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• SQL Server Configuration timeouts - and a workaround [SSIS]

  - by jamiet

  Ever since I started writing SSIS packages back in 2004 I have opted to store configurations in .dtsConfig (.i.e. XML) files rather than in a SQL Server table (aka SQL Server Configurations) however recently I inherited some packages that used SQL Server Configurations and thus had to immerse myself in their murky little world. To all the people that have ever gone onto the SSIS forum and asked questions about ambiguous behaviour of SQL Server Configurations I now say this... I feel your pain! The biggest problem I have had was in dealing with the change to the order in which configurations get applied that came about in SSIS 2008. Those changes are detailed on MSDN at SSIS Package Configurations however the pertinent bits are: As the utility loads and runs the package, events occur in the following order: The dtexec utility loads the package. The utility applies the configurations that were specified in the package at design time and in the order that is specified in the package. (The one exception to this is the Parent Package Variables configurations. The utility applies these configurations only once and later in the process.) The utility then applies any options that you specified on the command line. The utility then reloads the configurations that were specified in the package at design time and in the order specified in the package. (Again, the exception to this rule is the Parent Package Variables configurations). The utility uses any command-line options that were specified to reload the configurations. Therefore, different values might be reloaded from a different location. The utility applies the Parent Package Variable configurations. The utility runs the package. To understand how these steps differ from SSIS 2005 I recommend reading Doug Laudenschlager’s blog post Understand how SSIS package configurations are applied. The very nature of SQL Server Configurations means that the Connection String for the database holding the configuration values needs to be supplied from the command-line. Typically then the call to execute your package resembles this: dtexec /FILE Package.dtsx /SET "\Package.Connections[SSISConfigurations].Properties[ConnectionString]";"\"Data Source=SomeServer;Initial Catalog=SomeDB;Integrated Security=SSPI;\"", The problem then is that, as per the steps above, the package will (1) attempt to apply all configurations using the Connection String stored in the package for the "SSISConfigurations" Connection Manager before then (2) applying the Connection String from the command-line and then (3) apply the same configurations all over again. In the packages that I inherited that first attempt to apply the configurations would timeout (not unexpected); I had 8 SQL Server Configurations in the package and thus the package was waiting for 2 minutes until all the Configurations timed out (i.e. 15seconds per Configuration) - in a package that only executes for ~8seconds when it gets to do its actual work a delay of 2minutes was simply unacceptable. We had three options in how to deal with this: Get rid of the use of SQL Server configurations and use .dtsConfig files instead Edit the packages when they get deployed Change the timeout on the "SSISConfigurations" Connection Manager #1 was my preferred choice but, for reasons I explain below*, wasn't an option in this particular instance. #2 was discounted out of hand because it negates the point of using Configurations in the first place. This left us with #3 - change the timeout on the Connection Manager. This is done by going into the properties of the Connection Manager, opening the "All" tab and changing the Connect Timeout property to some suitable value (in the screenshot below I chose 2 seconds). This change meant that the attempts to apply the SQL Server configurations timed out in 16 seconds rather than two minutes; clearly this isn't an optimum solution but its certainly better than it was. So there you have it - if you are having problems with SQL Server configuration timeouts within SSIS try changing the timeout of the Connection Manager. Better still - don't bother using SQL Server Configuration in the first place. Even better - install RC0 of SQL Server 2012 to start leveraging SSIS parameters and leave the nasty old world of configurations behind you. @Jamiet * Basically, we are leveraging a SSIS execution/logging framework in which the client had invested a lot of resources and SQL Server Configurations are an integral part of that.

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• Improved appointment rendering in RadScheduler for ASP.NET AJAX, Q1 2010

  Now that Q1 2010 release is out in the wild, we can sit down and discuss some of the changes we decided to make in the new release. One of them is the new appointment rendering of RadScheduler - a potentially breaking change, but a much needed one. If you have problems with your old custom skins, include the old base stylesheet along with your RadScheduler and set EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet=false in your RadScheduler. You can find the said base stylesheet attached to this post.   While trying to improve the performance of RadScheduler, I noticed that the number of resources slows down the rendering and overall performance considerably. This had to be expected - the images to support the appointment rounded corners (and the predefined resources) were quite large. However, I didnt take into account that all browsers keep for performance reasons their images uncompressed in memory and with the color depth of the current desktop. A simple calculation later I discovered that the appointment sprite itself is taking 25MB memory when loaded. Add 5 resources to the fray and you have 150MB memory down with a single blow. As it turns out - a sprite image is not a panacea, if it gets too big - dont be afraid to break it in two. The loading time may suffer, but your browser suffers more while rendering a 25MB monster. First I thought of undertaking the aforementioned solution - breaking the appointment sprite in two and thus reducing the two appointment sprites to mere 2MB uncompressed. Then I thought - the rounded corners are small - I can use borders and backgrounds to simulate rounded appointment borders while still keeping the same HTML structure. The gradients can be done with a single 10x50px image plus we have a gain - border colors and backgrounds can be changed on the fly.  I started with five rendering elements at first, then tried with four and finally I settled on only three elements.  Behold the new appointment rendering (quite simple really):       On the left you can see that the first container has only top and bottom borders and a background. In fact, the background isnt even needed since it will be obscured by the elements on top of it. The whole first container is only needed for the four dots that reside in the four corners of the appointment. On top of this container is another one that holds the left and right borders and slightly lighter background to create the illusion of a second lighter border beside the other two. At last on top of all others is placed the text container that also holds the top and bottom borders and the gradient background. On the right you can see the final result - Im quite happy with it and I hope you will be too. After creating the new rendering we took another step further - we decided to use alpha gradients for the resource rendering, thus supporting any color appointments with rounded corners and gradients. You can see some examples below:We plan on adding BorderColor and BackColor properties  to the ResourceStyles definitions for Q1 SP1. However with the new rendering in Q1 2010 we do support BackColor and BorderColor appointment properties - you only need to set AppointmentStyleMode=Default to keep RadScheduler from switching to Simple appointment rendering. Here is one screenshot of RadScheduler with appointments set to different colors: I hope that you will enjoy working with the new appointments in RadScheduler. RadScheduler base stylesheet Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Improved appointment rendering in RadScheduler for ASP.NET AJAX, Q1 2010

  Now that Q1 2010 release is out in the wild, we can sit down and discuss some of the changes we decided to make in the new release. One of them is the new appointment rendering of RadScheduler - a potentially breaking change, but a much needed one. If you have problems with your old custom skins, include the old base stylesheet along with your RadScheduler and set EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet=false in your RadScheduler. You can find the said base stylesheet attached to this post.   While trying to improve the performance of RadScheduler, I noticed that the number of resources slows down the rendering and overall performance considerably. This had to be expected - the images to support the appointment rounded corners (and the predefined resources) were quite large. However, I didnt take into account that all browsers keep for performance reasons their images uncompressed in memory and with the color depth of the current desktop. A simple calculation later I discovered that the appointment sprite itself is taking 25MB memory when loaded. Add 5 resources to the fray and you have 150MB memory down with a single blow. As it turns out - a sprite image is not a panacea, if it gets too big - dont be afraid to break it in two. The loading time may suffer, but your browser suffers more while rendering a 25MB monster. First I thought of undertaking the aforementioned solution - breaking the appointment sprite in two and thus reducing the two appointment sprites to mere 2MB uncompressed. Then I thought - the rounded corners are small - I can use borders and backgrounds to simulate rounded appointment borders while still keeping the same HTML structure. The gradients can be done with a single 10x50px image plus we have a gain - border colors and backgrounds can be changed on the fly.  I started with five rendering elements at first, then tried with four and finally I settled on only three elements.  Behold the new appointment rendering (quite simple really):       On the left you can see that the first container has only top and bottom borders and a background. In fact, the background isnt even needed since it will be obscured by the elements on top of it. The whole first container is only needed for the four dots that reside in the four corners of the appointment. On top of this container is another one that holds the left and right borders and slightly lighter background to create the illusion of a second lighter border beside the other two. At last on top of all others is placed the text container that also holds the top and bottom borders and the gradient background. On the right you can see the final result - Im quite happy with it and I hope you will be too. After creating the new rendering we took another step further - we decided to use alpha gradients for the resource rendering, thus supporting any color appointments with rounded corners and gradients. You can see some examples below:We plan on adding BorderColor and BackColor properties  to the ResourceStyles definitions for Q1 SP1. However with the new rendering in Q1 2010 we do support BackColor and BorderColor appointment properties - you only need to set AppointmentStyleMode=Default to keep RadScheduler from switching to Simple appointment rendering. Here is one screenshot of RadScheduler with appointments set to different colors: I hope that you will enjoy working with the new appointments in RadScheduler. RadScheduler base stylesheet Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• The Mysterious ARR Server Farm to URL Rewrite link

