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• Write TSQL, win a Kindle.

  - by Fatherjack

  So recently Red Gate launched sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com and showed the world how to embed your own scripts harmoniously in a third party tool to get the details that you want about your SQL Server performance. The site has a way to submit your own metrics and take a copy of the ones that other people have submitted to build a library of code to keep track of key metrics of your servers performance. There have been several submissions already but they have now launched a competition to provide an incentive for you to get creative and show us what you can do with a bit of TSQL and the SQL Monitor framework*. What’s it worth? Well, if you are one of the 3 winners then you get to choose either a Kindle Fire or $199. How do you win? Simply write the T-SQL for a SQL Monitor custom metric and the relevant description and introduction for it and submit it via  sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com before 14th Sept 2012 and then sit back and wait while the judges review your code and your aims in writing the metric. Who are the judges and how will they judge the metrics? There are two judges for this competition, Steve Jones (Microsoft SQL Server MVP, co-founder of SQLServerCentral.com, author, blogger etc) and Jonathan Allen (um, yeah, Steve has done all the good stuff, I’m here by good fortune). We will be looking to rate the metrics on each of 3 criteria: how the metric can help with performance tuning SQL Server. how having the metric running enables DBA’s to meet best practice. how interesting /original the idea for the metric is. Our combined decision will be final etc etc **  What happens to my metric? Any metrics submitted to the competition will be automatically entered into the site library and become available for sharing once the competition is over. You’ll get full credit for metrics you submit regardless of the competition results. You can enter as many metrics as you like. How long does it take? Honestly? Once you have the T-SQL sorted then so long as you can type your name and your email address you are done : http://sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com/share-a-metric/ What can I monitor? If you really really want a Kindle or $199 (and let’s face it, who doesn’t? ) and are momentarily stuck for inspiration, take a look at these example custom metrics that have been written by Stuart Ainsworth, Fabiano Amorim, TJay Belt, Louis Davidson, Grant Fritchey, Brad McGehee and me  to start the library off. There are some great pieces of TSQL in those metrics gathering important stats about how SQL Server is performing.   * – framework may not be the best word here but I was under pressure and couldnt think of a better one. If you prefer try ‘engine’, or ‘application’? I don’t know, pick something that makes sense to you. ** – for the full (legal) version of the rules check the details on sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com or send us an email if you want any point clarified. Disclaimer – Jonathan is a Friend of Red Gate and as such, whenever they are discussed, will have a generally positive disposition towards Red Gate tools. Other tools are often available and you should always try others before you come back and buy the Red Gate ones. All code in this blog is provided “as is” and no guarantee, warranty or accuracy is applicable or inferred, run the code on a test server and be sure to understand it before you run it on a server that means a lot to you or your manager.

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• Open Source but not Free Software (or vice versa)

  - by TRiG

  The definition of "Free Software" from the Free Software Foundation: “Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission to do so. The definition of "Open Source Software" from the Open Source Initiative: Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: Free Redistribution The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. Source Code The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed. Derived Works The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. Integrity of The Author's Source Code The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. Distribution of License The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution. License Must Not Restrict Other Software The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software. License Must Be Technology-Neutral No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface. These definitions, although they derive from very different ideologies, are broadly compatible, and most Free Software is also Open Source Software and vice versa. I believe, however, that it is possible for this not to be the case: It is possible for software to be Open Source without being Free, or to be Free without being Open Source. Questions Is my belief correct? Is it possible for software to fall into one camp and not the other? Does any such software actually exist? Please give examples. Clarification I've already accepted an answer now, but I seem to have confused a lot of people, so perhaps a clarification is in order. I was not asking about the difference between copyleft (or "viral", though I don't like that term) and non-copyleft ("permissive") licenses. Nor was I asking about your personal idiosyncratic definitions of "Free" and "Open". I was asking about "Free Software as defined by the FSF" and "Open Source Software as defined by the OSI". Are the two always the same? Is it possible to be one without being the other? And the answer, it seems, is that it's impossible to be Free without being Open, but possible to be Open without being Free. Thank you everyone who actually answered the question.

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• Tuning Red Gate: #3 of Lots

  - by Grant Fritchey

  I'm drilling down into the metrics about SQL Server itself available to me in the Analysis tab of SQL Monitor to see what's up with our two problematic servers. In the previous post I'd noticed that rg-sql01 had quite a few CPU spikes. So one of the first things I want to check there is how much CPU is getting used by SQL Server itself. It's possible we're looking at some other process using up all the CPU Nope, It's SQL Server. I compared this to the rg-sql02 server: You can see that there is a more, consistently low set of CPU counters there. I clearly need to look at rg-sql01 and capture more specific data around the queries running on it to identify which ones are causing these CPU spikes. I always like to look at the Batch Requests/sec on a server, not because it's an indication of a problem, but because it gives you some idea of the load. Just how much is this server getting hit? Here are rg-sql01 and rg-sql02: Of the two, clearly rg-sql01 has a lot of activity. Remember though, that's all this is a measure of, activity. It doesn't suggest anything other than what it says, the number of requests coming in. But it's the kind of thing you want to know in order to understand how the system is used. Are you seeing a correlation between the number of requests and the CPU usage, or a reverse correlation, the number of requests drops as the CPU spikes? See, it's useful. Some of the details you can look at are Compilations/sec, Compilations/Batch and Recompilations/sec. These give you some idea of how the cache is getting used within the system. None of these showed anything interesting on either server. One metric that I like (even though I know it can be controversial) is the Page Life Expectancy. On the average server I expect see a series of mountains as the PLE climbs then drops due to a data load or something along those lines. That's not the case here: Those spikes back in January suggest that the servers weren't really being used much. The PLE on the rg-sql01 seems to be somewhat consistent growing to 3 hours or so then dropping, but the rg-sql02 PLE looks like it might be all over the map. Instead of continuing to look at this high level gathering data view, I'm going to drill down on rg-sql02 and see what it's done for the last week: And now we begin to see where we might have an issue. Memory on this system is getting flushed every 1/2 hour or so. I'm going to check another metric, scans: Whoa! I'm going back to the system real quick to look at some disk information again for rg-sql02. Here is the average disk queue length on the server: and the transfers Right, I think I have a guess as to what's up here. We're seeing memory get flushed constantly and we're seeing lots of scans. The disks are queuing, especially that F drive, and there are lots of requests that correspond to the scans and the memory flushes. In short, we've got queries that are scanning the data, a lot, so we either have bad queries or bad indexes. I'm going back to the server overview for rg-sql02 and check the Top 10 expensive queries. I'm modifying it to show me the last 3 days and the totals, so I'm not looking at some maintenance routine that ran 10 minutes ago and is skewing the results: OK. I need to look into these queries that are getting executed this much. They're generating a lot of reads, but which queries are generating the most reads: Ow, all still going against the same database. This is where I'm going to temporarily leave SQL Monitor. What I want to do is connect up to the server, validate that the Warehouse database is using the F:\ drive (which I'll put money down it is) and then start seeing what's up with these queries. Part 1 of the Series Part 2 of the Series

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• Tuning Red Gate: #4 of Some

