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  • 3D Printed Records Bring New Tunes to Iconic Fisher-Price Toy Player

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Have an old toy Fisher-Price record player your kids aren’t exactly enamored with? Now, thanks to the miracle of 3D printing, you can create new records for it. Courtesy of Fred Murphy, this Instructables tutorial will guide you through the process of taking music and encoding it in a 3D printer file that will yield a tiny plastic record the Fisher-Prince record player can play. Check out the video above to see the finished product or hit up the link below to read the full tutorial. 3D Printing for the Fisher-Price Record Player [via Make] How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It

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  • 2011 PASS Board Applicants: Rob Farley

    - by andyleonard
    Introduction I am interviewing 2011 PASS Board Nominee Applicants. As listed on the PASS Board Elections site the applicants are: Rob Farley Geoff Hiten Adam Jorgensen Denise McInerney Sri Sridharan Kendal Van Dyke I'm asking everyone the same questions and blogging the responses in the order received. Rob Farley is first up: Interview With Rob Farley 1. What's your day job? I run LobsterPot Solutions out of Adelaide, Australia. We're a SQL & BI consultancy, and were the first Microsoft Partner...(read more)

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  • @CodeStock 2012 Review: Rob Gillen ( @argodev ) - Anatomy of a Buffer Overflow Attack

    Anatomy of a Buffer Overflow AttackSpeaker: Rob GillenTwitter: @argodevBlog: rob.gillenfamily.net Honestly, this talk was over my head due to my lack of knowledge of low level programming, and I think that most of the other attendees would agree. However I did get the basic concepts that we was trying to get across. Fortunately most high level programming languages handle most of the low level concerns regarding preventing buffer overflow attacks. What I got from this talk was to validate all input data from external sources.

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  • @CodeStock 2012 Review: Rob Gillen ( @argodev ) - Anatomy of a Buffer Overflow Attack

    Anatomy of a Buffer Overflow AttackSpeaker: Rob GillenTwitter: @argodevBlog: rob.gillenfamily.net Honestly, this talk was over my head due to my lack of knowledge of low level programming, and I think that most of the other attendees would agree. However I did get the basic concepts that we was trying to get across. Fortunately most high level programming languages handle most of the low level concerns regarding preventing buffer overflow attacks. What I got from this talk was to validate all input data from external sources.

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  • Rob Blackwell on interoperability and Azure

    - by Eric Nelson
    At QCon in March we had a sample Azure application implemented in both Java and Ruby to demonstrate that the Windows Azure Platform is not just about .NET. The following is an interesting interview with Rob Blackwell, the R&D director of the partner who implemented the application. UK Interoperability Team Interviews Rob Blackwell, R&D Director at Active Web Solutions. Is Microsoft taking interoperability seriously? Yes. In the past, I think Microsoft has, quite rightly come in for criticism, but architects and developers should look at this again. The Interoperability Bridges site (http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/ ) shows a wide range of projects that allow interoperability from Java, Ruby and PHP for example. The Windows Azure platform has been architected with interoperable APIs in mind. It's straightforward to access the various storage facilities from just about any language or platform. Azure compute is capable of running more than just C# applications! Why is interoperability important to you? My company provides consultancy and bespoke development services. We're a Microsoft Gold Partner, but we live in the real world where companies have a mix of technologies provided by a variety of vendors. When developing an enterprise software solution, you rarely have a completely blank canvas. We often see integration scenarios where we need to exchange data with legacy systems. It's not unusual to see modern Silverlight applications being built on top of Java or Mainframe based back ends. Could you give us some examples of where interoperability has been important for your projects? We developed an innovative Sea Safety system for the RNLI Lifeboats here in the UK. Commercial Fishing is one of the most dangerous professions and we helped developed the MOB Guardian System which uses satellite technology and man overboard devices to raise the alarm when a fisherman gets into trouble. The solution is implemented in .NET running on Windows, but without interoperable standards, it would have been impossible to communicate with the satellite gateway technology. For more information, please see the case study: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000005892 More recently, we were asked to build a web site to accompany the QCon 2010 conference in London to help demonstrate and promote interoperability. We built the site using Java and Restlet and hosted it in Windows Azure Compute. The site accepts feedback from visitors and all the data is stored in Windows Azure Storage. We also ported the application to Ruby on Rails for demonstration purposes. Visitors to the stand were surprised that this was even possible. Why should Java developers be interested in Windows Azure? Windows Azure Storage consists of Blobs, Queues and Tables. The storage is scalable, durable, secure and cost-effective. Using the WindowsAzure4j library, it's easy to use, and takes just a few lines of code. If you are writing an application with large data storage requirements, or you want an offsite backup, it makes a lot of sense. Running Java applications in Azure Compute is straightforward with tools like the Tomcat Solution Accelerator (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/winazuretomcat )and AzureRunMe (http://azurerunme.codeplex.com/ ). The Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus can also be used to connect heterogeneous systems running on different networks and in different data centres. How can The Service Bus be considered an interoperability solution? I think that the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus is one of Microsoft’s best kept secrets. Think of it as “a globally scalable application plumbing kit in the sky”. If you have used Enterprise Service Buses before, you’ll be familiar with the concept. Applications can connect to the service bus to securely exchange data – these can be point to point or multicast links. With the AppFabric Service Bus, the applications can exist anywhere that has access to the Internet and the connections can traverse firewalls. This makes it easy to extend or scale your application or reach out to other networks and technologies. For example, let’s say you have a SQL Server database running on premises and you want to expose the data to a Java application running in the cloud. You could set up a point to point Service Bus connection and use JDBC. Traditionally this would have been difficult or impossible without punching holes in firewalls and compromising security. Rob Blackwell is R&D Director at Active Web Solutions, www.aws.net , a Microsoft Gold Partner specialising in leading edge software solutions. He is an occasional writer and conference speaker and blogs at www.robblackwell.org.uk Related Links: UK Azure Online Community – join today. UK Windows Azure Site Start working with Windows Azure