  - by OWScott

  Application Request Routing (ARR) is a reverse proxy plug-in for IIS7+ that does many things, including functioning as a load balancer.  For this post, I’m assuming that you already have an understanding of ARR.  Today I wanted to find out how the mysterious link between ARR and URL Rewrite is maintained.  Let me explain… ARR is unique in that it doesn’t work by itself.  It sits on top of IIS7 and uses URL Rewrite.  As a result, ARR depends on URL Rewrite to ‘catch’ the traffic and redirect it to an ARR Server Farm. As the last step of creating a new Server Farm, ARR will prompt you with the following: If you accept the prompt, it will create a URL Rewrite rule for you.  If you say ‘No’, then you’re on your own to create a URL Rewrite rule. When you say ‘Yes’, the Server Farm’s checkbox for “Use URL Rewrite to inspect incoming requests” will be checked.  See the following screenshot. However, I’m not a fan of this auto-rule.  The problem is that if I make any changes to the URL Rewrite rule, which I always do, and then make the wrong change in ARR, it will blow away my settings.  So, I prefer to create my own rule and manage it myself. Since I had some old rules that were managed by ARR, I wanted to update them so that they were no longer managed that way.  I took a look at a config in applicationHost.config to try to find out what property would bind the two together.  I assumed that there would be a property on the ServerFarm called something like urlRewriteRuleName that would serve as the link between ARR and URL Rewrite.  I found no such property.  After a bit of testing, I found that the name of the URL Rewrite rule is the only link between ARR and URL Rewrite.  I wouldn’t have guessed.  The URL Rewrite rule needs to be exactly ARR_{ServerFarm Name}_loadBalance, although it’s not case sensitive. Consider the following auto-created URL Rewrite rule: And, the link between ARR and URL Rewrite exists: Now, as soon as I rename that to anything else, for example, site.com ARR Binding, the link between ARR and URL Rewrite is broken. To be certain of the relationship, I renamed it back again and sure enough, the relationship was reestablished. Why is this important?  It’s only important if you want to decouple the relationship between ARR the URL Rewrite rule, but if you want to do so, the best way to do that is to rename the URL Rewrite rule.  If you uncheck the “Use URL Rewrite to inspect incoming requests” checkbox, it will delete your rule for you without prompting.  Conclusion The mysterious link between ARR and URL Rewrite only exists through the ARR Rule name.  If you want to break the link, simply rename the URL Rewrite rule.  It’s completely safe to do so, and, in my opinion, this is a rule that you should manage yourself anyway. 

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• Using SQL Developer to Debug your Anonymous PL/SQL Blocks

  - by JeffS

  Everyone knows that SQL Developer has a PL/SQL debugger – check! Everyone also knows that it’s only setup for debugging standalone PL/SQL objects like Functions, Procedures, and Packages, right? – NO! SQL Developer can also debug your Stored Java Procedures AND it can debug your standalone PLSQL blocks. These bits of PLSQL which do not live in the database are also known as ‘Anonymous Blocks.’ Anonymous PL/SQL blocks can be submitted to interactive tools such as SQL*Plus and Enterprise Manager, or embedded in an Oracle Precompiler or OCI program. At run time, the program sends these blocks to the Oracle database, where they are compiled and executed. Here’s an example of something you might want help debugging: Declare x number := 0; Begin Dbms_Output.Put(Sysdate || ' ' || Systimestamp); For Stuff In 1..100 Loop Dbms_Output.Put_Line('Stuff is equal to ' || Stuff || '.'); x := Stuff; End Loop; End; / With the power of remote debugging and unshared worksheets, we are going to be able to debug this ANON block! The trick – we need to create a dummy stored procedure and call it in our ANON block. Then we’re going to create an unshared worksheet and execute the script from there while the SQL Developer session is listening for remote debug connections. We step through the dummy procedure, and this takes OUT to our calling ANON block. Then we can use watches, breakpoints, and all that fancy debugger stuff! First things first, create this dummy procedure - create or replace procedure do_nothing is begin null; end; Then mouse-right-click on your Connection and select ‘Remote Debug.’ For an in-depth post on how to use the remote debugger, check out Barry’s excellent post on the subject. Open an unshared worksheet using Ctrl+Shift+N. This gives us a dedicated connection for our worksheet and any scripts or commands executed in it. Paste in your ANON block you want to debug. Add in a call to the dummy procedure above to the first line of your BEGIN block like so Begin do_nothing(); ... Then we need to setup the machine for remote debug for the session we have listening – basically we connect to SQL Developer. You can do that via a Environment Variable, or you can just add this line to your script - CALL DBMS_DEBUG_JDWP.CONNECT_TCP( 'localhost', '4000' ); Where ‘localhost’ is the machine where SQL Developer is running and ’4000′ is the port you started the debug listener on. Ok, with that all set, now just RUN the script. Once the PL/SQL call is made, the debugger will be invoked. You’ll end up in the DO_NOTHING() object. Debugging an ANON block from SQL Developer is possible! If you step out to the ANON block, we’ll end up in the script that’s used to call the procedure – which is the script you want to debug. The Anonymous Block is opened in a new SQL Dev page You can now step through the block, using watches and breakpoints as expected. I’m guessing your scripts are going to be a bit more complicated than mine, but this serves as a decent example to get you started. Here’s a screenshot of a watch and breakpoint defined in the anon block being debugged: Breakpoints, watches, and callstacks - oh my! For giggles, I created a breakpoint with a passcount of 90 for the FOR LOOP to see if it works. And of course it does You Might Also EnjoyUsing Pass Counts to Turbo Charge Your PL/SQL BreakpointsSQL Developer Tip: Viewing REFCURSOR OutputThe PL/SQL Debugger Strikes Back: Episode VDebugging PL/SQL with SQL Developer: Episode IVHow to find dependent objects in your PL/SQL Programs using SQL Developer

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• Implementing Release Notes in TFS Team Build 2010

  - by Jakob Ehn

  In TFS Team Build (all versions), each build is associated with changesets and work items. To determine which changesets that should be associated with the current build, Team Build finds the label of the “Last Good Build” an then aggregates all changesets up unitl the label for the current build. Basically this means that if your build is failing, every changeset that is checked in will be accumulated in this list until the build is successful. All well, but there uis a dimension missing here, regarding to releases. Often you can run several release builds until you actually deploy the result of the build to a test or production system. When you do this, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to send the customer a nice release note that contain all work items and changeset since the previously deployed version? At our company, we have developed a Release Repository, which basically is a siple web site with a SQL database as storage. Every time we run a Release Build, the resulting installers, zip-files, sql scripts etc, gets pushed into the release repositor together with the relevant build information. This information contains things such as start time, who triggered the build etc. Also, it contains the associated changesets and work items. When deploying the MSI’s for a new version, we mark the build as Deployed in the release repository. The depoyed status is stored in the release repository database, but it could also have been implemented by setting the Build Quality for that build to Deployed. When generating the release notes, the web site simple runs through each release build back to the previous build that was marked as Deplyed, and aggregates the work items and changesets: Here is a sample screenshot on how this looks for a sample build/application The web site is available both for us and also for the customers and testers, which means that they can easily get the latest version of a particular application and at the same time see what changes are included in this version. There is a lot going on in the Release Build Process that drives this in our TFS 2010 server, but in this post I will show how you can access and read the changeset and work item information in a custom activity. Since Team Build associates changesets and work items for each build, this information is (partially) available inside the build process template. The Associate Changesets and Work Items for non-Shelveset Builds activity (located inside the Try  Compile, Test, and Associate Changesets and Work Items activity) defines and populates a variable called associatedWorkItems   You can see that this variable is an IList containing instances of the Changeset class (from the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client namespace). Now, if you want to access this variable later on in the build process template, you need to declare a new variable in the corresponding scope and the assign the value to this variable. In this sample, I declared a variable called assocChangesets in the RunAgent sequence, which basically covers the whol compile, test and drop part of the build process:   Now, you need to assign the value from the AssociatedChangesets to this variable. This is done using the Assign workflow activity:   Now you can add a custom activity any where inside the RunAgent sequence and use this variable. NB: Of course your activity must place somewhere after the variable has been poplated. To finish off, here is code snippet that shows how you can read the changeset and work item information from the variable.   First you add an InArgumet on your activity where you can pass i the variable that we defined. [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<IList<Changeset>> AssociatedChangesets { get; set; } Then you can traverse all the changesets in the list, and for each changeset use the WorkItems property to get the work items that were associated in that changeset: foreach (Changeset ch in associatedChangesets) { // Add change theChangesets.Add( new AssociatedChangeset(ch.ChangesetId, ch.ArtifactUri, ch.Committer, ch.Comment, ch.ChangesetId)); foreach (var wi in ch.WorkItems) { theWorkItems.Add( new AssociatedWorkItem(wi["System.AssignedTo"].ToString(), wi.Id, wi["System.State"].ToString(), wi.Title, wi.Type.Name, wi.Id, wi.Uri)); } } NB: AssociatedChangeset and AssociatedWorkItem are custom classes that we use internally for storing this information that is eventually pushed to the release repository.

