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  • Testing loses its effectiveness if all programmers don't use them

    - by Jeff O
    Let's assume you are convinced that the extra time spent unit testing has merit and improves production. Does that still hold up when everyone working on the same code doesn't use them? This question makes me wonder if fixing tests that everyone doesn't use is a waste of time. If you correct a test so the new code will pass, you're assuming the new code is correct. The person updating the test better have a firm understanding of the reasoning behind the code change and decide if the test or the new code needs to be fixed. This much inconsistency in a team when it comes to testing is probably an indication of other problems as well. There is a certain amount of risk involved that someone else on the team will alter code that is covered by testing. Is this the point where testing becomes counter-productive?

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  • Do I have to worry about "error: superfluous RAID member"?

    - by 0xC0000022L
    When running update-grub on the newly installed Ubuntu 12.04 with an older software RAID (md), I get: error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). Generating grub.cfg ... error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-24-generic error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). error: superfluous RAID member (5 found). Found Debian GNU/Linux (5.0.9) on /dev/sdb1 Found Debian GNU/Linux (5.0.9) on /dev/sdc1 done I would be less worried if the message would say warning: ..., but since it says error: ... I'm wondering what the problem is. # cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md2 : active raid1 sdc1[1] sdb1[0] 48829440 blocks [2/2] [UU] md3 : active raid1 sdc2[1] sdb2[0] 263739008 blocks [2/2] [UU] md1 : active raid5 sdg1[3] sdf1[2] sde1[1] sdh1[0] sdi1[4] sdd1[5](S) 1250274304 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [5/5] [UUUUU] unused devices: <none> Do I have to worry or is this harmless? btw: disregard the mentioning of Debian 5.0.9, that was the previously installed system and is going to be overwritten. It's on /dev/md2 actually.

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  • Infragistics - Now Available! 2 New Packs and Silverlight CTPs

    Infragistics® glows silver this season as we continue to innovate for the Silverlight 3 platform and deliver stockings stuffed with high performance controls needed to quickly and easily create great user experiences in Silverlight; and two new ICON packs guaranteed to make your applications shine. First Silverlight Pivot Grid Now Available Perfect for working with multi-dimensional data, the xamWebPivotGrid™ presents decision makers with highly-interactive pivoting views of business intelligence. Our new high-performance Silverlight charting control, the xamWebDataChart™ enables blazing fast updates every few milliseconds to charts with millions of data points. Both of these controls are planned for the 2010 Volume 1 release of NetAdvantage for Silverlight Data Visualization. Gift to Silverlight Line of Business Applications You’ll be able to deliver superior user experiences in LOB applications with Silverlight RIA services support, a ZIP compression library, a new control persistence framework, and new Silverlight data grid features like unbound columns and template layouts, plus an Office 2007-style ribbon UI for Silverlight. Tis the Season to Add Some Shine The NetAdvantage ICONS Legal Pack adds a touch of legalese to any application user interface with its rich, legal system-themed graphic icons. The NetAdvantage ICONS Education Pack supplies familiar, academic icons that developers can easily add to software reaching students, educators, schools and universities. Sold in themes Packs, ICON packs that are already available are: Web & Commerce, Healthcare, Office Basics, Business & Finance and Software & Computing. Buy any two of the seven packs for $299 USD (MSRP); 3 packs for $399 USD (MSRP); or sold separately for $199 USD (MSRP) each. For more Product details Contact Infragistics:      +1 (800) 231-8588 In Europe (English Speakers):      +44 (0) 20 8387 1474 En France (en langue française):      +33 (0) 800 667 307 Für Deutschland (Deutscher Sprecher):       0800 368 6381 In India:     +91 (80) 6785 1111 span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • How to check if the tab page is dirty and prompt the user to save before navigating away using ajaxtoolkit tab control in ASP.NET

    Step 1: Put a hidden variable in Update panel <asp:HiddenField ID="hfIsDirty" runat="server" Value="0" /> Step 2: Put the following code in ajaxcontrol tool kit tabcontainer OnClientActiveTabChanged="ActiveTabChanged" Copy the following script in the aspx page. <script type="text/javascript">       //Trigger Server side post back for the Tab container       function ActiveTabChanged(sender, e) {           __doPostBack('<%= tcBaseline.ClientID %>', '');       }       //Sets the dirty flag if the page is dirty       function setDirty() {           var hf = document.getElementById("<%=hfIsDirty.ClientID%>");           if (hf != null)               hf.value = 1;       }       //Resets the dirty flag after save       function clearDirty() {           var hf = document.getElementById("<%=hfIsDirty.ClientID%>");           hf.value = 0;       }       function showMessage() { return "page is dirty" }       function setControlChange() {           if (typeof (event.srcElement) != 'undefined')           { event.srcElement.onchange = setDirty; }       }       function checkDirty() {           var tc = document.getElementById("<%=tcBaseline.ClientID%>");           var hf = document.getElementById("<%=hfIsDirty.ClientID%>");           if (hf.value == "1") {               var conf = confirm("Do you want o loose unsaved changes? Please Cancel to stay on page or OK to continue ");               if (conf) {                   clearDirty();                   return true;               }               else {                   var e = window.event;                   e.cancelBubble = true;                   if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();                   return false;               }           }           else               return true;       }       document.body.onclick = setControlChange;       document.body.onkeyup = setControlChange;       var onBeforeUnloadFired = false;       // Function to reset the above flag.       function resetOnBeforeUnloadFired() {           onBeforeUnloadFired = false;       }       function doBeforeUnload() {           var hf = document.getElementById("<%=hfIsDirty.ClientID%>");           // If this function has not been run before...           if (!onBeforeUnloadFired) {               // Prevent this function from being run twice in succession.               onBeforeUnloadFired = true;               // If the form is dirty...               if (hf.value == "1") {                   event.returnValue = "If you continue you will lose any changes that you have made to this record.";               }           }           window.setTimeout("resetOnBeforeUnloadFired()", 1000);       }       if (window.body) {           window.body.onbeforeunload = doBeforeUnload;       }       else           window.onbeforeunload = doBeforeUnload;   </script> Step 3: Here is how the tabcontrol should look like <asp:UpdatePanel ID="upTab" runat="server" UpdateMode="conditional">                     <ContentTemplate>                         <ajaxtoolkit:TabContainer ID="tcBaseline" runat="server" Height="400px" OnClientActiveTabChanged="ActiveTabChanged">                             <ajaxtoolkit:TabPanel ID="tpPersonalInformation" runat="server">                                 <HeaderTemplate>                                     <asp:Label ID="lblPITab" runat="server" Text="<%$ Resources:Resources, Baseline_Tab_PersonalInformation %>"                                         onclick="checkDirty();"></asp:Label>                                 </HeaderTemplate>                                 <ContentTemplate>                                     <asp:PlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolder1" runat="server"></asp:PlaceHolder> </ContentTemplate>                             </ajaxtoolkit:TabPanel> span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • The Basics of Project Management / Software Development

