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• Follow the How-To Geek Writers on Twitter

  - by The Geek

  Ever wonder what the How-To Geek writers are up to? If you’re a Twitter user, you can connect with us directly. We’ve also setup a new @howtogeeknews account if you just want to keep up with the latest articles. So if you want just the latest articles… click the image below and then click the Follow button. Otherwise, if you’d like to connect with the rest of us that actually use Twitter, you can follow each of us separately through  the links below. Note: Let’s try to stick to discussion, and leave the tech support questions for our forum. the How-To Geek (that’s me!) -  @howtogeek Matthew Guay – @maguay Trevor Bekolay – @TrevorBekolay Asian Angel – @asian_angel  Andrew Gehman – @andrewgehman Some of the HTG writers are not currently using Twitter… but I’m gonna list their accounts just in case you wanted to follow them. Mark Virtue – @markvirtue Mysticgeek – @mysticgeek  (He’s far too productive to waste time on Twitter!) Enjoy the conversation! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Got Awesome Geek Skills? The How-To Geek is Looking for WritersGot Awesome Skills? Why Not Write for How-To Geek?Integrate Twitter With Microsoft OutlookState of the Geek 2009: Behind the Scenes and Other GeekeryAnnouncing the How-To Geek Blogs TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images Get Wildlife Photography Tips at BBC’s PhotoMasterClasses Mashpedia is a Real-time Encyclopedia

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• links for 2011-01-06

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Coming to your town: Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit During these full-day events, cloud experts will share real-world best practices, reference architectures, detailed customer case studies, and more. Events scheduled in cities around the world.  (tags: oracle otn cloud event) Webcast: Security and Compliance for Private Cloud Consolidation Roxana Bradescu, Senior Director for Oracle Database Security Products, discusses Oracle Database Security Solutions to securely consolidate data and meet compliance requirements within private cloud computing environments. Thursday, January 13, 2011. 10am PST | 1pm EST (tags: oracle cloud security) Answering Questions about Mobile Devices | The AppsLab "How do the numbers of Android and iOS users compare? How often are people switching? Where are all these BlackBerry and Nokia users? Do they plan to jump to Android or iOS? What about webOS? Is it relevant?" Some answers in this AppsLab survey. (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 mobilecomputing iphone blackberry android) Webcast: Achieve 24/7 Cloud Availability Without Expensive Redundancy Ashish Ray and Matthew Baier discuss Oracle’s Maximum Availability Architecture and Oracle Database 11g. (tags: oracle cloud highavailability webcast) Converting a PV vm back into an HVM vm (Wim Coekaerts Blog) "I wanted to convert one of my VMs that was based on a paravirt kernel into a vm that just boots as a regular hardware virt VM with a standard x86-64 kernel...It took me a little while to figure out the fastest way so now that I have it pretty much down I wanted to share the steps." - Wim Coekaerts (tags: oracle otn virtualization oraclevm) @OTN_Garage: Resources for VirtualBox 4.0 Rick "@OTN_Garage" Ramsey shares links to several resources for those with a VirtualBox jones. (tags: oracle otn virtualization virtualbox) 'Federal Service Bus' Helps Belgian Government Speak a Common Language - SOA in Action Blog "The first SOA-enabled application was developed in less than two months and was fully operational in approximately 10 weeks. In addition, new FSB modules are reusable for other Belgian e-government applications, saving both time and taxpayer dollars." - Joe McKendrick (tags: soa oracle) Show Notes: Architects in the Cloud (ArchBeat Podcast) The complete 4-part interview with Stephen G. Bennett and Archie Reed, the authors of "Silver Clouds, Dark Linings: A Concise Guide to Cloud Computing," is now available. (tags: oracle otn cloud podcast archbeat)

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• New Wine in New Bottles

  - by Tony Davis

  How many people, when their car shows signs of wear and tear, would consider upgrading the engine and keeping the shell? Even if you're cash-strapped, you'll soon work out the subtlety of the economics, the cost of sudden breakdowns, the precious time lost coping with the hassle, and the low 'book value'. You'll generally buy a new car. The same philosophy should apply to database systems. Mainstream support for SQL Server 2005 ends on April 12; many DBAS, if they haven't done so already, will be considering the migration to SQL Server 2008 R2. Hopefully, that upgrade plan will include a fresh install of the operating system on brand new hardware. SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are designed to work together. The improved architecture, processing power, and hyper-threading capabilities of modern processors will dramatically improve the performance of many SQL Server workloads, and allow consolidation opportunities. Of course, there will be many DBAs smiling ruefully at the suggestion of such indulgence. This is nothing like the real world, this halcyon place where hardware and software budgets are limitless, development and testing resources are plentiful, and third party vendors immediately certify their applications for the latest-and-greatest platform! As with cars, or any other technology, the justification for a complete upgrade is complex. With Servers, the extra cost at time of upgrade will generally pay you back in terms of the increased performance of your business applications, reduced maintenance costs, training costs and downtime. Also, if you plan and design carefully, it's possible to offset hardware costs with reduced SQL Server licence costs. In his forthcoming SQL Server Hardware book, Glenn Berry describes a recent case where he was able to replace 4 single-socket database servers with one two-socket server, saving about $90K in hardware costs and $350K in SQL Server license costs. Of course, there are exceptions. If you do have a stable, reliable, secure SQL Server 6.5 system that still admirably meets the needs of a specific business requirement, and has no security vulnerabilities, then by all means leave it alone. Why upgrade just for the sake of it? However, as soon as a system shows sign of being unfit for purpose, or is moving out of mainstream support, the ruthless DBA will make the strongest possible case for a belts-and-braces upgrade. We'd love to hear what you think. What does your typical upgrade path look like? What are the major obstacles? Cheers, Tony.

