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  • MySQLi Wrapper -- will this slow down performance?

    - by Kerry
    I found the following code on php.net. I'm trying to write a wrapper for the MySQLi library to make things incredibly simple. If this is going to slow down performance, I'll skip it and find another way, if this works, then I'll do that. I have a single query function, if someone passes in more than one variable, I assume the function has to be prepared. The function that I would use to pass in an array to mysqli_stmt_bind_param is call_user_func_array, I have a feeling that is going to slow things down. Am I right? <?php /* just explaining how to call mysqli_stmt_bind_param with a parameter array */ $sql_link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'my_user', 'my_password', 'world'); $type = "isssi"; $param = array("5", "File Description", "File Title", "Original Name", time()); $sql = "INSERT INTO file_detail (file_id, file_description, file_title, file_original_name, file_upload_date) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?)"; $sql_stmt = mysqli_prepare ($sql_link, $sql); call_user_func_array('mysqli_stmt_bind_param', array_merge (array($sql_stmt, $type), $param); mysqli_stmt_execute($sql_stmt); ?>

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  • How to store arbitrary data for some HTML tags

    - by nickf
    I'm making a page which has some interaction provided by javascript. Just as an example: links which send an AJAX request to get the content of articles and then display that data in a div. Obviously in this example, I need each link to store an extra bit of information: the id of the article. The way I've been handling it in case was to put that information in the href link this: <a class="article" href="#5"> I then use jQuery to find the a.article elements and attach the appropriate event handler. (don't get too hung up on the usability or semantics here, it's just an example) Anyway, this method works, but it smells a bit, and isn't extensible at all (what happens if the click function has more than one parameter? what if some of those parameters are optional?) The immediately obvious answer was to use attributes on the element. I mean, that's what they're for, right? (Kind of). <a articleid="5" href="link/for/non-js-users.html"> In my recent question I asked if this method was valid, and it turns out that short of defining my own DTD (I don't), then no, it's not valid or reliable. A common response was to put the data into the class attribute (though that might have been because of my poorly-chosen example), but to me, this smells even more. Yes it's technically valid, but it's not a great solution. Another method I'd used in the past was to actually generate some JS and insert it into the page in a <script> tag, creating a struct which would associate with the object. var myData = { link0 : { articleId : 5, target : '#showMessage' // etc... }, link1 : { articleId : 13 } }; <a href="..." id="link0"> But this can be a real pain in butt to maintain and is generally just very messy. So, to get to the question, how do you store arbitrary pieces of information for HTML tags?

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  • What guarantees are there on the run-time complexity (Big-O) of LINQ methods?

    - by tzaman
    I've recently started using LINQ quite a bit, and I haven't really seen any mention of run-time complexity for any of the LINQ methods. Obviously, there are many factors at play here, so let's restrict the discussion to the plain IEnumerable LINQ-to-Objects provider. Further, let's assume that any Func passed in as a selector / mutator / etc. is a cheap O(1) operation. It seems obvious that all the single-pass operations (Select, Where, Count, Take/Skip, Any/All, etc.) will be O(n), since they only need to walk the sequence once; although even this is subject to laziness. Things are murkier for the more complex operations; the set-like operators (Union, Distinct, Except, etc.) work using GetHashCode by default (afaik), so it seems reasonable to assume they're using a hash-table internally, making these operations O(n) as well, in general. What about the versions that use an IEqualityComparer? OrderBy would need a sort, so most likely we're looking at O(n log n). What if it's already sorted? How about if I say OrderBy().ThenBy() and provide the same key to both? I could see GroupBy (and Join) using either sorting, or hashing. Which is it? Contains would be O(n) on a List, but O(1) on a HashSet - does LINQ check the underlying container to see if it can speed things up? And the real question - so far, I've been taking it on faith that the operations are performant. However, can I bank on that? STL containers, for example, clearly specify the complexity of every operation. Are there any similar guarantees on LINQ performance in the .NET library specification?

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  • [javascript] Can I overload an object with a function?

    - by user257493
    Lets say I have an object of functions/values. I'm interested in overloading based on calling behavior. For example, this block of code below demonstrates what I wish to do. var main_thing = { initalized: false, something: "Hallo, welt!", something_else: [123,456,789], load: { sub1 : function() { //Some stuff }, sub2 : function() { //Some stuff }, all : function() { this.load.sub1(); this.load.sub2(); } } init: function () { this.initalized=true; this.something="Hello, world!"; this.something_else = [0,0,0]; this.load(); //I want this to call this.load.all() instead. } } The issue to me is that main_thing.load is assigned to an object, and to call main_thing.load.all() would call the function inside of the object (the () operator). What can I do to set up my code so I could use main_thing.load as an access the object, and main_thing.load() to execute some code? Or at least, similar behavior. Basically, this would be similar to a default constructor in other languages where you don't need to call main_thing.constructor(). If this isn't possible, please explain with a bit of detail.

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  • Recomendations for Creating a Picture Slide Show with Super-Smooth Transitions (For Live Presentaito

    - by Nick
    Hi everyone, I'm doing a theatrical performance, and I need a program that can read images from a folder and display them full screen on one of the computer's VGA outputs, in a predetermined order. All it needs to do is start with the first image, and when a key is pressed (space bar, right arrow), smoothly cross-fade to the next image. Sounds just like power-point right? The only reason why I can use power-point/open-office is because the "fade smoothly" transition isn't smooth enough, or configurable enough. It tends to be fast and choppy, where I would like to see a perfectly smooth fade over, say, 30 seconds. So the question is what is the best (cheap and fast) way to accomplish this? Is there a program that already does this well (for cheap or free)? OR should I try to hack at open-office's transition code? Or would it be easier to create this from scratch? Are there frameworks that might make it easier? I have web programming experience (php), but not desktop or real-time rendering. Any suggestions are appreciated!

