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• Six Unusual Blogs I Like

  - by Bill Graziano

  I subscribe to and read over 100 SQL Server blogs every day.  I link to posts that I think are interesting.  I also read a fair number of non-SQL Server blogs.  Here are a few that I think are interesting. danah boyd. She is a researcher with Microsoft and writes about privacy, social media and teenagers.  I discovered her blog while looking for strategies to keep my personal and professional life separate.  (I haven’t found a good solution to that yet.)  Her stories of how teenagers use Facebook and other social media tools are fascinating. Clayton’s Web Snacks.  Steve Clayton works at Microsoft and has a variety of blogs out there.  This one focuses on … hmmm.  His latest posts are on graffiti, infographics, paper tweets, cartoons and slow motion videos.  It’s mostly visual and you never really know what you’ll get.  It’s always interesting though and I like what he posts.  It’s good creative stuff. Seth Godin.  Seth writes about Marketing.  I read him for motivation to get off my butt and get things done.  He’s a great motivator who encourages you to think big.  And do something! Ask the Pilot.  Patrick Smith is a commercial airline pilot writing about the airline industry.  He’s a great debunker of myths (no they don’t reduce oxygen in the cabin to keep you docile).  My favorite topics include the TSA, flying myths, airport reviews and flight delays. My old favorite flight blog used to be enplaned.  No one knew who wrote it.  It focused on the economics of the airline industry.  It was fascinating stuff.  One day it was gone.  The entire blog was deleted.  Someone tracked down some partial archives and put them online. The Agent’s Journal.  Jack Bechta is an NFL agent.  He writes about the business side of the NFL, the draft and free agency.  Lately he’s been writing about the potential lockout.  He has a distinct lack of hype which I find very refreshing.  xkcd.  I call this the comic for smart people.  A little math, some IT and internet privacy thrown in all make an unusual comic. Funny and intelligent.

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• Windows 7 - traceroute hop with high latency! [closed]

  - by Mac

  I've been experiencing this problem for quite a while, and it's quite frustrating. I'll do a traceroute, to www.l.google.com, for example. This is the result (please note: I will replace some parts of personal information with text - i.e. ISP.IP is in reality an actual IP address, and ISPNAME replaces the actual ISP name): Tracing route to www.l.google.com [173.194.34.212] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1 2 9 ms 8 ms 10 ms ISP.EXCHANGE.NAME [ISP.IP.172.205] 3 161 ms 171 ms 177 ms host-ISP.IP.215.246.ISPNAME.net [ISP.IP.215.246] 4 12 ms 9 ms 10 ms host-ISP.IP.215.246.ISPNAME.net [ISP.IP.215.246] 5 10 ms 9 ms 17 ms host-ISP.IP.224.165.ISPNAME.net [ISP.IP.224.165] 6 10 ms 9 ms 10 ms 10.42.0.3 7 9 ms 9 ms 10 ms host-ISP.IP.202.129.ISPNAME.net [ISP.IP.202.129] 8 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms host-ISP.IP.209.33.ISPNAME.net [ISP.IP.209.33] 9 77 ms 129 ms 164 ms host-ISP.IP.198.162.ISPNAME.net [ISP.IP.198.162] 10 43 ms 42 ms 43 ms 72.14.212.13 11 42 ms 42 ms 42 ms 209.85.252.36 12 59 ms 59 ms 59 ms 209.85.241.210 13 60 ms 76 ms 68 ms 72.14.237.124 14 59 ms 59 ms 58 ms mad01s08-in-f20.1e100.net [173.194.34.212] Trace complete. Notice that there is a spike on the 3rd hop, but also notice that the 3rd and 4th hop are to the exact same destination. Furthermore, when I ping the offended hop separately, I get the low latency I would expect to that server: Pinging ISP.IP.215.246 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=253 Reply from ISP.IP.215.246: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=253 Ping statistics for ISP.IP.215.246: Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 12ms, Average = 9ms I'm baffled as to why or how this is happening, and it seems to "fix itself" at random times. Here is an example of where it was working as expected: http://i.imgur.com/bysno.png Notice how many fewer hops were taken. Please note that all the posted results occurred within 10 minutes of testing. I've tried contacting my ISP, and they seem clueless; in their eyes, as long as "the download speed is not slow", then they're doing everything right. Any insight would be very much appreciated, and thanks in advanced!

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• Why does Chrome video performance substantially degrade after waking from suspend in 10.10?

  - by Grant Heaslip

  Note: For some more details, some of which may not be true given what I've figured out, see this post. When I first boot my computer, video performance (both native H.264 HTML5 in YouTube and Vimeo, and in Flash) in Chrome is perfectly reasonable. CPU usage stays slow, everything works correctly, and the video is silky-smooth. But for whatever reason, if I suspend my computer then wake it up, video performance plummets. Full screen HTML5 video is choppy at best, and full-screen Flash video basically brings my computer to its knees (I'm talking less than a frame a second, and a 5 second lead time to leave full-screen after hitting Esc). Restarting Chrome doesn't fix this — I need to completely restart my machine before performance goes back to normal. Video performance in other applications, such as Movie Player, doesn't seem to be affected at all by the suspend cycle — it's only Chrome. I'm using a Lenovo X201, with an Intel GMA HD graphics chipset, and Intel compnents all around (I don't need any proprietary drivers). This didn't happen in 10.04, and I haven't anything that I think would have caused this to happen. It's possible that a Chrome release could have caused this, but it seems less likely than a regression between 10.04 and 10.10. Any ideas? EDIT: In response Georg's comment, logging in and out doesn't fix it. Restarting Compiz or switching to Metacity (at least by using "compiz/metacity --replace & disown" — am I doing it right?) doesn't help (actually, it seemed to help somewhat with Flash once, but I haven't been able to reproduce this). I'm not sure about GDM — when I use "sudo restart gdm" I get kicked back to the Linux shell (?), which I have no idea how to get out of. Also, I want to make very clear that this isn't just a case of Flash sucking (it does,but that's beside the point). I"m seeing the same general problem with HTML5 videos, and Flash is performing better on my Nexus One than it does on my Core i5 laptop. There's something screwy going on with Chrome and/or 10.10.

