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• Topeka Dot Net User Group (DNUG) Meeting &ndash; April 6, 2010

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Topeka DNUG is free for anyone to attend! Mark your calendars now! SPEAKER: Troy Tuttle is a self-described pragmatic agilist, and Kanban practitioner, with more than a decade of experience in delivering software in the finance and health industries and as a consultant. He advocates teams improve their performance through pursuit of better practices like continuous integration and automated testing. Troy is the founder of the Kansas City Limited WIP Society and is a speaker at local area groups on team related topics. He currently works as a Project Lead Consultant with AdventureTech Group of Kansas City, KS. TOPIC: Why Kanban? Kanban is receiving a large amount of attention recently. What does it offer compared to other approaches? Answering that question may require you to hit the “reset” button on previously held biases and assumptions. Kanban blends Lean thought with ideas from first generation agile methodologies. To get started with Kanban, we will examine what steps are necessary to establish a transparent, work-limited, pull system. We will highlight the perils of allowing too much work-in-progress and how it affects development performance. Once established, Kanban teams need only a few metrics and tools to monitor their performance and improvement. WHERE: Federal Home Loan Bank Topeka on the Security Benefit Campus – Directions? WHEN: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM on April 6th, 2010 REGISTER: http://topekadotnet.wufoo.com/forms/topeka-dnug-meeting-attendance/ ADDITIONAL INFO: As always, please sign in and out of FHLBank to help them with their accountability. Please park in the visitors section at the front of the building when you arrive. If  there are no spots in visitors you may park in the overflow lot at the far east end of the facility.  Lunch will be provided and we will have some great door prizes!

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• Paying it Forward

  - by Liam McLennan

  You’re a talented guy (or girl). You’ve done alright. Years of hard work and stick-to-it-ive-ness have paid off and left you with plenty and an opportunity to make a positive difference to someone else. And then there are people with less than they need. Sometimes all they need to help themselves is a start. Opportunity International provide micro financing to help people grow their small businesses so that they can afford food, shelter, water and education. microfinance to solve poverty   MonsoonerOrLater This June, Chris, Angus (my brother) and I are travelling to India, entering into a rickshaw race and raising money for charity (Opportunity International and Round Table India). The Deccan Odyssey is a nine day rally, racing up the coast of India from Goa to Mumbai in a three wheeled motorbike. If you would like to support us, please make a tax deductable donation via our secure site at GoFundraise. For more information take a look at the MonsoonerOrLater site. If you live in Brisbane come along to An Evening With MonsoonerOrLater. The entry fee includes a three-course Indian meal, live music, henna tattooist, chilli eating competition, best bollywood dance off, Dhalsim Vs Dhalsim Street fighter, Delhi Belly Bet, Auctions and Prizes. All profits go to our charities: Round Table India and Opportunity International.

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• Microsoft Tag Tagged Me

  - by Brian Schroer

  I got EXTREMELY lucky last week and won an HP Mini 311 notebook from a Microsoft Tag Twitter contest. I did my required tweet to enter last Tuesday, and one hour later received notification that I had won the weekly drawing. Apparently you can tweet up to 500 times (I pity the followers of those who do that), so it was really lucky that I won, and I sympathize with those who had been really trying. If you would like to try your luck, there are seven weekly prizes left, and you can find out about the contest here: http://tag.microsoft.com/ttcontest.aspx For a free PC, I thought it was the least I could do to find out what Microsoft Tag is. I was vaguely aware of those pastel-y triangle-y square things that look like someone put one of Don Johnson’s Miami Vice outfits through a shredder, and knew that the company I work for (one of the world’s largest consumer products companies) was looking into putting them on our products, packaging and advertising, but didn’t know much more about the technology. I thought they were just an improvement over bar codes, and would be used in retail store scanners, but I was mistaken. These tags are meant to be scanned by consumers using their mobile phones, to get instant access to information, websites, reviews, etc. Scanning a tag can open a web page, import a contact card, or dial a phone number, play a video… Tag reader software can be installed on Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry, Android, J2ME, and other phones (and I suspect that it will be available for Windows Phone 7 also :). There are built-in tracking, metrics and analysis tools, to help companies using Tag make decisions about their marketing expenditures. (And they don’t have to look Miami Vice-y – They can be customized to reflect the personality of the person or a brand.) Looks like interesting stuff. You can find out more at http://tag.microsoft.com.

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• Software development company business plan

  - by Navi

  I apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum for this question, so please forward me to the right place. I have about 10 years professional experience as software developer. Mostly on the Java platform doing server side programs. I have picked up a bit of Linux skills on the way as well. I know HTML and Javascript, so I can make a website that would not be too ugly, but I am not going to win any prizes with it. In fact I think I am pretty terrible in the user interface department. My initial plan is to do Android development. I read a few Android books and tried making a few apps. Since it is Java based I think I got the technical side down. Lately I have been thinking about iphone and Mac development, because of the relevant app store/development programs. The trouble is I don't know Objective C. As a side question, how long would it take me to become proficient in Objective C? Considering that I am working on my own and could hire somebody to help me for a short time for low wages if necessary what are my options? What are the pro and cons of the development programs app stores of Android and Apple? Which development/app stores are out there beside the ones I mentioned? Do you think it is necessary to find funds to get me started or should I just use my savings? If you have positive/negative experiences in a similar situations can you please share them? Thanks for your help.

