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• Migrating VB6 to HTML5 is not a fiction - Customer success story

  - by Webgui

  All of you VB developers in the present or past would probably find it hard to believe that the old VB code can be migrated and modernized into the latest .NET based HTML5 without having to rewrite the application. But we have been working on such tools for the past couple of years and already have several real world applications that were fully 'transposed' from VB6. The solution is called Instant CloudMove and its main tool is called the TranspositionStudio. It is a unique solution that relies on the concept of transposition. Transposition comes from mathematics and music and refers to exchanging elements while everything else remains the same or moving an element as is from one environment to another. This means that we are taking the source code and put it in a modern technological environment with relatively few adjustments.The concept is based on a set of Mapping Expressions which are basically links between an element in the source environment and one in the target environment that has the same functionality. About 95% of the code is usually mapped out-of-the-box and the rest is handled with easy-to-use mapping tools designed for Visual Studio developers providing them with a familiar environment and concepts for completing the mapping and allowing them to extend and customize existing mapping expressions. The solution is also based on a circular workflow that enables developers to make any changes as required until the result is satisfying.As opposed to existing migration solutions that offer automation are usually a “black box” to the user, the transposition concept enables full visibility, flexibility and control over the code and process at all times allowing to also add/change functionalities or upgrade the UI within the process and tools.This is exactly the case with our customer’s aging VB6 PMS (Property Management System) which needed a technological update as well as a design refresh. The decision was to move the VB6 application which had about 1 million lines of code into the latest web technology. Since the application was initially written 13 years ago and had many upgrades since the code must be very patchy and includes unused sections. As a result, the company Mihshuv Group considered rewriting the entire application in Java since it already had the knowledge. Rewrite would allow starting with a clean slate and designing functionality, database architecture, UI without any constraints. On the other hand, rewrite entitles a long and detailed specification work as well as a thorough QA and this translates into a long project with high risk and costs.So the company looked for a migration solution as an alternative; the research lead to Gizmox and after examining the technology it was decided to perform a hybrid project which would include an automatic transposition of the core of the VB6 application (200,000 lines of code) while they redesigning the UI, adding new functionality, deleting unused code and rewriting about 140 reports with Crystal Reports will be done manually using Visual WebGui development tools.The migration part of the project was completed in 65 days by 3 developers from Mihshuv Group guided by Gizmox migration experts while the rewrite and UI upgrade tasks took about the same. So in only a few months period Mihshuv Group generated an up-to-date product, written in the latest Web technology with modern, friendly UI and improved functionality. Guest selection screen of the original VB6 PMS Guest selection screen on the new web–based PMS Compared to the initial plan to rewrite the entire application in Java, the hybrid migration/rewrite approach taken by Mihshuv Group using Gizmox technology proved as a great decision. In terms of time and cost there were substantial savings; from a project that was priced for at least a year (without taking into account the huge risk and uncertainty) it became a few months project only. More about this and other customer stories can be found here

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• Meet Matthijs, Dutch Inside Sales Representative for Oracle Direct

  - by Maria Sandu

  Today we would like to share some information around the Dutch Core Technology team in Malaga. Matthijs is one of the team members who decided to relocate from the Netherlands to Malaga to join Oracle Direct two years ago. Matthijs: “For the past two years I have been working as an Oracle Direct Core Technology Inside Sales representative for Named Accounts in the Netherlands, based in Malaga, Spain. In my case, working for the Dutch OD Core Technology team means that I am responsible for the Account Management of Larger companies in the Travel & Transportation and the Manufacturing, Retail & Distribution sector. I work together with the Oracle Field Account Managers and our Field Sales Management in the Netherlands where I am often the main point of contact for customers. This means that I deal with their requests and I manage their various issues, provide solutions and suggestions based on the Oracle Core Technology portfolio. I work on interesting projects with end-customers, making financial proposals and building business cases. It is a very interesting sales environment and for the last two years I improved my skills substantially. This month I will finish my Inside Sales career in Malaga to move to a position within Field Sales in the Netherlands. Oracle Direct has proven to be a great stepping stone for my career. Boost your personal development One of the reasons for joining Oracle was to boost my personal & career development. You can choose from various different trainings to follow all over Europe which enable you to reach both your personal and professional goals. Furthermore, you can decide your own career path and plan the steps necessary to achieve your goal. Many people aim to grow into Field Sales in their native countries, Business Development or Sales Management, but there are many possibilities once you decide to join Oracle. Overall, working at Oracle means working for an international company and one of the worldwide leaders in Enterprise Hardware & Software. Here you get all the tools necessary to develop yourself personally & professionally. Another great advantage of working for Oracle Direct is working from our office in Malaga, Southern Spain where we have over 400 employees from many countries across EMEA. It is a truly international environment! Working and living in Spain gives you an excellent opportunity to learn Spanish and of course enjoy the Spanish lifestyle, cuisine, beaches and much, much more!” Interview day Utrecht If you are inspired by the story of Matthijs and would like to explore the opportunity to join the Technology Sales team for the Dutch market in Malaga, let us know! We will organise an Interview day in the Oracle office in Utrecht on the 18th and 19th of September. We currently have multiple openings in the Core Technology team that focus on selling our Database portfolio in the Dutch market. We are looking for native Dutch speakers with a Bachelors degree, 2-5 years sales experience (ideally in IT) who are willing to relocate to Malaga for at least 2 years! For more information please contact [email protected] or [email protected].

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• How can a developer realize the full value of his work [closed]

  - by Jubbat

  I, honestly, don't want to work as a developer in a company anymore after all I have seen. I want to continue developing software, yes, but not in the way I see it all around me. And I'm in London, a city that congregates lots of great developers from the whole world, so it shouldn't be a problem of location. So, what are my concerns? First of all, best case scenario: you are paying managers salary out of yours. You are consistently underpaid by making up for the average manager negative net return plus his whole salary. Typical scenario. I am a reasonably good developer with common sense who cares for readable code with attention to basic principles. I have found way too often, overconfident and arrogant developers with a severe lack of common sense. Personally, I don't want to follow TDD or Agile practices like all the cool kids nowadays. I would read about them, form my own opinion and take what I feel is useful, but don't follow it sheepishly. I want to work with people who understand that you have to design good interfaces, you absolutely have to document your code, that readability is at the top of your priorities. Also people who don't have a cargo cult mentality too. For instance, the same person who asked me about design patterns in a job interview, later told me that something like a List of Map of Vector of Map of Set (in Java) is very readable. Why would someone ask me about design patterns if they can't even grasp encapsulation? These kind of things are the norm. I've seen many examples. I've seen worse than that too, from very well paid senior devs, by the way. Every second that you spend working with people with such lack of common sense and clear thinking, you are effectively losing money by being terribly inefficient with your time. Yet, with all these inefficiencies, the average developer earns a high salary. So I tried working on my own then, although I don't like the idea. I prefer healthy exchange of opinions and ideas and task division. I then did a bit of online freelancing for a while but I think working in a sweatshop might be more enjoyable. Also, I studied computer engineering and you are in an environment in which your client will presume you don't have any formal education because there is no way to prove it. Again, you are undervalued. You could try building a product, yes. But, of course, luck is a big factor. I wonder if there is a way to work in something you can do well, software development, and be valued for the quality of your work and be paid accordingly, and where you and only you get fairly paid for the value you generate. I know that what I have written seems somehow unlikely but I strongly feel this way. Hopefully someone will understand me and has already figured this out. I don't think I'm alone in this kind of feeling.

