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• top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – November 2011

  - by JuergenKress

  Send us your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/wlscommunity glassfish GlassFish Marek’s JAX-RS 2.0 content from Devoxx 2011 – bit.ly/sp2NJO chriscmuir chriscmuir New blog post: ADF bug: missing af:column borders in af:table for IE7 – t.co/81np2jug chriscmuir chriscmuir Reading: Oracle’s ADF Rich Client User Interface (RCUI) Guidelines – oracle.com/webfolder/ux/m… netbeans NetBeans Team Bottlenecks be gone! #Java Performance Tuning workshop in Munich w Kirk Pepperdine, Nov 29-Dec 2: ow.ly/7Akh5 OracleBlogs OracleBlogs Creating ADF Faces Comamnd Button at Runtime ow.ly/1fM9dE alexismp Alexis MP blogged "GlassFish Back from Devoxx 2011, Mature Java EE 6 and EE 7 well on its way" – bit.ly/rP8LV0 JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Usage of jQuery in ADF dlvr.it/x3t84 20 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat Webcast: Introducing Oracle WebLogic Server 12c: Developer Deep Dive – Dec 1 – 11am PT / 2pm ET bit.ly/t61W4G oraclepartners ORCL PartnerNetwork Brand new Oracle WebLogic 12c will launch on December 1, 10AM PT with a global Webcast highlighting salient… t.co/aflQQ3IX OracleBlogs OracleBlogs JDeveloper and ADF at UKOUG t.co/2CQTiB9n fnimphiu Frank Nimphius Attending UKOUG? All ADF sessions at a glance: t.co/TcMNTMXp 21 Nov Favorite Retweet Reply JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Free Webinar ‘ADF Task Flows for Beginners’, information and registration t.co/66jXnGgo via javafx4you javafx4you Java Developer Workshop #2 – Dec 1, 2011 @ Oracle Aoyama center in Tokyo t.co/8p9q3W2B AMIS_Services AMIS Services #vacature #Oracle #ADF ontwikkelaars. bit.ly/AMISADF Gun jezelf een nieuwe uitdaging? Meer op: dld.bz/azZ5N OracleBlogs OracleBlogs Launch Invitation: Introducing Oracle WebLogic Server 12c t.co/bRxCKwAk fnimphiu Frank Nimphius The brand new WebLogic 12c will be released on December 1st 2011 !!! Register for online launch event t.co/pPScg4Xh glassfish GlassFish Announcing Oracle WebLogic 12c – t.co/qh8TdFEl AdamBien Adam Bien Sun Coding Conventions–The Only Standard (Stop Inventing): Code written according to the Sun Coding Conventions… t.co/qaUWp5Mz wlscommunity WebLogic Community Launch Invitation: Introducing Oracle WebLogic Server 12c wp.me/p1LMIb-4y andrejusb Andrejus Baranovskis Andrejus Baranovskis’s Blog: Custom Exception Registration for ADF BC EO Attribute fb.me/1m6nXQD52 MNEMONIC01 Michel Schildmeijer Blog by Michel Schildmeijer: "Oracle WebLogic 12c has been announced" bit.ly/vk6WQL glassfish GlassFish Tab Sweep – Coherence, SBT for GlassFish, OSGi in question, Java EE plugins, … t.co/tVIL95lj OracleBlogs OracleBlogs JavaFX 2.0 at Devoxx 2011 ow.ly/1fJ5iT JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Experimenting with ADF BC Application Module Pool Tuning dlvr.it/wjLC1 OracleWebLogic Oracle WebLogic Brand New #WebLogic 12c Launch Event, Dec 1 10am PT. Hasan Rizvi, SVP Fusion Middleware. Developer session. bit.ly/weblogic12clau… JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF PopUp and Esc/Cancel operations. ADF 11g dlvr.it/whrmC JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF BPM Workspace: issue loading ADF task flows t.co/vk1gKPx5 OpenJDK OpenJDK Kelly O’Hair — OpenJDK B24 Available : t.co/1bFws6Nw JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Oracle ADF setting Task flow to use same page definition file of caller page t.co/9k6UIoYZ JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Master Detail Data presentation and CRUD Operations. Detail records in an Editable Popup. ADF 11g t.co/H8uudR0Y JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Entity Attribute Validation Rule (Business Rule) based on Master View Object Attribute Example ADF 11g t.co/1agxEQcZ oracletechnet Justin Kestelyn Webcast: Oracle WebLogic Server 12c Launch/Developer Deep-Dive (Dec. 1) t.co/OVBdGKzC JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF How to render different node icons for different tree levels dlvr.it/wY2jL JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Query Component with ‘dynamic’ view criteria dlvr.it/wXlF1 JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF How to play Flash .swf file in Oracle ADF application t.co/zaSONWAH Devoxx Devoxx Duke at the #Devoxx 2011 Noxx Party! pic.twitter.com/bVJWyu1Z brhubart Bob Rhubart Adam Leftik: JavaEE adoption continues to increase, reaching 40+ million downloads this year. #qconsf11 JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF Free #ODTUG Seminar – #ADF Task Flows for Beginners – sign up today. www3.gotomeeting.com/register/13372… java Java New Project: OpenJFX j.mp/tI4k3s #javafx #openjdk #devoxx << JavaFX is open source! /via frankmunz Frank Munz WebLogic 12c launch event Dec 1st. t.co/jQKinBqN brhubart Bob Rhubart Spring to Java EE Migration | David Heffelfinger feedly.com/k/td8ccG odtug ODTUG Mark your calendars and register for our upcoming webinars: bit.ly/dWKG1C ADF Task Flows & Measuring Scalability & Performance w/TCP myfear Markus Eisele Anybody willing to take this question? Using #JavaMail with #Weblogic Server bit.ly/stJOET AMIS_Services AMIS Services 20-22 december #training #Oracle JHeadstart #11g, productief ontwikkelen met ADF. Schrijf je in op: amis.nl/trainingen/ora… AdamBien Adam Bien Stress Testing Java EE 6 Applications – Free Article In Free Java Magazine: In the November / December 2011 issu… bit.ly/vmzKkc java Java New Tech Article: Spring to #JavaEE Migration t.co/0EvdHNxb OracleBlogs OracleBlogs WebLogic Java record SPARC T4-4 Servers Set World Record on SPECjEnterprise2010 t.co/Eu1b6ZE0 OracleBlogs OracleBlogs What Is JavaFX? ow.ly/1frb6I OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat The openJDK Windows Binary Download | Adam Bien ow.ly/7fRiG wlscommunity WebLogic Community WebLogic – Java record – SPARC T4-4 Servers Set World Record on SPECjEnterprise2010 glassfish GlassFish "youtube.com/java" blogs.oracle.com/theaquarium/en… OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat Beta Testing Concludes: 1Z1-102 – "Oracle WebLogic Server 11g: System Administration I" (Oracle Certification) ow.ly/7fJCl wlscommunity WebLogic Community A deep dive in Oracle WebLogic! @ Contribute – November 29th, 2011 Kontich Belgium wp.me/p1LMIb-4u glassfish GlassFish Gartner’s Latest Enterprise Application Server Magic Quadrant – Oracle’s leadership t.co/aYDqipD8 OpenJDK OpenJDK Terrence Barr – Open sourcing of JavaFX: OpenJFX Project proposed – bit.ly/uKVnEl OpenJDK OpenJDK Maurizio Cimadamore – Testing overload resolution: bit.ly/vgXAbQ java Java Java User Groups Roundup, November 2011 : t.co/hea6vVnk /via @robilad << in German JavaSpotlight The Java Spotlight Java Spotlight Episode 54: Stuart Marks on the Coinification of JDK7 goo.gl/fb/3UXoM OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat Article Series: Migrating Spring to Java EE 6 | Arun Gupta bit.ly/twUJtz glassfish GlassFish New Java EE 6 Hands-On lab, Devoxx-approved! bit.ly/vup5uE java Java Brian Goetz’s enthusiasm for Java is palpable! #devoxx interview adf_emg ADF EMG "ADF testing with a mock framework" – what is a mock framework? Visit the forum and see: groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/… java Java Taping a bunch of interviews today with Java experts at #devoxx. View on Parleys.com tomorrow. glassfish GlassFish New screencast to configure and run a cross-machine cluster using GlassFish 3.1.1 in < 7 mins faissalb.blogspot.com/2011/11/glassf… (via @bfaissal) glassfish GlassFish Oracle Contributor Agreements – New Home! bit.ly/tD2eLo OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat Java Magazine – by and for the Java Community- inaugural issue bit.ly/tTv8UD OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat The Heroes of Java: Michael Hüttermann | @MyFear bit.ly/rYYOFe javafx4you javafx4you Development with #JavaFX on #Linux j.mp/uOpe69 #not_for_the_faint_of_heart java Java Contribute Technical Questions for Java Experts at #devoxx bit.ly/up2cN0 netbeans NetBeans Team A simple REST service using #NetBeans 7, #Java Servlet, and #JAXB: t.co/pKkufsD8 AdamBien Adam Bien The most beautiful, and portable slide of the whole #jaxcon for "Die Hard Java EE 6"session checked-in: kenai.com/projects/javae… jaxlondon JAX London Mark Little’s (@nmcl) excellent keynote from #jaxlondon ‘Middleware Everywhere…’ is available in full – t.co/8vBmtDJ1 AdamBien Adam Bien Calculator sample from "Die Hard Java EE 6" #jaxcon session checked-in: t.co/0UqaULfg OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat ADF Faces – a logic bomb in the order of bean instantiations | @ChrisCMuir bit.ly/vjqRaZ OracleBlogs OracleBlogs ODI 11g y JMS Queue de Weblogic ow.ly/1fzfQJ frankmunz Frank Munz Which WebLogic book do you recommend? Review of S. Alapati’s WebLogic 11g Administration Handbook. bit.ly/rP0RtW JDeveloper JDeveloper & ADF PageFlowScope with Unbounded Task Flows: the magic sauce for multi-browser-tab support in JDeveloper ADF applications dlvr.it/vNFgn OracleBlogs OracleBlogs 3 New ADF Insider Essential training videos published. ow.ly/1fz94q OracleBlogs OracleBlogs Weblogic Server 11gR1 PS2: Administration Essentials book and eBook t.co/ykzwIaqs OracleBlogs OracleBlogs Specialized Partners Only! New Service to Promote Your Events t.co/qTgyEpY4 wlscommunity WebLogic Community Oracle Weblogic Server 11gR1 PS2: Administration Essentials book and eBook andrejusb Andrejus Baranovskis Andrejus Baranovskis’s Blog: Stress Testing Oracle ADF BC Applications – Intern… andrejusb.blogspot.com/2011/11/stress… OracleBlogs OracleBlogs Frank Nimphius presenting a full day of Oracle ADF in Switzerland ow.ly/1fxU78 java Java #JavaEE and #GlassFish: #JavaOne11 Slides, Demos, Replays, Hands-on Labs t.co/tLM0ehrD OracleBlogs OracleBlogs weblogic.security.SecurityInitializationException: Authentication for user weblogic denied ow.ly/1fxmiu glassfish GlassFish The Last Migration – GlassFish Wiki : t.co/Dc5FT1SJ OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat A Successful Year of @MiddlewareMagic t.co/amcGGTTk OracleWebLogic Oracle WebLogic Unbeatable Performance for your Cloud Applications with Exalogic, #OracleCoherence and #WebLogic. ow.ly/7lYKm OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat Stress Testing Oracle ADF BC Applications – Passivation and Activation | @AndrejusB bit.ly/sASssL OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat Review: "Oracle Weblogic Server 11gR1 PS2: Administration Essentials" by Michel Schildmeijer | @MyFear t.co/ll6ra0J9 OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat GlassFish 3.1.2 themes and features | The Aquarium bit.ly/vVqr9r Andre_van_Dalen Andre van Dalen Masterclass: Advanced Oracle ADF 11g lnkd.in/M_45Pi AdamBien Adam Bien The "lunch" edition of RentACar is pushed into: kenai.com/projects/javae… #wjax AdamBien Adam Bien In munich, room munich at #wjax. Welcome to #javaee workshop. Gather your questions. 15 minutes to go lucasjellema Lucas Jellema Review by Markus of Michel’s book: t.co/41U9wvOb In short: valuable for novice WLS users, maybe not so much for die-hard WLS admin. biemond Edwin Biemond “@myfear: [blog] #Review: "#Weblogic Server 11gR1 PS2: Administration Essentials" t.co/LsODcb3e” got the same conclusion on amazon glassfish GlassFish Practical advice for deploying Lift apps to GlassFish: bit.ly/t3KUml glassfish GlassFish The unbearable lightness of GlassFish t.co/v9307SEJ javafx4you javafx4you Building Java EE applications in JavaFX: JavaFX 2.0, FXML and Spring j.mp/tiMDUh andrejusb Andrejus Baranovskis Andrejus Baranovskis’s Blog: Stress Testing Oracle ADF BC Applications – Passiv… andrejusb.blogspot.com/2011/11/stress… wlscommunity WebLogic Community “@AMIS_Services: Follow @amis_services To Win a copy of SOA Suite 11g Handbook by @lucasjellema dld.bz/axD22 pls RT” excellent book! glassfish GlassFish GlassFish 3.1.2 themes and features bit.ly/uEc6uZ biemond Edwin Biemond Weblogic pre-sales exam was hard, you really need to know the versions , upgrade path and have a score above 80% monkchips James Governor The Rise and Fall and Rise of Java. JAX 2011 london keynote. how big data and the web are floating the boat. slidesha.re/u3Kzlo glassfish GlassFish Tab Sweep – Jersey, Hudson, GlassFish Hosting, GC’s compared, Spring to JavaEE, Modularity, … bit.ly/u9Cc30 oracletechnet Justin Kestelyn Oracle Tuxedo: A renewed acquaintance t.co/gp0mmf20 OTNArchBeat OTNArchBeat Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, OEPE 11.1.1.8 bit.ly/tC3eKp OracleBlogs OracleBlogs NetBeans HTML Editor and Groovy Editor in a Multiview Component (Part 2) ow.ly/1ftCeI myfear Markus Eisele [blog] #Oracle 2008 – 2011 in Gartners Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Application Servers t.co/2Bs1vgMZ myfear Markus Eisele [blog] #EclipseCon Europe – Java 7 in the Enterprise goo.gl/fb/r80df #ece2011 #java7 javafx4you javafx4you JavaFX 2.0 for Mac build b07 (developer preview) is available for download j.mp/vSwmBP Enjoy! #JavaFX #Mac OracleBlogs OracleBlogs A deep dive in Oracle WebLogic! @ Contribute November 29th, 2011 Kontich Belgium ow.ly/1fsEZs arungupta Arun Gupta #JavaEE7 slides from #jaxlondon and #jfall11 now available: slidesha.re/sh4iFq AdamBien Adam Bien Just checked-in the results of the #jaxlondon community night (somehow beer related): kenai.com/projects/javae… glassfish GlassFish GlassFish Podcast Episode #080 – User Stories, Part 3: Adam Bien and Sean Comerford (ESPN) blogs.oracle.com/glassfishpodca… glassfish GlassFish Story: t.co/jQPqihJb using GlassFish blogs.oracle.com/stories/entry/… "3000+ requests/sec" and more enterprisejava Java EE Mentions New blog post WebLogic deployment status checks for CI wp.me/pOOSs-F #weblogic #continuousintegration /vi… bit.ly/uZz0fk The become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please first login at http://partner.oracle.com and then visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: twitter,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,OPN,Oracle,Jürgen Kress

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• Pluralsight Meet the Author Podcast on HTML5 Canvas Programming

  - by dwahlin

    In the latest installment of Pluralsight’s Meet the Author podcast series, Fritz Onion and I talk about my new course, HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals.  In the interview I describe different canvas technologies covered throughout the course and a sample application at the end of the course that covers how to build a custom business chart from start to finish. Meet the Author:  Dan Wahlin on HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals   Transcript [Fritz] Hi. This is Fritz Onion. I’m here today with Dan Wahlin to talk about his new course HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals. Dan founded the Wahlin Group, which you can find at thewahlingroup.com, which specializes in ASP.NET, jQuery, Silverlight, and SharePoint consulting. He’s a Microsoft Regional Director and has been awarded Microsoft’s MVP for ASP.NET, Connected Systems, and Silverlight. Dan is on the INETA Bureau’s — Speaker’s Bureau, speaks at conferences and user groups around the world, and has written several books on .NET. Thanks for talking to me today, Dan. [Dan] Always good to talk with you, Fritz. [Fritz] So this new course of yours, HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals, I have to say that most of the really snazzy demos I’ve seen with HTML5 have involved Canvas, so I thought it would be a good starting point to chat with you about why we decided to create a course dedicated just to Canvas. If you want to kind of give us that perspective. [Dan] Sure. So, you know, there’s quite a bit of material out there on HTML5 in general, and as people that have done a lot with HTML5 are probably aware, a lot of HTML5 is actually JavaScript centric. You know, a lot of people when they first learn it, think it’s tags, but most of it’s actually JavaScript, and it just so happens that the HTML5 Canvas is one of those things. And so it’s not just, you know, a tag you add and it just magically draws all these things. You mentioned there’s a lot of cool things you can do from games to there’s some really cool multimedia applications out there where they integrate video and audio and all kinds of things into the Canvas, to more business scenarios such as charting and things along those lines. So the reason we made a course specifically on it is, a lot of the material out there touches on it but the Canvas is actually a pretty deep topic. You can do some pretty advanced stuff or easy stuff depending on what your application requirements are, and the API itself, you know, there’s over 30 functions just in the Canvas API and then a whole set of properties that actually go with that as well. So it’s a pretty big topic, and that’s why we created a course specifically tailored towards just the Canvas. [Fritz] Right. And let’s — let me just review the outline briefly here for everyone. So you start off with an introduction to getting started with Canvas, drawing with the HTML5 Canvas, then you talk about manipulating pixels, and you finish up with building a custom data chart. So I really like your example flow here. I think it will appeal to even business developers, right. Even if you’re not into HTML5 for the games or the media capabilities, there’s still something here for everyone I think working with the Canvas. Which leads me to another question, which is, where do you see the Canvas fitting in to kind of your day-to-day developer, people that are working business applications and maybe vanilla websites that aren’t doing kind of cutting edge stuff with interactivity with users? Is there a still a place for the Canvas in those scenarios? [Dan] Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of us — and I include myself here — over the last few years, the focus has generally been, especially if you’re, let’s say, a PHP or ASP.NET or Java type of developer, we’re kind of accustomed to working on the server side, and, you know, we kind of relied on Flash or Silverlight or these other plug-ins for the client side stuff when it was kind of fancy, like charts and graphs and things along those lines. With the what I call massive shift of applications, you know, mainly because of mobile, to more of client side, one of the big benefits I think from a maybe corporate standard way of thinking of things, since we do a lot of work with different corporations, is that, number one, rather than having to have the plug-in, which of course isn’t going to work on iPad and some of these other devices out there that are pretty popular, you can now use a built-in technology that all the modern browsers support, and that includes things like Safari on the iPad and iPhone and the Android tablets and things like that with their browsers, and actually render some really sophisticated charts. Whether you do it by scratch or from scratch or, you know, get a third party type of library involved, it’s just JavaScript. So it downloads fast so it’s good from a performance perspective; and when it comes to what you can render, it’s extremely robust. You can do everything from, you know, your basic circles to polygons or polylines to really advanced gradients as well and even provide some interactivity and animations, and that’s some of the stuff I touch upon in the class. In fact, you mentioned the last part of the outline there is building a custom data chart and that’s kind of gears towards more of the, what I’d call enterprise or corporate type developer. [Fritz] Yeah, that makes sense. And it’s, you know, a lot of the demos I’ve seen with HTML5 focus on more the interactivity and kind of game side of things, but the Canvas is such a diverse element within HTML5 that I can see it being applicable pretty much anywhere. So why don’t we talk a little bit about some of the specifics of what you cover? You talk about drawing and then manipulating pixels. You want to kind of give us the different ways of working with the Canvas and what some of those APIs provide for you? [Dan] Sure. So going all the way back to the start of the outline, we actually started off by showing different demonstrations of the Canvas in action, and we show some fun stuff — multimedia apps and games and things like that — and then also some more business scenarios; and then once you see that, hopefully it kinds of piques your interest and you go, oh, wow, this is actually pretty phenomenal what you can do. So then we start you off with, so how to you actually draw things. Now, there are some libraries out there that will draw things like graphs, but if you want to customize those or just build something you have from scratch, you need to know the basics, such as, you know, how do you draw circles and lines and arcs and Bezier curves and all those fancy types of shapes that a given chart may have on it or that a game may have in it for that matter. So we start off by covering what I call the core API functions; how do you, for instance, fill a rectangle or convert that to a square by setting the height and the width; how do you draw arcs or different types of curves and there’s different types supported such as I mentioned Bezier curves or quadratic curves; and then we also talk about how do you integrate text into it. You might have some images already that are just regular bitmap type images that you want to integrate, you can do that with a Canvas. And you can even sync video into the Canvas, which actually opens up some pretty interesting possibilities for both business and I think just general multimedia apps. Once you kind of get those core functions down for the basic shapes that you need to be able to draw on any type of Canvas, then we go a little deeper into what are the pixels that are there to manipulate. And that’s one of the important things to understand about the HTML5 Canvas, scalable vector graphics is another thing you can use now in the modern browsers; it’s vector based. Canvas is pixel based. And so we talk about how to do gradients, how can you do transforms, you know, how do you scale things or rotate things, which is extremely useful for charts ’cause you might have text that, you know, flips up on its side for a y-axis or something like that. And you can even do direct pixel manipulation. So it’s really, really powerful. If you want to get down to the RGBA level, you can do that, and I show how to do that in the course, and then kind of wrap that section up with some animation fundamentals. [Fritz] Great. Yeah, that’s really powerful stuff for programmatically rendering data to clients and responding to user inputs. Look forward to seeing what everyone’s going to come up with building this stuff. So great. That’s — that’s HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals with Dan Wahlin. Thanks very much, Dan. [Dan] Thanks again. I appreciate it.

