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• Take a chance !

  - by Hartmut Wiese

  Hi everybody, Later today I am going to reach out to the JDE Partner in EMEA I am already in contact with and ask for participation and collaboration within the new EMEA JDE Partner Community. I am very excited about this community and I really believe we will have much more success in the future selling and implementing JDEdwards in this large region. For those who don´t know me yet ... I am really a long time in the JDEdwards business. I have been a JDE PreSales Consultant and joined JDEdwards in 1998 in Germany. After JDEdwards/PeopleSoft was aquired by Oracle I changed my role and become responsible on an EMEA level for the Oracle Accelerate and the Oracle Business Accelerator program. A lot of you are already know me ... and hopefully believe and trust me as well. Within the last five months I talked to approx. 60 partners already face-to-face during the various events I attended. We had two PreSales Universities delievered already and I have been to one JDE Exsite event, a JDE Executive Forum, two User groups events and one JDE Partner Event. Again approximately 60+ partner discussions and everybody likes the idea of the community and how I am going to run this in the future. At the JDEdwards UK User Group event (NOV 13) there was an external speaker talking about risk. It was a very good speech. One key element of his speech was that a sequence of (small) failures might lead to a big success. He gave very good examples from the history not software related at all but as a results some of the well done individuals everybody knows today started very small and they failed several times before they become successful. But these persons did not gave up and in the long run they win and succeeded. I really spent some time reflecting this to our business as of today. My intention to write these lines is to convince each partner out there to think about investing in JDEdwards TODAY. There are currently a number of potential investment ideas on the table for you. We have a very strong and powerful ERP System. We have advantages against all our competitors. Each partner has the ability to create his own SaaS model and deliver individual services to the customers. We also have three Business Accelerators available which really speeds up the implementation by still having full flexibility to change for example any processing option if needed. A huge number of customers are on old releases globally and think about upgrading. New technology makes new business processes available (e.g. iPad). Oracle is a pretty much forward looking company and we build tools and products. In the area of JDEdwards our partners are combining the Oracle tools and products and bringing the value to the customers. At one point in time you have decided to run your business on your own and to become a JDE/PSFT/ORCL partner. This was a risk of course at that point of time. You did not fail and this is very good of course. Business has changed and Oracle has the product and tools for you to become even more successful in the future but it is a very good time for you to take a risk again. I am not able to promise you anything but the situation is very good. You might not win every deal or increase your margin immediately but I truly believe you will find new ways of doing your business in the future by adopting some of our ideas. The only person who can stop you ... is you. Please try something new/different. Success sometimes needs some time and initial failures but if you never failed - you have never lived. To get support during this phase please share your doubts, thoughts, experiences inside the new JDEdwards community and learn from others who went to similar processes. Please join here. Take care and best regards Hartmut Wiese

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• 2013 Predictions for Retail

  - by David Dorf

  Its that time of year to roll out the predictions for next year.  I can't say I've really nailed it in the past, but feel free to look back at my 2012, 2011, and 2010 predictions.  I'm not expecting anything earth-shattering this year; just continued maturation of several technologies that are finally taking hold. 1. Next day delivery -- Amazon finally decided it wasn't worth fighting state taxes and instead decided to place distribution centers everywhere so they can potentially offer next-day deliveries.  Not to be outdone, Walmart is looking to leverage its huge physical presence to offer the same.  Clubs like ShopRunner are pushing delivery barriers as well, so the norm is shifting to free shipping in a few days or relatively cheap shipping overnight.  Retailers need be thinking about how to ship from physical stores. 2. Bring your own device -- Earlier this year Intuit bought AisleBuyer, a mobile self-checkout start-up, at least somewhat validating the BYOD approach.  Grocery stores, especially in Europe, have been supporting in-aisle self-scanning for a while and I'm betting it will find a home in certain verticals in the US too.  There's also the BYOD concept for employees.  Some retailers are considering issuing mobile devices at hiring along side the shirt and name-tag.  Employees become responsible for the hardware until they leave. 3. TV shopping -- Will Apple finally release a TV product in 2013?  Who knows?  But the industry isn't standing still. Companies like QVC and HSN are already successfully combining the TV and online experiences for shopping.  Comcast is partnering with Tivo to allow viewers to interact with ads with Paypal handing payment.  This will be a slow maturation, but expect TVs to get smarter and eventually become a new selling channel (pun intended) for retailers. 4. Privacy backlash -- It only takes one big incident to stir the public, and I'm betting we have one in 2013.  Facebook, Google, or Apple will test the boundaries of what the public is willing to accept.  It could involve a retailer using geo-location technology, or possibly video analytics.  And as is always the case, the offender will apologize, temporarily remove the technology, and wait 2-3 years for it to be generally accepted.  Privacy is a moving target. 5. More NFC -- I've come to the conclusion that adoption of any banking technology is going to be slow.  It was slow for credit cards, ATMs, and online billpay so why should it be any different for NFC?  Maybe, just maybe the iPhone 5S will have an NFC chip, but we're not going to see mainstream uptake for years.  Next year we'll continue to see incremental improvements from Isis, Google, and Paypal and a plethora of new startups, but don't toss your magstripe cards just yet. 6. In-store location -- The technologies for tracking people inside stores is really improving.  Retailers can track people using video cameras, infrared, and by the WiFi radios in mobile phones.  We're getting closer to the point where accuracy could be a shelf-facing, which will help retailers understand how people shop, where they spend time, and what displays attract them.  Expect CPG companies to get involved and partner with retailers, since the data benefits both parties.  Consumers will benefit by being directed right to the products they seek.  (In 2013 ARTS is forming a workteam to develop new standards in this area.) 7. M&A -- Looking back at 2012 there were some really big deals involving IBM, Oracle, JDA, and NCR and I expect that trend will likely continue as vendors add assets to bolster their portfolios.  Many retailers are due for an IT transformation to support anywhere, anytime shoppers, and one-stop-vendors can minimize complexity and costs. Predictions from other sources: Independent Retailer Stores Magazine IDC Insights Mobile Commerce Daily

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• Is Cloud Security Holding Back Social SaaS?

  - by Mike Stiles

  The true promise of social data co-mingling with enterprise data to influence and inform social marketing (all marketing really) lives in cloud computing. The cloud brings processing power, services, speed and cost savings the likes of which few organizations could ever put into action on their own. So why wouldn’t anyone jump into SaaS (Software as a Service) with both feet? Cloud security. Being concerned about security is proper and healthy. That just means you’re a responsible operator. Whether it’s protecting your customers’ data or trying to stay off the radar of regulatory agencies, you have plenty of reasons to make sure you’re as protected from hacking, theft and loss as you can possibly be. But you also have plenty of reasons to not let security concerns freeze you in your tracks, preventing you from innovating, moving the socially-enabled enterprise forward, and keeping up with competitors who may not be as skittish regarding SaaS technology adoption. Over half of organizations are transferring sensitive or confidential data to the cloud, an increase of 10% over last year. With the roles and responsibilities of CMO’s, CIO’s and other C’s changing, the first thing you should probably determine is who should take point on analyzing cloud software options, providers, and policies. An oft-quoted Ponemon Institute study found 36% of businesses don’t have a cloud security policy at all. So that’s as good a place to start as any. What applications and data are you comfortable housing in the cloud? Do you have a classification system for data that clearly spells out where data types can go and how they can be used? Who, both internally and at the cloud provider, will function as admins? What are the different levels of admin clearance? Will your security policies and procedures sync up with those of your cloud provider? The key is verifiable trust. Trust in cloud security is actually going up. 1/3 of organizations polled say it’s the cloud provider who should be responsible for data protection. And when you look specifically at SaaS providers, that expectation goes up to 60%. 57% “strongly agree” or “agree” there’s more confidence in cloud providers’ ability to protect data. In fact, some businesses bypass the “verifiable” part of verifiable trust. Just over half have no idea what their cloud provider does to protect data. And yet, according to the “Private Cloud Vision vs. Reality” InformationWeek Report, 82% of organizations say security/data privacy are one of the main reasons they’re still holding the public cloud at arm’s length. That’s going to be a tough position to maintain, because just as social is rapidly changing the face of marketing, big data is rapidly changing the face of enterprise IT. Netflix, who’s particularly big on the benefits of the cloud, says, "We're systematically disassembling the corporate IT components." An enterprise can never realize the full power of big data, nor get the full potential value out of it, if it’s unwilling to enable the integrations and dataset connections necessary in the cloud. Because integration is called for to reduce fragmentation, a standardized platform makes a lot of sense. With multiple components crafted to work together, you’re maximizing scalability, optimization, cost effectiveness, and yes security and identity management benefits. You can see how the incentive is there for cloud companies to develop and add ever-improving security features, making cloud computing an eventual far safer bet than traditional IT. @mikestilesPhoto: stock.xchng

