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• How should I land my next consulting gig? [closed]

  - by MrOodles

  For the last couple of years, I've been working on speculative projects, expanding my skillset with side work, and paying the bills while having a blast consulting for startups. However, for a number of personal reasons, I need to spend the next 6-9 months maximizing my cash income. I want to put this into effect starting in early August. So that means I have one month to put the necessary client list/portfolio/resume together to start making this happen. As a programmer, I am very proficient in building Django web apps. I can write the necessary SQL, python, javascript, and css to build every part of a Django app, and then do the system administration necessary to deploy on AWS using EC2. I can also rig up a CDN to work seemlessly with the app using S3 and Cloudfront. I have built GIS applications using GeoDjango and PostGIS, and I have constructed social video apps by implementing Encoding.com as a service to prepare raw video files for consumption on the web. I am also moderately proficient in programming PHP, Java, and C#. I have built web apps in PHP, and desktop apps in Java and C#. I have dabbled with Android applications and iPhone apps, but nothing I would show off. I have experience doing SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing. Many of my clients have needed their apps promoted after they were built, and I was always happy to oblige when I could. I have also worked with biometrics technology including fingerprints for government contractors. This was as much a business analyst role as it was a programming gig, as I had to help answer RFPs, make checklists, and work around reems and reems of regulations to build applications that met very large bureaucratic requirements. I only have two real requirements for my next gig(s): 1) Work remotely. I live in North East Ohio, and I don't plan on leaving, but I wouldn't mind traveling one or two weeks out of every month to service clients who need on-site help. 2) $60.00hr-$∞ USD contracting rate. So what should I do for the next 30 days to achieve this? Should I target some large company and learn the requisite buzzwords to impress them? Should I learn some new language or technology? Polish some skill that I already have? Should I build something using my current skillset, or with some new technology? Should I put a website for my consultancy together to market myself? Should I do that using latest technology x, y, and z? Or should I just slap something up on Tumblr? I'm willing to do anything (moral) over the next 4 weeks to put myself into a position to maximize my income, and I'm open to all and every idea Programmers users may have. Let me hear them.

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• 5 ways to stop code thrashing&hellip;

  - by MarkPearl

  A few days ago I was programming on a personal project and hit a roadblock. I was applying the MVVM pattern and for some reason my view model was not updating the view when the state changed??? I had applied this pattern many times before and had never had this problem. It just didn’t make sense. So what did I do… I did what anyone would have done in my situation and looked to pass the blame to someone or something else. I tried to blame one of the inherited base classes, but it looked fine, then to Visual Studio, but it seemed to be fine and eventually to any random segment of code I came across. My elementary problem had now mushroomed into one that had lost any logical basis and I was in thrashing mode! So what to do when you begin to thrash? 1) Do a general code cleanup – Now there is a difference between cleaning code and changing code . When you thrash you change code and you want to avoid this. What you really want to do is things like rename variables to have better meaning and go over your comments. 2) Do a proof of concept – if cleaning code doesn’t help. The  you want to isolate the problem and identify the key concepts. When you isolate code you ideally want it to be in a totally separate project with as little complexity as possible. Make the building blocks and try and replicate the functionality that you are getting in your current application. 3) Phone a friend – I have found speaking to someone else about the problem generally helps me solve any thrashing issues I am having. Usually they don’t even have to say anything to solve the problem, just you talking them through the problem helps you get clarity of mind. 4) Let the dust settle – Sometimes time is the best solution. I have had a few problems that no matter who I discussed them with and no matter how much code cleaning I had done I just couldn’t seem to fix it. My brain just seemed to be going in circles. A good nights rest has always helped and often just the break away from the problem has helped me find a solution. 5) Stack overflow it – So similar to phone a friend. I am really surprised to see what a melting pot stack overflow has been and what a help it has been in solving technology specific problems. Just be considerate to those using the site and explain clearly exactly what problem you are having and the technologies you are using or else you will probably not get any useful help…

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• Using the @ in SQL Azure Connections

  - by BuckWoody

  The other day I was working with a client on an application they were changing to a hybrid architecture – some data on-premise and other data in SQL Azure and Windows Azure Blob storage. I had them make a couple of corrections - the first was that all communications to SQL Azure need to be encrypted. It’s a simple addition to the connection string, depending on the library you use. Which brought up another interesting point. They had been using something that looked like this, using the .NET provider: Server=tcp:[serverName].database.windows.net;Database=myDataBase; User ID=LoginName;Password=myPassword; Trusted_Connection=False;Encrypt=True; This includes most of the formatting needed for SQL Azure. It specifies TCP as the transport mechanism, the database name is included, Trusted_Connection is off, and encryption is on. But it needed one more change: Server=tcp:[serverName].database.windows.net;Database=myDataBase; User ID=[LoginName]@[serverName];Password=myPassword; Trusted_Connection=False;Encrypt=True; Notice the difference? It’s the User ID parameter. It includes the @ symbol and the name of the server – not the whole DNS name, just the server name itself. The developers were a bit surprised, since it had been working with the first format that just used the user name. Why did both work, and why is one better than the other? It has to do with the connection library you use. For most libraries, the user name is enough. But for some libraries (subject to change so I don’t list them here) the server name parameter isn’t sent in the way the load balancer understands, so you need to include the server name right in the login, so the system can parse it correctly. Keep in mind, the string limit for that is 128 characters – so take the @ symbol and the server name into consideration for user names. The user connection info is detailed here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee336268.aspx Upshot? Include the @servername on your connection string just to be safe. And plan for that extra space…  

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• Expanding Influence and Community