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• What precautions should you take when a senior employee leaves?

  - by Mahin

  EDIT : I agree one should check the reasons, why a senior level employee is leaving. But I am interested in knowing the official/management/technical/legal steps one should take after its decided that he is leaving, so that the life after him is smooth. What are the steps management should take when a senior programmer/team lead leaves your company. Some of them which I have thought about are : 1) If He used to manage hosting and domains stuff, change passwords of domain control panels and hosting panels. 2) If your published web sites have maintenance account and he is aware of credentials of that account then change this details also. 3) Suspend mail account for some time and forward all eMails of that account to some ex-employee account. After some time close that account. What are the other things one should check. I am expecting the answer to be a general check list one should follow. It should include both technical scenarios and management scenarios. Notable Suggestions so far : Effectively transfer the responsibilities of that employee to another one without causing any potential delay in your work. Protect your source code. If possible Make them to sign something to say that they don't have copies of source code.. You can also consider NDA here. Use the Notice Period to train his replacement. Now any new code to the project will be done by replacement with the help of Guy who is leaving. Ask him to create a document of things he thinks you should know. Make sure he checks everything in now and then any checkout will only be done by the replacement. Emails, copy off his email account to a pst.file (this assumes Outlook), Make this file available to his replacement. the employee should probably be given a chance to scrub the email. if you are going to keep his account open for whatever reason, check that no rules are created that forward incoming emails to an alternate address. Copy the hard drive of his computer to a network location and have someone senior go through and see if there are any files (drafts of performance reviews or other sensitive issues ) on it that someone else might need. Clearance from Accounts,Finance,Security,Library etc departments.Obtain all company property, laptops, keys, etc. If there is no reason not to, you should reward a departing person for their many years of service. Write them letters of recommendation (even if they already have a new job lined up).Say goodbye, and keep the door open. Make sure any outside clients know that the departing employee is not their main contact anymore. Never neglect the exit interview/debriefing. Confirm the last day of employment so that there is no misunderstanding Inform H/R if the employee is on H1B status, there is paperwork required to notify the government when an H1B employee leaves. Depending on how senior / what position, you might spend some time convincing him not to take the rest of the engineering staff with him. Make sure he spends his last days on a good note, because if he is not leaving on a good note, he can easily pollute the mind of his colleagues. Best Regards, Mahin Gupta EDIT : Now offered a bounty on it to get more detailed responses and practical suggestions.

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• top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – November 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send us your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/wlscommunity Please feel free to send us your news! Andrejus Baranovskis ADF BC View Accessor To Centralize Business Logic Processing http://fb.me/ZdH3reTC OracleBlogs? Devoxx Coming Up! http://ow.ly/2t855p OTNArchBeat Webcast: #JMX with #Oracle #WebLogic Server 12c - featuring @FrankMunz Nov 13 10am PT 1pm ET http://pub.vitrue.com/ulyl OracleSupport_ Detailed nomenclature of #weblogic logging services http://pub.vitrue.com/LwLK WebLogic Community Java Management Extensions with Oracle WebLogic Server 12c&ndash;Webcast Nocember 13th 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-oH Andrejus Baranovskis? Difference Between Initialized and New Mode in ADF BC http://fb.me/1d00veJLm Oracle Technet? Ondrej Brejla shares information on the release of NetbBeans IDE 7.3 Beta 2. http://pub.vitrue.com/Q0Ji OracleBlogs? Oracle ADF Essentials & ADF training material now on the iPad By Grant Ronald http://ow.ly/2t6m7y Markus Eisele #NetBeans 7.3 Beta2 is Out! https://blogs.oracle.com/netbeansphp/entry/netbeans_7_3_beta2_is … WebLogic Community Oracle ADF Essentials & ADF training material now on the iPad By Grant Ronald http://wp.me/p1LMIb-oj Frank Munz? Also next week, Tue, 10am PST: @Oracle devcast about WLS 12c JMX ecosystem 4 DevOps. Join now: http://goo.gl/oikWX Oracle WebLogic #EclipseLink #JPA deployed on #webLogic using #Eclipse #WTP very detailed tutorial http://pub.vitrue.com/tckQ Middleware Magic Middleware Magic Completes 2 year of spreading its Magic http://goo.gl/fb/8vdA4 #Weblogic #J2EE #news Adam Bien? Interview In The "Java Spotlight Episode 107" Podcast: I had a nice chat during the JavaOne 2012 conference in ... http://bit.ly/VBLiij OracleSupport_WLS? #WebLogic 12c example code projects with a focus on #Java EE 6 http://pub.vitrue.com/Og8C JDeveloper & ADF? ADF Insider: Angels in the ADF Architecture http://dlvr.it/2RYBjq Andreas Koop [blog post] ADF: Smart Input Date Client Converter: EnvironmentTested with JDeveloper / ADF 11.1.2.3(Should also... http://bit.ly/SIValJ Steven Davelaar Added 16 new ADF samples from @andrejusb http://java.net/projects/smuenchadf/pages/ADFSamplesAuthorABA1 … JDeveloper & ADF? Transaction Level ADF BC Entity Validation http://dlvr.it/2QWN7K Oracle Exalogic? Do you know the secret to Exalogic's speed? It's called Exabus. More at the OTN Garage - http://youtu.be/dreH2XmplyA OracleSupport_WLS New tutorial: configure and administrate #clusters http://pub.vitrue.com/Gduy JDeveloper & ADF? Workaround for an Xcode/iOS SDK Issue http://dlvr.it/2QTRlJ Masoud Kalali? #GlassFish trunk will switch to require JDK 7 to build, details at GlassFish #JDK 7 Switch FAQ: https://wikis.oracle.com/display/GlassFish/JDK+7+Switch+FAQ … ADF Code Corner? ADF Oracle Magazine Article "Master and Commander" about global command pattern strategy for regions with ctx events http://bit.ly/PLvxUL Maciej Gruszka? @wlscommunity Cloud Application Foundation webcast about OOW announcements soon avail for replay Adam Bien? Real World Java EE Patterns Book ("Green Edition") is available for lending. For unlimited time and free: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&docId=1000739811&linkCode=ur2&tag=wwwadambienco-20 … WebLogic Community Slides for todays #WebLogicCommunity are uploaded to the workspace. Not yet a member http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea … #weblogic Adam Bien? My (unprepared) night hacking starts at 11 AM CET: http://nighthacking.com WebLogic Community We will start our ExaLogic webcast in 5 minutes http://weblogiccommunity.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/join-us-for-our-weblogic-communtiy-webcast-on-november-2nd-2012-oow-update-weblogic-exalogic/ … Gertjan van het Hof? WebLogic Communtiy webcast on November 2nd 2012 11:00 CET! OOW update WebLogic & ExaLogic « WebLogic Community http://weblogiccommunity.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/join-us-for-our-weblogic-communtiy-webcast-on-november-2nd-2012-oow-update-weblogic-exalogic/ … GlassFish? Java EE 7 scheduled posted http://java.net/projects/javaee-spec/pages/Home … slated for final release on 4/29/2013 OracleSupport_WLS? Updating #EclipseLink in #WebLogic http://pub.vitrue.com/j2wc WebLogic Community Join us for our WebLogicCommunity Webcast tomorrow November 2nd. Ge tan update an all OOW announcements http://weblogiccommunity.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/join-us-for-our-weblogic-communtiy-webcast-on-november-2nd-2012-oow-update-weblogic-exalogic/ … #wlscommunity OTNArchBeat? Oracle ADF Mobile - Login Functionality | @AndrejusB http://pub.vitrue.com/Wqqk WebLogic Community? OpenWorld General Session 2012: Middleware & JavaOne http://wp.me/p1LMIb-oe OracleSupport_WLS? How to use RDA to generate #Weblogic thread dumps at specified Intervals? http://pub.vitrue.com/auuP OracleBlogs? Join us for our WebLogic Communtiy webcast on November 2nd 2012! OOW update WebLogic & ExaLogic http://ow.ly/2sXAel OracleSupport_WLS? Monitoring #Spring in #WebLogic - #Middleware magic blog post http://pub.vitrue.com/OcSq ultan? Oracle Launches Mobile Applications User Experience Design Patterns https://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/oracle_launches_mobile_applications_user … @odtug @adf_emg @tapadoo #xcake #android WebLogic Community? Managing EclipseLink using JMX http://wp.me/p1LMIb-oh WebLogic Community? WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter October 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-n5 Simon Haslam? #ukoug Oracle Scene mag: "Getting to Know Oracle Fusion Middleware" into by @wlscommunity & myself http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/81b2adef#/81b2adef/30 … Andrejus Baranovskis LOV Validation and Programmatic Row Insert Performance http://fb.me/167ehvEBL Andrejus Baranovskis? ADF Project Development Time Distribution http://fb.me/zMijgiKF Edwin Biemond? Using JSON-REST in ADF Mobile: In the current version of ADF Mobile the ADF DataControls ( URL and WS ) only sup... http://bit.ly/Rdr9IX WebLogic Community Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c: Best Practices for Middleware Management http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mA WebLogic Community? Tuxedo 12c http://wp.me/p1LMIb-my Lucas Jellema? Online and free: ADF Advanced eCourses from Oracle - http://download.oracle.com/tutorials/jtcd3/ecourse_adf_part1/html/temp_frameset/index.htm … and http://download.oracle.com/tutorials/jtcd3/ecourse_adf_part2/html/temp_frameset/index.htm … Lucas Jellema? Finally Luc can tell all his stories on ADF Mobile - he is Mr ADF Mobile after all. On the AMIS Blog: http://technology.amis.nl/2012/10/22/adf-mobile-is-now-generally-available/ … with more coming! Gerkmann-Bartels [blog] ADF Mobile Samples are still there... http://maybe-interesting.blogspot.de/ Markus Eisele Do you know the #Oracle #Parcel #Service? A #weblogic #JavaEE6 example app on #github! http://bit.ly/XNVnqS by @jeffreyawest ! Contribute! WebLogic Community? Distribute the WebLogic Community newsletter October editoin - read it! or register for #wlscommunity http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea … #opn #oracle OracleBlogs? Getting Started with ADF Mobile Sample Apps http://ow.ly/2sOJOi Pieter Kranenburg? Oracle Forms Modernization? Checkout: http://forms.qafe.com for retainment of investment, knowledge and being future proof #OracleForms Markus Eisele [blog] Review: "Java EE 6 Cookbook for Securing, Tuning, and Extending Enterprise... http://dlvr.it/2MWGCq #packtpub #javaee #review Gertjan van het Hof ADF Mobile HTML5 is available. https://blogs.oracle.com/fusionmiddleware/ … Adam Bien? My (Adam Bien) JavaOne Session Videos and Resources: CON3896 - Interactive Onstage Java EE Overengineering, Mond... http://bit.ly/XNpSNm Torsten Winterberg? #ADF Mobile is GA now on OTN: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/adf/overview/adf-mobile-096323.html … Finally! Oracle WebLogic? New Blog Post: Instructions on how to configure a WebLogic Cluster and use it with Oracle Http Server http://ow.ly/2sOdPJ luc bors? #Oracle #ADF Mobile is production Download the extension here http://bit.ly/TChziZ WebLogic Community? Move Data into the Grid for Scalable, Predictable Response Times http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mw Andrejus Baranovskis? Why Oracle ADF Developers are Sensitive People http://fb.me/209osORtC Lucas Jellema? Article by Edwin Biemond on the AMIS blog on Configuring FMW Servers using Puppet - http://technology.amis.nl/2012/10/13/configure-fmw-servers-with-puppet/ … - integration of WebLogic in Puppet Oracle UsableApps Must Read: New Oracle Applications UX White Paper: Research and Design Process: http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/Fusion/whitePapers.html … @oracle #usableapps Sten Vesterli? You know ADF Security is missing from the free ADF Essentials? Check out a solution by @andrejusb: http://andrejusb.blogspot.com/2012/10/adf-essentials-security-implementation.html … Oracle WebLogic Monitoring #Spring in #WebLogic - #Middleware magic blog post http://pub.vitrue.com/uT69 WebLogic Community Java Cloud Service for developers http://wp.me/p1LMIb-mu Gerkmann-Bartels #MUST read 4 #WLS Admins: How to Analyze Java Thread WebLogic Community? top tweets WebLogic Partner Community &ndash; October 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-ob Andrejus Baranovskis? ADF Mobile - Login Functionality http://fb.me/2gxwZV9jc WebLogic Community? “@MaciejGruszka: Another #WebLogic bootcamp for #Oracle partners. Right now - Copenhagen Denmark” THANKs trainings at https://blogs.oracle.com/emeapartnerweblogic/ … Dumps http://zite.to/RKyx2x OracleBlogs? top tweets WebLogic Partner Community October 2012 http://ow.ly/2sXuAn eclipsecon? Today is the Call for Papers early bird deadline. Submit a session now! http://eclipsecon.org/2013/early-talk-selection … WebLogic Community? Join us for our WebLogic Communtiy webcast on November 2nd 2012! OOW update WebLogic & ExaLogic http://wp.me/p1LMIb-oA WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: twitter,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Oracle on Oracle: Is that all?

  - by Darin Pendergraft

  On October 17th, I posted a short blog and a podcast interview with Chirag Andani, talking about how Oracle IT uses its own IDM products. Blog link here. In response, I received a comment from reader Jaime Cardoso ([email protected]) who posted: “- You could have talked about how by deploying Oracle's Open standards base technology you were able to integrate any new system in your infrastructure in days. - You could have talked about how by deploying federation you were enabling the business side to keep all their options open in terms of companies to buy and sell while maintaining perfect employee and customer's single view. - You could have talked about how you are now able to cut response times to your audit and security teams into 1/10th of your former times Instead you spent 6 minutes talking about single sign on and self provisioning? If I didn't knew your IDM offer so well I would now be wondering what its differences from Microsoft's offer was. Sorry for not giving a positive comment here but, please your IDM suite is very good and, you simply aren't promoting it well enough” So I decided to send Jaime a note asking him about his experience, and to get his perspective on what makes the Oracle products great. What I found out is that Jaime is a very experienced IDM Architect with several major projects under his belt. Darin Pendergraft: Can you tell me a bit about your experience? How long have you worked in IT, and what is your IDM experience? Jaime Cardoso: I started working in "serious" IT in 1998 when I became Netscape's technical specialist in Portugal. Netscape Portugal didn't exist so, I was working for their VAR here. Most of my work at the time was with Netscape's mail server and LDAP server. Since that time I've been bouncing between the system's side like Sun resellers, Solaris stuff and even worked with Sun's Engineering in the making of an Hierarchical Storage Product (Sun CIS if you know it) and the application's side, mostly in LDAP and IDM. Over the years I've been doing support, service delivery and pre-sales / architecture design of IDM solutions in most big customers in Portugal, to name a few projects: - The first European deployment of Sun Access Manager (SAPO – Portugal Telecom) - The identity repository of 5/5 of the Biggest Portuguese banks - The Portuguese government federation of services project DP: OK, in your blog response, you mentioned 3 topics: 1. Using Oracle's standards based architecture; (you) were able to integrate any new system in days: can you give an example? What systems, how long did it take, number of apps/users/accounts/roles etc. JC: It's relatively easy to design a user management strategy for a static environment, or if you simply assume that you're an <insert vendor here> shop and all your systems will bow to that vendor's will. We've all seen that path, the use of proprietary technologies in interoperability solutions but, then reality kicks in. As an ISP I recall that I made the technical decision to use Active Directory as a central authentication system for the entire IT infrastructure. Clients, systems, apps, everything was there. As a good part of the systems and apps were running on UNIX, then a connector became needed in order to have UNIX boxes to authenticate against AD. And, that strategy worked but, each new machine required the component to be installed, monitoring had to be made for that component and each new app had to be independently certified. A self care user portal was an ongoing project, AD access assumes the client is inside the domain, something the ISP's customers (and UNIX boxes) weren't nor had any intention of ever being. When the Windows 2008 rollout was done, Microsoft changed the Active Directory interface. The Windows administrators didn't have enough know-how about directories and the way systems outside the MS world behaved so, on the go live, things weren't properly tested and a general outage followed. Several hours and 1 roll back later, everything was back working. But, the ISP still had to change all of its applications to work with the new access methods and reset the effort spent on the self service user portal. To keep with the same strategy, they would also have to trust Microsoft not to change interfaces again. Simply by putting up an Oracle LDAP server in the middle and replicating the user info from the AD into LDAP, most of the problems went away. Even systems for which no AD connector existed had PAM in them so, integration was made at the OS level, fully supported by the OS supplier. Sun Identity Manager already had a self care portal, combined with a user workflow so, all the clearances had to be given before the account was created or updated. Adding a new system as a client for these authentication services was simply a new checkbox in the OS installer and, even True64 systems were, for the first time integrated also with a 5 minute work of a junior system admin. True, all the windows clients and MS apps still went to the AD for their authentication needs so, from the start everybody knew that they weren't 100% free of migration pains but, now they had a single point of problems to look at. If you're looking for numbers: - 500K directory entries (users) - 2-300 systems After the initial setup, I personally integrated about 20 systems / apps against LDAP in 1 day while being watched by the different IT teams. The internal IT staff did the rest. DP: 2. Using Federation allows the business to keep options open for buying and selling companies, and yet maintain a single view for both employee and customer. What do you mean by this? Can you give an example? JC: The market is dynamic. The company that's being bought today tomorrow will be sold again. Companies that spread on different markets may see the regulator forcing a sale of part of a company due to monopoly reasons and companies that are in multiple countries have to comply with different legislations. Our job, as IT architects, while addressing the customers and employees authentication services, is quite hard and, quite contrary. On one hand, we need to give access to all of our employees to the relevant systems, apps and resources and, we already have marketing talking with us trying to find out who's a customer of the bough company but not from ours to address. On the other hand, we have to do that and keep in mind we may have to break up all that effort and that different countries legislation may became a problem with a full integration plan. That's a job for user Federation. you don't want to be the one who's telling your President that he will sell that business unit without it's customer's database (making the deal worth a lot less) or that the buyer will take with him a copy of your entire customer's database. Federation enables you to start controlling permissions to users outside of your traditional authentication realm. So what if the people of that company you just bought are keeping their old logins? Do you want, because of that, to have a dedicated system for their expenses reports? And do you want to keep their sales (and pre-sales) people out of the loop in terms of your group's path? Control the information flow, establish a Federation trust circle and give access to your apps to users that haven't (yet?) been brought into your internal login systems. You can still see your users in a unified view, you obviously control if a user has access to any particular application, either that user is in your local database or stored in a directory on the other side of the world. DP: 3. Cut response times of audit and security teams to 1/10. Is this a real number? Can you give an example? JC: No, I don't have any backing for this number. One of the companies I did system Administration for has a SOX compliance policy in place (I remind you that I live in Portugal so, this definition of SOX may be somewhat different from what you're used to) and, every time the audit team says they'll do another audit, we have to negotiate with them the size of the sample and we spend about 15 man/days gathering all the required info they ask. I did some work with Sun's Identity auditor and, from what I've been seeing, Oracle's product is even better and, I've seen that most of the information they ask would have been provided in a few hours with the help of this tool. I do stand by what I said here but, to be honest, someone from Identity Auditor team would do a much better job than me explaining this time savings. Jaime is right: the Oracle IDM products have a lot of business value, and Oracle IT is using them for a lot more than I was able to cover in the short podcast that I posted. I want to thank Jaime for his comments and perspective. We want these blog posts to be informative and honest – so if you have feedback for the Oracle IDM team on any topic discussed here, please post your comments below.