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• Video stutter when using external drive

  - by psion

  When using boxee to play video files off of an external western digital 1TB drive formatted NTFS, I notice a slight stutter in the video every 5-10 seconds. When using mplayer, it doesn't stutter as often, but it still stutters occasionally. If I play the video off of the local sata drive, it plays fine even in boxee. I use this computer as my HTPC and I just switched from windows to linux on it. In windows, I never had any sort of stutter playing movies from the drive. I am using the latest intel graphics drivers (for the intel GMA 950) root@eee-htpc:/home/htpc# grep wd /etc/mtab /dev/sdb1 /mnt/wd2 fuseblk rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=512 0 0 I notice that despite trying to use ntfs or ntfs-3g, ubuntu uses ntfs-fuse which I've heard is slower. /dev/sdb1: Timing buffered disk reads: 80 MB in 3.07 seconds = 26.08 MB/sec root@eee-htpc:/mnt/wd2# dd if=/dev/zero of=./120mb bs=1024 count=120000 root@eee-htpc:/mnt/wd2# time mv ./120mb /home/htpc real 0m2.095s user 0m0.016s sys 0m0.736s Even though fuse has a reputation for being slow, it should easily be fast enough for playing standard definition video files. So why the video stutter? edit: The issue seems to be overhead cpu usage from either playing off of a usb device or ntfs/fuse. Watching CPU usage with top, local files use 10-40% CPU. Watching the same video on the external formatted ntfs, it spikes to 170% (over 100% because of hyperthreading). To me it seems like it must be overhead from the fuse driver, though I don't know if it has more or less overhead than ntfs-3g. It's a EEEBox B202 that has an atom 270, so not exactly the most powerful out there. edit2: I believe the solution would be to use non-fuse drivers or different fuse drivers. so far I have not been able to. edit3: I've probably edited this more times than I should, but as an update I have upgraded ntfs drivers to ntfs-3g 2010.8.8 external FUSE 28 - Third Generation NTFS Driver using the following PPA - ppa:x3lectric/team-iquik-releases. When first opening a video file in boxee that's on ntfs there's still the same amount of lag. After a few minutes of video, the lag seems to go away and the cpu usage comes down to 10-40%. Every so often though, it begins to stutter again. Also, if I skip ahead/back in the file, it begins to stutter a lot.

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• SQL SERVER – BI Quiz Hint – Performance Tuning Cubes – Hints

  - by pinaldave

  I earlier wrote about SQL BI Quiz over here and here. The details of the quiz is here: Working with huge data is very common when it is about Data Warehousing. It is necessary to create Cubes on the data to make it meaningful and consumable. There are cases when retrieving the data from cube takes lots of the time. Let us assume that your cube is returning you data very quickly. Suddenly on one day it is returning the data very slowly. What are the three things will you to diagnose this. After diagnose what you will do to resolve performance issue. Participate in my question over here I required BI Expert Jason Thomas to help with few hints to blog readers. He is one of the leading SSAS expert and writes a complicated subject in simple words. If queries were executing properly before but now take a long time to return the data, it means that there has been a change in the environment in which it is running. Some possible changes are listed below:-  1) Data factors:- Compare the data size then and now. Increase in data can result in different execution times. Poorly written queries as well as poor design will not start showing issues till the data grows. How to find it out? (Ans : SQL Server profiler and Perfmon Counters can be used for identifying the issues and performance  tuning the MDX queries)  2) Internal Factors:- Is some slow MDX query / multiple mdx queries running at the same time, which was not running when you had tested it before? Is there any locking happening due to proactive caching or processing operations? Are the measure group caches being cleared by processing operations? (Ans : Again, profiler and perfmon counters will help in finding it out. Load testing can be done using AS Performance Workbench (http://asperfwb.codeplex.com/) by running multiple queries at once)  3) External factors:- Is some other application competing for the same resources?  HINT : Read “Identifying and Resolving MDX Query Performance Bottlenecks in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services” (http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/12/16/identifying-and-resolving-mdx-query-performance-bottlenecks-in-sql-server-2005-analysis-services.aspx) Well, these are great tips. Now win big prizes by participate in my question over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Rant on EDI

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2013/06/27/153261.aspxMy post this month is a rant and not something informational. I hope y'all will forgive me.It's been a slow month. I was on vacation with my daughter for the middle part of the month. And the rest of my time has been preparing for a major ERP upgrade, and dealing with a last minute surprise from a customer that has EDI changes.The subject of EDI is my rant. I was tossed into EDI years ago by the same customer. I understood the basic concepts, but not details -- implementation or otherwise. I started with my network including a couple of people with EDI experience. And for one that was all she did. She was my first taste of what seems to be a protected group.I started looking for the standards with a budget in mind, or rather a lack of budget. See whenever someone stone walls you like that it tells me that what they're doing isn't as mystical as they'd like you to believe. Real magic doesn't need to be kept secret. And that is the case with EDI; however, the EDI industry tries to protect it. You cannot even download the standards. They cost thousands of dollars.All this does is ensure that they continue to rack up consulting dollars from their ignorant clients. Well sirs and madams, I put my finger in your eye. I developed my own translator. And while it's not robust enough to resell due to the limited scope of information I could gather. It did save my employer tens if not over a hundred thousand dollars.My public service message, therefore is as follows. Don't be afraid to tackle implementing EDI if you're even a semi-competent developer. You need some experience parsing, familiarity with your business system, and a little patience. Also, pick your VAN well. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the biggest names are the best choice. That was a costly mistake for us that we are stuck with for a couple more years.

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• Did I lost my RAID again?

  - by BarsMonster

  Hi! A little history: 2 years ago I was really excited to find out that mdadm is so powerful so it even can reshape arrays so you can start with a smaller array and the grow it as you need. I've bought 3x1Tb drives and made RAID-5. It was fine for a year. Then I bought 2x more, and tried to reshape to RAID-6 out of 5 drives, and due to some mess with superblock versions, lost all content. Had to rebuild it from scratch, but 2Tb of data were gone. Yesterday I bought 2 more drives, and this time I had everything: properly built array, UPS. I've disabled write intent map, added 2 new drives as a spare and run a command to grow array to 7-disk. It started working, but speed was ridiculously slow, ~100kb/sec. AFter processing first 37Mb at such an amasing speed, one of old HDDs fails. I properly shutdown PC and disconnected failed drive. After bootup it appeared it recreated intent map as it was still in mdadm config, so I removed it from config and rebooted again. Now all I see is that all mdadm processes deadlocks, and don't do anything. PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1937 root 20 0 12992 608 444 D 0 0.1 0:00.00 mdadm 2283 root 20 0 12992 852 704 D 0 0.1 0:00.01 mdadm 2287 root 20 0 0 0 0 D 0 0.0 0:00.01 md0_reshape 2288 root 18 -2 12992 820 676 D 0 0.1 0:00.01 mdadm And all I see in mdstat is: $ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md0 : active raid6 sdb1[1] sdg1[4] sdf1[7] sde1[6] sdd1[0] sdc1[5] 2929683456 blocks super 1.2 level 6, 1024k chunk, algorithm 2 [7/6] [UU_UUUU] [>....................] reshape = 0.0% (37888/976561152) finish=567604147.2min speed=0K/sec I've already tried mdadm 2.6.7, 3.1.4 and 3.2 - nothing helps. Did I lost my data again? Any suggestions how can I make it work? OS is Ubuntu Server 10.04.2... PS. Needless to say that data is unaccessible - I cannot mount /dev/md0 as save the most valuable data. You can see my disappointment - the very specific thing I was excited about failed twice taking 5Tb of my data with it.

