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  • AJI Report Talks With Matt Watson About Stackify

    - by Jeff Julian
    Matt Watson of Stackify sits down with us at HDC to talk about what Stackify offers for developers who need the ability to get access to their production systems for diagnostics. Matt discusses why it is important to have good tools to gain visibility into their applications and some great examples of why he started Stackify after selling his first software company. Matt has been a blogger on Geekswithblogs.net since day one and we were excited to sit down with him to talk about what his new company will be offering developers who interact with production systems.   Listen to the Show   Site: http://stackify.com Twitter: @MattWatson81 Blog: http://geekswithblogs.net/mwatson/

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  • SQLPeople Interviews Wrap Up January 2011 with Matt Velic

    - by andyleonard
    Introduction Late last year I announced an exciting new endeavor called SQLPeople . At the end of 2010 I announced the 2010 SQLPeople Person of the Year . Check out this interview with Matt Velic! SQLPeople is off to a great start. Thanks to all who have our first month awesome - those willing to share and respond to interview requests and those who are enjoying the interviews! Here's a wrap up of January 2011: January 2011 Interviews Matt Velic Cindy Gross Steve Fibich Tim Mitchell Jeremiah Peschka...(read more)

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  • SQLPeople Interviews Wrap Up January 2011 with Matt Velic

    - by andyleonard
    Introduction Late last year I announced an exciting new endeavor called SQLPeople . At the end of 2010 I announced the 2010 SQLPeople Person of the Year . Check out this interview with Matt Velic! SQLPeople is off to a great start. Thanks to all who have our first month awesome - those willing to share and respond to interview requests and those who are enjoying the interviews! Here's a wrap up of January 2011: January 2011 Interviews Matt Velic Cindy Gross Steve Fibich Tim Mitchell Jeremiah Peschka...(read more)

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  • QotD: Matt Stephens on OpenJDK in 2012 at the Register

    - by $utils.escapeXML($entry.author)
    While Java SE churns and gets pushed back, the new initiatives do at least show OpenJDK is reinvigorating the Java space. The project has picked up speed just a little too late for the fifth anniversary of the open-sourcing of Java, but if these promised developments really do come together then that means next year should see a series of “one last things” missing from 2011.Matt Stephens in an article in the Register.

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  • Matt Asay on Partisanship

    <b>The-Source.com:</b> "If Microsoft warms up to open source, why not share some plaudits? And even when it gets things wrong, surely it&#8217;s better to politely critique rather than spew invectives?"

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  • Progressive download using Matt Gallagher's audio streamer

    - by Fernando Valente
    I'm a completely n00b when talking about audio. I'm using Matt Gallagher's audio streamer on my radio app. How may I use progressive download? Also, ExtAudioFile is a good idea too :) Edit: Used this: length = CFReadStreamRead(stream, bytes, kAQDefaultBufSize); if(!data) data =[[NSMutableData alloc] initWithLength:0]; [data appendData:[NSData dataWithBytes:bytes length:kAQDefaultBufSize]]; Now I can save the audio data using writeToFile:atomically: NSData method, but the audio won't play. Also, if I try to load it on a AVAudioPlayer, I get an error.

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  • Amazon Web Services promet de baisser ses prix en 2012, entretien avec Matt Wood, Technology Evangelist EMEA chez Amazon

    Amazon Web Services promet de baisser encore ses prix en 2012 Entretien avec Matt Wood, Technology Evangelist EMEA chez Amazon Les Cloud dédiés aux développeurs se multiplient. Ils mettent tous en avant les mêmes avantages : flexibilité, facturation à la demande, gestion externalisée de l'infrastructure, et aujourd'hui simplification des outils d'administration. Après avoir interviewé Laurent Lesaicherre, le responsable chez Microsoft France de la plateforme Windows Azure, il nous est apparu intéressant de continuer ce tour d'horizon du marché avec un de ses précurseurs : Amazon. Il y a maintenant cinq ans, ...

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  • T-SQL Tuesday #53-Matt's Making Me Do This!

    - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)
    Hello everyone! It's that time again, time for T-SQL Tuesday, the wonderful blog series started by Adam Machanic (b|t). This month we are hosted by Matt Velic (b|t) who asks the question, "Why So Serious?", in celebration of April Fool's Day. He asks the contributors for their dirty tricks. And for some reason that escapes me, he and Jeff Verheul (b|t) seem to think I might be able to write about those. Shocked, I am! Nah, not really. They're absolutely right, this one is gonna be fun! I took some inspiration from Matt's suggestions, namely Resource Governor and Login Triggers.  I've done some interesting login trigger stuff for a presentation, but nothing yet with Resource Governor. Best way to learn it! One of my oldest pet peeves is abuse of the sa login. Don't get me wrong, I use it too, but typically only as SQL Agent job owner. It's been a while since I've been stuck with it, but back when I started using SQL Server, EVERY application needed sa to function. It was hard-coded and couldn't be changed. (welllllll, that is if you didn't use a hex editor on the EXE file, but who would do such a thing?) My standard warning applies: don't run anything on this page in production. In fact, back up whatever server you're testing this on, including the master database. Snapshotting a VM is a good idea. Also make sure you have other sysadmin level logins on that server. So here's a standard template for a logon trigger to address those pesky sa users: CREATE TRIGGER SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY ON ALL SERVER WITH ENCRYPTION, EXECUTE AS N'sa' AFTER LOGON AS IF ORIGINAL_LOGIN()<>N'sa' OR APP_NAME() LIKE N'SQL Agent%' RETURN; -- interesting stuff goes here GO   What can you do for "interesting stuff"? Books Online limits itself to merely rolling back the logon, which will throw an error (and alert the person that the logon trigger fired).  That's a good use for logon triggers, but really not tricky enough for this blog.  Some of my suggestions are below: WAITFOR DELAY '23:59:59';   Or: EXEC sp_MSforeach_db 'EXEC sp_detach_db ''?'';'   Or: EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_job @job_name=N'`', @enabled=1, @start_step_id=1, @notify_level_eventlog=0, @delete_level=3; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver @job_name=N'`', @server_name=@@SERVERNAME; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep @job_name=N'`', @step_id=1, @step_name=N'`', @command=N'SHUTDOWN;'; EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_start_job @job_name=N'`';   Really, I don't want to spoil your own exploration, try it yourself!  The thing I really like about these is it lets me promote the idea that "sa is SLOW, sa is BUGGY, don't use sa!".  Before we get into Resource Governor, make sure to drop or disable that logon trigger. They don't work well in combination. (Had to redo all the following code when SSMS locked up) Resource Governor is a feature that lets you control how many resources a single session can consume. The main goal is to limit the damage from a runaway query. But we're not here to read about its main goal or normal usage! I'm trying to make people stop using sa BECAUSE IT'S SLOW! Here's how RG can do that: USE master; GO CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY() RETURNS sysname WITH SCHEMABINDING, ENCRYPTION AS BEGIN RETURN CASE WHEN ORIGINAL_LOGIN()=N'sa' AND APP_NAME() NOT LIKE N'SQL Agent%' THEN N'SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY' ELSE N'default' END END GO CREATE RESOURCE POOL SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY WITH ( MIN_CPU_PERCENT = 0 ,MAX_CPU_PERCENT = 1 ,CAP_CPU_PERCENT = 1 ,AFFINITY SCHEDULER = (0) ,MIN_MEMORY_PERCENT = 0 ,MAX_MEMORY_PERCENT = 1 -- ,MIN_IOPS_PER_VOLUME = 1 ,MAX_IOPS_PER_VOLUME = 1 -- uncomment for SQL Server 2014 ); CREATE WORKLOAD GROUP SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY WITH ( IMPORTANCE = LOW ,REQUEST_MAX_MEMORY_GRANT_PERCENT = 1 ,REQUEST_MAX_CPU_TIME_SEC = 1 ,REQUEST_MEMORY_GRANT_TIMEOUT_SEC = 1 ,MAX_DOP = 1 ,GROUP_MAX_REQUESTS = 1 ) USING SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY; ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR WITH (CLASSIFIER_FUNCTION=dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY); ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR RECONFIGURE;   From top to bottom: Create a classifier function to determine which pool the session should go to. More info on classifier functions. Create the pool and provide a generous helping of resources for the sa login. Create the workload group and further prioritize those resources for the sa login. Apply the classifier function and reconfigure RG to use it. I have to say this one is a bit sneakier than the logon trigger, least of all you don't get any error messages.  I heartily recommend testing it in Management Studio, and click around the UI a lot, there's some fun behavior there. And DEFINITELY try it on SQL 2014 with the IO settings included!  You'll notice I made allowances for SQL Agent jobs owned by sa, they'll go into the default workload group.  You can add your own overrides to the classifier function if needed. Some interesting ideas I didn't have time for but expect you to get to before me: Set up different pools/workgroups with different settings and randomize which one the classifier chooses Do the same but base it on time of day (Books Online example covers this)... Or, which workstation it connects from. This can be modified for certain special people in your office who either don't listen, or are attracted (and attractive) to you. And if things go wrong you can always use the following from another sysadmin or Dedicated Admin connection: ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR DISABLE;   That will let you go in and either fix (or drop) the pools, workgroups and classifier function. So now that you know these types of things are possible, and if you are tired of your team using sa when they shouldn't, I expect you'll enjoy playing with these quite a bit! Unfortunately, the aforementioned Dedicated Admin Connection kinda poops on the party here.  Books Online for both topics will tell you that the DAC will not fire either feature. So if you have a crafty user who does their research, they can still sneak in with sa and do their bidding without being hampered. Of course, you can still detect their login via various methods, like a server trace, SQL Server Audit, extended events, and enabling "Audit Successful Logins" on the server.  These all have their downsides: traces take resources, extended events and SQL Audit can't fire off actions, and enabling successful logins will bloat your error log very quickly.  SQL Audit is also limited unless you have Enterprise Edition, and Resource Governor is Enterprise-only.  And WORST OF ALL, these features are all available and visible through the SSMS UI, so even a doofus developer or manager could find them. Fortunately there are Event Notifications! Event notifications are becoming one of my favorite features of SQL Server (keep an eye out for more blogs from me about them). They are practically unknown and heinously underutilized.  They are also a great gateway drug to using Service Broker, another great but underutilized feature. Hopefully this will get you to start using them, or at least your enemies in the office will once they read this, and then you'll have to learn them in order to fix things. So here's the setup: USE msdb; GO CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_act WITH ENCRYPTION AS DECLARE @x XML, @message nvarchar(max); RECEIVE @x=CAST(message_body AS XML) FROM SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q; IF @x.value('(//LoginName)[1]','sysname')=N'sa' AND @x.value('(//ApplicationName)[1]','sysname') NOT LIKE N'SQL Agent%' BEGIN -- interesting activation procedure stuff goes here END GO CREATE QUEUE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q WITH STATUS=ON, RETENTION=OFF, ACTIVATION (PROCEDURE_NAME=dbo.SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_act, MAX_QUEUE_READERS=1, EXECUTE AS OWNER); CREATE SERVICE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_s ON QUEUE SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_q([http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/PostEventNotification]); CREATE EVENT NOTIFICATION SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_en ON SERVER WITH FAN_IN FOR AUDIT_LOGIN TO SERVICE N'SA_LOGIN_PRIORITY_s', N'current database' GO   From top to bottom: Create activation procedure for event notification queue. Create queue to accept messages from event notification, and activate the procedure to process those messages when received. Create service to send messages to that queue. Create event notification on AUDIT_LOGIN events that fire the service. I placed this in msdb as it is an available system database and already has Service Broker enabled by default. You should change this to another database if you can guarantee it won't get dropped. So what to put in place for "interesting activation procedure code"?  Hmmm, so far I haven't addressed Matt's suggestion of writing a lengthy script to send an annoying message: SET @[email protected]('(//HostName)[1]','sysname') + N' tried to log in to server ' + @x.value('(//ServerName)[1]','sysname') + N' as SA at ' + @x.value('(//StartTime)[1]','sysname') + N' using the ' + @x.value('(//ApplicationName)[1]','sysname') + N' program. That''s why you''re getting this message and the attached pornography which' + N' is bloating your inbox and violating company policy, among other things. If you know' + N' this person you can go to their desk and hit them, or use the following SQL to end their session: KILL ' + @x.value('(//SPID)[1]','sysname') + N'; Hopefully they''re in the middle of a huge query that they need to finish right away.' EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @recipients=N'[email protected]', @subject=N'SA Login Alert', @query_result_width=32767, @body=@message, @query=N'EXEC sp_readerrorlog;', @attach_query_result_as_file=1, @query_attachment_filename=N'UtterlyGrossPorn_SeriouslyDontOpenIt.jpg' I'm not sure I'd call that a lengthy script, but the attachment should get pretty big, and I'm sure the email admins will love storing multiple copies of it.  The nice thing is that this also fires on Dedicated Admin connections! You can even identify DAC connections from the event data returned, I leave that as an exercise for you. You can use that info to change the action taken by the activation procedure, and since it's a stored procedure, it can pretty much do anything! Except KILL the SPID, or SHUTDOWN the server directly.  I'm still working on those.