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• Code Reuse is (Damn) Hard

  - by James Michael Hare

  Being a development team lead, the task of interviewing new candidates was part of my job.  Like any typical interview, we started with some easy questions to get them warmed up and help calm their nerves before hitting the hard stuff. One of those easier questions was almost always: “Name some benefits of object-oriented development.”  Nearly every time, the candidate would chime in with a plethora of canned answers which typically included: “it helps ease code reuse.”  Of course, this is a gross oversimplification.  Tools only ease reuse, its developers that ultimately can cause code to be reusable or not, regardless of the language or methodology. But it did get me thinking…  we always used to say that as part of our mantra as to why Object-Oriented Programming was so great.  With polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation, etc. we in essence set up the concepts to help facilitate reuse as much as possible.  And yes, as a developer now of many years, I unquestionably held that belief for ages before it really struck me how my views on reuse have jaded over the years.  In fact, in many ways Agile rightly eschews reuse as taking a backseat to developing what's needed for the here and now.  It used to be I was in complete opposition to that view, but more and more I've come to see the logic in it.  Too many times I've seen developers (myself included) get lost in design paralysis trying to come up with the perfect abstraction that would stand all time.  Nearly without fail, all of these pieces of code become obsolete in a matter of months or years. It’s not that I don’t like reuse – it’s just that reuse is hard.  In fact, reuse is DAMN hard.  Many times it is just a distraction that eats up architect and developer time, and worse yet can be counter-productive and force wrong decisions.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of reusable code when it makes sense.  These are in the few cases where you are designing something that is inherently reusable.  The problem is, most business-class code is inherently unfit for reuse! Furthermore, the code that is reusable will often fail to be reused if you don’t have the proper framework in place for effective reuse that includes standardized versioning, building, releasing, and documenting the components.  That should always be standard across the board when promoting reusable code.  All of this is hard, and it should only be done when you have code that is truly reusable or you will be exerting a large amount of development effort for very little bang for your buck. But my goal here is not to get into how to reuse (that is a topic unto itself) but what should be reused.  First, let’s look at an extension method.  There’s many times where I want to kick off a thread to handle a task, then when I want to reign that thread in of course I want to do a Join on it.  But what if I only want to wait a limited amount of time and then Abort?  Well, I could of course write that logic out by hand each time, but it seemed like a great extension method: 1: public static class ThreadExtensions 2: { 3: public static bool JoinOrAbort(this Thread thread, TimeSpan timeToWait) 4: { 5: bool isJoined = false; 6:  7: if (thread != null) 8: { 9: isJoined = thread.Join(timeToWait); 10:  11: if (!isJoined) 12: { 13: thread.Abort(); 14: } 15: } 16: return isJoined; 17: } 18: } 19:  When I look at this code, I can immediately see things that jump out at me as reasons why this code is very reusable.  Some of them are standard OO principles, and some are kind-of home grown litmus tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The only reason this extension method need change is if the Thread class itself changes (one responsibility). Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method only depends on classes that are more stable than it is (System.Threading.Thread), and in itself is very stable, hence other classes may safely depend on it. It is also not dependent on any business domain, and thus isn't subject to changes as the business itself changes. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is inherently closed to change. Small and Stable Problem Domain – This method only cares about System.Threading.Thread. All-or-None Usage – A user of a reusable class should want the functionality of that class, not parts of that functionality.  That’s not to say they most use every method, but they shouldn’t be using a method just to get half of its result. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – since this class is highly stable and minimally complex, we can offer it up for reuse very cheaply by promoting it as “ready-to-go” and already unit tested (important!) and available through a standard release cycle (very important!). Okay, all seems good there, now lets look at an entity and DAO.  I don’t know about you all, but there have been times I’ve been in organizations that get the grand idea that all DAOs and entities should be standardized and shared.  While this may work for small or static organizations, it’s near ludicrous for anything large or volatile. 1: namespace Shared.Entities 2: { 3: public class Account 4: { 5: public int Id { get; set; } 6:  7: public string Name { get; set; } 8:  9: public Address HomeAddress { get; set; } 10:  11: public int Age { get; set;} 12:  13: public DateTime LastUsed { get; set; } 14:  15: // etc, etc, etc... 16: } 17: } 18:  19: ... 20:  21: namespace Shared.DataAccess 22: { 23: public class AccountDao 24: { 25: public Account FindAccount(int id) 26: { 27: // dao logic to query and return account 28: } 29:  30: ... 31:  32: } 33: } Now to be fair, I’m not saying there doesn’t exist an organization where some entites may be extremely static and unchanging.  But at best such entities and DAOs will be problematic cases of reuse.  Let’s examine those same tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The reasons to change for these classes will be strongly dependent on what the definition of the account is which can change over time and may have multiple influences depending on the number of systems an account can cover. Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method depends on the data model beneath itself which also is largely dependent on the business definition of an account which can be very inherently unstable. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is not really closed for modification.  Every time the account definition may change, you’d need to modify this class. Small and Stable Problem Domain – The definition of an account is inherently unstable and in fact may be very large.  What if you are designing a system that aggregates account information from several sources? All-or-None Usage – What if your view of the account encompasses data from 3 different sources but you only care about one of those sources or one piece of data?  Should you have to take the hit of looking up all the other data?  On the other hand, should you have ten different methods returning portions of data in chunks people tend to ask for?  Neither is really a great solution. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – DAOs are really trivial to rewrite, and unless your definition of an account is EXTREMELY stable, the cost to promote, support, and release a reusable account entity and DAO are usually far higher than the cost to recreate as needed. It’s no accident that my case for reuse was a utility class and my case for non-reuse was an entity/DAO.  In general, the smaller and more stable an abstraction is, the higher its level of reuse.  When I became the lead of the Shared Components Committee at my workplace, one of the original goals we looked at satisfying was to find (or create), version, release, and promote a shared library of common utility classes, frameworks, and data access objects.  Now, of course, many of you will point to nHibernate and Entity for the latter, but we were looking at larger, macro collections of data that span multiple data sources of varying types (databases, web services, etc). As we got deeper and deeper in the details of how to manage and release these items, it quickly became apparent that while the case for reuse was typically a slam dunk for utilities and frameworks, the data access objects just didn’t “smell” right.  We ended up having session after session of design meetings to try and find the right way to share these data access components. When someone asked me why it was taking so long to iron out the shared entities, my response was quite simple, “Reuse is hard...”  And that’s when I realized, that while reuse is an awesome goal and we should strive to make code maintainable, often times you end up creating far more work for yourself than necessary by trying to force code to be reusable that inherently isn’t. Think about classes the times you’ve worked in a company where in the design session people fight over the best way to implement a class to make it maximally reusable, extensible, and any other buzzwordable.  Then think about how quickly that design became obsolete.  Many times I set out to do a project and think, “yes, this is the best design, I can extend it easily!” only to find out the business requirements change COMPLETELY in such a way that the design is rendered invalid.  Code, in general, tends to rust and age over time.  As such, writing reusable code can often be difficult and many times ends up being a futile exercise and worse yet, sometimes makes the code harder to maintain because it obfuscates the design in the name of extensibility or reusability. So what do I think are reusable components? Generic Utility classes – these tend to be small classes that assist in a task and have no business context whatsoever. Implementation Abstraction Frameworks – home-grown frameworks that try to isolate changes to third party products you may be depending on (like writing a messaging abstraction layer for publishing/subscribing that is independent of whether you use JMS, MSMQ, etc). Simplification and Uniformity Frameworks – To some extent this is similar to an abstraction framework, but there may be one chosen provider but a development shop mandate to perform certain complex items in a certain way.  Or, perhaps to simplify and dumb-down a complex task for the average developer (such as implementing a particular development-shop’s method of encryption). And what are less reusable? Application and Business Layers – tend to fluctuate a lot as requirements change and new features are added, so tend to be an unstable dependency.  May be reused across applications but also very volatile. Entities and Data Access Layers – these tend to be tuned to the scope of the application, so reusing them can be hard unless the abstract is very stable. So what’s the big lesson?  Reuse is hard.  In fact it’s damn hard.  And much of the time I’m not convinced we should focus too hard on it. If you’re designing a utility or framework, then by all means design it for reuse.  But you most also really set down a good versioning, release, and documentation process to maximize your chances.  For anything else, design it to be maintainable and extendable, but don’t waste the effort on reusability for something that most likely will be obsolete in a year or two anyway.

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• [C++] Producer/Consumer Implementation -- Feedback Wanted

  - by bobber205

  I'm preparing for an interview in a few weeks and I thougth I would give threads in boost a go, as well as do the simple producer/consumer problem I learned in school. Haven't done it quite awhile so I was curious what you guys think of this? What should I add to make it a better example etc. Thanks for the feedback! :) ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// boost::mutex bufferMutex; deque<int> buffer; const int maxBufferSize = 5; ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// bool AddToBuffer(int i) { if (buffer.size() < maxBufferSize) { buffer.push_back(i); return true; } else { return false; } } bool GetFromBuffer(int& toReturn) { if (buffer.size() == 0) { return false; } else { toReturn = buffer[buffer.size()-1]; buffer.pop_back(); return true; } } struct Producer { int ID; void operator()() { while (true) { boost::mutex::scoped_lock lock(bufferMutex); int num = dice(); bool result = AddToBuffer(num); lock.unlock(); //safe area done if (result) { cout << "Producer " << this->ID << " Added " << num << endl; } else { cout << "!!Buffer was Full!!" << endl; } //Added //Now wait boost::xtime xt; xtime_get( &xt, boost::TIME_UTC); xt.nsec += 1000000 + 100000 * (rand() % 1000); boost::thread::sleep(xt); } } }; struct Consumer { int ID; void operator()() { while (true) { int returnedInt = 0; boost::mutex::scoped_lock lock(bufferMutex); bool result = GetFromBuffer(returnedInt); lock.unlock(); //safe area done if (result) { cout << "\tConsumer " << this->ID << " Took Out " << returnedInt << endl; } else { cout << "!!Buffer was Empty!!" << endl; } //Added //Now wait boost::xtime xt; xtime_get( &xt, boost::TIME_UTC); xt.nsec += 1000000 + 100000 * (rand() % 1000); boost::thread::sleep(xt); } } }; void main() { Producer p, p2; Consumer c, c2; p.ID = 1; p2.ID = 2; c.ID = 1; c2.ID = 2; boost::thread thread1(boost::ref(p)); boost::thread thread2(boost::ref(c)); boost::thread thread3(boost::ref(p2)); boost::thread thread4(boost::ref(c2)); int x; cin >> x; }

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• Skanska Builds Global Workforce Insight with Cloud-Based HCM System

