEC / 32-bit). My external hard drive w/USB adapter won't work with it, and it will work plugged directly into a USB port on a different laptop. (My USB ports got fried.) I got the card off E-Bay. My MP3 player works plugged into that card. The drivers for the card say "Known limitations: High Speed Isochronus, USB Composite Devices." (No other details provided.) I don't know if the hard drive adapter is "isochronous" or "composite." I've read there are problems with too little power being supplied to the drive. The cable to the drive has two USB plugs on one end, and it doesn't make any difference if I plug both of them into the Cardbus card. What card should I get? I see many different brands on E-Bay. I need one that supplies sufficient power for an external hard drive, and doesn't have any "known limitations" in the way.

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  • How to fix missing RAID1 drive

    - by Sodved
    I had to do some fiddling about with my cables inside thebox and now I am getting a "Critical Error" about the RAID disks during startup. I have a gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3 motherboard. Aparently the RAID controller is an AMD SB710 chip. I'm pretty sure I know what happenned. The first time I rebooted I had forgotten the power cable on one of the disks in the RAID1 (mirror) and let it boot up. So I shut down and put the power back in. So now when it boots up I go into the RAID admin interface (between the BIOS screen and the OS loading): it shows the RAID1 as in error the logical device has one disk and says the other is disconnected or missing the other physical disk shows up as a single disk If I boot to the OS (Windows 7 32 bit) the data all seems to be there. If I go into computer management it says my partition is on a disk and working OK. But the other disk is offline because: "The disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk that is online" So I am guessing because I STUPIDLY booted up with only one of the disks powered on, the other disk fell out of synch with the mirror and so now cannot rejoin the mirror. How do I fix this? I want to get the RAID1 mirror working again. There does not appear to be any "Repair" option in the basic RAID admin tool which I get into during startup before the OS boots. I have not made any explicit changes to the online one (but I guess the OS has probably written some admin data).

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  • How to diagnose a spontaneous reboot?

    - by Spectralist
    My computer reboots, seemingly completely at random, about once every week to two weeks but has occasionally gone months. It just goes from running fine to the POST with no error messages or anything and doesn't seem to be due to heat or usage as it's happened a couple of times when the computer has booted just a few moments ago and is idling. It's been happening for as long as I've had this computer, almost two years. It's happened in both Vista and Windows7. I strongly suspect it's a hardware problem. But due to the rareish and random nature of the crashes my normal strategy of just removing hardware until the problem stops isn't really practical. My guess would be Power Supply, Ram, or Motherboard. But I just don't know how to test an issue this random and want to figure out how to confirm which it is before I go replacing things. So is there some software or hardware that can be used to test these sorts of errors? I did run memtest86 for about 8 hours without finding any issues. And the power supply is more than capable of running my system.

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  • Nvidia 9800GT randomly prevents computer from booting

    - by Blender
    My computer has been running Windows and Linux perfectly fine with my 9800GT for the past year or so, but today it refused to boot. When I press the power button, this is what happens: Power button flashes once. Fans whir. Graphics card makes clicking noise. Computer reboots. Go back to 1. The cycle just keeps going, and I have to yank the cord to make the computer stop. After about 30 attempts at booting it, the computer powers on and everything works. I'm pretty sure that the graphics card isn't malfunctioning, as I've been GPU computing on it for a while now without any hiccups. But the strange thing is, the computer boots perfectly fine in only 5 boots if I remove the card. The computer is a HP Pavilion a6028x Desktop PC: Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 (W) 4600+ 2.4 GHz (AM2 socket) Motherboard: ECS MCP61PM-HM (Nettle 1) RAM: 3GB DDR2 (two different brands) More specs here Does anybody know what could be the problem? Any help or information would be greatly appreciated!

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  • Need recommendation: which USB card (PCMCIA) works with external hard drive?

    - by Carl
    I have an HT-Link Cardbus/PCMCIA USB 2.0 2-port card (NEC / 32-bit). My external hard drive w/USB adapter won't work with it, and it will work plugged directly into a USB port on a different laptop. (My USB ports got fried.) I got the card off E-Bay. My MP3 player works plugged into that card. The drivers for the card say "Known limitations: High Speed Isochronus, USB Composite Devices." (No other details provided.) I don't know if the hard drive adapter is "isochronous" or "composite." I've read there are problems with too little power being supplied to the drive. The cable to the drive has two USB plugs on one end, and it doesn't make any difference if I plug both of them into the Cardbus card. What card should I get? I see many different brands on E-Bay. I need one that supplies sufficient power for an external hard drive, and doesn't have any "known limitations" in the way.

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  • Linux can dual display but windows can't?

    - by Mr_CryptoPrime
    I have two monitors, one that is hdmi-to-dvi and the other vga-to-dvi. I have an AMD HD Radeon 6900 series graphics card installed. I got Ubuntu to display dual monitors, but then I restarted for an update and then Ubuntu wouldn't even boot in recovery mode, it just kept cycling forever...displaying something about "timeout: killing [filepath] [hexadecimal]. So I tried booting into windows (7-professional) and it crashed and displayed this after rebooting: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, PAGE_FAULT-IN-NONPAGED-AREA. I went into Bios and reverted to the system defaults and ran system restore and it booted ok, but the dvi-to-dvi monitor would not display. I made sure my drivers were updated and catalyst was updated. Also through research discovered only one is for vga and the other is digital only, so I put the vga-to-dvi in the vga slot and so on. Neither windows or catalyst will detect the dvi-to-dvi montior. Any suggestions? Thanks. EDIT: Found out that booting into Ubuntu with only one monitor (using either monitor with either cable) worked perfectly fine. I could then add another monitor and it displays ok. However, it will, out of the blue, suddenly distort the display. At first I thought the computer crashed, but it is something with the video output from the GPU to the monitor because I pushed the power button and it would refresh every 5secs or so and I could see the "Ubuntu will power down in X seconds", even though it was horribly distorted. Any ideas what's causing this?

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  • Non-volatile cache RAID controllers: what kind of protection is there against NVCACHE failure?

    - by astrostl
    The battery back-up (BBU) model: admin enables write-back cache with BBU writes are cached to the RAID controller's RAM (major performance benefit) the battery saves uncommitted and cached data in the event of a power loss (reliability) If I lose power and come back within a day or so, my data should be both complete and uncorrupted. The downside to this is that, if the battery is dead or low, OR EVEN IF IT IS IN A RELEARN CYCLE (drain/charge loops to ensure the battery's health), the controller reverts to write-through mode and performance will suffer. What's more, the relearn cycles are usually automated on a schedule which may or may not happen in the middle of big traffic. So, that has to be manually disabled and manually scheduled for off-hours if it's a concern. Annoying either way. NV caches have capacitors with a sufficient charge to commit any uncommitted-to-disk data to flash. Not only is that more survivable in longer loss situations, but you don't have to concern yourself with battery death, wear-out, or relearning. All of that sounds great to me. What doesn't sound great to me is the prospect of that flash module having an issue, though. What if it's completely hosed? What if it's only partially hosed? A bit corrupted at the edges? Relearn cycles can tell when something like a simple battery is failing, but is there a similar process to verify that the flash is functional? I'm just far more trusting of a battery, warts and all. I know the card's RAM can fail, the card itself can fail - that's common territory, though. In case you didn't guess, yeah, I've experienced a shocking-to-me amount of flash/SSD/etc. failure :)

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  • Can you explain how to understand what the 'iwconfig' command displays in Ubuntu-9.04?