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  • NDC2010: Rob Conery I cant hear you, there is an ORM in my ear

    In this session Rob Conery tried to show of the new Shiny toy NoSQL in as many forms as possible, discussing the pros and and some cons. He based much of the talk on his experiences with building TekPub and the requirements they had around that. He tried to illustrate that this wasnt a magical [...]...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Edinburgh this Thurs (25th) - Rob Carrol talks about how to build a high performance, scalable repor

    - by tonyrogerson
    Scottish Area SQL Server User Group Meeting, Edinburgh - Thursday 25th March An evening of SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Scalability and Performance with Rob Carrol, see how to build a high performance, scalable reporting platform and the tuning techniques required to ensure that report performance remains optimal as your platform grows. Pizza and drinks will be provided! Register at http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/events/221/SQL-Server-2008-Reporting-Services-Scalability-and-Performance.aspx...(read more)

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  • SQLPeople Interviews - Jamie Thomson and Rob Farley

    - by andyleonard
    Introduction Late last year I announced an exciting new endeavor called SQLPeople . At the end of 2010 I announced the 2010 SQLPeople Person of the Year . Interviews I'm pleased to announce the first two interviews have been posted. They are with my friend and co-SSIS-professional Jamie Thomson and Rob Farley , someone I had the pleasure of meeting in person at the PASS Summit 2010. I plan to post two or three interviews each week for the forseeable future. Conclusion SQLPeople is just one of the...(read more)

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  • How can I use the Fisher-Yates shuffle while ensuring my permutation is even?

    - by Mithrax
    I'm interested making an implementation of the 14-15 puzzle: I'm creating an array with the values 0 - 15 in increasing order: S = { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 } Now, what I want to do is shuffle them to create a new instance of the puzzle. However, I know that if I create a board with an "odd permutation" than it is unsolvable. Wikipedia says I need to create the puzzle with an even permutation. I believe this means that I simply have to do ensure I do an even number of swaps? How would I modify Fisher-Yates so I ensure I end up with an even permutation at the end? If I do a swap for every element in the array that would be 16 swaps which I believe would be an even permutation. However, do I need to be concerned about swapping with itself? Is there any other way to ensure I have a valid puzzle?

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  • Linq to SQL and concurrency with Rob Conery repository pattern