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By David Baum - Originally posted on Profit Peter Bjork grew up building things. He started his work life learning all sorts of trades at his father’s construction company in the northern part of Sweden. So in college, it was natural for him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering—but he broke new ground when he added a master’s degree in finance to his curriculum vitae. Written on a traditional résumé, Bjork’s current title (vice president of information systems strategies) doesn’t reveal the diversity of his experience—that he’s adept with hammer and nails as well as rows and columns. But a big part of his current job is to work with his counterparts in human resources (HR) designing, building, and deploying the systems needed to get a complete view of the skills and potential of Skanska’s 22,000-strong white-collar workforce. And Bjork believes that complete view is essential to Skanska’s success. “Our business is really all about people,” says Bjork, who has worked with Skanska for 16 years. “You can have equipment and financial resources, but to truly succeed in a business like ours you need to have the right people in the right places. That’s what this system is helping us accomplish.” In a global HR environment that suffers from a paradox of high unemployment and a scarcity of skilled labor, managers need to have a complete understanding of workforce capabilities to develop management skills, recruit for open positions, ensure that staff is getting the training they need, and reduce attrition. Skanska’s human capital management (HCM) systems, based on Oracle Talent Management Cloud, play a critical role delivering that understanding. “Skanska’s philosophy of having great people, encouraging their development, and giving them the chance to move across business units has nurtured a culture of collaboration, but managing a diverse workforce spread across the globe is a monumental challenge,” says Annika Lindholm, global human resources system owner in the HR department at Skanska’s headquarters just outside of Stockholm, Sweden. “We depend heavily on Oracle’s cloud technology to support our HCM function.” Construction, Workers For Skanska’s more than 60,000 employees and contractors, managing huge construction projects is an everyday job. Beyond erecting signature buildings, management’s goal is to build a corporate culture where valuable talent can be sought out and developed, bringing in the right mix of people to support and grow the business. “Of all the companies in our space, Skanska is probably one of the strongest ones, with a laser focus on people and people development,” notes Tom Crane, chief HR and communications officer for Skanska in the United States. “Our business looks like equipment and material, but all we really have at the end of the day are people and their intellectual capital. Without them, second only to clients, of course, you really can’t achieve great things in the high-profile environment in which we work.” During the 1990s, Skanska entered an expansive growth phase. A string of successful acquisitions paved the way for the company’s transformation into a global enterprise. “Today the company’s focus is on profitable growth,” continues Crane. “But you can’t really achieve growth unless you are doing a very good job of developing your people and having the right people in the right places and driving a culture of growth.” In the United States alone, Skanska has more than 8,000 employees in four distinct business units: Skanska USA Building, also known as the Construction Manager, builds everything at ground level and above—hospitals, educational facilities, stadiums, airport terminals, and other massive projects. Skanska USA Civil does everything at ground level and below, such as light rail, water treatment facilities, power plants or power industry facilities, highways, and bridges. Skanska Infrastructure Development develops public-private partnerships—projects in which Skanska adds equity and also arranges for outside financing. Skanska Commercial Development acts like a commercial real estate developer, acquiring land and building offices on spec or build-to-suit for its clients. Skanska's international portfolio includes construction of the new Meadowlands Stadium. Getting the various units to operate collaboratatively helps Skanska deliver high value to clients and shareholders. “When we have this collaboration among units, it allows us to enrich each of the business units and, at the same time, develop our future leaders to be more facile in operating across business units—more accepting of a ‘one Skanska’ approach,” explains Crane. Workforce Worldwide But HR needs processes and tools to support managers who face such business dynamics. Oracle Talent Management Cloud is helping Skanska implement world-class recruiting strategies and generate the insights needed to drive quality hiring practices, internal mobility, and a proactive approach to building talent pipelines. With their new cloud system in place, Skanska HR leaders can manage everything from recruiting, compensation, and goal and performance management to employee learning and talent review—all as part of a single, cohesive software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment. Skanska has successfully implemented two modules from Oracle Talent Management Cloud—the recruiting and performance management modules—and is in the process of implementing the learn module. Internally, they call the systems Skanska Recruit, Skanska Talent, and Skanska Learn. The timing is apropos. With high rates of unemployment in recent years, there have been many job candidates on the market. However, talent scarcity continues to frustrate recruiters. Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud Service, one of the applications in the Oracle Talent Management cloud portfolio, enables Skanska managers to create more-intelligent recruiting strategies, pulling high-performer profile statistics to create new candidate profiles and using multitiered screening and assessments to ensure that only the best-suited candidate applications make it to the recruiter’s desk. Tools such as applicant tracking, interview management, and requisition management help recruiters and hiring managers streamline the hiring process. Oracle’s cloud-based software system automates and streamlines many other HR processes for Skanska’s multinational organization and delivers insight into the success of recruiting and talent-management efforts. “The Oracle system is definitely helping us to construct global HR processes,” adds Bjork. “It is really important that we have a business model that is decentralized, so we can effectively serve our local markets, and interact with our global ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems as well. We would not be able to do this without a really good, well-integrated HCM system that could support these efforts.” A key piece of this effort is something Skanska has developed internally called the Skanska Leadership Profile. Core competencies, on which all employees are measured, are used in performance reviews to determine weak areas but also to discover talent, such as those who will be promoted or need succession plans. This global profiling system brings consistency to the way HR professionals evaluate and review talent across the company, with a consistent set of ratings and a consistent definition of competencies. All salaried employees in Skanska are tied to a talent management process that gives opportunity for midyear and year-end reviews. Using the performance management module, managers can align individual goals with corporate goals; provide clear visibility into how each employee contributes to the success of the organization; and drive a strategic, end-to-end talent management strategy with a single, integrated system for all talent-related activities. This is critical to a company that is highly focused on ensuring that every employee has a development plan linked to his or her succession potential. “Our approach all along has been to deploy software applications that are seamless to end users,” says Crane. “The beauty of a cloud-based system is that much of the functionality takes place behind the scenes so we can focus on making sure users can access the data when they need it. This model greatly improves their efficiency.” The employee profile not only sets a competency baseline for new employees but is also integrated with Skanska’s other back-office Oracle systems to ensure consistency in the way information is used to support other business functions. “Since we have about a dozen different HR systems that are providing us with information, we built a master database that collects all the information,” explains Lindholm. “That data is sent not only to Oracle Talent Management Cloud, but also to other systems that are dependent on this information.” Collaboration to Scale Skanska is poised to launch a new Oracle module to link employee learning plans to the review process and recruitment assessments. According to Crane, connecting these processes allows Skanska managers to see employees’ progress and produce an updated learning program. For example, as employees take classes, supervisors can consult the Oracle Talent Management Cloud portal to monitor progress and align it to each individual’s training and development plan. “That’s a pretty compelling solution for an organization that wants to manage its talent on a real-time basis and see how the training is working,” Crane says. Rolling out Oracle Talent Management Cloud was a joint effort among HR, IT, and a global group that oversaw the worldwide implementation. Skanska deployed the solution quickly across all markets at once. In the United States, for example, more than 35 offices quickly got up to speed on the new system via webinars for employees and face-to-face training for the HR group. “With any migration, there are moments when you hold your breath, but in this case, we had very few problems getting the system up and running,” says Crane. Lindholm adds, “There has been very little resistance to the system as users recognize its potential. Customizations are easy, and a lasting partnership has developed between Skanska and Oracle when help is needed. They listen to us.” Bjork elaborates on the implementation process from an IT perspective. “Deploying a SaaS system removes a lot of the complexity,” he says. “You can downsize the IT part and focus on the business part, which increases the probability of a successful implementation. If you want to scale the system, you make a quick phone call. That’s all it took recently when we added 4,000 users. We didn’t have to think about resizing the servers or hiring more IT people. Oracle does that for us, and they have provided very good support.” As a result, Skanska has been able to implement a single, cost-effective talent management solution across the organization to support its strategy to recruit and develop a world-class staff. Stakeholders are confident that they are providing the most efficient recruitment system possible for competent personnel at all levels within the company—from skilled workers at construction sites to top management at headquarters. And Skanska can retain skilled employees and ensure that they receive the development opportunities they need to grow and advance.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, July 18, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, July 18, 2013Popular ReleasesCircuit Diagram: Circuit Diagram 2.0 Beta 2: New in this release: Show grid in editor Cut/copy/paste support Bug fixesBetter Network: Better Network v1.0.1: v1.0.1 - Patch Changelog - Fixed app crashed when trying to delete - Hopefully fix other crashes as well :DCommunity TFS Build Extensions: July 2013: The July 2013 release contains VS2010 Activities(target .NET 4.0) VS2012 Activities (target .NET 4.5) VS2013 Activities (target .NET 4.5.1) Community TFS Build Manager VS2012 The Community TFS Build Manager can also be found in the Visual Studio Gallery here where updates will first become available. A version supporting VS2010 is also available in the Gallery here.Open Url Rewriter for DotNetNuke: Open Url Rewriter Core 0.4.2 (Beta): buf fix for removing home page separate version for DNN 7.1 (in advanced mode with custom url)#Zyan Communication Framework: Zyan 2.5: Zyan 2.5 NuGet package Project descriptionZyan is an easy to use distributed application framework for .NET, Mono and Android. With Zyan you can publish any .NET class for remote access over network. [en] What's new in Zyan 2.5: Android platform support via Mono for Android (#1828) Tested with Mono for Android v4.7.9, should work on stable v4.6.x The following restrictions apply to Android version of the library: Only duplex TCP channel is supported MEF integration is not available Re...Install Verify Tool: Install Verify Tool V 1.0: Win Service Web Service Win Service Client Web Service ClientOrchard Project: Orchard 1.7 RC: Planning releasedTerminals: Version 3.1 - Release: Changes since version 3.0:15992 Unified usage of icons in user interface Added context menu in Organize favorites grid Fixed:34219 34210 34223 33981 34209 Install notes:No changes in database (use database from release 3.0) No upgrade of configuration, passwords, credentials or favorites See also upgrade notes for release 3.0WatchersNET.SiteMap: WatchersNE​T.SiteMap 01.03.08: changes Localized Tab Name is now usedGoAgent GUI: GoAgent GUI 1.1.0 ???: ???????，??????????????，?????????????? ???????? ????： 1．1．0? ??? ?????????? ????????? ??：??cn/hk????，?????????????????????。Hosts??????google_hk。Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.573b: XBMC Link - Let MC update your XBMC Library Fixes in place, Enjoy the XBMC Link function Well, Phil's been busy in the background, and come up with a Great new feature for Media Companion. Currently only implemented for movies. Once we're happy that's working with no issues, we'll extend the functionality to include TV shows. All the help for this is build into the application. Go to General Preferences - XBMC Link for details. Help us make it better* Currently only tested on local and ...Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.2.1307.15: Fix a bug where WPP crash if 'ShowPendingUpdates' is start with wrong credentials. Fix a bug where WPP crash if ArrivalDateAfter and ArrivalDateBefore is equal in the ComputerView. Add a filter in the ComputerView. (Thanks to NorbertFe for this feature request) Add an option, when right-clicking on a computer, you can ask for display the current logon user of the remote computer. Add an option in settings to choose if WPP ping remote computers using IPv4, IPv6 or IPv6 and, if fail, IP...Lab Of Things: vBeta1: Initial release of LoTVidCoder: 1.4.23: New in 1.4.23 Added French translation. Fixed non-x264 video encoders not sticking in video tab. New in 1.4 Updated HandBrake core to 0.9.9 Blu-ray subtitle (PGS) support Additional framerates: 30, 50, 59.94, 60 Additional sample rates: 8, 11.025, 12 and 16 kHz Additional higher bitrates for audio Same as Source Constant Framerate 24-bit FLAC encoding Added Windows Phone 8 and Apple TV 3 presets Introduced process isolation for encodes. Now if HandBrake crashes, VidCoder will ...TBox - tool to make developer's life easier.: TBox 1.021: 1)Add console unit tests runner, to run unit tests in parallel from console. Also this new sub tool can save valid xml nunit report. It can help you in continuous integration. 2)Fix build scripts.LifeInSharepoint Modern UI Update: Version 2: Some minor improvements, including Audience Targeting support for quick launch links. Also removing all NextDocs references.Virtual Photonics: VTS MATLAB Package 1.0.13 Beta: This is the beta release of the MATLAB package with examples of using the VTS libraries within MATLAB. Changes for this release: Added two new examples to vts_solver_demo.m that: 1) generates and plots R(lambda) at a given rho, and chromophore concentrations assuming a power law for scattering, and 2) solves inverse problem for R(lambda) at given rho. This example solves for concentrations of HbO2, Hb and H20 given simulated measurements created using Nurbs scaled Monte Carlo and inverted u...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.96: Fix for issue #19957: EXE should output the name of the file(s) being minified. Discussion #449181: throw a Sev-2 warning when trailing commas are detected on an Array literal. Perfectly legal to do so, but the behavior ends up working differently on different browsers, so throw a cross-browser warning. Add a few more known global names for improved ES6 compatibility update Nuget package to version 2.5 and automatically add the AjaxMin.targets to your project when you update the package...Outlook 2013 Add-In: Categories and Colors: This new version has a major change in the drawing of the list items: - Using owner drawn code to format the appointments using GDI (some flickering may occur, but it looks a little bit better IMHO, with separate sections). - Added category color support (if more than one category, only one color will be shown). Here, the colors Outlook uses are slightly different than the ones available in System.Drawing, so I did a first approach matching. ;-) - Added appointment status support (to show fr...Columbus Remote Desktop: 2.0 Sapphire: Added configuration settings Added update notifications Added ability to disable GPU acceleration Fixed connection bugsNew ProjectsAdvGenReader: This project is to build a user friendly RSS reader. We are aimed to use WPF for this project.Arroguella: A C# roguelike where anything can happen!CodedUITestExtensions: The project delivers a collection of extensions for CodedUITest.Data UYS System: Production system will be developed.Evolved Walker: A GA project where a physically simulated "Walker" is evolved to travel the longest distance it can.FH Intranet Parser: Parses the grades page of the FH Wiener Neustadt intranet page and reports any new grades.Gauss Numeric Integrator: C# implementation of numerical integration by Gaussian Quadrature.googleprep: Google interview preparations.JMA TFS Archive: TFS Test ProjectJMA TFS NEW: Test projectKill CRM Plugin: Removes a plugin from a Dynamics CRM 2011 database.Kimmo: Collection of source code libraries to help my development projects.Kinect Powerpoint Mapper: Use the Kinect sensor to drive your powerpoint presentation. Change the config file if you'd like to use this keystroke mapper with other applications.Koala.JiraTool: Jira????。Lumi: Lumi is a light based platformer engine based on Neat Game Engine for XNA. Features: Dynamic lighting and shadow system, level builder, console and scripting.MCSD Web Developer: MCSD: Web Applications Certification This is the repository for all the documents, presentations, information, projects and material for the certification.MindReader: It is game using some logic to develop thisNightskyMimic: Ai for Magic: The Gathering PlayerNoBlackWallpaper: Auto set and update bing image as wallpaperPersian FoxPro DBF viewer for .NET: Many legacy systems used FoxPro in Iran. This component allows data stored in DBF files to be read by .NET, including the necessary Farsi codepage conversions.PostEdit: Taringa!/Poringa! Post Editorprakark07172013Git01: *bold* _italics_ +underline+ ! Heading 1 !! Heading 2 * Bullet List ** Bullet List 2 # Number List ## Number List 2 [another wiki page] [url:http://www.example.prakark07172013tfs01: *bold* _italics_ +underline+ ! Heading 1 !! Heading 2 * Bullet List ** Bullet List 2 # Number List ## Number List 2 [another wiki page] [url:http://www.example.prakark07172015Hg01: *bold* _italics_ +underline+ ! Heading 1 !! Heading 2 * Bullet List ** Bullet List 2 # Number List ## Number List 2 [another wiki page] [url:http://www.example.Storyboard application: The Storyboard is an application that allows to model the different elements of a story to better structure it.System.Linq.Dynamic: Extends System.Linq.Dynamic to support Execution of Lambda expressions defined in a string against Entity Framework or any provider that supports IQueryable.Test Automation Data Manager: MVC4 application with SQLServer 2008 back end to manage test automation data.testdd07172013tfs01: dThe Monack Framework: MonackFr is an open source framework. By developing new or combining existing modules you will be able to create tailor made web softwareYAPI (Youtube API): You can do anything and play anymore youtube channel, playlist, video with YAPI

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• One letter game problem?

  - by Alex K

  Recently at a job interview I was given the following problem: Write a script capable of running on the command line as python It should take in two words on the command line (or optionally if you'd prefer it can query the user to supply the two words via the console). Given those two words: a. Ensure they are of equal length b. Ensure they are both words present in the dictionary of valid words in the English language that you downloaded. If so compute whether you can reach the second word from the first by a series of steps as follows a. You can change one letter at a time b. Each time you change a letter the resulting word must also exist in the dictionary c. You cannot add or remove letters If the two words are reachable, the script should print out the path which leads as a single, shortest path from one word to the other. You can /usr/share/dict/words for your dictionary of words. My solution consisted of using breadth first search to find a shortest path between two words. But apparently that wasn't good enough to get the job :( Would you guys know what I could have done wrong? Thank you so much. import collections import functools import re def time_func(func): import time def wrapper(*args, **kwargs): start = time.time() res = func(*args, **kwargs) timed = time.time() - start setattr(wrapper, 'time_taken', timed) return res functools.update_wrapper(wrapper, func) return wrapper class OneLetterGame: def __init__(self, dict_path): self.dict_path = dict_path self.words = set() def run(self, start_word, end_word): '''Runs the one letter game with the given start and end words. ''' assert len(start_word) == len(end_word), \ 'Start word and end word must of the same length.' self.read_dict(len(start_word)) path = self.shortest_path(start_word, end_word) if not path: print 'There is no path between %s and %s (took %.2f sec.)' % ( start_word, end_word, find_shortest_path.time_taken) else: print 'The shortest path (found in %.2f sec.) is:\n=> %s' % ( self.shortest_path.time_taken, ' -- '.join(path)) def _bfs(self, start): '''Implementation of breadth first search as a generator. The portion of the graph to explore is given on demand using get_neighboors. Care was taken so that a vertex / node is explored only once. ''' queue = collections.deque([(None, start)]) inqueue = set([start]) while queue: parent, node = queue.popleft() yield parent, node new = set(self.get_neighbours(node)) - inqueue inqueue = inqueue | new queue.extend([(node, child) for child in new]) @time_func def shortest_path(self, start, end): '''Returns the shortest path from start to end using bfs. ''' assert start in self.words, 'Start word not in dictionnary.' assert end in self.words, 'End word not in dictionnary.' paths = {None: []} for parent, child in self._bfs(start): paths[child] = paths[parent] + [child] if child == end: return paths[child] return None def get_neighbours(self, word): '''Gets every word one letter away from the a given word. We do not keep these words in memory because bfs accesses a given vertex only once. ''' neighbours = [] p_word = ['^' + word[0:i] + '\w' + word[i+1:] + '$' for i, w in enumerate(word)] p_word = '|'.join(p_word) for w in self.words: if w != word and re.match(p_word, w, re.I|re.U): neighbours += [w] return neighbours def read_dict(self, size): '''Loads every word of a specific size from the dictionnary into memory. ''' for l in open(self.dict_path): l = l.decode('latin-1').strip().lower() if len(l) == size: self.words.add(l) if __name__ == '__main__': import sys if len(sys.argv) not in [3, 4]: print 'Usage: python one_letter_game.py start_word end_word' else: g = OneLetterGame(dict_path = '/usr/share/dict/words') try: g.run(*sys.argv[1:]) except AssertionError, e: print e

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• Clean Code Development & Flexible work environment - MSCC 26.10.2013

  Finally, some spare time to summarize my impressions and experiences of the recent meetup of Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community. I already posted my comment on the event and on our social media networks: Professional - It's getting better with our meetups and I really appreciated that 'seniors' and 'juniors' were present today. Despite running a little bit out of time it was really great to see more students coming to the gathering. This time we changed location for our Saturday meetup and it worked out very well. A big thank you to Ebene Accelerator, namely Mrs Poonum, for the ability to use their meeting rooms for our community get-together. Already some weeks ago I had a very pleasant conversation with her about the MSCC aims, 'mission' and how we organise things. Additionally, I think that an environment like the Ebene Accelerator is a good choice as it acts as an incubator for young developers and start-ups. Reactions from other craftsmen Before I put my thoughts about our recent meeting down, I'd like to mention and cross-link to some of the other craftsmen that were present: "MSCC meet up is a massive knowledge gaining strategies for students, future entrepreneurs, or for geeks all around. Knowledge sharing becomes a fun. For those who have not been able to made it do subscribe on our MSCC meet up group at meetup.com." -- Nitin on Learning is fun with #MSCC #Ebene Accelerator "We then talked about the IT industry in Mauritius, salary issues in various field like system administration, software development etc. We analysed the reasons why people tend to hop from one company to another. That was a fun debate." -- Ish on MSCC meetup - Gang of Geeks "Flexible Learning Environment was quite interesting since these lines struck cords : "You're not a secretary....9 to 5 shouldn't suit you"....This allowed reflection...deep reflection....especially regarding the local mindset...which should be changed in a way which would promote creativity rather than choking it till death..." -- Yannick on 2nd MSCC Monthly Meet-up And others on Facebook... ;-) Visual impressions are available on our Meetup event page. More first time attendees We great pleasure I noticed that we have once again more first time visitors. A quick overlook showed that we had a majority of UoM students in first, second or last year. Some of them are already participating in the UoM Computer Club or are nominated as members of the Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) programme. Personally, I really appreciate the fact that the MSCC is able to gather such a broad audience. And as I wrote initially, the MSCC is technology-agnostic; we want IT people from any segment of this business. Of course, students which are about to delve into the 'real world' of working are highly welcome, and I hope that they might get one or other glimpse of experience or advice from employees. Sticking to the schedule? No, not really... And honestly, it was a good choice to go a little bit of the beaten tracks. I mean, yes we have a 'rough' agenda of topics that we would like to talk about or having a presentation about. But we keep it 'agile'. Due to the high number of new faces, we initiated another quick round of introductions and I gave a really brief overview of the MSCC. Next, we started to reflect on the Clean Code Developer (CCD) - Red Grade which we introduced on the last meetup. Nirvan was the lucky one and he did a good job on summarizing the various abbreviations of the first level of being a CCD. Actually, more interesting, we exchanged experience about the principles and practices of Red Grade, and it was very informative to get to know that Yann actually 'interviewed' a couple of friends, other students, local guys working in IT companies as well as some IT friends from India in order to counter-check on what he learned first-hand about Clean Code. Currently, he is reading the book of Robert C. Martin on that topic and I'm looking forward to his review soon. More output generates more input What seems to be like a personal mantra is working out pretty well for me since the beginning of this year. Being more active on social media networks, writing more article on my blog, starting the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community, and contributing more to other online communities has helped me to receive more project requests, job offers and possibilities to expand my business at IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. Actually, it is not a coincidence that one of the questions new craftsmen should answer during registration asks about having a personal blog. Whether you are just curious about IT, right in the middle of your Computer Studies, or already working in software development or system administration since a while you should consider to advertise and market yourself online. Easiest way to resolve this are to have online profiles on professional social media networks like LinkedIn, Xing, Twitter, and Google+ (no Facebook should be considered for private only), and considering to have a personal blog. Why? -- Be yourself, be proud of your work, and let other people know that you're passionate about your profession. Trust me, this is going to open up opportunities you might not have dreamt about... Exchanging ideas about having a professional online presence - MSCC meetup on the 26th October 2013 Furthermore, consider to put your Curriculum Vitae online, too. There are quite a number of service providers like 1ClickCV, Stack Overflow Careers 2.0, etc. which give you the ability to have an up to date CV online. At least put it on your site, next to your personal blog. Similar to what you would be able to see on my site here. Cyber Island Mauritius - are we there? A couple of weeks ago I got a 'cold' message on LinkedIn from someone living in the U.S. asking about the circumstances and conditions of the IT world of Mauritius. He has a great business idea, venture capital and is currently looking for a team of software developers (mainly mobile - iOS) for a new startup here in Mauritius. Since then we exchanged quite some details through private messages and Skype conversations, and I suggested that it might be a good chance to join our meetup through a conference call and see for yourself about potential candidates. During approximately 30 to 40 minutes the brief idea of the new startup was presented - very promising state-of-the-art technology aspects and integration of various public APIs -, and we had a good Q&A session about it. Also thanks to the excellent bandwidth provided by the Ebene Accelerator the video conference between three parties went absolutely well. Clean Code Developer - Orange Grade Hahaha - nice one... Being at the Orange Tower at Ebene and then talking about an Orange Grade as CCD. Well, once again I provided an overview of the principles and practices in that rank of Clean Code, and similar to our last meetup we discussed on the various aspect of each principle, whether someone already got in touch with it during studies or work, and how it could affect their future view on their source code. Following are the principles and practices of Clean Code Developer - Orange Grade: CCD Orange Grade - Principles Single Level of Abstraction (SLA) Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) Separation of Concerns (SoC) Source Code conventions CCD Orange Grade - Practices Issue Tracking Automated Integration Tests Reading, Reading, Reading Reviews Especially the part on reading technical books got some extra attention. We quickly gathered our views on that and came up with a result that ranges between Zero (0) and up to Fifteen (15) book titles per year. Personally, I'm keeping my progress between Six (6) and Eight (8) titles per year, but at least One (1) per quarter of a year. Which is also connected to the fact that I'm participating in the O'Reilly Reader Review Program and have a another benefit to get access to free books only by writing and publishing a review afterwards. We also had a good exchange on the extended topic of 'Reviews' - which to my opinion is abnormal difficult here in Mauritius for various reasons. As far as I can tell from my experience working with Mauritian software developers, either as colleagues, employees or during consulting services there are unfortunately two dominant pattern on that topic: Keeping quiet Running away Honestly, I have no evidence about why these are the two 'solutions' on reviews but that's the situation that I had to face over the last couple of years. Sitting together and talking about problematic issues, tackling down root causes of de-motivational activities and working on general improvements doesn't seem to have a ground within the IT world of Mauritius. Are you a typist or a creative software craftsman? - MSCC meetup on the 26th October 2013 One very good example that we talked about was the fact of 'job hoppers' as you can easily observe it on someone's CV - those people change job every single year; for no obvious reason! Frankly speaking, I wouldn't even consider an IT person like to for an interview. As a company you're investing money and effort into the abilities of your employees. Hiring someone that won't stay for a longer period is out of question. And sorry to say, these kind of IT guys smell fishy about their capabilities and more likely to cause problems than actually produce productive results. One of the reasons why there is a probation period on an employment contract is to give you the liberty to leave as early as possible in case that you don't like your new position. Don't fool yourself or waste other people's time and money by hanging around a full year only to snatch off the bonus payment... Future outlook: Developer's Conference Even though it is not official yet I already mentioned it several times during our weekly Code & Coffee sessions. The MSCC is looking forward to be able to organise or to contribute to an upcoming IT event. Currently, the rough schedule is set for April 2014 but this mainly depends on availability of location(s), a decent time frame for preparations, and the underlying procedures with public bodies to have it approved and so on. As soon as the information about date and location has been fixed there will be a 'Call for Papers' period in order to attract local IT enthusiasts to apply for a session slot and talk about their field of work and their passion in IT. More to come for sure... My resume of the day It was a great gathering and I am very pleased about the fact that we had another 15 craftsmen (plus 2 businessmen on conference call plus 2 young apprentices) in the same room, talking about IT related topics and sharing their experience as employees and students. Personally, I really appreciated the feedback from the students about their current view on their future career, and I really hope that some of them are going to pursue their dreams. Start promoting yourself and it will happen... Looking forward to your blogs! And last but not least our numbers on Meetup and Facebook have been increased as a direct consequence of this meetup. Please, spread the word about the MSCC and get your friends and colleagues to join our official site. The higher the number of craftsmen we have the better chances we have t achieve something great! Thanks!

