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• Welch's Juices-up Its Inventory Management with Oracle Supply Chain

  - by [email protected]

  Supply & Demand Chain Executive published recently a great success story about Welch's implementation of "Take Supply Chain and G.SI to work with Oracle Process Manufacturing". The company says it's been able to improve operational control, inventory accuracy, visibility and order fulfillment by automating its processes across three production/warehousing locations nationwide. Improving warehouse and inventory management operations creates efficiencies across a high-velocity nationwide supply chain Welch's production facilities were collecting more information than ever before on the flow of materials and inventory, but the company needed an effective and accurate method to organize and manage these data.   Article found at: http://www.sdcexec.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=1&id=12256&pageNum=2     

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• How can I store spell & items using a std::vector implementation?

  - by Vladimir Marenus

  I'm following along with a book from GameInstitute right now, and it's asking me to: Allow the player to buy and carry healing potions and potions of fireball. You can add an Item array (after you define the item class) to the Player class for storing them, or use a std::vector to store them. I think I would like to use the std::vector implementation, because that seems to confuse me less than making an item class, but I am unsure how to do so. I've heard from many people that vectors are great ways to store dynamic values (such as items, weapons, etc), but I've not seen it used.

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• Frameskipping in Android gameloop causing choppy sprites (Open GL ES 2.0)

  - by user22241

  I have written a simple 2d platform game for Android and am wondering how one deals with frame-skipping? Are there any alternatives? Let me explain further. So, my game loop allows for the rendering to be skipped if game updates and rendering do not fit into my fixed time-slice (16.667ms). This allows my game to run at identically perceived speeds on different devices. And this works great, things do run at the same speed. However, when the gameloop skips a render call for even one frame, the sprite glitches. And thinking about it, why wouldn't it? You're seeing a sprite move say, an average of 10 pixels every 1.6 seconds, then suddenly, there is a pause of 3.2ms, and the sprite then appears to jump 20 pixels. When this happens 3 or 4 times in close succession, the result is very ugly and not something I want in my game. Therfore, my question is how does one deal with these 'pauses' and 'jumps' - I've read every article on game loops I can find (see below) and my loops are even based off of code from these articles. The articles specifically mention frame skipping but they don't make any reference to how to deal with visual glitches that result from it. I've attempted various game-loops. My loop must have a mechanism in-place to allow rendering to be skipped to keep game-speed constant across multiple devices (or alternative, if one exists) I've tried interpolation but this doesn't eliminate this specific problem (although it looks like it may mitigate the issue slightly as when it eventually draws the sprite it 'moves it back' between the old and current positions so the 'jump' isn't so big. I've also tried a form of extrapolation which does seem to keep things smooth considerably, but I find it to be next to completely useless because it plays havoc with my collision detection (even when drawing with a 'display only' coordinate - see extrapolation-breaks-collision-detection) I've tried a loop that uses Thread.sleep when drawing / updating completes with time left over, no frame skipping in this one, again fairly smooth, but runs differently on different devices so no good. And I've tried spawning my own, third thread for logic updates, but this, was extremely messy to deal with and the performance really wasn't good. (upon reading tons of forums, most people seem to agree a 2 thread loops ( so UI and GL threads) is safer / easier). Now if I remove frame skipping, then all seems to run nice and smooth, with or without inter/extrapolation. However, this isn't an option because the game then runs at different speeds on different devices as it falls behind from not being able to render fast enough. I'm running logic at 60 Ticks per second and rendering as fast as I can. I've read, as far as I can see every article out there, I've tried the loops from My Secret Garden and Fix your timestep. I've also read: Against the grain deWITTERS Game Loop Plus various other articles on Game-loops. A lot of the others are derived from the above articles or just copied word for word. These are all great, but they don't touch on the issues I'm experiencing. I really have tried everything I can think of over the course of a year to eliminate these glitches to no avail, so any and all help would be appreciated. A couple of examples of my game loops (Code follows): From My Secret Room public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { //Rre-set loop back to 0 to start counting again loops=0; while(System.currentTimeMillis() > nextGameTick && loops < maxFrameskip) { SceneManager.getInstance().getCurrentScene().updateLogic(); nextGameTick += skipTicks; timeCorrection += (1000d / ticksPerSecond) % 1; nextGameTick += timeCorrection; timeCorrection %= 1; loops++; } extrapolation = (float)(System.currentTimeMillis() + skipTicks - nextGameTick) / (float)skipTicks; render(extrapolation); } And from Fix your timestep double t = 0.0; double dt2 = 0.01; double currentTime = System.currentTimeMillis()*0.001; double accumulator = 0.0; double newTime; double frameTime; @Override public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { newTime = System.currentTimeMillis()*0.001; frameTime = newTime - currentTime; if ( frameTime > (dt*5)) //Allow 5 'skips' frameTime = (dt*5); currentTime = newTime; accumulator += frameTime; while ( accumulator >= dt ) { SceneManager.getInstance().getCurrentScene().updateLogic(); previousState = currentState; accumulator -= dt; } interpolation = (float) (accumulator / dt); render(interpolation); }