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• Color Picking Troubles - LWJGL/OpenGL

  - by Tom Johnson

  I'm attempting to check which object the user is hovering over. While everything seems to be just how I'd think it should be, I'm not able to get the correct color due to the second time I draw (without picking colors). Here is my rendering code: public void render() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glLoadIdentity(); camera.applyTranslations(); scene.pick(); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glLoadIdentity(); camera.applyTranslations(); scene.render(); } And here is what gets called on each block/tile on "scene.pick()": public void pick() { glColor3ub((byte) pickingColor.x, (byte) pickingColor.y, (byte) pickingColor.z); draw(); glReadBuffer(GL_FRONT); ByteBuffer buffer = BufferUtils.createByteBuffer(4); glReadPixels(Mouse.getX(), Mouse.getY(), 1, 1, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, buffer); int r = buffer.get(0) & 0xFF; int g = buffer.get(1) & 0xFF; int b = buffer.get(2) & 0xFF; if(r == pickingColor.x && g == pickingColor.y && b == pickingColor.z) { hovered = true; } else { hovered = false; } } I believe the problem is that in the method of each tile/block called by scene.pick(), it is reading the color from the regular drawing state, after that method is called somehow. I believe this because when I remove the "glReadBuffer(GL_FRONT)" line from the pick method, it seems to almost fix it, but then it will also select blocks behind the one you are hovering as it is not only looking at the front. If you have any ideas of what to do, please be sure to reply!/ EDIT: Adding scene.render(), tile.render(), and tile.draw() scene.render: public void render() { for(int x = 0; x < tiles.length; x++) { for(int z = 0; z < tiles.length; z++) { tiles[x][z].render(); } } } tile.render: public void render() { glColor3f(color.x, color.y, color.z); draw(); if(hovered) { glColor3f(1, 1, 1); glPolygonMode(GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_LINE); draw(); glPolygonMode(GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_FILL); } } tile.draw: public void draw() { float x = position.x, y = position.y, z = position.z; //Top glBegin(GL_QUADS); glVertex3f(x, y + size, z); glVertex3f(x + size, y + size, z); glVertex3f(x + size, y + size, z + size); glVertex3f(x, y + size, z + size); glEnd(); //Left glBegin(GL_QUADS); glVertex3f(x, y, z); glVertex3f(x + size, y, z); glVertex3f(x + size, y + size, z); glVertex3f(x, y + size, z); glEnd(); //Right glBegin(GL_QUADS); glVertex3f(x + size, y, z); glVertex3f(x + size, y + size, z); glVertex3f(x + size, y + size, z + size); glVertex3f(x + size, y, z + size); glEnd(); } (The game is like an isometric game. That's why I only draw 3 faces.)

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• About the K computer

  - by nospam(at)example.com (Joerg Moellenkamp)

  Okay ? after getting yet another mail because of the new #1 on the Top500 list, I want to add some comments from my side: Yes, the system is using SPARC processor. And that is great news for a SPARC fan like me. It is using the SPARC VIIIfx processor from Fujitsu clocked at 2 GHz. No, it isn't the only one. Most people are saying there are two in the Top500 list using SPARC (#77 JAXA and #1 K) but in fact there are three. The Tianhe-1 (#2 on the Top500 list) super computer contains 2048 Galaxy "FT-1000" 1 GHz 8-core processors. Don't know it? The FeiTeng-1000 ? this proc is a 8 core, 8 threads per core, 1 ghz processor made in China. And it's SPARC based. By the way ? this sounds really familiar to me ? perhaps the people just took the opensourced UltraSPARC-T2 design, because some of the parameters sound just to similar. However it looks like that Tianhe-1 is using the SPARCs as input nodes and not as compute notes. No, I don't see it as the next M-series processor. Simple reason: You can't create SMP systems out of them ? it simply hasn't the functionality to do so. Even when there are multiple CPUs on a single board, they are not connected like an SMP/NUMA machine to a shared memory machine ? they are connected with the cluster interconnect (in this case the Tofu interconnect) and work like a large cluster. Yes, it has a lot of oomph in Linpack ? however I assume a lot came from the extensions to the SPARCv9 standard. No, Linpack has no relevance for any commercial workload ? Linpack is such a special load, that even some HPC people are arguing that it isn't really a good benchmark for HPC. It's embarrassingly parallel, it can work with relatively small interconnects compared to the interconnects in SMP systems (however we get in spheres SMP interconnects where a few years ago). Amdahl isn't hitting that hard when running Linpack. Yes, it's a good move to use SPARC. At some time in the last 10 years, there was an interesting twist in perception: SPARC was considered as proprietary architecture and x86 was the open architecture. However it's vice versa ? try to create a x86 clone and you have a lot of intellectual property problems, create a SPARC clone and you have to spend 100 bucks or so to get the specification from the SPARC Foundation and develop your own SPARC processor. Fujitsu is doing this for a long time now. So they had their own processor, their own know-how. So why was SPARC a good choice? Well ? essentially Fujitsu can do what they want with their core as it is their core, for example adding the extensions to the SPARCv9 chipset ? getting Intel to create extensions to x86 to help you with your product is a little bit harder. So Fujitsu could do they needed to do with their processor in order to create such a supercomputer. No, the K is really using no FPGA or GPU as accelerators. The K is really using the CPU at doing this job. Yes, it has a significantly enhanced FPU capable to execute 8 instructions in parallel. No, it doesn't run Solaris. Yes, it uses Linux. No, it doesn't hurt me ... as my colleague Roland Rambau (he knows a lot about HPC) said once to me ... it doesn't matter which OS is staying out of the way of the workload in HPC.

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• Q&A: Drive Online Engagement with Intuitive Portals and Websites

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  We had a great webcast yesterday and wanted to recap the questions that were asked throughout. Can ECM distribute contents to 3rd party sites?ECM, which is now called WebCenter Content can distribute content to 3rd party sites via several means as well as SSXA - Site Studio for External Applications. Will you be able to provide more information on these means and SSXA?If you have an existing JSP application, you can add the SSXA libraries to your IDE where your application was built (JDeveloper for example).  You can now drop some code into your 3rd party site/application that can both create and pull dynamically contributable content out of the Content Server for inclusion in your pages.   If the 3rd party site is not a JSP application, there is also the option of leveraging two Site Studio (not SSXA) specific custom WebCenter Content services to pull Site Studio XML content into a page. More information on SSXA can be found here: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17904_01/doc.1111/e13650/toc.htm Is there another way than a ”gadget” to integrate applications (like loan simulator) in WebCenter Sites?There are some other ways such as leveraging the Pagelet Producer, which is a core component of WebCenter Portal. Oracle WebCenter Portal's Pagelet Producer (previously known as Oracle WebCenter Ensemble) provides a collection of useful tools and features that facilitate dynamic pagelet development. A pagelet is a reusable user interface component. Any HTML fragment can be a pagelet, but pagelet developers can also write pagelets that are parameterized and configurable, to dynamically interact with other pagelets, and respond to user input. Pagelets are similar to portlets, but while portlets were designed specifically for portals, pagelets can be run on any web page, including within a portal or other web application. Pagelets can be used to expose platform-specific portlets in other web environments. More on Page Producer can be found here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/webcenter.1111/e10148/jpsdg_pagelet.htm#CHDIAEHG Can you describe the mechanism available to achieve the context transfer of content?The primary goal of context transfer is to provide a uniform experience to customers as they transition from one channel to another, for instance in the use-case discussed in the webcast, it was around a customer moving from the .com marketing website to the self-service site where the customer wants to manage his account information. However if WebCenter Sites was able to identify and segment the customers  to a specific category where the customer is a potential target for some promotions, the same promotions should be targeted to the customer when he is in the self-service site, which is managed by WebCenter Portal. The context transfer can be achieved by calling out the WebCenter Sites Engage Server API’s, which will identify the segment that the customer has been bucketed into. Again through REST API’s., WebCenter Portal can then request WebCenter Sites for specific content that needs to be targeted for a customer for the identified segment. While this integration can be achieved through custom integration today, Oracle is looking into productizing this integration in future releases.  How can context be transferred from WebCenter Sites (marketing site) to WebCenter Portal (Online services)?WebCenter Portal Personalization server can call into WebCenter Sites Engage Server to identify the segment for the user and then through REST API’s request specific content that needs to be surfaced in the Portal. Still have questions? Leave them in the comments section! And you can catch a replay of the webcast here.