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• Overload Avoidance

  - by mikef

  A little under a year ago, Matt Simmons wrote a rather reflective article about his terrifying brush with stress-induced ill health. SysAdmins and DBAs have always been prime victims of work-related stress, but I wonder if that predilection is perhaps getting worse, despite the best efforts of Matt and his trusty side-kick, HR. The constant pressure from share-holders and CFOs to 'streamline' the workforce is partially to blame, but the more recent culprit is technology itself. I can't deny that the rise of technologies like virtualization, PowerCLI, PowerShell, and a host of others has been a tremendous boon. As a result, individual IT professionals are now able to handle more and more tasks and manage increasingly large and complex environments. But, without a doubt, this is a two-edged sword; The reward for competence is invariably more work. Unfortunately, SysAdmins play such a pivotal role in modern business that it's easy to see how they can very quickly become swamped in conflicting demands coming from different directions. However, that doesn't justify the ridiculous hours many are asked (or volunteer) to devote to their work. Admirably though their commitment is, it isn't healthy for them, it sets a dangerous expectation, and eventually something will snap. There are times when everyone needs to step up to the plate outside of 'normal' work hours, but that time isn't all the time. Naturally, with all that lovely technology, you can automate more and more of those tricky tasks to keep on top of the workload, but you are still only human. Clever though you may be, there is a very real limit to how far technology can take you. I'm not suggesting that you avoid these technologies, or deliberately aim for mediocrity; I'm just saying that you need to be more than just technically skilled (and Wesley Nonapeptide riffs on and around this topic in his excellent 'Telepathic Robot Drones' blog post). You need to be able to manage expectations, not just Exchange. Specifically, that means your own expectations of what you are capable of, because those come before everyone else's. After all, how can you keep your work-life balance under control, if you're the one setting the bar way too high? Talking to your manager, or discussing issues with your users, is only going to be productive if you have some facts to work with. "Know Thyself" is the first law of managing work overload, and this is obviously a skill which people develop over time; the fact that veteran Sysadmins exist at all is testament to this. I'd just love to know how you get to that point. Personally, I'm using RescueTime to keep myself honest, but I'm open to recommendations for better methods. Do you track your own time, do you have an intuitive sense of what is possible, or do you just rely on someone else to handle that all for you? Cheers, Michael

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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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• 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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• Programming and Ubiquitous Language (DDD) in a non-English domain

  - by Sandor Drieënhuizen

  I know there are some questions already here that are closely related to this subject but none of them take Ubiquitous Language as the starting point so I think that justifies this question. For those who don't know: Ubiquitous Language is the concept of defining a (both spoken and written) language that is equally used across developers and domain experts to avoid inconsistencies and miscommunication due to translation problems and misunderstanding. You will see the same terminology show up in code, conversations between any team member, functional specs and whatnot. So, what I was wondering about is how to deal with Ubiquitous Language in non-English domains. Personally, I strongly favor writing programming code in English completely, including comments but ofcourse excluding constants and resources. However, in a non-English domain, I'm forced to make a decision either to: Write code reflecting the Ubiquitous Language in the natural language of the domain. Translate the Ubiquitous Language to English and stop communicating in the natural language of the domain. Define a table that defines how the Ubiquitous Language translates to English. Here are some of my thoughts based on these options: 1) I have a strong aversion against mixed-language code, that is coding using type/member/variable names etc. that are non-English. Most programming languages 'breathe' English to a large extent and most of the technical literature, design pattern names etc. are in English as well. Therefore, in most cases there's just no way of writing code entirely in a non-English language so you end up with mixed languages anyway. 2) This will force the domain experts to start thinking and talking in the English equivalent of the UL, something that will probably not come naturally to them and therefore hinders communication significantly. 3) In this case, the developers communicate with the domain experts in their native language while the developers communicate with each other in English and most importantly, they write code using the English translation of the UL. I'm sure I don't want to go for the first option and I think option 3 is much better than option 2. What do you think? Am I missing other options? UPDATE Today, about year later, having dealt with this issue on a daily basis, I have to say that option 3 has worked out pretty well for me. It wasn't as tedious as I initially feared and translating in real time while talking to the client wasn't a problem either. I also found the following advantages to be true, based on my experience. Translating the UL makes you pay more attention to defining the UL and even the domain itself, especially when you don't know how to translate a term and you have to start looking through dictionaries etc. This has even caused me to reconsider domain modeling decisions a few times. It helps you make your knowledge of the English language more profound. Obviously, your code is much more pleasant to look at instead of being a mind boggling obscenity.

