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• Silverlight Cream for February 21, 2011 -- #1049

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Rob Eisenberg(-2-), Gill Cleeren, Colin Eberhardt, Alex van Beek, Ishai Hachlili, Ollie Riches, Kevin Dockx, WindowsPhoneGeek(-2-), Jesse Liberty(-2-), and John Papa. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Silverlight 4: Creating useful base classes for your views and viewmodels with PRISM 4" Alex van Beek WP7: "Google Sky on Windows Phone 7" Colin Eberhardt Shoutouts: My friends at SilverlightShow have their top 5 for last week posted: SilverlightShow for Feb 14 - 20, 2011 From SilverlightCream.com: Rob Eisenberg MVVMs Us with Caliburn.Micro! Rob Eisenberg chats with Carl and Richard on .NET Rocks episode 638 about Caliburn.Micro which takes Convention-over-Configuration further, utilizing naming conventions to handle a large number of data binding, validation and other action-based characteristics in your app. Two Caliburn Releases in One Day! Rob Eisenberg also announced that release candidates for both Caliburn 2.0 and Caliburn.Micro 1.0 are now available. Check out the docs and get the bits. Getting ready for Microsoft Silverlight Exam 70-506 (Part 6) Gill Cleeren has Part 6 of his series on getting ready for the Silverlight Exam up at SilverlightShow.... this time out, Gill is discussing app startup, localization, and using resource dictionaries, just to name a few things. Google Sky on Windows Phone 7 Colin Eberhardt has a very cool WP7 app described where he's using Google Sky as the tile source for Bing Maps, and then has a list of 110 Messier Objects.. interesting astronomical objects that you can look at... all with source! Silverlight 4: Creating useful base classes for your views and viewmodels with PRISM 4 Alex van Beek has some Prism4/Unity MVVM goodness up with this discussion of a login module using View and ViewModel base classes. Windows Phone 7 and WCF REST – Authentication Solutions Ishai Hachlili sent me this link to his post about WCF REST web service and authentication for WP7, and he offers up 2 solutions... from the looks of this, I'm also putting his blog on my watch list WP7Contrib: Isolated Storage Cache Provider Ollie Riches has a complete explanation and code example of using the IsolatedStorageCacheProvider in their WP7Contrib library. Using a ChannelFactory in Silverlight, part two: binary cows & new-born calves Kevin Dockx follows-up his post on Channel Factories with this part 2, expanding the knowledge-base into usin parameters and custom binding with binary encoding, both from reader suggestions. All about UriMapping in WP7 WindowsPhoneGeek has a post up about URI mappings in WP7 ... what it is, how to enable it in code behind or XAML, then using it either with a hyperlink button or via the NavigationService class... all with code. Passing WP7 Memory Consumption requirements with the Coding4Fun MemoryCounter tool WindowsPhoneGeek's latest is a tutorial on the use of the Memory Counter control from the Coding4Fun toolkit and WP7 Memory consumption. Getting Started With Linq Jesse Liberty gets into LINQ in his Episode 33 of his WP7 'From Scratch' series... looks like a good LINQ starting point, and he's going to be doing a series on it. Linq with Objects In his second post on LINQ, Jesse Liberty is looking at creating a Linq query against a collection of objects... always good stuff, Jesse! Silverlight TV Silverlight TV 62: The Silverlight 5 Triad Unplugged John Papa is joined by Sam George, Larry Olson, and Vijay Devetha (the Silverlight Triad) on this Silverlight TV episode 62 to discuss how the team works together, and hey... they're hiring! Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Taking Your Business Scorecard Golfing

  - by tobyehatch

  Our workplace world is definitely changing. Not only are we taking work home, but we are working during odd hours in some very strange places.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacques Vigeant, Product Strategy Manager for Oracle Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management, on a Podcast, and he enlightened me about how our mobile devices and business scorecards are enabling us to be more accountable and keep a watchful eye on business – even while on the golf course.Business scorecards have been around for many years - so I asked Jacques if he felt they had changed significantly due to technology. His answer was, “Yes, and no.”  Jacques agreed that scorecard enthusiasts are still passionate about executing the company strategy and monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), but scorecards and Business Intelligence (BI) as a whole have changed.  He explained that five to six years ago, people did BI work at the office and, for the most part, disconnected from their computer and workplace when they went home – with the exception of checking email and making a phone call or two. But now, that is no longer the case. People are virtually always connected with work and, more importantly, expect their BI and scorecards to be ‘always on,’ regardless of whether they are at their desk or somewhere else.Basically, the BI paradigm has changed from a 'pull' model, where employees are at their desks querying or pulling information from the system, to a 'push' model where employees expect their BI and scorecard systems to reach out (or push information) to them when there is something of note to learn or something on which they need to take action. I found this very interesting. However mobile devices do have their limitations with respect to screen sizes – does it really make sense to look at your strategy/scorecard on tiny devices? What kind of scorecard activities can you really expect to be able to do? Jacques’ answer was very logical. “When you think of a scorecard, it is really comprised of an organization of KPIs that are aligned with the strategic objectives of your company. KPIs are the heart of how you will execute your strategy. So, if you decompose that a little more, each KPI is well defined with the thresholds that you should keep an eye on and who is responsible for them. When we talk about scorecarding on a phone, we aren’t talking about surfing the strategy and exploring the strategy map like we do on the desktop. In a scorecarding context, we use the phone more as an alerting mechanism or simple monitoring device for your KPIs.”Jacques gave a great example of an inventory manager who took part of an afternoon off to go golfing before winter finally hit, and while on the front nine holes, his phone vibrated. His scorecard was alerting him that the inventory levels for one of the products was below some threshold that he had set.  From his phone, he had set up three options within Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management (OSSM) for this type of situation:  1. Contact the warehouse manager directly by phone and work it out (standard phone function)  2. Tap/hold the KPI and add an annotation to the KPI in OSSM using the dictation capabilities of the phone and deal with it more fully when he gets back to the office  3. Tap/hold the KPI and invoke a business process from OSSM to transfer product from another warehouse with higher stock levels to the one that needs it  Being on a phone should still give you options to quickly deal with situations as needed, but mobile phones are not designed for nor should try to replicate the full desktop experience. We covered other interesting subjects in the interview, including how Oracle is keeping pace with mobile innovation and new devices such as Google Glasses, Galaxy Gear, Pebble Watches and more, and how Oracle is handling mobile security– which is great news for our mobile workforce. To listen to the entire Podcast, click here.To learn more about Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management, click here.

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• Retail CEO Interviews

  - by David Dorf

  Businessweek's 2012 Interview Issue has interviews with three retail CEOs that are worth a quick read.  I copied some excerpts below, but please follow the links to the entire interviews. Ron Johnson, CEO JCPenney Take me through your merchandising. One of the things I learned from Steve [Jobs]—Steve said three times in his life he had the chance to be part of the change of an interface. If you change the interface, you can dramatically change the entire experience of the product. For Steve, that was the mouse, the scroll wheel on the iPod, and then the [touch]screen. What we’re trying to do here is change the interface of retail. What we call that is the street, and you’re standing in the middle of it. When you walk into a store today, you’re overwhelmed by merchandise. There is a narrow aisle. Typically, it’s filled with product on tables and you’re overwhelmed with the noise of signs and promotions. Especially in the age of the Internet, the idea of going to a very large store and having so much abundance is actually not very appealing. The first thing you find here is you’re inspired. I have used the mannequins. The street is actually this new navigation path for a retail store. So if you come in here—you’ll notice that these aisles are 14 feet wide. These are wider than Nordstrom’s (JWN). Slide show of JCPenney store. Walter Robb, co-CEO Whole Foods What did you learn from the recent recession about selling groceries?It was a lot of humble pie, because our sales experienced a drop that I have never seen in 32 years of retail. Customers left us in droves. We also learned that there were some very loyal customers who loved Whole Foods (WFM), people who said, “I like what you stand for. I like coming here. I like this experience.” That was very affirming. I think the realization was that we’ve got some customers, and we need to make sure we know who they are. So instead of chasing every customer out there, we started doing customer discussion groups. We were growing for growth’s sake, which is not a good strategy. We were chasing the rainbow. We cut the growth in half overnight and said, “All right, slow down. Let’s make sure we’re doing this better and more thoroughly and more thoughtfully.” This company is a mission-based company. This company started to change the world by bringing healthier food to the world. It’s not about the money, it’s about the impact, and this company is back on track as a result of those experiences. Video of Whole Foods store tour. Kay Krill, CEO Ann Taylor You’ve worked in retail all your life. What drew you to it?I graduated from college, and I did not know what I wanted to do. Macy’s (M) came to campus to interview for their training program, and I thought, “Let me give it a try.” I got the job and fell in love with the industry. The president of Macy’s at the time said, “If you don’t wake up every morning dying to go to work, then retailing is not for you; it has to be in your blood.” It was in my blood. I love the fact that every day is different. You can get to be creative one day, financial the next day, marketing the next. I love going to stores. I love talking to associates. I love talking to clients. There’s not a predictable day.

