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• broken upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04 on a VPS - recoverable?

  - by HorusKol

  I have a VPS hosted 1500 km away. It originally came with 9.10 - and this morning I decided that I really should get to an LTS release, and figured I'd jump to 12.04. Researching, I discovered that there is no direct path between 9.10 and 12.04, but that I could upgrade via 10.04. After backing up my data, I dove in. The upgrade to 10.04 was successful, and I proceeded to upgrade to 12.04. Things started to go wrong. First, I got an error with GLIBC - I retried and got the same error. That's when I stopped the upgrade. I then tried another round of apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and got a list of "unmet dependencies": apt: Depends: ubuntu-keyring but it is not going to be installed Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15) but 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11 is to be installed Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.6) but 4.4.3-4ubuntu5.1 is to be installed PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.15.7.2) but 1.15.5.6ubuntu4.6 is to be installed apt-utils: Depends: libapt-pkg-libc6.10-6-4.8 libapt-inst1.4: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14) but 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11 is to be installed libapt-pkg4.12: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15) but 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11 is to be installed Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.6) but 4.4.3-4ubuntu5.1 is to be installed libc6: Depends: libc-bin (= 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.2 is to be installed libept0: Depends: libapt-pkg-libc6.10-6-4.8 libnih-dbus1: Depends: libnih1 (= 1.0.3-4ubuntu9) but 1.0.1-1 is to be installed I tried to see if I could do something about these - using apt-get -f install. This told me that I would need to upgrade my kernel. I found instructions on how to do this, but when I ran apt-get to install the new linux headers, I got the same dependency errors. I found another answer here where someone else had had an interruption in their upgrade - and tried the solution that worked for them: sudo apt-get -f dist-upgrade This resulted in the error: E: Could not perform immediate configuration on 'python2.7-minimal'.Please see man 5 apt.conf under APT::Immediate-Configure for details. (2) I tried to resolve this by: apt-get install -o APT::Immediate-Configure=false -f apt python-minimal But this simply ended up with this last list of dependency errors: apt: Depends: ubuntu-keyring but it is not going to be installed Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15) but 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11 is to be installed Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.6) but 4.4.3-4ubuntu5.1 is to be installed PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.15.7.2) but 1.15.5.6ubuntu4.6 is to be installed apt-utils: Depends: libapt-pkg-libc6.10-6-4.8 libapt-inst1.4: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14) but 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11 is to be installed libapt-pkg4.12: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15) but 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11 is to be installed Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.6) but 4.4.3-4ubuntu5.1 is to be installed libc6: Depends: libc-bin (= 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.11) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.2 is to be installed libept0: Depends: libapt-pkg-libc6.10-6-4.8 libnih-dbus1: Depends: libnih1 (= 1.0.3-4ubuntu9) but 1.0.1-1 is to be installed python: Depends: python-minimal (= 2.6.5-0ubuntu1) but 2.7.3-0ubuntu2 is to be installed python-apt: Depends: libapt-pkg-libc6.10-6-4.8 python-minimal: Depends: python2.7-minimal (>= 2.7.3) but it is not going to be installed Breaks: python-support (< 1.0.10ubuntu2) but 1.0.4ubuntu1 is to be installed synaptic: Depends: libapt-pkg-libc6.10-6-4.8 Any ideas on how to dig out of this hole?

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• Some PowerShell goodness

  - by KyleBurns

  Ever work somewhere where processes dump files into folders to maintain an archive?  Me too and Windows Explorer hates it.  Very often I find myself needing to organize these files into subfolders so that I can go after files without locking up Windows Explorer and my answer used to be to write a program in something like C# to do the job.  These programs will typically enumerate the files in a folder and move each file to a subdirectory named based on a datestamp.  The last such program I wrote had to use lower-level Win32 API calls to perform the enumeration because it appears the standard .Net calls make use of the same method of enumerating the directories that Windows Explorer chokes on when dealing with a large number of entries in a particular directory, so a simple task was accomplished with a lot of code. Of course, this little utility was just something I used to make my life easier and "not a production app", so it was in my local source folder and not source control when my hard drive died.  So... I was getting ready to re-create it and thought it might be a good idea to play with PowerShell a bit - something I had been wanting to do but had not yet met a requirement to make me do it.  The resulting script was amazingly succinct and even building the flexibility for parameterization and adding line breaks for readability was only about 25 lines long.  Here's the code with discussion following: param(     [Parameter(         Mandatory = $false,         Position = 0,         HelpMessage = "Root of the folders or share to archive.  Be sure to end with appropriate path separator"     )]     [String] $folderRoot="\\fileServer\pathToFolderWithLotsOfFiles\",       [Parameter(         Mandatory = $false,         Position = 1     )]     [int] $days = 1 ) dir $folderRoot|?{(!($_.PsIsContainer)) -and ((get-date) - $_.lastwritetime).totaldays -gt $days }|%{     [string]$year=$([string]$_.lastwritetime.year)     [string]$month=$_.lastwritetime.month     [string]$day=$_.lastwritetime.day     $dir=$folderRoot+$year+"\"+$month+"\"+$day     if(!(test-path $dir)){         new-item -type container $dir     }     Write-output $_     move-item $_.fullname $dir } The script starts by declaring two parameters.  The first parameter holds the path to the folder that I am going to be sorting into subdirectories.  The path separator is intended to be included in this argument because I didn't want to mess with determining whether this was local or UNC and picking the right separator in code, but this could be easily improved upon using Path.Combine since PowerShell has access to the full framework libraries.  The second parameter holds a minimum age in days for files to be removed from the root folder.  The script then pipes the dir command through a query to include only files (by excluding containers) and of those, only entries that meet the age requirement based on the last modified datestamp.  For each of those, the datestamp is used to construct a folder name in the format YYYY\MM\DD (if you're in an environment where even a day's worth of files need further divided, you could make this more granular) and the folder is created if it does not yet exist.  Finally, the file is moved into the directory. One of the things that was really cool about using PowerShell for this task is that the new-item command is smart enough to create the entire subdirectory structure with a single call.  In previous code that I have written to do this kind of thing, I would have to test the entire tree leading down to the subfolder I want, leading to a lot of branching code that detracted from being able to quickly look at the code and understand the job it performs. Overall, I have to say I'm really pleased with what has been done making PowerShell powerful and useful.

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• Bios Memory settings and Virtualization + Ubuntu (Unofficial Answers Welcome) [closed]