    - by Shawn
    I'm having trouble making my wireless connection work, and I realized I don't really know how to use the tools I have, in this case, the iwconfig command in Ubuntu-9.04. Here is what I get: ***iwconfig*** - lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. wmaster0 no wireless extensions. wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"Network" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B Power Management:off Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0 Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 vboxnet0 no wireless extensions. pan0 no wireless extensions. "Network" is the name of my wireless network, btw. But what does this all mean? How can this information help me aquire a working wireless connection? When I try associating a key using sudo iwconfig wlan0 key s:my_key I get the following error message: Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) : SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument. I do have the right key though, so what's the problem?

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  • PCI-E riser card prevents server from starting at all

    - by user68623
    I need to replace the RAID controller in a server, and the new one is PCI Express while the old one was 64bit PCI. The server has both slots, but the riser card that was installed does not contain the PCI Express part. So I bought a new 4x PCI Express riser card (Delock 89103), but the moment I put it into the slot the server does not start up at all. It does not even get to POST, at most the power LED flashed once but nothing else happens at all. It does not power up the server at all. If I remove the riser card it starts up fine. If I put the riser card into a regular desktop computer it seems to work in general. Is there anything else I have to pay attention to when buying a riser card? My naive assumption would be that any PCI Express riser card should work. Or is my riser card likely to be damaged or out-of-spec and the server is just more picky? How do I get it to work, or how can I at least find a riser card that will work with my server? The server mainboard is a Super Micro PDSMi+.

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  • Can you explain how to understand what the 'iwconfig' command displays in Ubuntu-9.04?

    - by Shawn
    I'm having trouble making my wireless connection work, and I realized I don't really know how to use the tools I have, in this case, the iwconfig command in Ubuntu-9.04. Here is what I get: ***iwconfig*** - lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. wmaster0 no wireless extensions. wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"Network" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B Power Management:off Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0 Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 vboxnet0 no wireless extensions. pan0 no wireless extensions. "Network" is the name of my wireless network, btw. But what does this all mean? How can this information help me aquire a working wireless connection? When I try associating a key using sudo iwconfig wlan0 key s:my_key I get the following error message: Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) : SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument. I do have the right key though, so what's the problem?

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  • SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #032

    - by Pinal Dave
    Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Complete Series of Database Coding Standards and Guidelines SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Introduction SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 1 SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 2 SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines Complete List Download Explanation and Example – SELF JOIN When all of the data you require is contained within a single table, but data needed to extract is related to each other in the table itself. Examples of this type of data relate to Employee information, where the table may have both an Employee’s ID number for each record and also a field that displays the ID number of an Employee’s supervisor or manager. To retrieve the data tables are required to relate/join to itself. Insert Multiple Records Using One Insert Statement – Use of UNION ALL This is very interesting question I have received from new developer. How can I insert multiple values in table using only one insert? Now this is interesting question. When there are multiple records are to be inserted in the table following is the common way using T-SQL. Function to Display Current Week Date and Day – Weekly Calendar Straight blog post with script to find current week date and day based on the parameters passed in the function.  2008 In my beginning years, I have almost same confusion as many of the developer had in their earlier years. Here are two of the interesting question which I have attempted to answer in my early year. Even if you are experienced developer may be you will still like to read following two questions: Order Of Column In Index Order of Conditions in WHERE Clauses Example of DISTINCT in Aggregate Functions Have you ever used DISTINCT with the Aggregation Function? Here is a simple example about how users can do it. Create a Comma Delimited List Using SELECT Clause From Table Column Straight to script example where I explained how to do something easy and quickly. Compound Assignment Operators SQL SERVER 2008 has introduced new concept of Compound Assignment Operators. Compound Assignment Operators are available in many other programming languages for quite some time. Compound Assignment Operators is operator where variables are operated upon and assigned on the same line. PIVOT and UNPIVOT Table Examples Here is a very interesting question – the answer to the question can be YES or NO both. “If we PIVOT any table and UNPIVOT that table do we get our original table?” Read the blog post to get the explanation of the question above. 2009 What is Interim Table – Simple Definition of Interim Table The interim table is a table that is generated by joining two tables and not the final result table. In other words, when two tables are joined they create an interim table as resultset but the resultset is not final yet. It may be possible that more tables are about to join on the interim table, and more operations are still to be applied on that table (e.g. Order By, Having etc). Besides, it may be possible that there is no interim table; sometimes final table is what is generated when the query is run. 2010 Stored Procedure and Transactions If Stored Procedure is transactional then, it should roll back complete transactions when it encounters any errors. Well, that does not happen in this case, which proves that Stored Procedure does not only provide just the transactional feature to a batch of T-SQL. Generate Database Script for SQL Azure When talking about SQL Azure the most common complaint I hear is that the script generated from stand-along SQL Server database is not compatible with SQL Azure. This was true for some time for sure but not any more. If you have SQL Server 2008 R2 installed you can follow the guideline below to generate a script which is compatible with SQL Azure. Convert IN to EXISTS – Performance Talk It is NOT necessary that every time when IN is replaced by EXISTS it gives better performance. However, in our case listed above it does for sure give better performance. You can read about this subject in the associated blog post. Subquery or Join – Various Options – SQL Server Engine Knows the Best Every single time whenever there is a performance tuning exercise, I hear the conversation from developer where some prefer subquery and some prefer join. In this two part blog post, I explain the same in the detail with examples. Part 1 | Part 2 Merge Operations – Insert, Update, Delete in Single Execution MERGE is a new feature that provides an efficient way to do multiple DML operations. In earlier versions of SQL Server, we had to write separate statements to INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE data based on certain conditions; however, at present, by using the MERGE statement, we can include the logic of such data changes in one statement that even checks when the data is matched and then just update it, and similarly, when the data is unmatched, it is inserted. 2011 Puzzle – Statistics are not updated but are Created Once Here is the quick scenario about my setup. Create Table Insert 1000 Records Check the Statistics Now insert 10 times more 10,000 indexes Check the Statistics – it will be NOT updated – WHY? Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure Personally, I believe that they are both different things - they cannot be compared. I can say, it will be like comparing apples and oranges. Each has its own unique use. However, they can be used interchangeably at many times and in real life (i.e., production environment). I have personally seen both of these being used interchangeably many times. This is the precise reason for asking this question. 2012 In year 2012 I had two interesting series ran on the blog. If there is no fun in learning, the learning becomes a burden. For the same reason, I had decided to build a three part quiz around SEQUENCE. The quiz was to identify the next value of the sequence. I encourage all of you to take part in this fun quiz. Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 1 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 2 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 3 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 4 Simple Example to Configure Resource Governor – Introduction to Resource Governor Resource Governor is a feature which can manage SQL Server Workload and System Resource Consumption. We can limit the amount of CPU and memory consumption by limiting /governing /throttling on the SQL Server. If there are different workloads running on SQL Server and each of the workload needs different resources or when workloads are competing for resources with each other and affecting the performance of the whole server resource governor is a very important task. Tricks to Replace SELECT * with Column Names – SQL in Sixty Seconds #017 – Video  Retrieves unnecessary columns and increases network traffic When a new columns are added views needs to be refreshed manually Leads to usage of sub-optimal execution plan Uses clustered index in most of the cases instead of using optimal index It is difficult to debug SQL SERVER – Load Generator – Free Tool From CodePlex The best part of this SQL Server Load Generator is that users can run multiple simultaneous queries again SQL Server using different login account and different application name. The interface of the tool is extremely easy to use and very intuitive as well. A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement Let us assume there is a single column in the table called Gender. The challenge is to write a single update statement which will flip or swap the value in the column. For example if the value in the gender column is ‘male’ swap it with ‘female’ and if the value is ‘female’ swap it with ‘male’. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Building an Infrastructure Cloud with Oracle VM for x86 + Enterprise Manager 12c