  - by Johnm

  When I was just nine years of age my father introduced me to the computer. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (aka: CoCo). He shared with me the nuances of writing BASIC and it wasn't long before I was in the back seat of the school bus scribbling, on a pad of paper, the code I would later type. My father demonstrated that while my friends were playing their Atari 2600 consoles, I had the unique opportunity to create my own games on the Coco. One of which provided a great friend of mine hours and hours of hilarity and entertainment. It wasn't long before my father was inviting me to tag along as he drove to the local high school where a gathering of fellow Coco enthusiasts assembled. In these meetings all in attendance would chat about their latest challenges and solutions. They would swap the labors of their sleepless nights eagerly gazing into their green and black screens. Friendships were built and business partners were developed. While these experiences at the time in my pre-teen mind were chalked up to simply sharing time with my father, it had a tremendous impact on me later in life. This past weekend I attended the Louisville SQL Saturday (#45). It was great to see that there were some who brought along their children. It is encouraging to see fresh faces in the crowd at our  monthly IndyPASS meetings. Each time I see the youthful eyes peering from the audience while the finer details of SQL Server is presented, I cannot help but to be transported back to the experiences that I enjoyed in those Coco days. It is exciting to think of how these experiences are impacting their lives and stimulating their minds. Some of these children have actually approached me asking questions about what was presented or simply bragging about their latest discovery in programming. One of the topics that arose in the "Women in Technology" session in Louisville, which was masterfully facilitated by Kathi Kellenberger, was exploring how we could ignite the spark of interest in databases among the youth. It was awesome to hear that there were some that volunteer their time to share their experiences with students. It made me wonder what user groups could achieve if we were to consider expanding our influence and community beyond our immediate peers to include those who are simply enjoying their time with their father or mother.

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• Help identify the pattern for reacting on updates

  - by Mike

  There's an entity that gets updated from external sources. Update events are at random intervals. And the entity has to be processed once updated. Multiple updates may be multiplexed. In other words there's a need for the most current state of entity to be processed. There's a point of no-return during processing where the current state (and the state is consistent i.e. no partial update is made) of entity is saved somewhere else and processing goes on independently of any arriving updates. Every consequent set of updates has to trigger processing i.e. system should not forget about updates. And for each entity there should be no more than one running processing (before the point of no-return) i.e. the entity state should not be processed more than once. So what I'm looking for is a pattern to cancel current processing before the point of no return or abandon processing results if an update arrives. The main challenge is to minimize race conditions and maintain integrity. The entity sits mainly in database with some files on disk. And the system is in .NET with web-services and message queues. What comes to my mind is a database queue-like table. An arriving update inserts row in that table and the processing is launched. The processing gathers necessary data before the point of no-return and once it reaches this barrier it looks into the queue table and checks whether there're more recent updates for the entity. If there are new updates the processing simply shuts down and its data is discarded. Otherwise the processing data is persisted and it goes beyond the point of no-return. Though it looks like a solution to me it is not quite elegant and I believe this scenario may be supported by some sort of middleware. If I would use message queues for this then there's a need to access the queue API in the point of no-return to check for the existence of new messages. And this approach also lacks elegance. Is there a name for this pattern and an existing solution?

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• How to apply effects that occur (or change) over time to characters in a game?

  - by Joshua Harris

  So assume that I have a system that applies Effects to Characters like so: public class Character { private Collection<Effect> _effects; public void AddEffect (Effect e) { e.ApplyTo(this); _effects.Add(e); } public void RemoveEffect (Effect e) { e.RemoveFrom(this); _effects.Remove(e); } } public interface Effect { public void ApplyTo (Character character); public void RemoveFrom (Character character); } Example Effect: Armor Buff for 5 seconds. void someFunction() { // Do Stuff ... Timer armorTimer = new Timer(5 seconds); ArmorBuff armorbuff = new ArmorBuff(); character.AddEffect(armorBuff); armorTimer.Start(); // Do more stuff ... } // Some where else in code public void ArmorTimer_Complete() { character.RemoveEffect(armorBuff); } public class ArmorBuff implements Effect { public void applyTo(Character character) { character.changeArmor(20); } public void removeFrom(Character character) { character.changeArmor(-20); } } Ok, so this example would buff the Characters armor for 5 seconds. Easy to get working. But what about effects that change over the duration of the effect being applied. Two examples come to mind: Damage Over Time: 200 damage every second for 3 seconds. I could mimic this by applying an Effect that lasts for 1 second and has a counter set to 3, then when it is removed it could deal 200 damage, clone itself, decrement the counter of the clone, and apply the clone to the character. If it repeats this until the counter is 0, then you got a damage over time ability. I'm not a huge fan of this approach, but it does describe the behavior exactly. Degenerating Speed Boost: Gain a speed boost that degrades over 3 seconds until you return to your normal speed. This is a bit harder. I can basically do the same thing as above except having timers set to some portion of a second, such that they occur fast enough to give the appearance of degenerating smoothly over time (even though they are really just stepping down incrementally). I feel like you could get away with only 12 steps over a second (maybe less, I would have to test it and see), but this doesn't seem very elegant to me. The only other way to implement this effect would be to change the system so that the Character checks the _effects collection for effects that alter any of the properties any time that they are being used. I could handle this in functions like getCurrentSpeed() and getCurrentArmor(), but you can imagine how much of a hassle it would be to have that kind of overhead every time you want to do a calculation with movement speed (which would be every time you move your character). Is there a better way to deal with these kinds of effects or events?