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• Q&A: Drive Online Engagement with Intuitive Portals and Websites

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  We had a great webcast yesterday and wanted to recap the questions that were asked throughout. Can ECM distribute contents to 3rd party sites?ECM, which is now called WebCenter Content can distribute content to 3rd party sites via several means as well as SSXA - Site Studio for External Applications. Will you be able to provide more information on these means and SSXA?If you have an existing JSP application, you can add the SSXA libraries to your IDE where your application was built (JDeveloper for example).  You can now drop some code into your 3rd party site/application that can both create and pull dynamically contributable content out of the Content Server for inclusion in your pages.   If the 3rd party site is not a JSP application, there is also the option of leveraging two Site Studio (not SSXA) specific custom WebCenter Content services to pull Site Studio XML content into a page. More information on SSXA can be found here: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17904_01/doc.1111/e13650/toc.htm Is there another way than a ”gadget” to integrate applications (like loan simulator) in WebCenter Sites?There are some other ways such as leveraging the Pagelet Producer, which is a core component of WebCenter Portal. Oracle WebCenter Portal's Pagelet Producer (previously known as Oracle WebCenter Ensemble) provides a collection of useful tools and features that facilitate dynamic pagelet development. A pagelet is a reusable user interface component. Any HTML fragment can be a pagelet, but pagelet developers can also write pagelets that are parameterized and configurable, to dynamically interact with other pagelets, and respond to user input. Pagelets are similar to portlets, but while portlets were designed specifically for portals, pagelets can be run on any web page, including within a portal or other web application. Pagelets can be used to expose platform-specific portlets in other web environments. More on Page Producer can be found here: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/webcenter.1111/e10148/jpsdg_pagelet.htm#CHDIAEHG Can you describe the mechanism available to achieve the context transfer of content?The primary goal of context transfer is to provide a uniform experience to customers as they transition from one channel to another, for instance in the use-case discussed in the webcast, it was around a customer moving from the .com marketing website to the self-service site where the customer wants to manage his account information. However if WebCenter Sites was able to identify and segment the customers  to a specific category where the customer is a potential target for some promotions, the same promotions should be targeted to the customer when he is in the self-service site, which is managed by WebCenter Portal. The context transfer can be achieved by calling out the WebCenter Sites Engage Server API’s, which will identify the segment that the customer has been bucketed into. Again through REST API’s., WebCenter Portal can then request WebCenter Sites for specific content that needs to be targeted for a customer for the identified segment. While this integration can be achieved through custom integration today, Oracle is looking into productizing this integration in future releases.  How can context be transferred from WebCenter Sites (marketing site) to WebCenter Portal (Online services)?WebCenter Portal Personalization server can call into WebCenter Sites Engage Server to identify the segment for the user and then through REST API’s request specific content that needs to be surfaced in the Portal. Still have questions? Leave them in the comments section! And you can catch a replay of the webcast here.

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• CFOs: Do You Have a Playbook for Growth?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In most global markets, CFOs are optimistic about their company's growth opportunities. Deloitte's CFO Signals Report, "Time to Accelerate" found that: In the U.K. business optimism is at its highest level in three-and-a-half years Optimism in North America rose from a strong +42% last quarter (Q2 to Q3 2013) to an even stronger +54%. The inaugural Southeast Asia survey, 44% of CFOs reported a positive outlook despite worries over the Chinese economy and political uncertainty. Sustainable and profitable business growth doesn't usually happen by accident. Company's need a playbook for growth that's owned by the CFO. And today, that playbook must leverage the six enabling technologies--Social, Big Data, Mobile, Cloud, Analytics, and The Internet of Things (or, as Oracle president Mark Hurd explains, "The Internet of the People"). On Monday June 9 at  2:00 pm Eastern, CFO.com is hosting a webcast, "The CFO Playbook on Growth: How CFOs Can Boost Efficiency and Performance with Automation". 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; 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;} “Investing in technology begins with a business metric driven business case with clear tangible business results expected," says John Lieblang, Affiliate Partner with Waterstone Management Group. "The progressive CFO has learned how to forge a partnership with the CIO to align everyone in the 'result value chain' to be accountable for the business results not just for functional technology.” Click HERE to register  Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• Make the Time

  - by WonderOfItAll

  Took the little one to the pool tonight for swim lessons. Okay, Okay. They're not really lessons so much as they are "Hey, here's a few bucks, let me rent out a small section of your pool to swim around with my little one" Saw a dad at the pool. Bluetooth on, iPad in hand, and two year old somewhere around there. Saw a mom at the pool. Arguing with her five year old to NOT take a shower after swimming. Bluetooth on, iPad in hand, work laptop open on stadium seats. Her reasoning for not wanting the child to shower "Look, I have to get this stuff to the office by 6:30, we don't have time for you to shower. Let's go" Wait, isn't the whole point of this little experience called Mommy and Me (or, as in my case, Daddy and Me). Wherein Mommy/Daddy is supposed to spend time with little one. Not with the Bluetooth. Not with the work laptop. Dad (yeah, the same dad from earlier), in the pool. Bluetooth off (it's not waterproof or I'm sure he would've had it on), two year old in hand and iPad somewhere put away. Getting frustrated with kid because he won't 'perform' on command. Here's a little exchange Kid: "I don't wanna get in the water" Dad: "Well, we're here for 30 minutes, get in the water" Kid: "No, don't wanna" Dad: "Fine, I'm getting in" and, true to his word, in he goes, off to swim. Kid: Crying Dad: "Well, c'mon" Kid: Walking to stands Dad: Ignoring kid Kid: At stands Dad: Out of pool, drying off. Frustrated. Grabs bag, grabs kid, leaves How sad. It really seems like I am living in a generation of parents who view their children as one big scheduled distraction to another. It's almost like the dad was saying "Look, little 2 year old boy, I have a busy scheduled. Right now my Outlook Calendar tells me that I have 30 mins to spend with you, so, let's go kid: PERFORM because I have the time" Really? Can someone please tell me when the hell this happened? When did spending time with your kid, spending time with your family, spending time with your spouse, etc... become a distraction? I've seen people at work all day Tweeting throughout the day, checked in with Four Square, IM up and running constantly so they can 'stay in touch' only to see these same folks come home and be irritated because their kids or their spouse wants to connect with the. I've seen these very same people leave the house, go to the corner bar/store/you-name-the-place to be 'alone' only to find them there, plugged in, tweeting away, etc, etc, etc I LOVE technology. I love working with technology. But I also know that I am a human being. A person who, by very definition, is a social being. I needed social interactions and contact--and, no, I'm not talking about the Social Graph kind of connections, I'm talking about those interactions which, *GASP* involve eye to eye contact and human contact. A recent study found that the number one complaint of kids is that they feel they have to compete with technology for their parents time and attention. The number one wish from high school kids? That there parents would turn off the computer/tv/cell phone at dinner. This, coming from high school kids. Shouldn't that tell you a whole helluva lot? So, do yourself a favor tomorrow. Plug into technology all day. Throw yourself into it. Be passionate about what you do. When you walk through the door to your family, turn it all off for 30 mins and be there with your loved ones. If you can manage to play Angry Birds, I'm sure you can handle being disconnected for 30 minutes. Make the time

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• C# 5 Async, Part 3: Preparing Existing code For Await