    - by Richard Rotter
    Cloud Computing? Everyone is talking about Cloud these days. Everyone is explaining how the cloud will help you to bring your service up and running very fast, secure and with little effort. You can find these kinds of presentations at almost every event around the globe. But what is really behind all this stuff? Is it really so simple? And the answer is: Yes it is! With the Oracle SW Stack it is! In this post, I will try to bring this down to earth, demonstrating how easy it could be to build a cloud infrastructure with Oracle's solution for cloud computing.But let me cover some basics first: How fast can you build a cloud?How elastic is your cloud so you can provide new services on demand? How much effort does it take to monitor and operate your Cloud Infrastructure in order to meet your SLAs?How easy is it to chargeback for your services provided? These are the critical success factors of Cloud Computing. And Oracle has an answer to all those questions. By using Oracle VM for X86 in combination with Enterprise Manager 12c you can build and control your cloud environment very fast and easy. What are the fundamental building blocks for your cloud? Oracle Cloud Building Blocks #1 Hardware Surprise, surprise. Even the cloud needs to run somewhere, hence you will need hardware. This HW normally consists of servers, storage and networking. But Oracles goes beyond that. There are Optimized Solutions available for your cloud infrastructure. This is a cookbook to build your HW cloud platform. For example, building your cloud infrastructure with blades and our network infrastructure will reduce complexity in your datacenter (Blades with switch network modules, splitter cables to reduce the amount of cables, TOR (Top Of the Rack) switches which are building the interface to your infrastructure environment. Reducing complexity even in the cabling will help you to manage your environment more efficient and with less risk. Of course, our engineered systems fit into the cloud perfectly too. Although they are considered as a PaaS themselves, having the database SW (for Exadata) and the application development environment (for Exalogic) already deployed on them, in general they are ideal systems to enable you building your own cloud and PaaS infrastructure. #2 Virtualization The next missing link in the cloud setup is virtualization. For me personally, it's one of the most hidden "secret", that oracle can provide you with a complete virtualization stack in terms of a hypervisor on both architectures: X86 and Sparc CPUs. There is Oracle VM for X86 and Oracle VM for Sparc available at no additional  license costs if your are running this virtualization stack on top of Oracle HW (and with Oracle Premier Support for HW). This completes the virtualization portfolio together with Solaris Zones introduced already with Solaris 10 a few years ago. Let me explain how Oracle VM for X86 works: Oracle VM for x86 consists of two main parts: - The Oracle VM Server: Oracle VM Server is installed on bare metal and it is the hypervisor which is able to run virtual machines. It has a very small footprint. The ISO-Image of Oracle VM Server is only 200MB large. It is very small but efficient. You can install a OVM-Server in less than 5 mins by booting the Server with the ISO-Image assigned and providing the necessary configuration parameters (like installing an Linux distribution). After the installation, the OVM-Server is ready to use. That's all. - The Oracle VM-Manager: OVM-Manager is the central management tool where you can control your OVM-Servers. OVM-Manager provides the graphical user interface, which is an Application Development Framework (ADF) application, with a familiar web-browser based interface, to manage Oracle VM Servers, virtual machines, and resources. The Oracle VM Manager has the following capabilities: Create virtual machines Create server pools Power on and off virtual machines Manage networks and storage Import virtual machines, ISO files, and templates Manage high availability of Oracle VM Servers, server pools, and virtual machines Perform live migration of virtual machines I want to highlight one of the goodies which you can use if you are running Oracle VM for X86: Preconfigured, downloadable Virtual Machine Templates form edelivery With these templates, you can download completely preconfigured Virtual Machines in your environment, boot them up, configure them at first time boot and use it. There are templates for almost all Oracle SW and Applications (like Fusion Middleware, Database, Siebel, etc.) available. #3) Cloud Management The management of your cloud infrastructure is key. This is a day-to-day job. Acquiring HW, installing a virtualization layer on top of it is done just at the beginning and if you want to expand your infrastructure. But managing your cloud, keeping it up and running, deploying new services, changing your chargeback model, etc, these are the daily jobs. These jobs must be simple, secure and easy to manage. The Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud provides this functionality from one management cockpit. Enterprise Manager 12c uses Oracle VM Manager to control OVM Serverpools. Once you registered your OVM-Managers in Enterprise Manager, then you are able to setup your cloud infrastructure and manage everything from Enterprise Manager. What you need to do in EM12c is: ">Register your OVM Manager in Enterprise ManagerAfter Registering your OVM Manager, all the functionality of Oracle VM for X86 is also available in Enterprise Manager. Enterprise Manager works as a "Manger" of the Manager. You can register as many OVM-Managers you want and control your complete virtualization environment Create Roles and Users for your Self Service Portal in Enterprise ManagerWith this step you allow users to logon on the Enterprise Manager Self Service Portal. Users can request Virtual Machines in this portal. Setup the Cloud InfrastructureSetup the Quotas for your self service users. How many VMs can they request? How much of your resources ( cpu, memory, storage, network, etc. etc.)? Which SW components (templates, assemblys) can your self service users request? In this step, you basically set up the complete cloud infrastructure. Setup ChargebackOnce your cloud is set up, you need to configure your chargeback mechanism. The Enterprise Manager collects the resources metrics, which are used in a very deep level. Almost all collected Metrics could be used in the chargeback module. You can define chargeback plans based on configurations (charge for the amount of cpu, memory, storage is assigned to a machine, or for a specific OS which is installed) or chargeback on resource consumption (% of cpu used, storage used, etc). Or you can also define a combination of configuration and consumption chargeback plans. The chargeback module is very flexible. Here is a overview of the workflow how to handle infrastructure cloud in EM: Summary As you can see, setting up an Infrastructure Cloud Service with Oracle VM for X86 and Enterprise Manager 12c is really simple. I personally configured a complete cloud environment with three X86 servers and a small JBOD san box in less than 3 hours. There is no magic in it, it is all straightforward. Of course, you have to have some experience with Oracle VM and Enterprise Manager. Experience in setting up Linux environments helps as well. I plan to publish a technical cookbook in the next few weeks. I hope you found this post useful and will see you again here on our blog. Any hints, comments are welcome!