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• Documenting sp_ssiscatalog

  - by jamiet

  What is the best way to document an API? Moreover, what is the best way to document a T-SQL API? Before I try to answer those questions I should explain what I mean by “a T-SQL API”. I think of an API as being a collection of well-defined, known, code modules that provide some notion of a service to whomever uses it; in T-SQL terms I tend to think of a collection of stored procedures and functions as a form of API. Its a loose definition, I admit, and in SQL Server circles we don’t tend to think of stored procedures collectively as an API but if you think about it that’s exactly what they are. The question of how to document a T-SQL API came to my mind as I worked on sp_ssiscatalog. How could I make it easy for people to learn about the capabilities of sp_ssiscatalog without forcing them to dig through the code and find out for themselves? My opening gambit was to write documentation pages on the wiki at http://ssisreportingpack.codeplex.com. That’s kinda useful but it does suffer the disadvantage that someone using sp_ssiscatalog needs to go visit a webpage to read it – I want the documentation to be available wherever the user is using sp_ssiscatalog. Moreover, maintaining the wiki is a real PITA. Intellisense works up to a point, I guess: but that only shows whatever SQL Server knows about the various parameters, which isn’t all that much! I wanted a better way for my API users to learn about its capabilities and so I hit upon the idea of simply using PRINT statements within the code itself to inform the user what options are available; hence I added such PRINT statements in the latest check-in. Now when you execute (for example): EXEC sp_ssiscatalog @operation_type='execs' you can hit F6 a few times to view the messages pane and you shall see something like this: Notice that I’m returning information about all the parameters that can be used to affect the results that just got returned. I really do think this will be very useful to anyone using sp_ssiscatalog; I myself am always forgetting what the parameters are and I wrote the damn thing so I can’t really expect anyone else to remember them. I have not yet made available a release that has these changes in it but when I do I’ll blog about it right here. At the time of writing the latest available release of sp_ssiscatalog is DB v1.0.1.0 but if you want to the latest and greatest simply download it straight from source. Feedback is welcome as always. @Jamiet

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• Our own Daily WTF

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dvroegop/archive/2014/08/20/our-own-daily-wtf.aspxIf you're a developer, you've probably heard of the website the DailyWTF. If you haven't, head on over to http://www.thedailywtf.com and read. And laugh. I'll wait. Read it? Good. If you're a bit like me probably you've been wondering how on earth some people ever get hired as a software engineer. Most of the stories there seem to weird to be true: no developer would write software like that right? And then you run into a little nugget of code one of your co-workers wrote. And then you realize: "Hey, it happens everywhere!" Look at this piece of art I found in our codebase recently: public static decimal ToDecimal(this string input) {     System.Globalization.CultureInfo cultureInfo = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InstalledUICulture;     var numberFormatInfo = (System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo)cultureInfo.NumberFormat.Clone();     int dotIndex = input.IndexOf(".");     int commaIndex = input.IndexOf(",");     if (dotIndex > commaIndex)         numberFormatInfo.NumberDecimalSeparator = ".";     else if (commaIndex > dotIndex)         numberFormatInfo.NumberDecimalSeparator = ",";     decimal result;     if (decimal.TryParse(input, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.Float, numberFormatInfo, out result))         return result;     else         throw new Exception(string.Format("Invalid input for decimal parsing: {0}. Decimal separator: {1}.", input, numberFormatInfo.NumberDecimalSeparator)); }  Me and a collegue have been looking long and hard at this and what we concluded was the following: Apparently, we don't trust our users to be able to correctly set the culture in Windows. Users aren't able to determine if they should tell Windows to use a decimal point or a comma to display numbers. So what we've done here is make sure that whatever the user enters, we'll translate that into whatever the user WANTS to enter instead of what he actually did. So if you set your locale to US, since you're a US citizen, but you want to enter the number 12.34 in the Dutch style (because, you know, the Dutch are way cooler with numbers) so you enter 12,34 we will understand this and respect your wishes! Of course, if you change your mind and in the next input field you decide to use the decimal dot again, that's fine with us as well. We will do the hard work. Now, I am all for smart software. Software that can handle all sorts of input the user can think of. But this feels a little uhm, I don't know.. wrong.. Or am I too old fashioned?

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• How to set the initial component focus

  - by frank.nimphius

  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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} In ADF Faces, you use the af:document tag's initialFocusId to define the initial component focus. For this, specify the id property value of the component that you want to put the initial focus on. Identifiers are relative to the component, and must account for NamingContainers. You can use a single colon to start the search from the root, or multiple colons to move up through the NamingContainers - "::" will pop out of the component's naming container and begin the search from there, ":::" will pop out of two naming containers and begin the search from there. Alternatively you can add the naming container IDs as a prefix to the component Id, e.g. nc1:nc2:comp1. http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17904_01/apirefs.1111/e12419/tagdoc/af_document.html To set the initial focus to a component located in a page fragment that is exposed through an ADF region, keep in mind that ADF Faces regions - af:region - is a naming container too. To address an input text field with the id "it1" in an ADF region exposed by an af:region tag with the id r1, you use the following reference in af:document: <af:document id="d1" initialFocusId="r1:0:it1"> Note the "0" index in the client Id. Also, make sure the input text component has its clientComponent property set to true as otherwise no client component exist to put focus on.

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• Desparately Need Help: After a mishap, a folder shows 0 files in it

  - by bobby

  I'm hoping some of you guys may be able to shed some light on this scenario: I had a odt document on which I was working from one of many files in a folder among many on an internal hard-drive. Some kind of glitch occured and the document crashed (this could have been some kind of power charge whilst another hard drive was being unmounted). As I looked into the folders surrounding the folder in which my odt document was stored, they start to show 0 files in them. I immediately switched off the PC and then re-started. Upon the re-start, the folders would show the 1,000s of files I've stored in them and then within 5 minutes, as I started to back them up, freeze, cut-off the process of transfer. When I tried to open anything on the internal hard-drive, be it an avi film, an mp3, a cbr or a word doc, they all showed blank or would work. Some folders had vastly less files showing. Eventually, things calmed down. I closed the PC, checked that the connections were in firmly, gave it a vacuum and restarted the PC. All the files eventually showed up and I started to back them up (which I'd brought a hard drive for anyway but been distracted and not done). All folders show except the one which contained the document I was working on at the time of the trouble. Strangely, it was one that should itself full on several occasions on restarts. It shows zero files now. Properties shows zero files and zero space taken by it. Yet when I drop a file into this folder by pasting it in, it disappears too. Opening the folder, there is nothing there. But if I paste that document again, the PC asks would I like to replace the existing file with the same name (that I can't see), when I click yes, the file appears. When I exit, the folder shows the 0 files in the folder. Going back into the folder, it has disappeared again. I'm hoping that someone can help give me tips to recover the files in the folder, it would be greatly, greatly appreciated. All other films, music, comics, documents show and are fine!

