Search Results

Search found 5330 results on 214 pages for 'geek history'.

Page 188/214 | < Previous Page | 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195  | Next Page >

  • Dependency Replication with TFS 2010 Build

    - by Jakob Ehn
    Some time ago, I wrote a post about how to implement dependency replication using TFS 2008 Build. We use this for Library builds, where we set up a build definition for a common library, and have the build check the resulting assemblies back into source control. The folder is then branched to the applications that need to reference the common library. See the above post for more details. Of course, we have reimplemented this feature in TFS 2010 Build, which results in a much nicer experience for the developer who wants to setup a new library build. Here is how it looks: There is a separate build process template for library builds registered in all team projects The following properties are used to configure the library build: Deploy Folder in Source Control is the server path where the assemblies should be checked in DeploymentFiles is a list of files and/or extensions to what files to check in. Default here is *.dll;*.pdb which means that all assemblies and debug symbols will be checked in. We can also type for example CommonLibrary.*;SomeOtherAssembly.dll in order to exclude other assemblies You can also see that we are versioning the assemblies as part of the build. This is important, since the resulting assemblies will be deployed together with the referencing application.   When the build executes, it will see of the matching assemblies exist in source control, if not, it will add the files automatically:   After the build has finished, we can see in the history of the TestDeploy folder that the build service account has in fact checked in a new version: Nice!   The implementation of the library build process template is not very complicated, it is a combination of customization of the build process template and some custom activities. We use the generic TFActivity (http://geekswithblogs.net/jakob/archive/2010/11/03/performing-checkins-in-tfs-2010-build.aspx) to check in and out files, but for the part that checks if a file exists and adds it to source control, it was easier to do this in a custom activity:   public sealed class AddFilesToSourceControl : BaseCodeActivity { // Files to add to source control [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<IEnumerable<string>> Files { get; set; } [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<Workspace> Workspace { get; set; } // If your activity returns a value, derive from CodeActivity<TResult> // and return the value from the Execute method. protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context) { foreach (var file in Files.Get(context)) { if (!File.Exists(file)) { throw new ApplicationException("Could not locate " + file); } var ws = this.Workspace.Get(context); string serverPath = ws.TryGetServerItemForLocalItem(file); if( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(serverPath)) { if (!ws.VersionControlServer.ServerItemExists(serverPath, ItemType.File)) { TrackMessage(context, "Adding file " + file); ws.PendAdd(file); } else { TrackMessage(context, "File " + file + " already exists in source control"); } } else { TrackMessage(context, "No server path for " + file); } } } } This build template is a very nice tool that makes it easy to do dependency replication with TFS 2010. Next, I will add funtionality for automatically merging the assemblies (using ILMerge) as part of the build, we do this to keep the number of references to a minimum.

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – Auto Complete and Format T-SQL Code – Devart SQL Complete

    - by pinaldave
    Some people call it laziness, some will call it efficiency, some think it is the right thing to do. At any rate, tools are meant to make a job easier, and I like to use various tools. If we consider the history of the world, if we all wanted to keep traditional practices, we would have never invented the wheel.  But as time progressed, people wanted convenience and efficiency, which then led to laziness. Wanting a more efficient way to do something is not inherently lazy.  That’s how I see any efficiency tools. A few days ago I found Devart SQL Complete.  It took less than a minute to install, and after installation it just worked without needing any tweaking.  Once I started using it I was impressed with how fast it formats SQL code – you can write down any terms or even copy and paste.  You can start typing right away, and it will complete keywords, object names, and fragmentations. It completes statement expressions.  How many times do we write insert, update, delete?  Take this example: to alter a stored procedure name, we don’t remember the code written in it, you have to write it over again, or go back to SQL Server Studio Manager to create and alter which is very difficult.  With SQL Complete , you can write “alter stored procedure,” and it will finish it for you, and you can modify as needed. I love to write code, and I love well-written code.  When I am working with clients, and I find people whose code have not been written properly, I feel a little uncomfortable.  It is difficult to deal with code that is in the wrong case, with no line breaks, no white spaces, improper indents, and no text wrapping.  The worst thing to encounter is code that goes all the way to the right side, and you have to scroll a million times because there are no breaks or indents.  SQL Complete will take care of this for you – if a developer is too lazy for proper formatting, then Devart’s SQL formatter tool will make them better, not lazier. SQL Management Studio gives information about your code when you hover your mouse over it, however SQL Complete goes further in it, going into the work table, and the current rate idea, too. It gives you more information about the parameters; and last but not least, it will just take you to the help file of code navigation.  It will open object explorer in a document viewer.  You can start going through the various properties of your code – a very important thing to do. Here are are interesting Intellisense examples: 1) We are often very lazy to expand *however, when we are using SQL Complete we can just mouse over the * and it will give us all the the column names and we can select the appropriate columns. 2) We can put the cursor after * and it will give us option to expand it to all the column names by pressing the Tab key. 3) Here is one more Intellisense feature I really liked it. I always alias my tables and I always select the alias with special logic. When I was using SQL Complete I selected just a tablename (without schema name) and…(just like below image) … and it autocompleted the schema and alias name (the way I needed it). I believe using SQL Complete we can work faster.  It supports all versions of SQL Server, and works SQL formatting.  Many businesses perform code review and have code standards, so why not use an efficiency tool on everyone’s computer and make sure the code is written correctly from the first time?  If you’re interested in this tool, there are free editions available.  If you like it, you can buy it.  I bought it because it works.  I love it, and I want to hear all your opinions on it, too. You can get the product for FREE.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • Travelling MVP #1: Visit to SharePoint User Group Finland

    - by DigiMortal
    My first self organized trip this autumn was visit to SharePoint User Group Finland community evening. As active community leaders who make things like these possible they are worth mentioning and on spug.fi side there was Jussi Roine the one who invited me. Here is my short review about my trip to Helsinki. User group meeting As Helsinki is near Tallinn I went there using ship. It was easy to get from sea port to venue and I had also some minutes of time to visit academic book store. Community evening was held on the ground floor of one city center hotel and room was conveniently located near hotel bar and restaurant. Here is the meeting schedule: Welcome (Jussi Roine) OpenText application archiving and governance for SharePoint (Bernd Hennicke, OpenText) Using advanced C# features in SharePoint development (Alexey Sadomov, NED Consulting) Optimizing public-facing internet sites for SharePoint (Gunnar Peipman) After meeting, of course, local dudes doesn’t walk away but continue with some beers and discussion. Sessions After welcome words by Jussi there was session by Bernd Hennicke who spoke about OpenText. His session covered OpenText history and current moment. After this introduction he spoke about OpenText products for SharePoint and gave the audience good overview about where their SharePoint extensions fit in big picture. I usually don’t like those vendors sessions but this one was good. I mean vendor dudes were not aggressively selling something. They were way different – kind people who introduced their stuff and later answered questions. They acted like good guests. Second speaker was Alexey Sadomov who is working on SharePoint development projects. He introduced some ways how to get over some limitations of SharePoint. I don’t go here deeply with his session but it’s worth to mention that this session was strong one. It is not rear case when developers have to make nasty hacks to SharePoint. I mean really nasty hacks. Often these hacks are long blocks of code that uses terrible techniques to achieve the result. Alexey introduced some very much civilized ways about how to apply hacks. Alex Sadomov, SharePoint MVP, speaking about SharePoint coding tips and tricks on C# I spoke about how I optimized caching of Estonian Microsoft community portal that runs on SharePoint Server and that uses publishing infrastructure. I made no actual demos on SharePoint because I wanted to focus on optimizing process and share some experiences about how to get caches optimized and how to measure caches. Networking After official part there was time to talk and discuss with people. Finns are cool – they have beers and they are glad. It was not big community event but people were like one good family. Developers there work often for big companies and it was very interesting to me to hear about their experiences with SharePoint. One thing was a little bit surprising for me – SharePoint guys in Finland are talking actively also about Office 365 and online SharePoint. It doesn’t happen often here in Estonia. I had to leave a little bit 21:00 to get to my ship back to Tallinn. I am sure spug.fi dudes continued nice evening and they had at least same good time as I did. Do I want to go back to Finland and meet these guys again? Yes, sure, let’s do it again! :)

    Read the article

  • DDD North 3 Presentation and source code &ndash; &lsquo;Event Store - an introduction to a DSD for event sourcing and notifications&rsquo;

    - by Liam Westley
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/10/15/ddd-north-3-presentation-and-source-code-ndash-lsquoevent-store.aspxThank you everyone at DDD North Thanks to all the people who helped organise the cracking conference that is DDD North 3, returning to Sunderland, and the great facilities at the University of Sunderland, and the fine drinks reception at Sunderland Software City.  The whole event wouldn’t be possible without the sponsors who ensured over 400 people were kept fed and watered so they could enjoy the impressive range of sessions. And lastly, a thank you to all those delegates who gave up their free time on a Saturday to spend a day dashing between lecture rooms, including a late change to my room which saw 40 people having to brave a journey between buildings in the fine drizzle. The enthusiasm from the delegates always helps recharge my geek batteries. Presentation and source code My presentation, source code, Event Store runners and text files containing the various command line parameters used for curl is now available on GitHub; https://github.com/westleyl/DDDNorth3-EventStore. Don’t worry if you don’t have a GitHub account, you don’t need one, you can just click on the Download Zip button on the right hand menu to download all the files as a single ZIP file.  If all you want is the PowerPoint presentation, go to https://github.com/westleyl/DDDNorth3-EventStore/blob/master/Powerpoint/DDDNorth-EventStore.pptx, and click on the View Raw button. Downloading and installing Event Store and Tools Download Event Store http://download.geteventstore.com – I unzipped these files into C:\EventStore\v2.0.1 Download Curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html – I downloaded Win64 Generic (with SSL) and unzipped these files into C:\curl version 7.31.0 Running the tools I used in my presentation Demonstration 1 (running Event Store) You can use one of my Event Store runner command files to run the single node version of Event Store, using default ports of 2213 for HTTP and 1113  for TCP, and with a wildcard HTTP pattern.  Both take a single command line parameter to specify the location of the data and log files.  The runners assume the single node executable is located in C:\EventStore\v2.0.1, and will placed data files and logs beneath C:\EventStore\Data, i.e. RunEventStore.cmd TestData1 This will create data files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\Data and log files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\logs. If, when running Event Store you may see the following message, [03288,15,06:23:00.622] Failed to start http server Access is denied You will either need to run Event Store in an administrator console window, or you can use the netsh command to create a firewall permission to allow HTTP listening (this will need to be run, once, in an administrator console window), netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:2213/ user=liam You can always delete this later by running the delete; netsh http delete urlacl url=http://*:2213/ If you want to confirm that everything is running OK, open the management console in a browser by navigating to http://127.0.0.1:2213. If at any point you are asked for a user name and password use the default of ‘admin’/‘changeit’.   Demonstration 2 (reading and adding data, curl) In my second demonstration I used curl directly from the console to read streams, write events and then read back those events. On GitHub I have included is a set of curl commands, CurlCommandLine.txt, and a sample data file, SampleData.json, to load an event into a DDDNorth3 stream. As there is not much data in the Event Store at this point I used the $stats-127.0.0.1:2113 which is a stream containing performance statistics for Event Store and is updated every 30 seconds (default). Demonstration 3 (projections) On GitHub I have included a sample projection, Projection-ByRoom.txt, which will create streams based on the room on which a session was held on the DDDNorth3 agenda. Browse to the management console, http://127.0.0.1:2213.  Click on Projections, New Projection, give it a name, Sessions-ByRoom, and copy in the JavaScript in the Projection-ByRoom.txt file.  Select Continuous, tick Emit Enabled and then click on Post. It should run immediately. You may by challenged for the administration login for the management console, if so use the default user name and password; 'admin'/'changeit'.   Demonstration 4 (C# client) The final demonstration was the Visual Studio 2012 project using the Event Store client – referenced directly as C:\EventStore\v2.0.1\EventStore.ClientAPI.dll, although you can switch this to the latest Event Store client NuGet package. The source code provides a console app for viewing projections with the projection manager (HTTP connection), as well as containing a full set of data for the entire DDDNorth3 agenda.  It also deals with the strategy for reading newest events backwards to older events and ignoring older events that have been superseded. Resources Event Store home page: http://www.geteventstore.com/ Event Store source code on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore Event Store documentation on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki (includes index to @RobAshton’s blog series on Event Store at https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki#rob-ashton---projections-series) Event Store forum in Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/event-store TopShelf Windows service wrapper is available on github: https://gist.github.com/trbngr/5083266