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• This Week in Geek History: Gmail Goes Public, Deep Blue Wins at Chess, and the Birth of Thomas Edison

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Every week we bring you a snapshot of the week in Geek History. This week we’re taking a peek at the public release of Gmail, the first time a computer won against a chess champion, and the birth of prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Gmail Goes Public It’s hard to believe that Gmail has only been around for seven years and that for the first three years of its life it was invite only. In 2007 Gmail dropped the invite only requirement (although they would hold onto the “beta” tag for another two years) and opened its doors for anyone to grab a username @gmail. For what seemed like an entire epoch in internet history Gmail had the slickest web-based email around with constant innovations and features rolling out from Gmail Labs. Only in the last year or so have major overhauls at competitors like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail brought other services up to speed. Can’t stand reading a Week in Geek History entry without a random fact? Here you go: gmail.com was originally owned by the Garfield franchise and ran a service that delivered Garfield comics to your email inbox. No, we’re not kidding. Deep Blue Proves Itself a Chess Master Deep Blue was a super computer constructed by IBM with the sole purpose of winning chess matches. In 2011 with the all seeing eye of Google and the amazing computational abilities of engines like Wolfram Alpha we simply take powerful computers immersed in our daily lives for granted. The 1996 match against reigning world chest champion Garry Kasparov where in Deep Blue held its own, but ultimately lost, in a  4-2 match shook a lot of people up. What did it mean if something that was considered such an elegant and quintessentially human endeavor such as chess was so easy for a machine? A series of upgrades helped Deep Blue outright win a match against Kasparov in 1997 (seen in the photo above). After the win Deep Blue was retired and disassembled. Parts of Deep Blue are housed in the National Museum of History and the Computer History Museum. Birth of Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history and holds an astounding 1,093 US Patents. He is responsible for outright inventing or greatly refining major innovations in the history of world culture including the phonograph, the movie camera, the carbon microphone used in nearly every telephone well into the 1980s, batteries for electric cars (a notion we’d take over a century to take seriously), voting machines, and of course his enormous contribution to electric distribution systems. Despite the role of scientist and inventor being largely unglamorous, Thomas Edison and his tumultuous relationship with fellow inventor Nikola Tesla have been fodder for everything from books, to comics, to movies, and video games. Other Notable Moments from This Week in Geek History Although we only shine the spotlight on three interesting facts a week in our Geek History column, that doesn’t mean we don’t have space to highlight a few more in passing. This week in Geek History: 1971 – Apollo 14 returns to Earth after third Lunar mission. 1974 – Birth of Robot Chicken creator Seth Green. 1986 – Death of Dune creator Frank Herbert. Goodnight Dune. 1997 – Simpsons becomes longest running animated show on television. Have an interesting bit of geek trivia to share? Shoot us an email to [email protected] with “history” in the subject line and we’ll be sure to add it to our list of trivia. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? Clean Up Google Calendar’s Interface in Chrome and Iron The Rise and Fall of Kramerica? [Seinfeld Video] GNOME Shell 3 Live CDs for OpenSUSE and Fedora Available for Testing Picplz Offers Special FX, Sharing, and Backup of Your Smartphone Pics BUILD! An Epic LEGO Stop Motion Film [VIDEO] The Lingering Glow of Sunset over a Winter Landscape Wallpaper

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• How to configure Visual Studio 2010 code coverage for ASP.NET MVC unit tests

  - by DigiMortal

  I just got Visual Studio 2010 code coverage work with ASP.NET MVC application unit tests. Everything is simple after you have spent some time with forums, blogs and Google. To save your valuable time I wrote this posting to guide you through the process of making code coverage work with ASP.NET MVC application unit tests. After some fighting with Visual Studio I got everything to work as expected. I am still not very sure why users must deal with this mess, but okay – I survived it. Before you start configuring Visual Studio I expect your solution meets the following needs: there are at least one library that will be tested, there is at least on library that contains tests to be run, there are some classes and some tests for them, and, of course, you are using version of Visual Studio 2010 that supports tests (I have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate). Now open the following screenshot to separate windows and follow the steps given below. Visual Studio 2010 Test Settings window. Click on image to see it at original size.  Double click on Local.testsettings under Solution Items. Test settings window will be opened. Select “Data and Diagnostics” from left pane. Mark checkboxes “ASP.NET Profiler” and “Code Coverage”. Move cursor to “Code Coverage” line and press Configure button or make double click on line. Assemblies selection window will be opened. Mark checkboxes that are located before assemblies about what you want code coverage reports and apply settings. Save your project and close Visual Studio. Run Visual Studio as Administrator and run tests. NB! Select Test => Run => Tests in Current Context from menu. When tests are run you can open code coverage results by selecting Test => Windows => Code Coverage Results from menu. Here you can see my example test results. Visual Studio 2010 Test Results window. All my tests passed this time. :) Click on image to see it at original size.  And here are the code coverage results. Visual Studio 2101 Code Coverage Results. I need a lot more tests for sure. Click on image to see it at original size.  As you can see everything was pretty simple. But it took me sometime to figure out how to get everything work as expected. Problems? You may face some problems when making code coverage work. Here is my short list of possible problems. Make sure you have all assemblies available for code coverage. In some cases it needs more libraries to be referenced as you currently have. By example, I had to add some more Enterprise Library assemblies to my project. You can use EventViewer to discover errors that where given during testing. Make sure you selected all testable assemblies from Code Coverage settings like shown above. Otherwise you may get empty results. Tests with code coverage are slower because we need ASP.NET profiler. If your machine slows down then try to free more resources.

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• RegexClean Transformation

  Use the power of regular expressions to cleanse your data right there inside the Data Flow. This transformation includes a full user interface for simple configuration, as well as advanced features such as error output configuration. Two regular expressions are used, a match expression and a replace expression. The transformation is designed around the named capture groups or match groups, and even supports multiple expressions. This allows for rich and complex expressions to be built, all through an easy to reuse transformation where a bespoke Script Component was previously the only alternative. Some simple properties are available for each column selected – Behaviour The two behaviour modes offer similar functionality but with a difference. Replace, replaces tokens with the input, and Emit overwrites the whole string. Cascade Cascade allows you to define multiple expressions, each on a new line. The match expression will be processed into one operation per line, which are then processed in order at run-time. Multiple replace expressions can also be specified, again each on a new line. If there is no corresponding replace expression for a match expression line, then the last replace expression will be used instead. It is common to have multiple match expressions, but only a single replace expression. Match Expression The expression used to define the named capture groups. This is where you can analyse the data, and tag or name elements within it as found by the match expression. Replace Expression The replace determines the final output. It will reference the named groups from the match expression and assembles them into the final output. If you want to use regular expressions to validate data then try the Regular Expression Transformation. Quick Start Guide Select a column. A new output column is created for each selected column; there is no option for in-place replacement of column values. One input column can be used to populate multiple output columns, just select the column again in the lower grid, using the Input Columns drop-down selector. Amend the output column name and size as required. They default to the same as the input column selected. Amend the behaviour as required, the default is Replace. Amend the cascade option as required, the default is true. Finally enter your match and replace regular expressions Quick Sample #1 Parse an email address and extract the user and domain portions. Format as a web address passing the user portion as a URL parameter. This uses two match groups, user and host, which correspond to the text before the @ and after it respectively. Behaviour is Emit, and cascade of false, we only have a single match expression. Match Expression ^(?<user>[^@]+)@(?<host>.+)$ Replace Expression - http://www.${host}?user=${user} Results Sample Input Sample Output [email protected] http://www.adventure-works.com?user=zheng0 The component is provided as an MSI file, however to complete the installation, you will have to add the transformation to the Visual Studio toolbox manually. Right-click the toolbox, and select Choose Items.... Select the SSIS Data Flow Items tab, and then check the RegexClean Transformation from the list. Downloads The RegexClean Transformation is available for both SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. Please choose the version to match your SQL Server version, or you can install both versions and use them side by side if you have both SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 installed. RegexClean Transformation for SQL Server 2005 RegexClean Transformation for SQL Server 2008 Version History SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.105 - Public Release (28 Jan 2008) SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.105 - Public Release (28 Jan 2008) Screenshot

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• [MISC GEEKERY] Support for Some Versions of Windows is Ending

