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• Avoid SEO loss after URL structure change

  - by Eric Nguyen

  We recently re-wrote our site from Umbraco to WordPress. This has been done by third-party developers. I have been the project manager and it is my mistake that I haven't notice the change of URLs that affect SEO until now. New site was launch last Thursday. The old URL for a "place" (a WordPress custom post type, in case you're WordPress expert and want/ need to point me to another discussion on WP Stackexchange) page is as follows: ourdomain.com/singapore/central/alexandra/an-interesting-place Now it has been changed to ourdomain.com/places/an-interesting-place I have already requested the third-party developers to work rewriting the URLs to emulate the old URL structure. However, it's taking quite a lot of time (we have multiple custom post types e.g. events etc. so it might be complicated; the developers seem quite by blur when I first mentioned rewriting URLs for the custom post types) In the meantime, I wonder if there is a quicker work around for this 1) Use .htaccess to rewrite ourdomain.com/singapore/central/alexandra/an-interesting-place to ourdomain.com/places/an-interesting-place This should avoid 90% loss of the search traffic. I suppose I can learn how to do this quite quickly but no harm mentioning it here 2) Use rel="canonical" to indicate that ourdomain.com/places/an-interesting-place is the exact duplicate of ourdomain.com/singapore/central/alexandra/an-interesting-place I will definitely go for both approaches (and also I'm changing 404 page to cater for this temporary isue) but I wonder if 2) is even feasible and if I have missed anything. Is there anything else you could recommend me in this situation. Let me know if my question is not clear anywhere. Clarifications The old website is on a Windows Server EC2 completely separated from the Linux EC2 instance on which the new site is running. In addition, the same domain "ourdomain.com" is used here (an A record is used to point to an EC2 Elastic IP). Therefore, the old server is completely inaccessible at the moment, unless you we use the IP address to old server (which doesn't help me at all in this case). Even if the old server is accessible, I can't see where one can put the .htaccess or a HTML file to do 301 redirect here. Unless I'm successful with my approach 1) or the developers can rewrite the URLs with coding, 404 page is really a choice for me.

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• Top 5 Sites and Activities in San Francisco to Experience During Oracle OpenWorld

  - by kgee

  While Oracle OpenWorld may provide solutions and information on topics like how to simplify your IT, the importance of cloud, and what types of storage may satisfy your enterprise needs, who is going to tell you more about San Francisco? Here are some suggested sites and activities to experience after OpenWorld that aren’t too far from the Moscone Center. It is recommended to take a cab for the sake of time, but the 6 square miles that make up San Francisco will make for a quick trek to any of the following destinations: The Golden Gate BridgeAn image often associated with San Francisco, this bridge is one of the most impressive in the world. Take a walk across it, or view it from nearby Crissy Field, it is a sight that floors even the most veteran of San Franciscans. The Ferry BuildingLocated at the end of Market Street in the Embarcadero, the Ferry Building once served as a hub of water transport and trade. The building has a bay front view and an array of food choices and restaurants. It is easily accessible via the Muni, BART, trolley or by cab. It is a must-see in San Francisco, and not too far from the Moscone Center. Ride the Trolley to the CastroFor only $2, you can get go back in history for a moment on the Trolley. Take the F-line from the Embarcadero and ride it all the way to the Castro district. During the ride, you will get an overview of the landscape and cultures that are prevalent in San Francisco, but be wary that some areas may beg for an open mind more than others. Golden Gate ParkWhen you tire of the concrete jungle, the lucky part of being in San Francisco is that you can escape to a natural refuge, this park being one of the favorites. This park is known for its hiking trails, cultural attractions, monuments, lakes and gardens. It is one good reason to bring your sneakers to San Francisco, and is also a great place to picnic. Please be wary that it is easy to get lost, and it is advisable to bring a map (just in case) if you go. Haight AshburyFor a complete change of scenery, Haight Ashbury is known as one of the places hippies used to live and the location of "The Summer of Love." It is now a more affluent neighborhood with boutique shops and the occasional drum circle. While it may be perceived as grungy in certain spots, it is one of the most photographed places in San Francisco and an integral part of San Franciscan history.

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• DNS client configuration steps in Oracle Solaris 11

  - by Gurubalan

  This guide covers Quick how to configure DNS client on Solaris 11. DNS client configuration in Solaris 11 is based on SMF service rather than file based. When you configure a system as DNS client, you will be performing the following two configurations. I. DNS client setup II. Configure Name service switch to use DNS I. DNS client setup 1. Configure using SMF service network/dns/client # svccfg -s network/dns/clientsvc:/network/dns/client> setprop config/search = astring: ("test.com" "service.test.com")svc:/network/dns/client> setprop config/nameserver = net_address: (192.168.10.10 192.168.10.11)svc:/network/dns/client> exit 2.  Enable the DNS client service (when you configure it for the first time) #svccfg enable -r dns/client 3. Restart/Refresh DNS client service (It is done when there is any update to the configuration) #svccfg refresh dns/client #svccfg restart dns/client 4. Verify /etc/resolv.conf if it is updated with the changes. # more /etc/resolv.conf ## _AUTOGENERATED_FROM_SMF_V1_## WARNING: THIS FILE GENERATED FROM SMF DATA.#   DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE.  EDITS WILL BE LOST.# See resolv.conf(4) for details.search               test.com service.test.comnameserver      192.168.10.10nameserver      192.168.10.11 --- II.  Configuring Name service switch to use DNS 1. Configure using SMF service  system/name-service/switch # svccfg -s system/name-service/switchsvc:/system/name-service/switch> setprop config/host = astring: "files dns"svc:/system/name-service/switch>exit 2.  Restart/Refresh name-service/switch service #svccfg refresh name-service/switch #svccfg restart  name-service/switch 3. Verfiy host entry in /etc/nsswitch.conf  is updated with dns. # more /etc/nsswitch.conf## _AUTOGENERATED_FROM_SMF_V1_## WARNING: THIS FILE GENERATED FROM SMF DATA.#   DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE.  EDITS WILL BE LOST.# See nsswitch.conf(4) for details.passwd: filesgroup:  fileshosts:  files dnsipnodes:        files dns . --- PS: Thank you ollasi for your motivation behind the screen.