    Read the article

  • 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

    Read the article

  • RSS Feeds currently on Simple-Talk

    - by Andrew Clarke
    There are a number of news-feeds for the Simple-Talk site, but for some reason they are well hidden. Whilst we set about reorganizing them, I thought it would be a good idea to list some of the more important ones. The most important one for almost all purposes is the Homepage RSS feed which represents the blogs and articles that are placed on the homepage. Main Site Feed representing the Homepage ..which is good for most purposes but won't always have all the blogs, or maybe it will occasionally miss an article. If you aren't interested in all the content, you can just use the RSS feeds that are more relevant to your interests. (We'll be increasing these categories soon) The newsfeed for SQL articles The .NET section newsfeed The newsfeed for Red Gate books The newsfeed for Opinion articles The SysAdmin section newsfeed if you want to get a more refined feed, then you can pick and choose from these feeds for each category so as to make up your custom news-feed in the SQL section, SQL Training Learn SQL Server Database Administration TSQL Programming SQL Server Performance Backup and Recovery SQL Tools SSIS SSRS (Reporting Services) in .NET there are... ASP.NET Windows Forms .NET Framework ,NET Performance Visual Studio .NET tools in Sysadmin there are Exchange General Virtualisation Unified Messaging Powershell in opinion, there is... Geek of the Week Opinion Pieces in Books, there is .NET Books SQL Books SysAdmin Books And all the blogs have got feeds. So although you can get all the blogs from here.. Main Blog Feed          You can get individual RSS feeds.. AdamRG's Blog       Alex.Davies's Blog       AliceE's Blog       Andrew Clarke's Blog       Andrew Hunter's Blog       Bart Read's Blog       Ben Adderson's Blog       BobCram's Blog       bradmcgehee's Blog       Brian Donahue's Blog       Charles Brown's Blog       Chris Massey's Blog       CliveT's Blog       Damon's Blog       David Atkinson's Blog       David Connell's Blog       Dr Dionysus's Blog       drsql's Blog       FatherJack's Blog       Flibble's Blog       Gareth Marlow's Blog       Helen Joyce's Blog       James's Blog       Jason Crease's Blog       John Magnabosco's Blog       Laila's Blog       Lionel's Blog       Matt Lee's Blog       mikef's Blog       Neil Davidson's Blog       Nigel Morse's Blog       Phil Factor's Blog       red@work's Blog       reka.burmeister's Blog       Richard Mitchell's Blog       RobbieT's Blog       RobertChipperfield's Blog       Rodney's Blog       Roger Hart's Blog       Simon Cooper's Blog       Simon Galbraith's Blog       TheFutureOfMonitoring's Blog       Tim Ford's Blog       Tom Crossman's Blog       Tony Davis's Blog       As well as these blogs, you also have the forums.... SQL Server for Beginners Forum     Programming SQL Server Forum    Administering SQL Server Forum    .NET framework Forum    .Windows Forms Forum   ASP.NET Forum   ADO.NET Forum 

    Read the article

  • Principles of Big Data By Jules J Berman, O&rsquo;Reilly Media Book Review

    - by Compudicted
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Compudicted/archive/2013/11/04/principles-of-big-data-by-jules-j-berman-orsquoreilly-media.aspx A fantastic book! Must be part, if not yet, of the fundamentals of the Big Data as a field of science. Highly recommend to those who are into the Big Data practice. Yet, I confess this book is one of my best reads this year and for a number of reasons: The book is full of wisdom, intimate insight, historical facts and real life examples to how Big Data projects get conceived, operate and sadly, yes, sometimes die. But not only that, the book is most importantly is filled with valuable advice, accurate and even overwhelming amount of reference (from the positive side), and the author does not event stop there: there are numerous technical excerpts, links and examples allowing to quickly accomplish many daunting tasks or make you aware of what one needs to perform as a data practitioner (excuse my use of the word practitioner, I just did not find a better substitute to it to trying to reference all who face Big Data). Be aware that Jules Berman’s background is in medicine, naturally, this book discusses this subject a lot as it is very dear to the author’s heart I believe, this does not make this book any less significant however, quite the opposite, I trust if there is an area in science or practice where the biggest benefits can be ripped from Big Data projects it is indeed the medical science, let’s make Cancer history! On a personal note, for me as a database, BI professional it has helped to understand better the motives behind Big Data initiatives, their underwater rivers and high altitude winds that divert or propel them forward. Additionally, I was impressed by the depth and number of mining algorithms covered in it. I must tell this made me very curious and tempting to find out more about these indispensable attributes of Big Data so sure I will be trying stretching my wallet to acquire several books that go more in depth on several most popular of them. My favorite parts of the book, well, all of them actually, but especially chapter 9: Analysis, it is just very close to my heart. But the real reason is it let me see what I do with data from a different angle. And then the next - “Special Considerations”, they are just two logical parts. The writing language is of this book is very acceptable for all levels, I had no technical problem reading it in ebook format on my 8” tablet or a large screen monitor. If I would be asked to say at least something negative I have to state I had a feeling initially that the book’s first part reads like an academic material relaxing the reader as the book progresses forward. I admit I am impressed with Jules’ abilities to use several programming languages and OSS tools, bravo! And I agree, it is not too, too hard to grasp at least the principals of a modern programming language, which seems becomes a defacto knowledge standard item for any modern human being. So grab a copy of this book, read it end to end and make yourself shielded from making mistakes at any stage of your Big Data initiative, by the way this book also helps build better future Big Data projects. Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Program.

    Read the article

  • Nerdstock 2012: A photo review of Microsoft TechEd North America 2012

    - by The Un-T Guy
    Not only could I not fathom that I would ever be attending a tech event of the magnitude of TechEd, neither could any of my co-workers.  As the least technical person in the history of Information Technology ever, I felt as though I were walking into the belly of the beast, fearing I’d not be allowed out until I could write SSIS packages, program in Visual Basic, or at least arm wrestle a DBA.  Most of my fears were unrealized.   But I made it.  I was here.  I even got to wear the Mark of the Geek neck package with schedule, eyeglass cleaners, name badge (company name obfuscated so they don’t fire me), and a pen.  The name  badge was seemingly the key element, as every vendor in the place wanted to scan it to capture name, email address, and numbers to show their bosses back home.  It also let me eat the food and drink the coffee so that’s a fair trade.   A recurring theme throughout the presentations and vendor demos was “the Cloud” and BYOD (bring your own device).  The below was a common site throughout the week, as attendees from all over the world brought their own devices and were able to (seemingly) seamlessly connect to the Worldwide Innerwebs.  Apparently proof that Microsoft and the event organizers were practicing what they were preaching.   “Cavernous” is one way to describe the downstairs facility itself.  “Freaking cavernous” might be more accurate.  Work sessions were held in classrooms on the second and third floors but the real action was happening downstairs.  Microsoft bookstore, blogger hub (shoutout to Geekswithblogs.net), The Wall (sans Pink Floyd, sadly), couches, recharging stations…   …a game zone with pool and air hockey tables, pinball machines, foosball…   …vintage video games…           …and a even giant chess board.  Looked like this guy was opening with the Kaspersky parry.   The blend of technology and fantasy even went so far as to bring childhood favorites to life.  Assuming, of course, your childhood was pre-video games (like mine) and you were stuck with electric football and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robots:   And, lest the “combatants” become unruly or – God forbid – afternoon snacks were late, Orange County’s finest was on the scene to keep the peace.  On a high-tech mode of transport, of course.   She wasn’t the only one to think this was a swell way to transition from one concourse to the next.  Given the level of support provided by the entire Orange County Convention Center staff, I knew they had to have some secret.   Here’s one entrance to the vendor zone/”Technical Learning Center.”  Couldn’t help but think of them as the remora attached to the Whale Shark that is Microsoft…   …or perhaps planets orbiting the sun. Microsoft is just that huge and it seemed like every vendor in the industry looks forward to partnering with the tech behemoth.   Aside from the free stuff from the vendors, probably the most popular place in the house was the dining area.  Amazing spreads every day, multiple times a day.  While no attendance numbers were available at press time, literally thousands of attendees were fed, and fed well, every day.  And lest you think my post from earlier in the week exaggerated about the backpacks…   …or that I’m exaggerating about the lunch crowds.  This represents only about between 25-30% of the lunch crowd – it was all my camera could capture at once.  No one went away hungry.   The only thing missing was a a vat of Red Bull but apparently organizers went old school, with probably 100 urns of the original energy drink – coffee – all around the venue.   Of course, following lunch and afternoon sessions, some preferred the even older school method of re-energizing.  There were rumors that Microsoft was serving graham crackers and milk in this area.  But they were only rumors.   Cannot overstate the wonderful service provided by the Orange County Convention Center staff.  Coffee, soft drinks, juice, and water were available always.  Buffet meals were delicious with a wide range of healthy options available, in addition to hundreds (at least) special meal requests supported every day.  Ever tried to keep up with an estimated 9,000 hungry and thirsty IT-ers?  These folks did.  Kudos to all of the staff and many thanks!   And while I occasionally poke fun at the Whale Shark, if nothing else this experience convinced me of one thing:  Microsoft knows how to put on a professional event.  Hundreds of informative, professionally delivered sessions, covering a wide range of topics set at varying levels of expertise (some that even I was able to follow), social activities, vendor partnerships…they brought everything you could ask for to inform, educate, and inspire an entire IT industry.   So as I depart the belly of the beast, I can both take pride in the fact that I survived the week and marvel at the brilliance surrounding me.  The IT industry – or at least the segment associated with Microsoft – is in good, professional hands.  And what won’t fit in their hands can be toted in the Microsoft provided backpacks.  Win-win.   Until New Orleans…

    Read the article

  • What if &ldquo;Microsoft&rdquo; were in our shoes? About Windows Phone

    - by Vijaya Malla
    This is what I think about Microsoft Windows Phone. If Microsoft were in our shoes looking at various phones available their configurations, memory, front facing cameras etc. Microsoft disappointed the USA customer base again by not getting Nokia Lumia 800. The Past: If we talk few years ago, few business people were on their Blackberry’s and few Gadget lovers were on crappy Windows OS devices. The world was all going right till Apple came with a revolutionary device iPhone, which completely changed our perception towards phone and how great a smartphone can be. It’s not just phone but the whole technology industry. The romantic appealing of the phone and smooth touch and feel of it made everyone to get one of those bad boys. The sales went up for not just Apple for AT&T too. Even though everyone complained about the signal strength of AT&T, everyone wanted to be on it because they have iPhones. All world wanted iPhone back then except Microsoft with few comments on how it is not going to be in market. But it did great and rocked the industry. A few years later with iPhone and Android taking over the smartphone market Microsoft realized that it should be in the game too. Worked on the design of it, and gave us the best Mobile OS ever. Everyone thinks that iOS is a great OS for phones but if you have touched a Windows Phone and use it for real then you will realize the strengths of it. so last year we welcomed Windows Phone 7 The Present : Windows Phone 7 has the fastest growing market. The phones are cheap, you can buy from any carrier out there. The phone became smarter and smarter with the recent update “Mango (7.5)” and with the collaboration with Nokia, Microsoft created a new eco-system for smartphones with the best smartphone hardware and best smartphone software. Everyone in the world was excited about the collaboration. As we fly over cloud 9 imagining about Nokia made Windows Phones we all heard a good news from Nokia “Nokia World”. Nokia showed the world what a best hardware making company can do with Windows Phone 7.5 OS. Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 took the spotlight. Everyone here in USA and all over the world wanted to own a Nokia Lumia 800 because of the design, software, proprietary apps from Nokia (maps, ESPN, drive and music). If USA market had Nokia Lumia 800, then it would have been the best step Microsoft and Nokia had ever made in their history of smartphone market. With all the numbers going to Android and IPhone, its not clear on why Microsoft/Nokia did not release Lumia 800 here in USA. Its unclear if Microsoft had learnt the lesson or not. if it had learnt the lesson I guess Microsoft needs to get the Nokia Lumia 800 to the USA. The Future: This is where we hope we get the best form Microsoft. I was an iPhone user, I used 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4 and then moved to Windows Phone and never felt so happy with my iPhones’. From the day when Nokia announced the partnership with Microsoft and said that they going to come up with a new Nokia windows phone, I was dreaming for my Nokia Phone. but looks like it is not going to happen any time soon. My thoughts about the Market :  Nokia has the biggest market base in the world. Even though people moved to Android or iPhone over the years in other parts of the world like India and China, people still love to use Nokia. Everyone who uses a Windows Phone now will wait for that day when Nokia Lumia comes to the USA but what either or both of the companies should do for a better market share is to make a very aggressive move with the hardware and bet on the devices. I am pretty sure that it will work. everyone here in the USA will like to have a dual core windows phone with front facing camera and all other crazy things that android/apple phones offer. I think we just have to wait for that day and hope that day comes soon. Love Microsoft and Nokia Thank you for reading.