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  • Top 31 Favorite Features in Windows Server 2012

    - by KeithMayer
    Over the past month, my fellow IT Pro Technical Evangelists and I have authored a series of articles about our Top 31 Favorite Features in Windows Server 2012.  Now that our series is complete, I’m providing a clickable index below of all of the articles in the series for your convenience, just in case you perhaps missed any of them when they were first released.  Hope you enjoy our Favorite Features in Windows Server 2012! Top 31 Favorite Features in Windows Server 2012 The Cloud OS Platform by Kevin Remde Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 by Brian Lewis Feel the Power of PowerShell 3.0 by Matt Hester Live Migrate Your VMS in One Line of PowerShell by Keith Mayer Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V Replica by Kevin Remde Right-size IT Budgets with “Storage Spaces” by Keith Mayer Yes, there is an “I” in Team – the NIC Team! by Kevin Remde Hyper-V Network Virtualization by Keith Mayer Get Happy over the FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 by Matt Hester Simplified BranchCache in Windows Server 2012 by Brian Lewis Getting Snippy with PowerShell 3.0 by Matt Hester How to Get Unbelievable Data Deduplication Results by Chris Henley of Veeam Simplified VDI Configuration and Management by Brian Lewis Taming the New Task Manager by Keith Mayer Improve File Server Resiliency with ReFS by Keith Mayer Simplified DirectAccess by Sumeeth Evans SMB 3.0 – The Glue in Windows Server 2012 by Matt Hester Continuously Available File Shares by Steven Murawski of Edgenet Server Core - Improved Taste, Less Filling, More Uptime by Keith Mayer Extend Your Hyper-V Virtual Switch by Kevin Remde To NIC or to Not NIC Hardware Requirements by Brian Lewis Simplified Licensing and Server Versions by Kevin Remde I Think, Therefore IPAM! by Kevin Remde Windows Server 2012 and the RSATs by Kevin Remde Top 3 New Tricks in the Active Directory Admin Center by Keith Mayer Dynamic Access Control by Brian Lewis Get the Gremlin out of Your Active Directory Virtualized Infrastructure by Matt Hester Scoping out the New DHCP Failover by Keith Mayer Gone in 8 Seconds – The New CHKDSK by Matt Hester New Remote Desktop Services (RDS) by Brian Lewis No Better Time Than Now to Choose Hyper-V by Matt Hester What’s Next? Keep Learning! Want to learn more about Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V Server 2012?  Want to prepare for certification on Windows Server 2012? Do It: Join our Windows Server 2012 “Early Experts” Challenge online peer study group for FREE at http://earlyexperts.net. You’ll get FREE access to video-based lectures, structured study materials and hands-on lab activities to help you study and prepare!  Along the way, you’ll be part of an IT Pro community of over 1,000+ IT Pros that are all helping each other learn Windows Server 2012! What are Your Favorite Features? Do you have a Favorite Feature in Windows Server 2012 that we missed in our list above?  Feel free to share your favorites in the comments below! Keith Build Your Lab! Download Windows Server 2012 Don’t Have a Lab? Build Your Lab in the Cloud with Windows Azure Virtual Machines Want to Get Certified? Join our Windows Server 2012 "Early Experts" Study Group