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• Quiz Master at Beyond Relational

  - by Vincent Maverick Durano

  Last month a friend of mine invited me to join BeyondRelational.com and asked me to nominate myself as a .NET Quiz Master. In order to qualify I must submit an interesting question related to .NET and their .NET team will review the information and will select 31 quiz masters for the .NET quiz category. This seems insteresting to me so I go ahead and submit one entry. Luckily I was selected as one of the 31 Quiz Masters in the .NET category. I hope to be able to keep up the good work there for years to come. Big Thanks to Jacob Sebastian and his Team! And oh.. I didn't get a changce to blog about this last week but just to let you guys know that the .NET General Quiz just started last january 1st 2011. The quiz will be a series of 31 questions, managed by 31 .NET quiz masters. Each quiz master will ask one question and will moderate the discussion and answers and finally will identify the winner of each quiz. Each answer that is correct will get a certain score ranging from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest. The scores of all 31 questions will be added up to identify the final winner. So what are you waiting for? Sign-up and register now and get a changce to win some exciting prizes! Technorati Tags: Community

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• some questions related to ubuntu app showdown

  - by user49557

  Where to ask questions related to ubuntu app developer showdown? http://askubuntu.com/questions/151148/how-do-i-participate-in-the-ubuntu-app-showdown Can I use old code by myself to build on for my entry in the Ubuntu App Showdown contest? after seeing these threads and posting a question at askubuntu where to ask questions related to ubuntu app showdown i got we can ask these questions here my questions: can i submit more than one app in the contest and tell me more about this suppose i submit 5 apps out of which one is won then will it be valid if 2 or 3 are won i think the number of t-shirts does not depends upon number of apps one per person for development i have to use quickly but can i use third party libraries for GUI or other work i think i will need it for eg. pyside the first and second winner will get laptop + mobile too right or not the mobile how the prizes will be delivered will they charge(i don't think so) i would like to use multiple libraries i can use htme right ? more details are always welcomes i have mostly all ubuntu app showdown related pages but if you find something in background than tell me note:i am not saying that i am going to win just questions don't take it in that way

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• what is standard approach to create a responsive website using javascript,php ajax and perhaps zend framework [closed]

  - by shawndreck

  I am working on a web system currently and plans to heavily use javascript with ajax to make the user interface more friendlier, not fancy as such. The javascript will be used for client side form validation, data loading from server and creating proper content with the result, also to for floating windows during add/edit or external references. Here is a scenerio that could clearify my question. A user wants to update card but instead of jumping to another page to verify the available colors,size and prizes of product, those information are shown in a floating window and changes in the floating window can affect the underlying one. My question is : 1. What are some of the approaches to encounter this situation? 2. Are there any helpful tips, tricks and links on this subject? I am comfortable with js,php and zend. I would appreciate any advice,tip and tricks, problem solving approach to handle a situation like this! Thanks in advance. Hope this make sense.

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• In your experience, what has inspired you to change a fundamental programming tool

  - by Dr J

  A lot of what I am working on is changing the mindset of a community of developers. Moving them from one tool to another, or to picking up a new tool. What are some of the suggested or recommended ways to get a community to pick up a new meme? While we can mandate tool usage, this is a last resort. I would rather have the developers move to any new tools of their own accord. I'm not a programmer, I need to understand why a programmer will move from one tool to another. Edited the title thanks to a fabulous comment! My world runs on Meme's, tipping points, and general pressures. This is why I needed to ask. And clarifying yet more- I am the middle manager needing to plan and manage an implementation and not a sales person.

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• Three Principles to Fix Your Broken Organization

  - by Michael Snow

  Everyone's organization is broken in some capacity. For some this is painfully visible both inside and outside their organization. For others, there are cracks noticed by only the keenest trained eyes used to looking for problems in the midst of perfection. We all know that there is often incredible hope in the despair of chaos and recognition of your problems is the first step on the road to recovery. Let us help you in your path to recovery. Join our very own, Christian Finn,  this Thursday (11/15), as he guides you through three important principles you can take back to the office to start the mending process. (Above Image Credits: the BEST site on the web to make fun of our organizations and ourselves: http://www.despair.com/ ) His three principles are NOT "TeamWork", "Ignorance" and "Tradition", but - before jumping lower on this blog post to click and register for the upcoming webcast - I thought it would be a good opportunity to give you a little taste of what we have to offer beyond the array of our fabulous On-Demand webcasts from our Social Business Thought Leader Webcast Series featuring Christian as the host. Instead, here's a snippet from our marketing team friends across the pond in Europe, where they hosted a Social Business Forum recently and featured Christian in a segment.  Simple. Powerful. Proven. Face it, your organization is broken. Customers are not the focus they should be. Processes are running amok. Your intranet is a ghost town. And colleagues wonder why it’s easier to get things done on the Web than at work. What’s the solution?Join us for this Webcast. Christian Finn will talk about three simple, powerful, and proven principles for improving your organization through collaboration. Each principle will be illustrated by real-world examples. Discover: How to dramatically improve workplace collaboration Why improved employee engagement creates better business results What’s the value of a fully engaged customer Time to Fix What’s Broken Register now for this Webcast—the tenth in the Oracle Social Business Thought Leaders Series. Register Now Thurs., Nov. 15, 2012 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Presented by: Christian Finn Senior Director, Product Management, Oracle Copyright © 2012, Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Contact Us | Legal Notices and Terms of Use | Privacy Statement