    - by Sam
    It suddenly struck me today that I have never developed any large application or worked with a team of programmers, and so am missing out a lot - both in terms of technical knowledge and the social-fun part of it. And I would like to rectify that - an idea is to start an open source group by training college students (for no charge) and developing some open source application with them. Please give me some basic advice on the whole process of how to (1) plan and (2) manage projects in a team. What new skill sets would you recommend? (I have read joel on software and 37 Signals, and got many insightful tips from them. But I'd like a little more technical knowledge ...) Background (freelancer, past 4+ years) - Computer engineer graphic / web designer online marketing moved on to programming in PHP, Perl, Python did Oracle DBA OCP training to understand DB's current self-assigned title - web application developer.

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  • SQL Sentry Truth-Telling and Disk Configuration

    - by AjarnMark
    Recently, SQL Sentry told me something about my SQL Server disk configurations that I just didn’t want to believe, but alas, it was true. Several days ago I posted my First Impressions of the SQL Sentry Power Suite.  Today’s post could fall into the category of, “Hey, as long as you have that fancy tool…”  Unfortunately, it also falls into the category of an overloaded worker taking someone else’s word for the truth, not verifying it with independent fact-checking, and then making decisions based on that.  Here’s my story… I’m not exactly an Accidental DBA (or Involuntary DBA as Paul Randal calls it).  I came to this company five years ago as a lead application developer with extensive experience in database design and development.  I worked my way into management, and along the way, took over the DBA responsibilities.  Fortunately, our systems run pretty smoothly most of the time, but I’m always looking for ways to make them better and to fit into my understanding of best practices.  When I took over as DBA, I inherited a SQL 2000 server with about 30 databases on it supporting our main systems, and a SQL 2005 server with multiple instances.  Both of these servers were configured with the Operating System and Application files on the C drive, data files on a different drive letter, and log files on a third drive letter.  Even before I took over as DBA, I verified that this was true with a previous server administrator, and that these represented actual separate disks.  He stated that they did, and I thought that all was well. Then one day, I’m poking around inside the SQL Sentry Performance Advisor, checking out features as I am evaluating whether to purchase the product, and I come across a Disk Configuration section.  The first thing I notice is that the drives do not have the proper partition offset, which was not at all surprising to me given the age of the installation and the relative newness of that topic.  But what threw me for a loop was that the graphic display appeared to be telling me that I did not in fact have three separate drives (or arrays) but rather had two, and that the log files were merely on a separate volume on the same physical array as the OS.  I figured that I must be reading it wrong so I scanned the Help file, but that just seemed to confirm my interpretation.  Then I thought, “there must be something wrong with the demo version of the software!  This can’t be right!”  But just to double-check, I went to our current server admin to talk it over with him, and sure enough, SQL Sentry was telling the truth! I was stunned!  I quickly went through the grieving process…denial…anger…reconciliation.  Here was something that I thought was such a basic truth that was turned upside down.  OK, granted, this wasn’t disastrous.  Our databases didn’t suddenly grind to a halt.  I didn’t get calls late at night inquiring about the sudden downturn in performance.  But it was a bit of a shock to the system, in a good way, to jolt me out of taking what I had believed as the truth for granted, and instead to Trust, but Verify! Yes, before someone else points it out, I know that there are”free” disk management tools built-in to Windows that would have told me the same thing if I had only looked at them; I did not have to buy a fancy tool to tell me that, but the fact is, until I was evaluating the tool, I had just gone with what I was told, and never bothered to check what was actually there. So, what things do you believe to be true but you actually never verified?

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  • The Changing Face of PASS