  - by Reed

  While the Visual Studio Async CTP provides a fantastic model for asynchronous programming, it requires code to be implemented in terms of Task and Task<T>.  The CTP adds support for Task-based asynchrony to the .NET Framework methods, and promises to have these implemented directly in the framework in the future.  However, existing code outside the framework will need to be converted to using the Task class prior to being usable via the CTP. Wrapping existing asynchronous code into a Task or Task<T> is, thankfully, fairly straightforward.  There are two main approaches to this. Code written using the Asynchronous Programming Model (APM) is very easy to convert to using Task<T>.  The TaskFactory class provides the tools to directly convert APM code into a method returning a Task<T>.  This is done via the FromAsync method.  This method takes the BeginOperation and EndOperation methods, as well as any parameters and state objects as arguments, and returns a Task<T> directly. For example, we could easily convert the WebRequest BeginGetResponse and EndGetResponse methods into a method which returns a Task<WebResponse> via: Task<WebResponse> task = Task.Factory .FromAsync<WebResponse>( request.BeginGetResponse, request.EndGetResponse, null); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Event-based Asynchronous Pattern (EAP) code can also be wrapped into a Task<T>, though this requires a bit more effort than the one line of code above.  This is handled via the TaskCompletionSource<T> class.  MSDN provides a detailed example of using this to wrap an EAP operation into a method returning Task<T>.  It demonstrates handling cancellation and exception handling as well as the basic operation of the asynchronous method itself. The basic form of this operation is typically: Task<YourResult> GetResultAsync() { var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<YourResult>(); // Handle the event, and setup the task results... this.GetResultCompleted += (o,e) => { if (e.Error != null) tcs.TrySetException(e.Error); else if (e.Cancelled) tcs.TrySetCanceled(); else tcs.TrySetResult(e.Result); }; // Call the asynchronous method this.GetResult(); // Return the task from the TaskCompletionSource return tcs.Task; } We can easily use these methods to wrap our own code into a method that returns a Task<T>.  Existing libraries which cannot be edited can be extended via Extension methods.  The CTP uses this technique to add appropriate methods throughout the framework. The suggested naming for these methods is to define these methods as “Task<YourResult> YourClass.YourOperationAsync(…)”.  However, this naming often conflicts with the default naming of the EAP.  If this is the case, the CTP has standardized on using “Task<YourResult> YourClass.YourOperationTaskAsync(…)”. Once we’ve wrapped all of our existing code into operations that return Task<T>, we can begin investigating how the Async CTP can be used with our own code.

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• What Counts For a DBA – Depth

  - by Louis Davidson

  SQL Server offers very simple interfaces to many of its features. Most people could open up SSMS, connect to a server, write a simple query and see the results. Even several of the core DBA tasks are deceptively straightforward. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to perform a basic database backup or run a trace (even using the newfangled Extended Events!). However, appearances can be deceptive, and often times it is really important that a DBA understands not just the basics of how to perform a task, but why we do a task, and how that task works. As an analogy, consider a child walking into a darkened room. Most would know that they need to turn on the light, and how to do it, so they flick the switch. But what happens if light fails to shine forth. Most would immediately tell you that you need to consider changing the light bulb. So you hop in the car and take them to the local home store and instruct them to buy a replacement. Confronted with a 40 foot display of light bulbs, how will they decide which of the hundreds of types of bulbs, of different types, fittings, shapes, colors, power and efficiency ratings, is the right choice? Obviously the main lesson the child is going to learn this day is how to use their cell phone as a flashlight so they don’t have to ask for help the next time. Likewise, when the metaphorical toddlers who use your database server have issues, they will instinctively know something is wrong, and may even have some idea what caused it, but will have no depth of knowledge to figure out the right solution. That is where the DBA comes in and attempts to save the day. However, when one looks beneath the shiny UI, SQL Server has its own “40 foot display of light bulbs”, in the form of the tremendous number of tools and the often-bewildering amount of information they can present to the DBA, to help us find issues. Unfortunately, resorting to guesswork, to trying different “bulbs” over and over, hoping to stumble on the answer. This is where the right depth of knowledge goes a long way. If we need to write a SELECT statement, then knowing the syntax and where to find the data is not enough. Knowledge of indexes and query plans is essential. Without it, we might hit on a query that “works”, but we are basically still a user, not a programmer, because we have no real control over our platform. Is that level of knowledge deep enough? Probably not, since knowledge of the underlying metadata and structures would be very useful in helping us make sense of any query plan. Understanding the structure of an index makes the “key lookup” operator not sound like what you do when someone tapes your car key to the ceiling. So is even this level of understanding deep enough? Do we need to understand the memory architecture used to process the query? It might be a comforting level of knowledge, and will doubtless come in handy at some point, but is not strictly necessary in most cases. Beyond that lies (more or less) full knowledge of SQL language and the intricacies of every step the SQL Server engine takes to process our query. My personal theory is that, as a professional, our knowledge of a given task should extend, at a minimum, one level deeper than is strictly necessary to perform the task. Anything deeper can be left to the ridiculously smart, or obsessive, or both. As an example. tasked with storing an integer value between 0 and 99999999, it’s essential that I know that choosing an Integer over Decimal(8,0) will likely offer performance benefits. It is then useful that I also understand the value of adding a CHECK constraint, to make sure the values are valid to the desired range; and comforting that I know a little about the underlying processors, registers and computer math. Anything further, I leave to the likes of Joe Chang, whose recent blog post on the topic offers depth by the bucketful!  

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• Application Logging needs work

  Application Logging Application logging is the act of logging events that occur within an application much like how a court report documents what happens in court case. Application logs can be useful for several reasons, but the most common use for logs is to recreate steps to find the root cause of applications errors. Other uses can include the detection of Fraud, verification of user activity, or provide audits on user/data interactions. “Logs can contain different kinds of data. The selection of the data used is normally affected by the motivation leading to the logging. “ (OWASP, 2009) OWASP also stats that logging include applicable debugging information like the event date time, responsible process, and a description of the event. “There are many reasons why a logging system is a necessary part of delivering a distributed application. One of the most important is the ability to track exactly how many users are using the application during different time periods.” (Hatton, 2000) Hatton also states that application logging helps system designers determine whether parts of an application aren't being used as designed. He implies that low usage can be used to identify if users like or do not like aspects of a system based on user usage of the application. This enables application designers to extract why users don't like aspects of an application so that changes can be made to increase its usefulness and effectiveness. “Logging memory usage can also assist you in tuning up the internals of your application. If you're experiencing a randomly occurring problem, being able to match activities performed with the memory status at the time may enable you to discover the cause of the problem. It also gives you a good indication of the health of the distributed server machine at the time any activity is performed. “ (Hatton, 2000) Commonly Logged Application Events (Defined by OWASP) Access of Data Creation of Data Modification of Data in any form Administrative Functions  Configuration Changes Debugging Information(Application Events)  Authorization Attempts  Data Deletion Network Communication  Authentication Events  Errors/Exceptions Application Error Logging The functionality associated with application error logging is actually the combination of proper error handling and applications logging.  If we look back at Figure 4 and Figure 5, these code examples allow developers to handle various types of errors that occur within the life cycle of an application’s execution. Application logging can be applied within the Catch section of the TryCatch statement allowing for the errors to be logged when they occur. By placing the logging within the Catch section specific error details can be accessed that help identify the source of the error, the path to the error, what caused the error and definition of the error that occurred. This can then be logged and reviewed at a later date in order recreate the error that was received based data found in the application log. By allowing applications to log errors developers IT staff can use them to recreate errors that are encountered by end-users or other dependent systems.

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• How Does a 724% Return on Your Salesforce Automation Investment Sound?

