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  • SQLAuthority News – Online Webcast How to Identify Resource Bottlenecks – Wait Types and Queues

    - by pinaldave
    As all of you know I have been working a recently on the subject SQL Server Wait Statistics, the reason is since I have published book on this subject SQL Wait Stats Joes 2 Pros: SQL Performance Tuning Techniques Using Wait Statistics, Types & Queues [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle], lots of question and answers I am encountering. When I was writing the book, I kept version 1 of the book in front of me. I wanted to write something which one can use right away. I wanted to create an primer for everybody who have not explored wait stats method of performance tuning. Well, the books have been very well received and in fact we ran out of huge stock 2 times in India so far and once in USA during SQLPASS. I have received so many questions on this subject that I feel I can write one more book of the same size. I have been asked if I can create videos which can go along with this book. Personally I am working with SQL Server 2012 CTP3 and there are so many new wait types, I feel the subject of wait stats is going to be very very crucial in next version of SQL Server. If you have not started learning about this subject, I suggest you at least start exploring this right now. Learn how to begin on this subject atleast as when the next version comes in, you know how to read DMVs. I will be presenting on the same subject of performance tuning by wait stats in webcast embarcadero SQL Server Community Webinar. Here are few topics which we will be covering during the webinar. Beginning with SQL Wait Stats Understanding various aspect of SQL Wait Stats Understanding Query Life Cycle Identifying three TOP wait Stats Resolution of the common 3 wait types and queues Details of the webcast: How to Identify Resource Bottlenecks – Wait Types and Queues Date and Time: Wednesday, November 2, 11:00 AM PDT Registration Link I thank embarcadero for organizing opportunity for me to share my experience on subject of wait stats and connecting me with community to further take this subject to next level. One more interesting thing, I will ask one question at the end of the webinar and I will be giving away 5 copy of my SQL Wait Stats print book to first five correct answers. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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  • Installing a DHCP Service On Win2k8 ( Windows Server 2008 )

    - by Akshay Deep Lamba
    Introduction Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a core infrastructure service on any network that provides IP addressing and DNS server information to PC clients and any other device. DHCP is used so that you do not have to statically assign IP addresses to every device on your network and manage the issues that static IP addressing can create. More and more, DHCP is being expanded to fit into new network services like the Windows Health Service and Network Access Protection (NAP). However, before you can use it for more advanced services, you need to first install it and configure the basics. Let’s learn how to do that. Installing Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server Installing Windows Server 2008 DCHP Server is easy. DHCP Server is now a “role” of Windows Server 2008 – not a windows component as it was in the past. To do this, you will need a Windows Server 2008 system already installed and configured with a static IP address. You will need to know your network’s IP address range, the range of IP addresses you will want to hand out to your PC clients, your DNS server IP addresses, and your default gateway. Additionally, you will want to have a plan for all subnets involved, what scopes you will want to define, and what exclusions you will want to create. To start the DHCP installation process, you can click Add Roles from the Initial Configuration Tasks window or from Server Manager à Roles à Add Roles. Figure 1: Adding a new Role in Windows Server 2008 When the Add Roles Wizard comes up, you can click Next on that screen. Next, select that you want to add the DHCP Server Role, and click Next. Figure 2: Selecting the DHCP Server Role If you do not have a static IP address assigned on your server, you will get a warning that you should not install DHCP with a dynamic IP address. At this point, you will begin being prompted for IP network information, scope information, and DNS information. If you only want to install DHCP server with no configured scopes or settings, you can just click Next through these questions and proceed with the installation. On the other hand, you can optionally configure your DHCP Server during this part of the installation. In my case, I chose to take this opportunity to configure some basic IP settings and configure my first DHCP Scope. I was shown my network connection binding and asked to verify it, like this: Figure 3: Network connection binding What the wizard is asking is, “what interface do you want to provide DHCP services on?” I took the default and clicked Next. Next, I entered my Parent Domain, Primary DNS Server, and Alternate DNS Server (as you see below) and clicked Next. Figure 4: Entering domain and DNS information I opted NOT to use WINS on my network and I clicked Next. Then, I was promoted to configure a DHCP scope for the new DHCP Server. I have opted to configure an IP address range of 192.168.1.50-100 to cover the 25+ PC Clients on my local network. To do this, I clicked Add to add a new scope. As you see below, I named the Scope WBC-Local, configured the starting and ending IP addresses of 192.168.1.50-192.168.1.100, subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, default gateway of 192.168.1.1, type of subnet (wired), and activated the scope. Figure 5: Adding a new DHCP Scope Back in the Add Scope screen, I clicked Next to add the new scope (once the DHCP Server is installed). I chose to Disable DHCPv6 stateless mode for this server and clicked Next. Then, I confirmed my DHCP Installation Selections (on the screen below) and clicked Install. Figure 6: Confirm Installation Selections After only a few seconds, the DHCP Server was installed and I saw the window, below: Figure 7: Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server Installation succeeded I clicked Close to close the installer window, then moved on to how to manage my new DHCP Server. How to Manage your new Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server Like the installation, managing Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server is also easy. Back in my Windows Server 2008 Server Manager, under Roles, I clicked on the new DHCP Server entry. Figure 8: DHCP Server management in Server Manager While I cannot manage the DHCP Server scopes and clients from here, what I can do is to manage what events, services, and resources are related to the DHCP Server installation. Thus, this is a good place to go to check the status of the DHCP Server and what events have happened around it. However, to really configure the DHCP Server and see what clients have obtained IP addresses, I need to go to the DHCP Server MMC. To do this, I went to Start à Administrative Tools à DHCP Server, like this: Figure 9: Starting the DHCP Server MMC When expanded out, the MMC offers a lot of features. Here is what it looks like: Figure 10: The Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server MMC The DHCP Server MMC offers IPv4 & IPv6 DHCP Server info including all scopes, pools, leases, reservations, scope options, and server options. If I go into the address pool and the scope options, I can see that the configuration we made when we installed the DHCP Server did, indeed, work. The scope IP address range is there, and so are the DNS Server & default gateway. Figure 11: DHCP Server Address Pool Figure 12: DHCP Server Scope Options So how do we know that this really works if we do not test it? The answer is that we do not. Now, let’s test to make sure it works. How do we test our Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server? To test this, I have a Windows Vista PC Client on the same network segment as the Windows Server 2008 DHCP server. To be safe, I have no other devices on this network segment. I did an IPCONFIG /RELEASE then an IPCONFIG /RENEW and verified that I received an IP address from the new DHCP server, as you can see below: Figure 13: Vista client received IP address from new DHCP Server Also, I went to my Windows 2008 Server and verified that the new Vista client was listed as a client on the DHCP server. This did indeed check out, as you can see below: Figure 14: Win 2008 DHCP Server has the Vista client listed under Address Leases With that, I knew that I had a working configuration and we are done!

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  • Friday Fun: Snow Crusher

    - by Asian Angel
    It has probably been a long week whether you have already returned to work or are finishing up the last of your vacation time. If you are in need of some stress relief, then we have we the perfect game for you. This week you get to be totally fiendish and use a monster size snowball to destroy as many cars as possible at the local snow lodge. Snow Crusher The object of the game is simple…create as large of a monster snowball as you can and then send it down over the side of the mountain to destroy the cars at the snow lodge. You can choose from three different sizes of monster snowballs to create. We chose the “Snowflake Size” for our reign of destruction. Once you have chosen a monster snowball size, all that is left to do is select the control method that works best for you. As soon as you select the control method, your monster snowball creation will automatically begin. Keep in mind that the faster your snowball goes the harder it can become to steer if you make sudden movements… At the top you can watch your progress towards the drop-off point and the green boxes highlighted at the bottom indicate how large of an item (such as trees or boulders) your snowball can roll over and add to the total mass. Snowball speed is shown in the lower right corner. Time to roll! As soon as the first green box is lit up you can start adding small trees to your snowball’s mass. You will want to avoid larger items as you go because they will penalize your score, slow you down, and reduce the size of your snowball! Halfway to the drop-off point and our snowball is now able to grab up larger trees. If you have not hit any large items along the way, your snowball will definitely be moving along at a good rate by now. When you reach the end of the mass building area, your snowball will pop out into the open and get ready to drop off over the side of the mountain. Go snowball go! Yes! Thirteen cars crushed and ready for the scrap yard… If the “Snowflake Size” snowball can do this, just think what the “Avalanche Size” can do with three minutes of time to build up mass! Have fun with those monster snowballs! Play Snow Crusher Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Classic Super Mario Brothers Theme for Chrome and Iron Experimental Firefox Builds Put Tabs on the Title Bar (Available for Download) Android Trojan Found in the Wild Chaos, Panic, and Disorder Wallpaper Enjoy Christmas Beyond the Holiday with Christmas Eve Crisis Parrotfish Extends the Number of Services Accessible in Twitter Previews