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• Windows Azure Recipe: Big Data

  - by Clint Edmonson

  As the name implies, what we’re talking about here is the explosion of electronic data that comes from huge volumes of transactions, devices, and sensors being captured by businesses today. This data often comes in unstructured formats and/or too fast for us to effectively process in real time. Collectively, we call these the 4 big data V’s: Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Variability. These qualities make this type of data best managed by NoSQL systems like Hadoop, rather than by conventional Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). We know that there are patterns hidden inside this data that might provide competitive insight into market trends.  The key is knowing when and how to leverage these “No SQL” tools combined with traditional business such as SQL-based relational databases and warehouses and other business intelligence tools. Drivers Petabyte scale data collection and storage Business intelligence and insight Solution The sketch below shows one of many big data solutions using Hadoop’s unique highly scalable storage and parallel processing capabilities combined with Microsoft Office’s Business Intelligence Components to access the data in the cluster. Ingredients Hadoop – this big data industry heavyweight provides both large scale data storage infrastructure and a highly parallelized map-reduce processing engine to crunch through the data efficiently. Here are the key pieces of the environment: Pig - a platform for analyzing large data sets that consists of a high-level language for expressing data analysis programs, coupled with infrastructure for evaluating these programs. Mahout - a machine learning library with algorithms for clustering, classification and batch based collaborative filtering that are implemented on top of Apache Hadoop using the map/reduce paradigm. Hive - data warehouse software built on top of Apache Hadoop that facilitates querying and managing large datasets residing in distributed storage. Directly accessible to Microsoft Office and other consumers via add-ins and the Hive ODBC data driver. Pegasus - a Peta-scale graph mining system that runs in parallel, distributed manner on top of Hadoop and that provides algorithms for important graph mining tasks such as Degree, PageRank, Random Walk with Restart (RWR), Radius, and Connected Components. Sqoop - a tool designed for efficiently transferring bulk data between Apache Hadoop and structured data stores such as relational databases. Flume - a distributed, reliable, and available service for efficiently collecting, aggregating, and moving large log data amounts to HDFS. Database – directly accessible to Hadoop via the Sqoop based Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop, data can be efficiently transferred to traditional relational data stores for replication, reporting, or other needs. Reporting – provides easily consumable reporting when combined with a database being fed from the Hadoop environment. Training These links point to online Windows Azure training labs where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. Hadoop Learning Resources (20+ tutorials and labs) Huge collection of resources for learning about all aspects of Apache Hadoop-based development on Windows Azure and the Hadoop and Windows Azure Ecosystems SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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• The Spotlight is on You

  - by Claudia McDonald

  On the field or off the field, in ballet slippers or singing your heart out on stage, offering a stellar performance every time is key to holding the attention of your audience and having them come back hungry for more. Similarly, showing up to a new business meeting wearing pink tights and a tutu might be one way to holding the attention of your customer, but offering them an unmatched and ground-breaking software solution certainly will get their attention! Simply put, the Oracle Exastack program enables both ISV's and OEM's to rapidly build and deliver faster, more reliable applications. It comes as no surprise that the success of the Oracle Exastack program is centered on establishing Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud as the highest performance, lowest cost platforms available in the industry today.  But here is where the real standing-ovation-worthy facts come in. The Oracle Exadata Database Machine is the only database machine that provides extreme performance for both data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads, making it the ideal platform for consolidating onto private clouds. Whereas the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud is an engineered hardware and software system tested and tuned by Oracle to provide the best foundation for cloud computing, while allowing Java applications, Oracle Applications and other enterprise applications to run with extreme performance. – And the crowd goes wild, ladies and gentlemen! In just four months alone, our partners have already achieved over 150 Oracle Exastack Ready milestones for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server.  As Judson has said, “With the Oracle Exastack program, Oracle is helping partners test, tune and optimize their applications to deliver optimal performance and reliability, accelerating innovation and delivering superior value to customers." And get this, not only are their applications running faster and more efficiently, they are actually being delivered at a lower cost to customers than ever before – extreme performance well deserving of 3 consecutive arabesques! If you haven’t already, check out what some of our partners are saying about the Oracle Exastack program in this video, and find out all that is available to you today. By participating in the Oracle Exastack program, partners now have the ability to achieve Oracle Exadata Optimized, Oracle Exalogic Optimized, Oracle Exadata Ready and Oracle Exalogic Ready status for their solutions. New Oracle Exastack labs, provide OPN members with access to Oracle technical resources, on-premise facilities and remote lab environments. With Oracle Exastack Optimized, partners experience faster and more reliable applications to run on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, as well as the long awaited Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Savvy OPN members are leveraging the Oracle Exastack Optimized program toward their advancement to Platinum or Diamond level in OPN. Partners are achieving Oracle Exadata Ready and Oracle Exalogic Ready giving them a competitive advantage and signaling to customers that their applications readily support Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud to deliver extreme performance. Get your dancing shoes on, The OPN Communications Team

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• ATG Live Webcast March 21 Reminder: Network, WAN, and PC Performance Tuning (Performance Series Part 3 of 3)

  - by BillSawyer

  A quick reminder about tomorrow's webcast:  Andy Tremayne, Senior Architect, Applications Performance, and co-author of Oracle Applications Performance Tuning Handbook from Oracle Press, and Uday Moogala, Senior Principal Engineer, Applications Performance, will discuss network performance for E-Business Suite. Andy and Uday will cover tuning the client and tuning the network. They will share real-life examples of network performance, and show you tools and techniques that you can use to estimate or simulate performance on your own network.The agenda for the Performance Tuning - Part 3 of 3 webcast includes the following topics: Tuning the Client Tuning the Network Date:               Thursday, March 21, 2012Time:              8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Pacific Standard TimePresenters:  Andy Tremayne, Senior Architect, Applications Performance                        Uday Moogala, Senior Principal Engineer, Applications PerformanceWebcast Registration Link (Preregistration is optional but encouraged)To hear the audio feed:   Domestic Participant Dial-In Number:           877-697-8128    International Participant Dial-In Number:      706-634-9568    Additional International Dial-In Numbers Link:    Dial-In Passcode:                                              99341To see the presentation:    The Direct Access Web Conference details are:    Website URL: https://ouweb.webex.com    Meeting Number:  591264961If you miss the webcast, or you have missed any webcast, don't worry -- we'll post links to the recording as soon as it's available from Oracle University.  You can monitor this blog for pointers to the replay. And, you can find our archive of our past webcasts and training here.