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• Increasing deadlocks with NoLock

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  One on my personnel pet issues is with inappropriate use of the NOLOCK hint (and read uncommitted) .  Dont get me wrong, I have used it in exceptional circumstances , but as a general statement it is a bad thing.  Mostly , when NOLOCK, is used the discussion is around a single statement,  “it runs faster with nolock for XYZ reason”,  however ,IMO, this is quite a shorted sighted view.  What about the Transaction ? What about other concurrent users ?  What is good for one statement in isolation , does not mean that it is good for the system as a whole.  I have seen on a number of occasions deadlocks happen, when tasks that would of(and should of) be blocked continue to execute, only for a deadlock to occur at a later data writing (INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE) statement.  Writers will block writers regardless of isolation level. By Way of (fairly contrived ) example , lets generate some dummy tables and populate with some data drop table a go drop table b go Create Table a ( col1 integer ) go insert into a values(1) insert into a values(2) go Create Table b ( col1 integer ) go insert into b values(1) insert into b values(2) go   Now make two connections. In connection one execute set transaction isolation level read committed BEGIN TRAN Select * from a Select * from b delete from a In connection two execute set transaction isolation level read committed BEGIN TRAN Select * from a Select * from b delete from b Right now the ‘select from a’ in connection two is being blocked by the ‘delete from a’ in connection one.  This is ,IMO, quite a healthy and natural thing to be happening , some see this as a ‘slow down’, a drop in performance.  So, lets reach for our ‘NOLOCK’ magic pill.  Cancel the blocked query and ROLLBACK both transactions, then in connection one execute set transaction isolation level read uncommitted BEGIN TRAN Select * from a Select * from b delete from b and then in connection two execute set transaction isolation level read uncommitted BEGIN TRAN Select * from a Select * from b delete from a We have now solved out performance problem , no more blocking.  Lets finish the work required by the transaction, in connection one , execute delete from a Oh, ‘ performance problem’ again , its now being blocked. Still, lets complete the work in connection two…. delete from b DEADLOCK!!  It is important to be clear about the role of the select statements.  They do not participate within the deadlock, but are preventing code executing that would of.   Additionally, without the select readers to block, a deadlock would occur on the deletes with READ COMMITTED. Naturally, other isolation levels will exhibit different behaviour as to where and when they will and wont block,  and I would encourage you to read BOL and satisfy yourself that you really do NEED to NOLOCK.

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• TDD vs. Productivity

  - by Nairou

  In my current project (a game, in C++), I decided that I would use Test Driven Development 100% during development. In terms of code quality, this has been great. My code has never been so well designed or so bug-free. I don't cringe when viewing code I wrote a year ago at the start of the project, and I have gained a much better sense for how to structure things, not only to be more easily testable, but to be simpler to implement and use. However... it has been a year since I started the project. Granted, I can only work on it in my spare time, but TDD is still slowing me down considerably compared to what I'm used to. I read that the slower development speed gets better over time, and I definitely do think up tests a lot more easily than I used to, but I've been at it for a year now and I'm still working at a snail's pace. Each time I think about the next step that needs work, I have to stop every time and think about how I would write a test for it, to allow me to write the actual code. I'll sometimes get stuck for hours, knowing exactly what code I want to write, but not knowing how to break it down finely enough to fully cover it with tests. Other times, I'll quickly think up a dozen tests, and spend an hour writing tests to cover a tiny piece of real code that would have otherwise taken a few minutes to write. Or, after finishing the 50th test to cover a particular entity in the game and all aspects of it's creation and usage, I look at my to-do list and see the next entity to be coded, and cringe in horror at the thought of writing another 50 similar tests to get it implemented. It's gotten to the point that, looking over the progress of the last year, I'm considering abandoning TDD for the sake of "getting the damn project finished". However, giving up the code quality that came with it is not something I'm looking forward to. I'm afraid that if I stop writing tests, then I'll slip out of the habit of making the code so modular and testable. Am I perhaps doing something wrong to still be so slow at this? Are there alternatives that speed up productivity without completely losing the benefits? TAD? Less test coverage? How do other people survive TDD without killing all productivity and motivation?

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• Five things SSIS should drop

  - by jamiet

  There’s a current SQL Server meme going round entitled Five things SQL Server should drop and, whilst no-one tagged me to write anything, I couldn’t resist doing the same for SQL Server Integration Services. So, without further ado, here are five things that I think should be dropped from SSIS.Data source connectionsSeriously, does anyone use these? I know why they’re there. Someone sat in a meeting back in the early part of the last decade and said “Ooo, Reporting Services and Analysis Services have these things called Data Sources. If we used them in Integration Services then we’d have a really cool integration story.” Errr….no.Web Service TaskDitto. If you want to do anything useful against anything but the simplest of SOAP web services steer well clear of this peculiar SSIS additionActiveX Script TaskAnother task that I suspect has never seen the light of day in a SSIS package. It was billed as a way of running upgraded DTS2000 ActiveX scripts in SSIS – sounds good except for one thing. Anytime one of those scripts would try to talk to the DTS object model (which they all do – otherwise what’s the point) then they will error out. This one has always been a real head scratcher.Slow Changing Dimension wizardI suspect I may get some push back on this one but I’m mentioning it anyway. Some people like the SCD wizard; I am not one of those people! Everything that the SCD component does can easily be reproduced using other components and from a performance point of view its much more beneficial to use those alternatives.Multifile Connection ManagerImagining buying a house that came with a set of keys that didn’t open any of the doors. Sounds ridiculous right? How about a SSIS Connection Manager that doesn’t get used by any of the tasks or components. Ah, that’ll be the Multifile Connection Manager then!Comments are of course welcome. Diatribes are assumed :)@Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Is Java viable for serious game development?

  - by tehtros

  Ever since I was a little kid, my dream has been to develop games. Well, now that I am older, more mature, and have some programming experience, I would like to start. However, I would like to turn this into a career. The problem, is that my language of choice is Java. Now, I am not intending this to be a Java vs. C++ question, but rather, is Java an acceptable language for serious game development, instead of lower level languages like C++. By serious, I mean high quality graphics, and being able to play a game with said high quality graphics, without much lag on decent computers. Also, eventually, possible making it to consoles. I have scoured the internet, but there are not very many resources for Java game development, not nearly as many as C++. In fact, most engines are written in C++. Once, I tried to play a made with jMonkeyEngine. The game was terribly slow, to the point where my computer froze. I had no other Java applications running and nothing too resource intensive. Keep in mind, that my computer can play most modern 3D games with ease. So, I am really serious about game development, is Java still a viable choice? I have tried multiple times to learn C++, but I don't really like the language. I don't really know why, but usually, whenever I try to learn, I can never grasp the topics. Also, my most of my friends know Java, and one is even anti-C++, saying that no one knows how to use it right. Then, he goes to say that "there is no right way to use C++, that it can not be used correctly. The nature of the language prevents good code." Also, if I continue to learn and improve Java now, and it turns out that later I am required to learn C++, will making the switch be difficult? So, in short, can Java be taken serious, for serious game development. This includes heavy graphics, fast game play without lag, and possibly, and easy switch to consoles?