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  • Before the Summit of 2012

    - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell
    Today, Monday, was the first day of the PASS Summit Preconference training events, but instead I spent the day at the free SQL in the City event put on by Red Gate. For me this was not a financial decision (pre-con sessions cost extra above the general Summit registration) but rather a matter of interest.  I had already included money for pre-cons in this year’s training budget, but none of them really stood out to me, so even if the Red-Gate event were not going on at the same time, I probably would not have gone to any pre-cons this year.  However, the topics being presented at the SQL in the City event were of great interest to me.  There promised to be good information on Continuous Integration and automated deployment of database changes, which lately has been a real hot topic at my work.  And indeed, Red-Gate announced the release of a new tool (still in Early Access Program…a.k.a. Beta) which is called the Deployment Manager.  Since we are in the middle of a TFS implementation project, it will be interesting to see how this plays out and compares to what we put together with the automated builds in TFS.  But, as I understand it, the primary focus of Deployment Manager is not to be the Build process (Red Gate uses JetBrains’ Team City for that in their shop) but rather to aid in the deployment of those build packages, as well as providing easy rollback and a good visualization of which versions of software are in which environments.  It looks promising and I’ve already downloaded the installer package to play with it later. Overall, I was quite impressed with the SQL in the City event.  Having heard many current and past members of the PASS Board of Directors describe the challenges of putting on a large conference, and the growing pains that the PASS Summit has gone through, I am even more impressed that the Red Gate event ran as smoothly as it did.  And it is quite impressive the amount of money that Red Gate must have spent given that this was a no-charge event to attend, they had a very nice hot lunch, and the after-event drinks celebration.  Well done, folks! Of course it was great to hear from a variety of speakers.  Today I listened to some folks from Red Gate like Grant Fritchey (blog | @GFritchey) and David Atkinson (Product Manager for SQL Source Control and now the Deployment Manager tool set); and also Brent Ozar (blog | @BrentO) and Buck Woody (blog | @BuckWoody).  By the way, if you have never seen either Brent or Buck speak, you really should.  Different styles, but both are very entertaining and educational at the same time.  I love Buck’s sense of humor (here’s a tip…don’t be late to Buck’s session or you’ll become part of the presentation) and I praise Brent’s slides.  Brent’s style very much reminds me of that espoused by Garr Reynolds on his Presentation Zen blog (and book) and I am impressed that he can make a technical presentation so engaging. It was a great day, a great way to kick off the week, and I am excited to get into the full Summit!

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  • Mini Book Review of IronRuby Unleashed by Shay Friedman

    - by Eric Nelson
    When I get some time (and hell starts to look a little chilly) I would love to do a more detailed review. But I wanted to get something “out there” as I really like this book and reviews of it seem a little thin on the ground. In brief: Is it a good book? Yes Would I recommend this book to a .NET developer who was new to Ruby? Yes (This is me by the way) Would I recommend this book to a Ruby developer who was new to .NET ? Yes Would I recommend this book to a developer who sometimes does Ruby and sometimes does .NET? Yes Would I recommend this book to a developer new to .NET and new to Ruby? Yes The above demonstrates how well balanced this book is (IMHO). What I like about it: Its assumes pretty much no knowledge of IronRuby or .NET. All it asks is that you are a developer interested in IronRuby. Yet it manages to cover off the topics in a good degree of detail. If you are a Ruby developer you skip Part 2, if you are a .NET developer you skip some of Part 1 and whizz through the short intros to the individual technologies such as WPF. It is definitely not a “lets makes the manual look pretty” book – this is original content thoughtfully written and presented. It is pretty comprehensive – in 500 pages it packs in  Intro to IronRuby Intro to .NET Intro to Ruby Using IronRuby with Windows Forms, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight etc Getting Rails working with IronRuby Unit testing with IronRuby – which I think is an excellent way for a .NET developer to start using IronRuby Embedding IronRuby in a .NET app  - another interesting “first step” for a .NET developer What I didn’t like: Err… nothing yet. Ok, If I am being picky then the start of chapter 2 irked me a little as it went through the history of .NET. “The first version [of the .NET Framework] wasn’t that great”.  Felt pretty good to me compared to Java and C++ development at the time :-) Buy on Amazon UK | Buy on Amazon USA Related Links: Posts from the author Shay Friedman on IronRuby Guest Post: What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails? Guest Post: Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ Getting PhP and Ruby working on Windows Azure and SQL Azure

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  • Summit Old, Summit New, Summit Borrowed...

    - by Rob Farley
    PASS Summit is coming up, and I thought I’d post a few things. Summit Old... At the PASS Summit, you will get the chance to hear presentations by the SQL Server establishment. Just about every big name in the SQL Server world is a regular at the PASS Summit, so you will get to hear and meet people like Kalen Delaney (@sqlqueen) (who just recently got awarded MVP status for the 20th year running), and from all around the world such as the UK’s Chris Webb (@technitrain) or Pinal Dave (@pinaldave) from India. Almost all the household names in SQL Server will be there, including a large contingent from Microsoft. The PASS Summit is by far the best place to meet the legends of SQL Server. And they’re not all old. Some are, but most of them are younger than you might think. ...Summit New... The hottest topics are often about the newest technologies (such as SQL Server 2012). But you will almost certainly learn new stuff about older versions too. But that’s not what I wanted to pick on for this point. There are many new speakers at every PASS Summit, and content that has not been covered in other places. This year, for example, LobsterPot’s Roger Noble (@roger_noble) is giving a presentation for the first time. He’s a regular around the Australian circuit, but this is his first time presenting to a US audience. New Zealand’s Paul White (@sql_kiwi) is attending his first PASS Summit, and will be giving over four hours of incredibly deep stuff that has never been presented anywhere in the US before (I can’t say the world, because he did present similar material in Adelaide earlier in the year). ...Summit Borrowed... No, I’m not talking about plagiarism – the talks you’ll hear are all their own work. But you will get a lot of stuff you’ll be able to take back and apply at work. The PASS Summit sessions are not full of sales-pitches, telling you about how great things could be if only you’d buy some third-party vendor product. It’s simply not that kind of conference, and PASS doesn’t allow that kind of talk to take place. Instead, you’ll be taught techniques, and be able to download scripts and slides to let you perform that magic back at work when you get home. You will definitely find plenty of ideas to borrow at the PASS Summit. ...Summit Blue Yeah – and there’s karaoke. Blue - Jason - SQL Karaoke - YouTube

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  • SQLOS and Cloud Infrastructure sessions at PASS Summit 2012

    - by SQLOS Team
    The SQL Pass Summit 2012, the largest yet, is in full swing. Here's a summary of the sessions this week on cloud infrastructure and SQLOS topics. Some of these were today, and you can catch the recordings. One more session takes place on Friday covering SQL Server solution patterns in Windows Azure VMs... Also, catch Thursday's keynote with Quentin Clark which will feature a cool IaaS demo!   SQL Server in Windows Azure VM Sessions CLD-309-A SQLCAT: Best Practices and Lessons Learned on SQL Server in an Azure VM Steve Howard, Arvind Ranasaria - Wednesday 11/6 10:15 This session looked at some best practices to optimize Networking, Memory, Disk IO and high availability based on lessons learned during SQLCat work with customer deployments. Well worth catching the recording.   SQL Server in Azure VM patterns: Hybrid Disaster Recovery, data movement and BI Guy Bowerman, Peter Saddow, Michael Washam, Ross LoForte - Friday 11/9 9:45 Rm 613 [Note: In the guides this has an outdated title.] This session has a focus on SQL Server Azure VM solutions. Starting with the basics and then going deeper into: - New features in the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 8.0 to help plan and size SQL VM migrations.- A Look at a Windows Azure VM SQL Server app making use of load balancing and SQL Server high availability features.- A BI case study running SQL BI components in Azure VMs and making use of Windows 8 tiles.- A training class in a VM case study.   SQLOS Sessions DBA-500-HD Inside SQLOS 2012 (half-day session) Bob Ward - Wednesday 11/6 1:30pm Bob Ward from CSS applies his wealth of experience to look at the internals of SQLOS and what's changed in the various SQL 2012 components, including memory, resource governor, scheduler.   DBA-403-M: SQLCAT: Memory Manager Changes in SQL Server 2012 Gus Apostol, Jerome Halmans - 1:30pm Covers the redesigned SQLOS memory manager in SQL Server 2012 including the new page allocator for any size pages (and all that implies), DMVs, demo's. Not sure why this was placed at the same time as the SQLOS half-day session, but since it's recorded it's available for catch-up.   - Guy   Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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  • SharePoint 2010 Field Expression Builder