    - by David Hall
    I have implemented a DAL using Rob Conery's spin on the repository pattern (from the MVC Storefront project) where I map database objects to domain objects using Linq and use Linq to SQL to actually get the data. This is all working wonderfully giving me the full control over the shape of my domain objects that I want, but I have hit a problem with concurrency that I thought I'd ask about here. I have concurrency working but the solution feels like it might be wrong (just one of those gitchy feelings). The basic pattern is: private MyDataContext _datacontext private Table _tasks; public Repository(MyDataContext datacontext) { _dataContext = datacontext; } public void GetTasks() { _tasks = from t in _dataContext.Tasks; return from t in _tasks select new Domain.Task { Name = t.Name, Id = t.TaskId, Description = t.Description }; } public void SaveTask(Domain.Task task) { Task dbTask = null; // Logic for new tasks omitted... dbTask = (from t in _tasks where t.TaskId == task.Id select t).SingleOrDefault(); dbTask.Description = task.Description, dbTask.Name = task.Name, _dataContext.SubmitChanges(); } So with that implementation I've lost concurrency tracking because of the mapping to the domain task. I get it back by storing the private Table which is my datacontext list of tasks at the time of getting the original task. I then update the tasks from this stored Table and save what I've updated This is working - I get change conflict exceptions raised when there are concurrency violations, just as I want. However, it just screams to me that I've missed a trick. Is there a better way of doing this? I've looked at the .Attach method on the datacontext but that appears to require storing the original version in a similar way to what I'm already doing. I also know that I could avoid all this by doing away with the domain objects and letting the Linq to SQL generated objects all the way up my stack - but I dislike that just as much as I dislike the way I'm handling concurrency.

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  • Asp.Net MVC - Rob Conery's LazyList - Count() or Count

    - by Adam
    I'm trying to create an html table for order logs for customers. A customer is defined as (I've left out a lot of stuff): public class Customer { public LazyList<Order> Orders { get; set; } } The LazyList is set when fetching a Customer: public Customer GetCustomer(int custID) { Customer c = ... c.Orders = new LazyList<Order>(_repository.GetOrders().ByOrderID(custID)); return c; } The order log model: public class OrderLogTableModel { public OrderLogTableModel(LazyList<Order> orders) { Orders = orders; Page = 0; PageSize = 25; } public LazyList<Order> Orders { get; set; } public int Page { get; set; } public int PageSize { get; set; } } and I pass in the customer.Orders after loading a customer. Now the log i'm trying to make, looks something like: <table> <tbody> <% int rowCount = ViewData.Model.Orders.Count(); int innerRows = rowCount - (ViewData.Model.Page * ViewData.Model.PageSize); foreach (Order order in ViewData.Model.Orders.OrderByDescending(x => x.StartDateTime) .Take(innerRows).OrderBy(x => x.StartDateTime) .Take(ViewData.Model.PageSize)) { %> <tr> <td> <%= order.ID %> </td> </tr> <% } %> </tbody> </table> Which works fine. But the problem is evaluating ViewData.Model.Orders.Count() literally takes about 10 minutes. I've tried with the ViewData.Model.Orders.Count property instead, and the results are the same - takes forever. I've also tried calling _repository.GetOrders().ByCustomerID(custID).Count() directly from the view and that executes perfectly within a few ms. Can anybody see any reason why using the LazyList to get a simple count would take so long? It seems like its trying to iterate through the list when getting a simple count.

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  • An MCM exam, Rob? Really?

    - by Rob Farley
    I took the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam while in Seattle for the PASS Summit ten days ago. I wasn’t planning to do it, but I got persuaded to try. I was meaning to write this post to explain myself before the result came out, but it seems I didn’t get typing quickly enough. Those of you who know me will know I’m a big fan of certification, to a point. I’ve been involved with Microsoft Learning to help create exams. I’ve kept my certifications current since I first took an exam back in 1998, sitting many in beta, across quite a variety of topics. I’ve probably become quite good at them – I know I’ve definitely passed some that I really should’ve failed. I’ve also written that I don’t think exams are worth studying for. (That’s probably not entirely true, but it depends on your motivation. If you’re doing learning, I would encourage you to focus on what you need to know to do your job better. That will help you pass an exam – but the two skills are very different. I can coach someone on how to pass an exam, but that’s a different kind of teaching when compared to coaching someone about how to do a job. For example, the real world includes a lot of “it depends”, where you develop a feel for what the influencing factors might be. In an exam, its better to be able to know some of the “Don’t use this technology if XYZ is true” concepts better.) As for the Microsoft Certified Master certification… I’m not opposed to the idea of having the MCM (or in the future, MCSM) cert. But the barrier to entry feels quite high for me. When it was first introduced, the nearest testing centres to me were in Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Now there’s one in Perth, but that’s still a big effort. I know there are options in the US – such as one about an hour’s drive away from downtown Seattle, but it all just seems too hard. Plus, these exams are more expensive, and all up – I wasn’t sure I wanted to try them, particularly with the fact that I don’t like to study. I used to study for exams. It would drive my wife crazy. I’d have some exam scheduled for some time in the future (like the time I had two booked for two consecutive days at TechEd Australia 2005), and I’d make sure I was ready. Every waking moment would be spent pouring over exam material, and it wasn’t healthy. I got shaken out of that, though, when I ended up taking four exams in those two days in 2005 and passed them all. I also worked out that if I had a Second Shot available, then failing wasn’t a bad thing at all. Even without Second Shot, I’m much more okay about failing. But even just trying an MCM exam is a big effort. I wouldn’t want to fail one of them. Plus there’s the illusion to maintain. People have told me for a long time that I should just take the MCM exams – that I’d pass no problem. I’ve never been so sure. It was almost becoming a pride-point. Perhaps I should fail just to demonstrate that I can fail these things. Anyway – boB Taylor (@sqlboBT) persuaded me to try the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam at the PASS Summit. They set up a testing centre in one of the room there, so it wasn’t out of my way at all. I had to squeeze it in between other commitments, and I certainly didn’t have time to even see what was on the syllabus, let alone study. In fact, I was so exhausted from the week that I fell asleep at least once (just for a moment though) during the actual exam. Perhaps the questions need more jokes, I’m not sure. I knew if I failed, then I might disappoint some people, but that I wouldn’t’ve spent a great deal of effort in trying to pass. On the other hand, if I did pass I’d then be under pressure to investigate the MCM Lab exam, which can be taken remotely (therefore, a much smaller amount of effort to make happen). In some ways, passing could end up just putting a bunch more pressure on me. Oh, and I did.