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  • Change form submission (enter to tab)

    - by user1298883
    I have a real basic form (code below) with a bunch of back-panel PhP. There is a scanner being used to input the data, but instead of tab after each item, it sends an "enter" command. Is it viable to add javascript to cause enter to instead tab to the next form field, and upon the last form field, submit it instead? I have found a few scripts online, but none that I have tried have worked in Firefox/Chrome. CODE: <html><head><title>Barcode Generation</title></head><body> <fieldset style="width: 300px;"> <form action="generator.php" method="post"> Invoice Number:<input type="text" name="invoice" /><br /> Model Number:<input type="text" name="model" /><br /> Serial Number:<input type="text" name="serial" /><br /> <input type="hidden" name="reload" value="true" /> <input type="submit" /> </form><br /><a href=null>en espanol</a></fieldset> </body></html>

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  • Find existence of number in a sorted list in constant time? (Interview question)

    - by Rich
    I'm studying for upcoming interviews and have encountered this question several times (written verbatim) Find or determine non existence of a number in a sorted list of N numbers where the numbers range over M, M N and N large enough to span multiple disks. Algorithm to beat O(log n); bonus points for constant time algorithm. First of all, I'm not sure if this is a question with a real solution. My colleagues and I have mused over this problem for weeks and it seems ill formed (of course, just because we can't think of a solution doesn't mean there isn't one). A few questions I would have asked the interviewer are: Are there repeats in the sorted list? What's the relationship to the number of disks and N? One approach I considered was to binary search the min/max of each disk to determine the disk that should hold that number, if it exists, then binary search on the disk itself. Of course this is only an order of magnitude speedup if the number of disks is large and you also have a sorted list of disks. I think this would yield some sort of O(log log n) time. As for the M N hint, perhaps if you know how many numbers are on a disk and what the range is, you could use the pigeonhole principle to rule out some cases some of the time, but I can't figure out an order of magnitude improvement. Also, "bonus points for constant time algorithm" makes me a bit suspicious. Any thoughts, solutions, or relevant history of this problem?

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  • In Maven 2, Is it possible to specify a mirror for everything, but allow for failover to direct repo

    - by Justin Searls
    I understand that part of the appeal of setting up a Maven mirror, such as the following: <mirror> <id>nexus</id> <name>Maven Repository</name> <mirrorOf>*</mirrorOf> <url>http://server:8081/nexus/content/groups/public</url> </mirror> ... is that the documentation states, "You can force Maven to use a single repository by having it mirror all repository requests." However, is this also an indication that by having a * mirror set up each workstation [b]must[/b] be forced to go through the mirror? I ask because I would like each workstation to failover and connect directly to whatever public repositories it knows about in the event that Nexus can't resolve a dependency or plugin. (In a perfect world, each developer has the access necessary to add additional proxy repositories as needed. However, sometimes that access isn't available; sometimes the Nexus server goes down; sometimes it suffers a Java heap error.) Is this "mirror but go ahead and connect directly to public repos" failover configuration possible in Maven 2? Will it be in Maven 3?

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  • Unwanted redirection after authentication

    - by jodaha
    Hello world! We have a form to submit ratings for a certain restaurant in a in our views/restaurants/show.html.erb. We only want logged in users to create new ratings. We put before_filter :login_required, :only = [ :new, :create ] (but we also tried only ":create") on top of our RatingsController. If we click the submit button after typing in the rating details we are prompted to log in (which is what we want). After filling in username and password and submitting the login form we get redirected back to e. g. /restaurants/36/ratings, but we want to be redirected back to where we came from - e. g. /restaurants/36/. We tried redirect_to(:back), but this redirects us back to the login form. Also the new rating does not get saved to the database. Any idea how we can change the redirection and how to make sure the rating gets saved? Thanks!

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  • Weird CSS behavior... removing a 1px border makes <DIV> move about 20px

    - by John
    I have the following: CSS #pageBody { height: 500px; padding:0; margin:0; /*border: 1px solid #00ff00;*/ } #pageContent { height:460px; margin-left:35px; margin-right:35px; margin-top:30px; margin-bottom:30px; padding:0px 0 0 0; } HTML <div id="pageBody"> <div id="pageContent"> <p> blah blah blah </p> </div> </div> </div> If I uncomment the border line in pageBody, everything fits sweetly... I had the border on to verify things were as expected. But removing the border, pageBody drops down the page about 20px, while pageContent does not appear to move at all. Now this is not the real page, but a subset. If nothing's obvious I can attempt to generate a working minimal sample, but I thought there might be an easy quick answer first. I see the same exact problem in Chrome and IE8, suggesting it's me not the browser. Any tips where to look? I wondered maybe the 1px border was some tipping point making the contents of a div just too big, but changing #pageContent height to e.g 400 makes no difference, other than clipping the bottom off that div.

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  • Infrastructure for high transactional system (language & hosting suggestion help)

    - by RPS
    Some of our friends (University students) are trying to develop a twitter type application, I want to plan for at least 1000 transactions per second (I know it's wishful thinking) for initial launch. This involves several people connecting and getting updates and posting (text + images) to site. In the back end db will server the data and also calculates rankings of what to push to user based on complex algorithm on the fly real-time. Our group is familiar with Java and Tomcat/MySQL. We can also easily learn/code in PHP/MySQL. What is the best suited platform for our purpose ? Though Java seem to be easy to implement for us I am afraid that hosting will be a bit difficult. I could find cloud based php hosting services (like rackspace cloudsites) at reasonable cost. Amazon EC2 is a bit over our heads to manage on day-to-day. Also any recommendation on hosting ? (PHP or Java) We don't have millions in seed money but about $20K to start with. Any advice on above or any thing in general approach is much appreciated.