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• NetBeans Java Hints: Quick & Dirty Guide

  - by Geertjan

  In NetBeans IDE 7.2, a new wizard will be found in the "Module Development" category in the New File dialog, for creating new Java Hints. Select a package in a NetBeans module project. Right click, choose New/Other.../Module Development/Java Hint: You'll then see this: Fill in: Class Name: the name of the class that should be generated. E.g. "Example". Hint Display Name: the display name of the hint itself (as will appear in Tools/Options). E.g. "Example Hint". Warning Message: the warning that should be produced by the hint. E.g. "Something wrong is going on". Hint Description: a longer description of the hint, will appear in Tools/Options and eventually some other places. E.g. "This is an example hint that warns about an example problem." Will also provide an Automatic Fix: whether the hint will provide some kind of transformation. E.g. "yes". Fix Display Name: the display name of such a fix/transformation. E.g. "Fix the problem". Click Finish. Should generate "Example.java", the hint itself: import com.sun.source.util.TreePath; import org.netbeans.api.java.source.CompilationInfo; import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.ErrorDescription; import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.Fix; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.ConstraintVariableType; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.ErrorDescriptionFactory; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.Hint; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.HintContext; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.JavaFix; import org.netbeans.spi.java.hints.TriggerPattern; import org.openide.util.NbBundle.Messages; @Hint(displayName = "DN_com.bla.Example", description = "DESC_com.bla.Example", category = "general") //NOI18N @Messages({"DN_com.bla.Example=Example Hint", "DESC_com.bla.Example=This is an example hint that warns about an example problem."}) public class Example { @TriggerPattern(value = "$str.equals(\"\")", //Specify a pattern as needed constraints = @ConstraintVariableType(variable = "$str", type = "java.lang.String")) @Messages("ERR_com.bla.Example=Something wrong is going on") public static ErrorDescription computeWarning(HintContext ctx) { Fix fix = new FixImpl(ctx.getInfo(), ctx.getPath()).toEditorFix(); return ErrorDescriptionFactory.forName(ctx, ctx.getPath(), Bundle.ERR_com.bla_Example(), fix); } private static final class FixImpl extends JavaFix { public FixImpl(CompilationInfo info, TreePath tp) { super(info, tp); } @Override @Messages("FIX_com.bla.Example=Fix the problem") protected String getText() { return Bundle.FIX_com_bla_Example(); } @Override protected void performRewrite(TransformationContext ctx) { //perform the required transformation } } } Should also generate "ExampleTest.java", a test for it. Unfortunately, the wizard infrastructure is not capable of handling changes related to test dependencies. So the ExampleTest.java has a todo list at its begining: /* TODO to make this test work:  - add test dependency on Java Hints Test API (and JUnit 4)  - to ensure that the newest Java language features supported by the IDE are available,   regardless of which JDK you build the module with:  -- for Ant-based modules, add "requires.nb.javac=true" into nbproject/project.properties  -- for Maven-based modules, use dependency:copy in validate phase to create   target/endorsed/org-netbeans-libs-javacapi-*.jar and add to endorseddirs   in maven-compiler-plugin configuration  */Warning: if this is a project for which tests never existed before, you may need to close&reopen the project, so that "Unit Test Libraries" node appears - a bug in apisupport projects, as far as I can tell.  Thanks to Jan Lahoda for the above rough guide.

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• Talking JavaOne with Rock Star Kirk Pepperdine

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  Kirk Pepperdine is not only a JavaOne Rock Star but a Java Champion and a highly regarded expert in Java performance tuning who works as a consultant, educator, and author. He is the principal consultant at Kodewerk Ltd. He speaks frequently at conferences and co-authored the Ant Developer's Handbook. In the rapidly shifting world of information technology, Pepperdine, as much as anyone, keeps up with what's happening with Java performance tuning. Pepperdine will participate in the following sessions: CON5405 - Are Your Garbage Collection Logs Speaking to You? BOF6540 - Java Champions and JUG Leaders Meet Oracle Executives (with Jeff Genender, Mattias Karlsson, Henrik Stahl, Georges Saab) HOL6500 - Finding and Solving Java Deadlocks (with Heinz Kabutz, Ellen Kraffmiller Martijn Verburg, Jeff Genender, and Henri Tremblay) I asked him what technological changes need to be taken into account in performance tuning. “The volume of data we're dealing with just seems to be getting bigger and bigger all the time,” observed Pepperdine. “A couple of years ago you'd never think of needing a heap that was 64g, but today there are deployments where the heap has grown to 256g and tomorrow there are plans for heaps that are even larger. Dealing with all that data simply requires more horse power and some very specialized techniques. In some cases, teams are trying to push hardware to the breaking point. Under those conditions, you need to be very clever just to get things to work -- let alone to get them to be fast. We are very quickly moving from a world where everything happens in a transaction to one where if you were to even consider using a transaction, you've lost." When asked about the greatest misconceptions about performance tuning that he currently encounters, he said, “If you have a performance problem, you should start looking at code at the very least and for that extra step, whip out an execution profiler. I'm not going to say that I never use execution profilers or look at code. What I will say is that execution profilers are effective for a small subset of performance problems and code is literally the last thing you should look at.And what is the most exciting thing happening in the world of Java today? “Interesting question because so many people would say that nothing exciting is happening in Java. Some might be disappointed that a few features have slipped in terms of scheduling. But I'd disagree with the first group and I'm not so concerned about the slippage because I still see a lot of exciting things happening. First, lambda will finally be with us and with lambda will come better ways.” For JavaOne, he is proctoring for Heinz Kabutz's lab. “I'm actually looking forward to that more than I am to my own talk,” he remarked. “Heinz will be the third non-Sun/Oracle employee to present a lab and the first since Oracle began hosting JavaOne. He's got a great message. He's spent a ton of time making sure things are going to work, and we've got a great team of proctors to help out. After that, getting my talk done, the Java Champion's panel session and then kicking back and just meeting up and talking to some Java heads."Finally, what should Java developers know that they currently do not know? “’Write Once, Run Everywhere’ is a great slogan and Java has come closer to that dream than any other technology stack that I've used. That said, different hardware bits work differently and as hard as we try, the JVM can't hide all the differences. Plus, if we are to get good performance we need to work with our hardware and not against it. All this implies that Java developers need to know more about the hardware they are deploying to.” Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone.

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• SharePoint Saturday DC

  - by Mark Rackley

  Wow… did you see this thing? 927 attendees? An exhibition hall full of vendors? 94 speakers? 100 sessions?? Insane is a word that comes to mind… SharePoint Saturday DC was definitely epic as far as SharePoint Saturdays go. I got to catch up with a lot of friends and make some new ones.  Met a couple of fans of the blog (hello ladies…;))  Did you know that people actually read this thing? I guess that means I need to stop putting so much garbage on here and more content. I’ll get right on that as soon as I find out how to add 6 hours to each day. Anyway, once again I did my “Wrapping Your Head Around the SharePoint Beast” session.  I tweaked it even more from Huntsville and presented to a packed room with some people sitting on the floor and standing in the aisles. It was a great crowd, very interactive and they seemed interested at least. Thank you guys so much for attending and please feel free to tell me of any suggestions you have to make the presentation better.  This is one of the presentations that will probably never die. Everyone beginning SharePoint development needs a good introduction and starting point. My goal is to make this THE session to see on the subject. So, a little interesting data about my class. Half of the room was brand new to SharePoint and only one person was using 2010. That tells me that this session still has legs and that 2007 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  I know my organization will be using 2007 for at least a couple more years. Oh yeah… the slide deck?  Here it is: SharePoint Saturday DC Slide Deck So, SharePoint Saturday was truly tremendous and if you weren’t there you missed out. @meetdux, @usher, and the rest of their crew did a spectacular job. You guys rock and are a huge asset to the community. Thanks for allowing me to speak. What’s up next for me?  I’m so glad you asked…. SHAREPOINT SATURDAY OZARKS IS JUNE 12TH! Although SharePoint Saturday Ozarks on June 12 in Harrison Arkansas will be a much more intimate event than DC, it promises to be a most memorable event. We’ve got over 30 speakers and sessions, some cool stuff to give away, and we’re going floating down the Buffalo River on the 13th. Let’s see you do THAT in DC.  :) Anyway, I hope to see you there and I would truly appreciate any help you can do to help publicize the event. We just got internet here in the hills and most people here are still looking for the “any” key….