  - by TardisGuy

  Attempting to optimize my (Main Windowless) Ubuntu system for my uses I will detail questions below, I understand this might be the wrong place to ask these questions. If so, my apologies and I thank you so much for your patience. Thanks to all the volenteers that have helped me learn ubuntu over the years (Since 5.10) This is a "short" list of questions I have been trying to figure out for some time. If you feel you can answer one but not another, that's already more than I could ask for. I have wrote this up in a format for easy navigation to important points Hopefully to less annoy your eyes. You're welcome :) or i'm sorry i annoy you. :( If you would be so kind, Please format answers as follows: question 1: _ _ _ _ _ or question 1-a: _ _ _ _ _ If you want to simply link me to relevant information, rather than type up something really detailed; that would be more than awesome! Memory Specific Questions Goal: Maximizing memory bandwith to better perform in Virtualization, and Large file compression. (Possible conflict?) Ganged vs Unganged "which is better?"** is relative, i know. But what about ganged vs unganged - With or without Bank/channel interleaving? a: Speculation - If i understand correctly, "channel interleaving has something to do with using both channels to read or write in a kind of "striping" pattern, as opposed to a standard half duplex operation.(probably wrong) but wouldn't ganged channels make this irrelevant? Memory Interleaving(bank). Does it have a down side? Does it require a ratio of clocks? (If I run 4x4gig ddr3) a. If im reading correctly(trying to learn), this is designed to spread operations between latency cycles to work around the higher latency of "normal" operation. b. However it seems to me that it has to be: divisible by fractions of a master clock? So if i run memory at 1333mhz, then the mean between 2 (physical) banks would operate every (roughly) 600Mhz? Warning! Possibly utter nonsense: (1333/2 interleaving to act like 1 memory module per 2 sticks of a total of 4 sticks, meaning 2x channels@4) c. which makes me wonder if there would be left over clock cycles the system would have to... "truncate/balance" or something? But I'm certain theres a feature somewhere i don't understand. Virtualization Questions AMD-V - Option of IOMMU Turned it on, why do i have extra option of "64MB"? If IOMMU is on, but "64MB" is "disabled", Is it on? (have scoured google, I still dont know) a. I think i understand that its supposed to (kind of) "set aside" a part of ram to act as a faster interactive zone for "stuff" (usb, Graphics, and... what?) b. I am using Nvidia graphics on AMD (Used kernel option "iommu=pt iommu=1, pt "passthrough"? No idea what they do, found it on google to solve boot up issue) c. Will this option help me use low latency sound hardware, like my midi keyboard? Can you recommend any additional tweaks? a. sysctl settings? b. swap settings? Grats, youve reached the end. Thanks for Reading.

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• Test Fest Pop Quiz!

  - by Kristin Rose

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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;} Question: Where can partners go during OPN Exchange to take complementary certification testing, and upon completing it, receive the credentials of a Certified Specialist, while having it count towards their company’s Specialization and upgrade within the OPN program? Answer: A.) Test Fest B.) Test Fest C.) All of the Above You are right! Test Fest is back by popular demand, and has been included as one of the many partner benefits for attending OPN Exchange this year. Join us from October 1-4th in the Marriott Marquis, Juniper Room at Oracle OpenWorld and get recognized! For times and registration, visit the Oracle OpenWorld Test Fest page and be sure to “study up” by watching this short video on Test Fest at Oracle OpenWorld 2012 below! Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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;} With over 100 exam titles and four days of sessions, you’re sure to walk away with an A+! Best of Luck, The OPN Communications Team

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• Why Are We Here?

  - by Jonathan Mills

  Back in the early 2000s, Toyota had a vision of building the number one best selling minivan in North America. Their current minivan, the Sienna, was small, underpowered, and badly needed help.  Yuji Yokoya was given the job of re-engineering the Sienna. There was just one problem, Yuji, lived in Japan. He did not know the people or places that he would be engineering for. Believe it or not, Japan is nothing like North America. So, what does a chief engineer do in a situation like that? He packed up his team and flew halfway around the world. He made a commitment to drive through every state in the US, every province in Canada, and Mexico. He met the people and drove the roads that the Sienna would be driving. And guess what, what he learned on that trip revolutionized the Sienna. The innovations he made, sent the Sienna to number one. Why? Because he knew who he was building his product for. He knew, why he was there.Let me ask you this, do you know why you are building what you are building? As a member of a product team, can you tell me how your product will be used in the real world? As you are writing code, building test plans, writing stories, or any of the other project tasks, can you picture the face of a person who will be using what you are building? All to often, the answer to those questions is, no. Why is it important? Because, every day, project team members make assumptions. Over a given project, it is safe to say project team members will make thousands of assumptions about what they are doing. And all to often, those assumptions are not quite right. Its not that they are not good at their job, its just that they don’t really know why they are there.So, what to do? First and foremost, stop doing what you are doing. Yes, really. Schedule some time to go visit the people who will be using your product. Don’t invite them to you, go to them. Watch them work. Interact with them. Ask them questions. Maybe even try it out yourself. This serves two purposes. One, It shows them that you care about them. They will be far more engaged in your project if they feel like you care. And nothing says you care more that spending some time. Second, if gives you the proper frame of reference for you work. It gives you something tangible to go back to as you are building your product. As you make the thousands of assumptions that you will make over the life of your project, it gives you something to see in your mind that makes it real to you.Ultimately, setting a proper frame of reference is critical to the overall success of a project. The funny thing is, it really does not even take that long. In most cases, a 2-3 hour session will give you most of what you need to get the right insight. For the project, it will be the best 2 hours you could spend.

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• How do you deal with poor management [closed]

  - by Sybiam

  I come from a company where during a project, we saw the client 3 time during the whole project. We were never informed when did the client came in office in order to discuss with him about his requirements. I did setup redmine and told them that if they have any request they can post an issue there. But they never really used redmine to publish anything. They would instead: harass a team member on the phone at any time of the day or night hand us over sheets of paper with new requests or changes hand us over new design (graphical) They requested how much time it would take us to finish the project, I gave them a date and a week to test everything and deployment. I calculated that time taking into account the current features we had to do. And then blamed us that our deadline was wrong and that we lied. But the truth is that one week before that deadline they added a couple of monster feature from nowhere and that week were we were supposed to test and deploy, my friends spent all day in the office changing all little things. After that project, my friend got some kind of depression and got scared everytime his phone rang. They kind of used him as a communication proxy. After that project of hell, (every body got pissed off on that project) as far as I know the designer who was working with us left work after that project and she had some kind of issue too with managers. My team also started looking for work somewhere else. At first I tried to get things straight with management, I tried to make a meeting to discuss about the communication issues and so on.. What really pissed me off and made me leave that job for good is the following. Me: "We have to discuss about what went wrong on the last project. It's quite important" Him: "Lets talk about it in a week or two. Just make a list of all the things you did wrong" Me: "We already have a new project and we want to prevent what happened on the last project to happen again" Him: "Just do it and well have our meeting in a week, make a list of all the thing you did wrong." It kind of ended there then he organized a meeting at a moment I wasn't unable to come. My friend discussed with him and tried to explained him that we really had to discuss about organization issue on how to manage a project. And his answer was pretty much: "During the meeting I don't want to ear how you want to us to manage a project but I want to know what you guys did wrong" After that I felt it wasn't even worth it discussing anything since they weren't even ready listening to us. Found a new job and I'm pretty happy with my choice. I'd like to know how you'd handle such situation. Is there anything to do to solve communication problem? After that project my friend got a depression and some other employee had their down too as far as I know. I wonder what else we can do other than leave these place as soon as possible. Feel sad for the people that are still there and get screamed at just because they need money in order to eat and finding an other job like that isn't that easy. note I died a little when our boss asked us to make a list of things we (programmers) did wrong. This is probably the stupidest request I ever got. If everybody thinks they did everything right, it doesn't mean that there is no problems. Individual problem are rarely the big issue. Colleagues help each others and solve theses issues to prevent problems.

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• Does *every* project benefit from written specifications?