    Read the article

  • Pet Store Loyalty Programs: I'm Not Loyal Yet!

    - by ruth.donohue
    After two years of constantly being asked (aka "pestered) by my now eight-year-old daughter for a dog (or any pet that is more interactive than a goldfish), I've finally compromised with a hamster purely by chance. Friends of ours had recently brought home a female hamster, and (surprise, surprise) two weeks later, they were looking for homes for 11 baby hamster pups. Since the pups were not yet ready to be weaned from their mother, my daughter and I had several weeks to get ready -- and we spent that extra time visiting a number of local pet stores and purchasing an assortment of hamster books, toys, exercise equipment, food, bedding, and cage -- not cheap! Now, I'm usually an online shopper (i.e. I love reading user reviews and comparing prices), but for kids, there is absolutely no online substitute for actually walking into a store and physically picking out something you want. We have two competing pet shops within close proximity to where we live, and I signed up for their rewards programs to get discounts on select items. I'm sure it takes a while to get my data into the system (after all, I did fill out a form the old-fashioned way), but as it has been more than two weeks for one store and over a week for the other, the window of opportunity is getting smaller as we by now pretty much have most of what we think we need. Everything I've purchased has been purely hamster or small animal related, so in an ideal world, the stores would have me easily figured out as a hamster owner. Here is what I would be expecting of a loyalty rewards program: Point me to some useful links, either information provied by the company or external websites where I can learn more. Any value-add a business can provide to make my life easier makes me a much more loyal customer. What things can I expect as a new pet owner? Any hamster communities? Any hamster-related events? Any vets that specialize in small animals in the vicinity? Send me an email with other related products I may be interested in. Upsell and cross-sell to me. We've go the basics and a couple of luxuries, but at this point, I'm pretty excited (surprisingly) about the hamster, and my daughter is footing the bill with her birthday and Christmas money. She and I would be more than happy to spend her money! Get this information to me faster. As I mentioned, my window of opportunity is getting smaller, as eithe rmy daughter's money will run out on other things or we'll start losing the thrill of buying new hamster toys and treats. I realize this is easier said than done, and undoubtedly, the stores are getting value knowing my basic customer information and purchase history. Buth, they could really benefit by delivering a loyalty program that really earned my loyalty. "Goldeen" needs a new water bottle, yogurt chips, and chew toys as he doesn't seem to like the ones we bought. So for now, I'll just go to whichever store is the most convenient. Oh, and just for fun (not related to this post), here are a couple of videos my daughter really got a kick out of watching: Hamster on a Piano Tic in a Spin-Dryer

    Read the article

  • Beyond Chatting: What ‘Social’ Means for CRM

    - by Divya Malik
    A guest post by Steve Diamond, Senior Director, Outbound Product Management, Oracle In a recent post on the Oracle Applications blog, my colleague Steve Boese asked three questions related to the widespread popularity and incredibly rapid growth of Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Steve then addressed the many applications for collaborative solutions in the area of Human Capital Management. So, in turning to a conversation about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA), let me ask you one simple question. How many sales people, particularly at business-to-business companies, consistently meet or beat their quotas in their roles by working alone, with no collaboration among fellow sales people, sales executives, employees in product groups, in service, in Legal, third-party partners, etc.? Hello? Is anybody out there? What’s that cricket noise I hear? That’s correct. Nobody! When it comes to Sales, introverts arguably have a distinct disadvantage. While it’s certainly a truism that “success” in most professional endeavors requires working with people, it’s a mandatory success factor in Sales. This fact became abundantly clear to me one early morning in the late 1990s when I joined the former Hyperion Solutions (now part of Oracle) and attended a Sales Award Ceremony. The Head of Sales at that time gave out dozens of awards – none of them to individuals and all of them to TEAMS of individuals. That’s how it works in Sales. Your colleagues help provide you with product intelligence and competitive intelligence. They help you build the best presentations, pitches, and proposals. They help you develop the most killer RFPs. They align you with the best product people to ensure you’re matching the best products for the opportunity and join you in critical meetings. They help knock the socks of your prospects in “bake off” demo’s. They bring in the best partners to either add complementary products to your opportunity or help you implement a solution. They work with you as a collective team. And so how is all this collaboration STILL typically done today? Through email. And yet we all silently or not so silently grimace about email. It’s relatively siloed. It’s painful to search. It’s difficult to align by topic. And it’s nearly impossible to re-trace meaningful and helpful conversations that occurred among a group or a team at some point in history. This is where social networking for Sales comes into play. It’s about PURPOSEFUL social networking versus chattering. What is purposeful social networking? It’s collaboration that’s built around opportunities, accounts, and contacts. It’s collaboration that delivers valuable context – on the target company, and on key competitors – just to name two examples. It’s collaboration that can scale to provide coaching for larger numbers of sales representatives, both for general purposes, and as we’ve largely discussed here, for specific ‘deals.’ And it’s collaboration that allows a team of people to collectively edit and iterate on a document like an RFP or a soon-to-be killer presentation that is maintained in a central repository, with no time wasted searching for it or worrying about version control. But lest we get carried away, let’s remember that collaboration “happens” among sales people whether there is specialized software to support it or not. The human practice of sales has not changed much in the last 80 to 90 years. Collaboration has been a mainstay during this entire time. But what social networking in general, and Oracle Social Networking in particular delivers, is the opportunity for sales teams to dramatically increase their effectiveness and efficiency – to identify and close more high quality and lucrative opportunities more quickly. For most sales organizations, this is how the game is won. To learn more please visit Oracle Social Network and Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management on oracle.com