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• Taking AIIM at Social

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Today we are pleased to have a guest post from Christian Finn (@cfinn).  Christian is Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter and heads up the WebCenter evangelist team.Last week I had the privilege of speaking at AIIM’s new conference in San Francisco.  AIIM, for those of you not familiar with it, is a global community of information professionals and got its start with ECM and imaging long ago. With 65,000+ members, AIIM has now set about broadening its scope to focus more on the intersection between systems of record (think traditional ECM) and systems of engagement (think social solutions).  So AIIM’s conference is a natural place to be for WebCenter types like me, who have a foot in both of those worlds.AIIM used to have their name on a very large tradeshow, but have changed direction now to run a small, intimate conference.  The lineup of keynotes was terrific, including David Pogue of The New York Times, Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, and Ted Schadler, author of Empowered among many thought-provoking and engaging speakers. (Note: Ted will soon be featured in our Social Business webcast series. Stay tuned.)John Mancini and his team at AIIM did a fabulous job running the event and the engagement from the 450 attendees was sustained over the two and a half days.  Our proudest moment was having three finalists up for AIIM awards including: San Joaquin County, CA, for a justice case management system using WebCenter Content and Oracle BPM; Medtronic and Fishbowl Solutions for their innovative iPad solutions on WebCenter Content, and the government of Louisville, Kentucky/Jefferson County for their accounts payable solution using WebCenter Content’s Image & Process Management.  The highlight of the awards night was San Joaquin winning the small organization award against some tough competition.In addition to the conversations sparked at the show, AIIM promoted the whitepapers their industry task forces have produced on the impact and opportunities created by systems of engagement and systems of record. The task forces were led by: Geoffrey Moore, the renowned high tech marketing guru and author of Crossing The Chasm; and Andrew McAfee, who coined the term and wrote the book, Enterprise 2.0. (Note: Andy will also be featured soon on the Social Business webcast series.)  These free papers make short, excellent reading and you can download them on the AIIM website: Moore highlights the changes to Enterprise IT that the social revolution will engender, and McAfee covers where and how organizations are finding value in using social techniques to foster innovation, to scale Q&A across the organization, and to connect sales and marketing for greater efficiency and effectiveness. Moore’s whitepaper is here and McAfee’s whitepapers are available here. For the benefit of those who did not get a chance to attend the AIIM conference, I’ll be posting the topics of my AIIM presentation, “Three Principles for Fixing Your Broken Organization,” here on the WebCenter blog over the rest of this week and next in a series of posts.  

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• A New Home for E-Business Suite Customer Adoption Information

  - by linda.fishman.hoyle

  Phew! I made it! A new home with my name. Let's talk about E-Business Suite. So much is going on and more and more customers are upgrading and implementing the latest release. I think I will highlight in this blog entry the most recent press release we issued 2 weeks ago about our Applications Unlimited success but in the release, we name several customers who are live on E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and then have a fabulous quote from a customer who is doing great things with our product.   Here is a link to the press release To make it easy for you, I am pulling out just the E-Business Suite information Oracle E-Business Suite: Oracle® E-Business Suite Release 12.1 provides organizations of all sizes, across all industries and regions, with a global business foundation that helps them reduce costs and increase productivity through a portfolio of rapid value solutions, integrated business processes and industry-focused solutions. The latest version of the Oracle E-Business Suite was designed to help organizations make better decisions and be more competitive by providing a global or holistic view of their operations. Abu Dhabi Media Company, Agilysis, C3 Business Solutions, Chicago Public Schools, Datacard Group, Guidance Software, Leviton Manufacturing, McDonald's, MINOR International, Usana Health Sciences, Zamil Plastic Industries Ltd. and Zebra Technologies are just a few of the organizations that have deployed the latest release of the Oracle E-Business Suite to help them make better decisions and be more competitive, while lowering costs and increasing performance. Customer Speaks "Leviton Manufacturing makes a very diverse line of products including electrical devices and data center products that we sell globally. We upgraded to the latest version of the Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 to support our service business with change management, purchasing, accounts payable, and our internal IT help desk," said Bob MacTaggart, CIO of Leviton Manufacturing. "We consolidated seven Web sites that we used to host individually onto iStore. In addition, we run a site, using the Oracle E-Business Suite configurator, pricing and quoting for our sales agents to do configuration work. This site can now generate a complete sales proposal using Oracle functionality; we actually generate CAD drawings - the actual drawings themselves - based on configuration results. It used to take six to eight weeks to generate these drawings and now it's all done online in an hour to two hours by our sales agents themselves, totally self-service. It does everything they need. From our point of view that is a major business success. Not only is it a very cool, innovative application, but it also puts us about two years ahead of our competition."

