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• How to Use Steam In-Home Streaming

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Steam’s In-Home Streaming is now available to everyone, allowing you to stream PC games from one PC to another PC on the same local network. Use your gaming PC to power your laptops and home theater system. This feature doesn’t allow you to stream games over the Internet, only the same local network. Even if you tricked Steam, you probably wouldn’t get good streaming performance over the Internet. Why Stream? When you use Steam In-Home streaming, one PC sends its video and audio to another PC. The other PC views the video and audio like it’s watching a movie, sending back mouse, keyboard, and controller input to the other PC. This allows you to have a fast gaming PC power your gaming experience on slower PCs. For example, you could play graphically demanding games on a laptop in another room of your house, even if that laptop has slower integrated graphics. You could connect a slower PC to your television and use your gaming PC without hauling it into a different room in your house. Streaming also enables cross-platform compatibility. You could have a Windows gaming PC and stream games to a Mac or Linux system. This will be Valve’s official solution for compatibility with old Windows-only games on the Linux (Steam OS) Steam Machines arriving later this year. NVIDIA offers their own game streaming solution, but it requires certain NVIDIA graphics hardware and can only stream to an NVIDIA Shield device. How to Get Started In-Home Streaming is simple to use and doesn’t require any complex configuration — or any configuration, really. First, log into the Steam program on a Windows PC. This should ideally be a powerful gaming PC with a powerful CPU and fast graphics hardware. Install the games you want to stream if you haven’t already — you’ll be streaming from your PC, not from Valve’s servers. (Valve will eventually allow you to stream games from Mac OS X, Linux, and Steam OS systems, but that feature isn’t yet available. You can still stream games to these other operating systems.) Next, log into Steam on another computer on the same network with the same Steam username. Both computers have to be on the same subnet of the same local network. You’ll see the games installed on your other PC in the Steam client’s library. Click the Stream button to start streaming a game from your other PC. The game will launch on your host PC, and it will send its audio and video to the PC in front of you. Your input on the client will be sent back to the server. Be sure to update Steam on both computers if you don’t see this feature. Use the Steam > Check for Updates option within Steam and install the latest update. Updating to the latest graphics drivers for your computer’s hardware is always a good idea, too. Improving Performance Here’s what Valve recommends for good streaming performance: Host PC: A quad-core CPU for the computer running the game, minimum. The computer needs enough processor power to run the game, compress the video and audio, and send it over the network with low latency. Streaming Client: A GPU that supports hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding on the client PC. This hardware is included on all recent laptops and PCs. Ifyou have an older PC or netbook, it may not be able to decode the video stream quickly enough. Network Hardware: A wired network connection is ideal. You may have success with wireless N or AC networks with good signals, but this isn’t guaranteed. Game Settings: While streaming a game, visit the game’s setting screen and lower the resolution or turn off VSync to speed things up. In-Home Steaming Settings: On the host PC, click Steam > Settings and select In-Home Streaming to view the In-Home Streaming settings. You can modify your streaming settings to improve performance and reduce latency. Feel free to experiment with the options here and see how they affect performance — they should be self-explanatory. Check Valve’s In-Home Streaming documentation for troubleshooting information. You can also try streaming non-Steam games. Click Games > Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library on your host PC and add a PC game you have installed elsewhere on your system. You can then try streaming it from your client PC. Valve says this “may work but is not officially supported.” Image Credit: Robert Couse-Baker on Flickr, Milestoned on Flickr

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• SUPINFO International University in Mauritius

  Since a while I'm considering to pick up my activities as a student and I'd like to get a degree in Computer Science. Personal motivation I mean after all this years as a professional software (and database) developer I have the personal urge to complete this part of my education. Having various certifications by Microsoft and being awarded as an Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) twice looks pretty awesome on a resume but having a "proper" degree would just complete my package. During the last couple of years I already got in touch with C-SAC (local business school with degree courses), the University of Mauritius and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT to check the options to enroll as an experienced software developer. Quite frankly, it was kind of alienating to receive that feedback: Start from scratch! No seriously? Spending x amount of years to sit for courses that might be outdated and form part of your daily routine? Probably being in an awkward situation in which your professional expertise might exceed the lecturers knowledge? I don't know... but if that's path to walk... Well, then I might have to go for it. SUPINFO International University Some weeks ago I was contacted by the General Manager, Education Recruitment and Development of Medine Education Village, Yamal Matabudul, to have a chat on how the local IT scene, namely the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC), could assist in their plans to promote their upcoming campus. Medine went into partnership with the French-based SUPINFO International University and Mauritius will be the 36th location world-wide for SUPINFO. Actually, the concept of SUPINFO is very likely to the common understanding of an apprenticeship in Germany. Not only does a student enroll into the programme but will also be placed into various internships as part of the curriculum. It's a big advantage in my opinion as the person stays in touch with the daily procedures and workflows in the real world of IT. Statements like "We just received a 'crash course' of information and learned new technology which is equivalent to 1.5 months of lectures at the university" wouldn't form part of the experience of such an education. Open Day at the Medine Education Village Last Saturday, Medine organised their Open Day and it was the official inauguration of the SUPINFO campus in Mauritius. It's now listed on their website, too - but be warned, the site is mainly in French language although the courses are all done in English. Not only was it a big opportunity to "hang out" on the campus of Medine but it was great to see the first professional partners for their internship programme, too. Oh, just for the records, IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. will also be among the future employers for SUPINFO students. More about that in an upcoming blog entry. Open Day at Medine Education Village - SUPINFO International University in Mauritius Mr Alick Mouriesse, President of SUPINFO, arrived the previous day and he gave all attendees a great overview of the roots of SUPINFO, the general development of the educational syllabus and their high emphasis on their partnerships with local IT companies in order to assist their students to get future jobs but also feel the heartbeat of technology live. Something which is completely missing in classic institutions of tertiary education in Computer Science. And since I was on tour with my children, as usual during weekends, he also talked about the outlook of having a SUPINFO campus in Mauritius. Apart from the close connection to IT companies and providing internships to students, SUPINFO clearly works on an international level. Meaning students of SUPINFO can move around the globe and can continue their studies seamlessly. For example, you might enroll for your first year in France, then continue to do 2nd and 3rd year in Canada or any other country with a SUPINFO campus to earn your bachelor degree, and then live and study in Mauritius for the next 2 years to achieve a Master degree. Having a chat with Dale Smith, Expand Technologies, after his interesting session on Technological Entrepreneurship - TechPreneur More questions by other craftsmen of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community And of course, this concept works in any direction, giving Mauritian students a huge (!) opportunity to live, study and work abroad. And thanks to this, Medine already announced that there will be new facilities near Cascavelle to provide dormitories and other facilities to international students coming to our island. Awesome! Okay, but why SUPINFO? Well, coming back to my original statement - I'd like to get a degree in Computer Science - SUPINFO has a process called Validation of Acquired Experience (VAE) which is tailor-made for employees in the field of IT, and allows you to enroll in their course programme. I already got in touch with their online support chat but was only redirected to some FAQs on their website, unfortunately. So, during the Open Day I seized the opportunity to have an one-on-one conversation with Alick Mouriesse, and he clearly encouraged me to gather my certifications and working experience. SUPINFO does an individual evaluation prior to their assignment regarding course level, and hopefully my chances of getting some modules ahead of studies are looking better than compared to the other institutes. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go down the easy route but why should someone sit for "Database 101" or "Principles of OOP" when applying and preaching database normalisation and practicing Clean Code Developer are like flesh and blood? Anyway, I'll be off to get my transcripts of certificates together with my course assignments from the old days at the university. Yes, I studied Applied Chemistry for a couple of years before intersecting into IT and software development particularly... ;-)

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• Help Prevent Carpal Tunnel Problems with Workrave

  - by Matthew Guay

  Whether for work or leisure, many of us spend entirely too much time on the computer everyday.  This puts us at risk of having or aggravating Carpal Tunnel problems, but thanks to Workrave you can help to divert these problems. Workrave helps Carpal Tunnel problems by reminding you to get away from your computer periodically.  Breaking up your computer time with movement can help alleviate many computer and office related health problems.  Workrave helps by reminding you to take short pauses after several minutes of computer use, and longer breaks after continued use.  You can also use it to keep from using the computer for too much You time in a day.  Since you can change the settings to suit you, this can be a great way to make sure you’re getting the breaks you need. Install Workrave on Windows If you’re using Workrave on Windows, download (link below) and install it with the default settings. One installation setting you may wish to change is the startup.  By default Workrave will run automatically when you start your computer; if you don’t want this, you can simply uncheck the box and proceed with the installation. Once setup is finished, you can run Workrave directly from the installer. Or you can open it from your start menu by entering “workrave” in the search box. Install Workrave in Ubuntu If you wish to use it in Ubuntu, you can install it directly from the Ubuntu Software Center.  Click the Applications menu, and select Ubuntu Software Center. Enter “workrave” into the search box in the top right corner of the Software Center, and it will automatically find it.  Click the arrow to proceed to Workrave’s page. This will give you information about Workrave; simply click Install to install Workrave on your system. Enter your password when prompted. Workrave will automatically download and install.   When finished, you can find Workrave in your Applications menu under Universal Access. Using Workrave Workrave by default shows a small counter on your desktop, showing the length of time until your next Micro break (30 second break), Rest break (10 minute break), and max amount of computer usage for the day. When it’s time for a micro break, Workrave will popup a reminder on your desktop. If you continue working, it will disappear at the end of the timer.  If you stop, it will start a micro-break which will freeze most on-screen activities until the timer is over.  You can click Skip or Postpone if you do not want to take a break right then. After an hour of work, Workrave will give you a 10 minute rest break.  During this it will show you some exercises that can help eliminate eyestrain, muscle tension, and other problems from prolonged computer usage.  You can click through the exercises, or can skip or postpone the break if you wish.   Preferences You can change your Workrave preferences by right-clicking on its icon in your system tray and selecting Preferences. Here you can customize the time between your breaks, and the length of your breaks.  You can also change your daily computer usage limit, and can even turn off the postpone and skip buttons on notifications if you want to make sure you follow Workrave and take your rests! From the context menu, you can also choose Statistics.  This gives you an overview of how many breaks, prompts, and more were shown on a given day.  It also shows a total Overdue time, which is the total length of the breaks you skipped or postponed.  You can view your Workrave history as well by simply selecting a date on the calendar.   Additionally, the Activity tab in the Statics pane shows more info about your computer usage, including total mouse movement, mouse button clicks, and keystrokes. Conclusion Whether you’re suffering with Carpal Tunnel or trying to prevent it, Workrave is a great solution to help remind you to get away from your computer periodically and rest.  Of course, since you can simply postpone or skip the prompts, you’ve still got to make an effort to help your own health.  But it does give you a great way to remind yourself to get away from the computer, and especially for geeks, this may be something that we really need! Download Workrave Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Switch to the Dvorak Keyboard Layout in XPAccess Your MySQL Server Remotely Over SSHHow to Secure Gaim Instant Messenger traffic at Work with SecureCRT and SSHConnect to VMware Server Console Over SSHDisclaimers TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar Explore Google Public Data Visually The Ultimate Excel Cheatsheet Convert the Quick Launch Bar into a Super Application Launcher Automate Tasks in Linux with Crontab Discover New Bundled Feeds in Google Reader

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• Joins in single-table queries