    - by Bill Graziano
    I’m starting my sixth year on the PASS Board.  I served two years as the Program Director, two years as the Vice-President of Marketing and I’m starting my second year as the Executive Vice-President of Finance.  There’s a pretty good chance that if PASS has done something you don’t like or is doing something you don’t like, that I’m involved in one way or another. Andy Leonard asked in a comment on his blog if the Board had ever reversed itself based on community input.  He asserted that it hadn’t.  I disagree.  I’m not going to try and list all the changes we make inside portfolios based on feedback from and meetings with the community.  I’m going to focus on major governance issues since I was elected to the Board. Management Company The first big change was our management company.  Our old management company had a standard approach to running a non-profit.  It worked well when PASS was launched.  Having a ready-made structure and process to run the organization enabled the organization to grow quickly.  As time went on we were limited in some of the things we wanted to do.  The more involved you were with PASS, the more you saw these limitations.  Key volunteers were regularly providing feedback that they wanted certain changes that were difficult for us to accomplish.  The Board at that time wanted changes that were difficult or impossible to accomplish under that structure. This was not a simple change.  Imagine a $2.5 million dollar company letting all its employees go on a Friday and starting with a new staff on Monday.  We also had a very narrow window to accomplish that so that we wouldn’t affect the Summit – our only source of revenue.  We spent the year after the change rebuilding processes and putting on the Summit in Denver.  That’s a concrete example of a huge change that PASS made to better serve its members.  And it was a change that many in the community were telling us we needed to make. Financials We heard regularly from our members that they wanted our financials posted.  Today on our web site you can find audited financials going back to 2004.  We publish our budget at the start of each year.  If you ask a question about the financials on the PASS site I do my best to answer it.  I’m also trying to do a better job answering financial questions posted in other locations.  (And yes, I know I owe a few of you some blog posts.) That’s another concrete example of a change that our members asked for that the Board agreed was a good decision. Minutes When I started on the Board the meeting minutes were very limited.  The minutes from a two day Board meeting might fit on one page.  I think we did the bare minimum we were legally required to do.  Today Board meeting minutes run from 5 to 12 pages and go into incredible detail on what we talk about.  There are certain topics that are NDA but where possible we try to list the topic we discussed but that the actual discussion was under NDA.  We also publish the agenda of Board meetings ahead of time. This is another specific example where input from the community influenced the decision.  It was certainly easier to have limited minutes but I think the extra effort helps our members understand what’s going on. Board Q&A At the 2009 Summit the Board held its first public Q&A with our members.  We’d always been available individually to answer questions.  There’s a benefit to getting us all in one room and asking the really hard questions to watch us squirm.  We learn what questions we don’t have good answers for.  We get to see how many people in the crowd look interested in the various questions and answers. I don’t recall the genesis of how this came about.  I’m fairly certain there was some community pressure though. Board Votes Until last November, the Board only reported the vote totals and not how individual Board members voted.  That was one of the topics at a great lunch I had with Tim Mitchell and Kendal van Dyke at the Summit.  That was also the topic of the first question asked at the Board Q&A by Kendal.  Kendal expressed his opposition to to anonymous votes clearly and passionately and without trying to paint anyone into a corner.  Less than 24 hours later the PASS Board voted to make individual votes public unless the topic was under NDA.  That’s another area where the Board decided to change based on feedback from our members. Summit Location While this isn’t actually a governance issue it is one of the more public decisions we make that has taken some public criticism.  There is a significant portion of our members that want the Summit near them.  There is a significant portion of our members that like the Summit in Seattle.  There is a significant portion of our members that think it should move around the country.  I was one that felt strongly that there were significant, tangible benefits to our attendees to being in Seattle every year.  I’m also one that has been swayed by some very compelling arguments that we need to have at least one outside Seattle and then revisit the decision.  I can’t tell you how the Board will vote but I know the opinion of our members weighs heavily on the decision. Elections And that brings us to the grand-daddy of all governance issues.  My thesis for this blog post is that the PASS Board has implemented policy changes in response to member feedback.  It isn’t to defend or criticize our election process.  It’s just to say that is has been under going continuous change since I’ve been on the Board.  I ran for the Board in the fall of 2005.  I don’t know much about what happened before then.  I was actively volunteering for PASS for four years prior to that as a chapter leader and on the program committee.  I don’t recall any complaints about elections but that doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.  The questions from the Nominating Committee (NomCom) were trivial and the selection process rudimentary (For example, “Tell us about your accomplishments”).  I don’t even remember who I ran against or how many other people ran.  I ran for the VP of Marketing in the fall of 2007.  I don’t recall any significant changes the Board made in the election process for that election.  I think a lot of the changes in 2007 came from us asking the management company to work on the election process.  I was expecting a similar set of puff ball questions from my previous election.  Boy, was I in for a shock.  The NomCom had found a much better set of questions and really made the interview portion difficult.  The questions were much more behavioral in nature.  I’d already written about my vision for PASS and my goals.  They wanted to know how I handled adversity, how I handled criticism, how I handled conflict, how I handled troublesome volunteers, how I motivated people and how I responded to motivation. And many, many other things. They grilled me for over an hour.  I’ve done a fair bit of technical sales in my time.  I feel I speak well under pressure addressing pointed questions.  This interview intentionally put me under pressure.  In addition to wanting to know about my interpersonal skills, my work experience, my volunteer experience and my supervisory experience they wanted to see how I’d do under pressure.  They wanted to see who would respond under pressure and who wouldn’t.  It was a bit of a shock. That was the first big change I remember in the election process.  I know there were other improvements around the process but none of them stick in my mind quite like the unexpected hour-long grilling. The next big change I remember was after the 2009 elections.  Andy Warren was unhappy with the election process and wanted to make some changes.  He worked with Hannes at HQ and they came up with a better set of processes.  I think Andy moved PASS in the right direction.  Nonetheless, after the 2010 election even more people were very publicly clamoring for changes to our election process.  In August of 2010 we had a choice to make.  There were numerous bloggers criticizing the Board and our upcoming election.  The easy change would be to announce that we were changing the process in a way that would satisfy our critics.  I believe that a knee-jerk response to criticism is seldom correct. Instead the Board spent August and September and October and November listening to the community.  I visited two SQLSaturdays and asked questions of everyone I could.  I attended chapter meetings and asked questions of as many people as they’d let me.  At Summit I made it a point to introduce myself to strangers and ask them about the election.  At every breakfast I’d sit down at a table full of strangers and ask about the election.  I’m happy to say that I left most tables arguing about the election.  Most days I managed to get 2 or 3 breakfasts in. I spent less time talking to people that had already written about the election.  They were already expressing their opinion.  I wanted to talk to people that hadn’t spoken up.  I wanted to know what the silent majority thought.  The Board all attended the Q&A session where our members expressed their concerns about a variety of issues including the election. The PASS Board also chose to create the Election Review Committee.  We wanted people from the community that had been involved with PASS to look at our election process with fresh eyes while listening to what the community had to say and give us some advice on how we could improve the process.  I’m a part of this as is Andy Warren.  None of the other members are on the Board.  I’ve sat in numerous calls and interviews with this group and attended an open meeting at the Summit.  We asked anyone that wanted to discuss the election to come speak with us.  The ERC held an open meeting at the Summit and invited anyone to attend.  There are forums on the ERC web site where we’ve invited people to participate.  The ERC has reached to key people involved in recent elections.  The years that I haven’t mentioned also saw minor improvements in the election process.  Off the top of my head I don’t recall what exact changes were made each year.  Specifically since the 2010 election we’ve gone out of our way to seek input from the community about the process.  I’m not sure what more we could have done to invite feedback from the community. I think to say that we haven’t “fixed” the election process isn’t a fair criticism at this time.  We haven’t rushed any changes through the process.  If you don’t see any changes in our election process in July or August then I think it’s fair to criticize us for ignoring the community or ask for an explanation for what we’ve done. In Summary Andy’s main point was that the PASS Board hasn’t changed in response to our members wishes.  I think I’ve shown that time and time again the PASS Board has changed in response to what our members want.  There are only two outstanding issues: Summit location and elections.  The 2013 Summit location hasn’t been decided yet.  Our work on the elections is also in progress.  And at every step in the election review we’ve gone out of our way to listen to the community and incorporate their feedback on the process. I also hope I’m not encouraging everyone that wants some change in the organization to organize a “blog rush” against the Board.  We take public suggestions very seriously but we also take the time to evaluate those suggestions and learn what the rest of our members think and make a measured decision.