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  • List of values as keys for a Map

    - by thr
    I have lists of variable length where each item can be one of four unique, that I need to use as keys for another object in a map. Assume that each value can be either 0, 1, 2 or 3 (it's not integer in my real code, but a lot easier to explain this way) so a few examples of key lists could be: [1, 0, 2, 3] [3, 2, 1] [1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 3] [2, 3, 1, 1, 2] [1, 2] So, to re-iterate: each item in the list can be either 0, 1, 2 or 3 and there can be any number of items in a list. My first approach was to try to hash the contents of the array, using the built in GetHashCode() in .NET to combine the hash of each element. But since this would return an int I would have to deal with collisions manually (two equal int values are identical to a Dictionary). So my second approach was to use a quad tree, breaking down each item in the list into a Node that has four pointers (one for each possible value) to the next four possible values (with the root node representing [], an empty list), inserting [1, 0, 2] => Foo, [1, 3] => Bar and [1, 0] => Baz into this tree would look like this: Grey nodes nodes being unused pointers/nodes. Though I worry about the performance of this setup, but there will be no need to deal with hash collisions and the tree won't become to deep (there will mostly be lists with 2-6 items stored, rarely over 6). Is there some other magic way to store items with lists of values as keys that I have missed?

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  • Duplicate values multi array

    - by BETA911
    As the title states I'm searching for a unique solution in multi arrays. PHP is not my world so I can't make up a good and fast solution. I basically get this from the database: http://pastebin.com/vYhFCuYw . I want to check on the 'id' key, and if the array contains a duplicate 'id', then the 'aantal' should be added to each other. So basically the output has to be this: http://pastebin.com/0TXRrwLs . Thanks in advance! EDIT As asked, attempt 1 out of many: function checkDuplicates($array) { $temp = array(); foreach($array as $k) { foreach ($array as $v) { $t_id = $k['id']; $t_naam = $k['naam']; $t_percentage = $k['percentage']; $t_aantal = $k['aantal']; if ($k['id'] == $v['id']) { $t_aantal += $k['aantal']; array_push($temp, array( 'id' => $t_id, 'naam' => $t_naam, 'percentage' => $t_percentage, 'aantal' => $t_aantal, ) ); } } } return $temp; }

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  • Parallel features in .Net 4.0

    - by Jonathan.Peppers
    I have been going over the practicality of some of the new parallel features in .Net 4.0. Say I have code like so: foreach (var item in myEnumerable) myDatabase.Insert(item.ConvertToDatabase()); Imagine myDatabase.Insert is performing some work to insert to a SQL database. Theoretically you could write: Parallel.ForEach(myEnumerable, item => myDatabase.Insert(item.ConvertToDatabase())); And automatically you get code that takes advantage of multiple cores. But what if myEnumerable can only be interacted with by a single thread? Will the Parallel class enumerate by a single thread and only dispatch the result to worker threads in the loop? What if myDatabase can only be interacted with by a single thread? It would certainly not be better to make a database connection per iteration of the loop. Finally, what if my "var item" happens to be a UserControl or something that must be interacted with on the UI thread? What design pattern should I follow to solve these problems? It's looking to me that switching over to Parallel/PLinq/etc is not exactly easy when you are dealing with real-world applications.

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  • rails restful select_tag with :on_change

    - by Sam
    So I'm finally starting to use rest in rails. I want to have a select_tag with product categories and when one of the categories is selected I want it to update the products on change. I did this before with <% form_for :category, :url => { :action => "show" } do |f| %> <%= select_tag :id, options_from_collection_for_select(Category.find(:all), :id, :name), { :onchange => "this.form.submit();"} %> <% end %> however now it doesn't work because it tries to do the show action. I have two controllers 1) products 2) product_categories products belongs_to product_categories with a has_many How should I do this. Since the products are listed on the products controller and index action should I use the products controller or should I use the product_categories controller to find the category such as in the show action and then render the product/index page. But the real problem I have is how to get this form or any other option to work with restful routes.

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  • SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server 2011 Performance Comparison

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier, I have written about SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server 2011 – A Better Alternative. I got many emails asking for performance analysis of paging. Here is the quick analysis of it. The real challenge of paging is all the unnecessary IO reads from the database. Network traffic was one of the reasons why paging has become a very expensive operation. I have seen many legacy applications where a complete resultset is brought back to the application and paging has been done. As what you have read earlier, SQL Server 2011 offers a better alternative to an age-old solution. This article has been divided into two parts: Test 1: Performance Comparison of the Two Different Pages on SQL Server 2011 Method In this test, we will analyze the performance of the two different pages where one is at the beginning of the table and the other one is at its end. Test 2: Performance Comparison of the Two Different Pages Using CTE (Earlier Solution from SQL Server 2005/2008) and the New Method of SQL Server 2011 We will explore this in the next article. This article will tackle test 1 first. Test 1: Retrieving Page from two different locations of the table. Run the following T-SQL Script and compare the performance. SET STATISTICS IO ON; USE AdventureWorks2008R2 GO DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 5 SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID OFFSET @PageNumber*@RowsPerPage ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY GO USE AdventureWorks2008R2 GO DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 12100 SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID OFFSET @PageNumber*@RowsPerPage ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY GO You will notice that when we are reading the page from the beginning of the table, the database pages read are much lower than when the page is read from the end of the table. This is very interesting as when the the OFFSET changes, PAGE IO is increased or decreased. In the normal case of the search engine, people usually read it from the first few pages, which means that IO will be increased as we go further in the higher parts of navigation. I am really impressed because using the new method of SQL Server 2011,  PAGE IO will be much lower when the first few pages are searched in the navigation. Test 2: Retrieving Page from two different locations of the table and comparing to earlier versions. In this test, we will compare the queries of the Test 1 with the earlier solution via Common Table Expression (CTE) which we utilized in SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. Test 2 A : Page early in the table -- Test with pages early in table USE AdventureWorks2008R2 GO DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 5 ;WITH CTE_SalesOrderDetail AS ( SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER( ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) AS RowNumber FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail PC) SELECT * FROM CTE_SalesOrderDetail WHERE RowNumber >= @PageNumber*@RowsPerPage+1 AND RowNumber <= (@PageNumber+1)*@RowsPerPage ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID GO SET STATISTICS IO ON; USE AdventureWorks2008R2 GO DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 5 SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID OFFSET @PageNumber*@RowsPerPage ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY GO Test 2 B : Page later in the table -- Test with pages later in table USE AdventureWorks2008R2 GO DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 12100 ;WITH CTE_SalesOrderDetail AS ( SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER( ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) AS RowNumber FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail PC) SELECT * FROM CTE_SalesOrderDetail WHERE RowNumber >= @PageNumber*@RowsPerPage+1 AND RowNumber <= (@PageNumber+1)*@RowsPerPage ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID GO SET STATISTICS IO ON; USE AdventureWorks2008R2 GO DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 12100 SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID OFFSET @PageNumber*@RowsPerPage ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY GO From the resultset, it is very clear that in the earlier case, the pages read in the solution are always much higher than the new technique introduced in SQL Server 2011 even if we don’t retrieve all the data to the screen. If you carefully look at both the comparisons, the PAGE IO is much lesser in the case of the new technique introduced in SQL Server 2011 when we read the page from the beginning of the table and when we read it from the end. I consider this as a big improvement as paging is one of the most used features for the most part of the application. The solution introduced in SQL Server 2011 is very elegant because it also improves the performance of the query and, at large, the database. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Introduction to Wait Stats and Wait Types – Wait Type – Day 1 of 28