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  • OSX - User home directories shared via NFS

    - by Hugh
    Hi, I've run into some problems with how I've got user home directories set up on our system here. Our server is an XServe, using Open Directory to manage the user accounts. The majority of our workstations are OSX, but there are a few running Linux (Centos 5.3), and, as time goes on, we expect the proportion of Linux workstations to increase (at some point, we expect to move the server side over to Linux too, but for now we're running with what we've already got) To ensure that the Linux and OSX workstations both see user's home directories in the same place, I shared the home directories using NFS. On the server end, the home directories are stored in: /Volumes/data/company_users This is mounted on the workstations to: /mount/company_users This work fine on the Linux workstations, but there is some weirdness under OSX. For the user who is logged in through the GUI, it all works just fine. However, if a user tries to SSH into a machine that they are not the primary user on, they often have no access to their own home directory. It looks as though OSX is trying to do something else to the user home directories mount point when you log in through the GUI.... For example, on this machine (nv001), I (hugh) am logged into the GUI. Last login: Mon Mar 8 18:17:52 on ttys011 [nv001:~] hugh% ls -al /mount/company_users total 40 drwxrwxrwx 26 hugh wheel 840 27 Jan 19:09 . drwxr-xr-x 6 admin admin 204 19 Dec 18:36 .. drwx------+ 128 hugh staff 4308 27 Feb 23:36 hugh drwx------+ 26 matt staff 840 4 Dec 14:14 matt [nv001:~] hugh% So Matt's home directory is accessible to him. However, if I try to switch to him: [nv001:~] hugh% su - matt Password: su: no directory [nv001:~] hugh% Or: [nv001:~] hugh% su matt Password: tcsh: Permission denied tcsh: Trying to start from "/mount/company_users/matt" tcsh: Trying to start from "/" [nv001:/] matt% Does anyone have any idea why it might be doing this? It's causing me all sorts of problems at the moment... The only machine that I can successfully switch users at the moment is the server that the user directories are stored on, where /mount/company_users is actually just a symlink to /Volumes/data/company_users Thanks

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  • Mac OS X - User home directories shared via NFS

    - by Hugh
    I've run into some problems with how I've got user home directories set up on our system here. Our server is an XServe, using Open Directory to manage the user accounts. The majority of our workstations are OS X, but there are a few running Linux (Centos 5.3), and, as time goes on, we expect the proportion of Linux workstations to increase (at some point, we expect to move the server side over to Linux too, but for now we're running with what we've already got) To ensure that the Linux and OS X workstations both see user's home directories in the same place, I shared the home directories using NFS. On the server end, the home directories are stored in: /Volumes/data/company_users This is mounted on the workstations to: /mount/company_users This work fine on the Linux workstations, but there is some weirdness under OS X. For the user who is logged in through the GUI, it all works just fine. However, if a user tries to SSH into a machine that they are not the primary user on, they often have no access to their own home directory. It looks as though OS X is trying to do something else to the user home directories mount point when you log in through the GUI.... For example, on this machine (nv001), I (hugh) am logged into the GUI. Last login: Mon Mar 8 18:17:52 on ttys011 [nv001:~] hugh% ls -al /mount/company_users total 40 drwxrwxrwx 26 hugh wheel 840 27 Jan 19:09 . drwxr-xr-x 6 admin admin 204 19 Dec 18:36 .. drwx------+ 128 hugh staff 4308 27 Feb 23:36 hugh drwx------+ 26 matt staff 840 4 Dec 14:14 matt [nv001:~] hugh% So Matt's home directory is accessible to him. However, if I try to switch to him: [nv001:~] hugh% su - matt Password: su: no directory [nv001:~] hugh% Or: [nv001:~] hugh% su matt Password: tcsh: Permission denied tcsh: Trying to start from "/mount/company_users/matt" tcsh: Trying to start from "/" [nv001:/] matt% Does anyone have any idea why it might be doing this? It's causing me all sorts of problems at the moment... The only machine that I can successfully switch users at the moment is the server that the user directories are stored on, where /mount/company_users is actually just a symlink to /Volumes/data/company_users

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  • Exchange not preserving the "To:" field

    - by Matt Simmons
    I've got a hosted exchange solution through Apptix, which isn't the problem, I think, but it may be relevant. I have my main account, [email protected], and to that, I have an alias, matt[email protected]. Whenever I send an email to matt[email protected], I examine the headers, and I see the "To:" field being correct, "To: matt[email protected]". All is well. I recently set up another user, [email protected] to function as a multipurpose mailbox. I aliased "[email protected]" to the services account in the same method that I did "matt[email protected]", however nothing I have sent to "[email protected]" actually goes TO "[email protected]". All of the headers say "To: [email protected]". This makes it extremely difficult to filter based on headers alone. Does anyone have any feedback on what settings I would need to look at in order to fix that?