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  • An MCM exam, Rob? Really?

    - by Rob Farley
    I took the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam while in Seattle for the PASS Summit ten days ago. I wasn’t planning to do it, but I got persuaded to try. I was meaning to write this post to explain myself before the result came out, but it seems I didn’t get typing quickly enough. Those of you who know me will know I’m a big fan of certification, to a point. I’ve been involved with Microsoft Learning to help create exams. I’ve kept my certifications current since I first took an exam back in 1998, sitting many in beta, across quite a variety of topics. I’ve probably become quite good at them – I know I’ve definitely passed some that I really should’ve failed. I’ve also written that I don’t think exams are worth studying for. (That’s probably not entirely true, but it depends on your motivation. If you’re doing learning, I would encourage you to focus on what you need to know to do your job better. That will help you pass an exam – but the two skills are very different. I can coach someone on how to pass an exam, but that’s a different kind of teaching when compared to coaching someone about how to do a job. For example, the real world includes a lot of “it depends”, where you develop a feel for what the influencing factors might be. In an exam, its better to be able to know some of the “Don’t use this technology if XYZ is true” concepts better.) As for the Microsoft Certified Master certification… I’m not opposed to the idea of having the MCM (or in the future, MCSM) cert. But the barrier to entry feels quite high for me. When it was first introduced, the nearest testing centres to me were in Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Now there’s one in Perth, but that’s still a big effort. I know there are options in the US – such as one about an hour’s drive away from downtown Seattle, but it all just seems too hard. Plus, these exams are more expensive, and all up – I wasn’t sure I wanted to try them, particularly with the fact that I don’t like to study. I used to study for exams. It would drive my wife crazy. I’d have some exam scheduled for some time in the future (like the time I had two booked for two consecutive days at TechEd Australia 2005), and I’d make sure I was ready. Every waking moment would be spent pouring over exam material, and it wasn’t healthy. I got shaken out of that, though, when I ended up taking four exams in those two days in 2005 and passed them all. I also worked out that if I had a Second Shot available, then failing wasn’t a bad thing at all. Even without Second Shot, I’m much more okay about failing. But even just trying an MCM exam is a big effort. I wouldn’t want to fail one of them. Plus there’s the illusion to maintain. People have told me for a long time that I should just take the MCM exams – that I’d pass no problem. I’ve never been so sure. It was almost becoming a pride-point. Perhaps I should fail just to demonstrate that I can fail these things. Anyway – boB Taylor (@sqlboBT) persuaded me to try the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam at the PASS Summit. They set up a testing centre in one of the room there, so it wasn’t out of my way at all. I had to squeeze it in between other commitments, and I certainly didn’t have time to even see what was on the syllabus, let alone study. In fact, I was so exhausted from the week that I fell asleep at least once (just for a moment though) during the actual exam. Perhaps the questions need more jokes, I’m not sure. I knew if I failed, then I might disappoint some people, but that I wouldn’t’ve spent a great deal of effort in trying to pass. On the other hand, if I did pass I’d then be under pressure to investigate the MCM Lab exam, which can be taken remotely (therefore, a much smaller amount of effort to make happen). In some ways, passing could end up just putting a bunch more pressure on me. Oh, and I did.

