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• Chester Devs Presentation and source code &ndash; &lsquo;Event Store - an introduction to a DSD for event sourcing and notifications&rsquo;

  - by Liam Westley

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/11/11/chester-devs-presentation-and-source-code-ndash-lsquoevent-store.aspxThank you everyone at Chester Devs Thanks to Fran Hoey and all the people from Chester Devs. It was a hard drive up and back but the enthusiasm of the audience, with some great questions does make it worthwhile. Presentation and source code My presentation, source code, Event Store runners and text files containing the various command line parameters used for curl is now available on GitHub; https://github.com/westleyl/ChesterDevs-EventStore. Don’t worry if you don’t have a GitHub account, you don’t need one, you can just click on the Download Zip button on the right hand menu to download all the files as a single ZIP file.  If all you want is the PowerPoint presentation, go to https://github.com/westleyl/ChesterDevs-EventStore/blob/master/Powerpoint/Huddle-EventStore.pptx, and click on the View Raw button. Downloading and installing Event Store and Tools Download Event Store http://download.geteventstore.com – I unzipped these files into C:\EventStore\v2.0.1 Download Curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html – I downloaded Win64 Generic (with SSL) and unzipped these files into C:\curl version 7.31.0 Running the tools I used in my presentation Demonstration 1 (running Event Store) You can use one of my Event Store runner command files to run the single node version of Event Store, using default ports of 2213 for HTTP and 1113  for TCP, and with a wildcard HTTP pattern.  Both take a single command line parameter to specify the location of the data and log files.  The runners assume the single node executable is located in C:\EventStore\v2.0.1, and will placed data files and logs beneath C:\EventStore\Data, i.e. RunEventStore.cmd TestData1 This will create data files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\Data and log files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\logs. If, when running Event Store you may see the following message, [03288,15,06:23:00.622] Failed to start http server Access is denied You will either need to run Event Store in an administrator console window, or you can use the netsh command to create a firewall permission to allow HTTP listening (this will need to be run, once, in an administrator console window), netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:2213/ user=liam You can always delete this later by running the delete; netsh http delete urlacl url=http://*:2213/ If you want to confirm that everything is running OK, open the management console in a browser by navigating to http://127.0.0.1:2213. If at any point you are asked for a user name and password use the default of ‘admin’/‘changeit’. Demonstration 2 (reading and adding data, curl) In my second demonstration I used curl directly from the console to read streams, write events and then read back those events. On GitHub I have included is a set of curl commands, CurlCommandLine.txt, and a sample data file, SampleData.json, to load an event into a DDDNorth3 stream. As there is not much data in the Event Store at this point I used the $stats-127.0.0.1:2113 which is a stream containing performance statistics for Event Store and is updated every 30 seconds (default). Demonstration 3 (projections) On GitHub I have included a sample projection, Projection-ByRoom.txt, which will create streams based on the room on which a session was held on the DDDNorth3 agenda. Browse to the management console, http://127.0.0.1:2213.  Click on Projections, New Projection, give it a name, Sessions-ByRoom, and copy in the JavaScript in the Projection-ByRoom.txt file.  Select Continuous, tick Emit Enabled and then click on Post. It should run immediately. You may by challenged for the administration login for the management console, if so use the default user name and password; 'admin'/'changeit'. Demonstration 4 (C# client) The final demonstration was the Visual Studio 2012 project using the Event Store client – referenced directly as C:\EventStore\v2.0.1\EventStore.ClientAPI.dll, although you can switch this to the latest Event Store client NuGet package. The source code provides a console app for viewing projections with the projection manager (HTTP connection), as well as containing a full set of data for the entire DDDNorth3 agenda.  It also deals with the strategy for reading newest events backwards to older events and ignoring older events that have been superseded. Resources Event Store home page: http://www.geteventstore.com/ Event Store source code on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore Event Store documentation on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki (includes index to @RobAshton’s blog series on Event Store at https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki#rob-ashton---projections-series) Event Store forum in Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/event-store TopShelf Windows service wrapper is available on github: https://gist.github.com/trbngr/5083266

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• How to Use An Antivirus Boot Disc or USB Drive to Ensure Your Computer is Clean

  - by Chris Hoffman

  If your computer is infected with malware, running an antivirus within Windows may not be enough to remove it. If your computer has a rootkit, the malware may be able to hide itself from your antivirus software. This is where bootable antivirus solutions come in. They can clean malware from outside the infected Windows system, so the malware won’t be running and interfering with the clean-up process. The Problem With Cleaning Up Malware From Within Windows Standard antivirus software runs within Windows. If your computer is infected with malware, the antivirus software will have to do battle with the malware. Antivirus software will try to stop the malware and remove it, while the malware will attempt to defend itself and shut down the antivirus. For really nasty malware, your antivirus software may not be able to fully remove it from within Windows. Rootkits, a type of malware that hides itself, can be even trickier. A rootkit could load at boot time before other Windows components and prevent Windows from seeing it, hide its processes from the task manager, and even trick antivirus applications into believing that the rootkit isn’t running. The problem here is that the malware and antivirus are both running on the computer at the same time. The antivirus is attempting to fight the malware on its home turf — the malware can put up a fight. Why You Should Use an Antivirus Boot Disc Antivirus boot discs deal with this by approaching the malware from outside Windows. You boot your computer from a CD or USB drive containing the antivirus and it loads a specialized operating system from the disc. Even if your Windows installation is completely infected with malware, the special operating system won’t have any malware running within it. This means the antivirus program can work on the Windows installation from outside it. The malware won’t be running while the antivirus tries to remove it, so the antivirus can methodically locate and remove the harmful software without it interfering. Any rootkits won’t be able to set up the tricks they use at Windows boot time to hide themselves from the rest o the operating system. The antivirus will be able to see the rootkits and remove them. These tools are often referred to as “rescue disks.” They’re meant to be used when you need to rescue a hopelessly infected system. Bootable Antivirus Options As with any type of antivirus software, you have quite a few options. Many antivirus companies offer bootable antivirus systems based on their antivirus software. These tools are generally free, even when they’re offered by companies that specialized in paid antivirus solutions. Here are a few good options: avast! Rescue Disk – We like avast! for offering a capable free antivirus with good detection rates in independent tests. avast! now offers the ability to create an antivirus boot disc or USB drive. Just navigate to the Tools -> Rescue Disk option in the avast! desktop application to create bootable media. BitDefender Rescue CD – BitDefender always seems to receive good scores in independent tests, and the BitDefender Rescue CD offers the same antivirus engine in the form of a bootable disc. Kaspersky Rescue Disk – Kaspersky also receives good scores in independent tests and offers its own antivirus boot disc. These are just a handful of options. If you prefer another antivirus for some reason — Comodo, Norton, Avira, ESET, or almost any other antivirus product — you’ll probably find that it offers its own system rescue disk. How to Use an Antivirus Boot Disc Using an antivirus boot disc or USB drive is actually pretty simple. You’ll just need to find the antivirus boot disc you want to use and burn it to disc or install it on a USB drive. You can do this part on any computer, so you can create antivirus boot media on a clean computer and then take it to an infected computer. Insert the boot media into the infected computer and then reboot. The computer should boot from the removable media and load the secure antivirus environment. (If it doesn’t, you may need to change the boot order in your BIOS or UEFI firmware.) You can then follow the instructions on your screen to scan your Windows system for malware and remove it. No malware will be running in the background while you do this. Antivirus boot discs are useful because they allow you to detect and clean malware infections from outside an infected operating system. If the operating system is severely infected, it may not be possible to remove — or even detect — all the malware from within it. Image Credit: aussiegall on Flickr     

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• ODI SDK: Retrieving Information From the Logs

  - by Christophe Dupupet

  It is fairly common to want to retrieve data from the ODI logs: statistics, execution status, even the generated code can be retrieved from the logs. The ODI SDK provides a robust set of APIs to parse the repository and retreve such information. To locate the information you are looking for, you have to keep in mind the structure of the logs: sessions contain steps; steps containt tasks. The session is the execution unit: basically, each time you execute something (interface, package, procedure, scenario) you create a new session. The steps are the individual entries found in a session: these will be the icons in your package for instance. Or if you are running an interface, you will have one single step: the interface itself. The tasks will represent the more atomic elements of the steps: the individual DDL, DML, scripts and so forth that are generated by ODI, along with all the detailed statistics for that task. All these details can be retrieved with the SDK. Because I had a question recently on the API ODIStepReport, I focus explicitly in this code on Scenario logs, but a lot more can be done with these APIs. Here is the code sample (you can just cut and paste that code in your ODI 11.1.1.6 Groovy console). Just save, adapt the code to your environment (in particular to connect to your repository) and hit "run" //Created by ODI Studioimport oracle.odi.core.OdiInstanceimport oracle.odi.core.config.OdiInstanceConfigimport oracle.odi.core.config.MasterRepositoryDbInfo import oracle.odi.core.config.WorkRepositoryDbInfo import oracle.odi.core.security.Authentication  import oracle.odi.core.config.PoolingAttributes import oracle.odi.domain.runtime.scenario.finder.IOdiScenarioFinder import oracle.odi.domain.runtime.scenario.OdiScenario import java.util.Collection import java.io.* /* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Simple sample code to list all executions of the last version of a scenario,along with detailed steps information----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */ /* update the following parameters to match your environment => */def url = "jdbc:oracle:thin:@myserver:1521:orcl"def driver = "oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver"def schema = "ODIM1116"def schemapwd = "ODIM1116PWD"def workrep = "WORKREP1116"def odiuser= "SUPERVISOR"def odiuserpwd = "SUNOPSIS" // Rather than hardcoding the project code and folder name, // a great improvement here would be to parse the entire repository def scenario_name = "LOAD_DWH" /*Scenario Name*/ /* <=End of the update section */ //--------------------------------------//Connection to the repository// Note for ODI 11.1.1.6: you could use predefined odiInstance variable if you are // running the script from a Studio that is already connected to the repository def masterInfo = new MasterRepositoryDbInfo(url, driver, schema, schemapwd.toCharArray(), new PoolingAttributes())def workInfo = new WorkRepositoryDbInfo(workrep, new PoolingAttributes())def odiInstance = OdiInstance.createInstance(new OdiInstanceConfig(masterInfo, workInfo)) //--------------------------------------// In all cases, we need to make sure we have authorized access to the repositorydef auth = odiInstance.getSecurityManager().createAuthentication(odiuser, odiuserpwd.toCharArray())odiInstance.getSecurityManager().setCurrentThreadAuthentication(auth) //--------------------------------------// Retrieve the scenario we are looking fordef odiScenario = ((IOdiScenarioFinder)odiInstance.getTransactionalEntityManager().getFinder(OdiScenario.class)).findLatestByName(scenario_name) if (odiScenario == null){    println("Error: cannot find scenario "+scenario_name);    return} //--------------------------------------// Retrieve all reports for the scenario def OdiScenarioReportsList = odiScenario.getScenarioReports() println("*** Listing all reports for Scenario \""+scenario_name+"\" ") //--------------------------------------// For each report, print the folowing:// - start time// - duration// - status// - step reports: selection of details for (s in OdiScenarioReportsList){        println("\tStart time: " + s.getSessionStartTime())        println("\tDuration: " + s.getSessionDuration())        println("\tStatus: " + s.getSessionStatus())                def OdiScenarioStepReportsList = s.getStepReports()        for (st in OdiScenarioStepReportsList){            println("\t\tStep Name: " + st.getStepName())            println("\t\tStep Resource Name: " + st.getStepResourceName())            println("\t\tStep Start time: " + st.getStepStartTime())            println("\t\tStep Duration: " + st.getStepDuration())            println("\t\tStep Status: " + st.getStepStatus())            println("\t\tStep # of inserts: " + st.getStepInsertCount())            println("\t\tStep # of updates: " + st.getStepUpdateCount()+'\n')      }      println("\t")}

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• Customizing the processing of ListItems for asp:RadioButtonList with "Flow" layout and "Horizontal"

