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• Selecting the correct installer to install Oracle Weblogic Server

  - by PratikS -- Oracle

  When ever we start learning about a software product, the first step is to get the software installer and install it.Before we start with "How to install Oracle Weblogic Server?", lets understand the different kinds of installers available for Oracle Weblogic Server and select the correct installer.There are three different kinds of Weblogic server Installers: Package Installer Development-only and supplemental installers Upgrade Installer 1) Package Installer: If you have never installed Oracle Weblogic Server and this is the first time you are installing it, then what you need is a Oracle Weblogic Server's Package Installer.Again there are two different kinds of Package Installers:    a) Generic Package installer:         It does not include JAVA runtime. (When using "Generic Package installer" it is a prerequisite that a supported JDK should be installed)         If you want to install weblogic server with 64bit JVM, you have to use "Generic Package installer".         "Generic Package installer" is platform independent and can be used to install weblogic server on any supported 32bit or 64bit platform.     b) OS-specific Package installer         As the name suggests the installer is platform specific.         It is meant for installation with a 32bit JVM only.         Both SUN and JROCKIT 32 bit JDKs come bundled with "OS-specific Package installer", so no need to install the JDK in advance. 2) Development-only and supplemental installers:         If you have no plans to use the Oracle Weblogic Server in Production and need a simple installer for testing purpose only, then use this installer.         Download the zip distribution, unzip it and its ready to use. 3) Upgrade Installer:         Upgrade installer is used to upgrade a Oracle Weblogic Server installation from one minor version to a higher minor version.         There are no installers available to upgrade Oracle Weblogic Server Installation from one major version to another, though Domain Upgrade is always available. Note:Following are the different versions of Oracle Weblogic Server in ascending order(excluding versions before WLS 9.2): WLS 9.2.x WLS 10.0.x WLS 10.3.x WLS 12.1.x Where "x" denotes the minor version, 9.2, 10.0,10.3 and 12.1 are the major versions.So you may use the upgrade installer to upgrade from WLS 10.3.1 to 10.3.6, or 10.0.1 to 10.0.2 etc.  ------------------------------------- Important links to refer: Oracle Weblogic Server Documentation Supported Configuration Installation Guide for Oracle WebLogic Server

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• questions about dual-boot install Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7 on same hard drive

  - by Tim

  I'd like to dual-boot install Ubuntu 10.04 on the same hard drive as Windows 7 which has already been installed. As to sources on the internet: I found a website iinet about dual-boot installation of Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7 on the same hard drive, which I think more specific than the one on Ubuntu Community without specific version of the OSes. Since I am installing Ubuntu 10.04 instead of 10.10, my question is whether their installers are same or almost same and if I can follow iinet for my dual-boot installation? Or are there better websites for information about dual-boot installtion of Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7? As to shrinking Windows partitions to make free space for Ubuntu partitions: iinet uses the partition software in Ubuntu's installer to shrink the Windows partition. But I saw in many website that the partition software in Ubuntu's installer cannot guarantee shrinking Windows 7 partitions successfully, so they recommended in general to shrink Windows partitions under Windows itself using its softwares. For example, in Ubuntu Community, it says: Some people think that the Windows partition must be resized only from within Windows Vista and Windows 7 using the shrink/resize option. ... If you use GParted Partition Editor in the Ubuntu Live CD be careful. So I was wondering which way to go in my situation? As to partition for bootloader files: In iinet, I don't see there is a partition created and dedicated to boot files (i.e. Grub files). However, I saw in many websites strongly suggesting using a boot partition for Grub files, especially for the purpose of separation and protection from installed OS files. I was wondering which way I should choose and why? As to installing bootloader Grub, in iinet, I see that to install Grub it only needs to specify the hard drive device for bootloader installation. However, in ubuntuguide(for more than 2 OSes and Ubuntu 9.04), some commands are needed to run in order to put Grub configuration files in MBR, and OS partition, for the chain-load process (where to find the files for the next stage). In Ubuntu Community, there are some related sentences which I don't quite understand how to do in practice: the only thing in your computer outside of Ubuntu that needs to be changed is a small code in the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the first hard disk. The MBR code is changed to point to the boot loader in Ubuntu. If you have a problem with changing the MBR code, you might prefer to just install the code for pointing to GRUB to the first sector of your Ubuntu partition instead. If you do that during the Ubuntu installation process, then Ubuntu won't boot until you configure some other boot manager to point to Ubuntu's boot sector. Windows Vista no longer utilizes boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and ntldr when booting. Instead, Vista stores all data for its new boot manager in a boot folder. Windows Vista ships with an command line utility called bcdedit.exe, which requires administrator credentials to use. You may want to read http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=112156 about it. Using a command line utility always has its learning curve, so a more productive and better job can be done with a free utility called EasyBCD, developed and mastered in during the times of Vista Beta already. EasyBCD is user friendly and many Vista users highly recommend EasyBCD. In what is quoted above, I was wondering how exactly I should change the MBR code to point to the bootloader in Ubuntu? if I fail to change MBR code, are the other suggested boot managers being bcdedit.exe and EasyBCD in Windows? With the three sources above, which one shall I follow? Thanks and regards

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• XNA RenderTarget2D Sample

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  I remember being scared of render targets when I first started with XNA. They seemed like weird magic and I didn’t understand them at all. There’s nothing to be frightened of, though, and they are pretty easy to learn how to use. The first thing you need to know is that when you’re drawing in XNA, you aren’t actually drawing to the screen. Instead you’re drawing to this thing called the “back buffer”. Internally, XNA maintains two sections of graphics memory. Each one is exactly the same size as the other and has all the same properties (such as surface format, whether there’s a depth buffer and/or a stencil buffer, and so on). XNA flips between these two sections of memory every update-draw cycle. So while you are drawing to one, it’s busy drawing the other one on the screen. Then the current update-draw cycle ends, it flips, and the section you were just drawing to gets drawn to the screen while the one that was being drawn to the screen before is now the one you’ll be drawing on. This is what’s meant by “double buffering”. If you drew directly to the screen, the player would see all of those draws taking place as they happened and that would look odd and not very good at all. Those two sections of graphics memory are render targets. All a render target is, is a section of graphics memory to which things can be drawn. In addition to the two that XNA maintains automatically, you can also create and set your own using RenderTarget2D and GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget. Using render targets lets you do all sorts of neat post-processing effects (like bloom) to make your game look cooler. It also just lets you do things like motion blur and lets you create mirrors in 3D games. There are quite a lot of things that render targets let you do. To go along with this post, I wrote up a simple sample for how to create and use a RenderTarget2D. It’s available under the terms of the Microsoft Public License and is available for download on my website here: http://www.bobtacoindustries.com/developers/utils/RenderTarget2DSample.zip . Other than the ‘using’ statements, every line is commented in detail so that it should (hopefully) be easy to follow along with and understand. If you have any questions, leave a comment here or drop me a line on Twitter. One last note. While creating the sample I came across an interesting quirk. If you start by creating a Windows Game, and then make a copy for Windows Phone 7, the drop-down that lets you choose between drawing to a WP7 device and the WP7 emulator stays grayed-out. To resolve this, you need to right click on the Windows Phone 7 version in the Solution Explorer, and choose “Set as StartUp Project”. The bar will then become active, letting you change the target you which to deploy to. If you want another version to be the one that starts up when you press F5 to start debugging, just go and right-click on that version and choose “Set as StartUp Project” for it once you’ve set the WP7 target (device or emulator) that you want.