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• Pricing options at O’Reilly

  - by Nick Harrison

  I was browsing through the new options for books on O'Reilly and Associates and noticed something kind of cool    If you buy the print edition of a book, you can get the ebook for just a couple dollars more.  This is pure genius marketing. I may question whether or not I want the ebook at 20 or the print copy at 25, but to get them both for 28, well that's a no brainer.  This is actually a strategy examined at great depth in Predictably Rational In all honesty, $20 is probably over priced for the ebook, but $3 if you are already buying the print edition is actually a pretty good deal  .

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• Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally

  - by The Geek

  Have you ever accidentally deleted a photo on your camera, computer, USB drive, or anywhere else? What you might not know is that you can usually restore those pictures—even from your camera’s memory stick. Windows tries to prevent you from making a big mistake by providing the Recycle Bin, where deleted files hang around for a while—but unfortunately it doesn’t work for external USB drives, USB flash drives, memory sticks, or mapped drives. The great news is that this technique also works if you accidentally deleted the photo… from the camera itself. That’s what happened to me, and prompted writing this article. Restore that File or Photo using Recuva The first piece of software that you’ll want to try is called Recuva, and it’s extremely easy to use—just make sure when you are installing it, that you don’t accidentally install that stupid Yahoo! toolbar that nobody wants. Now that you’ve installed the software, and avoided an awful toolbar installation, launch the Recuva wizard and let’s start through the process of recovering those pictures you shouldn’t have deleted. The first step on the wizard page will let you tell Recuva to only search for a specific type of file, which can save a lot of time while searching, and make it easier to find what you are looking for. Next you’ll need to specify where the file was, which will obviously be up to wherever you deleted it from. Since I deleted mine from my camera’s SD card, that’s where I’m looking for it. The next page will ask you whether you want to do a Deep Scan. My recommendation is to not select this for the first scan, because usually the quick scan can find it. You can always go back and run a deep scan a second time. And now, you’ll see all of the pictures deleted from your drive, memory stick, SD card, or wherever you searched. Looks like what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas after all… If there are a really large number of results, and you know exactly when the file was created or modified, you can switch to the advanced view, where you can sort by the last modified time. This can help speed up the process quite a bit, so you don’t have to look through quite as many files. At this point, you can right-click on any filename, and choose to Recover it, and then save the files elsewhere on your drive. Awesome! Restore that File or Photo using DiskDigger If you don’t have any luck with Recuva, you can always try out DiskDigger, another excellent piece of software. I’ve tested both of these applications very thoroughly, and found that neither of them will always find the same files, so it’s best to have both of them in your toolkit. Note that DiskDigger doesn’t require installation, making it a really great tool to throw on your PC repair Flash drive. Start off by choosing the drive you want to recover from…   Now you can choose whether to do a deep scan, or a really deep scan. Just like with Recuva, you’ll probably want to select the first one first. I’ve also had much better luck with the regular scan, rather than the “dig deeper” one. If you do choose the “dig deeper” one, you’ll be able to select exactly which types of files you are looking for, though again, you should use the regular scan first. Once you’ve come up with the results, you can click on the items on the left-hand side, and see a preview on the right.  You can select one or more files, and choose to restore them. It’s pretty simple! Download DiskDigger from dmitrybrant.com Download Recuva from piriform.com Good luck recovering your deleted files! And keep in mind, DiskDigger is a totally free donationware software from a single, helpful guy… so if his software helps you recover a photo you never thought you’d see again, you might want to think about throwing him a dollar or two. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stupid Geek Tricks: Undo an Accidental Move or Delete With a Keyboard ShortcutRestore Accidentally Deleted Files with RecuvaCustomize Your Welcome Picture Choices in Windows VistaAutomatically Resize Picture Attachments in Outlook 2007Resize Your Photos with Easy Thumbnails 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 DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi

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• Winners of Pete Brown's "Silverlight 5 In Action" Books

  - by Dave Campbell

  It's always a double-edged sword when I get to this point in a give-away... I want to give everyone something, but a deal is a deal :) It's also only through the benevolence of the folks at Manning Press that I can even do this, so thank you! The Winners Getting right to it, the winners are: Jaganadh G Stephen Owens Jan Hannemann Notice there are 3 names, not 2... I was told late last week to pick a 3rd name, so thanks again Manning! I've already received email from my contact, and they've been waiting for me to send them the email. You should be hearing from them shortly I think. For everyone else, keep your eyes on my blog... as I told Manning, I like giving away other people's stuff :) Have a great day, and if you're anywhere near Phoenix and interested in Silverlight, I'll see you tomorrow at the Scott Gu Event, and Stay in the 'Light!

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• Richmond Code Camp 2010.1

  - by andyleonard

  I can't believe it - Richmond Code Camp 2010.1 is less than two weeks away! Once again, the leadership team has outdone themselves. We have a bunch of great speakers, 9 tracks, 45 sessions - there's something for everyone. If you're going to be in the area and are interested, register today. :{> Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

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• On the Road(Map)

  - by Valter Minute

  The new roadmap of Windows Embedded has been announced, this is great news for anyone that wants to use Windows Embedded technologies in her/his device. Roadmaps are usually stuff for marketing people, but as a technician is important to know that you are basing your product on a system that is going to be supported for some years and that you can evolve it and will not have to re-design it completely to change its OS (unless this proves to be more convenient, of course!). Here you can read the press release: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/Features/2011/nov11/11-14RoadMap.mspx and here Olivier Bloch’s summary (the part that should interest tech people): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/obloch/archive/2011/11/14/windows-embedded-roadmap-update.aspx

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• Microsoft Generation 4 Datacenter using ITPACs

  - by Eric Nelson

  Microsoft is continuing to make significant investments in Datacenter technology and is focused on solving issues such as long lead times, significant up-front costs and over capacity. Enter the world of modular Datacenters and ITPACs – IT Pre-Assembled Components. In simple terms – air handling and IT units which are pre-assembled (looking somewhat like a container) and then installed on concrete bases. Each unit can hold  between 400 and 2500 servers (which means many more virtual machines depending on your density) Kevin Timmons’, manager of the datacenter operations team, just posted a great post digging into the detail One Small Step for Microsoft’s Cloud, Another Big Step for Sustainability which includes a short video on how we build one of these ITPACs. You might also want to check out this video from the PDC:

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• Oracle is sponsoring LinuxCon Japan 2012

  - by Zeynep Koch

  LinuxCon Japan is the premiere Linux conference in Asia that brings together a unique blend of core developers, administrators, users, community managers and industry experts. It is designed not only to encourage collaboration but to support future interaction between Japan and other Asia Pacific countries and the rest of the global Linux community. The conference includes presentations, tutorials, birds of a feather sessions, keynotes, sponsored mini-summits. LinuxCon Japan will be showcasing Oracle Linux in  following sessions, as well as Technology Showcase booth.  Wednesday, June 6: 2:00 pm - Btrfs Filesystems : Status and New Features, Chris Mason, Oracle, Room 502 Friday, June 8: 3:00 pm - State of Linux Kernel Security Subsystem, James Morris, Oracle, Room 502 5:25 pm - International/Asian Kernel Developer Panel that features Oracle's Chris Mason Register to attend these great sessions.