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  • Slicing the EDG

    - by Antony Reynolds
    Different SOA Domain Configurations In this blog entry I would like to introduce three different configurations for a SOA environment.  I have omitted load balancers and OTD/OHS as they introduce a whole new round of discussion.  For each possible deployment architecture I have identified some of the advantages. Super Domain This is a single EDG style domain for everything needed for SOA/OSB.   It extends the standard EDG slightly but otherwise assumes a single “super” domain. This is basically the SOA EDG.  I have broken out JMS servers and Coherence servers to improve scalability and reduce dependencies. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if rest of domain is unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Single Administration Point (1 Admin Server) Closely follows EDG with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Drawbacks Patching is an all or nothing affair. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Multiple Domains This extends the EDG into multiple domains, allowing separate management and update of these domains.  I see this type of configuration quite often with customers, although some don't have OWSM, others don't have separate Coherence etc. SOA & BAM are kept in the same domain as little benefit is obtained by separating them. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Shared Service Environment This model extends the previous multiple domain arrangement to provide a true shared service environment.This extends the previous model by allowing multiple additional SOA domains and/or other domains to take advantage of the shared services.  Only one non-shared domain is shown, but there could be multiple, allowing groups of applications to share patching independent of other application groups. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Shared SOA Domain hosts Human Workflow Tasks BAM Common "utility" composites Single OSB domain provides "Enterprise Service Bus" All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM) Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Supports large numbers of deployed composites in multiple domains. Single URL for Human Workflow end users. Single URL for BAM end users. Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Human Workflow needs to be specially configured to point to shared services domain. Summary The alternatives in this blog allow for patching to have different impacts, depending on the model chosen.  Each organization must decide the tradeoffs for itself.  One extreme is to go for the shared services model and have one domain per SOA application.  This requires a lot of administration of the multiple domains.  The other extreme is to have a single super domain.  This makes the entire enterprise susceptible to an outage at the same time due to patching or other domain level changes.  Hopefully this blog will help your organization choose the right model for you.

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  • SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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  • SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, May 05, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, May 05, 2010New Projects2010微软精英大挑战Heritage of Dragon项目: 我们来自上海市同济大学,兴趣相投,集聚于此共同构建一个开放的网络平台。致力于运用构建在云端基于地图的服务,使用文字、图片、视频、互动动画等形式来展示全国各地的传统手工艺。并且充分发挥网络的优势,通过开放协作的维基平台人人都可以参与到内容的添加修改与完善中来。目的在于记录、展示、挖掘、传承中国古...AutoArchive: Auto archive your "my documents" to a remote machine. I'm writing this so my wife can put things in "my documents" and it'll automaticly archive i...BigDoor .NET Client: A .NET client for the BigDoor Media API. The API enables secured virtual transactions with support for any number of currencies, transactions, awar...bubujie: Dreamweaver LibraryGeckoGit: GeckoGit is a combination of TortoiseSVN and AnkhSVN, but for Git repositories, and built on the GitSharp library.Global: global, config, mail, http, rest, xml, serialization, helper, path, ioIndustrial Dashboard Connected Grid webpart: This Sharepoint 2007/10 webpart provides a simple way to display grid based reports populated with data that comes from a SQL Server stored procedu...IpControls: "IpControls" contains IPv4 and IPv6 text boxes, both as Windows Forms and WPF version. The IPv6 control automatically detects the older hybrid for...LiteME: LiteME is short for LiteMapleStoryEmulator... it is v75, open-source, and still going through it's alpha stages. It is still in development!Meditel PHP Class: Une classe PHP qui vous permet de d'envoyer des SMS vers tous les numeros Meditel en utilisant leservice des SMS gratuits depuis le site Meditel.maMoneySafe: Help people.Mouse Zoom - Visual Studio Extension: Mouse Zoom is a Visual Studio 2010 extension that will cause the mouse zoom functionality to zoom at the mouse's cursor instead of at the top of th...Multi-Language Words Memorizer: This .net application is designed for learning words and help foreign language learners by lots of automatic features. After you select a list of ...Navigation for ASP.NET Web Forms: Navigation for ASP.NET Web Forms manages movement and data passing between aspx Pages in a unit testable manner. There is no Client-side logic, so ...NazTek.Extension.Clr4: CLR 4.0 extensions and utility APIOpalis Community Releases: Sample workflows, objects, code and other items related to System Center's Opalis Integration Server, published by the Opalis team.Power Video Player: Power Video Player is a slim feature-rich video/dvd player that meets everyday needs in video playback on PC with a bunch of advanced features on b...SchemeEditor: <WPF> <.NET> <Editor> <Silverlight> <Scheme> <Graphics> <simulink> <schematic>StyleCop+: StyleCop+ is a plug-in that extends original StyleCop features.timemanager2010: Just another work time managerTweetTunes: Updates Twitter with current song playing in