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  • Microsoft releases Bing iPhone app

    As its officials have been hinting and promising for a while now, Microsoft announced it has developed a version of its Bing search app for the iPhone. The new Bing app is available on the iPhone app store as of tonight (December 15). Microsoft already offers Bing on a number of mobile phones, and has a five-year deal with Verizon to provide Bing on a number of phones available to Verizon Wireless customers. A mobile version of Bing already is available for Windows Mobile, Blackberry, BREW and Sidekick devices on Verizon. In other Bing news, Microsoft has finally hit the 10 percent market share mark with Bing, according to the November U.S. search share data from comScore. Bing’s growth is continuing to come at the expense of Yahoo, not Google. Update: To those wondering why Microsoft would deliver a version of Continue... span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • How do I mount this HDD?

    - by Casval Deikun
    I have a Windows HDD attached to an external docking bay on my Ubuntu System, but the HDD brings up an error message: Mounting exited with exit code 14:windows is hibernated, refused to mount. Failed to mount '/dev/sde2':Operation not permitted. The NTFS partition is hibernated. Please resume and shutdown windows properly or mount the volume read-only with the 'ro' mount option, or mount the volume read-write with the 'remove_hiberfile' mount option. For example type in command line: mount -t ntfs-3g-o remove_hiberfile/dev/sde2/media/FE46D60C46D5C615 I am at a loss for exactly how to remove the hiberfile, or even mount it as read-only or read-write. I tried directly copy and pasting that exact command into my terminal, but it said: mount:only root can do that I do not know what to do at this point. I do need to get the information off of this drive, but I do not have a computer to put it in. Does anyone know what I should do from here?

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  • SSMS Tools Pack 2.0 is out! With huge productivity booster features that will blow your mind and ease your job even more.

    - by Mladen Prajdic
    What better way to end the summer and start those productive autumn days ahead than with a fresh new version of the SSMS Tools Pack. This is a big release with two new features that are huge productivity boosters. First new feature are Tab Sessions. Every SQL tab you open is saved every N (default 2) minutes and is stored in a session. This works similar to internet browser sessions. Once you reopen SSMS you can restores your last session with a click of a button. You even get every window connected to the server it was previously connected to. The Tab History Window looks like this:   The second feature is Execution Plan Analyzer. It is designed to quickly help you find costliest operators by a number of properties. If that's not enough you can easily search through the whole execution plan for whatever you like. And to top it off you can auto analyze the execution plan. The analysis reports various problems the execution plan has and suggests a most common solution. The ultimate purpose of the Execution Plan Analyzer is to make your troubleshooting quicker and easier. It uses a simple user interface that is easy to navigate and is built directly into the execution plan itself. The execution plan analyzer looks like this:   Smaller fixes include a completely redesigned SQL History Search window and various other bug fixes. You can download the new version 2.0 at the Download page. For more detailed feature descriptions go to the main Features Page. Enjoy it!

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  • Bzr Eclipse Plugin not configurable

    - by Ubuntourist
    I'm relatively new to Eclipse. I'm currently running bzr 2.2.1 and Eclipse 3.5.2 (Galileo). Following the directions at: http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/BzrEclipse/Installation I get to the point where it tells me the plugin has been successfully installed, but when I attempt to configure it at Window -- Preferences -- Team -- Bazaar, there's no "Bazaar" there. Team shows CVS, File Contents, Ignored Resources and Models. (Nothing useful under CVS.) Nothing in ~/workspace/.metadata/.log about bzr either. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the plugin a few times, to no avail. Is there a more thorough way to uninstall that plugin without removing everything else that's been installed? Is there somewhere else I should be looking for the source of trouble? I didn't see anything promising on Launchpad, but may not have looked deep enough.

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  • Handy SQL Server Functions Series (HSSFS) Part 2.0 - Prelude to Parsing Patterns Properly

    - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)
    In Part 1 of the series I wrote about 2 lesser-known and somewhat undocumented functions. In this part, I'm going to cover some familiar string functions like Substring(), Parsename(), Patindex(), and Charindex() and delve into their strengths and weaknesses. I'm also splitting this part up into sub-parts to help focus on a particular technique and/or problem with the technique, hence the Part 2.0. Consider this a composite post, or com-post, if you will. (It may just turn out to be a pile of sh_t after all) I'll be using a contrived example, perhaps the most frustratingly useful, or usefully frustrating, function in SQL Server: @@VERSION. Contrived, because there are better ways to get the information (which I'll cover later); frustrating, because of the way Microsoft formatted the value; and useful because it does have 1 or 2 bits of information not found elsewhere. First let's take a look at the output of @@VERSION: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (Intel X86) Apr 2 2010 15:53:02 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 <X86> (Build 2600: Service Pack 3) There are 4 lines, with lines 2-4 indented with a tab character.  In case your browser (or this blog software) doesn't show it correctly, I gave each line a different color.  While this PRINTs nicely, if you SELECT @@VERSION in grid mode it all runs together because it ignores carriage return/line feed (CR/LF) characters.  Not fatal, but annoying. Note that @@VERSION's output will vary depending on edition and version of SQL Server, and also the OS it's installed on.  Despite the differences, the output is laid out the same way and the relevant pieces are in the same order. I'll be using the following view for Parts 2.1 onward, so we have a nice collection of @@VERSION information: create view version(SQLVersion,VersionString) AS ( select 2000, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - 8.00.2055 (Intel X86) Dec 16 2008 19:46:53 Copyright (c) 1988-2003 Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)' union all select 2005, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.4053.00 (Intel X86) May 26 2009 14:24:20 Copyright (c) 1988-2005 Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)' union all select 2008, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (Intel X86) Apr 2 2010 15:53:02 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 <X86> (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)' union all select 2005, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.3080.00 (Intel X86) Sep 6 2009 01:43:32 Copyright (c) 1988-2005 Microsoft Corporation Standard Edition on Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 2)' union all select 2008, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (X64) Apr 2 2010 15:48:46 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7600: ) (Hypervisor)' union all select 2008, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (X64) Apr 2 2010 15:48:46 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Express Edition with Advanced Services (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7600: ) (Hypervisor)' ) Feel free to add your own @@VERSION info if it's not already there. In Part 2.1 I'll focus on extracting the SQL Server version number (10.50.1600.1 in first example) and the Edition (Developer), but will have a solution that works with all versions.  Stay tuned!

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  • Correcting Grammar for Microsoft Products and Technology

    I see book authors, editors, bloggers, press, team members, and occasionally even a VP misspell our products, technologies, and features that I thought I would build and maintain a list of the correct capitalization and spelling of the most commonly misspelled Microsoft products and technologies. Sources: Internal site (brandtools) and the Microsoft Trademarks Web site. Last updated: April 27, 2010   Incorrect Correct .net or .Net .NET .Net framework 4.0, .NET framework 4.0 .NET Framework AdCenter, Ad Center, Adcenter adCenter Ado.net, ADO.Net ADO.NET Asp.net, ASP.Net ASP.NET Asp.Net ajax, Asp.NET Ajax ASP.NET AJAX Asp.Net Mvc ASP.NET MVC Biz Spark, Bizspark BizSpark Clear Type, Clear type, Cleartype ClearType Directaccess, Direct Access DirectAccess Direct Show, Directshow DirectShow Direct X DirectX Dream Spark, Dreamspark DreamSpark Home Group, Home group HomeGroup HotMail, Hot Mail Hotmail Info Path, Infopath InfoPath Intellisense, Intellisense IntelliSense Iron Ruby IronRuby Kin KIN Linq LINQ MSN Messenger Windows Live Messenger One Note, Onenote OneNote Open type, Opentype OpenType PlayTo, Play to Play To Power Point, Powerpoint PowerPoint Powershell, Power Shell PowerShell Sea Dragon, Seadragon SeaDragon Sharepoint, Share Point SharePoint Silver Light, SilverLight Silverlight Skydrive, Sky Drive SkyDrive Sql Server SQL Server Visual Basic .net (the .net was removed in the 2005 version) Visual Basic  Visual C# Express 2010 or Visual Basic Express 2010 or Visual C++ Express 2010 Visual version 2010 Express as in Visual C# 2010 Express, Visual Basic 2010 Express Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 or Visual Studio Professional 2010 Visual Studio 2010 version, as in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio 2010 Professional WebSite Spark, Website spark Website Spark Win 32 Win32 Windows Mobile (except when referring to previous versions like 5.0 or 6), Windows phone 7 Series Windows Phone Xaml XAML XBOX, xbox Xbox Xbox Live, XBOX Live Xbox LIVE   Caveats These guidelines dont apply to URLs (ex: www.asp.net) or to code namespaces, variables, and classes should follow the .NET Framework naming guidelines. This list only covers capitalization/spacing rules, it doesnt cover the correct usage of (tm) or symbols or the correct word usage rules. For those, refer to the trademark Web site. Also note that I have no idea why we are so inconsistent say on keeping features/brands two words versus one word or the order of product/version/year.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • How to Hibernate from .NET Apps and How to enable Hibernate in Windows XP

    The usage of Computer desktop or laptop is increased all around the world phenomenally. This link gives you the picture on how power consumption is for various devices we use daily. to reduce the power consumption Hibernate is one of the best way provided by default in Windows Vista or Windows 7. Hibernate feature enables you to close the machine without closing your applications, that means the applications will be restored as they were once we restart the machine. Hibernate feature is not enabled in Windows XP by default. I’ve seen many people that they run (do not switch off) the machines months and months as they do not want to close the windows or applications running in Windows XP. below are the steps to enable Hibernate in Windows XP. Right click on Desktop. Click on properties. Go to screen save tab. Click on power button Select Hibernate tab Check the checkbox “Enabled Hibernate” Apply the settings. Now when you try to shutdown, “Shut down windows” dialog shows “Hibernate” options. Now you can safely close the machine without closing your applications or windows as they will be restored once you on the machine. </SPAN? Some time you might want to provide this future programmatically for the applications you develop for windows. Generally you might want to provide this option in windows applications where process needs huge time. Download managers are the one of the best example. below is the code to do a Hibernate from the .NET code. using System.Windows.Forms;namespace CodeKicks.WinApp.Machine{ public static class MyMachineHelper { public static void DoHibernate() { //Application.SetSuspendState(PowerState.Suspend, true, false); Application.SetSuspendState(PowerState.Hibernate, true, false); } }} span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • iOS Guidelines for Free vs. Paid apps

    - by unforgiven3
    A few months back, I was doing some recreational reading at the iOS Dev Center, and I came across a small list of guidelines for free vs. paid apps. It included guidance along these lines: How not to promote a paid version within a free version Not displaying "placeholder" buttons in a free version that "work" in a paid version I can't remember much more than that, and I cannot find it anymore on the iOS Dev Center. It's possible I imagined it entirely, but I doubt it - does anyone have a link to this information, or have a set of guidelines for free vs. paid apps in the App Store?