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• Rapid Planning: Next Generation MRP

  - by john.bermudez

  MRP has been a mainstay of manufacturing systems for 40 years. MRP evolved from simple inventory planning systems to become the heart of the MRPII systems which eventually became ERP. While the applications surrounding it have become broader, more sophisticated and web-based, MRP continues to operate in the loneliness of the Saturday night batch window quietly exploding bills of materials and logging exceptions for hours. During this same 40 years, manufacturing business processes have seen countless changes and improvements including JIT, TQM, Six Sigma, Flow Manufacturing, Lean Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management. Although much logic has been added to MRP to deal with new manufacturing processes, it has not been able to keep up with the real-time pace of today's supply chain. As a result, planners have devised ingenious ways to trick MRP to handle new processes but often need to dump the output into spreadsheets of their own design in the hope of wrestling thousands of exceptions to ground. Oracle's new Rapid Planning application is just what companies still running MRP have been waiting for! The newest member of the Value Chain Planning product line, Rapid Planning is designed to empower planners with comprehensive supply planning that runs online in minutes, not hours. It enables a planner simulate the incremental impact of a new order or re-run an entire plan in a separate sandbox. Rapid Planning does a complete multi-level bill of material explosion like MRP but plans orders considering material and capacity constraints. Considering material and capacity constraints in planning can help you quickly reduce inventory and improve on-time shipments. Rapid Planning is an APS application that leverages years of Oracle development experience and customer feedback. Rather than rely exclusively on black-box heuristics, Rapid Planning is designed to give planners the computing power to use their industry experience and business knowledge to improve MRP. For example, Rapid Planning has a powerful worksheet user interface with built-in query capability that allows the planner to locate the orders she is interested in and use a mass update function to make quick work of large changes. The planner can save these queries and unique user interface to personalize their planning environment. Most importantly, Rapid Planning is designed to do supply planning in today's dynamic supply chain environment. It can be used to supplement MRP or replace MRP entirely. It generates plans that provide order-by-order details with aggregate key performance indicators that enable planners to quickly assess the overall business impact of a plan. To find out more about how Rapid Planning can help improve your MRP, please contact me at [email protected] or your Oracle Account Manager.

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• Error Using 32 vs. 64 bit SharePoint 2007 DLLs with PowerShell

  - by Brian Jackett

  Next time you fire up PowerShell to work with the SharePoint API make sure you launch the proper bit version of PowerShell.  Last week I had an interesting error that led to this blog post.  Travel back in time a little bit with me to see where this 32 vs. 64 bit debate started. History     Ever since the first pre-beta bits of Office 2010 landed in my lap I have been questioning whether it’s better to run 32 or 64 bit applications on a 64 bit host operating system.  In relation to Office 2010 I heard a number of arguments for 32 bit including this link from the Office 2010 Engineering team.  Given my typical usage scenarios 32 bit seemed the way to go since I wasn’t a “super RAM hungry” Excel user or the like. The Problem     Since I had chosen 32 bit Office 2010, I tried to stick with 32 bit version of other programs that I run assuming the same benefits and rules applied to other applications.  This is where I was wrong.  Last week I was attempting to use 32 bit PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) on a 64 bit WSS 3.0 server.  When trying to reference the 64 bit SharePoint DLLs I got the following errors about not being able to find the web application.     I have run into these errors when I have hosts file issues or improper permissions to the farm / site collection but these were not the case.  After taking a quick spin around the interwebs I ran across the below forum post comment and another MSDN forum reply that explained the error.  Turns out that sometimes it’s not possible to run 32 bit applications against a 64 bit OS / farm / assembly / etc. …the problem could also be because your SharePoint is 64-Bit but your app is running in 32-bit mode     I quickly exited 32 bit PowerShell ISE and ran the same code under 64 bit PowerShell ISE.  All errors were gone and the script ran successfully.   Conclusion     The rules of 32 vs. 64 bit interoperability do not always apply evenly across all applications and scenarios.  In my case I wasn’t able to run 32 bit PowerShell against 64 bit SharePoint DLLs.  I’m updating all of my links and shortcuts to use 64 bit PowerShell where appropriate.  I’m quite surprised it has taken me this long to run into this error, but sometimes blind luck is all that keeps you from running into errors.  Lesson learned and hopefully this can benefit you as well.  Happy SharePointing all!         -Frog Out   Links http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2010/02/23/understanding-64-bit-office.aspx http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/a732cb83-c2ef-4133-b04e-86477b72bbe3/ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/266255/filenotfoundexception-with-the-spsite-constructor-whats-the-problem

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• The Oracle Cash Management Secret Very Few Customers Know About

  - by Theresa Hickman

  Did you know that Oracle Cash Management has a robust positioning feature? I had no idea. I was under the mistaken impression that Oracle Cash Management only did bank statement reconciliations. It seems I am not alone. In fact, many Oracle Financials customers are also not aware of this even though it is delivered for free with the Oracle Financials license. Even better, last week, Oracle released an enhancement to Oracle Cash Management for Release 12 that will greatly help customers with their cash positioning needs. As we all know, credit is tight these days. Companies need better visibility of their cash and other liquidity positions to make better use of their cash resources. Today, many customers are managing their cash positions manually using spreadsheets. We also hear how many of them are maintaining larger than normal balances in numerous bank accounts because they just do not have the visibility, and therefore the comfort they need. Although spreadsheets may work in the short-term, they are not the best way to manage your cash positions for the long-term especially if you have dozens, or even hundreds of bank and brokerage accounts. Also, spreadsheets are a lot more risky because they can be overwritten, deleted, difficult to audit, etc. With the newly enhanced positioning feature in Oracle Cash Management, customers can manage their daily cash positions using an excel-like interface that is very flexible and user-configurable. You can link the worksheet to an unlimited number of bank accounts to automatically retrieve your opening balances, the current/intra-day cash inflows and outflows, as well as your expected cash flows from your Fx, Investment and Debt positions if you have Oracle's Treasury module . Oracle Cash Management also has direct integration with Oracle Receivables, Oracle Payables, and Payroll, which adds to the comprehensive picture of what's happening with your organizations' cash in real-time. Here's a screen shot of what the cash positioning page looks like: View image As you can see, your Treasurers can obtain a holistic view of all cash positions across any number of bank accounts as well as other sources of cash flow movements. Depending on how they manage their accounts, they can also use this feature to initiate or monitor bank account sweeps or transfers between their zero balance accounts (ZBA) or cash pools. The cash position worksheet provide drill down for more detail and the ability to manually enter items directly into the worksheet for even greater flexibility and control. The enhancements to this feature were released last week. The following list the patches for Release 12.0.6 and 12.1.1: For more information, visit the following website. http://launch.oracle.com. PIN: yes2try