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you sticking with your older version of Windows instead of upgrading to Windows 7?  There’s no problem with that, but here’s a quick reminder to make sure you’re running the latest service pack to stay protected. Microsoft offers security updates and more throughout the lifetime of a version of Windows, and periodically they roll all the latest updates and improvements together into a service pack.  After a while, only computers running the latest service pack will still get updates to keep them safe. Recently, Microsoft has been warning that support is ending for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and the release version of Windows Vista.  When support ends, you will not receive any new security updates for Windows.  You can continue to use your computer the same as before, but it may not be as secure and if new security issues are discovered they will not be updated. However, it’s easy to stay supported: simply install XP Service Pack 3 or Vista Service Pack 2, depending on your computer.  Here’s how to do that: Windows XP To install Windows XP Service Pack 3, you can either check Windows Update for updates, or simply download it from Microsoft at this link: Download XP Service Pack 3 Run the download (or if you’re updating from Windows Update the installer will automatically launch), and proceed just as you normally would when installing a program.  Your computer will have to reboot during the install, so make sure you’ve saved all your work and closed other programs before installing.   To check what service pack your computer is running, click Start, then right-click on the My Computer button and choose Properties. This will show you what version and service pack of Windows you are running, and in this screenshot we see this computer has be updated to Service Pack 3. Please Note:  The version of XP shipped with Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 comes preconfigured with Service Pack 3, and does not need updated.  Additionally, if your computer is running the 64 bit version of Windows XP, then Service Pack 2 is the latest service pack for your computer, and it is still supported. Windows Vista If your computer is running Windows Vista, you can install Service Pack 2 to stay up to date and supported.  Simply check Windows Update for Service Pack 2 if you haven’t installed it yet, or download the installer for your computer from the link below: 32 bit: Vista Service Pack 2 32-bit 64 bit: Vista Service Pack 2 64-bit Run the installer, and simply set it up as a normal program installation.  Do note that your computer will reboot during the installation, so make sure to save your work and close other programs before installing. To see what service pack your computer is running, click the Start orb, then right-click on the Computer button and select Properties. This will show what service pack and edition of Windows Vista your computer is running right at the top of the page. Conclusion Microsoft makes it easy to keep using your computer safely and securely even if you choose to keep using your older version of Windows.  By installing the latest service pack, you will make sure that your computer will be supported for years to come.  Windows 7 users, you don’t need to worry; no service has been released for it yet.  Stay tuned, and we’ll let you know when any new service packs are available. www.microsoft.com/EOS – End of Support Information from Microsoft Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Remove Optional and Probably Unnecessary Windows Vista ComponentsRequesting Hotfixes from Microsoft the Easy WayUnderstanding Windows Vista Aero Glass RequirementsAdd Network Support to Windows Live MovieMakerCustomize the Manufacturer Support Info in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7?

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• How to I fix software center after installing the Linux Mint MATE desktop?

  - by tinuz

  I installed the MATE desktop using this manual but now i can't open my Ubuntu Software Center and can't open the settings from the update manager. I removed mate desktop but it doesn't fix the problem, i also reinstalled the software center, software-properties-gtk and software-properties-common using: sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get --purge --reinstall install software-center software-properties-common software-properties-gtk. But when using this line i get the following error: Reading package lists... Done Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/735 kB of archives. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. (Reading database ... 304824 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace software-center 5.0.2 (using .../software-center_5.0.2_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement software-center ... Preparing to replace software-properties-common 0.81.13.1 (using .../software-properties-common_0.81.13.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement software-properties-common ... Preparing to replace software-properties-gtk 0.81.13.1 (using .../software-properties-gtk_0.81.13.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement software-properties-gtk ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ... Unknown media type in type 'all/all' Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mms' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmst' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmsu' Unknown media type in type 'uri/pnm' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspt' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspu' Unknown media type in type 'interface/x-winamp-skin' Setting up software-center (5.0.2) ... Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/sbin/update-software-center", line 38, in <module> from softwarecenter.db.update import rebuild_database File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/update.py", line 59, in <module> from softwarecenter.db.database import parse_axi_values_file File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 26, in <module> from softwarecenter.db.application import Application File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/application.py", line 25, in <module> from softwarecenter.backend.channel import is_channel_available File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/backend/channel.py", line 25, in <module> from softwarecenter.distro import get_distro File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/distro/__init__.py", line 165, in <module> distro_instance=_get_distro() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/distro/__init__.py", line 148, in _get_distro module = __import__(distro_id, globals(), locals(), [], -1) ImportError: No module named LinuxMint Setting up software-properties-common (0.81.13.1) ... Setting up software-properties-gtk (0.81.13.1) ... $ Is there a way to fix this problem without having to reinstall Ubuntu 11.10?? thanks in advance tinuz

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• How to Create Views for All Tables with Oracle SQL Developer

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Got this question over the weekend via a friend and Oracle ACE Director, so I thought I would share the answer here. If you want to quickly generate DDL to create VIEWs for all the tables in your system, the easiest way to do that with SQL Developer is to create a data model. Wait, why would I want to do this? StackOverflow has a few things to say on this subject… So, start with importing a data dictionary. Step One: Open of Create a Model In SQL Developer, go to View – Data Modeler – Browser. Then in the browser panel, expand your design and create a new Relational Model. Step Two: Import your Data Dictionary This is a fancy way of saying, ‘suck objects out of the database into my model’ This will open a wizard to connect, select your schema(s), objects, etc. Once they’re in your model, you’re ready to cook with gas I’m using HR (Human Resources) for this example. You should end up with something that looks like this. Our favorite HR model Now we’re ready to generate the views! Step Three: Auto-generate the Views Go to Tools – Data Modeler – Table to View Wizard. I don’t want all my tables included, and I want to change the naming standard Decide if you want to change the default generated view names By default the views will be created as ‘V_TABLE_NAME.’ If you don’t like the ‘V_’ you can enter your own. You also can reference the object and model name with variables as shown in the screenshot above. I’m going to go with something a little more personal. The views are the little green boxes in the diagram Can’t find your views? They should be grouped together in your diagram. Don’t forget to use the Navigator to easily find and navigate to those model diagram objects! Step Four: Generate the DDL Ok, let’s use the Generate DDL button on the toolbar. Un-check everything but your views If you used a prefix, take advantage of that to create a filter. You might have existing views in your model that you don’t want to include, right? Once you click ‘OK’ the DDL will be generated. -- Generated by Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 4.0.0.825 -- at: 2013-11-04 10:26:39 EST -- site: Oracle Database 11g -- type: Oracle Database 11g CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW HR.TJS_BLOG_COUNTRIES ( COUNTRY_ID , COUNTRY_NAME , REGION_ID ) AS SELECT COUNTRY_ID , COUNTRY_NAME , REGION_ID FROM HR.COUNTRIES ; CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW HR.TJS_BLOG_EMPLOYEES ( EMPLOYEE_ID , FIRST_NAME , LAST_NAME , EMAIL , PHONE_NUMBER , HIRE_DATE , JOB_ID , SALARY , COMMISSION_PCT , MANAGER_ID , DEPARTMENT_ID ) AS SELECT EMPLOYEE_ID , FIRST_NAME , LAST_NAME , EMAIL , PHONE_NUMBER , HIRE_DATE , JOB_ID , SALARY , COMMISSION_PCT , MANAGER_ID , DEPARTMENT_ID FROM HR.EMPLOYEES ; CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW HR.TJS_BLOG_JOBS ( JOB_ID , JOB_TITLE , MIN_SALARY , MAX_SALARY ) AS SELECT JOB_ID , JOB_TITLE , MIN_SALARY , MAX_SALARY FROM HR.JOBS ; CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW HR.TJS_BLOG_JOB_HISTORY ( EMPLOYEE_ID , START_DATE , END_DATE , JOB_ID , DEPARTMENT_ID ) AS SELECT EMPLOYEE_ID , START_DATE , END_DATE , JOB_ID , DEPARTMENT_ID FROM HR.JOB_HISTORY ; CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW HR.TJS_BLOG_LOCATIONS ( LOCATION_ID , STREET_ADDRESS , POSTAL_CODE , CITY , STATE_PROVINCE , COUNTRY_ID ) AS SELECT LOCATION_ID , STREET_ADDRESS , POSTAL_CODE , CITY , STATE_PROVINCE , COUNTRY_ID FROM HR.LOCATIONS ; CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW HR.TJS_BLOG_REGIONS ( REGION_ID , REGION_NAME ) AS SELECT REGION_ID , REGION_NAME FROM HR.REGIONS ; -- Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Summary Report: -- -- CREATE TABLE 0 -- CREATE INDEX 0 -- ALTER TABLE 0 -- CREATE VIEW 6 -- CREATE PACKAGE 0 -- CREATE PACKAGE BODY 0 -- CREATE PROCEDURE 0 -- CREATE FUNCTION 0 -- CREATE TRIGGER 0 -- ALTER TRIGGER 0 -- CREATE COLLECTION TYPE 0 -- CREATE STRUCTURED TYPE 0 -- CREATE STRUCTURED TYPE BODY 0 -- CREATE CLUSTER 0 -- CREATE CONTEXT 0 -- CREATE DATABASE 0 -- CREATE DIMENSION 0 -- CREATE DIRECTORY 0 -- CREATE DISK GROUP 0 -- CREATE ROLE 0 -- CREATE ROLLBACK SEGMENT 0 -- CREATE SEQUENCE 0 -- CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW 0 -- CREATE SYNONYM 0 -- CREATE TABLESPACE 0 -- CREATE USER 0 -- -- DROP TABLESPACE 0 -- DROP DATABASE 0 -- -- REDACTION POLICY 0 -- -- ERRORS 0 -- WARNINGS 0 You can then choose to save this to a file or not. This has a few steps, but as the number of tables in your system increases, so does the amount of time this feature can save you!