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• "Why We Chose Fusion CRM" by Vikas Bhambri, Managing Partner, The Athene Group

  - by Natalia Rachelson

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; 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;} A guest post by Vikas Bhambri, Managing Partner, The Athene Group This year The Athene Group (www.theathenegroup.com) celebrated our tenth anniversary. The company has accomplished a lot in ten years overcoming a number of hurdles and challenges to have grown organically to a 150+ person global company with offices in the US, UK, and India and customers in the US, Canada, and Europe. Now more than ever with the current global landscape from an economic and competitive standpoint it was vital that we make some changes to remain successful for the next ten years. There were two key initiatives that we discussed internally that would enable us to successfully accomplish this – collaboration and the concept of “insight to action”. With our existing Oracle CRM On Demand platform we had components of this but not the full depth and breadth that we were looking for. When we started to discuss Fusion CRM we immediately saw several next generation tools that would embrace these two objectives. For a consulting and development organization the collaboration required between business development and consulting delivery is as important as the collaboration required during the projects between the project delivery and account management teams. The Activity Streams functionality in Fusion CRM immediately addressed the communication of key discussion topics and exchanges around our clients. Of course when we saw the Oracle Social Network (which is part of our Fusion CRM roadmap) we were blown away. The combination OSN and our CRM is going to make us more effective as we discuss and work cohesively on client engagements – ensuring mutual success for both Athene and our clients. When we looked at “insight to action” we saw that we had a great platform when folks were at their desks, unfortunately a lot of our business development and consulting folks are on the road. The Fusion Mobile Sales and Fusion Outlook Desktop provide information to our teams when they are on the go. So that they can provide real-time information and react to real-time information provided by their peers. We are in the early stages of our transformative experience with Fusion CRM but we believe the platform along with our people and processes are going to help us achieve our goals in the future.

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• Review&ndash;Build Android and iOS apps in Visual Studio with Nomad

  - by Bill Osuch

  Nomad is a Visual Studio extension that allows you build apps for both Android and iOS platforms in Visual Studio using HTML5. There is no need to switch between .Net, Java and Objective-C to target different platforms - write your code once in HTML5 and build for all common mobile platforms and tablets. You have access to the native hardware functions (such as camera and GPS) through the PhoneGap library, UI libraries such as jQuery mobile allow you to create an impressive UI with minimal work. Nomad is still in an early access beta stage, so the documentation is a bit sparse. In fact, the only documentation is a simple series of steps on how to install the plug-in, set up a project, build and deploy it. You're going to want to be a least a little familiar with the PhoneGap library and jQuery mobile to really tap into the power of this. The sample project included with the download shows you just how simple it is to create projects in Visual Studio. The sample solution comes with an index.html file containing the HTML5 code, the Cordova (PhoneGap) library, jQuery libraries, and a JQuery style sheet: The html file is pretty straightforward. If you haven't experimented with JQuery mobile before, some of the attributes (such as data-role) might be new to you, but some quick Googling will fill in everything you need to know. The first part of the file builds a simple (but attractive) list with some links in it: The second part of the file is where things get interesting and it taps into the PhoneGap library. For instance, it gets the geolocation position by calling position.coords.latitude and position.coords.longitude: ...and then displays it in a simple span: Building is pretty simple, at least for Android (I'm not an iOS developer so I didn't look at that feature) - just configure the display name, version number, and package ID. There's no need to specify Android version; Nomad supports 2.2 and later. Enter these bits of information, click the new "Build for Android" button (not the regular Visual Studio Build link...) and you get a dialog box saying that your code is being built by their cloud build service (so no building while away from a WiFi signal apparently). After a couple minutes you wind up with a .apk file that can be copied over to your device. Applications built with Nomad for Android currently use a temporary certificate, so you can test the app on your devices but you cannot publish them in the Google Play Store (yet). And I love the "success" dialog box: Since Nomad is still in Beta, no pricing plans have been announced yet, so I'll be curious to see if this becomes a cost-effective solution to mobile app development. If it is, I may even be tempted to spring for the $99 iOS membership fee! In the meantime, I plan to work on porting some of my apps over to it and seeing how they work. My only quibble at this time is the lack of a centralized documentation location - I'd like to at least see which (if any) features of JQuery and PhoneGap are limited or not supported. Also, some notes on targeting different Android screen sizes would be nice, but it's relatively easy to find jQuery examples out on the InterWebs. Oh well, trial and error! You can download the Nomad extension for Visual Studio by going to their web site: www.vsnomad.com. Technorati Tags: Android, Nomad

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• SQL SERVER – #TechEdIn – Presenting Tomorrow on Speed Up! – Parallel Processes and Unparalleled Performance at TechEd India 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Performance tuning is always a very hot topic when it is about SQL Server. SQL Server Performance Tuning is a very challenging subject that requires expertise in Database Administration and Database Development. I always have enjoyed talking about SQL Server Performance tuning subject. However, in India, it’s actually the very first time someone is presenting on this interesting subject, so this time I had the biggest challenge to present this session. Frequently enough, we get these two kind of questions: How to turn off parallelism as it is reducing performance? How to turn on parallelism as I want more performance? The reality is that not everyone knows what exactly is needed by their system. In this session, I have attempted to answer this very question. I’ve decided to provide a balanced view but stay away from theory, which leads us to say “It depends”. The session will have a clear message about this towards its end. Deck Details Slides: 45+ Demos: 7+ Bonus Quiz: 5 Images: 10+ Session delivery time: 52 Mins + 8 Mins of Q & A I have presented this session a couple of times to my friends and so far have received good feedback. Oftentimes, when people hear that I am going to present 45 slides, they all say it is too much to cover. However, when I am done with the session the usual reaction is that I truly gave justice to those slides. Action Item Here are a few of the action items for all of those who are going to attend this session: If you want to attend the session, just come early. There’s a good chance that you may not get a seat because right before me, there is a session from SQL Guru Vinod Kumar. He performs a powerful delivery of million concepts in just a little time. Quiz. I will be asking few questions during the session as well as before the session starts. If you get the correct answer, I will give unique learning material for you. You may not want to miss this learning opportunity at any cosst. Session Details Title: Speed Up! – Parallel Processes and Unparalleled Performance (Add to Calendar) Abstract: “More CPU, More Performance” – A  very common understanding is that usage of multiple CPUs can improve the performance of the query. To get a maximum performance out of any query, one has to master various aspects of the parallel processes. In this deep-dive session, we will explore this complex subject with a very simple interactive demo. Attendees will walk away with proper understanding of CX_PACKET wait types, MAXDOP, parallelism threshold and various other concepts. Date and Time: March 23, 2012, 12:15 to 13:15 Location: Hotel Lalit Ashok - Kumara Krupa High Grounds, Bengaluru – 560001, Karnataka, India. Add to Calendar Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• First Impressions of a MacBook (from a PC guy)