  - by Grant Fritchey

  First time connecting to these servers directly (keys to the kingdom, bwa-ha-ha-ha. oh, excuse me), so I'm going to take a look at the server properties, just to see if there are any issues there. Max memory is set, cool, first possible silly mistake clear. In fact, these look to be nicely set up. Oh, I'd like to see the ANSI Standards set by default, but it's not a big deal. The default location for database data is the F:\ drive, where I saw all the activity last time. Cool, the people maintaining the servers in our company listen, parallelism threshold is set to 35 and optimize for ad hoc is enabled. No shocks, no surprises. The basic setup is appropriate. On to the problem database. Nothing wrong in the properties. The database is in SIMPLE recovery, but I think it's a reporting system, so no worries there. Again, I'd prefer to see the ANSI settings for connections, but that's the worst thing I can see. Time to look at the queries, tables, indexes and statistics because all the information I've collected over the last several days suggests that we're not looking at a systemic problem (except possibly not enough memory), but at the traditional tuning issues. I just want to note that, I started looking at the system, not the queries. So should you when tuning your environment. I know, from the data collected through SQL Monitor, what my top poor performing queries are, and the most frequently called, etc. I'm starting with the most frequently called. I'm going to get the execution plan for this thing out of the cache (although, with the cache dumping constantly, I might not get it). And it's not there. Called 1.3 million times over the last 3 days, but it's not in cache. Wow. OK. I'll see what's in cache for this database: SELECT  deqs.creation_time,         deqs.execution_count,         deqs.max_logical_reads,         deqs.max_elapsed_time,         deqs.total_logical_reads,         deqs.total_elapsed_time,         deqp.query_plan,         SUBSTRING(dest.text, (deqs.statement_start_offset / 2) + 1,                   (deqs.statement_end_offset - deqs.statement_start_offset) / 2                   + 1) AS QueryStatement FROM    sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqs         CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(deqs.sql_handle) AS dest         CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(deqs.plan_handle) AS deqp WHERE   dest.dbid = DB_ID('Warehouse') AND deqs.statement_end_offset > 0 AND deqs.statement_start_offset > 0 ORDER BY deqs.max_logical_reads DESC ; And looking at the most expensive operation, we have our first bad boy: Multiple table scans against very large sets of data and a sort operation. a sort operation? It's an insert. Oh, I see, the table is a heap, so it's doing an insert, then sorting the data and then inserting into the primary key. First question, why isn't this a clustered index? Let's look at some more of the queries. The next one is deceiving. Here's the query plan: You're thinking to yourself, what's the big deal? Well, what if I told you that this thing had 8036318 reads? I know, you're looking at skinny little pipes. Know why? Table variable. Estimated number of rows = 1. Actual number of rows. well, I'm betting several more than one considering it's read 8 MILLION pages off the disk in a single execution. We have a serious and real tuning candidate. Oh, and I missed this, it's loading the table variable from a user defined function. Let me check, let me check. YES! A multi-statement table valued user defined function. And another tuning opportunity. This one's a beauty, seriously. Did I also mention that they're doing a hash against all the columns in the physical table. I'm sure that won't lead to scans of a 500,000 row table, no, not at all. OK. I lied. Of course it is. At least it's on the top part of the Loop which means the scan is only executed once. I just did a cursory check on the next several poor performers. all calling the UDF. I think I found a big tuning opportunity. At this point, I'm typing up internal emails for the company. Someone just had their baby called ugly. In addition to a series of suggested changes that we need to implement, I'm also apologizing for being such an unkind monster as to question whether that third eye & those flippers belong on such an otherwise lovely child.

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• Why do you use not free software and what not free software do you use?

  - by 0101

  I prefer to use free software, because I believe its more universal(I can use it anywhere, I can tell people about it and they will have no problem with using it) - i like to say "learn once, use anywhere". I was wondering why people use not free software when free alternatives exists?(for example JIRA, Clover for code coverage, not free marge tools, etc.). P.S. I only use TotalCmd that is not free, but I was not able to find any good alternative(I even wrote one myself, but It was not as great). P.S. I dont want to start any flamewar, Im just curious what is your take on it.

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• 'Xojo' is the only application that I can't install

  - by Gichan

  I can't install xojo. When I click install in the software center it's not progressing. In the terminal it's stuck in : gichan02@gichan02-Latitude-D520:~$ sudo apt-get install xojo [sudo] password for gichan02: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed: xojo-bin The following NEW packages will be installed: xojo xojo-bin 0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 209 MB/209 MB of archives. After this operation, 596 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y 0% [Working] then after waiting for an hour for progress it says: Failed to fetch https://private-ppa.launchpad.net/commercial-ppa-uploaders/xojo/ubuntu/pool/main/x/xojo/xojo-bin_2013.41-0ubuntu1_i386.deb Could not resolve host: private-ppa.launchpad.net So I added apt repository for 'private-ppa': deb https://ging-giana:[email protected]/commercial-ppa-uploaders/xojo/ubuntu trusty main Then when I try 'apt-get update': GPG error: https://private-ppa.launchpad.net trusty Release: The following signatures were invalid: NODATA 2 Then I noticed something the Software Sources:Other software TAB: Added by software-center; credentials stored in /etc/apt/auth.conf https://private-ppa.launchpad.net/commercial-ppa-uploaders/xojo/ubuntu So i go to the '/etc/apt/auth.conf' ,but It cannot be opened and it is not a keyserver. So i uncheck: Added by software-center; credentials stored in /etc/apt/auth.conf https://private-ppa.launchpad.net/commercial-ppa-uploaders/xojo/ubuntu GPG error was gone. But then again I found myself at the beginning of the problem.STUCK at '0% [Working]'. 'Xojo' is the only application that I can't install.Any explanation why is it like that?

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• Egyetlen központi metaadat készlet: Oracle BI metaadatok, eloadás az OTN-en

  - by user645740

  Érdemes regisztrálni az Oracle Technology Networkre, ahol a részletesebb tartalom a technikai, muszaki információt is tartalmazza. A termékek technikai elemzése, letöltése, dokumentációja mellett felvett eloadásokat is megtekinthetünk, vezetett termék kipróbálási útmutatókat követve betekintést nyerhetünk a megoldásokba. Egy ilyen oktató anyagot ajánlok most az Oracle Business Intelligence megoldásról, A teljes BI eloadássorozat itt érheto el, kattintson ide: Oracle BI Foundation Suite Overview. Ezen belül is az egységes metaadat kezelésérol: kattintson ide: Lesson 2 - Examining the Metadata Layers. A 10 perces eloadásból megismeri: az Oracle BI EE architektúrát az Oracle BI metaadat készlet három rétegét, amiket egyben kezelünk megismeri az egyes objektumokat a repository kezelo admin eszközzel Az Oracle BI metaadat kezelés fo elonyei: Ezt a metaadat csomagot a BI Server automatikusan kezeli, vele összekapcsolja a fizikai adatforrásokat az üzleti/szak fogalmakkal. Számos különbözo adatforrás kezelheto szimultán, akár teljesen heterogén környezetben is az Oracle BI adatforrásaként. EGYETLEN helyen kell tehát karbantartani a metaadatokat a teljes BI infrastruktúrában, nincs szükség sok "világegyetem" párhuzamos kezelésére. Ezzel költséget és idot spórolnak a felhasználók, a könnyebb áttekintés és karbantartás mellett. Ha a fizikai adatforrások szerkezete változik, minimális változtatás szükséges ehhez az Oracle BI metaadatok egyetlen szintjén. Az Oracle BI megoldással tehát a teljes vállalat kiszolgálható, sok cég konszolidál Oracle BI-ra. Ez az eloadás 10 perc alatt megtekintheto: Lesson 2 - Examining the Metadata Layers A teljes BI eloadássorozat itt érheto el: Oracle BI Foundation Suite Overview

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• Hogyan konfiguráljunk egy Oracle BI cluster rendszert Sun hardver környezetben