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• How quickly to leave contract-to-hire gig where you don't want to be hired? [closed]

  - by nono

  So you move to a big new city with tons of software development opportunity, having taken a six month contract-to-hire job. The company treats you really well and has a good team and work environment. However, the recruiter assured you when offering the gig that it would be a good position in which you can advance your learning from more senior developers (a primary concern of yours) but you're starting to realize that a job recruiter isn't going to understand that the team in question isn't very up on modern software practices (you start to sympathize with this guy and read his post over and over again: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1586166/career-killer-nhibernate-oop-design-patterns-domain-driven-design-test-driv) and that much of the company's software is very old and very very poorly architected, and the company (like so many others) seems to be only concerned with continually extending the software without investing in any structural improvements. You're absolutely dismayed at how long it takes your team (including) to fulfill simple feature requests (maybe 500-1000% longer than with better designed software that you've worked on in the past), but no one else there seems to think anything of it. You find that the work and the company's business are intensely uninteresting to you, but due to the convoluted design of their various software systems, fulfilling the work will require as much mental engagement as any other development position. You feel a bit naive about not having asked the right questions during your interview process, and for not having anticipated that your team at your former podunk company might possibly be light-years ahead of any team in Big Shiny City, but you know you don't want to stay at this place, and (were it not for your personal, after-hours studying and personal programming efforts) fear that you might actually give a worse interview after completing your 6 months than you did when you started at the place. You read about how hard of a time local companies are having filling their positions with qualified software development candidates. You read all sorts of fabulous sounding job postings online and feel like you're really missing out. In spite of the comfortable environment you feel like you would willingly accept a somewhat more demanding or aggressive lifestyle to feel like you are learning and progressing and producing something meaningful. My questions are: how quickly do you leave and how do you go about giving a polite reason for departing? The contract is written to allow them to "can" you and to allow you to leave with 2 weeks notice. Do you ethically owe the 6 months? Upon taking the position, the company told you they were not interested in candidates who were intending to only stay for 6 months and then leave (you were not intending to bail after 6 months, at that time), so perhaps they might be fine if you split now, knowing that you don't want to stick around for the full time hire?

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• How do I ensure that SOAP requests from a flash client to my ASP server are coming from the flash cl

  - by Gary Benade

  I have a flash based game that has a high score system implemented with a SOAP service. There are prizes involved and I want to prevent someone from using FireBug or similar to discover the webservice path and submit fake scores. I considered using some kind of encryption on the data but am aware that someone could decompile the swf and work out how I did it. I also considered using an IP whitelist but since the incoming data will come from the users IP and not the servers that won't work. (I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here...) I know that there is a tried and tested solution for this, but I don't seem to be asking google the right questions to get to it. Any help and suggestions will be appreciated, thank you

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• SQLAuthority News – Virtual Launch Event for Office 2010 – Contest – Win MS Office License

  - by pinaldave

  Office products are integral products of any PC. I accept that without Office Suites, I can not survive or make enough leaving. I am blogger and use word to create my blogs. I am SQL Server Trainer  and I use PowerPoint as my presentation tool. I am SQL Server consultant and I use Excel to keep my work log. I can not see my life with Office Tools. Just like any other Microsoft Product there is strong community following Office Tools. Please count me in. The same community is hosting a Virtual Launch Event for Office 2010 on May 25 and 26th. The webcasts is FREE to attend and people can take part either online or by going to the nearest available center. The sessions will be delivered by MVPs. To register please visit: http://www.meraoffice.com. In June, limited cities will be hosting Community Launch Events for Office 2010. At the launch events, attendees will get to see Office 2010 in action and learn how to do their work better with Office 2010.  The details are available on http://office.merawindows.com. To support one of the largest community, I am announcing one contents. It is very easy to take part in the contest. You just have to answer one very simple question. Contest: Choose best option: With which Microsoft Office Product Powerpivot is associated? Options: 1) PowerPoint 2) Excel 3) Word Hint: http://search.sqlauthority.com Rules: Winner will be awarded 1 Office 2007 Home and Student. This will be freely upgradeable to Office 2010 once it releases in June. The winners will be sent emails and they will redeem their awards via microsoftstore.co.in The prizes can only be shipped to India and Indian residents are eligible. Winner will be selected by selected community leaders and MVPs at their sole discretion. Winner will be informed by email about the award. Most creative and informative comment will win the contest. Please spread the words about this contest. SQLAuthority.com will also send SQL Server book to the person who generates the most traffic to this blog post using Twitter, Facebook and other social media. This competition is also open to Indian residents only. I will measure the traffic using my wordpress.com stats plugin. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Office