  - by dgreen

  Disclaimer: I've been a PC guy my entire working career. I'd probably characterize myself as a power user. Never afraid to bust out the console line. But working with a Mac is totally foreign to me. So for those Mac guys who are curious, this is how your world appears from the outside to a computer literate person :)My Macbook Air has arrived! And it's a thing of beauty:First, the specs: 13" MacBook Air, 2.0GHz Core i7 processor. Upgraded to 8GB of RAM for an additional $100, SSD flash storage  = 256GB. The plan is ultimately to use this baby for some iOS development but also some decent lifting in Windows with Visual Studio. Done a lot of reading  and between VMWare Fusion, Parallels and Bootcamp...I'm going to go with VMWare Fusion for $49.99And now my impressions (please re-read disclaimer before proceeding!):I open the box and am trying to understand exactly how the magsafe connector works (and how to disconnect it).  Why does it have two socket outlet plugs? Who knows.  I feel like Hansel in Zoolander. The files are "in" the computer.Stuck in my external hard drive (usb). So how do I get to the files? To the Googles!Argh...it can't read my external NTFS drive. Fat32 can't support field over 4GB…problematic since some of my existing VMWare image files are much larger than 4GB. Didn't see this coming.Three year old loves iPhoto. Super easy to use. Don't even know what I'm doing but I've already (accidentally) discovered the image filtering options. Fun stuff.First thing I downloaded ever => Chrome. I need something to ground me, something familiar. My token, if you will (sorry, gratuitous Inception joke).Ok, I get it… Finder == windows explorer. But where is my hierarchical structure? I miss the tree :(On that note, yeah…how do I see what "path" my files reside in? I'm afraid to know the answer. You know what scares more though…this notion of a smart folder. Feel like the godfather - just get the job done, I don't care how you handle it, I don't want to know...just get it done. What the hell is AirDrop?Mail…just worked. Still in shock that they have a free client for yahoo mail (please no yahoo jokes).mail -> deleting a message takes 5 seconds. Have they heard of async?"Command" key instead of "Control" ok, then what the $%&^! is the control key for then"aliases" == shortcuts I thinkI don't see the file system. And I'm scared. All these things I'm downloading…these .dmg files (bad name) where are they going? Can't seem to delete when they're doneUgh...realized need to buy a mini-to-vga adaptor if I want to use my external monitor ($13 on ebay, $39 in apple store).Windows docking is trickiest for me…this notion of detached windows with a menu bar at the top. I don't like this paradigm, it's confusing. But maybe because I've been using Windows for too long.Evernote, Dropbox desktop clients seem almost identical…few quirks here and there I need to get used to.iTunes is still a bit gross. In a weird way it's actually worse on a Mac if thats possible. This is not the MacBook's fault…this is a software design issue. Overall: UI will take some getting used to. Can't decide if this represents the future and I'm stuck in the past…or this is the past and I've been spoiled by the future (which would be Windows…don't be hating I happen to be very productive in Win7)  So there you go - my 90 minute first impression of the MacBook universe.

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• Is It Worth It To Learn Experimental Languages

  - by Xander Lamkins

  I'm a young programmer who desires to work in the field someday as a programmer. I know Java, VB.NET and C#. I want to learn a new language (as I programmer, I know that it is valuable to extend what I know - to learn languages that make you think differently). I took a look online to see what languages were common. Everybody knows C and C++ (even those muggles who know so little about computers in general), so I thought, maybe I should push for C. C and C++ are nice but they are old. Things like Haskell and Forth (etc. etc. etc.) are old and have lost their popularity. I'm scared of learning C (or even C++) for this same reason. Java is pretty old as well and is slow because it's run by the JVM and not compiled to native code. I've been a Windows developer for quite a while. I recently started using Java - but only because it was more versatile and spreadable to other places. The problem is that it doesn't look like a very usable language for these reasons: It's most used purpose is for web application and cellphone apps (specifically Android) As far as actual products made with it, the only things that come to mind are Netbeans, Eclipse (hurrah for making and IDE with the language the IDE is for - it's like making a webpage for writing HTML/CSS/Javascript), and Minecraft which happens to be fun but laggy and bipolar as far as computer spec. support. Other than that it's used for servers but heck - I don't only want to make/configure servers. The .NET languages are nice, however: People laugh if I even mention VB.NET or C# in a serious conversation. It isn't cross-platform unless you use MONO (which is still in development and has some improvements to be made). Lacks low level stuff because, like Java with the JVM, it is run/managed by the CLR. My first thought was learning something like C and then using it to springboard into C++ (just to make sure I would have a strong understanding/base), but like I said earlier, it's getting older and older by the minute. What I've Looked Into Fantom looks nice. It's like a nice middleman between my two favorite languages and even lets me publish between the two interchangeably, but, unlike what I want, it compiles to the CLR or JVM (depending on what you publish it to) instead of it being a complete compile. D also looks nice. It seems like a very usable language and from multiple sources it appears to actually be better than C/C++. I would jump right with it, but I'm still unsure of its success because it obviously isn't very mainstream at this point. There are a couple others that looked pretty nice that focused on other things such as Opa with web development and Go by GOOGLE. My Question Is it worth learning these "experimental" languages? I've read other questions that say that if you aren't constantly learning languages and open to all languages that you aren't in the right mindset for programming. I understand this and I still might not quite be getting it, but in truth, if a language isn't going to become mainstream, should I spend my time learning something else? I don't want to learn old (or any going to soon be old) programming languages. I know that many people see this as something important, *but would any of you ever actually consider (assuming you didn't already know) FORTRAN? My goal is to stay current to make sure I'm successful in the future. Disclaimer Yes, I am a young programmer, so I probably made a lot of naive statements in my question. Feel free to correct me on ANYTHING! I have to start learning somewhere so I'm sure a lot of my knowledge is sketchy enough to have caused to incorrect statements or flaws in my thinking. Please leave any feelings you have in the comments.

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• MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 3

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  I rolled over to the Mandalay for breakfast.  There I met a couple guys that were really excited about the new Windows 7 Phone.  They, as I, are also hopeful that the phone really gets a big push and some penetration into the market.  Not because we don’t like any other of the phones, but because this phone is so much better in many ways.  From a developer's perspective creating applications in Windows 7 Mobile will be vastly superior in ease, capabilities, and other aspects.  The architectural, existing code base, examples, and provisions to create things on the 7 Mobile Device are already existing as of RIGHT NOW.  There is no reason, except for fickle market conditions, for this phone to not just explode onto the market.  But alas, I won't hold my breath. Day three keynote had a whole new slew of things provided.  It also seemed that things got a lot more technical on this second keynote.  The oData was one of the very technical bits, yet it included almost no code.  Starting with a Netflix example and all the way to the Codename "Dallas" effort the oData Services provide some expansive possibilities. A mash up going 4 ways was then shown for finding a movie, finding local places to have a viewing, and information about the movie and were to prospectively find and buy additional movie bits.  The display was of course, in a Windows 7 Mobile device with literally a click to view each set of data.  The backend and the front end of this was beautifully smooth. The Dallas Project has a lot of potential for analytics in dashboard and scorecard creation also.  If there is a need or reason to provide data to a vast and wide range of clients, Dallas is a prime example of how to do that. Azure Clouds After the main keynote I checked out (while developing a working WPF & Silverlight Application for work) the session on deploying ASP.NET Applications, services, etc, into the cloud.  The session was pretty good, but I'll admit I got a little unfocused from it a few times.  It is after all hard to do two things at one time. I did take note that the cloud still is a multiple step process for deploying to.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  There needs to be more checks and verifications when deploying something into the cloud just for technical reasons.  However, I feel that there should be some streamlining to the process.  Going back and forth between web and Visual Studio as the interface also seems kind of clunky.  Deployment should be able to be completed from within Visual Studio in my perspective.  Overall, the cloud is getting more and more impressive in function as well as theory. That's it from me so far on the third day of MIX.  I'll be note taking and studying hard to have more good tidbits to provide. Thanks for reading, if you're curious about more of my writing, check out this original entry at my other blog Agilist Mercenary.