    - by pinaldave
    I have been working a lot on Wait Stats and Wait Types recently. Last Year, I requested blog readers to send me their respective server’s wait stats. I appreciate their kind response as I have received  Wait stats from my readers. I took each of the results and carefully analyzed them. I provided necessary feedback to the person who sent me his wait stats and wait types. Based on the feedbacks I got, many of the readers have tuned their server. After a while I got further feedbacks on my recommendations and again, I collected wait stats. I recorded the wait stats and my recommendations and did further research. At some point at time, there were more than 10 different round trips of the recommendations and suggestions. Finally, after six month of working my hands on performance tuning, I have collected some real world wisdom because of this. Now I plan to share my findings with all of you over here. Before anything else, please note that all of these are based on my personal observations and opinions. They may or may not match the theory available at other places. Some of the suggestions may not match your situation. Remember, every server is different and consequently, there is more than one solution to a particular problem. However, this series is written with kept wait stats in mind. While I was working on various performance tuning consultations, I did many more things than just tuning wait stats. Today we will discuss how to capture the wait stats. I use the script diagnostic script created by my friend and SQL Server Expert Glenn Berry to collect wait stats. Here is the script to collect the wait stats: -- Isolate top waits for server instance since last restart or statistics clear WITH Waits AS (SELECT wait_type, wait_time_ms / 1000. AS wait_time_s, 100. * wait_time_ms / SUM(wait_time_ms) OVER() AS pct, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY wait_time_ms DESC) AS rn FROM sys.dm_os_wait_stats WHERE wait_type NOT IN ('CLR_SEMAPHORE','LAZYWRITER_SLEEP','RESOURCE_QUEUE','SLEEP_TASK' ,'SLEEP_SYSTEMTASK','SQLTRACE_BUFFER_FLUSH','WAITFOR', 'LOGMGR_QUEUE','CHECKPOINT_QUEUE' ,'REQUEST_FOR_DEADLOCK_SEARCH','XE_TIMER_EVENT','BROKER_TO_FLUSH','BROKER_TASK_STOP','CLR_MANUAL_EVENT' ,'CLR_AUTO_EVENT','DISPATCHER_QUEUE_SEMAPHORE', 'FT_IFTS_SCHEDULER_IDLE_WAIT' ,'XE_DISPATCHER_WAIT', 'XE_DISPATCHER_JOIN', 'SQLTRACE_INCREMENTAL_FLUSH_SLEEP')) SELECT W1.wait_type, CAST(W1.wait_time_s AS DECIMAL(12, 2)) AS wait_time_s, CAST(W1.pct AS DECIMAL(12, 2)) AS pct, CAST(SUM(W2.pct) AS DECIMAL(12, 2)) AS running_pct FROM Waits AS W1 INNER JOIN Waits AS W2 ON W2.rn <= W1.rn GROUP BY W1.rn, W1.wait_type, W1.wait_time_s, W1.pct HAVING SUM(W2.pct) - W1.pct < 99 OPTION (RECOMPILE); -- percentage threshold GO This script uses Dynamic Management View sys.dm_os_wait_stats to collect the wait stats. It omits the system-related wait stats which are not useful to diagnose performance-related bottleneck. Additionally, not OPTION (RECOMPILE) at the end of the DMV will ensure that every time the query runs, it retrieves new data and not the cached data. This dynamic management view collects all the information since the time when the SQL Server services have been restarted. You can also manually clear the wait stats using the following command: DBCC SQLPERF('sys.dm_os_wait_stats', CLEAR); Once the wait stats are collected, we can start analysis them and try to see what is causing any particular wait stats to achieve higher percentages than the others. Many waits stats are related to one another. When the CPU pressure is high, all the CPU-related wait stats show up on top. But when that is fixed, all the wait stats related to the CPU start showing reasonable percentages. It is difficult to have a sure solution, but there are good indications and good suggestions on how to solve this. I will keep this blog post updated as I will post more details about wait stats and how I reduce them. The reference to Book On Line is over here. Of course, I have selected February to run this Wait Stats series. I am already cheating by having the smallest month to run this series. :) Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: DMV, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQLAuthority News – SQL Server Technology Evangelists and Evangelism