  - by Rob Farley

  Tables are only metadata. They don’t store data. I’ve written something about this before, but I want to take a viewpoint of this idea around the topic of joins, especially since it’s the topic for T-SQL Tuesday this month. Hosted this time by Sebastian Meine (@sqlity), who has a whole series on joins this month. Good for him – it’s a great topic. In that last post I discussed the fact that we write queries against tables, but that the engine turns it into a plan against indexes. My point wasn’t simply that a table is actually just a Clustered Index (or heap, which I consider just a special type of index), but that data access always happens against indexes – never tables – and we should be thinking about the indexes (specifically the non-clustered ones) when we write our queries. I described the scenario of looking up phone numbers, and how it never really occurs to us that there is a master list of phone numbers, because we think in terms of the useful non-clustered indexes that the phone companies provide us, but anyway – that’s not the point of this post. So a table is metadata. It stores information about the names of columns and their data types. Nullability, default values, constraints, triggers – these are all things that define the table, but the data isn’t stored in the table. The data that a table describes is stored in a heap or clustered index, but it goes further than this. All the useful data is going to live in non-clustered indexes. Remember this. It’s important. Stop thinking about tables, and start thinking about indexes. So let’s think about tables as indexes. This applies even in a world created by someone else, who doesn’t have the best indexes in mind for you. I’m sure you don’t need me to explain Covering Index bit – the fact that if you don’t have sufficient columns “included” in your index, your query plan will either have to do a Lookup, or else it’ll give up using your index and use one that does have everything it needs (even if that means scanning it). If you haven’t seen that before, drop me a line and I’ll run through it with you. Or go and read a post I did a long while ago about the maths involved in that decision. So – what I’m going to tell you is that a Lookup is a join. When I run SELECT CustomerID FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader WHERE SalesPersonID = 285; against the AdventureWorks2012 get the following plan: I’m sure you can see the join. Don’t look in the query, it’s not there. But you should be able to see the join in the plan. It’s an Inner Join, implemented by a Nested Loop. It’s pulling data in from the Index Seek, and joining that to the results of a Key Lookup. It clearly is – the QO wouldn’t call it that if it wasn’t really one. It behaves exactly like any other Nested Loop (Inner Join) operator, pulling rows from one side and putting a request in from the other. You wouldn’t have a problem accepting it as a join if the query were slightly different, such as SELECT sod.OrderQty FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS soh JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail as sod on sod.SalesOrderID = soh.SalesOrderID WHERE soh.SalesPersonID = 285; Amazingly similar, of course. This one is an explicit join, the first example was just as much a join, even thought you didn’t actually ask for one. You need to consider this when you’re thinking about your queries. But it gets more interesting. Consider this query: SELECT SalesOrderID FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader WHERE SalesPersonID = 276 AND CustomerID = 29522; It doesn’t look like there’s a join here either, but look at the plan. That’s not some Lookup in action – that’s a proper Merge Join. The Query Optimizer has worked out that it can get the data it needs by looking in two separate indexes and then doing a Merge Join on the data that it gets. Both indexes used are ordered by the column that’s indexed (one on SalesPersonID, one on CustomerID), and then by the CIX key SalesOrderID. Just like when you seek in the phone book to Farley, the Farleys you have are ordered by FirstName, these seek operations return the data ordered by the next field. This order is SalesOrderID, even though you didn’t explicitly put that column in the index definition. The result is two datasets that are ordered by SalesOrderID, making them very mergeable. Another example is the simple query SELECT CustomerID FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader WHERE SalesPersonID = 276; This one prefers a Hash Match to a standard lookup even! This isn’t just ordinary index intersection, this is something else again! Just like before, we could imagine it better with two whole tables, but we shouldn’t try to distinguish between joining two tables and joining two indexes. The Query Optimizer can see (using basic maths) that it’s worth doing these particular operations using these two less-than-ideal indexes (because of course, the best indexese would be on both columns – a composite such as (SalesPersonID, CustomerID – and it would have the SalesOrderID column as part of it as the CIX key still). You need to think like this too. Not in terms of excusing single-column indexes like the ones in AdventureWorks2012, but in terms of having a picture about how you’d like your queries to run. If you start to think about what data you need, where it’s coming from, and how it’s going to be used, then you will almost certainly write better queries. …and yes, this would include when you’re dealing with regular joins across multiples, not just against joins within single table queries.

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• Create Orchard Module in a Separate Project

  - by Steve Michelotti

  The Orchard Project is a new OOS Microsoft project that is being developed up on CodePlex. From the Orchard home page on CodePlex, it states “Orchard project is focused on delivering a .NET-based CMS application that will allow users to rapidly create content-driven Websites, and an extensibility framework that will allow developers and customizers to provide additional functionality through modules and themes.” The Orchard Project site contains additional information including documentation and walkthroughs. The ability to create a composite solution based on a collection of modules is a compelling feature. In Orchard, these modules can just be created as simple MVC Areas or they can also be created inside of stand-alone web application projects.  The walkthrough for writing an Orchard module that is available on the Orchard site uses a simple Area that is created inside of the host application. It is based on the Orchard MIX presentation. This walkthrough does an effective job introducing various Orchard concepts such as hooking into the navigation system, theme/layout system, content types, and more.  However, creating an Orchard module in a separate project does not seem to be concisely documented anywhere. Orchard ships with several module OOTB that are in separate assemblies – but again, it’s not well documented how to get started building one from scratch. The following are the steps I took to successfully get an Orchard module in a separate project up and running. Step 1 – Download the OrchardIIS.zip file from the Orchard Release page. Unzip and open up the solution. Step 2 – Add your project to the solution. I named my project “Orchard.Widget” and used and “MVC 2 Empty Web Application” project type. Make sure you put the physical path inside the “Modules” sub-folder to the main project like this: At this point the solution should look like: Step 3 – Add assembly references to Orchard.dll and Orchard.Core.dll. Step 4 – Add a controller and view.  I’ll just create a Hello World controller and view. Notice I created the view as a partial view (*.ascx). Also add the [Themed] attribute to the top of the HomeController class just like the normal Orchard walk through shows it. Step 5 – Add Module.txt to the project root. The is a very important step. Orchard will not recognize your module without this text file present.  It can contain just the name of your module: name: Widget Step 6 – Add Routes.cs. Notice I’ve given an area name of “Orchard.Widget” on lines 26 and 33. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: using System.Web.Mvc; 4: using System.Web.Routing; 5: using Orchard.Mvc.Routes; 6:   7: namespace Orchard.Widget 8: { 9: public class Routes : IRouteProvider 10: { 11: public void GetRoutes(ICollection<RouteDescriptor> routes) 12: { 13: foreach (var routeDescriptor in GetRoutes()) 14: { 15: routes.Add(routeDescriptor); 16: } 17: } 18:   19: public IEnumerable<RouteDescriptor> GetRoutes() 20: { 21: return new[] { 22: new RouteDescriptor { 23: Route = new Route( 24: "Widget/{controller}/{action}/{id}", 25: new RouteValueDictionary { 26: {"area", "Orchard.Widget"}, 27: {"controller", "Home"}, 28: {"action", "Index"}, 29: {"id", ""} 30: }, 31: new RouteValueDictionary(), 32: new RouteValueDictionary { 33: {"area", "Orchard.Widget"} 34: }, 35: new MvcRouteHandler()) 36: } 37: }; 38: } 39: } 40: } Step 7 – Add MainMenu.cs. This will make sure that an item appears in the main menu called “Widget” which points to the module. 1: using System; 2: using Orchard.UI.Navigation; 3:   4: namespace Orchard.Widget 5: { 6: public class MainMenu : INavigationProvider 7: { 8: public void GetNavigation(NavigationBuilder builder) 9: { 10: builder.Add(menu => menu.Add("Widget", item => item.Action("Index", "Home", new 11: { 12: area = "Orchard.Widget" 13: }))); 14: } 15:   16: public string MenuName 17: { 18: get { return "main"; } 19: } 20: } 21: } Step 8 – Clean up web.config. By default Visual Studio adds numerous sections to the web.config. The sections that can be removed are: appSettings, connectionStrings, authentication, membership, profile, and roleManager. Step 9 – Delete Global.asax. This project will ultimately be running from inside the Orchard host so this “sub-site” should not have its own Global.asax.   Now you’re ready the run the app.  When you first run it, the “Widget” menu item will appear in the main menu because of the MainMenu.cs file we added: We can then click the “Widget” link in the main menu to send us over to our view:   Packaging From start to finish, it’s a relatively painless experience but it could be better. For example, a Visual Studio project template that encapsulates aspects from this blog post would definitely make it a lot easier to get up and running with creating an Orchard module.  Another aspect I found interesting is that if you read the first paragraph of the walkthrough, it says, “You can also develop modules as separate projects, to be packaged and shared with other users of Orchard CMS (the packaging story is still to be defined, along with marketplaces for sharing modules).” In particular, I will be extremely curious to see how the “packaging story” evolves. The first thing that comes to mind for me is: what if we explored MvcContrib Portable Areas as a potential mechanism for this packaging? This would certainly make things easy since all artifacts (aspx, aspx, images, css, javascript) are all wrapped up into a single assembly. Granted, Orchard does have its own infrastructure for layouts and themes but it seems like integrating portable areas into this pipeline would not be a difficult undertaking. Maybe that’ll be the next research task. :)

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• Slide Creation Checklist

  - by Daniel Moth

  PowerPoint is a great tool for conference (large audience) presentations, which is the context for the advice below. The #1 thing to keep in mind when you create slides (at least for conference sessions), is that they are there to help you remember what you were going to say (the flow and key messages) and for the audience to get a visual reminder of the key points. Slides are not there for the audience to read what you are going to say anyway. If they were, what is the point of you being there? Slides are not holders for complete sentences (unless you are quoting) – use Microsoft Word for that purpose either as a physical handout or as a URL link that you share with the audience. When you dry run your presentation, if you find yourself reading the bullets on your slide, you have missed the point. You have a message to deliver that can be done regardless of your slides – remember that. The focus of your audience should be on you, not the screen. Based on that premise, I have created a checklist that I go over before I start a new deck and also once I think my slides are ready. Turn AutoFit OFF. I cannot stress this enough. For each slide, explicitly pick a slide layout. In my presentations, I only use one Title Slide, Section Header per demo slide, and for the rest of my slides one of the three: Title and Content, Title Only, Blank. Most people that are newbies to PowerPoint, get whatever default layout the New Slide creates for them and then start deleting and adding placeholders to that. You can do better than that (and you'll be glad you did if you also follow item #11 below). Every slide must have an image. Remove all punctuation (e.g. periods, commas) other than exclamation points and question marks (! ?). Don't use color or other formatting (e.g. italics, bold) for text on the slide. Check your animations. Avoid animations that hide elements that were on the slide (instead use a new slide and transition). Ensure that animations that bring new elements in, bring them into white space instead of over other existing elements. A good test is to print the slide and see that it still makes sense even without the animation. Print the deck in black and white choosing the "6 slides per page" option. Can I still read each slide without losing any information? If the answer is "no", go back and fix the slides so the answer becomes "yes". Don't have more than 3 bullet levels/indents. In other words: you type some text on the slide, hit 'Enter', hit 'Tab', type some more text and repeat at most one final time that sequence. Ideally your outer bullets have only level of sub-bullets (i.e. one level of indentation beneath them). Don't have more than 3-5 outer bullets per slide. Space them evenly horizontally, e.g. with blank lines in between. Don't wrap. For each bullet on all slides check: does the text for that bullet wrap to a second line? If it does, change the wording so it doesn't. Or create a terser bullet and make the original long text a sub-bullet of that one (thus decreasing the font size, but still being consistent) and have no wrapping. Use the same consistent fonts (i.e. Font Face, Font Size etc) throughout the deck for each level of bullet. In other words, don't deviate form the PowerPoint template you chose (or that was chosen for you). Go on each slide and hit 'Reset'. 'Reset' is a button on the 'Home' tab of the ribbon or you can find the 'Reset Slide' menu when you right click on a slide on the left 'Slides' list. If your slides can survive doing that without you "fixing" things after the Reset action, you are golden! For each slide ask yourself: if I had to replace this slide with a single sentence that conveys the key message, what would that sentence be? This exercise leads you to merge slides (where the key message is split) or split a slide into many, if there were too many key messages on the slide in the first place. It can also lead you to redesign a slide so the text on it really is just explanation or evidence for the key message you are trying to convey. Get the length right. Is the length of this deck suitable for the time you have been given to present? If not, cut content! It is far better to deliver less in a relaxed, polished engaging, memorable way than to deliver in great haste more content. As a rule of thumb, multiply 2 minutes by the number of slides you have, add the time you need for each demo and check if that add to more than the time you have allotted. If it does, start cutting content – we've all been there and it has to be done. As always, rules and guidelines are there to be bent and even broken some times. Start with the above and on a slide-by-slide basis decide which rules you want to bend. That is smarter than throwing all the rules out from the start, right? Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Backpacks and Booth Paint: TechEd 2012