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• Installing Yaws server on Ubuntu 12.04 (Using a cloud service)

  - by Lee Torres

  I'm trying to get a Yaws web server working on a cloud service (Amazon AWS). I've compilled and installed a local copy on the server. My problem is that I can't get Yaws to run while running on either port 8000 or port 80. I have the following configuration in yaws.conf: port = 8000 listen = 0.0.0.0 docroot = /home/ubuntu/yaws/www/test dir_listings = true This produces the following successful launch/result: Eshell V5.8.5 (abort with ^G) =INFO REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:21:06 === Yaws: Using config file /home/ubuntu/yaws.conf =INFO REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:21:06 === Ctlfile : /home/ubuntu/.yaws/yaws/default/CTL =INFO REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:21:06 === Yaws: Listening to 0.0.0.0:8000 for <3> virtual servers: - http://domU-12-31-39-0B-1A-F6:8000 under /home/ubuntu/yaws/www/trial - =INFO REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:21:06 === Yaws: Listening to 0.0.0.0:4443 for <1> virtual servers: - When I try to access the the url (http://ec2-72-44-47-235.compute-1.amazonaws.com), it never connects. I've tried using paping to check if port 80 or 8000 is open(http://code.google.com/p/paping/) and I get a "Host can not be resolved" error, so obviously something isn't working. I've also tried setting the yaws.conf so its at Port 80, appearing like this: port = 8000 listen = 0.0.0.0 docroot = /home/ubuntu/yaws/www/test dir_listings = true and I get the following error: =ERROR REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:24:47 === Yaws: Failed to listen 0.0.0.0:80 : {error,eacces} =ERROR REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:24:47 === Can't listen to socket: {error,eacces} =ERROR REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:24:47 === Top proc died, terminate gserv =ERROR REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:24:47 === Top proc died, terminate gserv =INFO REPORT==== 16-Sep-2012::17:24:47 === application: yaws exited: {shutdown,{yaws_app,start,[normal,[]]}} type: permanent {"Kernel pid terminated",application_controller," {application_start_failure,yaws,>>>>>>{shutdown,>{yaws_app,start,[normal,[]]}}}"} I've also opened up the port 80 using iptables. Running sudo iptables -L gives this output: Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination ACCEPT tcp -- ip-192-168-2-0.ec2.internal ip-192-168-2-16.ec2.internal tcp dpt:http ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0 anywhere tcp dpt:http ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere ctstate RELATED,ESTABLISHED ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:http ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:http Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination In addition, I've gone to the security group panel in the Amazon AWS configuration area, and add ports 80, 8000, and 8080 to ip source 0.0.0.0 Please note: if you try to access the URL of the virtual server now, it likely won't connect because I'm not running currently running the yaws daemon. I've tested it when I've run yaws either through yaws or yaws -i Thanks for the patience

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• Set up a TFS Server/Service demo environment in less than 1 minute now!

  - by Tarun Arora

  Release Notes – http://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/  | Download | Source Code | Report a Bug | Ideas To Demonstrate the capabilities of TFS 2012 Server/Service Task board you would need to set up TFS with some teams, a few team members, some sample stories, tasks, etc. That’s too many steps if you as me! Hi! My name is Tarun Arora, I am a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio ALM & a Visual Studio ALM Ranger, as a consultant I have had to demo TFS Preview to potential customers several times a day. I usually create the team project during the demo to show off how quick and efficient it is, but setting up teams, team members, tasks usually takes longer I don’t prefer carrying out these steps during the demo. I have developed a .net based console application which uses the TFS API to create a standard demo environment saving me from all these manual steps. The console application reads the set up information from an XML file, leaving the setup process highly customizable. Figure 1 – Demo Dictionary, change values here for unique setup The console application today sets up, 1. Create a new Team 2. Set the team as the default team 3. Configure team settings      a. Set Backlog Iteration path      b. Set Team Iterations and start & finish dates      c. Set Team Area path 4. Add Team Members 5. Add Product Backlog Items & linked Tasks. Image 2 – The team website before (on the left) and after (on the right) running the console app Image 3 – Team configuration before (on left) and after (on right) with new team Demo and 2 members Image 4 – Iteration configuration before (on left) and after (on right) with new backlog iteration path & sprint dates set Image 5 – Area configuration (on left) and after (on right) with area path configured for the team   Image 6 – A demo ready Task Board and Task Board for Team Members Credits, - Mattias Sköld [Visual Studio ALM Ranger] – I have used TfsTeamTools to perform team creation & add members - Ivan Popek – TFS 2012 API blog posts had some fantastic reusable samples.  - Shai Raiten [Microsoft ALM MVP] – Great collection of posts on TFS API. Enjoy!

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• Windows Azure Recipe: High Performance Computing

  - by Clint Edmonson

  One of the most attractive ways to use a cloud platform is for parallel processing. Commonly known as high-performance computing (HPC), this approach relies on executing code on many machines at the same time. On Windows Azure, this means running many role instances simultaneously, all working in parallel to solve some problem. Doing this requires some way to schedule applications, which means distributing their work across these instances. To allow this, Windows Azure provides the HPC Scheduler. This service can work with HPC applications built to use the industry-standard Message Passing Interface (MPI). Software that does finite element analysis, such as car crash simulations, is one example of this type of application, and there are many others. The HPC Scheduler can also be used with so-called embarrassingly parallel applications, such as Monte Carlo simulations. Whatever problem is addressed, the value this component provides is the same: It handles the complex problem of scheduling parallel computing work across many Windows Azure worker role instances. Drivers Elastic compute and storage resources Cost avoidance Solution Here’s a sketch of a solution using our Windows Azure HPC SDK: Ingredients Web Role – this hosts a HPC scheduler web portal to allow web based job submission and management. It also exposes an HTTP web service API to allow other tools (including Visual Studio) to post jobs as well. Worker Role – typically multiple worker roles are enlisted, including at least one head node that schedules jobs to be run among the remaining compute nodes. Database – stores state information about the job queue and resource configuration for the solution. Blobs, Tables, Queues, Caching (optional) – many parallel algorithms persist intermediate and/or permanent data as a result of their processing. These fast, highly reliable, parallelizable storage options are all available to all the jobs being processed. Training Here is a link to online Windows Azure training labs where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. (Note: The entire Windows Azure Training Kit can also be downloaded for offline use.) Windows Azure HPC Scheduler (3 labs)  The Windows Azure HPC Scheduler includes modules and features that enable you to launch and manage high-performance computing (HPC) applications and other parallel workloads within a Windows Azure service. The scheduler supports parallel computational tasks such as parametric sweeps, Message Passing Interface (MPI) processes, and service-oriented architecture (SOA) requests across your computing resources in Windows Azure. With the Windows Azure HPC Scheduler SDK, developers can create Windows Azure deployments that support scalable, compute-intensive, parallel applications. See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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• From Zero To Deployed Contest&ndash;Prizes Announced