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• SQL Authority News – Secret Tool Box of Successful Bloggers: 52 Tips to Build a High Traffic Top Ranking Blog

  - by Pinal Dave

  When I started this blog, it was meant as a bookmark for myself for helpful tips and tricks.  Gradually, it grew into a blog that others were reading and commenting on.  While SQL and databases are my first love and the reason I started this blog, the side effect was that I discovered I loved writing.  I discovered a secret goal I didn’t even know I wanted – I wanted to become an author.  For a long time, writing this blog satisfied that urge.  Gradually, though, I wanted to see my name in print. 12th Book Over the past few years I have authored and co-authored a number of books – they are all based on my knowledge of SQL Server, and were meant to spread my years of experience into the world, to share what I have learned with my community.  I currently have elevan of these “manuals” available for sale.  As exciting as it was to see my name in print, I still felt that there was more I could do as an author. That is when I realized that I am more than just a SQL expert.  I have been writing this blog now for more than 10 years, and it grew from a personal bookmark to a thriving website with over 2 million views per month.  I thought to myself “I could write a book about how to create a successful blog!”  And that is exactly what I did.  I am extremely excited to share with all of you my new book – “Secret Toolbox of Successful Bloggers.” A Labor of Love This project has been a labor of love for me.  It started out as a series for this blog – I would post one article a week until I felt the topic had been covered.  I found that as I wrote, new topics kept popping up in my mind, and eventually this small blog series grew into a full book.  The blog series was large enough to last a whole year, so I definitely thought that it could be a full book.  Ideas on how to become a successful blogger were so frequent that, I will admit, I feel like there is so much I left out of this book.  I had a lot more to say than I originally thought! I am so excited to be sharing this book with all of you.  I am so passionate about this topic, and I feel like there are so many people who can benefit from this book.  I know that when I started this blog, I did not know what I was doing, and I would have loved a “helping hand” to tell what to do and what not to do.  If this book can act that way to any of my readers, I feel it is a success. Rules of Thumb If you are interested in the topic of becoming a blogger, as you read this book, keep in mind that it is suggestions only.  Blogging is so new to the world that while there are “rules of thumb” about what to do and what not to do, a map of steps (“first, do x, then do y”) is not going to work for every single blogger.  This book is meant to encourage new bloggers to put their content out there in the world, to be brave and create a community like the one I have here at SQL Authority.  I have gained so much from this community, I wanted to give something back, and this book is just one small part. I hope that everyone who reads this books finds at least one helpful tip, and that everyone can experience the joy of blogging.  That is the whole reason I wrote this book, and what I hope everyone takes away from it. Where Can You Get It? You can get the book from following URL: Kindle eBook | Print Book Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL

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• Columnstore Case Study #1: MSIT SONAR Aggregations

  - by aspiringgeek

  Preamble This is the first in a series of posts documenting big wins encountered using columnstore indexes in SQL Server 2012 & 2014.  Many of these can be found in this deck along with details such as internals, best practices, caveats, etc.  The purpose of sharing the case studies in this context is to provide an easy-to-consume quick-reference alternative. Why Columnstore? If we’re looking for a subset of columns from one or a few rows, given the right indexes, SQL Server can do a superlative job of providing an answer. If we’re asking a question which by design needs to hit lots of rows—DW, reporting, aggregations, grouping, scans, etc., SQL Server has never had a good mechanism—until columnstore. Columnstore indexes were introduced in SQL Server 2012. However, they're still largely unknown. Some adoption blockers existed; yet columnstore was nonetheless a game changer for many apps.  In SQL Server 2014, potential blockers have been largely removed & they're going to profoundly change the way we interact with our data.  The purpose of this series is to share the performance benefits of columnstore & documenting columnstore is a compelling reason to upgrade to SQL Server 2014. App: MSIT SONAR Aggregations At MSIT, performance & configuration data is captured by SCOM. We archive much of the data in a partitioned data warehouse table in SQL Server 2012 for reporting via an application called SONAR.  By definition, this is a primary use case for columnstore—report queries requiring aggregation over large numbers of rows.  New data is refreshed each night by an automated table partitioning mechanism—a best practices scenario for columnstore. The Win Compared to performance using classic indexing which resulted in the expected query plan selection including partition elimination vs. SQL Server 2012 nonclustered columnstore, query performance increased significantly.  Logical reads were reduced by over a factor of 50; both CPU & duration improved by factors of 20 or more.  Other than creating the columnstore index, no special modifications or tweaks to the app or databases schema were necessary to achieve the performance improvements.  Existing nonclustered indexes were rendered superfluous & were deleted, thus mitigating maintenance challenges such as defragging as well as conserving disk capacity. Details The table provides the raw data & summarizes the performance deltas. Logical Reads (8K pages) CPU (ms) Durn (ms) Columnstore 160,323 20,360 9,786 Conventional Table & Indexes 9,053,423 549,608 193,903 ? x56 x27 x20 The charts provide additional perspective of this data.  "Conventional vs. Columnstore Metrics" document the raw data.  Note on this linear display the magnitude of the conventional index performance vs. columnstore.  The “Metrics (?)” chart expresses these values as a ratio. Summary For DW, reports, & other BI workloads, columnstore often provides significant performance enhancements relative to conventional indexing.  I have documented here, the first in a series of reports on columnstore implementations, results from an initial implementation at MSIT in which logical reads were reduced by over a factor of 50; both CPU & duration improved by factors of 20 or more.  Subsequent features in this series document performance enhancements that are even more significant. 

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• How the SPARC T4 Processor Optimizes Throughput Capacity: A Case Study

  - by Ruud

  This white paper demonstrates the architected latency hiding features of Oracle’s UltraSPARC T2+ and SPARC T4 processors That is the first sentence from this technical white paper, but what does it exactly mean? Let's consider a very simple example, the computation of a = b + c. This boils down to the following (pseudo-assembler) instructions that need to be executed: load @b, r1 load @c, r2 add r1,r2,r3 store r3, @a The first two instructions load variables b and c from an address in memory (here symbolized by @b and @c respectively). These values go into registers r1 and r2. The third instruction adds the values in r1 and r2. The result goes into register r3. The fourth instruction stores the contents of r3 into the memory address symbolized by @a. If we're lucky, both b and c are in a nearby cache and the load instructions only take a few processor cycles to execute. That is the good case, but what if b or c, or both, have to come from very far away? Perhaps both of them are in the main memory and then it easily takes hundreds of cycles for the values to arrive in the registers. Meanwhile the processor is doing nothing and simply waits for the data to arrive. Actually, it does something. It burns cycles while waiting. That is a waste of time and energy. Why not use these cycles to execute instructions from another application or thread in case of a parallel program? That is exactly what latency hiding on the SPARC T-Series processors does. It is a hardware feature totally transparent to the user and application. As soon as there is a delay in the execution, the hardware uses these otherwise idle cycles to execute instructions from another process. As a result, the throughput capacity of the system improves because idle cycles are no longer wasted and therefore more jobs can be run per unit of time. This feature has been in the SPARC T-series from the beginning, so why this paper? The difference with previous publications on this topic is in the amount of detail given. How this all works under the hood is fully explained using two example programs. Starting from the assembly language instructions, it is demonstrated in what way these programs execute. To really see what is happening we go down to the processor pipeline level, where the gaps in the execution are, and show in what way these idle cycles are filled by other copies of the same program running simultaneously. Both the SPARC T4 as well as the older UltraSPARC T2+ processor are covered. You may wonder why the UltraSPARC T2+ is included. The focus of this work is on the SPARC T4 processor, but to explain the basic concept of latency hiding at this very low level, we start with the UltraSPARC T2+ processor because it is architecturally a much simpler design. From the single issue, in-order pipelines of this processor we then shift gears and cover how this all works on the much more advanced dual issue, out-of-order architecture of the T4. The analysis and performance experiments have been conducted on both processors. The results depend on the processor, but in all cases the theoretical estimates are confirmed by the experiments. If you're interested to read a lot more about this and find out how things really work under the hood, you can download a copy of the paper here. A paper like this could not have been produced without the help of several other people. I want to thank the co-author of this paper, Jared Smolens, for his very valuable contributions and our highly inspiring discussions. I'm also indebted to Thomas Nau (Ulm University, Germany), Shane Sigler and Mark Woodyard (both at Oracle) for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Karen Perkins (Perkins Technical Writing and Editing) and Rick Ramsey at Oracle were very helpful in providing editorial and publishing assistance.

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• SQL 2012 Licensing Thoughts