  - by evovision

  Hi, recently I was asked to add an ability to pad specific elements from each other to a certain distance in RadioButtonList control. Not quite common everyday task I would say :)   Ok, let's get started!   Prerequisites: ASP.NET Page having RadioButtonList control with RepeatLayout="Flow" RepeatDirection="Horizontal" properties set.   Implementation:  The underlying data was coming from another source, so the only fast way to add meta information about padding was the text value itself (yes, not very optimal solution): Id = 1, Name = "This is first element" and for padding we agreed to use <space/> meta tag: Id = 2, Name = "<space padcount="30px"/>This is second padded element"   To handle items rendering in RadioButtonList control I've created custom class and subclassed from it:    public class CustomRadioButtonList : RadioButtonList    {        private Action<ListItem, HtmlTextWriter> _preProcess;         protected override void RenderItem(ListItemType itemType, int repeatIndex, RepeatInfo repeatInfo, HtmlTextWriter writer)        {            if (_preProcess != null)            {                _preProcess(this.Items[repeatIndex], writer);            }             base.RenderItem(itemType, repeatIndex, repeatInfo, writer);        }         public void SetPrePrenderItemFunction(Action<ListItem, HtmlTextWriter> func)        {            _preProcess = func;        }    }   It is pretty straightforward approach, the key is to override RenderItem method. Class has SetPrePrenderItemFunction method which is used to pass custom processing function that takes 2 parameters: ListItem and HtmlTextWriter objects.   Now update existing RadioButtonList control in Default.aspx: add this to beginning of the page:   <%@ Register Namespace="Sample.Controls" TagPrefix="uc1" %>   and update the control to:   <uc1:CustomRadioButtonList ID="customRbl" runat="server" DataValueField="Id" DataTextField="Name"            RepeatLayout="Flow" RepeatDirection="Horizontal"></uc1:CustomRadioButtonList>   Now, from codebehind of the page:   Add regular expression that will be used for parsing:   private Regex _regex = new Regex(@"(?:[<]space padcount\s*?=\s*?(?:'|"")(?<padcount>\d+)(?:(?:\s+)?px)?(?:'|"")\s*?/>)(?<content>.*)?", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled);   and finally setup the processing function in Page_Load:   protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)    {        customRbl.DataSource = DataObjects;         customRbl.SetPrePrenderItemFunction((listItem, writer) =>        {            Match match = _regex.Match(listItem.Text);            if (match.Success)            {                writer.Write(string.Format(@"<span style=""padding-left:{0}"">Extreme values: </span>", match.Groups["padcount"].Value + "px"));                 // if you need to pad listitem use code below                //x.Attributes.CssStyle.Add("padding-left", match.Groups["padcount"].Value + "px");                 // remove meta tag from text                listItem.Text = match.Groups["content"].Value;            }        });         customRbl.DataBind();    }   That's it! :)   Run the attached sample application:     P.S.: of course several other approaches could have been used for that purpose including events and the functionality for processing could also be embedded inside control itself. Current solution suits slightly better due some other reasons for situation where it was used, in your case consider this as a kick start for your own implementation :)   Source application: CustomRadioButtonList.zip

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• Trace File Source Adapter

  The Trace File Source adapter is a useful addition to your SSIS toolbox.  It allows you to read 2005 and 2008 profiler traces stored as .trc files and read them into the Data Flow.  From there you can perform filtering and analysis using the power of SSIS. There is no need for a SQL Server connection this just uses the trace file. Example Usages Cache warming for SQL Server Analysis Services Reading the flight recorder Find out the longest running queries on a server Analyze statements for CPU, memory by user or some other criteria you choose Properties The Trace File Source adapter has two properties, both of which combine to control the source trace file that is read at runtime. SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 trace files are supported for both the Database Engine (SQL Server) and Analysis Services. The properties are managed by the Editor form or can be set directly from the Properties Grid in Visual Studio. Property Type Description AccessMode Enumeration This property determines how the Filename property is interpreted. The values available are: DirectInput Variable Filename String This property holds the path for trace file to load (*.trc). The value is either a full path, or the name of a variable which contains the full path to the trace file, depending on the AccessMode property. Trace Column Definition Hopefully the majority of you can skip this section entirely, but if you encounter some problems processing a trace file this may explain it and allow you to fix the problem. The component is built upon the trace management API provided by Microsoft. Unfortunately API methods that expose the schema of a trace file have known issues and are unreliable, put simply the data often differs from what was specified. To overcome these limitations the component uses  some simple XML files. These files enable the trace column data types and sizing attributes to be overridden. For example SQL Server Profiler or TMO generated structures define EventClass as an integer, but the real value is a string. TraceDataColumnsSQL.xml  - SQL Server Database Engine Trace Columns TraceDataColumnsAS.xml    - SQL Server Analysis Services Trace Columns The files can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents folder, e.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsSQL.xml" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsAS.xml" If at runtime the component encounters a type conversion or sizing error it is most likely due to a discrepancy between the column definition as reported by the API and the actual value encountered. Whilst most common issues have already been fixed through these files we have implemented specific exception traps to direct you to the files to enable you to fix any further issues due to different usage or data scenarios that we have not tested. An example error that you can fix through these files is shown below. Buffer exception writing value to column 'Column Name'. The string value is 999 characters in length, the column is only 111. Columns can be overridden by the TraceDataColumns XML files in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsAS.xml". Installation The component is provided as an MSI file which you can download and run to install it. This simply places the files on disk in the correct locations and also installs the assemblies in the Global Assembly Cache as per Microsoft’s recommendations. You may need to restart the SQL Server Integration Services service, as this caches information about what components are installed, as well as restarting any open instances of Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) / Visual Studio that you may be using to build your SSIS packages. Finally you will have to add the transformation to the Visual Studio toolbox manually. Right-click the toolbox, and select Choose Items.... Select the SSIS Data Flow Items tab, and then check the Trace File Source transformation in the Choose Toolbox Items window. This process has been described in detail in the related FAQ entry for How do I install a task or transform component? We recommend you follow best practice and apply the current Microsoft SQL Server Service pack to your SQL Server servers and workstations. Please note that the Microsoft Trace classes used in the component are not supported on 64-bit platforms. To use the Trace File Source on a 64-bit host you need to ensure you have the 32-bit (x86) tools available, and the way you execute your package is setup to use them, please see the help topic 64-bit Considerations for Integration Services for more details. Downloads Trace Sources for SQL Server 2005 -- Trace Sources for SQL Server 2008 Version History SQL Server 2008 Version 2.0.0.382 - SQL Sever 2008 public release. (9 Apr 2009) SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.321 - SQL Server 2005 public release. (18 Nov 2008) -- Screenshots

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• DDD North 3 Presentation and source code &ndash; &lsquo;Event Store - an introduction to a DSD for event sourcing and notifications&rsquo;

  - by Liam Westley

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/10/15/ddd-north-3-presentation-and-source-code-ndash-lsquoevent-store.aspxThank you everyone at DDD North Thanks to all the people who helped organise the cracking conference that is DDD North 3, returning to Sunderland, and the great facilities at the University of Sunderland, and the fine drinks reception at Sunderland Software City.  The whole event wouldn’t be possible without the sponsors who ensured over 400 people were kept fed and watered so they could enjoy the impressive range of sessions. And lastly, a thank you to all those delegates who gave up their free time on a Saturday to spend a day dashing between lecture rooms, including a late change to my room which saw 40 people having to brave a journey between buildings in the fine drizzle. The enthusiasm from the delegates always helps recharge my geek batteries. Presentation and source code My presentation, source code, Event Store runners and text files containing the various command line parameters used for curl is now available on GitHub; https://github.com/westleyl/DDDNorth3-EventStore. Don’t worry if you don’t have a GitHub account, you don’t need one, you can just click on the Download Zip button on the right hand menu to download all the files as a single ZIP file.  If all you want is the PowerPoint presentation, go to https://github.com/westleyl/DDDNorth3-EventStore/blob/master/Powerpoint/DDDNorth-EventStore.pptx, and click on the View Raw button. Downloading and installing Event Store and Tools Download Event Store http://download.geteventstore.com – I unzipped these files into C:\EventStore\v2.0.1 Download Curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html – I downloaded Win64 Generic (with SSL) and unzipped these files into C:\curl version 7.31.0 Running the tools I used in my presentation Demonstration 1 (running Event Store) You can use one of my Event Store runner command files to run the single node version of Event Store, using default ports of 2213 for HTTP and 1113  for TCP, and with a wildcard HTTP pattern.  Both take a single command line parameter to specify the location of the data and log files.  The runners assume the single node executable is located in C:\EventStore\v2.0.1, and will placed data files and logs beneath C:\EventStore\Data, i.e. RunEventStore.cmd TestData1 This will create data files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\Data and log files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\logs. If, when running Event Store you may see the following message, [03288,15,06:23:00.622] Failed to start http server Access is denied You will either need to run Event Store in an administrator console window, or you can use the netsh command to create a firewall permission to allow HTTP listening (this will need to be run, once, in an administrator console window), netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:2213/ user=liam You can always delete this later by running the delete; netsh http delete urlacl url=http://*:2213/ If you want to confirm that everything is running OK, open the management console in a browser by navigating to http://127.0.0.1:2213. If at any point you are asked for a user name and password use the default of ‘admin’/‘changeit’.   Demonstration 2 (reading and adding data, curl) In my second demonstration I used curl directly from the console to read streams, write events and then read back those events. On GitHub I have included is a set of curl commands, CurlCommandLine.txt, and a sample data file, SampleData.json, to load an event into a DDDNorth3 stream. As there is not much data in the Event Store at this point I used the $stats-127.0.0.1:2113 which is a stream containing performance statistics for Event Store and is updated every 30 seconds (default). Demonstration 3 (projections) On GitHub I have included a sample projection, Projection-ByRoom.txt, which will create streams based on the room on which a session was held on the DDDNorth3 agenda. Browse to the management console, http://127.0.0.1:2213.  Click on Projections, New Projection, give it a name, Sessions-ByRoom, and copy in the JavaScript in the Projection-ByRoom.txt file.  Select Continuous, tick Emit Enabled and then click on Post. It should run immediately. You may by challenged for the administration login for the management console, if so use the default user name and password; 'admin'/'changeit'.   Demonstration 4 (C# client) The final demonstration was the Visual Studio 2012 project using the Event Store client – referenced directly as C:\EventStore\v2.0.1\EventStore.ClientAPI.dll, although you can switch this to the latest Event Store client NuGet package. The source code provides a console app for viewing projections with the projection manager (HTTP connection), as well as containing a full set of data for the entire DDDNorth3 agenda.  It also deals with the strategy for reading newest events backwards to older events and ignoring older events that have been superseded. Resources Event Store home page: http://www.geteventstore.com/ Event Store source code on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore Event Store documentation on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki (includes index to @RobAshton’s blog series on Event Store at https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki#rob-ashton---projections-series) Event Store forum in Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/event-store TopShelf Windows service wrapper is available on github: https://gist.github.com/trbngr/5083266

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• SQLAuthority News – Meeting with Allen Bailochan Tuladhar – An Unlimited Experience

  - by pinaldave

  Allen  Tuladhar I recently came back from my 9-day trip in Nepal and I must say that this is one of the best trips I had in my lifetime. Allen Bailochan Tuladhar is a wonderful person and an extreme enthusiast for Microsoft Technology. Allen is the Chief Executive Officer of Unlimited Technologies Pvt Ltd., Country Manager of Microsoft MDP Nepal, the Member Secretary of Nepali Language in Information Technology, and member of the Steering Committee of the Government of Nepal. He is the person who keeps the Nepal’s Tech Community constantly motivating and taking it to the next level. I have met Allen for many times before, but this was the first time I was with him in Kathmandu, Nepal. I was very impressed with the amount of the work he does in the community. During my 9 days of stay, every single day was a new lesson for me. I was amazed and overwhelmed with the many things he does every single day. Not only he does he work closely with Government of Nepal ministry, but he is also the most known person in the Student Community. His expertise in the technical subject matter is not limited to one technology; rather, I have seen him actively engaging himself in  discussions of various tech topics. Allen presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Allen is currently active in working out to localize Windows and Office and incorporate it using the Nepali language. I was able to witness and experience how the localization works, as well as the procedure on how to do such. If you know the whole localization process, you must have realized how big and daunting of a process it is. I was glad that I became a part of it. Prominent Personality of Nepal on Panel Discussion Another great opportunity I had when I was at Allen’s office is that I have learned how the radio technology talk show works. Nepali Radio station has the weekly program in their local language, in which MS technology is discussed and industry leaders are invited to talk about their experience with the technology. I found the program so interesting because it has so much variety in terms of technology subjects. Well, my understanding of Nepali language is limited but I did understand quite a bit. Ravi, Nutan, Pinal, Gandip I got the chance to meet lots of Database Professionals as well. People in Nepal are very polite even though they are very strong in their technology fundamentals. I had in-depth discussion regarding High Availability scenarios, as well Query Tuning. Database professionals from the leading financial sectors of Nepal wanted me to visit their Data Center and help them out with a few advances. In no time, Allen organized a visit for me. He sent me a Nepali-speaking expert from his own organization to accompany me in overcoming any difficulties while I was on my way helping this financial district. Pinal (SQLAuthority) and Deependra (Unlimited) When I was going to Nepal, I was really not sure if I would be able to stay busy for 9 days straight in Community-related activity. However, on the 9th day I realize that I can still stay here for more than 9 days because in every single day, I feel enthusiastic enough to do something new. Allen Bailochan Tuladhar Even though I was working  very hard every day, I hardly had the chance to work with and talk to him one-on-one for the first few days. One of the evenings, Allen invited me to his home and we discussed about his future ideas. I was really surprised to see how much a man can do for his technical community and for his country. When I asked Allen’s wife and daughter if they ever think it’s getting too much with regards to Allen putting tough efforts to the community, their answer was something I did not expect. I found out that Allen’s wife manages all the back office and logistics of the community events and his daughter manages the websites. I felt that they do not have any complain,  and instead, their whole family is in this activity as deeply as it can get, which I thought is a very good thing. Pinal and Allen I want to end this post with an interesting story that happened during our lunch hour at one of the Nepali restaurants. While we were having our lunch and having some chitchat, Allen suddenly stood up and called several people walking along the pavement. He introduced them all to me as Microsoft Student Partners. He asked all of them to order their favorite dish and called the waiter to inform that he will pick up their tab. Figuring out the question written on my face, he just said one sentence: “They are all future technology professionals who are going to make all of us proud.” I guess I have a lot of things to learn. Hats off to Allen! Pinal and Allen at Microsoft MDP Unlimited Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Advanced Data Quality Services with Melissa Data – Azure Data Market