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  • JavaOne 2011: Content review process and Tips for submissions

    - by arungupta
    The Technical Sessions, Birds of Feather, Panels, and Hands-on labs (basically all the content delivered at JavaOne) forms the backbone of the conference. At this year's JavaOne conference you'll have access to the rock star speakers, the ability to engage with luminaries in the hallways, and have beer (or 2) with community peers in designated areas. Even though the conference is Oct 2-6, 2011, and will be bigger and better than last year's conference, the Call for Paper submission and review/selection evaluation started much earlier.In previous years, I've participated in the review process and this year I was honored to serve as co-lead for the "Enterprise Service Architecture and Cloud" track with Ludovic Champenois. We had a stellar review team with an equal mix of Oracle and external community reviewers. The review process is very overwhelming with the reviewers going through multiple voting iterations on each submission in order to ensure that the selected content is the BEST of the submitted lot. Our ultimate goal was to ensure that the content best represented the track, and most importantly would draw interest and excitement from attendees. As always, the number and quality of submissions were just superb, making for a truly challenging (and rewarding) experience for the reviewers. As co-lead I tried to ensure that I applied a fair and balanced process in the evaluation of content in my track. . Here are some key steps followed by all track leads: Vote on sessions - Each reviewer is required to vote on the sessions on a scale of 1-5 - and also provide a justifying comment. Create buckets - Divide the submissions into different buckets to ensure a fair representation of different topics within a track. This ensures that if a particular bucket got higher votes then the track is not exclusively skewed towards it. Top 7 - The review committee provides a list of the top 7 talks that can be used in the promotional material by the JavaOne team. Generally these talks are easy to identify and a consensus is reached upon them fairly quickly. First cut - Each track is allocated a total number of sessions (including panels), BoFs, and Hands-on labs that can be approved. The track leads then start creating the first cut of the approvals using the casted votes coupled with their prior experience in the subject matter. In our case, Ludo and I have been attending/speaking at JavaOne (and other popular Java-focused conferences) for double digit years. The Grind - The first cut is then refined and refined and refined using multiple selection criteria such as sorting on the bucket, speaker quality, topic popularity, cumulative vote total, and individual vote scale. The sessions that don't make the cut are reviewed again as well to ensure if they need to replace one of the selected one as a potential alternate. I would like to thank the entire Java community for all the submissions and many thanks to the reviewers who spent countless hours reading each abstract, voting on them, and helping us refine the list. I think approximately 3-4 hours cumulative were spent on each submission to reach an evaluation, specifically the border line cases. We gave our recommendations to the JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson (Sharat Chander) and accept/decline notifications should show up in submitter inboxes in the next few weeks. Here are some points to keep in mind when submitting a session to JavaOne next time: JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list.Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects.Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details" :-) The review committee enjoyed reviewing the submissions and we certainly hope you'll have a great time attending them. Happy JavaOne!

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  • JavaOne 2011: Content review process and Tips for submissions

    - by arungupta
    The Technical Sessions, Birds of Feather, Panels, and Hands-on labs (basically all the content delivered at JavaOne) forms the backbone of the conference. At this year's JavaOne conference you'll have access to the rock star speakers, the ability to engage with luminaries in the hallways, and have beer (or 2) with community peers in designated areas. Even though the conference is Oct 2-6, 2011, and will be bigger and better than last year's conference, the Call for Paper submission and review/selection evaluation started much earlier.In previous years, I've participated in the review process and this year I was honored to serve as co-lead for the "Enterprise Service Architecture and Cloud" track with Ludovic Champenois. We had a stellar review team with an equal mix of Oracle and external community reviewers. The review process is very overwhelming with the reviewers going through multiple voting iterations on each submission in order to ensure that the selected content is the BEST of the submitted lot. Our ultimate goal was to ensure that the content best represented the track, and most importantly would draw interest and excitement from attendees. As always, the number and quality of submissions were just superb, making for a truly challenging (and rewarding) experience for the reviewers. As co-lead I tried to ensure that I applied a fair and balanced process in the evaluation of content in my track. . Here are some key steps followed by all track leads: Vote on sessions - Each reviewer is required to vote on the sessions on a scale of 1-5 - and also provide a justifying comment. Create buckets - Divide the submissions into different buckets to ensure a fair representation of different topics within a track. This ensures that if a particular bucket got higher votes then the track is not exclusively skewed towards it. Top 7 - The review committee provides a list of the top 7 talks that can be used in the promotional material by the JavaOne team. Generally these talks are easy to identify and a consensus is reached upon them fairly quickly. First cut - Each track is allocated a total number of sessions (including panels), BoFs, and Hands-on labs that can be approved. The track leads then start creating the first cut of the approvals using the casted votes coupled with their prior experience in the subject matter. In our case, Ludo and I have been attending/speaking at JavaOne (and other popular Java-focused conferences) for double digit years. The Grind - The first cut is then refined and refined and refined using multiple selection criteria such as sorting on the bucket, speaker quality, topic popularity, cumulative vote total, and individual vote scale. The sessions that don't make the cut are reviewed again as well to ensure if they need to replace one of the selected one as a potential alternate. I would like to thank the entire Java community for all the submissions and many thanks to the reviewers who spent countless hours reading each abstract, voting on them, and helping us refine the list. I think approximately 3-4 hours cumulative were spent on each submission to reach an evaluation, specifically the border line cases. We gave our recommendations to the JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson (Sharat Chander) and accept/decline notifications should show up in submitter inboxes in the next few weeks. Here are some points to keep in mind when submitting a session to JavaOne next time: JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list.Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects.Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details" :-) The review committee enjoyed reviewing the submissions and we certainly hope you'll have a great time attending them. Happy JavaOne!