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• Justification for learning/implementing newer Microsoft technologies

  - by Darren

  I work at a large healthcare organization as a mid-level software developer. I have over 10 years experience in the IT industry using Microsoft technologies (ASP.NET & SQL Server). When I go to conferences, code camps, .net user group meetings, I hear of all kinds of new tools and technologies: MVC, LINQ, Entity Framework, WCF Web Services, etc. I guess you could say I'm in my comfort zone using the same old stuff from asp.net 2.0. I use typed datasets for my data access layer. I use web forms and feature rich server controls with master pages. I know how to use plain old SQL and create queries in my typed datasets to get at data my applications need. Throughout my career, I'm always sensitive to not become obsolete with my skill set. What I currently use works fine and my development time is fast. But I'm concerned that if I were to be laid off, I would be asked in interviews how many MVC apps I've written. Or how I am with LINQ or WCF web services. I know that it doesn't matter how many conferences, books, or videos I watch on some new technology...I have to implement/use it or it simply won't sink in. Also, managers who interview don't care how much someone reads up on something, only real use and experience with a technology. I have a new project to write. I've gone to my manager and have asked for additional time for the project for learning/implementing technology I may not be familiar with. Our organization encourages its employees to "learn and grow" and to continue are education. But I always get resistance when I ask for more time to ramp up on something new to implement. My manager is asking for concrete business reasons for implementing these new technologies. I don't have business reasons. My reasons are because I don't want to become obsolete. I could say it would make the project more maintainable in the future by other developers since at some point people could stop using these older technologies, but that' about all I can think of. Does Linq/Entity Framework/MCV apps perform better? So much so that the customers (users in departments I'm creating this app for) need? I doubt it. I'm interested in you guy's thoughts on this. Do many of you have similar plights with trying to use newer upcoming technologies? I doubt I'm on the bleeding edge of technology, either. Are there "business reasons" that you would bring to light for using these technologies? Thanks in advance! Sorry for the long wall of text.

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• To Serve Man?

  - by Dave Convery

  Since the announcement of Windows 8 and its 'Metro' interface, the .NET community has wondered if the skills they've spent so long developing might be swept aside,in favour of HTML5 and JavaScript. Mercifully, that only seems to be true of SilverLight (as Simon Cooper points out), but it did leave me thinking how easy it is to impose a technology upon people without directly serving their needs. Case in point: QR codes. Once, probably, benign in purpose, they seem to have become a marketer's tool for determining when someone has engaged with an advert in the real world, with the same certainty as is possible online. Nobody really wants to use QR codes - it's far too much hassle. But advertisers want that data - they want to know that someone actually read their billboard / poster / cereal box, and so this flawed technology is suddenly everywhere, providing little to no value to the people who are actually meant to use it. What about 3D cinema? Profits from the film industry have been steadily increasing throughout the period that digital piracy and mass sharing has been possible, yet the industry cinema chains have forced 3D films upon a broadly uninterested audience, as a way of providing more purpose to going to a cinema, rather than watching it at home. Despite advances in digital projection, 3D cinema is scarcely more immersive to us than were William Castle's hoary old tricks of skeletons on wires and buzzing chairs were to our grandparents. iTunes - originally just a piece of software that catalogued and ripped music for you, but which is now multi-purpose bloatware; a massive, system-hogging behemoth. If it was being built for the people that used it, it would have been split into three or more separate pieces of software long ago. But as bloatware, it serves Apple primarily rather than us, stuffed with Music, Video, Various stores and phone / iPad management all bolted into one. Why? It's because, that way, you're more likely to bump into something you want to buy. You can't even buy a new laptop without finding that a significant chunk of your hard drive has been sold to 'select partners' - advertisers, suppliers of virus-busting software, and endless bloatware-flogging pop-ups that make using a new laptop without reformatting the hard drive like stepping back in time. The product you want is not the one you paid for. This is without even looking at services like Facebook and Klout, who provide a notional service with the intention of slurping up as much data about you as possible (in Klout's case, whether you create an account with them or not). What technologies do you find annoying or intrusive, and who benefits from keeping them around?

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• Review: Backbone.js Testing