  - by pinaldave

  There has been much fanfare over the new SQL Server 2012, and especially around its new companion product Data Quality Services (DQS). Among the many new features is the addition of this integrated knowledge-driven product that enables data stewards everywhere to profile, match, and cleanse data. In addition to the homegrown rules that data stewards can design and implement, there are also connectors to third party providers that are hosted in the Azure Datamarket marketplace.  In this review, I leverage SQL Server 2012 Data Quality Services, and proceed to subscribe to a third party data cleansing product through the Datamarket to showcase this unique capability. Crucial Questions For the purposes of the review, I used a database I had in an Excel spreadsheet with name and address information. Upon a cursory inspection, there are miscellaneous problems with these records; some addresses are missing ZIP codes, others missing a city, and some records are slightly misspelled or have unparsed suites. With DQS, I can easily add a knowledge base to help standardize my values, such as for state abbreviations. But how do I know that my address is correct? And if my address is not correct, what should it be corrected to? The answer lies in a third party knowledge base by the acknowledged USPS certified address accuracy experts at Melissa Data. Reference Data Services Within DQS there is a handy feature to actually add reference data from many different third-party Reference Data Services (RDS) vendors. DQS simplifies the processes of cleansing, standardizing, and enriching data through custom rules and through service providers from the Azure Datamarket. A quick jump over to the Datamarket site shows me that there are a handful of providers that offer data directly through Data Quality Services. Upon subscribing to these services, one can attach a DQS domain or composite domain (fields in a record) to a reference data service provider, and begin using it to cleanse, standardize, and enrich that data. Besides what I am looking for (address correction and enrichment), it is possible to subscribe to a host of other services including geocoding, IP address reference, phone checking and enrichment, as well as name parsing, standardization, and genderization.  These capabilities extend the data quality that DQS has natively by quite a bit. For my current address correction review, I needed to first sign up to a reference data provider on the Azure Data Market site. For this example, I used Melissa Data’s Address Check Service. They offer free one-month trials, so if you wish to follow along, or need to add address quality to your own data, I encourage you to sign up with them. Once I subscribed to the desired Reference Data Provider, I navigated my browser to the Account Keys within My Account to view the generated account key, which I then inserted into the DQS Client – Configuration under the Administration area. Step by Step to Guide That was all it took to hook in the subscribed provider -Melissa Data- directly to my DQS Client. The next step was for me to attach and map in my Reference Data from the newly acquired reference data provider, to a domain in my knowledge base. On the DQS Client home screen, I selected “New Knowledge Base” under Knowledge Base Management on the left-hand side of the home screen. Under New Knowledge Base, I typed a Name and description of my new knowledge base, then proceeded to the Domain Management screen. Here I established a series of domains (fields) and then linked them all together as a composite domain (record set). Using the Create Domain button, I created the following domains according to the fields in my incoming data: Name Address Suite City State Zip I added a Suite column in my domain because Melissa Data has the ability to return missing Suites based on last name or company. And that’s a great benefit of using these third party providers, as they have data that the data steward would not normally have access to. The bottom line is, with these third party data providers, I can actually improve my data. Next, I created a composite domain (fulladdress) and added the (field) domains into the composite domain. This essentially groups our address fields together in a record to facilitate the full address cleansing they perform. I then selected my newly created composite domain and under the Reference Data tab, added my third party reference data provider –Melissa Data’s Address Check- and mapped in each domain that I had to the provider’s Schema. Now that my composite domain has been married to the Reference Data service, I can take the newly published knowledge base and create a project to cleanse and enrich my data. My next task was to create a new Data Quality project, mapping in my data source and matching it to the appropriate domain column, and then kick off the verification process. It took just a few minutes with some progress indicators indicating that it was working. When the process concluded, there was a helpful set of tabs that place the response records into categories: suggested; new; invalid; corrected (automatically); and correct. Accepting the suggestions provided by  Melissa Data allowed me to clean up all the records and flag the invalid ones. It is very apparent that DQS makes address data quality simplistic for any IT professional. Final Note As I have shown, DQS makes data quality very easy. Within minutes I was able to set up a data cleansing and enrichment routine within my data quality project, and ensure that my address data was clean, verified, and standardized against real reference data. As reviewed here, it’s easy to see how both SQL Server 2012 and DQS work to take what used to require a highly skilled developer, and empower an average business or database person to consume external services and clean data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology Tagged: DQS

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• Request Limit Length Limits for IIS&rsquo;s requestFiltering Module

  - by Rick Strahl

  Today I updated my CodePaste.net site to MVC 3 and pushed an update to the site. The update of MVC went pretty smooth as well as most of the update process to the live site. Short of missing a web.config change in the /views folder that caused blank pages on the server, the process was relatively painless. However, one issue that kicked my ass for about an hour – and not foe the first time – was a problem with my OpenId authentication using DotNetOpenAuth. I tested the site operation fairly extensively locally and everything worked no problem, but on the server the OpenId returns resulted in a 404 response from IIS for a nice friendly OpenId return URL like this: http://codepaste.net/Account/OpenIdLogon?dnoa.userSuppliedIdentifier=http%3A%2F%2Frstrahl.myopenid.com%2F&dnoa.return_to_sig_handle=%7B634239223364590000%7D%7BjbHzkg%3D%3D%7D&dnoa.return_to_sig=7%2BcGhp7UUkcV2B8W29ibIDnZuoGoqzyS%2F%2FbF%2FhhYscgWzjg%2BB%2Fj10ZpNdBkUCu86dkTL6f4OK2zY5qHhCnJ2Dw%3D%3D&openid.assoc_handle=%7BHMAC-SHA256%7D%7B4cca49b2%7D%7BMVGByQ%3D%3D%7D&openid.claimed_id=http%3A%2F%2Frstrahl.myopenid.com%2F&openid.identity=http%3A%2F%2Frstrahl.myopenid.com%2F&openid.mode=id_res&openid.ns=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0&openid.ns.sreg=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fextensions%2Fsreg%2F1.1&openid.op_endpoint=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.myopenid.com%2Fserver&openid.response_nonce=2010-10-29T04%3A12%3A53Zn5F4r5&openid.return_to=http%3A%2F%2Fcodepaste.net%2FAccount%2FOpenIdLogon%3Fdnoa.userSuppliedIdentifier%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Frstrahl.myopenid.com%252F%26dnoa.return_to_sig_handle%3D%257B634239223364590000%257D%257BjbHzkg%253D%253D%257D%26dnoa.return_to_sig%3D7%252BcGhp7UUkcV2B8W29ibIDnZuoGoqzyS%252F%252FbF%252FhhYscgWzjg%252BB%252Fj10ZpNdBkUCu86dkTL6f4OK2zY5qHhCnJ2Dw%253D%253D&openid.sig=h1GCSBTDAn1on98sLA6cti%2Bj1M6RffNerdVEI80mnYE%3D&openid.signed=assoc_handle%2Cclaimed_id%2Cidentity%2Cmode%2Cns%2Cns.sreg%2Cop_endpoint%2Cresponse_nonce%2Creturn_to%2Csigned%2Csreg.email%2Csreg.fullname&openid.sreg.email=rstrahl%40host.com&openid.sreg.fullname=Rick+Strahl A 404 of course isn’t terribly helpful – normally a 404 is a resource not found error, but the resource is definitely there. So how the heck do you figure out what’s wrong? If you’re just interested in the solution, here’s the short version: IIS by default allows only for a 1024 byte query string, which is obviously exceeded by the above. The setting is controlled by the RequestFiltering module in IIS 6 and later which can be configured in ApplicationHost.config (in \%windir\system32\inetsvr\config). To set the value configure the requestLimits key like so: <configuration> <security> <requestFiltering> <requestLimits maxQueryString="2048"> </requestLimits> </requestFiltering> </security> </configuration> This fixed me right up and made the requests work. How do you find out about problems like this? Ah yes the troubles of an administrator? Read on and I’ll take you through a quick review of how I tracked this down. Finding the Problem The issue with the error returned is that IIS returns a 404 Resource not found error and doesn’t provide much information about it. If you’re lucky enough to be able to run your site from the localhost IIS is actually very helpful and gives you the right information immediately in a nicely detailed error page. The bottom of the page actually describes exactly what needs to be fixed. One problem with this easy way to find an error: You HAVE TO run localhost. On my server which has about 10 domains running localhost doesn’t point at the particular site I had problems with so I didn’t get the luxury of this nice error page. Using Failed Request Tracing to retrieve Error Info The first place I go with IIS errors is to turn on Failed Request Tracing in IIS to get more error information. If you have access to the server to make a configuration change you can enable Failed Request Tracing like this: Find the Failed Request Tracing Rules in the IIS Service Manager.   Select the option and then Edit Site Tracing to enable tracing. Then add a rule for * (all content) and specify status codes from 100-999 to capture all errors. if you know exactly what error you’re looking for it might help to specify it exactly to keep the number of errors down. Then run your request and let it fail. IIS will throw error log files into a folder like this C:\inetpub\logs\FailedReqLogFiles\W3SVC5 where the last 5 is the instance ID of the site. These files are XML but they include an XSL stylesheet that provides some decent formatting. In this case it pointed me straight at the offending module:   Ok, it’s the RequestFilteringModule. Request Filtering is built into IIS 6-7 and configured in ApplicationHost.config. This module defines a few basic rules about what paths and extensions are allowed in requests and among other things how long a query string is allowed to be. Most of these settings are pretty sensible but the query string value can easily become a problem especially if you’re dealing with OpenId since these return URLs are quite extensive. Debugging failed requests is never fun, but IIS 6 and forward at least provides us the tools that can help us point in the right direction. The error message the FRT report isn’t as nice as the IIS error message but it at least points at the offending module which gave me the clue I needed to look at request restrictions in ApplicationHost.config. This would still be a stretch if you’re not intimately familiar, but I think with some Google searches it would be easy to track this down with a few tries… Hope this was useful to some of you. Useful to me to put this out as a reminder – I’ve run into this issue before myself and totally forgot. Next time I got it, right?© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  Security  

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• SSAS Compare: an intern’s journey