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• SQL 2012 Licensing Thoughts

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  The only thing more controversial than new Federal Tax plans is new Licensing plans from Microsoft.  In both cases, everyone calculates several numbers.  First, will I pay more or less under this plan?  Second, will my competition pay more or less than now?  Third, will <insert interesting person/company here> pay more or less?  Not that items 2 and 3 are meaningful, that is just how people think. Much like tax plans, the devil is in the details, so lets see how this looks.  Microsoft shows it here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-licensing.aspx First up is a switch from per-socket to per-core licensing.  Anyone who didn’t see something like this coming should rapidly search for a new line of work because you are not paying attention.  The explosion of multi-core processors has made SQL Server a bargain.  Microsoft is in business to make money and the old per-socket model was not going to do that going forward. Per-core licensing also simplifies virtualization licensing.  Physical Core = Virtual Core, at least for licensing.  Oversubscribe your processors, that’s your lookout.  You still pay for  what is exposed to the VM.  The cool part is you can seamlessly move physical and virtual workloads around and the licenses follow.  The catch is you have to have Software Assurance to make the licenses mobile.  Nice touch there. Let’s have a moment of silence for the late, unlamented, largely ignored Workgroup Edition.  To quote the Microsoft  FAQ:  “Standard becomes our sole edition for basic database needs”.  Considering I haven’t encountered a singe instance of SQL Server Workgroup Edition in the wild, I don’t think this will be all that controversial. As for pricing, it looks like a wash with current per-socket pricing based on four core sockets.  Interestingly, that is the minimum core count Microsoft proposes to swap to transition per-socket to per-core if you are on Software Assurance.  Reading the fine print shows that if you are using more, you will get more core licenses: From the licensing FAQ. 15. How do I migrate from processor licenses to core licenses?  What is the migration path? Licenses purchased with Software Assurance (SA) will upgrade to SQL Server 2012 at no additional cost. EA/EAP customers can continue buying processor licenses until your next renewal after June 30, 2012. At that time, processor licenses will be exchanged for core-based licenses sufficient to cover the cores in use by processor-licensed databases (minimum of 4 cores per processor for Standard and Enterprise, and minimum of 8 EE cores per processor for Datacenter). Looks like the folks who invested in the AMD 12-core chips will make out like bandits. Now, on to something new: SQL Server Business Intelligence Edition. Yep, finally a BI-specific SKU licensed for server+CAL configurations only.  Note that Enterprise Edition still supports the complete feature set; the BI Edition is intended for smaller shops who want to use the full BI feature set but without needing Enterprise Edition scale (or costs).  No, you don’t get ColumnStore, Compression, or Partitioning in the BI Edition.  Those are Enterprise scale features, ThankYouVeryMuch.  Then again, your starting licensing costs are about one sixth of an Enterprise Edition system (based on an 8 core server). The only part of the message I am missing is if the current Failover Licensing Policy will change.  Do we need to fully or partially license failover servers?  That is a detail I definitely want to know.

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• SQLAuthority News – Speaking at Southeast Asia SharePoint Conference 2013 – Singapore

  - by pinaldave

  Two years ago I spoke at Southeast Asia SharePoint Conference 2011, Singapore and I had a fantastic time to present to the Singapore audience. The session was very well received and lots of interest was generated. The event is back again this year and with much bigger scale. I will be presenting on SQL Server and Sharepoint subject at the conference. Session Details: Title: Performance in 60 Seconds – Database Tricks Every SharePoint Developer & Admin MUST Know Abstract: SharePoint Developers and System Administrators often come across situations where they face a slow server response, even though their hardware specifications are above  par. This session is for all the SharePoint Developers who want their server to perform at blazing fast speed but want to invest very little time to make it happen. We will go over various database tricks which require absolutely no time to master and require practically no SQL coding at all. After attending this session, Developers will only need 60 seconds to improve performance of their database server in their SharePoint implementation. Date and Time: January 18, 20013 - 3:15 PM-4:15 PM Location: Max Atria is located at Singapore Expo, 1 Expo Drive, Singapore Tel 65 6403 2160 This session will cover lots of interesting tips and tricks about SQL Server and SharePoint co-exists together. I promise that every attendee will walk out with a trick which they can walk out of session and directly apply to their production server to improve its performance. The event is going to be again fantastic event – if you are in Singapore – you must not miss this event. If you are planning vacation – this is the right time to take days off and travel to Singapore for vacation. The event features over 30 sessions to choose from, focus on three areas of business gain: Exploring Information, Improving Productivity and Making it Work. This event has an excellent line up of international speakers (speakers traveling from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and India). Register early to reserve a spot at your choice of more than 30 classes taught by Microsoft Certified Masters, MVPs, and other top SharePoint experts! Here I have attempted to answer a few of the questions which every SharePoint professional half: Which sessions suit my skill level? Click here. What sessions are right for me? Click here. Which sessions are of my interests? Click here. Which sessions are on when? Click here. If you register by next Friday, 14, December – you can save $126 on the regular price of the conference. Prizes, Giveaways and … I love conference goodies – I collect them as a souvenir . This event is known for its generous prizes. The first 100 people to register on the day will get a SPECIAL gift at the event. Additionally there are exhibitor booth give away too. Here is the page listing all the prizes and giveaways. Do leave a comment or send me email if you are going to the event, we can sit together and have a coffee. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Impressions of Pivotal Tracker

  Pivotal Tracker is a free, online agile project management system. Ive been using it recently to better communicate to customers about the current state of our project. In Pivotal Tracker, the unit of work is a story and stories are arranged into iterations or delivery cycles. Stories can be any level of granularity you want, but the idea is to use stories to communicate clearly to customers, so you dont want to write a novel. You especially dont want to write a list of detailed programming tasks. A good story for a point of sale system might be: Allow managers to override the price of an item while ringing up a customer. A less useful story: Script out the process of adding a manager flag to the user table and stage that script into the deploy directory. Stories are estimated using a point scale, by default 1, 2 or 3. Iterations are then automatically laid out by combining enough tasks to fill the point total for that period of time. You have to start with a guess on how many points your team can do in an iteration, then adjust with real data as you complete iterations. This is basic agile methodology, but where Pivotal Tracker adds value is that it automatically and graphically lays out iterations for you on your project site. This makes communication and planning easy. Compiling release notes is no longer painful as it has been clear from the outset what work is going on. While I much prefer Pivotal Trackers customer facing interface over what we used previously (TFS), I see a couple of gaps. First, I have not able to make much headway with the reporting tools. Despite my complaints about TFS, it can produce some nice reports. Second, its not clear where if at all, Id keep track of purely internal tasks. Im talking about server maintenance, cleaning up source control, checking back on some code which you never quite felt right about. Theres no purpose in cluttering up an iteration backlog with these items, but if you dont track them, you lose them. Im not sure what a good answer for that is. One gap I thought Id see, which I dont, is more granular dev tasks. If Im implementing a story, Ill write out the steps and track my progress, but really, those steps arent useful to anybody but me. The only time Ive found that level of detail really useful is when my tasks are defined at too high a level anyway or when Im working with someone who needs more coaching and might not be able to finish a story in time without some scaffolding to get them going. You can learn more about Pivotal Tracker at: http://www.pivotaltracker.com/learnmore.   --- Relevant Links --- A good intro to stories: http://www.agilemodeling.com/artifacts/userStory.htmDid 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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• Apprentice Boot Camp in South Africa (Part 2)

  - by Tim Koekkoek

  By Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK) Today we have the second part of the adventures of seven apprentices from all over Europe in South-Africa!  Kruger National Park & other experiences Going to the Kruger National Park was definitely an experience we will all remember for the rest of our lives. This trip,organised by Patrick Fitzgerald, owner of the Travellers Nest (where we all stayed), took us from the hustle and bustle of Joburg to experience what Africa is all about, the wild! Although the first week’s training we had prior to this trip to the Kruger was going very well, we all knew this was to be a very nice break before we started the second week of training. And we were right, the animals, scenery and sights we saw were just simply incredible and like I said something we will remember for the rest of our lives. To see lions, elephants, cheetahs and rhinos and many more in a zoo is one thing, but to see them in the wild, in their natural habitat is very special and I personally only realised this from the early 5 am start on the first morning in the Kruger, which was definitely worth it. Not only was it all about the safari, we ate some wonderful food, in particular on the Saturday night, Patrick made us a traditional South African Braai which was one of my favourite meals of the whole two weeks. After the Kruger National Park we had a whole day of traveling back to Johannesburg but even this was made to be a good day by our hosts. Despite the early start on the road it was all worth it by the time we reached God's Window. The walk to the top was made a lot harder by all the steaks we had eaten in the first week but the hard walk was worth it at the top, with views that stretched for miles. The Food The food in South Africa is typically meat and in big amounts, while there we ate a lot of big beef steaks, ribs and kudu sausage. All of the meat we ate was usually cooked with a sauce such as a Barbeque glaze. The restaurants we visited were: Upperdeck Restaurant, with live music and a great terrace to eat, the atmosphere was good for enjoying the music and eating our food. Most of us ate  Spare ribs that weighed 600 kg, with barbecue sauce that was delicious. Die Bosvelder Pub & Restaurant is a restaurant with a very surprising decor, this is because the walls had many of south Africa’s famous animals on them. The food was maybe the best we ate in South Africa. Our orders were: Springbokvlakte Lambs' Neck Stew, beef in gravy and steaks topped with cheese and then more meat on top! All meals were accompanied by a selection of white sauce cauliflower, spinach and zanhorias. Pepper Chair Restaurant, where the specialty is T-Bone steaks of 1.4 kg, but most of us were happy to attempt the 1 kg. Cooked with barbecue sauce over the meat, it was very good!  The only problem was their size causing the  the meat to get cold if you did not eat it very fast! We’re all waiting for our 1.0 kg t-bone steak including our Senior Director EMEA Systems Support Germany & Switzerland: Werner Hoellrigl The Godfather Restaurant, the food here was more meat in abundance. We ate: great ribs, hamburgers, steaks and all accompanied with a small plates of carrot and sauteed spinach, very good. We had two great weeks in South-Africa! If you want to join Oracle, then check http://campus.oracle.com 