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• Design pattern for an ASP.NET project using Entity Framework

  - by MPelletier

  I'm building a website in ASP.NET (Web Forms) on top of an engine with business rules (which basically resides in a separate DLL), connected to a database mapped with Entity Framework (in a 3rd, separate project). I designed the Engine first, which has an Entity Framework context, and then went on to work on the website, which presents various reports. I believe I made a terrible design mistake in that the website has its own context (which sounded normal at first). I present this mockup of the engine and a report page's code behind: Engine (in separate DLL): public Engine { DatabaseEntities _engineContext; public Engine() { // Connection string and procedure managed in DB layer _engineContext = DatabaseEntities.Connect(); } public ChangeSomeEntity(SomeEntity someEntity, int newValue) { //Suppose there's some validation too, non trivial stuff SomeEntity.Value = newValue; _engineContext.SaveChanges(); } } And report: public partial class MyReport : Page { Engine _engine; DatabaseEntities _webpageContext; public MyReport() { _engine = new Engine(); _databaseContext = DatabaseEntities.Connect(); } public void ChangeSomeEntityButton_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e) { SomeEntity someEntity; //Wrong way: //Get the entity from the webpage context someEntity = _webpageContext.SomeEntities.Single(s => s.Id == SomeEntityId); //Send the entity from _webpageContext to the engine _engine.ChangeSomeEntity(someEntity, SomeEntityNewValue); // <- oops, conflict of context //Right(?) way: //Get the entity from the engine context someEntity = _engine.GetSomeEntity(SomeEntityId); //undefined above //Send the entity from the engine's context to the engine _engine.ChangeSomeEntity(someEntity, SomeEntityNewValue); // <- oops, conflict of context } } Because the webpage has its own context, giving the Engine an entity from a different context will cause an error. I happen to know not to do that, to only give the Engine entities from its own context. But this is a very error-prone design. I see the error of my ways now. I just don't know the right path. I'm considering: Creating the connection in the Engine and passing it off to the webpage. Always instantiate an Engine, make its context accessible from a property, sharing it. Possible problems: other conflicts? Slow? Concurrency issues if I want to expand to AJAX? Creating the connection from the webpage and passing it off to the Engine (I believe that's dependency injection?) Only talking through ID's. Creates redundancy, not always practical, sounds archaic. But at the same time, I already recuperate stuff from the page as ID's that I need to fetch anyways. What would be best compromise here for safety, ease-of-use and understanding, stability, and speed?

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• Good Scoop: The PeopleSoft/IBM Backstory

  - by [email protected]

  Sometimes you're searching for something online and you find an unrelated, bonus nugget. Last week I stumbled across an interesting blog post from Chris Heller of a PeopleSoft consulting shop in San Ramon, CA called Grey Sparling. I don't know these guys. But Chris, who apparently used to work on the PeopleTools team, wrote a great article on a pre-acquisition, would-be deal between IBM and PeopleSoft that would have standardized PeopleSoft on IBM technology. The behind-the-scenes perspective is interesting. His commentary on the challenges that the company and PeopleSoft customers would have encountered if the deal had gone through was also interesting: ·         "No common ownership. It's hard enough to get large groups of people to work together when they work for the same company, but with two separate companies it is much, much harder. Even within Oracle, progress on Fusion applications was slow until Thomas Kurian took over Fusion applications in addition to Fusion middleware." ·         "No customer buy-in. PeopleSoft customers weren't asking for a conversion to WebSphere, so the fact that doing that could have helped PeopleSoft stay independent wouldn't have meant much to them, especially since the cost of moving to whatever a "PeopleSoft built on WebSphere" would have been significant." ·         "No executive buy-in. This is related to the previous point, but it's worth calling out separately. If Oracle had walked away and the deal with IBM had gone through, and PeopleSoft customers got put through the wringer as part of WebSphere move, all of the PeopleSoft project teams would be put in the awkward position of explaining to their management why these additional costs and headaches were happening. Essentially they would need to "sell" the partnership internally to their own management team. That's not a fun conversation to have." I'm not surprised that something like this was in the works. But I did find the inside scoop and Heller's perspective on the challenges particularly interesting. Especially the advantages of aligning development of applications and infrastructure development under one roof. Here's a link to the whole blog entry.  

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• How do I calculate the boundary of the game window after transforming the view?

  - by Cypher

  My Camera class handles zoom, rotation, and of course panning. It's invoked through SpriteBatch.Begin, like so many other XNA 2D camera classes. It calculates the view Matrix like so: public Matrix GetViewMatrix() { return Matrix.Identity * Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(-this.Spatial.Position, 0.0f)) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(-( this.viewport.Width / 2 ), -( this.viewport.Height / 2 ), 0.0f) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(this.Rotation) * Matrix.CreateScale(this.Scale, this.Scale, 1.0f) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(this.viewport.Width * 0.5f, this.viewport.Height * 0.5f, 0.0f); } I was having a minor issue with performance, which after doing some profiling, led me to apply a culling feature to my rendering system. It used to, before I implemented the camera's zoom feature, simply grab the camera's boundaries and cull any game objects that did not intersect with the camera. However, after giving the camera the ability to zoom, that no longer works. The reason why is visible in the screenshot below. The navy blue rectangle represents the camera's boundaries when zoomed out all the way (Camera.Scale = 0.5f). So, when zoomed out, game objects are culled before they reach the boundaries of the window. The camera's width and height are determined by the Viewport properties of the same name (maybe this is my mistake? I wasn't expecting the camera to "resize" like this). What I'm trying to calculate is a Rectangle that defines the boundaries of the screen, as indicated by my awesome blue arrows, even after the camera is rotated, scaled, or panned. Here is how I've more recently found out how not to do it: public Rectangle CullingRegion { get { Rectangle region = Rectangle.Empty; Vector2 size = this.Spatial.Size; size *= 1 / this.Scale; Vector2 position = this.Spatial.Position; position = Vector2.Transform(position, this.Inverse); region.X = (int)position.X; region.Y = (int)position.Y; region.Width = (int)size.X; region.Height = (int)size.Y; return region; } } It seems to calculate the right size, but when I render this region, it moves around which will obviously cause problems. It needs to be "static", so to speak. It's also obscenely slow, which causes more of a problem than it solves. What am I missing?