  - by Red Gate Software BI Tools Team

  About a month ago, David mentioned an intern working in the BI Tools Team. That intern happens to be me! In five weeks’ time, I’ll start my second year of Computer Science at the University of Cambridge and be a full-time student again, but for the past eight weeks, I’ve been living a completely different life. As Jon mentioned before, the teams here at Red Gate are small and everyone (including the interns!) is responsible for the product as a whole. I’ve attended planning sessions, UX tests, daily meetings, and everything else a full-time member of the team would; I had as much say in where we would go next with the product as anyone; I was able to see that what I was doing was an important part of the product from the feedback we got in the UX tests. All these things almost made me forget that this is just an internship and not my full-time job. First steps at Red Gate Being based in Cambridge, Red Gate has many Cambridge university graduates working for them. They also hire some Cambridge undergraduates for internships each summer. With its popularity with university graduates and its great working environment, Red Gate has managed to build up a great reputation. When I thought of doing an internship here in Cambridge, Red Gate just seemed to be the obvious choice for my first real work experience. On my first day at Red Gate, David, the lead developer for SSAS Compare, helped me settle in and explained what I’d be doing. My task was to improve the user experience of displaying differences between MDX scripts by syntax highlighting, script formatting, and improving the difference identification in the first place. David suggested how I should approach the problem, but left all the details and design decisions to me. That was when I realised how much independence and responsibility I’d have. What I’ve done If you launch the latest version of SSAS Compare and drill down to an MDX script difference, you can see the changes that have been made. In earlier versions, you could only see the scripts in plain text on both sides — either in black or grey, depending on whether they were the same or not. However, you couldn’t see exactly where the scripts were different, which was especially annoying when the two scripts were large – as they often are. Furthermore, if parts of the two scripts were formatted differently, they seemed to be different but were actually the same, which caused even more confusion and made it difficult to see where the differences were. All these issues have been fixed now. The two scripts are automatically formatted by the tool so that if two things are syntactically equivalent, they look the same – including case differences in keywords! The actual difference is highlighted in grey, which makes them easy to spot. The difference identification has been improved as well, so two scripts aren’t identified as different if there’s just a difference in meaningless whitespace characters, or when you have “select” on one side and “SELECT” on the other. We also have syntax highlighting, which makes it easier to read the scripts. How I did it In order to do the formatting properly, we decided to parse the MDX scripts. After some investigation into parser builders, I decided to go with the GOLD Parser builder and the bsn-goldparser .NET engine. GOLD Parser builder provides a fairly nice GUI to write, build, and test grammar in. We also liked the idea of separating the grammar building from parsing a text. The bsn-goldparser is one of many .NET engines for GOLD, and although it doesn’t support the newest features of GOLD Parser, it has “the ability to map semantic action classes to terminals or reduction rules, so that a completely functional semantic AST can be created directly without intermediate token AST representation, and without the need for glue code.” That makes it much easier for us to change the implementation in our program when we change the grammar. As bsn-goldparser is open source, and I wanted some more features in it, I contributed two new features which have now been merged to the project. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an MDX grammar written for GOLD already, so I had to write it myself. I was referencing MSDN to get the formal grammar specification, but the specification was all over the place, so it wasn’t that easy to implement and find. We’re aware that we don’t yet fully support all valid MDX, so sometimes you’ll just see the MDX script difference displayed the old way. In that case, there is some grammar construct we don’t yet recognise. If you come across something SSAS Compare doesn’t recognise, we’d love to hear about it so we can add it to our grammar. When some MDX script gets parsed, a tree is produced. That tree can then be processed into a list of inlines which deal with the correct formatting and can be outputted to the screen. Doing all this has led me to many new technologies and projects I haven’t worked with before. This was my first experience with C# and Visual Studio, although I have done things in Java before. I have learnt how to unit test with NUnit, how to do dependency injection with Ninject, how to source-control code with SVN and Mercurial, how to build with TeamCity, how to use GOLD, and many other things. What’s coming next Sadly, my internship comes to an end this week, so there will be less development on MDX difference view for a while. But the team is going to work on marking the differences better and making it consistent with difference indication in the top part of comparison window, and will keep adding support for more MDX grammar so you can see the differences easily in every comparison you make. So long! And maybe I’ll see you next summer!

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• The Interaction between Three-Tier Client/Server Model and Three-Tier Application Architecture Model

  The three-tier client/server model is a network architectural approach currently used in modern networking. This approach divides a network in to three distinct components. Three-Tier Client/Server Model Components Client Component Server Component Database Component The Client Component of the network typically represents any device on the network. A basic example of this would be computer or another network/web enabled devices that are connected to a network. Network clients request resources on the network, and are usually equipped with a user interface for the presentation of the data returned from the Server Component. This process is done through the use of various software clients, and example of this can be seen through the use of a web browser client. The web browser request information from the Server Component located on the network and then renders the results for the user to process. The Server Components of the network return data based on specific client request back to the requesting client.  Server Components also inherit the attributes of a Client Component in that they are a device on the network and that they can also request information from other Server Components. However what differentiates a Client Component from a Server Component is that a Server Component response to requests from devices on the network. An example of a Server Component can be seen in a web server. A web server listens for new requests and then interprets the request, processes the web pages, and then returns the processed data back to the web browser client so that it may render the data for the user to interpret. The Database Component of the network returns unprocessed data from databases or other resources. This component also inherits attributes from the Server Component in that it is a device on a network, it can request information from other server components and database components, and it also listens for new requests so that it can return data when needed. The three-tier client/server model is very similar to the three-tier application architecture model, and in fact the layers can be mapped to one another. Three-Tier Application Architecture Model Presentation Layer/Logic Business Layer/Logic Data Layer/Logic The Presentation Layer including its underlying logic is very similar to the Client Component of the three-tiered model. The Presentation Layer focuses on interpreting the data returned by the Business Layer as well as presents the data back to the user.  Both the Presentation Layer and the Client Component focus primarily on the user and their experience. This allows for segments of the Business Layer to be distributable and interchangeable because the Presentation Layer is not directly integrated in with Business Layer. The Presentation Layer does not care where the data comes from as long as it is in the proper format. This allows for the Presentation Layer and Business Layer to be stored on one or more different servers so that it can provide a higher availability to clients requesting data. A good example of this is a web site that uses load balancing. When a web site decides to take on the task of load balancing they must obtain a network device that sits in front of a one or machines in order to distribute the request across multiple servers. When a user comes in through the load balanced device they are redirected to a specific server based on a few factors. Common Load Balancing Factors Current Server Availability Current Server Response Time Current Server Priority The Business Layer and corresponding logic are business rules applied to data prior to it being sent to the Presentation Layer. These rules are used to manipulate the data coming from the Data Access Layer, in addition to validating any data prior to being stored in the Data Access Layer. A good example of this would be when a user is trying to create multiple accounts under one email address. The Business Layer logic can prevent duplicate accounts by enforcing a unique email for every new account before the data is even stored in the Data Access Layer. The Server Component can be directly tied to this layer in that the server typically stores and process the Business Layer before it is returned to the end-user via the Presentation Layer. In addition the Server Component can also run automated process through the Business Layer on the data in the Data Access Layer so that additional business analysis can be derived from the data that has been already collected. The Data Layer and its logic are responsible for storing information so that it can be easily retrieved. Typical in most modern applications data is stored in a database management system however data can also be in the form of files stored on a file server. In addition a database can take on one of several forms. Common Database Formats XML File Pipe Delimited File Tab Delimited File Comma Delimited File (CSV) Plain Text File Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server MySql Oracle Sybase The Database component of the Networking model can be directly tied to the Data Layer because this is where the Data Layer obtains the data to return back the Business Layer. The Database Component basically allows for a place on the network to store data for future use. This enables applications to save data when they can and then quickly recall the saved data as needed so that the application does not have to worry about storing the data in memory. This prevents overhead that could be created when an application must retain all data in memory. As you can see the Three-Tier Client/Server Networking Model and the Three-Tiered Application Architecture Model rely very heavily on one another to function especially if different aspects of an application are distributed across an entire network. The use of various servers and database servers are wonderful when an application has a need to distribute work across the network. Network Components and Application Layers Interaction Database components will store all data needed for the Data Access Layer to manipulate and return to the Business Layer Server Component executes the Business Layer that manipulates data so that it can be returned to the Presentation Layer Client Component hosts the Presentation Layer that  interprets the data and present it to the user

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• Getting the innermost .NET Exception

  - by Rick Strahl

  Here's a trivial but quite useful function that I frequently need in dynamic execution of code: Finding the innermost exception when an exception occurs, because for many operations (for example Reflection invocations or Web Service calls) the top level errors returned can be rather generic. A good example - common with errors in Reflection making a method invocation - is this generic error: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation In the debugger it looks like this: In this case this is an AJAX callback, which dynamically executes a method (ExecuteMethod code) which in turn calls into an Amazon Web Service using the old Amazon WSE101 Web service extensions for .NET. An error occurs in the Web Service call and the innermost exception holds the useful error information which in this case points at an invalid web.config key value related to the System.Net connection APIs. The "Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation" error is the Reflection APIs generic error message that gets fired when you execute a method dynamically and that method fails internally. The messages basically says: "Your code blew up in my face when I tried to run it!". Which of course is not very useful to tell you what actually happened. If you drill down the InnerExceptions eventually you'll get a more detailed exception that points at the original error and code that caused the exception. In the code above the actually useful exception is two innerExceptions down. In most (but not all) cases when inner exceptions are returned, it's the innermost exception that has the information that is really useful. It's of course a fairly trivial task to do this in code, but I do it so frequently that I use a small helper method for this: /// <summary> /// Returns the innermost Exception for an object /// </summary> /// <param name="ex"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static Exception GetInnerMostException(Exception ex) { Exception currentEx = ex; while (currentEx.InnerException != null) { currentEx = currentEx.InnerException; } return currentEx; } This code just loops through all the inner exceptions (if any) and assigns them to a temporary variable until there are no more inner exceptions. The end result is that you get the innermost exception returned from the original exception. It's easy to use this code then in a try/catch handler like this (from the example above) to retrieve the more important innermost exception: object result = null; string stringResult = null; try { if (parameterList != null) // use the supplied parameter list result = helper.ExecuteMethod(methodToCall,target, parameterList.ToArray(), CallbackMethodParameterType.Json,ref attr); else // grab the info out of QueryString Values or POST buffer during parameter parsing // for optimization result = helper.ExecuteMethod(methodToCall, target, null, CallbackMethodParameterType.Json, ref attr); } catch (Exception ex) { Exception activeException = DebugUtils.GetInnerMostException(ex); WriteErrorResponse(activeException.Message, ( HttpContext.Current.IsDebuggingEnabled ? ex.StackTrace : null ) ); return; } Another function that is useful to me from time to time is one that returns all inner exceptions and the original exception as an array: /// <summary> /// Returns an array of the entire exception list in reverse order /// (innermost to outermost exception) /// </summary> /// <param name="ex">The original exception to work off</param> /// <returns>Array of Exceptions from innermost to outermost</returns> public static Exception[] GetInnerExceptions(Exception ex) {     List<Exception> exceptions = new List<Exception>();     exceptions.Add(ex);       Exception currentEx = ex;     while (currentEx.InnerException != null)     {         exceptions.Add(ex);     }       // Reverse the order to the innermost is first     exceptions.Reverse();       return exceptions.ToArray(); } This function loops through all the InnerExceptions and returns them and then reverses the order of the array returning the innermost exception first. This can be useful in certain error scenarios where exceptions stack and you need to display information from more than one of the exceptions in order to create a useful error message. This is rare but certain database exceptions bury their exception info in mutliple inner exceptions and it's easier to parse through them in an array then to manually walk the exception stack. It's also useful if you need to log errors and want to see the all of the error detail from all exceptions. None of this is rocket science, but it's useful to have some helpers that make retrieval of the critical exception info trivial. Resources DebugUtils.cs utility class in the West Wind Web Toolkit© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in CSharp  .NET  

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• Figuring out the IIS Version for a given OS in .NET Code

  - by Rick Strahl

  Here's an odd requirement: I need to figure out what version of IIS is available on a given machine in order to take specific configuration actions when installing an IIS based application. I build several configuration tools for application configuration and installation and depending on which version of IIS is available on IIS different configuration paths are taken. For example, when dealing with XP machine you can't set up an Application Pool for an application because XP (IIS 5.1) didn't support Application pools. Configuring 32 and 64 bit settings are easy in IIS 7 but this didn't work in prior versions and so on. Along the same lines I saw a question on the AspInsiders list today, regarding a similar issue where somebody needed to know the IIS version as part of an ASP.NET application prior to when the Request object is available. So it's useful to know which version of IIS you can possibly expect. This should be easy right? But it turns there's no real easy way to detect IIS on a machine. There's no registry key that gives you the full version number - you can detect installation but not which version is installed. The easiest way: Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_SOFTWARE"] The easiest way to determine IIS version number is if you are already running inside of ASP.NET and you are inside of an ASP.NET request. You can look at Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_SOFTWARE"] to get a string like Microsoft-IIS/7.5 returned to you. It's a cinch to parse this to retrieve the version number. This works in the limited scenario where you need to know the version number inside of a running ASP.NET application. Unfortunately this is not a likely use case, since most times when you need to know a specific version of IIS when you are configuring or installing your application. The messy way: Match Windows OS Versions to IIS Versions Since Version 5.x of IIS versions of IIS have always been tied very closely to the Operating System. Meaning the only way to get a specific version of IIS was through the OS - you couldn't install another version of IIS on the given OS. Microsoft has a page that describes the OS version to IIS version relationship here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224609 In .NET you can then sniff the OS version and based on that return the IIS version. The following is a small utility function that accomplishes the task of returning an IIS version number for a given OS: /// <summary> /// Returns the IIS version for the given Operating System. /// Note this routine doesn't check to see if IIS is installed /// it just returns the version of IIS that should run on the OS. /// /// Returns the value from Request.ServerVariables["Server_Software"] /// if available. Otherwise uses OS sniffing to determine OS version /// and returns IIS version instead. /// </summary> /// <returns>version number or -1 </returns> public static decimal GetIisVersion() { // if running inside of IIS parse the SERVER_SOFTWARE key // This would be most reliable if (HttpContext.Current != null && HttpContext.Current.Request != null) { string os = HttpContext.Current.Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_SOFTWARE"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(os)) { //Microsoft-IIS/7.5 int dash = os.LastIndexOf("/"); if (dash > 0) { decimal iisVer = 0M; if (Decimal.TryParse(os.Substring(dash + 1), out iisVer)) return iisVer; } } } decimal osVer = (decimal) Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major + ((decimal) Environment.OSVersion.Version.MajorRevision / 10); // Windows 7 and Win2008 R2 if (osVer == 6.1M) return 7.5M; // Windows Vista and Windows 2008 else if (osVer == 6.0M) return 7.0M; // Windows 2003 and XP 64 bit else if (osVer == 5.2M) return 6.0M; // Windows XP else if (osVer == 5.1M) return 5.1M; // Windows 2000 else if (osVer == 5.0M) return 5.0M; // error result return -1M; } } Talk about a brute force apporach, but it works. This code goes only back to IIS 5 - anything before that is not something you possibly would want to have running. :-) Note that this is updated through Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2. Later versions will need to be added as needed. Anybody know what the Windows Version number of Windows 8 is?© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET  IIS   Tweet (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Management and Monitoring Tools for Windows Azure