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• The .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2010 Road Trip

  - by Laila

  Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell, the two .NET Rocks radio show hosts, have decided to set off to 15 cities in the US, between April 19th and May 7th, in their DotNetMobile (a 30 foot RV). What for you'll ask me? Well, to drive around the US, meet up with .NET developers, and show off the latest and greatest in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0! Each evening, they stop in a city and host a three hour event in front of a 100 to 300 crowd of developers, where Carl is showing off media features in Silverlight 4 and their road trip tracking application, whilst Richard is demo-ing the web performance testing features of VS2010 using his portable server rig. But before they take to the stage, they have a special guest brought in - a rock star from the Visual Studio world - whom they interview for an hour as a .NET Rock episode. So far, they've had - amongst others - Phil Haack, a Program Manager with the ASP.NET team working on ASP.NET MVC, Dan Fernandez, an Evangelism Manager in the Developer and Platform Evangelism team at Microsoft, and Beth Massi, Senior Program Manager on the Visual Studio Community Team at Microsoft. I love the fact that the audience gets a chance to participate, ask questions and have a great laugh, as you can hear in the first episode! Along the way, the .NET Rocks guys are giving away great prizes (including .NET Reflector Pro, ANTS Memory Profiler licenses, and "40" LCD TVs!). Even more out of the ordinary, at each stop on the road trip, one lucky attendee (who entered in the Ride Along competition) gets to jump in the RV with Carl and Richard and ride along with them to the next stop on the roadtrip. How cool is that! Richard told us: "Our first winner in Mountain View was Eric Ziko. I was looking for him to announce that he had won, when he found us and gave us a bottle of scotch he had brought just to say 'thanks for the great show'. We all had a toast from the bottle the next night when he headed back home." Cheeky! There's still space to a few of these events, so if you want to attend, register now, because it's first come first serve. We're grateful to Richard and Carl for giving us the opportunity to sponsor this major .NET event! A unique .NET adventure worth following for sure. Cheers, Laila

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• SQL SERVER – Puzzle to Win Print Book – Explain Value of PERCENTILE_CONT() Using Simple Example

  - by pinaldave

  From last several days I am working on various Denali Analytical functions and it is indeed really fun to refresh the concept which I studied in the school. Earlier I wrote article where I explained how we can use PERCENTILE_CONT() to find median over here SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENTILE_CONT() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012. Today I am going to ask question based on the same blog post. Again just like last time the intention of this puzzle is as following: Learn new concept of SQL Server 2012 Learn new concept of SQL Server 2012 even if you are on earlier version of SQL Server. On another note, SQL Server 2012 RC0 has been announced and available to download SQL SERVER – 2012 RC0 Various Resources and Downloads. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, PERCENTILE_CONT(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS MedianCont FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: The reason we get median is because we are passing value .05 to PERCENTILE_COUNT() function. Now run read the puzzle. Puzzle: Run following T-SQL code: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, PERCENTILE_CONT(0.9) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS MedianCont FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO Observe the result and you will notice that MidianCont has different value than before, the reason is PERCENTILE_CONT function has 0.9 value passed. For first four value the value is 775.1. Now run following T-SQL code: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, PERCENTILE_CONT(0.1) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS MedianCont FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO Observe the result and you will notice that MidianCont has different value than before, the reason is PERCENTILE_CONT function has 0.1 value passed. For first four value the value is 709.3. Now in my example I have explained how the median is found using this function. You have to explain using mathematics and explain (in easy words) why the value in last columns are 709.3 and 775.1 Hint: SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENTILE_CONT() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 Rules Leave a comment with your detailed answer by Nov 25's blog post. Open world-wide (where Amazon ships books) If you blog about puzzle’s solution and if you win, you win additional surprise gift as well. Prizes Print copy of my new book SQL Server Interview Questions Amazon|Flipkart If you already have this book, you can opt for any of my other books SQL Wait Stats [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle] and SQL Programming [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle]. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Exceptional DBA Awards 2011