    Read the article

  • Silverlight Recruiting Application Part 5 - Jobs Module / View

    Now we starting getting into a more code-heavy portion of this series, thankfully though this means the groundwork is all set for the most part and after adding the modules we will have a complete application that can be provided with full source. The Jobs module will have two concerns- adding and maintaining jobs that can then be broadcast out to the website. How they are displayed on the site will be handled by our admin system (which will just poll from this common database), so we aren't too concerned with that, but rather with getting the information into the system and allowing the backend administration/HR users to keep things up to date. Since there is a fair bit of information that we want to display, we're going to move editing to a separate view so we can get all that information in an easy-to-use spot. With all the files created for this module, the project looks something like this: And now... on to the code. XAML for the Job Posting View All we really need for the Job Posting View is a RadGridView and a few buttons. This will let us both show off records and perform operations on the records without much hassle. That XAML is going to look something like this: 01.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 02.Background="White"> 03.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 04.<RowDefinition Height="30" /> 05.<RowDefinition /> 06.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 07.<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> 08.<Button x:Name="xAddRecordButton" 09.Content="Add Job" 10.Width="120" 11.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddRecord}" 12.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 13.<Button x:Name="xEditRecordButton" 14.Content="Edit Job" 15.Width="120" 16.cal:Click.Command="{Binding EditRecord}" 17.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 18.</StackPanel> 19.<telerikGrid:RadGridView x:Name="xJobsGrid" 20.Grid.Row="1" 21.IsReadOnly="True" 22.AutoGenerateColumns="False" 23.ColumnWidth="*" 24.RowDetailsVisibilityMode="VisibleWhenSelected" 25.ItemsSource="{Binding MyJobs}" 26.SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedJob, Mode=TwoWay}" 27.command:SelectedItemChangedEventClass.Command="{Binding SelectedItemChanged}"> 28.<telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 29.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Job Title" 30.DataMemberBinding="{Binding JobTitle}" 31.UniqueName="JobTitle" /> 32.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Location" 33.DataMemberBinding="{Binding Location}" 34.UniqueName="Location" /> 35.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Resume Required" 36.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsResume}" 37.UniqueName="NeedsResume" /> 38.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="CV Required" 39.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsCV}" 40.UniqueName="NeedsCV" /> 41.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Overview Required" 42.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsOverview}" 43.UniqueName="NeedsOverview" /> 44.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Active" 45.DataMemberBinding="{Binding IsActive}" 46.UniqueName="IsActive" /> 47.</telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 48.</telerikGrid:RadGridView> 49.</Grid> I'll explain what's happening here by line numbers: Lines 11 and 16: Using the same type of click commands as we saw in the Menu module, we tie the button clicks to delegate commands in the viewmodel. Line 25: The source for the jobs will be a collection in the viewmodel. Line 26: We also bind the selected item to a public property from the viewmodel for use in code. Line 27: We've turned the event into a command so we can handle it via code in the viewmodel. So those first three probably make sense to you as far as Silverlight/WPF binding magic is concerned, but for line 27... This actually comes from something I read onDamien Schenkelman's blog back in the day for creating an attached behavior from any event. So, any time you see me using command:Whatever.Command, the backing for it is actually something like this: SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior : CommandBehaviorBase<Telerik.Windows.Controls.DataControl> 02.{ 03.public SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DataControl element) 04.: base(element) 05.{ 06.element.SelectionChanged += new EventHandler<SelectionChangeEventArgs>(element_SelectionChanged); 07.} 08.void element_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangeEventArgs e) 09.{ 10.// We'll only ever allow single selection, so will only need item index 0 11.base.CommandParameter = e.AddedItems[0]; 12.base.ExecuteCommand(); 13.} 14.} SelectedItemChangedEventClass.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventClass 02.{ 03.#region The Command Stuff 04.public static ICommand GetCommand(DependencyObject obj) 05.{ 06.return (ICommand)obj.GetValue(CommandProperty); 07.} 08.public static void SetCommand(DependencyObject obj, ICommand value) 09.{ 10.obj.SetValue(CommandProperty, value); 11.} 12.public static readonly DependencyProperty CommandProperty = 13.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("Command", typeof(ICommand), 14.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), new PropertyMetadata(OnSetCommandCallback)); 15.public static void OnSetCommandCallback(DependencyObject dependencyObject, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) 16.{ 17.DataControl element = dependencyObject as DataControl; 18.if (element != null) 19.{ 20.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = GetOrCreateBehavior(element); 21.behavior.Command = e.NewValue as ICommand; 22.} 23.} 24.#endregion 25.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetOrCreateBehavior(DataControl element) 26.{ 27.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = element.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty) as SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior; 28.if (behavior == null) 29.{ 30.behavior = new SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(element); 31.element.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, behavior); 32.} 33.return behavior; 34.} 35.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj) 36.{ 37.return (SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior)obj.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty); 38.} 39.public static void SetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj, SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior value) 40.{ 41.obj.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, value); 42.} 43.public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty = 44.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior", 45.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior), typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), null); 46.} These end up looking very similar from command to command, but in a nutshell you create a command based on any event, determine what the parameter for it will be, then execute. It attaches via XAML and ties to a DelegateCommand in the viewmodel, so you get the full event experience (since some controls get a bit event-rich for added functionality). Simple enough, right? Viewmodel for the Job Posting View The Viewmodel is going to need to handle all events going back and forth, maintaining interactions with the data we are using, and both publishing and subscribing to events. Rather than breaking this into tons of little pieces, I'll give you a nice view of the entire viewmodel and then hit up the important points line-by-line: 001.public class JobPostingViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005.public DelegateCommand<object> AddRecord { get; set; } 006.public DelegateCommand<object> EditRecord { get; set; } 007.public DelegateCommand<object> SelectedItemChanged { get; set; } 008.public RecruitingContext context; 009.private QueryableCollectionView _myJobs; 010.public QueryableCollectionView MyJobs 011.{ 012.get { return _myJobs; } 013.} 014.private QueryableCollectionView _selectionJobActionHistory; 015.public QueryableCollectionView SelectedJobActionHistory 016.{ 017.get { return _selectionJobActionHistory; } 018.} 019.private JobPosting _selectedJob; 020.public JobPosting SelectedJob 021.{ 022.get { return _selectedJob; } 023.set 024.{ 025.if (value != _selectedJob) 026.{ 027._selectedJob = value; 028.NotifyChanged("SelectedJob"); 029.} 030.} 031.} 032.public SubscriptionToken editToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 033.public SubscriptionToken addToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 034.public JobPostingViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 035.{ 036.// set Unity items 037.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 038.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 039.// load our context 040.context = new RecruitingContext(); 041.this._myJobs = new QueryableCollectionView(context.JobPostings); 042.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 043.// set command events 044.this.AddRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddNewRecord); 045.this.EditRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.EditExistingRecord); 046.this.SelectedItemChanged = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.SelectedRecordChanged); 047.SetSubscriptions(); 048.} 049.#region DelegateCommands from View 050.public void AddNewRecord(object obj) 051.{ 052.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>().Publish(true); 053.} 054.public void EditExistingRecord(object obj) 055.{ 056.if (_selectedJob == null) 057.{ 058.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<NotifyUserEvent>().Publish("No job selected."); 059.} 060.else 061.{ 062.this._myJobs.EditItem(this._selectedJob); 063.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>().Publish(this._selectedJob); 064.} 065.} 066.public void SelectedRecordChanged(object obj) 067.{ 068.if (obj.GetType() == typeof(ActionHistory)) 069.{ 070.// event bubbles up so we don't catch items from the ActionHistory grid 071.} 072.else 073.{ 074.JobPosting job = obj as JobPosting; 075.GrabHistory(job.PostingID); 076.} 077.} 078.#endregion 079.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 080.public void SetSubscriptions() 081.{ 082.EditJobCompleteEvent editComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>(); 083.if (editToken != null) 084.editComplete.Unsubscribe(editToken); 085.editToken = editComplete.Subscribe(this.EditCompleteEventHandler); 086.AddJobCompleteEvent addComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>(); 087.if (addToken != null) 088.addComplete.Unsubscribe(addToken); 089.addToken = addComplete.Subscribe(this.AddCompleteEventHandler); 090.} 091.public void EditCompleteEventHandler(bool complete) 092.{ 093.if (complete) 094.{ 095.JobPosting thisJob = _myJobs.CurrentEditItem as JobPosting; 096.this._myJobs.CommitEdit(); 097.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 098.{ 099.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 100.myAction.PostingID = thisJob.PostingID; 101.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", thisJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 102.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 103.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 104.} 105., null); 106.} 107.else 108.{ 109.this._myJobs.CancelEdit(); 110.} 111.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 112.} 113.public void AddCompleteEventHandler(JobPosting job) 114.{ 115.if (job == null) 116.{ 117.// do nothing, new job add cancelled 118.} 119.else 120.{ 121.this.context.JobPostings.Add(job); 122.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 123.{ 124.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 125.myAction.PostingID = job.PostingID; 126.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", job.JobTitle, "default user"); 127.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 128.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 129.} 130., null); 131.} 132.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 133.} 134.#endregion 135.public void GrabHistory(int postID) 136.{ 137.context.ActionHistories.Clear(); 138._selectionJobActionHistory = new QueryableCollectionView(context.ActionHistories); 139.context.Load(context.GetHistoryForJobQuery(postID)); 140.} Taking it from the top, we're injecting an Event Aggregator and Region Manager for use down the road and also have the public DelegateCommands (just like in the Menu module). We also grab a reference to our context, which we'll obviously need for data, then set up a few fields with public properties tied to them. We're also setting subscription tokens, which we have not yet seen but I will get into below. The AddNewRecord (50) and EditExistingRecord (54) methods should speak for themselves for functionality, the one thing of note is we're sending events off to the Event Aggregator which some module, somewhere will take care of. Since these aren't entirely relying on one another, the Jobs View doesn't care if anyone is listening, but it will publish AddJobEvent (52), NotifyUserEvent (58) and EditJobEvent (63)regardless. Don't mind the GrabHistory() method so much, that is just grabbing history items (visibly being created in the SubmitChanges callbacks), and adding them to the database. Every action will trigger a history event, so we'll know who modified what and when, just in case. ;) So where are we at? Well, if we click to Add a job, we publish an event, if we edit a job, we publish an event with the selected record (attained through the magic of binding). Where is this all going though? To the Viewmodel, of course! XAML for the AddEditJobView This is pretty straightforward except for one thing, noted below: 001.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 002.Background="White"> 003.<Grid x:Name="xEditGrid" 004.Margin="10" 005.validationHelper:ValidationScope.Errors="{Binding Errors}"> 006.<Grid.Background> 007.<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" 008.StartPoint="0.5,0"> 009.<GradientStop Color="#FFC7C7C7" 010.Offset="0" /> 011.<GradientStop Color="#FFF6F3F3" 012.Offset="1" /> 013.</LinearGradientBrush> 014.</Grid.Background> 015.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 016.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 017.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 018.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 019.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 020.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 021.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 022.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 023.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 024.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 025.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 026.<Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 027.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 028.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 029.<ColumnDefinition Width="300" /> 030.<ColumnDefinition Width="100" /> 031.</Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 032.<!-- Title --> 033.<TextBlock Margin="8" 034.Text="{Binding AddEditString}" 035.TextWrapping="Wrap" 036.Grid.Column="1" 037.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 038.FontSize="16" /> 039.<!-- Data entry area--> 040. 041.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 042.Style="{StaticResource LabelTxb}" 043.Grid.Row="1" 044.Text="Job Title" 045.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 046.<TextBox x:Name="xJobTitleTB" 047.Margin="0,8" 048.Grid.Column="1" 049.Grid.Row="1" 050.Text="{Binding activeJob.JobTitle, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 051.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 052.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 053.Grid.Row="2" 054.Text="Location" 055.d:LayoutOverrides="Height" 056.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 057.<TextBox x:Name="xLocationTB" 058.Margin="0,8" 059.Grid.Column="1" 060.Grid.Row="2" 061.Text="{Binding activeJob.Location, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 062.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 063. 064.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 065.Grid.Row="3" 066.Text="Description" 067.TextWrapping="Wrap" 068.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 069. 070.<TextBox x:Name="xDescriptionTB" 071.Height="84" 072.TextWrapping="Wrap" 073.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 074.Grid.Column="1" 075.Grid.Row="3" 076.Text="{Binding activeJob.Description, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 077.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 078.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 079.Grid.Row="4" 080.Text="Requirements" 081.TextWrapping="Wrap" 082.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 083. 084.<TextBox x:Name="xRequirementsTB" 085.Height="84" 086.TextWrapping="Wrap" 087.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 088.Grid.Column="1" 089.Grid.Row="4" 090.Text="{Binding activeJob.Requirements, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 091.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 092.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 093.Grid.Row="5" 094.Text="Qualifications" 095.TextWrapping="Wrap" 096.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 097. 098.<TextBox x:Name="xQualificationsTB" 099.Height="84" 100.TextWrapping="Wrap" 101.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 102.Grid.Column="1" 103.Grid.Row="5" 104.Text="{Binding activeJob.Qualifications, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 105.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 106.<!-- Requirements Checkboxes--> 107. 108.<CheckBox x:Name="xResumeRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 109.Content="Resume Required" 110.Grid.Row="6" 111.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 112.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsResume, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 113. 114.<CheckBox x:Name="xCoverletterRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 115.Content="Cover Letter Required" 116.Grid.Column="2" 117.Grid.Row="6" 118.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsCV, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 119. 120.<CheckBox x:Name="xOverviewRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 121.Content="Overview Required" 122.Grid.Row="7" 123.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 124.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsOverview, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 125. 126.<CheckBox x:Name="xJobActiveCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 127.Content="Job is Active" 128.Grid.Column="2" 129.Grid.Row="7" 130.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.IsActive, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 131. 132.<!-- Buttons --> 133. 134.<Button x:Name="xAddEditButton" Margin="8,8,0,10" 135.Content="{Binding AddEditButtonString}" 136.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddEditCommand}" 137.Grid.Column="2" 138.Grid.Row="8" 139.HorizontalAlignment="Left" 140.Width="125" 141.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 142. 143.<Button x:Name="xCancelButton" HorizontalAlignment="Right" 144.Content="Cancel" 145.cal:Click.Command="{Binding CancelCommand}" 146.Margin="0,8,8,10" 147.Width="125" 148.Grid.Column="2" 149.Grid.Row="8" 150.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 151.</Grid> 152.</Grid> The 'validationHelper:ValidationScope' line may seem odd. This is a handy little trick for catching current and would-be validation errors when working in this whole setup. This all comes from an approach found on theJoy Of Code blog, although it looks like the story for this will be changing slightly with new advances in SL4/WCF RIA Services, so this section can definitely get an overhaul a little down the road. The code is the fun part of all this, so let us see what's happening under the hood. Viewmodel for the AddEditJobView We are going to see some of the same things happening here, so I'll skip over the repeat info and get right to the good stuff: 001.public class AddEditJobViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005. 006.public RecruitingContext context; 007. 008.private JobPosting _activeJob; 009.public JobPosting activeJob 010.{ 011.get { return _activeJob; } 012.set 013.{ 014.if (_activeJob != value) 015.{ 016._activeJob = value; 017.NotifyChanged("activeJob"); 018.} 019.} 020.} 021. 022.public bool isNewJob; 023. 024.private string _addEditString; 025.public string AddEditString 026.{ 027.get { return _addEditString; } 028.set 029.{ 030.if (_addEditString != value) 031.{ 032._addEditString = value; 033.NotifyChanged("AddEditString"); 034.} 035.} 036.} 037. 038.private string _addEditButtonString; 039.public string AddEditButtonString 040.{ 041.get { return _addEditButtonString; } 042.set 043.{ 044.if (_addEditButtonString != value) 045.{ 046._addEditButtonString = value; 047.NotifyChanged("AddEditButtonString"); 048.} 049.} 050.} 051. 052.public SubscriptionToken addJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 053.public SubscriptionToken editJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 054. 055.public DelegateCommand<object> AddEditCommand { get; set; } 056.public DelegateCommand<object> CancelCommand { get; set; } 057. 058.private ObservableCollection<ValidationError> _errors = new ObservableCollection<ValidationError>(); 059.public ObservableCollection<ValidationError> Errors 060.{ 061.get { return _errors; } 062.} 063. 064.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 065.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 066.{ 067.get { return this._valResults; } 068.} 069. 070.public AddEditJobViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 071.{ 072.// set Unity items 073.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 074.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 075. 076.context = new RecruitingContext(); 077. 078.AddEditCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddEditJobCommand); 079.CancelCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.CancelAddEditCommand); 080. 081.SetSubscriptions(); 082.} 083. 084.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 085. 086.public void SetSubscriptions() 087.{ 088.AddJobEvent addJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>(); 089. 090.if (addJobToken != null) 091.addJob.Unsubscribe(addJobToken); 092. 093.addJobToken = addJob.Subscribe(this.AddJobEventHandler); 094. 095.EditJobEvent editJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>(); 096. 097.if (editJobToken != null) 098.editJob.Unsubscribe(editJobToken); 099. 100.editJobToken = editJob.Subscribe(this.EditJobEventHandler); 101.} 102. 103.public void AddJobEventHandler(bool isNew) 104.{ 105.this.activeJob = null; 106.this.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 107.this.activeJob.IsActive = true; // We assume that we want a new job to go up immediately 108.this.isNewJob = true; 109.this.AddEditString = "Add New Job Posting"; 110.this.AddEditButtonString = "Add Job"; 111. 112.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 113.} 114. 115.public void EditJobEventHandler(JobPosting editJob) 116.{ 117.this.activeJob = null; 118.this.activeJob = editJob; 119.this.isNewJob = false; 120.this.AddEditString = "Edit Job Posting"; 121.this.AddEditButtonString = "Edit Job"; 122. 123.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 124.} 125. 126.#endregion 127. 128.#region DelegateCommands from View 129. 130.public void AddEditJobCommand(object obj) 131.{ 132.if (this.Errors.Count > 0) 133.{ 134.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 135. 136.foreach (var valR in this.Errors) 137.{ 138.errorMessages.Add(valR.Exception.Message); 139.} 140. 141.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 142. 143.} 144.else if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 145.{ 146.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 147. 148.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 149.{ 150.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 151.} 152. 153.this._valResults.Clear(); 154. 155.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 156.} 157.else 158.{ 159.if (this.isNewJob) 160.{ 161.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(this.activeJob); 162.} 163.else 164.{ 165.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(true); 166.} 167.} 168.} 169. 170.public void CancelAddEditCommand(object obj) 171.{ 172.if (this.isNewJob) 173.{ 174.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(null); 175.} 176.else 177.{ 178.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(false); 179.} 180.} 181. 182.#endregion 183.} 184.} We start seeing something new on line 103- the AddJobEventHandler will create a new job and set that to the activeJob item on the ViewModel. When this is all set, the view calls that familiar MakeMeActive method to activate itself. I made a bit of a management call on making views self-activate like this, but I figured it works for one reason. As I create this application, views may not exist that I have in mind, so after a view receives its 'ping' from being subscribed to an event, it prepares whatever it needs to do and then goes active. This way if I don't have 'edit' hooked up, I can click as the day is long on the main view and won't get lost in an empty region. Total personal preference here. :) Everything else should again be pretty straightforward, although I do a bit of validation checking in the AddEditJobCommand, which can either fire off an event back to the main view/viewmodel if everything is a success or sent a list of errors to our notification module, which pops open a RadWindow with the alerts if any exist. As a bonus side note, here's what my WCF RIA Services metadata looks like for handling all of the validation: private JobPostingMetadata() { } [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Description should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Description is required.")] public string Description; [Required(ErrorMessage="Active Status is Required")] public bool IsActive; [StringLength(100, ErrorMessage = "Posting title must be more than 3 but less than 100 characters.", MinimumLength = 3)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Job Title is required.")] public bool JobTitle; [Required] public string Location; public bool NeedsCV; public bool NeedsOverview; public bool NeedsResume; public int PostingID; [Required(ErrorMessage="Qualifications are required.")] [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage="Qualifications should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength=1)] public string Qualifications; [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Requirements should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage="Requirements are required.")] public string Requirements;   The RecruitCB Alternative See all that Xaml I pasted above? Those are now two pieces sitting in the JobsView.xaml file now. The only real difference is that the xEditGrid now sits in the same place as xJobsGrid, with visibility swapping out between the two for a quick switch. I also took out all the cal: and command: command references and replaced Button events with clicks and the Grid selection command replaced with a SelectedItemChanged event. Also, at the bottom of the xEditGrid after the last button, I add a ValidationSummary (with Visibility=Collapsed) to catch any errors that are popping up. Simple as can be, and leads to this being the single code-behind file: 001.public partial class JobsView : UserControl 002.{ 003.public RecruitingContext context; 004.public JobPosting activeJob; 005.public bool isNew; 006.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 007.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 008.{ 009.get { return this._valResults; } 010.} 011.public JobsView() 012.{ 013.InitializeComponent(); 014.this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(JobsView_Loaded); 015.} 016.void JobsView_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 017.{ 018.context = new RecruitingContext(); 019.xJobsGrid.ItemsSource = context.JobPostings; 020.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 021.} 022.private void xAddRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 023.{ 024.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 025.isNew = true; 026.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Add a Job Posting"; 027.xAddEditButton.Content = "Add"; 028.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 029.HideJobsGrid(); 030.} 031.private void xEditRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 032.{ 033.activeJob = xJobsGrid.SelectedItem as JobPosting; 034.isNew = false; 035.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Edit a Job Posting"; 036.xAddEditButton.Content = "Edit"; 037.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 038.HideJobsGrid(); 039.} 040.private void xAddEditButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 041.{ 042.if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 043.{ 044.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 045.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 046.{ 047.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 048.} 049.this._valResults.Clear(); 050.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 051.} 052.else if (xSummary.Errors.Count > 0) 053.{ 054.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 055.foreach (var err in xSummary.Errors) 056.{ 057.errorMessages.Add(err.Message); 058.} 059.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 060.} 061.else 062.{ 063.if (this.isNew) 064.{ 065.context.JobPostings.Add(activeJob); 066.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 067.{ 068.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 069.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 070.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 071.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 072.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 073.context.SubmitChanges(); 074.}, null); 075.} 076.else 077.{ 078.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 079.{ 080.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 081.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 082.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 083.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 084.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 085.context.SubmitChanges(); 086.}, null); 087.} 088.ShowJobsGrid(); 089.} 090.} 091.private void xCancelButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 092.{ 093.ShowJobsGrid(); 094.} 095.private void ShowJobsGrid() 096.{ 097.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 098.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 099.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 100.} 101.private void HideJobsGrid() 102.{ 103.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 104.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 105.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 106.} 107.private void ShowErrors(List<string> errorList) 108.{ 109.string nm = "Errors received: \n"; 110.foreach (string anerror in errorList) 111.nm += anerror + "\n"; 112.RadWindow.Alert(nm); 113.} 114.} The first 39 lines should be pretty familiar, not doing anything too unorthodox to get this up and running. Once we hit the xAddEditButton_Click on line 40, we're still doing pretty much the same things except instead of checking the ValidationHelper errors, we both run a check on the current activeJob object as well as check the ValidationSummary errors list. Once that is set, we again use the callback of context.SubmitChanges (lines 68 and 78) to create an ActionHistory which we will use to track these items down the line. That's all? Essentially... yes. If you look back through this post, most of the code and adventures we have taken were just to get things working in the MVVM/Prism setup. Since I have the whole 'module' self-contained in a single JobView+code-behind setup, I don't have to worry about things like sending events off into space for someone to pick up, communicating through an Infrastructure project, or even re-inventing events to be used with attached behaviors. Everything just kinda works, and again with much less code. Here's a picture of the MVVM and Code-behind versions on the Jobs and AddEdit views, but since the functionality is the same in both apps you still cannot tell them apart (for two-strike): Looking ahead, the Applicants module is effectively the same thing as the Jobs module, so most of the code is being cut-and-pasted back and forth with minor tweaks here and there. So that one is being taken care of by me behind the scenes. Next time, we get into a new world of fun- the interview scheduling module, which will pull from available jobs and applicants for each interview being scheduled, tying everything together with RadScheduler to the rescue. 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.