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  The only thing more controversial than new Federal Tax plans is new Licensing plans from Microsoft.  In both cases, everyone calculates several numbers.  First, will I pay more or less under this plan?  Second, will my competition pay more or less than now?  Third, will <insert interesting person/company here> pay more or less?  Not that items 2 and 3 are meaningful, that is just how people think. Much like tax plans, the devil is in the details, so lets see how this looks.  Microsoft shows it here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-licensing.aspx First up is a switch from per-socket to per-core licensing.  Anyone who didn’t see something like this coming should rapidly search for a new line of work because you are not paying attention.  The explosion of multi-core processors has made SQL Server a bargain.  Microsoft is in business to make money and the old per-socket model was not going to do that going forward. Per-core licensing also simplifies virtualization licensing.  Physical Core = Virtual Core, at least for licensing.  Oversubscribe your processors, that’s your lookout.  You still pay for  what is exposed to the VM.  The cool part is you can seamlessly move physical and virtual workloads around and the licenses follow.  The catch is you have to have Software Assurance to make the licenses mobile.  Nice touch there. Let’s have a moment of silence for the late, unlamented, largely ignored Workgroup Edition.  To quote the Microsoft  FAQ:  “Standard becomes our sole edition for basic database needs”.  Considering I haven’t encountered a singe instance of SQL Server Workgroup Edition in the wild, I don’t think this will be all that controversial. As for pricing, it looks like a wash with current per-socket pricing based on four core sockets.  Interestingly, that is the minimum core count Microsoft proposes to swap to transition per-socket to per-core if you are on Software Assurance.  Reading the fine print shows that if you are using more, you will get more core licenses: From the licensing FAQ. 15. How do I migrate from processor licenses to core licenses?  What is the migration path? Licenses purchased with Software Assurance (SA) will upgrade to SQL Server 2012 at no additional cost. EA/EAP customers can continue buying processor licenses until your next renewal after June 30, 2012. At that time, processor licenses will be exchanged for core-based licenses sufficient to cover the cores in use by processor-licensed databases (minimum of 4 cores per processor for Standard and Enterprise, and minimum of 8 EE cores per processor for Datacenter). Looks like the folks who invested in the AMD 12-core chips will make out like bandits. Now, on to something new: SQL Server Business Intelligence Edition. Yep, finally a BI-specific SKU licensed for server+CAL configurations only.  Note that Enterprise Edition still supports the complete feature set; the BI Edition is intended for smaller shops who want to use the full BI feature set but without needing Enterprise Edition scale (or costs).  No, you don’t get ColumnStore, Compression, or Partitioning in the BI Edition.  Those are Enterprise scale features, ThankYouVeryMuch.  Then again, your starting licensing costs are about one sixth of an Enterprise Edition system (based on an 8 core server). The only part of the message I am missing is if the current Failover Licensing Policy will change.  Do we need to fully or partially license failover servers?  That is a detail I definitely want to know.

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• Backup SQL Database Federation

  - by Herve Roggero

  One of the amazing features of Windows Azure SQL Database is the ability to create federations in order to scale your cloud databases. However until now, there were very few options available to backup federated databases. In this post I will show you how Enzo Cloud Backup can help you backup, and restore your federated database easily. You can restore federated databases in SQL Database, or even on SQL Server (as regular databases). Generally speaking, you will need to perform the following steps to backup and restore the federations of a SQL Database: Backup the federation root Backup the federation members Restore the federation root Restore the federation members These actions can be automated using: the built-in scheduler of Enzo Cloud Backup, the command-line utilities, or the .NET Cloud Backup API provided, giving you complete control on how you want to perform your backup and restore operations. Backing up federations Let’s look at the tool to backup federations. You can explore your existing federations by using the Enzo Cloud Backup application as shown below. As you can see, the federation root and the various federations available are shown in separate tabs for convenience. You would first need to backup the federation root (unless you intend to restore the federation member on a local SQL Server database and you don’t need what’s in the federation root). The steps are similar than those to backup a federation member, so let’s proceed to backing up a federation member. You can click on a specific federation member to view the database details by clicking at the tab that contains your federation member. You can see the size currently consumed and a summary of its content at the bottom of the screen. If you right-click on a specific range, you can choose to backup the federation member. This brings up a window with the details of the federation member already filled out for you, including the value of the member that is used to select the federation member. Notice that the list of Federations includes “Federation Root”, which is what you need to select to backup the federation root (you can also do that directly from the root database tab).  Once you provide at least one backup destination, you can begin the backup operation.  From this window, you can also schedule this operation as a job and perform this operation entirely in the cloud. You can also “filter” the connection, so that only the specific member value is backed up (this will backup all the global tables, and only the records for which the distribution value is the one specified). You can repeat this operation for every federation member in your federation. Restoring Federations Once backed up, you can restore your federations easily. Select the backup device using the tool, then select Restore. The following window will appear. From here you can create a new root database. You can also view the backup properties, showing you exactly which federations will be created. Under the Federations tab, you can select how the federations will be created. I chose to recreate the federations and let the tool perform all the SPLIT operations necessary to recreate the same number of federation members. Other options include to create the first federation member only, or not to create the federation members at all. Once the root database has been restored and the federation members have been created, you can restore the federation members you previously backed up. The screen below shows you how to restore a backup of a federation member into a specific federation member (the details of the federation member are provided to make it easier to identify). Conclusion This post gave you an overview on how to backup and restore federation roots and federation members. The backup operations can be setup once, then scheduled daily.

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• Why do I need two Instances in Windows Azure?

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure as a Platform as a Service (PaaS) means that there are various components you can use in it to solve a problem: Compute “Roles” - Computers running an OS and optionally IIS - you can have more than one "Instance" of a given Role Storage - Blobs, Tables and Queues for Storage Other Services - Things like the Service Bus, Azure Connection Services, SQL Azure and Caching It’s important to understand that some of these services are Stateless and others maintain State. Stateless means (at least in this case) that a system might disappear from one physical location and appear elsewhere. You can think of this as a cashier at the front of a store. If you’re in line, a cashier might take his break, and another person might replace him. As long as the order proceeds, you as the customer aren’t really affected except for the few seconds it takes to change them out. The cashier function in this example is stateless. The Compute Role Instances in Windows Azure are Stateless. To upgrade hardware, because of a fault or many other reasons, a Compute Role's Instance might stop on one physical server, and another will pick it up. This is done through the controlling fabric that Windows Azure uses to manage the systems. It’s important to note that storage in Azure does maintain State. Your data will not simply disappear - it is maintained - in fact, it’s maintained three times in a single datacenter and all those copies are replicated to another for safety. Going back to our example, storage is similar to the cash register itself. Even though a cashier leaves, the record of your payment is maintained. So if a Compute Role Instance can disappear and re-appear, the things running on that first Instance would stop working. If you wrote your code in a Stateless way, then another Role Instance simply re-starts that transaction and keeps working, just like the other cashier in the example. But if you only have one Instance of a Role, then when the Role Instance is re-started, or when you need to upgrade your own code, you can face downtime, since there’s only one. That means you should deploy at least two of each Role Instance not only for scale to handle load, but so that the first “cashier” has someone to replace them when they disappear. It’s not just a good idea - to gain the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for our uptime in Azure it’s a requirement. We point this out right in the Management Portal when you deploy the application: (Click to enlarge) When you deploy a Role Instance you can also set the “Upgrade Domain”. Placing Roles on separate Upgrade Domains means that you have a continuous service whenever you upgrade (more on upgrades in another post) - the process looks like this for two Roles. This example covers the scenario for upgrade, so you have four roles total - One Web and one Worker running the "older" code, and one of each running the new code. In all those Roles you want at least two instances, and this example shows that you're covered for High Availability and upgrade paths: The take-away is this - always plan for forward-facing Roles to have at least two copies. For Worker Roles that do background processing, there are ways to architect around this number, but it does affect the SLA if you have only one.

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• AppHarbor - Azure Done Right AKA Heroku for .NET

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Easy and Instant deployments and instant scale for .NET? Awhile back a few of us were looking at Ruby Gems as the answer to package management for .NET. The gems platform supported the concept of DLLs as packages although some changes would have needed to happen to have long term use for the entire community. From that we formed a partnership with some folks at Microsoft to make v2 into something that would meet wider adoption across the community, which people now call NuGet. So now we have the concept of package management. What comes next? Heroku Instant deployments and instant scaling. Stupid simple API. This is Heroku. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you think of how fast you can go from an idea to having someone else tinker with it, you can start to see its power. In literally seconds you can be looking at your rails application deployed and online. Then when you are ready to scale, you can do that. This is power. Some may call this “cloud-computing” or PaaS (Platform as a Service). I first ran into Heroku back in July when I met Nick of RubyGems.org. At the time there was no alternative in the .NET-o-sphere. I don’t count Windows Azure, mostly because it is not simple and I don’t believe there is a free version. Heroku itself would not lend itself well to .NET due to the nature of platforms and each language’s specific needs (solution stack).  So I tucked the idea in the back of my head and moved on. AppHarbor Enters The Scene I’m not sure when I first heard about AppHarbor as a possible .NET version of Heroku. It may have been in November, but I didn’t actually try it until January. I was instantly hooked. AppHarbor is awesome! It still has a ways to go to be considered Heroku for .NET, but it already has a growing community. I created a video series (at the bottom of this post) that really highlights how fast you can get a product onto the web and really shows the power and simplicity of AppHarbor. Deploying is as simple as a git/hg push to appharbor. From there they build your code, run any unit tests you have and deploy it if everything succeeds. The screen on the right shows a simple and elegant UI to getting things done. The folks at AppHarbor graciously gave me a limited number of invites to hand out. If you are itching to try AppHarbor then navigate to: https://appharbor.com/account/new?inviteCode=ferventcoder  After playing with it, send feedback if you want more features. Go vote up two features I want that will make it more like Heroku. Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with AppHarbor and have not received any funds or favors from anyone at AppHarbor. I just think it is awesome and I want others to know about it. From Zero To Deployed in 15 Minutes (Or Less) Now I have a challenge for you. I created a video series showing how fast I could go from nothing to a deployed application. It could have been from Zero to Deployed in Less than 5 minutes, but I wanted to show you the tools a little more and give you an opportunity to beat my time. And that’s the challenge. Beat my time and show it in a video response. The video series is below (at least one of the videos has to be watched on YouTube). The person with the best time by March 15th @ 11:59PM CST will receive a prize. Ground rules: .NET Application with a valid database connection Start from Zero Deployed with AppHarbor or an alternative A timer displayed in the video that runs during the entire process Video response published on YouTube or acceptable alternative Video(s) must be published by March 15th at 11:59PM CST. Either post the link here as a comment or on YouTube as a response (also by 11:59PM CST March 15th) From Zero To Deployed In 15 Minutes (Or Less) Part 1 From Zero To Deployed In 15 Minutes (Or Less) Part 2 From Zero To Deployed In 15 Minutes (Or Less) Part 3