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• Form Loop Error

  - by JM4

  I have a form which loops if the value indicated is less than or equal the number of 'enrollee's needed. The while loop works perfectly with one exception, I use DOB fields which ALSO use FOR loops to display their values. If I remove the DOB fields, the form loop works fine, when left in, it errors out. Any ideas? <form id="Enroll_Form" action="<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post" name="Enroll_Form" > <?php $i=1; while ($i <= ($_SESSION['Num_Members'])): {?> <table class="demoTable"> <tr> <td>First Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1FirstName" value="<?php echo $fields['F1FirstName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Middle Initial: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1MI" size="2" maxlength="1" value="<?php echo $fields['F1MI']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Last Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1LastName" value="<?php echo $fields['F1LastName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Federation No: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1FedNum" maxlength="10" value="<?php echo $fields['F1FedNum']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>SSN: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1SSN1" size="3" maxlength="3" value="<?php echo $fields['F1SSN1']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F1SSN2" size="2" maxlength="2" value="<?php echo $fields['F1SSN2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F1SSN3" size="4" maxlength="4" value="<?php echo $fields['F1SSN3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Date of Birth</td> <td> <select name="F1DOB1"> <option value="">Month</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=12; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F1DOB1"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F1DOB2"> <option value="">Day</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=31; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F1DOB2"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F1DOB3"> <option value="">Year</option> <?php for ($i=date('Y'); $i>=1900; $i--) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F1DOB3"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Address: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1Address" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Address']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>City: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1City" value="<?php echo $fields['F1City']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>State: </td> <td><select name="F1State"><option value="">Choose a State</option><?php showOptionsDrop($states_arr, null, true); ?></select></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Zip Code: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1Zip" size="6" maxlength="5" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Zip']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Contact Telephone No: </td> <td>( <input type="text" name="F1Phone1" size="3" maxlength="3" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Phone1']; ?>" /> ) <input type="text" name="F1Phone2" size="3" maxlength="3" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Phone2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F1Phone3" size="4" maxlength="4" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Phone3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Email:</td> <td><input type="text" name="F1Email" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Email']; ?>" /></td> </tr> </table> <br /> <?php } $i++; endwhile; ?> <div align="right"><input class="enrbutton" type="submit" name="submit" value="Continue" /></div> </form>

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• Php and Jquery Validation: with Jquery Form Plugin

  - by Jacinto

  Hi, This is the first time I have attempted to make a form using jquery and php. I used the folks over at Mid Mo Design as an example but even with that tutorial am still having trouble getting it to do what I want. This is the code I have been using. As well as jquery 1.4.1 and jQuery Form Plugin 2.43. Any help would be greatly appreciated. css scrollContact { border-top: double 1px #0D0D0D; padding: 100px 50px 50px 50px; background: #020303; position: relative; overflow: hidden; width: 924px; text-align: justify; } .contactInfo { float:left; width: 214px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; } contactForm { float: left; width: 700px; } contactForm span { float: left; margin:5px; width: 455px; } input, textarea { -moz-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; border:1px solid #001932; color:#BBBBBB; font:1.1em Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; background: #0A0A0A; } input:hover, textarea:hover { border:1px solid #0278f2; background: #242424; } contactForm span input { line-height:1.8em; width:430px; padding:11px 10px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 0px; } contactForm input { line-height:1.8em; width:200px; padding:11px 10px; margin: 5px; } contactForm textarea { height:190px; line-height:1.8em; width:430px; padding:10px; } .message { background:#eee; color:#000; display:none; padding:10px; height: 70px; position: absolute; bottom:0px; } Html Contact Navigate To: Work services about contact Get A Free Quote Thank you for your interest in contacting me. Please use the form to the right to contact me via email. I will respond to your inquiry as soon as possible. Please note all fields are required. What Next? Thank you for your interest in contacting me. Please use the form to the right to contact me via email. I will respond to your inquiry as soon as possible. Please note all fields are required. Your Message Php <?php $sendto = '[email protected]'; $subject = 'Contact from contact form'; $errormessage = 'Oops! There seems to have been a problem. May we suggest...'; $thanks = "Thanks for the email! We'll get back to you as soon as possible!"; $honeypot = "You filled in the honeypot! If you're human, try again!"; $emptyname = 'Entering your name?'; $emptyemail = 'Entering your email address?'; $emptytitle = 'Entering The Subject?'; $emptymessage = 'Entering a message?'; $alertname = 'Entering your name using only the standard alphabet?'; $alertemail = 'Entering your email in this format: [email protected]?'; $alerttitle = 'Entering the subject using only the standard alphabet?'; $alertmessage = "Making sure you aren't using any parenthesis or other escaping characters in the message? Most URLS are fine though!"; $alert = ''; $pass = 0; function clean_var($variable) { $variable = strip_tags(stripslashes(trim(rtrim($variable)))); return $variable; } if ( empty($_REQUEST['last']) ) { if ( empty($_REQUEST['contactName']) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $emptyname . ""; } elseif ( ereg( "[][{}()*+?.\^$|]", $_REQUEST['contactName'] ) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $alertname . ""; } if ( empty($_REQUEST['contactEmail']) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $emptyemail . ""; } elseif ( !eregi("^[_a-z0-9-]+(.[_a-z0-9-]+)@[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)(.[a-z]{2,3})$", $_REQUEST['contactEmail']) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $alertemail . ""; } if ( empty($_REQUEST['contactTitle']) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $emptytitle . ""; } elseif ( ereg( "[][{}()*+?.\^$|]", $_REQUEST['contactTitle'] ) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $alerttitle . ""; } if ( empty($_REQUEST['contactMessage']) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $emptymessage . ""; } elseif ( ereg( "[][{}()*+?\^$|]", $_REQUEST['contactMessage'] ) ) { $pass = 1; $alert .= "" . $alertmessage . ""; } if ( $pass==1 ) { echo "$(\".message\").hide(\"slow\").show(\"slow\"); "; echo "" . $errormessage . ""; echo ""; echo $alert; echo ""; } elseif (isset($_REQUEST['message'])) { $message = "From: " . clean_var($_REQUEST['contactName']) . "\n"; $message .= "Email: " . clean_var($_REQUEST['contactEmail']) . "\n"; $message .= "Telephone: " . clean_var($_REQUEST['contactTitle']) . "\n"; $message .= "Message: \n" . clean_var($_REQUEST['contactMessage']); $header = 'From:'. clean_var($_REQUEST['contactEmail']); mail($sendto, $subject, $message, $header); echo "$(\".message\").hide(\"slow\").show(\"slow\").animate({opacity: 1.0}, 4000).hide(\"slow\"); $(':input').clearForm() "; echo $thanks; die(); } } else { echo "$(\".message\").hide(\"slow\").show(\"slow\"); "; echo $honeypot; } ?

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• reCaptcha integration with php

  - by Neil Bradley

  Hi there, I'm building a contact us page that also uses a reCaptcha, but im having a few issues with it. I fill in all of the fields in the contact form and the correct reCaptcha words, but the form does not submit. I'm assuming this is something to do with the validation, but wondered if someone might be able to spot where i'm going wrong? The PHP code at the top of my page looks like this; <?php include('includes/session.php'); $err = ''; $success = ''; if(isset($_POST["docontact"]) && $_POST["docontact"] == "yes") { //get form details $form = new stdClass(); $form->name = sanitizeOne($_POST["name"], "str"); $form->email = sanitizeOne($_POST["email"], "str"); $form->phone = sanitizeOne($_POST["phone"], "str"); $form->mysevenprog = sanitizeOne($_POST["mysevenprog"], "str"); $form->enquiry = sanitizeOne($_POST["enquiry"], "str"); $form->howfindsite = sanitizeOne($_POST["howfindsite"], "str"); //Check for errors (required: name, email, enquiry) if($form->name == "") { $err .= '<p class="warning">Please enter your name!</p>'; } if($form->email == "") { $err .= '<p class="warning">Please enter your email address!</p>'; } if($form->enquiry == "") { $err .= '<p class="warning">Please supply an enquiry message!</p>'; } //Send Email if($err == "") { $mailer = new BlueMailer(); $mailer->AddAddress(Configuration::getVar("developer_email"), Configuration::getVar("admin_email_name")); include('templates/email/contact-us-admin.php'); if(!$mailer->Send()) { $err .= "<p>There was an error sending submitting your request!, Please try again later."; } else { $success = 'thanks'; } } } else { //Initialise empty variables $form = new stdClass(); $form->name = ""; $form->email = ""; $form->phone = ""; $form->mysevenprog = ""; $form->enquiry = ""; $form->howfindsite = ""; } ?> And then in the body of my page I have the form as follows; <?php if($err != "") : ?> <div class="error"> <?php echo $err; ?> </div> <?php endif; ?> <?php if($success == 'thanks') : ?> <h3>Thank you for your enquiry</h3> <p>Your enquiry has been successfully sent. Someone will contact you shortly.</p> <?php else: ?> <h3>If you are looking to advertise with us, have some feedback about some of our programming or want to say 'Hi' please use the fields below</h3> <form name="contactus" id="contactus" method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] ?>"> <ul> <li><label for="name">Your name: *</label> <input name="name" id="name" class="textbox" style="width: 75%;" type="text" value="<?php echo $form->name ?>" /></li> <li><label for="email">Email address: *</label> <input name="email" id="email" class="textbox" style="width: 75%;" type="text" value="<?php echo $form->email ?>" /></li> <li><label for="phone">Telephone:</label> <input name="phone" id="phone" class="textbox" style="width: 75%;" type="text" value="<?php echo $form->phone ?>" /></li> <li><label for="mysevenprog">My Seven programme</label> <input name="mysevenprog" class="textbox" style="width: 75%;" type="text" value="<?php echo $form->mysevenprog ?>" /></li> <li><label for="enquiry">Enquiry/Message: *</label> <textarea name="enquiry" class="textarea" rows="5" cols="30" style="width: 75%;" id="enquiry"><?php echo $form->enquiry ?></textarea></li> <li><label for="howfindsite">How did you find out about our site?</label> <input name="howfindsite" id="howfindsite" class="textbox" style="width: 75%;" type="text" value="<?php echo $form->howfindsite ?>" /></li> <li> <?php require_once('recaptchalib.php'); // Get a key from http://recaptcha.net/api/getkey $publickey = "6LcbbQwAAAAAAPYy2EFx-8lFCws93Ip6Vi5itlpT"; $privatekey = "6LcbbQwAAAAAAPV_nOAEjwya5FP3wzL3oNfBi21C"; # the response from reCAPTCHA $resp = null; # the error code from reCAPTCHA, if any $error = null; # was there a reCAPTCHA response? if ($_POST["recaptcha_response_field"]) { $resp = recaptcha_check_answer ($privatekey, $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"], $_POST["recaptcha_challenge_field"], $_POST["recaptcha_response_field"]); if ($resp->is_valid) { echo "You got it!"; } else { # set the error code so that we can display it $error = $resp->error; } } echo recaptcha_get_html($publickey, $error); ?> </li> <li><input type="submit" value="Submit Form" class="button" /></li> </ul> <input type="hidden" name="docontact" value="yes" /> </form> <?php endif; ?>

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• Help with java GUI- has error in main thread

  - by jan

  Hello guys, Basically im trying to do a Insurance Application form in java. And it uses multiple JPanels in a JFrame. -adding of JPanel into main program frame was done like this: //jpCenterArea to hold jp1-jp7 jpCenterArea.add(jp1); jpCenterArea.add(jp2); jpCenterArea.add(jp3); jpCenterArea.add(jp4); ...etc ********Add Jpanels to JFrame*****/ add(jpTitle, BorderLayout.NORTH); add(jpCenterArea, BorderLayout.CENTER); add(jpBottom, BorderLayout.SOUTH); However, even though program can compile, it cannot be run. error as mentioned below: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException at java.awt.Container.addImpl<Container.java:1045> at java.awt.Container.add<Container.java:365> at TravelInsuranceApplication.<init>TravelInsuranceApplication.java:120> at TravelInsuranceApplication.main<TravelInsuranceApplication.java:154> 1 import javax.swing.*; 2 import java.awt.*; 3 public class TravelInsuranceApplication extends JFrame 4 { 5 //declare private variables 6 private JLabel jlblTitle, jlblName, jlblNRIC, jlblAdd, jlblPostal, jlblContact, jlblDOB, 7 jlblEmail, jlblPeriod; 8 private JLabel jlblDeparture, jlblDays, jlblZone, jlblPlan; 9 private JTextField jtfName, jtfIC, jtfAdd, jtfPostal, jtfContact, jtfEmail, jtfZone; 10 private JRadioButton jrbResident, jrbOffice, jrbDeluxe, jrbClassic, jrbAsia, jrbWorldwide; 11 private ButtonGroup bgContact, bgZone, bgPlan; 12 private JComboBox jcDay, jcMonth, jcYear; 13 private JButton jbtnSubmit, jbtnCalculate, jbtnClear; 14 private JPanel jpTitle,jp1, jp2, jp3, jp4, jp5, jp6, jp7, jpBottom, jpCenterArea; 15 String[] day = {"1", "2", "3"}; 16 String[] month = {"january", "february"}; 17 String[] year = {"1981", "1985", "1990", "1995"}; 18 19 //constructor and GUI development 20 public TravelInsuranceApplication() 21 { 22 setSize(500,200); 23 setTitle("Travel Insurance Application"); 24 setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); 25 setLayout(new BorderLayout()); 26 27 //create ALL component objects/ 28 jlblTitle = new JLabel("Travel Insurance Application: "); 29 jlblName = new JLabel("Name of Insured: "); 30 jlblNRIC = new JLabel("NRIC: "); 31 jlblAdd = new JLabel("Address: "); 32 jlblPostal = new JLabel("Postal Code: "); 33 jlblContact = new JLabel("Telephone: "); 34 jlblDOB = new JLabel("Date Of Birth: "); 35 jlblEmail = new JLabel("Email Address: "); 36 jlblPeriod = new JLabel("Period Of Insurance "); 37 jlblDeparture = new JLabel("Departure Date "); 38 jlblDays = new JLabel("How Many Days To Insure "); 39 jlblZone = new JLabel("Zone: "); 40 jlblPlan = new JLabel("Plan: "); 41 42 jtfName = new JTextField(50); 43 jtfIC = new JTextField(15); 44 jtfAdd = new JTextField(50); 45 jtfPostal = new JTextField(15); 46 jtfContact = new JTextField(15); 47 jtfEmail = new JTextField(50); 48 jtfZone = new JTextField(100); 49 50 jrbResident = new JRadioButton("Rseident/Pgr"); 51 jrbOffice = new JRadioButton("Office/HP"); 52 jrbAsia = new JRadioButton("Asia"); 53 jrbAsia = new JRadioButton("Worldwide"); 54 jrbDeluxe = new JRadioButton("Deluxe"); 55 jrbClassic = new JRadioButton("Classic"); 56 57 jcDay = new JComboBox(day); 58 jcMonth = new JComboBox(month); 59 jcYear = new JComboBox(year); 60 61 jbtnSubmit = new JButton("Submit"); 62 jbtnCalculate = new JButton("Calculate"); 63 jbtnClear = new JButton("Clear"); 64 65 /****create JPanels - jpTitle, JpCenterArea & jp2-jp8 , jpBottom + setLayout 66 for ALL JPanels******/ 67 jpTitle = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER)); 68 jpCenterArea = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); 69 jp1 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); 70 jp2 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER)); 71 jp3 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); 72 jp4 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); 73 jp5 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); 74 jp6 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER)); 75 jp7 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER)); 76 jpBottom = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER)); 77 78 79 80 81 //add components to JPanels 82 jpTitle.add(jlblTitle); 83 84 //jp1 85 jp1.add(jlblName); 86 jp1.add(jtfName); 87 jp1.add(jlblNRIC); 88 jp1.add(jtfIC); 89 90 //jp2 91 jp2.add(jlblAdd); 92 jp2.add(jtfAdd); 93 jp2.add(jlblPostal); 94 jp2.add(jtfPostal); 95 96 //jp3 97 jp3.add(jlblContact); 98 jp3.add(jtfContact); 99 jp3.add(jrbResident); 100 jp3.add(jrbOffice); 101 jp3.add(jlblDOB); 102 jp3.add(jcDay); 103 jp3.add(jcMonth); 104 jp3.add(jcYear); 105 106 //jp4 107 jp4.add(jlblEmail); 108 jp4.add(jtfEmail); 109 110 //jp5 111 jp5.add(jlblPeriod); 112 jp5.add(jlblDeparture); 113 jp5.add(jcDay); 114 jp5.add(jcMonth); 115 jp5.add(jcYear); 116 jp5.add(jlblDays); 117 jp5.add(jcDay); 118 119 //jp6 120 jp6.add(jlblZone); 121 jp6.add(jrbAsia); 122 jp6.add(jrbWorldwide); 123 jp6.add(jlblPlan); 124 jp6.add(jrbDeluxe); 125 jp6.add(jrbClassic); 126 127 //jp7 128 jp7.add(jtfZone); 129 130 //jpCenterArea to hold jp1-jp7 131 jpCenterArea.add(jp1); 132 jpCenterArea.add(jp2); 133 jpCenterArea.add(jp3); 134 jpCenterArea.add(jp4); 135 jpCenterArea.add(jp5); 136 jpCenterArea.add(jp6); 137 jpCenterArea.add(jp7); 138 139 //jpBottom 140 jpBottom.add(jbtnSubmit); 141 jpBottom.add(jbtnCalculate); 142 jpBottom.add(jbtnClear); 143 144 /********Add Jpanels to JFrame*****/ 145 add(jpTitle, BorderLayout.NORTH); 146 add(jpCenterArea, BorderLayout.CENTER); 147 add(jpBottom, BorderLayout.SOUTH); 148 149 setVisible(true); 150 151 152 153 }//end null constructor 154 public static void main(String[] args) 155 { 156 TravelInsuranceApplication travel = new TravelInsuranceApplication(); 157 158 }//end main 159 160 }//end class

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• SQL SERVER – Securing TRUNCATE Permissions in SQL Server