  - by BuckWoody

  With such a large platform, Windows Azure has a lot of moving parts. We’ve done our best to keep the interface as simple as possible, while giving you the most control and visibility we can. However, as with most Microsoft products, there are multiple ways to do something – and I’ve always found that to be a good strength. Depending on the situation, I might want a graphical interface, a command-line interface, or just an API so I can incorporate the management into my own tools, or have third-party companies write other tools. While by no means exhaustive, I thought I might put together a quick list of a few tools you can use to manage and monitor Windows Azure components, from our IaaS, SaaS and PaaS offerings. Some of the products focus on one area more than another, but all are available today. I’ll try and maintain this list to keep it current, but make sure you check the date of this post’s update – if it’s more than six months old, it’s most likely out of date. Things move fast in the cloud. The Windows Azure Management Portal The primary tool for managing Windows Azure is our portal – most everything you need is there, from creating new services to querying a database. There are two versions as of this writing – a Silverlight client version, and a newer HTML5 version. The latter is being updated constantly to be in parity with the Silverlight client. There’s a balance in this portal between simplicity and power – we’re following the “less is more” approach, with increasing levels of detail as you work through the portal rather than overwhelming you with a single, long “more is more” page. You can find the Portal here: http://windowsazure.com (then click “Log In” and then “Portal”) Windows Azure Management API You can also use programming tools to either write your own interface, or simply provide management functions directly within your solution. You have two options – you can use the more universal REST API’s, which area bit more complex but work with any system that can write to them, or the more approachable .NET API calls in code. You can find the reference for the API’s here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee460799.aspx  All Class Libraries, for each part of Windows Azure: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee393295.aspx  PowerShell Command-lets PowerShell is one of the most powerful scripting languages I’ve used with Windows – and it’s baked into all of our products. When you need to work with multiple servers, scripting is really the only way to go, and the Windows Azure PowerShell Command-Lets allow you to work across most any part of the platform – and can even be used within the services themselves. You can do everything with them from creating a new IaaS, PaaS or SaaS service, to controlling them and even working with security and more. You can find more about the Command-Lets here: http://wappowershell.codeplex.com/documentation (older link, still works, will point you to the new ones as well) We have command-line utilities for other operating systems as well: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/downloads/  Video walkthrough of using the Command-Lets: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-859T  System Center System Center is actually a suite of graphical tools you can use to manage, deploy, control, monitor and tune software from Microsoft and even other platforms. This will be the primary tool we’ll recommend for managing a hybrid or contiguous management process – and as time goes on you’ll see more and more features put into System Center for the entire Windows Azure suite of products. You can find the Management Pack and README for it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11324  SQL Server Management Studio / Data Tools / Visual Studio SQL Server has two built-in management and development, and since Version 2008 R2, you can use them to manage Windows Azure Databases. Visual Studio also lets you connect to and manage portions of Windows Azure as well as Windows Azure Databases. You can read more about Visual Studio here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee405484  You can read more about the SQL tools here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee621784.aspx  Vendor-Provided Tools Microsoft does not suggest or endorse a specific third-party product. We do, however, use them, and see lots of other customers use them. You can browse to these sites to learn more, and chat with their folks directly on how they support Windows Azure. Cerebrata: Tools for managing from the command-line, graphical diagnostics, graphical storage management - http://www.cerebrata.com/  Quest Cloud Tools: Monitoring, Storage Management, and costing tools - http://communities.quest.com/community/cloud-tools  Paraleap: Monitoring tool - http://www.paraleap.com/AzureWatch  Cloudgraphs: Monitoring too -  http://www.cloudgraphs.com/  Opstera: Monitoring for Windows Azure and a Scale-out pattern manager - http://www.opstera.com/products/Azureops/  Compuware: SaaS performance monitoring, load testing -  http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/gomez-apm-products.html  SOASTA: Penetration and Security Testing - http://www.soasta.com/cloudtest/enterprise/  LoadStorm: Load-testing tool - http://loadstorm.com/windows-azure  Open-Source Tools This is probably the most specific set of tools, and the list I’ll have to maintain most often. Smaller projects have a way of coming and going, so I’ll try and make sure this list is current. Windows Azure MMC: (I actually use this one a lot) http://wapmmc.codeplex.com/  Windows Azure Diagnostics Monitor: http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/wazdmon  Azure Application Monitor: http://azuremonitor.codeplex.com/  Azure Web Log: http://www.xentrik.net/software/azure_web_log.html  Cloud Ninja:Multi-Tennant billing and performance monitor -  http://cnmb.codeplex.com/  Cloud Samurai: Multi-Tennant Management- http://cloudsamurai.codeplex.com/    If you have additions to this list, please post them as a comment and I’ll research and then add them. Thanks!

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• What’s New for Oracle Commerce? Executive QA with John Andrews, VP Product Management, Oracle Commerce

  - by Katrina Gosek

  Oracle Commerce was for the fifth time positioned as a leader by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for E-Commerce. This inspired me to sit down with Oracle Commerce VP of Product Management, John Andrews to get his perspective on what continues to make Oracle a leader in the industry and what’s new for Oracle Commerce in 2013. Q: Why do you believe Oracle Commerce continues to be a leader in the industry? John: Oracle has a great acquisition strategy – it brings best-of-breed technologies into the product fold and then continues to grow and innovate them. This is particularly true with products unified into the Oracle Commerce brand. Oracle acquired ATG in late 2010 – and then Endeca in late 2011. This means that under the hood of Oracle Commerce you have market-leading technologies for cross-channel commerce and customer experience, both designed and developed in direct response to the unique challenges online businesses face. And we continue to innovate on capabilities core to what our customers need to be successful – contextual and personalized experience delivery, merchant-inspired tools, and architecture for performance and scalability. Q: It’s not a slow moving industry. What are you doing to keep the pace of innovation at Oracle Commerce? John: Oracle owes our customers the most innovative commerce capabilities. By unifying the core components of ATG and Endeca we are delivering on this promise. Oracle Commerce is continuing to innovate and redefine how commerce is done and in a way that drive business results and keeps customers coming back for experiences tailored just for them. Our January and May 2013 releases not only marked the seventh significant releases for the solution since the acquisitions of ATG and Endeca, we also continue to demonstrate rapid and significant progress on the unification of commerce and customer experience capabilities of the two commerce technologies. Q: Can you tell us what was notable about these latest releases under the Oracle Commerce umbrella? John: Specifically, our latest product innovations give businesses selling online the ability to get to market faster with more personalized commerce experiences in the following ways: Mobile: the latest Commerce Reference Application in this release offers a wider range of examples for online businesses to leverage for iOS development and specifically new iPad reference capabilities. This release marks the first release of the iOS Universal application that serves both the iPhone and iPad devices from a single download or binary. Business users can now drive page content management and layout of search results and category pages, as well as create additional storefront elements such as categories, facets / dimensions, and breadcrumbs through Experience Manager tools. Cross-Channel Commerce: key commerce platform capabilities have been added to support cross-channel commerce, including an expanded inventory model to maintain inventory for stores, pickup in stores and Web-based returns. Online businesses with in-store operations can now offer advanced shipping options on the web and make returns and exchange logic easily available on the web. Multi-Site Capabilities: significant enhancements to the Commerce Platform multi-site architecture that allows business users to quickly launch and manage multiple sites on the same cluster and share data, carts, and other components. First introduced in 2010, with this latest release business users can now partition or share customer profiles, control users’ site-based access, and manage personalization assets using site groups. Internationalization: continued language support and enhancements for business user tools as well and search and navigation. Guided Search now supports 35 total languages with 11 new languages (including Danish, Arabic, Norwegian, Serbian Cyrillic) added in this release. Commerce Platform tools now include localized support for 17 locales with 4 new languages (Danish, Portuguese (European), Finnish, and Thai). No development or customization is required in order for business users to use the applications in any of these supported languages. Business Tool Experience: valuable new Commerce Merchandising features include a new workflow for making emergency changes quickly and increased visibility into promotions rules and qualifications in preview mode. Oracle Commerce business tools continue to become more and more feature rich to provide intuitive, easy- to-use (yet powerful) capabilities to allow business users to manage content and the shopping experience. Commerce & Experience Unification: demonstrable unification of commerce and customer experience capabilities include – productized cartridges that provide supported integration between the Commerce Platform and Experience Management tools, cross-channel returns, Oracle Service Cloud integration, and integrated iPad application. The mission guiding our product development is to deliver differentiated, personalized user experiences across any device in a contextual manner – and to give the business the best tools to tune and optimize those user experiences to meet their business objectives. We also need to do this in a way that makes it operationally efficient for the business, keeping the overall total cost of ownership low – yet also allows the business to expand, whether it be to new business models, geographies or brands. To learn more about the latest Oracle Commerce releases and mission, visit the links below: • Hear more from John about the Oracle Commerce mission • Hear from Oracle Commerce customers • Documentation on the new releases • Listen to the Oracle ATG Commerce 10.2 Webcast • Listen to the Oracle Endeca Commerce 3.1.2 Webcast

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• SQL SERVER – SSMS: Backup and Restore Events Report

  - by Pinal Dave

  A DBA wears multiple hats and in fact does more than what an eye can see. One of the core task of a DBA is to take backups. This looks so trivial that most developers shrug this off as the only activity a DBA might be doing. I have huge respect for DBA’s all around the world because even if they seem cool with all the scripting, automation, maintenance works round the clock to keep the business working almost 365 days 24×7, their worth is knowing that one day when the systems / HDD crashes and you have an important delivery to make. So these backup tasks / maintenance jobs that have been done come handy and are no more trivial as they might seem to be as considered by many. So the important question like: “When was the last backup taken?”, “How much time did the last backup take?”, “What type of backup was taken last?” etc are tricky questions and this report lands answers to the same in a jiffy. So the SSMS report, we are talking can be used to find backups and restore operation done for the selected database. Whenever we perform any backup or restore operation, the information is stored in the msdb database. This report can utilize that information and provide information about the size, time taken and also the file location for those operations. Here is how this report can be launched.   Once we launch this report, we can see 4 major sections shown as listed below. Average Time Taken For Backup Operations Successful Backup Operations Backup Operation Errors Successful Restore Operations Let us look at each section next. Average Time Taken For Backup Operations Information shown in “Average Time Taken For Backup Operations” section is taken from a backupset table in the msdb database. Here is the query and the expanded version of that particular section USE msdb; SELECT (ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY t1.TYPE))%2 AS l1 ,       1 AS l2 ,       1 AS l3 ,       t1.TYPE AS [type] ,       (AVG(DATEDIFF(ss,backup_start_date, backup_finish_date)))/60.0 AS AverageBackupDuration FROM backupset t1 INNER JOIN sys.databases t3 ON ( t1.database_name = t3.name) WHERE t3.name = N'AdventureWorks2014' GROUP BY t1.TYPE ORDER BY t1.TYPE On my small database the time taken for differential backup was less than a minute, hence the value of zero is displayed. This is an important piece of backup operation which might help you in planning maintenance windows. Successful Backup Operations Here is the expanded version of this section.   This information is derived from various backup tracking tables from msdb database.  Here is the simplified version of the query which can be used separately as well. SELECT * FROM sys.databases t1 INNER JOIN backupset t3 ON (t3.database_name = t1.name) LEFT OUTER JOIN backupmediaset t5 ON ( t3.media_set_id = t5.media_set_id) LEFT OUTER JOIN backupmediafamily t6 ON ( t6.media_set_id = t5.media_set_id) WHERE (t1.name = N'AdventureWorks2014') ORDER BY backup_start_date DESC,t3.backup_set_id,t6.physical_device_name; The report does some calculations to show the data in a more readable format. For example, the backup size is shown in KB, MB or GB. I have expanded first row by clicking on (+) on “Device type” column. That has shown me the path of the physical backup file. Personally looking at this section, the Backup Size, Device Type and Backup Name are critical and are worth a note. As mentioned in the previous section, this section also has the Duration embedded inside it. Backup Operation Errors This section of the report gets data from default trace. You might wonder how. One of the event which is tracked by default trace is “ErrorLog”. This means that whatever message is written to errorlog gets written to default trace file as well. Interestingly, whenever there is a backup failure, an error message is written to ERRORLOG and hence default trace. This section takes advantage of that and shows the information. We can read below message under this section, which confirms above logic. No backup operations errors occurred for (AdventureWorks2014) database in the recent past or default trace is not enabled. Successful Restore Operations This section may not be very useful in production server (do you perform a restore of database?) but might be useful in the development and log shipping secondary environment, where we might be interested to see restore operations for a particular database. Here is the expanded version of the section. To fill this section of the report, I have restored the same backups which were taken to populate earlier sections. Here is the simplified version of the query used to populate this output. USE msdb; SELECT * FROM restorehistory t1 LEFT OUTER JOIN restorefile t2 ON ( t1.restore_history_id = t2.restore_history_id) LEFT OUTER JOIN backupset t3 ON ( t1.backup_set_id = t3.backup_set_id) WHERE t1.destination_database_name = N'AdventureWorks2014' ORDER BY restore_date DESC,  t1.restore_history_id,t2.destination_phys_name Have you ever looked at the backup strategy of your key databases? Are they in sync and do we have scope for improvements? Then this is the report to analyze after a week or month of maintenance plans running in your database. Do chime in with what are the strategies you are using in your environments. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: SQL Reports

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• What’s Your Tax Strategy? Automate the Tax Transfer Pricing Process!