  - by Brian Dayton

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Oracle Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud customer Apex IT gained just that, a 724% return on investment (ROI) when they implemented these Oracle Cloud solutions in their fast-moving, rapidly-growing business. 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Congratulations Apex IT! Apex IT was just announced as a winner of the Nucleus Research 11th annual Technology ROI Awards. The award, given by the analyst firm highlights organizations that have successfully leveraged IT deployments to maximize value per dollar spent. Fast Facts: Return on Investment - 724% Payback - 2 months Average annual benefit - $91,534 Cost: Benefit Ratio – 1:48 Business Benefits In addition to the ROI and cost metrics the award calls out improvements in Apex IT’s business operations—across both Sales and Marketing teams: Improved ability to identify new opportunities and focus sales resources on higher-probability deals Reduced administration and manual lead tracking—resulting in more time selling and a net new client increase of 46% Increased campaign productivity for both Marketing and Sales, including Oracle Marketing Cloud’s automation of campaign tracking and nurture programs Improved margins with more structured and disciplined sales processes—resulting in more effective deal negotiations Please join us in congratulating Apex IT on this award and their business achievements. Want More Details? Don’t take our word for it. Read the full Apex IT ROI Case Study and learn more about Apex IT’s business—including their work with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud on behalf of their clients in leading Sales organizations. Learn More About Oracle Sales Cloud www.oracle.com/salescloud www.facebook.com/oraclesalescloud www.youtube.com/oraclesalescloud Oracle Customer Experience and Complementary Sales Solutions Oracle Configure, Price and Quote (CPQ) Cloud Oracle Marketing Cloud Oracle Customer Experience /* 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; 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;}

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• Data breakpoints to find points where data gets broken

  - by raccoon_tim

  When working with a large code base, finding reasons for bizarre bugs can often be like finding a needle in a hay stack. Finding out why an object gets corrupted without no apparent reason can be quite daunting, especially when it seems to happen randomly and totally out of context. Scenario Take the following scenario as an example. You have defined the a class that contains an array of characters that is 256 characters long. You now implement a method for filling this buffer with a string passed as an argument. At this point you mistakenly expect the buffer to be 256 characters long. At some point you notice that you require another character buffer and you add that after the previous one in the class definition. You now figure that you don’t need the 256 characters that the first member can hold and you shorten that to 128 to conserve space. At this point you should start thinking that you also have to modify the method defined above to safeguard against buffer overflow. It so happens, however, that in this not so perfect world this does not cross your mind. Buffer overflow is one of the most frequent sources for errors in a piece of software and often one of the most difficult ones to detect, especially when data is read from an outside source. Many mass copy functions provided by the C run-time provide versions that have boundary checking (defined with the _s suffix) but they can not guard against hard coded buffer lengths that at some point get changed. Finding the bug Getting back to the scenario, you’re now wondering why does the second string get modified with data that makes no sense at all. Luckily, Visual Studio provides you with a tool to help you with finding just these kinds of errors. It’s called data breakpoints. To add a data breakpoint, you first run your application in debug mode or attach to it in the usual way, and then go to Debug, select New Breakpoint and New Data Breakpoint. In the popup that opens, you can type in the memory address and the amount of bytes you wish to monitor. You can also use an expression here, but it’s often difficult to come up with an expression for data in an object allocated on the heap when not in the context of a certain stack frame. There are a couple of things to note about data breakpoints, however. First of all, Visual Studio supports a maximum of four data breakpoints at any given time. Another important thing to notice is that some C run-time functions modify memory in kernel space which does not trigger the data breakpoint. For instance, calling ReadFile on a buffer that is monitored by a data breakpoint will not trigger the breakpoint. The application will now break at the address you specified it to. Often you might immediately spot the issue but the very least this feature can do is point you in the right direction in search for the real reason why the memory gets inadvertently modified. Conclusions Data breakpoints are a great feature, especially when doing a lot of low level operations where multiple locations modify the same data. With the exception of some special cases, like kernel memory modification, you can use it whenever you need to check when memory at a certain location gets changed on purpose or inadvertently.

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• Working Towards Specialization? Your VAD Can Help You Score!

  - by Kristin Rose

  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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} TOUCH DOWN! That’s right folks, football is in full swing and what better way to kickoff football season than with a great Oracle play? Partners can now score big by side passing the ball to their VADs, enabling them to help in the process of becoming a Specialized partner. With the new functionality now available on the OPN Competency Center, Partner PRM Administrators can grant access to their VADs and have them assist in achieving their Specialization requirements. Here are the rules of the game: Partner Administrator must provide authorization Details do not include individual users data Access can be removed anytime Follow the steps below to grant your VAD access to your company Specialization progress reports. It’s as simple as 1,2,3…Go team go! Login to the OPN Competency Center and go to “My Preferences” on the top right corner of the screen. Under “My VAD”, select your Region, Country and Value Added Distributor name, then simple click in “ADD VAD”. Your VAD can now access your Specialization Tracker report! For those MVP’s who want to learn more, be sure to watch this 3 minute play by play video on the new OPN Competency Center VAD/VAR Specialization Tracker below, and click here before game day! 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Are You Ready For Some Oracle Football? The OPN Communications Team 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

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• Profiling Startup Of VS2012 &ndash; JustTrace Profiler

  - by Alois Kraus

  JustTrace is made by Telerik which is mainly known for its collection of UI controls. The current version (2012.3.1127.0) does include a performance and memory profiler which does cost 614€ and is currently with a special offer for 306€ on sale. It does include one year of free upgrades. The uneven € numbers are calculated from the 799€ and 50% dicsount price. The UI is already in Metro style and simple to use. Multi process, attach, method recording filter are not supported. It looks like JustTrace is like Ants a Just My Code profiler. For stuff where you do not have the pdbs or you want to dig deeper into the BCL code you will not get far. After getting the profile data you get in the All Methods grid a plain list with hit count and own time. The method list for all methods is also suspiciously short which is a clear sign that you will not get far during the analysis of foreign code. But at least there is also a memory profiler included. For this I have to choose in the first window for Profiling Type “Memory Profiler” to check the memory consumption of VS.  There are some interesting number to see but I do really miss from YourKit the thread stack window. How am I supposed to get a clue when much memory is allocated and the CPU consumption is high in which places I should look? The Snapshot summary gives a rough overview which is ok for a first impression. Next is Assemblies? This gives you a list of all loaded assemblies. Not terribly useful.   The By Type view gives you exactly what it is supposed to do. You have to keep in mind that this list is filtered by the types you did check in the Assemblies list. The By Type instance list does only show types from assemblies which do not originate from Microsoft. By default mscorlib and System are not checked. That is the reason why for the first time my By Type window looked like The idea behind this feature is to show only your instances because you are ultimately responsible for the overall memory consumption. I am not sure if I do like this feature because by default it does hide too much. I do want to see at least how many strings and arrays are allocated. A simple namespace filter would also do it in my opinion. Now you can examine all string instances and look who in the object graph does keep a reference on them. That is nice but YourKit has the big plus that you can also look into the string contents.  I am also not sure how in the graph cycles are visualized and what will happen if you have thousands of objects referencing you. That's pretty much it about JustTrace. It can help the average developer to pinpoint performance and memory issues by just looking at his own code and instances. Showing them more will not help them because the sheer amount of information will overwhelm them. And you need to have a pretty good understanding how the GC and the CLR does work. When you have a performance issue at a customer machine it is sometimes very helpful to be able a bring a profiler onto the machine (no pdbs, …) and to get a full snapshot of all processes which are in the problematic use case involved. For these more advanced use cased JustTrace is certainly the wrong tool. Next: SpeedTrace

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• Thinking Local, Regional and Global