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• Deploy Oracle Management Agent using RPM File

  - by cristiano.toni

  Normal 0 21 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tableau Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times","serif"; mso-ansi-language:FR;} 1) Create a rpm package on Enterprise Manager 12c a) as Root : # yum install rpmbuild # mkdir /usr/lib/oracle b) as oracle user # cd $<OMS_HOME>/bin/ # emcli get_supported_platforms ----------------------------------------------- Version = 12.1.0.3.0  Platform = Linux x86-64 ----------------------------------------------- Platforms list displayed successfully. #  emcli get_agentimage_rpm -destination=/tmp/agentRPM -platform="Linux x86-64" \ -version=12.1.0.3.0 Platform:Linux x86-64 Destination:/tmp/agentRPM Exalogic:false  Checking for disk space requirements...  === Partition Detail === Space free : 6 GB Space required : 1 GB RPM creation in progress ... Check the logs at /Oracle/gc_inst/em/EMGC_OMS1/sysman/emcli/setup/.emcli/get_agentimage_rpm_date-PM.log Copying agent image from software library to /tmp/agentRPM Setting property ORACLE_HOME to:/Oracle/middleware/oms calling pulloneoffs with arguments:/Oracle/middleware/oms/Oracle/middleware/oms/sysman/agent/ \ 12.1.0.3.0_AgentCore_226.zip12.1.0.3.0Linux x86-64/tmp/agentRPMtrue Agent Image copied successfully... Creation of RPM started... RPM creation successful. Agent image to rpm conversion completed successfully 2) Copy it on all new hosts and install it.  As Root user : c) check and install rpm file # rpm -ivh --test oracle-agt-12.1.0.3.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm  Preparing...                ########################################### [100%] # rpm -ivh oracle-agt-12.1.0.3.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm  Preparing...                ########################################### [100%] Running the prereq    1:oracle-agt             ########################################### [100%] Agent RPM installation is completed successfully. Now to configure the agent follow the below steps: 1. Edit the properties file: /usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties with the correct values 2. Execute the script /etc/init.d/oracle-agt RESPONSE_FILE=/usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties d) create a user for the agent: # useradd -m -d /home/em12adm -s /bin/bash -g dba -G oinstall em12adm # passwd em12adm e) Edit file /usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties # vi /usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties  OMS_HOST=<host_Enterprise_Manager> OMS_PORT=<HTTPS Upload Port > AGENT_REGISTRATION_PASSWORD=oracle AGENT_USERNAME=em12adm AGENT_GROUP=dba ORACLE_HOSTNAME=oraclevm-mgmt # chown -R em12adm:dba /usr/lib/oracle/agent/ Start agent and register the new host server on EM12c   #  /etc/init.d/oracle-agt RESPONSE_FILE=/usr/lib/oracle/agent/agent.properties Now you have registered on EM12C your new target host.

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• AZURE - Stairway To Heaven

  - by Waclaw Chrabaszcz

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Wchrabaszcz/archive/2014/08/02/azure---stairway-to-heaven.aspx  Before you’ll start reading please start to play this song.   OK boys and girls, time get familiar with clouds. Time to become a meteorologist. To be honest I don’t know how to start. Is cloud better or worse than on campus resources … hmm … it is just different. I think for successful adoption in cloud world IT Dinosaurs need to forget some “Private Cloud” virtualization bad habits, and learn new way of thinking. Take a look: - I don’t need any  tapes or  CDs  (Physical Kingdom of Windows XP and 2000) - I don’t need any locally stored MP3s (CD virtualization :-) - I can just stream music to your computer no matter whether my on-site infrastructure is powered on. Why not to do exactly the same with WebServer, SQL, or just rented for a while Windows server ? Let’s go, to the other side of the mirror. 1st  - register yourself for free one month trial, as happy MSDN subscriber you’ve got monthly budget to spent. In addition in default setting your limit protects you against loosing real money, if your toys will consume too much traffic and space. http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ Once your account is ready forget WebPortal, we are PowerShell knights. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9811175&clcid=0x409 #Authenticate yourself in Azure Add-AzureAccount #download once your settings file Get-AzurePublishSettingsFile #Import it to your PowerShell Module Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile "C:\Azure\[filename].publishsettings" #validation Get-AzureAccount Get-AzureSubscription #where are Azure datacenters Get-AzureLocation #You will need it Update-Help #storage account is related to physical location, there are two datacenters on each continent, try nearest to you # all your VMs will store VHD files on your storage account #your storage account must be unique globally, so I assume that words account or server are already used New-AzureStorageAccount -StorageAccountName "[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]" -Label "AzureTwo" -Location "West Europe" Get-AzureStorageAccount #it looks like you are ready to deploy first VM, what templates we can use Get-AzureVMImage | Select ImageName #what a mess, let’s choose Server 2012 $ImageName = (Get-AzureVMImage)[74].ImageName $cloudSvcName = '[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]' $AdminUsername = "[YOUR-ADMIN]" $adminPassword = '[YOUR_PA$$W0RD]' $MediaLocation = "West Europe" $vmnameDC = 'DC01' #burn baby burn !!! $vmDC01 = New-AzureVMConfig -Name $vmnameDC -InstanceSize "Small" -ImageName $ImageName   `     | Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -Windows -Password $adminPassword -AdminUsername $AdminUsername   `     | New-AzureVM -ServiceName $cloudSvcName #ice, ice baby … Get-AzureVM Get-AzureRemoteDesktopFile -ServiceName "[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]" -Name "DC01" -LocalPath "c:\AZURE\DC01.rdp" As you can see it is not just a new-VM, you need to associate your VM with AzureVMConfig (it sets your template), AzureProvisioningConfig (it sets your customizations), and Storage account. In next releases you’ll need to put this machine in specific subnet, attach a HDD and many more. After second reading I found that I am using the same name for STORAGE and SERVICE account, please be aware of it if you need to split these values. Conclusions: - pipe rules ! - at the beginning it is hard to change your mind and agree with fact that it is easier to remove and recreate a VM than move it to different subnet - by default everything is firewalled, limited access to DNS, but NATed outside on custom ports. It is good to check these translations sometimes on the webportal. - if you remove your VMs your harddrives remains on storage and MS will charge you . Remove-AzureVM -DeleteVHD For me AZURE it is a lot of fun, once again I can be newbie and learn every page. For me Azure offers real freedom in deployment of VMs without arguing with NetAdmins, WinAdmins, DBAs, PMs and other Change Managers. Unfortunately soon or later they will come to my haven and change it into …

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• The All New Hotmail Looks Very Impressive [Video Tour]

  - by Gopinath

  With loads of new new features being introduced into GMail every now and then, Microsoft can’t sit and relax any more. Microsoft realized this and worked hard to introduce really impressive features in upcoming version of Windows Live Hotmail that was previewed couple of days ago. Most of the new features announced in the upcoming version are focusing on the important need of email users – de-clutter the mail box and effectively manage email over load easily. Here is the list highlight of new features New Features Sweep away clutter – This is the most impressive in the set of new features. It allows you to manage email overload. If you’ve subscribed to a newsletter but decided to not to allow it into your inbox, you can activate the sweep feature to move all the messages of the newsletter in to a folder other than your inbox. This may sound similar to filters option in GMail but the workflow is very easy in Hotmail. Quickly find message – Easy to use options are provided to see mails in separate views likes mails from contacts, social networking mail, mails from e-mail subscription services, etc. Now it’s easy to prioritize email checking like how you wish to. I prefer to check mails from my contacts first, then social networking messages and then the newsletter subscriptions. Improved spam detection – The span detection rules are tightened for better spam protection and also hotmail learns from user actions to effectively catch spam No more mail box storage restrictions – With a smart decision of Microsoft, users  no longer need to worry about the storage restrictions of their mail box – large attachments of hotmail can be stored in Windows Live SkyDrive. With Hotmail, we’ve combined the simplicity of sending photos through email with the power of Windows Live SkyDrive so that you can send up to 200 photos, each up to 50 MB in size, all in a single email. You can send all your vacation photos at once without worrying about attachment limits, Excellent Integration With Office Web Apps -  View and editing of office documents attached to the emails are made very easy by integrating Office Web Apps with Hotmail. When you receive a document/presentation/spreadsheet in hotmail, you can view it, edit it, save it or even you can send the modified document to original sender – all these without leaving hotmail. Inline viewing options for Photos, Videos, Social Network Messages – You can view photos embedded in the mail as slideshows(with the help of SilverLight), YouTube  & Hulu videos can be played inline  and track shipping notifications. Threaded conversations – emails in Hotmail are grouped just like it happens in GMail Others - enhanced account protection, full-session SSL, multiple email accounts, subfolders, contact management Video Tour Of New Features Here is an impressive video tour of new Hotmail features. When are these new features coming to Hotmail? Majority of the new features announced today are rolled out in coming weeks gradually to all the users. But advanced features like Office Integration with Hotmail is expected to take couple of months for general availability. Will You Switch back to Hotmail? Will these features lure GMail/Yahoo users to switch back to Hotmail? May be not immediately but these features may hold the existing users from leaving Hotmail. I used Hotmail, in the pre GMail era and now I use  Hotmail id only to sign-in to Microsoft websites that requites Hotmail authentication. It’s been years since I composed a new email in Hotmail. Even though the new features announced by Hotmail are very impressive, I like the way how GMail rapidly brings new features at regular intervals. If Hotmail also keeps innovating with new features at regular intervals, then there are good chances for it’s old users to return home. Join us on Facebook to read all our stories right inside your Facebook news feed.