  - by george_v_reilly

  Title: Backbone.js Testing Author: Ryan Roemer Rating: $stars(4.5) Publisher: Packt Copyright: 2013 ISBN: 178216524X Pages: 168 Keywords: programming, testing, javascript, backbone, mocha, chai, sinon Reading period: October 2013 Backbone.js Testing is a short, dense introduction to testing JavaScript applications with three testing libraries, Mocha, Chai, and Sinon.JS. Although the author uses a sample application of a personal note manager written with Backbone.js throughout the book, much of the material would apply to any JavaScript client or server framework. Mocha is a test framework that can be executed in the browser or by Node.js, which runs your tests. Chai is a framework-agnostic TDD/BDD assertion library. Sinon.JS provides standalone test spies, stubs and mocks for JavaScript. They complement each other and the author does a good job of explaining when and how to use each. I've written a lot of tests in Python (unittest and mock, primarily) and C# (NUnit), but my experience with JavaScript unit testing was both limited and years out of date. The JavaScript ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, with new browser frameworks and Node packages springing up everywhere. JavaScript has some particular challenges in testing—notably, asynchrony and callbacks. Mocha, Chai, and Sinon meet those challenges, though they can't take away all the pain. The author describes how to test Backbone models, views, and collections; dealing with asynchrony; provides useful testing heuristics, including isolating components to reduce dependencies; when to use stubs and mocks and fake servers; and test automation with PhantomJS. He does not, however, teach you Backbone.js itself; for that, you'll need another book. There are a few areas which I thought were dealt with too lightly. There's no real discussion of Test-driven_development or Behavior-driven_development, which provide the intellectual foundations of much of the book. Nor does he have much to say about testability and how to make legacy code more testable. The sample Notes app has plenty of testing seams (much of this falls naturally out of the architecture of Backbone); other apps are not so lucky. The chapter on automation is extremely terse—it could be expanded into a very large book!—but it does provide useful indicators to many areas for exploration. I learned a lot from this book and I have no hesitation in recommending it. Disclosure: Thanks to Ryan Roemer and Packt for a review copy of this book.

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• SQL SERVER – Script to Update a Specific Column in Entire Database

  - by Pinal Dave

  Last week, I have received a very interesting question and I find in email and I really liked the question as I had to play around with SQL Script for a while to come up with the answer he was looking for. Please read the question and I believe that all of us face this kind of situation. “Pinal, In our database we have recently introduced ModifiedDate column in all of the tables. Now onwards any update happens in the row, we are updating current date and time to that field. Now here is the issue, when we added that field we did not update it with a default value because we were not sure when we will go live with the system so we let it be NULL. Now modification to the application went live yesterday and we are now updating this field. Here is where I need your help. We need to update all the tables in our database where we have column created ModifiedDate and now want to update with current datetime. As our system is already live since yesterday there are several thousands of the rows which are already updated with real world value so we do not want to update those values. Essentially, in our entire database where ever there is a ModifiedDate column and if it is NULL we want to update that with current date time?  Do you have a script for it?” Honestly I did not have such a script. This is very specific required but I was able to come up with two different methods how he can use this method. Method 1 : Using INFORMATION_SCHEMA SELECT 'UPDATE ' + T.TABLE_SCHEMA + '.' + T.TABLE_NAME + ' SET ModifiedDate = GETDATE() WHERE ModifiedDate IS NULL;' FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES T INNER JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS C ON T.TABLE_NAME = C.TABLE_NAME AND c.COLUMN_NAME ='ModifiedDate' WHERE T.TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE' ORDER BY T.TABLE_SCHEMA, T.TABLE_NAME; Method 2: Using DMV SELECT 'UPDATE ' + SCHEMA_NAME(t.schema_id) + '.' + t.name + ' SET ModifiedDate = GETDATE() WHERE ModifiedDate IS NULL;' FROM sys.tables AS t INNER JOIN sys.columns c ON t.OBJECT_ID = c.OBJECT_ID WHERE c.name ='ModifiedDate' ORDER BY SCHEMA_NAME(t.schema_id), t.name; Above scripts will create an UPDATE script which will do the task which is asked. We can pretty much the update script to any other SELECT statement and retrieve any other data as well. Click to Download Scripts Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)  Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Joins, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• A Community Cure for a String Splitting Headache

  - by Tony Davis

  A heartwarming tale of dogged perseverance and Community collaboration to solve some SQL Server string-related headaches. Michael J Swart posted a blog this week that had me smiling in recognition and agreement, describing how an inquisitive Developer or DBA deals with a problem. It's a three-step process, starting with discomfort and anxiety; a feeling that one doesn't know as much about one's chosen specialized subject as previously thought. It progresses through a phase of intense research and learning until finally one achieves breakthrough, blessed relief and renewed optimism. In this case, the discomfort was provoked by the mystery of massively high CPU when searching Unicode strings in SQL Server. Michael explored the problem via Stack Overflow, Google and Twitter #sqlhelp, finally leading to resolution and a blog post that shared what he learned. Perfect; except that sometimes you have to be prepared to share what you've learned so far, while still mired in the phase of nagging discomfort. A good recent example of this recently can be found on our own blogs. Despite being a loud advocate of the lightning fast T-SQL-based string splitting techniques, honed to near perfection over many years by Jeff Moden and others, Phil Factor retained a dogged conviction that, in theory, shredding element-based XML using XQuery ought to be even more efficient for splitting a string to create a table. After some careful testing, he found instead that the XML way performed and scaled miserably by comparison. Somewhat subdued, and with a nagging feeling that perhaps he was still missing "something", he posted his findings. What happened next was a joy to behold; the community jumped in to suggest subtle changes in approach, using an attribute-based rather than element-based XML list, and tweaking the XQuery shredding. The result was performance and scalability that surpassed all other techniques. I asked Phil how quickly he would have arrived at the real breakthrough on his own. His candid answer was "never". Both are great examples of the power of Community learning and the latter in particular the importance of being brave enough to parade one's ignorance. Perhaps Jeff Moden will accept the string-splitting gauntlet one more time. To quote the great man: you've just got to love this community! If you've an interesting tale to tell about being helped to a significant breakthrough for a problem by the community, I'd love to hear about it. Cheers, Tony.