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• Simple ViewModel Locator for MVVM: The Patients Have Left the Asylum

  Ive been toying with some ideas for MVVM lately. Along the way I have been dragging some friends like Glenn Block and Ward Bell along for the ride. Now, normally its not so bad, but when I get an idea in my head to challenge everything I can be interesting to work with :). These guys are great and I highly encourage you all to get your own personal Glenn and Ward bobble head dolls for your home. But back to MVVM Ive been exploring the world of View first again. The idea is simple: the View is created,...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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• Matrix Pattern Recognition Algorithm

  - by Andres

  I am designing a logic analyzer and I would like to implement some Matrix Algorithm. I have several channels each one represented by a row in the matrix and every element in the column would be the state, for example: Channel 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 Channel 2 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 Channel 3 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 Channel 4 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 I would like to detect a pattern inside my matrix for example, detect if exist and where the sub-matrix or pattern: 1 0 1 1 I think it can be accomplished testing element by element but I think there should be a better way of doing it. Is there any Java API or any way to do it ? If there is a API ARM optimized for NEON instructions would be great also but not mandatory. Thank you very much in advance.

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• Simple ViewModel Locator for MVVM: The Patients Have Left the Asylum

  Ive been toying with some ideas for MVVM lately. Along the way I have been dragging some friends like Glenn Block and Ward Bell along for the ride. Now, normally its not so bad, but when I get an idea in my head to challenge everything I can be interesting to work with :). These guys are great and I highly encourage you all to get your own personal Glenn and Ward bobble head dolls for your home. But back to MVVM Ive been exploring the world of View first again. The idea is simple: the View is created,...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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• Screenshot Tour: XBMC 11 Eden Rocks Improved iOS Support, AirPlay, and Even a Custom XBMC OS

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  XBMC, the wildly popular, free, and robust open-source media center suite, has a new version. XBMC 11 Eden is bursting with new features, improvements, and is even available as a stand-alone XBMC-centric OS. We’re big XBMC fans around here, so you’ll have to excuse us if we gush a little about how great the new XBMC 11 Eden release is. If you’re currently on XBMC 10, you’re in for quite a few treats with this upgrade. If you’ve never used XBMC before, well then, you’re in for a media center experience like you’ve never had one before. Here is what’s new in XBMC 11. How To Be Your Own Personal Clone Army (With a Little Photoshop) How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image) The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume

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• Friday Spotlight: The Value of Oracle Linux

  - by Chris Kawalek

  Happy Friday! Our spotlight this week is on a brand new white paper, chock full of fantastic information about Oracle Linux. From the intro to Oracle Linux - Maximize Value, Minimize Cost: "This paper describes the savings and efficiencies that an IT department can realize by choosing Oracle Linux as their enterprise standard. It highlights sample deployments and explains how deploying Oracle Linux can reduce operational costs and result in less downtime, improved productivity, and greater opportunities for revenue generation.?" The paper explains exactly how Oracle Linux can reduce costs, and goes into some of the features of Oracle Linux that can make it more valuable for your organization. Read the paper now. Have a great week! -Chris 

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• What is PowerPivot?

  - by Enrique Lima

  Let’s start with it is a great way to be able to visualize data and transform to information.  It is intended to be a self-service business intelligence tool provided as an add-in for a tool we already know … Microsoft Excel ... 2010. If you have been wondering where to go? what to do? and how do I? I am including links that will help you be on your way to better understanding of the topic and tool. (Links to TechNet documentation) Introduction to PowerPivot Walkthrough: Create your first PowerPivot Workbook Get to know the UI PowerPivot for Excel Central Get some samples

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• How to prevent Google Website Optimizer from making Google Analytics spike Direct Traffic and lower Bounce Rate?