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  • Exchange not preserving the "To:" field

    - by Matt Simmons
    I've got a hosted exchange solution through Apptix, which isn't the problem, I think, but it may be relevant. I have my main account, [email protected], and to that, I have an alias, matt[email protected]. Whenever I send an email to matt[email protected], I examine the headers, and I see the "To:" field being correct, "To: matt[email protected]". All is well. I recently set up another user, [email protected] to function as a multipurpose mailbox. I aliased "[email protected]" to the services account in the same method that I did "matt[email protected]", however nothing I have sent to "[email protected]" actually goes TO "[email protected]". All of the headers say "To: [email protected]". This makes it extremely difficult to filter based on headers alone. Does anyone have any feedback on what settings I would need to look at in order to fix that?

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  • SQL Syntax to count unique users completing a task

    - by Belliez
    I have the following code which shows me what users has completed ticket and this lists each user and the date they close a ticket. i.e. Paul Matt Matt Bob Matt Paul Matt Matt At the moment I manually count each user myself to see their totals for the day. EDIT: Changed output as columns instead of rows: What I have been trying to do is get SQL Server to do this for me i.e. the final result to look like: Paul | 2 Matt | 5 Bob | 1 My code I am currently using is and I would be greatful if someone can help me change this so I can get it outputting something similar to above? DECLARE @StartDate DateTime; DECLARE @EndDate DateTime; -- Date format: YYYY-MM-DD SET @StartDate = '2013-11-06 00:00:00' SET @EndDate = GETDATE() -- Today SELECT (select Username from Membership where UserId = Ticket.CompletedBy) as TicketStatusChangedBy FROM Ticket INNER JOIN TicketStatus ON Ticket.TicketStatusID = TicketStatus.TicketStatusID INNER JOIN Membership ON Ticket.CheckedInBy = Membership.UserId WHERE TicketStatus.TicketStatusName = 'Completed' and Ticket.ClosedDate >= @StartDate --(GETDATE() - 1) and Ticket.ClosedDate <= @EndDate --(GETDATE()-0) ORDER BY Ticket.CompletedBy ASC, Ticket.ClosedDate ASC Thank you for your help and time.

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  • Introducing Ben Barreth, Community Builder &amp; Software Developer at GWB

    - by Staff of Geeks
    Please extend a warm welcome to Ben Barreth as the new community builder and full-time software developer at Geeks With Blogs. We've been wanting to add some cool features to the site but haven't had the opportunity until now. Adding Ben to the team should give us a big kick in the right direction. Ben has several years of .Net development experience and is heavily involved in the startup community in Kansas City, including the KC Startup Village as well as his own startup initiatives: Homes for Hackers and FreeIdeas.co. He loves working with people even more than coding and is excited to serve the GWB community in any way possible. Ben originally met Matt Watson as a beta tester for Stackify, the software company that gives developers the safe & secure access to troubleshoot in production. Jeff Julian and Matt are old friends and recently decided the site needed new ownership to carry it forward and build the enhancements it deserves. The site management transferred in October and Matt quickly began looking for a full-time community builder to lead the charge. Ben bumped into Matt once again at a Tech Cocktail event at the Boulevard Brewery where Stackify was presenting and an alliance was forged. Yes, the beer really IS that good! Which brings us to the biggest question of all: Where do you want Geeks with Blogs to go next? As a contributor to the GWB community, now is your chance to be heard! What are we missing? Features on our radar: New templates Add a code "formatter" to posts Add categories to blog feeds Re-skin the site and redesign the logo Feel free to contact Ben with further questions and ideas below. We need your help! @BenBarreth [email protected] Cell: 816-332-9770 www.linkedin.com/in/benbarreth

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  • Social Engineering approach to collecting from deadbeat ebay winners

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    You just sold something on e-bay and now the winner won't pay up.  What do you do?  I'm not sure what the legality of this kind of Social Engineering hack is, but I believe you've got to give it points for elegance.   Here's the link to the lifehacker.com post (I can't find the original Reddit post.) Reddit user "BadgerMatt" (we'll call him Matt for short) recently posted a story about how he tried to sell tickets to a sporting event on eBay, but when the auction was won the winning bidder backed out of the deal. In some cases this is mainly an inconvenience and you can re-list the item, but Matt was selling tickets to a sporting event and no longer had the time to do that. With the losing bidders uninterested in the tickets, he was going to end up stuck with tickets he couldn't use and a deadbeat bidder who was unwilling to honor their contract. Rather than give up, Matt decided to trick her into paying: I created a new eBay account, "Payback" we'll call it, and sent her a message: "Hi there, I noticed you won an auction for 4 [sporting event] tickets. I meant to bid on these but couldn't get to a computer. I wanted to take my son and dad and would be willing to give you $1,000 for the tickets. I imagine that you've already made plans to attend, but I figured it was worth a shot." The woman agreed, but for $1,100. She paid for the auction, received the tickets, and then Matt (of course) never re-purchased them. Needless to say, the woman was angry. Perhaps it was the wrong thing for the right reasons, but I'm mostly jealous I never thought of it back when I still sold things on eBay.