  - by pinaldave

  Download the Script of this article from here. On December 11, 2010, Vinod Kumar, a Databases & BI technology evangelist from Microsoft Corporation, graced Ahmedabad by spending some time with the Community during the Community Tech Days (CTD) event. As he was running through a few demos, Vinod asked the audience one of the most fundamental and common interview questions – “What is the difference between a DELETE and TRUNCATE?“ Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group Expert Nakul Vachhrajani has come up with excellent solutions of the same. I must congratulate Nakul for this excellent solution and as a encouragement to User Group member, I am publishing the same article over here. Nakul Vachhrajani is a Software Specialist and systems development professional with Patni Computer Systems Limited. He has functional experience spanning legacy code deprecation, system design, documentation, development, implementation, testing, maintenance and support of complex systems, providing business intelligence solutions, database administration, performance tuning, optimization, product management, release engineering, process definition and implementation. He has comprehensive grasp on Database Administration, Development and Implementation with MS SQL Server and C, C++, Visual C++/C#. He has about 6 years of total experience in information technology. Nakul is an member of the Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar SQL Server User Groups, and actively contributes to the community by actively participating in multiple forums and websites like SQLAuthority.com, BeyondRelational.com, SQLServerCentral.com and many others. Please note: The opinions expressed herein are Nakul own personal opinions and do not represent his employer’s view in anyway. All data from everywhere here on Earth go through a series of  four distinct operations, identified by the words: CREATE, READ, UPDATE and DELETE, or simply, CRUD. Putting in Microsoft SQL Server terms, is the process goes like this: INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE and DELETE/TRUNCATE. Quite a few interesting responses were received and evaluated live during the session. To summarize them, the most important similarity that came out was that both DELETE and TRUNCATE participate in transactions. The major differences (not all) that came out of the exercise were: DELETE: DELETE supports a WHERE clause DELETE removes rows from a table, row-by-row Because DELETE moves row-by-row, it acquires a row-level lock Depending upon the recovery model of the database, DELETE is a fully-logged operation. Because DELETE moves row-by-row, it can fire off triggers TRUNCATE: TRUNCATE does not support a WHERE clause TRUNCATE works by directly removing the individual data pages of a table TRUNCATE directly occupies a table-level lock. (Because a lock is acquired, and because TRUNCATE can also participate in a transaction, it has to be a logged operation) TRUNCATE is, therefore, a minimally-logged operation; again, this depends upon the recovery model of the database Triggers are not fired when TRUNCATE is used (because individual row deletions are not logged) Finally, Vinod popped the big homework question that must be critically analyzed: “We know that we can restrict a DELETE operation to a particular user, but how can we restrict the TRUNCATE operation to a particular user?” After returning home and having a nice cup of coffee, I noticed that my gray cells immediately started to work. Below was the result of my research. As what is always said, the devil is in the details. Upon looking at the Permissions section for the TRUNCATE statement in Books On Line, the following jumps right out: “The minimum permission required is ALTER on table_name. TRUNCATE TABLE permissions default to the table owner, members of the sysadmin fixed server role, and the db_owner and db_ddladmin fixed database roles, and are not transferable. However, you can incorporate the TRUNCATE TABLE statement within a module, such as a stored procedure, and grant appropriate permissions to the module using the EXECUTE AS clause.“ Now, what does this mean? Unlike DELETE, one cannot directly assign permissions to a user/set of users allowing or revoking TRUNCATE rights. However, there is a way to circumvent this. It is important to recall that in Microsoft SQL Server, database engine security surrounds the concept of a “securable”, which is any object like a table, stored procedure, trigger, etc. Rights are assigned to a principal on a securable. Refer to the image below (taken from the SQL Server Books On Line). urable”, which is any object like a table, stored procedure, trigger, etc. Rights are assigned to a principal on a securable. Refer to the image below (taken from the SQL Server Books On Line). SETTING UP THE ENVIRONMENT – (01A_Truncate Table Permissions.sql) Script Provided at the end of the article. By the end of this demo, one will be able to do all the CRUD operations, except the TRUNCATE, and the other will only be able to execute the TRUNCATE. All you will need for this test is any edition of SQL Server 2008. (With minor changes, these scripts can be made to work with SQL 2005.) We begin by creating the following: 1.       A test database 2.        Two database roles: associated logins and users 3.       Switch over to the test database and create a test table. Then, add some data into it. I am using row constructors, which is new to SQL 2008. Creating the modules that will be used to enforce permissions 1.       We have already created one of the modules that we will be assigning permissions to. That module is the table: TruncatePermissionsTest 2.       We will now create two stored procedures; one is for the DELETE operation and the other for the TRUNCATE operation. Please note that for all practical purposes, the end result is the same – all data from the table TruncatePermissionsTest is removed Assigning the permissions Now comes the most important part of the demonstration – assigning permissions. A permissions matrix can be worked out as under: To apply the security rights, we use the GRANT and DENY clauses, as under: That’s it! We are now ready for our big test! THE TEST (01B_Truncate Table Test Queries.sql) Script Provided at the end of the article. I will now need two separate SSMS connections, one with the login AllowedTruncate and the other with the login RestrictedTruncate. Running the test is simple; all that’s required is to run through the script – 01B_Truncate Table Test Queries.sql. What I will demonstrate here via screen-shots is the behavior of SQL Server when logged in as the AllowedTruncate user. There are a few other combinations than what are highlighted here. I will leave the reader the right to explore the behavior of the RestrictedTruncate user and these additional scenarios, as a form of self-study. 1.       Testing SELECT permissions 2.       Testing TRUNCATE permissions (Remember, “deny by default”?) 3.       Trying to circumvent security by trying to TRUNCATE the table using the stored procedure Hence, we have now proved that a user can indeed be assigned permissions to specifically assign TRUNCATE permissions. I also hope that the above has sparked curiosity towards putting some security around the probably “destructive” operations of DELETE and TRUNCATE. I would like to wish each and every one of the readers a very happy and secure time with Microsoft SQL Server. (Please find the scripts – 01A_Truncate Table Permissions.sql and 01B_Truncate Table Test Queries.sql that have been used in this demonstration. Please note that these scripts contain purely test-level code only. These scripts must not, at any cost, be used in the reader’s production environments). 01A_Truncate Table Permissions.sql /* ***************************************************************************************************************** Developed By          : Nakul Vachhrajani Functionality         : This demo is focused on how to allow only TRUNCATE permissions to a particular user How to Use            : 1. Run through, step-by-step through the sequence till Step 08 to create a test database 2. Switch over to the "Truncate Table Test Queries.sql" and execute it step-by-step in two different SSMS windows, one where you have logged in as 'RestrictedTruncate', and the other as 'AllowedTruncate' 3. Come back to "Truncate Table Permissions.sql" 4. Execute Step 10 to cleanup! Modifications         : December 13, 2010 - NAV - Updated to add a security matrix and improve code readability when applying security December 12, 2010 - NAV - Created ***************************************************************************************************************** */ -- Step 01: Create a new test database CREATE DATABASE TruncateTestDB GO USE TruncateTestDB GO -- Step 02: Add roles and users to demonstrate the security of the Truncate operation -- 2a. Create the new roles CREATE ROLE AllowedTruncateRole; GO CREATE ROLE RestrictedTruncateRole; GO -- 2b. Create new logins CREATE LOGIN AllowedTruncate WITH PASSWORD = 'truncate@2010', CHECK_POLICY = ON GO CREATE LOGIN RestrictedTruncate WITH PASSWORD = 'truncate@2010', CHECK_POLICY = ON GO -- 2c. Create new Users using the roles and logins created aboave CREATE USER TruncateUser FOR LOGIN AllowedTruncate WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA = dbo GO CREATE USER NoTruncateUser FOR LOGIN RestrictedTruncate WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA = dbo GO -- 2d. Add the newly created login to the newly created role sp_addrolemember 'AllowedTruncateRole','TruncateUser' GO sp_addrolemember 'RestrictedTruncateRole','NoTruncateUser' GO -- Step 03: Change over to the test database USE TruncateTestDB GO -- Step 04: Create a test table within the test databse CREATE TABLE TruncatePermissionsTest (Id INT IDENTITY(1,1), Name NVARCHAR(50)) GO -- Step 05: Populate the required data INSERT INTO TruncatePermissionsTest VALUES (N'Delhi'), (N'Mumbai'), (N'Ahmedabad') GO -- Step 06: Encapsulate the DELETE within another module CREATE PROCEDURE proc_DeleteMyTable WITH EXECUTE AS SELF AS DELETE FROM TruncateTestDB..TruncatePermissionsTest GO -- Step 07: Encapsulate the TRUNCATE within another module CREATE PROCEDURE proc_TruncateMyTable WITH EXECUTE AS SELF AS TRUNCATE TABLE TruncateTestDB..TruncatePermissionsTest GO -- Step 08: Apply Security /* *****************************SECURITY MATRIX*************************************** =================================================================================== Object                   | Permissions |                 Login |             | AllowedTruncate   |   RestrictedTruncate |             |User:NoTruncateUser|   User:TruncateUser =================================================================================== TruncatePermissionsTest  | SELECT,     |      GRANT        |      (Default) | INSERT,     |                   | | UPDATE,     |                   | | DELETE      |                   | -------------------------+-------------+-------------------+----------------------- TruncatePermissionsTest  | ALTER       |      DENY         |      (Default) -------------------------+-------------+----*/----------------+----------------------- proc_DeleteMyTable | EXECUTE | GRANT | DENY -------------------------+-------------+-------------------+----------------------- proc_TruncateMyTable | EXECUTE | DENY | GRANT -------------------------+-------------+-------------------+----------------------- *****************************SECURITY MATRIX*************************************** */ /* Table: TruncatePermissionsTest*/ GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON TruncateTestDB..TruncatePermissionsTest TO NoTruncateUser GO DENY ALTER ON TruncateTestDB..TruncatePermissionsTest TO NoTruncateUser GO /* Procedure: proc_DeleteMyTable*/ GRANT EXECUTE ON TruncateTestDB..proc_DeleteMyTable TO NoTruncateUser GO DENY EXECUTE ON TruncateTestDB..proc_DeleteMyTable TO TruncateUser GO /* Procedure: proc_TruncateMyTable*/ DENY EXECUTE ON TruncateTestDB..proc_TruncateMyTable TO NoTruncateUser GO GRANT EXECUTE ON TruncateTestDB..proc_TruncateMyTable TO TruncateUser GO -- Step 09: Test --Switch over to the "Truncate Table Test Queries.sql" and execute it step-by-step in two different SSMS windows: --    1. one where you have logged in as 'RestrictedTruncate', and --    2. the other as 'AllowedTruncate' -- Step 10: Cleanup sp_droprolemember 'AllowedTruncateRole','TruncateUser' GO sp_droprolemember 'RestrictedTruncateRole','NoTruncateUser' GO DROP USER TruncateUser GO DROP USER NoTruncateUser GO DROP LOGIN AllowedTruncate GO DROP LOGIN RestrictedTruncate GO DROP ROLE AllowedTruncateRole GO DROP ROLE RestrictedTruncateRole GO USE MASTER GO DROP DATABASE TruncateTestDB GO 01B_Truncate Table Test Queries.sql /* ***************************************************************************************************************** Developed By          : Nakul Vachhrajani Functionality         : This demo is focused on how to allow only TRUNCATE permissions to a particular user How to Use            : 1. Switch over to this from "Truncate Table Permissions.sql", Step #09 2. Execute this step-by-step in two different SSMS windows a. One where you have logged in as 'RestrictedTruncate', and b. The other as 'AllowedTruncate' 3. Return back to "Truncate Table Permissions.sql" 4. Execute Step 10 to cleanup! Modifications         : December 12, 2010 - NAV - Created ***************************************************************************************************************** */ -- Step 09A: Switch to the test database USE TruncateTestDB GO -- Step 09B: Ensure that we have valid data SELECT * FROM TruncatePermissionsTest GO -- (Expected: Following error will occur if logged in as "AllowedTruncate") -- Msg 229, Level 14, State 5, Line 1 -- The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'TruncatePermissionsTest', database 'TruncateTestDB', schema 'dbo'. --Step 09C: Attempt to Truncate Data from the table without using the stored procedure TRUNCATE TABLE TruncatePermissionsTest GO -- (Expected: Following error will occur) --  Msg 1088, Level 16, State 7, Line 2 --  Cannot find the object "TruncatePermissionsTest" because it does not exist or you do not have permissions. -- Step 09D:Regenerate Test Data INSERT INTO TruncatePermissionsTest VALUES (N'London'), (N'Paris'), (N'Berlin') GO -- (Expected: Following error will occur if logged in as "AllowedTruncate") -- Msg 229, Level 14, State 5, Line 1 -- The INSERT permission was denied on the object 'TruncatePermissionsTest', database 'TruncateTestDB', schema 'dbo'. --Step 09E: Attempt to Truncate Data from the table using the stored procedure EXEC proc_TruncateMyTable GO -- (Expected: Will execute successfully with 'AllowedTruncate' user, will error out as under with 'RestrictedTruncate') -- Msg 229, Level 14, State 5, Procedure proc_TruncateMyTable, Line 1 -- The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'proc_TruncateMyTable', database 'TruncateTestDB', schema 'dbo'. -- Step 09F:Regenerate Test Data INSERT INTO TruncatePermissionsTest VALUES (N'Madrid'), (N'Rome'), (N'Athens') GO --Step 09G: Attempt to Delete Data from the table without using the stored procedure DELETE FROM TruncatePermissionsTest GO -- (Expected: Following error will occur if logged in as "AllowedTruncate") -- Msg 229, Level 14, State 5, Line 2 -- The DELETE permission was denied on the object 'TruncatePermissionsTest', database 'TruncateTestDB', schema 'dbo'. -- Step 09H:Regenerate Test Data INSERT INTO TruncatePermissionsTest VALUES (N'Spain'), (N'Italy'), (N'Greece') GO --Step 09I: Attempt to Delete Data from the table using the stored procedure EXEC proc_DeleteMyTable GO -- (Expected: Following error will occur if logged in as "AllowedTruncate") -- Msg 229, Level 14, State 5, Procedure proc_DeleteMyTable, Line 1 -- The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'proc_DeleteMyTable', database 'TruncateTestDB', schema 'dbo'. --Step 09J: Close this SSMS window and return back to "Truncate Table Permissions.sql" Thank you Nakul to take up the challenge and prove that Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar SQL Server User Group has talent to solve difficult problems. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, Pinal Dave, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• PASS: Bylaw Changes

  - by Bill Graziano

  While you’re reading this, a post should be going up on the PASS blog on the plans to change our bylaws.  You should be able to find our old bylaws, our proposed bylaws and a red-lined version of the changes.  We plan to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that point we’ll decide whether to vote on these changes or take other action. The executive summary is that we’re adding a restriction to prevent more than two people from the same company on the Board and eliminating the Board’s Officer Appointment Committee to have Officers directly elected by the Board.  This second change better matches how officer elections have been conducted in the past. The Gritty Details Our scope was to change bylaws to match how PASS actually works and tackle a limited set of issues.  Changing the bylaws is hard.  We’ve been working on these changes since the March board meeting last year.  At that meeting we met and talked through the issues we wanted to address.  In years past the Board has tried to come up with language and then we’ve discussed and negotiated to get to the result.  In March, we gave HQ guidance on what we wanted and asked them to come up with a starting point.  Hannes worked on building us an initial set of changes that we could work our way through.  Discussing changes like this over email is difficult wasn’t very productive.  We do a much better job on this at the in-person Board meetings.  Unfortunately there are only 2 or 3 of those a year. In August we met in Nashville and spent time discussing the changes.  That was also the day after we released the slate for the 2010 election. The discussion around that colored what we talked about in terms of these changes.  We talked very briefly at the Summit and again reviewed and revised the changes at the Board meeting in January.  This is the result of those changes and discussions. We made numerous small changes to clean up language and make wording more clear.  We also made two big changes. Director Employment Restrictions The first is that only two people from the same company can serve on the Board at the same time.  The actual language in section VI.3 reads: A maximum of two (2) Directors who are employed by, or who are joint owners or partners in, the same for-profit venture, company, organization, or other legal entity, may concurrently serve on the PASS Board of Directors at any time. The definition of “employed” is at the sole discretion of the Board. And what a mess this turns out to be in practice.  Our membership is a hodgepodge of interlocking relationships.  Let’s say three Board members get together and start a blog service for SQL Server bloggers.  It’s technically for-profit.  Let’s assume it makes $8 in the first year.  Does that trigger this clause?  (Technically yes.)  We had a horrible time trying to write language that covered everything.  All the sample bylaws that we found were just as vague as this. That led to the third clause in this section.  The first sentence reads: The Board of Directors reserves the right, strictly on a case-by-case basis, to overrule the requirements of Section VI.3 by majority decision for any single Director’s conflict of employment. We needed some way to handle the trivial issues and exercise some judgment.  It seems like a public vote is the best way.  This discloses the relationship and gets each Board member on record on the issue.   In practice I think this clause will rarely be used.  I think this entire section will only be invoked for actual employment issues and not for small side projects.  In either case we have the mechanisms in place to handle it in a public, transparent way. That’s the first and third clauses.  The second clause says that if your situation changes and you fall afoul of this restriction you need to notify the Board.  The clause further states that if this new job means a Board members violates the “two-per-company” rule the Board may request their resignation.  The Board can also  allow the person to continue serving with a majority vote.  I think this will also take some judgment.  Consider a person switching jobs that leads to three people from the same company.  I’m very likely to ask for someone to resign if all three are two weeks into a two year term.  I’m unlikely to ask anyone to resign if one is two weeks away from ending their term.  In either case, the decision will be a public vote that we can be held accountable for. One concern that was raised was whether this would affect someone choosing to accept a job.  I think that’s a choice for them to make.  PASS is clearly stating its intent that only two directors from any one organization should serve at any time.  Once these bylaws are approved, this policy should not come as a surprise to any potential or current Board members considering a job change.  This clause isn’t perfect.  The biggest hole is business relationships that aren’t defined above.  Let’s say that two employees from company “X” serve on the Board.  What happens if I accept a full-time consulting contract with that company?  Let’s assume I’m working directly for one of the two existing Board members.  That doesn’t violate section VI.3.  But I think it’s clearly the kind of relationship we’d like to prevent.  Unfortunately that was even harder to write than what we have now.  I fully expect that in the next revision of the bylaws we’ll address this.  It just didn’t make it into this one. Officer Elections The officer election process received a slightly different rewrite.  Our goal was to codify in the bylaws the actual process we used to elect the officers.  The officers are the President, Executive Vice-President (EVP) and Vice-President of Marketing.  The Immediate Past President (IPP) is also an officer but isn’t elected.  The IPP serves in that role for two years after completing their term as President.  We do that for continuity’s sake.  Some organizations have a President-elect that serves for one or two years.  The group that founded PASS chose to have an IPP. When I started on the Board, the Nominating Committee (NomCom) selected the slate for the at-large directors and the slate for the officers.  There was always one candidate for each officer position.  It wasn’t really an election so much as the NomCom decided who the next person would be for each officer position.  Behind the scenes the Board worked to select the best people for the role. In June 2009 that process was changed to bring it line with what actually happens.  An Officer Appointment Committee was created that was a subset of the Board.  That committee would take time to interview the candidates and present a slate to the Board for approval.  The majority vote of the Board would determine the officers for the next two years.  In practice the Board itself interviewed the candidates and conducted the elections.  That means it was time to change the bylaws again. Section VII.2 and VII.3 spell out the process used to select the officers.  We use the phrase “Officer Appointment” to separate it from the Director election but the end result is that the Board elects the officers.  Section VII.3 starts: Officers shall be appointed bi-annually by a majority of all the voting members of the Board of Directors. Everything else revolves around that sentence.  We use the word appoint but they truly are elected.  There are details in the bylaws for term limits, minimum requirements for President (1 prior term as an officer), tie breakers and filling vacancies. In practice we will have an election for President, then an election for EVP and then an election for VP Marketing.  That means that losing candidates will be able to fall down the ladder and run for the next open position.  Another point to note is that officers aren’t at-large directors.  That means if a current sitting officer loses all three elections they are off the Board.  Having Board member votes public will help with the transparency of this approach. This process has a number of positive and negatives.  The biggest concern I expect to hear is that our members don’t directly choose the officers.  I’m going to try and list all the positives and negatives of this approach. Many non-profits value continuity and are slower to change than a business.  On the plus side this promotes that.  On the negative side this promotes that.  If we change too slowly the members complain that we aren’t responsive.  If we change too quickly we make mistakes and fail at various things.  We’ve been criticized for both of those lately so I’m not entirely sure where to draw the line.  My rough assumption to this point is that we’re going too slow on governance and too quickly on becoming “more than a Summit.”  This approach creates competition in the officer elections.  If you are an at-large director there is no consequence to losing an election.  If you are an officer the only way to stay on the Board is to win an officer election or an at-large election.  If you are an officer and lose an election you can always run for the next office down.  This makes it very easy for multiple people to contest an election. There is value in a person moving through the officer positions up to the Presidency.  Having the Board select the officers promotes this.  The down side is that it takes a LOT of time to get to the Presidency.  We’ve had good people struggle with burnout.  We’ve had lots of discussion around this.  The process as we’ve described it here makes it possible for someone to move quickly through the ranks but doesn’t prevent people from working their way up through each role. We talked long and hard about having the officers elected by the members.  We had a self-imposed deadline to complete these changes prior to elections this summer. The other challenge was that our original goal was to make the bylaws reflect our actual process rather than create a new one.  I believe we accomplished this goal. We ran out of time to consider this option in the detail it needs.  Having member elections for officers needs a number of problems solved.  We would need a way for candidates to fall through the election.  This is what promotes competition.  Without this few people would risk an election and we’ll be back to one candidate per slot.  We need to do this without having multiple elections.  We may be able to copy what other organizations are doing but I was surprised at how little I could find on other organizations.  We also need a way for people that lose an officer election to win an at-large election.  Otherwise we’ll have very little competition for officers. This brings me to an area that I think we as a Board haven’t done a good job.  We haven’t built a strong process to tell you who is doing a good job and who isn’t.  This is a double-edged sword.  I don’t want to highlight Board members that are failing.  That’s not a good way to get people to volunteer and run for the Board.  But I also need a way let the members make an informed choice about who is doing a good job and would make a good officer.  Encouraging Board members to blog, publishing minutes and making votes public helps in that regard but isn’t the final answer.  I don’t know what the final answer is yet.  I do know that the Board members themselves are uniquely positioned to know which other Board members are doing good work.  They know who speaks up in meetings, who works to build consensus, who has good ideas and who works with the members.  What I Could Do Better I’ve learned a lot writing this about how we communicated with our members.  The next time we revise the bylaws I’d do a few things differently.  The biggest change would be to provide better documentation.  The March 2009 minutes provide a very detailed look into what changes we wanted to make to the bylaws.  Looking back, I’m a little surprised at how closely they matched our final changes and covered the various arguments.  If you just read those you’d get 90% of what we eventually changed.  Nearly everything else was just details around implementation.  I’d also consider publishing a scope document defining exactly what we were doing any why.  I think it really helped that we had a limited, defined goal in mind.  I don’t think we did a good job communicating that goal outside the meeting minutes though. That said, I wish I’d blogged more after the August and January meeting.  I think it would have helped more people to know that this change was coming and to be ready for it. Conclusion These changes address two big concerns that the Board had.  First, it prevents a single organization from dominating the Board.  Second, it codifies and clearly spells out how officers are elected.  This is the process that was previously followed but it was somewhat murky.  These changes bring clarity to this and clearly explain the process the Board will follow. We’re going to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that time we’ll decide whether to approve these changes.  I’m also assuming that we’ll start another round of changes in the next year or two.  Are there other issues in the bylaws that we should tackle in the future?