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• Keep a Window on top with a handy AutoHotkey script

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you tired of shuffling back and forth between windows to get your work done?  Here’s a handy tool that lets you keep any window always on top when you need it. There are many ways to use multiple windows efficiently, but sometimes it seems you need to keep a smaller one in front of a larger window and they never quite fit right.  Whether you’re trying to use Calculator and a web form at the same time, or see what music is playing while you’re catching up on your news, there’s many scenarios where it can be useful to keep one window always on top.  There are many utilities to do this, but they are often needlessly complicated and bloated.  Here we look at a better solution from Amit, our friend at Digital Inspiration. Always on Top Thanks to AutoHotkey, you can easily always keep any window on top of all the others on your screen.  You can download this as a small exe and run it directly, or can create it with a simple script in AutoHotkey.  For simplicity, we simply downloaded the application and ran it directly. To do this, download Always on Top (link below), and unzip the file. Once you’ve launched it, simply select the window you want to keep on top and press Ctrl+Space.  This program will now stay in front, even when it is not the active window.  Here’s a screenshot of a Hotmail signup dialog in Chrome with Notepad kept on top.  Notice Notepad isn’t the active application, but it is still on top. If you wish to un-pin the window from being on top, simply select the window and press Ctrl+space again.  You can keep multiple windows pinned at once, too, though you may clutter your desktop quickly! Always on Top will keep running in your system tray, and you can exit or suspend it by right-clicking on its tray icon and selecting exit or suspend, respectively. Create Your Own Always on Top Utility with AutoHotkey If you’re a fan of AutoHotkey, you can create your own AutoHotkey script to keep windows on top simply and easily with only one line of code: ^SPACE:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A Simply create a new file, insert the code, and save it as plaintext with the .ahk file extension.  If you have AutoHotkey installed, simply double-click this file for the exact same functionality as the premade version. Conclusion This is a great way to keep a window handy, and it can be beneficial in many scenarios.  For instance you can use it to copy data from a PDF or image into a form or spreadsheet, and it saves a lot of clicks and time.  Links: Download Always on Top from Digital Inspiration Download AutoHotkey if you want to make it yourself Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Get the Linux Alt+Window Drag Functionality in WindowsGet Mac’s Hide Others (cmd+opt+H) Keyboard Shortcut for WindowsAdd "Run as Administrator" for AutoHotkey Scripts in Windows 7 or VistaKeyboard Ninja: Pop Up the Vista Calendar with a Single HotkeyKeyboard Ninja: Assign a Hotkey to any Window TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7?

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• How to remove the Mint stuff from my system after installing MATE desktop using MINT repository

  - by tinuz

  I installed the MATE desktop using this manual http://www.unixmen.com/linux-tutorials/linux-distributions/linux-distributions4-ubuntu/1975-install-linuxmint12-extensions-mate-a-mgse-in-ubuntu-1110- but now i can't open my Ubuntu Software Center and can't open the settings from the update manager. I removed mate desktop but it doesn't fix the problem, i also reinstalled the software center, software-properties-gtk and software-properties-common using: sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get --purge --reinstall install software-center software-properties-common software-properties-gtk. But when using this line i get the following error: Reading package lists... Done Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/735 kB of archives. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. (Reading database ... 304824 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace software-center 5.0.2 (using .../software-center_5.0.2_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement software-center ... Preparing to replace software-properties-common 0.81.13.1 (using .../software-properties-common_0.81.13.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement software-properties-common ... Preparing to replace software-properties-gtk 0.81.13.1 (using .../software-properties-gtk_0.81.13.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement software-properties-gtk ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ... Unknown media type in type 'all/all' Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mms' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmst' Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmsu' Unknown media type in type 'uri/pnm' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspt' Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspu' Unknown media type in type 'interface/x-winamp-skin' Setting up software-center (5.0.2) ... Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/sbin/update-software-center", line 38, in <module> from softwarecenter.db.update import rebuild_database File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/update.py", line 59, in <module> from softwarecenter.db.database import parse_axi_values_file File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 26, in <module> from softwarecenter.db.application import Application File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/application.py", line 25, in <module> from softwarecenter.backend.channel import is_channel_available File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/backend/channel.py", line 25, in <module> from softwarecenter.distro import get_distro File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/distro/__init__.py", line 165, in <module> distro_instance=_get_distro() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/distro/__init__.py", line 148, in _get_distro module = __import__(distro_id, globals(), locals(), [], -1) ImportError: No module named LinuxMint Setting up software-properties-common (0.81.13.1) ... Setting up software-properties-gtk (0.81.13.1) ... $ Is there a way to fix this problem without having to reinstall Ubuntu 11.10?? thanks in advance tinuz

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• Error while installing emacs23 from Software Center

  - by vrcmr

  Trying to install emacs in Software Center Ubuntu 12.04 got this error. installArchives() failed: Selecting previously unselected package emacs23. (Reading database ... (Reading database ... 5% (Reading database ... 10% (Reading database ... 15% (Reading database ... 20% (Reading database ... 25% (Reading database ... 30% (Reading database ... 35% (Reading database ... 40% (Reading database ... 45% (Reading database ... 50% (Reading database ... 55% (Reading database ... 60% (Reading database ... 65% (Reading database ... 70% (Reading database ... 75% (Reading database ... 80% (Reading database ... 85% (Reading database ... 90% (Reading database ... 95% (Reading database ... 100% (Reading database ... 182385 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking emacs23 (from .../emacs23_23.3+1-1ubuntu9_i386.deb) ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up emacs23 (23.3+1-1ubuntu9) ... update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/emacs23-x to provide /usr/bin/emacs (emacs) in auto mode. emacs-install emacs23 install/dictionaries-common: Byte-compiling for emacsen flavour emacs23 Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/site-lisp' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/leim' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/lisp' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/leim' does not exist. Error: charsets directory (/usr/share/emacs/23.3/etc/charsets) does not exist. Emacs will not function correctly without the character map files. Please check your installation! Warning: Could not find simple.el nor simple.elc Cannot open load file: bytecomp emacs-install: /usr/lib/emacsen-common/packages/install/dictionaries-common emacs23 failed at /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-install line 28, <TSORT> line 3. dpkg: error processing emacs23 (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255 No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already Errors were encountered while processing: emacs23 Error in function: Setting up emacs23 (23.3+1-1ubuntu9) ... emacs-install emacs23 install/dictionaries-common: Byte-compiling for emacsen flavour emacs23 Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/site-lisp' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/leim' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/lisp' does not exist. Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/share/emacs/23.3/leim' does not exist. Error: charsets directory (/usr/share/emacs/23.3/etc/charsets) does not exist. Emacs will not function correctly without the character map files. Please check your installation! Warning: Could not find simple.el nor simple.elc Cannot open load file: bytecomp emacs-install: /usr/lib/emacsen-common/packages/install/dictionaries-common emacs23 failed at /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-install line 28, <TSORT> line 3. dpkg: error processing emacs23 (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255

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• upgraded "Compiz' and "Unity", now no Unity 3D on screen

  - by user18432

  Today when I logged in to my Ubuntu 12.04, the update manager told me of some upgrades. Compiz and Unity were in those upgrades. After I installed the upgrades, I can no longer get the Unity panel on the left side of screen or the systray at the top of screen. I now have to run Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity 2D. My laptop is a HP Pavilion dv9000 with Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 video. I tried to run "unity --reset" but it says there are serious issues with compiz. I have cut & pasted the read out from the terminal below. [09:35:02] xxxxxxx@L01U1204:~$ unity --reset unity-panel-service: no process found Checking if settings need to be migrated ...no Checking if internal files need to be migrated ...no Backend : gconf Integration : true Profile : unity Adding plugins Initializing core options...done compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x2e00004 compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x580005a compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x3600006 compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x3200255 compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x1600002 compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x1400002 Initializing composite options...done Initializing opengl options...done Initializing decor options...done Initializing vpswitch options...done Initializing snap options...done Initializing mousepoll options...done Initializing resize options...done Initializing place options...done Initializing move options...done Initializing wall options...done Initializing grid options...done I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/brwright/.compiz/session/10afaca1703486b216133648409481824100000130110002" Initializing session options...done Initializing gnomecompat options...done Initializing animation options...done Initializing fade options...done Initializing unitymtgrabhandles options...done Initializing workarounds options...done Initializing scale options...done compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture Initializing expo options...done Initializing ezoom options...done compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't load plugin '/usr/lib/compiz/libunityshell.so' : /usr/lib/compiz/libunityshell.so: undefined symbol: _ZNK5unity4dash10Controller6windowEv compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't load plugin 'unityshell' compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x7000090! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x7000093! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x7000096! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x7000099! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x700009c! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x700009f! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. Initializing annotate options...done Initializing blur options...done Initializing clone options...done Initializing colorfilter options...done Initializing commands options...done Initializing cube options...done Initializing imgjpeg options...done Initializing kdecompat options...done Initializing mag options...done Initializing neg options...done Initializing obs options...done Initializing opacify options...done Initializing put options...done Initializing resizeinfo options...done Initializing ring options...done Initializing rotate options...done Initializing scaleaddon options...done Initializing screenshot options...done Initializing shift options...done Initializing staticswitcher options...done Initializing switcher options...done Initializing thumbnail options...done Initializing unityshell options...done Initializing water options...done Initializing winrules options...done Initializing wobbly options...done Setting Update "main_menu_key" Setting Update "run_key" Starting gtk-window-decorator As you can see the terminal never comes back to the CI prompt. I must do a control C to get to the CI prompt, but then the OS is frozen. I have to reboot and run Unity 2D in able to do anything on my laptop. I hope I have explained this enough and provided some useful info. I am at a loss to understand what the problem is, or what exactly what is causing the problem. Is it Unity or Compiz? Can anyone help?