    - by Ricardo Peres
    OK, back to two of my favorite topics, expression builders and SharePoint. This time I wanted to be able to retrieve a field value from the current page declaratively on the markup so that I can assign it to some control’s property, without the need for writing code. Of course, the most straight way to do it is through an expression builder. Here’s the code: 1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPField")] 2: public class SPFieldExpressionBuilder : ExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetFieldValue(String fieldName, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: Object fieldValue = SPContext.Current.ListItem[fieldName]; 8:  9: if (fieldValue != null) 10: { 11: if ((fieldValue is IConvertible) && (typeof(IConvertible).IsAssignableFrom(propertyInfo.PropertyType) == true)) 12: { 13: if (propertyInfo.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(fieldValue.GetType()) != true) 14: { 15: fieldValue = Convert.ChangeType(fieldValue, propertyInfo.PropertyType); 16: } 17: } 18: } 19:  20: return (fieldValue); 21: } 22:  23: #endregion 24:  25: #region Public override methods 26: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 27: { 28: return (GetFieldValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 29: } 30:  31: public override CodeExpression GetCodeExpression(BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 32: { 33: if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(entry.Expression) == true) 34: { 35: return (new CodePrimitiveExpression(String.Empty)); 36: } 37: else 38: { 39: return (new CodeMethodInvokeExpression(new CodeMethodReferenceExpression(new CodeTypeReferenceExpression(this.GetType()), "GetFieldValue"), new CodePrimitiveExpression(entry.Expression), new CodePropertyReferenceExpression(new CodeArgumentReferenceExpression("entry"), "PropertyInfo"))); 40: } 41: } 42:  43: #endregion 44:  45: #region Public override properties 46: public override Boolean SupportsEvaluate 47: { 48: get 49: { 50: return (true); 51: } 52: } 53: #endregion 54: } You will notice that it will even try to convert the field value to the target property’s type, through the use of the IConvertible interface and the Convert.ChangeType method. It must be placed on the Global Assembly Cache or you will get a security-related exception. The other alternative is to change the trust level of your web application to full trust. Here’s how to register it on Web.config: 1: <expressionBuilders> 2: <!-- ... --> 3: <add expressionPrefix="SPField" type="MyNamespace.SPFieldExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=29186a6b9e7b779f" /> 4: </expressionBuilders> And finally, here’s how to use it on an ASPX or ASCX file inside a publishing page: 1: <asp:Label runat="server" Text="<%$ SPField:Title %>"/>

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  • Exam 70-541 - TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development

    - by DigiMortal
    Today I passed Microsoft exam 70-541: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development. This exam gives you MCTS certificate. In this posting I will talk about the exam and also give some suggestions about books to read when preparing for exam. About exam This exam was good one I think. The questions were not hard and also not too easy. Just enough to make sure you really know what you do when working with SharePoint. Or at least to make sure you how things work. After couple of years active SharePoint coding this exam needs no additional preparation. The questions covered very different topics like alerts, features, web parts, site definitions, event receivers, workflows, web services and deployments. There are 59 questions in the exam (this information is available in internet) and you have time a little bit more than two hours. It took me about 40 minutes to get questions answered and reviewed. I strongly suggest you to study the parts of WSS 3.0 you don’t know yet and write some code to find out how to use these things through SharePoint API. Good reading For guys with less experience there are some good books to suggest. Take one or both of these books because there are no official study materials or training kits available for this exam. One of my colleagues who is less experienced than me suggested Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson. He told me that he found this book most useful for him to pass this exam.   When I started with SharePoint Services 3.0 my first book was Developer’s Guide To The Windows SharePoint Services v3 Platform by Todd C. Bleeker. It helped me getting started and later it was my main handbook for some time. Of course, there are many other good books and I suggest you to take what you find. Of course, before buying something I suggest you to discuss with guys who have read the book before. And make sure you mention that you are preparing for exam.   Conclusion If you are experienced SharePoint developer then this exam needs no preparation. Okay, some preparation is always good but if you don’t have time you are still able to pass this exam. If you are not experienced SharePoint developer then study before taking this exam – it is not easy stuff for novices. But if you pass this exam you can proudly say – yes, I know something about SharePoint! :)

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  • Free eBook with SQL Server performance tips and nuggets

    - by Claire Brooking
    I’ve often found that the kind of tips that turn out to be helpful are the ones that encourage me to make a small step outside of a routine. No dramatic changes – just a quick suggestion that changes an approach. As a languages student at university, one of the best I spotted came from outside the lecture halls and ended up saving me time (and lots of huffing and puffing) – the use of a rainbow of sticky notes for well-used pages and letter categories in my dictionary. Simple, but armed with a heavy dictionary that could double up as a step stool, those markers were surprisingly handy. When the Simple-Talk editors told me about a book they were planning that would give a series of tips for developers on how to improve database performance, we all agreed it needed to contain a good range of pointers for big-hitter performance topics. But we wanted to include some of the smaller, time-saving nuggets too. We hope we’ve struck a good balance. The 45 Database Performance Tips eBook covers different tips to help you avoid code that saps performance, whether that’s the ‘gotchas’ to be aware of when using Object to Relational Mapping (ORM) tools, or what to be aware of for indexes, database design, and T-SQL. The eBook is also available to download with SQL Prompt from Red Gate. We often hear that it’s the productivity-boosting side of SQL Prompt that makes it useful for everyday coding. So when a member of the SQL Prompt team mentioned an idea to make the most of tab history, a new feature in SQL Prompt 6 for SQL Server Management Studio, we were intrigued. Now SQL Prompt can save tabs we have been working on in SSMS as a way to maintain an active template for queries we often recycle. When we need to reuse the same code again, we search for our saved tab (and we can also customize its name to speed up the search) to get started. We hope you find the eBook helpful, and as always on Simple-Talk, we’d love to hear from you too. If you have a performance tip for SQL Server you’d like to share, email Melanie on the Simple-Talk team ([email protected]) and we’ll publish a collection in a follow-up post.

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  • Data validation best practices: how can I better construct user feedback?

    - by Cory Larson
    Data validation, whether it be domain object, form, or any other type of input validation, could theoretically be part of any development effort, no matter its size or complexity. I sometimes find myself writing informational or error messages that might seem harsh or demanding to unsuspecting users, and frankly I feel like there must be a better way to describe the validation problem to the user. I know that this topic is subjective and argumentative. StackOverflow might not be the proper channel for diving into this subject, but like I've mentioned, we all run into this at some point or another. There are so many StackExchange sites now; if there is a better one, feel free to share! Basically, I'm looking for good resources on data validation and user feedback that results from it at a theoretical level. Topics and questions I'm interested in are: Content Should I be describing what the user did correctly or incorrectly, or simply what was expected? How much detail can the user read before they get annoyed? (e.g. Is "Username cannot exceed 20 characters." enough, or should it be described more fully, such as "The username cannot be empty, and must be at least 6 characters but cannot exceed 30 characters."?) Grammar How do I decide between phrases like "must not," "may not," or "cannot"? Delivery This can depend on the project, but how should the information be delivered to the user? Should it be obtrusive (e.g. JavaScript alerts) or friendly? Should they be displayed prominently? Immediately (i.e. without confirmation steps, etc.)? Logging Do you bother logging validation errors? Internationalization Some cultures prefer or better understand directness over subtlety and vice-versa (e.g. "Don't do that!" vs. "Please check what you've done."). How do I cater to the majority of users? I may edit this list as I think more about the topic, but I'm genuinely interest in proper user feedback techniques. I'm looking for things like research results, poll results, etc. I've developed and refined my own techniques over the years that users seem to be okay with, but I work in an environment where the users prefer to adapt to what you give them over speaking up about things they don't like. I'm interested in hearing your experiences in addition to any resources to which you may be able to point me.