  - by Apeksha Singh-Oracle

  The FIFA World Cup tournament is the biggest single-sport competition: it’s watched by about 1 billion people around the world. Every four years each national team’s manager is challenged to pull together a group players who ply their trade across the globe. For example, of the 23 members of Brazil’s national team, only four actually play for Brazilian teams, and the rest play in England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Ukraine. Each country’s national league, each team and each coach has a unique style. Getting all these “localized” players to work together successfully as one unit is no easy feat. In addition to $35 million in prize money, much is at stake – not least national pride and global bragging rights until the next World Cup in four years time. Achieving economic integration in the ASEAN region by 2015 is a bit like trying to create the next World Cup champion by 2018. The team comprises Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. All have different languages, currencies, cultures and customs, rules and regulations. But if they can pull together as one unit, the opportunity is not only great for business and the economy, but it’s also a source of regional pride. BCG expects by 2020 the number of firms headquartered in Asia with revenue exceeding $1 billion will double to more than 5,000. Their trade in the region and with the world is forecast to increase to 37% of an estimated $37 trillion of global commerce by 2020 from 30% in 2010. Banks offering transactional banking services to the emerging market place need to prepare to repond to customer needs across the spectrum – MSMEs, SMEs, corporates and multi national corporations. Customers want innovative, differentiated, value added products and services that provide: • Pan regional operational independence while enabling single source of truth at a regional level • Regional connectivity and Cash & Liquidity  optimization • Enabling Consistent experience for their customers  by offering standardized products & services across all ASEAN countries • Multi-channel & self service capabilities / access to real-time information on liquidity and cash flows • Convergence of cash management with supply chain and trade finance While enabling the above to meet customer demands, the need for a comprehensive and robust credit management solution for effective regional banking operations is a must to manage risk. According to BCG, Asia-Pacific wholesale transaction-banking revenues are expected to triple to $139 billion by 2022 from $46 billion in 2012. To take advantage of the trend, banks will have to manage and maximize their own growth opportunities, compete on a broader scale, manage the complexity within the region and increase efficiency. They’ll also have to choose the right operating model and regional IT platform to offer: • Account Services • Cash & Liquidity Management • Trade Services & Supply Chain Financing • Payments • Securities services • Credit and Lending • Treasury services The core platform should be able to balance global needs and local nuances. Certain functions need to be performed at a regional level, while others need to be performed on a country level. Financial reporting and regulatory compliance are a case in point. The ASEAN Economic Community is in the final lap of its preparations for the ultimate challenge: becoming a formidable team in the global league. Meanwhile, transaction banks are designing their own hat trick: implementing a world-class IT platform, positioning themselves to repond to customer needs and establishing a foundation for revenue generation for years to come. Anand Ramachandran Senior Director, Global Banking Solutions Practice Oracle Financial Services Global Business Unit

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• Data Mining Email with Thunderbird

  - by user554629

  Oracle has many formal, searchable locations:  Service Requests, BugIDs, Technical Documents. These contain the results of an investigation for a customer crash situation;  they're created after the intense work of resolution is over, and typically contain the "root cause" of the failure ... but not the methods for identifying that cause. Email is still the standby for interacting with quickly formed groups of specialists, focusing on a particular incident.Customer BI, Network and System specialists;  Oracle Tech Support, Development, Consultants; OEM Database, OS technical support.   It is a chaotic, time-oriented set of configuration, call stacks, changes, techniques to discover and repair the failure. I needed to organize that information into something cohesive to prepare the blog entry on Teradata.  My corporate email client of choice is Thunderbird.   My original (flawed) search technique: R-Click on Inbox in Thunderbird left pane, and choose Search Messages Subject:  [ teradata ] Results: A new window titled "Search Messages"Single pane of selected messagesColumn headings:  Subject  From  Date  LocationNo preview window for messages There are 673 email entries in the result ( too many )  R-click icon just above the vertical scroll bar on the rightCheck [x] Tags Click on the Tags header to sort by "Important" View contents of message by double-clickingOpens in the Thunderbird Main Window in a new Tab Not what I was looking for, close the tab and try again. There has to be a better way.  ( and there is ) I need to be more productive, eliminating duplicate-chained messages, for example.   Even the Tag "Important" that was added during the investigation phase, is "not so much" for my current task. In the "Search Messages" window, click [ Save as Search Folder ] [ teradata ]  Appears as a new folder in my Inbox. Focus on that folder and the results appear with a list of messages like every other folder in the Inbox.Only the results of the search are shown A preview window is now available for each message Sort, Select message, Cursor Down ... navigates quickly through the messages. But wait, there's more ... Click Find ( Ctrl-F) Enter a search term for the message body, like.[ LIBPATH ] The search is "sticky" ... each message you cycle through wil focus ( and highlight) the LIBPATH search term. And still more .... Reset the Tag"Important" message.   Press "1" and the tag is removed Press "4" and a new Tag "ToDo" is applied After applying all of the tags, sort by Tag for a new message order Adjust the search criteria ... R-click on the [ teradata ] search folder, and choose Properties Add additional criteria to narrow the search Some of the information I'm looking for did not contain "teradata" in the subject line. + Body  [ contains ] [ Best Practices ] That's it.  Much more efficient search.   Thank you Thunderbird.

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• 3 Incredibly Useful Projects to jump-start your Kinect Development.

  - by mbcrump

  I’ve been playing with the Kinect SDK Beta for the past few days and have noticed a few projects on CodePlex worth checking out. I decided to blog about them to help spread awareness. If you want to learn more about Kinect SDK then you check out my”Busy Developer’s Guide to the Kinect SDK Beta”. Let’s get started:   KinectContrib is a set of VS2010 Templates that will help you get started building a Kinect project very quickly. Once you have it installed you will have the option to select the following Templates: KinectDepth KinectSkeleton KinectVideo Please note that KinectContrib requires the Kinect for Windows SDK beta to be installed. Kinect Templates after installing the Template Pack. The reference to Microsoft.Research.Kinect is added automatically.  Here is a sample of the code for the MainWindow.xaml in the “Video” template: <Window x:Class="KinectVideoApplication1.MainWindow" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="MainWindow" Height="480" Width="640"> <Grid> <Image Name="videoImage"/> </Grid> </Window> and MainWindow.xaml.cs using System; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Imaging; using Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui; namespace KinectVideoApplication1 { public partial class MainWindow : Window { //Instantiate the Kinect runtime. Required to initialize the device. //IMPORTANT NOTE: You can pass the device ID here, in case more than one Kinect device is connected. Runtime runtime = new Runtime(); public MainWindow() { InitializeComponent(); //Runtime initialization is handled when the window is opened. When the window //is closed, the runtime MUST be unitialized. this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Loaded); this.Unloaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Unloaded); //Handle the content obtained from the video camera, once received. runtime.VideoFrameReady += new EventHandler<Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.ImageFrameReadyEventArgs>(runtime_VideoFrameReady); } void MainWindow_Unloaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { runtime.Uninitialize(); } void MainWindow_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { //Since only a color video stream is needed, RuntimeOptions.UseColor is used. runtime.Initialize(Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.RuntimeOptions.UseColor); //You can adjust the resolution here. runtime.VideoStream.Open(ImageStreamType.Video, 2, ImageResolution.Resolution640x480, ImageType.Color); } void runtime_VideoFrameReady(object sender, Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.ImageFrameReadyEventArgs e) { PlanarImage image = e.ImageFrame.Image; BitmapSource source = BitmapSource.Create(image.Width, image.Height, 96, 96, PixelFormats.Bgr32, null, image.Bits, image.Width * image.BytesPerPixel); videoImage.Source = source; } } } You will find this template pack is very handy especially for those new to Kinect Development.   Next up is The Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit which contains extension methods and a WPF control to help you develop with the Kinect SDK. After downloading the package simply add a reference to the .dll using either the WPF or WinForms version. Now you will have access to several methods that can help you save an image: (for example) For a full list of extension methods and properties, please visit the site at http://c4fkinect.codeplex.com/. Kinductor – This is a great application for just learning how to use the Kinect SDK. The project uses MVVM Light and is a great start for those looking how to structure their first Kinect Application. Conclusion: Things are already getting easier for those working with the Kinect SDK. I imagine that after a few more months we will see the SDK go out of beta and allow commercial applications to run using it. I am very excited and hope that you continue reading my blog for more Kinect, WPF and Silverlight news.  Subscribe to my feed