  - by Rebecca Amos

  From today, we’re accepting nominations for the 2011 Exceptional DBA Awards. DBAs make a vital contribution to the running of the companies they work for, and the Exceptional DBA Awards aim to acknowledge this and make this contribution more widely known. Check out our new website for all the info: www.exceptionaldba.com  Being an exceptional DBA doesn’t mean you have to sleep at the office, or know everything there is to know about SQL Server; who ever could? It means that you make an effort to make your servers secure and reliable, and to make your users’ lives easier. Maybe you’ve helped a junior colleague learn something new about server backups? Or cancelled your coffee break to get a database back online? Or contributed to a forum post on performance monitoring? All of these actions show that you might be an exceptional DBA. So have a think about the tasks you do every day that already make you exceptional – and then get started on your entry! You just need to answer a few questions on our website about your experience as a DBA, some of your biggest achievements, and any other activities you participate in within the SQL Server community. Anyone who is currently working as a SQL Server database administrator can enter, or be nominated by someone else. We’ve got four fantastic judges for the Awards, who you’ll be familiar with already: Brent Ozar, Brad McGehee, Rodney Landrum and Steve Jones. They’ll pick five finalists, and then we’ll ask the SQL Server community to vote for their winner. Not only could you win the respect and recognition of peers and colleagues, but the prizes also include full conference registration for the 2011 PASS Summit in Seattle (where the awards ceremony will take place), four nights' hotel accommodation, and $300 towards travel expenses. The winner will get a copy of Red Gate’s SQL DBA Bundle – and they’ll also be featured here, on Simple-Talk. So what are you waiting for? Chances are you’ve already made a small effort for someone today that means you might be an exceptional DBA. Visit the website now, and start writing your entry – or nominate your favourite DBA to enter: www.exceptionaldba.com

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• Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Executive Weighs in on Policy Administration Modernization

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  James Klauer, vice president of Client Services Technology at Fidelity Investment Life Insurance, weighs in on the rationale and challenges associated with policy administration system replacement in this month's digital issue of Insurance Networking News.    In "The Policy Administration Replacement Quandary"  Klauer shared the primary business benefit that can be realized by adopting a modern policy administration system--a timely topic given that recent industry analyst surveys indicate policy administration replacement and modernization will continue to be a top priority for insurers this year.    "Modern policy administration systems are more flexible than systems of the past," Klauer says in the article. " This has allowed us to shorten our delivery time for new products and product changes.  We have also had a greater ability to integrate with other systems and to deliver process efficiencies."   Klauer goes on to advise that insurers ensure they have a solid understanding of the requirements when replacing their legacy policy administration system. "If you can afford the time, take the opportunity to re-engineer your business processes.  We were able to drastically change our death processes, introducing automation and error-proofing." Click here to read more of Klauer's insights and recommendations for best practices in the publication's "Ask & Answered" column.   You also can learn more the benefits of an adaptive, rules-driven approach to policy administration and how to mitigate risks associated with system replacement by attending the free Oracle Insurance Virtual Summit:  Fueling the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise, 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. EST, Wednesday, January 26.      Insurance Networking News and Oracle Insurance have teamed up to bring you this first-of-its-kind event. This year's theme, "Fueling the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise," will focus on bringing you information about exciting new technology concepts, which can help your company react more quickly to new market opportunities and, ultimately, grow the business.    Visit virtual booths and chat online with Oracle product specialists, network with other insurers, learn about exciting new product announcements, win prizes, and much more--all without leaving your office.  Be sure and attend the on-demand session, "Adapt, Transform and Grow: Accelerate Speed to Market with Adaptive Insurance Policy Administration," hosted by Kate Fowler, product strategy director for Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity.   Register Now!   Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• Windows 8: Everything from design, build, and how to sell a Metro style app

  - by Thomas Mason

  For me, there are a lot of similarities between an application developed for Windows Phone and a Metro style app developed for Windows 8. A Windows Phone 7 application (rather than an XNA game) is built in .NET and XAML against a subset of the .NET framework and the application has a lifecycle which needs to be conscious of battery life and so is split out into foreground/background pieces. The application is sandboxed in terms of its interactions with the local device and is packaged with a manifest which describes those interactions. The app needs to be aware of network connectivity status and its work on the network is done asynchronously to preserve the user experience.The app is packaged and deployed to a Marketplace which the user browses to find the app, read reviews, perhaps purchase it and then install it and receive updates over time. Quite a lot of those statements are as true of a Windows 8 Metro style app as they are for a Windows Phone app and so a Windows Phone app developer already has a good head start when it comes to building Metro style apps for Windows 8. With that in mind, there is an event to help developers with a Windows Phone app in Marketplace to begin the process of looking at Windows 8 and whether you can get a quick win by bringing your Phone application onto Windows. The idea of the event was to provide a space where developers can get together over 2 days and take the time out to look at what it means to take their app from Windows Phone to Windows 8. Kicking off on Saturday 16th June at 10am, we are told they have plenty of power sockets, WiFi, whiteboards, drinks, pizza, games, prizes and some quiet space that you can work in. Including people on hand with Windows Phone and Windows 8 experience to help everything along the way. There will be an attendee-voted schedule of talks but we’ll keep these out of your way if you just want to get on and code. We’ll also provide information around submitting your app to the Windows Store If you have a Windows Phone app in Marketplace, now’s a great time to look at getting it onto Windows 8. Sign up. Bring your laptop. Bring your app. Bring Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11. And everyone will their best to help you get your app onto Windows 8. Location & Venue TBA but it will be in central London, accessible by major railway and underground transportation. Day 1 Saturday 16th June 10am – 9pm Day 2 Sunday 17th June 10am – 4pm