    - by pinaldave
    This is the exact conversation that I had with three people during the recent SQL Server Public Training. Person 1: “Are you an SQL Server Evangelist?” Pinal : “No, but Vinod Kumar is.” Person 1: “Who are you?” Person 2: “He is Pinal, haha!” Person 1: “I know that, but don’t you evangelize SQL Server Technology?” Pinal : “Hmm… I do that…” Person 1: “In that case, why don’t you call yourself an Evangelist?” Pinal : “…! …” Person 2: “Good Question! Who are you Pinal?” Pinal : “I think you are asking my title, is that correct?” Person 1: “Maybe.” Pinal : “I am a Mentor, and I work for Solid Quality Mentors.” Person 2: “I have seen you listing yourself as the Founder of SQLAuthority.com… so…” Pinal : “Yeah that’s true.” Person 3: “Let me summarize what these people are asking. What they are asking is that you can have multiple titles, so is being an evangelist one of your titles or not?” Pinal : “Well, I am an SQL Server MVP and lots of people say that we are also evangelists of technology. In fact,  we are all evangelists of technology, aren’t we?” Person 1: “So let me come back to my original topic: If you are an SQL Server Evangelist, then what is this evangelism?” Person 2: “And who is Vinod Kumar – I have heard about him a lot.” Pinal : “Oh okay. Now I got it. Let me explain …” The answer was quite long but since this conversation, I have been thinking about the words “evangelist” and “evangelism.” I think being an evangelist is one of the most respected jobs in the world and to do this job one must bear lots of responsibilities. There were two questions asked to me, so let me answer both one by one. Who is Vinod Kumar? Vinod Kumar is a Technology Evangelist for Microsoft and one of the most respected persons in the SQL Server Community in India. Let me copy-paste my note from the previous TechEd India 2010 article. “I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller so there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod was the best speaker in the event. He did not have a single time that disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL.” Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar What is Technology Evangelism? Here I am listing three posts written by Vinod Kumar, wherein he talks about Technology Evangelism and Technology Evangelist in an in-depth manner. They are highly-regarded articles in the Community. Evangelism beyond boundaries with an Evangelists !!! Technology Evangelism Demystified New face of Online Technology Evangelism I strongly recommend reading them all. These are wonderful blog posts. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • Add New Features to WMP with Windows Media Player Plus

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Do you use Windows Media Player 11 or 12 as your default media player? Today, we’re going to show you how to add some handy new features and enhancements with the Windows Media Player Plus third party plug-in. Installation and Setup Download and install Media Player Plus! (link below). You’ll need to close out of Windows Media Player before you begin or you’ll receive the message below. The next time you open Media Player you’ll be presented with the Media Player Plus settings window. Some of the settings will be enabled by default, such as the Find as you type feature. Using Media Player Plus! Find as you type allows you to start typing a search term from anywhere in Media Player without having to be in the Search box. The search term will automatically fill in the search box and display the results.   You’ll also see Disable group headers in the Library Pane.   This setting will display library items in a continuous list similar to the functionality of Windows Media Player 10. Under User Interface you can enable displaying the currently playing artist and title in the title bar. This is enabled by default.   The Context Menu page allows you to enable context menu enhancements. The File menu enhancement allows you to add the Windows Context menu to Media Player on the library pane, list pane, or both. Right click on a Title, select File, and you’ll see the Windows Context Menu. Right-click on a title and select Tag Editor Plus. Tag Editor Plus allows you to quickly edit media tags.   The Advanced tab displays a number of tags that Media Player usually doesn’t show. Only the tags with the notepad and pencil icon are editable.   The Restore Plug-ins page allows you to configure which plug-ins should be automatically restored after a Media Player crash. The Restore Media at Startup page allows you to configure Media Player to resume playing the last playlist, track, and even whether it was playing or paused at the time the application was closed. So, if you close out in the middle of a song, it will begin playing from that point the next time you open Media Player. You can also set Media Player to rewind a certain number of seconds from where you left off. This is especially useful if you are in the middle of watching a movie. There’s also the option to have your currently playing song sent to Windows Live Messenger. You can access the settings at any time by going to Tools, Plug-in properties, and selecting Windows Media Player Plus. Windows Media Plus is a nice little free plug-in for WMP 11 and 12 that brings a lot of additional functionality to Windows Media Player. If you use Media Player 11 or WMP 12 in Windows 7 as your main player, you might want to give this a try. Download Windows Media Player Plus! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install and Use the VLC Media Player on Ubuntu LinuxFixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesMake VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 10Make VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 11Make Windows Media Player Automatically Open in Mini Player Mode 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7

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  • SQL SERVER – What is Spatial Database? – Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spati

    - by pinaldave
    What is Spatial Database? A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types. (Source: Wikipedia) Today I will be talking about the same subject at Microsoft TechEd India. If you want to learn about how to spatial aspect of data and how to integrate them with SQL Server this is the perfect session for you. Spatial is very special concept of SQL Server and I really like how it is implemented in SQL Server. In general Performance Tuning and Query Optimization is something I always have enjoyed in my professional life. Index are my best friends and many time, by implementing and many time by removing I have improved the performance of the system. In this session, I will be talking about Index along with Spatial Data. As Spatial Database is very interesting concept, I will cover super short but very interesting 10 quick slides about this subject. I will make sure in very first 20 mins, you will understand following topics Introduction to Spatial Database One line definition Understanding Spatial Indexing Index Internals Query/Performance Tuning Query Hinting/Cost Analysis Spatial Index Catalog Views Performance Troubleshooting Finding Optimal Index using Spatial Index SP Common Errors Index Maintenance This slides decks will be followed by around 30 mins demo which will have story of geometry, geography, index internals and performance tuning. If you are interested in learning how GIS works and how SQL Server out of the box supports this wonderful tools, you will really like how the story is told. I am sure all people who attend the event will know how the Bangalore is positioned on the map of India. I will take example of Bangalore and Hyderabad and demonstrate how index can improve the performance. Well there are lots of story to tell in the session, and I will be opening this session with the beautiful script of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus created by Michael J. Swart. I will also demonstrate few real life scenario where I will be talking about Spatial Database and its usage. Do not miss this session. At the end of session there will be book awarded to best participant. My session details: Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Date: April 14, 2010 Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Spatial Database