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  • How can I ensure that when I shuffle my puzzle I still end up with an even permutation?

    - by Mithrax
    I'm interested making an implementation of the 14-15 puzzle: I'm creating an array with the values 0 - 15 in increasing order: S = { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 } Now, what I want to do is shuffle them to create a new instance of the puzzle. However, I know that if I create a board with an "odd permutation" than it is unsolvable. Wikipedia says I need to create the puzzle with an even permutation. I believe this means that I simply have to do ensure I do an even number of swaps? How would I modify Fisher-Yates so I ensure I end up with an even permutation at the end? If I do a swap for every element in the array that would be 16 swaps which I believe would be an even permutation. However, do I need to be concerned about swapping with itself? Is there any other way to ensure I have a valid puzzle?

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  • PASS Summit Feedback

    - by Rob Farley
    PASS Feedback came in last week. I also saw my dentist for some fillings... At the PASS Summit this year, I delivered a couple of regular sessions and a Lightning Talk. People told me they enjoyed it, but when the rankings came out, they showed that I didn’t score particularly well. Brent Ozar was keen to discuss it with me. Brent: PASS speaker feedback is out. You did two sessions and a Lightning Talk. How did you go? Rob: Not so well actually, thanks for asking. Brent: Ha! Sorry. Of course you know that's why I wanted to discuss this with you. I was in one of your sessions at SQLBits in the UK a month before PASS, and I thought you rocked. You've got a really good and distinctive delivery style.  Then I noticed your talks were ranked in the bottom quarter of the Summit ratings and wanted to discuss it. Rob: Yeah, I know. You did ask me if we could do this...  I should explain – my presentation style is not the stereotypical IT conference one. I throw in jokes, and try to engage the audience thoroughly. I find many talks amazingly dry, and I guess I try to buck that trend. I also run training courses, and find that I get a lot of feedback from people thanking me for keeping things interesting. That said, I also get feedback criticising me for my style, and that’s basically what’s happened here. For the rest of this discussion, let’s focus on my talk about the Incredible Shrinking Execution Plan, which I considered to be my main talk. Brent: I thought that session title was the very best one at the entire Summit, and I had it on my recommended sessions list.  In four words, you managed to sum up the topic and your sense of humor.  I read that and immediately thought, "People need to be in this session," and then it didn't score well.  Tell me about your scores. Rob: The questions on the feedback form covered the usefulness of the information, the speaker’s presentation skills, their knowledge of the subject, how well the session was described, the amount of time allocated, and the quality of the presentation materials. Brent: Presentation materials? But you don’t do slides.  Did they rate your thong? Rob: No-one saw my flip-flops in this talk, Brent. I created a script in Management Studio, and published that afterwards, but I think people will have scored that question based on the lack of slides. I wasn’t expecting to do particularly well on that one. That was the only section that didn’t have 5/5 as the most popular score. Brent: See, that sucks, because cookbook-style scripts are often some of my favorites.  Adam Machanic's Service Broker workbench series helped me immensely when I was prepping for the MCM.  As an attendee, I'd rather have a commented script than a slide deck.  So how did you rank so low? Rob: When I look at the scores that you got (based on your blog post), you got very few scores below 3 – people that felt strong enough about your talk to post a negative score. In my scores, between 5% and 10% were below 3 (except on the question about whether I knew my stuff – I guess I came as knowledgeable). Brent: Wow – so quite a few people really didn’t like your talk then? Rob: Yeah. Mind you, based on the comments, some people really loved it. I’d like to think that there would be a certain portion of the room who may have rated the talk as one of the best of the conference. Some of my comments included “amazing!”, “Best presentation so far!”, “Wow, best session yet”, “fantastic” and “Outstanding!”. I think lots of talks can be “Great”, but not so many talks can be “Outstanding” without the word losing its meaning. One wrote “Pretty amazing presentation, considering it was completely extemporaneous.” Brent: Extemporaneous, eh? Rob: Yeah. I guess they don’t realise how much preparation goes into coming across as unprepared. In many ways it’s much easier to give a written speech than to deliver a presentation without slides as a prompt. Brent: That delivery style, the really relaxed, casual, college-professor approach was one of the things I really liked about your presentation at SQLbits.  As somebody who presents a lot, I "get" it - I know how hard it is to come off as relaxed and comfortable with your own material.  It's like improv done by jazz players and comedians - if you've never tried it, you don't realize how hard it is.  