  - by The Un-T Guy

  Arriving in the parking lot of the Orange County Convention Center, I immediately knew I was in the right place. As far as the eye could see, the acres of asphalt were awash in backpacks, quirky (to be kind) outfits, and bad haircuts. This was the place. This was Microsoft Mecca v2012 for geeks and nerds, the Central Florida event of the year, a gathering of high tech professionals whose skills I both greatly respect and, frankly, fear a little. I was wholly and completely out of element, a dork in a vast sea of geek jumbo. It like was wearing dockers and a golf shirt walking into a RenFaire, but one with really crappy costumes and no turkey legs...save those attached to some of the attendees. Of course the corporate whores...errrr, vendors were in place, ready to parlay the convention's fre-nerd-ic energy into millions of dollars by convincing the big-brained and under-sexed in the crowd (i.e., virtually all of them...present company excluded, of course) that their product or service was the only thing standing between them and professional success, industry fame, and clear skin. "With KramTech 2012," they seemed to scream, "you will be THE ROCK STAR of your company's IT department!" As car shows and tattoo parlors learned long ago, Tech companies seem to believe that the best way to attract the attention of this crowd is through the hint of the promise of sex. They recruit and deploy an army of "sales reps" whose primary qualifications appear to be long hair, short skirts, high heels, and a vagina. Unlike their distant cousins in the car and body art industries, however, this sub-species of booth paint (semi-gloss decoration that adds nothing to the substance of the product) seems torn between committing to being all-out sex objects and recognition that they are in the presence of intelligent, discerning people. People who are smart enough to know exactly what these vendors are doing. Also unlike their distant car show and tattoo shop cousins, these young women (what…are there no gay tech professionals who could use some eye candy?) seem to realize that while IT remains a male-dominated field, there are ever-increasing numbers of intelligent, capable, strong professional women – women who’ve battled to make it in this field through hard work and work performance rather than a hard body and performing after work. This is not to say that all of the young female sales reps are there only because of their physical attributes. Many are competent, intelligent, and driven -- not to mention attractive. They're working hard on the front lines of delivering the next generation of technology. The distinction is pretty clear, however, between these young professionals and the booth paint. The former enthusiastically deliver credible information about the products they’re hawking. The latter are positioned in the aisles, uncomfortably avoiding eye contact as they struggle to operate the badge readers. Surprisingly, not all of the women in attendance seemed to object to the objectification of their younger sisters. One IT professional woman who came of age in the industry (mostly in IT marketing) said, “I have no problem with it. I was a ‘booth babe’ for years and it doesn’t bother me at all.” Others, however, weren’t quite so gracious. One woman I spoke with, an IT manager from Cheyenne, Wyoming, said it was demeaning and frankly, as more and more women grow into IT management positions, not a great marketing idea. “Using these young women is, to me, no different than vendors giving out t-shirts to attract attention. It’s sad because it’s still hard for a woman to be respected in the IT field and this just perpetuates the outdated notion that IT is a male-dominated field.” She went on to say that decisions by vendors to employ these young women in this “inappropriate way” could impact her purchasing decisions. “I might be swayed toward a vendor who has women on staff who are intelligent and dynamic rather than the vendors who use the ‘decoration’ girls.” So in many ways, the IT industry is no different than most other industries as it struggles to maximize performance by finding and developing talent – all of the talent, not just the 50% with a penis. Women in IT, like their brethren, struggle to find their niche in the field, to grow professionally, and reach for the brass ring, struggling to overcome obstacles as they climb the mountain of professional success in a never-ending cycle of economic uncertainty. But as (generally) well-educated and highly-trained professionals, they are probably better positioned than those in many other industries. Beside, they’ve got one other advantage over their non-IT counterparts as they attempt their ascent to the summit: They’ve already got the backpacks.

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• Use Drive Mirroring for Instant Backup in Windows 7

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Even with the best backup solution, a hard drive crash means you’ll lose a few hours of work. By enabling drive mirroring in Windows 7, you’ll always have an up-to-date copy of your data. Windows 7’s mirroring – which is only available in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions – is a software implementation of RAID 1, which means that two or more disks are holding the exact same data. The files are constantly kept in sync, so that if one of the disks fails, you won’t lose any data. Note that mirroring is not technically a backup solution, because if you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone from both hard disks (though you may be able to recover the file). As an additional caveat, having mirrored disks requires changing them to “dynamic disks,” which can only be read within modern versions of Windows (you may have problems working with a dynamic disk in other operating systems or in older versions of Windows). See this Wikipedia page for more information. You will need at least one empty disk to set up disk mirroring. We’ll show you how to mirror an existing disk (of equal or lesser size) without losing any data on the mirrored drive, and how to set up two empty disks as mirrored copies from the get-go. Mirroring an Existing Drive Click on the start button and type partitions in the search box. Click on the Create and format hard disk partitions entry that shows up. Alternatively, if you’ve disabled the search box, press Win+R to open the Run window and type in: diskmgmt.msc The Disk Management window will appear. We’ve got a small disk, labeled OldData, that we want to mirror in a second disk of the same size. Note: The disk that you will use to mirror the existing disk must be unallocated. If it is not, then right-click on it and select Delete Volume… to mark it as unallocated. This will destroy any data on that drive. Right-click on the existing disk that you want to mirror. Select Add Mirror…. Select the disk that you want to use to mirror the existing disk’s data and press Add Mirror. You will be warned that this process will change the existing disk from basic to dynamic. Note that this process will not delete any data on the disk! The new disk will be marked as a mirror, and it will starting copying data from the existing drive to the new one. Eventually the drives will be synced up (it can take a while), and any data added to the E: drive will exist on both physical hard drives. Setting Up Two New Drives as Mirrored If you have two new equal-sized drives, you can format them to be mirrored copies of each other from the get-go. Open the Disk Management window as described above. Make sure that the drives are unallocated. If they’re not, and you don’t need the data on either of them, right-click and select Delete volume…. Right-click on one of the unallocated drives and select New Mirrored Volume…. A wizard will pop up. Click Next. Click on the drives you want to hold the mirrored data and click Add. Note that you can add any number of drives. Click Next. Assign it a drive letter that makes sense, and then click Next. You’re limited to using the NTFS file system for mirrored drives, so enter a volume label, enable compression if you want, and then click Next. Click Finish to start formatting the drives. You will be warned that the new drives will be converted to dynamic disks. And that’s it! You now have two mirrored drives. Any files added to E: will reside on both physical disks, in case something happens to one of them. Conclusion While the switch from basic to dynamic disks can be a problem for people who dual-boot into another operating system, setting up drive mirroring is an easy way to make sure that your data can be recovered in case of a hard drive crash. Of course, even with drive mirroring, we advocate regular backups to external drives or online backup services. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Rebit Backup Software [Review]Disabling Instant Search in Outlook 2007Restore Files from Backups on Windows Home ServerSecond Copy 7 [Review]Backup Windows Home Server Folders to an External Hard Drive TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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• Scripting out Contained Database Users

  - by Argenis

    Today’s blog post comes from a Twitter thread on which @SQLSoldier, @sqlstudent144 and @SQLTaiob were discussing the internals of contained database users. Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the concept of contained users within a SQL Server database (hit the link if you have not). In this article I’d like to show you that you can, indeed, script out contained database users and recreate them on another database, as either contained users or as good old fashioned logins/server principals as well. Why would this be useful? Well, because you would not need to know the password for the user in order to recreate it on another instance. I know there is a limited number of scenarios where this would be necessary, but nonetheless I figured I’d throw this blog post to show how it can be done. A more obscure use case: with the password hash (which I’m about to show you how to obtain) you could also crack the password using a utility like hashcat, as highlighted on this SQLServerCentral article. The Investigation SQL Server uses System Base Tables to save the password hashes of logins and contained database users. For logins it uses sys.sysxlgns, whereas for contained database users it leverages sys.sysowners. I’ll show you what I do to figure this stuff out: I create a login/contained user, and then I immediately browse the transaction log with, for example, fn_dblog. It’s pretty obvious that only two base tables touched by the operation are sys.sysxlgns, and also sys.sysprivs – the latter is used to track permissions. If I connect to the DAC on my instance, I can query for the password hash of this login I’ve just created. A few interesting things about this hash. This was taken on my laptop, and I happen to be running SQL Server 2014 RTM CU2, which is the latest public build of SQL Server 2014 as of time of writing. In 2008 R2 and prior versions (back to 2000), the password hashes would start with 0x0100. The reason why this changed is because starting with SQL Server 2012 password hashes are kept using a SHA512 algorithm, as opposed to SHA-1 (used since 2000) or Snefru (used in 6.5 and 7.0). SHA-1 is nowadays deemed unsafe and is very easy to crack. For regular SQL logins, this information is exposed through the sys.sql_logins catalog view, so there is really no need to connect to the DAC to grab an SID/password hash pair. For contained database users, there is (currently) no method of obtaining SID or password hashes without connecting to the DAC. If we create a contained database user, this is what we get from the transaction log: Note that the System Base Table used in this case is sys.sysowners. sys.sysprivs is used as well, and again this is to track permissions. To query sys.sysowners, you would have to connect to the DAC, as I mentioned previously. And this is what you would get: There are other ways to figure out what SQL Server uses under the hood to store contained database user password hashes, like looking at the execution plan for a query to sys.dm_db_uncontained_entities (Thanks, Robert Davis!) SIDs, Logins, Contained Users, and Why You Care…Or Not. One of the reasons behind the existence of Contained Users was the concept of portability of databases: it is really painful to maintain Server Principals (Logins) synced across most shared-nothing SQL Server HA/DR technologies (Mirroring, Availability Groups, and Log Shipping). Often times you would need the Security Identifier (SID) of these logins to match across instances, and that meant that you had to fetch whatever SID was assigned to the login on the principal instance so you could recreate it on a secondary. With contained users you normally wouldn’t care about SIDs, as the users are always available (and synced, as long as synchronization takes place) across instances. Now you might be presented some particular requirement that might specify that SIDs synced between logins on certain instances and contained database users on other databases. How would you go about creating a contained database user with a specific SID? The answer is that you can’t do it directly, but there’s a little trick that would allow you to do it. Create a login with a specified SID and password hash, create a user for that server principal on a partially contained database, then migrate that user to contained using the system stored procedure sp_user_migrate_to_contained, then drop the login. CREATE LOGIN <login_name> WITH PASSWORD = <password_hash> HASHED, SID = <sid> ; GO USE <partially_contained_db>; GO CREATE USER <user_name> FROM LOGIN <login_name>; GO EXEC sp_migrate_user_to_contained @username = <user_name>, @rename = N’keep_name’, @disablelogin = N‘disable_login’; GO DROP LOGIN <login_name>; GO Here’s how this skeleton would look like in action: And now I have a contained user with a specified SID and password hash. In my example above, I renamed the user after migrated it to contained so that it is, hopefully, easier to understand. Enjoy!