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• Oracle Data Integration 12c: Perspectives of Industry Experts, Customers and Partners

  - by Irem Radzik

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 As you may have seen from our recent blog posts on Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c, we are very excited to share with you the great new features the 12c release brings to Oracle’s data integration solutions. And, fortunately we are not alone in this sentiment. Since the press announcement October 17th, which incorporates our customers' and experts' testimonials, we have seen positive comments in leading technology publications and social media as well. Here are some examples: In CIO and PCWorld you can find Joab Jackson’s article, Oracle Data Integrator 12c ready for real-time analysis, where wrote about the tight integration between Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate . He noted “Heeding the call from enterprise customers who clamor for more immediacy in their data-driven reports, Oracle has updated its data-integration software portfolio so that it can more rapidly deliver data to data warehouses and analysis applications.” Integration Developer News’ Vance McCarthy wrote the article Oracle Ships ‘Future Proofs’ Integration Tools for Traditional, Cloud, Big Data, Real-Time Projects and mentioned that “Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c sport a wide range of improvements to let devs more easily deliver data integration for cloud, analytics, big data and other new projects that leverage multiple datasets for business.“ InformationWeek’s Doug Henschen gave a great overview to several key features including the new flow-based UI in Oracle Data Integrator. Doug said “Oracle Data Integrator 12c introduces a complete makeover of the job-building experience, while real-time oriented GoldenGate 12c introduces performance gains “. In Database Trends and Applications’ article Oracle Strengthens Data Integration with Release of Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c highlighted the productivity aspect of the new solution with his remarks: “tight integration between Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c enables developers to leverage Oracle GoldenGate’s low overhead, real-time change data capture completely within the Oracle Data Integrator Studio without additional training”. We are also thrilled about what our customers and partners have to say about our products and the new release. And we are equally excited to share those perspectives with you in our upcoming launch video webcast on November 12th. SolarWorld Industries America’s Senior Database Manager, Russ Toyama will join our executives in our studio in Redwood Shores to discuss GoldenGate’s core benefits and the new release, while Surren Partharb, CTO of Strategic Technology Services for BT, and Mark Rittman, CTO of Rittman Mead, will provide their comments via the interviews conducted in the UK. This interactive panel discussion in the video webcast will unveil the new release with the expertise of our development executives and the great insight from our customers and partners. In addition, our product experts will be available online to answer chat questions. This is really a great opportunity to learn how Oracle's data integration offering has changed the integration and replication technology space with the new release, and established itself as the new leader. If you have not registered for this free event yet, you can do so via this link. We will run the live event at 8am PT/4pm GMT, followed by a replay of the event with live chat for Q&A  at 10am PT/6pm GMT. The replay will be available on-demand for those who register but cannot attend either session on November 12th. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}

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• SQLAuthority News – Random Thoughts and Random Ideas

  - by pinaldave

  There are days when I keep on wondering about SQL, and even my life overall. Today is Saturday so I decided to write about SQL Server. Just like any other mornings, I woke up at 5 and opened my blog editor. I usually do not open Twitter or Facebook when I am planning to focus on my work, as they are little distractions for me. But today I opened my Twitter account and came across a very interesting quote from a friend: ‘Can I expect you to be different today?’ Well, I think it was very powerful quote for me to read first thing on a new day. This quote froze me for a while and made me think, “Do I really want to write about an SQL Server tip, or something different?”  After a little thinking, I’ve realized that for today I would go on and write something different. I am going to write about a few of the ideas and thoughts I had yesterday. After writing all these, I realized that if I am thinking so much in a day, and if I write a blog post of my random musing of the week or month, it can be so long (and boring). Here are some of my random thoughts I’d like to share with you: When the airplane lands, why does everybody get up and try to rush out when their luggage would be coming probably 20-30 minutes later? I really do not like this question when it was asked to me: “SQL Server is not using optimal index which I just created – how can I force it?” I am not going elaborate on this statement but you are allowed to in the comment section. Why do some people wish Good Morning even when they meet us after 4 PM? Can I optimize a query so much that it gives me a result before I execute it? Is it corruption when someone does their personal household work at office? The lane where I drive is always the slowest lane. Why waste time on correcting others when there are a lot of pending improvements for ourselves? If I have to get Tattoo, which SQL Server Execution Plan symbol should I get? Why do I reach office so early that the coffee machine is yet running its daily cleaning job? Why does every laptop have a ‘Page Up’ key at different locations on the keyboard? While I like color movies, I really appreciate black and white photographs. I do not appreciate statements like, “If I receive your books in PDF, I will spread it to many people to give you much greater exposure. So would you please send them to me ASAP?” Do not tell me, “Why does the database grow back after shrinking it every day?” I suggest you use “Search this blog” for the explanation. Petrol prices are currently at INR 74. I hope the rate remains there. Let me ask you the same question which started my day today:  “Can I expect you to be different today?” Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Use Your Favorite Wallpapers in Windows 7 Starter Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  If you have Windows 7 Starter Edition installed on your netbook, the default wallpaper can get old. If you are tired of looking at the default wallpaper, then join us today as we look at changing it with Oceanis Change Background Windows 7. Special Notes This information is quoted directly from the website and needs to be kept in mind when using Oceanis Change Background Windows 7: If the Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 program no longer works properly after installing some Windows Updates, then uninstall and reinstall the Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 program to have it run properly again. If you ever do an in-place upgrade to another higher level edition of Windows 7 in the future, then be sure to uninstall this Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 program first to avoid incompatibility issues with it in the new edition of Windows 7. It was designed to only work in Windows 7 Starter edition. Before There it is…the default wallpaper everyone with the Starter Edition gets stuck with. Some people may not mind it, but if you are one of the people who really wants something different then get ready to rejoice. After The install file for Oceanis is contained in a zip file so you will need to unzip it to get started. The install process is quick and simple but you will need to do a system restart afterwards. Once you have restarted your computer this is what your screen will look like…do not panic and think that this is all there is to it. This is just the Starter Screen and can be easily changed… Note: Oceanis will auto-start with Windows each time. Using either the Desktop Icon or the Start Menu Entry, open up the Oceanis Main Window. You will see the set of four default wallpapers shown here. At this point the best thing to do is browse for the appropriate folder where you have all of those wonderful new wallpapers just waiting to be used. Note: We found Stretch to be the best Picture Position setting on our system. For our example we had three ready and waiting. We decided to try out the Wallpaper Slideshow feature first. We chose a time frame and saved our changes. Here are our three wallpapers as they switched through. This can be much more interesting than the default wallpaper. There was only one quirk that we encountered while using the Slideshow Setting. On occasion if we minimized a non-maximized window there would be a leftover partial image in place of the window. Our suggestion? Go with one wallpaper at a time and the settings shown below. These are the settings that we had terrific luck with…Only one picture selected, Picture Position = Stretch, & Change Picture Every = Every Day. Using these settings, the Starter Edition acted just like any of the other editions with regard to wallpaper management. Conclusion If you have grown tired of looking at the default wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter Edition then you will certainly appreciate what Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 can do to fix that problem. For more ways to customize your Windows 7 Started Edition, be sure to to check out how to personalize Windows 7 Starter. Links Download Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: The Windows 7 EditionHow To Customize Wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter EditionDesktop Fun: Starship Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Underwater Theme Wallpapers 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 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day

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• Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Database: A Robust Infrastructure for your Applications