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• The Problem Should Define the Process, Not the Tool

  - by thatjeffsmith

  All around awesome tool, but not the only gadget in your toolbox.I’m stepping down from my SQL Developer pulpit today and standing up on my philosophical soap box. I’m frequently asked to help folks transition from one set of database tools over to Oracle SQL Developer, which I’m MORE than happy to do. But, I’m not looking to simply change the way people interact with Oracle database. What I care about is your productivity. Is there a faster, more efficient way for you to connect the dots, get from A to B, or just get home to your kids or to the pub for happy hour? If you have defined a business process around a specific tool, what happens when that tool ‘goes away?’ Does the business stop? No, you feel immediate pain until you are able to re-implement the process using another mechanism. Where I get confused, or even frustrated, is when someone asks me to redesign our tool to match their problem. Tools are just tools. Saying you ‘can’t load your data anymore because XYZ’ isn’t valid when you could easily do that same task via SQL*Loader, Create Table As Selects, or 9 other different mechanisms. Sometimes changes brings opportunity for improvement in the process. Don’t be afraid to step back and re-evaluate a problem with a fresh set of eyes. Just trying to replicate your process in another tool exactly as it was done in the ‘old tool’ doesn’t always make sense. Quick sidebar: scheduling a Windows program to kick off thousands if not millions of table inserts from Excel versus using a ‘proper’ server process using SQL*Loader and or external tables means sacrificing scalability and reliability for convenience. Don’t let old habits blind you to new solutions and possibilities. Of couse I’m not going to sit here and say that our tools aren’t deficient in some areas or can’t be improved upon. But I bet if we work together we can find something that’s not only better for the business, but is also better for you. What do you ‘miss’ since you’ve started using SQL Developer as your primary Oracle database tools? I’d love to start a thread here and share ideas on how we can better serve you and your organizations needs. The end solution might not look exactly what you have in mind starting out, but I had no idea I’d be a Product Manager when I started college either What can you no longer ‘do’ since you picked up SQL Developer? What hurts more than it should? What keeps you from being great versus just good?

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• Quickly Copy Movie Files to Individually Named Folders

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Some HTPC media manager applications require movie files to be in stored in separate folders to properly store information such as cover art images and other metadata. Here we look at copying movie files to individual folders. If you already have a large movie collection stored in a single folder, we’ll show you how to quickly move those files into their own individually named folders. File2Folder FIle2folder is a handy portable app that automatically creates and moves movie files into a folder of the same filename. There is no installation needed. Simply download and run the .exe file (link below). Enter the current movie directory, or browse for the folder. File2folder now supports both local and network shares. When you are ready to create the folders and move the files, click Move! You’ll see the move progress displayed in the window. When the process is finished, you’ll have all your movie file in individual folders.   Change your mind? Just click the Undo! button…   …and the move and folder creation process will be undone. If you would like to have the folder monitored for new files, click the Start button. File2folder will process any new files it discovers every 180 seconds. To turn it off, click Stop. This simple little program is a huge timesaver for those looking to organize movie collections for their HTPC. We should also note that this will work with any files, not just videos. Download file2folder Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Hack: Turn Off Debug Mode in VMWare Workstation 6 BetaAdd Images and Metadata to Windows 7 Media Center Movie LibraryAdd Folders to the Movie Library in Windows 7 Media CenterAutomatically Mount and View ISO files in Windows 7 Media CenterMove the Public Folder in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician

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• Reasons to Use a VM For Development

  - by George Stocker

  Background: I work at a start-up company, where one team uses Virtual Machines to connect to a remote server to do their development, and another team (the team I'm on) uses local IIS/SQL Server 2005/Visual Studio installations to conduct work. Team VM is located about 1000 miles from Team Non-VM, and the servers the VMs run off of are located near Team VM (Latency, for those that are wondering, is about 50ms). A person high in the company is pushing for Team Non-VM to use virtual machines for programming, development, and testing. The latter point we agree on -- we want Virtual Machines to test configurations and various aspects of the web application in a 'clean' state. The Problem: What we don't agree on is having developers using RDP to connect to a desktop remotely that contains Visual Studio, SQL Server, and IIS to do the same development we could do locally on our laptops. I've tried the VM set-up, and besides the color issue, there is a latency issue that is rather noticeable, not to mention that since we're a start-up, a good number of employees work from home on occasion with our work laptops, and this move would cut off the laptops. They'd be turned in. Reasons to Use Remote VMs for Development (Not Testing!): Here are the stated reasons that this person wants us to use VMs: They work for TeamVM. They keep the source code "safe". If we want to work from home, we could just use our home PCs. Licenses (I don't know what the argument is, only that it's been used). Reasons not to use Remote VMs for Development: Here are the stated reasons why we don't want to use VMs: We like working from home. We get a lot done on our own time. We're not going to use our Home PCs to do work related stuff. The Latency is noticeable. Support for the VMs (if they go down, or if we need a new VM) takes a while. We don't have administrative privileges on the VM, and are unable to change settings as needed. What I'm looking for from the community is this: What reasons would you give for not using VMs for development? Keep in mind these are remote VMs -- this isn't a VM running on a local desktop. It's using the laptop (or a desktop) as a thin client for a remote VM. Also, on the other side of the coin: Is there something we're missing that makes VMs more palatable for development? Edit: I think 'safe' is used in term of corporate espionage, or more correctly if the Laptop gets stolen, the person who stole would have access to our source code. The former (as we've pointed out, is always going to be a possibility -- companies stop that with litigation, there isn't a technical solution (so far as I can see)). The latter point is ( though I don't know its usefulness in a corporate scenario) mitigated by Truecrypt'ing the entire volume.