  - by Scott

  I am using Google Website Optimizer (GWO) and Google Analytics. Whenever a person (Google Website Optimizer) does a javascript redirect, Google Analytics will change the referrer. When the referrer changes, the traffic source becomes yourself and is changed to Direct Traffic. For Example: A visitor goes to google: searches for my great service. Clicks the link that goes to website page: /home/ At this point, Google Analytics tracks the referrer as Google. However, /home/ has a GWO javacript redirect to a battery of A/B tests. /home-1/ or /home-2/ or /home-3/ When the redirect from /home/ occurs to /home-1/, google analytics on the /home-1/ page now thinks the referrer is yourself and converts the referrer to Direct Traffic since the Direct Traffic bucket is the unknown. I'm really surprised that GWO and GA do this when they both come from google. Now, How does one fix this to prevent the overwrite of the referrer using GWO?

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• SQL Server 2012 edition comparison details are published

  - by DavidWimbush

  Interesting stuff, particularly if you're doing BI. BISM tabular and Power View will not be in Standard Edition, only in the new - presumably more expensive - Business Intelligence Edition. That kind of makes sense as you need a fairly pricey edition of SharePoint to really get all the benefits, but it's a shame there won't be some kind of limited version in Standard Edition. And Always On will be in Standard Edition but limited to 2 nodes. I really expected Always On to be Enterprise-only so this is a great decision. It allows those of us working at a more modest scale to benefit and raises the fault tolerance of SQL Server as a product to a new level.Read all about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-editions.aspx

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• Oracle Desktop Virtualization Press Release

  - by [email protected]

  Even though Oracle has introduced new products (HW and SW) and pricing, and part numbers, modified licensing, and an EVP and an SVP have discussed openly where Oracle is going with Virtualization,  you may still have heard from "the other guys' that Oracle isn't going to be keeping the legacy Sun 'Desktop' portfolio.  I think that has soundly been addressed by the press release this morning.  Click here for the release.This is a great way to kick off Oracle's New (fiscal) Year.  As there are more announcements coming - I'll just say "Enjoy!, and "Stay Tuned".

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• Oracle VM Administration: Oracle VM Server for x86 - new Training

  - by Antoinette O'Sullivan

   Oracle VM Administration: Oracle VM Server for x86 - new course just released. This 3 day hands-on course teaches students how to build a virtualization platform using the Oracle VM Manager and Oracle VM Server for x86. Students learn how deploy and manage highly configurable, inter-connected virtual machines. The course teaches students how to install and configure Oracle VM Server for x86 as well as details of network and storage configuration, pool and repository creation, and virtual machine management. You can follow this class that brings you great hands-on experience either in-class or from your own desk.

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• Oracle VM Administration: Oracle VM Server for x86 - new Training

  - by Antoinette O'Sullivan

   Oracle VM Administration: Oracle VM Server for x86 - new course just released. This 3 day hands-on course teaches students how to build a virtualization platform using the Oracle VM Manager and Oracle VM Server for x86. Students learn how deploy and manage highly configurable, inter-connected virtual machines. The course teaches students how to install and configure Oracle VM Server for x86 as well as details of network and storage configuration, pool and repository creation, and virtual machine management. You can follow this class that brings you great hands-on experience either in-class or from your own desk.

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• Worldwide Web Camps

  Over the next few weeks Microsoft is sponsoring a number of free Web Camp events around the world.  These provide a great way to learn about ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET MVC 2, and Visual Studio 2010. The Web Camps are two day events.  The camps arent conferences where you sit quietly for hours and people talk at you they are intended to be interactive.  The first day is focused on learning through presentations that are heavy on coding demos.  The second day is focused on you building...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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• Do professional software developers still dream of creating industry/world-changing apps?

  - by Andrew Heath

  I'm a hobby programmer. The absence of real world deadlines, customer feedback, or performance reviews leaves me free to daydream about having and implementing The Next Great Idea That Changes the World. Of course I'm aware I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery, but it's fun to imagine knocking out some fully-homebrewed app that destroys the status quo. I know many professional programmers have side projects, some for profit others not. I was wondering on the way to work this morning (non-IT boring work) if having to code for your food tended to dampen the dreaming? Does greater experience leave you jaded and more focused on the projects at hand? Not trying to be a downer, just interested in the mindset of the real software professional :-)

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• Announcing the New Windows Azure Web Sites Shared Scaling Tier