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• Simple Merging Of PDF Documents with iTextSharp 5.4.5.0

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  As we were working on our first SQL Saturday in Slovenia, we came to a point when we had to print out the so-called SpeedPASS's for attendees. This SpeedPASS file is a PDF and contains thier raffle, lunch and admission tickets. The problem is we have to download one PDF per attendee and print that out. And printing more than 10 docs at once is a pain. So I decided to make a little console app that would merge multiple PDF files into a single file that would be much easier to print. I used an open source PDF manipulation library called iTextSharp version 5.4.5.0 This is a console program I used. It’s brilliantly named MergeSpeedPASS. It only has two methods and is really short. Don't let the name fool you It can be used to merge any PDF files. The first parameter is the name of the target PDF file that will be created. The second parameter is the directory containing PDF files to be merged into a single file. using iTextSharp.text; using iTextSharp.text.pdf; using System; using System.IO; namespace MergeSpeedPASS { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { if (args.Length == 0 || args[0] == "-h" || args[0] == "/h") { Console.WriteLine("Welcome to MergeSpeedPASS. Created by Mladen Prajdic. Uses iTextSharp 5.4.5.0."); Console.WriteLine("Tool to create a single SpeedPASS PDF from all downloaded generated PDFs."); Console.WriteLine(""); Console.WriteLine("Example: MergeSpeedPASS.exe targetFileName sourceDir"); Console.WriteLine(" targetFileName = name of the new merged PDF file. Must include .pdf extension."); Console.WriteLine(" sourceDir = path to the dir containing downloaded attendee SpeedPASS PDFs"); Console.WriteLine(""); Console.WriteLine(@"Example: MergeSpeedPASS.exe MergedSpeedPASS.pdf d:\Downloads\SQLSaturdaySpeedPASSFiles"); } else if (args.Length == 2) CreateMergedPDF(args[0], args[1]); Console.WriteLine(""); Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit..."); Console.Read(); } static void CreateMergedPDF(string targetPDF, string sourceDir) { using (FileStream stream = new FileStream(targetPDF, FileMode.Create)) { Document pdfDoc = new Document(PageSize.A4); PdfCopy pdf = new PdfCopy(pdfDoc, stream); pdfDoc.Open(); var files = Directory.GetFiles(sourceDir); Console.WriteLine("Merging files count: " + files.Length); int i = 1; foreach (string file in files) { Console.WriteLine(i + ". Adding: " + file); pdf.AddDocument(new PdfReader(file)); i++; } if (pdfDoc != null) pdfDoc.Close(); Console.WriteLine("SpeedPASS PDF merge complete."); } } } } Hope it helps you and have fun.

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• AccelerometerInput XNA GameComponent

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  Bad accelerometer controls kill otherwise good games. I decided to try to do something about it. So I create an XNA GameComponent called AccelerometerInput. It’s still a beta project but you are welcome to try it, use it, modify it, etc. I’m releasing under the terms of the Microsoft Public License. Important info: First, it only supports tilt-style controls currently. I have not implemented motion-style controls yet (and make no promises as to when I might find time to do so). Second, I commented it heavily so that you can (hopefully) understand what it is doing. Please read the comments and examine the sample game for a usage overview. There are configurable parameters which I encourage you to make use of (both by modifying the default values where your testing shows it to be appropriate and also by implementing a calibration mechanism in your game that lets the user adjust those configurable values based on his or her own circumstances). Third, even with this code, accelerometer controls are still a fairly advanced topic area; you will likely find nothing but disappointment if you simply plunk this into some project without testing it on a device (or preferably on several devices). Fourth, if you do try this code and find that something doesn’t work as expected on your phone, please let me know as I want to improve it and can only do so with your help. Let me know what phone model it is, what you tried doing, what you expected, and what result you had instead. I may or may not be able to incorporate it into the code, but I can let others know at the very least so that they can make appropriate modifications to their games (I’m hopeful that all phones are reasonably similar in their workings and require, at most, a slight calibration change, but I simply don’t know). Fifth, although I’ll do my best to answer any questions you may have about it, I’m very busy with a number of things currently so it might take a little while. Please look through the code and examine the comments and sample game first before asking any questions. It’s likely that the answer is in there. If not, or if you just aren’t really sure, ask away. Sixth, there are differences between a portrait-mode game and a landscape mode game (specifically in the appropriate default tilt adjustment for toward the user/away from the user calculations). This is documented and the default is set for landscape. If you use this for a portrait game, make the appropriate change (look for the TODO: comment in AccelerometerInput.cs). Seventh, no provision whatsoever is made for disabling screen locking. It is up to you to implement that and to take appropriate measures to detect when the user has been idle for too long and timeout the game. That code is very game-specific. If you have questions about such matters, consult the relevant MSDN documentation and, if you still have questions, visit the App Hub forums and ask there. I answer questions there a lot and so I may even stumble across your question and answer it. But that’s a much better forum than the comments section here for questions of that sort so I would appreciate it if you asked idle detection-related questions there (or on some other suitable site that you may be more familiar and comfortable with). Eighth, this is an XNA GameComponent intended for XNA-based games on WP7. A sufficiently knowledgeable Silverlight developer should have no problem adapting it for use in a Silverlight game or app. I may create a Silverlight version at some point myself. Right now I do not have the time, unfortunately. Ok. Without further ado: http://www.bobtacoindustries.com/developers/utils/AccelerometerInput.zip Have a great St. Patrick’s Day!

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• RPi and Java Embedded GPIO: Big Data and Java Technology

  - by hinkmond

  Java Embedded and Big Data go hand-in-hand, especially as demonstrated by prototyping on a Raspberry Pi to show how well the Java Embedded platform can perform on a small embedded device which then becomes the proof-of-concept for industrial controllers, medical equipment, networking gear or any type of sensor-connected device generating large amounts of data. The key is a fast and reliable way to access that data using Java technology. In the previous blog posts you've seen the integration of a static electricity sensor and the Raspberry Pi through the GPIO port, then accessing that data through Java Embedded code. It's important to point out how this works and why it works well with Java code. First, the version of Linux (Debian Wheezy/Raspian) that is found on the RPi has a very convenient way to access the GPIO ports through the use of Linux OS managed file handles. This is key in avoiding terrible and complex coding using register manipulation in C code, or having to program in a less elegant and clumsy procedural scripting language such as python. Instead, using Java Embedded, allows a fast way to access those GPIO ports through those same Linux file handles. Java already has a very easy to program way to access file handles with a high degree of performance that matches direct access of those file handles with the Linux OS. Using the Java API java.io.FileWriter lets us open the same file handles that the Linux OS has for accessing the GPIO ports. Then, by first resetting the ports using the unexport and export file handles, we can initialize them for easy use in a Java app. // Open file handles to GPIO port unexport and export controls FileWriter unexportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/unexport"); FileWriter exportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/export"); ... // Reset the port unexportFile.write(gpioChannel); unexportFile.flush(); // Set the port for use exportFile.write(gpioChannel); exportFile.flush(); Then, another set of file handles can be used by the Java app to control the direction of the GPIO port by writing either "in" or "out" to the direction file handle. // Open file handle to input/output direction control of port FileWriter directionFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/gpio" + gpioChannel + "/direction"); // Set port for input directionFile.write("in"); // Or, use "out" for output directionFile.flush(); And, finally, a RandomAccessFile handle can be used with a high degree of performance on par with native C code (only milliseconds to read in data and write out data) with low overhead (unlike python) to manipulate the data going in and out on the GPIO port, while the object-oriented nature of Java programming allows for an easy way to construct complex analytic software around that data access functionality to the external world. RandomAccessFile[] raf = new RandomAccessFile[GpioChannels.length]; ... // Reset file seek pointer to read latest value of GPIO port raf[channum].seek(0); raf[channum].read(inBytes); inLine = new String(inBytes); It's Big Data from sensors and industrial/medical/networking equipment meeting complex analytical software on a small constraint device (like a Linux/ARM RPi) where Java Embedded allows you to shine as an Embedded Device Software Designer. Hinkmond