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• Can't install "cedar trail drm driver in DKMS format" on Ubuntu 12.04

  - by Mychal Phillip Segala Sajulga

  Ubuntu 12.04 32bit ... Toshiba NB520 *side-note, this computer is so slow even with a 2gbram; far better than my emachine and neo laptop. I think this is the answer: driver. /var/log/jockey.log 2013-09-19 05:29:36,773 DEBUG: Comparing 3.8.0-29 with 2013-09-19 05:32:45,094 DEBUG: updating <jockey.detection.LocalKernelModulesDriverDB instance at 0x8427a0c> 2013-09-19 05:32:50,861 DEBUG: reading modalias file /lib/modules/3.8.0-29-generic/modules.alias 2013-09-19 05:32:56,240 DEBUG: reading modalias file /usr/share/jockey/modaliases/b43 2013-09-19 05:32:56,265 DEBUG: reading modalias file /usr/share/jockey/modaliases/disable-upstream-nvidia 2013-09-19 05:32:56,474 DEBUG: loading custom handler /usr/share/jockey/handlers/dvb_usb_firmware.py 2013-09-19 05:32:56,791 DEBUG: Instantiated Handler subclass __builtin__.DvbUsbFirmwareHandler from name DvbUsbFirmwareHandler 2013-09-19 05:32:56,792 DEBUG: Firmware for DVB cards not available 2013-09-19 05:32:56,793 DEBUG: loading custom handler /usr/share/jockey/handlers/cdv.py 2013-09-19 05:32:56,927 WARNING: modinfo for module cedarview_gfx failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module cedarview_gfx 2013-09-19 05:32:58,213 DEBUG: linux-lts-raring installed: True linux-lts-saucy installed: False linux minor version: 8 xserver ABI: 13 xserver-lts-quantal: False 2013-09-19 05:32:58,214 DEBUG: Instantiated Handler subclass __builtin__.CdvDriver from name CdvDriver 2013-09-19 05:32:58,214 DEBUG: cdv.available: falling back to default 2013-09-19 05:32:58,685 DEBUG: XorgDriverHandler(cedarview_gfx, cedarview-graphics-drivers, None): Disabling as package video ABI(s) xorg-video-abi-11 not compatible with X.org video ABI xorg-video-abi-13 2013-09-19 05:32:58,686 DEBUG: Intel Cedarview graphics driver not available 2013-09-19 05:32:58,687 DEBUG: loading custom handler /usr/share/jockey/handlers/vmware-client.py 2013-09-19 05:32:58,716 WARNING: modinfo for module vmxnet failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vmxnet 2013-09-19 05:32:58,717 DEBUG: Instantiated Handler subclass __builtin__.VmwareClientHandler from name VmwareClientHandler 2013-09-19 05:32:58,758 DEBUG: VMWare Client Tools availability undetermined, adding to pool 2013-09-19 05:32:58,758 DEBUG: loading custom handler /usr/share/jockey/handlers/nvidia.py 2013-09-19 05:32:58,826 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_304 failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_304 2013-09-19 05:32:58,836 DEBUG: Instantiated Handler subclass __builtin__.NvidiaDriver304 from name NvidiaDriver304 2013-09-19 05:32:58,837 DEBUG: nvidia.available: falling back to default 2013-09-19 05:33:11,682 DEBUG: NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver availability undetermined, adding to pool 2013-09-19 05:33:11,688 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_304_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_304_updates 2013-09-19 05:33:11,696 DEBUG: Instantiated Handler subclass __builtin__.NvidiaDriver304Updates from name NvidiaDriver304Updates 2013-09-19 05:33:11,696 DEBUG: nvidia.available: falling back to default 2013-09-19 05:33:24,326 DEBUG: NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (post-release updates) availability undetermined, adding to pool 2013-09-19 05:33:24,332 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_current_updates failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_current_updates 2013-09-19 05:33:24,339 DEBUG: Instantiated Handler subclass __builtin__.NvidiaDriverCurrentUpdates from name NvidiaDriverCurrentUpdates 2013-09-19 05:33:24,340 DEBUG: nvidia.available: falling back to default 2013-09-19 05:33:24,381 DEBUG: NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (post-release updates) not available 2013-09-19 05:33:24,387 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_experimental_304 failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_experimental_304 2013-09-19 05:33:24,427 DEBUG: Instantiated Handler subclass __builtin__.NvidiaDriverExperimental304 from name NvidiaDriverExperimental304 2013-09-19 05:33:24,427 DEBUG: nvidia.available: falling back to default 2013-09-19 05:33:24,461 DEBUG: NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (**experimental** beta) not available 2013-09-19 05:33:24,467 WARNING: modinfo for module nvidia_current failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module nvidia_current

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• TDD vs. Productivity

  - by Nairou

  In my current project (a game, in C++), I decided that I would use Test Driven Development 100% during development. In terms of code quality, this has been great. My code has never been so well designed or so bug-free. I don't cringe when viewing code I wrote a year ago at the start of the project, and I have gained a much better sense for how to structure things, not only to be more easily testable, but to be simpler to implement and use. However... it has been a year since I started the project. Granted, I can only work on it in my spare time, but TDD is still slowing me down considerably compared to what I'm used to. I read that the slower development speed gets better over time, and I definitely do think up tests a lot more easily than I used to, but I've been at it for a year now and I'm still working at a snail's pace. Each time I think about the next step that needs work, I have to stop every time and think about how I would write a test for it, to allow me to write the actual code. I'll sometimes get stuck for hours, knowing exactly what code I want to write, but not knowing how to break it down finely enough to fully cover it with tests. Other times, I'll quickly think up a dozen tests, and spend an hour writing tests to cover a tiny piece of real code that would have otherwise taken a few minutes to write. Or, after finishing the 50th test to cover a particular entity in the game and all aspects of it's creation and usage, I look at my to-do list and see the next entity to be coded, and cringe in horror at the thought of writing another 50 similar tests to get it implemented. It's gotten to the point that, looking over the progress of the last year, I'm considering abandoning TDD for the sake of "getting the damn project finished". However, giving up the code quality that came with it is not something I'm looking forward to. I'm afraid that if I stop writing tests, then I'll slip out of the habit of making the code so modular and testable. Am I perhaps doing something wrong to still be so slow at this? Are there alternatives that speed up productivity without completely losing the benefits? TAD? Less test coverage? How do other people survive TDD without killing all productivity and motivation?

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• Windows Desktop Virtualization Gets Easier

  - by andrewbrust

  This past Thursday, Microsoft announced that Windows (7) Virtual PC (WVPC) and its XP Mode feature would no longer require hardware assisted virtualization (HAV).  That means any PC running Windows 7 Pro, or higher, can now run this software.  And that’s a great thing because, as I noted in a post almost five month ago, determining whether a given PC you might be planning to buy actually offers HAV can be extremely difficult.  That meant even dedicated, sophisticated PC users, with a budget for new hardware, might be blocked from using this technology.  And that was just plain silly. One of the features offered by WVPC, and utilized heavily by XP Mode, is the concept of virtual applications: apps within a guest VM that can actually run within the host’s desktop environment.  I find this feature so powerful that my February Redmond Review column entertained the notion of a future version of Windows that runs all applications in this manner. The elimination of the HAV requirement for XP Mode and WVPC was just one of many virtualization-related announcements Microsoft made on Thursday.  And, interestingly, most of the others were also desktop-related, rather than server-related.  This is a welcome change from the multi-year period in which Microsoft enhanced its server virtualization lineup (in Hyper-V) and let the desktop platform fester.  Microsoft now seems to understand desktop virtualization is in high-demand and strengthens the Windows franchise.  As I explained in the column, even cloud computing can have a desktop spin if desktop virtualization is part of the equation. One company that knows this well is Citrix, and a closer alliance between Microsoft and Citrix was one of the many announcements from Thursday.  In fact, there’s a whole Web site dedicated to the alliance at http://www.citrixandmicrosoft.com/. I’d love to see virtual applications and entire virtual desktops offered as Azure-branded services.  This could allow me to run, for example, the full Office client on a variety of desktops I might use, and for large organizations it could easily reduce the expense, burden and duration of the deployment cycle for new versions of Office.  Business Intelligence providers, including my own firm, twentysix New York, would find great relief in enabling their customers to run the newest version of Excel, with the latest BI capabilities, instead of having to wait the requisite two to three years it takes for many Fortune 500 customers to upgrade. Microsoft should do more, and faster.  WVPC still does not support 64-bit guest images, even on 64-bit hosts.  That needs to be fixed.  File access from the guest to the host needs to be improved (right now, it’s done through Terminal Services/Remote Desktop file sharing, and it’s slow) and VM load times need to be significantly reduced before virtualized apps can become the norm.  (I suppose the advance of solid state drive technology will help there.) I do think these improvements will come, because Microsoft is focused on the virtual desktop now.  And that’s a smart focus to have.