  - by tobyehatch

  Does your business operate in multiple countries? Well, whether you like it or not, many local and international tax authorities inspect your tax strategy.  Legal, effective tax planning is perceived as a “moral” issue. CEOs are being asked to testify on their process of tax transfer pricing between multinational legal entities.  Marc Seewald, Senior Director of Product Management for EPM Applications specializing in all tax subjects and Product Manager for Oracle Hyperion Tax Provisioning, and Bart Stoehr, Senior Director of Product Strategy for Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management joined me for a discussion/podcast on this interesting subject.  So what exactly is “tax transfer pricing”? Marc defined it this way. “Tax transfer pricing is a profit allocation methodology required to be used by multinational corporations. Specifically, the ultimate goal of the transfer pricing is to ensure that the global multinational pays their fair share of income tax in each of their local markets. Specifically, it prevents companies from unfairly moving profit from ‘high tax’ countries to ‘low tax’ countries.” According to Marc, in today’s global economy, profitability can be significantly impacted by goods and services exchanged between the related divisions within a single multinational company.  To ensure that these cost allocations are done fairly, there are rules that govern the process. These rules ensure that intercompany allocations fairly represent the actual nature of the businesses activity- as if two divisions were unrelated - and provide a clear audit trail of how the costs have been allocated to prove that allocations fall within reasonable ranges.  What are the repercussions of improper tax transfer pricing? How important is it? Tax transfer pricing allocations can materially impact the amount of overall corporate income taxes paid by a company worldwide, in some cases by hundreds of millions of dollars!  Since so much tax revenue is at stake, revenue agencies like the IRS, and international regulatory bodies like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are pushing to reform and clarify reporting for tax transfer pricing. Most recently the OECD announced an “Action Plan for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting”. As Marc explained, the times are changing and companies need to be responsive to this issue. “It feels like every other week there is another company being accused of avoiding taxes,” said Marc. Most recently, Caterpillar was accused of avoiding billions of dollars in taxes. In the last couple of years, Apple, GE, Ikea, and Starbucks, have all been accused of tax avoidance. It’s imperative that companies like these have a clear and auditable tax transfer process that enables them to justify tax transfer pricing allocations and avoid steep penalties and bad publicity. Transparency and efficiency are what is needed when it comes to the tax transfer pricing process. Bart explained that tax transfer pricing is driving a deeper inspection of profit recognition specifically focused on the tax element of profit.  However, allocations needed to support tax profitability are nearly identical in process to allocations taking place in other parts of the finance organization. For example, the methods and processes necessary to arrive at tax profitability by legal entity are no different than those used to arrive at fully loaded profitability for a product line. In fact, there is a great opportunity for alignment across these two different functions.So it seems that tax transfer pricing should be reflected in profitability in general. Bart agreed and told us more about some of the critical sub-processes of an overall tax transfer pricing process within the Oracle solution for tax transfer pricing.  “First, there is a ton of data preparation, enrichment and pre-allocation data analysis that is managed in the Oracle Hyperion solution. This serves as the “data staging” to the next, critical sub-processes.  From here, we leverage the Oracle EPM platform’s ability to re-use dimensions and legal entity driver data and financial data with Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM).  Within HPCM, we manage the driver data, define the legal entity to legal entity allocation rules (like cost plus), and have the option to test out multiple, simultaneous tax transfer pricing what-if scenarios.  Once processed, a tax expert can evaluate the effectiveness of any one scenario result versus another via a variance analysis configured with HPCM’s pre-packaged reporting capability known as Oracle Hyperion SmartView for Office.”   Further, Bart explained that the ability to visibly demonstrate how a cost or revenue has been allocated is really helpful and auditable.  “HPCM’s Traceability Maps are that visual representation of all allocation flows that have been executed and is the tax transfer analyst’s best friend in maintaining clear documentation for tax transfer pricing audits. Simply click and drill as you inspect the chain of allocation definitions and results. Once final, the post-allocated tax data can be compared to the GL to create invoices and journal entries for posting to your GL system of choice.  Of course, there is a framework for overall governance of the journal entries, allocation percentages, and reporting to include necessary approvals.” Lastly, Marc explained that the key value in using the Oracle Hyperion solution for tax transfer pricing is that it keeps everything in alignment in one single place. Specifically, Oracle Hyperion effectively becomes the single book of record for the GAAP, management, and the tax set of books. There are many benefits to having one source of the truth. These include EFFICIENCY, CONTROLS and TRANSPARENCY.So, what’s your tax strategy? Why not automate the tax transfer pricing process!To listen to the entire podcast, click here.To learn more about Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM), click here.

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• Add Hotmail & Live Email Accounts to Outlook 2010

  - by Matthew Guay

  Microsoft has recently been promoting upcoming updates to their Hotmail service, promising to make it an even better webmail service. But Microsoft’s revamped Outlook 2010 is already here. Here’s how to integrate Hotmail with Outlook. Outlook 2010 works with a wide variety of email accounts, including POP3, IMAP, and Exchange accounts.  The only problem with POP3 and IMAP accounts is that they only sync email, but not your calendar and contacts like Exchange does.  Hotmail, however, lets you sync your email, contacts, and calendar with Outlook with the Hotmail Connector.  This lets you keep all of your PIM data accessible from everywhere.  Let’s look at how we can set this up on our account. Getting Started The easiest way to add Hotmail to Outlook is to first install the Outlook Hotmail Connector (link below).  Make sure Outlook is closed first, and then proceed with the installation as usual. If you enter your Hotmail account into the New Account setup in Outlook before installing the Hotmail Connector, Outlook will prompt you to download the Hotmail Connector.  However, you’ll have to exit Outlook before you can install the Connector, and then will have to re-enter your information when you restart Outlook, so it’s easier to just install it first. Add Your Hotmail Account to Outlook Now you’re ready to add your Hotmail account to Outlook.  If this is the first time you’ve run Outlook 2010, you’ll be greeted with the following screen.  Click Next to proceed with setup. Then select Yes and click Next again. If you’ve already got an email account setup in Outlook, you can add a new account by clicking File and then selecting Add account. Now, enter your Hotmail account information, and click Next. Outlook will search for your account settings and automatically setup your account with the Hotmail connector we previously installed. If you entered your password incorrectly previously, you may see the following popup.  Re-enter your password and click OK, and Outlook will re-verify your settings. Once everything’s finished and setup, you’ll see the following completion screen.  Click Finish to complete the setup and check out your Hotmail in Outlook. Welcome to your Hotmail account in Outlook 2010.  You’ll notice a small notification at the bottom of the window notifying you that you’re connected to Windows Live Hotmail.  Now your email will synchronize with your Hotmail account, and your Outlook calendar and contacts will be synced with your Live calendar and contacts, respectively.  This is the closest you can get to full Exchange without an Exchange account, and in our experience it works great.  In fact, Hotmail Sync seems to work faster than IMAP sync for us. Setup Hotmail With POP3 Access If you need to access your Hotmail email account but don’t want to install the Outlook Connector, then you can add it with POP3 sync.  We recommend going with the Outlook Connector for the best experience, but if you can’t install it (eg. you’re not allowed to install applications on your work PC) then this is a good alternative. To do this, follow our tutorial on setting up a Gmail POP3 account in Outlook. Although the article concentrates on Gmail, the settings are essentially the same. The only thing you’ll want to change is the Incoming and Outgoing mail server. Incoming mail server – pop3.live.com Outgoing mail server – smtp.live.com User name – your Hotmail or Live email address Incoming Server (POP3) – 995 Outgoing Server (SMTP) – 587 Also, check This server requires and encrypted connection Just as in the Gmail example, select TLS for the type of encrypted connection.  Then, on the bottom, make sure to uncheck the box to Remove messages from the server after a number of days.  This way your messages will still be accessible from your Hotmail account online. Conclusion Even though Hotmail is generally not as popular as Gmail, it works great with Outlook integration.  If you’re a heavy user of Windows Live services, or want to try them out, Outlook Connector is the easiest way to keep your desktop activity synced with the cloud.  If you’re just one of the millions of Hotmail users who want to access their old Hotmail account alongside their other accounts, this method works great for you too. If you’re using Outlook 2003 or 2007, check out our article on using Hotmail from Microsoft Outlook. Links Download Outlook Hotmail Connector 32-bit Download Outlook Hotmail Connector 64-bit – note, only for users of Office 2010 x64 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use Hotmail from Microsoft OutlookHow to add any POP3 Email Account to HotmailHow to Send and Receive Hotmail from Your Gmail AccountAdd Your Gmail To Windows Live MailManage Your Windows Live Account in Google Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes

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• Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - Business Intelligence Samples

  - by smisner

  On April 14, 2010, Microsoft Press (blog | twitter) released my latest book, co-authored with Ross Mistry (twitter), as a free ebook download - Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. As the title implies, this ebook is an introduction to the latest SQL Server release. Although you'll find a comprehensive review of the product's features in this book, you will not find the step-by-step details that are typical in my other books. For those readers who are interested in a more interactive learning experience, I have created two samples file for download: IntroSQLServer2008R2Samples project Sales Analysis workbook Here's a recap of the business intelligence chapters and the samples I used to generate the screen shots by chapter: Chapter 6: Scalable Data Warehousing covers a new edition of SQL Server, Parallel Data Warehouse. Understandably, Microsoft did not ship me the software and hardware to set up my own Parallel Data Warehouse environment for testing purposes and consequently you won't see any screenshots in this chapter. I received a lot of information and a lot of help from the product team during the development of this chapter to ensure its technical accuracy. Chapter 7: Master Data Services is a new component in SQL Server. After you install Master Data Services (MDS), which is a separate installation from SQL Server although it's found on the same media, you can install sample models to explore (which is what I did to create screenshots for the book). To do this, you deploying packages found at \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Master Data Services\Samples\Packages. You will first need to use the Configuration Manager (in the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2\Master Data Services program group) to create a database and a Web application for MDS. Then when you launch the application, you'll see a Getting Started page which has a Deploy Sample Data link that you can use to deploy any of the sample packages. Chapter 8: Complex Event Processing is an introduction to another new component, StreamInsight. This topic was way too large to cover in-depth in a single chapter, so I focused on information such as architecture, development models, and an overview of the key sections of code you'll need to develop for your own applications. StreamInsight is an engine that operates on data in-flight and as such has no user interface that I could include in the book as screenshots. The November CTP version of SQL Server 2008 R2 included code samples as part of the installation, but these are not the official samples that will eventually be available in Codeplex. At the time of this writing, the samples are not yet published. Chapter 9: Reporting Services Enhancements provides an overview of all the changes to Reporting Services in SQL Server 2008 R2, and there are many! In previous posts, I shared more details than you'll find in the book about new functions (Lookup, MultiLookup, and LookupSet), properties for page numbering, and the new global variable RenderFormat. I will confess that I didn't use actual data in the book for my discussion on the Lookup functions, but I did create real reports for the blog posts and will upload those separately. For the other screenshots and examples in the book, I have created the IntroSQLServer2008R2Samples project for you to download. To preview these reports in Business Intelligence Development Studio, you must have the AdventureWorksDW2008R2 database installed, and you must download and install SQL Server 2008 R2. For the map report, you must execute the PopulationData.sql script that I included in the samples file to add a table to the AdventureWorksDW2008R2 database. The IntroSQLServer2008R2Samples project includes the following files: 01_AggregateOfAggregates.rdl to illustrate the use of embedded aggregate functions 02_RenderFormatAndPaging.rdl to illustrate the use of page break properties (Disabled, ResetPageNumber), the PageName property, and the RenderFormat global variable 03_DataSynchronization.rdl to illustrate the use of the DomainScope property 04_TextboxOrientation.rdl to illustrate the use of the WritingMode property 05_DataBar.rdl 06_Sparklines.rdl 07_Indicators.rdl 08_Map.rdl to illustrate a simple analytical map that uses color to show population counts by state PopulationData.sql to provide the data necessary for the map report Chapter 10: Self-Service Analysis with PowerPivot introduces two new components to the Microsoft BI stack, PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint, which you can learn more about at the PowerPivot site. To produce the screenshots for this chapter, I created the Sales Analysis workbook which you can download (although you must have Excel 2010 and the PowerPivot for Excel add-in installed to explore it fully). It's a rather simple workbook because space in the book did not permit a complete exploration of all the wonderful things you can do with PowerPivot. I used a tutorial that was available with the CTP version as a basis for the report so it might look familiar if you've already started learning about PowerPivot. In future posts, I'll continue exploring the new features in greater detail. If there's any special requests, please let me know! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Change Comes from Within