  - by Fekete Zoltán

  A következo Deploying Oracle® Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition on Oracle's Sun Systems white paper részletesen leírja, hogyan állítsunk össze egy Oracle BI klasztert. Ezzel a klaszter környezettel elérheto: - nagy rendelkezésre állás, az egyik szerver meghibásodásakor is muködik tovább a rendszer - terhelésmegosztás a BI szerverek között, aktív-aktív szereppel A dokumentum kitér mind a hardver mind a szoftver komponensek architektúrájára és konfigurálására, még az installálásra is: - hardver komponensek kapcsolatára: a két Oracle Business intelligence Sun SPARC Enterprise szerver, a switch, a Sun Unified Storage,... - szoftver komponensek: Oracle BI EE, WebLogic Server, Oracle Directory Server, Oracle Database, Oracle VM Server for SPARC, stb. Deploying Oracle® Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition on Oracle's Sun Systems

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• Welcome to the BI & Analytics Pulse Blog

  - by jacqueline.coolidge(at)oracle.com

  In this blog, we'll be taking the pulse of the BI and Analytics market.   We get to meet people who involved in every aspect of the market --  customers that push the envelope and use BI in innovative ways, software developers, product managers, and sales teams in the field.  This sparks lots of ideas.  We'll share our experience and ideas and hope to generate discussion on topics that reflect what's going on in the market and where it will go next.  First topics will include, self-service BI and in memory analytics.   Let us know what you think is interesting. 

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• Best way to explain to someone that software developers need to install tools (mainly build integrat

  - by leeand00

  I work at a software company where most of the people are afraid to install new tools to increase productivity. They give me excuses like: I don't need to install something else. I can do this myself. etc...many other baseless arguments. In an ecommerece business, the end-users should not have to install anything, everything should be managed by them from the web, and the developers should be the ones installing things to increase productivity and teamwork i.e.: Version Control Systems Build Tools (ANT, NANT, Maven, continuous integration, CSS Frameworks) Integrated Development Environments Frameworks (Unit testing, etc) Etc... How else can I get my point across without sound crass?

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• VMWare tools not installing with an error

  - by JDS

  VMWare tools not installing on Ubuntu 12.04. I'm using Chef to manage the installation, but the Apt commands fail if run manually. I'm using the VMWare tool Debian repo. Example: $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vmware-tools-source.list deb http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/5.0u2/ubuntu precise main When trying to install, most packages seem to go ok, but one, "vmware-tools-foundation", does not. Example: $ apt-get -q -y install vmware-tools-esx-nox=8.6.10-1.precise Reading package lists... Building dependency tree... Reading state information... You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: vmware-tools-esx-kmods-3.2.0-23-generic : Depends: vmware-tools-foundation (>= 8.6.10) but it is not going to be installed vmware-tools-esx-nox : Depends: ...snip list of deps... E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). $ apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following extra packages will be installed: vmware-tools-foundation The following NEW packages will be installed: vmware-tools-foundation 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 118 not upgraded. 7 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/5,886 B of archives. After this operation, 86.0 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y (Reading database ... 103499 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking vmware-tools-foundation (from .../vmware-tools-foundation_8.6.10-1.precise_all.deb) ... VMware Tools cannot install because it appears that another installation of VMware Tools is already present. Please remove the previous installation and then attempt to install this copy of VMware Tools again. dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/vmware-tools-foundation_8.6.10-1.precise_all.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/vmware-tools-foundation_8.6.10-1.precise_all.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) The key seems to be this error: "VMware Tools cannot install because it appears that another installation of VMware Tools is already present. Please remove the previous installation and then attempt to install this copy of VMware Tools again." However, I've tryed removing and purging and can't seem to "trick" VMWare tools into thinking the packages are gone. Apt thinks they are gone. Is there some service/file/cache/lock left that VMWare tools sees that makes it think that VMWare tools are still installed? I've googled and googled but there is no answer to this question with my particular circumstances on the interwebs. VMWare's documentation of this error is minimal.

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• Reg Gets a Job at Red Gate (and what happens behind the scenes)

  - by red(at)work

  Mr Reg Gater works at one of Cambridge’s many high-tech companies. He doesn’t love his job, but he puts up with it because... well, it could be worse. Every day he drives to work around the Red Gate roundabout, wondering what his boss is going to blame him for today, and wondering if there could be a better job out there for him. By late morning he already feels like handing his notice in. He got the hacky look from his boss for being 5 minutes late, and then they ran out of tea. Again. He goes to the local sandwich shop for lunch, and picks up a Red Gate job menu and a Book of Red Gate while he’s waiting for his order. That night, he goes along to Cambridge Geek Nights and sees some very enthusiastic Red Gaters talking about the work they do; it sounds interesting and, of all things, fun. He takes a quick look at the job vacancies on the Red Gate website, and an hour later realises he’s still there – looking at videos, photos and people profiles. He especially likes the Red Gate’s Got Talent page, and is very impressed with Simon Johnson’s marathon time. He thinks that he’d quite like to work with such awesome people. It just so happens that Red Gate recently decided that they wanted to hire another hot shot team member. Behind the scenes, the wheels were set in motion: the recruitment team met with the hiring manager to understand exactly what they’re looking for, and to decide what interview tests to do, who will do the interviews, and to kick-start any interview training those people might need. Next up, a job description and job advert were written, and the job was put on the market. Reg applies, and his CV lands in the Recruitment team’s inbox and they open it up with eager anticipation that Reg could be the next awesome new starter. He looks good, and in a jiffy they’ve arranged an interview. Reg arrives for his interview, and is greeted by a smiley receptionist. She offers him a selection of drinks and he feels instantly relaxed. A couple of interviews and an assessment later, he gets a job offer. We make his day and he makes ours by accepting, and becoming one of the 60 new starters so far this year. Behind the scenes, things start moving all over again. The HR team arranges for a “Welcome” goodie box to be whisked out to him, prepares his contract, sends an email to Information Services (Or IS for short - we’ll come back to them), keeps in touch with Reg to make sure he knows what to expect on his first day, and of course asks him to fill in the all-important wiki questionnaire so his new colleagues can start to get to know him before he even joins. Meanwhile, the IS team see an email in SupportWorks from HR. They see that Reg will be starting in the sales team in a few days’ time, and they know exactly what to do. They pull out a new machine, and within minutes have used their automated deployment software to install every piece of software that a new recruit could ever need. They also check with Reg’s new manager to see if he has any special requirements that they could help with. Reg starts and is amazed to find a fully configured machine sitting on his desk, complete with stationery and all the other tools he’ll need to do his job. He feels even more cared for after he gets a workstation assessment, and realises he’d be comfier with an ergonomic keyboard and a footstool. They arrive minutes later, just like that. His manager starts him off on his induction and sales training. Along with job-specific training, he’ll also have a buddy to help him find his feet, and loads of pre-arranged demos and introductions. Reg settles in nicely, and is great at his job. He enjoys the canteen, and regularly eats one of the 40,000 meals provided each year. He gets used to the selection of teas that are available, develops a taste for champagne launch parties, and has his fair share of the 25,000 cups of coffee downed at Red Gate towers each year. He goes along to some Feel Good Fund events, and donates a little something to charity in exchange for a turn on the chocolate fountain. He’s looking a little scruffy, so he decides to get his hair cut in between meetings, just in time for the Red Gate birthday company photo. Reg starts a new project: identifying existing customers to up-sell to new bundles. He talks with the web team to generate lists of qualifying customers who haven’t recently been sent marketing emails, and sends emails out, using a new in-house developed tool to schedule follow-up calls in CRM for the same group. The customer responds, saying they’d like to upgrade but are having a licensing problem – Reg sends the issue to Support, and it gets routed to the web team. The team identifies a workaround, and the bug gets scheduled into the next maintenance release in a fortnight’s time (hey; they got lucky). With all the new stuff Reg is working on, he realises that he’d be way more efficient if he had a third monitor. He speaks to IS and they get him one - no argument. He also needs a test machine and then some extra memory. Done. He then thinks he needs an iPad, and goes to ask for one. He gets told to stop pushing his luck. Some time later, Reg’s wife has a baby, so Reg gets 2 weeks of paid paternity leave and a bunch of flowers sent to his house. He signs up to the childcare scheme so that he doesn’t have to pay National Insurance on the first £243 of his childcare. The accounts team makes it all happen seamlessly, as they did with his Give As You Earn payments, which come out of his wages and go straight to his favorite charity. Reg’s sales career is going well. He’s grateful for the help that he gets from the product support team. How do they answer all those 900-ish support calls so effortlessly each month? He’s impressed with the patches that are sent out to customers who find “interesting behavior” in their tools, and to the customers who just must have that new feature. A little later in his career at Red Gate, Reg decides that he’d like to learn about management. He goes on some management training specially customised for Red Gate, joins the Management Book Club, and gets together with other new managers to brainstorm how to get the most out of one to one meetings with his team. Reg decides to go for a game of Foosball to celebrate his good fortune with his team, and has to wait for Finance to finish. While he’s waiting, he reflects on the wonderful time he’s had at Red Gate. He can’t put his finger on what it is exactly, but he knows he’s on to a good thing. All of the stuff that happened to Reg didn’t just happen magically. We’ve got teams of people working relentlessly behind the scenes to make sure that everyone here is comfortable, safe, well fed and caffeinated to the max.