  - by Clint Edmonson

  Windows Azure Web Sites has added a new pricing tier that will solve the #1 blocker for the web development community. The shared tier now supports custom domain names mapped to shared-instance web sites. This post will outline the plan changes and elaborate on how the new pricing model makes Windows Azure Web Sites an even richer option for web development shops of all sizes. Free Shared Reserved # of Sites 10 100 100 Egress 165MB/Day 5GB/Month Included 5GB/Month Included Storage 1GB 1GB 10GB Throttling CPU/Memory/Egress CPU/Memory Unlimited Price Free $.02/hr per site, per instance $.08/hr per core Setting the Stage In June, we released the first public preview of Windows Azure Web Sites, which gave web developers a great platform on which to get web sites running using their web development framework of choice. PHP, Node.js, classic ASP, and ASP.NET developers can all utilize the Windows Azure platform to create and launch their web sites. Likewise, these developers have a series of data storage options using Windows Azure SQL Databases, MySQL, or Windows Azure Storage. The Windows Azure Web Sites free offer enabled startups to get their site up and running on Windows Azure with a minimal investment, and with multiple deployment and continuous integration features such as Git, Team Foundation Services, FTP, and Web Deploy.  The response to the Windows Azure Web Sites offer has been overwhelmingly positive. Since the addition of the service on June 12th, tens of thousands of web sites have been deployed to Windows Azure and the volume of adoption is increasing every week. Preview Feedback In spite of the growth and success of the product, the community has had questions about features lacking in the free preview offer. The main question web developers asked regarding Windows Azure Web Sites relates to the lack of the free offer’s support for domain name mapping. During the preview launch period, customer feedback made it obvious that the lack of domain name mapping support was an area of concern. We’re happy to announce that this #1 request has been delivered as a feature of the new shared plan. New Shared Tier Portal Features In the screen shot below, the “Scale” tab in the portal shows the new tiers – Free, Shared, and Reserved – and gives the user the ability to quickly move any of their free web sites into the shared tier. With a single mouse-click, the user can move their site into the shared tier. Once a site has been moved into the shared tier, a new Manage Domains button appears in the bottom action bar of the Windows Azure Portal giving site owners the ability to manage their domain names for a shared site. This button brings up the domain-management dialog, which can be used to enter in a specific domain name that will be mapped to the Windows Azure Web Site. Shared Tier Benefits Startups and large web agencies will both benefit from this plan change. Here are a few examples of scenarios which fit the new pricing model: Startups no longer have to select the reserved plan to map domain names to their sites. Instead, they can use the free option to develop their sites and choose on a site-by-site basis which sites they elect to move into the shared plan, paying only for the sites that are finished and ready to be domain-mapped Agencies who manage dozens of sites will realize a lower cost of ownership over the long term by moving their sites into reserved mode. Once multi-site companies reach a certain price point in the shared tier, it is much more cost-effective to move sites to a reserved tier.  Long-term, it’s easy to see how the new Windows Azure Web Sites shared pricing tier makes Windows Azure Web Sites it a great choice for both startups and agency customers, as it enables rapid growth and upgrades while keeping the cost to a minimum. Large agencies will be able to have all of their sites in their own instances, and startups will have the capability to scale up to multiple-shared instances for minimal cost and eventually move to reserved instances without worrying about the need to incur continually additional costs. Customers can feel confident they have the power of the Microsoft Windows Azure brand and our world-class support, at prices competitive in the market. Plus, in addition to realizing the cost savings, they’ll have the whole family of Windows Azure features available. Continuous Deployment from GitHub and CodePlex Along with this new announcement are two other exciting new features. I’m proud to announce that web developers can now publish their web sites directly from CodePlex or GitHub.com repositories. Once connections are established between these services and your web sites, Windows Azure will automatically be notified every time a check-in occurs. This will then trigger Windows Azure to pull the source and compile/deploy the new version of your app to your web site automatically. Walk-through videos on how to perform these functions are below: Publishing to an Azure Web Site from CodePlex Publishing to an Azure Web Site from GitHub.com These changes, as well as the enhancements to the reserved plan model, make Windows Azure Web Sites a truly competitive hosting option. It’s never been easier or cheaper for a web developer to get up and running. Check out the free Windows Azure web site offering and see for yourself. Stay tuned to my twitter feed for Windows Azure announcements, updates, and links: @clinted