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• Accessing Repositories from Domain

  - by Paul T Davies

  Say we have a task logging system, when a task is logged, the user specifies a category and the task defaults to a status of 'Outstanding'. Assume in this instance that Category and Status have to be implemented as entities. Normally I would do this: Application Layer: public class TaskService { //... public void Add(Guid categoryId, string description) { var category = _categoryRepository.GetById(categoryId); var status = _statusRepository.GetById(Constants.Status.OutstandingId); var task = Task.Create(category, status, description); _taskRepository.Save(task); } } Entity: public class Task { //... public static void Create(Category category, Status status, string description) { return new Task { Category = category, Status = status, Description = descrtiption }; } } I do it like this because I am consistently told that entities should not access the repositories, but it would make much more sense to me if I did this: Entity: public class Task { //... public static void Create(Category category, string description) { return new Task { Category = category, Status = _statusRepository.GetById(Constants.Status.OutstandingId), Description = descrtiption }; } } The status repository is dependecy injected anyway, so there is no real dependency, and this feels more to me thike it is the domain that is making thedecision that a task defaults to outstanding. The previous version feels like it is the application layeer making that decision. Any why are repository contracts often in the domain if this should not be a posibility? Here is a more extreme example, here the domain decides urgency: Entity: public class Task { //... public static void Create(Category category, string description) { var task = new Task { Category = category, Status = _statusRepository.GetById(Constants.Status.OutstandingId), Description = descrtiption }; if(someCondition) { if(someValue > anotherValue) { task.Urgency = _urgencyRepository.GetById (Constants.Urgency.UrgentId); } else { task.Urgency = _urgencyRepository.GetById (Constants.Urgency.SemiUrgentId); } } else { task.Urgency = _urgencyRepository.GetById (Constants.Urgency.NotId); } return task; } } There is no way you would want to pass in all possible versions of Urgency, and no way you would want to calculate this business logic in the application layer, so surely this would be the most appropriate way? So is this a valid reason to access repositories from the domain?

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• Action delegate in C#

  - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

  In last few posts about I have written lots of things about delegates and this post is also part of that series. In this post we are going to learn about Action delegates in C#.  Following is a list of post related to delegates. Delegates in C#. Multicast Delegates in C#. Func Delegates in C#. Action Delegates in c#: As per MSDN action delegates used to pass a method as parameter without explicitly declaring custom delegates. Action Delegates are used to encapsulate method that does not have return value. C# 4.0 Action delegates have following different variants like following. It can take up to 16 parameters. Action – It will be no parameter and does not return any value. Action(T) Action(T1,T2) Action(T1,T2,T3) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9,T10) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9,T10,T11) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9,T10,T11,T12) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9,T10,T11,T12,T13) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9,T10,T11,T12,T13,T14) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9,T10,T11,T12,T13,T14,T15) Action(T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7,T8,T9,T10,T11,T12,T13,T14,T15,T16) So for this Action delegate you can have up to 16 parameters for Action.  Sound interesting!!… Enough theory now. It’s time to implement real code. Following is a code for that. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; namespace DelegateExample { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { Action<String> Print = p => Console.WriteLine(p); Action<String,String> PrintAnother = (p1,p2)=> Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} {1}",p1,p2)); Print("Hello"); PrintAnother("Hello","World"); } } } In the above code you can see that I have created two Action delegate Print and PrintAnother. Print have one string parameter and its printing that. While PrintAnother have two string parameter and printing both the strings via Console.Writeline. Now it’s time to run example and following is the output as expected. That’s it. Hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more updates!!

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• Sony VAIO is booting directly into Windows without showing grub

  - by Rohan Dhruva

  I bought a new Sony Vaio S series laptop. It uses Insyde H2O BIOS EFI, and trying to install Linux on it is driving me crazy. root@kubuntu:~# parted /dev/sda print Model: ATA Hitachi HTS72756 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 640GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 274MB 273MB fat32 EFI system partition hidden 2 274MB 20.8GB 20.6GB ntfs Basic data partition hidden, diag 3 20.8GB 21.1GB 273MB fat32 EFI system partition boot 4 21.1GB 21.3GB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres 5 21.3GB 342GB 320GB ntfs Basic data partition 6 342GB 358GB 16.1GB ext4 Basic data partition 7 358GB 374GB 16.1GB ntfs Basic data partition 8 374GB 640GB 266GB ntfs Basic data partition What is surprising is that there are 2 EFI system partitions on the disk. The sda2 partition is a 20gb recovery partition which loads windows with a basic recovery interface. This is accessible by pressing the "ASSIST" button as opposed to the normal power button. I presume that the sda1 EFI System Partition (ESP) loads into this recovery. The sda3 ESP has more fleshed out entries for Microsoft Windows, which actually goes into Windows 7 (as confirmed by bcdedit.exe on Windows). Ubuntu is installed on sda6, and while installation I chose sda3 as my boot partition. The installer correctly created a sda3/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi application. The real problem: for the life of me, I can't set it to be the default! I tried creating a sda3/startup.nsh which called grubx64.efi, but it didn't help -- on rebooting, the system still boots into windows. I tried using efibootmgr, and that shows as it it worked: root@kubuntu:~# efibootmgr BootCurrent: 0000 BootOrder: 0000,0001 Boot0000* EFI USB Device Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager root@kubuntu:~# efibootmgr --create --gpt --disk /dev/sda --part 3 --write-signature --label "GRUB2" --loader "\\EFI\\ubuntu\\grubx64.efi" BootCurrent: 0000 BootOrder: 0002,0000,0001 Boot0000* EFI USB Device Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager Boot0002* GRUB2 root@kubuntu:~# efibootmgr BootCurrent: 0000 BootOrder: 0002,0000,0001 Boot0000* EFI USB Device Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager Boot0002* GRUB2 However, on rebooting, as you guessed, the machine rebooted directly back into Windows. The only things I can think of are: The sda1 partition is somehow being used Overwrite /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi and /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi with grubx64.efi [but this seems really radical]. Can anyone please help me out? Thanks -- any help is greatly appreciated, as this issue is driving me crazy!