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  • List of Upcoming Appearances

    - by Chris Gardner
    Greetings. I know I have been in work sponsored hiding lately. We are working furiously on a beta project to secure a contract, and I can't really talk about it yet. Hopefully, the contracts will be soon signed. Not only will we then have money, but I can talk about all this really cool tech with which I have been playing. However, since the contract is not signed, I need to bring you people up to date with where I will be during the summer. Let's face it, you can't be a speaker / blogger without pandering to shameless self-promotion. First, I will, once again, be staffing the Hands-on-Labs at TechEd North America. Unfortunately, TechEd North America is already sold out for this year. However, if you're already going, drop by the labs and say Hi. Also, keep an eye on Twitter to track me throughout the event. Also, look for a post in a few hours with my specific picks for what content I'm looking forward to seeing this year. Immediately following TechEd North America, I will be flying into Knoxville to speak at CodeStock. I will be presenting my introduction and intermediate Xbox 360 development talks. There are a TON of great content at CodeStock this year, but there are only about 50 tickets left. After that whirlwind of work, things settle for awhile. That means I'm available to speak at your User Group, luncheon, bowling league, birthday party, anniversary, or bat mitzvah. Mid August brings us to That Conference. This one is going to be a blast. If you haven't heard of That Conference yet, you should really check it out. This will also be my introduction and intermediate Xbox 360 development talks. This is a new conference, and it looks like it will be a great one. Finally, we will turn our attention to DevLink. DevLink has the distinction of picking up my newest talk, Creating Stereoscopic 3D Graphics in XNA. On top of that, I'm giving an general Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 talk. DevLink has added an new "XNA and Kinect" track, so there will me a ton of great game content. That should bring us through the summer. As I solidify the Stereoscopic talk, look for some content on that to creep up on here. I will say it's the first topic I've played around with that is easier in 3D than 2D. Also, the organizers of Alabama Code Camp are still trying to reschedule the event. When that happens, I'll get that information out. Also, we are looking to expand our development team. If you are interested in working for / with me, keep an eye on the T & W Operations website. I know we're immediately looking for a junior level developer, but I think a few higher level position may come up soon. You MUST apply through the website, but drop me a personal line if you do apply. I'll keep an eye out for the application.

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  • My Tech Ed North America Preview - Content Edition

    - by Chris Gardner
    As I promised in my last post, I feel the need to give you a rundown on all the technical content I am looking forward to checking out at Tech Ed this year. We shall start with the content I know I'll be able to see. This would be some demo stations in the Technical Learning Center. I will DEFINITELY be checking out the Windows Phone Device Bar. I will admit that I am a bit of a phone snob, and I just want to manhandle all that sexy, sexy tech. I am also planning on talking to the Windows Phone team and the Azure team. Year after year, I end up spending more time in either the TLC or taking certification tests than anywhere else. This leads me to the one "Exam Cram" session I hope to attend. There is a session to cram for 70-599: Designing and Developing Windows Phone Applications. I know this seems odd. I'm (sort of) an XNA guru. However, I'm not that up on my Silverlight. I know enough to add Silverlight to an XNA project. Now, let's talk breakout sessions. We always need to keep track of where we're going. I know, I talk about solving problems over forcing buzz words. However, it is important to know what those buzz words before you tell people not to use them. For this, we will look to the "What's New in Visual Studio 11" and "What's New in Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5." Of course, we do talk bad about buzz words around here. For this, I'm really looking forward to "Visual C#/Visual Basic: Becoming a Guru with Existing Features." I still have .NET 2 tricks that are crucial to my internal libraries. In depth knowledge will NEVER trump shortcut libraries. There is a session in ASP.NET for phones and tablets. For those of you that have not tried to use ASP.NET on a mobile device, there is one thing you really need to understand. Mobile devices don't use scroll bars. That's right; the thing with the least screen real estate doesn't use scroll bars. Thus, I am hoping this session will give some good advice in having an ASP.NET site target both mobile and desktop. The last "business only" session "The Accidental Team Foundation Server Admin." T & W Operations is a VERY small business. As such, I am the TFS admin because I'm the developer that is also the SQL Guru. I keep my server up, but it'd be nice to know some really cool tricks for the part time guy. This leads us the the fun sessions. Coding4Fun has a Kinect session. The Twitter followers will remember that I now have a Kinect for Windows sitting on my desk at work. I have gotten pretty handy with the device, but I KNOW I'm missing some good stuff. Finally, we come to Brian Prince's session on "Making Crazy Money with Games and the Cloud." Never mind the fact that we're using Azure at work. Never mind the fact that I'm actually using the cloud in a game. Never mind the fact that the session has the terms "Crazy Money" and "Games" in the title. If you've never seen Brian Prince speak, you're missing out. In the Hands-on-Labs, we are not allowed to make our own schedule. Instead, we're asked what sessions we can't miss, and they try to schedule around those times. This was the one session I said I couldn't miss. This should complete the technical content for the conference. Coming soon, I'll dig into the certifications I hope to attain. Then, we'll talk about the social activities for the week. Here's a preview of that. I am a member of The Krewe...