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• reference list for non-IT driven algorithmic patterns

  - by Quicker

  I am looking for a reference list for non-IT driven algorithmic patterns (which still can be helped with IT implementations of IT). An Example List would be: name; short desc; reference Travelling Salesman; find the shortest possible route on a multiple target path; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem Ressource Disposition (aka Regulation); Distribute a limited/exceeding input on a given number output receivers based on distribution rules; http://database-programmer.blogspot.de/2010/12/critical-analysis-of-algorithm-sproc.html If there is no such list, but you instantly think of something specific, please 'put it on the desk'. Maybe I can compile something out of the input I get here (actually I am very frustrated as I did not find any such list via research by myself). Details on Scoping: I found it very hard to formulate what I want in a way everything is out that I do not need (which may be the issue why I did not find anything at google). There is a database centric definition for what I am looking for in the section 'Processes' of the second example link. That somehow fits, but the database focus sort of drifts away from the pattern thinking, which I have in mind. So here are my own thoughts around what's in and what's out: I am NOT looking for a foundational algo ref list, which is implemented as basis for any programming language. Eg. the php reference describes substr and strlen. That implements algos, but is not what I am looking for. the problem the algo does address would even exist, if there were no computers (or other IT components) the main focus of the algo is NOT to help other algo's chances are high, that there are implementions of the solution or any workaround without any IT support out there in the world however the algo could be benefitialy implemented/fully supported by a software application = means: the problem of the algo has to be addressed anyway, but running an algo implementation with software automates the process (that is why I posted it on stackoverflow and not somewhere else) typically such algo implementations have more than one input field value and more than one output field value - which implies it could not be implemented as simple function (which is fixed to produce not more than one output value) in a normalized data model often times such algo implementation outputs span accross multiple rows (sometimes multiple tables), whereby the number of output rows depends on the input paraters and rows in the table(s) at start time - which implies that any algo implementation/procedure must interact with a database (read and/or write) I am mainly looking for patterns, not for specific implementations. Example: The Travelling Salesman assumes any coordinates, however it does not say: You need a table targets with fields x and y. - however sometimes descriptions are focussed on examples with specific implementations very much - no worries, as long as the pattern gets clear

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• Ubuntu 12.4.1 failing in vm both Vbox and Vmware on new HP Envy 4t-1000

  - by Chas

  Brand new to Linux, getting frustrated trying to get an environment up with Ubuntu. My primary goal is to learn Linux and Apache/PHP development. I need to keep my Windows OS as main on my machine for work, so i'm trying to virtualize Ubuntu 12.4.1 without luck (many attempts). I have a new HP Envy 4t-1000 with 16gb ram, and 32 gb ssd caching with 500gb spindle hard drive. Graphics card is an Intel HD 3000 with AMD Radeon 7670M. With installing Ubuntu desktop in VBox, I'm getting this result: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=51939 With VMware workstation 7 (patched), I complete the install of Ubuntu, it reboots, purple desktop briefly flashes then it drops to command line. I bought a beginning Ubuntu book, and it recommends trying to manually configure graphics if this happens. So I tried doing a safe boot holding shift - I get to the first screen (GRUB) loads fine, and I choose recovery mode. After choosing the recovery mode, I get the recovery mode options, and can arrow down to what the book suggests 'Run in fail safe graphic mode.' Once I select this option, I get a black screen with a large white dialogue box, at the top it says "The system is running in low-graphics mode. Your screen, graphics card, and input device settings could not be detected correctly. You will need to configure these yourself." Then there is an ok button way down at the bottom. When I select 'ok' I get a menu for a few options, book recommended 'reconfigure graphics.' When I try this, I get a menu of two options: 1) "Use generic (default) configuration or 2) use backup. I've tried both options several times, hitting ok just refreshes screen and nothing more. Rebooting at this point just goes back to command line as before. I don't know what to do at this point, I've spent too many hours this weekend trying in both VBox and VMware to get Ubuntu going. Isn't there like a very basic graphic display or something I can use to at least get into the desktop? I explored the GRUB some more, and tried to look at the startup and xserver logs - both are blank. No help there I guess? When I try to choose 'Edit the configuration file, then 'ok' screen just refreshes on same menu options, nothing happens. thx for any advice. I really need to focus on learning Linux, Apache and PHP, so perhaps Ubuntu just won't work on my hardware? Any other suggestions? I will need to virtualize - THANKS for any help/advice.

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• June 2013 release of SSDT contains a minor bug that you should be aware of

  - by jamiet

  I have discovered what seems, to me, like a bug in the June 2013 release of SSDT and given the problems that it created yesterday on my current gig I thought it prudent to write this blog post to inform people of it. I’ve built a very simple SSDT project to reproduce the problem that has just two tables, [Table1] and [Table2], and also a procedure [Procedure1]: The two tables have exactly the same definition, both a have a single column called [Id] of type integer. CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Table1] (     [Id] INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY ) My stored procedure simply joins the two together, orders them by the column used in the join predicate, and returns the results: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Procedure1] AS     SELECT t1.*     FROM    Table1 t1     INNER JOIN Table2 t2         ON    t1.Id = t2.Id     ORDER BY Id Now if I create those three objects manually and then execute the stored procedure, it works fine: So we know that the code works. Unfortunately, SSDT thinks that there is an error here: The text of that error is: Procedure: [dbo].[Procedure1] contains an unresolved reference to an object. Either the object does not exist or the reference is ambiguous because it could refer to any of the following objects: [dbo].[Table1].[Id] or [dbo].[Table2].[Id]. Its complaining that the [Id] field in the ORDER BY clause is ambiguous. Now you may well be thinking at this point “OK, just stick a table alias into the ORDER BY predicate and everything will be fine!” Well that’s true, but there’s a bigger problem here. One of the developers at my current client installed this drop of SSDT and all of a sudden all the builds started failing on his machine – he had errors left right and centre because, as it transpires, we have a fair bit of code that exhibits this scenario.  Worse, previous installations of SSDT do not flag this code as erroneous and therein lies the rub. We immediately had a mass panic where we had to run around the department to our developers (of which there are many) ensuring that none of them should upgrade their SSDT installation if they wanted to carry on being productive for the rest of the day. Also bear in mind that as soon as a new drop of SSDT comes out then the previous version is instantly unavailable so rolling back is going to be impossible unless you have created an administrative install of SSDT for that previous version. Just thought you should know! In the grand schema of things this isn’t a big deal as the bug can be worked around with a simple code modification but forewarned is forearmed so they say! Last thing to say, if you want to know which version of SSDT you are running check my blog post Which version of SSDT Database Projects do I have installed? @Jamiet

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• Is IE9 a modern browser?