  - by nikie

  I know this is holy war territory, so please read the question to the end before answering. There are many cases where written specifications make a lot of sense. For example, if you're a contractor and you want to get paid, you need written specs. If you're working in a team with 20 persons, you need written specs. If you're writing a programming language compiler or interpreter (and it's not perl), you'll usually write a formal specification. I don't doubt that there are many more cases where written specifications are a really good idea. I just think that there are cases where there's so little benefit in written specs, that it doesn't outweigh the costs of writing and maintaining them. EDIT: The close votes say that "it is difficult to say what is asked here", so let me clarify: The usefulness of written, detailed specifications is often claimed like a dogma. (If you want examples, look at the comments.) But I don't see the use of them for the kind of development I'm doing. So what is asked here is: How would written specifications help me? Background information: I work for a small company that's developing vertical market software. If our product is easier to use and has better performance than the competition, it sells. If it's harder to use, even if it behaves 100% as the specification says, it doesn't sell. So there are no "external forces" for having written specs. The advantage would have to be somewhere in the development process. Now, I can see how frozen specifications would make a developer's life easier. But we'll never have frozen specs. If we see in the middle of development that feature X is not intuitive to use the way it's specified, then we can only choose between changing the specification or developing a product that won't sell. You'll probably ask by now: How do you know when you're done? Well, we're continually improving our product. The competition does the same. So (hopefully) we're never done. We keep improving the software, and when we reach a point when the benefits of the improvements we've added since the last release outweigh the costs of an update, we create a new release that is then tested, localized, documented and deployed. This also means that there's rarely any schedule pressure. Nobody has to do overtime to make a deadline. If the feature isn't done by the time we want to release the next version, it'll simply go into the next version. The next question might be: How do your developers know what they're supposed to implement? The answer is: They have a lot of domain knowledge. They know the customers business well enough, so a high-level description of the feature (or even just the problem that the customer needs solved) is enough to implement it. If it's not clear, the developer creates a few fake screens to get feedback from marketing/management or customers, but this is nowhere near the level of detail of actual specifications. This might be inefficient for larger teams, but for a small team with low turnover it works quite well. It has the additional benefit that the developer in question often comes up with a better solution than the person writing the specs might have. This question is already getting very long, but let me address one last point: Testing. Like I said in the beginning, if our software behaves 100% like the spec says, it still can be crap. In fact, if it's so unintuitive that you need a spec to know how to test it, it probably is crap. It makes sense to have fixed, written tests for some core functionality and for regression bugs, but again, this is nowhere near a full written spec of how the software should behave when. The main test is: hand the software to a user who doesn't know it yet and tell him to use the new feature X. If she can figure out how to use it and it works, it works.

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• What Counts For a DBA – Depth

  - by Louis Davidson

  SQL Server offers very simple interfaces to many of its features. Most people could open up SSMS, connect to a server, write a simple query and see the results. Even several of the core DBA tasks are deceptively straightforward. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to perform a basic database backup or run a trace (even using the newfangled Extended Events!). However, appearances can be deceptive, and often times it is really important that a DBA understands not just the basics of how to perform a task, but why we do a task, and how that task works. As an analogy, consider a child walking into a darkened room. Most would know that they need to turn on the light, and how to do it, so they flick the switch. But what happens if light fails to shine forth. Most would immediately tell you that you need to consider changing the light bulb. So you hop in the car and take them to the local home store and instruct them to buy a replacement. Confronted with a 40 foot display of light bulbs, how will they decide which of the hundreds of types of bulbs, of different types, fittings, shapes, colors, power and efficiency ratings, is the right choice? Obviously the main lesson the child is going to learn this day is how to use their cell phone as a flashlight so they don’t have to ask for help the next time. Likewise, when the metaphorical toddlers who use your database server have issues, they will instinctively know something is wrong, and may even have some idea what caused it, but will have no depth of knowledge to figure out the right solution. That is where the DBA comes in and attempts to save the day. However, when one looks beneath the shiny UI, SQL Server has its own “40 foot display of light bulbs”, in the form of the tremendous number of tools and the often-bewildering amount of information they can present to the DBA, to help us find issues. Unfortunately, resorting to guesswork, to trying different “bulbs” over and over, hoping to stumble on the answer. This is where the right depth of knowledge goes a long way. If we need to write a SELECT statement, then knowing the syntax and where to find the data is not enough. Knowledge of indexes and query plans is essential. Without it, we might hit on a query that “works”, but we are basically still a user, not a programmer, because we have no real control over our platform. Is that level of knowledge deep enough? Probably not, since knowledge of the underlying metadata and structures would be very useful in helping us make sense of any query plan. Understanding the structure of an index makes the “key lookup” operator not sound like what you do when someone tapes your car key to the ceiling. So is even this level of understanding deep enough? Do we need to understand the memory architecture used to process the query? It might be a comforting level of knowledge, and will doubtless come in handy at some point, but is not strictly necessary in most cases. Beyond that lies (more or less) full knowledge of SQL language and the intricacies of every step the SQL Server engine takes to process our query. My personal theory is that, as a professional, our knowledge of a given task should extend, at a minimum, one level deeper than is strictly necessary to perform the task. Anything deeper can be left to the ridiculously smart, or obsessive, or both. As an example. tasked with storing an integer value between 0 and 99999999, it’s essential that I know that choosing an Integer over Decimal(8,0) will likely offer performance benefits. It is then useful that I also understand the value of adding a CHECK constraint, to make sure the values are valid to the desired range; and comforting that I know a little about the underlying processors, registers and computer math. Anything further, I leave to the likes of Joe Chang, whose recent blog post on the topic offers depth by the bucketful!  

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• Free hosting solution for a very low-traffic website [duplicate]

  - by user966939

  This question already has an answer here: How to find web hosting that meets my requirements? 4 answers I run a very low-traffic website (about 40 users, basically all of which are daily active on the site). I don't see it changing anytime soon either, as there is no way to sign up on the site right now. Until now I have just been using a sub-directory on a friend's host (shared), to host the web site. But in only a few weeks from now, his subscription will end, and he has no plans on renewing it. So of course this means I'll have to move on to something else. But I don't think I'll find someone who'd be willing to share a... shared host with me again. And besides, the software used on that server is ancient (PHP 4.4.9 + MySQL 4.1.22). There's one obvious solution that comes to mind, I guess: choose a better host and pay for it myself. The problem here is that I have no real fixed income, as I'm only a student. So even if the pricing is dirt cheap, I just can't be certain I will be able to afford it, every single month, for... at least 2 years maybe? So I've looked at free hosting solutions instead. The least requirement I had was that it was completely free of ads. But no matter where I look, I always find something in a corner or two ("what can you expect from a free host?" - yeah I know, but I guess it was worth a shot). For example, on Byethost (one of the free hosts I tried), if you trigger a PHP error while error reporting is set to E_ALL, you will spawn some hidden ad... Besides Byethost, I've tried 000Webhost, x10Hosting, 2Freehosting/1Freehosting, Wink.ws, and they are only worse. Okay, I'm running low on ideas. But! What if I just hosted the site myself, on my own computer? That could work. I actually do have my computer on practically 24/7. But not really. Sometimes I need to reboot it, and sometimes we even have power outages. And what if the hardware needs an upgrade? It's not such a big deal for me if the site went down, because I know what's going on; but what about the users? If I do decide to host it myself, is there some way to show users an alternate page instead of them just seeing a generic "server not found" page in the browser when the site is not accessible? Or is there something I have been missing out on? Is there a different kind of "web hosting" solution out there that I haven't heard of? Here is what I'm really looking for: Free (as in, no costs) NO ads Bandwidth enough for a low-traffic forum with roughly 40 users (Semi-)Up-to-date PHP and MySQL (at least not older than a year) No standard (non-extension) PHP functions turned off - such as sleep() The mbstring extension is enabled Disk space: at least 5 MB At least one MySQL database Some bonus points would be: Max execution time of PHP scripts can be set Remote access to MySQL database What would be the best solution for me? Is there one?