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• The Unspoken - The Why of GC Ergonomics

  - by jonthecollector

  Do you use GC ergonomics, -XX:+UseAdaptiveSizePolicy, with the UseParallelGC collector? The jist of GC ergonomics for that collector is that it tries to grow or shrink the heap to meet a specified goal. The goals that you can choose are maximum pause time and/or throughput. Don't get too excited there. I'm speaking about UseParallelGC (the throughput collector) so there are definite limits to what pause goals can be achieved. When you say out loud "I don't care about pause times, give me the best throughput I can get" and then say to yourself "Well, maybe 10 seconds really is too long", then think about a pause time goal. By default there is no pause time goal and the throughput goal is high (98% of the time doing application work and 2% of the time doing GC work). You can get more details on this in my very first blog. GC ergonomics The UseG1GC has its own version of GC ergonomics, but I'll be talking only about the UseParallelGC version. If you use this option and wanted to know what it (GC ergonomics) was thinking, try -XX:AdaptiveSizePolicyOutputInterval=1 This will print out information every i-th GC (above i is 1) about what the GC ergonomics to trying to do. For example, UseAdaptiveSizePolicy actions to meet *** throughput goal *** GC overhead (%) Young generation: 16.10 (attempted to grow) Tenured generation: 4.67 (attempted to grow) Tenuring threshold: (attempted to decrease to balance GC costs) = 1 GC ergonomics tries to meet (in order) Pause time goal Throughput goal Minimum footprint The first line says that it's trying to meet the throughput goal. UseAdaptiveSizePolicy actions to meet *** throughput goal *** This run has the default pause time goal (i.e., no pause time goal) so it is trying to reach a 98% throughput. The lines Young generation: 16.10 (attempted to grow) Tenured generation: 4.67 (attempted to grow) say that we're currently spending about 16% of the time doing young GC's and about 5% of the time doing full GC's. These percentages are a decaying, weighted average (earlier contributions to the average are given less weight). The source code is available as part of the OpenJDK so you can take a look at it if you want the exact definition. GC ergonomics is trying to increase the throughput by growing the heap (so says the "attempted to grow"). The last line Tenuring threshold: (attempted to decrease to balance GC costs) = 1 says that the ergonomics is trying to balance the GC times between young GC's and full GC's by decreasing the tenuring threshold. During a young collection the younger objects are copied to the survivor spaces while the older objects are copied to the tenured generation. Younger and older are defined by the tenuring threshold. If the tenuring threshold hold is 4, an object that has survived fewer than 4 young collections (and has remained in the young generation by being copied to the part of the young generation called a survivor space) it is younger and copied again to a survivor space. If it has survived 4 or more young collections, it is older and gets copied to the tenured generation. A lower tenuring threshold moves objects more eagerly to the tenured generation and, conversely a higher tenuring threshold keeps copying objects between survivor spaces longer. The tenuring threshold varies dynamically with the UseParallelGC collector. That is different than our other collectors which have a static tenuring threshold. GC ergonomics tries to balance the amount of work done by the young GC's and the full GC's by varying the tenuring threshold. Want more work done in the young GC's? Keep objects longer in the survivor spaces by increasing the tenuring threshold. This is an example of the output when GC ergonomics is trying to achieve a pause time goal UseAdaptiveSizePolicy actions to meet *** pause time goal *** GC overhead (%) Young generation: 20.74 (no change) Tenured generation: 31.70 (attempted to shrink) The pause goal was set at 50 millisecs and the last GC was 0.415: [Full GC (Ergonomics) [PSYoungGen: 2048K-0K(26624K)] [ParOldGen: 26095K-9711K(28992K)] 28143K-9711K(55616K), [Metaspace: 1719K-1719K(2473K/6528K)], 0.0758940 secs] [Times: user=0.28 sys=0.00, real=0.08 secs] The full collection took about 76 millisecs so GC ergonomics wants to shrink the tenured generation to reduce that pause time. The previous young GC was 0.346: [GC (Allocation Failure) [PSYoungGen: 26624K-2048K(26624K)] 40547K-22223K(56768K), 0.0136501 secs] [Times: user=0.06 sys=0.00, real=0.02 secs] so the pause time there was about 14 millisecs so no changes are needed. If trying to meet a pause time goal, the generations are typically shrunk. With a pause time goal in play, watch the GC overhead numbers and you will usually see the cost of setting a pause time goal (i.e., throughput goes down). If the pause goal is too low, you won't achieve your pause time goal and you will spend all your time doing GC. GC ergonomics is meant to be simple because it is meant to be used by anyone. It was not meant to be mysterious and so this output was added. If you don't like what GC ergonomics is doing, you can turn it off with -XX:-UseAdaptiveSizePolicy, but be pre-warned that you have to manage the size of the generations explicitly. If UseAdaptiveSizePolicy is turned off, the heap does not grow. The size of the heap (and the generations) at the start of execution is always the size of the heap. I don't like that and tried to fix it once (with some help from an OpenJDK contributor) but it unfortunately never made it out the door. I still have hope though. Just a side note. With the default throughput goal of 98% the heap often grows to it's maximum value and stays there. Definitely reduce the throughput goal if footprint is important. Start with -XX:GCTimeRatio=4 for a more modest throughput goal (%20 of the time spent in GC). A higher value means a smaller amount of time in GC (as the throughput goal).

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• Windows 7 doesn't boot after Ubuntu install

  - by Omu

  I had windows 7 installed on my pc, then I installed Ubuntu 10.10/ During the installation process I have chosen to manually set my partitions: I set a 10GB drive for ubuntu root 1GB drive for swap and for boot drive I've chosen the one used by windows 7 Now I can boot ubuntu, I have the windows 7 option in the boot list, but when I choose Windows 7, it shows me a black screen for a second and returns back to boot screen. Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010 ============================= Boot Info Summary: ============================== = Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda sda1: _________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Grub 2 Boot sector info: Grub 2 is installed in the boot sector of sda1 and looks at sector 304908237 of the same hard drive for core.img, but core.img can not be found at this location. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Windows 7 Boot files/dirs: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe sda2: _________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows XP Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files/dirs: sda3: _________________________________________________________________________ File system: Extended Partition Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sda5: _________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Ubuntu 10.10 Boot files/dirs: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img sda4: _________________________________________________________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: =========================== Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda ___________________ _____________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start End Size Id System /dev/sda1 * 63 62,894,474 62,894,412 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda2 62,894,478 291,579,749 228,685,272 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 291,579,811 309,157,937 17,578,127 5 Extended /dev/sda5 291,579,813 309,157,937 17,578,125 83 Linux /dev/sda4 309,159,936 312,580,095 3,420,160 82 Linux swap / Solaris blkid -c /dev/null: ____________________________________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/sda1 1266BB2766BB0A8D ntfs /dev/sda2 BEDBF1147C76F703 ntfs DATA /dev/sda3: PTTYPE="dos" /dev/sda4 dd38226d-c7c9-4ae5-a726-6d18d34a22e4 swap /dev/sda5 e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 ext4 /dev/sda: PTTYPE="dos" ============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: =========================== Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/sda5 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0) =========================== sda5/boot/grub/grub.cfg: =========================== # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE # # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub # ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ### if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi set default="0" if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}" save_env saved_entry set prev_saved_entry= save_env prev_saved_entry set boot_once=true fi function savedefault { if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then saved_entry="${chosen}" save_env saved_entry fi } function recordfail { set recordfail=1 if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi } function load_video { insmod vbe insmod vga } insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,msdos5)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then set gfxmode=640x480 load_video insmod gfxterm fi terminal_output gfxterm insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,msdos5)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale set lang=en insmod gettext if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then set timeout=-1 else set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-22-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,msdos5)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic root=UUID=e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-22-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-22-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,msdos5)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 echo 'Loading Linux 2.6.35-22-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic root=UUID=e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 ro single echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-22-generic } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" { insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,msdos5)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin } menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" { insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,msdos5)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e1dafd1c-f855-406b-8f9a-f9d527c70255 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda1)" { insmod part_msdos insmod ntfs set root='(hd0,msdos1)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1266bb2766bb0a8d chainloader +1 } ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the # menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change # the 'exec tail' line above. ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### if [ -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then source $prefix/custom.cfg; fi ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### =============================== sda5/etc/fstab: =============================== # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier # for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name # devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 /dev/sda5 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/sda4 during installation UUID=dd38226d-c7c9-4ae5-a726-6d18d34a22e4 none swap sw 0 0 =================== sda5: Location of files loaded by Grub: =================== 156.1GB: boot/grub/core.img 156.3GB: boot/grub/grub.cfg 149.9GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-22-generic 156.3GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic 149.9GB: initrd.img 156.3GB: vmlinuz

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• Invalid Opcode 0000

  - by Mr47

  At random times (usually when watching a movie in XBMC), the computer locks up. I can still sometimes SSH in and get the 'dmesg' output before that locks up too. A hard reboot is usually required to get things going again. I have cut out the date/time/server columns for easier reading, please do ask if these seem relevant omissions... System: Ubuntu 11.04 (2.6.38-8-server) x64 X11 installed with IceWm (and XBMC) Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz 8 GB RAM Asus P5Q premium motherboard Primary harddrive: OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB (SSD) Other harddrives: various 750GB, 1TB, 1.5TB & 2TB (WD & samsung) Any important information I am not supplying is purely a sign of my incompetence in these matters, so please do ask and excuse me for my inabilities... invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP last sysfs file: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cache/index2/shared_cpu_map CPU 0 Modules linked in: parport_pc ppdev vesafb snd_hda_codec_analog tuner_simple tuner_types wm8775 tda9887 tda8290 tea5767 tuner cx25840 ir_lirc_codec lirc_dev snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec snd_hwdep snd_pcm ir_sony_decoder snd_seq_midi snd_rawmidi snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq rc_rc6_mce ivtv ir_jvc_decoder cx2341x i2c_algo_bit v4l2_common mceusb videodev ir_rc6_decoder ir_rc5_decoder snd_timer ir_nec_decoder nvidia(P) btusb bluetooth rc_core v4l2_compat_ioctl32 tveeprom snd_seq_device pata_marvell psmouse shpchp serio_raw snd asus_atk0110 soundcore snd_page_alloc lp parport firewire_ohci firewire_core crc_itu_t r8169 sky2 ahci libahci Pid: 4597, comm: xbmc.bin Tainted: P 2.6.38-8-server #42-Ubuntu System manufacturer P5Q Premium/P5Q Premium RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff8119bc4a>] [<ffffffff8119bc4a>] do_mpage_readpage+0x9a/0x510 RSP: 0018:ffff88021f5a59d8 EFLAGS: 00210246 RAX: 0000000000000020 RBX: ffff88021f5a5ac8 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 0000000015e36fe0 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: ffff88021f5a5a98 R08: ffff88021f5a5ac8 R09: ffff88021f5a5b38 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 000000000000b148 R14: 0000000000000001 R15: ffff8802067034b8 FS: 00007f3f34eb1700(0000) GS:ffff8800cfc00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007feb8d515000 CR3: 000000021d744000 CR4: 00000000000406f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000ffff0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Process xbmc.bin (pid: 4597, threadinfo ffff88021f5a4000, task ffff88021f63db80) Stack: ffff88021f5a5a28 ffffffff8116019d ffff88021f5a5b40 0000002000000003 ffff88021f5a5b38 ffff880206703370 ffffea0006d800f8 0000000000000000 ffffea0006d800f8 0000000c811270b5 ffff88021f5a5a68 ffffffff8110bdba Call Trace: [<ffffffff8116019d>] ? mem_cgroup_cache_charge+0xed/0x130 [<ffffffff8110bdba>] ? add_to_page_cache_locked+0xea/0x160 [<ffffffff8119c232>] mpage_readpages+0x102/0x150 [<ffffffff812063e0>] ? ext4_get_block+0x0/0x20 [<ffffffff812063e0>] ? ext4_get_block+0x0/0x20 [<ffffffff81149475>] ? alloc_pages_current+0xa5/0x110 [<ffffffff8120157d>] ext4_readpages+0x1d/0x20 [<ffffffff81116a9b>] __do_page_cache_readahead+0x14b/0x220 [<ffffffff81116ed1>] ra_submit+0x21/0x30 [<ffffffff81116ff5>] ondemand_readahead+0x115/0x230 [<ffffffff811171a0>] page_cache_async_readahead+0x90/0xc0 [<ffffffff8110b184>] ? file_read_actor+0xd4/0x170 [<ffffffff812de72e>] ? radix_tree_lookup_slot+0xe/0x10 [<ffffffff8110c521>] do_generic_file_read.clone.23+0x271/0x450 [<ffffffff8110d1ba>] generic_file_aio_read+0x1ca/0x240 [<ffffffff8100a82e>] ? __switch_to+0x20e/0x2f0 [<ffffffff81164c82>] do_sync_read+0xd2/0x110 [<ffffffff8108b61c>] ? hrtimer_try_to_cancel+0x4c/0xe0 [<ffffffff81279083>] ? security_file_permission+0x93/0xb0 [<ffffffff81164fa1>] ? rw_verify_area+0x61/0xf0 [<ffffffff81165463>] vfs_read+0xc3/0x180 [<ffffffff81165571>] sys_read+0x51/0x90 [<ffffffff8100bfc2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b Code: ff ff 48 c7 85 78 ff ff ff 00 00 00 00 49 d3 ee b9 0c 00 00 00 2b 4d 8c 48 8b b2 c8 00 00 00 ba 01 00 00 00 41 0f af c6 49 d3 e5 <0f> 36 4d 8c 4c 01 e8 d3 e2 4c 8d 44 16 ff 48 8b 53 20 49 d3 f8 RIP [<ffffffff8119bc4a>] do_mpage_readpage+0x9a/0x510 RSP <ffff88021f5a59d8> ---[ end trace ac6cd2f4692205a3 ]--- Please note that the error is ALWAYS occuring at do_mpage_readpage+0x9a/0x510 with the same numbers after it. I've tried to come up with the possible meaning of these, but couldn't get any further. I've also noticed that the top block from the call trace is always the following with the exact same numbers: [<ffffffff8116019d>] ? mem_cgroup_cache_charge+0xed/0x130 [<ffffffff8110bdba>] ? add_to_page_cache_locked+0xea/0x160 [<ffffffff8119c232>] mpage_readpages+0x102/0x150 [<ffffffff812063e0>] ? ext4_get_block+0x0/0x20 [<ffffffff812063e0>] ? ext4_get_block+0x0/0x20 Could this indicate a hard drive issue, a RAM issue or something else entirely?