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• PASS: International Travels

  - by Bill Graziano

  Nihao!  One of the largest changes PASS is going through is the the expansion outside the US and Canada.  We’ve had international chapters and events in Europe since the early 2000’s.  But nothing on the scale we’re seeing now.  Since January 1st there have been 18 SQL Saturday events outside North America and 19 events in North America.  We hope to have three international SQLRally events outside the US in FY13 (budget willing).  I don’t know the exact percentage of chapters outside the US but it’s got be 50% or higher. We recently started an effort to remake the Board to better reflect the growing global face of PASS.  This involves assigning some Board seats to geographic regions.  You can ask questions about this in our feedback forum, participate in a Twitter chat or ask questions directly of Board members.  You can email me at if you’d like to ask a question directly.  We’re doing this very slowly and deliberately in hopes that a long communication cycle gives us a chance to address all the issues that our members will raise. After the Summit we passed a budget exception allocating an extra $20,000 for Board members to travel to local events.  I think it’s important for Board members to visit new areas and talk to more of our members.  I sent out an email asking where people had attended events outside their home city.  Here’s the list I got back: Albuquerque, Amsterdam, Boston, Brisbane, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, London, Louisville, Minneapolis, New York City, Orange County, Orlando, Pensacola, Perth, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Redmond, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Sydney, Tampa Bay, Vancouver, Washington DC and Wellington.  (Disclaimer: Some of this travel was paid for by employers or Board members themselves.  Some of this travel may have been completed before the Summit.  That’s still one heck of a list!) The last SQL Saturday event this fiscal year is SQL Saturday Shanghai.  And that’s one I’m attending.  This is our first event in China and is being put on in cooperation with the local Microsoft office.  Hopefully this event will be the start of a growing community in China that includes chapters, SQL Saturdays and maybe a SQLRally or two in the future.  I’m excited to speak with people that are just starting down this path and watching this community grow. I encourage you to visit the PASS Global Growth site and read through the material there.  This is the biggest change we’ve made to our governance since I’ve been on the Board.  You need to understand how it affects you and how it affects the organization. And wish me luck on the 15 hour flight to Shanghai on Friday afternoon.  Rob Farley flies from Australia to the US for PASS events multiple times per year and I don’t know how he does it so often.  I think one of these is going to wipe me out.  (And Nihao (knee-how) is Chinese for Hello.)

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• As a person getting into mobile development, what's the best mobile platform in terms of profitability? [closed]

  - by Kyle Loman

  I realize this question can range very far so would love to hear any and all opinions on this. However, I'll be honest and say that I have been thinking of this in terms of most profitable. I know how this may sound either way but this is one of my main sticking points. I realize that I'm not guaranteed a single cent and success is never guaranteed but I'm going into this with the thought of making something out of it both financially and also for my own interest. I know that iOS gets a lot of attention on this front but Android commands a lot more market share. However, I know there are drawbacks to Android too, whether it's in the actual development process and programming (though I've heard conflicting reports on this, such as how easy/difficult it is for to address screen res in different devices) or the app ecosystem being flooded. But iOS's app ecosystem has been described as too saturated and harder to compete in for that reason. Since Windows Phone has fewer apps than both of those two, that might be the best place to start in order to be closer to the ground floor of the store and be noticed more? Less saturation = better chances of sales or differentiating? Something like the gold rush during the first years of the iOS App Store (not exactly but at least in concept)? Would it be that despite fewer users on the platform, there's more exposure due to less competition so that may translate to better success at sales? Plus, I know MS is in it for the long haul so I'm not too fearful of something like WebOS going away. Obviously RIM isn't very popular nowadays but I read a recent article that says Blackberry actually has the apps that make the most money, any thoughts on that: http://gigaom.com/mobile/which-mobile-oss-apps-make-most-money-surprise-its-blackberry/ Again, this is all I've heard or known about so if there's anything to add or correct here, please do. In addition, this has actually affected my next personal phone upgrade. I'm eligible for a carrier discount now and I've had my eye on the iPhone 5. However, the Lumia 920 is the one I'm holding out for and I'm open to trying an Android but I'm not sure I can wait that long for any new Nexus or even the Razr HD. Even the new Lumia in November is making me antsy, I'm so close to just getting an iPhone 5. But when I say this has affected my phone choice, I'd want to be able to carry the apps I write with me so that I'm able to pull my phone out to show people without having to carry around a second device to do so. So that's why I'd like to make my personal phone match the main platform I'm developing for. Of course, I will likely expand to other platforms if I gain any decent success but the one I target now would serve well as my personal phone I carry around so that I can use it as a marketing tool, in a sense, showing people my apps if the opportunity presents itself. So what's the best mobile platform to choose, and especially in regards to most lucrative? As said previously, this would influence my personal phone choice greatly. Thanks in advance and I hope this isn't taken the wrong way - I understand there are trade-offs and other factors that may balance this out but making some revenue is key among that. For some background, I have done software development and know programming language concepts so I'm not entirely new to it and I do get the notion of being familiar with these things so that I can translate this skill among a variety of languages but I'm currently just having difficulty choosing my first main mobile platform based on the criteria I've outlined above.

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• Is it worth to learn Experimental Languages?

  - by Xander Lamkins

  I'm a young programmer who desires to work in the field someday as a programmer. I know Java, VB.NET and C#. I want to learn a new language (as I programmer, I know that it is valuable to extend what I know - to learn languages that make you think differently). I took a look online to see what languages were common. Everybody knows C and C++ (even those muggles who know so little about computers in general), so I thought, maybe I should push for C. C and C++ are nice but they are old. Things like Haskell and Forth (etc. etc. etc.) are old and have lost their popularity. I'm scared of learning C (or even C++) for this same reason. Java is pretty old as well and is slow because it's run by the JVM and not compiled to native code. I've been a Windows developer for quite a while. I recently started using Java - but only because it was more versatile and spreadable to other places. The problem is that it doesn't look like a very usable language for these reasons: It's most used purpose is for web application and cellphone apps (specifically Android) As far as actual products made with it, the only things that come to mind are Netbeans, Eclipse (hurrah for making and IDE with the language the IDE is for - it's like making a webpage for writing HTML/CSS/Javascript), and Minecraft which happens to be fun but laggy and bipolar as far as computer spec. support. Other than that it's used for servers but heck - I don't only want to make/configure servers. The .NET languages are nice, however: People laugh if I even mention VB.NET or C# in a serious conversation. It isn't cross-platform unless you use MONO (which is still in development and has some improvements to be made). Lacks low level stuff because, like Java with the JVM, it is run/managed by the CLR. My first thought was learning something like C and then using it to springboard into C++ (just to make sure I would have a strong understanding/base), but like I said earlier, it's getting older and older by the minute. What I've Looked Into Fantom looks nice. It's like a nice middleman between my two favorite languages and even lets me publish between the two interchangeably, but, unlike what I want, it compiles to the CLR or JVM (depending on what you publish it to) instead of it being a complete compile. D also looks nice. It seems like a very usable language and from multiple sources it appears to actually be better than C/C++. I would jump right with it, but I'm still unsure of its success because it obviously isn't very mainstream at this point. There are a couple others that looked pretty nice that focused on other things such as Opa with web development and Go by GOOGLE. My Question Is it worth learning these "experimental" languages? I've read other questions that say that if you aren't constantly learning languages and open to all languages that you aren't in the right mindset for programming. I understand this and I still might not quite be getting it, but in truth, if a language isn't going to become mainstream, should I spend my time learning something else? I don't want to learn old (or any going to soon be old) programming languages. I know that many people see this as something important, *but would any of you ever actually consider (assuming you didn't already know) FORTRAN? My goal is to stay current to make sure I'm successful in the future. Disclaimer Yes, I am a young programmer, so I probably made a lot of naive statements in my question. Feel free to correct me on ANYTHING! I have to start learning somewhere so I'm sure a lot of my knowledge is sketchy enough to have caused to incorrect statements or flaws in my thinking. Please leave any feelings you have in the comments.