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• Secret of SQL Trace Duration Column

  - by Dan Guzman

  Why would a trace of long-running queries not show all queries that exceeded the specified duration filter?  We have a server-side SQL Trace that includes RPC:Completed and SQL:BatchCompleted events with a filter on Duration >= 100000.  Nearly all of the queries on this busy OLTP server run in under this 100 millisecond threshold so any that appear in the trace are candidates for root cause analysis and/or performance tuning opportunities. After an application experienced query timeouts, the DBA looked at the trace data to corroborate the problem.  Surprisingly, he found no long-running queries in the trace from the application that experienced the timeouts even though the application’s error log clearly showed detail of the problem (query text, duration, start time, etc.).  The trace did show, however, that there were hundreds of other long-running queries from different applications during the problem timeframe.  We later determined those queries were blocked by a large UPDATE query against a critical table that was inadvertently run during this busy period. So why didn’t the trace include all of the long-running queries?  The reason is because the SQL Trace event duration doesn’t include the time a request was queued while awaiting a worker thread.  Remember that the server was under considerable stress at the time due to the severe blocking episode.  Most of the worker threads were in use by blocked queries and new requests were queued awaiting a worker to free up (a DMV query on the DAC connection will show this queuing: “SELECT scheduler_id, work_queue_count FROM sys.dm_os_schedulers;”).  Technically, those queued requests had not started.  As worker threads became available, queries were dequeued and completed quickly.  These weren’t included in the trace because the duration was under the 100ms duration filter.  The duration reflected the time it took to actually run the query but didn’t include the time queued waiting for a worker thread. The important point here is that duration is not end-to-end response time.  Duration of RPC:Completed and SQL:BatchCompleted events doesn’t include time before a worker thread is assigned nor does it include the time required to return the last result buffer to the client.  In other words, duration only includes time after the worker thread is assigned until the last buffer is filled.  But be aware that duration does include the time need to return intermediate result set buffers back to the client, which is a factor when large query results are returned.  Clients that are slow in consuming results sets can increase the duration value reported by the trace “completed” events.

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• Ubuntu won't display netbook's native resolution

  - by Daniel

  FYI: My Netbook model is HP Mini 210-1004sa, which comes with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150, and has a display 10.1" Active Matrix Colour TFT 1024 x 600. I recently removed Windows 7 Starter from my netbook, and replaced it with Ubuntu 12.10. The problem is the OS doesn't seem to recognise the native display resolution of 1024x600 i.e. the bottom bits of Ubuntu is hidden beneath the screen & the only 2 available resolutions are: the default 1024x768 and 800x600. I've also thought about replacing Ubuntu with Lubuntu or Puppy Linux, as the system does run a bit slow, but I can't, as then I won't be able to access the taskbar and application menu which will be hidden beneath the screen. Only Ubuntu with Unity is currently usable, as the Unity Launcher is visible enough. I was able to define a custom resolution 1024x600 using the Q&A: How set my monitor resolution? but when I set that resolution, there appears a black band at the top of the screen and the desktop area is lowered, with bits of it hidden beneath the screen. I tried leaving it at this new resolution and restarting the system to see if the black band would disappear & the display will fit correctly, but it gets reset to 1024x768 at startup and displays following error: Could not apply the stored configuration for monitors none of the selected modes were compatible with the possible modes: Trying modes for CRTC 63 CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 63: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 63: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 63: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) Trying modes for CRTC 64 CRTC 64: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 64: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1)

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• Are SQL Injection vulnerabilities in a PHP application acceptable if mod_security is enabled?

  - by Austin Smith

  I've been asked to audit a PHP application. No framework, no router, no model. Pure PHP. Few shared functions. HTML, CSS, and JS all mixed together. I've discovered numerous places where SQL injection would be easily possible. There are other problems with the application (XSS vulnerabilities, rampant inline CSS, code copy-pasted everywhere) but this is the biggest. Sometimes they escape inputs, not using a prepared query or even mysql_real_escape_string(), mind you, but using addslashes(). Often, though, their queries look exactly like this (pasted from their code but with columns and variable names changed): $user = mysql_query("select * from profile where profile_id='".$_REQUEST["profile_id"]."'"); The developers in question claimed that they were unable to hack their application. I tried, and found mod_security to be enabled, resulting in HTTP 406 for some obvious SQL injection attacks. I believe there to be sophisticated workarounds for mod_security, but I don't have time to chase them down. They claim that this is a "conceptual" matter and not a "practical" one since the application can't easily be hacked. Their internal auditor agreed that there were problems, but emphasized the conceptual nature of the issues. They also use this conceptual/practical argument to defend against inline CSS and JS, absence of code organization, XSS vulnerabilities, and massive amounts of repetition. My client (rightly so, perhaps) just wants this to go away so they can launch their product. The site works. You can log in, do what you need to do, and things are visibly functional, if slow. SQL Injection would indeed be hard to do, given mod_security. Further, their talk of "conceptual vs. practical" is rhetorically brilliant, considering that my client doesn't understand web application security. I worry that they've succeeded in making me sound like an angry puritan. In many ways, this is a problem of politics, not technology, but I am at a loss. As a developer, I want to tell them to toss the whole project and start over with a new team, but I face a strong defense from the team that built it and a client who really needs to ship their product. Is my position here too harsh? Even if they fix the SQL Injection and XSS problems can I ever endorse the release of an unmaintainable tangle of spaghetti code?