People also don't realize how hard it is to make a tough subject fun. Rob: Yeah well... There will be people writing comments on this post that say I wasn't trying to make the subject fun, and that I was making it all about me. Sometimes the style works, sometimes it doesn't. Most of the comments mentioned the fact that I tell jokes, some in a nice way, but some not so much (and it wasn't just a PASS thing - that's the mix of feedback I generally get). One comment at PASS was: “great stand up comedian - not what I'm looking for at pass”, and there were certainly a few that said “too many jokes”. I’m not trying to do stand-up – jokes are my way of engaging with the audience while I demonstrate some of the amazing things that the Query Optimizer can do if you write your queries the right way. Some people didn’t think it was technical enough, but I’ve also had some people tell me that the concepts I’m explaining are deep and profound. Brent: To me, that's a hallmark of a great explanation - when someone says, "But of course it has to work that way - how could it work any other way?  It seems so simple and logical."  Well, sure it does when it's explained correctly, but now pick up any number of thick SQL Server books and try to understand the Redundant Joins concept.  I guarantee it'll take more than 45 minutes. Rob: Some people in my audiences realise that, but definitely not everyone. There's only so much you can tell someone that something is profound. Generally it's something that they either have an epiphany on or not. I like to lull my audience into knowing what's going on, and do something that surprises them. Gain their trust, build a rapport, and then show them the deeper truth of what just happened. Brent: So you've learned your lesson about presentation scores, right?  From here on out, you're going to be dry, humorless, and all your presentations will consist of you reading bullet points off the screen. Rob: No Brent, I’m not. I'm also not going to suggest that most presentations at PASS are like that. No-one tries to present like that. There's a big space to occupy between what "dry and humourless" and me. My difference is to focus on the relationship I have with the crowd, rather than focussing on delivering the perfect session. I want to see people smiling and know they're relaxed. I think most presenters focus on the material, which is completely reasonable and safe. I remember once hearing someone talking about product creation. They talked about mediocrity. They said that one of the worst things that people can ever say about your product is that it’s “good”. What you want is for 10% of the world to love it enough to want to buy it. If 10% the world gave me a dollar, I’d have more money than I could ever use (assuming it wasn’t the SAME dollar they were giving me I guess). Brent: It's the Raving Fans theory.  It's better to have a small number of raving customers than a large number of almost-but-not-really customers who don't care that much about your product or service.  I know exactly how you feel - when I got survey feedback from my Quest video presentation when I was dressed up in a Richard Simmons costume, some of the attendees said I was unprofessional and distracting.  Some of the attendees couldn't get enough and Photoshopped all kinds of stuff into the screen captures.  On a whole, I probably didn't score that well, and I'm fine with that.  It sucks to look at the scores though - do those lower scores bother you? Rob: Of course they do. It hurts deeply. I open myself up and give presentations in a very personal way. All presenters do that, and we all feel the pain of negative feedback. I hate coming 146th & 162nd out of 185, but have to acknowledge that many sessions did worse still. Plus, once I feel the wounds have healed, I’ll be able to remember that there are people in the world that rave about my presentation style, and figure that people will hopefully talk about me. One day maybe those people that don’t like my presentation style will stay away and I might be able to score better. You don’t pay to hear country music if you prefer western... Lots of people find chili too spicy, but it’s still a popular food. Brent: But don’t you want to appeal to everyone? Rob: I do, but I don’t want to be lukewarm as in Revelation 3:16. I’d rather disgust and be discussed. Well, maybe not ‘disgust’, but I don’t want to conform. Conformity just isn’t the same any more. I’m not sure I’ve ever been one to do that. I try not to offend, but definitely like to be different. Brent: Count me among your raving fans, sir.  Where can we see you next? Rob: Considering I live in Adelaide in Australia, I’m not about to appear at anyone’s local SQL Saturday. I’m still trying to plan which events I’ll get to in 2011. I’ve submitted abstracts for TechEd North America, but won’t hold my breath. I’m also considering the SQLBits conferences in the UK in April, PASS in October, and I’m sure I’ll do some LiveMeeting presentations for user groups. Online, people download some of my recent SQLBits presentations at http://bit.ly/RFSarg and http://bit.ly/Simplification though. And they can download a 5-minute MP3 of my Lightning Talk at http://www.lobsterpot.com.au/files/Collation.mp3, in which I try to explain the idea behind collation, using thongs as an example. Brent: I was in the audience for http://bit.ly/RFSarg. That was a great presentation. Rob: Thanks, Brent. Now where’s my dollar?