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 It has been said that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. Well, this is also true for your application infrastructure. Not only are the various components that constitute your infrastructure, like database and application server critical, the integration between these things [whether coming out of the box from your vendor or done in-house] is paramount. Imagine your database being down and your application server not knowing about it and as a result your application waiting indefinitely for a database response – not a great situation if high availability is critical to your application. Or one of your database nodes is very busy, but your application server doesn’t have the intelligence to decipher that – it keeps pinging the busy node when it can in fact get a response from another idle node much faster. This is what Oracle WebLogic and Database integration provides: Intelligent integration out of the box. Tight integration between Oracle WebLogic and Database makes your infrastructure robust enough that not only does each of your infrastructure component provide you with improved RASP [reliability availability, scalability, and performance] but these components work together to offer improved performance & availability, better resource sharing, inherent scalability, ease of configuration and automated management for your entire infrastructure. Oracle WebLogic Server is the only application server with this degree of integration to Oracle Database. With Oracle WebLogic Server 11g, we introduced Active GridLink for Real Application Clusters (RAC). In conjunction with Oracle Database, this powerful software technology simplifies management, increases availability, and ensures fast connection failover with runtime connection, load balancing and affinity capabilities. With the release of Oracle Database 12c this summer, even tighter integration between Oracle WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.2) and Oracle Database 12c has been achieved and this further optimizes the integration for a global cloud environment. Read about these capabilities in detail in the Oracle WebLogic-Database Integration Whitepaper. Get in depth ‘how-to’ details from this YouTube video on the topic from our resident expert, Monica Roccelli. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Get Exchange Online Mailbox Size in GB

  - by Brian Jackett

  As mentioned in my previous post I was recently working with a customer to get started with Exchange Online PowerShell commandlets.  In this post I wanted to follow up and show one example of a difference in output from commandlets in Exchange 2010 on-premises vs. Exchange Online.   Problem    The customer was interested in getting the size of mailboxes in GB.  For Exchange on-premises this is fairly easy.  A fellow PFE Gary Siepser wrote an article explaining how to accomplish this (click here).  Note that Gary’s script will not work when remoting from a local machine that doesn’t have the Exchange object model installed.  A similar type of scenario exists if you are executing PowerShell against Exchange Online.  The data type for TotalItemSize  being returned (ByteQuantifiedSize) exists in the Exchange namespace.  If the PowerShell session doesn’t have access to that namespace (or hasn’t loaded it) PowerShell works with an approximation of that data type.    The customer found a sample script on this TechNet article that they attempted to use (minor edits by me to fit on page and remove references to deleted item size.)   Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | Select DisplayName,StorageLimitStatus, ` @{name="TotalItemSize (MB)"; expression={[math]::Round( ` ($_.TotalItemSize.Split("(")[1].Split(" ")[0].Replace(",","")/1MB),2)}}, ` ItemCount | Sort "TotalItemSize (MB)" -Descending | Export-CSV "C:\My Documents\All Mailboxes.csv" -NoTypeInformation     The script is targeted to Exchange 2010 but fails for Exchange Online.  In Exchange Online when referencing the TotalItemSize property though it does not have a Split method which ultimately causes the script to fail.   Solution    A simple solution would be to add a call to the ToString method off of the TotalItemSize property (in bold on line 5 below).   Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | Select DisplayName,StorageLimitStatus, ` @{name="TotalItemSize (MB)"; expression={[math]::Round( ` ($_.TotalItemSize.ToString().Split("(")[1].Split(" ")[0].Replace(",","")/1MB),2)}}, ` ItemCount | Sort "TotalItemSize (MB)" -Descending | Export-CSV "C:\My Documents\All Mailboxes.csv" -NoTypeInformation      This fixes the script to run but the numerous string replacements and splits are an eye sore to me.  I attempted to simplify the string manipulation with a regular expression (more info on regular expressions in PowerShell click here).  The result is a workable script that does one nice feature of adding a new member to the mailbox statistics called TotalItemSizeInBytes.  With this member you can then convert into any byte level (KB, MB, GB, etc.) that suits your needs.  You can download the full version of this script below (includes commands to connect to Exchange Online session). $UserMailboxStats = Get-Mailbox -RecipientTypeDetails UserMailbox ` -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics $UserMailboxStats | Add-Member -MemberType ScriptProperty -Name TotalItemSizeInBytes ` -Value {$this.TotalItemSize -replace "(.*\()|,| [a-z]*\)", ""} $UserMailboxStats | Select-Object DisplayName,@{Name="TotalItemSize (GB)"; ` Expression={[math]::Round($_.TotalItemSizeInBytes/1GB,2)}}   Conclusion    Moving from on-premises to the cloud with PowerShell (and PowerShell remoting in general) can sometimes present some new challenges due to what you have access to.  This means that you must always test your code / scripts.  I still believe that not having to physically RDP to a server is a huge gain over some of the small hurdles you may encounter during the transition.  Scripting is the future of administration and makes you more valuable.  Hopefully this script and the concepts presented help you be a better admin / developer.         -Frog Out     Links The Get-MailboxStatistics Cmdlet, the TotalitemSize Property, and that pesky little “b” http://blogs.technet.com/b/gary/archive/2010/02/20/the-get-mailboxstatistics-cmdlet-the-totalitemsize-property-and-that-pesky-little-b.aspx   View Mailbox Sizes and Mailbox Quotas Using Windows PowerShell http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchangelabshelp/gg576861#ViewAllMailboxes   Regular Expressions with Windows PowerShell http://www.regular-expressions.info/powershell.html   “I don’t always test my code…” image http://blogs.pinkelephant.com/images/uploads/conferences/I-dont-always-test-my-code-But-when-I-do-I-do-it-in-production.jpg   The One Thing: Brian Jackett and SharePoint 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg_h66HMP9o

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• Managing Scripts in Oracle SQL Developer

  - by thatjeffsmith

  You backup your databases, right? You backup you home computer – your media collection, tax documents, bank accounts, etc, right? You backup your handy-dandy SQL scripts, right? Ok, now that I’ve got your head nodding, I want to answer a question I get every so often: How can I manage my scripts in SQL Developer? This is an interesting question. First, it assumes that one SHOULD manage their scripts in their IDE. Now, what I think the question generally gets around to is, how can we: Navigate to our scripts Open them Execute them What a good IDE should have is an interface to your existing Version Control System (VCS.) SQL Developer supports out-of-the-box both Subversion and Git. You can also download an extension via check-for-updates to get support for CVS. Now, what I’m about to show you COULD be done without versioning and controlling your scripts – but I want to ask you why you wouldn’t want to do this? So, I’m going to proceed and assume that you do INDEED version your scripts already. Seeing what scripts you’ve already got in your repository This is very straightforward – just open the Team Versions panel. Then connect to your repository. Shows you the files in your source control system. Now, I could ‘preview’ said file right away. If I open the file from here, we get a temp file copy down from the server to the local machine. This is a local temp copy of the controlled script – I can read/execute, but not write to it. And that might be all you need. But, if your script calls other scripts, then you’re going to want to check out the server copy of your stuff down your local SVN working copy directory. That way when your script calls another script – you’re executing the PRODUCTION APPROVED copies of said scripts. And if you do SPOOL or other file I/O stuff, it will work as expected. To get to those said client copies of your scripts… Enter the Files Panel The Files panel is accessible from the View menu. You can get to your files, one of two ways. If you’ve touched the file recently, you can see it under the Recent tree. Otherwise, you can navigate to your local ‘checked out’ copies of your script(s). Open your local copies, see what’s changed, etc. And I can access the change history and see what’s been touched… What changes am I going to ‘push out’ if I commit this back to the server? Most of us work on teams, yes? This panel also gives me a heads up if someone else is making changes to the same file. I can see the ‘incoming’ changes as well. To Sum It Up… If I want to get a script to run: do a full get to your local directory open the script(s) The files panel will tell you if your local copy is out of date from the server and if you have made local changes you’ve forgotten to commit back up to the server and your fellow teammates. Now, if you’re the selfish type and don’t want to share, that’s fine. But you should still be backing up your scripts, and you can still use the Files panel to manage your scripts.