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• Apps missing in Software Centre

  - by Hahn Do

  I'm using Elementary OS Luna beta 1, based on Ubuntu 12.04 Precise. I used to used Quantal, as I remember there were roughly 68000 apps. Massive commercial apps, and the banner on top shows new hot apps all the time. Now I switch to Elementary because Compiz sucks with Nvidia. However, Software Centre now only has 41000 apps. No commercial apps, no 3rd party apps. I'm pretty sure I have all the sources enabled: My sources.list: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1396213/

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• BI Applications 7.9.6.3 and EBS 12.1.3 Vision: Integrated Demo Environments

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  If you need a combined BI-Applications + eBusiness Suite Applications demonstration environment, or for proof of concept work for your customers, then these versions of images on Oracle Virtual Box are now available for partners to download and use.  To get access to these images, Partners must be OPN members, specialised in OBI or BI-Apps.   This is an integrated Demo/Test Drive/POC/Self Enablement environment including two separate images (in English) representing the entire Oracle Stack – Applications, Middleware, Database, Operating System and Virtual Machine. Minimum Hardware requirements for each image to run separately 4GB RAM Minimum Hardware requirements for both images to run concurrently 8GB RAM Dual CPU 64 bit OS   BI Applications 7.9.6.3 Linux based and running on Oracle Virtual Box and compatible with OVM Image Content: BI Application Analytics demo data extracted from EBS 12.1.3 Vision for Financials and HR using EBS 12.1.3 Vision (image supplied) Built Integration to EBS 12.1.3 Vision image (provided). Fully functional BI Applications 7.9.6.3 software install and configuration Image can be connected to load any data from any other compatible source system. BI Apps Demo data is based on OOTB EBS Vision 12.1.3 Configured to run BI Apps data load for all other modules of EBS 12.1.3 Vision. Includes OBIEE Sample demonstration content Documented scripts for running presentations, demonstrations and Test Drives Image Size: 34GB zip, 84GB unzip.  Min Hardware 4GB RAM         EBS Vision 12.1.3 Linux based and running on Oracle Virtual Box and compatible with OVM Image Content: eBusiness Suite (EBS) Applications Vision 12.1.3 Standard Vision instance with all given setups, configurations and data Source system for BI Apps 7.9.6.3 Image Size: 76GB zip, 300GB unzip.  Min Hardware 4GB RAM Distribution: The Virtual Box images are posted on an external FTP server @ BI Applications 7.9.6.3 EBS12.1.3   To download, Partners need to request the current password to access the images.  To request the current ftp.oracle.com password and the password required to unzip the images, please email Marek Winiarski   Support Contact =  Marek Winiarski: Oracle Partner Solution Consultant

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• Automated testing tool development challenges (for embedded software)

  - by Karthi prime

  My boss want to come up with the proposal for the following tool: An IDE: Able to build, compile, debug, via JTAG programming for the micro-controller. A Test Suite, reads the code in the IDE, auto generates the test cases, and it gives the in-target unit testing results(which is done by controlling code execution in the micro-controller via IDE). A no-overhead code coverage tool which interacts with the test suite and IDE. My work is to obtain the high level architecture of this tool, so as to proceed further. My current knowledge: There are tool-chains available from the chip manufacturer for the micro-controllers which can be utilized along with an open-source IDE like Eclipse, and along with an open-source burner, a complete IDE for a micro-controller can be done. Test cases can be auto-generated by reading the source file through the process of parsing, scripting, based on keywords. Test suite must be able to command the IDE to control, through breakpoints, and read the register contents from the microcontroller - This enables the in-target unit testing. An no-overhead code coverage should be done by no-overhead code instrumentation so as to execute those in the resource constraint environment of the micro-controller. I have the following questions: Any advice on the validity of my understanding? What are the challenges I will have during the development? What are the helpful open-source tools regarding this? What is the development time for this software? Thanks

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• I'm Not Bi-Polar, I'm Bi-Winning

  - by David Dorf

  On March 1st, Charlie Sheen joined Twitter and was able to amass 1M followers in 25 hours and 17 minutes, setting an official world record.  So why does it take your brand so long to collect followers?  Easy: you're brand isn't a train wreck.Wouldn't it be great if your customers we chatting about your products as much as they're talking about Charlie #winning?  There are a couple things retailers can do.  First, you can offer check-ins to your customers, which can occasionally get a "ooh, what are you buying there?" in the social network. Another methods is to allow customer to "like" particular products on your Web site.  Companies like Wet Seal excel at that.We've been experimenting with automatic posting from the POS, assuming a customer has opted-in.  When you buy something in a store, the POS can automatically post "Dave just bought something at Wet Seal" to Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare simultaneously.  We stopped short of mentioning the specific product so we don't pull a Beacon.  The idea is the same: get the conversation started.  Give customers a virtual water-cooler where they can discuss products and influence buying decisions.The guys over at ShopSocially have done something very similar.  On the Facebook page for Cafe Press, customers can claim purchases, effectively bragging on their walls.  Each posting goes through the Facebook newsfeed and gets friends interested.  They are seeing over 1,000 purchases being shared daily, and that's generating over 300,000 brand impressions.Sounds like a winning idea.

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• Tracking downloads of your software + software CDN?