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  • How do I stop Python install on Mac OS X from putting things in my home directory?

    - by Rob
    Hi, I'm trying to install Python from source on my Mac. (OS X 10.6.2, Python-2.6.5.tar.bz2) I've done this before and it was easy, but for some reason, this time after ./configure, and make, the sudo make install puts things some things in my home directory instead of in /usr/local/... where I expect. The .py files are okay, but not the .so files... RobsMac Python-2.6.5 $ sudo make install [...] /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./Lib/anydbm.py /usr/local/lib/python2.6 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./Lib/ast.py /usr/local/lib/python2.6 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./Lib/asynchat.py /usr/local/lib/python2.6 [...] running build_scripts running install_lib creating /Users/rob/Library/Python creating /Users/rob/Library/Python/2.6 creating /Users/rob/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages copying build/lib.macosx-10.4-x86_64-2.6/_AE.so - /Users/rob/Library/ Python/2.6/site-packages copying build/lib.macosx-10.4-x86_64-2.6/_AH.so - /Users/rob/Library/ Python/2.6/site-packages copying build/lib.macosx-10.4-x86_64-2.6/_App.so - /Users/rob/Library/ Python/2.6/site-packages [...] Later, this causes imports that require those .so files to fail. For example... RobsMac Python-2.6.5 $ python Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Apr 28 2010, 13:40:18) [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646) (dot 1)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import zlib Traceback (most recent call last):     File "", line 1, in ImportError: No module named zlib Any ideas what is wrong? thanks, Rob

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  • Two network adapters on Ubuntu Server 9.10 - Can't have both working at once?

    - by Rob
    I'm trying to set up two network adapters in Ubuntu (server edition) 9.10. One for the public internet, the other a private LAN. During the install, I was asked to pick a primary network adapter (eth0 or eth1). I chose eth0, gave the installer the details listed below in the contents of /etc/network/interfaces, and carried on. I've been using this adapter with these setting for the last few days, and every thing's been fine. Today, I decide it's time to set up the local adapter. I edit the /etc/network/interfaces to add the details for eth1 (see below), and restart networking with sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart. After this, attempting to ping the machine using it's external IP address fails, but I can ping it's local IP address. If I bring eth1 down using sudo ifdown eth1, I can successfully ping the machine via it's external IP address again (but obviously not it's internal IP address). Bringing eth1 back up returns us to the original problem state: external IP not working, internal IP working. Here's my /etc/network/interfaces (I've removed the external IP information, but these settings are unchanged from when it worked) rob@rhea:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary (public) network interface auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx network xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx broadcast xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx gateway xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx # The secondary (private) network interface auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 192.168.99.4 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.99.0 broadcast 192.168.99.255 gateway 192.168.99.254 I then do this: rob@rhea:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart * Reconfiguring network interfaces... [ OK ] rob@rhea:~$ sudo ifup eth0 ifup: interface eth0 already configured rob@rhea:~$ sudo ifup eth1 ifup: interface eth1 already configured Then, from another machine: C:\Documents and Settings\Rob>ping [external ip] Pinging [external ip] with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Ping statistics for [external ip]: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss), Back on the Ubuntu server in question: rob@rhea:~$ sudo ifdown eth1 ... and again on the other machine: C:\Documents and Settings\Rob>ping [external ip] Pinging [external ip] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from [external ip]: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=63 Reply from [external ip]: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=63 Reply from [external ip]: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=63 Reply from [external ip]: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=63 Ping statistics for [external ip]: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms So... what am I doing wrong?

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  • Windows 7 search not finding files

    - by Rob Nicholson
    Can anyone please explain this quirk in Windows 7 search (not a big fan of it - preferred XP method or least both). With Outlook, you sometimes have to find and delete your OST file. It resides in the user's profile folder. How come searching the entire C: drive for *.ost files works - they are in c:\Users\rob.nicholson\appdata somewhere but starting the search from c:\Users\rob.nicholson fails to find the files??? Cheers, Rob.

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  • simulate backspace key with java.awt.Robot

    - by Tyler
    There seems to be an issue simulating the backspace key with java.awt.Robot. This thread seems to confirm this but it does not propose a solution. This works: Robot rob = new Robot(); rob.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_A); rob.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_A); This doesn't: Robot rob = new Robot(); rob.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_BACK_SPACE); rob.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_BACK_SPACE); Any ideas? Thanks!