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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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• Announcing the New Virtual Briefing Center

  - by Theresa Hickman

  Do you want to hear about real-world customer success stories? Or listen to Oracle Application leaders discuss the value in the latest releases of Oracle Application products? Do you want one place to download up-to-date content, including white papers, podcasts, webcasts and presentations? Did you miss the Virtual Trade Show at the beginning of 2011? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the Virtual Briefing Center is the place to get up-to-date Oracle product information for Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Fusion, Siebel and Hyperion across multiple product areas from financials, procurement, supply chain, CRM, Performance Management, and more. Every month we will have "Monthly Spotlights" to showcase new content. The following lists the upcoming live webcasts in July 2011: Weds. July 6, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. PST/12:00 p.m. EST: Hear about Amway’s upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 and how they stabilized financial modules, especially the month-end close processes. Thurs. July 14, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. PST/12:00 p.m. EST: Hear West Corporation share their PeopleSoft 9.1 upgrade, resulting in improved self-service, more robust reporting capabilities and new workflow and processes. Thurs. July 21, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. PST/12:00 p.m. EST: Learn how MFlex improved their operations, saved manpower and reduced time to close with their upgrade to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0. Thurs. July 28, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. PST/12:00 p.m. EST: IEEE discusses their upgrade to Siebel 8.1 using open web service architecture for faster SOA enablement allowing them to scale their membership capacity by 250%. If you cannot attend any of the above live events, that's OK because each of the webcasts in this series will be recorded and available on demand. And for you Financials folks who may have missed the webcasts from the Virtual Trade Show earlier this year, you can view them on demand by Visiting the Resource Library: Planning Your Successful Upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite Financials 12.1. In this session, Bryant and Stratton College talk about their upgrade. Planning Your Successful Upgrade to PeopleSoft Financials 9.1. In this session, the University of Central Florida share their upgrade story. Fusion Financials: The New Standard for Finance. In this session, Terrance Wampler, the VP of Financial Application Strategy discusses the business value of Oracle's next generation financial applications and how customers can take advantage of Fusion Financials alongside their existing investments. What are you waiting for? Register now!

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• Where would my different development rhythm be suitable for the work?

  - by DarenW

  Over the years I have worked on many projects, with some successful and a great benefit to the company, and some total failures with me getting fired or otherwise leaving. What is the difference? Naturally I prefer the former and wish to avoid the latter, so I'm pondering this issue. The key seems to be that my personal approach differs from the norm. I write code first, letting it be all spaghetti and chaos, using whatever tools "fit my hand" that I'm fluent in. I try to organize it, then give up and start over with a better design. I go through cycles, from thinking-design to coding-testing. This may seem to be the same as any other development process, Agile or whatever, cycling between design and coding, but there does seem to be a subtle difference: The methods (ideally) followed by most teams goes design, code; design, code; ... while I'm going code, design; code, design; (if that makes any sense.) Music analogy: some types of music have a strong downbeat while others have prominent syncopation. In practice, I just can't think in terms of UML, specifications and so on, but grok things only by attempting to code and debug and refactor ad-hoc. I need the grounding provided by coding in order to think constructively, then to offer any opinions, advice or solutions to the team and get real work done. In positions where I can initially hack up cowboy code without constraints of tool or language choices, I easily gain a "feel" for the data, requirements etc and eventually do good work. In formalized positions where paperwork and pure "design" comes first and only later any coding (even for small proof-of-concept projects), I am lost at sea and drown. Therefore, I'd like to know how to either 1) change my rhythm to match the more formalized methodology-oriented team ways of doing things, or 2) find positions at organizations where my sense of development rhythm is perfect for the work. It's probably unrealistic for a person to change their fundamental approach to things. So option 2) is preferred. So where I can I find such positions? How common is my approach and where is it seen as viable but different, and not dismissed as undisciplined or cowboy coder ways?

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• Dynamic character animation - Using the physics engine or not