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• Get More From Your Service Request

  - by Get Proactive Customer Adoption Team

  Leveraging Service Request Best Practices Use best practices to get there faster. In the daily conversations I have with customers, they sometimes express frustration over their Service Requests. They often feel powerless to make needed changes, so their sense of frustration grows. To help you avoid some of the frustration you might feel in dealing with your Service Requests (SR), here are a few pointers that come from our best practice discussions. Be proactive. If you can anticipate some of the questions that Support will ask, or the information they may need, try to provide this up front, when you log the SR. This could be output from the Remote Diagnostic Agent (RDA), if this is a database issue, or the output from another diagnostic tool, if you’re an EBS customer. Any information you can supply that helps us understand the situation better, helps us resolve the issue sooner. As you use some of these tools proactively, you might even find the solution to the problem before you log an SR! Be right. Make sure you have the correct severity level. Since you select the initial severity level, it’s easy to accept the default without considering how significant this may be. Business impact is the driving factor, so make sure you take a moment to select the severity level that is appropriate to the situation. Also, make sure you ask us to change the severity level, should the situation dictate. Be responsive! If this is an important issue to you, quickly follow up on any action plan submitted to you by Oracle Support. The support engineer assigned to your Service Request will be able to move the issue forward more aggressively when they have the needed information. This is crucial in resolving your issues in a timely manner. Be thorough. If there are five questions in the action plan, make sure you provide an answer for all five questions in one response, rather than trickling them in one at a time. This will allow the engineer to look at all of the information as a whole and to avoid multiple trips to your SR, saving valuable time and getting you a resolution sooner. Be your own advocate! You know your situation best; make sure Oracle Support understands both how and why this issue is important to you and your company. Use the escalation process if you're concerned that your SR isn't going the right direction, the right pace, or through the right person. Don't wait until you're frustrated and angry. An escalation is as simple as a quick conversation on the phone and can be amazingly effective in getting your issues back on track. The support manager you speak with is empowered to make any needed changes. Be our partner. You can make your support experience better. When your SR has been resolved, you may receive a survey request. This is intended to get your feedback about how your SR went and what we can do to improve your overall support experience. Oracle Support is here to help you. Our goal with any Service Request is to provide the best possible solution as quickly as possible. With your help, we’ll be able to do this with your Service Request too.  

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• Representing Mauritius in the 2013 Bench Games

  Only by chance I came across an interesting option for professionals and enthusiasts in IT, and quite honestly I can't even remember where I caught attention of Brainbench and their 2013 Bench Games event. But having access to 600+ free exams in a friendly international intellectual competition doesn't happen to be available every day. So, it was actually a no-brainer to sign up and browse through the various categories. Most interestingly, Brainbench is not only IT-related. They offer a vast variety of fields in their Test Center, like Languages and Communication, Office Skills, Management, Aptitude, etc., and it can be a little bit messy about how things are organised. Anyway, while browsing through their test offers I added a couple of exams to 'My Plan' which I would give a shot afterwards. Self-assessments Actually, I took the tests based on two major aspects: 'Fun Factor' and 'How good would I be in general'... Usually, you have to pay for any kind of exams and given this unique chance by Brainbench to simply train this kind of tests was already worth the time. Frankly speaking, the tests are very close to the ones you would be asked to do at Prometric or Pearson Vue, ie. Microsoft exams, etc. Go through a set of multiple choice questions in a given time frame. Most of the tests I did during the Bench Games were based on 40 questions, each with a maximum of 3 minutes to answer. Ergo, one test in maximum 2 hours - that sounds feasible, doesn't it? The Measure of Achievement While the 2013 Bench Games are considered a worldwide friendly competition of knowledge I was really eager to get other Mauritians attracted. Using various social media networks and community activities it all looked quite well at the beginning. Mauritius was listed on rank #19 of Most Certified Citizens and rank #10 of Most Master Level Certified Nation - not bad, not bad... Until... the next update of the Bench Games Leaderboard. The downwards trend seemed to be unstoppable and I couldn't understand why my results didn't show up on the Individual Leader Board. First of all, I passed exams that were not even listed and second, I had better results on some exams listed. After some further information from the organiser it turned out that my test transcript wasn't available to the public. Only then results are considered and counted in the competition. During that time, I actually managed to hold 3 test results on the Individuals... Other participants were merciless, eh, more successful than me, produced better test results than I did. But still I managed to stay on the final score board: An 'exotic' combination of exam, test result, country and person itself Representing Mauritius and the Visual FoxPro community in that fun event. And although I mainly develop in Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP2 and C# using .NET Framework from 2.0 to 4.5 since a couple of years I still managed to pass on Master Level. Hm, actually my Microsoft Certified Programmer (MCP) exams are dated back in June 2004 - more than 9 years ago... Look who got lucky... As described above I did a couple of exams as time allowed and without any preparations, but still I received the following mail notification: "Thank you for recently participating in our Bench Games event.  We wanted to inform you that you obtained a top score on our test(s) during this event, and as a result, will receive a free annual Brainbench subscription.  Your annual subscription will give you access to all our tests just like Bench Games, but for an entire year plus additional benefits!" -- Leader Board Notification from Brainbench Even fun activities get rewarded sometimes. Thanks to @Brainbench_com for the free annual subscription based on my passed 2013 Bench Games Master Level exam. It would be interesting to know about the total figures, especially to see how many citizens of Mauritius took part in this year's Bench Games. Anyway, I'm looking forward to be able to participate in other challenges like this in the future.

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• ADO and Two Way Storage Tiering

  - by Andy-Oracle

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 We get asked the following question about Automatic Data Optimization (ADO) storage tiering quite a bit. Can you tier back to the original location if the data gets hot again? The answer is yes but not with standard Automatic Data Optimization policies, at least not reliably. That's not how ADO is meant to operate. ADO is meant to mirror a traditional view of Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) where data will be very volatile when first created, will become less active or cool, and then will eventually cease to be accessed at all (i.e. cold). I think the reason this question gets asked is because customers realize that many of their business processes are cyclical and the thinking goes that those segments that only get used during month end or year-end cycles could sit on lower cost storage when not being used. Unfortunately this doesn't fit very well with the ADO storage tiering model. ADO storage tiering is based on the amount of free and used space in the source tablespace. There are two parameters that control this behavior, TBS_PERCENT_USED and TBS_PERCENT_FREE. When the space in the tablespace exceeds the TBS_PERCENT_USED value then segments specified in storage tiering clause(s) can be moved until the percent of free space reaches the TBS_PERCENT_FREE value. It is worth mentioning that no checks are made for available space in the target tablespace. Now, it is certainly possible to create custom functions to control storage tiering, but this can get complicated. The biggest problem is insuring that there is enough space to move the segment back to tier 1 storage, assuming that that's the goal. This isn't as much of a problem when moving from tier 1 to tier 2 storage because there is typically more tier 2 storage available. At least that's the premise since it is supposed to be less costly, lower performing and higher capacity storage. In either case though, if there isn't enough space then the operation fails. In the case of a customized function, the question becomes do you attempt to free the space so the move can be made or do you just stop and return false so that the move cannot take place? This is really the crux of the issue. Once you cross into this territory you're really going to have to implement two-way hierarchical storage and the whole point of ADO was to provide automatic storage tiering. You're probably better off using heat map and/or business access requirements and building your own hierarchical storage management infrastructure if you really want two way storage tiering. /* 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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• Optimal Data Structure for our own API