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• Lost in Translation – Common Mistakes Interpreting Patterns – Mark Simpson, Griffiths-Waite @ SOA, Cloud & Service Technology Symposium 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  ORACLE PROMOTIONAL DISCOUNT FOR EXCLUSIVE ORACLE DISCOUNT, ENTER PROMO CODE: DJMXZ370 For details please visit the registration page International SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium is a yearly event that features the top experts and authors from around the world, providing a series of keynotes, talks, demonstrations, and panels, as well as training and certification workshops - all dedicated to empowering IT professionals to realize modern service technologies and practices in the real world. Click here for a two-page printable conference overview (PDF). Speaker: Mark Simpson, Griffiths-Waite Mark has been specialising in Oracle technology for 13 years, the last 10 of these with Griffiths Waite. Mark leads our SOA technology practice (covering SOA, Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture). He is a much sought after presenter on the Oracle and SOA conference circuits, and a respected authority on these technologies. Mark has advised a host of UK leading organisations on the deployment of BPM / SOA solutions. Working closely with Oracle US Product Development Mark has contributed to Oracle's SOA Methodology and Oracle's SOA Maturity Model. Lost in Translation – Common Mistakes Interpreting Patterns Learn how small misinterpretations of high-level design patterns can have large and costly project ramifications. Good SOA design benefits from the use of a reference architecture and standardised design patterns. However both of these concepts give an abstracted view of the intended solution, which needs to be interpreted to become realised. A reference implementation is important to demonstrate how key design guidelines can be implemented in the toolset of choice, but the main success factor is how these are used through the build and post live phases of the project. This session will introduce practical design patterns with supporting implementation examples that, if used correctly, will give long term benefit. We will highlight implementations where misinterpretations or misalignment from pattern aims have led to issues post implementation. The session will add depth to the pattern discussions you are already having enabling confidence in proceeding to the next level of realisation whilst considering how they may be implemented within your solution and chosen toolset. September 25, 2012 - 13:55 KEYNOTES & SPEAKERS More than 80 international subject matter experts will be speaking at the Symposium. Below are confirmed keynotes and speakers so far. Over 50% of the agenda has not yet been finalized. Many more speakers to come. View the partial program calendars on the Conference Agenda page. CONFERENCE THEMES & TRACKS Cloud Computing Architecture & Patterns New SOA & Service-Orientation Practices & Models Emerging Service Technology Innovation Service Modeling & Analysis Techniques Service Infrastructure & Virtualization Cloud-based Enterprise Architecture Business Planning for Cloud Computing Projects Real World Case Studies Semantic Web Technologies (with & without the Cloud) Governance Frameworks for SOA and/or Cloud Computing Projects Service Engineering & Service Programming Techniques Interactive Services & the Human Factor New REST & Web Services Tools & Techniques Oracle Specialized SOA & BPM Partners Oracle Specialized partners have proven their skills by certifications and customer references. To find a local Specialized partner please visit http://solutions.oracle.com SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Mark Simpson,Griffiths Waite,SOA Patterns,SOA Symposium,Thomas Erl,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• JDK 7u25: Solutions to Issues caused by changes to Runtime.exec

  - by Devika Gollapudi

  The following examples were prepared by Java engineering for the benefit of Java developers who may have faced issues with Runtime.exec on the Windows platform. Background In JDK 7u21, the decoding of command strings specified to Runtime.exec(String), Runtime.exec(String,String[]) and Runtime.exec(String,String[],File) methods, has been made more strict. See JDK 7u21 Release Notes for more information. This caused several issues for applications. The following section describes some of the problems faced by developers and their solutions. Note: In JDK 7u25, the system property jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands can be used to relax the checking process and helps as a workaround for some applications that cannot be changed. The workaround is only effective for applications that are run without a SecurityManager. See JDK 7u25 Release Notes for more information. Note: To understand the details of the Windows API CreateProcess call, see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682425%28v=vs.85%29.aspx There are two forms of Runtime.exec calls: with the command as string: "Runtime.exec(String command[, ...])" with the command as string array: "Runtime.exec(String[] cmdarray [, ...] )" The issues described in this section relate to the first form of call. With the first call form, developers expect the command to be passed "as is" to Windows where the command needs be split into its executable name and arguments parts first. But, in accordance with Java API, the command argument is split into executable name and arguments by spaces. Problem 1: "The file path for the command includes spaces" In the call: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("c:\\Program Files\\do.exe") the argument is split by spaces to an array of strings as: c:\\Program, Files\\do.exe The first element of parsed array is interpreted as the executable name, verified by SecurityManager (if present) and surrounded by quotations to avoid ambiguity in executable path. This results in the wrong command: "c:\\Program" "Files\\do.exe" which will fail. Solution: Use the ProcessBuilder class, or the Runtime.exec(String[] cmdarray [, ...] ) call, or quote the executable path. Where it is not possible to change the application code and where a SecurityManager is not used, the Java property jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands could be used by setting its value to "true" from the command line: -Djdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands=true This will relax the checking process to allow ambiguous input. Examples: new ProcessBuilder("c:\\Program Files\\do.exe").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"c:\\Program Files\\do.exe"}) Runtime.getRuntime().exec("\"c:\\Program Files\\do.exe\"") Problem 2: "Shell command/.bat/.cmd IO redirection" The following implicit cmd.exe calls: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("dir temp.txt") new ProcessBuilder("foo.bat", "", "temp.txt").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"foo.cmd", "", "temp.txt"}) lead to the wrong command: "XXXX" "" temp.txt Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /C \"dir temp.txt\"") new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "foo.bat temp.txt").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "foo.cmd temp.txt"}) or Process p = new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C" "XXX").redirectOutput(new File("temp.txt")).start(); Problem 3: "Group execution of shell command and/or .bat/.cmd files" Due to enforced verification procedure, arguments in the following calls create the wrong commands.: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("first.bat && second.bat") new ProcessBuilder("dir", "&&", "second.bat").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"dir", "|", "more"}) Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.exec("cmd /C \"first.bat && second.bat\"") new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "dir && second.bat").start() Runtime.exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "dir | more"}) The same scenario also works for the "&", "||", "^" operators of the cmd.exe shell. Problem 4: ".bat/.cmd with special DOS chars in quoted params” Due to enforced verification, arguments in the following calls will cause exceptions to be thrown.: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("log.bat \"error new ProcessBuilder("log.bat", "error Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"log.bat", "error Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /C log.bat \"error new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "log.bat", "error Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "log.bat", "error Examples: Complicated redirection for shell construction: cmd /c dir /b C:\ "my lovely spaces.txt" becomes Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "dir \b \"my lovely spaces.txt\"" }); The Golden Rule: In most cases, cmd.exe has two arguments: "/C" and the command for interpretation.

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• Big Data – How to become a Data Scientist and Learn Data Science? – Day 19 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the analytics in Big Data Story. In this article we will understand how to become a Data Scientist for Big Data Story. Data Scientist is a new buzz word, everyone seems to be wanting to become Data Scientist. Let us go over a few key topics related to Data Scientist in this blog post. First of all we will understand what is a Data Scientist. In the new world of Big Data, I see pretty much everyone wants to become Data Scientist and there are lots of people I have already met who claims that they are Data Scientist. When I ask what is their role, I have got a wide variety of answers. What is Data Scientist? Data scientists are the experts who understand various aspects of the business and know how to strategies data to achieve the business goals. They should have a solid foundation of various data algorithms, modeling and statistics methodology. What do Data Scientists do? Data scientists understand the data very well. They just go beyond the regular data algorithms and builds interesting trends from available data. They innovate and resurrect the entire new meaning from the existing data. They are artists in disguise of computer analyst. They look at the data traditionally as well as explore various new ways to look at the data. Data Scientists do not wait to build their solutions from existing data. They think creatively, they think before the data has entered into the system. Data Scientists are visionary experts who understands the business needs and plan ahead of the time, this tremendously help to build solutions at rapid speed. Besides being data expert, the major quality of Data Scientists is “curiosity”. They always wonder about what more they can get from their existing data and how to get maximum out of future incoming data. Data Scientists do wonders with the data, which goes beyond the job descriptions of Data Analysist or Business Analysist. Skills Required for Data Scientists Here are few of the skills a Data Scientist must have. Expert level skills with statistical tools like SAS, Excel, R etc. Understanding Mathematical Models Hands-on with Visualization Tools like Tableau, PowerPivots, D3. j’s etc. Analytical skills to understand business needs Communication skills On the technology front any Data Scientists should know underlying technologies like (Hadoop, Cloudera) as well as their entire ecosystem (programming language, analysis and visualization tools etc.) . Remember that for becoming a successful Data Scientist one require have par excellent skills, just having a degree in a relevant education field will not suffice. Final Note Data Scientists is indeed very exciting job profile. As per research there are not enough Data Scientists in the world to handle the current data explosion. In near future Data is going to expand exponentially, and the need of the Data Scientists will increase along with it. It is indeed the job one should focus if you like data and science of statistics. Courtesy: emc Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about various Big Data Learning resources. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Introducing Oracle User Productivity Kit (UPK) 12.1 Thursday 26th June 2014 – Oracle, Reading, Berkshire