  - by jason l baptiste

  I'm primarily a web app developer/entrepreneur, so there's a lot I don't know about the desktop software distribution process. I've been thinking about making a Mac OS X app for fun, that I would distribute for free or a really small donation, but started thinking about distribution+download analytics: a) How do you host your software? Just on your web server/amazon s3 as the CDN? b) How do you track download analytics? On the flip side, I've thought about developing a simple service that does just this: Offers CDN hosting for software downloads, analytics by version, lets users share the app upon download, and makes the whole process a lot easier for ISVs. Curious to get feedback. Thanks! -jlb

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• Leveraging ERP Investments with EPM and BI Solutions

  - by john.orourke(at)oracle.com

  Now that many organizations have implemented ERP systems to automate and integrate their operational processes, IT investments are beginning to shift to the management systems i.e. EPM and BI tools and applications that integrate data from multiple transactional systems.  These solutions automate and integrate the management processes and enable organizations to achieve "management excellence" becoming smarter, more agile and more aligned than their competitors.  In fact the results of a recent IDC survey indicate that "Organizations that have implemented performance management more broadly are nearly four times more likely to be among the most competitive organizations in their industry."  One example of an organization that is leveraging their ERP investments with Oracle EPM and BI solutions is General Dynamics.  The Business Intelligence Collaborative (BIC) group within General Dynamics' IT organization assists various business units with the implementation, application support, and application hosting for their Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management Applications.  Attend the Oracle Virtual Trade Show "Spotlight on Customer Success" on February 3rd to hear the details of how General Dynamics is using Oracle Essbase, Hyperion Planning, and Oracle BI to improve their planning, reporting and analysis processes and leverage their investments in Oracle E-Business Suite and other operational systems.   During the event, you can also hear about the latest developments and plans for Oracle Applications products, as well as what's coming with Oracle Fusion Applications. Here's a link to the Virtual Trade Show event overview and registration page.  The event runs from 8AM - 1PM PST/11AM - 4PM EST, and the EPM session is 10:30 - 11AM PST/1:30 - 2PM EST.    http://event.on24.com/event/26/79/15/rt/opFb.html?partnerref=internal I hope you'll join us on February 3rd!  

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• java.lang.IllegalAccessException during Ant jwsc webservice build

  - by KevB

  Hi. I have a large application, part of which relies on a set of 3 webservices. I'm currently in the process of writing an Ant build script to build and package the application into an EAR file. When building the web sub-project for this application I use the <jwsc> task in Ant to compile the webservices. This causes an IllegalAccessException, as outlined in the stack trace below: [jwsc] warning: 'includeantruntime' was not set, defaulting to build.sysclasspath=last; set to false for repeatable builds [jwsc] JWS: processing module weboutput [jwsc] Parsing source files [jwsc] Parsing source files [jwsc] 3 JWS files being processed for module weboutput [jwsc] JWS: C:\dev\ir\irWeb\src\webservices\DailyRun.java Validated. [jwsc] JWS: C:\dev\ir\irWeb\src\webservices\PendingRegistrationsSweep.java Validated. [jwsc] JWS: C:\dev\ir\irWeb\src\webservices\RegistrationsGoLive.java Validated. [jwsc] Compiling 6 source files to C:\DOCUME~1\KEVIN~1.BRE\LOCALS~1\Temp\_5l950r [jwsc] An exception has occurred in the compiler (1.6.0_23). Please file a bug at the Java Developer Connection (http://java.sun.com/webapps/bugreport) after checking the Bug Parade for duplicates. Include your program and the following diagnostic in your report. Thank you. [jwsc] java.lang.IllegalAccessError: tried to access class com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader$AnnotationDefaultCompleter from class com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.attachAnnotationDefault(ClassReader.java:1128) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.readMemberAttr(ClassReader.java:906) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.readMemberAttrs(ClassReader.java:1027) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.readMethod(ClassReader.java:1490) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.readClass(ClassReader.java:1586) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.readClassFile(ClassReader.java:1658) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.fillIn(ClassReader.java:1845) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.complete(ClassReader.java:1777) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.code.Symbol.complete(Symbol.java:386) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.code.Symbol$ClassSymbol.complete(Symbol.java:763) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.loadClass(ClassReader.java:1951) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Resolve.loadClass(Resolve.java:842) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Resolve.findIdentInPackage(Resolve.java:1011) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.selectSym(Attr.java:1921) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.visitSelect(Attr.java:1835) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.tree.JCTree$JCFieldAccess.accept(JCTree.java:1522) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribTree(Attr.java:360) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribType(Attr.java:390) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.MemberEnter.attribImportType(MemberEnter.java:681) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.MemberEnter.visitImport(MemberEnter.java:545) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.tree.JCTree$JCImport.accept(JCTree.java:495) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.MemberEnter.memberEnter(MemberEnter.java:387) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.MemberEnter.memberEnter(MemberEnter.java:399) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.MemberEnter.visitTopLevel(MemberEnter.java:512) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.tree.JCTree$JCCompilationUnit.accept(JCTree.java:446) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.MemberEnter.memberEnter(MemberEnter.java:387) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.MemberEnter.complete(MemberEnter.java:819) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.code.Symbol.complete(Symbol.java:386) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.code.Symbol$ClassSymbol.complete(Symbol.java:763) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Enter.complete(Enter.java:464) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Enter.main(Enter.java:442) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.main.JavaCompiler.enterTrees(JavaCompiler.java:819) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.main.JavaCompiler.compile(JavaCompiler.java:727) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:353) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:279) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:270) [jwsc] at com.sun.tools.javac.Main.compile(Main.java:69) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.compilers.Javac13.execute(Javac13.java:56) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Javac.compile(Javac.java:1097) [jwsc] at weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.DelegatingJavacTask$ExposingJavac.compile(DelegatingJavacTask.java:343) [jwsc] at weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.DelegatingJavacTask.compile(DelegatingJavacTask.java:286) [jwsc] at weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.JwscTask.javac(JwscTask.java:335) [jwsc] at weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.JwsModule.compile(JwsModule.java:390) [jwsc] at weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.JwsModule.build(JwsModule.java:262) [jwsc] at weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.JwscTask.execute(JwscTask.java:227) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.execute(Target.java:390) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.performTasks(Target.java:411) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeSortedTargets(Project.java:1397) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.helper.SingleCheckExecutor.executeTargets(SingleCheckExecutor.java:38) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTargets(Project.java:1249) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Ant.execute(Ant.java:442) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.CallTarget.execute(CallTarget.java:105) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.execute(Target.java:390) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.performTasks(Target.java:411) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeSortedTargets(Project.java:1397) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTarget(Project.java:1366) [jwsc] at com.bea.workshop.cmdline.antlib.AntExTask.execute(AntExTask.java:406) [jwsc] at com.bea.workshop.cmdline.antlib.AntCallExTask.execute(AntCallExTask.java:118) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.execute(Target.java:390) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.performTasks(Target.java:411) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeSortedTargets(Project.java:1397) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTarget(Project.java:1366) [jwsc] at com.bea.workshop.cmdline.antlib.AntExTask.execute(AntExTask.java:406) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Sequential.execute(Sequential.java:68) [jwsc] at net.sf.antcontrib.logic.IfTask.execute(IfTask.java:217) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor44.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.TaskAdapter.execute(TaskAdapter.java:154) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Sequential.execute(Sequential.java:68) [jwsc] at net.sf.antcontrib.logic.IfTask.execute(IfTask.java:197) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor44.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.TaskAdapter.execute(TaskAdapter.java:154) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Sequential.execute(Sequential.java:68) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.MacroInstance.execute(MacroInstance.java:398) [jwsc] at net.sf.antcontrib.logic.ForTask.doSequentialIteration(ForTask.java:259) [jwsc] at net.sf.antcontrib.logic.ForTask.doToken(ForTask.java:268) [jwsc] at net.sf.antcontrib.logic.ForTask.doTheTasks(ForTask.java:299) [jwsc] at net.sf.antcontrib.logic.ForTask.execute(ForTask.java:244) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Sequential.execute(Sequential.java:68) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.MacroInstance.execute(MacroInstance.java:398) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.execute(Target.java:390) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.performTasks(Target.java:411) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeSortedTargets(Project.java:1397) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.helper.SingleCheckExecutor.executeTargets(SingleCheckExecutor.java:38) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTargets(Project.java:1249) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Ant.execute(Ant.java:442) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.CallTarget.execute(CallTarget.java:105) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source) [jwsc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [jwsc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.execute(Target.java:390) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.performTasks(Target.java:411) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeSortedTargets(Project.java:1397) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTarget(Project.java:1366) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.helper.DefaultExecutor.executeTargets(DefaultExecutor.java:41) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTargets(Project.java:1249) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Main.runBuild(Main.java:801) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.Main.startAnt(Main.java:218) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.launch.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:280) [jwsc] at org.apache.tools.ant.launch.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:109) [AntUtil.deleteDir] Deleting directory C:\DOCUME~1\KEVIN~1.BRE\LOCALS~1\Temp_5l950r The Ant target that uses the <jwsc> task is this: <target name="webservice.build" depends="init,generated.root.init"> <path id="jwsc.srcpath"> <path path="${java.sourcepath}" /> <pathelement path="build/assembly/.src" /> </path> <taskdef name="jwsc" classname="weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.JwscTask" > <classpath> <path refid="weblogic.jar.classpath" /> </classpath> </taskdef> <property name="jwsc.module.root" value="${project.dir}/build/weboutput"/> <property name="jwsc.contextpath" value="irWeb"/> <property name="jwsc.srcpath.prop" refid="jwsc.srcpath"/> <path id="jwsc.classpath"> <path refid="weblogic.jar.classpath" /> <path refid="java.classpath" /> <pathelement path="${java.outpath}" /> </path> <jwsc destdir="${project.dir}/build" classpathref="jwsc.classpath"> <module name="weboutput" explode="true" contextPath="${jwsc.contextpath}" > <jwsFileSet srcdir="${webservices.dir}" type="JAXRPC"> <include name="**/*.java"/> </jwsFileSet> <descriptor file="${jwsc.module.root}/WEB-INF/web.xml" /> <descriptor file="${jwsc.module.root}/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml" /> </module> </jwsc> </target> I have no idea what could be causing the compiler to throw this error at build time, and a day of google searching has turned up other instances of this error caused by different triggers, and solutions for those propblems didn't work for me. I also found a single report on the Oracle forums that seemed to be a carbon copy of this issue, but there were no replies. The application is written in Weblogic Workshop 10, runs on Weblogic Server 10.3, and uses Beehive / NetUI. Not sure if that would make a difference or not though. The build scripts were automatically generated by Weblogic Workshop, with some tweaks and fixes made to other aspects of the files by myself to fix other compatability issues. I am using Java 1.6.0_23 from Sun, and Ant 1.8.1 Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