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  • From DBA to Data Analyst

    - by Denise McInerney
    Cross posted from the PASS Blog There is a lot changing in the data professional’s world these days. More data is being produced and stored. More enterprises are trying to use that data to improve their products and services and understand their customers better. More data platforms and tools seem to be crowding the market. For a traditional DBA this can be a confusing and perhaps unsettling time. It’s also a time that offers great opportunity for career growth. I speak from personal experience. We sometimes refer to the “accidental DBA”, the person who finds herself suddenly responsible for managing the database because she has some other technical skills. While it was not accidental, six months ago I was unexpectedly offered a chance to transition out of my DBA role and become a data analyst. I have since come to view this offer as a gift, though at the time I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Throughout my DBA career I’ve gotten support from my PASS friends and colleagues and they were the first ones I turned to for counsel about this new situation. Everyone was encouraging and I received two pieces of valuable advice: first, leverage what I already know about data and second, work to understand the business’ needs. Bringing the power of data to bear to solve business problems is really the heart of the job. The challenge is figuring out how to do that. PASS had been the source of much of my technical training as a DBA, so I naturally started there to begin my Business Intelligence education. Once again the Virtual Chapter webinars, local chapter meetings and SQL Saturdays have been invaluable. I work in a large company where we are fortunate to have some very talented data scientists and analysts. These colleagues have been generous with their time and advice. I also took a statistics class through Coursera where I got a refresher in statistics and an introduction to the R programming language. And that’s not the end of the free resources available to someone wanting to acquire new skills. There are many knowledgeable Business Intelligence and Analytics professionals who teach through their blogs. Every day I can learn something new from one of these experts. Sometimes we plan our next career move and sometimes it just happens. Either way a database professional who follows industry developments and acquires new skills will be better prepared when change comes. Take the opportunity to learn something about the changing data landscape and attend a Business Intelligence, Business Analytics or Big Data Virtual Chapter meeting. And if you are moving into this new world of data consider attending the PASS Business Analytics Conference in April where you can meet and learn from those who are already on that road. It’s been said that “the only thing constant is change.” That’s never been more true for the data professional than it is today. But if you are someone who loves data and grasps its potential you are in the right place at the right time.

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  • Create USB installer from the command line?

    - by j-g-faustus
    I'm trying to create a bootable USB image to install Ubuntu on a new computer. I have done this before following the "create USB drive" instructions for Ubuntu desktop, but I don't have an Ubuntu desktop available. How can I do the same using only the command line? Things I've tried: Create bootable USB on Mac OS X following the ubuntu.com "create USB drive" instructions for Mac: Doesn't boot. usb-creator: According to apt-cache search usb-creator and Wikipedia usb-creator only exists as a graphical tool. "Create manually" instructions at help.ubuntu.com: None of the files and directories described (e.g. casper, filesystem.manifest, menu.lst) exist in the ISO image, and I don't know what has replaced them. unetbootin scripting: Requires X server (graphics support) to run, even when fully scripted. (The command sudo unetbootin lang=en method=diskimage isofile=~/ubuntu-10.10-server-amd64.iso installtype=USB targetdrive=/dev/sdg1 autoinstall=yes gives an error message unetbootin: cannot connect to X server.) Update Also tried GRUB fiddling: Merging information from pendrivelinux.com a related question on the Linux Stackexchange and a grub configuration example I was able to get halfway there - it booted from USB, displayed the grub menu and started the installation, but installation did not complete. For reference, this is the closest I got: sudo su # mount USB pen mount /dev/sd[X]1 /media/usb # install GRUB grub-install --force --no-floppy --root-directory=/media/usb /dev/sd[X] # copy ISO image to USB cp ~/ubuntu-10.10-server-amd64.iso /media/usb # mount ISO image, copy existing grub.cfg mount ~/ubuntu-10.10-server-amd64.iso /media/iso/ -o loop cp /media/iso/boot/grub/grub.cfg /media/usb/boot/grub/ I then edited /media/usb/boot/grub.cfg to add an .iso loopback, example grub entry: menuentry "Install Ubuntu Server" { set gfxpayload=keep loopback loop /ubuntu-10.10-server-amd64.iso linux (loop)/install/vmlinuz file=(loop)/preseed/ubuntu-server.seed iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-10.10-server-amd64.iso quiet -- initrd (loop)/install/initrd.gz } When booting from USB, this would give me the Grub boot menu and start the installer, but the installer gave up after a couple of screens complaining that it couldn't find the CD-ROM drive. (Naturally, as the box I'm installing on doesn't have an optical drive.) I resolved this particular issue by giving up and doing the "create USB drive" routine using the Ubuntu Live desktop CD (on a computer that does have an optical drive), then the USB install works. But I expect that there is some way to do this from the command line of an Ubuntu system without X server and without an optical drive, so the question still stands. Does anyone know how?

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  • My Reference for Amy Lewis

    - by Denise McInerney
    The 2013 election campaign for the PASS Board of Directors is underway. There are seven qualified candidates running this year. They all offer a wealth of experience volunteering for PASS and the SQL Server community. One of these candidates, Amy Lewis, asked me to write a reference for her to include on her candidate application. I have a lot of experience working with Amy and was pleased to provide this reference: I enthusiastically support Amy Lewis as a candidate for the PASS Board of Directors. I have known and worked with Amy in various PASS' volunteer capacities for years, starting when we were both leaders of SIGs (the precursors to the Virtual Chapters.) In that time I have seen Amy grow as a leader, taking on increasing responsibility and developing her leadership skills in the process. From the Program Committee to the BI Virtual Chapter to her local user group's SQL Saturday Amy has demonstrated a capacity to organize and lead volunteers. A successful leader delivers results, and does so in a way that encourages and empowers the people she is working with; Amy embodies this leadership style. As Director for Virtual Chapters I have most recently worked with Amy in her capacity of DW/BI VC Leader. This VC is one of our largest and most active, and Amy's leadership is a key contribution to that success. I was pleased to see that Amy was also thinking about succession and prepared other volunteers to take over the chapter leadership. Amy has shown an understanding of PASS' strategic goals and has focused her volunteer efforts to help us reach those goals. For the past couple of years we have been trying to expand PASS reach and relevance to SQL communities around the world. The VCs are a key vehicle for this expansion. Amy embraced this idea and organized the VC to engage volunteers in Europe & Australia and provide content that could reach SQL professionals in those regions. A second key strategy for PASS is expanding into the data analytics space. Again Amy rose to the occasion helping to shape the program for our first Business Analytics Conference and leveraging the BI VC to promote the event. By all measures I think Amy is prepared to serve on the Board and contribute in a positive way.