  - by Kathryn Lustenberger

  Join Oracle UPK Product Management and Product Development In conjunction with Larmer Brown Register Now v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} table.MsoTableGrid {mso-style-name:"Table Grid"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-priority:59; mso-style-unhide:no; border:solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt:solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid windowtext; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} UPK Client Event – Introducing v12.1 Thursday 26th June 2014 Oracle Thames Valley Park, Reading, Berkshire Agenda Time Session 10.00am Registration and Coffee 10.30am Introductions and Objectives TWIN TRACK SESSION 10.45am Introduction to UPK (Standard) Version 12.1 Overview and Demonstration for delegates new to UPK Upgrading to UPK (Standard) Version 12.1 Demonstration of the latest release, for delegates with experience of UPK 12.25pm Q&A An opportunity for delegates to raise specific questions about the tool Q&A An opportunity for delegates to raise specific questions about the latest release 12.45pm Lunch 1.30pm Larmer Brown Development Tracker Larmer Brown’s Development Tracker addresses the challenge of ensuring that a Content Development Project will meet agreed deadlines, identifying risks with sufficient notice to take action 1.50pm Case Study How the Development Tracker addressed this client’s requirement to track, monitor and report progress on a large-scale implementation Project 2.10pm Larmer Brown Library Content for UPK This session will showcase some of Larmer Brown’s content library and consider how pre-built content can be used to your advantage 2.30pm Coffee Break 2.45pm Making the most of UPK Professional This presentation and demonstration seeks to unlock the potential of UPK Professional for those that may not be fully utilising the tool   3.20pm Case Study How this client has utilised the tracking and reporting features within UPK Professional 3.40pm Summary and Conclusions 4.00pm Close

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• Kill all the project files!

  - by jamiet

  Like many folks I’m a keen podcast listener and yesterday my commute was filled by listening to Scott Hunter being interviewed on .Net Rocks about the next version of ASP.Net. One thing Scott said really struck a chord with me. I don’t remember the full quote but he was talking about how the ASP.Net project file (i.e. the .csproj file) is going away. The rationale being that the main purpose of that file is to list all the other files in the project, and that’s something that the file system is pretty good at. In Scott’s own words (that someone helpfully put in the comments): A file that lists files is really redundant when the OS already does this Romeliz Valenciano correctly pointed out on Twitter that there will still be a project.json file however no longer will there be a need to keep a list of files in a project file. I suspect project.json will simply contain a list of exclusions where necessary rather than the current approach where the project file is a list of inclusions. On the face of it this seems like a pretty good idea. I’ve long been a fan of convention over configuration and this is a great example of that. Instead of listing all the files in a separate file, just treat all the files in the directory as being part of the project. Ostensibly the approach is if its in the directory, its part of the project. Simple. Now I’m not an ASP.net developer, far from it, but it did occur to me that the same approach could be applied to the two Visual Studio project types that I am most familiar with, SSIS & SSDT. Like many people I’ve long been irritated by SSIS projects that display a faux file system inside Solution Explorer. As you can see in the screenshot below the project has Miscellaneous and Connection Managers folders but no such folders exist on the file system: This may seem like a minor thing but it means useful Solution Explorer features like Show All Files and Open Folder in Windows Explorer don’t work and quite frankly it makes me feel like a second class citizen in the Microsoft ecosystem. I’m a developer, treat me like one. Don’t try and hide the detail of how a project works under the covers, show it to me. I’m a big boy, I can handle it! Would it not be preferable to simply treat all the .dtsx files in a directory as being part of a project? I think it would, that’s pretty much all the .dtproj file does anyway (that, and present things in a non-alphabetic order – something else that wildly irritates me), so why not just get rid of the .dtproj file? In the case of SSDT the .sqlproj actually does a whole lot more than simply list files because it also states the BuildAction of each file (Build, NotInBuild, Post-Deployment, etc…) but I see no reason why the convention over configuration approach can’t help us there either. Want to know which is the Post-deployment script? Well, its the one called Post-DeploymentScript.sql! Simple! So that’s my new crusade. Let’s kill all the project files (well, the .dtproj & .sqlproj ones anyway). Are you with me? @Jamiet

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• Blueprints for Oracle NoSQL Database

  - by dan.mcclary

  I think that some of the most interesting analytic problems are graph problems.  I'm always interested in new ways to store and access graphs.  As such, I really like the work being done by Tinkerpop to create Open Source Software to make property graphs more accessible over a wide variety of datastores.  Since key-value stores like Oracle NoSQL Database are well-suited to storing property graphs, I decided to extend the Blueprints API to work with it.  Below I'll discuss some of the implementation details, but you can check out the finished product here: http://github.com/dwmclary/blueprints-oracle-nosqldb.  What's in a Property Graph?  In the most general sense, a graph is just a collection of vertices and edges.  Vertices and edges can have properties: weights, names, or any number of other traits.  In an undirected graph, edges connect vertices without direction.  A directed graph specifies that all edges have a head and a tail --- a direction.  A multi-graph allows multiple edges to connect two vertices.  A "property graph" encompasses all of these traits. Key-Value Stores for Property Graphs Key-Value stores like Oracle NoSQL Database tend to be ideal for implementing property graphs.  First, if any vertex or edge can have any number of traits, we can treat it as a hash map.  For example: Vertex["name"] = "Mary" Vertex["age"] = 28 Vertex["ID"] = 12345  and so on.  This is a natural key-value relationship: the key "name" maps to the value "Mary."  Moreover if we maintain two hash maps, one for vertex objects and one for edge objects, we've essentially captured the graph.  As such, any scalable key-value store is fertile ground for planting graphs. Oracle NoSQL Database as a Scalable Graph Database While Oracle NoSQL Database offers useful features like tunable consistency, what lends it to storing property graphs is the storage guarantees around its key structure.  Keys in Oracle NoSQL Database are divided into two parts: a major key and a minor key.  The storage guarantee is simple.  Major keys will be distributed across storage nodes, which could encompass a large number of servers.  However, all minor keys which are children of a given major key are guaranteed to be stored on the same storage node.  For example, the vertices: /Personnel/Vertex/1  and /Personnel/Vertex/2 May be stored on different servers, but /Personnel/Vertex/1-/name and  /Personnel/Vertex/1-/age will always be on the same server.  This means that we can structure our graph database such that retrieving all the properties for a vertex or edge requires I/O from only a single storage node.  Moreover, Oracle NoSQL Database provides a storeIterator which allows us to store a huge number of vertices and edges in a scalable fashion.  By storing the vertices and edges as major keys, we guarantee that they are distributed evenly across all storage nodes.  At the same time we can use a partial major key to iterate over all the vertices or edges (e.g. we search over /Personnel/Vertex to iterate over all vertices). Fork It! The Blueprints API and Oracle NoSQL Database present a great way to get started using a scalable key-value database to store and access graph data.  However, a graph store isn't useful without a good graph to work on.  I encourage you to fork or pull the repository, store some data, and try using Gremlin or any other language to explore.

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• DotNetNuke 7.0 Only Weeks Away!

  - by sbwalker

  The software industry moves at a lightning pace, and it is only through constant focus and continuous investment that a software product can remain both stable and relevant over the long term. As we approach the 10 Year Anniversary of the DotNetNuke platform, it seems only fitting that we are on the verge of announcing yet another significant product milestone. DotNetNuke 7.0 is just around the corner and represents a bold step forward for our Content Management Platform, including substantial business productivity enhancements, investments in web platform relevance, and a significant overhaul and modernization of the user interface and user experience. It has been five months since I posted the announcement that the next major version of the platform was going to be DotNetNuke 7.0.  This announcement created tremendous excitement and anticipation in the DotNetNuke community, as major version increments have always been utilized as an opportunity  to introduce revolutionary new product features and capabilities. After months of intense product development, the finish line is finally in sight. With that, I am pleased to announce that we released a Release Candidate (RC) of DotNetNuke 7.0 yesterday. You can download the RC from our project page on Codeplex. A Release Candidate represents a software version which is very near to “release” quality. So although we will not be officially endorsing the RC for production use, or providing an official upgrade path, it does represent a significant milestone in our software development efforts ( if you are looking for a more detailed explanation of our software release terminology, I would encourage you to read the blog written by Co-Founder, Joe Brinkman titled "What's In A Name?" ). Modernizing a software platform does have its share of challenges from a backward compatibility perspective and, as usual, we are taking great care in ensuring a seamless upgrade path for our customers. In order to remain relevant and progressive, you need to be aware that DotNetNuke 7.0 has adopted a new set of baseline infrastructure requirements including ASP.NET 4.0.  As a result we are encouraging all major stakeholders in the ecosystem ( module developers, designers, partners, customers, etc... ) to take the opportunity to install the RC in their own local environments. This is the last opportunity to let us know about any final issues which may need to be addressed prior to final release. Mark your calendars now… the expected public release date (RTM) for DotNetNuke 7.0 will be Wednesday, November 28th. On a side note, we expect to release a 6.2.5 Maintenance version today. This release contains some high priority product quality improvements as well as security patches for some vulnerabilities reported through our standard ecosystem channels. As a result we will be encouraging all of our customers to upgrade to the 6.2.5 release as soon as it is available. I hope everyone is as excited as I am about the upcoming DotNetNuke 7.0 release. Please take the opportunity over the next week to put the new platform through its paces. Remember, only through our collective efforts can we ensure that this release has the greatest market impact of any DotNetNuke release to date.