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Do you have what it takes to meet the challenge? We’ll make it worth it. You may have noticed at the end of my last post I threw down the community challenge to get from zero to deployed faster than me. The Challenge My time was 13:48 to be from zero to deployed. Beat my time and show it in a video response. The person with the best time by March 15th @ 11:59PM CST will receive a prize. Here are the links to the videos: #1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZIUVfHWsbc #2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7WluaXIya0 #3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqPh7wbWsLc The Rules Let’s revisit those ground rules before I tell you what the prizes will be: 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) The Prizes The prize package for the best time is:                      $50 Gift Card or equivalent – Provided by yours truly. AppHarbor $100 service credit – AppHarbor will provide a $100 credit for their services once they launch payments. Thank you to the folks at AppHarbor! ReSharper - Jetbrains will provide a FULL license of ReSharper Personal. This license is a $199 value. Thank you to the folks at Jetbrains! Telerik Ultimate Collection for .NET – Telerik will provide a license to pretty much every .NET tool they offer. This license is a $1999 value. A big thank you to the folks at Telerik!! This is a total value of $2348!!! The prize package for the person that has the most creative video(s) with a time better than mine (if there are at least 5 responses):           $20 Gift card or equivalent – Provided by this guy. AppHarbor $50 service credit – same deal as above. Thank you AppHarbor! Twilio T-Shirt - Twilio has donated a shirt and will ship your size to you (this may be subject to US residents only). This is a $25 value. Thank you to the folks at Twilio!

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• View Images and Videos in 3D in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  Different websites have their own format for viewing images and videos, but may not be a lot of fun to use. The Cooliris extension for Firefox lets you view those same images and videos in a dynamic 3D format. Before For our example we conducted a search for nature photos at Flickr. You could view them in a static format or even as a slideshow but what about something more dynamic looking? After As soon as the extension has finished installing, you will notice a new toolbar button used for launching the Cooliris tab. When you launch the Cooliris tab you will have an expandable menu system in the upper left corner. A speed dial setup in the center. And a small toolbar in the lower right corner Before going further you should check and make any desired adjustments in the preferences to enhance your viewing experience. In the upper right corner you can start your search by selecting from the available sources. The same search for nature images is more focused and clean looking this time. Clicking on an image will bring it forward and enlarge it. You can use the slider tool at the bottom of the tab to browser left or right through the images and videos. And when you find one that interests you, click on the popout button to open it in a new tab. Conclusion The Cooliris extension makes viewing images and videos fun and interactive with its’ 3D style format. Links Download the Cooliris extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Download Cooliris for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari (Mac Only), & Chrome Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Firefox Display Large Images Full SizeInstalling Windows Media Player Plugin for FirefoxStop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in FirefoxShare Text & Images the Easy Way with JustPaste.itEasily View Source of Included Files in Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro FetchMp3 Can Download Videos & Convert Them to Mp3 Use Flixtime To Create Video Slideshows Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED

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• Java Certification Exams and Their Move to Pearson VUE

  - by Harold Green

  You may be aware that Oracle recently migrated all Sun-branded certification exams from Prometric to Pearson VUE. Below are answers to some frequently-asked questions that we've been getting recently: What changes to the exams should I be aware of?Only minor changes were made to the exams during the transition to Pearson VUE: Renumbering of all exams to the Oracle exam numbering structure (i.e. 1Z0...). Most exam score reports were enhanced to provide more detailed feedback. Score reports now list every exam objective for which a question (or questions) were answered incorrectly. The previous format provided only section-level performance feedback. For three Java exams, some lengthy (time-consuming) questions were removed & replaced with shorter (less time-consuming) questions. This was done in order to shorten the required exam time (to 150 minutes). Some interactive question types were removed from several Java and Solaris exams (including "matching" and "drag-and-drop" questions). The passing scores (for the exams that were revised) were statistically adjusted to make them equal to their prior passing scores, thus ensuring that the exams maintained the same level of difficulty as before. The exam objectives and the exam questions themselves did not change. Candidates should study the same material and objectives. Are there also new testing practices I should be aware of?Oracle follows a common industry practice of placing occasional un-scored questions on our certification exams. Candidates will not know which questions are unscored. At the time of this blog post, only one of the migrated exams (1Z0-898) contains unscored questions.I started the Master certification path through Prometric, and now I need to complete the requirements through Pearson VUE. Where can I get guidance on this process?Visit our Vendor Transition FAQs to find comprehensive instructions. Oracle has created several specific paths to accommodate candidates who were at at varying stages of completion of their master path when the transition occurred. Make sure to follow the specific path designed for your case, as you will need to know which exam number to select in order to submit/re-submit your requirements. QUICK LINKS Oracle Certification Blog Post: Java, Oracle Solaris, MySQL and Other Former Sun Certification Exams Now Being Delivered At Pearson VUE Oracle Certification Website: Vendor Transition Announcement

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• Visual Studio 2010 plus Help Index : have your cake and eat it too