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  • cannot format a fat filesystem, getting error "Both FATs appear to be corrupt. Giving up."

    - by Nilesh
    i am trying format an FAT (or FAT32) file system on my ubuntu system, but i am not able to format the device, each time i am getting the error "Both FATs appear to be corrupt. Giving up." i have tried all options like sudo dosfsck -t -a -w /dev/sdc1 sudo dosfsck -w -r -l -a -v -t /dev/sdc1 but each time the same message comes, can any one guide me how to recover the filesystem, also i don't mind losing data of this drive as this is an external pen drive. Also, can u pl suggest of some method other then booting from a CD with software like GPARTED or something like that.

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  • Using SET NULL and SET DEFAULT with Foreign Key Constraints

    Cascading Updates and Deletes, introduced with SQL Server 2000, were such an important, crucial feature that it is hard to imagine providing referential integrity without them. One of the new features in SQL Server 2005 that hasn't gotten a lot of press from what I've read is the new options for the ON DELETE and ON UPDATE clauses: SET NULL and SET DEFAULT. Let's take a look!

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  • Mythbusters &ndash; SQL Edition

    - by AjarnMark
    I love the Mythbusters television show.  That has to be one of the coolest jobs in the world…it involves investigation, problem solving, science, trial & error, searching for the truth, robotics and remote controls, and in the end, you usually get to blow stuff up.  How great is that?!  I know I’ll never forget the episode where they blew up a cement truck.  That was truly awesome. Well, perhaps not quite made for TV, but pretty cool nonetheless, Paul Randal (@PaulRandal) has been doing some SQL Server myth busting here in the month of April with his DBA Myth a Day series.  It starts with In-Flight Transactions Continue After a Failover.  Check it out!

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  • SQL Saturday #220 - Atlanta - Pre-Con Scholarship Winners!

    - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)
    A few weeks ago, AtlantaMDF offered scholarships for each of our upcoming Pre-conference sessions at SQL Saturday #220. We would like to congratulate the winners! David Thomas SQL Server Security http://sqlsecurity.eventbrite.com/ Vince Bible Surfing the Multicore Wave: Processors, Parallelism, and Performance http://surfmulticore.eventbrite.com/ Mostafa Maged Languages of BI http://languagesofbi.eventbrite.com/ Daphne Adams Practical Self-Service BI with PowerPivot for Excel http://selfservicebi.eventbrite.com/ Tim Lawrence The DBA Skills Upgrade Toolkit http://dbatoolkit.eventbrite.com/ Thanks to everyone who applied! And once again we must thank Idera's generous sponsorship, and the time and effort made by Bobby Dimmick (w|t) and Brian Kelley (w|t) of Midlands PASS for judging all the applicants. Don't forget, there's still time to attend the Pre-Cons on May 17, 2013! Click on the EventBrite links for more details and to register!

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  • My First Weeks at Red Gate

    - by Jess Nickson
    Hi, my name’s Jess and early September 2012 I started working at Red Gate as a Software Engineer down in The Agency (the Publishing team). This was a bit of a shock, as I didn’t think this team would have any developers! I admit, I was a little worried when it was mentioned that my role was going to be different from normal dev. roles within the company. However, as luck would have it, I was placed within a team that was responsible for the development and maintenance of Simple-Talk and SQL Server Central (SSC). I felt rather unprepared for this role. I hadn’t used many of the technologies involved and of those that I had, I hadn’t looked at them for quite a while. I was, nevertheless, quite excited about this turn of events. As I had predicted, the role has been quite challenging so far. I expected that I would struggle to get my head round the large codebase already in place, having never used anything so much as a fraction of the size of this before. However, I was perhaps a bit naive when it came to how quickly things would move. I was required to start learning/remembering a number of different languages and technologies within time frames I would never have tried to set myself previously. Having said that, my first week was pretty easy. It was filled with meetings that were designed to get the new starters up to speed with the different departments, ideals and rules within the company. I also attended some lightning talks being presented by other employees, which were pretty useful. These occur once a fortnight and normally consist of around four speakers. In my spare time, we set up the Simple-Talk codebase on my computer and I started exploring it and worked on my first feature – redirecting requests for URLs that used incorrect casing! It was also during this time that I was given my first introduction to test-driven development (TDD) with Michael via a code kata. Although I had heard of the general ideas behind TDD, I had definitely never tried it before. Indeed, I hadn’t really done any automated testing of code before, either. The session was therefore very useful and gave me insights as to some of the coding practices used in my team. Although I now understand the importance of TDD, it still seems odd in my head and I’ve yet to master how to sensibly step up the functionality of the code a bit at a time. The second week was both easier and more difficult than the first. I was given a new project to work on, meaning I was no longer using the codebase already in place. My job was to take some designs, a WordPress theme, and some initial content and build a page that allowed users of the site to read provided resources and give feedback. This feedback could include their thoughts about the resource, the topics covered and the page design itself. Although it didn’t sound the most challenging of projects when compared to fixing bugs in our current codebase, it nevertheless provided a few sneaky problems that had me stumped. I really enjoyed working on this project as it allowed me to play around with HTML, CSS and JavaScript; all things that I like working with but rarely have a chance to use. I completed the aims for the project on time and was happy with the final outcome – though it still needs a good designer to take a look at it! I am now into my third week at Red Gate and I have temporarily been pulled off the website from week 2. I am again back to figuring out the Simple-Talk codebase. Monday provided me with the chance to learn a bunch of new things: system level testing, Selenium and Python. I was set the challenge of testing a bug fix dealing with the search bars in Simple-Talk. The exercise was pretty fun, although Mike did have to point me in the right direction when I started making the tests a bit too complex. The rest of the week looks set to be focussed on pair programming with Mike as we work together on a new feature. I look forward to the challenges that still face me and hope that I will be able to get up to speed quickly. *fingers crossed*

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