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  • Slick2d/Nifty-gui input

    - by eerongal
    I'm trying to get input from slick2d into nifty gui. Ive searched online, and I've seen a few examples, but I can't seem to get it working right. i've tried the example on here but I can't seem to get everything working. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong. I've also looked at examples using the JMonkeyEngine to help point me in the right direction, but still having issues with input. I can get everything else working like i need. Here's the code for my element controller: package gui; import java.util.Properties; import de.lessvoid.nifty.Nifty; import de.lessvoid.nifty.controls.Controller; import de.lessvoid.nifty.elements.Element; import de.lessvoid.nifty.input.NiftyInputEvent; import de.lessvoid.nifty.screen.Screen; import de.lessvoid.xml.xpp3.Attributes; public class BaseElementController implements Controller { private Element element; public void bind(Nifty arg0, Screen arg1, Element arg2, Properties arg3, Attributes arg4) { this.element = element; } public void init(Properties arg0, Attributes arg1) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } public boolean inputEvent(NiftyInputEvent arg0) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub return false; } public void onFocus(boolean arg0) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } public void onStartScreen() { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } public void test() { System.out.println("test"); } public void bam() { System.out.println("bam"); } } Here's my XML file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <nifty> <useStyles filename="nifty-default-styles.xml"/> <useControls filename="nifty-default-controls.xml"/> <screen id="screen2" controller="gui.BaseScreenController"> <layer backgroundColor="#fff0" childLayout="absolute" id="layer4" controller="gui.BaseElementController"> <panel childLayout="center" height="30%" id="panel1" style="nifty-panel-simple" width="50%" x="282" y="334" controller="gui.BaseElementController"> <control id="checkbox1" name="checkbox"/> <control childLayout="center" id="button2" label="button2" name="button" x="381" y="224" visibleToMouse="true" controller="gui.BaseElementController"> <interact onClick="bam()"/> </control> </panel> <text text="${CALL.getPlayerName()}" style="nifty-label" width="100%" height="100%" x="0" y="10" /> </layer> </screen> </nifty> Here's how I'm trying to bind the controller: public void init(GameContainer gc) throws SlickException { Input input = gc.getInput(); inputSystem = new PlainSlickInputSystem(); inputSystem.setInput(input); gui = new Gui(); gui.init(gc, inputSystem, "gui/tset.xml", "screen2"); input.removeListener(this); input.removeListener(inputSystem); input.addListener(inputSystem); } Essentially, all that happens right now is the screen loads up and displays, and it grabs the variable correctly in the label, but none of the input seems to be getting forwarded to Nifty from slick. I assume there's something I'm missing, but I can't seem to figure out what that is. In so far as what I have tried, I attempted to define a custom input listener to pick up events and assign that to my game in order to pick up input, which did not work, so i dropped that implementation, at current i'm trying to take the default inputs and bind then with a PlainSlickInputSystem and assigning that to the input (as shown in the first example link). On code execution, all the code is hit, and i've put several system.out.println's to get ouput of what is happening (the code above has been cleaned for presentation), and i even see the elements getting bound to the controller, yet it doesn't pick up controller events. As far as EXACTLY what's wrong, that I don't know, because I've followed all implementations i can find of this, and none of them seem to do anything it's like the input is just getting thrown out. None of the objects from niftyGui appear to be recognizing any input. Here is the binding from my objects at run time: ******INITIALIZED SCREEN: de.lessvoid.nifty.screen.Screen@4a1ab1c1 ******INITIALIZED ELEMENT: button2 (de.lessvoid.nifty.elements.Element@1e8c1be9) ******INITIALIZED ELEMENT: focusable => true, width => 100px {nifty-button#panel}, backgroundImage => button/button.png {nifty-button#panel}, label => button2, paddingLeft => 7px {nifty-button#panel}, imageMode => sprite-resize:100,23,0,2,96,2,2,2,96,2,19,2,96,2,2 {nifty-button#panel}, paddingRight => 7px {nifty-button#panel}, id => button2, visibleToMouse => true, height => 23px {nifty-button#panel}, style => nifty-button, name => button, inputMapping => de.lessvoid.nifty.input.mapping.MenuInputMapping, childLayout => center, controller => gui.BaseElementController, y => 224, x => 381 ******INITIALIZED SCREEN: de.lessvoid.nifty.screen.Screen@4a1ab1c1 ******INITIALIZED ELEMENT: panel1 (de.lessvoid.nifty.elements.Element@373ec894) ******INITIALIZED ELEMENT: id => panel1, height => 30%, style => nifty-panel-simple, width => 50%, backgroundImage => panel/nifty-panel-simple.png {nifty-panel-simple}, controller => gui.BaseElementController, childLayout => center, padding => 5px {nifty-panel-simple}, imageMode => resize:9,2,9,9,9,2,9,2,9,2,9,9 {nifty-panel-simple}, y => 334, x => 282 ******INITIALIZED SCREEN: de.lessvoid.nifty.screen.Screen@4a1ab1c1 ******INITIALIZED ELEMENT: layer4 (de.lessvoid.nifty.elements.Element@6427d489) ******INITIALIZED ELEMENT: id => layer4, backgroundColor => #fff0, controller => gui.BaseElementController, childLayout => absolute the button2 object is getting bound to my BaseElementController, but i can't seem to get it into the defined "onClick" call.

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  • AWS .NET SDK v2: the message-pump pattern

    - by Elton Stoneman
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2013/10/11/aws-.net-sdk-v2--the-message-pump-pattern.aspxVersion 2 of the AWS SDK for .NET has had a few pre-release iterations on NuGet and is stable, if a bit lacking in step-by-step guides. There’s at least one big reason to try it out: the SQS queue client now supports asynchronous reads, so you don’t need a clumsy polling mechanism to retrieve messages. The new approach  is easy to use, and lets you work with AWS queues in a similar way to the message-pump pattern used in the latest Azure SDK for Service Bus queues and topics. I’ve posted a simple wrapper class for subscribing to an SQS hub on gist here: A wrapper for the SQS client in the AWS SDK for.NET v2, which uses the message-pump pattern. Here’s the core functionality in the subscribe method: private async void Subscribe() { if (_isListening) { var request = new ReceiveMessageRequest { MaxNumberOfMessages = 10 }; request.QueueUrl = QueueUrl; var result = await _sqsClient.ReceiveMessageAsync(request, _cancellationTokenSource.Token); if (result.Messages.Count > 0) { foreach (var message in result.Messages) { if (_receiveAction != null && message != null) { _receiveAction(message.Body); DeleteMessage(message.ReceiptHandle); } } } } if (_isListening) { Subscribe(); } } which you call with something like this: client.Subscribe(x=>Log.Debug(x.Body)); The async SDK call returns when there is something in the queue, and will run your receive action for every message it gets in the batch (defaults to the maximum size of 10 messages per call). The listener will sit there awaiting messages until you stop it with: client.Unsubscribe(); Internally it has a cancellation token which it sets when you call unsubscribe, which cancels any in-flight call to SQS and stops the pump. The wrapper will also create the queue if it doesn’t exist at runtime. The Ensure() method gets called in the constructor so when you first use the client for a queue (sending or subscribing), it will set itself up: if (!Exists()) { var request = new CreateQueueRequest(); request.QueueName = QueueName; var response = _sqsClient.CreateQueue(request); QueueUrl = response.QueueUrl; } The Exists() check has to do make a call to ListQueues on the SNS client, as it doesn’t provide its own method to check if a queue exists. That call also populates the Amazon Resource Name, the unique identifier for this queue, which will be useful later. To use the wrapper, just instantiate and go: var queueClient = new QueueClient(“ProcessWorkflow”); queueClient.Subscribe(x=>Log.Debug(x.Body)); var message = {}; //etc. queueClient.Send(message);