  - by Adrian Hara

  Although the team's intentions might have been good, the new help system in Visual Studio 2010  is a huge step backwards (more like a cannonball-shot-kind-of-leap really) from the one we all know (and love?) in Visual Studio 2008 and 2005 (and heck, even VS6). Its biggest problem, from my point of view, is the total and complete lack of the Help Index feature: you know...the thing where you just go and type in what you're looking for and it filters down the list of results automatically. For me this was the number one productivity feature in the "old" help system, allowing me to find stuff very quickly. Number two is that it's entirely web based and runs, by default, in the browser. So imagine, when you press F1, a new tab opens in your default browser pointing to the help entry. While this is wrong in many ways, it's also extremely annoying, cleaning up tabs in the browser becomes a chore which represents a serious productivity hit. These and many other problems were discussed extensively (and rather vocally) on connect but it seems MS seemed to ignore it and opt to release the new help system anyway, with the promise that more features will be added in a later release. Again, it kind of amazes me that they chose to ship a product with LESS features that the previous one and, what's worse, missing KEY features, just so it's "standards based" and "extensible". To be honest, I couldn't care less about the help system's implementation, I just want it to be usable and I would've thought that by now the software community and especially MS would've learned this lesson. In the end, what kind of saddens me is that MS regards these basic features as ones for the "power help user". I mean, come on! I mean a) it's not like my aunt's using Visual Studio 2010 and she represents the regular user, b) all software developers are, by definition, power users and c) it's a freakin help, not rocket science! As you can tell, I'm pretty pissed. Even more so because I really feel that the VS2010 & co. release really is a great one, with a lot of effort going into the various platforms and frameworks, most (if not all) of them being really REALLY good products. And then they go and screw up the help! How lame is that?!   Anyway, it's not all gloom-and-doom. Luckily there is a desktop app which presents a UI over the new help system that's very close to what was there in VS2008, by Robert Chandler (to which I hereby declare eternal gratitude). It still has some minor issues but I'll take it over the browser version of the help any day. It's free, pretty quick (on my machine ;)) and nicely usable. So, if you hate the new help system (passionately) like I do, download H3Viewer now.

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• Most Unprofessional Workplace

  - by TehGrumpyCoder

  I've worked lots of places in lots of roles: Delivery truck driver, Boilermaker, antenna rigger, Professional Musician, Electronic Technician, Electrical Engineer, and for most of my career: Software Turkey. I want to say this large company is the most unprofessional place I've ever worked, but then I think about other jobs such as TTI that stiffed us all for 10 months salary -- or had us work 2-1/2 years at 66% however you want to look at it, or maybe NeoPlanet with a cast from a bad sitcom running the show, I could go on, but I digress (as usual). So maybe this place isn't the *most* unprofessional, but the personnel rank up there. I'm in a small room off a factory. There are 3 managerial offices, and 36 common-folk of various skill-sets in a variety of single to quad cubicles. No matter where you sit though, because of the layout and location, you've got a hard wall as one wall of your cubicle. Because of that hard wall, everything echoes. I get off the phone, and the guy in the next cubicle makes a comment in response to my phone conversation... I hate that it can be heard and I hate that they do that! These people have no problem yelling from cube to cube to carry on running conversations some of which are actually work-related. There's a lady two cubes away that talks so loud I can clearly hear every phone conversation she has... all work-related but still... Then the one in the next cubicle must have been raised on a farm because there's only one volume setting: LOUD... "HEY MARGE, CAN I GET IN FOR A QUICK APPOINTMENT AFTER WORK TONIGHT?" ... sigh Also that cube is the 'party cube' so that's where all the candy, cake, donuts, and leftovers sits. Anything MzLoud brings in has to have a verbal recipe associated with it at least 10 times during the day, and of course at volume. I've had running conversations over the top of my cube from people in the next one on each side. The weird thing is... the boss sits with an open door closer to this whole fiasco than me. So I wear a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and crank up Kenny Burrell, Herb Ellis, Wes Montgomery, or Jimmy Smith to the point I can't hear the racket... what the heck, I already have a hearing loss from playing guitar.

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• Which statically typed languages support intersection types for function return values?

  - by stakx

  Initial note: This question got closed after several edits because I lacked the proper terminology to state accurately what I was looking for. Sam Tobin-Hochstadt then posted a comment which made me recognise exactly what that was: programming languages that support intersection types for function return values. Now that the question has been re-opened, I've decided to improve it by rewriting it in a (hopefully) more precise manner. Therefore, some answers and comments below might no longer make sense because they refer to previous edits. (Please see the question's edit history in such cases.) Are there any popular statically & strongly typed programming languages (such as Haskell, generic Java, C#, F#, etc.) that support intersection types for function return values? If so, which, and how? (If I'm honest, I would really love to see someone demonstrate a way how to express intersection types in a mainstream language such as C# or Java.) I'll give a quick example of what intersection types might look like, using some pseudocode similar to C#: interface IX { … } interface IY { … } interface IB { … } class A : IX, IY { … } class B : IX, IY, IB { … } T fn() where T : IX, IY { return … ? new A() : new B(); } That is, the function fn returns an instance of some type T, of which the caller knows only that it implements interfaces IX and IY. (That is, unlike with generics, the caller doesn't get to choose the concrete type of T — the function does. From this I would suppose that T is in fact not a universal type, but an existential type.) P.S.: I'm aware that one could simply define a interface IXY : IX, IY and change the return type of fn to IXY. However, that is not really the same thing, because often you cannot bolt on an additional interface IXY to a previously defined type A which only implements IX and IY separately. Footnote: Some resources about intersection types: Wikipedia article for "Type system" has a subsection about intersection types. Report by Benjamin C. Pierce (1991), "Programming With Intersection Types, Union Types, and Polymorphism" David P. Cunningham (2005), "Intersection types in practice", which contains a case study about the Forsythe language, which is mentioned in the Wikipedia article. A Stack Overflow question, "Union types and intersection types" which got several good answers, among them this one which gives a pseudocode example of intersection types similar to mine above.

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• SQL SERVER – Introduction to Function SIGN