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• Copying A Slide From One Presentation To Another

  - by Tim Murphy

  There are many ways to generate a PowerPoint presentation using Open XML.  The first way is to build it by hand strictly using the SDK.  Alternately you can modify a copy of a base presentation in place.  The third approach to generate a presentation is to build a new presentation from the parts of an existing presentation by copying slides as needed.  This post will focus on the third option. In order to make this solution a little more elegant I am going to create a VSTO add-in as I did in my previous post.  This one is going to insert Tags to identify slides instead of NonVisualDrawingProperties which I used to identify charts, tables and images.  The code itself is fairly short. SlideNameForm dialog = new SlideNameForm(); Selection selection = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveWindow.Selection;   if(dialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) { selection.SlideRange.Tags.Add(dialog.slideName,dialog.slideName); } Zeyad Rajabi has a good post here on combining slides from two presentations.  The example he gives is great if you are doing a straight merge.  But what if you want to use your source file as almost a supermarket where you pick and chose slides and may even insert them repeatedly?  The following code uses the tags we created in the previous step to pick a particular slide an copy it to a destination file. using (PresentationDocument newDocument = PresentationDocument.Open(OutputFileText.Text,true)) { PresentationDocument templateDocument = PresentationDocument.Open(FileNameText.Text, false);   uniqueId = GetMaxIdFromChild(newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideMasterIdList); uint maxId = GetMaxIdFromChild(newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideIdList);   SlidePart oldPart = GetSlidePartByTagName(templateDocument, SlideToCopyText.Text);   SlidePart newPart = newDocument.PresentationPart.AddPart<SlidePart>(oldPart, "sourceId1");   SlideMasterPart newMasterPart = newDocument.PresentationPart.AddPart(newPart.SlideLayoutPart.SlideMasterPart);   SlideIdList idList = newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideIdList;   // create new slide ID maxId++; SlideId newId = new SlideId(); newId.Id = maxId; newId.RelationshipId = "sourceId1"; idList.Append(newId);   // Create new master slide ID uniqueId++; SlideMasterId newMasterId = new SlideMasterId(); newMasterId.Id = uniqueId; newMasterId.RelationshipId = newDocument.PresentationPart.GetIdOfPart(newMasterPart); newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.SlideMasterIdList.Append(newMasterId);   // change slide layout ID FixSlideLayoutIds(newDocument.PresentationPart);     //newPart.Slide.Save(); newDocument.PresentationPart.Presentation.Save(); } The GetMaxIDFromChild and FixSlideLayoutID methods are barrowed from Zeyad’s article.  The GetSlidePartByTagName method is listed below.  It is really one LINQ query that finds SlideParts with child Tags that have the requested Name. private SlidePart GetSlidePartByTagName(PresentationDocument templateDocument, string tagName) { return (from p in templateDocument.PresentationPart.SlideParts where p.UserDefinedTagsParts.First().TagList.Descendants <DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Presentation.Tag>().First().Name == tagName.ToUpper() select p).First(); } This is what really makes the difference from what Zeyad posted.  The most powerful thing you can have when generating documents from templates is a consistent way of naming items to be manipulated.  I will be show more approaches like this in upcoming posts. del.icio.us Tags: Office Open XML,Presentation,PowerPoint,VSTO,TagList

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• Enterprise Integration: Can Companies Afford It?

  - by Ralph Wheaton

  Each year, my company holds a global sales conference where employees and partners from around the world some together to collaborate, share knowledge and ideas and learn about future plans.  As a member of the professional services division, several of us had been asked to make a presentation, an elevator pitch in 3 minutes or less that relates to a success we have worked on or directly relates to our tag (that is, our primary technology focus).  Mine happens to be Enterprise Integration as it relates Business Intelligence.  I found it rather difficult to present that pitch in a short amount of time and had to pare it down.  At any rate, in just a little over 3 minutes, this is the presentation I submitted.  Here is a link to the full presentation video in WMV format.   Many companies today subscribe to a buy versus build mentality in an attempt to drive down costs and improve time to implementation. Sometimes this makes sense, especially as it relates to specialized software or software that performs a small number of tasks extremely well. However, if not carefully considered or planned out, this oftentimes leads to multiple disparate systems with silos of data or multiple versions of the same data. For instance, client data (contact information, addresses, phone numbers, opportunities, sales) stored in your CRM system may not play well with Accounts Receivables. Employee data may be stored across multiple systems such as HR, Time Entry and Payroll. Other data (such as member data) may not originate internally, but be provided by multiple outside sources in multiple formats. And to top it all off, some data may have to be manually entered into multiple systems to keep it all synchronized. When left to grow out of control like this, overall performance is lacking, stability is questionable and maintenance is frequent and costly. Worse yet, in many cases, this topology, this hodgepodge of data creates a reporting nightmare. Decision makers are forced to try to put together pieces of the puzzle attempting to find the information they need, wading through multiple systems to find what they think is the single version of the truth. More often than not, they find they are missing pieces, pieces that may be crucial to growing the business rather than closing the business. across applications. Master data owners are defined to establish single sources of data (such as the CRM system owns client data). Other systems subscribe to the master data and changes are replicated to subscribers as they are made. This can be one way (no changes are allowed on the subscriber systems) or bi-directional. But at all times, the master data owner is current or up to date. And all data, whether internal or external, use the same processes and methods to move data from one place to another, leveraging the same validations, lookups and transformations enterprise wide, eliminating inconsistencies and siloed data. Once implemented, an enterprise integration solution improves performance and stability by reducing the number of moving parts and eliminating inconsistent data. Overall maintenance costs are mitigated by reducing touch points or the number of places that require modification when a business rule is changed or another data element is added. Most importantly, however, now decision makers can easily extract and piece together the information they need to grow their business, improve customer satisfaction and so on. So, in implementing an enterprise integration solution, companies can position themselves for the future, allowing for easy transition to data marts, data warehousing and, ultimately, business intelligence. Along this path, companies can achieve growth in size, intelligence and complexity. Truly, the question is not can companies afford to implement an enterprise integration solution, but can they afford not to.   Ralph Wheaton Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist Microsoft Certified Professional Developer Microsoft VTS-P BizTalk, .Net

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• A view from the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon

  - by Rob Foster

  I want to break away from my usual topic of something technical and talk about what I experienced tonight while working in the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon, which was broadcast on WSMV, CNN, and The Weather Channel.  We started receiving calls about 7pm local time and to be honest, I had no idea what to expect when going into this.  I mean, I'm a pretty good talker, but this is different...We had a good script of what to say and how we were supposed to say it, as well as paper forms and pens that we used to collect information from people who wanted to donate their money to help.  I took my first few calls pretty easily and it went pretty quick and easy.  Everyone was upbeat and happy to be in the call center as well as people happy to be donating money. Pizza, snacks, and soft drinks were flowing well.  Everyone is smiling and happy.  :) About 3 or 4 calls into my night, I got a call from a lady that had lost 2 family members in West Nashville who drowned in the floods.  She was crying when she called and I of course tried to console her.  She told me how bad her situation was, losing family members and much of her neighborhood.  After all this, she still just wanted to help other people.  She was donating all the money that she could to the telethon and I want to share a direct quote from her: "I want to donate this instead of buying flowers for my family members' funeral because people out there need help.". Please let me pause while I get myself together <again>.  That caught me so off guard (and still does). I had kids calling wanting to donate their allowance, open their piggy banks, whatever they could do.  These are kids.  Kids not much older than my boys.  Kids who should be focused on buying the next cool video game or toy or whatever but wanted to do something.  Everyone just seemed to want to help. I took calls from as far away as British Columbia as well and pretty much coast to coast.  how cool is that? Yet another thing that caught me off guard.  This kind lady that called from British Columbia told me how much she loved visiting Nashville and just hated to see this happen.  I belive that she said that she will be attending the CMA Fest this year too.  I was sure to tell her not to cancel her plans!  :) It felt like every call I took (and I took A LOT, as did everyone else) was very personal and heartfelt.  I've never had the privelage to do anything like this and fell lucky to have been able to help out with answering phones and logging donations.  Nashville will bounce back very quickly, people are out there day and night helping each other, and the spirits are very high here.  I hope that one day, my kids read this blog and better understand who they are, where they come from, and what the human spirt is and can be.  I love this city, I love the people here, I love the culture and even more than ever am proud to say that this is me.  This is us.  We are Nashville!