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 15, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 15, 2011Popular ReleasesTerraria World Viewer: Version 1.2: Update June 15thNew User Interface Map drawing will not cause the program to freeze anymore Fixed the "Draw Symbols" (now called "Markers") checkbox not having any effectMVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.1.5 RC: Added Extended Dropdown allows a prompt item to be inserted as first element. RequiredAttribute, if present, trggers if no element is chosen Client side javascript function to set/get the values of DateTimeInput, TypedTextBox, TypedEditDisplay, and to bind/unbind a "change" handler The selected page in the pager is applied the attribute selected-page="selected" that can be used in the definition of CSS rules to style the selected page items controls now interpret a null value as an empr...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.0 CTP 1: Umbraco 5 Community Technology Preview Umbraco 5 will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out our first CTP of version 5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a quick low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video here. What's in the v5 CTP box? This is a preview version of version 5 and includes support for the following familiar Umbr...Ribbon Browser for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Ribbon Browser (1.0.514.30): Initial releaseTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v3.0 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: In this version, I did an overhaul of the GUI of the program. The only pop-up window you will receive now is a warning box for for when you click on the "Delete" button. Everything has been integrated into the tabs on the form. I added every item included with v1.0.4 of Terraria and added the option to set inventory/bank slots to "No Item". This WILL work with characters that have not been opened in v1.0.4patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 11 - June 14, 2011: Changes from previous drop: Many code changes: please see the readme.mht for details. New "Client Data Management and Caching" chapter. Updated "Application Notifications" chapter. Updated "Architecture" chapter. Updated "jQuery UI Widget" chapter. Updated "Widget QuickStart" appendix and code. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The Word documents for the chapters are included with the source code in addition to the CHM to help you provide feedback. The PDF is provided as a separat...Orchard Project: Orchard 1.2: Build: 1.2.41 Published: 6/14/2010 How to Install Orchard To install Orchard using Web PI, follow these instructions: http://www.orchardproject.net/docs/Installing-Orchard.ashx. Web PI will detect your hardware environment and install the application. Alternatively, to install the release manually, download the Orchard.Web.1.2.41.zip file. http://orchardproject.net/docs/Manually-installing-Orchard-zip-file.ashx The zip contents are pre-built and ready-to-run. Simply extract the contents o...PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.3.4: Changes - Got rid of suppressed exceptions on assemblies loading at project startup - Fixed Issue #28535 "No Print Support" - Enabled IntelliSence commands wich are supported by ActiPro Syntax Editor control: ToggleBookmark, NextBookmark, PreviousBookmark, ShowMemberList - Added missing Import directives in PS Script project template - Fixed exception occurring on debug start - Fixed an issue: after creating a new PS project, a debugging session hung being run for the second timeSnippet Designer: Snippet Designer 1.4.0: Snippet Designer 1.4.0 for Visual Studio 2010 Change logSnippet Explorer ChangesReworked language filter UI to work better in the side bar. Added result count drop down which lets you choose how many results to see. Language filter and result count choices are persisted after Visual Studio is closed. Added file name to search criteria. Search is now case insensitive. Snippet Editor Changes Snippet Editor ChangesAdded menu option for the $end$ symbol which indicates where the c...SizeOnDisk: 1.0.9.0: Can handle Right-To-Left languages (issue 316) About box (issue 310) New language: Deutsch (thanks to kyoka) Fix: file and folder context menuDropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.1: Added different popup descriptions for actions (copy/append/update/remove) Added popup timeout control (with live preview) Added option to overwrite clipboard with the last link only Notification popup closes on user click Notification popup default timeout increased to 3 sec. Added codeplex link to about .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile requiredWCF Community Site: WCF Express Interop Bindings 1.0: Welcome to the first release of the WCF Express Interop BindingsThis project provides a starter kit for WCF service developers wishing to connect with Java clients in WebSphere, WebLogic, Metro and Apache. It supports security, MTOM and RM features. For more information see the Landing page We welcome your feedback (Topic: Interop Bindings). Please submit any feature requests / bug fixes via the issue tracker. FeaturesVSIX Installer WCF Bindings for Oracle WebLogic, Oracle Metro, IBM WebS...Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.4.1: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation is the best way to detect and redirect mobile devices and their capabilities on ASP.NET and is being used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re highly confident in our software and we recommend all users update to this version. Changes to Version 1.0.4.1Changed the BlackberryHandler and BlackberryVersion6Handler to have equal CONFIDENCE values to ensure they both get a chance at detecting BlackBerry version 4&5 and version 6 devices. Prior to thi...Kouak - HTTP File Share Server: Kouak Beta 3 - Clean: Some critical bug solved and dependecy problems There's 3 package : - The first, contains the cli server and the graphical server. - The second, only the cli server - The third, only the graphical client. It's a beta release, so don't hesitate to emmit issue ;pRawr: Rawr 4.1.06: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta6: ??AcDown?????????????,?????????????,????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??:????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64),?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta6 ?????(imanhua.com)????? ???? ?? ??"????","?????","?????","????"?????? "????"?????"????????"?? ??????????? ?????????????? ?????????????/???? ?? ????Windows 7???????????? ????????? ?? ????????????? ???????/??????????? ???????????? ?? ?? ?????(imanh...Pulse: Pulse Beta 2: - Added new wallpapers provider http://wallbase.cc. Supports english search, multiple keywords* - Improved font rendering in Options window - Added "Set wallpaper as logon background" option* - Fixed crashes if there is no internet connection - Fixed: Rewalls downloads empty images sometimes - Added filters* Note 1: wallbase provider supports only english search. Rewalls provider supports only russian search but Pulse automatically translates your english keyword into russian using Google Tr...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.7: Version: 2.0.0.7 (Milestone 7): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...SimplePlanner: v2.0b: For 2011-2012 Sem 1 ???2011-2012 ????Visual Studio 2010 Help Downloader: 1.0.0.3: Domain name support for proxy Cleanup old packages bug Writing to EventLog with UAC enabled bug Small fixes & RefactoringNew Projects360U: 360UAd Configuration + Rotator for Windows Phone: Ad Configuration and Rotator for Windows Phone is a set of classes and controls which allow you to remotely manage advertising providers used inside your Windows Phone application. Advertising providers can be plugged in on an 'as needed' so application only ship with the providers being used.CommerceShopSystem: CommerceShopSystemContour strikes again: Collection of extensions for the Umbraco Contour form builderFarseer Physics & GLEED2D Link: This project includes c# files usable to implement the Farseer Physics engine in a level created using GLEED2D.FolderComparer: This DLL holds an extension of the DirectoryInfo class. It contains a logic that helps compare the contents of two folders. HierList Hierarchial Outline ASP.NET Server Control ( using UL or OL and LI ): The HierList ASP WebControl generates a hierarchial list using the UL, OL, and LI html tags. Images Organizator: A C# .Net program that organizes all pictures in a folder by date.KiggDemo: i study kiggLavieOrnamentos: LavieOrnamentos is a MVC project written in C# for a standard business website. I plan to use it as a base for a bigger project, a standard business site framework targeting small companies that just want to display their products and latest news.Multiple Choice Training Application: This is an ASP.Net (VB.Net) Web based training application. This application can be configured to ask multiple choice questions for multiple groups, score based on percentage, create completion certificates and be completely managed via a web interface,Orchard Windows Authentication: This module allows Windows domain users to be authenticated in Orchard.Party Estimator: Party Estimator is a training project based on requirements from O'Reilly's _Head First C#_, and is not intended for widespread use. SharePoint Enforcer - Ensuring large sites comply with standards: SharePoint Enforcer is a utility that aids in governance of large SharePoint sites to ensure that the sites comply with various business rules that have been created to keep the site from growing out of control.SharePoint WarmUp Tool (Claims+FBA): This tools is for warming up (waking) SharPoint sites. It addresses the issue of a 403 forbidden error when the SharePoint web app is in claims mode and FBA. It uses Windows authentication to warm up the sites and bypasses the FBA login redirection causing the 403 forbidden error.Super Mario Limitless: Super Mario Limitless is an in-production Super Mario level engine. It allows you to play your own levels and worlds, play others' levels and worlds, and even play online. With limitless features, you'll spend hours playing and creating.VB.NET ASP.NET MVC 2 - Music Store: This project is a port using the VB language with ASP.NET MVC 2 of the MusicStore application that can be found at : http://mvcmusicstore.codeplex.com/ Veni, Vedi, Velcro...: A personal phone 7 social media app that shows basic elements of design, ad model, panorama etc.XMLServiceMonitor: A Windows service (VB.Net) that allows the monitoring of failure of Servers, Services, Applications, Scheduled Tasks and SQL Jobs. The service is configurable with simple XML files and sends out email notifications of failures.

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  • Desktop Fun: Google Themed Icon Packs

    - by Asian Angel
    Are you an avid user of Google’s online services, but the icons for your desktop and app launcher shortcuts leave something to be desired? Now you can make those shortcuts shine with style using our Google Themed Icon Packs collection. Note: To customize the icon setup on your Windows 7 & Vista systems see our article here. Using Windows XP? We have you covered here. Sneak Preview For this week’s sneak preview we set up a Google Chrome themed desktop using the Simply Google Icon Collection shown below. Note: Original full-size wallpaper can be found here. We used Chromium to create a set of app shortcuts for various Google services on our desktop. Anyone who has done the same knows that the original icons do not look very good, so these icon packs can make those shortcuts look spectacular. Once the new icons were arranged for our desktop app shortcuts, we then pinned them to our Taskbar. Those are definitely looking nice! The Icon Packs Simply Google Icon Collection *.ico and .png format Download Google icons *.ico and .png format Download Tango Google Icon Set Vol. 1 *.png and .svg format Download Google Tango Icon Set Vol. 2 *.png and .svg format Download New Google Product Icons *.ico, .png, and .gif format Note: This icon pack contains 657 icons of various sizes. The best selection of individual icon types in the same size (i.e. 48, 128, etc.) from this pack is a mixture of .png and .gif formats. Download New google docs icons *.png format only Download Google Docs pack Icons *.ico, .png, and .gif format Download GCal *.png format only (original favicon .ico file included) Download Google Earth Icon Color Pack *.png format only Download Google Earth Dock Icons *.ico, .png, and .icns format Download Gtalk Color Icons *.png format only Download Google Buzz Icons *.png format only Download Google Chrome icon pack *.png format only Download Google Chrome X *.ico, .png, and .icns format Download Google Chrome icon pack *.png format only Download Wanting more great icon sets to look through? Be certain to visit our Desktop Fun section for more icon goodness! Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC Enjoy Old School Style Video Game Fun with Chicken Invaders Hide the Twitter “Litter” in Twitter’s Sidebar Area (Chrome and Iron) Public Domain Day: Reflections on Copyright and the Importance of Public Domain Angry Birds Coming to PS3 and PSP This Week I Hate Mondays Wallpaper for That First Day Back at Work Tune Pop Enhances Android Music Notifications