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• SQL Saturday 27 (Portland, Oregon)

  - by BuckWoody

  I’m sitting in the Seattle airport, waiting for my flight to Silicon Valley California for the SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch Event. By some quirk of nature, they are asking me to Emcee the event – but that’s another post entirely.   I’m reflecting on the SQL Saturday 27 event that was just held in Portland, Oregon this last Saturday. These are not Microsoft-sponsored events – it’s truly the community at work. Think of a big user-group meeting – I mean REALLY big – held in a central location, like at a college (as ours was) or some larger, inexpensive venue like that. Everyone there is volunteering – it’s my own money and time to drive several hours to a hotel for the night, feed myself and present. It’s their own time and money for the folks that organize the event – unless a vendor or two steps in to help. It’s their own time and money for the attendees to drive a long way, spend the night and their Saturday to listen to the speakers. Why do all this?   Because everybody benefits. Every speaker learns something new, meets new people, and reaches a new audience. Every volunteer does the same. And the attendees? Well, it’s pretty obvious what they get. A 7Am to 10PM extravaganza of knowledge from every corner of the product. In fact, this year the Portland group hooked up with the CodeCamp folks and held a combined event. We had over 850 people, and I had everyone from data professionals to developers in my sessions.   So I’ll take this opportunity to do two things: to say “thank you” to all of the folks who attended, from those who spoke to those who worked and those who came to listen, and to challenge you to attend the next SQL Saturday anywhere near you. You can find the list here: http://www.sqlsaturday.com/. Don’t see anything in your area? Start one! The PASS folks have a package that will show you how. Sure, it’s a big job, but the key is to get as many people helping you as possible. Even if you have only a few dozen folks show up the first time, no worries. The first events I presented at had about 20 in the room. But not this week.   See you at the Launch Event if you’re near the San Francisco area tomorrow, and see you at the Redmond SQL Saturday and TechEd if not.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Organization &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 6

  - by MarkPearl

  Learning Outcomes Discuss the physical characteristics of magnetic disks Describe how data is organized and accessed on a magnetic disk Discuss the parameters that play a role in the performance of magnetic disks Describe different optical memory devices Magnetic Disk The way data is stored on and retried from magnetic disks Data is recorded on and later retrieved form the disk via a conducting coil named the head (in many systems there are two heads) The writ mechanism exploits the fact that electricity flowing through a coil produces a magnetic field. Electric pulses are sent to the write head, and the resulting magnetic patterns are recorded on the surface below with different patterns for positive and negative currents The physical characteristics of a magnetic disk   Summarize from book   The factors that play a role in the performance of a disk Seek time – the time it takes to position the head at the track Rotational delay / latency – the time it takes for the beginning of the sector to reach the head Access time – the sum of the seek time and rotational delay Transfer time – the time it takes to transfer data RAID The rate of improvement in secondary storage performance has been considerably less than the rate for processors and main memory. Thus secondary storage has become a bit of a bottleneck. RAID works on the concept that if one disk can be pushed so far, additional gains in performance are to be had by using multiple parallel components. Points to note about RAID… RAID is a set of physical disk drives viewed by the operating system as a single logical drive Data is distributed across the physical drives of an array in a scheme known as striping Redundant disk capacity is used to store parity information, which guarantees data recoverability in case of a disk failure (not supported by RAID 0 or RAID 1) Interesting to note that the increase in the number of drives, increases the probability of failure. To compensate for this decreased reliability RAID makes use of stored parity information that enables the recovery of data lost due to a disk failure.   The RAID scheme consists of 7 levels…   Category Level Description Disks Required Data Availability Large I/O Data Transfer Capacity Small I/O Request Rate Striping 0 Non Redundant N Lower than single disk Very high Very high for both read and write Mirroring 1 Mirrored 2N Higher than RAID 2 – 5 but lower than RAID 6 Higher than single disk Up to twice that of a signle disk for read Parallel Access 2 Redundant via Hamming Code N + m Much higher than single disk Highest of all listed alternatives Approximately twice that of a single disk Parallel Access 3 Bit interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Highest of all listed alternatives Approximately twice that of a single disk Independent Access 4 Block interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than single disk for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than single disk for write Independent Access 5 Block interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Similar to RAID 0 for read, lower than single disk for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, generally  lower than single disk for write Independent Access 6 Block interleaved parity N + 2 Highest of all listed alternatives Similar to RAID 0 for read; lower than RAID 5 for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than RAID 5  for write   Read page 215 – 221 for detailed explanation on RAID levels Optical Memory There are a variety of optical-disk systems available. Read through the table on page 222 – 223 Some of the devices include… CD CD-ROM CD-R CD-RW DVD DVD-R DVD-RW Blue-Ray DVD Magnetic Tape Most modern systems use serial recording – data is lade out as a sequence of bits along each track. The typical recording used in serial is referred to as serpentine recording. In this technique when data is being recorded, the first set of bits is recorded along the whole length of the tape. When the end of the tape is reached the heads are repostioned to record a new track, and the tape is again recorded on its whole length, this time in the opposite direction. That process continued back and forth until the tape is full. To increase speed, the read-write head is capable of reading and writing a number of adjacent tracks simultaneously. Data is still recorded serially along individual tracks, but blocks in sequence are stored on adjacent tracks as suggested. A tape drive is a sequential access device. Magnetic tape was the first kind of secondary memory. It is still widely used as the lowest-cost, slowest speed member of the memory hierarchy.

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• Programmatically Making the Selected OutlineView Cell Editable

  - by Geertjan

  When you're using the OutlineView and you use the Tab key to move through its cells, the cells are shown to be selected, as below: However, until you press the Space key in the selected cell, or until you click the mouse within it, you cannot edit it. That's extremely annoying when you're creating a data-entry application. Your user would like to begin editing a cell as soon as they have tabbed into it. Needing to press Space first, or click the mouse in the cell first, is a cumbersome additional step that completely destroys your work flow. Below, you can see that an editable cell looks very different to one that is merely selected: I.e., now I can type and the text changes. How to set up the OutlineView so that the Tab key makes the selected cell editable? Here's the constructor of the TopComponent you see above: public ViewerTopComponent() {     initComponents();     setName(Bundle.CTL_ViewerTopComponent());     setToolTipText(Bundle.HINT_ViewerTopComponent());     setLayout(new BorderLayout());     OutlineView ov = new OutlineView();     final Outline outline = ov.getOutline();     outline.setRootVisible(false);     //When column selection changes, e.g., via Tab key,     //programmatically start editing the cell:     ListSelectionListener listSelectionListener = new ListSelectionListener() {         @Override         public void valueChanged(ListSelectionEvent e) {             int row = outline.getSelectedRow();             int column = outline.getSelectedColumn();             //Ignore the node column:             if (row > -1 && row > -1) {                 outline.editCellAt(row, column);             }         }     };     outline.getColumnModel().getSelectionModel().addListSelectionListener(listSelectionListener);     ov.setPropertyColumns(             "city", "City", "state", "State");     add(ov, BorderLayout.CENTER);     em.setRootContext(             new AbstractNode(Children.create(new CustomerChildFactory(), true)));     associateLookup(ExplorerUtils.createLookup(em, getActionMap())); }

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• History of Mobile Technology