iTunes - if your Twitter account is linked to Facebook - it will update that too The twittervb2 down...WCF Discovery Library: WCF Discovery Library is a small collection of utilities that makes it easy to add WCF 4.0 Discovery features into your projects.New ReleasesAjaxControlToolkit additional extenders: ControlToolkitExtended: this build contains web example with BreadCrumbsAnyCAD: AnyCAD Free Beta1: AnyCAD Free Beta1Baccarat: Single player practice baccarat: This is a simple baccarat game for Windows Mobile. It is single player and is only a practice version, which will help users familiarize themselve...BigDoor .NET Client: BigDoor .NET 2.0 Client (Alpha): Our first iteration of the .NET client. Please fork and or ask to be added if you want to make any contributions.CBM-Command: 2010-05-04: Release NotesNew Features Panel navigation now complete. Scroll up and down through directories using the up and down cursor keys. Switch between...Directory Linker: Directory Linker 2.1: This release introduces XP support, more information about all features can be found at http://www.humblecoder.co.uk/?p=141Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.015: added high low quizGoogle AJAX Search Services for jQuery: jquery.gss-0.1.3.js: First official release - use at your own discretion. Thanks, AndrewIndustrial Dashboard Connected Grid webpart: Filtered Industrial Grid: Filtered Industrial Grid web part for SharePoint 2007/2010, First Release.jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services: SPServices 0.5.5: IMPORTANT NOTE: This release is in an alpha state. You should only download it if you know what you are getting and are interested in testing it f...Meditel PHP Class: Meditel PHP Class: Zipped File : Example : exemplemeditel.php PHP Class : meditel.class.phpMulti-Language Words Memorizer: Memorizer 1.0: First release.mwNSPECT: mwNSPECT Plugin DLL: mwNSPECT Mapwindow plugin dll. Place in your MapWindow or BASINS plugins directory. Presently only for testing form functionality (not including...mwNSPECT: mwNSPECT Simple Installer: Simplistic mwNSPECT Mapwindow plugin installer using Inno setup. Installs all the files you'll need for NSPECT into the C:\NSPECT folder and insta...MyWSAT - ASP.NET Membership Administration Tool: MyWSAT v3.5.3: MyWSAT 3.5.3 Update Notes - May 4th 2010 1.) Added the user search box and a-z navigation menu to all relevant user gridviews. 2.) Added a membersh...Object/Relational Mapper & Code Generator in Net 2.0 for Relational & XML Schema: 2.7: Upgraded UI-generation templates for special case of associative tables (2-column primary keys). Minor bugfix with template-editor.Open NFSe: Open NFSe 2.0: Versao para Belo Horizonte utilizando Windows Services.Power Video Player: PVP 1.1.3776: v1.1.3776 This is mainly a rebuild of version 1.1 under Ms-PL license and is the 1st version available at CodePlex.PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT: PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT-3.1: The following error has been corrected: PCG ERROR: srcproj -- 3933 PCG ERROR: srcproj -- 2943 PCG ERROR: devproj -- 1474 PCG ERROR: mainprj -- 128...Rehost Image: 1.3.9: Fixed locations saving for mac and linux platforms.Robot Shootans: Robot Shootans 0.5.1 (Windows): This is the first public release of this game. Instructions on how to play are included in the game itself Known issues: Changing control style wh...SchemeEditor: SchemeEditor Beta: First release. Wait for documentation & update for some new functionSharePoint Rsync List: SharePoint Rsync 0.9.0.0: Initial release of sprsync. Comments, questions, feedback, and code enhancements are welcome!Software Is Hardwork: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+01: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+01 UNSUPPORTED, UNTESTED ALPHA RELEASE Code may disappear. This is just a preview of code that was in progress. Code is s...Software Localization Tool: SharpSLT 1.0.1: Minor release: bug fixes slight changes in the UIStyleCop+: StyleCop+ 0.6: Several important improvements made for Advanced Naming Rules: - Added new entities for fields and constants - Added new entities for methods (incl...turing machine simulator: First version of turing machine: Overview: First version of turing simulator with example script (transaction function). Files: SimulatorGui.exe - main GUI of simulator TuringMach...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30504.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVocabulary Training Center: Basic Edition 1.1: A release with medium large changes: New functionality: Multiple-choice questions added Grammatical questions added Evaluation changed accordin...Web Service Software Factory: Web Service Software Factory 2010 RC: To use the Web Service Software Factory 2010, you need the following software installed on your computer: • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (Ultima...Web Service Software Factory: WSSF2010 Guide: This is the help and guidance for Web Service Software Factory 2010Windows Phone 7 Panorama control: panorama control v0.6 + samples: IMPORTANT NOTE: Please read the following bug + suggested workaround. I'll fix this in a new release shortly. Panorama Control source code + sampl...WPF Behavior Library: WPF Behavior Library 0.2 Release: Drag & Drop Took away the ItemType and DataTemplate requirements Added functions for inheritors to be able to provide custom logic to handle movi...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight Toolkitpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)iTuner - The iTunes CompanionDotNetNuke® Community EditionASP.NETMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryAJAX Control FrameworkHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System ServerIonics Isapi Rewrite Filterpatterns & practices: Azure Security GuidanceRawrBlogEngine.NETTinyProjectNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleAll-In-One Code Framework