  - by vermiculus

  I'm in the early stages of writing an Emacs major mode for the Stack Exchange network; if you use Emacs regularly, this will benefit you in the end. In order to minimize the number of calls made to Stack Exchange's API (capped at 10000 per IP per day) and to just be a generally responsible citizen, I want to cache the information I receive from the network and store it in memory, waiting to be accessed again. I'm really stuck as to what data structure to store this information in. Obviously, it is going to be a list. However, as with any data structure, the choice must be determined by what data is being stored and what how it will be accessed. What, I would like to be able to store all of this information in a single symbol such as stack-api/cache. So, without further ado, stack-api/cache is a list of conses keyed by last update: `(<csite> <csite> <csite>) where <csite> would be (1362501715 . <site>) At this point, all we've done is define a simple association list. Of course, we must go deeper. Each <site> is a list of the API parameter (unique) followed by a list questions: `("codereview" <cquestion> <cquestion> <cquestion>) Each <cquestion> is, you guessed it, a cons of questions with their last update time: `(1362501715 <question>) (1362501720 . <question>) <question> is a cons of a question structure and a list of answers (again, consed with their last update time): `(<question-structure> <canswer> <canswer> <canswer> and ` `(1362501715 . <answer-structure>) This data structure is likely most accurately described as a tree, but I don't know if there's a better way to do this considering the language, Emacs Lisp (which isn't all that different from the Lisp you know and love at all). The explicit conses are likely unnecessary, but it helps my brain wrap around it better. I'm pretty sure a <csite>, for example, would just turn into (<epoch-time> <api-param> <cquestion> <cquestion> ...) Concerns: Does storing data in a potentially huge structure like this have any performance trade-offs for the system? I would like to avoid storing extraneous data, but I've done what I could and I don't think the dataset is that large in the first place (for normal use) since it's all just human-readable text in reasonable proportion. (I'm planning on culling old data using the times at the head of the list; each inherits its last-update time from its children and so-on down the tree. To what extent this cull should take place: I'm not sure.) Does storing data like this have any performance trade-offs for that which must use it? That is, will set and retrieve operations suffer from the size of the list? Do you have any other suggestions as to what a better structure might look like?

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• On a BPM Mission with Process Accelerators. Part 1: BPM as an ATV

  - by Cesare Rotundo

  Normal 0 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;} Part 1: BPM as an ATV It’s always exciting to talk to customers that are in the middle of a BPM transformational journey. Their thirst for new processes to improve with BPM makes them explorers in a landscape of opportunities. They have discovered that with BPM the can “go places” they couldn’t reach before. In a way, learning how to generate value with BPM is like adopting a new mean of transportation. Apps are like regular cars: very efficient, but to be used on paved roads: the road/process has been traced, and there are fixed paths to follow to get from “opportunity to quote” or from “quote to cash”. Getting off the road is risky, and laying down new asphalt is slow and expensive. Custom development is like running: you can go virtually anywhere, following any path you like, yet it’s slow, and a lot of sweat. BPM allows you to go “off the beaten path” laid out by packaged apps, yet make fast progress compared to custom development. BPM is therefore more like an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV): less efficient than a car, but much faster than running, with a powerful enough engine that can get you places. The similarities between BPM and ATVs don’t stop here: you must learn to ride it even if you already know how to drive a car; you can reach places but figuring out the path to your destination is harder. Ultimately, with BPM as with an ATV, you reach places that you thought you could never reach, and you discover new destinations that provide great benefit to you … and that you didn’t even know existed! That’s where the sense of accomplishment that we heard from our BPM customers comes from, as well as the desire to share their experience, or even, as in the case of a County, the willingness to contribute their BPM solutions to help other agencies that face the same challenges. The question we wanted to answer is how can we teach organizations to drive ATV/BPM, thus leading them to deeper success with BPM, while increasing their awareness of the potential for reaching new targets, and finally equip them with the right tools. Like with ATVs, getting from point A to point B is more of a work of art than cruising on the highway by car. There is a lot we can do: after all many sought after destinations are common: someone else has been on the same path before. If only you could learn from their experience …

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• How to restore/change Alt+Tab behaviour/ram usage and a few other things after Ubuntu upgrade from 11.04 to 11.10?

  - by fiktor

  I use Ubuntu for programming. I recently updated it from 11.04 to 11.10. There are some things I don't like in the new version of Unity desktop interface. I don't actually know if it is hard to restore previous behavior or not, and if it is not, where should I look to do that. I know a bit of programming, but I really don't know much about Linux settings. I used to have 3-6 terminal windows and switch between them with Alt+Tab and Shift+Alt+Tab. I liked half-transparent terminal windows, since with them I could open web-page with some instruction in Firefox, press Alt+Tab and type commands in a console window, being able to recognize text on a web-page under it. Now I have problems with my usual work-style because of the following. List of "negative" changes Alt+Tab shows just one icon for all console windows. When I wait some time, it, however, shows all windows, but I don't like to wait. I prefer to remember order of windows and press Alt+Tab as many times as I need to switch to the right window. Alt+Shift+Tab to switch in reverse order doesn't work now. Console windows are not transparent any more. When I don't wait, and switch to this icon, it shows all console windows altogether. So even if they were transparent, I wouldn't be able to see anything below them (I can read something only from the window, which is directly under current one, not a few levels under). When I run a few console windows in Unity I had 740Mb used on Ubuntu 11.04, but I have 1050Mb now. The question is how to make it back to 750-. I really need my memory, since I use my computer to work with 1512Mb of data and I try to save every 10Mb possible (if it doesn't take too much of machine and, more importantly, my time). When I press "The Super key" I have a field to type the name of the program I want to run. But now it sometimes shows this field, but when I'm trying to type nothing happens. Probably, focus is not on the right field. I don't really mean to restore exactly the same behavior, but I want to make my work in Ubuntu 11.10 efficient (at least as efficient as in Ubuntu 11.04). I would be happy if there are some ways to accomplish that. What have I tried I have installed CompizConfig Settings Manager. I have read this question. However enabling "Static Application Switcher" makes Alt+Tab crazy: after enabling it It says about key-binding conflicts with "Ubuntu Unity Plugin"; "Alt+Tab" switching doesn't change, but "Shift+Alt+Tab" now works and shows all windows; Memory usage increases. I have tried turning off Ubuntu Unity Plugin, but this doesn't seem right thing to do, since it seems to turn off all menus, a lot of keystrokes and app-launcher, which usually activates with "The Super key". I have found, that window transparency can be enabled by "Opacity, Brightness and Saturation" plugin from Accessibility. However I don't know if enabling it is the right thing to do (at least it increases memory usage). Update: everything solved but #3: see my own answer below. I have made a separate question about issue #3 (transparency).

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• Too complex/too many objects?

  - by Mike Fairhurst

  I know that this will be a difficult question to answer without context, but hopefully there are at least some good guidelines to share on this. The questions are at the bottom if you want to skip the details. Most are about OOP in general. Begin context. I am a jr dev on a PHP application, and in general the devs I work with consider themselves to use many more OO concepts than most PHP devs. Still, in my research on clean code I have read about so many ways of using OO features to make code flexible, powerful, expressive, testable, etc. that is just plain not in use here. The current strongly OO API that I've proposed is being called too complex, even though it is trivial to implement. The problem I'm solving is that our permission checks are done via a message object (my API, they wanted to use arrays of constants) and the message object does not hold the validation object accountable for checking all provided data. Metaphorically, if your perm containing 'allowable' and 'rare but disallowed' is sent into a validator, the validator may not know to look for 'rare but disallowed', but approve 'allowable', which will actually approve the whole perm check. We have like 11 validators, too many to easily track at such minute detail. So I proposed an AtomicPermission class. To fix the previous example, the perm would instead contain two atomic permissions, one wrapping 'allowable' and the other wrapping 'rare but disallowed'. Where previously the validator would say 'the check is OK because it contains allowable,' now it would instead say '"allowable" is ok', at which point the check ends...and the check fails, because 'rare but disallowed' was not specifically okay-ed. The implementation is just 4 trivial objects, and rewriting a 10 line function into a 15 line function. abstract class PermissionAtom { public function allow(); // maybe deny() as well public function wasAllowed(); } class PermissionField extends PermissionAtom { public function getName(); public function getValue(); } class PermissionIdentifier extends PermissionAtom { public function getIdentifier(); } class PermissionAction extends PermissionAtom { public function getType(); } They say that this is 'not going to get us anything important' and it is 'too complex' and 'will be difficult for new developers to pick up.' I respectfully disagree, and there I end my context to begin the broader questions. So the question is about my OOP, are there any guidelines I should know: is this too complicated/too much OOP? Not that I expect to get more than 'it depends, I'd have to see if...' when is OO abstraction too much? when is OO abstraction too little? how can I determine when I am overthinking a problem vs fixing one? how can I determine when I am adding bad code to a bad project? how can I pitch these APIs? I feel the other devs would just rather say 'its too complicated' than ask 'can you explain it?' whenever I suggest a new class.