  - by John K. Hines

  I am in the midst of witnessing a variety of teams moving away from Scrum. Some of them are doing things like replacing Scrum terms with more commonly understood terminology. Mainly they have gone back to using industry standard terms and more traditional processes like the RAPID decision making process. For example: Scrum Master becomes Project Lead. Scrum Team becomes Project Team. Product Owner becomes Stakeholders. I'm actually quite sad to see this happening, but I understand that Scrum is a radical change for most organizations. Teams are slowly but surely moving away from Scrum to a process that non-software engineers can understand and follow. Some could never secure the education or personnel (like a Product Owner) to get the whole team engaged. And many people with decision-making authority do not see the value in Scrum besides task planning and tracking. You see, Scrum cannot be mandated. No one can force a team to be Agile, collaborate, continuously improve, and self-reflect. Agile adoptions must start from a position of mutual trust and willingness to change. And most software teams aren't like that. Here is my personal epiphany from over a year of attempting to promote Agile on a small development team: The desire to embrace Agile methodologies must come from each and every member of the team. If this desire does not exist - if the team is satisfied with its current process, if the team is not motivated to improve, or if the team is afraid of change - the actual demonstration of all the benefits prescribed by Agile and Scrum will take years. I've read some blog posts lately that criticise Scrum for demanding "Big Change Up Front." One's opinion of software methodologies boils down to one's perspective. If you see modern software development as successful, you will advocate for small, incremental changes to how it is done. If you see it as broken, you'll be much more motivated to take risks and try something different. So my question to you is this - is modern software development healthy or in need of dramatic improvement? I can tell you from personal experience that any project that requires exploration, planning, development, stabilisation, and deployment is hard. Trying to make that process better with only a slightly modified approach is a mistake. You will become completely dependent upon the skillset of your team (the only variable you can change). But the difficulty of planned work isn't one of skill. It isn't until you solve the fundamental challenges of communication, collaboration, quality, and efficiency that skill even comes into play. So I advocate for Big Change Up Front. And I advocate for it to happen often until those involved can say, from experience, that it is no longer needed. I hope every engineer has the opportunity to see the benefits of Agile and Scrum on a highly functional team. I'll close with more key learnings that can help with a Scrum adoption: Your leaders must understand Scrum. They must understand software development, its inherent difficulties, and how Scrum helps. If you attempt to adopt Scrum before the understanding is there, your leaders will apply traditional solutions to your problems - often creating more problems. Success should be measured by quality, not revenue. Namely, the value of software to an organization is the revenue it generates minus ongoing support costs. You should identify quality-based metrics that show the effect Agile techniques have on your software. Motivation is everything. I finally understand why so many Agile advocates say you that if you are not on a team using Agile, you should leave and find one. Scrum and especially Agile encompass many elegant solutions to a wide variety of problems. If you are working on a team that has not encountered these problems the the team may never see the value in the solutions.   Having said all that, I'm not giving up on Agile or Scrum. I am convinced it is a better approach for software development. But reality is saying that its adoption is not straightforward and highly subject to disruption. Unless, that is, everyone really, really wants it.

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• LLBLGen Pro v3.5 has been released!

  - by FransBouma

  Last weekend we released LLBLGen Pro v3.5! Below the list of what's new in this release. Of course, not everything is on this list, like the large amount of work we put in refactoring the runtime framework. The refactoring was necessary because our framework has two paradigms which are added to the framework at a different time, and from a design perspective in the wrong order (the paradigm we added first, SelfServicing, should have been built on top of Adapter, the other paradigm, which was added more than a year after the first released version). The refactoring made sure the framework re-uses more code across the two paradigms (they already shared a lot of code) and is better prepared for the future. We're not done yet, but refactoring a massive framework like ours without breaking interfaces and existing applications is ... a bit of a challenge ;) To celebrate the release of v3.5, we give every customer a 30% discount! Use the coupon code NR1ORM with your order :) The full list of what's new: Designer Rule based .NET Attribute definitions. It's now possible to specify a rule using fine-grained expressions with an attribute definition to define which elements of a given type will receive the attribute definition. Rules can be assigned to attribute definitions on the project level, to make it even easier to define attribute definitions in bulk for many elements in the project. More information... Revamped Project Settings dialog. Multiple project related properties and settings dialogs have been merged into a single dialog called Project Settings, which makes it easier to configure the various settings related to project elements. It also makes it easier to find features previously not used  by many (e.g. type conversions) More information... Home tab with Quick Start Guides. To make new users feel right at home, we added a home tab with quick start guides which guide you through four main use cases of the designer. System Type Converters. Many common conversions have been implemented by default in system type converters so users don't have to develop their own type converters anymore for these type conversions. Bulk Element Setting Manipulator. To change setting values for multiple project elements, it was a little cumbersome to do that without a lot of clicking and opening various editors. This dialog makes changing settings for multiple elements very easy. EDMX Importer. It's now possible to import entity model data information from an existing Entity Framework EDMX file. Other changes and fixes See for the full list of changes and fixes the online documentation. LLBLGen Pro Runtime Framework WCF Data Services (OData) support has been added. It's now possible to use your LLBLGen Pro runtime framework powered domain layer in a WCF Data Services application using the VS.NET tools for WCF Data Services. WCF Data Services is a Microsoft technology for .NET 4 to expose your domain model using OData. More information... New query specification and execution API: QuerySpec. QuerySpec is our new query specification and execution API as an alternative to Linq and our more low-level API. It's build, like our Linq provider, on top of our lower-level API. More information... SQL Server 2012 support. The SQL Server DQE allows paging using the new SQL Server 2012 style. More information... System Type converters. For a common set of types the LLBLGen Pro runtime framework contains built-in type conversions so you don't need to write your own type converters anymore. Public/NonPublic property support. It's now possible to mark a field / navigator as non-public which is reflected in the runtime framework as an internal/friend property instead of a public property. This way you can hide properties from the public interface of a generated class and still access it through code added to the generated code base. FULL JOIN support. It's now possible to perform FULL JOIN joins using the native query api and QuerySpec. It's left to the developer to check whether the used target database supports FULL (OUTER) JOINs. Using a FULL JOIN with entity fetches is not recommended, and should only be used when both participants in the join aren't the target of the fetch. Dependency Injection Tracing. It's now possible to enable tracing on dependency injection. Enable tracing at level '4' on the traceswitch 'ORMGeneral'. This will emit trace information about which instance of which type got an instance of type T injected into property P. Entity Instances in projections in Linq. It's now possible to return an entity instance in a custom Linq projection. It's now also possible to pass this instance to a method inside the query projection. Inheritance fully supported in this construct. Entity Framework support The Entity Framework has been updated in the recent year with code-first support and a new simpler context api: DbContext (with DbSet). The amount of code to generate is smaller and the context simpler. LLBLGen Pro v3.5 comes with support for DbContext and DbSet and generates code which utilizes these new classes. NHibernate support NHibernate v3.2+ built-in proxy factory factory support. By default the built-in ProxyFactoryFactory is selected. FluentNHibernate Session Manager uses 1.2 syntax. Fluent NHibernate mappings generate a SessionManager which uses the v1.2 syntax for the ProxyFactoryFactory location Optionally emit schema / catalog name in mappings Two settings have been added which allow the user to control whether the catalog name and/or schema name as known in the project in the designer is emitted into the mappings.

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• Logical Domain Modeling Made Simple

  - by Knut Vatsendvik

  How can logical domain modeling be made simple and collaborative? Many non-technical end-users, managers and business domain experts find it difficult to understand the visual models offered by many UML tools. This creates trouble in capturing and verifying the information that goes into a logical domain model. The tools are also too advanced and complex for a non-technical user to learn and use. We have therefore, in our current project, ended up with using Confluence as tool for designing the logical domain model with the help of a few very useful plugins. Big thanks to Ole Nymoen and Per Spilling for their expertise in this field that made this posting possible. Confluence Plugins Here is a list of Confluence plugins used in this solution. Install these before trying out the macros used below. Plugin Description Copy Space Allows a space administrator to copy a space, including the pages within the space Metadata Supports adding metadata to Wiki pages Label Manages labeling of pages Linking Contains macros for linking to templates, the dashboard and other Table Enhances the table capability in Confluence Creating a Confluence Space First we need to create a new confluence space for the domain model. Click the link Create a Space located below the list of spaces on the Dashboard. Please contact your Confluence administrator is you do not have permissions to do this.   For illustrative purpose all attributes and entities in this posting are based on my imaginary project manager domain model. When a logical domain model is good enough for being implemented, do a copy of the Confluence Space (see Copy Space plugin). In this way you create a stable version of the logical domain model while further design can continue with the new copied space. Typical will the implementation phase result in a database design and/or a XSD schema design. Add Space Templates Go to the Home page of your Confluence Space. Navigate to the Browse drop-down menu and click on Advanced. Then click the Templates option in the left navigation panel. Click Add New Space Template to add the following three templates. Name: attribute {metadata-list} || Name | | || Type | | || Format | | || Description | | {metadata-list} {add-label:attribute} Name: primary-type {metadata-list} || Name | || || Type | || || Format | || || Description | || {metadata-list} {add-label:primary-type} Name: complex-type {metadata-list} || Name | || || Description |  || {metadata-list} h3. Attributes || Name || Type || Format || Description || | [name] | {metadata-from:name|Type} | {metadata-from:name|Format} | {metadata-from:name|Description} | {add-label:complex-type,entity} The metadata-list macro (see Metadata plugin) will save a list of metadata values to the page. The add-label macro (see Label plugin) will automatically label the page. Primary Types Page Our first page to add will act as container for our primary types. Switch to Wiki markup when adding the following content to the page. | (+) {add-page:template=primary-type|parent=@self}Add new primary type{add-page} | {metadata-report:Name,Type,Format,Description|sort=Name|root=@self|pages=@descendents} Once the page is created, click the Add new primary type (create-page macro) to start creating a new pages. Here is an example of input to the LocalDate page. Embrace the LocalDate with square brackets [] to make the page linkable. Again switch to Wiki markup before editing. {metadata-list} || Name | [LocalDate] || || Type | Date || || Format | YYYY-MM-DD || || Description | Date in local time zone. YYYY = year, MM = month and DD = day || {metadata-list} {add-label:primary-type} The metadata-report macro will show a tabular report of all child pages.   Attributes Page The next page will act as container for all of our attributes. | (+) {add-page:template=attribute|parent=@self|title=attribute}Add new attribute{add-page} | {metadata-report:Name,Type,Format,Description|sort=Name|pages=@descendants} Here is an example of input to the startDate page. {metadata-list} || Name | [startDate] || || Type | [LocalDate] || || Format | {metadata-from:LocalDate|Format} || || Description | The projects start date || {metadata-list} {add-label:attribute} Using the metadata-from macro we fetch the text from the previously created LocalDate page. Complex Types Page The last page in this example shows how attributes can be combined together to form more complex types.   h3. Intro Overview of complex types in the domain model. | (+) {add-page:template=complex-type|parent=@self}Add a new complex type{add-page}\\ | {metadata-report:Name,Description|sort=Name|root=@self|pages=@descendents} Here is an example of input to the ProjectType page. {metadata-list} || Name | [ProjectType] || || Description | Represents a project || {metadata-list} h3. Attributes || Name || Type || Format || Description || | [projectId] | {metadata-from:projectId|Type} | {metadata-from:projectId|Format} | {metadata-from:projectId|Description} | | [name] | {metadata-from:name|Type} | {metadata-from:name|Format} | {metadata-from:name|Description} | | [description] | {metadata-from:description|Type} | {metadata-from:description|Format} | {metadata-from:description|Description} | | [startDate] | {metadata-from:startDate|Type} | {metadata-from:startDate|Format} | {metadata-from:startDate|Description} | {add-label:complex-type,entity} Gives us this Conclusion Using a web-based corporate Wiki like Confluence to create a logical domain model increases the collaboration between people with different roles in the enterprise. It’s my believe that this helps the domain model to be more accurate, and better documented. In our real project we have more pages than illustrated here to complete the documentation. We do also still use UML tools to create different types of diagrams that Confluence do not support. As a last tip, an ImageMap plugin can make those diagrams clickable when used in pages. Enjoy!