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 03, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 03, 2012Popular ReleasesSharePoint Column & View Permission: SharePoint Column and View Permission v1.5: Version 1.5 of this project. If you will find any bugs please let me know at enti@zoznam.sk or post your findings in Issue TrackerZ3: Z3 4.1.1 source code: Snapshot corresponding to version 4.1.1.DirectX Tool Kit: October 2012: October 2, 2012 Added ScreenGrab module Added CreateGeoSphere for drawing a geodesic sphere Put DDSTextureLoader and WICTextureLoader into the DirectX C++ namespace Renamed project files for better naming consistency Updated WICTextureLoader for Windows 8 96bpp floating-point formats Win32 desktop projects updated to use Windows Vista (0x0600) rather than Windows 7 (0x0601) APIs Tweaked SpriteBatch.cpp to workaround ARM NEON compiler codegen bugHome Access Plus+: v8.1: HAP+ Web v8.1.1003.000079318 Fixed: Issue with the Help Desk and updating a ticket as an admin 79319 Fixed: formatting issue with the booking system admin header 79321 Moved to using the arrow with a circle symbol on the homepage instead of the > and < 79541 Added: 480px wide mobile theme to login page 79541 Added: 480px wide mobile theme to home page 79541 Added: slide events for homepage 79553 Fixed: Booking System Multiple Lesson Bug 79553 Fixed: IE Error Message 79684 Fixed: jQuery issue ...System.Net.FtpClient: System.Net.FtpClient 2012.10.02: This is the first release of the new code base. It is not compatible with the old API, I repeat it is not a drop in update for projects currently using System.Net.FtpClient. New users should download this release. The old code base (Branch: System.Net.FtpClient_1) will continue to be supported while the new code matures. This release is a complete re-write of System.Net.FtpClient. The API and code are simpler than ever before. There are some new features included as well as an attempt at be...CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1002.3): Visual Ribbon Editor 1.3.1002.3 What's New: Multi-language support for Labels/Tooltips for custom buttons and groups Support for base language other than English (1033) Connect dialog will not require organization name for ADFS / IFD connections Automatic creation of missing labels for all provisioned languages Minor connection issues fixed Notes: Before saving the ribbon to CRM server, editor will check Ribbon XML for any missing <Title> elements inside existing <LocLabel> elements...YAXLib: Yet Another XML Serialization Library for the .NET Framework: YAXLib 2.10: See change-log for the list of new features added and bugs fixedRenameApp: RenameApp 1.0: First release of RenameAppJsonToStaticTypeGenerator: JsonToStaticTypeGenerator 0.1: This is the first alpha release of JsonToStaticTypeGenerator.XiaoKyun: XiaoKyun V1.00: https://xiaokyun.codeplex.com/CatchThatException: Release 1.12: Wow a very fast change and a much better and faster writing to the text fileNaked Objects: Naked Objects Release 5.0.0: Corresponds to the packaged version 5.0.0 available via NuGet. Please note that the easiest way to install and run the Naked Objects Framework is via the NuGet package manager: just search the Official NuGet Package Source for 'nakedobjects'. It is only necessary to download the source code (from here) if you wish to modify or re-build the framework yourself. If you do wish to re-build the framework, consul the file HowToBuild.txt in the release. Major enhancementsNaked Objects 5.0 is desi...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.0: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.4.1: This version will automatically save a recording session on application exit if the user didn't stop the current session.SubExtractor: Release 1029: Feature: Added option to make i and ¡ characters movie-specific for improved OCR on Spanish subs (Special Characters tab in Options) Feature: Allow switch to Word Spacing dialog directly from Spell Check dialog Fix: Added more default word spacings for accented characters Fix: Changed Word Spacing dialog to show all OCR'd characters in current sub Fix: Removed application focus grab during OCR Fix: Tightened HD subs fuzzy logic to reduce false matches in small characters Fix: Improved Arrow k...MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.2.18: Reccomended download Changelog for 2.2.18 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for checking if Showanalyzer has hung and cancelling it 2. New version of comskip, 0.81.48 3. Speeding up comskip 4. Fixed a build bug in 64bit 2.2.17 5. Added a new comkip.ini, better commercial detection for international channels and less aggressive. Old one has been retained as comskip_old.ini 6. Added support for Audio Offset on Conversion Task page in GUI (this overrides the profiles AudioDelay when specified)Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.1: See the KeePass Plugin Step By Step Guide for instructions on how to install the plugin. Changes Built against KeePass 2.20Windows 8 Toolkit - Charts and More: Beta 1.0: The First Compiled Version of my LibraryPDF.NET: PDF.NET.Ver4.5-OpenSourceCode: PDF.NET Ver4.5 ????,????Web??????。 PDF.NET Ver4.5 Open Source Code,include a sample Web application project.Visual Studio Icon Patcher: Version 1.5.2: This version contains no new images from v1.5.1 Contains the following improvements: Better support for detecting the installed languages The extract & inject commands won’t run if Visual Studio is running You may now run in extract or inject mode The p/invoke code was cleaned up based on Code Analysis recommendations When a p/invoke method fails the Win32 error message is now displayed Error messages use red text Status messages use green textNew Projects.Net Exception Reporter: A reusable and extensible exception reporter for Microsoft .NET projects.Aesha Broker: A rich client Auction House Broker application. Built upon Blizzard's new REST API. Provides a client experience which caches historical auction data to provideASP.NET Friendly URLs: A library that enables automatic resolving of extensionless URLs to ASP.NET file-based handlers, e.g. ASPX pages.Astro Power CMS: Astro Power CMS build on GraffitiCMS, a product of Telligent. GraffitiCMS stop develop, I create this project with name is Astro Power CMSaTester: Here is a good place. And now, I can upload my soruce to it. It's very good.Automacao Residencial: O Netduino é uma plataforma onde voce utiliza a linguagem C# para controlar hardware. O objetivo é criar uma estrutura de comunicaçao com o netduino.Derbster: Explore and learn about modern C# architecture and programming by implementing software to support the modern game of roller derby. Dot FPE - A free Format-preserving encryption implementation for .net: There aren't any widely available implementations of a format-preserving encryption in .NET. Thus we aim to be the first!DotNetEx: .NET Framework extended functionality for data access, working with Tasks and asynchronous programming, encryption algorithms such as SkipJack and other stuff.Elemental Development Toolchain (.NET version): A complete toolchain built around the Æthere langauge.elFinder ASP.NET Connector: The one and only .NET connector for the amazing elFinder 2.X web-based file manager. Finally you can manage your files easily right from your browser!Geosynkronisering: Prosjekt for utarbeidelse av spesifikasjoner for grensesnitt som muliggjør synkronisering av datalager med geografisk datainnhold på tvers av ulike plattformerGIII_P1: Jesli wszyscy w Ciebie zwatpili pokaz ze sie mylili !IntroduceCompany: Website gi?i thi?u doanh nghi?p - công ty.JsonToStaticTypeGenerator: This is the JsonToStaticTypeGenerator project that gives the possibility to generate c# classes out of Json data.kwerty: Coming soonMachine Learning: My machine learning project. Just to figure out things...MicroManager: MaNGOS Web-based ManagerMvcContrib3: This is the version of mvccontrib which works with ASP.Net MVC 3Oracle Destination via ODP.Net (Custom Destination Component): SSIS 2008 R2 solution (custom destination component) to write to oracle via ODP.NetOrchard Commerce History with PayPal: Project expands on Nwazet.Commerce module (and is required for this module to work). Adds a purchase history, product role associations, and PayPal.Phoenix Trans: Web Phoenix Trans v?n t?i hàng hóa trong và ngoài nu?cPowerState: PowerState is .NET application for sending Wake-On-LAN (WOL) requests to computers. It can also shutdown, log off and reboot computers using the WMI.RenameApp: RenameApp is a free and very simple to use renaming software for Windows. RenameApp allows you to easily rename files based on the specified criteria and order.Rose-Hulman User Experience Design: This project will contain labs intended for use in Rose-Hulman's Computer Science and Software Engineering department.Server d? phòng: Ðây là server d? phòng, SharePoint BCS External Connector Caching Pattern Library: Library for enabling caching on SharePoint BCS external connectors. Enables BCS .Net Assemblies to be written that are scalable and performant for search.SharpDX.WPF: This projects provides a DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 support for WPF. The assembly contains DXElement - an easy to use WPF-FrameworkElement.Simple Password Generator Library: The password generator library, written in C#, is a simple assembly which allow generation of passwords with length anywhere from 1-99.SisEagle.NET: Esse sistema foi desenvolvido pra fins de apresentação do TCC referente ao ano de 2012 na UDF-BrasiliaSWebshop: SWebshop is a PHP based webshop system which allows you to insert, edit and delete data easily and is easy to use for customers.Tabular Database Powershell Cmdlets: This project provides a sample of PowerShell Cmdlets to manage Tabular models, from Analysis Services.University timetable using java: the project is using java language to create timetable (full timetable with exam tables and labs tables) and it will be free for all users with sql databaseURLShoter: This project for shorting URL for ASP.NETWeb Input Form Control: This control allow developer to create the input form by configuring the control in html modeWeibo: rtWorkoutMemo: Project descritpion(first draft): Memorise your workout. Keep archive records of your daily trening such: - series of excercise, - quantity of each serie, - weWPF - Automate Acrobat Security Policy: This WPF Tool was created to quickly password protect batches of PDF documents, using a random generator to generate the passwords.XiaoKyun: Hello Page for Web.Z3: Z3 is a high-performance theorem prover being developed at Microsoft Research.