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• Windows 8 Live Accounts and the actual Windows Account

  - by Rick Strahl

  As if Windows Security wasn't confusing enough, in Windows 8 we get thrown yet another curve ball with Windows Live accounts to logon. When I set up my Windows 8 machine I originally set it up with a 'real', non-live account that I always use on my Windows machines. I did this mainly so I have a matching account for resources around my home and intranet network so I could log on to network resources properly. At some point later I decided to set up Windows Live security just to see how changes things. Windows wants you to use Windows Live Windows 8 logins are required in order for the Windows RT account info to work. Not that I care - since installing Windows 8 I've maybe spent 10 minutes with Windows RT because - well it's pretty freaking sucky on the desktop. From shitty apps to mis-managed screen real estate I can't say that there's anything compelling there to date, but then I haven't looked that hard either. Anyway… I set up the Windows Live account to see if that changes things. It does - I do get all my live logins to work from Live Account so that Twitter and Facebook posts and pictures and calendars all show up on live tiles on the start screen and in the actual apps. That's nice-ish, but hardly that exciting given that all of the apps tied to those live tiles are average at best. And it would have been nice if all of this could be done without being forced into running with a Windows Live User Account - this all feels like strong-arming you into moving into Microsofts walled garden… and that's probably what it's meant to do. Who am I? The real problem to me though is that these Windows Live and raw Windows User accounts are a bit unpredictable especially when it comes to developer information about the account and which credentials to use. So for example Windows reports folder security like this: Notice it's showing my Windows Live account. Now if I go to Edit and try to add my Windows user account (rstrahl) it'll just automatically show up as the live account. On the other hand though the underlying system sees everything as my real Windows account. After I switched to a Windows Live login account and I have to login to Windows with my Live account, what do you suppose this returns?Console.WriteLine(Environment.UserName); It returns my raw Windows user account (rstrahl). All my permissions, all my actual settings and the desktop console altogether run under that account. If I look in TaskManager (or Process Explorer for me) I see: Everything running on the desktop shell with my login running under my Windows user account. I suppose it makes sense, but where is that association happening? When I switched to a Windows Live account, nowhere did I associate my real account with the Live account - it just happened. And looking through the account configuration dialogs I can't find any reference to the raw Windows account. Other than switching back I see no mention anywhere of the raw Windows account - everything refers to the Live account. Right then, clear as potato soup! So this is who you really are! The problem is that in some situations this schizophrenic account behavior gets a bit weird. Today I was running a local Web application in IIS that uses Windows Authentication - I tried to log-in with my real Windows account login because that's what I'm used to using with WINDOWS freaking Authentication through IIS. But… it failed. I checked my IIS settings, my apps login settings and I just could not for the life of me get into the site with my Windows username. That is until I finally realized that I should try using my Windows Live credentials instead. And that worked. So now in this Windows Authentication dialog I had to type in my Live ID and password, which is - just weird. Then in IIS if I look at a Trace page (or in my case my app's Status page) I see that the logged on account is - my Windows user account. What's really annoying about this is that in some places it uses the live account in other places it uses my Windows account. If I remote desktop into my Web server online - I have to use the local authentication dialog but I have to put in my real Windows credentials not the Live account. Oh yes, it's all so terribly intuitive and logical… So in summary, when you log on with a Live account you are actually mapped to an underlying Windows user. In any application if you check the user name it'll be the underlying user account (not sure what happens in a Windows RT app or even what mechanism is used there to get the user name info).  When logging on to local machine resource with user name and password you have to use your Live IDs even if the permissions on the resources are mapped to your underlying Windows account. Easy enough I suppose, but still not exactly intuitive behavior…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Windows   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Windows Azure Recipe: Software as a Service (SaaS)

  - by Clint Edmonson

  The cloud was tailor built for aspiring companies to create innovative internet based applications and solutions. Whether you’re a garage startup with very little capital or a Fortune 1000 company, the ability to quickly setup, deliver, and iterate on new products is key to capturing market and mind share. And if you can capture that share and go viral, having resiliency and infinite scale at your finger tips is great peace of mind. Drivers Cost avoidance Time to market Scalability Solution Here’s a sketch of how a basic Software as a Service solution might be built out: Ingredients Web Role – this hosts the core web application. Each web role will host an instance of the software and as the user base grows, additional roles can be spun up to meet demand. Access Control – this service is essential to managing user identity. It’s backed by a full blown implementation of Active Directory and allows the definition and management of users, groups, and roles. A pre-built ASP.NET membership provider is included in the training kit to leverage this capability but it’s also flexible enough to be combined with external Identity providers including Windows LiveID, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. The provider model provides extensibility to hook into other industry specific identity providers as well. Databases – nearly every modern SaaS application is backed by a relational database for its core operational data. If the solution is sold to organizations, there’s a good chance multi-tenancy will be needed. An emerging best practice for SaaS applications is to stand up separate SQL Azure database instances for each tenant’s proprietary data to ensure isolation from other tenants. Worker Role – this is the best place to handle autonomous background processing such as data aggregation, billing through external services, and other specialized tasks that can be performed asynchronously. Placing these tasks in a worker role frees the web roles to focus completely on user interaction and data input and provides finer grained control over the system’s scalability and throughput. Caching (optional) – as a web site traffic grows caching can be leveraged to keep frequently used read-only, user specific, and application resource data in a high-speed distributed in-memory for faster response times and ultimately higher scalability without spinning up more web and worker roles. It includes a token based security model that works alongside the Access Control service. Blobs (optional) – depending on the nature of the software, users may be creating or uploading large volumes of heterogeneous data such as documents or rich media. Blob storage provides a scalable, resilient way to store terabytes of user data. The storage facilities can also integrate with the Access Control service to ensure users’ data is delivered securely. Training & Examples These links point to online Windows Azure training labs and examples where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. (Note: The entire Windows Azure Training Kit can also be downloaded for offline use.) Windows Azure (16 labs) Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services which can be used individually or together. It gives developers the choice to build web applications; applications running on connected devices, PCs, or servers; or hybrid solutions offering the best of both worlds. New or enhanced applications can be built using existing skills with the Visual Studio development environment and the .NET Framework. With its standards-based and interoperable approach, the services platform supports multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and plain XML SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Windows Azure Services (9 labs) As applications collaborate across organizational boundaries, ensuring secure transactions across disparate security domains is crucial but difficult to implement. Windows Azure Services provides hosted authentication and access control using powerful, secure, standards-based infrastructure. Developing Applications for the Cloud, 2nd Edition (eBook) This book demonstrates how you can create from scratch a multi-tenant, Software as a Service (SaaS) application to run in the cloud using the latest versions of the Windows Azure Platform and tools. The book is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates applications and services that run on or interact with the cloud. Fabrikam Shipping (SaaS reference application) This is a full end to end sample scenario which demonstrates how to use the Windows Azure platform for exposing an application as a service. We developed this demo just as you would: we had an existing on-premises sample, Fabrikam Shipping, and we wanted to see what it would take to transform it in a full subscription based solution. The demo you find here is the result of that investigation See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including more links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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• Execute TSQL statement with ExecuteStoreQuery in entity framework 4.0

  - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

  I was playing with entity framework in recent days and I was searching something that how we can execute TSQL statement in entity framework. And I have found one great way to do that with entity framework ‘ExecuteStoreQuery’ method. It’s executes a TSQL statement against data source given enity framework context and returns strongly typed result. You can find more information about ExcuteStoreQuery from following link. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd487208.aspx So let’s examine how it works. So Let’s first create a table against which we are going to execute TSQL statement. So I have added a SQL Express database as following. Now once we are done with adding a database let’s add a table called Client like following. Here you can see above Client table is very simple. There are only two fields ClientId and ClientName where ClientId is primary key and ClientName is field where we are going to store client name. Now it’s time to add some data to the table. So I have added some test data like following. Now it’s time to add entity framework model class. So right click project->Add new item and select ADO.NET entity model as following. After clicking on add button a wizard will start it will ask whether we need to create model classes from database or not but we already have our client table ready so I have selected generate from database as following. Once you process further in wizard it will be presented a screen where we can select the our table like following. Now once you click finish it will create model classes with for us. Now we need a gridview control where we need to display those data. So in Default.aspx page I have added a grid control like following. <%@ Page Title="Home Page" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Site.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="EntityFramework._Default" %> <asp:Content ID="HeaderContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="HeadContent"> </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="BodyContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent"> <h2> Welcome to ASP.NET! </h2> <p> To learn more about ASP.NET visit <a href="http://www.asp.net" title="ASP.NET Website">www.asp.net</a>. </p> <p> You can also find <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=152368&amp;clcid=0x409" title="MSDN ASP.NET Docs">documentation on ASP.NET at MSDN</a>. <asp:GridView ID="grdClient" runat="server"> </asp:GridView> </p> </asp:Content> Now once we are done with adding Gridview its time to write code for server side. So I have written following code in Page_load event of default.aspx page. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!Page.IsPostBack) { using (var context = new EntityFramework.TestEntities()) { ObjectResult<Client> result = context.ExecuteStoreQuery<Client>("Select * from Client"); grdClient.DataSource = result; grdClient.DataBind(); } } } Here in the above code you can see that I have written create a object of our entity model and then with the help of the ExecuteStoreQuery method I have execute a simple select TSQL statement which will return a object result. I have bind that object result with gridview to display data. So now we are done with coding.So let’s run application in browser. Following is output as expected. That’s it. Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more..Till then happy programming.

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• BizTalk Envelopes explained