  - by pinaldave

  Yesterday I received an email from a friend asking how do SIGN function works. Well SIGN Function is very fundamental function. It will return the value 1, -1 or 0. If your value is negative it will return you negative -1 and if it is positive it will return you positive +1. Let us start with a simple small example. DECLARE @IntVal1 INT, @IntVal2 INT,@IntVal3 INT DECLARE @NumVal1 DECIMAL(4,2), @NumVal2 DECIMAL(4,2),@NumVal3 DECIMAL(4,2) SET @IntVal1 = 9; SET @IntVal2 = -9; SET @IntVal3 = 0; SET @NumVal1 = 9.0; SET @NumVal2 = -9.0; SET @NumVal3 = 0.0; SELECT SIGN(@IntVal1) IntVal1,SIGN(@IntVal2) IntVal2,SIGN(@IntVal3) IntVal3 SELECT SIGN(@NumVal1) NumVal1,SIGN(@NumVal2) NumVal2,SIGN(@NumVal2) NumVal3   The above function will give us following result set. You will notice that when there is positive value the function gives positive values and if the values are negative it will return you negative values. Also you will notice that if the data type is  INT the return value is INT and when the value passed to the function is Numeric the result also matches it. Not every datatype is compatible with this function.  Here is the quick look up of the return types. bigint -> bigint int/smallint/tinyint -> int money/smallmoney -> money numeric/decimal -> numeric/decimal everybody else -> float What will be the best example of the usage of this function that you will not have to use the CASE Statement. Here is example of CASE Statement usage and the same replaced with SIGN function. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (Date1 SMALLDATETIME, Date2 SMALLDATETIME) INSERT INTO TestTable (Date1, Date2) SELECT '2012-06-22 16:15', '2012-06-20 16:15' UNION ALL SELECT '2012-06-24 16:15', '2012-06-22 16:15' UNION ALL SELECT '2012-06-22 16:15', '2012-06-22 16:15' GO -- Using Case Statement SELECT CASE WHEN DATEDIFF(d,Date1,Date2) > 0 THEN 1 WHEN DATEDIFF(d,Date1,Date2) < 0 THEN -1 ELSE 0 END AS Col FROM TestTable GO -- Using SIGN Function SELECT SIGN(DATEDIFF(d,Date1,Date2)) AS Col FROM TestTable GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO This was interesting blog post for me to write. Let me know your opinion. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Adding a Role to a Responsibility for Use with the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java JAAS Implementation

  - by Juan Camilo Ruiz

  This new post on the series of ADF integration with Oracle E-Business Suite, was written by Sara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager on the Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Technology team. Based on a previous post of the series, a reader asked what to do if you have an existing responsibility assigned to lots of users, instead of the UMX role that the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java JAAS Implementation requires.  It would be tedious to assign a new role directly to hundreds or thousands of users, so naturally we’d like to avoid that if possible. Most people don’t know this, but it’s possible to assign a UMX role to a responsibility in Oracle User Management. Once you do that, users with your responsibility will all inherit your UMX role automatically. You can then proceed with using your UMX role with JAAS for ADF. Here is how to assign a UMX role to a responsibility in Oracle E-Business Suite: In the User Management responsibility, go to the Roles & Role Inheritance page. Search for the responsibility you want. In the search results table, click the “View In Hierarchy” icon for your responsibility. Note that the codes for responsibilities start with FND_RESP, while the codes for roles start with UMX. In the Role Inheritance Hierarchy, click on the Add Node icon (green plus + ) for your responsibility. Now you will see what appears to be the same page again but it is a little different (note the text at the top telling you the role you select will be inherited…).  This time, either search or expand nodes until you find your custom UMX role.  Use the Quick Select to choose that role. You will be sent back to the first screen, where you should see a confirmation message at the top. On the same page you can verify that the custom UMX role is underneath the responsibility.  You may need to expand one or more nodes to see the UMX role under the responsibility. You might see some other roles that have been inherited as well. Now that your users have the UMX role, you can test that the UMX role is being passed through to your ADF application through the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java JAAS feature. Happy coding!

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• SOA &amp; Application Grid Specialization step 2 of 6 &ndash; References &amp; Marketing Kits

  - by Jürgen Kress

  In our fist step to become SOA Specialized & Application Grid Specialized we highlighted our OMM to register your opportunities. We continue our path to specialization with our marketing offerings to create your reference cases and run joint marketing campaigns. References: Be Recognized Through Partner Success Stories Oracle delivers a wide variety of services and solutions through our partners and we believe that those successes should be recognized and promoted. References are also required to become specialized. We showcase our partners’ capabilities in Oracle products and industries through partner success stories that are published on Oracle.com. For significant implementations, we may invite partners to participate in a press release or be interviewed in a podcast. To participate and take a further step to become specialized, please take a minute to complete the form and tell us about the successful project you have implemented. If your story is selected, we will contact you for an interview. Create your references The partner reference program Enables partners to be recognized by both Oracle and our customers Provides an opportunity for partners to showcase successes with their customers on Oracle solutions Helps raise awareness of our partners’ capabilities, elevating them above their competition Time to submit a SOA and Application Grid reference request today To learn more about partner references, check out the following resources: Judson Althoff’s YouTube Video: Be Recognized with OPN Specialized Reference Program OPN PartnerCast: Be Recognized…Your Reference Matters!!! (MP3) Partner/Customer Reference Brochure (PDF) Marketing Kits We have created OFM 11g marketing kit http://tinyurl.com/soamarketing (OPN account required) The marketing kit includes all the ppts and demos from our launch event. Oracle package includes: • Event templates like invitation, agenda ,confirmation follow up templates • OFM 11g presentations • Free usage of the Oracle Customer Visit Center • Condition: mandatory lead registration in the Oracle Open Market Model (OMM) To download the material, please make sure that you select the campaign “Enterprise: Fusion Middleware 11g”: OFM 11g Oracle Marketing 4 Partners Package http://tinyurl.com/soamarketing (OPN account required)   For more information on Specialization please visit our OPN Specialized Webcast Series And become a member in our SOA Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/ema/soa Jürgen Kress, SOA Partner Adoption EMEA SOA Specialized Application Grid Specialized Proof 2 transactions with OMM Proof 2 transactions with OMM Create your 2 references Create your 2 references SOA Sales assessment 3, Oracle Application Grid Sales Specialist  SOA Pre-Sales assessment 3 Oracle Application Grid PreSales Specialist Support assessment 1 Support assessment 2 SOA Implementation assessment 4 Application Gridplementation assessment 4

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• Removing hard-coded values and defensive design vs YAGNI

  - by Ben Scott

  First a bit of background. I'm coding a lookup from Age - Rate. There are 7 age brackets so the lookup table is 3 columns (From|To|Rate) with 7 rows. The values rarely change - they are legislated rates (first and third columns) that have stayed the same for 3 years. I figured that the easiest way to store this table without hard-coding it is in the database in a global configuration table, as a single text value containing a CSV (so "65,69,0.05,70,74,0.06" is how the 65-69 and 70-74 tiers would be stored). Relatively easy to parse then use. Then I realised that to implement this I would have to create a new table, a repository to wrap around it, data layer tests for the repo, unit tests around the code that unflattens the CSV into the table, and tests around the lookup itself. The only benefit of all this work is avoiding hard-coding the lookup table. When talking to the users (who currently use the lookup table directly - by looking at a hard copy) the opinion is pretty much that "the rates never change." Obviously that isn't actually correct - the rates were only created three years ago and in the past things that "never change" have had a habit of changing - so for me to defensively program this I definitely shouldn't store the lookup table in the application. Except when I think YAGNI. The feature I am implementing doesn't specify that the rates will change. If the rates do change, they will still change so rarely that maintenance isn't even a consideration, and the feature isn't actually critical enough that anything would be affected if there was a delay between the rate change and the updated application. I've pretty much decided that nothing of value will be lost if I hard-code the lookup, and I'm not too concerned about my approach to this particular feature. My question is, as a professional have I properly justified that decision? Hard-coding values is bad design, but going to the trouble of removing the values from the application seems to violate the YAGNI principle. EDIT To clarify the question, I'm not concerned about the actual implementation. I'm concerned that I can either do a quick, bad thing, and justify it by saying YAGNI, or I can take a more defensive, high-effort approach, that even in the best case ultimately has low benefits. As a professional programmer does my decision to implement a design that I know is flawed simply come down to a cost/benefit analysis?