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  • NYC Silverlight FireStarter - June 5th 2010 at the NYC Microsoft Office

    - by Sam Abraham
    On Saturday June 5th, 2010, I spent my Saturday morning at the NYC Silverlight FireStarter. Presenting was Peter Laudati from Microsoft and Jason Beres, Matt Van Horn and Todd Snyder from Infragistics. I watched the Simulcast for the morning sessions as I was tied up with some work, but ended up finally making it to the Microsoft Office and had the opportunity to attend the last hour of the event in person.   For me, the quality of the Simulcast was as good as in-person attendance so far as sound/video quality and the interaction with speakers. In the background was a screen with tweets from remote attendees asking questions or commenting on the presentations. Presenters did periodically stop to answer the tweeted questions as well as questions from attendees. Only thing I missed was getting my hands on some of that swag that was (literally) flying in the air at the event floor.   Upon my arrival at the Microsoft Office Location in NYC, I spoke with Rachel Appel and Peter Laudati asking for permission to take a few photos to record the outstanding effort that took place in putting this event together. Both agreed and I started with putting my photography skills to work.   You can always gauge the quality of an event with the number of its attendees who opt to stay till the last minute as well as the level of interaction of the audience with the speaker. With most of the FireStarter attendees remaining till the very end of the talk, and with the many questions that were asked, one can simply judge the event as a success as per my aforementioned criteria.   Evaluation forms were passed around and Peter strongly encouraged the audience to openly speak their mind as they record their comments. I didn't get to submit my evaluation as I was busy recording the event in photos, so here it goes: I believe that lots of hard work was put into making this event a reality. Quality of speakers, topics and level of Geekiness at the event was outstanding.  Overall, aside from a minor issue with Lunch delivery time, this event was of high quality and I am very sure everyone's evaluation will be in line with my analysis of it being a great success. Below are a few photos of the event.   --Sam Abraham Site Director - West Palm Beach .Net User Group www.Fladotnet.com     NYC Silverlight FireStarter Speakers - From Left to right: Peter Laudati, Todd Snyder, Matt Van Horn & Jason Beres   As jason wasn't quiet visible in the above photo, a closeup was taken (It was Jason's birthday and he had to leave a bit early, so the Infagisticts team thought outside the box...)     Full Room - That was at the last hour of the event   Another view of full room   Discussions during the break   End-of-event Raffle

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  • SQLAuthority News – Presenting at Great Indian Developer Summit 2012 – SQL Server Misconception and Resolutions

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier during TechEd 2012, I presented a session on SQL Server Misconception and Resolutions. It was a pleasure to present this session with Vinod Kumar during the event. Great Indian Developer Summit is around the corner and I will be presenting there once again with the same topic. We had an excellent response during the last event; the hall was so filled, but there were plenty who were not able to get into the session as there was no place for them to sit or stand inside. Well, here is another chance for all who missed the presentation. New Additions During the last session, we were a two-presenter tag team, and we presented the session in a sense that it would suit two speakers in one stage. But this time, I am the only presenter, so I decided to present this session in a much different way. I will still assume there are two presenters. One of the presenters will be me, of course, and the second person will be YOU! Yes, you read that right – you will be presenting this session with me. If you wonder how, well, you will have to attend the session to figure it out. Talking Points We will be talking about the following topics in the session which we will relate to SQL Server: Moon Landing Napoléon Bonaparte Wall of China Bollywood …and of course, SQL Server itself. I promise that this 45 minute- presentation will be the one of the highlights of the event for you. Goodies I can only promise 20 goodies as of the moment. I might bring more when you meet me there. Session Details Title: SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective (Add to Calendar) Abstract: “The earth is flat”! – An ancient common misconception, which has been proven incorrect as we progressed in modern times. In this session, we will see various database misconceptions prevailing and their resolutions with the aid of the demos. In this unique session, the audience will be a part of the conversation and resolution. Date and Time: April 17, 2012, 16:55 to 17:40 Location: J. N. Tata Auditorium, National Science Symposium Complex (NSSC), Bangalore, India Add to Calendar Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • Free training at Northwest Cadence

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Even though I have only been at Northwest Cadence for a short time I have already done so much. What I really wanted to do was let you guys know about a bunch of FREE training that NWC offers. These sessions are at a fantastic time for the UK as 9am PST (Seattle time) is around 5pm GMT. Its a fantastic way to finish off your Fridays and with the lack of love for developers in the UK set to continue I would love some of you guys to get some from the US instead. There are really two offerings. The first is something called Coffee talks that take you through an hours worth of detail in a specific category. Coffee Talks These coffee talks have some superb topics and you can get excellent interaction with the presenter as they are kind of informal. Date Day Time Topic Register Here 01/04/11 Tuesday 8:30AM – 9:30AM PST Real World Business and Technical Benefits of ALM with TFS 2010 150656 01/28/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152810 02/11/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server 152844 02/25/11 Friday 2:00PM - 3:00PM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152816 03/11/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Lab Manager The Ultimate “No More No Repro” Tool 152809 03/25/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152838 04/08/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server 152846 04/22/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152839 05/06/11 Friday 2:00PM - 3:00PM PST Real World Business and Technical Benefits of ALM with TFS 2010 150657 05/20/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152842 06/03/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server 152847 06/17/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152843   ALM Training Engagement Program Microsoft has released a new program to bring free Visual Studio 2010 Training Sessions to select customers on Microsoft Visual Studio products and how Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solutions can help drive greater business impact. For more details on this program, please see the process chart below.  To get started send an email to us; This training is paid for by Microsoft and you would need to commit to 4 sessions in order to get accepted into the program. So these have more hoops to jump through to get them, but the content is much more formal and centres around adoption.

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  • Six Unusual Blogs I Like

    - by Bill Graziano
    I subscribe to and read over 100 SQL Server blogs every day.  I link to posts that I think are interesting.  I also read a fair number of non-SQL Server blogs.  Here are a few that I think are interesting. danah boyd. She is a researcher with Microsoft and writes about privacy, social media and teenagers.  I discovered her blog while looking for strategies to keep my personal and professional life separate.  (I haven’t found a good solution to that yet.)  Her stories of how teenagers use Facebook and other social media tools are fascinating. Clayton’s Web Snacks.  Steve Clayton works at Microsoft and has a variety of blogs out there.  This one focuses on … hmmm.  His latest posts are on graffiti, infographics, paper tweets, cartoons and slow motion videos.  It’s mostly visual and you never really know what you’ll get.  It’s always interesting though and I like what he posts.  It’s good creative stuff. Seth Godin.  Seth writes about Marketing.  I read him for motivation to get off my butt and get things done.  He’s a great motivator who encourages you to think big.  And do something! Ask the Pilot.  Patrick Smith is a commercial airline pilot writing about the airline industry.  He’s a great debunker of myths (no they don’t reduce oxygen in the cabin to keep you docile).  My favorite topics include the TSA, flying myths, airport reviews and flight delays. My old favorite flight blog used to be enplaned.  No one knew who wrote it.  It focused on the economics of the airline industry.  It was fascinating stuff.  One day it was gone.  The entire blog was deleted.  Someone tracked down some partial archives and put them online. The Agent’s Journal.  Jack Bechta is an NFL agent.  He writes about the business side of the NFL, the draft and free agency.  Lately he’s been writing about the potential lockout.  He has a distinct lack of hype which I find very refreshing.  xkcd.  I call this the comic for smart people.  A little math, some IT and internet privacy thrown in all make an unusual comic. Funny and intelligent.