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  • C#/.NET Little Wonders: Fun With Enum Methods

    - by James Michael Hare
    Once again lets dive into the Little Wonders of .NET, those small things in the .NET languages and BCL classes that make development easier by increasing readability, maintainability, and/or performance. So probably every one of us has used an enumerated type at one time or another in a C# program.  The enumerated types we create are a great way to represent that a value can be one of a set of discrete values (or a combination of those values in the case of bit flags). But the power of enum types go far beyond simple assignment and comparison, there are many methods in the Enum class (that all enum types “inherit” from) that can give you even more power when dealing with them. IsDefined() – check if a given value exists in the enum Are you reading a value for an enum from a data source, but are unsure if it is actually a valid value or not?  Casting won’t tell you this, and Parse() isn’t guaranteed to balk either if you give it an int or a combination of flags.  So what can we do? Let’s assume we have a small enum like this for result codes we want to return back from our business logic layer: 1: public enum ResultCode 2: { 3: Success, 4: Warning, 5: Error 6: } In this enum, Success will be zero (unless given another value explicitly), Warning will be one, and Error will be two. So what happens if we have code like this where perhaps we’re getting the result code from another data source (could be database, could be web service, etc)? 1: public ResultCode PerformAction() 2: { 3: // set up and call some method that returns an int. 4: int result = ResultCodeFromDataSource(); 5:  6: // this will suceed even if result is < 0 or > 2. 7: return (ResultCode) result; 8: } So what happens if result is –1 or 4?  Well, the cast does not fail, so what we end up with would be an instance of a ResultCode that would have a value that’s outside of the bounds of the enum constants we defined. This means if you had a block of code like: 1: switch (result) 2: { 3: case ResultType.Success: 4: // do success stuff 5: break; 6:  7: case ResultType.Warning: 8: // do warning stuff 9: break; 10:  11: case ResultType.Error: 12: // do error stuff 13: break; 14: } That you would hit none of these blocks (which is a good argument for always having a default in a switch by the way). So what can you do?  Well, there is a handy static method called IsDefined() on the Enum class which will tell you if an enum value is defined.  1: public ResultCode PerformAction() 2: { 3: int result = ResultCodeFromDataSource(); 4:  5: if (!Enum.IsDefined(typeof(ResultCode), result)) 6: { 7: throw new InvalidOperationException("Enum out of range."); 8: } 9:  10: return (ResultCode) result; 11: } In fact, this is often recommended after you Parse() or cast a value to an enum as there are ways for values to get past these methods that may not be defined. If you don’t like the syntax of passing in the type of the enum, you could clean it up a bit by creating an extension method instead that would allow you to call IsDefined() off any isntance of the enum: 1: public static class EnumExtensions 2: { 3: // helper method that tells you if an enum value is defined for it's enumeration 4: public static bool IsDefined(this Enum value) 5: { 6: return Enum.IsDefined(value.GetType(), value); 7: } 8: }   HasFlag() – an easier way to see if a bit (or bits) are set Most of us who came from the land of C programming have had to deal extensively with bit flags many times in our lives.  As such, using bit flags may be almost second nature (for a quick refresher on bit flags in enum types see one of my old posts here). However, in higher-level languages like C#, the need to manipulate individual bit flags is somewhat diminished, and the code to check for bit flag enum values may be obvious to an advanced developer but cryptic to a novice developer. For example, let’s say you have an enum for a messaging platform that contains bit flags: 1: // usually, we pluralize flags enum type names 2: [Flags] 3: public enum MessagingOptions 4: { 5: None = 0, 6: Buffered = 0x01, 7: Persistent = 0x02, 8: Durable = 0x04, 9: Broadcast = 0x08 10: } We can combine these bit flags using the bitwise OR operator (the ‘|’ pipe character): 1: // combine bit flags using 2: var myMessenger = new Messenger(MessagingOptions.Buffered | MessagingOptions.Broadcast); Now, if we wanted to check the flags, we’d have to test then using the bit-wise AND operator (the ‘&’ character): 1: if ((options & MessagingOptions.Buffered) == MessagingOptions.Buffered) 2: { 3: // do code to set up buffering... 4: // ... 5: } While the ‘|’ for combining flags is easy enough to read for advanced developers, the ‘&’ test tends to be easy for novice developers to get wrong.  First of all you have to AND the flag combination with the value, and then typically you should test against the flag combination itself (and not just for a non-zero)!  This is because the flag combination you are testing with may combine multiple bits, in which case if only one bit is set, the result will be non-zero but not necessarily all desired bits! Thanks goodness in .NET 4.0 they gave us the HasFlag() method.  This method can be called from an enum instance to test to see if a flag is set, and best of all you can avoid writing the bit wise logic yourself.  Not to mention it will be more readable to a novice developer as well: 1: if (options.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 2: { 3: // do code to set up buffering... 4: // ... 5: } It is much more concise and unambiguous, thus increasing your maintainability and readability. It would be nice to have a corresponding SetFlag() method, but unfortunately generic types don’t allow you to specialize on Enum, which makes it a bit more difficult.  It can be done but you have to do some conversions to numeric and then back to the enum which makes it less of a payoff than having the HasFlag() method.  But if you want to create it for symmetry, it would look something like this: 1: public static T SetFlag<T>(this Enum value, T flags) 2: { 3: if (!value.GetType().IsEquivalentTo(typeof(T))) 4: { 5: throw new ArgumentException("Enum value and flags types don't match."); 6: } 7:  8: // yes this is ugly, but unfortunately we need to use an intermediate boxing cast 9: return (T)Enum.ToObject(typeof (T), Convert.ToUInt64(value) | Convert.ToUInt64(flags)); 10: } Note that since the enum types are value types, we need to assign the result to something (much like string.Trim()).  Also, you could chain several SetFlag() operations together or create one that takes a variable arg list if desired. Parse() and ToString() – transitioning from string to enum and back Sometimes, you may want to be able to parse an enum from a string or convert it to a string - Enum has methods built in to let you do this.  Now, many may already know this, but may not appreciate how much power are in these two methods. For example, if you want to parse a string as an enum, it’s easy and works just like you’d expect from the numeric types: 1: string optionsString = "Persistent"; 2:  3: // can use Enum.Parse, which throws if finds something it doesn't like... 4: var result = (MessagingOptions)Enum.Parse(typeof (MessagingOptions), optionsString); 5:  6: if (result == MessagingOptions.Persistent) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine("It worked!"); 9: } Note that Enum.Parse() will throw if it finds a value it doesn’t like.  But the values it likes are fairly flexible!  You can pass in a single value, or a comma separated list of values for flags and it will parse them all and set all bits: 1: // for string values, can have one, or comma separated. 2: string optionsString = "Persistent, Buffered"; 3:  4: var result = (MessagingOptions)Enum.Parse(typeof (MessagingOptions), optionsString); 5:  6: if (result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Persistent) && result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine("It worked!"); 9: } Or you can parse in a string containing a number that represents a single value or combination of values to set: 1: // 3 is the combination of Buffered (0x01) and Persistent (0x02) 2: var optionsString = "3"; 3:  4: var result = (MessagingOptions) Enum.Parse(typeof (MessagingOptions), optionsString); 5:  6: if (result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Persistent) && result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine("It worked again!"); 9: } And, if you really aren’t sure if the parse will work, and don’t want to handle an exception, you can use TryParse() instead: 1: string optionsString = "Persistent, Buffered"; 2: MessagingOptions result; 3:  4: // try parse returns true if successful, and takes an out parm for the result 5: if (Enum.TryParse(optionsString, out result)) 6: { 7: if (result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Persistent) && result.HasFlag(MessagingOptions.Buffered)) 8: { 9: Console.WriteLine("It worked!"); 10: } 11: } So we covered parsing a string to an enum, what about reversing that and converting an enum to a string?  The ToString() method is the obvious and most basic choice for most of us, but did you know you can pass a format string for enum types that dictate how they are written as a string?: 1: MessagingOptions value = MessagingOptions.Buffered | MessagingOptions.Persistent; 2:  3: // general format, which is the default, 4: Console.WriteLine("Default : " + value); 5: Console.WriteLine("G (default): " + value.ToString("G")); 6:  7: // Flags format, even if type does not have Flags attribute. 8: Console.WriteLine("F (flags) : " + value.ToString("F")); 9:  10: // integer format, value as number. 11: Console.WriteLine("D (num) : " + value.ToString("D")); 12:  13: // hex format, value as hex 14: Console.WriteLine("X (hex) : " + value.ToString("X")); Which displays: 1: Default : Buffered, Persistent 2: G (default): Buffered, Persistent 3: F (flags) : Buffered, Persistent 4: D (num) : 3 5: X (hex) : 00000003 Now, you may not really see a difference here between G and F because I used a [Flags] enum, the difference is that the “F” option treats the enum as if it were flags even if the [Flags] attribute is not present.  Let’s take a non-flags enum like the ResultCode used earlier: 1: // yes, we can do this even if it is not [Flags] enum. 2: ResultCode value = ResultCode.Warning | ResultCode.Error; And if we run that through the same formats again we get: 1: Default : 3 2: G (default): 3 3: F (flags) : Warning, Error 4: D (num) : 3 5: X (hex) : 00000003 Notice that since we had multiple values combined, but it was not a [Flags] marked enum, the G and default format gave us a number instead of a value name.  This is because the value was not a valid single-value constant of the enum.  However, using the F flags format string, it broke out the value into its component flags even though it wasn’t marked [Flags]. So, if you want to get an enum to display appropriately for whether or not it has the [Flags] attribute, use G which is the default.  If you always want it to attempt to break down the flags, use F.  For numeric output, obviously D or  X are the best choice depending on whether you want decimal or hex. Summary Hopefully, you learned a couple of new tricks with using the Enum class today!  I’ll add more little wonders as I think of them and thanks for all the invaluable input!   Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Little Wonders,Enum,BlackRabbitCoder

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  • Guest Post: Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the &lsquo;Hello World of WPF&rsquo;