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  • Programação paralela no .NET Framework 4 – Parte I

    - by anobre
    Introdução O avanço de tecnologia nos últimos anos forneceu, a baixo custo, acesso  a workstations com inúmeros CPUs. Facilmente encontramos hoje máquinas clientes com 2, 4 e até 8 núcleos, sem considerar os “super-servidores” com até 36 processadores :) Da wikipedia: A Unidade central de processamento (CPU, de acordo com as iniciais em inglês) ou o processador é a parte de um sistema de computador que executa as instruções de um programa de computador, e é o elemento primordial na execução das funções de um computador. Este termo tem sido usado na indústria de computadores pelo menos desde o início dos anos 1960[1]. A forma, desenho e implementação de CPUs têm mudado dramaticamente desde os primeiros exemplos, mas o seu funcionamento fundamental permanece o mesmo. Fazendo uma analogia, seria muito interessante delegarmos tarefas no mundo real que podem ser executadas independentemente a pessoas diferentes, atingindo desta forma uma  maior performance / produtividade na sua execução. A computação paralela se baseia na idéia que um problema maior pode ser dividido em problemas menores, sendo resolvidos de forma paralela. Este pensamento é utilizado há algum tempo por HPC (High-performance computing), e através das facilidades dos últimos anos, assim como a preocupação com consumo de energia, tornaram esta idéia mais atrativa e de fácil acesso a qualquer ambiente. No .NET Framework A plataforma .NET apresenta um runtime, bibliotecas e ferramentas para fornecer uma base de acesso fácil e rápido à programação paralela, sem trabalhar diretamente com threads e thread pool. Esta série de posts irá apresentar todos os recursos disponíveis, iniciando os estudos pela TPL, ou Task Parallel Library. Task Parallel Library A TPL é um conjunto de tipos localizados no namespace System.Threading e System.Threading.Tasks, a partir da versão 4 do framework. A partir da versão 4 do framework, o TPL é a maneira recomendada para escrever código paralelo e multithreaded. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd460717(v=VS.100).aspx Task Parallelism O termo “task parallelism”, ou em uma tradução live paralelismo de tarefas, se refere a uma ou mais tarefas sendo executadas de forma simultanea. Considere uma tarefa como um método. A maneira mais fácil de executar tarefas de forma paralela é o código abaixo: Parallel.Invoke(() => TrabalhoInicial(), () => TrabalhoSeguinte()); O que acontece de verdade? Por trás nos panos, esta instrução instancia de forma implícita objetos do tipo Task, responsável por representar uma operação assíncrona, não exatamente paralela: public class Task : IAsyncResult, IDisposable É possível instanciar Tasks de forma explícita, sendo uma alternativa mais complexa ao Parallel.Invoke. var task = new Task(() => TrabalhoInicial()); task.Start(); Outra opção de instanciar uma Task e já executar sua tarefa é: var t = Task<int>.Factory.StartNew(() => TrabalhoInicialComValor());var t2 = Task<int>.Factory.StartNew(() => TrabalhoSeguinteComValor()); A diferença básica entre as duas abordagens é que a primeira tem início conhecido, mais utilizado quando não queremos que a instanciação e o agendamento da execução ocorra em uma só operação, como na segunda abordagem. Data Parallelism Ainda parte da TPL, o Data Parallelism se refere a cenários onde a mesma operação deva ser executada paralelamente em elementos de uma coleção ou array, através de instruções paralelas For e ForEach. A idéia básica é pegar cada elemento da coleção (ou array) e trabalhar com diversas threads concomitantemente. A classe-chave para este cenário é a System.Threading.Tasks.Parallel // Sequential version foreach (var item in sourceCollection) { Process(item); } // Parallel equivalent Parallel.ForEach(sourceCollection, item => Process(item)); Complicado né? :) Demonstração Acesse aqui um vídeo com exemplos (screencast). Cuidado! Apesar da imensa vontade de sair codificando, tome cuidado com alguns problemas básicos de paralelismo. Neste link é possível conhecer algumas situações. Abraços.

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  • NDepend tool – Why every developer working with Visual Studio.NET must try it!

    - by hajan
    In the past two months, I have had a chance to test the capabilities and features of the amazing NDepend tool designed to help you make your .NET code better, more beautiful and achieve high code quality. In other words, this tool will definitely help you harmonize your code. I mean, you’ve probably heard about Chaos Theory. Experienced developers and architects are already advocates of the programming chaos that happens when working with complex project architecture, the matrix of relationships between objects which simply even if you are the one who have written all that code, you know how hard is to visualize everything what does the code do. When the application get more and more complex, you will start missing a lot of details in your code… NDepend will help you visualize all the details on a clever way that will help you make smart moves to make your code better. The NDepend tool supports many features, such as: Code Query Language – which will help you write custom rules and query your own code! Imagine, you want to find all your methods which have more than 100 lines of code :)! That’s something simple! However, I will dig much deeper in one of my next blogs which I’m going to dedicate to the NDepend’s CQL (Code Query Language) Architecture Visualization – You are an architect and want to visualize your application’s architecture? I’m thinking how many architects will be really surprised from their architectures since NDepend shows your whole architecture showing each piece of it. NDepend will show you how your code is structured. It shows the architecture in graphs, but if you have very complex architecture, you can see it in Dependency Matrix which is more suited to display large architecture Code Metrics – Using NDepend’s panel, you can see the code base according to Code Metrics. You can do some additional filtering, like selecting the top code elements ordered by their current code metric value. You can use the CQL language for this purpose too. Smart Search – NDepend has great searching ability, which is again based on the CQL (Code Query Language). However, you have some options to search using dropdown lists and text boxes and it will generate the appropriate CQL code on fly. Moreover, you can modify the CQL code if you want it to fit some more advanced searching tasks. Compare Builds and Code Difference – NDepend will also help you compare previous versions of your code with the current one at one of the most clever ways I’ve seen till now. Create Custom Rules – using CQL you can create custom rules and let NDepend warn you on each build if you break a rule Reporting – NDepend can automatically generate reports with detailed stats, graph representation, dependency matrixes and some additional advanced reporting features that will simply explain you everything related to your application’s code, architecture and what you’ve done. And that’s not all. As I’ve seen, there are many other features that NDepend supports. I will dig more in the upcoming days and will blog more about it. The team who built the NDepend have also created good documentation, which you can find on the NDepend website. On their website, you can also find some good videos that will help you get started quite fast. It’s easy to install and what is very important it is fully integrated with Visual Studio. To get you started, you can watch the following Getting Started Online Demo and Tutorial with explanations and screenshots. If you are interested to know more about how to use the features of this tool, either visit their website or wait for my next blogs where I will show some real examples of using the tool and how it helps make your code better. And the last thing for this blog, I would like to copy one sentence from the NDepend’s home page which says: ‘Hence the software design becomes concrete, code reviews are effective, large refactoring are easy and evolution is mastered.’ Website: www.ndepend.com Getting Started: http://www.ndepend.com/GettingStarted.aspx Features: http://www.ndepend.com/Features.aspx Download: http://www.ndepend.com/NDependDownload.aspx Hope you like it! Please do let me know your feedback by providing comments to my blog post. Kind Regards, Hajan