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• Juggling with JDKs on Apple OS X

  - by Blueberry Coder

  I recently got a shiny new MacBook Pro to help me support our ADF Mobile customers. It is really a wonderful piece of hardware, although I am still adjusting to Apple's peculiar keyboard layout. Did you know, for example, that the « delete » key actually performs a « backspace »? But I disgress... As you may know, ADF Mobile development still requires JDeveloper 11gR2, which in turn runs on Java 6. On the other hand, JDeveloper 12c needs JDK 7. I wanted to install both versions, and wasn't sure how to do it.   If you remember, I explained in a previous blog entry how to install JDeveloper 11gR2 on Apple's OS X. The trick was to use the /usr/libexec/java_home command in order to invoke the proper JDK. In this case, I could have done the same thing; the two JDKs can coexist without any problems, since they install in completely different locations. But I wanted more than just installing JDeveloper. I wanted to be able to select my JDK when using the command line as well. On Windows, this is easy, since I keep all my JDKs in a central location. I simply have to move to the appropriate folder or type the folder name in the command I want to execute. Problem is, on OS X, the paths to the JDKs are... let's say convoluted.  Here is the one for Java 6. /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home The Java 7 path is not better, just different. /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home Intuitive, isn't it? Clearly, I needed something better... On OS X, the default command shell is bash. It is possible to configure the shell environment by creating a file named « .profile » in a user's home folder. Thus, I created such a file and put the following inside: export JAVA_7_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v1.7) export JAVA_6_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v1.6) export JAVA_HOME=$JAVA_7_HOME alias java6='export JAVA_HOME=$JAVA_6_HOME' alias java7='export JAVA_HOME=$JAVA_7_HOME'  The first two lines retrieve the current paths for Java 7 and Java 6 and store them in two environment variables. The third line marks Java 7 as the default. The last two lines create command aliases. Thus, when I type java6, the value for JAVA_HOME is set to JAVA_6_HOME, for example.  I now have an environment which works even better than the one I have on Windows, since I can change my active JDK on a whim. Here a sample, fresh from my terminal window. fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java6 fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java -version java version "1.6.0_65" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode) fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java7 fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java -version java version "1.7.0_45" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_45-b18) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.45-b08, mixed mode) fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ Et voilà! Maximum flexibility without downsides, just I like it. 

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• Oracle Applications Cloud Release 8 Customization: Your User Interface, Your Text

  - by ultan o'broin

  Introducing the User Interface Text Editor In Oracle Applications Cloud Release 8, there’s an addition to the customization tool set, called the User Interface Text Editor  (UITE). When signed in with an application administrator role, users launch this new editing feature from the Navigator's Tools > Customization > User Interface Text menu option. See how the editor is in there with other customization tools? User Interface Text Editor is launched from the Navigator Customization menu Applications customers need a way to make changes to the text that appears in the UI, without having to initiate an IT project. Business users can now easily change labels on fields, for example. Using a composer and activated sandbox, these users can take advantage of the Oracle Metadata Services (MDS), add a key to a text resource bundle, and then type in their preferred label and its description (as a best practice for further work, I’d recommend always completing that description). Changing a simplified UI field label using Oracle Composer In Release 8, the UITE enables business users to easily change UI text on a much wider basis. As with composers, the UITE requires an activated sandbox where users can make their changes safely, before committing them for others to see. The UITE is used for editing UI text that comes from Oracle ADF resource bundles or from the Message Dictionary (or FND_MESSAGE_% tables, if you’re old enough to remember such things). Functionally, the Message Dictionary is used for the text that appears in business rule-type error, warning or information messages, or as a text source when ADF resource bundles cannot be used. In the UITE, these Message Dictionary texts are referred to as Multi-part Validation Messages.   If the text comes from ADF resource bundles, then it’s categorized as User Interface Text in the UITE. This category refers to the text that appears in embedded help in the UI or in simple error, warning, confirmation, or information messages. The embedded help types used in the application are explained in an Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience (UX) design pattern set. The message types have a UX design pattern set too. Using UITE  The UITE enables users to search and replace text in UI strings using case sensitive options, as well as by type. Users select singular and plural options for text changes, should they apply. Searching and replacing text in the UITE The UITE also provides users with a way to preview and manage changes on an exclusion basis, before committing to the final result. There might, for example, be situations where a phrase or word needs to remain different from how it’s generally used in the application, depending on the context. Previewing replacement text changes. Changes can be excluded where required. Multi-Part Messages The Message Dictionary table architecture has been inherited from Oracle E-Business Suite days. However, there are important differences in the Oracle Applications Cloud version, notably the additional message text components, as explained in the UX Design Patterns. Message Dictionary text has a broad range of uses as indicated, and it can also be reserved for internal application use, for use by PL/SQL and C programs, and so on. Message Dictionary text may even concatenate together at run time, where required. The UITE handles the flexibility of such text architecture by enabling users to drill down on each message and see how it’s constructed in total. That way, users can ensure that any text changes being made are consistent throughout the different message parts. Multi-part (Message Dictionary) message components in the UITE Message Dictionary messages may also use supportability-related numbers, the ones that appear appended to the message text in the application’s UI. However, should you have the requirement to remove these numbers from users' view, the UITE is not the tool for the job. Instead, see my blog about using the Manage Messages UI.

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• Profiling Silverlight Applications after installing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1

  - by mbcrump

  Introduction Now that the dust has settled and everyone has downloaded and installed Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1, its time to talk about a new feature included that will help Silverlight Developers profile their applications. Let’s take a look at what the official documentation says about it: Performance Wizard for Silverlight – taken from VS2010 SP1 KB. Visual Studio 2010 SP1 enables you to tune the Silverlight application performance by profiling the code. A traditional code profiler cannot tune the rendering performance for Silverlight applications. Many higher-level profilers are added to Visual Studio 2010 SP1 so that you can better determine which parts of the application consume time. So, how do you do it? After you finish installing VS2010 SP1, make sure it took by going to Help –> About. You should see SP1Rel under Visual Studio 2010 as shown below. Now, that we have verified you are on the most current release, let’s load up a Silverlight Application. I’m going to take my hobby Silverlight project that I created a month or so ago. The reason that I’m picking this project is that I didn’t focus so much on performance as it was just built for fun and to see what I could do with Silverlight. I believe this makes the perfect application to profile.  After the project is loaded, click on Analyze then Launch Performance Wizard. Go ahead and click on CPU Sampling (recommended). You will notice that it ask which application to target. By Default, it will select the .Web project in an Silverlight Application. Go ahead and leave the default Web Project checked. We are going to leave the client as Internet Explorer. Now, go ahead and click finish. Now your Silverlight Application will launch. While your application is running, you will see the following inside of Visual Studio 2010. Here is where you will need to attach your Silverlight Application to the web application that is current being profiled. Simply click on the  Attach/Detach button below and find your application to attach to the profiler. In my case, I am using IE8 and could find it by the title. After you close your browser, you will notice it generated a report: These files will end with a .VSP If you click on the .VSP you will it generated the following report: We could turn off “Just My Code” but it may pick up things that we didn’t want to profile as shown below: One other feature to note is that you may want to export the data to a CSV or XML. You can do that by looking at the toolbar and clicking the button highlighted below. Conclusion The profiler for Silverlight is a great addition to an already great product. So before you ship a Silverlight Application run it through the profile and see what comes up. Since its included and free I can’t see a reason not to do this. Thanks again for reading and I hope you subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter for more Silverlight/WP7 fun.  Subscribe to my feed