  - by Lex Webb

  I'm planning on building a dynamic reactant animation engine for the characters in my 2D Game. I have already built templates for a skeleton based animation system using key frames and interpolation to specify a limbs position at any given moment in time. I am using Farseer physics (an extension of Box2D) in Monogame/XNA in C# My real question lies in how i go about tying this character animation into the physics engine. I have two options: Moving limbs using physics engine - applying a interpolated force to each limb (dynamic body) in order to attempt to get it to its position as donated by the skeleton animation. Moving limbs by simply changing the position of a fixed body - Updating the new position of each limb manually, attempting to take into account physics collisions. Then stepping the physics after the animation to allow for environment interaction. Each of these methods have their distinct advantages and disadvantages. Physics based movement Advantages: Possibly more natural/realistic movement Better interaction with game objects as force applying to objects colliding with characters would be calculated for me. No need to convert to dynamic bodies when reacting to projectiles/death/fighting. Disadvantages: Possible difficulty in calculating correct amount of force to move a limb a certain distance at a constant rate. Underlying character balance system would need to be created that would need to be robust enough to prevent characters falling over at the touch of a feather. Added code complexity and processing time for the above. Static Object movement Advantages: Easy to interpolate movement of limbs between game steps Moving limbs is as simple as applying a rotation to the skeleton bone. Greater control over limbs, wont need to worry about characters falling over as all animation would be pre-defined. Disadvantages: Possible unnatural movement (Depends entirely on my animation skills!) Bad physics collision reactions with physics engine (Dynamic bodies simply slide out of the way of static objects) Need to calculate collisions with physics objects and my limbs myself and apply directional forces to them. Hard to account for slopes/stairs/non standard planes when animating walking/running animations. Need to convert objects to dynamic when reacting to projectile/fighting/death physics objects. The Question! As you can see, i have thought about this extensively, i have also had Google into physics based animation and have found mostly dissertation papers! Which is filling me with sense that it may a lot more advanced than my mathematics skills. My question is mostly subjective based on my findings above/any experience you may have: Which of the above methods should i use when creating my game? I am willing to spend the time to get a physics solution working if you think it would be possible. In the end i want to provide the most satisfying experience for the gamer, as well as a robust and dynamic system i can use to animate pretty much anything i need.

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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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• 3rd Party Tools: dbForge Studio for SQL Server

  - by Greg Low

  I've been taking a look at some of the 3rd party tools for SQL Server. Today, I looked at DBForge Studio for SQL Server from the team at DevArt. Installation was smooth. I did find it odd that it defaults to SQL authentication, not to Windows but either works fine. I like the way they have followed the SQL Server Management Studio visual layout. That will make the product familiar to existing SQL Server Management Studio users. I was keen to see what the database diagram tools are like. I found that the layouts generated where quite good, and certainly superior to the built-in SQL Server ones in SSMS. I didn't find any easy way to just add all tables to the diagram though. (That might just be me). One thing I did like was that it doesn't get confused when you have role playing dimensions. Multiple foreign key relationships between two tables display sensibly, unlike with the standard SQL Server version. It was pleasing to see a printing option in the diagramming tool. I found the database comparison tool worked quite well. There are a few UI things that surprised me (like when you add a new connection to a database, it doesn't select the one you just added by default) but generally it just worked as advertised, and the code that was generated looked ok. I used the SQL query editor and found the code formatting to be quite fast and while I didn't mind the style that it used by default, it wasn't obvious to me how to change the format. In Tools/Options I found things that talked about Profiles but I wasn't sure if that's what I needed. The help file pointed me in the right direction and I created a new profile. It's a bit odd that when you create a new profile, that it doesn't put you straight into editing the profile. At first I didn't know what I'd done. But as soon as I chose to edit it, I found that a very good range of options were available. When entering SQL code, the code completion options are quick but even though they are quite complete, one of the real challenges is in making them useful. Note in the following that while the options shown are correct, none are actually helpful: The Query Profiler seemed to work quite well. I keep wondering when the version supplied with SQL Server will ever have options like finding the most expensive operators, etc. Now that it's deprecated, perhaps never but it's great to see the third party options like this one and like SQL Sentry's Plan Explorer having this functionality. I didn't do much with the reporting options as I use SQL Server Reporting Services. Overall, I was quite impressed with this product and given they have a free trial available, I think it's worth your time taking a look at it.

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• 25 Secrets for Faster ASP.NET: the Eagle has landed!

  - by Michaela Murray

  On Friday we launched our new free eBook, 25 Secrets for Faster ASP.NET Applications! Heading for 1000 of you have picked it up already, but if you haven’t got your copy yet, you can grab it from http://www.red-gate.com/25secrets. It’s the follow up to the wildly successful 50 Ways to Avoid, Find and Fix ASP.NET Performance Issues, which we released back in January this year (you can download from www.red-gate.com/50ways). Once again, we collected tips from some of the smartest brains in the ASP.NET community, but this time around, we’ve covered the latest stuff in the .NET framework – async/await, Web API, and more. Houston, we have a winner… In my original blogpost, I offered a Microsoft Surface as a prize for the best tip. Now, after some serious deliberation, our judges have settled on a winner. By a unanimous verdict, the prize goes to… (wait for it!) … Jeffrey Richter, for this cheeky number, Tip #1 in the new book: Want to build scalable websites and services? Work asynchronously One of the secrets to producing scalable websites and services is to perform all your I/O operations asynchronously to avoid blocking threads. When your thread issues a synchronous I/O request, the Windows kernel blocks the thread. This causes the thread pool to create a new thread, which allocates a lot of memory and wastes precious CPU time. Calling xxxAsync method and using C#’s async/await keywords allows your thread to return to the thread pool so it can be used for other things. This reduces the resource consumption of your app, allowing it to use more memory and improving response time to your clients. Congratulations Jeffrey! Of course, I also owe a massive thank you to everyone who’s been involved in the book, especially all the authors. It’s a real treat to work with a developer community that’s so keen to collaborate and to share their hard-won nuggets of performance knowhow. If you haven’t read it yet, I can’t recommend it highly enough. You can get it for free at www.red-gate.com/25secrets The full backstory for both eBooks: https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2012/11/15/application-performance-the-best-of-the-web/ https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2012/11/27/application-performance-episode-2-announcing-the-judges/ https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2013/01/25/free-ebook-50-ways-to-avoid-find-and-fix-asp-net-performance-issues/ https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2013/03/22/50-ways-to-avoid-find-and-fix-asp-net-performance-issues-the-next-generation/

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