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• What changes were made to a document

  - by Daniel Moth

  Part of my job is writing functional specs. Due to the inevitable iterative and incremental nature of software design/development, these specs need to be updated with additions/deletions/changes over a period of time. When the time comes for a developer to implement features or update their design document (or a tester to test the feature or update their test specs) they need to be doing that against the latest spec. The problem is that if they have reviewed this document already, they need a quick way to find the delta from the last time they reviewed it to see what changes exist and how their existing plans may be affected (instead of having to read the entire document again). Doing that is very easy assuming your Word documents are hosted on SharePoint. 1. Every time you review a document note the SharePoint version and/or date (if it is a printed copy, make sure your printout includes the date in the footer – all my specs do) 2. When you need to see what changed, open the document (make sure you are not using a cached or local offline copy) and on the ribbon go to the "Review" tab and then  click on the "Compare" button. 3. Click on the "Specific Version…" option. In the dialog that pops up pick the last version you reviewed and click the "Compare" button. [TIP for authors: before checkin of your document, always compare against the "Last Version" on the SharePoint so you can add appropriate more complete check in comments] 4. What you see now is that in addition to the document you have open, two other documents just opened up. One is in the background (flashing on your task bar) – close that one as it is the old version. 5. The other document is in the foreground and contains all the changes between the old version and the latest one. Be sure not to make edits to this document, use it only for reading the changes. To find all the changes, on the ribbon under the "Review" tab, click on the "Reviewing Pane" to open the reviewing pane on the left. You can now click on each pink change to see what it is. 6. When you are done reviewing changes close the document and don't save any changes (remember if you want to make edits/additions/comments make them in the original document which is still open). And now I have a URL to point to people that keep asking about this – enjoy  :-) Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• SQLAuthority News – 5th Anniversary Giveaways

  - by pinaldave

  Please read my 5th Anniversary post and my quick note on history of the Database. I am sure that we all have friends and we value friendship more than anything. In fact, the complete model of Facebook is built on friends. If you have lots of friends, you must be a lucky person. Having a lot of friends is indeed a good thing. I consider all you blog readers as my friends so now I want do something for you. What is it? Well, send me details about how many of your friends like my page and you would have a chance to win lots of learning materials for yourself and your friends. Here are the exciting prizes awaiting the lucky winner: Combo set of 5 Joes 2 Pros Book – 1 for YOU and 1 for Friend This is USD 444 (each set USD 222) worth gift. It contains all the five Joes 2 Pros books (Vol1, Vol2, Vol3, Vol4, Vol5) + 1 Learning DVD. [Amazon] | [Flipkart] If in case you submitted an entry but didn’t win the Combo set of 5 Joes 2 Pros books, you could still will  my SQL Server Wait Stats book as a consolation prize! I will pick the next 5 participants who have the highest number of friends who “liked” the Facebook page, http://facebook.com/SQLAuth. Instead of sending one copy, I will send you 2 copies so you can share one copy with a friend of yours. Well, it is important to share our learning and love with friends, isn’t it? Note: Just take a screenshot of http://facebook.com/SQLAuth using Print Screen function and send it by Nov 7th to pinal ‘at’ sqlauthority.com.. There are no special freebies to early birds so take your time and see if you can increase your friends like count by Nov 7th. Guess – What is in it? It is quite possible you are not a Facebook or Twitter user. In that case you can still win a surprise from me. You have 2 days to guess what is in this box. If you guess it correct and you are one of the first 5 persons to have the correct answer – you will get what is in this box for free. Please note that you have only 48 hours to guess. Please give me your guess by commenting to this blog post. Reference:  Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Milestone, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• ATG Live Webcast March 21 Reminder: Network, WAN, and PC Performance Tuning (Performance Series Part 3 of 3)

  - by BillSawyer

  A quick reminder about tomorrow's webcast:  Andy Tremayne, Senior Architect, Applications Performance, and co-author of Oracle Applications Performance Tuning Handbook from Oracle Press, and Uday Moogala, Senior Principal Engineer, Applications Performance, will discuss network performance for E-Business Suite. Andy and Uday will cover tuning the client and tuning the network. They will share real-life examples of network performance, and show you tools and techniques that you can use to estimate or simulate performance on your own network.The agenda for the Performance Tuning - Part 3 of 3 webcast includes the following topics: Tuning the Client Tuning the Network Date:               Thursday, March 21, 2012Time:              8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Pacific Standard TimePresenters:  Andy Tremayne, Senior Architect, Applications Performance                        Uday Moogala, Senior Principal Engineer, Applications PerformanceWebcast Registration Link (Preregistration is optional but encouraged)To hear the audio feed:   Domestic Participant Dial-In Number:           877-697-8128    International Participant Dial-In Number:      706-634-9568    Additional International Dial-In Numbers Link:    Dial-In Passcode:                                              99341To see the presentation:    The Direct Access Web Conference details are:    Website URL: https://ouweb.webex.com    Meeting Number:  591264961If you miss the webcast, or you have missed any webcast, don't worry -- we'll post links to the recording as soon as it's available from Oracle University.  You can monitor this blog for pointers to the replay. And, you can find our archive of our past webcasts and training here.