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  • How to Never Use iTunes With Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

    - by Chris Hoffman
    iTunes isn’t an amazing program on Windows. There was a time when Apple device users had to plug their devices into their PCs or Macs and use iTunes for device activation, updates, and syncing, but iTunes is no longer necessary. Apple still allows you to use iTunes for these things, but you don’t have to. Your iOS device can function independently from iTunes, so you should never be forced to plug it into a PC or Mac. Device Activation When the iPad first came out, it was touted as a device that could replace full PCs and Macs for people who only needed to perform light computing tasks. Yet, to set up a new iPad, users had to plug it into a PC or Mac running iTunes and use iTunes to activate the device. This is no longer necessary. With new iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, you can simply go through the setup process after turning on your new device without ever having to plug it into iTunes. Just connect to a Wi-Fi or cellular data network and log in with your Apple ID when prompted. You’ll still see an option that allows you to activate the device via iTunes, but this should only be necessary if you don’t have a wireless Internet connection available for your device. Operating System Updates You no longer have to use Apple’s iTunes software to update to a new version of Apple’s iOS operating system, either. Just open the Settings app on your device, select the General category, and tap Software Update. You’ll be able to update right from your device without ever opening iTunes. Purchased iTunes Media Apple allows you to easily access content you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store on any device. You don’t have to connect your device to your computer and sync via iTunes. For example, you can purchase a movie from the iTunes Store. Then, without any syncing, you can open the iTunes Store app on any of your iOS devices, tap the Purchased section, and see stuff you’ve downloaded. You can download the content right from the store to your device. This also works for apps — apps you purchase from the App Store can be accessed in the Purchased section on the App Store on your device later. You don’t have to sync apps from iTunes to your device, although iTunes still allows you to. You can even set up automatic downloads from the iTunes & App Store settings screen. This would allow you to purchase content on one device and have it automatically download to your other devices without any hassle. Music Apple allows you to re-download purchased music from the iTunes Store in the same way. However, there’s a good chance you have your own music you didn’t purchase from iTunes. Maybe you spent time ripping it all from your old CDs and you’ve been syncing it to your devices via iTunes ever since. Apple’s solution for this is named iTunes Match. This feature isn’t free, but it’s not a bad deal at all. For $25 per year, Apple allows you to upload all your music to your iCloud account. You can then access all your music from any iPhone, IPad, or iPod Touch. You can stream all your music — perfect if you have a huge library and little storage on your device — and choose which songs you want to download to your device for offline use. When you add additional music to your computer, iTunes will notice it and upload it using iTunes Match, making it available for streaming and downloading directly from your iOS devices without any syncing. This feature is named iTunes Match because it doesn’t just upload music — if Apple already has a song you upload, it will “match” your song with Apple’s copy. This means you may get higher-quality versions of your songs if you ripped them from CD at a lower bitrate. Podcasts You don’t have to use iTunes to subscribe to podcasts and sync them to your devices. Even if you have a lowly iPod Touch, you can install APple’s Podcasts app from the app store. Use it to subscribe to podcasts and configure them to automatically download directly to your device. You can use other podcast apps for this, too. Backups You can continue backing up your device’s data through iTunes, generating local backups that are stored on your computer. However, new iOS devices are configured to automatically back up their data to iCloud. This happens automatically in the background without you even having to think about it, and you can restore such backups when setting up a device simply by logging in with your Apple ID. Personal Data In the days of PalmPilots, people would use desktop programs like iTunes to sync their email, contacts, and calendar events with their mobile devices. You probably shouldn’t have to sync this data form your computer. Just sign into your email account — for example, a Gmail account — on your device and iOS will automatically pull your email, contacts, and calendar events from your associated account. Photos Rather than connecting your iOS device to your computer and syncing photos from it, you can use an app that automatically uploads your photos to a web service. Dropbox, Google+, and even Flickr all have this feature in their apps. You’ll be able to access your photos from any computer and have a backup copy without any syncing required. You may still need to use iTunes if you want to sync local music without paying for iTunes Match or copy local video files to your device. Copying large local files over is the only real scenario where you’d need iTunes. If you don’t need to copy such files over, you can go ahead and uninstall iTunes from your Windows PC if you like. You shouldn’t need it.     

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  • A big flat text file or a HTML site for language documentation?

    - by Bad Sector
    A project of mine is a small embeddable Tcl-like scripting language, LIL. While i'm mostly making it for my own use, i think it is interesting enough for others to use, so i want it to have a nice (but not very "wordy") documentation. So far i'm using a single flat readme.txt file. It explains the language's syntax, features, standard functions, how to use the C API, etc. Also it is easy to scan and read in almost every environment out there, from basic text-only terminals to full-fledged high-end graphical desktop environments. However, while i tried to keep things nicely formatted (as much as this is possible in plain text), i still think that being a big (and growing) wall of text, it isn't as easy on the eyes as it could be. Also i feel that sometimes i'm not writing as much as i want in order to avoid expanding the text too much. So i thought i could use another project of mine, QuHelp, which is basically a help site generator for sites like this one with a sidebar that provides a tree of topics/subtopics and offline full text search. With this i can use HTML to format the documentation and if i use QuHelp for some other project that uses LIL, i can import LIL's documentation as part of the other project's documentation. However converting the existing documentation to QuHelp/HTML isn't a small task, especially when it comes to functions (i'll need to put more detail on them than what currently exists in the readme.txt file). Also it loses the wide range of availability that it currently has (even if QuHelp's generated code degrades gracefully down to console-only web browsers, plain text is readable from everywhere, including from popular editors such as Vim and Emacs - i had someone once telling me that he likes LIL's documentation because it is readable without leaving his editor). So, my question is simply this: should i keep the documentation as it is now in the form of a single readme.txt file or should i convert it to something like the site i mentioned above? There is also the option to do both, but i'm not sure if i'll be able to always keep them in sync or if it is worth the effort. After asking around in IRC i've got mixed answers: some liked the wide availability of the single text file, others said that it is looks as bad as a man page (personally i don't mind that - i can read man pages just fine - but other people might have issues reading them). What do you think?

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  • Summit Time!

    - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell
    Boy, how time flies!  I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away.  Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.  Whatever the cause, I am really looking forward to next week.  The PASS Summit is the largest SQL Server conference in the world and a fantastic networking opportunity thrown in for no additional charge.  Here are a few thoughts to help you maximize the week. Networking As Karen Lopez (blog | @DataChick) mentioned in her presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter just a couple of weeks ago, “Don’t wait until you need a new job to start networking.”  You should always be working on your professional network.  Some people, especially technical-minded people, get confused by the term networking.  The first image that used to pop into my head was the image of some guy standing, awkwardly, off to the side of a cocktail party, trying to shmooze those around him.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you’re good at that sort of thing, and you can strike up a conversation with some stranger and learn all about them in 5 minutes, and walk away with your next business deal all but approved by the lawyers, then congratulations.  But if you’re not, and most of us are not, I have two suggestions for you.  First, register for Don Gabor’s 2-hour session on Tuesday at the Summit called Networking to Build Business Contacts.  Don is a master at small talk, and at teaching others, and in just those two short hours will help you with important tips about breaking the ice, remembering names, and smooth transitions into and out of conversations.  Then go put that great training to work right away at the Tuesday night Welcome Reception and meet some new people; which is really my second suggestion…just meet a few new people.  You see, “networking” is about meeting new people and being friendly without trying to “work it” to get something out of the relationship at this point.  In fact, Don will tell you that a better way to build the connection with someone is to look for some way that you can help them, not how they can help you. There are a ton of opportunities as long as you follow this one key point: Don’t stay in your hotel!  At the least, get out and go to the free events such as the Tuesday night Welcome Reception, the Wednesday night Exhibitor Reception, and the Thursday night Community Appreciation Party.  All three of these are perfect opportunities to meet other professionals with a similar job or interest as you, and you never know how that may help you out in the future.  Maybe you just meet someone to say HI to at breakfast the next day instead of eating alone.  Or maybe you cross paths several times throughout the Summit and compare notes on different sessions you attended.  And you just might make new friends that you look forward to seeing year after year at the Summit.  Who knows, it might even turn out that you have some specific experience that will help out that other person a few months’ from now when they run into the same challenge that you just overcame, or vice-versa.  But the point is, if you don’t get out and meet people, you’ll never have the chance for anything else to happen in the future. One more tip for shy attendees of the Summit…if you can’t bring yourself to strike up conversation with strangers at these events, then at the least, after you sit through a good session that helps you out, go up to the speaker and introduce yourself and thank them for taking the time and effort to put together their presentation.  Ideally, when you do this, tell them WHY it was beneficial to you (e.g. “Now I have a new idea of how to tackle a problem back at the office.”)  I know you think the speakers are all full of confidence and are always receiving a ton of accolades and applause, but you’re wrong.  Most of them will be very happy to hear first-hand that all the work they put into getting ready for their presentation is paying off for somebody. Training With over 170 technical sessions at the Summit, training is what it’s all about, and the training is fantastic!  Of course there are the big-name trainers like Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan and several others, but I am always impressed by the quality of the training put on by so many other “regular” members of the SQL Server community.  It is amazing how you don’t have to be a published author or otherwise recognized as an “expert” in an area in order to make a big impact on others just by sharing your personal experience and lessons learned.  I would rather hear the story of, and lessons learned from, “some guy or gal” who has actually been through an issue and came out the other side, than I would a trained professor who is speaking just from theory or an intellectual understanding of a topic. In addition to the three full days of regular sessions, there are also two days of pre-conference intensive training available.  There is an extra cost to this, but it is a fantastic opportunity.  Think about it…you’re already coming to this area for training, so why not extend your stay a little bit and get some in-depth training on a particular topic or two?  I did this for the first time last year.  I attended one day of extra training and it was well worth the time and money.  One of the best reasons for it is that I am extremely busy at home with my regular job and family, that it was hard to carve out the time to learn about the topic on my own.  It worked out so well last year that I am doubling up and doing two days or “pre-cons” this year. And then there are the DVDs.  I think these are another great option.  I used the online schedule builder to get ready and have an idea of which sessions I want to attend and when they are (much better than trying to figure this out at the last minute every day).  But the problem that I have run into (seems this happens every year) is that nearly every session block has two different sessions that I would like to attend.  And some of them have three!  ACK!  That won’t work!  What is a guy supposed to do?  Well, one option is to purchase the DVDs which are recordings of the audio and projected images from each session so you can continue to attend sessions long after the Summit is officially over.  Yes, many (possibly all) of these also get posted online and attendees can access those for no extra charge, but those are not necessarily all available as quickly as the DVD recording are, and the DVDs are often more convenient than downloading, especially if you want to share the training with someone who was not able to attend in person. Remember, I don’t make any money or get any other benefit if you buy the DVDs or from anything else that I have recommended here.  These are just my own thoughts, trying to help out based on my experiences from the 8 or so Summits I have attended.  There is nothing like the Summit.  It is an awesome experience, fantastic training, and a whole lot of fun which is just compounded if you’ll take advantage of the first part of this article and make some new friends along the way.