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• When should I use a Process Model versus a Use Case?

  - by Dave Burke

  This Blog entry is a follow on to https://blogs.oracle.com/oum/entry/oum_is_business_process_and and addresses a question I sometimes get asked…..i.e. “when I am gathering requirements on a Project, should I use a Process Modeling approach, or should I use a Use Case approach?” Not surprisingly, the short answer is “it depends”! Let’s take a scenario where you are working on a Sales Force Automation project. We’ll call the process that is being implemented “Lead-to-Order”. I would typically think of this type of project as being “Process Centric”. In other words, the focus will be on orchestrating a series of human and system related tasks that ultimately deliver value to the business in a cost effective way. Put in even simpler terms……implement an automated pre-sales system. For this type of (Process Centric) project, requirements would typically be gathered through a series of Workshops where the focal point will be on creating, or confirming, the Future-State (To-Be) business process. If pre-defined “best-practice” business process models exist, then of course they could and should be used during the Workshops, but even in their absence, the focus of the Workshops will be to define the optimum series of Tasks, their connections, sequence, and dependencies that will ultimately reflect a business process that meets the needs of the business. Now let’s take another scenario. Assume you are working on a Content Management project that involves automating the creation and management of content for User Manuals, Web Sites, Social Media publications etc. Would you call this type of project “Process Centric”?.......well you could, but it might also fall into the category of complex configuration, plus some custom extensions to a standard software application (COTS). For this type of project it would certainly be worth considering using a Use Case approach in order to 1) understand the requirements, and 2) to capture the functional requirements of the custom extensions. At this point you might be asking “why couldn’t I use a Process Modeling approach for my Content Management project?” Well, of course you could, but you just need to think about which approach is the most effective. Start by analyzing the types of Tasks that will eventually be automated by the system, for example: Best Suited To? Task Name Process Model Use Case Notes Manage outbound calls Ö A series of linked human and system tasks for calling and following up with prospects Manage content revision Ö Updating the content on a website Update User Preferences Ö Updating a users display preferences Assign Lead Ö Reviewing a lead, then assigning it to a sales person Convert Lead to Quote Ö Updating the status of a lead, and then converting it to a sales order As you can see, it’s not an exact science, and either approach is viable for the Tasks listed above. However, where you have a series of interconnected Tasks or Activities, than when combined, deliver value to the business, then that would be a good indicator to lead with a Process Modeling approach. On the other hand, when the Tasks or Activities in question are more isolated and/or do not cross traditional departmental boundaries, then a Use Case approach might be worth considering. Now let’s take one final scenario….. As you captured the To-Be Process flows for the Sales Force automation project, you discover a “Gap” in terms of what the client requires, and what the standard COTS application can provide. Let’s assume that the only way forward is to develop a Custom Extension. This would now be a perfect opportunity to document the functional requirements (behind the Gap) using a Use Case approach. After all, we will be developing some new software, and one of the most effective ways to begin the Software Development Lifecycle is to follow a Use Case approach. As always, your comments are most welcome.

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• Criminals and Other Illegal Characters

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  SQLTeam's favorite Slovenian blogger Mladen (b | t) had an interesting question on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MladenPrajdic/status/347057950470307841 I liked Kendal Van Dyke's (b | t) reply: http://twitter.com/SQLDBA/status/347058908801667072 And he was right!  This is one of those pretty-useless-but-sounds-interesting propositions that I've based all my presentations on, and most of my blog posts. If you read all the replies you'll see a lot of good suggestions.  I particularly like Aaron Bertrand's (b | t) idea of going into the Unicode character set, since there are over 65,000 characters available.  But how to find an illegal character?  Detective work? I'm working on the premise that if SQL Server will reject it as a name it would throw an error.  So all we have to do is generate all Unicode characters, rename a database with that character, and catch any errors. It turns out that dynamic SQL can lend a hand here: IF DB_ID(N'a') IS NULL CREATE DATABASE [a]; DECLARE @c INT=1, @sql NVARCHAR(MAX)=N'', @err NVARCHAR(MAX)=N''; WHILE @c<65536 BEGIN BEGIN TRY SET @sql=N'alter database ' + QUOTENAME(CASE WHEN @c=1 THEN N'a' ELSE NCHAR(@c-1) END) + N' modify name=' + QUOTENAME(NCHAR(@c)); RAISERROR(N'*** Trying %d',10,1,@c) WITH NOWAIT; EXEC(@sql); SET @c+=1; END TRY BEGIN CATCH SET @err=ERROR_MESSAGE(); RAISERROR(N'Ooops - %d - %s',10,1,@c,@err) WITH NOWAIT; BREAK; END CATCH END SET @sql=N'alter database ' + QUOTENAME(NCHAR(@c-1)) + N' modify name=[a]'; EXEC(@sql); The script creates a dummy database "a" if it doesn't already exist, and only tests single characters as a database name.  If you have databases with single character names then you shouldn't run this on that server. It takes a few minutes to run, but if you do you'll see that no errors are thrown for any of the characters.  It seems that SQL Server will accept any character, no matter where they're from.  (Well, there's one, but I won't tell you which. Actually there's 2, but one of them requires some deep existential thinking.) The output is also interesting, as quite a few codes do some weird things there.  I'm pretty sure it's due to the font used in SSMS for the messages output window, not all characters are available.  If you run it using the SQLCMD utility, and use the -o switch to output to a file, and -u for Unicode output, you can open the file in Notepad or another text editor and see the whole thing. I'm not sure what character I'd recommend to answer Mladen's question.  I think the standard tab (ASCII 9) is fine.  There's also several specific separator characters in the original ASCII character set (decimal 28-31). But of all the choices available in Unicode whitespace, I think my favorite would be the Mongolian Vowel Separator.  Or maybe the zero-width space. (that'll be fun to print!)  And since this is Mladen we're talking about, here's a good selection of "intriguing" characters he could use.

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• Come up with a real-world problem in which only the best solution will do (a problem from Introduction to algorithms) [closed]