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  • My Thoughts On the Xbox 180

    - by Chris Gardner
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/06/21/my-thoughts-on-the-xbox-180.aspx Everyone seems to be putting their 0.00237 cents into the wishing well over Microsoft's recent decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. However, there have been a few issues that nobody has touched. As such, I have decided to dig 0.00237 cents out of my pocket. First, let me be clear about this point. I do not support the decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. I wanted that point to be expressed first and unambiguously. I will say it again. I do not support the decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. Now that I have that out of the way, let me go into my rationale. This decision removes most of the cool features that enticed me to pre-order the console. No, I didn't cancel my pre-order. There is still five months before the release of the console, and there is still a plethora of information that we, as consumers, do not have. With that, it should be noted that much of the talk in this post is speculation and rhetoric. I do not have any insider information that you do not possess. The persistent connection would have allowed the console to do many of the functions for which we have been begging. That demo where someone was playing Ryse, seamlessly accepted a multiplayer challenge in Killer Instinct, played the match (and a rematch,) and then jumped back into Ryse. That's gone, if you bought the game on disc. The new, DRM free system will require the disc in the system to play a game. That bullet point where one Xbox Live account could have up to 10 slave accounts so families could play together, no matter where they were located. That's gone as well. The promise of huge, expansive, dynamically changing worlds that was brought to us with the power of cloud computing. Well, "the people" didn't want there to be a forced, persistent connection. As such, developers can't rely on a connection and, as such, that feature is gone. This is akin to the removal of the hard drive on the Xbox 360. The list continues, but the enthusiast press has enumerated the list far better than I wish. All of this is because the Xbox team saw the HUGE success of Steam and decided to borrow a few ideas. Yes, Steam. The service that everyone hated for the first six months (for the same reasons the Xbox One is getting flack.) There was an initial growing pain. However, it is now lauded as the way games distribution should be handled. Unless you are Microsoft. I do find it curious that many of the features were originally announced for the PS4 during its unveiling. However, much of that was left strangely absent for Sony's E3 press conference. Instead, we received a single, static slide that basically said the exact opposite of Microsoft's plans. It is not farfetched to believe that slide came into existence during the approximately seven hours between the two media briefings. The thing that majorly annoys me over this whole kerfuffle is that the single thing that caused the call to arms is, really, not an issue. Microsoft never said they were going to block used sales. They said it was up to the publisher to make that decision. This would have allowed publishers to reclaim some of the costs of development in subsequent sales of the product. If you sell your game to GameStop for 7 USD, GameStop is going to sell it for 55 USD. That is 48 USD pure profit for them. Some publishers asked GameStop for a small cut. Was this a huge, money grubbing scheme? Well, yes, but the idea was that they have to handle server infrastructure for dormant accounts, etc. Of course, GameStop flatly refused, and the Online Pass was born. Fortunately, this trend didn’t last, and most publishers have stopped the practice. The ability to sell "licenses" has already begun to be challenged. Are you living in the EU? If so, companies must allow you to sell digital property. With this precedent in place, it's only a matter of time before other areas follow suit. If GameStop were smart, they should have immediately contacted every publisher out there to get the rights to become a clearing house for these licenses. Then, they keep their business model and could reduce their brick and mortar footprint. The digital landscape is changing. We need to not block this process. As Seth MacFarlane best said "Some issues are so important that you should drag people kicking and screaming." I believe this was said on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher about the issue of Gay Marriages. Much like the original source, this is an issue that we need to drag people to the correct, progressive position. Microsoft, as a company, actually has the resources to weather the transition period. They have a great pool of first and second party developers that can leverage this new framework to prove the validity. Over time, the third party developers will get excited to use these tools. As an old C++ guy, I resisted C# for years. Now, I think it's one of the best languages I've ever used. I have a server room and a Co-Lo full of servers, so I originally didn't see the value in Azure. Now, I wish I could move every one of my projects into the cloud. I still LOVE getting physical packaging, which my music and games collection will proudly attest. However, I have started to see the value in pure digital, and have found ways to integrate this into the ways I consume those products. I can, honestly, understand how some parts of the population would be very apprehensive about this new landscape. There were valid arguments about people with no internet access. There are ways to combat these problems. These methods do not require us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. However, the number of people in the computer industry that I have seen cry foul is truly appalling. We are the forward looking people that help show how technology can improve people's lives. If we can't see the value of the brief pain involved with an exciting new ecosystem, than who will?