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• SQLAuthority News – 5th Anniversary Giveaways

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQL SERVER – BI Quiz Hint – Performance Tuning Cubes – Hints

  - by pinaldave

  I earlier wrote about SQL BI Quiz over here and here. The details of the quiz is here: Working with huge data is very common when it is about Data Warehousing. It is necessary to create Cubes on the data to make it meaningful and consumable. There are cases when retrieving the data from cube takes lots of the time. Let us assume that your cube is returning you data very quickly. Suddenly on one day it is returning the data very slowly. What are the three things will you to diagnose this. After diagnose what you will do to resolve performance issue. Participate in my question over here I required BI Expert Jason Thomas to help with few hints to blog readers. He is one of the leading SSAS expert and writes a complicated subject in simple words. If queries were executing properly before but now take a long time to return the data, it means that there has been a change in the environment in which it is running. Some possible changes are listed below:-  1) Data factors:- Compare the data size then and now. Increase in data can result in different execution times. Poorly written queries as well as poor design will not start showing issues till the data grows. How to find it out? (Ans : SQL Server profiler and Perfmon Counters can be used for identifying the issues and performance  tuning the MDX queries)  2) Internal Factors:- Is some slow MDX query / multiple mdx queries running at the same time, which was not running when you had tested it before? Is there any locking happening due to proactive caching or processing operations? Are the measure group caches being cleared by processing operations? (Ans : Again, profiler and perfmon counters will help in finding it out. Load testing can be done using AS Performance Workbench (http://asperfwb.codeplex.com/) by running multiple queries at once)  3) External factors:- Is some other application competing for the same resources?  HINT : Read “Identifying and Resolving MDX Query Performance Bottlenecks in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services” (http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/12/16/identifying-and-resolving-mdx-query-performance-bottlenecks-in-sql-server-2005-analysis-services.aspx) Well, these are great tips. Now win big prizes by participate in my question over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL – Contest to Get The Date – Win USD 50 Amazon Gift Cards and Cool Gift

  - by Pinal Dave

  If you are a regular reader of this blog – you will find no issue at all in resolving this puzzle. This contest is based on my experience with NuoDB. If you are not familiar with NuoDB, here are few pointers for you. Step by Step Guide to Download and Install NuoDB – Getting Started with NuoDB Quick Start with Admin Sections of NuoDB – Manage NuoDB Database Quick Start with Explorer Sections of NuoDB – Query NuoDB Database In today’s contest you have to answer following questions: Q 1: Precision of NOW() What is the precision of the NuoDB’s NOW() function, which returns current date time? Hint: Run following script on NuoDB Console Explorer section: SELECT NOW() AS CurrentTime FROM dual; Here is the image. I have masked the area where the time precision is displayed. Q 2: Executing Date and Time Script When I execute following script - SELECT 'today' AS Today, 'tomorrow' AS Tomorrow, 'yesterday' AS Yesterday FROM dual; I will get the following result:   NOW – What will be the answer when we execute following script? and WHY? SELECT CAST('today' AS DATE) AS Today, CAST('tomorrow' AS DATE) AS Tomorrow, CAST('yesterday'AS DATE) AS Yesterday FROM dual; HINT: Install NuoDB (it takes 90 seconds). Prizes: 2 Amazon Gifts 2 Limited Edition Hoodies (US resident only)   Rules: Please leave an answer in the comments section below. You must answer both the questions together in a single comment. US resident who wants to qualify to win NuoDB apparel please mention your country in the comment. You can resubmit your answer multiple times, the latest entry will be considered valid. Last day to participate in the puzzle is June 24, 2013. All valid answer will be kept hidden till June 24, 2013. The winner will be announced on June 25, 2013. Two Winners will get USD 25 worth Amazon Gift Card. (Total Value = 25 x 2 = 50 USD) The winner will be selected using a random algorithm from all the valid answers. Anybody with a valid email address can take part in the contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• What tools exist for assessing an organisation's development capability?

  - by Eric Smith

  I have a bit of a challenge at work at the moment. Presently (and in fact, for some time now), we have been experiencing the following problems with some in-house maintained applications: Defects (sometimes quite serious) being released into production; The Customer (that is, the relevant business unit) perpetually changing their minds (or appearing to do so) about what issue to work on next; A situation where everyone seems to be in a "fire-fighting" mode a lot of the time; Development staff responding to operational requests from business users; ("operational" here means something that needs to be done in order to continue with business, or perhaps just to make a business user's life a little less painful, as opposed to fixing a bug in the application, or enhancing the application); Now I'm sure this doesn't sound particularly new or surprising to most of the participants on this Q&A site and no prizes for identifying the "usual suspects" when it comes to root causes. My challenge is that I have to persuade the higher-ups to do uncomfortable things in order to address all of this. The folk I need to persuade come from a mixture of the following two cultures: Accounting; IT Infrastructure. I have therefore opted for a strategy that draws from things with-which folk from such a culture would be most comfortable (at least, in my estimation), namely: numbers and tangibles. Of course modern development practitioners know all too well that this sort of thing isn't easily solved using an analytical mindset (some would argue that that mindset is, in fact, entirely inappropriate). Never-the-less, this is the dichotomy with-which I am faced, so that's the stake that I've put in the ground. I would like to be able to do research and use the outputs to present findings in the form of metrics and measures. I am finding it quite difficult, though, to find an agreed-upon methodology and set of templates for assessing an organisations development capability--the only thing that seems applicable is the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model. The latter, however, seems dated and even then rather vague. So, the question is: Do any tools or methodologies (free or commercial) exist that would assist me in completing this assessment?