  - by Mike

  EDITED (I realized that the question certainly needs a context) The problem 1.1-5 in the book of Thomas Cormen et al Introduction to algorithms is: "Come up with a real-world problem in which only the best solution will do. Then come up with one in which a solution that is “approximately” the best is good enough." I'm interested in its first statement. And (from my understanding) it is asked to name a real-world problem where only the exact solution will work as opposed to a real-world problem where good-enough solution will be ok. So what is the difference between the exact and good enough solution. Consider some physics problem for example the simulation of the fulid flow in the permeable medium. To make this simulation happen some simplyfing assumptions have to be made when deriving a mathematical model. Otherwise the model becomes at least complex and unsolvable. Virtually any particle in the universe has its influence on the fluid flow. But not all particles are equal. Those that form the permeable medium are much more influental than the ones located light years away. Then when the mathematical model needs to be solved an exact solution can rarely be found unless the mathematical model is simple enough (wich probably means the model isn't close to reality). We take an approximate numerical method and after hours of coding and days of verification come up with the program or algorithm which is a solution. And if the model and an algorithm give results close to a real problem by some degree that is good enough soultion. Its worth noting the difference between exact solution algorithm and exact computation result. When considering real-world problems and real-world computation machines I believe all physical problems solutions where any calculations are taken can not be exact because universal physical constants are represented approximately in the computer. Any numbers are represented with the limited precision, at least limited by amount of memory available to computing machine. I can imagine plenty of problems where good-enough, good to some degree solution will work, like train scheduling, automated trading, satellite orbit calculation, health care expert systems. In that cases exact solutions can't be derived due to constraints on computation time, limitations in computer memory or due to the nature of problems. I googled this question and like what this guy suggests: there're kinds of mathematical problems that need exact solutions (little note here: because the question is taken from the book "Introduction to algorithms" the term "solution" means an algorithm or a program, which in this case gives exact answer on each input). But that's probably more of theoretical interest. So I would like to narrow down the question to: What are the real-world practical problems where only the best (exact) solution algorithm or program will do (but not the good-enough solution)? There are problems like breaking of cryptographic ciphers where only exact solution matters in practice and again in practice the process of deciphering without knowing a secret should take reasonable amount of time. Returning to the original question this is the problem where good-enough (fast-enough) solution will do there's no practical need in instant crack though it's desired. So the quality of "best" can be understood in any sense: exact, fastest, requiring least memory, having minimal possible network traffic etc. And still I want this question to be theoretical if possible. In a sense that there may be example of computer X that has limited resource R of amount Y where the best solution to problem P is the one that takes not more than available Y for inputs of size N*Y. But that's the problem of finding solution for P on computer X which is... well, good enough. My final thought that we live in a world where it is required from programming solutions to practical purposes to be good enough. In rare cases really very very good but still not the best ones. Isn't it? :) If it's not can you provide an example? Or can you name any such unsolved problem of practical interest?

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 1: Why Build Smart Phone Apps

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is part 1 in a series of post based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Intro Most of us already carry smartphones. We play games on them. We keep up with what is going on with our friends and our favorite teams. We take pictures of our kids at their events. But the question is if that is all they are good for. Many companies have aspects of their business that lend themselves to being performed by mobile devices. Some of them lean toward larger device such as tablets, but many can be executed on smartphones. This and the following articles will discuss some of the possible applications of smartphone technology for businesses, the platforms that are available and the considerations you need to make when building them. I'll take a look at some specific scenarios and wrap up with a couple of capabilities that are just emerging that can be used in the future. Why Build Enterprise Smartphone Applications So what are some of the ways that you can leverage smartphone technology to gain efficiency in your business or a clients business. There are a few major areas that I have seen mobile platforms being an advantage to. Your mobile sales force is a key candidate for leveraging smartphone apps.  They can visit clients in their retail location and place orders on site. It is a more personal approach which can gain you customer loyalty.  A sales person may also gather information about the way a client does business or who their target market is. This allows them you to focus marketing information or build customized support for your customer. You may also have need to track physical inventory in a store. This is something that has historically been done with laser scanners, but with the camera capabilities in today's phones and tablets it is possible to use more general multi-purpose devices.  This can save costs on both hardware and telecommunication contracts. Delivery verification is another area that historically has been the domain of specialized devices but can now be accomplished with smartphones.  This also reduces costs because it is also used for communicating with the driver and other operations.  Add to that the navigation capability of smartphones and you can see how the return on investment increases. Executives are always on the go. They spend most of their time in meetings and yet they need access to decision making information at their finger tips. With a smartphone app they can get alerts when major sales are closed or critical accounting process are completed that may need their attention. They can also answer questions by instantly pulling up BI reports. I have often heard operations support people say that they need things like VPN and RDP from their phones. If they can also have notifications of outages or critical support requests they can be react to situations without needing to be tied to their desks. These are all valid reasons to need smartphone applications.  In the next installment I will discuss platforms and features. del.icio.us Tags: Smartphones,Enterprise Smartphone Apps,Architecture

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• No Customer Left Behind

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A guest post by David Vap, Group Vice President, Oracle Applications Product Development What does customer experience mean to you? Is it a strategy for your executives? A new buzz word and marketing term? A bunch of CRM technology with social software added on? For me, customer experience is a customer-centric worldview that produces a deeper understanding of your business and what it takes to achieve sustainable, differentiated success. It requires you to prioritize and examine the journey your customers are on with your brand, so you can answer the question, "How can we drive greater value for our business by delivering a better customer experience?" Businesses that embrace a customer-centric worldview understand their business at a much deeper level than most. They know who their customers are, what their value is, what they do, what they say, what they want, and ultimately what that means to their business. "Why Isn't Everyone Doing It?" We're all consumers who have our own experiences with many brands. Good or bad, some of those experiences stay with us. So viscerally we understand the concept of customer experience from the stories we share. One that stands out in my mind happened as I was preparing to leave for a 12-month job assignment in Europe. I wanted to put my cable television subscription on hold. I wasn't leaving for another vendor. I wasn't upset. I just had a situation where it made sense to put my $180 per month account on pause until I returned. Unfortunately, there was no way for this cable company to acknowledge that I was a loyal customer with a logical request - and to respond accordingly. So, ultimately, they lost my business. Research shows us that it costs six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Heavily funding the efforts of getting new customers and underfunding the efforts of serving the needs of your existing (who are your greatest advocates) is a vicious and costly cycle. "Hey, These Guys Suck!" I love my Apple iPad because it's so easy to use. The explosion of these types of technologies, combined with new media channels, has raised our expectations and made us hyperaware of what's going on and what's available. In addition, social media has given us a megaphone to share experiences both positive and negative with greater impact. We are now an always-on culture that thrives on our ability to access, connect, and share anywhere anytime. If we don't get the service, product, or value we expect, it is easy to tell many people about it. We also can quickly learn where else to get what we want. Consumers have the power of influence and choice at a global scale. The businesses that understand this principle are able to leverage that power to their advantage. The ones that don't, suffer from it. Which camp are you in?Note: This is Part 1 in a three-part series. Stop back for Part 2 on November 19.

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• Hosted Monitoring

  - by Grant Fritchey

  The concept of using services to take the place of writing a lot of your own code goes way, way back in computing history. The fundamentals of the concept go back to the dawn of computing with places like IBM hosting time-shares for computing power that you could rent for short periods of time. But things really took off with the building of the Web. Now, all the growth with virtual machines, hosted machines, hosted services from vendors like Amazon and Microsoft, the need to keep all of your software locally on physical boxes is just going the way of the dodo. There will likely always be some pieces of software that you keep on machines on your property or on your person, but the concept of keeping fundamental services locally is going away. As someone put it to me once, if you were starting a business right now, would you bother setting up an Exchange server to manage your email or would you just go to one of the external mail services for everything? For most of us (who are not Exchange admins) the answer is pretty easy. With all this momentum to having external services manage more and more of the infrastructure that’s not business unique, why would you burn up a server and license instance setting up monitoring for your SQL Servers? Of course, some of you are dealing with hyper-sensitive data that might require, through law or treaty, that you lock it down and never expose it to the intertubes, but most of us are not. So, what if someone else took on the basic hassle of setting up monitoring on your systems? That’s what we’re working on here at Red Gate. Right now it’s a private test, but we’re growing it and developing it and it’ll be going to a public beta, probably (hopefully) this year. I’m running it on my machines right now. The concept is pretty simple. You put a relay on your server, poke a hole in your firewall for it, and we start monitoring your server using SQL Monitor. It’s actually shocking how easy it is to get going. You still have to adjust your alerting thresholds, but that’s a standard part of alerting. Your pain threshold and my pain threshold for any given alert may be different. But from there, we do all the heavy lifting, keeping your data online and available, providing you with access to the information about how your servers are behaving, everything. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m really excited by this. I think we’re getting to a place where we can really help the small and medium sized businesses get a monitoring solution in place, quickly and easily. All you crazy busy, and possibly accidental, DBAs and system admins finally can set up monitoring without taking all the time to configure systems, run installs, and all the rest. You just have to tweak your alerts and you’re ready to run. If you are interested in checking it out, you can apply for the closed beta through the Monitor web page.