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• how to get 12 for joel test working in a small team of 3-4 on php website?

  - by keisimone

  Hi i read this inspired, i am asking for specific help to achieve a 12 for my current project. i am working in a team of 3-4 on a php project that is based on cakephp. i only have a dedicated server running on linux which i intend to have the website live on. and i have a plan with assembla where i am using its svn repository. that's it. i like to hear a major, impactful step towards answering each point raised by the joel test. by impactful i mean doing just this one thing would raise my project to scoring or close to scoring on that area of the joel test. lets begin: 1) do you have a source control system? I am very proud to say learning how to use svn even though we know nuts about branch/release policies made the biggest impact to our programming lives. and the svn repos is on assembla paid plan. Feel free to add if anyone thinks we can do more in this area. 2) Can you make a build in one step? i think the issue is how do i define as a build? i think we are going to define it as if tomorrow my dedicated server crashed and we found another server from another normal hosting provider and all my team's machines all destroyed, how are we going to get the website up again? my code is in svn on assembla. 1 step means as close to 1 button to push as possible. 3)Do you make daily builds? i know nothing about this. please help. i googled and came across this phpundercontrol. but i am not sure if we can get that to work with assembla. are there easier ways? 4)Do you have a bug database? we have not used the assembla features on bug tracking. ashamed to say. i think i will sort this out myself. 5)Do you fix bugs before writing new code? policy issue. i will sort it out myself. 6)Do you have an up-to-date schedule? Working on it. Same as above. estimates have historically been overly optimistic. having spent too much time using all sorts of funny project management tools, i think this time i am going to use just paper and pen. please dont tell me scrum. i need to keep things even simpler than that. 7)Do you have a spec? We do, but its in paper and pen. what would be a good template? 8)Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Well we work at home and in distributed manner. so .. 9)Do you use the best tools money can buy? We use cheap tools. we are not big. 10)Do you have testers? NO testers. Since we have a team of 3, i think i should go get 1 tester. even on a part time basis. so i should get this 1 part time tester test in what manner to extract maximum effects? should i get him to write out the test scenarios and expected outcomes and then test it? or i write the test scenarios and then ask him to do it? we will be writing the test cases ourselves using simpletest. i came across selenium. how useful is that? 11)Do new candidates write code during their interview? Not applicable. But i will do it next time i try to hire anyone else. hires or contractors alike. 12)Do you do hallway usability testing? Will do so on a per month or per milestone basis. i will grab my friends who are not net-savvy. they will be the best testers of this type. Thank you.

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• Job conditions conflicting with personal principles on software-development - how much is too much?

  - by Baelnorn

  Sorry for the incoming wall'o'text (and for my probably bad English) but I just need to get this off somehow. I also accept that this question will be probably closed as subjective and argumentative, but I need to know one thing: "how much BS are programmers supposed to put up with before breaking?" My background I'm 27 years old and have a B.Sc. in Computer engineering with a graduation grade of 1.8 from a university of applied science. I went looking for a job right after graduation. I got three offers right away, with two offers paying vastly more than the last one, but that last one seemed more interesting so I went for that. My situation I've been working for the company now for 17 months now, but it feels like a drag more and more each day. Primarily because the company (which has only 5 other developers but me, and of these I work with 4) turned out to be pretty much the anti-thesis of what I expected (and was taught in university) from a modern software company. I agreed to accept less than half of the usual payment appropriate for my qualification for the first year because I was promised a trainee program. However, the trainee program turned out to be "here you got a computer, there's some links on the stuff we use, and now do what you colleagues tell you". Further, during my whole time there (trainee or not) I haven't been given the grace of even a single code-review - apparently nobody's interested in my work as long as it "just works". I was told in the job interview that "Microsoft technology played a central role in the company" yet I've been slowly eroding my congnitive functions with Flex/Actionscript/Cairngorm ever since I started (despite having applied as a C#/.NET developer). Actually, the company's primary projects are based on Java/XSLT and Flex/Actionscript (with some SAP/ABAP stuff here and there but I'm not involved in that) and they've been working on these before I even applied. Having had no experience either with that particular technology nor the framework nor the field (RIA) nor in developing business scale applications I obviously made several mistakes. However, my boss told me that he let me make those mistakes (which ate at least 2 months of development time on their own) on purpose to provide some "learning experience". Even when I was still a trainee I was already tasked with working on a business-critical application. On my own. Without supervision. Without code-reviews. My boss thinks agile methods are a waste of time/money and deems putting more than one developer on any project not efficient. Documentation is not necessary and each developer should only document what he himself needs for his work. Recently he wanted us to do bug tracking with Excel and Email instead of using an already existing Bugzilla, overriding an unanimous decision made by all developers and testers involved in the process - only after another senior developer had another hour-long private discussion with him he agreed to let us use the bugtracker. Project management is basically not present, there are only a few Excel sheets floating around where the senior developer lists some things (not all, mind you) with a time estimate ranging from days to months, trying to at least somehow organize the whole mess. A development process is also basically not present, each developer just works on his own however he wants. There are not even coding conventions in the company. Testing is done manually with a single tester (sometimes two testers) per project because automated testing wasn't given the least thought when the whole project was started. I guess it's not a big surprise when I say that each developer also has his own share of hundreds of overhours (which are, of course, unpaid). Each developer is tasked with working on his own project(s) which in turn leads to a very extensive knowledge monopolization - if one developer was to have an accident or become ill there would be absolutely no one who could even hope to do his work. Considering that each developer has his own business-critical application to work on, I guess that's a pretty bad situation. I've been trying to change things for the better. I tried to introduce a development process, but my first attempt was pretty much shot down by my boss with "I don't want to discuss agile methods". After that I put together a process that at least resembled how most of the developers were already working and then include stuff like automated (or at least organized) testing, coding conventions, etc. However, this was also shot down because it wasn't "simple" enought to be shown on a business slide (actually, I wasn't even given the 15 minutes I'd have needed to present the process in the meeting). My problem I can't stand working there any longer. Seriously, I consider to resign on monday, which still leaves me with 3 months to work there due to the cancelation period. My primary goal since I started studying computer science was being a good computer scientist, working with modern technologies and adhering to modern and proven principles and methods. However, the company I'm working for seems to make that impossible. Some days I feel as if was living in a perverted real-life version of the Dilbert comics. My question Am I overreacting? Is this the reality each graduate from university has to face? Should I betray my sound principles and just accept these working conditions? Or should I gtfo of there? What's the opinion of other developers on this matter. Would you put up with all that stuff?

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• PHP form auto response

  - by Mark

  Hi, I am using the following php code which has been given to me, it works fine, apart from the auto response bit. I know its not a lot of code I just dont know how to do it or why it snot working. Any help would be appreciated. thanks in advance. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <title> - Contact Us</title> <!-- css --> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/reset.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/styles.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/colorbox.css" /> <!-- javascript libraries --> <?php require_once('includes/js.php'); ?> </head> <body> <?php //FIll out the settings below before using this script $your_email = "(email address)"; $website = "(website name)"; //BOTS TO BLOCK $bots = "/(Indy|Blaiz|Java|libwww-perl|Python|OutfoxBot|User-Agent|PycURL|AlphaServer|T8Abot|Syntryx|WinHttp|WebBandit|nicebot)/i"; //Check if known bot is visiting if (preg_match($bots, $_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"])) { exit ("Sorry bots are not allowed here!"); } //Known Exploits $exploits = "/(content-type|bcc:|cc:|from:|reply-to:|javascript|onclick|onload)/i"; //Spam words $spam_words = "/(viagra|poker|blackjack|porn|sex)/i"; // BAD WORDS $words = "/( bitch|dick|pussy|pussies|ass|fuck|cum|cumshot|cum shot| gangbang|gang bang|god dammit|goddammit|viagra|anus|analsex )/i"; //BAD WORD/SPAM WORD/EXPLOIT BLOCKER function wordBlock($word) { //Make variables global global $words; global $exploits; global $spam_words; if (preg_match($words, $word)) { $word = preg_replace($words, "#####", $word); } if(preg_match($exploits,$word)){ $word = preg_replace($exploits,"",$word); } if(preg_match($spam_words,$word)){ $word = preg_replace($spam_words,"$$$$",$word); } return $word; } //CLean data function function dataClean($data) { $data = stripslashes(trim(rawurldecode(strip_tags($data)))); return $data; } //CREATE MAIN VARIABLES $name = (isset ($_POST['name'])) ? dataClean($_POST['name']) : FALSE; $company = (isset ($_POST['company'])) ? dataClean($_POST['company']) : FALSE; $address = (isset ($_POST['address'])) ? dataClean($_POST['address']) : FALSE; $postcode = (isset ($_POST['postcode'])) ? dataClean($_POST['postcode']) : FALSE; $phone = (isset ($_POST['phone'])) ? dataClean($_POST['phone']) : FALSE; $email = (isset ($_POST['email'])) ? dataClean($_POST['email']) : FALSE; $comment = (isset ($_POST['message'])) ? wordBlock(dataClean($_POST['message'])) : FALSE; $submit = (isset ($_POST['send'])) ? TRUE : FALSE; $email_check = "/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,6}$/i"; //$ip = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]; $errors = array(); //Check if send button was clicked if ($submit) { if (!$name) { $errors[] = "Please enter a name!"; } if ($name) { if (!ereg("^[A-Za-z' -]*$", $name)) { $errors[] = "You may not use special characters in the name field!"; } } if (!$email) { $errors[] = "Please enter an email address!"; } if ($email) { if (!preg_match($email_check, $email)) { $errors[] = "The E-mail you entered is invalid!"; } } /* if (!$subject) { $errors[] = "Please enter an email subject!"; } */ if (!$comment) { $errors[] = "Please don't leave the message field blank!"; } //Check if any errors are present if (count($errors) > 0) { foreach ($errors AS $error) { print "&bull; $error <br />"; } } else { //MESSAGE TO SEND TO ADMIN //Create main headers $headers = "From: " . $website . " <$your_email> \n"; $headers .= "Reply-to:" . $email . " \n"; $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n"; $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"; $headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\n"; $message = ""; $message .= "<h1>New E-Mail From " . $website . "</h1><br /><br />"; $message .= "<b>Name:</b> " . $name . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Company:</b> " . $company . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Address:</b> " . $address . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Postcode:</b > " . $postcode . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Phone No:</b> " . $phone . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>E-mail:</b> " . $email . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Message:</b> " . $comment . "<br />"; //E-mails subject $mail_subject = "Message from " . $website . ""; /* CHECK TO BE SURE FIRST E-MAIL TO ADMIN IS A SUCCESS AND SEND EMAIL TO ADMIN OTHERWISE DON'T SEND AUTO RESPONCE */ if (mail($your_email, $mail_subject, $message, $headers)) { //UNSET ALL VARIABLES unset ($name, $email, $company, $address, $postcode, $phone, $comment, $_REQUEST); //JAVASCRIPT SUCCESS MESSAGE echo " <script type='text/javascript' language='JavaScript'> alert('Your message has been sent'); </script> "; //SUCCESS MESSAGE TO SHOW IF JAVASCRIPT IS DISABLED echo "<noscript><p>THANK YOU YOUR MESSAGE HAS BEEN SENT</p></noscript>"; /* -----------------END MAIL BLOCK FOR SENDING TO ADMIN AND START AUTO RESPONCE SEND----------------- */ //AUTO RESPONCE MESSAGE //Create main headers $headers = "From: " . $website . " <$your_email> \n"; $headers .= "Reply-to:" . $your_email . " \n"; $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n"; $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"; $headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\n"; $message = ""; $message .= "<h1>Thank You For Contacting Us </h1><br /><br />"; $message .= "On behalf of <b>" . $website . "</b> we wanna thank you for contacting us and to let you know we will respond to your message as soon as possible thank you again."; //E-mails subject $mail_subject = "Thank you for contacting " . $website . ""; //Send the email mail($email, $mail_subject, $message, $headers); /* -----------------END MAIL BLOCK FOR SENDING AUTO RESPONCE ----------------- */ } else { echo " <script type='text/javascript' language='JavaScript'> alert('Sorry could not send your message'); </script> "; echo "<noscript><p style='color:red;'>SORRY COULD NOT SEND YOUR MESSAGE</p></noscript>"; } } } ?> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="grad_overlay"> <!-- Header --> <div id="header"> <a href="index.php" title="Regal Balustrades"><img src="images/regal_logo.png" alt="Regal Balustrades" /></a> <div id="strapline"> <img src="images/strapline.png" alt="Architectural metalwork systems" /> </div> </div> <!-- Navigation --> <div id="nav"> <?php require_once('includes/nav.php'); ?> </div> <!-- Content --> <div id="content"> <div id="details"> <p class="getintouch env">Get In Touch</p> <ul class="details"> <li>T. (0117) 935 3888</li> <li>F. (0117) 967 7333</li> <li>E. <a href="mailto:[email protected]" title="Contact via email">[email protected]</a></li> </ul> <p class="whereto hse">Where To Find Us</p> <ul class="details"> <li>Regal Balustrades</li> <li>Regal House, </li> <li>Honey Hill Road,</li> <li>Kingswood, </li> <li>Bristol BS15 4HG</li> </ul> </div> <div id="contact"> <h1>Contact us</h1> <p>Please use this form to request further information about Regal Balustrades and our services. To speak to a member of our staff in person, please call us on 0117 9353888</p> <div id="form"> <form method='POST' action='<?php echo "".$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'].""; ?>'> <p class='form-element'> <label for='name'>Name:</label> <input type='text' name='name' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['name'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='company'>Company:</label> <input type='text' name='company' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['company'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='address'>Address:</label> <textarea name='address' rows='5' id='address' class='address' ><?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['address'] . "";?></textarea> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='postcode'>Postcode:</label> <input type='text' name='postcode' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['postcode'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='phone'>Telephone:</label> <input type='text' name='phone' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['phone'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='email'>Email:</label> <input type='text' name='email' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['email'] . "";?>' /> </p> </div> <div id='form-right'> <p class='form-element'> <label for='message'>Enquiry:</label> <textarea name='message' class='enquiry' id='enquiry' rows='5' cols='40' ><?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['message'] . "";?></textarea> </p> <p class='form-element'> <input type='submit' class='submit' name='send' value='Send message' /> </p> </div> <p class='nb'><em>We will respond as soon as possible.</em></p> </form> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <!-- Footer --> <div id="footer-container"> <?php require_once('includes/footer.php'); ?> </div> <!-- js functions --> <script> $(document).ready(function() { $("ul#navig li:nth-child(6)").addClass("navon"); }); </script> </body> </html>

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• Passing variables to shopping cart with Javascript