    Read the article

  • Beyond Chatting: What ‘Social’ Means for CRM

    - by Divya Malik
    A guest post by Steve Diamond, Senior Director, Outbound Product Management, Oracle In a recent post on the Oracle Applications blog, my colleague Steve Boese asked three questions related to the widespread popularity and incredibly rapid growth of Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Steve then addressed the many applications for collaborative solutions in the area of Human Capital Management. So, in turning to a conversation about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA), let me ask you one simple question. How many sales people, particularly at business-to-business companies, consistently meet or beat their quotas in their roles by working alone, with no collaboration among fellow sales people, sales executives, employees in product groups, in service, in Legal, third-party partners, etc.? Hello? Is anybody out there? What’s that cricket noise I hear? That’s correct. Nobody! When it comes to Sales, introverts arguably have a distinct disadvantage. While it’s certainly a truism that “success” in most professional endeavors requires working with people, it’s a mandatory success factor in Sales. This fact became abundantly clear to me one early morning in the late 1990s when I joined the former Hyperion Solutions (now part of Oracle) and attended a Sales Award Ceremony. The Head of Sales at that time gave out dozens of awards – none of them to individuals and all of them to TEAMS of individuals. That’s how it works in Sales. Your colleagues help provide you with product intelligence and competitive intelligence. They help you build the best presentations, pitches, and proposals. They help you develop the most killer RFPs. They align you with the best product people to ensure you’re matching the best products for the opportunity and join you in critical meetings. They help knock the socks of your prospects in “bake off” demo’s. They bring in the best partners to either add complementary products to your opportunity or help you implement a solution. They work with you as a collective team. And so how is all this collaboration STILL typically done today? Through email. And yet we all silently or not so silently grimace about email. It’s relatively siloed. It’s painful to search. It’s difficult to align by topic. And it’s nearly impossible to re-trace meaningful and helpful conversations that occurred among a group or a team at some point in history. This is where social networking for Sales comes into play. It’s about PURPOSEFUL social networking versus chattering. What is purposeful social networking? It’s collaboration that’s built around opportunities, accounts, and contacts. It’s collaboration that delivers valuable context – on the target company, and on key competitors – just to name two examples. It’s collaboration that can scale to provide coaching for larger numbers of sales representatives, both for general purposes, and as we’ve largely discussed here, for specific ‘deals.’ And it’s collaboration that allows a team of people to collectively edit and iterate on a document like an RFP or a soon-to-be killer presentation that is maintained in a central repository, with no time wasted searching for it or worrying about version control. But lest we get carried away, let’s remember that collaboration “happens” among sales people whether there is specialized software to support it or not. The human practice of sales has not changed much in the last 80 to 90 years. Collaboration has been a mainstay during this entire time. But what social networking in general, and Oracle Social Networking in particular delivers, is the opportunity for sales teams to dramatically increase their effectiveness and efficiency – to identify and close more high quality and lucrative opportunities more quickly. For most sales organizations, this is how the game is won. To learn more please visit Oracle Social Network and Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management on oracle.com

    Read the article

  • Guest (and occasional co-host) on Jesse Liberty's Yet Another Podcast

    - by Jon Galloway
    I was a recent guest on Jesse Liberty's Yet Another Podcast talking about the latest Visual Studio, ASP.NET and Azure releases. Download / Listen: Yet Another Podcast #75–Jon Galloway on ASP.NET/ MVC/ Azure Co-hosted shows: Jesse's been inviting me to co-host shows and I told him I'd show up when I was available. It's a nice change to be a drive-by co-host on a show (compared with the work that goes into organizing / editing / typing show notes for Herding Code shows). My main focus is on Herding Code, but it's nice to pop in and talk to Jesse's excellent guests when it works out. Some shows I've co-hosted over the past year: Yet Another Podcast #76–Glenn Block on Node.js & Technology in China Yet Another Podcast  #73 - Adam Kinney on developing for Windows 8 with HTML5 Yet Another Podcast #64 - John Papa & Javascript Yet Another Podcast #60 - Steve Sanderson and John Papa on Knockout.js Yet Another Podcast #54–Damian Edwards on ASP.NET Yet Another Podcast #53–Scott Hanselman on Blogging Yet Another Podcast #52–Peter Torr on Windows Phone Multitasking Yet Another Podcast #51–Shawn Wildermuth: //build, Xaml Programming & Beyond And some more on the way that haven't been released yet. Some of these I'm pretty quiet, on others I get wacky and hassle the guests because, hey, not my podcast so not my problem. Show notes from the ASP.NET / MVC / Azure show: What was just released Visual Studio 2012 Web Developer features ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms Strongly Typed data controls Data access via command methods Similar Binding syntax to ASP.NET MVC Some context: Damian Edwards and WebFormsMVP Two questions from Jesse: Q: Are you making this harder or more complicated for Web Forms developers? Short answer: Nothing's removed, it's just a new option History of SqlDataSource, ObjectDataSource Q: If I'm using some MVC patterns, why not just move to MVC? Short answer: This works really well in hybrid applications, doesn't require a rewrite Allows sharing models, validation, other code between Web Forms and MVC ASP.NET MVC Adaptive Rendering (oh, also, this is in Web Forms 4.5 as well) Display Modes Mobile project template using jQuery Mobile OAuth login to allow Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. login Jon (and friends') MVC 4 book on the way: Professional ASP.NET MVC 4 Windows 8 development Jesse and Jon announce they're working on a new book: Pro Windows 8 Development with XAML and C# Jon and Jesse agree that it's nice to be able to write Windows 8 applications using the same skills they picked up for Silverlight, WPF, and Windows Phone development. Compare / contrast ASP.NET MVC and Windows 8 development Q: Does ASP.NET and HTML5 development overlap? Jon thinks they overlap in the MVC world because you're writing HTML views without controls Jon describes how his web development career moved from a preoccupation with server code to a focus on user interaction, which occurs in the browser Jon mentions his NDC Oslo presentation on Learning To Love HTML as Beautiful Code Q: How do you apply C# / XAML or HTML5 skills to Windows 8 development? Q: If I'm a XAML programmer, what's the learning curve on getting up to speed on ASP.NET MVC? Jon describes the difference in application lifecycle and state management Jon says it's nice that web development is really interactive compared to application development Q: Can you learn MVC by reading a book? Or is it a lot bigger than that? What is Azure, and why would I use it? Jon describes the traditional Azure platform mode and how Azure Web Sites fits in Q: Why wouldn't Jesse host his blog on Azure Web Sites? Domain names on Azure Web Sites File hosting options Q: Is Azure just another host? How is it different from any of the other shared hosting options? A: Azure gives you the ability to scale up or down whenever you want A: Other services are available if or when you want them

    Read the article

  • From NaN to Infinity...and Beyond!