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• What is Software Escrow? Is Software Escrow something you want?

  - by Daniel

  What is Software Escrow? Is Software Escrow something you want?

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• Week 24: Karate Kid Chops, The A-Team Runs, and the OPN Team Delivers

  - by sandra.haan

  The 80's called and they want their movies back. With the summer line-up of movies reminding us to wax on and wax off one can start to wonder if there is anything new to look forward to this summer. The OPN Team is happy to report that - yes - there is. As Hannibal would say "I love it when a plan comes together"! And a plan we have; for the past 2 months we've been working to pull together the FY11 Oracle PartnerNetwork Kickoff. Listen in as Judson tells you more. While we can't offer you Bradley Cooper or Jackie Chan we can promise you an exciting line-up of guests including Safra Catz and Charles Phillips. With no lines to wait in or the annoyingly tall guy sitting in front of you this might just be the best thing you see all summer. Register now & Happy New Year, The OPN Communications Team

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• The Red Gate and .NET Reflector Debacle

  - by Rick Strahl

  About a month ago Red Gate – the company who owns the NET Reflector tool most .NET devs use at one point or another – decided to change their business model for Reflector and take the product from free to a fully paid for license model. As a bit of history: .NET Reflector was originally created by Lutz Roeder as a free community tool to inspect .NET assemblies. Using Reflector you can examine the types in an assembly, drill into type signatures and quickly disassemble code to see how a particular method works.  In case you’ve been living under a rock and you’ve never looked at Reflector, here’s what it looks like drilled into an assembly from disk with some disassembled source code showing: Note that you get tons of information about each element in the tree, and almost all related types and members are clickable both in the list and source view so it’s extremely easy to navigate and follow the code flow even in this static assembly only view. For many year’s Lutz kept the the tool up to date and added more features gradually improving an already amazing tool and making it better. Then about two and a half years ago Red Gate bought the tool from Lutz. A lot of ruckus and noise ensued in the community back then about what would happen with the tool and… for the most part very little did. Other than the incessant update notices with prominent Red Gate promo on them life with Reflector went on. The product didn’t die and and it didn’t go commercial or to a charge model. When .NET 4.0 came out it still continued to work mostly because the .NET feature set doesn’t drastically change how types behave.  Then a month back Red Gate started making noise about a new Version Version 7 which would be commercial. No more free version - and a shit storm broke out in the community. Now normally I’m not one to be critical of companies trying to make money from a product, much less for a product that’s as incredibly useful as Reflector. There isn’t day in .NET development that goes by for me where I don’t fire up Reflector. Whether it’s for examining the innards of the .NET Framework, checking out third party code, or verifying some of my own code and resources. Even more so recently I’ve been doing a lot of Interop work with a non-.NET application that needs to access .NET components and Reflector has been immensely valuable to me (and my clients) if figuring out exact type signatures required to calling .NET components in assemblies. In short Reflector is an invaluable tool to me. Ok, so what’s the problem? Why all the fuss? Certainly the $39 Red Gate is trying to charge isn’t going to kill any developer. If there’s any tool in .NET that’s worth $39 it’s Reflector, right? Right, but that’s not the problem here. The problem is how Red Gate went about moving the product to commercial which borders on the downright bizarre. It’s almost as if somebody in management wrote a slogan: “How can we piss off the .NET community in the most painful way we can?” And that it seems Red Gate has a utterly succeeded. People are rabid, and for once I think that this outrage isn’t exactly misplaced. Take a look at the message thread that Red Gate dedicated from a link off the download page. Not only is Version 7 going to be a paid commercial tool, but the older versions of Reflector won’t be available any longer. Not only that but older versions that are already in use also will continually try to update themselves to the new paid version – which when installed will then expire unless registered properly. There have also been reports of Version 6 installs shutting themselves down and failing to work if the update is refused (I haven’t seen that myself so not sure if that’s true). In other words Red Gate is trying to make damn sure they’re getting your money if you attempt to use Reflector. There’s a lot of temptation there. Think about the millions of .NET developers out there and all of them possibly upgrading – that’s a nice chunk of change that Red Gate’s sitting on. Even with all the community backlash these guys are probably making some bank right now just because people need to get life to move on. Red Gate also put up a Feedback link on the download page – which not surprisingly is chock full with hate mail condemning the move. Oddly there’s not a single response to any of those messages by the Red Gate folks except when it concerns license questions for the full version. It puzzles me what that link serves for other yet than another complete example of failure to understand how to handle customer relations. There’s no doubt that that all of this has caused some serious outrage in the community. The sad part though is that this could have been handled so much less arrogantly and without pissing off the entire community and causing so much ill-will. People are pissed off and I have no doubt that this negative publicity will show up in the sales numbers for their other products. I certainly hope so. Stupidity ought to be painful! Why do Companies do boneheaded stuff like this? Red Gate’s original decision to buy Reflector was hotly debated but at that the time most of what would happen was mostly speculation. But I thought it was a smart move for any company that is in need of spreading its marketing message and corporate image as a vendor in the .NET space. Where else do you get to flash your corporate logo to hordes of .NET developers on a regular basis?  Exploiting that marketing with some goodwill of providing a free tool breeds positive feedback that hopefully has a good effect on the company’s visibility and the products it sells. Instead Red Gate seems to have taken exactly the opposite tack of corporate bullying to try to make a quick buck – and in the process ruined any community goodwill that might have come from providing a service community for free while still getting valuable marketing. What’s so puzzling about this boneheaded escapade is that the company doesn’t need to resort to underhanded tactics like what they are trying with Reflector 7. The tools the company makes are very good. I personally use SQL Compare, Sql Data Compare and ANTS Profiler on a regular basis and all of these tools are essential in my toolbox. They certainly work much better than the tools that are in the box with Visual Studio. Chances are that if Reflector 7 added useful features I would have been more than happy to shell out my $39 to upgrade when the time is right. It’s Expensive to give away stuff for Free At the same time, this episode shows some of the big problems that come with ‘free’ tools. A lot of organizations are realizing that giving stuff away for free is actually quite expensive and the pay back is often very intangible if any at all. Those that rely on donations or other voluntary compensation find that they amount contributed is absolutely miniscule as to not matter at all. Yet at the same time I bet most of those clamouring the loudest on that Red Gate Reflector feedback page that Reflector won’t be free anymore probably have NEVER made a donation to any open source project or free tool ever. The expectation of Free these days is just too great – which is a shame I think. There’s a lot to be said for paid software and having somebody to hold to responsible to because you gave them some money. There’s an incentive –> payback –> responsibility model that seems to be missing from free software (not all of it, but a lot of it). While there certainly are plenty of bad apples in paid software as well, money tends to be a good motivator for people to continue working and improving products. Reasons for giving away stuff are many but often it’s a naïve desire to share things when things are simple. At first it might be no problem to volunteer time and effort but as products mature the fun goes out of it, and as the reality of product maintenance kicks in developers want to get something back for the time and effort they’re putting in doing non-glamorous work. It’s then when products die or languish and this is painful for all to watch. For Red Gate however, I think there was always a pretty good payback from the Reflector acquisition in terms of marketing: Visibility and possible positioning of their products although they seemed to have mostly ignored that option. On the other hand they started this off pretty badly even 2 and a half years back when they aquired Reflector from Lutz with the same arrogant attitude that is evident in the latest episode. You really gotta wonder what folks are thinking in management – the sad part is from advance emails that were circulating, they were fully aware of the shit storm they were inciting with this and I suspect they are banking on the sheer numbers of .NET developers to still make them a tidy chunk of change from upgrades… Alternatives are coming For me personally the single license isn’t a problem, but I actually have a tool that I sell (an interop Web Service proxy generation tool) to customers and one of the things I recommend to use with has been Reflector to view assembly information and to find which Interop classes to instantiate from the non-.NET environment. It’s been nice to use Reflector for this with its small footprint and zero-configuration installation. But now with V7 becoming a paid tool that option is not going to be available anymore. Luckily it looks like the .NET community is jumping to it and trying to fill the void. Amidst the Red Gate outrage a new library called ILSpy has sprung up and providing at least some of the core functionality of Reflector with an open source library. It looks promising going forward and I suspect there will be a lot more support and interest to support this project now that Reflector has gone over to the ‘dark side’…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011