    - by Eric Nelson
    [You might want to also read other GuestPosts on my blog – or contribute one?] On the 26th and 27th of March (2010) myself and Edd Morgan of Microsoft will be popping along to the Scottish Ruby Conference. I dabble with Ruby and I am a huge fan whilst Edd is a “proper Ruby developer”. Hence I asked Edd if he was interested in creating a guest post or two for my blog on IronRuby. This is the second of those posts. If you should stumble across this post and happen to be attending the Scottish Ruby Conference, then please do keep a look out for myself and Edd. We would both love to chat about all things Ruby and IronRuby. And… we should have (if Amazon is kind) a few books on IronRuby with us at the conference which will need to find a good home. This is me and Edd and … the book: Order on Amazon: http://bit.ly/ironrubyunleashed Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ In my previous post I introduced, to a minor extent, IronRuby. I expanded a little on the basics of by getting a Rails app up-and-running on this .NET implementation of the Ruby language — but there wasn't much to it! So now I would like to go from simply running a pre-existing project under IronRuby to developing a whole new application demonstrating the seamless interoperability between IronRuby and .NET. In particular, we'll be using WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) — the component of the .NET Framework stack used to create rich media and graphical interfaces. Foundations of WPF To reiterate, WPF is the engine in the .NET Framework responsible for rendering rich user interfaces and other media. It's not the only collection of libraries in the framework with the power to do this — Windows Forms does the trick, too — but it is the most powerful and flexible. Put simply, WPF really excels when you need to employ eye candy. It's all about creating impact. Whether you're presenting a document, video, a data entry form, some kind of data visualisation (which I am most hopeful for, especially in terms of IronRuby - more on that later) or chaining all of the above with some flashy animations, you're likely to find that WPF gives you the most power when developing any of these for a Windows target. Let's demonstrate this with an example. I give you what I like to consider the 'hello, world' of WPF applications: the analogue clock. Today, over my lunch break, I created a WPF-based analogue clock using IronRuby... Any normal person would have just looked at their watch. - Twitter The Sample Application: Click here to see this sample in full on GitHub. Using Windows Presentation Foundation from IronRuby to create a Clock class Invoking the Clock class   Gives you The above is by no means perfect (it was a lunch break), but I think it does the job of illustrating IronRuby's interoperability with WPF using a familiar data visualisation. I'm sure you'll want to dissect the code yourself, but allow me to step through the important bits. (By the way, feel free to run this through ir first to see what actually happens). Now we're using IronRuby - unlike my previous post where we took pure Ruby code and ran it through ir, the IronRuby interpreter, to demonstrate compatibility. The main thing of note is the very distinct parallels between .NET namespaces and Ruby modules, .NET classes and Ruby classes. I guess there's not much to say about it other than at this point, you may as well be working with a purely Ruby graphics-drawing library. You're instantiating .NET objects, but you're doing it with the standard Ruby .new method you know from Ruby as Object#new — although, the root object of all your IronRuby objects isn't actually Object, it's System.Object. You're calling methods on these objects (and classes, for example in the call to System.Windows.Controls.Canvas.SetZIndex()) using the underscored, lowercase convention established for the Ruby language. The integration is so seamless. The fact that you're using a dynamic language on top of .NET's CLR is completely abstracted from you, allowing you to just build your software. A Brief Note on Events Events are a big part of developing client applications in .NET as well as under every other environment I can think of. In case you aren't aware, event-driven programming is essentially the practice of telling your code to call a particular method, or other chunk of code (a delegate) when something happens at an unpredictable time. You can never predict when a user is going to click a button, move their mouse or perform any other kind of input, so the advent of the GUI is what necessitated event-driven programming. This is where one of my favourite aspects of the Ruby language, blocks, can really help us. In traditional C#, for instance, you may subscribe to an event (assign a block of code to execute when an event occurs) in one of two ways: by passing a reference to a named method, or by providing an anonymous code block. You'd be right for seeing the parallel here with Ruby's concept of blocks, Procs and lambdas. As demonstrated at the very end of this rather basic script, we are using .NET's System.Timers.Timer to (attempt to) update the clock every second (I know it's probably not the best way of doing this, but for example's sake). Note: Diverting a little from what I said above, the ticking of a clock is very predictable, yet we still use the event our Timer throws to do this updating as one of many ways to perform that task outside of the main thread. You'll see that all that's needed to assign a block of code to be triggered on an event is to provide that block to the method of the name of the event as it is known to the CLR. This drawback to this is that it only allows the delegation of one code block to each event. You may use the add method to subscribe multiple handlers to that event - pushing that to the end of a queue. Like so: def tick puts "tick tock" end timer.elapsed.add method(:tick) timer.elapsed.add proc { puts "tick tock" } tick_handler = lambda { puts "tick tock" } timer.elapsed.add(tick_handler)   The ability to just provide a block of code as an event handler helps IronRuby towards that very important term I keep throwing around; low ceremony. Anonymous methods are, of course, available in other more conventional .NET languages such as C# and VB but, as usual, feel ever so much more elegant and natural in IronRuby. Note: Whether it's a named method or an anonymous chunk o' code, the block you delegate to the handling of an event can take arguments - commonly, a sender object and some args. Another Brief Note on Verbosity Personally, I don't mind verbose chaining of references in my code as long as it doesn't interfere with performance - as evidenced in the example above. While I love clean code, there's a certain feeling of safety that comes with the terse explicitness of long-winded addressing and the describing of objects as opposed to ambiguity (not unlike this sentence). However, when working with IronRuby, even I grow tired of typing System::Whatever::Something. Some people enjoy simply assuming namespaces and forgetting about them, regardless of the language they're using. Don't worry, IronRuby has you covered. It is completely possible to, with a call to include, bring the contents of a .NET-converted module into context of your IronRuby code - just as you would if you wanted to bring in an 'organic' Ruby module. To refactor the style of the above example, I could place the following at the top of my Clock class: class Clock include System::Windows::Shape include System::Windows::Media include System::Windows::Threading # and so on...   And by doing so, reduce calls to System::Windows::Shapes::Ellipse.new to simply Ellipse.new or references to System::Windows::Threading::DispatcherPriority.Render to a friendlier DispatcherPriority.Render. Conclusion I hope by now you can understand better how IronRuby interoperates with .NET and how you can harness the power of the .NET framework with the dynamic nature and elegant idioms of the Ruby language. The manner and parlance of Ruby that makes it a joy to work with sets of data is, of course, present in IronRuby — couple that with WPF's capability to produce great graphics quickly and easily, and I hope you can visualise the possibilities of data visualisation using these two things. Using IronRuby and WPF together to create visual representations of data and infographics is very exciting to me. Although today, with this project, we're only presenting one simple piece of information - the time - the potential is much grander. My day-to-day job is centred around software development and UI design, specifically in the realm of healthcare, and if you were to pay a visit to our office you would behold, directly above my desk, a large plasma TV with a constantly rotating, animated slideshow of charts and infographics to help members of our team do their jobs. It's an app powered by WPF which never fails to spark some conversation with visitors whose gaze has been hooked. If only it was written in IronRuby, the pleasantly low ceremony and reduced pre-processing time for my brain would have helped greatly. Edd Morgan blog Related Links: Getting PhP and Ruby working on Windows Azure and SQL Azure

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