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  • Where and how to mention Stackoverflow participation in the résumé?

    - by Sandeepan Nath
    I think I have good enough reputation on SO now - here is my profile - http://stackoverflow.com/users/351903/sandeepan-nath. Well, this may not be that much as compared to so many other users out there but I am happy with mine. So, I was thinking of adding my profile link on my résumé. (Just the profile link and not that "I have this much reputation on SO"). Those who haven't seen, can see this question Would you put your stackoverflow profile link on your CV / Resume?. How would this look like? Forums/Blogs/Miscellaneous others No blogging as yet but active participant in Stackoverflow. My profile link - http://stackoverflow.com/users/351903/sandeepan-nath I think of putting this section after Project Details and Technical Expertise sections. Any tips/advice? Thanks Update MKO has made a very good point - "do you really want a potential employeer to be able to evaluate in detail everything you've ever written on SO". I thought of commenting but it would be too long - In my questions/answers I put a lot of statements like - "AFAIK ...", "following are my assumptions so far ...", "am I correct to conclude that... ?", "I doubt if it is possible to ..." etc. when I am not sure about something and I rarely involve in fights with other users. However I do argue on topics sometimes if I feel it is necessary and if I have a valid point. I do accept my mistakes and apologize for the same. As we all know nobody is perfect. I must have written many things which may be judged as wrong by a potential employer. But what if the same employer notices that I have improved in the quality of content by comparing old content with new one? Isn't that great? I also try to go back to older questions/answers and put corrective comments etc. when I feel I was wrong or if I can improve my post. Of course there are many employers who want you (potential employees) to be correct each and every time. They immediately remove you from consideration when you say a single incorrect thing. I have personally met such an interviewer few months back. He didn't even care to listen to any good thing I had done after he found a single wrong thing. Now the question is do you really care to work with such people? Or do you like those people who give value to the fact that you are striving to improve every day. I personally prefer the latter.

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  • Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion

    Communication with your environment is an essential part of everyone's life. And it doesn't matter whether you are actually living in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, within the pulsating heart of a big city, or in my case on a wonderful island in the Indian Ocean. The ability to exchange your thoughts, your experience and your worries with another person helps you to get different points of view and new ideas on how to resolve an issue you might be confronted with. Benefits of community work What happens to be common sense in your daily life, also applies to your work environment. Working in IT, or ICT as it is called in Mauritius, requires a lot of reading and learning. Not only during your lectures at the university but with your colleagues in a project assignment and hopefully with 'unknown' pals in the universe of online communities. At least I can say that I learned quite a lot from other developers code, their responses in various forums, their numerous blog articles, and while attending local user group meetings. When I started to work as a professional software developer (or engineer some may say) years ago I immediately checked the existence of communities on the programming language, the database technology and other vital information on software development in general. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to find. My employer had a subscription of the monthly magazines and newsletters of a national organisation which also run the biggest forum in that area. Getting in touch with other developers and reading their common problems but also solutions was a huge benefit to my growth. Image courtesy of Michael Kappel (CC BY-NC 2.0) Active participation and regular contribution to this community gave me some nice advantages, too. Within three years I was listed as a conference speaker at the annual developer's conference and provided several sessions on different topics during consecutive years. Back in 2004, I took over the responsibility and management of the monthly meetings of a regional user group, and organised it for more than two years. Furthermore, I was invited to the newly-founded community program of Microsoft Germany (Community Leader/Insider Program - CLIP). My website on Active FoxPro Pages was nominated in the second batch of online communities. Due to my community work and providing advice to others, I had the honour to be awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Visual Developer for Visual FoxPro in the years 2006 and 2007. It was a great experience to meet with other like-minded people and I'm really grateful for that. Just in case, more details are listed in my Curriculum Vitae. But this all changed when I moved to Mauritius... Cyber island Mauritius? During the first months in Mauritius I was way too busy to think about community activities at all. First of all, there was the new company that had to be set up, the new staff had to be trained and of course the communication work-flows and so on with the project managers back in Germany had to be sorted out, too. Second, I had to get a grip of my private matters like getting the basics for my new household or exploring the neighbourhood, and last but not least I needed a break from the hectic and intensive work prior to my departure. As soon as the sea literally calmed down, I started to have conversations with my colleagues about communities and user groups. Sadly, it turned out that there were none, or at least no one was aware of any at that time. Oh oh, what did I do? Anyway, having this kind of background and very positive experience with off-line and on-line activities I decided for myself that some day I'm going to found a community in Mauritius for all kind of IT/ICT-related fields. The main focus might be on software development but not on a certain technology or methodology. It was clear to me that it should be an open infrastructure and anyone is welcome to join, to experience, to share and to contribute if they would like to. That was the idea at that time... Ok, fast-forward to recent events. At the end of October 2012 I was invited to an event called Open Days organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands together with other local partners and resellers. There I got in touch with local Technical Evangelist Arnaud Meslier and we had a good conversation on communities during the breaks. Eventually, I left a good impression on him, as we are having chats on Facebook or Skype irregularly. Well, seeing that my personal and professional surroundings have been settled and running smooth, having that great exchange and contact with Microsoft IOI (again), and being really eager to re-animate my intentions from 2007, I recently founded a new community: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community - #MSCC It took me a while to settle down with the name but it was obvious that the community should not be attached to one single technology, like ie. .NET user group, Oracle developers, or Joomla friends (these are fictitious names). There are several other reasons why I came up with 'Craftsmanship' as the core topic of this community. The expression of 'engineering' didn't feel right with the fields covered. Software development in all kind of facets is a craft, and therefore demands a lot of practice but also guidance from more experienced developers. It also includes the process of designing, modelling and drafting the ideas. Has to deal with various types of tests and test methodologies, and of course should be focused on flexible and agile ways of acting. In order to meet and to excel a customer's request for a solution. Next, I was looking for an easy way to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments. Using all kind of social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, etc. I was never really confident about their features of event handling. More by chance I stumbled upon Meetup.com and in combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I am looking forward to advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there will be a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians!

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  • Is Java viable for serious game development?

    - by tehtros
    Ever since I was a little kid, my dream has been to develop games. Well, now that I am older, more mature, and have some programming experience, I would like to start. However, I would like to turn this into a career. The problem, is that my language of choice is Java. Now, I am not intending this to be a Java vs. C++ question, but rather, is Java an acceptable language for serious game development, instead of lower level languages like C++. By serious, I mean high quality graphics, and being able to play a game with said high quality graphics, without much lag on decent computers. Also, eventually, possible making it to consoles. I have scoured the internet, but there are not very many resources for Java game development, not nearly as many as C++. In fact, most engines are written in C++. Once, I tried to play a made with jMonkeyEngine. The game was terribly slow, to the point where my computer froze. I had no other Java applications running and nothing too resource intensive. Keep in mind, that my computer can play most modern 3D games with ease. So, I am really serious about game development, is Java still a viable choice? I have tried multiple times to learn C++, but I don't really like the language. I don't really know why, but usually, whenever I try to learn, I can never grasp the topics. Also, my most of my friends know Java, and one is even anti-C++, saying that no one knows how to use it right. Then, he goes to say that "there is no right way to use C++, that it can not be used correctly. The nature of the language prevents good code." Also, if I continue to learn and improve Java now, and it turns out that later I am required to learn C++, will making the switch be difficult? So, in short, can Java be taken serious, for serious game development. This includes heavy graphics, fast game play without lag, and possibly, and easy switch to consoles?

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