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• Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge: TEAM Informatics

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Originally posted by Jake Kuramoto on The Apps Lab blog. Here comes another Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge entry, this one courtesy of TEAM Informatics (@teaminformatics). As their name suggests, their entry was a true team effort, featuring the work of Jon Chartrand, Deepthi Sanikommu, Dmitry Shtulman, Raghavendra Joshi, and Daniel Stitely with Wayne Boerger doing the presentation honors. Speaking of the presentation, Wayne’s laptop wouldn’t project onto the plasma we had in the OTN Lounge, but luckily, Noel (@noelportugal) had his iPad and VGA dongle in his backpack of goodies, so they were able to improvise by using the iPad camera to capture Wayne’s demo and project the video to the plasma. Code will find a way. Anyway, TEAM built Do Over, an integration with Atlassian’s JIRA, coincidentally something I’ve chatted with Rich (@rmanalan) about in the past. The basic idea is simple; integrate JIRA issues with Oracle Social Network to expand and centralize the conversation around issue resolution. In Dmitry’s words: We were able to put together a team on fairly short notice and, after batting a few ideas around, decided to pursue an integration with JIRA, an issue and project tracking tool used in-house at TEAM.  After getting to know WebCenter Social, we saw immediate benefits that a JIRA integration could bring, primarily due to the fact that JIRA only allows assignment of an issue to one person at a time.  Integrating Social would allow collaboration and issue resolution to happen right from the JIRA Issue interface. TEAM tackled a very common pain point among developers, i.e. including everyone who needs to be involved in issue resolution into a single thread. If you’ve ever fixed bugs or participated in that process, you’ll know that not everyone has access to the issue resolution system, which makes consolidating discussion time-consuming and fragmented. Why? Because we typically use email as the tool for collaboration. Oracle Social Network allows for all parties involved to work in a single, private and secure conversation, and through its RESTful Public API, information from external systems like JIRA can be brought in for context. TEAM only had time to address half the solution, but given more time, I’m sure they would have made the integration bidirectional, allowing for relevant commentary to be pushed back to JIRA, closing the loop. Here are some screenshot of their integration. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } When Oracle Social Network is released, TEAM will have something they use internally to work on issues, and maybe they’ll even productize their work and add it to the Atlassian Marketplace so that other JIRA users can benefit from the combination of Oracle Social Network and JIRA. Thanks to everyone at TEAM for participating in our challenge. We hope they had a good experience. Look for the details of the other entries this week. Be sure to check out a full recap from Dmitry over on the TEAM blog.

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• SQL SERVER – DQS Error – Cannot connect to server – A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user-defined routine or aggregate “SetDataQualitySessions” – SetDataQualitySessionPhaseTwo

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote a blog post about how to install DQS in SQL Server 2012. Today I decided to write a second part of this series where I explain how to use DQS, however, as soon as I started the DQS client, I encountered an error that will not let me pass through and connect with DQS client. It was a bit strange to me as everything was functioning very well when I left it last time.  The error was very big but here are the first few words of it. Cannot connect to server. A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user-defined routine or aggregate “SetDataQualitySessions”: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0×80131904): A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user-defined routine or aggregate “SetDataQualitySessionPhaseTwo”: The error continues – here is the quick screenshot of the error. As my initial attempts could not fix the error I decided to search online and I finally received a wonderful solution from Microsoft Site. The error has happened due to latest update I had installed on .NET Framework 4. There was a  mismatch between the Module Version IDs (MVIDs) of the SQL Common Language Runtime (SQLCLR) assemblies in the SQL Server 2012 database and the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). This mismatch was to be resolved for the DQS to work properly. The workaround is specified here in detail. Scroll to subtopic 4.23 Some .NET Framework 4 Updates Might Cause DQS to Fail. The script was very much straight forward. Here are the few things to not to miss while applying workaround. Make sure DQS client is properly closed The NETAssemblies is based on your OS. NETAssemblies for 64 bit machine – which is my machine is “c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319″. If you have Winodws installed on any other drive other than c:\windows do not forget to change that in the above path. Additionally if you have 32 bit version installed on c:\windows you should use path as ”c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319″ Make sure that you execute the script specified in 4.23 sections in this article in the database DQS_MAIN. Do not run this in the master database as this will not fix your error. Do not forget to restart your SQL Services once above script has been executed. Once you open the client it will work this time. Here is the script which I have bit modified from original script. I strongly suggest that you use original script mentioned 4.23 sections. However, this one is customized my own machine. /* Original source: http://bit.ly/PXX4NE (Technet) Modifications: -- Added Database context -- Added environment variable @NETAssemblies -- Main script modified to use @NETAssemblies */ USE DQS_MAIN GO BEGIN -- Set your environment variable -- assumption - Windows is installed in c:\windows folder DECLARE @NETAssemblies NVARCHAR(200) -- For 64 bit uncomment following line SET @NETAssemblies = 'c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\' -- For 32 bit uncomment following line -- SET @NETAssemblies = 'c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\' DECLARE @AssemblyName NVARCHAR(200), @RefreshCmd NVARCHAR(200), @ErrMsg NVARCHAR(200) DECLARE ASSEMBLY_CURSOR CURSOR FOR SELECT name AS NAME FROM sys.assemblies WHERE name NOT LIKE '%ssdqs%' AND name NOT LIKE '%microsoft.sqlserver.types%' AND name NOT LIKE '%practices%' AND name NOT LIKE '%office%' AND name NOT LIKE '%stdole%' AND name NOT LIKE '%Microsoft.Vbe.Interop%' OPEN ASSEMBLY_CURSOR FETCH NEXT FROM ASSEMBLY_CURSOR INTO @AssemblyName WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN BEGIN TRY SET @RefreshCmd = 'ALTER ASSEMBLY [' + @AssemblyName + '] FROM ''' + @NETAssemblies + @AssemblyName + '.dll' + ''' WITH PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE' EXEC sp_executesql @RefreshCmd PRINT 'Successfully upgraded assembly ''' + @AssemblyName + '''' END TRY BEGIN CATCH IF ERROR_NUMBER() != 6285 BEGIN SET @ErrMsg = ERROR_MESSAGE() PRINT 'Failed refreshing assembly ' + @AssemblyName + '. Error message: ' + @ErrMsg END END CATCH FETCH NEXT FROM ASSEMBLY_CURSOR INTO @AssemblyName END CLOSE ASSEMBLY_CURSOR DEALLOCATE ASSEMBLY_CURSOR END GO Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• View Mobile Websites in Windows with Safari 4 Developer Tools