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  • Collation errors in business

    - by Rob Farley
    At the PASS Summit last month, I did a set (Lightning Talk) about collation, and in particular, the difference between the “English” spoken by people from the US, Australia and the UK. One of the examples I gave was that in the US drivers might stop for gas, whereas in Australia, they just open the window a little. This is what’s known as a paraprosdokian, where you suddenly realise you misunderstood the first part of the sentence, based on what was said in the second. My current favourite is Emo Phillip’s line “I like to play chess with old men in the park, but it can be hard to find thirty-two of them.” Essentially, this a collation error, one that good comedians can get mileage from. Unfortunately, collation is at its worst when we have a computer comparing two things in different collations. They might look the same, and sound the same, but if one of the things is in SQL English, and the other one is in Windows English, the poor database server (with no sense of humour) will get suspicious of developers (who all have senses of humour, obviously), and declare a collation error, worried that it might not realise some nuance of the language. One example is the common scenario of a case-sensitive collation and a case-insensitive one. One may think that “Rob” and “rob” are the same, but the other might not. Clearly one of them is my name, and the other is a verb which means to steal (people called “Nick” have the same problem, of course), but I have no idea whether “Rob” and “rob” should be considered the same or not – it depends on the collation. I told a lie before – collation isn’t at its worst in the computer world, because the computer has the sense to complain about the collation issue. People don’t. People will say something, with their own understanding of what they mean. Other people will listen, and apply their own collation to it. I remember when someone was asking me about a situation which had annoyed me. They asked if I was ‘pissed’, and I said yes. I meant that I was annoyed, but they were asking if I’d been drinking. It took a moment for us to realise the misunderstanding. In business, the problem is escalated. A business user may explain something in a particular way, using terminology that they understand, but using words that mean something else to a technical person. I remember a situation with a checkbox on a form (back in VB6 days from memory). It was used to indicate that something was approved, and indicated whether a particular database field should store True or False – nothing more. However, the client understood it to mean that an entire workflow system would be implemented, with different users have permission to approve items and more. The project manager I’d just taken over from clearly hadn’t appreciated that, and I faced a situation of explaining the misunderstanding to the client. Lots of fun... Collation errors aren’t just a database setting that you can ignore. You need to remember that Americans speak a different type of English to Aussies and Poms, and techies speak a different language to their clients.

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  • Remote file access.

    - by Rob Rob
    Hi, We're needing to provide remote (read/write) access to a number of files on our network to several users (some technical, some non-technical) who will be running Windows. The non technical users will need to be able to access their files in an easy to use manner. From previous experience, we could do this with: (some sort of) VPN SSH and something like Dokan (i've only previously done this on linux with sshfs) WebDav FTP VPN and SSH access are more open that we need at present, so I'm leaning towards webdav, however I only have limited experience of it (setting up an SVN server several years ago), but my understanding is that users can access it through windows explorer. FTP I haven't had much experience of, as I've always used SFTP via ssh - but i'd imagine we could make this work in a similar way to ssh. So my question is - have I missed any obvious candidates for this task, or if webdav is (or isn't) suitable what are the security implications of using it for this (obviously https will be used for the transfers, etc). Thanks, Rob.

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  • How Can I Install LibreOffice Base?

    - by Rob
    Useful info: I have tried running sudo dpkg --configure -a and sudo apt-get install -f with no result. I am running Kubuntu 11.10 (the updater is far too unreliable to ever be trusted with performing a version upgrade) The rest of LibreOffice seems to work fine (apart from an annoying bug where tooltips are shown as black text on black background...) I have need to use LibreOffice Base to complete a mail merge document. However, I noticed it's not installed. When I go to install it however... rob@hydrogen:~$ sudo apt-get install libreoffice-base [sudo] password for rob: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies. libreoffice-base : Depends: libreoffice-core (= 1:3.4.4-0ubuntu1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libreoffice-base-core (= 1:3.4.4-0ubuntu1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libreoffice-java-common (>= 1:3.4.4~) but it is not going to be installed Suggests: libmyodbc but it is not going to be installed or odbc-postgresql but it is not going to be installed or libsqliteodbc but it is not going to be installed or tdsodbc but it is not going to be installed or mdbtools but it is not going to be installed Suggests: libreoffice-gcj but it is not installable Suggests: libreoffice-report-builder but it is not going to be installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. I'm bemused as to which packages it seems to think I have held. As far as I'm aware, Kubuntu doesn't give you the option to hold packages... So, how do I get out of this dependency hell?

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