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• Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 15 &ndash; Network Management

  - by MarkPearl

  After reading this section you should be able to Understand network management and the importance of documentation, baseline measurements, policies, and regulations to assess and maintain a network’s health. Manage a network’s performance using SNMP-based network management software, system and event logs, and traffic-shaping techniques Identify the reasons for and elements of an asset managements system Plan and follow regular hardware and software maintenance routines Fundamentals of Network Management Network management refers to the assessment, monitoring, and maintenance of all aspects of a network including checking for hardware faults, ensuring high QoS, maintaining records of network assets, etc. Scope of network management differs depending on the size and requirements of the network. All sub topics of network management share the goals of enhancing the efficiency and performance while preventing costly downtime or loss. Documentation The way documentation is stored may vary, but to adequately manage a network one should at least record the following… Physical topology (types of LAN and WAN topologies – ring, star, hybrid) Access method (does it use Ethernet 802.3, token ring, etc.) Protocols Devices (Switches, routers, etc) Operating Systems Applications Configurations (What version of operating system and config files for serve / client software) Baseline Measurements A baseline is a report of the network’s current state of operation. Baseline measurements might include the utilization rate for your network backbone, number of users logged on per day, etc. Baseline measurements allow you to compare future performance increases or decreases caused by network changes or events with past network performance. Obtaining baseline measurements is the only way to know for certain whether a pattern of usage has changed, or whether a network upgrade has made a difference. There are various tools available for measuring baseline performance on a network. Policies, Procedures, and Regulations Following rules helps limit chaos, confusion, and possibly downtime. The following policies and procedures and regulations make for sound network management. Media installations and management (includes designing physical layout of cable, etc.) Network addressing policies (includes choosing and applying a an addressing scheme) Resource sharing and naming conventions (includes rules for logon ID’s) Security related policies Troubleshooting procedures Backup and disaster recovery procedures In addition to internal policies, a network manager must consider external regulatory rules. Fault and Performance Management After documenting every aspect of your network and following policies and best practices, you are ready to asses you networks status on an on going basis. This process includes both performance management and fault management. Network Management Software To accomplish both fault and performance management, organizations often use enterprise-wide network management software. There various software packages that do this, each collect data from multiple networked devices at regular intervals, in a process called polling. Each managed device runs a network management agent. So as not to affect the performance of a device while collecting information, agents do not demand significant processing resources. The definition of a managed devices and their data are collected in a MIB (Management Information Base). Agents communicate information about managed devices via any of several application layer protocols. On modern networks most agents use SNMP which is part of the TCP/IP suite and typically runs over UDP on port 161. Because of the flexibility and sophisticated network management applications are a challenge to configure and fine-tune. One needs to be careful to only collect relevant information and not cause performance issues (i.e. pinging a device every 5 seconds can be a problem with thousands of devices). MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher) is a simple command line utility that uses SNMP to poll devices and collects data in a log file. MRTG can be used with Windows, UNIX and Linux. System and Event Logs Virtually every condition recognized by an operating system can be recorded. This is typically done using event logs. In Windows there is a GUI event log viewer. Similar information is recorded in UNIX and Linux in a system log. Much of the information collected in event logs and syslog files does not point to a problem, even if it is marked with a warning so it is important to filter your logs appropriately to reduce the noise. Traffic Shaping When a network must handle high volumes of network traffic, users benefit from performance management technique called traffic shaping. Traffic shaping involves manipulating certain characteristics of packets, data streams, or connections to manage the type and amount of traffic traversing a network or interface at any moment. Its goals are to assure timely delivery of the most important traffic while offering the best possible performance for all users. Several types of traffic prioritization exist including prioritizing traffic according to any of the following characteristics… Protocol IP address User group DiffServr VLAN tag in a Data Link layer frame Service or application Caching In addition to traffic shaping, a network or host might use caching to improve performance. Caching is the local storage of frequently needed files that would otherwise be obtained from an external source. By keeping files close to the requester, caching allows the user to access those files quickly. The most common type of caching is Web caching, in which Web pages are stored locally. To an ISP, caching is much more than just convenience. It prevents a significant volume of WAN traffic, thus improving performance and saving money. Asset Management Another key component in managing networks is identifying and tracking its hardware. This is called asset management. The first step to asset management is to take an inventory of each node on the network. You will also want to keep records of every piece of software purchased by your organization. Asset management simplifies maintaining and upgrading the network chiefly because you know what the system includes. In addition, asset management provides network administrators with information about the costs and benefits of certain types of hardware or software. Change Management Networks are always in a stage of flux with various aspects including… Software changes and patches Client Upgrades Shared Application Upgrades NOS Upgrades Hardware and Physical Plant Changes Cabling Upgrades Backbone Upgrades For a detailed explanation on each of these read the textbook (Page 750 – 761)

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• Why I Love Microsoft Development

  - by Brian Lanham

  I've been writing software for a while and recently had an opportunity to broaden my horizons and start developing for iOS. We decided to leverage, as much as possible, our existing skills and use MonoTouch and MonoDevelop by Novell.    For those of you who do not know, Mono is a .NET port originally designed for Linux but adapted for other platforms as well. MonoTouch is a port specifically for building iOS applications using the .NET framework. MonoDroid is a port (in CTP-esque release) for Android.   A MISSING COMPONENT - VISUAL DESIGNER   MonoDevelop lacks one very significant component compared with other tools I am using: NO VISUAL DESIGNER. Instead of using an integrated visual designer, MonoDevelop shells to the Mac OS "Interface Builder".  Since MonoDevelop lets me have a "Visual Studio-esque" feel *and* I get to use C#, AND it's FREE, I am gladly willing to overlook this.  In fact, it's not even a question.  Free?  Sure, I'll take it with no Visual Designer.   In my experiences I've grown from UNIX and DOS to .NET development through many steps. Java/JSP/Servlets; Windows; Web; etc. I've been doing .NET for quite a few years and I guess I just got "comfortable" with the tools.   WHY AM I NOT GETTING IT?   Interface Builder (IB) is amazingly confusing for me. I had the opportunity to speak at the Northern VA Code Camp on 12/11/2010. My presentation was "Getting Started with iOS Development using MonoTouch and C#".    At the visual design part of the presentation, I asked one of the 3 or 4 Mac developers in the room about my confusion with the IB. I don't understand why the "Classes" list includes objects. I don't understand what "File's Owner" is. And, most importantly, WHAT THE HECK IS AN OUTLET AND WHY IS IT NECESSARY?!?!?"   His response to these question (especially Outlets): "They did it wrong."   I'm accustom to a visual designer that creates variables for graphical widgets for me. Not IB. Instead, I have to create "Outlets" manually. I still do not understand why and, the explanation from a seasoned Mac developer is that it's wrong. (He received nods of confirmation from the other Mac devs in the room.)   I LOVE MS DEV   I love development for Microsoft platforms using Microsoft development tools. I love Windows 7. I love Visual Studio 2010. I love SQL Server. Azure, Entity Framework, Active Directory, Office, WCF/WF/WPF, etc. are all designed with integration in mind. They are also all designed with developers in mind.   Steve Ballmer recently ranted "It's the developers!" That's why it is relatively quick to build apps using MS tools. Clearly, MS knows that while we usually enjoy building technology solutions, we are here to make money. And we need tools that accelerate our time to market without compromising the power and quality of our solutions.   So, yeah, I am sucking up I guess. But I love Microsoft Development. Thank you, Microsoft, for providing the plethora of great development tools.    P.S. (but please slow down a bit…I'm having trouble keeping up!)