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• SQL Saturday 43 in Redmond

  - by AjarnMark

  I attended my first SQLSaturday a couple of days ago, SQLSaturday #43 in Redmond (at Microsoft).  I got there really early, primarily because I forgot how fast I can get there from my home when nobody else is on the road.  On a weekday in rush hour traffic, that would have taken two hours to get there.  I gave myself 90 minutes, and actually got there in about 45.  Crazy! I made the mistake of going to the main Microsoft campus, but that’s not where the event was being held.  Instead it was in a big Microsoft conference center on the other side of the highway.  Fortunately, I had the address with me and quickly realized my mistake.  When I got back on track, I noticed that there were bright yellow signs out on the street corner that looked like they said they were for SOL Saturday, which actually was appropriate since it was the sunniest day around here in a long time. Since I was there so early, the registration was just getting setup, so I found Greg Larsen who was coordinating things and offered to help.  He put me to work with a group of people organizing the pre-printed raffle tickets and stuffing swag bags. I had never been to a SQLSaturday before this one, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect even though I have read about a few on some blogs.  It makes sense that each one will be a little bit different since they are almost completely volunteer driven, and the whole concept is still in its early stages.  I have been to the PASS Summit for the last several years, and was hoping for a smaller version of that.  Now, it’s not really fair to compare one free day of training run entirely by volunteers with a multi-day, $1,000+ event put on under the direction of a professional event management company.  But there are some parallels. At this SQLSaturday, there was no opening general session, just coffee and pastries in the common area / expo hallway and straight into the first group of sessions.  I don’t know if that was because there was no single room large enough to hold everyone, or for other reasons.  This worked out okay, but the organization guy in me would have preferred to have even a 15 minute welcome message from the organizers with a little overview of the day.  Even something as simple as, “Thanks to persons X, Y, and Z for helping put this together…Sessions will start in 20 minutes and are all in rooms down this hallway…the bathrooms are on the other side of the conference center…lunch today is pizza and we would like to thank sponsor Q for providing it.”  It doesn’t need to be much, certainly not a full-blown Keynote like at the PASS Summit, but something to use as a rallying point to pull everyone together and get the day off to an official start would be nice.  Again, there may have been logistical reasons why that was not feasible here.  I’m just putting out my thoughts for other SQLSaturday coordinators to consider. The event overall was great.  I believe that there were over 300 in attendance, and everything seemed to run smoothly.  At least from an attendee’s point of view where there was plenty of muffins in the morning and pizza in the afternoon, with plenty of pop to drink.  And hey, if you’ve got the food and drink covered, a lot of other stuff could go wrong and people will be very forgiving.  But as I said, everything appeared to run pretty smoothly, at least until Buck Woody showed up in his Oracle shirt.  Other than that, the volunteers did a great job! I was a little surprised by how few people in my own backyard that I know.  It makes sense if you really think about it, given how many companies must be using SQL Server around here.  I guess I just got spoiled coming into the PASS Summit with a few contacts that I already knew would be there.  Perhaps I have been spending too much time with too few people at the Summits and I need to step out and meet more folks.  Of course, it also is different since the Summit is the big national event and a number of the folks I know are spread out across the country, so the Summit is the only time we’re all in the same place at the same time.  I did make a few new contacts at SQLSaturday, and bumped into a couple of people that I knew (and a couple others that I only knew from Twitter, and didn’t even realize that they were here in the area). Other than the sheer entertainment value of Buck Woody’s session, the one that was probably the greatest value for me was a quick introduction to PowerShell.  I have not done anything with it yet, but I think it will be a good tool to use to implement my plans for automated database recovery testing.  I saw just enough at the session to take away some of the intimidation factor, and I am getting ready to jump in and see what I can put together in the next few weeks.  And that right there made the investment worthwhile.  So I encourage you, if you have the opportunity to go to a SQLSaturday event near you, go for it!

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