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• What characteristic of a software determines its operational scope?

  - by Dark Star1

  How can I classify whether a software is a medium with the ability to grow into an enterprise level software or whether it is already there? And how should I use the information to choose the appropriate language/tool to create the software? At first I was asking whether Java or PHP is the best tool to design enterprise level software, however I've suddenly realized that I am unable to put the software I'm tasked with redesigning into the proper scope so I'm lost. Edit: I guess I'm looking for tell tale signs in software that may tip the favour towards enterprise level type software in the sense of functional and operational characteristics; functional: what it does (multi-functional), Architectural characteristics such as highly modular. operational: multi-sourced and multi-homed, databases, e.t.c. To be honest the reason I ask is because I'm skeptical about the use of PhP to design a piece of employee and partial accounting software. I'm more tipping towards the use of JSP and an hmvc framework such as JSF, wickets, e.t.c. where as the other guy wants to go the PhP way although I'm not experienced with PhP, as far as I know it's not an OO oriented language hence my skepticsm towards it.

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• Does your team develop their supporting tools or this should be outsourced out of it?

  - by Pierre 303

  By supporting tools, I mean: reference data manager, like virus definition for anti-virus software test data generator level builders for games simulators or advanced mocking systems Does the team building the core product (in the case above, the game or the anti-virus) should be part of the development of the supporting tools significantly, or this is a task you would outsourced out of the team to help it focus on the product? I don't have enough experience to evaluate the pros & cons of each, so I'm hopping you would come up with personal experiences to share, or even studies or papers you read on the subject.

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• Down Tools Week Cometh: Kissing Goodbye to CVs/Resumes and Cover Letters