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-08-28

  - by Bob Rhubart

  You may be tempted by IaaS, but you should PaaS on that or your database cloud journey will be a short one "The better option [to IaaS] is to rationalize the deployment stack so that VMs are needed only for exceptional cases," says B. R. Clouse. "By settling on a standard operating system and patch level, you create an infrastructure that potentially all of your databases can share. Now, the building block will be database instances or possibly schemas within databases. These components are the platforms on which you will deploy workloads, hence this is known as Platform as a Service (PaaS)." 'Shadow IT' can be the cloud's best friend | David Linthicum "I do not advocate that IT give up control and allow business units to adopt any old technology they want," says Infoworld cloud computing blogger David Linthicum. "However, IT needs to face reality: For the past three decades or so, corporate IT has been slow on the uptake around the use of productive new technologies." Do you agree? 9 ways cloud will impact IT employment | ZDNet ZDNet blogger Joe McKendrick condenses information from a recent report on how cloud computing will impact IT jobs. Number one on the list: New categories of jobs arising from cloud computing, which include "private cloud developers and administrators, departmental liaisons, integration specialists, cloud architects, and compliance specialists." Yeah, that's right, cloud architects. For more on cloud architects, including what you need to up your game to thrive in the cloud, check out "The Role of the Cloud Architect" on the OTN ArchBeat Podcast. Decisions, Decisions: The art, science, and politics of technology selection "When the time comes for a solution architect to make the final decision about the technologies, standards, and other elements that are to be incorporated into a particular project, what factors weigh most heavily on that decision? It comes as no surprise that among the architects I contacted, business needs top the list." Managing Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Anand Akela's byline is on this post, but "Dr. Jürgen Fleischer, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Engineering" appears at the end of the post, so it's anybody's guess as to who wrote this thing. But the content includes a complete listing of the Exalogic 2.0.1 Tea Break Snippets series written by a member of the Exalogic team who goes by the name "The Old Toxophilist." So maybe the best thing to do here is ignore the names and focus on the very useful conent. Boost your infrastructure with Coherence into the Cloud | Nino Guarnacci Nino Guarnacci describes a use case that involved managing a variety of data caches that process complex queries and parallel computational operations, in order to maintain the caches in a consistent state on different server instances. Thought for the Day "No one hates software more than software developers." — Jeff Atwood Source: SoftwareQuotes

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• Coordinate based travel through multi-line path over elapsed time

  - by Chris

  I have implemented A* Path finding to decide the course of a sprite through multiple waypoints. I have done this for point A to point B locations but am having trouble with multiple waypoints, because on slower devices when the FPS slows and the sprite travels PAST a waypoint I am lost as to the math to switch directions at the proper place. EDIT: To clarify my path finding code is separate in a game thread, this onUpdate method lives in a sprite like class which happens in the UI thread for sprite updating. To be even more clear the path is only updated when objects block the map, at any given point the current path could change but that should not affect the design of the algorithm if I am not mistaken. I do believe all components involved are well designed and accurate, aside from this piece :- ) Here is the scenario: public void onUpdate(float pSecondsElapsed) { // this could be 4x speed, so on slow devices the travel moved between // frames could be very large. What happens with my original algorithm // is it will start actually doing circles around the next waypoint.. pSecondsElapsed *= SomeSpeedModificationValue; final int spriteCurrentX = this.getX(); final int spriteCurrentY = this.getY(); // getCoords contains a large array of the coordinates to each waypoint. // A waypoint is a destination on the map, defined by tile column/row. The // path finder converts these waypoints to X,Y coords. // // I.E: // Given a set of waypoints of 0,0 to 12,23 to 23, 0 on a 23x23 tile map, each tile // being 32x32 pixels. This would translate in the path finder to this: // -> 0,0 to 12,23 // Coord : x=16 y=16 // Coord : x=16 y=48 // Coord : x=16 y=80 // ... // Coord : x=336 y=688 // Coord : x=336 y=720 // Coord : x=368 y=720 // // -> 12,23 to 23,0 -NOTE This direction change gives me trouble specifically // Coord : x=400 y=752 // Coord : x=400 y=720 // Coord : x=400 y=688 // ... // Coord : x=688 y=16 // Coord : x=688 y=0 // Coord : x=720 y=0 // // The current update index, the index specifies the coordinate that you see above // I.E. final int[] coords = getCoords( 2 ); -> x=16 y=80 final int[] coords = getCoords( ... ); // now I have the coords, how do I detect where to set the position? The tricky part // for me is when a direction changes, how do I calculate based on the elapsed time // how far to go up the new direction... I just can't wrap my head around this. this.setPosition(newX, newY); }

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• Ubuntu Sluggish and Graphics Problem after Nvidia Driver Update

  - by iam

  I just recently started using Ubuntu (12.04) since a few weeks ago and noticed that the interface is very slow and sluggish: On Dash, I have to type the entire app name and wait a few seconds before it shows up in the search box, and a bit later before it displays search result Opening new files or applications takes also quite long and awkward Dragging icons or moving app windows around is not very spontaneous too: I have to take extra attention in moving the mouse otherwise Ubuntu would not do a correct movement or might ends up doing something incorrect instead e.g. opening the windows to full screen options or move the file to different folders, which is frustrating My PC is a few years old already (1.7 GB RAM) so this could be a reason too but when I checked in System Monitor it's hardly ever consuming much memory. Plus web-surfing on Firefox is actually lightning fast (much more than Windows), so I suspect there might be something wrong with the graphics driver (mine is GeForce 7050). I checked around System Settings and found an option to update the Nvidia driver. So I tried it and restarted, as instructed. Now, I got into a big problem upon restart... as the login-screen windows (where I have to type in the password) would take several attempts to display and finally did not manage to (it'd freeze for several seconds before there's any movement again). The background screen also kept reloading several times too and at some point the screen turned black with pixelated color strips running on the bottom 1/3 of the screen, and after a long while the background screen would come up again. Eventually I'd manage to be able to access the desktop but the launcher, top menu bar and app windows border would not disappear. I searched around and found many other people have this similar problem after updating Nvidia driver too, and on some threads the suggestion is to use "killall -u $USER" in command line (it's the only thing among various online suggestions I could do, as at that point I could not access Terminal without the launcher - Ctrl-Alt-T doesn't work for me). So I did that and was able to access the desktop correctly again with launchee/menu by creating a new account. But I would still have the same problem if logging into my original account. So I just finally tried upgrading to 12.10 and now can access my original account with fully-functional desktop - the launcher, menu and windows border are all back now. However, the problem with sluggishness still remains. And now I get scared of ever having to update the Nvidia driver again! I wonder if anyone knows what's the reason that updating the Nvidia driver is causing this problem and is there a way I can update it safely in the future? I'm still not sure how to solve the problem with the sluggishness too and not sure where else to look to find a solution.

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