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  • Oracle Announces Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine

    - by jgelhaus
    Fourth Generation Exadata X3 Systems are Ideal for High-End OLTP, Large Data Warehouses, and Database Clouds; Eighth-Rack Configuration Offers New Low-Cost Entry Point ORACLE OPENWORLD, SAN FRANCISCO – October 1, 2012 News Facts During his opening keynote address at Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison announced the Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine - the latest generation of its Oracle Exadata Database Machines. The Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine is a key component of the Oracle Cloud. Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine and Oracle Exadata X3-8 Database In-Memory Machine can store up to hundreds of Terabytes of compressed user data in Flash and RAM memory, virtually eliminating the performance overhead of reads and writes to slow disk drives, making Exadata X3 systems the ideal database platforms for the varied and unpredictable workloads of cloud computing. In order to realize the highest performance at the lowest cost, the Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine implements a mass memory hierarchy that automatically moves all active data into Flash and RAM memory, while keeping less active data on low-cost disks. With a new Eighth-Rack configuration, the Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine delivers a cost-effective entry point for smaller workloads, testing, development and disaster recovery systems, and is a fully redundant system that can be used with mission critical applications. Next-Generation Technologies Deliver Dramatic Performance Improvements Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machines use a combination of scale-out servers and storage, InfiniBand networking, smart storage, PCI Flash, smart memory caching, and Hybrid Columnar Compression to deliver extreme performance and availability for all Oracle Database Workloads. Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine systems leverage next-generation technologies to deliver significant performance enhancements, including: Four times the Flash memory capacity of the previous generation; with up to 40 percent faster response times and 100 GB/second data scan rates. Combined with Exadata’s unique Hybrid Columnar Compression capabilities, hundreds of Terabytes of user data can now be managed entirely within Flash; 20 times more capacity for database writes through updated Exadata Smart Flash Cache software. The new Exadata Smart Flash Cache software also runs on previous generation Exadata systems, increasing their capacity for writes tenfold; 33 percent more database CPU cores in the Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine, using the latest 8-core Intel® Xeon E5-2600 series of processors; Expanded 10Gb Ethernet connectivity to the data center in the Oracle Exadata X3-2 provides 40 10Gb network ports per rack for connecting users and moving data; Up to 30 percent reduction in power and cooling. Configured for Your Business, Available Today Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine systems are available in a Full-Rack, Half-Rack, Quarter-Rack, and the new low-cost Eighth-Rack configuration to satisfy the widest range of applications. Oracle Exadata X3-8 Database In-Memory Machine systems are available in a Full-Rack configuration, and both X3 systems enable multi-rack configurations for virtually unlimited scalability. Oracle Exadata X3-2 and X3-8 Database In-Memory Machines are fully compatible with prior Exadata generations and existing systems can also be upgraded with Oracle Exadata X3-2 servers. Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine systems can be used immediately with any application certified with Oracle Database 11g R2 and Oracle Real Application Clusters, including SAP, Oracle Fusion Applications, Oracle’s PeopleSoft, Oracle’s Siebel CRM, the Oracle E-Business Suite, and thousands of other applications. Supporting Quotes “Forward-looking enterprises are moving towards Cloud Computing architectures,” said Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president, Oracle Database Server Technologies. “Oracle Exadata’s unique ability to run any database application on a fully scale-out architecture using a combination of massive memory for extreme performance and low-cost disk for high capacity delivers the ideal solution for Cloud-based database deployments today.” Supporting Resources Oracle Press Release Oracle Exadata Database Machine Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine Oracle Exadata X3-8 Database In-Memory Machine Oracle Database 11g Follow Oracle Database via Blog, Facebook and Twitter Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Keynotes Like Oracle OpenWorld on Facebook Follow Oracle OpenWorld on Twitter Oracle OpenWorld Blog Oracle OpenWorld on LinkedIn Mark Hurd's keynote with Andy Mendelsohn and Juan Loaiza - - watch for the replay to be available soon at http://www.youtube.com/user/Oracle or http://www.oracle.com/openworld/live/on-demand/index.html

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  • Announcing the new Oracle Retail Workspace, A Configuration of Oracle WebCenter Spaces 11.1.1.5 for Oracle Retail