  - by Robert Kokuti

  Recently I've been trying to get some order into an ESB-BizTalk pub/sub scenario, and decided to wrap the payload into standardized envelopes. I have used envelopes before in a 'light weight' fashion, and I found that they can be quite useful and powerful if used systematically. Here is what I learned. The Theory In my experience, Envelopes are often underutilised in a BizTalk solution, and quite often their full potential is not well understood. Here I try to simplify the theory behind the Envelopes within BizTalk.   Envelopes can be used to attach additional data to the ‘real’ data (payload). This additional data can contain all routing and processing information, and allows treating the business data as a ‘black box’, possibly compressed and/or encrypted etc. The point here is that the infrastructure does not need to know anything about the business data content, just as a post man does not need to know the letter within the envelope. BizTalk has built-in support for envelopes through the XMLDisassembler and XMLAssembler pipeline components (these are part of the XMLReceive and XMLSend default pipelines). These components, among other things, perform the following: XMLDisassembler Extracts the payload from the envelope into the Message Body Copies data from the envelope into the message context, as specified by the property schema(s) associated by the envelope schema. Typically, once the envelope is through the XMLDisassembler, the payload is submitted into the Messagebox, and the rest of the envelope data are copied into the context of the submitted message. The XMLDisassembler uses the Property Schemas, referenced by the Envelope Schema, to determine the name of the promoted Message Context element.   XMLAssembler Wraps the Message Body inside the specified envelope schema Populates the envelope values from the message context, as specified by the property schema(s) associated by the envelope schema. Notice that there are no requirements to use the receiving envelope schema when sending. The sent message can be wrapped within any suitable envelope, regardless whether the message was originally received within an envelope or not. However, by sharing Property Schemas between Envelopes, it is possible to pass values from the incoming envelope to the outgoing envelope via the Message Context. The Practice Creating the Envelope Add a new Schema to the BizTalk project:   Envelopes are defined as schemas, with the <Schema> Envelope property set to Yes, and the root node’s Body XPath property pointing to the node which contains the payload. Typically, you’d create an envelope structure similar to this: Click on the <Schema> node and set the Envelope property to Yes. Then, click on the Envelope node, and set the Body XPath property pointing to the ‘Body’ node:   The ‘Body’ node is a Child Element, and its Data Structure Type is set to xs:anyType.  This allows the Body node to carry any payload data. The XMLReceive pipeline will submit the data found in the Body node, while the XMLSend pipeline will copy the message into the Body node, before sending to the destination. Promoting Properties Once you defined the envelope, you may want to promote the envelope data (anything other than the Body) as Property Fields, in order to preserve their value in the message context. Anything not promoted will be lost when the XMLDisassembler extracts the payload from the Body. Typically, this means you promote everything in the Header node. Property promotion uses associated Property Schemas. These are special BizTalk schemas which have a flat field structure. Property Schemas define the name of the promoted values in the Message Context, by combining the Property Schema’s Namespace and the individual Field names. It is worth being systematic when it comes to naming your schemas, their namespace and type name. A coherent method will make your life easier when it comes to referencing the schemas during development, and managing subscriptions (filters) in BizTalk Administration. I developed a fairly coherent naming convention which I’ll probably share in another article. Because the property schema must be flat, I recommend creating one for each level in the envelope header hierarchy. Property schemas are very useful in passing data between incoming as outgoing envelopes. As I mentioned earlier, in/out envelopes do not have to be the same, but you can use the same property schema when you promote the outgoing envelope fields as you used for the incoming schema.  As you can reference many property schemas for field promotion, you can pick data from a variety of sources when you define your outgoing envelope. For example, the outgoing envelope can carry some of the incoming envelope’s promoted values, plus some values from the standard BizTalk message context, like the AdapterReceiveCompleteTime property from the BizTalk message-tracking properties. The values you promote for the outgoing envelope will be automatically populated from the Message Context by the XMLAssembler pipeline component. Using the Envelope Receiving Enveloped messages are automatically recognized by the XMLReceive pipeline, or any other custom pipeline which includes the XMLDisassembler component. The Body Path node will become the Message Body, while the rest of the envelope values will be added to the Message context, as defined by the Property Shemas referenced by the Envelope Schema. Sending The Send Port’s filter expression can use the promoted properties from the incoming envelope. If you want to enclose the sent message within an envelope, the Send Port XMLAssembler component must be configured with the fully qualified envelope name:   One way of obtaining the fully qualified envelope name is copy it off from the envelope schema property page: The full envelope schema name is constructed as <Name>, <Assembly> The outgoing envelope is populated by the XMLAssembler pipeline component. The Message Body is copied to the specified envelope’s Body Path node, while the rest of the envelope fields are populated from the Message Context, according to the Property Schemas associated with the Envelope Schema. That’s all for now, happy enveloping!

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• MySQL Connect 9 Days Away – Optimizer Sessions

  - by Bertrand Matthelié

  72 1024x768 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Following my previous blog post focusing on InnoDB talks at MySQL Connect, let us review today the sessions focusing on the MySQL Optimizer: Saturday, 11.30 am, Room Golden Gate 6: MySQL Optimizer Overview—Olav Sanstå, Oracle The goal of MySQL optimizer is to take a SQL query as input and produce an optimal execution plan for the query. This session presents an overview of the main phases of the MySQL optimizer and the primary optimizations done to the query. These optimizations are based on a combination of logical transformations and cost-based decisions. Examples of optimization strategies the presentation covers are the main query transformations, the join optimizer, the data access selection strategies, and the range optimizer. For the cost-based optimizations, an overview of the cost model and the data used for doing the cost estimations is included. Saturday, 1.00 pm, Room Golden Gate 6: Overview of New Optimizer Features in MySQL 5.6—Manyi Lu, Oracle Many optimizer features have been added into MySQL 5.6. This session provides an introduction to these great features. Multirange read, index condition pushdown, and batched key access will yield huge performance improvements on large data volumes. Structured explain, explain for update/delete/insert, and optimizer tracing will help users analyze and speed up queries. And last but not least, the session covers subquery optimizations in Release 5.6. Saturday, 7.00 pm, Room Golden Gate 4: BoF: Query Optimizations: What Is New and What Is Coming? This BoF presents common techniques for query optimization, covers what is new in MySQL 5.6, and provides a discussion forum in which attendees can tell the MySQL optimizer team which optimizations they would like to see in the future. Sunday, 1.15 pm, Room Golden Gate 8: Query Performance Comparison of MySQL 5.5 and MySQL 5.6—Øystein Grøvlen, Oracle MySQL Release 5.6 contains several improvements in the query optimizer that create improved performance for complex queries. This presentation looks at how MySQL 5.6 improves the performance of many of the queries in the DBT-3 benchmark. Based on the observed improvements, the presentation discusses what makes the specific queries perform better in Release 5.6. It describes the relevant new optimization techniques and gives examples of the types of queries that will benefit from these techniques. Sunday, 4.15 pm, Room Golden Gate 4: Powerful EXPLAIN in MySQL 5.6—Evgeny Potemkin, Oracle The EXPLAIN command of MySQL has long been a very useful tool for understanding how MySQL will execute a query. Release 5.6 of the MySQL database offers several new additions that give more-detailed information about the query plan and make it easier to understand at the same time. This presentation gives an overview of new EXPLAIN features: structured EXPLAIN in JSON format, EXPLAIN for INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE, and optimizer tracing. Examples in the session give insights into how you can take advantage of the new features. They show how these features supplement and relate to each other and to classical EXPLAIN and how and why the MySQL server chooses a particular query plan. You can check out the full program here as well as in the September edition of the MySQL newsletter. Not registered yet? You can still save US$ 300 over the on-site fee – Register Now!

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• HPCM 11.1.2.2.x - How to find data in an HPCM Standard Costing database

  - by Jane Story

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} When working with a Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) Standard Costing application, there can often be a requirement to check data or allocated results using reporting tools e.g Smartview. To do this, you are retrieving data directly from the Essbase databases related to your HPCM model. For information, running reports is covered in Chapter 9 of the HPCM User documentation. The aim of this blog is to provide a quick guide to finding this data for reporting in the HPCM generated Essbase database in v11.1.2.2.x of HPCM. In order to retrieve data from an HPCM generated Essbase database, it is important to understand each of the following dimensions in the Essbase database and where data is located within them: Measures dimension – identifies Measures AllocationType dimension – identifies Direct Allocation Data or Genealogy Allocation data Point Of View (POV) dimensions – there must be at least one, maximum of four. Business dimensions: Stage Business dimensions – these will be identified by the Stage prefix. Intra-Stage dimension – these will be identified by the _Intra suffix. Essbase outlines and reporting is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s02.html For additional details on reporting measures, please review this section of the documentation:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/apas03.html Reporting requirements in HPCM quite often start with identifying non balanced items in the Stage Balancing report. The following documentation link provides help with identifying some of the items within the Stage Balancing report:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/generatestagebalancing.html The following are some types of data upon which you may want to report: Stage Data: Direct Input Assigned Input Data Assigned Output Data Idle Cost/Revenue Unassigned Cost/Revenue Over Driven Cost/Revenue Direct Allocation Data Genealogy Allocation Data Stage Data Stage Data consists of: Direct Input i.e. input data, the starting point of your allocation e.g. in Stage 1 Assigned Input Data i.e. the cost/revenue received from a prior stage (i.e. stage 2 and higher). Assigned Output Data i.e. for each stage, the data that will be assigned forward is assigned post stage data. Reporting on this data is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s03.html Dimension Selection Measures Direct Input: CostInput RevenueInput Assigned Input (from previous stages): CostReceivedPriorStage RevenueReceivedPriorStage Assigned Output (to subsequent stages): CostAssignedPostStage RevenueAssignedPostStage AllocationType DirectAllocation POV One member from each POV dimension Stage Business Dimensions Any members for the stage business dimensions for the stage you wish to see the Stage data for. All other Dimensions NoMember Idle/Unassigned/OverDriven To view Idle, Unassigned or Overdriven Costs/Revenue, first select which stage for which you want to view this data. If multiple Stages have unassigned/idle, resolve the earliest first and re-run the calculation as differences in early stages will create unassigned/idle in later stages. Dimension Selection Measures Idle: IdleCost IdleRevenue Unassigned: UnAssignedCost UnAssignedRevenue Overdriven: OverDrivenCost OverDrivenRevenue AllocationType DirectAllocation POV One member from each POV dimension Dimensions in the Stage with Unassigned/ Idle/OverDriven Cost All the Stage Business dimensions in the Stage with Unassigned/Idle/Overdriven. Zoom in on each dimension to find the individual members to find which members have Unassigned/Idle/OverDriven data. All other Dimensions NoMember Direct Allocation Data Direct allocation data shows the data received by a destination intersection from a source intersection where a direct assignment(s) exists. Reporting on direct allocation data is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s04.html You would select the following to report direct allocation data Dimension Selection Measures CostReceivedPriorStage AllocationType DirectAllocation POV One member from each POV dimension Stage Business Dimensions Any members for the SOURCE stage business dimensions and the DESTINATION stage business dimensions for the direct allocations for the stage you wish to report on. All other Dimensions NoMember Genealogy Allocation Data Genealogy allocation data shows the indirect data relationships between stages. Genealogy calculations run in the HPCM Reporting database only. Reporting on genealogy data is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s05.html Dimension Selection Measures CostReceivedPriorStage AllocationType GenealogyAllocation (IndirectAllocation in 11.1.2.1 and prior versions) POV One member from each POV dimension Stage Business Dimensions Any stage business dimension members from the STARTING stage in Genealogy Any stage business dimension members from the INTERMEDIATE stage(s) in Genealogy Any stage business dimension members from the ENDING stage in Genealogy All other Dimensions NoMember Notes If you still don’t see data after checking the above, please check the following Check the calculation has been run. Here are couple of indicators that might help them with that. Note the size of essbase cube before and after calculations ensure that a calculation was run against the database you are examing. Export the essbase data to a text file to confirm that some data exists. Examine the date and time on task area to see when, if any, calculations were run and what choices were used (e.g. Genealogy choices) If data does not exist in places where they are expecting, it could be that No calculations/genealogy were run No calculations were successfully run The model/data at feeder location were either absent or incompatible, resulting in no allocation e.g no driver data. Smartview Invocation from HPCM From version 11.1.2.2.350 of HPCM (this version will be GA shortly), it is possible to directly invoke Smartview from HPCM. There is guided navigation before the Smartview invocation and it is then possible to see the selected value(s) in SmartView. Click to Download HPCM 11.1.2.2.x - How to find data in an HPCM Standard Costing database (Right click or option-click the link and choose "Save As..." to download this pdf file)

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• View Docs and PDFs Directly in Google Chrome

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to view documents, presentations, and PDFs directly in Google Chrome?  Here’s a handy extension that makes Google Docs your default online viewer so don’t have to download the file first. Getting Started By default, when you come across a PDF or other common document file online in Google Chrome, you’ll have to download the file and open it in a separate application. It’d be much easier to simply view online documents directly in Chrome.  To do this, head over to the Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer page on the Chrome Extensions site (link below), and click Install to add it to your browser. Click Install to confirm that you want to install this extension. Extensions don’t run by default in Incognito mode, so if you’d like to always view documents directly in Chrome, open the Extensions page and check Allow this extension to run in incognito. Now, when you click a link for a document online, such as a .docx file from Word, it will open in the Google Docs viewer. These documents usually render in their original full-quality.  You can zoom in and out to see exactly what you want, or search within the document.  Or, if it doesn’t look correct, you can click the Download link in the top left to save the original document to your computer and open it in Office.   Even complex PDF render very nicely.  Do note that Docs will keep downloading the document as you’re reading it, so if you jump to the middle of a document it may look blurry at first but will quickly clear up. You can even view famous presentations online without opening them in PowerPoint.  Note that this will only display the slides themselves, but if you’re looking for information you likely don’t need the slideshow effects anyway.   Adobe Reader Conflicts If you already have Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader installed on your computer, PDF files may open with the Adobe plugin.  If you’d prefer to read your PDFs with the Docs PDF Viewer, then you need to disable the Adobe plugin.  Enter the following in your Address Bar to open your Chrome Plugins page: chrome://plugins/ and then click Disable underneath the Adobe Acrobat plugin. Now your PDFs will always open with the Docs viewer instead. Performance Who hasn’t been frustrated by clicking a link to a PDF file, only to have your browser pause for several minutes while Adobe Reader struggles to download and display the file?  Google Chrome’s default behavior of simply downloading the files and letting you open them is hardly more helpful.  This extension takes away both of these problems, since it renders the documents on Google’s servers.  Most documents opened fairly quickly in our tests, and we were able to read large PDFs only seconds after clicking their link.  Also, the Google Docs viewer rendered the documents much better than the HTML version in Google’s cache. Google Docs did seem to have problem on some files, and we saw error messages on several documents we tried to open.  If you encounter this, click the Download link in the top left corner to download the file and view it from your desktop instead. Conclusion Google Docs has improved over the years, and now it offers fairly good rendering even on more complex documents.  This extension can make your browsing easier, and help documents and PDFs feel more like part of the Internet.  And, since the documents are rendered on Google’s servers, it’s often faster to preview large files than to download them to your computer. Link Download the Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer extension from Google Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Integrate Google Docs with Outlook the Easy WayGoogle Image Search Quick FixView the Time & Date in Chrome When Hiding Your TaskbarView Maps and Get Directions in Google ChromeHow To Export Documents from Google Docs to Your Computer TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium