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  • The Krewe App Post-Mortem

    - by Chris Gardner
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2014/05/23/the-krewe-app-post-mortem.aspxNow that teched has come and gone, I thought I would use this opportunity to do a little post-mortem on The Krewe app. It is one thing to test the app at home. It is a completely different animal to see how it responds in the environment TechEd creates. At a future time, I will list all the things that I would like to change with the app. At this point, I will find some good way to get community feedback. I want to break all this down screen by screen. We'll start with the screen I got right. The first of these is the events calendar. This is the one screen that, to you guys, just worked. However, there was an issue here. When I wrote v1 for last year, I was lazy and placed everything in CST. This caused problems with the achievements, which I will explain later. Furthermore, the event locations were not check-in locations. This created another problem with the achievements. Next, we get to the Twitter page. For what this page does, it works great. For those that don't know, I have an Azure Worker Role that polls Twitter pretty close to the rate limit. I cache these results in my database, and serve them upon request. This gives me great control over the content. I just have to remember to flush past tweets after a period, to save database growth. The next screen is the check-in screen. This screen has been the bane of my existence since I first created the thing. Last year, I used a background task to check people out of locations after they traveled. This year, I removed the background task in favor of a foursquare model. You are checked out after 3 hours or when you check-in to some other location. This seemed to work well, until those pesky achievements came into the mix. Again, more on this later. Next, I want to address the Connect and Connections screens together. I wanted to use some of the capabilities of the phone, and NFC seemed a natural choice. From this, I came up with the gamification aspects of the app. Since we are, fundamentally, a networking organization, I wanted to encourage people to actually network. Users could make and share a profile, similar to a virtual business card. I just had to figure out how to get people to use the feature. Why not just give someone a business card? Thus, the achievements were born. This was such a good idea. It would have been a great idea, if I have come up with it about two months earlier... When I came up with these ideas, I had about 2 weeks to implement them. Version 1 of the app was, basically, a pure consumption app. We provided data and centralized it. With version 2, the app became a much more interactive experience. The API was not ready for this change in such a short period of time. Most of this became apparent when I started implementing the achievements. The achievements based on count and specific person when fairly easy. The problem came with tying them to locations and events. This took some true SQL kung fu. This also showed me the rookie mistake of putting CST, not UTC, in the database. Once I got all of that cleaned up, I had to find a way to get the achievement system to talk to the phone. I knew I needed to be able to dynamically add achievements. I wouldn't know the precise location of some things until I got to Houston. I wanted the server to approve the achievements. This, unfortunately, required a decent data connection. Some achievements required GPS levels of location accuracy in areas of network triangulation. All of this became a huge nightmare. My flagship feature was based on some silly assumptions. Still, I managed to get 31 people to get the first achievement (Make 1 Connection.) Quite a few of those managed to get to the higher levels. Soon, I will post a list of the feature and changes that need to happen to the API. This includes things like proper objects for communication, geo-fencing, and caching. However, that is for another day.

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  • My Tech Ed North America Preview - Certification Edition

    - by Chris Gardner
    In my previous TechEd North America Preview, I addressed all the content I wanted to see at the show. This time, we shall turn our attention to the certifications I might try to pick up. If you have never been to TechEd North America before, one of the greatest things about the event is an on-site certification center. If you have a couple hours to spare, you can walk up to a test. The first test on my agenda is 70-5231. I took this update test once, but did not do well on the MVC portion2. A few practice tests later, and I think I'm ready to fake that section. After that, I need to complete my road to being a master. The good folks here at work have been having a real love / hate relationship with the idea of me become an MCM in SQL Server3. Of course, before I do that, I need to finally take the SQL Administration tests. Thus, we shall add 70-4324 and 70-4505 to the list. Speaking of MCM, TechEd North America will have a special on test 88-9706. This test is normally $500, and you have to find a place to take it7. However, there is a special 50% off rate for people who take it on location. With those kind of prices, I may just take it as a form of study guide. As a final push, I may take some Windows Phone exams. I mentioned in my previous post that I may attend the 70-5998 Exam Cram session. Unfortunately, I will be staffing the Hands-On-Lab at that time. As we know, this has never stopped me from taking a test. This may lead to fits of 70-5069, but after we've come this far... That should complete my list. Do I really think I'll find time to take 6 tests at TechEd North America? Probably not. I have done it at TechEd North America before, but that was before I was TechEd North America staff. I also had a co-worker pass 9 in one year, but he basically did nothing but travel to Orlando in 2007 to take tests. And what's the point of attending a HUGE conference if you don't network? Of course, networking will have to wait for Friday's post... 1 Upgrade: Transition Your MCPD .NET Framework 3.5 Web Developer Skills to MCPD .NET Framework 4 Web Developer 2Because I never have used, nor do I really think I ever will use, MVC... 3By that, I mean they love the idea, and they hate the price 4Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance 5PRO: Designing, Optimizing and Maintaining a Database Administrative Solution Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 6SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master: Knowledge Exam 7Which isn't nearly as expensive as the Lab Exam, nor as difficult to find a location. However, it is not offered at every testing facility. 8PRO: Designing and Developing Windows Phone Applications 9TS: Silverlight 4, Development

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  • Microphone not recognised on my TekNmotion Intruder headset?

    - by Mitch Gardner
    I own a TekNmotion Intruder headset and Ubuntu 12.04 doesn't seem to even notice that my mic exists. I just re-installed Ubuntu and that doesn't seem to help either. They are a bit of a no-name brand and I can't find drivers for them. The audio plays clearly through the head phones but my mic wont record using "Record my desktop", Works rarely with Skype, and doesn't even show up when I go to Sound Settings ---- Input. Help please!

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