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• Add Your Gmail Account to Outlook 2010 using POP

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you excited about the latest version of Outlook, and want to get it setup with your Gmail accounts?  Here’s how you can easily add your Gmail account using POP to Outlook 2010. Getting Started Log into your Gmail account an go to your settings page. Under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab make sure POP is enabled.  You can choose to enable POP access for all new mail that arrives from now on, or for all mail in your Gmail account.  On the second option, we suggest you chose keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox so you can still access your emails on the Gmail server.   Add Your Account to Outlook 2010 If you haven’t run Outlook 2010 yet, click Next to start setup and add your email account. Select Yes to add an email account to Outlook.  Now you’re ready to start entering your settings to access your email. Or, if you’ve already been using Outlook and want to add a new POP account, click File and then select Add Account under Account Information.   Outlook 2010 can often automatically find and configure your account with just your email address and password, so enter these and click Next to let Outlook try to set it up automatically. Outlook will now scan for the settings for your email account. If Outlook was able to find settings and configure your account automatically, you’ll see this success screen.  Depending on your setup, Gmail is automatically setup, but sometimes it fails to find the settings.  If this is the case, we’ll go back and manually configure it. Manually Configure Outlook for Gmail Back at the account setup screen, select Manually configure server settings or additional server types and click Next. Select Internet E-mail and then click Next. Enter your username, email address, and log in information. Under Server information enter in the following: Account Type: POP3 Incoming mail server: pop.gmail.com Outgoing mail server: smtp.gmail.com Make sure to check Remember password so you don’t have to enter it every time. After that data is entered in, click on the More Settings button. Select the Outgoing Server tab, and check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication.  Verify Use same settings as my incoming mail server is marked as well. Next select the Advanced tab and enter the following information: Incoming Server (POP3): 995 Outgoing server (SMTP): 587 Check This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL) Set Use the following type of encrypted connection to TLS You also might want to uncheck the box to Remove messages from the server after a number of days.  This way your messages will still be accessible from Gmail online. Click OK to close the window, and then click Next to finish setting up the account.  Outlook will test your account settings to make sure everything will work; click Close when this is finished. Provided everything was entered in correctly, you’ll be greeted with a successful setup message…click Finish.   Gmail will be all ready to sync with Outlook 2010.  Enjoy your Gmail account in Outlook, complete with fast indexed searching, conversation view, and more! Conclusion Adding Gmail using the POP setting to Outlook 2010 is usually easy and only takes a few steps.  Even if you have to enter your settings manually, it is still a fairly simple process. You can add multiple email accounts using POP3 if you wish, and if you’d like to sync IMAP accounts, check out our tutorial on setting up Gmail using IMAP in Outlook 2010. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Your Gmail To Windows Live MailAdd Your Gmail Account to Outlook 2007Use Gmail IMAP in Microsoft Outlook 2007Figure out which Online accounts are selling your email to spammersAdd Your Gmail Account to Outlook 2010 Using IMAP TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins

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• SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2010 Recap, Slides, and Photos

  - by Brian Jackett

  This past weekend I attended SharePoint Saturday Michigan (SPSMI) in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  For those unfamiliar, SharePoint Saturday is a community driven event where various speakers gather to present at a FREE conference on all topics related to SharePoint.  This made my third SharePoint Saturday attended and second I’ve spoken at.  I believe today it was announced that about 210 people total attended the event.  I was very happy with the turnout, especially the ratio of male to female attendees.  Typically with computer related conferences the ratio leans towards more males attending, but both Peter Serzo (one of conference organizers) and I both commented to each other that at the end of the day it appeared to be close to 40% women in the crowd.  So here’s my recap of the weekend. Arrival     Friday afternoon I drove up from Columbus, OH to Ann Arbor, MI and arrived around 4pm.  I was attempting to avoid the rush hour traffic and construction backups.  Turned out to be a good idea because other speakers coming up Friday got stuck on a highway which literally closed down in both directions due to a bad accident.  I was talking my friend Sean McDonough through the highway closing and this was the first time I had seen a solid black traffic line on Google Maps.  Most of us are familiar with Green, Yellow, and Red, but this line was black if that tells you how bad it got. Speaker “Dinner”     Fast forward a few hours and it was time for the speaker “dinner.”  I put “dinner” in quotes because with this night alone SPSMI set a new bar for nicest and most extravagant speaker appreciation events for SharePoint Saturday.  By tapping into some very influential contacts, the conference organizers were able to provide a truck limo (yep you heard right) with refreshments, access to an underground suite at the Palace of Auburn Hills, and courtside tickets to see the Detroit Pistons play that night.  Being a Michigan native I have to say that I was absolutely floored by this experience and very thankful to our conference organizers Peter, Sebastian, and Jesse along with Trillium Teamologies. Sessions     The actual conference started Saturday morning at 9am with the keynote by Rob Collie who is the Microsoft program manager for PowerPivot.  The day continued and I attended the following sessions: Mike Watson (@mikewat) – “SharePoint 2010 Fight Night: Devs vs. Admins” Karl Swedeberg (@kswedberg) – “A Walk on the Client Side with jQuery“ [my session] Brian Jackett (@briantjackett) - “Real World Deployment of SharePoint 2007 Solutions” Jeff Willinger (@jwillie) - “Social Computing and Collaboration Inside and Outside the 4 Walls” Paul Schaeflein (@paulschaeflein) – “PowerShell for the SharePoint Developer” My Presentation     I had a great time presenting my session on Deploying SharePoint 2007 Solutions, but it wasn’t without its fair share of technical issues.  As my session was right after lunch I came in to my room 10 mins early to set up my laptop, slides, and demos.  As a quick background note, a few months ago I got an upgraded laptop from my company Sogeti and have been dual booting it between XP (factory installed) and Windows Server 2008 R2 w/ Hyper-V.  As such I had prepared all of my demo virtual machines to run under Hyper-V.  About 3 minutes before my session was scheduled to start though it became apparent that I did not have the correct display drivers to connect Windows Server 2008 R2 to the projector…     As you can imagine this was a slight cause for concern as I was potentially going to be unable to give my presentation.  Luckily for me I usually prepare for such unforeseen issues and had my presentation and some spare VMs that would run on XP on my external hard drive.  Knowing this I rebooted my machine into XP and began my presentation without slides until about 5 mins into the session when everything was up and running on XP.  Despite this being the first time I gave this presentation I have to say it was one of my favorites I’ve given so far.  The audience was very engaged in the session and I received some great, positive feedback afterwards.  Thanks to all who attended my session, I appreciate it very much. Link to Presentation Files     For those of you who attended my session and would like my slides or demo PowerShell scripts they can be found on my SkyDrive at the link below.  Also, if you have a few minutes and wouldn’t mind rating my session I have this session posted on SpeakerRate.  As speakers we always appreciate any and all feedback attendees offer, so thank you if you are able to provide any. SkyDrive folder with session files Rate my SharePoint 2007 Solutions session   Picture Albums     For everyone else, here are my pictures from the weekend.  The first link is to my FaceBook album which will have tagging (recommend this one.)  The second is to my Live album if you care for higher resolution images. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2154482&id=21905041&l=a3fb72ee8c View Full Album Conclusion     A big thank you goes out to all of the organizers, speakers, sponsors, and attendees of SPSMI.  As I’ve said so many times, without each and every one of you these events wouldn’t be possible.  I thoroughly enjoyed this trip back to my home state and presenting a new session.  For those interested in my upcoming schedule I will be giving two sessions on PowerShell at SharePoint Saturday Charlotte in April, helping plan Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition in May, and I’m submitting sessions to Day of .Net Ann Arbor in May as well.  Beyond that I haven’t planned out any travels.  Thanks for reading my recap.  Look forward to more technical posts now that I have a short break in conferences.         -Frog Out   links: Michigan image

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• Backup options in SharePoint 2007

  - by sreejukg

  It is very important to make sure the server farm backup is taking properly, making sure that in case of any disaster, the administrator has the latest backup that can be used to restore. This articles addresses some of the options available for backup/restore in SharePoint 2007 Backup There are two options that can be utilized to take backup of SharePoint sites. Using SharePoint Central Administration website Using SharePoint central administration website, you can do backup/restore from user interface. Using central administration website you can back up the following · Server farm · Web application · Content databases Follow these steps to take backup of the server farm using central administration 1. Open Central administration website 2. Navigate to Operations -> Backup and Restore -> Perform a backup 3. Here you will have options to choose the item to back up. Select Farm (the top most item in the list) 4. Once you select the items to backup, click on “Continue to backup options” 5. Select “Full” as type of backup. 6. In the backup file location, enter the path where you need to store the backup. The path should be according to the UNC, for e.g. for c drive you may use \\server\c$\mybackupFolder 7. Click ok 8. Now you will be redirected to Backup and Restore Status page. This page shows the progress for the backup operation. You can use the refresh button to update the status of backup(this page will automatically refresh in every 30 seconds). Once completed you can find the files in the specified folder. Using STSADM website SharePoint comes with a STSADM command line tool. STSADM provides lot of administrative operations that can be performed on SharePoint 2007 sites. You can find STSADM command from the following location C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin (You may change the drive letter according to your installation) STSADM provides a method for performing the Office SharePoint Server 2007 administration tasks at the command line or by using batch files or scripts. STSADM provides access to operations not available by using the Central Administration site The general syntax for STSADM is as follows STSADM -operation Operation Name –parameter1 value1 –parameter2 value2 ……….. Using STSADM you can back up the following · Server farm · Web application · Content databases To perform any STSADM, operation you need to be a member of administrators group. Follow these steps to take backup of SharePoint server farm using STSADM tool. Note: make sure you are logged in to the computer where central administration website is installed. 1. Open the Command prompt (You should run command prompt with administrator privileges) 2. Change the working directory to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin 3. Enter the command, then press enter Stsadm –o backup -directory <UNC path> -backupmethod full 4. You will get success / failure message once the command finishes. How to schedule the backup There is no option to schedule a backup using central administration site. Also there is no operation provided by STSADM to automate the backup. The farm administrators need to take backup in regular intervals. To achieve this, you can write a batch file that includes STSADM command to take full backup of the server. This batch file can be scheduled using windows task scheduler to execute in certain intervals. Sample of the batch file 1. Open notepad(or any other text editor) 2. Enter the following commands @echo off echo =============================================================== echo Back up the farm to <C:\backup> echo =============================================================== cd %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN @echo off stsadm.exe -o backup -directory "<\backup>" -backupmethod full echo completed 3. Save the file with .bat extension You can schedule this batch file as you require. Other Options Using STSADM tool, you will be able to take backup for individual site collection. The syntax for this is stsadm -o backup -url <URL name for site collection> -filename <file name> [-overwrite] The explanations for the parameters are as follows. -url The url of the site collection you need to backup -filename The name of the backup file. E.g. c:\backup.bak -overwrite optional. Indicates if the filename specified exists, whether to overwrite or not. If you are creating the batch file for scheduling the backup for a site collection, you may need to specify the backup filename automatically created. It is an option that you can generate the filename with date so that you can keep backup for each day. e.g. The following commands can be utilized create a site collection backup. @echo off echo =============================================================== echo Back up the farm to <C:\backup> echo =============================================================== echo =============================================================== echo getting todays date to a variable echo =============================================================== @For /F "tokens=1,2,3 delims=/ " %%A in (‘Date /t’) do @( Set Day=%%A Set Month=%%B Set Year=%%C Set todayDate=%%C%%B%%A ) cd %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN @echo off stsadm -o backup -url <sitecollection url> -filename \\ServerName\ShareName\Backup_%todayDate%.bak -overwrite echo completed To read more about backup STSADM operation, read this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263441.aspx

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