  - by anirudha

  Is IE9 a modern browser? i show you a post who compare IE as well as they compare chrome. Is IE9 a modern browser? well Are you thing that they make something bettter then thing another that what Firefox and chrome do whenever Microsoft do this. that's point that Microsoft always blast IE because they make version upon version not upon update like Firefox make 3.6.14 after 3.6.13 and chrome give update soon as possible but IE not come soon. they will thing for making 10 instead of giving update on 9. well what they tell us new. they make fool public everytime i believe they make fool public as same as today they maked for version 9 they show developer tool in 9 have three new tabs or pael are this enough. whenever  in chrome and firefox their is many plugin who make development easier IE still have a developer tool who not have enough power like Firebug in Firefox. they show performance but forget luna user [window xp] and their IE never runs on other plateform but chrome and firefox can. no customization in IE whenever chrome and firefox have uncountable plugin and addons. show features now in IE who already implemented in firefox very early. well their is no rule that static goes right every time not sure that IE and Firefox both are right in their language. their is no one predict what thing goes better in future. so well keep a thing in mind never wasted time and also thing to make task easier even you need to use sollution opensource or closesoure inside or outside MS does not matter. well everyone tell you much more then they do even IE and some other. they never tell you this thing not in IE but in another can be found they never tell you use other whenever you need a thing and never can be found in their software. you need to more beware of IE because they make them commorcial not really for public if really then why they stop wxp user to use them as well firefox and chrome never force. because they need a thing that force more then more copy of windows sale. so they thing to add a thing in window 8. the IE9 they thing to make before that they thing to make  this for windows 8. they always force user to purchase this for this. this for this. and this trick sell their software. well outside MS Mozilla and Chrome all behave better with user and their feedback. they respect user their privacy and feedback. if you not believe that how much problem you found in IE and they got solved soon as in chrome and firefox bug kill soon. because IE not opensource we need to  boycutt them secondly their is no customization then they make user task easier even with twitter and facebook.

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• How do you take into account usability and user requirements for your application?

  - by voroninp

  Our team supports BackOffice application: a mix of WinForm and WPF windows. (about 80 including dialogs). Really a kind of a Swiss Army Knife. It is used by developers, tech writers, security developers, testers. The requirements for new features come quite often and sometimes we play Wizard of Oz to decide which GUI our users like the most. And it usually happens (I admit it can be just my subjective interpretation of the reality) that one tiny detail giving the flavor of good usability to our app requires a lot of time. This time is being spent on 'fighting' with GUI framework making it act like we need. And it very difficult to make estimations for this type of tasks (at least for me and most members of our team). Scrum poker is not a help either. Management often considers this usability perfectionism to be a waste of time. On the other hand an accumulated affect of features where each has some little usability flaw frustrates users. But the same users want frequent releases and instant bug fixes. Hence, no way to get the positive feedback: there is always somebody who is snuffy. I constantly feel myself as competing with ourselves: more features - more bugs/tasks/architecture. We are trying to outrun the cart we are pushing. New technologies arrive and some of them can potentially help to improve the design or decrease task implementation time but these technologies require learning, prototyping and so on. Well, that was a story. And now is the question: How do you balance between time pressure, product quality, users and management satisfaction? When and how do you decide to leave the problem with not a perfect but to some extent acceptable solution, how often do you make these decisions? How do you do with your own satisfaction? What are your priorities? P.S. Please keep in mind, we are a BackOffice team, we have neither dedicated technical writer nor GUI designer. The tester have joined us recently. We've much work to do and much freedom concerning 'how'. I like it because it fosters creativity but I don't want to become too nerdy perfectionist.

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• Practices for domain models in Javascript (with frameworks)

  - by AndyBursh

  This is a question I've to-and-fro'd with for a while, and searched for and found nothing on: what're the accepted practices surrounding duplicating domain models in Javascript for a web application, when using a framework like Backbone or Knockout? Given a web application of a non-trivial size with a set of domain models on the server side, should we duplicate these models in the web application (see the example at the bottom)? Or should we use the dynamic nature to load these models from the server? To my mind, the arguments for duplicating the models are in easing validation of fields, ensuring that fields that expected to be present are in fact present etc. My approach is to treat the client-side code like an almost separate application, doing trivial things itself and only relying on the server for data and complex operations (which require data the client-side doesn't have). I think treating the client-side code like this is akin to separation between entities from an ORM and the models used with the view in the UI layer: they may have the same fields and relate to the same domain concept, but they're distinct things. On the other hand, it seems to me that duplicating these models on the server side is a clear violation of DRY and likely to lead to differing results on the client- and server-side (where one piece gets updated but the other doesn't). To avoid this violation of DRY we can simply use Javascripts dynamism to get the field names and data from the server as and when they're neeed. So: are there any accepted guidelines around when (and when not) to repeat yourself in these situations? Or this a purely subjective thing, based on the project and developer(s)? Example Server-side model class M { int A DateTime B int C int D = (A*C) double SomeComplexCalculation = ServiceLayer.Call(); } Client-side model function M(){ this.A = ko.observable(); this.B = ko.observable(); this.C = ko.observable(); this.D = function() { return A() * C(); } this.SomeComplexCalculation = ko.observalbe(); return this; }l M.GetComplexValue = function(){ this.SomeComplexCalculation(Ajax.CallBackToServer()); }; I realise this question is quite similar to this one, but I think this is more about almost wholly untying the web application from the server, where that question is about doing this only in the case of complex calculation.