  - by Bart Read

  I haven't blogged about what I'm doing in my (not so new) temporary role as Red Gate's technical recruiter, mostly because it's been routine, business as usual stuff, and because I've been trying to understand the role by doing it. I think now though the time has come to get a little more radical, so I'm going to tell you why I want to largely eliminate CVs/resumes and cover letters from the application process for some of our technical roles, and why I think that might be a good thing for candidates (and for us). I have a terrible confession to make, or at least it's a terrible confession for a recruiter: I don't really like CV sifting, or reading cover letters, and, unless I've misread the mood around here, neither does anybody else. It's dull, it's time-consuming, and it's somewhat soul destroying because, when all is said and done, you're being paid to be incredibly judgemental about people based on relatively little information. I feel like I've dirtied myself by saying that - I mean, after all, it's a core part of my job - but it sucks, it really does. (And, of course, the truth is I'm still a software engineer at heart, and I'm always looking for ways to do things better.) On the flip side, I've never met anyone who likes writing their CV. It takes hours and hours of faffing around and massaging it into shape, and the whole process is beset by a gnawing anxiety, frustration, and insecurity. All you really want is a chance to demonstrate your skills - not just talk about them - and how do you do that in a CV or cover letter? Often the best candidates will include samples of their work (a portfolio, screenshots, links to websites, product downloads, etc.), but sometimes this isn't possible, or may not be appropriate, or you just don't think you're allowed because of what your school/university careers service has told you (more commonly an issue with grads, obviously). And what are we actually trying to find out about people with all of this? I think the common criteria are actually pretty basic: Smart Gets things done (thanks for these two Joel) Not an a55hole* (sorry, have to get around Simple Talk's swear filter - and thanks to Professor Robert I. Sutton for this one) *Of course, everyone has off days, and I don't honestly think we're too worried about somebody being a bit grumpy every now and again. We can do a bit better than this in the context of the roles I'm talking about: we can be more specific about what "gets things done" means, at least in part. For software engineers and interns, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Excellent coder For test engineers, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Good at finding problems in software Competent coder Team player, etc., to me, are covered by "not an a55hole". I don't expect people to be the life and soul of the party, or a wild extrovert - that's not what team player means, and it's not what "not an a55hole" means. Some of our best technical staff are quiet, introverted types, but they're still pleasant to work with. My problem is that I don't think the initial sift really helps us find out whether people are smart and get things done with any great efficacy. It's better than nothing, for sure, but it's not as good as it could be. It's also contentious, and potentially unfair/inequitable - if you want to get an idea of what I mean by this, check out the background information section at the bottom. Before I go any further, let's look at the Red Gate recruitment process for technical staff* as it stands now: (LOTS of) People apply for jobs. All these applications go through a brutal process of manual sifting, which eliminates between 75 and 90% of them, depending upon the role, and the time of year**. Depending upon the role, those who pass the sift will be sent an assessment or telescreened. For the purposes of this blog post I'm only interested in those that are sent some sort of programming assessment, or bug hunt. This means software engineers, test engineers, and software interns, which are the roles for which I receive the most applications. The telescreen tends to be reserved for project or product managers. Those that pass the assessment are invited in for first interview. This interview is mostly about assessing their technical skills***, although we're obviously on the look out for cultural fit red flags as well. If the first interview goes well we'll invite candidates back for a second interview. This is where team/cultural fit is really scoped out. We also use this interview to dive more deeply into certain areas of their skillset, and explore any concerns that may have come out of the first interview (these obviously won't have been serious or obvious enough to cause a rejection at that point, but are things we do need to look into before we'd consider making an offer). We might subsequently invite them in for lunch before we make them an offer. This tends to happen when we're recruiting somebody for a specific team and we'd like them to meet all the people they'll be working with directly. It's not an interview per se, but can prove pivotal if they don't gel with the team. Anyone who's made it this far will receive an offer from us. *We have a slightly quirky definition of "technical staff" as it relates to the technical recruiter role here. It includes software engineers, test engineers, software interns, user experience specialists, technical authors, project managers, product managers, and development managers, but does not include product support or information systems roles. **For example, the quality of graduate applicants overall noticeably drops as the academic year wears on, which is not to say that by now there aren't still stars in there, just that they're fewer and further between. ***Some organisations prefer to assess for team fit first, but I think assessing technical skills is a more effective initial filter - if they're the nicest person in the world, but can't cut a line of code they're not going to work out. Now, as I suggested in the title, Red Gate's Down Tools Week is upon us once again - next week in fact - and I had proposed as a project that we refactor and automate the first stage of marking our programming assessments. Marking assessments, and in fact organising the marking of them, is a somewhat time-consuming process, and we receive many assessment solutions that just don't make the cut, for whatever reason. Whilst I don't think it's possible to fully automate marking, I do think it ought to be possible to run a suite of automated tests over each candidate's solution to see whether or not it behaves correctly and, if it does, move on to a manual stage where we examine the code for structure, decomposition, style, readability, maintainability, etc. Obviously it's possible to use tools to generate potentially helpful metrics for some of these indices as well. This would obviously reduce the marking workload, and would provide candidates with quicker feedback about whether they've been successful - though I do wonder if waiting a tactful interval before sending a (nicely written) rejection might be wise. I duly scrawled out a picture of my ideal process, which looked like this: The problem is, as soon as I'd roughed it out, I realised that fundamentally it wasn't an ideal process at all, which explained the gnawing feeling of cognitive dissonance I'd been wrestling with all week, whilst I'd been trying to find time to do this. Here's what I mean. Automated assessment marking, and the associated infrastructure around that, makes it much easier for us to deal with large numbers of assessments. This means we can be much more permissive about who we send assessments out to or, in other words, we can give more candidates the opportunity to really demonstrate their skills to us. And this leads to a question: why not give everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, to show that they're smart and can get things done? (Two or three of us even discussed this in the down tools week hustings earlier this week.) And isn't this a lot simpler than the alternative we'd been considering? (FYI, this was automated CV/cover letter sifting by some form of textual analysis to ideally eliminate the worst 50% or so of applications based on an analysis of the 20,000 or so historical applications we've received since 2007 - definitely not the basic keyword analysis beloved of recruitment agencies, since this would eliminate hardly anyone who was awful, but definitely would eliminate stellar Oxbridge candidates - #fail - or some nightmarishly complex Google-like system where we profile all our currently employees, only to realise that we're never going to get representative results because we don't have a statistically significant sample size in any given role - also #fail.) No, I think the new way is better. We let people self-select. We make them the masters (or mistresses) of their own destiny. We give applicants the power - we put their fate in their hands - by giving them the chance to demonstrate their skills, which is what they really want anyway, instead of requiring that they spend hours and hours creating a CV and cover letter that I'm going to evaluate for suitability, and make a value judgement about, in approximately 1 minute (give or take). It doesn't matter what university you attended, it doesn't matter if you had a bad year when you took your A-levels - here's your chance to shine, so take it and run with it. (As a side benefit, we cut the number of applications we have to sift by something like two thirds.) WIN! OK, yeah, sounds good, but will it actually work? That's an excellent question. My gut feeling is yes, and I'll justify why below (and hopefully have gone some way towards doing that above as well), but what I'm proposing here is really that we run an experiment for a period of time - probably a couple of months or so - and measure the outcomes we see: How many people apply? (Wouldn't be surprised or alarmed to see this cut by a factor of ten.) How many of them submit a good assessment? (More/less than at present?) How much overhead is there for us in dealing with these assessments compared to now? What are the success and failure rates at each interview stage compared to now? How many people are we hiring at the end of it compared to now? I think it'll work because I hypothesize that, amongst other things: It self-selects for people who really want to work at Red Gate which, at the moment, is something I have to try and assess based on their CV and cover letter - but if you're not that bothered about working here, why would you complete the assessment? Candidates who would submit a shoddy application probably won't feel motivated to do the assessment. Candidates who would demonstrate good attention to detail in their CV/cover letter will demonstrate good attention to detail in the assessment. In general, only the better candidates will complete and submit the assessment. Marking assessments is much less work so we'll be able to deal with any increase that we see (hopefully we will see). There are obviously other questions as well: Is plagiarism going to be a problem? Is there any way we can detect/discourage potential plagiarism? How do we assess candidates' education and experience? What about their ability to communicate in writing? Do we still want them to submit a CV afterwards if they pass assessment? Do we want to offer them the opportunity to tell us a bit about why they'd like the job when they submit their assessment? How does this affect our relationship with recruitment agencies we might use to hire for these roles? So, what's the objective for next week's Down Tools Week? Pretty simple really - we want to implement this process for the Graduate Software Engineer and Software Engineer positions that you can find on our website. I will be joined by a crack team of our best developers (Kevin Boyle, and new Red-Gater, Sam Blackburn), and recruiting hostess with the mostest Laura McQuillen, and hopefully a couple of others as well - if I can successfully twist more arms before Monday.* Hopefully by next Friday our experiment will be up and running, and we may have changed the way Red Gate recruits software engineers for good! Stay tuned and we'll let you know how it goes! *I'm going to play dirty by offering them beer and chocolate during meetings. Some background information: how agonising over the initial CV/cover letter sift helped lead us to bin it off entirely The other day I was agonising about the new university/good degree grade versus poor A-level results issue, and decided to canvas for other opinions to see if there was something I could do that was fairer than my current approach, which is almost always to reject. This generated quite an involved discussion on our Yammer site: I'm sure you can glean a pretty good impression of my own educational prejudices from that discussion as well, although I'm very open to changing my opinion - hopefully you've already figured that out from reading the rest of this post. Hopefully you can also trace a logical path from agonising about sifting to, "Uh, hang on, why on earth are we doing this anyway?!?" Technorati Tags: recruitment,hr,developers,testers,red gate,cv,resume,cover letter,assessment,sea change

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