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• Seizing the Moment with Mobility

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A guest post by Hernan Capdevila, Vice President, Oracle Fusion Apps Mobile devices are forcing a paradigm shift in the workplace – they’re changing the way businesses can do business and the type of cultures they can nurture. As our customers talk about their mobile needs, we hear them saying they want instant-on access to enterprise data so workers can be more effective at their jobs anywhere, anytime. They also are interested in being more cost effective from an IT point of view. The mobile revolution – with the idea of BYOD (bring your own device) – has added an interesting dynamic because previously IT was driving the employee device strategy and ecosystem. That's been turned on its head with the consumerization of IT. Now employees are figuring out how to use their personal devices for work purposes and IT has to figure out how to adapt. Blurring the Lines between Work and Personal Life My vision of where businesses will be five years from now is that our work lives and personal lives will be more interwoven together. In turn, enterprises will have to determine how to make employees’ work lives fit more into the fabric of their personal lives. And personal devices like smartphones are going to drive significant business value because they let us accomplish things very incrementally. I can be sitting on a train or in a taxi and be productive. At the end of any meeting, I can capture ideas and tasks or follow up with people in real time. Mobile devices enable this notion of seizing the moment – capitalizing on opportunities that might otherwise have slipped away because we're not connected. For the industry shapers out there, this is game changing. The lean and agile workforce is definitely the future. This notion of the board sitting down with the executive team to lay out strategic objectives for a three- to five-year plan, bringing in HR to determine how they're going to staff the strategic activities, kicking off the execution, and then revisiting the plan in three to five years to create another three- to five-year plan is yesterday's model. Businesses that continue to approach innovating in that way are in the dinosaur age. Today it's about incremental planning and incremental execution, which requires a lot of cohesion and synthesis within the workforce. There needs to be this interweaving notion within the workforce about how ideas cascade down, how people engage, how they stay connected, and how insights are shared. How to Survive and Thrive in Today’s Marketplace The notion of Facebook isn’t new. We lived it pre-Internet days with America Online and Prodigy – Facebook is just the renaissance of these services in a more viral and pervasive way. And given the trajectory of the consumerization of IT with people bringing their personal tooling to work, the enterprise has no option but to adapt. The sooner that businesses realize this from a top-down point of view the sooner that they will be able to really drive significant innovation and adapt to the marketplace. There are a small number of companies right now (I think it's closer to 20% rather than 80%, but the number is expanding) that are able to really innovate in this incremental marketplace. So from a competitive point of view, there's no choice but to be social and stay connected. By far the majority of users on Facebook and LinkedIn are mobile users – people on iPhones, smartphones, Android phones, and tablets. It's not the couch people, right? It's the on-the-go people – those people at the coffee shops. Usually when you're sitting at your desk on a big desktop computer, typically you have better things to do than to be on Facebook. This is a topic I'm extremely passionate about because I think mobile devices are game changing. Mobility delivers significant value to businesses – it also brings dramatic simplification from a functional point of view and transforms our work life experience. Hernan CapdevilaVice President, Oracle Applications Development

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• Handling null values and missing object properties in Silverlight 4

  - by PeterTweed

  Before Silverlight 4 to bind a data object to the UI and display a message associated with either a null value or if the binding path was wrong, you would need to write a Converter.  In Silverlight 4 we find the addition of the markup extensions TargetNullValue and FallbackValue that allows us to display a value when a null value is found in the bound to property and display a value when the property being bound to is not found. This post will show you how to use both markup extensions. Steps: 1. Create a new Silverlight 4 application 2. In the body of the MainPage.xaml.cs file replace the MainPage class with the following code:     public partial class MainPage : UserControl     {         public MainPage()         {             InitializeComponent();             this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainPage_Loaded);         }           void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             person p = new person() { NameValue = "Peter Tweed" };             this.DataContext = p;         }     }       public class person     {         public string NameValue { get; set; }         public string TitleValue { get; set; }     } This code defines a class called person with two properties.  A new instance of the class is created, only defining the value for one of the properties and bound to the DataContext of the page. 3.  In the MainPage.xaml file copy the following XAML into the LayoutRoot grid:         <Grid.RowDefinitions>             <RowDefinition Height="60*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="30*" />             <RowDefinition Height="154*" />         </Grid.RowDefinitions>         <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>             <ColumnDefinition Width="86*" />             <ColumnDefinition Width="314*" />         </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>         <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock1" Text="Name Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock2" Text="Title Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock3" Text="Non Existant Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="textBlock4" Text="{Binding NameValue, TargetNullValue='No Name!!!!!!!'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="6,0,0,0" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="textBlock5" Text="{Binding TitleValue, TargetNullValue='No Title!!!!!!!'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="6,0,0,0" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,0,0,0" Name="textBlock6" Text="{Binding AgeValue, FallbackValue='No such property!'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" />    This XAML defines three textblocks – two of which use the TargetNull and one that uses the FallbackValue markup extensions.  4. Run the application and see the person name displayed as defined for the person object, the expected string displayed for the TargetNullValue when no value exists for the boudn property and the expected string displayed for the FallbackValue when the property bound to is not found on the bound object. It's that easy!

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• Xsigo and Oracle's Storage

  - by Philippe Deverchère

  Xsigo, a virtual network infrastructure provider, has recently been acquired by Oracle. Following this acquisition, one might ask ourselves why it is important to Oracle and how Oracle's storage is going to benefit on the long term from this virtualized infrastructure layer. Well, the first thing to understand is that Virtual Networking addresses both network and storage connectivity. Oracle Virtual Networking, as the Xsigo technology is now called, connects any server to any network and storage, so this is not just about connecting servers to the Internet or Intranet. It is also for a large part connecting servers to NAS and SAN storage. Connecting servers to storage has become increasingly complex in the past few years because of the strong emergence of virtualization at the Operating System level. 50% of enterprise workloads are now virtualized, up from 18% in 2009, resulting in a strong consolidation of various applications in a high density server footprint. At the same time, server I/O capability increased 8x in the last 8 years. All this has pushed IT administrators to multiply the number of I/O connections in the back-end of their physical servers, resulting in a messy and very hard to manage networking infrastructure. Here is a typical view of a rack back-end when no virtual networking is used. We consider that today: - 75% of users have ten or more Ethernet ports per server - 85% of users have two or more SAN ports per server - 58% have had to add connectivity to a server specifically for VMs - 65% consider cable reduction a priority The average is 12 or more ports per server, resulting in an extremely complex infrastructure to manage. What Oracle wants to achieve with its Oracle Virtual Networking offering is pretty simple. The objective is to eliminate the complexity through a dramatic reduction of cabling between servers and storage/networks. It is also to provide a software based management system so that any server can be connected to any network or any storage, on demand, and without physical intervention on the infrastructure. At the end of the day, the picture on the left shows what one wants to get for the back-end of customer's racks: just a couple of connections on each physical server to provide a simple, agile and fast network infrastructure for both storage and networking access. This is exactly what the Oracle Virtual Networking solution does. It transforms a complex, error-prone, difficult to manage and expensive networking infrastructure into a simple, high performance and agile solution for the data center. Practically speaking, and for the sake of simplicity, imagine that each server just hosts a minimal number of physical InfiniBand HCAs (Host Channel Adapter) with two links (for redundancy) onto the Oracle Fabric Interconnect director. Using the Oracle Fabric Manager software, you'll then be able to create virtual NICs and HBAs (called vNIC and vHBA) that will be seen by the servers as standard NICs and HBAs and associate them to networks and storage systems which are physically connected to the back-end of the director through standard Fibre Channel and Ethernet GbE/10GbE ports. In addition to this incredibly simple "at-a-click" connectivity capability, the Oracle Virtual Networking solution offers powerful features such as network isolation, Quality of Service, advanced performance monitoring and non-disruptive reconfiguration, migration and scalability of networking infrastructure. So let's go back now to our initial question: why is Oracle Virtual Networking especially important to Oracle's storage solutions? After all, one could connect any storage in the back-end of the Oracle Fabric Interconnect directors, right? The answer is pretty simple: since Oracle owns both the virtualized networking infrastructure and the storage (ZFS-SA, Pillar Axiom and tape), it is possible to imagine several ways in the future to add value when it comes to connect storage to a virtualized storage network: enhanced storage capabilities, converged management between storage and network, improved diagnostic capabilities and optimized integration resulting in higher performance and unique features/functions. Of course, all this is not going to be done overnight, and future will tell us is which evolutions come first. But there is little doubt that the integration of Xsigo within Oracle is going to create opportunities for Oracle's storage!

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