  - by David Dorf

  Over the last ten years, mobile phones have gone through several incremental technology leaps that have added capabilities that impact the retail industry.  I've listed the six major ones below, along with their long-lasting impact. 1. Location In the US, the FCC required mobile phones to implement E911 (emergency calls) by 2006, requiring the caller to be located to within 300 meters.  Back in 2000, GPS was opened up for civilian use, and by 2004 Qualcomm had figured out how to use GPS in mobile phones.  So mobile operators moved from cell tower triangulation to GPS, principally for E911.  But then lots of other uses became apparent, especially navigation.  The earliest mobile apps from retailers made it easy to find nearby stores, and companies are looking at ways to use WiFi triangulation inside stores. 2. Computer Vision In 1997 Philippe Kahn shared a photo of his newborn using a mobile phone thus launching the popularity of instant visual communications.  Over the years the quality of the cameras got better, reaching the point where barcodes could be read around 2008.  That's when Occipital came on the scene with their Red Laser application, which was eventually acquired by eBay.  This opened up the ability for consumers to easily price compare inside stores.  Other interesting apps included Tesco's Wine Finder and Amazon's Price Checker, both allowing products to be identified by picture. 3. Augmented Reality Once the mobile phone had GPS, a video camera, and compass functionality it was suddenly possible to overlay digital information on the screen in real-time.  Yelp, which was using GPS to find nearby merchants, created a backdoor called Monocle on the iPhone that showed nearby merchants overlayed on the video camera view.  Today AR apps are mostly used by retailers for marketing, like Moosejaw's app that undresses models in their catalog. 4. Geo-Fencing So if we're able to track the location of a mobile phone, why not use that context to offer timely information?  My first experience with geo-fencing came courtesy of North Face, the outdoor enthusiast store. When a mobile phone enters a predetermined area, like near a store, a text message is sent to phone with an offer or useful information.  Of course retailers can geo-fence their competitors as well and find out which customers are aren't so loyal. 5. Digital Wallet Mobile payments leverage different technologies such as NFC, QRCodes, bluetooth, and SMS to facilitate communication between the consumers's phone and the retailer's point-of-sale. The key here is the potential to consolidate loyalty cards, coupons, and bank cards into the mobile phone and enable faster checkout.  Nobody does this better than Starbucks today, but McDonald's and Duncan Donuts aren't far behind.  Google, Isis, Paypal, Square, and MCX are all vying for leadership in this area.  If NFC does finally take off, it will be leveraged by retailers in more places than just the POS. 6. Voice Response Mobile Phones have had the ability to interpret simple voice commands for a while, but Google and Amazon were the first to use voice to allow searches for products.  Allowing searches by text, barcode, and voice makes it easy to comparison shop in the aisles.  Walmart even uses voice to build shopping lists, and if the Siri API is even opened we could see lots more innovation in this area.

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• How do you report out user research results?

  - by user12277104

  A couple weeks ago, one of my mentees asked to meet, because she wanted my advice on how to report out user research results. She had just conducted her first usability test for her new employer, and was getting to the point where she wanted to put together some slides, but she didn't want them to be boring. She wanted to talk with me about what to present and how best to present results to stakeholders. While I couldn't meet for another week, thanks to slideshare, I could quickly point her in the direction that my in-person advice would have led her. First, I'd put together a panel for the February 2012 New Hampshire UPA monthly meeting that we then repeated for the 2012 Boston UPA annual conference. In this panel, I described my reporting techniques, as did six of my colleagues -- two of whom work for companies smaller than mine, and four of whom are independent consultants. Before taking questions, we each presented for 3 to 5 minutes on how we presented research results. The differences were really interesting. For example, when do you really NEED a long, written report (as opposed to an email, spreadsheet, or slide deck with callouts)? When you are reporting your test results to the FDA -- that makes sense. in this presentation, I describe two modes of reporting results that I use.  Second, I'd been a participant in the CUE-9 study. CUE stands for Comparative Usability Evaluation, and this was the 9th of these studies that Rolf Molich had designed. Originally, the studies were designed to show the variability in evaluation methods practitioners use to evaluate websites and applications. Of course, using methods and tasks of their own choosing, the results were wildly different. However, in this 9th study, the tasks were the same, the participants were the same, and the problem severity scale was the same, so how would the results of the 19 practitioners compare? Still wildly variable. But for the purposes of this discussion, it gave me a work product that was not proprietary to the company I work for -- a usability test report that I could share publicly. This was the way I'd been reporting results since 2005, and pretty much what I still do, when time allows.  That said, I have been continuing to evolve my methods and reporting techniques, and sometimes, there is no time to create that kind of report -- the team can't wait the days that it takes to take screen shots, go through my notes, refer back to recordings, and write it all up. So in those cases, I use bullet points in email, talk through the findings with stakeholders in a 1-hour meeting, and then post the take-aways on a wiki page. There are other requirements for that kind of reporting to work -- for example, the stakeholders need to attend each of the sessions, and the sessions can't take more than a day to complete, but you get the idea: there is no one "right" way to report out results. If the method of reporting you are using is giving your stakeholders the information they need, in a time frame in which it is useful, and in a format that meets their needs (FDA report or bullet points on a wiki), then that's the "right" way to report your results. 

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• Friday Tips #6, Part 1

  - by Chris Kawalek

  We have a two parter this week, with this post focusing on desktop virtualization and the next one on server virtualization. Question: Why would I use the Oracle Secure Global Desktop Secure Gateway? Answer by Rick Butland, Principal Sales Consultant, Oracle Desktop Virtualization: Well, for the benefit of those who might not be familiar with client connections in Oracle Secure Global Desktop (SGD), let me back up and briefly explain. An SGD client connects to an SGD server using two distinct protocols, which, by default, require two distinct TCP ports. The first is the HTTP protocol, used by the web browser to connect to the SGD webserver on TCP port 80, or if secure connections are enabled (SSL/TLS), then TCP port 443, commonly identified as the "HTTPS" port, that is, "SSL encrypted HTTP." The second protocol from the client to the server is the Adaptive Internet Protocol, or AIP, which is used for displaying applications, transferring drive mapping data, print jobs, and so on. By default, AIP uses the TCP port 3104, or port 5307 when SSL is enabled. When SGD clients need to access SGD over a firewall, the ports that AIP requires are typically "closed"; and most administrators are reluctant, to put it mildly, to change their firewall configurations to allow AIP traffic on 3144/5307.   To avoid this problem, SGD introduced "Firewall Forwarding", a technique where, in effect, both http and AIP traffic are "multiplexed" onto a single "well-known" TCP port, that is port 443, the https port.  This is also known as single-port firewall traversal.  This technique takes advantage of the fact that, as a "well-known service", port 443 is usually "open",   allowing (encrypted) traffic to pass. At the target SGD server, the two protocols are de-multiplexed and routed appropriately. The Secure Gateway was developed in response to requirements from customers for SGD to support multi-stage DMZ's, and to avoid exposing SGD servers and the information they contain directly to connections from the Internet. The Secure Gateway acts as a reverse-proxy in the first-tier of the DMZ, accepting, authenticating, and terminating incoming client connections, and then re-encrypting the connections, and proxying them, routing them on to SGD servers, deeper in the network. The client no longer needs to know the name/IP address of the SGD servers in their network, they connect to the gateway, only. The gateway takes care of those internal network details.     The Secure Gateway supports the same "single-port firewall" capability as does "Firewall Forwarding", but offers the additional advantage of load-balancing incoming client connections amongst SGD array members, which could be cumbersome without a forward-deployed secure gateway. Load-balancing weights and policies can be monitored and tuned using the "Balancer Manager" application, and Apache mod_proxy_balancer directives.   Going forward, our architects recommend the use of the Secure Gateway over "Firewall Forwarding" for single-port firewall traversal, due to its architectural advantages, its greater flexibility and enhanced features.  Finally, it should be noted that the Secure Gateway is not separately priced; any licensed SGD customer may use the Secure Gateway component at no additional cost.   For more information, see the "Secure Gateway Administrator's Guide".

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• Planning in the Cloud - For Real

  - by jmorourke

  One of the hottest topics at Oracle OpenWorld 2012 this week is “the cloud”.  Over the past few years, Oracle has made major investments in cloud-based applications, including some acquisitions, and now has over 100 applications available through Oracle Cloud services.  At OpenWorld this week, Oracle announced seven new offerings delivered via the Oracle Cloud services platform, one of which is the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service.  Based on Oracle Hyperion Planning, this service is the first of Oracle’s EPM applications to be to be offered in the Cloud.    This solution is targeted to organizations that are struggling with spreadsheets or legacy planning and budgeting applications, want to deploy a world class solution for financial planning and budgeting, but are constrained by IT resources and capital budgets. With the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service, organizations can fast track their way to world-class financial planning, budgeting and forecasting – at cloud speed, with no IT infrastructure investments and with minimal IT resources. Oracle Hyperion Planning is a market-leading budgeting, planning and forecasting application that is used by over 3,300 organizations worldwide.  Prior to this announcement, Oracle Hyperion Planning was only offered on a license and maintenance basis.  It could be deployed on-premise, or hosted through Oracle On-Demand or third party hosting partners.  With this announcement, Oracle’s market-leading Hyperion Planning application will be available as a Cloud Service and through subscription-based pricing. This lowers the cost of entry and deployment for new customers and provides a scalable environment to support future growth. With this announcement, Oracle is the first major vendor to offer one of its core EPM applications as a cloud-based service.  Other major vendors have recently announced cloud-based EPM solutions, but these are only BI dashboards delivered via a cloud platform.   With this announcement Oracle is providing a market-leading, world-class financial budgeting, planning and forecasting as a cloud service, with the following advantages: ·                     Subscription-based pricing ·                     Available standalone or as an extension to Oracle Fusion Financials Cloud Service ·                     Implementation services available from Oracle and the Oracle Partner Network ·                     High scalability and performance ·                     Integrated financial reporting and MS Office interface ·                     Seamless integration with Oracle and non-Oracle transactional applications ·                     Provides customers with more options for their planning and budgeting deployment vs. strictly on-premise or cloud-only solution providers. The OpenWorld announcement of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service is a preview announcement, with controlled availability expected in calendar year 2012.  For more information, check out the links below: Press Release Web site If you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact me at [email protected].