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• Html.ValidationSummary and Multiple Forms

  - by MightyZot

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/MightyZot/archive/2013/11/11/html.validationsummary-and-multiple-forms.aspxThe Html.ValidationSummary helper writes a div with a list of general errors added to the model state while a request is being serviced. There is generally one form per view or partial view, I think, so often there is only one call to Html.ValidationSummary in the page resulting from the assembly of your views. And, consequently, there is no problem with the markup that Html.ValidationSummary spits out as a result. What if you want to put multiple forms in one view? Even if you create a view model that’s an aggregate of the view models for each form, the error validation summary is going to contain errors from both forms. Check out this screen shot, which shows a page with multiple forms. Notice how the error validation summary shows up twice. Grrr! Errors for the login form also show up in the registration form. Luckily, there is an easy way around this. Pull the errors out of the model state and separate them for each form. You’ll need to identify the appropriate form by setting the key when you make calls to ModelState.AddModelError. Assume in my example that errors for the login form are added to model state using the “LoginForm” key. And, likewise, assume that errors for the registration form are added to model state using the “RegistrationForm” key. An example of that might look like this… // If we got this far, something failed, redisplay form ModelState.AddModelError("LoginForm", "User name or password is not right..."); return View(model); Over in the code for your View, you can pull each form’s errors from the model state using lambda expressions that look like these… var LoginFormErrors = ViewData.ModelState.Where(ms => ms.Key == "LoginForm"); var RegistrationFormErrors = ViewData.ModelState.Where(ms => ms.Key == "RegistrationForm"); Now that you have two collections containing errors, you can display only the errors specific to each form. I’m doing that in my code by removing the calls to Html.ValidationSummary and replacing them with enumerators that look like this… if(LoginFormErrors.Count() > 0) { <div class="cdt-error-list">     <ul>     @foreach (var entry in LoginFormErrors)     {         foreach (var error in entry.Value.Errors)         {             <li>@error.ErrorMessage</li>         }     }     </ul> </div> } …and for the registration form, the code looks like this… @if(RegistrationFormErrors.Count() > 0) { <div class="cdt-error-list">     <ul>     @foreach (var entry in RegistrationFormErrors)     {         foreach (var error in entry.Value.Errors)         {             <li>@error.ErrorMessage</li>         }     }     </ul> </div> } The result is a nice clean separation of the list of errors that are specific to each form. And, this is important because each form is submitted separately in my case, so both forms don’t generate errors in the same context. As you’ll see in the screen shot below, errors added to the model state when the login form is submitted do not show up in the registration form’s validation summary.

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• Investigating on xVelocity (VertiPaq) column size

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

    In January I published an article about how to optimize high cardinality columns in VertiPaq. In the meantime, VertiPaq has been rebranded to xVelocity: the official name is now “xVelocity in-memory analytics engine (VertiPaq)” but using xVelocity and VertiPaq when we talk about Analysis Services has the same meaning. In this post I’ll show how to investigate on columns size of an existing Tabular database so that you can find the most important columns to be optimized. A first approach can be looking in the DataDir of Analysis Services and look for the folder containing the database. Then, look for the biggest files in all subfolders and you will find the name of a file that contains the name of the most expensive column. However, this heuristic process is not very optimized. A better approach is using a DMV that provides the exact information. For example, by using the following query (open SSMS, open an MDX query on the database you are interested to and execute it) you will see all database objects sorted by used size in a descending way. SELECT * FROM $SYSTEM.DISCOVER_STORAGE_TABLE_COLUMN_SEGMENTS ORDER BY used_size DESC You can look at the first rows in order to understand what are the most expensive columns in your tabular model. The interesting data provided are: TABLE_ID: it is the name of the object – it can be also a dictionary or an index COLUMN_ID: it is the column name the object belongs to – you can also see ID_TO_POS and POS_TO_ID in case they refer to internal indexes RECORDS_COUNT: it is the number of rows in the column USED_SIZE: it is the used memory for the object By looking at the ration between USED_SIZE and RECORDS_COUNT you can understand what you can do in order to optimize your tabular model. Your options are: Remove the column. Yes, if it contains data you will never use in a query, simply remove the column from the tabular model Change granularity. If you are tracking time and you included milliseconds but seconds would be enough, round the data source column to the nearest second. If you have a floating point number but two decimals are good enough (i.e. the temperature), round the number to the nearest decimal is relevant to you. Split the column. Create two or more columns that have to be combined together in order to produce the original value. This technique is described in VertiPaq optimization article. Sort the table by that column. When you read the data source, you might consider sorting data by this column, so that the compression will be more efficient. However, this technique works better on columns that don’t have too many distinct values and you will probably move the problem to another column. Sorting data starting from the lower density columns (those with a few number of distinct values) and going to higher density columns (those with high cardinality) is the technique that provides the best compression ratio. After the optimization you should be able to reduce the used size and improve the count/size ration you measured before. If you are interested in a longer discussion about internal storage in VertiPaq and you want understand why this approach can save you space (and time), you can attend my 24 Hours of PASS session “VertiPaq Under the Hood” on March 21 at 08:00 GMT.

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• How to handle multi-processing of libraries which already spawn sub-processes?

  - by exhuma

  I am having some trouble coming up with a good solution to limit sub-processes in a script which uses a multi-processed library and the script itself is also multi-processed. Both, the library and script are modifiable by us. I believe the question is more about design than actual code, but for what it's worth, it's written in Python. The goal of the library is to hide implementation details of various internet routers. For that reason, the library has a "Proxy" factory method which takes the IP of a router as parameter. The factory then probes the device using a set of possible proxies. Usually, there is one proxy which immediately knows that is is able to send commands to this device. All others usually take some time to return (given a timeout). One thought was already to simply query the device for an identifier, and then select the proper proxy using that, but in order to do so, you would already need to know how to query the device. Abstracting this knowledge is one of the main purposes of the library, so that becomes a little bit of a "circular-requirement"/deadlock: To connect to a device, you need to know what proxy to use, and to know what proxy to create, you need to connect to a device. So probing the device is - as we can see - the best solution so far, apart from keeping a lookup-table somewhere. The library currently kills all remaining processes once a valid proxy has been found. And yes, there is always only one good proxy per device. Currently there are about 12 proxies. So if one create a proxy instance using the factory, 12 sub-processes are spawned. So far, this has been really useful and worked very well. But recently someone else wanted to use this library to "broadcast" a command to all devices. So he took the library, and wrote his own multi-processed script. This obviously spawned 12 * n processes where n is the number of IPs to which he broadcasted. This has given us two problems: The host on which the command was executed slowed down to a near halt. Aborting the script with CTRL+C ground the system to a total halt. Not even the hardware console responded anymore! This may be due to some Python strangeness which still needs to be investigated. Maybe related to http://bugs.python.org/issue8296 The big underlying question, is how to design a library which does multi-processing, so other applications which use this library and want to be multi-processed themselves do not run into system limitations. My first thought was to require a pool to be passed to the library, and execute all tasks in that pool. In that way, the person using the library has control over the usage of system resources. But my gut tells me that there must be a better solution. Disclaimer: My experience with multiprocessing is fairly limited. I have implemented a few straightforward which did not require access control to resources. So I have not yet any practical experience with semaphores or mutexes. p.s.: In the future, we may have enough information to do this without the probing. But the database which would contain the proper information is not yet operational. Also, the design about multiprocessing a multiprocessed library intrigues me :)

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