  - by albatross

  This question is an extension of this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2359238/calculate-order-price-by-date-selection-value I'm trying to make a conference registration page based off the previous page, which passes the variables(name, email, price) to my organization's outdated shopping cart using javascript. I'm also using Seminar Registration by CSSTricks (http://css-tricks.com/examples/SeminarRegTutorial/) Currently, my proceed to payment button produces an 'element is undefined' error on line 298(same thing on unresolved previous question, linked above^): switch (document.Information.amount.value) { Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm at my wits end with this. Here is the page: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <title>Seminar Registration Form with jQuery</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/style.css" media="screen" /> <script src="js/jquery-1.2.6.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/form-fun.jquery.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <!--[if IE]> <style type="text/css"> legend { position: relative; top: -30px; } fieldset { margin: 30px 10px 0 0; } </style> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function(){ $("#step_2 legend").css({ opacity: 0.5 }); $("#step_3 legend").css({ opacity: 0.5 }); }); </script> <![endif]--> </head> <body> <div id="page-wrap"> <h1>Conference <span>Registration</span></h1> <form action="#" method="post"> <fieldset id="step_1"> <legend>Step 1</legend> <label for="num_attendees"> How cool are you? </label> <select id="amount"> <option id="0" value="0">Please Choose</option> <option id="prof" value="90.00">Professional</option> <option id="grad" value="55.00">Graduate Student</option> </select> <br /> <div id="attendee_1_wrap" class="name_wrap push"> <h3>Who are you?</h3> <p> <label for="FirstName"> First Name: </label> <input type="text" id="FirstName" class="name_input"></input> </p> <p> <label for="LastName"> Last Name: </label> <input type="text" id="LastName" class="name_input"></input> </p> <p> <label for="OfficialTitle"> Official Title: </label> <input type="text" id="OfficialTitle" class="name_input"></input> </p> <h3>How do we find you?</h3> <label for="email">Email: </label> <input id="email" name="email" class="required email" /> </p> <p> <label for="Address">Street Address: </label><input name="Address" id="Address" type="text" size="20" maxlength="75" /> </p> <p> <label for="City">City: </label><input name="City" id="City" /> </p> <p> <label for="State">State: </label><select name="State" id="State"> <option selected value="IL">IL</option> <option value="AL">AL</option> <option value="AK">AK</option> <option value="AZ">AZ</option> <option value="AR">AR</option> <option value="CA">CA</option> <option value="CO">CO</option> <option value="CT">CT</option> <option value="DE">DE</option> <option value="DC">DC</option> <option value="FL">FL</option> <option value="GA">GA</option> <option value="HI">HI</option> <option value="ID">ID</option> <option value="IN">IN</option> <option value="IA">IA</option> <option value="KS">KS</option> <option value="KY">KY</option> <option value="LA">LA</option> <option value="ME">ME</option> <option value="MD">MD</option> <option value="MA">MA</option> <option value="MI">MI</option> <option value="MN">MN</option> <option value="MS">MS</option> <option value="MO">MO</option> <option value="MT">MT</option> <option value="NE">NE</option> <option value="NV">NV</option> <option value="NH">NH</option> <option value="NJ">NJ</option> <option value="NM">NM</option> <option value="NY">NY</option> <option value="NC">NC</option> <option value="ND">ND</option> <option value="OH">OH</option> <option value="OK">OK</option> <option value="OR">OR</option> <option value="PA">PA</option> <option value="RI">RI</option> <option value="SC">SC</option> <option value="SD">SD</option> <option value="TN">TN</option> <option value="TX">TX</option> <option value="UT">UT</option> <option value="VT">VT</option> <option value="VA">VA</option> <option value="WA">WA</option> <option value="WV">WV</option> <option value="WI">WI</option> <option value="WY">WY</option> </select> </p> <p> <label for="Zip">Zip Code: </label><input name="Zip" id="Zip" type="text" value="" size="5" maxlength="10" /> </p> <p> <label for="Phone">Telephone: </label><input name="Phone" id="Phone" type="text" value="" size="10" maxlength="13" /> </p> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset id="step_2"> <legend>Step 2</legend> <p> Do you work in Higher Education? </p> <input type="radio" id="company_name_toggle_on" name="company_name_toggle_group"></input> <label for="company_name_toggle_on">Yes</label> &emsp; <input type="radio" id="company_name_toggle_off" name="company_name_toggle_group"></input> <label for="company_name_toggle_off">No</label> <div id="company_name_wrap"> <label for="company_name"> Which School? </label> <input type="text" id="company_name"></input> </div> <div class="push"> <p> Will anyone in your group require special accommodations? </p> <input type="radio" id="special_accommodations_toggle_on" name="special_accommodations_toggle"></input> <label for="special_accommodations_toggle_on">Yes</label> &emsp; <input type="radio" id="special_accommodations_toggle_off" name="special_accommodations_toggle"></input> <label for="special_accommodations_toggle_off">No</label> </div> <div id="special_accommodations_wrap"> <label for="special_accomodations_text"> Please explain below: </label> <textarea rows="10" cols="10" id="special_accomodations_text"></textarea> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset id="step_3"> <legend>Step 3</legend> <label for="rock"> Are you ready to rock? </label> <input type="checkbox" id="rock"></input> <p> <INPUT onclick="javascript:PaymentButtonClick()" type=button value="Proceed to payment" name=PaymentButton> <img src="images/visa1.gif" /> <img src="images/mastercard1.gif" /> </p> </fieldset> </form> </div> <FORM name="emailForm" action="mailform.asp" method=post"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="Conference Registration" name="mf_subject"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="Yes" name="mf_email_results"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="20" name="num_attendees"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="FirstName"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="22" name="LastName"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="64" name="OfficialTitle"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="40" name="email"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="48" name="Address"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="City"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="State"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="Zip"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="Phone"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="company_name"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="20" name="special_accomodations_text"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="[email protected]" name="mf_from"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="[email protected]" name="mf_to"> </FORM> <FORM name="addform" action="https://webcluster.niu.edu/CreditCard/servlet/Shopping_Cart_Add_Item_Servlet" method="post"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="orient" name="Dept_ID"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="Orientation" name="Product_Name"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="z000000" name="Product_Code"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="" name="amount"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="/orientation/index.shtml" name="return_link"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="http://www.niu.edu" name="return_server"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="1" name="quantity"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="0" name="tax"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="0" name="ship"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="DQ83225" name="sale_id"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="XXXXXX" name="sale_acct"> </FORM> <SCRIPT language="Javascript"> function PaymentButtonClick() { switch (document.Information.amount.value) { case 'prof': document.Information.amount.value = 90.00; break; case 'grad': document.Information.amount.value = 55.00; break; } document.addform.Product_Name.value = document.Information.FirstName.value + ","+ document.Information.LastName.value+","+ document.Information.OfficialTitle.value+","+ document.Information.email.name+","+","+ document.Information.Address.value+ "," + document.Information.City.value+ "," + document.Information.State.value+ "," + document.Information.Zip.value+ "," + document.Information.Phone.value+ "," + document.Information.company_name.value+ "," + document.Information.special_accomodations_text.value; document.addform.Product_Code.value = document.Information.LastName.value; if ((document.Information.UCheck.checked==true) && (document.Information.altDate1.value != "") && (document.Information.altDate1.value != "x")) { if (document.Information.StudentLastName.value != "" || document.Information.StudentFirstName.value != "" || document.Information.StudentID.value != "" ) { document.addform.submit(); } else { alert("Please enter missing information"); } } } </SCRIPT> </body> </html>

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• trying to validate user input in php

  - by user225269

  I'm trying to validate user input in php. This code will check if the values are null or not. If it is null, this will require the user to input the values that are null. When all the text boxes in the html form that came before this. This code will show the submit button, and that submit button will save the inputted data into the mysql database. But the problem is that the value that is saved is zero zero and zero, what might be the cause of this? <html> <head> <title>Admission Information Sheet</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; Western (ISO-8859-1)"> <meta name="author" content=" "> <title> <style> input { font-size: 16px;} </style> <?php include('header.php'); ?> <div id="main_content"> </div> <?php include('footer.php'); ?> <table border="1" width="900" border="0" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"> <tr> <form name="form1.1" method="POST" action="aisaction.php"> <?php $NURSE = $_POST[nurse]; $TELNUM = $_POST[telnum]; $HOSPNUM = $_POST[hnum]; $ROOMNUM = $_POST[rnum]; $LASTNAME = $_POST[lname]; $FIRSTNAME = $_POST[fname]; $MIDNAME = $_POST[mname]; $AD = $_POST[ad]; $ADATE = $_POST[adate]; $ADTIME = $_POST[adtime]; $CSTAT = $_POST[cs]; $AGE = $_POST[age]; $BDAY = $_POST[bday]; $SEX = $_POST[sex]; ?> <td> <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <tr> <td colspan="12" style="background:#9ACD32; color:white; border:white 1px solid; text-align: center"><strong><font size="3">ADMISSION INFORMATION SHEET</strong></td> </tr> <tr> </td><br> <td width="54"><font size="3">Hospital #</td> <td width="3">:</td> <td width="168"><input type="display" name="hnum" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$HOSPNUM";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($HOSPNUM)) print "* Hospital Number required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td width="41"><font size="3">Room #</td> <td width="3">:</td> <td width="168"><input type="display" name="rnum" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$ROOMNUM";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($ROOMNUM)) print "* Room Number required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td width="67"><font size="3">Admission Date</td> <td width="3">:</td> <td width="168"><input type="display" name="adate" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$ADATE";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($ADATE)) print "* Admission Date required!<br>"; ?> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><font size="3">Last Name</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="lname" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$LASTNAME";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($LASTNAME)) print "* Last Name required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td><font size="3">First Name</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="fname" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$FIRSTNAME";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($FIRSTNAME)) print "* First Name required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td><font size="3">Middle Name</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="mname" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$MIDNAME";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($MIDNAME)) print "* Middle Name required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td><font size="3">Admit time</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="mname" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$ADTIME";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($ADTIME)) print "* Adtime required!<br>"; ?> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><font size="3">Civil Status</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="cs" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$CSTAT";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($CSTAT)) print "* Civil Status required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td><font size="3">Age</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="age" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$AGE";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($AGE)) print "* Age required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td><font size="3">Birthday</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="bday" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$BDAY";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($BDAY)) print "* Birthday required!<br>"; ?> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><font size="3">Address</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="address" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$AD";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($AD)) print "* Address required!<br>"; ?> </td> <td><font size="3">Telephone #</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="telnum" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$TELNUM";?>"></td> <td width="23"><font size="3">Sex</td> <td width="3">:</td> <td width="174"><input type="display" name="sex" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$SEX";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($SEX)) print "* Gender required!<br>"; ?> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><font size="3">Pls. Check</td> <td>:</td> <td><input name="stats1" type="checkbox" id="SSS" value="SSS">SSS</td> <td><font size="3"></td> <td>:</td> <td><input name="stats1" type="checkbox" id="nonmed" value="NonMedicare">Non Medicare</td> <td><font size="3"></td> <td>:</td> <td><input name="stats1" type="checkbox" id="sh" value="stockholder">Stockholder</td> </tr> <tr> <td><font size="3"></td> <td></td> <td><input name="stats1" type="checkbox" id="gsis" value="GSIS">GSIS</td> <td><font size="3"></td> <td></td> <td><input name="stats1" type="checkbox" id="senior" value="seniorcitizen">Senior-Citizen</td> <tr> <td><font size="3"></td> <td></td> <td><input name="stats1" type="checkbox" id="dep" value="dependent">Dependent</td> <td><font size="3"></td> <td></td> <td><input name="stats1" type="checkbox" id="emp" value="employee">Employee</td> </tr> <tr> <td><font size="3">Attending Nurse</td> <td>:</td> <td><input type="display" name="nurse" disabled="true" value= "<?php print "$NURSE";?>"><br> <font color="red"> <?php if(empty($NURSE)) print "* Admitting/Attending Nurse required!<br>"; ?> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>&nbsp;</td> <td>&nbsp;</td> <td><input type="button" value="Back" onClick="history.go(-1);return true;"> <?php $val1 = $_POST['NURSE']; if($_POST['NURSE'] !="") { ?> <form action="aisaction.php" method="POST" target="_window"> <input type="hidden" name="submit" value="yes"> <input type="submit" value="submit"> </form> <?php } ?> </td> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </form> </tr> </table> </head> </html>

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• HTML5 Form: Page Is Reloading Instantly After Restyling (And It Shouldn't Be)

  - by user3689753

  I have a form. I have made it so that if your name is not put in, a red border is put on the name field. That works, BUT...it's for a split second, and then the page reloads. I want the red border to appear, and then stay there. For some reason it's for a split second. Can someone help me make it so the page doesn't reload after displaying the red border? Here's the script. window.onload = function() { document.getElementById("Hogwarts").onsubmit = function () { window.alert("Form submitted. Owl being sent..."); var fname = document.getElementById("fName"); if(!fName.value.match("^[A-Z][A-Za-z]+( [A-Z][A-Za-z]*)*$")) { window.alert("You must enter your name."); addClass(fName, "errorDisp"); document.getElementById("fName").focus(); } else return true; } } function addClass(element, classToAdd) { var currentClassValue = element.className; if (currentClassValue.indexOf(classToAdd) == -1) { if ((currentClassValue == null) || (currentClassValue === "")) { element.className = classToAdd; } else { element.className += " " + classToAdd; } } } function removeClass(element, classToRemove) { var currentClassValue = element.className; if (currentClassValue == classToRemove) { element.className = ""; return; } var classValues = currentClassValue.split(" "); var filteredList = []; for (var i = 0 ; i < classValues.length; i++) { if (classToRemove != classValues[i]) { filteredList.push(classValues[i]); } } element.className = filteredList.join(" "); } Here's the HTML. <!DOCTYPE HTML> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1"> <title>Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry Application Form</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" media="screen"/> <script src="script.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> <section> <header> <h1>Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry</h1> <nav></nav> </header> <main> <form method="post" id="Hogwarts"> <!--<form action="showform.php" method="post" id="Hogwarts">--!> <fieldset id="aboutMe"> <legend id="aboutMeLeg">About Me</legend> <div class="fieldleading"> <label for="fName" class="labelstyle">First name:</label> <input type="text" id="fName" name="fName" autofocus maxlength="50" value="" placeholder="First Name" size="30"> <label for="lName" class="labelstyle">Last name:</label> <input type="text" id="lName" name="lName" required maxlength="50" value="" placeholder="Last Name" pattern="^[A-Za-z ]{3,}$" size="30"> <label for="age" class="labelstyle">Age:</label> <input type="number" id="age" name="age" required min="17" step="1" max="59" value="" placeholder="Age"> </div> <div class="fieldleading"> <label for="date" class="labelstyle">Date Of Birth:</label> <input type="date" name="date1" id="date" required autofocus value=""> </div> <div id="whitegender"> <div class="fieldleading"> <label class="labelstyle">Gender:</label> </div> <input type="radio" name="sex" value="male" class="gender" required="required">Male<br/> <input type="radio" name="sex" value="female" class="gender" required="required">Female<br/> <input type="radio" name="sex" value="other" class="gender" required="required">Other </div> </fieldset> <fieldset id="contactInfo"> <legend id="contactInfoLeg">Contact Information</legend> <div class="fieldleading"> <label for="street" class="labelstyle">Street Address:</label> <input type="text" id="street" name="street" required autofocus maxlength="50" value="" placeholder="Street Address" pattern="^[0-9A-Za-z\. ]+{5,}$" size="35"> <label for="city" class="labelstyle">City:</label> <input type="text" id="city" name="city" required autofocus maxlength="30" value="" placeholder="City" pattern="^[A-Za-z ]{3,}$" size="35"> <label for="State" class="labelstyle">State:</label> <select required id="State" name="State" > <option value="Select Your State">Select Your State</option> <option value="Delaware">Delaware</option> <option value="Pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</option> <option value="New Jersey">New Jersey</option> <option value="Georgia">Georgia</option> <option value="Connecticut">Connecticut</option> <option value="Massachusetts">Massachusetts</option> <option value="Maryland">Maryland</option> <option value="New Hampshire">New Hampshire</option> <option value="New York">New York</option> <option value="Virginia">Virginia</option> </select> </div> <div class="fieldleading"> <label for="zip" class="labelstyle">5-Digit Zip Code:</label> <input id="zip" name="zip" required autofocus maxlength="5" value="" placeholder="Your Zip Code" pattern="^\d{5}$"> <label for="usrtel" class="labelstyle">10-Digit Telephone Number:</label> <input type="tel" name="usrtel" id="usrtel" required autofocus value="" placeholder="123-456-7890" pattern="^\d{3}[\-]\d{3}[\-]\d{4}$"> </div> <div class="fieldleading"> <label for="email1" class="labelstyle">Email:</label> <input type="email" name="email1" id="email1" required autofocus value="" placeholder="[email protected]" pattern="^[a-z0-9._%+-]+@[a-z0-9.-]+\.[a-z]{2,4}$" size="35"> <label for="homepage1" class="labelstyle">Home Page:</label> <input type="url" name="homepage1" id="homepage1" required autofocus value="" placeholder="http://www.hp.com" pattern="https?://.+" size="35"> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset id="yourInterests"> <legend id="yourInterestsLeg">Your Interests</legend> <label for="Major" class="labelstyle">Major/Program Choice:</label> <select required id="Major" name="Major" > <option value="">Select Your Major</option> <option value="Magic1">Magic Horticulture</option> <option value="Magic2">Black Magic</option> <option value="White">White Magic</option> <option value="Blue">Blue Magic</option> <option value="Non">Non-Wizardry Studies</option> </select> </fieldset> <button type="submit" value="Submit" class="submitreset">Submit</button> <button type="reset" value="Reset" class="submitreset">Reset</button> </form> </main> <footer> &copy; 2014 Bennett Nestok </footer> </section> </body> </html> Here's the CSS. a:link { text-decoration: none !important; color:black !important; } a:visited { text-decoration: none !important; color:red !important; } a:active { text-decoration: none !important; color:green !important; } a:hover { text-decoration: none !important; color:blue !important; background-color:white !important; } ::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #ffffff; } /* gray80 */ :-moz-placeholder { color: #ffffff; } /* Firefox 18- (one color)*/ ::-moz-placeholder { color: #ffffff; } /* Firefox 19+ (double colons) */ :-ms-input-placeholder { color: #ffffff; } body { margin: 0px auto; text-align:center; background-color:grey; font-weight:normal; font-size:12px; font-family: verdana; color:black; background-image:url('bgtexture.jpg'); background-repeat:repeat; } footer { text-align:center; margin: 0px auto; bottom:0px; position:absolute; width:100%; color:white; background-color:black; height:20px; padding-top:4px; } h1 { color:white; text-align:center; margin: 0px auto; margin-bottom:50px; width:100%; background-color:black; padding-top: 13px; padding-bottom: 14px; -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5); text-shadow: 0 -1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.25); } button.submitreset { -moz-border-radius: 400px; -webkit-border-radius: 400px; border-radius: 400px; -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5); text-shadow: 0 -1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.25); } .labelstyle { background-color:#a7a7a7; color:black; -moz-border-radius: 400px; -webkit-border-radius: 400px; border-radius: 400px; padding:3px 3px 3px 3px; } #aboutMe, #contactInfo, #yourInterests { margin-bottom:30px; text-align:left !important; padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px; } #Hogwarts { text-align:center; margin:0px auto; width:780px; padding-top: 20px !important; padding-bottom: 20px !important; background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#474747, grey); /* For Safari 5.1 to 6.0 */ background: -o-linear-gradient(#474747, grey); /* For Opera 11.1 to 12.0 */ background: -moz-linear-gradient(#474747, grey); /* For Firefox 3.6 to 15 */ background: linear-gradient(#474747, grey); /* Standard syntax */ border-color:black; border-style: solid; border-width: 2px; -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.5); text-shadow: 0 -1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.25); } @media (max-width: 800px){ .labelstyle { display: none; } #Hogwarts { width:300px; } h1 { width:304px; margin-bottom:0px; } .fieldleading { margin-bottom:0px !important; } ::-webkit-input-label { /* WebKit browsers */ color: transparent; } :-moz-label { /* Mozilla Firefox 4 to 18 */ color: transparent; } ::-moz-label { /* Mozilla Firefox 19+ */ color: transparent; } :-ms-input-label { /* Internet Explorer 10+ */ color: transparent; } ::-webkit-input-placeholder { /* WebKit browsers */ color: grey !important; } :-moz-placeholder { /* Mozilla Firefox 4 to 18 */ color: grey !important; } ::-moz-placeholder { /* Mozilla Firefox 19+ */ color: grey !important; } :-ms-input-placeholder { /* Internet Explorer 10+ */ color: grey !important; } #aboutMe, #contactInfo, #yourInterests { margin-bottom:10px; text-align:left !important; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; } } br { display: block; line-height: 10px; } .fieldleading { margin-bottom:10px; } legend { color:white; } #whitegender { color:white; } #moreleading { margin-bottom:10px; } /*opera only hack attempt*/ @media not all and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) { .fieldleading { margin-bottom:30px !important; } } .errorDisp { border-color: red; border-style: solid; border-width: 2px; }

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• SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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