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• PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL)

  - by mseika

  PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL) JULY 2ND, 2012 AT 04:00 PM CET (03:00 PM GMT)I am pleased to invite you to join the Innovations in Products –webcast. Innovations in Products will present Oracle Applications' Product's new functions and features including sales positioning. The key objectives of these webcasts are to inspire System Integrator's implementation personnel to conduct successful after sales in their Customer projects. Innovations in Products will be presented on the 1st Monday of each quarter after the billable day (4:00 to 5:00 PM CET). The webcast is intended for System Integrator's Implementation Certified Specialists but Innovations in Products is open for other interested Oracle Applications system Integrator's personnel as well. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle's contribution to Partners. Then you will see product breakout session followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. Each session will last for maximum 1 hour. A Q&A Document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. What are the Benefits for partners? Find out how Innovations in Products helps you to improve your after sales Discover new functions and features so you can enrich your Customers's solution Learn more about Oracle Applications products, especially sales positioning Hear crucial questions raised by colleague alike, learn from their interest Engage and present your questions to subject experts Be inspired of the richness of Oracle Application portfolio – for your and your customer’s benefit. Note: Should you already be familiar with a specific Product, then choose another one. Doing so you would expand your knowledge of the overall Applications portfolio. Some presentations contain product demonstration, although these presentations are not intended to be extremely detailed technical presentations. Note: At the latter part of this email you have also 17 links into the recent Applications Products presentations and 6 links into the Public Sector Value Proposition presentations that were presented in Innovations in Industries -program. Product breakout sessions: Fusion Applications Technology and Extensibility Fusion Applications - Transforming your Back-Office Accounting Function Fusion HCM & Talent Overview & Extensibility Fusion HCM Compensation Planning Enterprise PLM for the Product Value Chain Oracle's Asset Management and Maintenance Solution For more details please visit Innovations in Products and other breakout sessions on OPN page. Delivery Format Innovations in Products –program is a series of FREE prerecorded Applications product presentations followed by Q&A. It will be delivered over the Web. Participants have the opportunity to submit questions during the web cast via chat and subject matter experts will provide verbal answers live. Innovations in Products consists of several parallel prerecorded product breakout sessions, each lasting for max. 1 hour. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle’s contribution to Partners. Then you’ll see the product breakout sessions followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. A Q&A document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. You can also see Innovations in Products afterwards as its content will be available online for the next 6-12 months.The next Innovations in Products web casts will be presented as follows: July 2nd 2012 October 1st 2012 January 14th 2013 April 8th 2013. Note: Depending on local network bandwidth please allow some seconds time the presentations to download. You might want to refresh your screen by pressing F5. DurationMaximum 1 hour For further information please contact me Markku Rouhiainen.

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• PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL)

  - by mseika

  PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL) JULY 2ND, 2012 AT 04:00 PM CET (03:00 PM GMT)I am pleased to invite you to join the Innovations in Products –webcast. Innovations in Products will present Oracle Applications' Product's new functions and features including sales positioning. The key objectives of these webcasts are to inspire System Integrator's implementation personnel to conduct successful after sales in their Customer projects. Innovations in Products will be presented on the 1st Monday of each quarter after the billable day (4:00 to 5:00 PM CET). The webcast is intended for System Integrator's Implementation Certified Specialists but Innovations in Products is open for other interested Oracle Applications system Integrator's personnel as well. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle's contribution to Partners. Then you will see product breakout session followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. Each session will last for maximum 1 hour. A Q&A Document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. What are the Benefits for partners? Find out how Innovations in Products helps you to improve your after sales Discover new functions and features so you can enrich your Customers's solution Learn more about Oracle Applications products, especially sales positioning Hear crucial questions raised by colleague alike, learn from their interest Engage and present your questions to subject experts Be inspired of the richness of Oracle Application portfolio – for your and your customer’s benefit. Note: Should you already be familiar with a specific Product, then choose another one. Doing so you would expand your knowledge of the overall Applications portfolio. Some presentations contain product demonstration, although these presentations are not intended to be extremely detailed technical presentations. Note: At the latter part of this email you have also 17 links into the recent Applications Products presentations and 6 links into the Public Sector Value Proposition presentations that were presented in Innovations in Industries -program. Product breakout sessions: Fusion Applications Technology and Extensibility Fusion Applications - Transforming your Back-Office Accounting Function Fusion HCM & Talent Overview & Extensibility Fusion HCM Compensation Planning Enterprise PLM for the Product Value Chain Oracle's Asset Management and Maintenance Solution For more details please visit Innovations in Products and other breakout sessions on OPN page. Delivery Format Innovations in Products –program is a series of FREE prerecorded Applications product presentations followed by Q&A. It will be delivered over the Web. Participants have the opportunity to submit questions during the web cast via chat and subject matter experts will provide verbal answers live. Innovations in Products consists of several parallel prerecorded product breakout sessions, each lasting for max. 1 hour. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle’s contribution to Partners. Then you’ll see the product breakout sessions followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. A Q&A document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. You can also see Innovations in Products afterwards as its content will be available online for the next 6-12 months.The next Innovations in Products web casts will be presented as follows: July 2nd 2012 October 1st 2012 January 14th 2013 April 8th 2013. Note: Depending on local network bandwidth please allow some seconds time the presentations to download. You might want to refresh your screen by pressing F5. DurationMaximum 1 hour For further information please contact me Markku Rouhiainen.

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• Omni-directional light shadow mapping with cubemaps in WebGL

  - by Winged

  First of all I must say, that I have read a lot of posts describing an usage of cubemaps, but I'm still confused about how to use them. My goal is to achieve a simple omni-directional (point) light type shading in my WebGL application. I know that there is a lot more techniques (like using Two-Hemispheres or Camera Space Shadow Mapping) which are way more efficient, but for an educational purpose cubemaps are my primary goal. Till now, I have adapted a simple shadow mapping which works with spotlights (with one exception: I don't know how to cut off the glitchy part beyond the reach of a single shadow map texture): glitchy shadow mapping<<< So for now, this is how I understand the usage of cubemaps in shadow mapping: Setup a framebuffer (in case of cubemaps - 6 framebuffers; 6 instead of 1 because every usage of framebufferTexture2D slows down an execution which is nicely described here <<<) and a texture cubemap. Also in WebGL depth components are not well supported, so I need to render it to RGBA first. this.texture = gl.createTexture(); gl.bindTexture(gl.TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP, this.texture); gl.texParameteri(gl.TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP, gl.TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, gl.LINEAR); gl.texParameteri(gl.TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP, gl.TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, gl.LINEAR); for (var face = 0; face < 6; face++) gl.texImage2D(gl.TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP_POSITIVE_X + face, 0, gl.RGBA, this.size, this.size, 0, gl.RGBA, gl.UNSIGNED_BYTE, null); gl.bindTexture(gl.TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP, null); this.framebuffer = []; for (face = 0; face < 6; face++) { this.framebuffer[face] = gl.createFramebuffer(); gl.bindFramebuffer(gl.FRAMEBUFFER, this.framebuffer[face]); gl.framebufferTexture2D(gl.FRAMEBUFFER, gl.COLOR_ATTACHMENT0, gl.TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP_POSITIVE_X + face, this.texture, 0); gl.framebufferRenderbuffer(gl.FRAMEBUFFER, gl.DEPTH_ATTACHMENT, gl.RENDERBUFFER, this.depthbuffer); var e = gl.checkFramebufferStatus(gl.FRAMEBUFFER); // Check for errors if (e !== gl.FRAMEBUFFER_COMPLETE) throw "Cubemap framebuffer object is incomplete: " + e.toString(); } Setup the light and the camera (I'm not sure if should I store all of 6 view matrices and send them to shaders later, or is there a way to do it with just one view matrix). Render the scene 6 times from the light's position, each time in another direction (X, -X, Y, -Y, Z, -Z) for (var face = 0; face < 6; face++) { gl.bindFramebuffer(gl.FRAMEBUFFER, shadow.buffer.framebuffer[face]); gl.viewport(0, 0, shadow.buffer.size, shadow.buffer.size); gl.clear(gl.COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | gl.DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); camera.lookAt( light.position.add( cubeMapDirections[face] ) ); scene.draw(shadow.program); } In a second pass, calculate the projection a a current vertex using light's projection and view matrix. Now I don't know If should I calculate 6 of them, because of 6 faces of a cubemap. ScaleMatrix pushes the projected vertex into the 0.0 - 1.0 region. vDepthPosition = ScaleMatrix * uPMatrixFromLight * uVMatrixFromLight * vWorldVertex; In a fragment shader calculate the distance between the current vertex and the light position and check if it's deeper then the depth information read from earlier rendered shadow map. I know how to do it with a 2D Texture, but I have no idea how should I use cubemap texture here. I have read that texture lookups into cubemaps are performed by a normal vector instead of a UV coordinate. What vector should I use? Just a normalized vector pointing to the current vertex? For now, my code for this part looks like this (not working yet): float shadow = 1.0; vec3 depth = vDepthPosition.xyz / vDepthPosition.w; depth.z = length(vWorldVertex.xyz - uLightPosition) * linearDepthConstant; float shadowDepth = unpack(textureCube(uDepthMapSampler, vWorldVertex.xyz)); if (depth.z > shadowDepth) shadow = 0.5; Could you give me some hints or examples (preferably in WebGL code) how I should build it?