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• More Stuff less Fluff

  - by brendonpage

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/brendonpage/archive/2013/11/08/more-stuff-less-fluff.aspxYAGNI – "You Aren't Going To Need It". This is an acronym commonly used in software development to remind developers to only write what they need. This acronym exists because software developers have gotten into the habit of writing everything they need to solve a problem and then everything they think they're going to possibly need in the future. Since we can't predict the future this results in a large portion of the code that we write never being used. That extra code causes unnecessary complexity, which makes it harder to understand and harder to modify when we inevitably have to write something that we didn't think of. I've known about YAGNI for some time now but I never really got it. The words made sense and the idea was clear but the concept never sank in. I was one of those devs who'd happily write a ton of code in the anticipation of future needs. In my mind this was an essential part of writing high quality code. I didn't realise that in doing so I was actually writing low quality code. If you are anything like me you are probably thinking "Lies and propaganda! High quality code needs to be future proof." I agree! But what makes code future proof? If we could see into the future the answer would be simple, code that allows for or meets all future requirements. Since we can't see the future the best we can do is write code that can easily adapt to future requirements, this means writing flexible code. Flexible code is: Fast to understand. Fast to add to. Fast to modify. To be flexible code has to be simple, this means only making it as complex as it needs to be to meet those 3 criteria. That is high quality code. YAGNI! The art is in deciding where to place the seams (abstractions) that will give you flexibility without making decisions about future functionality. Robert C Martin explains it very nicely, he says a good architecture allows you to defer decisions because if you can defer a decision then you have the flexibility to change it. I've recently had a YAGNI experience which brought this all into perspective. I was working on a new project which had multiple clients that connect to a server hosted in the cloud. I was tasked with adding a feature to the desktop client that would allow users to capture items that would then be saved to the cloud. My immediate thought was "Hey we have multiple clients so I should build a web service for these items, that way we can access them from other clients", so I went to work and this is what I created.  I stood back and gazed upon what I'd created with a warm fuzzy feeling. It was beautiful! Then the time came for the team to use the design I'd created for another feature with a new entity. Let's just say that they didn't get the same warm fuzzy feeling that I did when they looked at the design. After much discussion they eventually got it through to me that I'd bloated the design based on an assumption of future functionality. After much more discussion we cut the design down to the following. This design gives us future flexibility with no extra work, it is as complex as it needs to be. It has been a couple of months since this incident and we still haven't needed to access either of the entities from other clients. Using the simpler design allowed us to do more stuff with less stuff!

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• The Power of Goals

  - by BuckWoody

  Every year we read blogs, articles, magazines, hear news stories and blurbs on making New Year’s Resolutions. Well, I for one don’t do that. I do something else. Each year, on January 1, my wife, daughter and I get up early - like before 6:00 A.M. - and find a breakfast place that’s open. When I used to live in Safety Harbor, Florida, that was the “Paradise Café”, which has some of the best waffles around…but I digress. We find that restaurant and have a great breakfast while everyone else is recuperating from the night before. And we bring along a worn leather book that we’ve been writing in since my daughter wasn’t even old enough to read. It’s our book of Goals. A resolution, as it is purely defined, is a decision to change, stop or start an action. It has a sense of continuance, and that’s the issue. Some people decide things like “I’m going to lose weight” or “I’m going to spend more time with my family or hobby”. But a goal is different. A goal tends to have a defined start and end point. It’s something that can be measured. So each year on January 1 we sit down with the little leather book and we make a few - and only a few - individual and family goals. Sometimes it’s to exercise three times a week at the gym, sometimes it’s to save a certain percentage of income, and sometimes it’s to give away some of our possessions or to help someone we know in a specific way. Each person is responsible for their own goals - coming up with them, and coming up with a plan to meet them. Then we write it down in the little leather book. But it doesn’t end there. Each month, we grab the little leather book and read out the goals from that year to each person with a question or two: How are you doing on your goal? And what are you doing about reaching it? Can I help? Am I helping? At the end of the year, we put a checkmark by the goals we reached, and an X by the ones we didn’t. There’s no judgment, there’s no statements, each person is just expected to handle the success or failure in their own way. We also have family goals, and those we work on together. This might seem a little “corny” to some people. “I don’t need to write goals down” they say, “I keep track in my head of the things I do all the time. That’s silly.” But let me give you a little challenge: find a book, get with your family, and write down the things you want to do by the next January 1. Each month, look at the book. You can make goals for your career, your education, your spiritual side, your family, whatever. But if you make your goals realistic, think them through, and think about how you will achieve them, you will be surprised by the power of written goals.

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• Doubts about several best practices for rest api + service layer

  - by TheBeefMightBeTough

  I'm going to be starting a project soon that exposes a restful api for business intelligence. It may not be limited to a restful api, so I plan to delegate requests to a service layer that then coordinates multiple domain objects (each of which have business logic local to the object). The api will likely have many calls as it is a long-term project. While thinking about the design, I recalled a few best practices. 1) Use command objects at the controller layer (I'm using Spring MVC). 2) Use DTOs at the service layer. 3) Validate in both the controller and service layer, though for different reasons. I have my doubts about these recommendations. 1) Using command objects adds a lot of extra single-purpose classes (potentially one per request). What exactly is the benefit? Annotation based validation can be done using this approach, sure. What if I have two requests that take the same parameters, but have different validation requirements? I would have to have two different classes with exactly the same members but different annotations? Bleh. 2) I have heard that using DTOs is preferable to parameters because it makes for more maintainable code down the road (say, e.g., requirements change and the service parameters need to be altered). I don't quite understand this. Shouldn't an api be more-or-less set in stone? I would understand that in the early phases of a project (or, especially, an entire company) the domain itself will not be well understood, and thus core domain objects may change along with the apis that manipulate these objects. At this point however the number of api methods should be small and their dependents few, so changes to the methods could easily be tolerated from a maintainability standpoint. In a large api with many methods and a substantial domain model, I would think having a DTO for potentially each domain object would become unwieldy. Am I misunderstanding something here? 3) I see validation in the controller and service layer as redundant in most cases. Why would I validate that parameters are not null and are in general well formed in the controller if the service is going to do exactly the same (and more). Couldn't I just do all the validation in the service and throw a runtime exception with a list of bad parameters then catch that in the controller to make the error messages more presentable? Better yet, couldn't I just make the error messages user-friendly in the service and let the exception trickle up to a global handler (ControllerAdvice in spring, for example)? Is there something wrong with either of these approaches? (I do see a use case for controller validation if the input does not map one-to-one with the service input, but since the controllers are for a rest api and not forms, the api parameters will probably map directly to service parameters.) I do also have a question about unchecked vs checked exceptions. Namely, I'm not really sure why I'd ever want to use a checked exception. Every time I have seen them used they just get wrapped into general exceptions (DomainException, SystemException, ApplicationException, w/e) to reduce the signature length of methods, or devs catch Exception rather than dealing with the App1Exception, App2Exception, Sys1Exception, Sys2Exception. I don't see how either of these practices is very useful. Why not just use unchecked exceptions always and catch the ones you actually do care about? You could just document what unchecked exceptions the method throws.