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• 3rd Party Tools: dbForge Studio for SQL Server

  - by Greg Low

  I've been taking a look at some of the 3rd party tools for SQL Server. Today, I looked at DBForge Studio for SQL Server from the team at DevArt. Installation was smooth. I did find it odd that it defaults to SQL authentication, not to Windows but either works fine. I like the way they have followed the SQL Server Management Studio visual layout. That will make the product familiar to existing SQL Server Management Studio users. I was keen to see what the database diagram tools are like. I found that the layouts generated where quite good, and certainly superior to the built-in SQL Server ones in SSMS. I didn't find any easy way to just add all tables to the diagram though. (That might just be me). One thing I did like was that it doesn't get confused when you have role playing dimensions. Multiple foreign key relationships between two tables display sensibly, unlike with the standard SQL Server version. It was pleasing to see a printing option in the diagramming tool. I found the database comparison tool worked quite well. There are a few UI things that surprised me (like when you add a new connection to a database, it doesn't select the one you just added by default) but generally it just worked as advertised, and the code that was generated looked ok. I used the SQL query editor and found the code formatting to be quite fast and while I didn't mind the style that it used by default, it wasn't obvious to me how to change the format. In Tools/Options I found things that talked about Profiles but I wasn't sure if that's what I needed. The help file pointed me in the right direction and I created a new profile. It's a bit odd that when you create a new profile, that it doesn't put you straight into editing the profile. At first I didn't know what I'd done. But as soon as I chose to edit it, I found that a very good range of options were available. When entering SQL code, the code completion options are quick but even though they are quite complete, one of the real challenges is in making them useful. Note in the following that while the options shown are correct, none are actually helpful: The Query Profiler seemed to work quite well. I keep wondering when the version supplied with SQL Server will ever have options like finding the most expensive operators, etc. Now that it's deprecated, perhaps never but it's great to see the third party options like this one and like SQL Sentry's Plan Explorer having this functionality. I didn't do much with the reporting options as I use SQL Server Reporting Services. Overall, I was quite impressed with this product and given they have a free trial available, I think it's worth your time taking a look at it.

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• XNA Notes 001

  - by George Clingerman

  Just a quick recap of things I noticed going on in or around the XNA community this past week. I’m sure there’s a lot I missed (it’s a pretty big community with lots of different parts to it) but these where the things I caught that I thought were pretty cool. The XNA Team Michael Klucher gave a list of books every gamer should read. http://twitter.com/#!/mklucher/status/22313041135673344 Shawn Hargreaves posted Nelxon Studio posting about a cheatsheet for converting 3.1 to 4.0 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/01/04/xna-3-1-to-4-0-cheat-sheet.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter XNA Game Studio won the Frontline award for Programming Tool by GameDev magazine! Congrats to the XNA team! http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm XNA MVPs In January several MVPs were up for re-election, Jim Perry, Andy ‘The ZMan’ Dunn, Glenn Wilson and myself were all re-award a Microsoft MVP award for their contributions to the XNA/DirectX communities. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=XNA%2fDirectX A movement to get Michael McLaughlin an MVP award has started and you can join in too! http://twitter.com/#!/theBigDaddio/status/22744458621620224 http://www.xnadevelopment.com/MVP/MichaelMcLaughlinMVP.txt Don’t forget you can nominate ANYONE for a MVP award, that’s how they work. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpbecoming  XNA Developers James Silva of Ska Studios hit 9,200 sales of ZP2KX and recommends you listen to Infected Mushroom. http://twitter.com/#!/Jamezila/status/22538865357094912 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infected_Mushroom Noogy creator of the upcoming XBLA title Dust an Elysian tail posts some details into his art creation. http://noogy.com/image/statue/statue.html Xbox LIVE Indie Game News Microsoft posts acknowledging there was an issue with the sales data that has been addressed and apologized for not posting about it sooner. http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71347/436154.aspx#436154 Winter Uprising sales still chugging along and being updated by Xalterax (by those developers willing to actually share sales numbers. Thanks for sharing guys, much appreciated!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/70147.aspx Don’t forget about Dream Build Play coming up in February! http://www.dreambuildplay.com/Main/Home.aspx The Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games December Edition comes out on NeoGaf http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=414485 The Greatest XBox LIVE Indie Games of 2010 on DealSpwn – Congrats to DrMistry and MStarGames for his #1 spot with his massive XBLIG Space Pirates From Tomorrow! http://www.dealspwn.com/xbligoty-2010/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Dealspwn+%28Dealspwn%29 XNA Game Development The future of XACT and WP7 has finally been confirmed and we finally know what our options are for looping audio seamlessly on WP7. http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/61826/436639.aspx#436639  Super Mario 3 Design Notes is an interesting read for XBLIG developers, giving some insight to the training that natural occurs for players as they start playing the game. Good things for XBLIG developers to think about. http://www.significant-bits.com/super-mario-bros-3-level-design-lessons

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• WinMo&rsquo;s Demise: Notifying Next of &ldquo;Kin&rdquo;

  - by andrewbrust

  This past Monday, April 12th, Visual Studio 2010 was launched.  And on that same day, Microsoft also launched a new line of  mobile phone handsets, called Kin.  The two product launches are actually connected, but only by what they do not have in common, and what they commonly lack. On the former point: VS 2010 had released to manufacturing a couple weeks prior to its launch.  The Kin phones, meanwhile are not yet available.  We don’t even know what they will cost.  (And I think cost will be a major factor in Kin’s success…I told ChannelWeb’s Yara Souza so in this article). What do the two products both lack? Simple: Windows Mobile 6.x. For example, Kin seems to be based on the same platform as Windows Phone 7 (albeit a subset).  And VS 2010 does not support .NET Compact Framework development, which means no .NET development support for WinMo 6.x and earlier. So I guess April 12th marks Windows Phone “clean slate day.”  If you want to develop for the old phone platform, you will need to use the old version of Visual Studio (i.e. 2008).  Luckily VS 2010 and 2008 can be installed side-by-side.  But I doubt that’s much consolation to developers who still target WinMo 6.5 and earlier. Remember, WinMo isn’t just about the phone.  There are all sorts of non-telephony mobile devices, including ruggedized Pocket PC-style instruments, bar code readers and shop-floor-deployed units that don’t run Windows Phone 7 and couldn’t, even if they wanted to. Where will developers in these markets go?  I would guess some will stick with WinMo 6.x and earlier, until Windows Phone 7 can handle their workloads, assuming that does indeed happen.  Others will likely go to Google’s Android platform. For OEMs and developers who need a customizable mobile software stack, Android is turning out to be out-WinMo-ing WinMo.  As I wrote in this post, Google took Microsoft’s model (minus the licensing fees) and combined it with a modern SmartPhone feature set (rather than a late 90s/early oughts PDA paradigm), to great success.  You might say Google embraced and extended. You might also say Microsoft shunned and withdrew.

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