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• Issues glVertexAttribPointer last 2 parameters?

  - by NoobScratcher

  Introduction Hello I will start out by explaining my setup, showing samples as I go along explaining the situation. I'm using these tools: OpenGL 3.3 GLSL 330 C++ Problem The problem is when I render the wavefront obj 3d model it gives a very weird visual glitch the model was supposed to be a square but instead its a triangluated mess with parts of the vertexes pointing in a stretched direction in massive amounts towards the bottom left side of the frustum.... Explanation: I'm using std::vectors to store my wavefront .obj model data using sscanf to get the floating point values into the structure members x,y,z and store them into the Points structure variable p; int index = IndexAssigner(1, 1); ifstream file (list[index].c_str() ); points.push_back(Point()); Point p; int face[4]; while (!file.eof() ) { char modelbuffer[10000]; file.getline(modelbuffer, 10000); switch(modelbuffer[0]) { case 'v' : sscanf(modelbuffer, "v %f %f %f", &p.x, &p.y, &p.z); points.push_back(p); break; case 'f': sscanf(modelbuffer, "f %d %d %d %d", face, face+1, face+2, face+3 ); faces.push_back(face[0]); faces.push_back(face[1]); faces.push_back(face[2]); faces.push_back(face[3]); } //Turn on FileReader aka "RENDER CODE" FileReader = true; } then I render the Points vector using the .data() member of std::vectors to the frustum. Other declarations: int numfloats = 4; float* point=reinterpret_cast<float*>(&points[0]); int num_bytes=numfloats*sizeof(float); Vector declarations: struct Point {float x, y , z; }; std::vector<int>faces; std::vector<Point>points; Render code: glGenBuffers(1, &vertexbuffer); glGenTextures(1, &ModelTexture); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexbuffer); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_3D, ModelTexture); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0,GL_RGBA, ModelSurface->w, ModelSurface->h, 0, GL_BGR, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, ModelSurface->pixels); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_NEAREST); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_NEAREST); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(points), points.data(), GL_STATIC_DRAW); glVertexAttribPointer(3, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE,num_bytes ,points.data()); glEnableVertexAttribArray(3); //Translation Process GLfloat TranslationMatrix[] = { 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0 }; //Send Translation Matrix up to the vertex shader glUniformMatrix4fv(translation, 1, TRUE, TranslationMatrix); glDrawElements( GL_QUADS, faces.size(), GL_UNSIGNED_INT, faces.data()); I tried looking at what was causing this and went through every function every parameter ,etc looked at the man pages. Then found out that it could be my glVertexAttribPointer. Here are the man pages for glVertexAttribPointer http://www.opengl.org/sdk/docs/man/xhtml/glVertexAttribPointer.xml The last 2 parameters is my problem How do I write those 2 last parameters do I try putting the data from Points into it?. glVertexAttribPointer(3, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE,num_bytes ,points.data()); How does it work with vectors? Is it fast?* if you can not be bothered too look at the man pages here is the scripts coming from the man pages directly. Stride Specifies the byte offset between consecutive generic vertex attributes. If stride is 0, the generic vertex attributes are understood to be tightly packed in the array. The initial value is 0. Pointer Specifies a pointer to the first component of the first generic vertex attribute in the array. The initial value is 0. If you want my full source - http://ideone.com/fPfkg Thanks Again if you do read this.

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• The Future of Air Travel: Intelligence and Automation

  - by BobEvans

  Remember those white-knuckle flights through stormy weather where unexpected plunges in altitude result in near-permanent relocations of major internal organs? Perhaps there’s a better way, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article: “Pilots of a Honeywell International Inc. test plane stayed on their initial flight path, relying on the company's latest onboard radar technology to steer through the worst of the weather. The specially outfitted Boeing 757 barely shuddered as it gingerly skirted some of the most ferocious storm cells over Fort Walton Beach and then climbed above the rest in zero visibility.” Or how about the multifaceted check-in process, which might not wreak havoc on liver location but nevertheless makes you wonder if you’ve been trapped in some sort of covert psychological-stress test? Another WSJ article, called “The Self-Service Airport,” says there’s reason for hope there as well: “Airlines are laying the groundwork for the next big step in the airport experience: a trip from the curb to the plane without interacting with a single airline employee. At the airport of the near future, ‘your first interaction could be with a flight attendant,’ said Ben Minicucci, chief operating officer of Alaska Airlines, a unit of Alaska Air Group Inc.” And in the topsy-turvy world of air travel, it’s not just the passengers who’ve been experiencing bumpy rides: the airlines themselves are grappling with a range of challenges—some beyond their control, some not—that make profitability increasingly elusive in spite of heavy demand for their services. A recent piece in The Economist illustrates one of the mega-challenges confronting the airline industry via a striking set of contrasting and very large numbers: while the airlines pay $7 billion per year to third-party computerized reservation services, the airlines themselves earn a collective profit of only $3 billion per year. In that context, the anecdotes above point unmistakably to the future that airlines must pursue if they hope to be able to manage some of the factors outside of their control (e.g., weather) as well as all of those within their control (operating expenses, end-to-end visibility, safety, load optimization, etc.): more intelligence, more automation, more interconnectedness, and more real-time awareness of every facet of their operations. Those moves will benefit both passengers and the air carriers, says the WSJ piece on The Self-Service Airport: “Airlines say the advanced technology will quicken the airport experience for seasoned travelers—shaving a minute or two from the checked-baggage process alone—while freeing airline employees to focus on fliers with questions. ‘It's more about throughput with the resources you have than getting rid of humans,’ said Andrew O'Connor, director of airport solutions at Geneva-based airline IT provider SITA.” Oracle’s attempting to help airlines gain control over these challenges by blending together a range of its technologies into a solution called the Oracle Airline Data Model, which suggests the following steps: • To retain and grow their customer base, airlines need to focus on the customer experience. • To personalize and differentiate the customer experience, airlines need to effectively manage their passenger data. • The Oracle Airline Data Model can help airlines jump-start their customer-experience initiatives by consolidating passenger data into a customer data hub that drives realtime business intelligence and strategic customer insight. • Oracle’s Airline Data Model brings together multiple types of data that can jumpstart your data-warehousing project with rich out-of-the-box functionality. • Oracle’s Intelligent Warehouse for Airlines brings together the powerful capabilities of Oracle Exadata and the Oracle Airline Data Model to give you real-time strategic insights into passenger demand, revenues, sales channels and your flight network. The airline industry aside, the bullet points above offer a broad strategic outline for just about any industry because the customer experience is becoming pre-eminent in each and there is simply no way to deliver world-class customer experiences unless a company can capture, manage, and analyze all of the relevant data in real-time. I’ll leave you with two thoughts from the WSJ article about the new in-flight radar system from Honeywell: first, studies show that a single episode of serious turbulence can wrack up $150,000 in additional costs for an airline—so, it certainly behooves the carriers to gain the intelligence to avoid turbulence as much as possible. And second, it’s back to that top-priority customer-experience thing and the value that ever-increasing levels of intelligence can deliver. As the article says: “In the cabin, reporters watched screens showing the most intense parts of the nearly 10-mile wide storm, which churned some 7,000 feet below, in vibrant red and other colors. The screens also were filled with tiny symbols depicting likely locations of lightning and hail, which can damage planes and wreak havoc on the nerves of white-knuckle flyers.”  (Bob Evans is senior vice-president, communications, for Oracle.)  

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