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• The Healthy Tension That Mobility Creates

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A guest post by Hernan Capdevila, Vice President, Oracle Fusion Apps In my previous post, I talked about the value of the mobile revolution on businesses and workers. Now let me put on a different hat and view the world from the IT department and the IT leader’s viewpoint. The IT leader has different concerns – around privacy, potential liability of information leakage, and intellectual property protection. These concerns and the leader’s goals create a healthy tension with the users. For example, effective device management becomes a must have for the IT leader, especially if you look at the Android ecosystem as an example. There are benefits to the Android strategy, but there are also drawbacks, such as uniformity – in device management, in operating systems, and in the application taxonomy and capabilities. Whereas, if you compare Android to iOS, Apple's operating system, iOS is more unified, more streamlined, and easier to manage. In either case, this is where mobile device management in the cloud makes good sense. I don't think IT departments should be hosting device management and managing that complexity. It should be a cloud service and I predict it's going to be key for our customers. A New Focus for IT Departments So where does that leave the IT departments? I think their futures are in governance, which is a more strategic play than a tactical one. Device management is tactical and it's the “now” topic. But the mobile phenomenon, if you will, is going to drive significant change in terms of how IT plans, hosts, and deploys enterprise applications. For example, opening up enterprise applications for mobile users presents some challenges unless you deploy more complicated network topologies, such as virtual private networks and threat protection technology. If you really want employees to be mobile you need to remove those kinds of barriers. But I don’t think IT departments want to wrestle with exposing their private enterprise data centers and being responsible for hosted business applications – applications in a sense that they’re making vulnerable to the public world. This opens up a significant need and a significant driver for cloud applications. However, it's not just about taking away the complexity – it's also about taking away the responsibility. Why should every business have to carry the responsibility and figure out all the nuts and bolts of how to protect themselves in this public, mobile world? When you use apps in the cloud, either your vendor or your hosting partner should have figured all that out. They need to assure the business that they are adhering to all sorts of security and compliance regulations so users can be connected and have access to information anywhere anytime. More Ideas and Better Service What’s more interesting is the world of possibilities that the connected, cloud-based world enables. I believe that the one-size-fits-all, uber-best practices, lowest-common denominator-like capabilities will go away. IT will now be able to solve very specific business challenges for the different corporate functions it serves. In this new world, IT will play a key role in enabling different organizations within a company to be best in class and delivering greater value to the line of business managers. IT will actually help to differentiate. Net result is a more agile workforce and business because each department is getting work done its own way.

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• Talking JavaOne with Rock Star Kirk Pepperdine

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  Kirk Pepperdine is not only a JavaOne Rock Star but a Java Champion and a highly regarded expert in Java performance tuning who works as a consultant, educator, and author. He is the principal consultant at Kodewerk Ltd. He speaks frequently at conferences and co-authored the Ant Developer's Handbook. In the rapidly shifting world of information technology, Pepperdine, as much as anyone, keeps up with what's happening with Java performance tuning. Pepperdine will participate in the following sessions: CON5405 - Are Your Garbage Collection Logs Speaking to You? BOF6540 - Java Champions and JUG Leaders Meet Oracle Executives (with Jeff Genender, Mattias Karlsson, Henrik Stahl, Georges Saab) HOL6500 - Finding and Solving Java Deadlocks (with Heinz Kabutz, Ellen Kraffmiller Martijn Verburg, Jeff Genender, and Henri Tremblay) I asked him what technological changes need to be taken into account in performance tuning. “The volume of data we're dealing with just seems to be getting bigger and bigger all the time,” observed Pepperdine. “A couple of years ago you'd never think of needing a heap that was 64g, but today there are deployments where the heap has grown to 256g and tomorrow there are plans for heaps that are even larger. Dealing with all that data simply requires more horse power and some very specialized techniques. In some cases, teams are trying to push hardware to the breaking point. Under those conditions, you need to be very clever just to get things to work -- let alone to get them to be fast. We are very quickly moving from a world where everything happens in a transaction to one where if you were to even consider using a transaction, you've lost." When asked about the greatest misconceptions about performance tuning that he currently encounters, he said, “If you have a performance problem, you should start looking at code at the very least and for that extra step, whip out an execution profiler. I'm not going to say that I never use execution profilers or look at code. What I will say is that execution profilers are effective for a small subset of performance problems and code is literally the last thing you should look at.And what is the most exciting thing happening in the world of Java today? “Interesting question because so many people would say that nothing exciting is happening in Java. Some might be disappointed that a few features have slipped in terms of scheduling. But I'd disagree with the first group and I'm not so concerned about the slippage because I still see a lot of exciting things happening. First, lambda will finally be with us and with lambda will come better ways.” For JavaOne, he is proctoring for Heinz Kabutz's lab. “I'm actually looking forward to that more than I am to my own talk,” he remarked. “Heinz will be the third non-Sun/Oracle employee to present a lab and the first since Oracle began hosting JavaOne. He's got a great message. He's spent a ton of time making sure things are going to work, and we've got a great team of proctors to help out. After that, getting my talk done, the Java Champion's panel session and then kicking back and just meeting up and talking to some Java heads."Finally, what should Java developers know that they currently do not know? “’Write Once, Run Everywhere’ is a great slogan and Java has come closer to that dream than any other technology stack that I've used. That said, different hardware bits work differently and as hard as we try, the JVM can't hide all the differences. Plus, if we are to get good performance we need to work with our hardware and not against it. All this implies that Java developers need to know more about the hardware they are deploying to.”

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• Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way

  - by Daniel Moth

  This is one of the sayings (attributed to Thomas Paine) that totally resonated with me from the first time I heard it, which was only 3 years ago during some training course at work: "Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way" You'll find many books with this title and you'll find it quoted by politicians and other leaders in various countries at various times... the quote is open to interpretation and works on many levels. To set the tone of what this means to me, I'll use a simple micro example: In any given conversation, you are either leading it or following it, at different times/snapshots of the conversation. If you are not willing or able to lead it, and you are not willing or able to follow it, then you should depart. The bad alternative which this guidance encourages you NOT to do is to stick around and obstruct progress by not following, not leading, and simply complaining or trying to derail the discussion in no particular direction. The same pattern applies at your position/role at work. Either follow your management/leadership team, or try to lead them to what you think is a better place, or change jobs. Don't stick around complaining about the direction things are going, while not actively trying to either change things or make peace with it. In the previous paragraph you can replace the word "your management" with "the people reporting to you" and the guidance still holds. Either lead your direct reports to where you think they should go, or follow their lead, or change jobs. Complaining about folks not taking direction while doing nothing is not a maintainable state. To me this quote is not about a permanent state, it is not about some people always leading and some always following: It is about a role/hat that anybody can play/wear at any given moment. One minute I am leading you, the next I am following you, and the next we are both following someone else and so on... When there is disagreement, debate the different directions for as long as it takes for you to be comfortable that you can either follow or lead. If you don't become comfortable with either of those, get out of the way. Something to remember is that it is impossible to learn how to lead well, without learning how to follow well (probably deserves its own blog entry)... Things go wrong when someone thinks that they must always be leading, or when everybody wants to follow and nobody steps up to lead... Things go wrong when more than one person wants to lead and they don't try to reach agreement on a shared direction, stubbornly sticking to their guns pulling the rest of the team in multiple directions... Things go wrong when more than one person wants to lead and after numerous and lengthy discussions, none of them decides to follow or get out of the way... Things go wrong when people don't want to lead, don't want to follow, and insist on sticking around... While there are a few ways things that can go wrong as enumerated in the previous paragraph, the most common one in my experience is the last one I mentioned. You'll recognize these folks as the ones that always complain about everything that is wrong with their company/product but do nothing about it. Every time you hear someone giving feedback on how something is wrong or suboptimal, ask them "So now that you identified the problem, what do you think the solution is and what are you doing to drive us to that solution?" The next time things start going wrong, step up and remind everyone: Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way. For more perspectives, and for input to help you form your own interpretation, search the web for this phrase to see in what contexts it is being used (bing, google). Finally, regardless of your political views, I hope you can appreciate if only as an example this perspective of someone leading by actually getting out of the way. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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