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• Mixed Emotions: Humans React to Natural Language Computer

  - by Applications User Experience

  There was a big event in Silicon Valley on Tuesday, November 15. Watson, the natural language computer developed at IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and its inventor and principal research investigator, David Ferrucci, were guests at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California for another round of the television game Jeopardy. You may have read about or watched on YouTube how Watson beat Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two top Jeopardy competitors, last February. This time, Watson swept the floor with two Silicon Valley high-achievers, one a venture capitalist with a background  in math, computer engineering, and physics, and the other a technology and finance writer well-versed in all aspects of culture and humanities. Watson is the product of the DeepQA research project, which attempts to create an artificially intelligent computing system through advances in natural language processing (NLP), among other technologies. NLP is a computing strategy that seeks to provide answers by processing large amounts of unstructured data contained in multiple large domains of human knowledge. There are several ways to perform NLP, but one way to start is by recognizing key words, then processing  contextual  cues associated with the keyword concepts so that you get many more “smart” (that is, human-like) deductions,  rather than a series of “dumb” matches.  Jeopardy questions often require more than key word matching to get the correct answer; typically several pieces of information put together, often from vastly different categories, to come up with a satisfactory word string solution that can be rephrased as a question.  Smarter than your average search engine, but is it as smart as a human? Watson was especially fast at descrambling mixed-up state capital names, and recalling and pairing movie titles where one started and the other ended in the same word (e.g., Billion Dollar Baby Boom, where both titles used the word Baby). David said they had basically removed the variable of how fast Watson hit the buzzer compared to human contestants, but frustration frequently appeared on the faces of the contestants beaten to the punch by Watson. David explained that top Jeopardy winners like Jennings achieved their success with a similar strategy, timing their buzz to the end of the reading of the clue,  and “running the board”, being first to respond on about 60% of the clues.  Similar results for Watson. It made sense that Watson would be good at the technical and scientific stuff, so I figured the venture capitalist was toast. But I thought for sure Watson would lose to the writer in categories such as pop culture, wines and foods, and other humanities. Surprisingly, it held its own. I was amazed it could recognize a word definition of a syllogism in the category of philosophy. So what was the audience reaction to all of this? We started out expecting our formidable human contestants to easily run some of their categories; however, they started off on the wrong foot with the state capitals which Watson could unscramble so efficiently. By the end of the first round, contestants and the audience were feeling a little bit, well, …. deflated. Watson was winning by about $13,000, and the humans had gone into negative dollars. The IBM host said he was going to “slow Watson down a bit,” and the humans came back with respectable scores in Double Jeopardy. This was partially thanks to a very sympathetic audience (and host, also a human) providing “group-think” on many questions, especially baseball ‘s most valuable players, which by the way, couldn’t have been hard because even I knew them.  Yes, that’s right, the humans cheated. Since Watson could speak but not hear us (it didn’t have speech recognition capability), it was probably unaware of this. In Final Jeopardy, the single question had to do with law. I was sure Watson would blow this one, but all contestants were able to answer correctly about a copyright law. In a career devoted to making computers more helpful to people, I think I may have seen how a computer can do too much. I’m not sure I’d want to work side-by-side with a Watson doing my job. Certainly listening and empathy are important traits we humans still have over Watson.  While there was great enthusiasm in the packed room of computer scientists and their friends for this standing-room-only show, I think it made several of us uneasy (especially the poor human contestants whose egos were soundly bashed in the first round). This computer system, by the way , only took 4 years to program. David Ferrucci mentioned several practical uses for Watson, including medical diagnoses and legal strategies. Are you “the expert” in your job? Imagine NLP computing on an Oracle database.   This may be the user interface of the future to enable users to better process big data. How do you think you’d like it? Postscript: There were three little boys sitting in front of me in the very first row. They looked, how shall I say it, … unimpressed!

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• How to Secure a Data Role by Multiple Business Units

  - by Elie Wazen

  In this post we will see how a Role can be data secured by multiple Business Units (BUs).  Separate Data Roles are generally created for each BU if a corresponding data template generates roles on the basis of the BU dimension. The advantage of creating a policy with a rule that includes multiple BUs is that while mapping these roles in HCM Role Provisioning Rules, fewer number of entires need to be made. This could facilitate maintenance for enterprises with a large number of Business Units. Note: The example below applies as well if the securing entity is Inventory Organization. Let us take for example the case of a user provisioned with the "Accounts Payable Manager - Vision Operations" Data Role in Fusion Applications. This user will be able to access Invoices in Vision Operations but will not be able to see Invoices in Vision Germany. Figure 1. A User with a Data Role restricting them to Data from BU: Vision Operations With the role granted above, this is what the user will see when they attempt to select Business Units while searching for AP Invoices. Figure 2.The List Of Values of Business Units is limited to single one. This is the effect of the Data Role granted to that user as can be seen in Figure 1 In order to create a data role that secures by multiple BUs,  we need to start by creating a condition that groups those Business Units we want to include in that data role. This is accomplished by creating a new condition against the BU View .  That Condition will later be used to create a data policy for our newly created Role.  The BU View is a Database resource and  is accessed from APM as seen in the search below Figure 3.Viewing a Database Resource in APM The next step is create a new condition,  in which we define a sql predicate that includes 2 BUs ( The ids below refer to Vision Operations and Vision Germany).  At this point we have simply created a standalone condition.  We have not used this condition yet, and security is therefore not affected. Figure 4. Custom Role that inherits the Purchase Order Overview Duty We are now ready to create our Data Policy.  in APM, we search for our newly Created Role and Navigate to “Find Global Policies”.  we query the Role we want to secure and navigate to view its global policies. Figure 5. The Job Role we plan on securing We can see that the role was not defined with a Data Policy . So will create one that uses the condition we created earlier.   Figure 6. Creating a New Data Policy In the General Information tab, we have to specify the DB Resource that the Security Policy applies to:  In our case this is the BU View Figure 7. Data Policy Definition - Selection of the DB Resource we will secure by In the Rules Tab, we  make the rule applicable to multiple values of the DB Resource we selected in the previous tab.  This is where we associate the condition we created against the BU view to this data policy by entering the Condition name in the Condition field Figure 8. Data Policy Rule The last step of Defining the Data Policy, consists of  explicitly selecting  the Actions that are goverened by this Data Policy.  In this case for example we select the Actions displayed below in the right pane. Once the record is saved , we are ready to use our newly secured Data Role. Figure 9. Data Policy Actions We can now see a new Data Policy associated with our Role.  Figure 10. Role is now secured by a Data Policy We now Assign that new Role to the User.  Of course this does not have to be done in OIM and can be done using a Provisioning Rule in HCM. Figure 11. Role assigned to the User who previously was granted the Vision Ops secured role. Once that user accesses the Invoices Workarea this is what they see: In the image below the LOV of Business Unit returns the two values defined in our data policy namely: Vision Operations and Vision Germany Figure 12. The List Of Values of Business Units now includes the two we included in our data policy. This is the effect of the data role granted to that user as can be seen in Figure 11

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• Visual Studio Little Wonders: Box Selection

  - by James Michael Hare

  So this week I decided I’d do a Little Wonder of a different kind and focus on an underused IDE improvement: Visual Studio’s Box Selection capability. This is a handy feature that many people still don’t realize was made available in Visual Studio 2010 (and beyond).  True, there have been other editors in the past with this capability, but now that it’s fully part of Visual Studio we can enjoy it’s goodness from within our own IDE. So, for those of you who don’t know what box selection is and what it allows you to do, read on! Sometimes, we want to select beyond the horizontal… The problem with traditional text selection in many editors is that it is horizontally oriented.  Sure, you can select multiple rows, but if you do you will pull in the entire row (at least for the middle rows).  Under the old selection scheme, if you wanted to select a portion of text from each row (a “box” of text) you were out of luck.  Box selection rectifies this by allowing you to select a box of text that bounded by a selection rectangle that you can grow horizontally or vertically.  So let’s think a situation that could occur where this comes in handy. Let’s say, for instance, that we are defining an enum in our code that we want to be able to translate into some string values (possibly to be stored in a database, output to screen, etc.). Perhaps such an enum would look like this: 1: public enum OrderType 2: { 3: Buy, // buy shares of a commodity 4: Sell, // sell shares of a commodity 5: Exchange, // exchange one commodity for another 6: Cancel, // cancel an order for a commodity 7: } 8:  Now, let’s say we are in the process of creating a Dictionary<K,V> to translate our OrderType: 1: var translator = new Dictionary<OrderType, string> 2: { 3: // do I really want to retype all this??? 4: }; Yes the example above is contrived so that we will pull some garbage if we do a multi-line select. I could select the lines above using the traditional multi-line selection: And then paste them into the translator code, which would result in this: 1: var translator = new Dictionary<OrderType, string> 2: { 3: Buy, // buy shares of a commodity 4: Sell, // sell shares of a commodity 5: Exchange, // exchange one commodity for another 6: Cancel, // cancel an order for a commodity 7: }; But I have a lot of junk there, sure I can manually clear it out, or use some search and replace magic, but if this were hundreds of lines instead of just a few that would quickly become cumbersome. The Box Selection Now that we have the ability to create box selections, we can select the box of text to delete!  Most of us are familiar with the fact we can drag the mouse (or hold [Shift] and use the arrow keys) to create a selection that can span multiple rows: Box selection, however, actually allows us to select a box instead of the typical horizontal lines: Then we can press the [delete] key and the pesky comments are all gone! You can do this either by holding down [Alt] while you select with your mouse, or by holding down [Alt+Shift] and using the arrow keys on the keyboard to grow the box horizontally or vertically. So now we have: 1: var translator = new Dictionary<OrderType, string> 2: { 3: Buy, 4: Sell, 5: Exchange, 6: Cancel, 7: }; Which is closer, but we still need an opening curly, the string to translate to, and the closing curly and comma. Fortunately, again, this is easy with box selections due to the fact box selection can even work for a zero-width selection! That is, hold down [Alt] and either drag down with no width, or hold down [Alt+Shift] and arrow down and you will define a selection range with no width, essentially, a vertical line selection: Notice the faint selection line on the right? So why is this useful? Well, just like with any selected range, we can type and it will replace the selection. What does this mean for box selections? It means that we can insert the same text all the way down on each line! If we have the same selection above, and type a curly and a space, we’d get: Imagine doing this over hundreds of lines and think of what a time saver it could be! Now make a zero-width selection on the other side: And type a curly and a comma, and we’d get: So close! Now finally, imagine we’ve already defined these strings somewhere and want to paste them in: 1: const private string BuyText = "Buy Shares"; 2: const private string SellText = "Sell Shares"; 3: const private string ExchangeText = "Exchange"; 4: const private string CancelText = "Cancel"; We can, again, use our box selection to pull out the constant names: And clicking copy (or [CTRL+C]) and then selecting a range to paste into: And finally clicking paste (or [CTRL+V]) to get the final result: 1: var translator = new Dictionary<OrderType, string> 2: { 3: { Buy, BuyText }, 4: { Sell, SellText }, 5: { Exchange, ExchangeText }, 6: { Cancel, CancelText }, 7: };   Sure, this was a contrived example, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it adds myriad possibilities of new ways to copy and paste vertical selections, as well as inserting text across a vertical slice. Summary: While box selection has been around in other editors, we finally get to experience it in VS2010 and beyond. It is extremely handy for selecting columns of information for cutting, copying, and pasting. In addition, it allows you to create a zero-width vertical insertion point that can be used to enter the same text across multiple rows. Imagine the time you can save adding repetitive code across multiple lines!  Try it, the more you use it, the more you’ll love it! Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Visual Studio,Little Wonders,Box Selection