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to try out mobile websites designed for the iPhone and other mobile devices on your PC?  Safari 4 for Windows lets you do this easily with their developer tools. By default, Safari will show standard desktop websites.  But by making a simple change, you can switch it to work like Safari Mobile on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Getting Started First make sure you have Safari 4 for Windows installed.  You can download Safari directly (link below) and install it as usual.   Or if you already have another Apple program installed, such as QuickTime or iTunes, then you can install it from Apple Software update.  Simply enter apple software update in the Start menu search box. And then select Safari 4 from the list of new software available.  Click Install to automatically download and install Safari. Accept the license Agreement, and then Safari will automatically install. Once this is finished, Safari will be ready to use. View Mobile Sites in Safari First, we need to enable the developer tools.  Click the gear icon on the toolbar, and select Preferences. Click the Advanced tab, and then check the box that says “Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Once you’ve closed your settings box, click the page icon, select Develop, then User Agent, and then choose one of the Mobile Safari settings.  In our test we chose Mobile Safari 3.1.2 – iPhone. To make your browser emulate a mobile device better, you can hide the bookmarks and tab bar to have a more streamlined interface. Click the Gear icon, and select “Hide Bookmarks Bar”, and then repeat and click “Hide Tab Bar”. You can also shrink your window to be closer to the size of a mobile device screen.  Once you’ve done these things, Safari should look similar to this screenshot.  Here we have loaded Google.com, and you can see it in its iPhone-style interface. Simply enter any website into the address bar, and it will load in its mobile interface if it has one.  Here is Google’s other mobile offerings, right inside Windows. Gmail loads messages with the default iPhone interface. One especially interesting mobile site is Apple’s online iPhone User Guide.  When loaded in Safari with the iPhone setting, it loads with a very nice mobile UI that works just like an iPhone app.  In fact, you can even click and drag to scroll, just like you would with your finger on an iPhone. Conclusion Even if you do not have a Smartphone, you can still preview what websites will look like on them with this trick. Not all sites will work of course, but it’s fun to play around with different sites that have mobile versions. Links: Safari 4 Download Apple iPhone online user guide Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaCustomize Safari for Windows ToolbarSave Screen Space by Hiding the Bookmarks Toolbar in Safari for WindowsEdit Text in a Webpage with Internet Explorer 8Keep Websites From Using Tiny Fonts in Safari TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Windows Media Player 12: Tweak Video & Sound with Playback Enhancements Own a cell phone, or does a cell phone own you? Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet

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• Banshee encountered a Fatal Error (sqlite error 11: database disk image is malformed)

  - by Nik

  I am running ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, and recently I am helping in testing out indicator-weather using the unstable buids. However there was a bug which caused my system to freeze suddenly (due to indicator-weather not ubuntu) and the only way to recover is to do a hard reset of the system. This happened a couple of times. And when i tried to open banshee after a couple of such resets I get the following fatal error which forces me to quit banshee. The screenshot is not clear enough to read the error, so I am posting it below, An unhandled exception was thrown: Sqlite error 11: database disk image is malformed (SQL: BEGIN TRANSACTION; DELETE FROM CoreSmartPlaylistEntries WHERE SmartPlaylistID IN (SELECT SmartPlaylistID FROM CoreSmartPlaylists WHERE IsTemporary = 1); DELETE FROM CoreSmartPlaylists WHERE IsTemporary = 1; COMMIT TRANSACTION) at Hyena.Data.Sqlite.Connection.CheckError (Int32 errorCode, System.String sql) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Hyena.Data.Sqlite.Connection.Execute (System.String sql) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Hyena.Data.Sqlite.HyenaSqliteCommand.Execute (Hyena.Data.Sqlite.HyenaSqliteConnection hconnection, Hyena.Data.Sqlite.Connection connection) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. at System.Reflection.MonoCMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Reflection.MonoCMethod.Invoke (BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Reflection.ConstructorInfo.Invoke (System.Object[] parameters) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type, Boolean nonPublic) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Banshee.Gui.GtkBaseClient.Startup () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Hyena.Gui.CleanRoomStartup.Startup (Hyena.Gui.StartupInvocationHandler startup) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 .NET Version: 2.0.50727.1433 OS Version: Unix 2.6.35.27 Assembly Version Information: gkeyfile-sharp (1.0.0.0) Banshee.AudioCd (1.9.0.0) Banshee.MiniMode (1.9.0.0) Banshee.CoverArt (1.9.0.0) indicate-sharp (0.4.1.0) notify-sharp (0.4.0.0) Banshee.SoundMenu (1.9.0.0) Banshee.Mpris (1.9.0.0) Migo (1.9.0.0) Banshee.Podcasting (1.9.0.0) Banshee.Dap (1.9.0.0) Banshee.LibraryWatcher (1.9.0.0) Banshee.MultimediaKeys (1.9.0.0) Banshee.Bpm (1.9.0.0) Banshee.YouTube (1.9.0.0) Banshee.WebBrowser (1.9.0.0) Banshee.Wikipedia (1.9.0.0) pango-sharp (2.12.0.0) Banshee.Fixup (1.9.0.0) Banshee.Widgets (1.9.0.0) gio-sharp (2.14.0.0) gudev-sharp (1.0.0.0) Banshee.Gio (1.9.0.0) Banshee.GStreamer (1.9.0.0) System.Configuration (2.0.0.0) NDesk.DBus.GLib (1.0.0.0) gconf-sharp (2.24.0.0) Banshee.Gnome (1.9.0.0) Banshee.NowPlaying (1.9.0.0) Mono.Cairo (2.0.0.0) System.Xml (2.0.0.0) Banshee.Core (1.9.0.0) Hyena.Data.Sqlite (1.9.0.0) System.Core (3.5.0.0) gdk-sharp (2.12.0.0) Mono.Addins (0.4.0.0) atk-sharp (2.12.0.0) Hyena.Gui (1.9.0.0) gtk-sharp (2.12.0.0) Banshee.ThickClient (1.9.0.0) Nereid (1.9.0.0) NDesk.DBus.Proxies (0.0.0.0) Mono.Posix (2.0.0.0) NDesk.DBus (1.0.0.0) glib-sharp (2.12.0.0) Hyena (1.9.0.0) System (2.0.0.0) Banshee.Services (1.9.0.0) Banshee (1.9.0.0) mscorlib (2.0.0.0) Platform Information: Linux 2.6.35-27-generic i686 unknown GNU/Linux Disribution Information: [/etc/lsb-release] DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.10 DISTRIB_CODENAME=maverick DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.10" [/etc/debian_version] squeeze/sid Just to make it clear, this happened only after the hard resets and not before. I used to use banshee everyday and it worked perfectly. Can anyone help me fix this?

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• Using progress dialog in Visual Studio extensions

  - by Utkarsh Shigihalli

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/onlyutkarsh/archive/2014/05/23/using-progress-dialog-in-visual-studio-extensions.aspxAs a Visual Studio extension developer you are required to keep the aesthetics of Visual Studio in tact when you integrate your extension with Visual Studio. Your extension looks odd when you try to use windows controls and dialogs in your extensions. Visual Studio SDK exposes many interfaces so that your extension looks as integrated with Visual Studio as possible. When your extension is performing a long running task, you have many options to notify the progress to the user. One such option is through Visual Studio status bar. I have previously blogged about displaying progress through Visual Studio status bar. In this blog post I am going to highlight another way using IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface. One thing to note is, as the IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface name suggests it is a dialog hence user cannot perform any action when the dialog is being shown. So Visual Studio seems responsive to user, even when a task is being performed. Visual Studio itself makes use of this interface heavily. One example is when you are loading a solution (.sln) with lot of projects Visual Studio displays dialog implemented by this interface (screenshot below). So the first step is to get the instance of IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface using IServiceProvider interface. var dialogFactory = _serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(SVsThreadedWaitDialogFactory)) as IVsThreadedWaitDialogFactory; IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 dialog = null; if (dialogFactory != null) { dialogFactory.CreateInstance(out dialog); } So if your have the package initialized properly out object dialog will be not null and would contain the instance of IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface. Once the instance is got, you call the different methods to manage the dialog. I will cover 3 methods StartWaitDialog, EndWaitDialog and HasCanceled in this blog post. You show the progress dialog as below. if (dialog != null && dialog.StartWaitDialog( "Threaded Wait Dialog", "VS is Busy", "Progress text", null, "Waiting status bar text", 0, false, true) == VSConstants.S_OK) { Thread.Sleep(4000); } As you can see from the method syntax it is very similar to standard windows message box. If you pass true to the 7th parameter to StartWaitDialog method, you will also see a cancel button allowing user to cancel the running task. You can react when user cancels the task as below. bool isCancelled; dialog.HasCanceled(out isCancelled); if (isCancelled) { MessageBox.Show("Cancelled"); } Finally, you can close the dialog when you complete the task running as below. int usercancel; dialog.EndWaitDialog(out usercancel); To help you quickly experience the above code, I have created a sample. It is available for download from GitHub. The sample creates a tool window with two buttons to demo the above explained scenarios. The tool window can be accessed by clicking View –> Other Windows -> ProgressDialogDemo Window

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• AutoFit in PowerPoint: Turn it OFF