    - by Tony Davis
    It is hard to believe that it was once possible to corrupt a SQL Server Database by storing perfectly normal data values into a table; but it is true. In SQL Server 2000 and before, one could inadvertently load invalid data values into certain data types via RPC calls or bulk insert methods rather than DML. In the particular case of the FLOAT data type, this meant that common 'special values' for this type, namely NaN (not-a-number) and +/- infinity, could be quite happily plugged into the database from an application and stored as 'out-of-range' values. This was like a time-bomb. When one then tried to query this data; the values were unsupported and so data pages containing them were flagged as being corrupt. Any query that needed to read a column containing the special value could fail or return unpredictable results. Microsoft even had to issue a hotfix to deal with failures in the automatic recovery process, caused by the presence of these NaN values, which rendered the whole database inaccessible! This problem is history for those of us on more current versions of SQL Server, but its ghost still haunts us. Recently, for example, a developer on Red Gate’s SQL Response team reported a strange problem when attempting to load historical monitoring data into a SQL Server 2005 database via the C# ADO.NET provider. The ratios used in some of their reporting calculations occasionally threw out NaN or infinity values, and the subsequent attempts to load these values resulted in a nasty error. It turns out to be a different manifestation of the same problem. SQL Server 2005 still does not fully support the IEEE 754 standard for floating point numbers, in that the FLOAT data type still cannot handle NaN or infinity values. Instead, they just added validation checks that prevent the 'invalid' values from being loaded in the first place. For people migrating from SQL Server 2000 databases that contained out-of-range FLOAT (or DATETIME etc.) data, to SQL Server 2005, Microsoft have added to the latter's version of the DBCC CHECKDB (or CHECKTABLE) command a DATA_PURITY clause. When enabled, this will seek out the corrupt data, but won’t fix it. You have to do this yourself in what can often be a slow, painful manual process. Our development team, after a quizzical shrug of the shoulders, simply decided to represent NaN and infinity values as NULL, and move on, accepting the minor inconvenience of not being able to tell them apart. However, what of scientific, engineering and other applications that really would like the luxury of being able to both store and access these perfectly-reasonable floating point data values? The sticking point seems to be the stipulation in the IEEE 754 standard that, when NaN is compared to any other value including itself, the answer is "unequal" (i.e. FALSE). This is clearly different from normal number comparisons and has repercussions for such things as indexing operations. Even so, this hardly applies to infinity values, which are single definite values. In fact, there is some encouraging talk in the Connect note on this issue that they might be supported 'in the SQL Server 2008 timeframe'. If didn't happen; SQL 2008 doesn't support NaN or infinity values, though one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, based on the MSDN documentation for the FLOAT type, which states that "The behavior of float and real follows the IEEE 754 specification on approximate numeric data types". However, the truth is revealed in the XPath documentation, which states that "…float (53) is not exactly IEEE 754. For example, neither NaN (Not-a-Number) nor infinity is used…". Is it really so hard to fix this problem the right way, and properly support in SQL Server the IEEE 754 standard for the floating point data type, NaNs, infinities and all? Oracle seems to have managed it quite nicely with its BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE types, so it is technically possible. We have an enterprise-class database that is marketed as being part of an 'integrated' Windows platform. Absurdly, we have .NET and XPath libraries that fully support the standard for floating point numbers, and we can't even properly store these values, let alone query them, in the SQL Server database! Cheers, Tony.

    Read the article

  • Building vs. Buying a Master Data Management Solution

    - by david.butler(at)oracle.com
    Many organizations prefer to build their own MDM solutions. The argument is that they know their data quality issues and their data better than anyone. Plus a focused solution will cost less in the long run then a vendor supplied general purpose product. This is not unreasonable if you think of MDM as a point solution for a particular data quality problem. But this approach carries significant risk. We now know that organizations achieve significant competitive advantages when they deploy MDM as a strategic enterprise wide solution: with the most common best practice being to deploy a tactical MDM solution and grow it into a full information architecture. A build your own approach most certainly will not scale to a larger architecture unless it is done correctly with the larger solution in mind. It is possible to build a home grown point MDM solution in such a way that it will dovetail into broader MDM architectures. A very good place to start is to use the same basic technologies that Oracle uses to build its own MDM solutions. Start with the Oracle 11g database to create a flexible, extensible and open data model to hold the master data and all needed attributes. The Oracle database is the most flexible, highly available and scalable database system on the market. With its Real Application Clusters (RAC) it can even support the mixed OLTP and BI workloads that represent typical MDM data access profiles. Use Oracle Data Integration (ODI) for batch data movement between applications, MDM data stores, and the BI layer. Use Oracle Golden Gate for more real-time data movement. Use Oracle's SOA Suite for application integration with its: BPEL Process Manager to orchestrate MDM connections to business processes; Identity Management for managing users; WS Manager for managing web services; Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for analytics; and JDeveloper for creating or extending the MDM management application. Oracle utilizes these technologies to build its MDM Hubs.  Customers who build their own MDM solution using these components will easily migrate to Oracle provided MDM solutions when the home grown solution runs out of gas. But, even with a full stack of open flexible MDM technologies, creating a robust MDM application can be a daunting task. For example, a basic MDM solution will need: a set of data access methods that support master data as a service as well as direct real time access as well as batch loads and extracts; a data migration service for initial loads and periodic updates; a metadata management capability for items such as business entity matrixed relationships and hierarchies; a source system management capability to fully cross-reference business objects and to satisfy seemingly conflicting data ownership requirements; a data quality function that can find and eliminate duplicate data while insuring correct data attribute survivorship; a set of data quality functions that can manage structured and unstructured data; a data quality interface to assist with preventing new errors from entering the system even when data entry is outside the MDM application itself; a continuing data cleansing function to keep the data up to date; an internal triggering mechanism to create and deploy change information to all connected systems; a comprehensive role based data security system to control and monitor data access, update rights, and maintain change history; a flexible business rules engine for managing master data processes such as privacy and data movement; a user interface to support casual users and data stewards; a business intelligence structure to support profiling, compliance, and business performance indicators; and an analytical foundation for directly analyzing master data. Oracle's pre-built MDM Hub solutions are full-featured 3-tier Internet applications designed to participate in the full Oracle technology stack or to run independently in other open IT SOA environments. Building MDM solutions from scratch can take years. Oracle's pre-built MDM solutions can bring quality data to the enterprise in a matter of months. But if you must build, at lease build with the world's best technology stack in a way that simplifies the eventual upgrade to Oracle MDM and to the full enterprise wide information architecture that it enables.

    Read the article

  • Few events I&rsquo;m speaking at in early 2013

    - by Mladen Prajdic
    2013 has started great and the SQL community is already brimming with events. At some of these events you can come say hi. I’ll be glad you do! These are the events with dates and locations that I know I’ll be speaking at so far.   February 16th: SQL Saturday #198 - Vancouver, Canada The session I’ll present in Vancouver is SQL Impossible: Restoring/Undeleting a table Yes, you read the title right. No, it's not about the usual "one table per partition" and "restore full backup then copy the data over" methods. No, there are no 3rd party tools involved. Just you and your SQL Server. Yes, it's crazy. No, it's not for production purposes. And yes, that's why it's so much fun. Prepare to dive into the world of data pages, log records, deletes, truncates and backups and how it all works together to get your table back from the endless void. Want to know more? Come and see! This is an advanced level session where we’ll dive into the internals of data pages, transaction log records and page restores.   March 8th-9th: SQL Saturday #194 - Exeter, UK In Exeter I’ll be presenting twice. On the first day I’ll have a full day precon titled: From SQL Traces to Extended Events - The next big switch This pre-con will give you insight into both of the current tracing technologies in SQL Server. The old SQL Trace which has served us well over the past 10 or so years is on its way out because the overhead and details it produces are no longer enough to deal with today's loads. The new Extended Events are a new lightweight tracing mechanism built directly into the SQLOS thus giving us information SQL Trace just couldn't. They were designed and built with performance in mind and it shows. The new Extended Events are a new lightweight tracing mechanism built directly into the SQLOS thus giving us information SQL Trace just couldn't. They were designed and built with performance in mind and it shows. Mastering Extended Events requires learning at least one new skill: XML querying. The second session I’ll have on Saturday titled: SQL Injection from website to SQL Server SQL Injection is still one of the biggest reasons various websites and applications get hacked. The solution as everyone tells us is simple. Use SQL parameters. But is that enough? In this session we'll look at how would an attacker go about using SQL Injection to gain access to your database, see its schema and data, take over the server, upload files and do various other mischief on your domain. This is a fun session that always brings out a few laughs in the audience because they didn’t realize what can be done.   April 23rd-25th: NTK conference - Bled, Slovenia (Slovenian website only) This is a conference with history. This year marks its 18th year running. It’s a relatively large IT conference that focuses on various Microsoft technologies like .Net, Azure, SQL Server, Exchange, Security, etc… The main session’s language is Slovenian but this is slowly changing so it’s becoming more interesting for foreign attendees. This year it’s happening in the beautiful town of Bled in the Alps. The scenery alone is worth the visit, wouldn’t you agree? And this year there are quite a few well known speakers present! Session title isn’t known yet.       May 2nd-4th: SQL Bits XI – Nottingham, UK SQL Bits is the largest SQL Server conference in Europe. It’s a 3 day conference with top speakers and content all dedicated to SQL Server. The session I’ll present here is an hour long version of the precon I’ll give in Exeter. From SQL Traces to Extended Events - The next big switch The session description is the same as for the Exeter precon but we'll focus more on how the Extended Events work with only a brief overview of old SQL Trace architecture.