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• URL slugs: ideal length, and the real SEO effects of these slugs

  - by tattvamasi

  this question is addressed widely on SO and outside it, but for some reason, instead of taking it as a good load of great advice, all this information is confusing me. ** Problem ** I already had, on one of my sites, "prettified" urls. I had taken out the query strings, rewritten the URLS, and the link was short enough for me, but had a problem: the ID of the item or post in the URL isn't good for users. One of the users asked is there's a way to get rid of numbers, and I thought it was better for users to just see a clue of the page content in the URL. ** Solution ** With this in mind, I am trying with a section of the site.Armed with 301 redirects, some parsing work, and a lot of patience, I have added the URL slugs to some blog entries, and the slug of the URL reports the title of the article (something close to http://example.com/my-news/terribly-boring-and-long-url-that-replaces-the-number-I-liked-so-much/ ** Problems after Solution ** The problem, as I see it, is that now the URL of those blog articles is very descriptive for sure, but it is also impossible to remember. So, this brings me to the same issue I had with my previous problem: if numbers say nothing and can't be remembered, what's the use of these slugs? I prefer to see http://example.com/my-news/1/ than http://example.com/my-news/terribly-boring-and-long-url-that-replaces-the-number-I-liked-so-much/ To avoid forcing my user to memorize my URLS, I have added a script that finds the closest match to the URL you type, and redirects there. This is something I like, because the page now acts as a sort of little search engine, and users can play with the URLS to find articles. ** Open questions ** I still have some open questions, and don't seem to be able to find an answer, because answers tend to contradict one another. 1) How many characters should an URL ideally be long? I've read the magic number 115 and am sticking to that, but am not sure. 2) Is this really good for SEO? One of those blog articles I have redirected, with ID number in the URL and all, ranked second on Google. I've just found this question, and the answer seems to be consistent with what I think URL slug and SEO - structure (but see this other question with the opposite opinion) 3) To make a question with a specific example, would this URL risk to be penalized? Is it acceptable? Is it too long? StackOverflow seems to have comparably long URLs, but I'm not sure it's a winning strategy in my case. I just wanted to facilitate my users without running into Google's algorithms.

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• New grad; To overcome complete lack of experience, should I ditch a creative pet project in lieu of one that would demonstrate more applicable skills?

  - by Hart Simha

  I am currently working on a project on github that I think would be a good demonstration of my initiative, creativity and enthusiasm. It is an educational game I am developing in pygame that enables the user to learn to improve their development productivity by using vim, specifically with python, though learning to code faster with vim should be transferable to any language. I think this is something that might have a mass appeal and benefit to a lot of people in a measurable way. -However- I am graduating from college in a month (my degree is computer science with a minor in English), with no experience that is relevant to helping me get any kind of job in the field, and a gpa that doesn't tout my merits. I could pursue a career in game development, but it's not necessarily what I'm most interested in, and see myself applying to startups around the country. To the places I am looking at applying, showing that I have experience with pygame is going to be largely irrelevant, except in demonstration of my ability to code, period. A lot of skills that ARE more marketable, such a data modeling, GIS, mobile application, development, javascript, .net framework, and various web development technologies, are not going to be showcased by this project (on the upside, employers do like to see familiarity with git and python). I'm wondering if I should sink all my free time in the next couple of months into this project, since I'm motivated and interested in it, and if the value of being able to demonstrate ambition and 'good ideas' (for lack of a better term, and in my own opinion) will compensate for the absence of demonstrating more sought-after skills. I am probably at a point where I should either commit fully to this project now, or put it on the backburner in favor of something else, and I am leaning towards continuing with what I am already working on, because I think it's a great idea, and something achievable to me with enough dedication over the next couple months. But the most important thing to me is being able to get a job out of college, which I am exceedingly concerned about as the professional landscape which I am navigating for the first time is a lot more intimidating than I could have anticipated, with almost every job (even short-term contract positions) requiring years of experience which I lack. So in brief, the common denominator to answering the question "How can I overcome experience requirements for a job" seems to be "Show off your own project." I want to know WHICH project I should work on to best increase my chances of getting a job out of college, keeping in mind that I have no experience. I believe this question is applicable to any new grad that lacks demonstrable experience.

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• password incorrect 3 times + suspected failed update

  - by Cheese

  I have been lurking your site for the past few hours, and have found myself in a bit of a pickle. Visiting my parents, I discover that neither computer, nor laptop work. Long story short, I've got the laptop working, but have completely fudged up the computer. I am a n00b, but I was at least willing to give it a go. The comp originally had ubuntu 11.10 installed, later updated to 12.04. We have cds for both. I do not understand what the initial problem was for my parents, but somehow when I turned on the computer, it worked for me. Soon after, I was nagged to install the latest updates. So, I spent the next half an hour wondering why the updates kept on asking for 11.04 cdroms, until I realised that you could turn off the cdrom necessity. After doing this via console, I installed some of the smaller updates, before being told to do a partial update. This failed a few times, and ended up freezing whilst reinstalling drivers. After a hard restart I continued to type whatever I could find on the forum into the console. At some point, the console started saying that I had 3 incorrect password inputs, and sudo commands stopped altogether. I found another thread discussing this; but people kept on suggesting changing passwords (which I did to no avail) or other things that made use of sudo (which I am locked out of, although I am technically the admin) I found myself somehow on the Ctrl+Alt+F1 console, and after being utterly confused (and Ctrl+AltF5 failing for me), another hard reset occurred. Somewhere along the way I created a USB start up for 14.04, (but this does not seem to work) Now I am left with an admin (and guest) account that log in but have blank screens (with only the desktop background showing) and I can't do anything in the console because I'm locked out. Interestingly, the console now says that I am running 14.04 although all updates said they had failed. Aside from the obvious lessons I have learnt (don't fiddle about in the console when you have no idea what you're doing "Dog wearing safety glasses "I have no idea what I am doing" GIF would be inserted here ) Is there any way I can redeem this almighty muck up? A million thanks for any help!