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-09-05

  - by Bob Rhubart

  OTN Architect Day - Boston - Sept 12: What to Expect If you've never attended an OTN Architect Day, here's a little preview. You start with a continental breakfast. Then you have keynotes by an Oracle expert, and a member of the Oracle ACE community. After that come the break-out sessions, so you have your choice of two sessions in each time slot. So you'll get in two breakouts before lunch. Then you eat. After that there's a panel Q&A during which the audience tosses questions at the assembled session speakers. Then it's on to another set of break-out sessions, followed by a short break. Then the audience breaks into small groups for round table discussions. After that there's a drawing for some cool prizes, followed by the cocktail reception. All that costs you absolutely zero. Register now. Starting and Stopping Fusion Applications the Right Way | Ronaldo Viscuso While the fastartstop tool that ships with Oracle Fusion Applications does most of the work to start/stop/bounce the Fusion Apps environment, it does not do it all. Oracle Fusion Applications A-Team blogger Ronaldo Viscuso's post "aims to explain all tasks involved in starting and stopping a Fusion Apps environment completely." Dodeca Customer Feedback - The Rosewood Company | Tim Tow Oracle ACE Director Tim Tow shares anecdotal comments from one of his clients, a company that is deploying Dodeca to replace an aging VBA/Essbase application. Configuring UCM cache to check for external Content Server changes | Martin Deh Oracle WebCenter and ADF A-Team blogger Martin Deh shares the background information and the solution to a recently encountered customer scenario. Proxy As Upgrade to 11g Does Not Like NQSession.User | Art of Business Intelligence "In Oracle BI 10g the application was a lot more tolerant of bad design and cavalier usage of variables," observes Oracle ACE Christian Screen. "We noticed an issue recently during an upgrade where the Proxy As configuration in Oracle BI 10g used the NQSession.User variable to identify the user logged into Presentation Servers acting as Proxy." Oracle WebLogic Server 11g: Interactive Quick Reference | Dirk Nachbar Oracle ACE Dirk Nachbar shares a quick post with information on a new interactive reference guide to Oracle WebLogic Server. "The Quick Reference shows you an architecural overview of the Oracle WebLogic Server processes, tools, configuration files, log files and so on including a short description of each section and the corresponding link to the Oracle WebLogic Server Documentation," says Nachbar. Thought for the Day "In fast moving markets, adaptation is significantly more important than optimization." — Larry Constantine Source: Quotes for Software Engineers

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• Gamification in the enterprise updates, September edition

  - by erikanollwebb

  Things have been a little busy here at GamifyOracle.  Last week, I attended a small conference in San Diego on Enterprise Gamification.  Mario Herger of SAP, Matt Landes of Google and I were on a panel discussion about how to introduce and advocate gamification in your organization.  I gave a talk as well as a workshop on gamification.  The workshop was a new concept, to take our Design Jam from Applications User Experience and try it with people outside of user experience.  I have to say, the whole thing was a great success, in great part because I had some expert help from Teena Singh from Apps UX.  We took a flow from expense reporting and created a scenario about sales reps who are on the road a lot and how we needed them to get their expense reports filed by the end of the fiscal year.  We divided the attendees into groups and gave them a little over two hours to work out how they might use game mechanics to gamify the flows.   We even took the opportunity to re-use the app our fab dev team in our Mexico Development Center put together to gamify the event including badges, points, prizes and a leaderboard.  Since I am a firm believer that you can't gamify everything (or at least, not everything well), I focused my talk prior to the workshop on when it works, and when it might not, including pitfalls to gamifying badly.  I was impressed that the teams all considered what might go wrong with gamifying expenses and built into their designs some protections against that.  I can't wait to take this concept on the road again, it really was a fun day. Now that we have gotten through that set of events, we're wildly working on our next project for next week.  I'm doing a focus group at Oracle OpenWorld on Gamification in the Enterprise.  To do that, Andrea Cantu and I are trying to kill as many trees as possible while we work out some gamification concepts to present (see proof below!).  It should be a great event and I'm hoping we learn a lot about what our customers think about the use of gamification in their companies and in the products they use. So that's the news so far from GamifyOracle land.  I'll try to get more out about those events and more after next week. And if you will be at OOW, ping me and we can discuss in person!  I'd love to know what everyone is thinking in the area.

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