    Read the article

  • Closer look at the SOA 12c Feature: Oracle Managed File Transfer

    - by Tshepo Madigage-Oracle
    The rapid growth of cloud-based applications in the enterprise, combined with organizations' desire to integrate applications with mobile technologies, is dramatically increasing application integration complexity. To meet this challenge, Oracle introduced Oracle SOA Suite 12c, the latest version of the industry's most complete and unified application integration and SOA solution. With simplified cloud, mobile, on-premises, and Internet of Things (IoT) integration capabilities, all within a single platform, Oracle SOA Suite 12c helps organizations speed time to integration, improve productivity, and lower TCO. To extend its B2B solution capabilities with Oracle SOA Suite 12c, Oracle unveiled Oracle Managed File Transfer, an integrated solution that enables organizations to virtually eliminate file transfer complexities. This allows customers to load data securely into Oracle Cloud applications as well as third-party cloud or partner applications. Oracle Managed File Transfer (Oracle MFT) enables secure file exchange and management with internal departments and external partners. It protects against inadvertent access to unsecured files at every step in the end-to-end transfer of files. It is easy to use especially for non technical staff so you can leverage more resources to manage the transfer of files. The extensive reporting capabilities allow you to get quick status of a file transfer and resubmit it as required. You can protect data in your DMZ by using the SSH/FTP reverse proxy. Oracle Managed File Transfer can help integrate applications by transferring files between them in complex use case patterns. Standalone: Transferring files on its own using embedded FTP and sFTP servers and the file systems to which it has access. SOA Integration: a SOA application can be the source or target of a transfer. A SOA application can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. B2B Integration: B2B application can be the source or target of a transfer. A B2B application can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. Healthcare Integration:  Healthcare application can be the source or target of a transfer. A Healthcare application can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. Oracle Service Bus (OSB) integration: OMT can integrate with Oracle Service Bus web service interfaces. OSB interface can be the source or target of a transfer. An Oracle Service Bus interface can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. Hybrid Integration: can be one participant in a web of data transfers that includes multiple application types. Oracle Managed File Transfers has four user roles: file handlers, designers, monitors, and administrators. File Handlers: - Copy files to file transfer staging areas, which are called sources. - Retrieve files from file transfer destinations, which are called targets. Designers: - Create, read, update and delete file transfer sources. - Create, read, update and delete file transfer targets. - Create, read, update and delete transfers, which link sources and targets in complete file delivery flows. - Deploy and test transfers. Monitors: - Use the Dashboard and reports to ensure that transfer instances are successful. - Pause and resume lengthy transfers. - Troubleshoot errors and resubmit transfers. - View artifact deployment details and history. - View artifact dependence relationships. - Enable and disable sources, targets, and transfers. - Undeploy sources, targets, and transfers. - Start and stop embedded FTP and sFTP servers. Administrators: - All file handler tasks - All designer tasks - All monitor tasks - Add other users and determine their roles - Configure user directory permissions - Configure the Oracle Managed File Transfer server - Configure embedded FTP and sFTP servers, including security - Configure B2B and Healthcare domains - Back up and restore the Oracle Managed File Transfer configuration - Purge transferred files and instance data - Archive and restore instance data and payloads - Import and export metadata You will find all the related information about SOA 12.1.3. Oracle Manages File Transfer OMT in the documentation: Using Oracle Manages File Transfer Resources and links: Oracle Unveils Oracle SOA Suite 12c Oracle Managed Files Transfer Oracle Managed Files Transfer SOA 12c White Paper For further enquiries don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected] and join our Partner Webcast on Oracle SOA Suite 12c

    Read the article

  • GitHub Integration in Windows Azure Web Site

    - by Shaun
    Microsoft had just announced an update for Windows Azure Web Site (a.k.a. WAWS). There are four major features added in WAWS which are free scaling mode, GitHub integration, custom domain and multi branches. Since I ‘m working in Node.js and I would like to have my code in GitHub and deployed automatically to my Windows Azure Web Site once I sync my code, this feature is a big good news to me.   It’s very simple to establish the GitHub integration in WAWS. First we need a clean WAWS. In its dashboard page click “Set up Git publishing”. Currently WAWS doesn’t support to change the publish setting. So if you have an existing WAWS which published by TFS or local Git then you have to create a new WAWS and set the Git publishing. Then in the deployment page we can see now WAWS supports three Git publishing modes: - Push my local files to Windows Azure: In this mode we will create a new Git repository on local machine and commit, publish our code to Windows Azure through Git command or some GUI. - Deploy from my GitHub project: In this mode we will have a Git repository created on GitHub. Once we publish our code to GitHub Windows Azure will download the code and trigger a new deployment. - Deploy from my CodePlex project: Similar as the previous one but our code would be in CodePlex repository.   Now let’s back to GitHub and create a new publish repository. Currently WAWS GitHub integration only support for public repositories. The private repositories support will be available in several weeks. We can manage our repositories in GitHub website. But as a windows geek I prefer the GUI tool. So I opened the GitHub for Windows, login with my GitHub account and select the “github” category, click the “add” button to create a new repository on GitHub. You can download the GitHub for Windows here. I specified the repository name, description, local repository, do not check the “Keep this code private”. After few seconds it will create a new repository on GitHub and associate it to my local machine in that folder. We can find this new repository in GitHub website. And in GitHub for Windows we can also find the local repository by selecting the “local” category.   Next, we need to associate this repository with our WAWS. Back to windows developer portal, open the “Deploy from my GitHub project” in the deployment page and click the “Authorize Windows Azure” link. It will bring up a new windows on GitHub which let me allow the Windows Azure application can access your repositories. After we clicked “Allow”, windows azure will retrieve all my GitHub public repositories and let me select which one I want to integrate to this WAWS. I selected the one I had just created in GitHub for Windows. So that’s all. We had completed the GitHub integration configuration. Now let’s have a try. In GitHub for Windows, right click on this local repository and click “open in explorer”. Then I added a simple HTML file. 1: <html> 2: <head> 3: </head> 4: <body> 5: <h1> 6: I came from GitHub, WOW! 7: </h1> 8: </body> 9: </html> Save it and back to GitHub for Windows, commit this change and publish. This will upload our changes to GitHub, and Windows Azure will detect this update and trigger a new deployment. If we went back to azure developer portal we can find the new deployment. And our commit message will be shown as the deployment description as well. And here is the page deployed to WAWS.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

    Read the article

  • Adventures in MVVM &ndash; ViewModel Location and Creation

    - by Brian Genisio's House Of Bilz
    More Adventures in MVVM In this post, I am going to explore how I prefer to attach ViewModels to my Views.  I have published the code to my ViewModelSupport project on CodePlex in case you'd like to see how it works along with some examples.  Some History My approach to View-First ViewModel creation has evolved over time.  I have constructed ViewModels in code-behind.  I have instantiated ViewModels in the resources sectoin of the view. I have used Prism to resolve ViewModels via Dependency Injection. I have created attached properties that use Dependency Injection containers underneath.  Of all these approaches, I continue to find issues either in composability, blendability or maintainability.  Laurent Bugnion came up with a pretty good approach in MVVM Light Toolkit with his ViewModelLocator, but as John Papa points out, it has maintenance issues.  John paired up with Glen Block to make the ViewModelLocator more generic by using MEF to compose ViewModels.  It is a great approach, but I don’t like baking in specific resolution technologies into the ViewModelSupport project. I bring these people up, not to name drop, but to give them credit for the place I finally landed in my journey to resolve ViewModels.  I have come up with my own version of the ViewModelLocator that is both generic and container agnostic.  The solution is blendable, configurable and simple to use.  Use any resolution mechanism you want: MEF, Unity, Ninject, Activator.Create, Lookup Tables, new, whatever. How to use the locator 1. Create a class to contain your resolution configuration: public class YourViewModelResolver: IViewModelResolver { private YourFavoriteContainer container = new YourFavoriteContainer(); public YourViewModelResolver() { // Configure your container } public object Resolve(string viewModelName) { return container.Resolve(viewModelName); } } Examples of doing this are on CodePlex for MEF, Unity and Activator.CreateInstance. 2. Create your ViewModelLocator with your custom resolver in App.xaml: <VMS:ViewModelLocator x:Key="ViewModelLocator"> <VMS:ViewModelLocator.Resolver> <local:YourViewModelResolver /> </VMS:ViewModelLocator.Resolver> </VMS:ViewModelLocator> 3. Hook up your data context whenever you want a ViewModel (WPF): <Border DataContext="{Binding YourViewModelName, Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}}"> This example uses dynamic properties on the ViewModelLocator and passes the name to your resolver to figure out how to compose it. 4. What about Silverlight? Good question.  You can't bind to dynamic properties in Silverlight 4 (crossing my fingers for Silverlight 5), but you CAN use string indexing: <Border DataContext="{Binding [YourViewModelName], Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}}"> But, as John Papa points out in his article, there is a silly bug in Silverlight 4 (as of this writing) that will call into the indexer 6 times when it binds.  While this is little more than a nuisance when getting most properties, it can be much more of an issue when you are resolving ViewModels six times.  If this gets in your way, the solution (as pointed out by John), is to use an IndexConverter (instantiated in App.xaml and also included in the project): <Border DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}, Converter={StaticResource IndexConverter}, ConverterParameter=YourViewModelName}"> It is a bit uglier than the WPF version (this method will also work in WPF if you prefer), but it is still not all that bad.  Conclusion This approach works really well (I suppose I am a bit biased).  It allows for composability from any mechanisim you choose.  It is blendable (consider serving up different objects in Design Mode if you wish... or different constructors… whatever makes sense to you).  It works in Cider.  It is configurable.  It is flexible.  It is the best way I have found to manage View-First ViewModel hookups.  Thanks to the guys mentioned in this article for getting me to something I love using.  Enjoy.

    Read the article

  • Archiving SQLHelp tweets

    - by jamiet
    #SQLHelp is a Twitter hashtag that can be used by any Twitter user to get help from the SQL Server community. I think its fair to say that in its first year of being it has proved to be a very useful resource however Kendra Little (@kendra_little) made a very salient point yesterday when she tweeted: Is there a way to search the archives of #sqlhelp Trying to remember answer to a question I know I saw a couple months ago http://twitter.com/#!/Kendra_Little/status/15538234184441856 This highlights an inherent problem with Twitter’s search capability – it simply does not reach far enough back in time. I have made steps to remedy that situation by putting into place two initiatives to archive Tweets that contain the #sqlhelp hashtag. The Archivist http://archivist.visitmix.com/ is a free service that, quite simply, archives a history of tweets that contain a given search term by periodically polling Twitter’s search service with that search term and subsequently displaying a dashboard providing an aggregate view of those tweets for things like tweet volume over time, top users and top words (Archivist FAQ). I have set up an archive on The Archivist for “sqlhelp” which you can view at http://archivist.visitmix.com/jamiet/7. Here is a screenshot of the SQLHelp dashboard 36 minutes after I set it up: There is lots of good information in there, including the fact that Jonathan Kehayias (@SQLSarg) is the most active SQLHelp tweeter (I suspect as an answerer rather than a questioner ) and that SSIS has proven to be a rather (ahem) popular subject!! Datasift The Archivist has its uses though for our purposes it has a couple of downsides. For starters you cannot search through an archive (which is what Kendra was after) and nor can you export the contents of the archive for offline analysis. For those functions we need something a bit more heavyweight and for that I present to you Datasift. Datasift is a tool (currently an alpha release) that allows you to search for tweets and provide them through an object called a Datasift stream. That sounds very similar to normal Twitter search though it has one distinct advantage that other Twitter search tools do not – Datasift has access to Twitter’s Streaming API (aka the Twitter Firehose). In addition it has access to a lot of other rather nice features: It provides the Datasift API that allows you to consume the output of a Datasift stream in your tool of choice (bring on my favourite ultimate mashup tool J ) It has a query language (called Filtered Stream Definition Language – FSDL for short) A Datasift stream can consume (and filter) other Datasift streams Datasift can (and does) consume services other than Twitter If I refer to Datasift as “ETL for tweets” then you may get some sort of idea what it is all about. Just as I did with The Archivist I have set up a publicly available Datasift stream for “sqlhelp” at http://datasift.net/stream/1581/sqlhelp. Here is the FSDL query that provides the data: twitter.text contains "sqlhelp" Pretty simple eh? At the current time it provides little more than a rudimentary dashboard but as Datasift is currently an alpha release I think this may be worth keeping an eye on. The real value though is the ability to consume the output of a stream via Datasift’s RESTful API, observe: http://api.datasift.net/stream.xml?stream_identifier=c7015255f07e982afdeebdf1ae6e3c0d&username=jamiet&api_key=XXXXXXX (Note that an api_key is required during the alpha period so, given that I’m not supplying my api_key, this URI will not work for you) Just to prove that a Datasift stream can indeed consume data from another stream I have set up a second stream that further filters the first one for tweets containing “SSIS”. That one is at http://datasift.net/stream/1586/ssis-sqlhelp and here is the FSDL query: rule "414c9845685ff8d2548999cf3162e897" and (interaction.content contains "ssis") When Datasift moves beyond alpha I’ll re-assess how useful this is going to be and post a follow-up blog. @Jamiet

    Read the article

  • It was worth the wait… Welcome Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2

    - by Irem Radzik
    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} It certainly was worth the wait to meet Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2, because it is full of new features on multiple fronts. In fact, this release has the longest and strongest list of new features in Oracle GoldenGate’s history. The new release brings GoldenGate closer to the Oracle Database while expanding the support for global implementations and heterogeneous systems. It is more secure, more flexible, and faster. We announced the availability of Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 via a press release. If you haven’t seen it yet, please check it out. As covered in this announcement, there are a variety of improvements in the product: Integrated Capture for Oracle Database: brings Oracle GoldenGate’s Capture process closer to the Oracle Database engine and enables support for Advanced Compression among other benefits. Enhanced Conflict Detection & Resolution, speeds and simplifies the conflict detection and resolution process for Active-Active deployments. Globalization, meaning Oracle GoldenGate can be deployed for databases that use multi-byte/Unicode character sets. Security and Performance Improvements, includes support Federal Information Protection Standard (FIPS). Increased Extensibility by kicking off actions based on an event record in the transaction log or in the Trail file. Integration with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c , in addition to the Oracle GoldenGate Monitor product. Expanded Heterogeneity, including capture from IBM DB2 for i on iSeries (AS/400) and delivery to Postgres We will explain these new features in more detail at our upcoming launch webcast: Harness the Power of the New Release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g- (Sept 12 8am/10am PT) In addition to learning more about these new features, the webcast will allow you to ask your questions to product management via live Q&A section. So, I hope you will not miss this opportunity to explore the new release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g and see how it can deliver enterprise-class real-time data integration solutions.. I look forward to a great webcast to unveil GoldenGate’s new capabilities.