  - by Daniel Moth

  Once a feature has shipped, it is very hard to eliminate it from the next release. If I was in charge of the PowerPoint product, I would not hesitate for a second to remove the dreadful AutoFit feature. Fortunately, AutoFit can be turned off on a slide-by-slide basis and, even better, globally: go to the PowerPoint "Options" and under "Proofing" find the "AutoCorrect Options…" button which brings up the dialog where you need to uncheck the last two checkboxes (see the screenshot to the right). AutoFit is the ability for the user to keep hitting the Enter key as they type more and more text into a slide and it magically still fits, by shrinking the space between the lines and then the text font size. It is the root of all slide evil. It encourages people to think of a slide as a Word document (which may be your goal, if you are presenting to execs in Microsoft, but that is a different story). AutoFit is the reason you fall asleep in presentations. AutoFit causes too much text to appear on a slide which by extension causes the following: When the slide appears, the text is so small so it is not readable by everyone in the audience. They dismiss the presenter as someone who does not care for them and then they stop paying attention. If the text is readable, but it is too much (hence the AutoFit feature kicked in when the slide was authored), the audience is busy reading the slide and not paying attention to the presenter. Humans can either listen well or read well at the same time, so when they are done reading they now feel that they missed whatever the speaker was saying. So they "switch off" for the rest of the slide until the next slide kicks in, which is the natural point for them to pick up paying attention again. Every slide ends up with different sized text. The less visual consistency between slides, the more your presentation feels unprofessional. You can do better than dismiss the (subconscious) negative effect a deck with inconsistent slides has on an audience. In contrast, the absence of AutoFit Leads to consistency among all slides in a deck with regards to amount of text and size of said text. Ensures the text is readable by everyone in the audience (presuming the PowerPoint template is designed for the room where the presentation is delivered). Encourages the presenter to create slides with the minimum necessary text to help the audience understand the basic structure, flow, and key points of the presentation. The "meat" of the presentation is delivered verbally by the presenter themselves, which is why they are in the room in the first place. Following on from the previous point, the audience can at a quick glance consume the text on the slide when it appears and then concentrate entirely on the presenter and what they have to say. You could argue that everything above has nothing to do with the AutoFit feature and all to do with the advice to keep slide content short. You would be right, but the on-by-default AutoFit feature is the one that stops most people from seeing and embracing that truth. In other words, the slides are the tool that aids the presenter in delivering their message, instead of the presenter being the tool that advances the slides which hold the message. To get there, embrace terse slides: the first step is to turn off this horrible feature (that was probably introduced due to the misuse of this tool within Microsoft). The next steps are described on my next post. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Friday Fun: Spell Blazer

  - by Asian Angel

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

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• AutoFit in PowerPoint: Turn it OFF

  - by Daniel Moth

  Once a feature has shipped, it is very hard to eliminate it from the next release. If I was in charge of the PowerPoint product, I would not hesitate for a second to remove the dreadful AutoFit feature. Fortunately, AutoFit can be turned off on a slide-by-slide basis and, even better, globally: go to the PowerPoint "Options" and under "Proofing" find the "AutoCorrect Options…" button which brings up the dialog where you need to uncheck the last two checkboxes (see the screenshot to the right). AutoFit is the ability for the user to keep hitting the Enter key as they type more and more text into a slide and it magically still fits, by shrinking the space between the lines and then the text font size. It is the root of all slide evil. It encourages people to think of a slide as a Word document (which may be your goal, if you are presenting to execs in Microsoft, but that is a different story). AutoFit is the reason you fall asleep in presentations. AutoFit causes too much text to appear on a slide which by extension causes the following: When the slide appears, the text is so small so it is not readable by everyone in the audience. They dismiss the presenter as someone who does not care for them and then they stop paying attention. If the text is readable, but it is too much (hence the AutoFit feature kicked in when the slide was authored), the audience is busy reading the slide and not paying attention to the presenter. Humans can either listen well or read well at the same time, so when they are done reading they now feel that they missed whatever the speaker was saying. So they "switch off" for the rest of the slide until the next slide kicks in, which is the natural point for them to pick up paying attention again. Every slide ends up with different sized text. The less visual consistency between slides, the more your presentation feels unprofessional. You can do better than dismiss the (subconscious) negative effect a deck with inconsistent slides has on an audience. In contrast, the absence of AutoFit Leads to consistency among all slides in a deck with regards to amount of text and size of said text. Ensures the text is readable by everyone in the audience (presuming the PowerPoint template is designed for the room where the presentation is delivered). Encourages the presenter to create slides with the minimum necessary text to help the audience understand the basic structure, flow, and key points of the presentation. The "meat" of the presentation is delivered verbally by the presenter themselves, which is why they are in the room in the first place. Following on from the previous point, the audience can at a quick glance consume the text on the slide when it appears and then concentrate entirely on the presenter and what they have to say. You could argue that everything above has nothing to do with the AutoFit feature and all to do with the advice to keep slide content short. You would be right, but the on-by-default AutoFit feature is the one that stops most people from seeing and embracing that truth. In other words, the slides are the tool that aids the presenter in delivering their message, instead of the presenter being the tool that advances the slides which hold the message. To get there, embrace terse slides: the first step is to turn off this horrible feature (that was probably introduced due to the misuse of this tool within Microsoft). The next steps are described on my next post. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Speed up SQL Server queries with PREFETCH

  - by Akshay Deep Lamba

  Problem The SAN data volume has a throughput capacity of 400MB/sec; however my query is still running slow and it is waiting on I/O (PAGEIOLATCH_SH). Windows Performance Monitor shows data volume speed of 4MB/sec. Where is the problem and how can I find the problem? Solution This is another summary of a great article published by R. Meyyappan at www.sqlworkshops.com.  In my opinion, this is the first article that highlights and explains with working examples how PREFETCH determines the performance of a Nested Loop join.  First of all, I just want to recall that Prefetch is a mechanism with which SQL Server can fire up many I/O requests in parallel for a Nested Loop join. When SQL Server executes a Nested Loop join, it may or may not enable Prefetch accordingly to the number of rows in the outer table. If the number of rows in the outer table is greater than 25 then SQL will enable and use Prefetch to speed up query performance, but it will not if it is less than 25 rows. In this section we are going to see different scenarios where prefetch is automatically enabled or disabled. These examples only use two tables RegionalOrder and Orders.  If you want to create the sample tables and sample data, please visit this site www.sqlworkshops.com. The breakdown of the data in the RegionalOrders table is shown below and the Orders table contains about 6 million rows. In this first example, I am creating a stored procedure against two tables and then execute the stored procedure.  Before running the stored proceudre, I am going to include the actual execution plan. --Example provided by www.sqlworkshops.com --Create procedure that pulls orders based on City --Do not forget to include the actual execution plan CREATE PROC RegionalOrdersProc @City CHAR(20) AS BEGIN DECLARE @OrderID INT, @OrderDetails CHAR(200) SELECT @OrderID = o.OrderID, @OrderDetails = o.OrderDetails       FROM RegionalOrders ao INNER JOIN Orders o ON (o.OrderID = ao.OrderID)       WHERE City = @City END GO SET STATISTICS time ON GO --Example provided by www.sqlworkshops.com --Execute the procedure with parameter SmallCity1 EXEC RegionalOrdersProc 'SmallCity1' GO After running the stored procedure, if we right click on the Clustered Index Scan and click Properties we can see the Estimated Numbers of Rows is 24.    If we right click on Nested Loops and click Properties we do not see Prefetch, because it is disabled. This behavior was expected, because the number of rows containing the value ‘SmallCity1’ in the outer table is less than 25.   Now, if I run the same procedure with parameter ‘BigCity’ will Prefetch be enabled? --Example provided by www.sqlworkshops.com --Execute the procedure with parameter BigCity --We are using cached plan EXEC RegionalOrdersProc 'BigCity' GO As we can see from the below screenshot, prefetch is not enabled and the query takes around 7 seconds to execute. This is because the query used the cached plan from ‘SmallCity1’ that had prefetch disabled. Please note that even if we have 999 rows for ‘BigCity’ the Estimated Numbers of Rows is still 24.   Finally, let’s clear the procedure cache to trigger a new optimization and execute the procedure again. DBCC freeproccache GO EXEC RegionalOrdersProc 'BigCity' GO This time, our procedure runs under a second, Prefetch is enabled and the Estimated Number of Rows is 999.   The RegionalOrdersProc can be optimized by using the below example where we are using an optimizer hint. I have also shown some other hints that could be used as well. --Example provided by www.sqlworkshops.com --You can fix the issue by using any of the following --hints --Create procedure that pulls orders based on City DROP PROC RegionalOrdersProc GO CREATE PROC RegionalOrdersProc @City CHAR(20) AS BEGIN DECLARE @OrderID INT, @OrderDetails CHAR(200) SELECT @OrderID = o.OrderID, @OrderDetails = o.OrderDetails       FROM RegionalOrders ao INNER JOIN Orders o ON (o.OrderID = ao.OrderID)       WHERE City = @City       --Hinting optimizer to use SmallCity2 for estimation       OPTION (optimize FOR (@City = 'SmallCity2'))       --Hinting optimizer to estimate for the currnet parameters       --option (recompile)       --Hinting optimize not to use histogram rather       --density for estimation (average of all 3 cities)       --option (optimize for (@City UNKNOWN))       --option (optimize for UNKNOWN) END GO Conclusion, this tip was mainly aimed at illustrating how Prefetch can speed up query execution and how the different number of rows can trigger this.

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