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• NoSQL Java API for MySQL Cluster: Questions & Answers

  - by Mat Keep

  The MySQL Cluster engineering team recently ran a live webinar, available now on-demand demonstrating the ClusterJ and ClusterJPA NoSQL APIs for MySQL Cluster, and how these can be used in building real-time, high scale Java-based services that require continuous availability. Attendees asked a number of great questions during the webinar, and I thought it would be useful to share those here, so others are also able to learn more about the Java NoSQL APIs. First, a little bit about why we developed these APIs and why they are interesting to Java developers. ClusterJ and Cluster JPA ClusterJ is a Java interface to MySQL Cluster that provides either a static or dynamic domain object model, similar to the data model used by JDO, JPA, and Hibernate. A simple API gives users extremely high performance for common operations: insert, delete, update, and query. ClusterJPA works with ClusterJ to extend functionality, including - Persistent classes - Relationships - Joins in queries - Lazy loading - Table and index creation from object model By eliminating data transformations via SQL, users get lower data access latency and higher throughput. In addition, Java developers have a more natural programming method to directly manage their data, with a complete, feature-rich solution for Object/Relational Mapping. As a result, the development of Java applications is simplified with faster development cycles resulting in accelerated time to market for new services. MySQL Cluster offers multiple NoSQL APIs alongside Java: - Memcached for a persistent, high performance, write-scalable Key/Value store, - HTTP/REST via an Apache module - C++ via the NDB API for the lowest absolute latency. Developers can use SQL as well as NoSQL APIs for access to the same data set via multiple query patterns – from simple Primary Key lookups or inserts to complex cross-shard JOINs using Adaptive Query Localization Marrying NoSQL and SQL access to an ACID-compliant database offers developers a number of benefits. MySQL Cluster’s distributed, shared-nothing architecture with auto-sharding and real time performance makes it a great fit for workloads requiring high volume OLTP. Users also get the added flexibility of being able to run real-time analytics across the same OLTP data set for real-time business insight. OK – hopefully you now have a better idea of why ClusterJ and JPA are available. Now, for the Q&A. Q & A Q. Why would I use Connector/J vs. ClusterJ? A. Partly it's a question of whether you prefer to work with SQL (Connector/J) or objects (ClusterJ). Performance of ClusterJ will be better as there is no need to pass through the MySQL Server. A ClusterJ operation can only act on a single table (e.g. no joins) - ClusterJPA extends that capability Q. Can I mix different APIs (ie ClusterJ, Connector/J) in our application for different query types? A. Yes. You can mix and match all of the API types, SQL, JDBC, ODBC, ClusterJ, Memcached, REST, C++. They all access the exact same data in the data nodes. Update through one API and new data is instantly visible to all of the others. Q. How many TCP connections would a SessionFactory instance create for a cluster of 8 data nodes? A. SessionFactory has a connection to the mgmd (management node) but otherwise is just a vehicle to create Sessions. Without using connection pooling, a SessionFactory will have one connection open with each data node. Using optional connection pooling allows multiple connections from the SessionFactory to increase throughput. Q. Can you give details of how Cluster J optimizes sharding to enhance performance of distributed query processing? A. Each data node in a cluster runs a Transaction Coordinator (TC), which begins and ends the transaction, but also serves as a resource to operate on the result rows. While an API node (such as a ClusterJ process) can send queries to any TC/data node, there are performance gains if the TC is where most of the result data is stored. ClusterJ computes the shard (partition) key to choose the data node where the row resides as the TC. Q. What happens if we perform two primary key lookups within the same transaction? Are they sent to the data node in one transaction? A. ClusterJ will send identical PK lookups to the same data node. Q. How is distributed query processing handled by MySQL Cluster ? A. If the data is split between data nodes then all of the information will be transparently combined and passed back to the application. The session will connect to a data node - typically by hashing the primary key - which then interacts with its neighboring nodes to collect the data needed to fulfil the query. Q. Can I use Foreign Keys with MySQL Cluster A. Support for Foreign Keys is included in the MySQL Cluster 7.3 Early Access release Summary The NoSQL Java APIs are packaged with MySQL Cluster, available for download here so feel free to take them for a spin today! Key Resources MySQL Cluster on-line demo  MySQL ClusterJ and JPA On-demand webinar  MySQL ClusterJ and JPA documentation MySQL ClusterJ and JPA whitepaper and tutorial

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• Wednesday at OpenWorld: Identity Management

  - by Tanu Sood

  Divide and conquer! Yes, divide and conquer today at Oracle OpenWorld with your colleagues to make the most of all things Identity Management since there’s a lot going on. Here’ the line-up for today: Wednesday, October 3, 2012 CON9458: End End-User-Managed Passwords and Increase Security with Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On Plus 10:15 a.m. – 11:15 a.m., Moscone West 3008 Most customers have a broad variety of applications (internal, external, web, client server, host etc) and single sign-on systems that extend to some, but not all systems. This session will focus on how customers are using enterprise single sign-on can help extend single sign-on to virtually any application, without costly application modification while laying a foundation that will enable integration with a broader identity management platform. CON9494: Sun2Oracle: Identity Management Platform Transformation 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Sun customers are actively defining strategies for how they will modernize their identity deployments. Learn how customers like Avea and SuperValu are leveraging their Sun investment, evaluating areas of expansion/improvement and building momentum. CON9631: Entitlement-centric Access to SOA and Cloud Services 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Marriott Marquis, Salon 7 How do you enforce that a junior trader can submit 10 trades/day, with a total value of $5M, if market volatility is low? How can hide sensitive patient information from clerical workers but make it visible to specialists as long as consent has been given or there is an emergency? In this session, Uberether and HerbaLife take the stage with Oracle to demonstrate how you can enforce such entitlements on a service not just within your intranet but also right at the perimeter. CON3957 - Delivering Secure Wi-Fi on the Tube as an Olympics Legacy from London 2012 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Moscone West 3003 In this session, Virgin Media, the U.K.’s first combined provider of broadband, TV, mobile, and home phone services, shares how it is providing free secure Wi-Fi services to the London Underground, using Oracle Virtual Directory and Oracle Entitlements Server, leveraging back-end legacy systems that were never designed to be externalized. As an Olympics 2012 legacy, the Oracle architecture will form a platform to be consumed by other Virgin Media services such as video on demand. CON9493: Identity Management and the Cloud 1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Security is the number one barrier to cloud service adoption.  Not so for industry leading companies like SaskTel, ConAgra foods and UPMC. This session will explore how these organizations are using Oracle Identity with cloud services and how some are offering identity management as a cloud service. CON9624: Real-Time External Authorization for Middleware, Applications, and Databases 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Moscone West 3008 As organizations seek to grant access to broader and more diverse user populations, the importance of centrally defined and applied authorization policies become critical; both to identify who has access to what and to improve the end user experience.  This session will explore how customers are using attribute and role-based access to achieve these goals. CON9625: Taking Control of WebCenter Security 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., Moscone West 3008 Many organizations are extending WebCenter in a business to business scenario requiring secure identification and authorization of business partners and their users. Leveraging LADWP’s use case, this session will focus on how customers are leveraging, securing and providing access control to Oracle WebCenter portal and mobile solutions. EVENTS: Identity Management Customer Advisory Board 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., Four Seasons – Yerba Buena Room This invitation-only event is designed exclusively for Customer Advisory Board (CAB) members to provide product strategy and roadmap updates. Identity Management Meet & Greet Networking Event 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Meeting Session 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m., Cocktail Reception Yerba Buena Room, Four Seasons Hotel, 757 Market Street, San Francisco The CAB meeting will be immediately followed by an open Meet & Greet event hosted by Oracle Identity Management executives and product management team. Do take this opportunity to network with your peers and connect with the Identity Management customers. For a complete listing, refer to the Focus on Identity Management document. And as always, you can find us on @oracleidm on twitter and FaceBook. Use #oow and #idm to join in the conversation.

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• Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and things I wish were more intuitive

  - by pjohnson

  I've started using Windows Workflow Foundation, and so far ran into a few things that aren't incredibly obvious. Microsoft did a good job of providing a ton of samples, which is handy because you need them to get anywhere with WF. The docs are thin, so I've been bouncing between samples and downloadable labs to figure out how to implement various activities in a workflow. Code separation or not? You can create a workflow and activity in Visual Studio with or without code separation, i.e. just a .cs "Component" style object with a Designer.cs file, or a .xoml XML markup file with code behind (beside?) it. Absence any obvious advantage to one or the other, I used code separation for workflows and any complex custom activities, and without code separation for custom activities that just inherit from the Activity class and thus don't have anything special in the designer. So far, so good. Workflow Activity Library project type - What's the point of this separate project type? So far I don't see much advantage to keeping your custom activities in a separate project. I prefer to have as few projects as needed (and no fewer). The Designer's Toolbox window seems to find your custom activities just fine no matter where they are, and the debugging experience doesn't seem to be any different. Designer Properties - This is about the designer, and not specific to WF, but nevertheless something that's hindered me a lot more in WF than in Windows Forms or elsewhere. The Properties window does a good job of showing you property values when you hover the mouse over the values. But they don't do the same to find out what a control's type is. So maybe if I named all my activities "x1" and "x2" instead of helpful self-documenting names like "listenForStatusUpdate", then I could easily see enough of the type to determine what it is, but any names longer than those and all I get of the type is "System.Workflow.Act" or "System.Workflow.Compone". Even hitting the dropdown doesn't expand any wider, like the debugger quick watch "smart tag" popups do when you scroll through members. The only way I've found around this in VS 2008 is to widen the Properties dialog, losing precious designer real estate, then shrink it back down when you're done to see what you were doing. Really? WF Designer - This is about the designer, and I believe is specific to WF. I should be able to edit the XML in a .xoml file, or drag and drop using the designer. With WPF (at least in VS 2010 Ultimate), these are side by side, and changes to one instantly update the other. With WF, I have to right-click on the .xoml file, choose Open With, and pick XML Editor to edit the text. It looks like this is one way where WF didn't get the same attention WPF got during .NET Fx 3.0 development. Service - In the WF world, this is simply a class that talks to the workflow about things outside the workflow, not to be confused with how the term "service" is used in every other context I've seen in the Windows and .NET world, i.e. an executable that waits for events or requests from a client and services them (Windows service, web service, WCF service, etc.). ListenActivity - Such a great concept, yet so unintuitive. It seems you need at least two branches (EventDrivenActivity instances), one for your positive condition and one for a timeout. The positive condition has a HandleExternalEventActivity, and the timeout has a DelayActivity followed by however you want to handle the delay, e.g. a ThrowActivity. The timeout is simple enough; wiring up the HandleExternalEventActivity is where things get fun. You need to create a service (see above), and an interface for that service (this seems more complex than should be necessary--why not have activities just wire to a service directly?). And you need to create a custom EventArgs class that inherits from ExternalDataEventArgs--you can't create an ExternalDataEventArgs event handler directly, even if you don't need to add any more information to the event args, despite ExternalDataEventArgs not being marked as an abstract class, nor a compiler error nor warning nor any other indication that you're doing something wrong, until you run it and find that it always times out and get to check every place mentioned here to see why. Your interface and service need an event that consumes your custom EventArgs class, and a method to fire that event. You need to call that method from somewhere. Then you get to hope that you did everything just right, or that you can step through code in the debugger before your Delay timeout expires. Yes, it's as much fun as it sounds. TransactionScopeActivity - I had the bright idea of putting one in as a placeholder, then filling in the database updates later. That caused this error: The workflow hosting environment does not have a persistence service as required by an operation on the workflow instance "[GUID]". ...which is about as helpful as "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" and even more fun to debug. Google led me to this Microsoft Forums hit, and from there I figured out it didn't like that the activity had no children. Again, a Validator on TransactionScopeActivity would have pointed this out to me at design time, rather than handing me a nearly useless error at runtime. Easily enough, I disabled the activity and that fixed it. I still see huge potential in my work where WF could make things easier and more flexible, but there are some seriously rough edges at the moment. Maybe I'm just spoiled by how much easier and more intuitive development elsewhere in the .NET Framework is.

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