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• I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I know how to program.

  - by wp123

  I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I see websites like Stack Overflow and search engines like Google and don't know where I'd even begin to write something like that. During one summer I did have the opportunity to work as a iPhone developer, but I felt like I was mostly gluing together libraries that other people had written with little understanding of the mechanics happening beneath the hood. I'm trying to improve my knowledge by studying algorithms, but it is a long and painful process. I find algorithms difficult and at the rate I am learning a decade will have passed before I will master the material in the book. Given my current situation, I've spent a month looking for work but my skills (C, Python, Objective-C) are relatively shallow and are not so desirable in the local market, where C#, Java, and web development are much higher in demand. That is not to say that C and Python opportunities do not exist but they tend to demand 3+ years of experience I do not have. My GPA is OK (3.0) but it's not high enough to apply to the large companies like IBM or return for graduate studies. Basically I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I've learned how to program. I thought that joining a company and programming full-time would give me a chance to develop my skills and learn from those more experienced than myself, but I'm struggling to find work and am starting to get really frustrated. I am going to cast my net wider and look beyond the city I've grown up in, but what have other people in similar situation tried to do? I've worked hard but don't have the confidence to go out on my own and write my own app. (That is, become an indie developer in the iPhone app market.) If nothing turns up I will need to consider upgrading and learning more popular skills or try something marginally related like IT, but given all the effort I've put in that feels like copping out. EDIT: Thank you for all the advice. I think I was premature because of unrealistic expectations but the comments have given me a dose of reality. I will persevere and continue to code. I have a project in mind, although well beyond my current capabilities it will challenge me to hone my craft and prove my worth to myself (and potential employers). Had I known there was a career overflow I would have posted there instead. Thanks again!

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• Integrating with a payment provider; Proper and robust OOP approach

  - by ExternalUse

  History We are currently using a so called redirect model for our online payments (where you send the payer to a payment gateway, where he inputs his payment details - the gateway will then return him to a success/failure callback page). That's easy and straight-forward, but unfortunately quite inconvenient and at times confusing for our customers (leaving the site, changing their credit card details with an additional login on another site etc). Intention & Problem description We are now intending to switch to an integrated approach using an exchange of XML requests and responses. My problem is on how to cater with all (or rather most) of the things that may happen during processing - bearing in mind that normally simplicity is robust whereas complexity is fragile. Examples User abort: The user inputs Credit Card details and hits submit. An XML message to the provider's gateway is sent and waiting for response. The user hits "stop" in his browser or closes the window. ignore_user_abort() in PHP may be an option - but is that reliable? might it be better to redirect the user to a "please wait"-page, that in turn opens an AJAX or other request to the actual processor that does not rely on the connection? Database goes away sounds over-complicated, but with e.g. a webserver in the States and a DB in the UK, it has happened and will happen again: User clicks together his order, payment request has been sent to the provider but the response cannot be stored in the database. What approach could I use, using PHP to sort of start an SQL like "Transaction" that only at the very end gets committed or rolled back, depending on the individual steps? Should then neither commit or roll back have happened, I could sort of "lock" the user to prevent him from paying again or to improperly account for payments - but how? And what else do I need to consider technically? None of the integration examples of e.g. Worldpay, Realex or SagePay offer any insight, and neither Google or my search terms were good enough to find somebody else's thoughts on this. Thank you very much for any insight on how you would approach this!

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• TechEd 2010 Day Three: The Database Designer (Isn't)

  - by BuckWoody

  Yesterday at TechEd 2010 here in New Orleans I worked the front-booth, answering general SQL Server questions for the masses. I was actually a little surprised to find most of the questions I got were from folks that wanted to know more about Stream Insight and Master Data Services. In past conferences I've been asked a lot of "free consulting" questions, about problems folks have had from older products. I don't mind that a bit - in fact, I'm always happy to help in any way I can. But this time people are really interested in the new features in the product, and I like that they are thinking ahead, not just having to solve problems in production. My presentation was on "Database Design in an Hour". We had the usual fun, and SideShow Bob made an appearance - I kid you not. The guy in the back of the room looked just like Sideshow Bob, so I quickly held a "bes thair" contest, and he won. Duing the presentation, I explain the tools you can use to design databases. I also explain that the "Database Designer" tool in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) isn't truly a desinger - it uses non-standard notation, doesn't have a meta-data dictionary, and worst of all, it works at the physical level. In other words, whatever you do in SSMS will automatically change the field/table/relationship structures in the database. We fixed this in SSMS 2008 and higher by adding an option to block that, but the tool is not a good design function nonetheless. To be fair, no one I know of at Microsoft recommends that it is - but I was shocked to hear so many developers in the room defending it as a good tool. I think the main issue for someone who doesn't have to work with Relational Systems a great deal is that it can be difficult to figure out Foreign Keys. The syntax makes them look "backwards", so it's just easier to grab a field and place it on the table you want to point to. There are options. You can download a couple of free tools (CA has a community edition of ER-WIN, Quest has one, and Embarcadero also has one) and if you design more than one or two databases a year, it may be worth buying a true design tool. For years I used Visio, but we changed it so that it doesn't forward-engineer (create the DDL) any more, so it isn't a true design tool either. So investigate those free and not-so-free tools. You'll find they help you in your job - but stay away from the Database Designer in SSMS. Or I'll send Sideshow Bob over there to straighten you out. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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