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• Is hidden content (display: none;) -indexed- by search engines? [closed]

  - by user568458

  Possible Duplicate: How bad is it to use display: none in CSS? We've established on this site before (in this question) that, since there are so many legitimate uses for hiding content with display: none; when creating interactive features, that sites aren't automatically penalised for content that is hidden this way (so long as it doesn't look algorithmically spammy). Google's Webmaster guidelines also make clear that a good practice when using content that is initially legitimately hidden for interactivity purposes is to also include the same content in a <noscript> tag, and Google recommend that if you design and code for users including users with screen readers or javascript disabled, then 9 times out of 10 good relevant search rankings will follow (though their specific advice seems more written for cases where javascript writes new content to the page). JavaScript: Place the same content from the JavaScript in a tag. If you use this method, ensure the contents are exactly the same as what’s contained in the JavaScript, and that this content is shown to visitors who do not have JavaScript enabled in their browser. So, best practice seems pretty clear. What I can't find out is, however, the simple factual matter of whether hidden content is indexed by search engines (but with potential penalties if it looks 'spammy'), or, whether it is ignored, or, whether it is indexed but with a lower weighting (like <noscript> content is, apparently). (for bonus points it would be great to know if this varies or is consistent between display: none;, visibility: hidden;, etc, but that isn't crucial). This is different to the other questions on display:none; and SEO - those are about good and bad practice and the answers are discussions of good and bad practice, I'm interested simply in the factual 'Yes or no' question of whether search engines index, or ignore, content that is in display: none; - something those other questions' answers aren't totally clear on. One other question has an answer, "Yes", supported by a link to an article that doesn't really clear things up: it establishes that search engines can spot that text is hidden, it discusses (again) whether hidden text causes sites to be marked as spam, and ultimately concludes that in mid 2011, Google's policy on hidden text was evolving, and that they hadn't at that time started automatically penalising display:none; or marking it as spam. It's clear that display: none; isn't always spam and isn't always treated as spam (many Google sites use it...): but this doesn't clear up how, or if, it is indexed. What I will do will be to follow the guidelines and make sure that all the content that is initially hidden which regular users can explore using javascript-driven interactivity is also structured in way that noscript/screenreader users can use. So I'm not interested in best practice, opinions etc because best practice seems to be really clear: accessibility best practices boosts SEO. But I'd like to know what exactly will happen: whether any display: none; content I have alongside <noscript> or otherwise accessibility-optimised content will be be ignored, or indexed again, or picked up to compare against the <noscript> content but not indexed... etc.

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• Best way to process a queue in C# (PDF treatment)

  - by Bartdude

  First of all let me expose what I would like to do : I already dispose of a long-time running webapp developed in ASP.NET (C#) 2.0. In this app, users can upload standard PDF files (text+pics). The app is running in production on a Windows Server 2003 and has a dedicated database server (SQL server 2008) also running Windows Server 2003. I myself am a quite experienced web developer, but never actually programmed anything non-web (or at least nothing serious). I plan on adding a functionality to the webapp for which I would need a jpg snapshot of each page of the PDF. Creating these "thumbnails" isn't the big deal as such, I already do it inside my webapp using ghostscript. I've only done it on 1 page documents for now though, and the new functionality will need to process bigger documents. In order for this process to be transparent aswell for the admins as the final users, I would like to implement some kind of queue to delay the processing of the thumbnails. There again, no problem to create the queue, it will consist of records in a table, with enough info to find the pdf document back. Then I will need to process this queue, and that's were my interrogations start. Obviously the best solution to process it isn't an ASP script or so, so I will have to get out of my known environment. No problem, but I have no idea which direction to go. Therefore, a few questions : What should I develop ? I presumably need something that is "standby" on the server, runs when needed, then returns to idle state until further notice.Should I be looking into Windows service ? Is there another more appropriate type of project ? Depending on the first answer, what will be the approach ? Should I have somehow SQL server "tell" the program/service/... to process the queue, or should I have that program/service/... periodically check the state of the queue and treat new items. In both case, which functionality can I use ? we're not talking about hundreds of PDF a day (max 50 maybe), I can totally afford to treat the queue 1 item at a time. Can you confirm I don't have to look much further on threads and so ? (I found a lot of answers talking about threads in queue treatment, but it looks quite overkill for my needs) Maybe linked to the previous question : what about concurrent call to the program, whatever it is ? Let's suppose it is currently running, and a new record comes in the queue, what should be the behaviour ? I don't need much detailed answers and would already be happy with answers like "You can do the processing with a service, and yes it's possible to have sqlserver on machine A trigger a service start on machine B" or "You have to develop xxx and then use the scheduler to run it every xxx minutes". I don't mind reading articles and so, but I can hardly afford to spend too much time learning stuff to finally realize I went the wrong way for this project, so basically I'm trying to narrow down the scope of matters I need to investigate. Thanks for reading me, I hope I'll find some helping hands on here :-)

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• Programmatically add an ISAPI extension dll in IIS 7 using ADSI?

  - by fretje

  I apologize beforehand, this is a cross post of this SO question. I thought I'd ask it there first, but apparently it doesn't harvest any answers there. I hope it will get more attention here. When I have an answer somewhere, I'll delete the other one. I'm trying to programmatically add an ISAPI extension dll in IIS using ADSI. This has been working for ages on previous versions of IIS, but it seems to fail on IIS 7. I am using similar code like shown in this question: var web = GetObject("IIS://localhost/W3SVC/1/ROOT/specificVirtualDirectory"); var maps = web.ScriptMaps.toArray(); map[maps.length] = ".aaa,c:\\path\\to\\isapi\\extension.dll,1,GET,POST"; web.ScriptMaps = maps.asDictionary(); web.SetInfo(); After executing that code, I do see an "AboMapperCustom-12345678" entry for that specific dll in the "Handler mappings" of the specific virtual directory in which I added the script map. But when I try to use that extension in a browser, I always get HTTP Error 404.2 Not Found The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the ISAPI and CGI Restriction list settings on the Web server. Even after adding an entry to allow that specific dll in the "ISAPI and CGI restrictions", I keep getting that error. To make it actually work, I first have to undo these steps (encountering the same issue like the OP of the question mentioned above: after deleting the script map entry from the IIS manager GUI, I also have to programmatically delete it using ADSI before it's actually gone from the metabase). And then manually add an entry like this: inetmgr - webserver - website - virtual directory - handler mappings - add script map... path = *.dll, executable = <path to dll>, name = <doesn't matter, but it's mandatory> click "yes" on the question "do you want to allow this ISAPI extension?" When I compare the 2 entries, they are exactly the same, except for the "Entry Type" which seems to be "Inherited" for the programmatically added one and "Local" for the one added manually. The strange thing is, even though it says "Inherited", I don't see it anywhere in IIS on a higher level. Where is it inheriting from? In my code, I do add the script map to the specific virtual directory so it should be "Local" as well. Maybe there is the problem, but I don't know how to add a "Local" Script Map using ADSI. I really would like to keep using the ADSI method, as otherwise I will have to use different methods in our setup when working with IIS 7 or previous versions, and I would like to avoid that. To recap: How can I programmatically add a script map entry and its companion CGI and ISAPI restrictions entry to IIS 7 using ADSI? Anybody who can shed some light on this? Any help appreciated.

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