    Read the article

  • Floating Panels and Describe Windows in Oracle SQL Developer

    - by thatjeffsmith
    One of the challenges I face as I try to share tips about our software is that I tend to assume there are features that you just ‘know about.’ Either they’re so intuitive that you MUST know about them, or it’s a feature that I’ve been using for so long I forget that others may have never even seen it before. I want to cover two of those today - Describe (DESC) – SHIFT+F4 Floating Panels My super-exciting desktop SQL Developer and Describe DESC or Describe is an Oracle SQL*Plus command. It shows what a table or view is composed of in terms of it’s column definition. Here’s an example: SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Fri Sep 21 14:25:37 2012 Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved. Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - Production With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options SQL> desc beer; Name Null? Type ----------------------------------------- -------- ---------------------------- BREWERY NOT NULL VARCHAR2(100) CITY VARCHAR2(100) STATE VARCHAR2(100) COUNTRY VARCHAR2(100) ID NUMBER SQL> You can get the same information – and a good bit more – in SQL Developer using the SQL Developer DESC command. You invoke it with SHIFT+F4. It will open a floating (non-modal!) window with the information you want. Here’s an example: I can see my column definitions, constratins, stats, privs, etc A few ‘cool’ things you should be aware of: I can open as many as I want, and still work in my worksheet, browser, etc. I can also DESC an index, user, or most any other database object I can of course move them off my primary desktop display The DESC panel’s are read-only. I can’t drop a constraint from within the DESC window of a given table. But for dragging columns into my worksheet, and checking out the stats for my objects as I query them – it’s very, very handy. Try This Right Now Type ‘scott.emp’ (or some other table you have), place your cursor on the text, and hit SHIFT+F4. You’ll see the EMP object open. Now click into a column name in the columns page. Drag it into your worksheet. It will paste that column name into your query. This is an alternative for those that don’t like our code insight feature or dragging columns off the connection tree (new for v3.2!) Got it? SQL Developer’s Floating Panels Ok, let’s talk about a similar feature. Did you know that any dockable panel from the View menu can also be ‘floated?’ One of my favorite features is the SQL History. Every query I run is recorded, and I can recall them later without having to remember what I ran and when. And I USUALLY use the keyboard shortcuts for this. Let your trouble float away…if only it were so easy as a right-click in the real world. But sometimes I still want to see my recall list without having to give up my screen real estate. So I just mouse-right click on the panel tab and select ‘Float.’ Then I move it over to my secondary display – see the poorly lit picture in the beginning of this post. And that’s it. Simple, I know. But I thought you should know about these two things!

    Read the article

  • Windows Azure Use Case: New Development

    - by BuckWoody
    This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Description: Computing platforms evolve over time. Originally computers were directed by hardware wiring - that, the “code” was the path of the wiring that directed an electrical signal from one component to another, or in some cases a physical switch controlled the path. From there software was developed, first in a very low machine language, then when compilers were created, computer languages could more closely mimic written statements. These language statements can be compiled into the lower-level machine language still used by computers today. Microprocessors replaced logic circuits, sometimes with fewer instructions (Reduced Instruction Set Computing, RISC) and sometimes with more instructions (Complex Instruction Set Computing, CISC). The reason this history is important is that along each technology advancement, computer code has adapted. Writing software for a RISC architecture is significantly different than developing for a CISC architecture. And moving to a Distributed Architecture like Windows Azure also has specific implementation details that our code must follow. But why make a change? As I’ve described, we need to make the change to our code to follow advances in technology. There’s no point in change for its own sake, but as a new paradigm offers benefits to our users, it’s important for us to leverage those benefits where it makes sense. That’s most often done in new development projects. It’s a far simpler task to take a new project and adapt it to Windows Azure than to try and retrofit older code designed in a previous computing environment. We can still use the same coding languages (.NET, Java, C++) to write code for Windows Azure, but we need to think about the architecture of that code on a new project so that it runs in the most efficient, cost-effective way in a Distributed Architecture. As we receive new requests from the organization for new projects, a distributed architecture paradigm belongs in the decision matrix for the platform target. Implementation: When you are designing new applications for Windows Azure (or any distributed architecture) there are many important details to consider. But at the risk of over-simplification, there are three main concepts to learn and architect within the new code: Stateless Programming - Stateless program is a prime concept within distributed architectures. Rather than each server owning the complete processing cycle, the information from an operation that needs to be retained (the “state”) should be persisted to another location c(like storage) common to all machines involved in the process.  An interesting learning process for Stateless Programming (although not unique to this language type) is to learn Functional Programming. Server-Side Processing - Along with developing using a Stateless Design, the closer you can locate the code processing to the data, the less expensive and faster the code will run. When you control the network layer, this is less important, since you can send vast amounts of data between the server and client, allowing the client to perform processing. In a distributed architecture, you don’t always own the network, so it’s performance is unpredictable. Also, you may not be able to control the platform the user is on (such as a smartphone, PC or tablet), so it’s imperative to deliver only results and graphical elements where possible.  Token-Based Authentication - Also called “Claims-Based Authorization”, this code practice means instead of allowing a user to log on once and then running code in that context, a more granular level of security is used. A “token” or “claim”, often represented as a Certificate, is sent along for a series or even one request. In other words, every call to the code is authenticated against the token, rather than allowing a user free reign within the code call. While this is more work initially, it can bring a greater level of security, and it is far more resilient to disconnections. Resources: See the references of “Nondistributed Deployment” and “Distributed Deployment” at the top of this article for more information with graphics:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx  Stack Overflow has a good thread on functional programming: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/844536/advantages-of-stateless-programming  Another good discussion on Stack Overflow on server-side processing is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3064018/client-side-or-server-side-processing Claims Based Authorization is described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335707.aspx

    Read the article

  • Today at Oracle OpenWorld 2012

    - by Scott McNeil
    We have another full day of great Oracle OpenWorld keynotes, sessions, demos and customer presentations in the Seen and Be Heard threater. Here's a quick run down of what's happening today with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c: Download the Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c OpenWorld schedule (PDF) Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (and Private Cloud) General Session Tues 2 Oct, 2012 Time Title Location 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM General Session: Using Oracle Enterprise Manager to Manage Your Own Private Cloud Moscone South - 103* 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM General Session: Breakthrough Efficiency in Private Cloud Infrastructure Moscone West - 3014 Conference Session Tues 2 Oct, 2012 Time Title Location 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM Oracle Exadata/Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c: Journey into Oracle Database Cloud Moscone West - 3018 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM Bulletproof Your Application Upgrades with Secure Data Masking and Subsetting Moscone West - 3020 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c: Architecture Deep Dive, Tips, and Techniques Moscone South - 303 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM RDBMS Forensics: Troubleshooting with Active Session History Moscone West - 3018 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM Building and Operationalizing Your Data Center Environment with Oracle Exalogic Moscone South - 309 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM Securely Building a National Electronic Health Record: Singapore Case Study Westin San Francisco - Concordia 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Managing Heterogeneous Environments with Oracle Enterprise Manager Moscone West - 3018 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Complete Oracle WebLogic Server Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Moscone South - 309 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Database Lifecycle Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Moscone West - 3020 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Best Practices, Key Features, Tips, Techniques for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Upgrade Moscone South - 307 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Enterprise Cloud with CSC’s Foundation Services for Oracle and Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Moscone South - 236 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Deep Dive 3-D on Oracle Exadata Management: From Discovery to Deployment to Diagnostics Moscone West - 3018 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Everything You Need to Know About Monitoring and Troubleshooting Oracle GoldenGate Moscone West - 3005 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c: The Nerve Center of Oracle Cloud Moscone West - 3020 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Advanced Management of Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Enterprise Manager Moscone West - 2016 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control Performance Pages: Falling in Love Again Moscone West - 3014 Hands-on Labs Tues 2 Oct, 2012 Time Title Location 10:15 AM - 12:45 PM Managing the Cloud with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Marriott Marquis - Salon 5/6 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Database Performance Tuning Hands-on Lab Marriott Marquis - Salon 5/6 Scene and Be Heard Theater Session Tues 2 Oct, 2012 Time Title Location 10:30 AM - 10:50 AM Start Small, Grow Big: Hands-On Oracle Private Cloud—A Step-by-Step Guide Moscone South Exhibition Hall - Booth 2407 12:30 PM - 12:50 PM Blue Medora’s Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in for VMware vSphere Monitoring Moscone South Exhibition Hall - Booth 2407 Demos Demo Location Application and Infrastructure Testing Moscone West - W-092 Automatic Application and SQL Tuning Moscone South, Left - S-042 Automatic Fault Diagnostics Moscone South, Left - S-036 Automatic Performance Diagnostics Moscone South, Left - S-033 Complete Care for Oracle Using My Oracle Support Moscone South, Left - S-031 Complete Cloud Lifecycle Management Moscone North, Upper Lobby - N-019 Complete Database Lifecycle Management Moscone South, Left - S-030 Comprehensive Infrastructure as a Service via Oracle Enterprise Manager Moscone South, Left - S-045 Data Masking and Data Subsetting Moscone South, Left - S-034 Database Testing with Oracle Real Application Testing Moscone South, Left - S-041 Identity Management Monitoring with Oracle Enterprise Manager Moscone South, Right - S-212 Mission-Critical, SPARC-Powered Infrastructure as a Service Moscone South, Center - S-157 Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft Management Moscone West - W-084 Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Overview Moscone South, Left - S-039 Oracle Enterprise Manager: Complete Data Center Management Moscone South, Left - S-040 Oracle Exadata Management Moscone South, Center - Oracle Exalogic Management Moscone South, Center - Oracle Fusion Applications Management Moscone West - W-018 Oracle Real User Experience Insight Moscone South, Right - S-226 Oracle WebLogic Server Management and Java Diagnostics Moscone South, Right - S-206 Platform as a Service Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Moscone North, Upper Lobby - N-020 SOA Management Moscone South, Right - S-225 Self-Service Application Testing on Private and Public Clouds Moscone West - W-110 Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival New this year is Oracle’s first annual Oracle OpenWorld Musical Festival, featuring some of today's breakthrough musicians from around the country and the world. It's five nights of back-to-back performances in the heart of San Francisco—free to registered attendees. See the lineup Not Heading to OpenWorld—Watch it Live! Stay Connected: Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Linkedin | Newsletter Download the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control12c Mobile app

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195  | Next Page >