    - by Oracle Retail Documentation Team
    For the Oracle Retail 13.2.x enterprise, Oracle Retail Workspace 13.2.4 replaces previous versions of Oracle Retail Workspace. Oracle Retail Workspace 13.2.4 is a supported configuration of Oracle WebCenter Spaces 11.1.1.5 for Oracle Retail. Supported Product Overview In order to provide a next-generation Oracle user engagement platform for the retail industry, Oracle Retail Workspace leverages WebCenter Spaces. Oracle Retail Workspace is not a licensed retail application with any code. Instead, retailers purchase the underlying technology and then leverage the Oracle Retail Workspace Implementation Guide to configure a portal utilizing Oracle WebCenter Spaces. Oracle Retail Workspace has been repositioned as a configuration of Oracle WebCenter Spaces for the following reasons: The Oracle Retail Workspace configuration utilizes the external application functionality and the application navigator taskflow of the Oracle WebCenter Framework to configure Oracle Retail applications in Oracle WebCenter Spaces. The Oracle WebCenter Framework improves IT development cycle times by blending Web 2.0 services, processes, business intelligence, and transactions in an integrated JSF framework. The Oracle WebCenter Spaces 11g offers features provided by the previous versions of Oracle Retail Workspace that enable retailers to leverage a productive portal-based environment. List of Documents The following are included in Workspace 13.2.4, A Configuration of WebCenter Spaces 11.1.1.5 for Oracle Retail Oracle Retail Workspace Release Notes Oracle Retail Workspace Implementation Guide Workspace Retail Library—Unsupported The Oracle Retail Workspace Retail Library is comprised of previously-published accelerator documents and sample code downloads hosted on My Oracle Support. They are not supported, nor are they associated with the support lifecycle of the Workspace application. Doc ID: 1461281.1: Oracle Retail Workspace Retail Library Oracle Retail Workspace Retail Library Reference GuideA set of Micro-Applications that can be used to perform some of the operations of Oracle Retail Merchandising System (RMS) from outside the application. This document describes the functional and technical design details of the Micro-Applications available in this release, including the following and more: Create Regular Item Create Purchase Order Item Transfer Update Vendor Oracle Retail Fashion Planning Bundle Reports documentationThe Oracle Retail Fashion Planning Bundle Reports package includes role-based Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Enterprise Edition (EE) reports and dashboards that provide an illustrative overview highlighting the Fashion Planning Bundle solutions. These dashboards can be leveraged out-of-the-box or can be used along with the other dashboards and reports that may have already been created to support a specific solution or organizational needs. This package includes dashboards for the Assortment Planning, Item Planning, Item Planning Configured for COE, Merchandise Financial Planning Retail Accounting, and Merchandise Financial Planning Cost Accounting applications. Oracle Retail Accelerators for WebLogic Server 11g Micro-Applications Development TutorialThis tutorial describes how you can create a Micro-Application for the Create a Regular Item task in the Retail Merchandising System (RMS) application using Oracle JDeveloper and ADF. Retail Accelerators: Developing ADF Reports for RPASThis document illustrates how you can use the Oracle Application Development Framework 11g (ADF) to generate reports that provide insights from the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server (RPAS) based applications. Oracle Retail Accelerators Guide for WebCenter 11gOracle Retail Accelerators Guide for WebCenter 11g describes how you can integrate Oracle Retail applications with Oracle WebCenter Spaces and customize WebCenter Spaces to include custom-developed content. Oracle Retail Accelerators, Developing Oracle BI EE reports on RPAS Domain DataThis document illustrates how you can set up the integration between BI EE and RPAS domains to generate BI EE reports and dashboards for RPAS. Oracle Retail Accelerators, Developing Oracle BI EE Reports on RPAS WorkbooksThis document outlines a process to create real-time Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Enterprise Edition reports against RPAS workbooks dynamically, as opposed to directly going against the RPAS domain for the data. 

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  • Sneak peek at next generation Three MiFi unit – Huawei E585

    - by Liam Westley
    Last Wednesday I was fortunate to be invited to a sneak preview of the next generation Three MiFi unit, the Huawei E585. Many thanks to all those who posted questions both via this blog or via @westleyl on Twitter. I think I made sure I asked every question posed to the MiFi product manager from Three UK, and so here's the answers you were after. What is a MiFi? For those who are wondering, a MiFi unit is a 3G broadband modem combined with a WiFi access point, providing 3G broadband data access to up to five devices simultaneously via standard WiFi connections. What is different? It appears the prime task of enhancing the MiFi was to improve the user experience and user interface, both in terms of the device hardware and within the management software to configure the device.  I think this was a very sensible decision as these areas had substantial room for improvement. Single button operation to switch on, enable WiFi and connect to 3G Improved OELD display (see below), replacing the multi coloured LEDs; including signal strength, SMS notifications, the number of connected clients and data usage Management is via a web based dashboard accessible from any web browser. This is a big win for those running Linux, Mac OS/X, iPad users and, for me, as I can now configure the device from Windows 7 64-bit Charging is via micro USB, the new standard for small USB devices; you cannot use your old charger for the new MiFi unit Automatic reconnection when regaining a signal Improved charging time, which should allow recharging of the device when in use Although subjective, the black and silver design does look more classy than the silver and white plastic of the original MiFi What is the same? Virtually the same size and weight The battery is the same unit as the original MiFi so you’ll have a handy spare if you upgrade Data plans remain the same as the current MiFi, so cheapest price for upgraders will be £49 pay as you go Still only works on 3G networks, with no fallback to GPRS or EDGE There is no specific upgrade path for existing three customers, either from dongle or from the original MiFi My opinion I think three have concentrated on the correct areas of usability and user experience rather than trying to add new whizz bang technology features which aren’t of interest to mainstream users. The one button operation and the improved device display will make it much easier to use when out and about. If the automatic reconnection proves reliable that will remove a major bugbear that I experienced the previous evening when travelling on the First Great Western line from Paddington to Didcot Parkway.  The signal was repeatedly lost as we sped through tunnels and cuttings, and without automatic reconnection is was a real pain to keep pressing the data button on the MiFi to re-establish my data connection. And finally, the web based dashboard will mean I no longer need to resort to my XP based netbook to configure the SSID and password. My everyday laptop runs Windows 7 64-bit which appears to confuse the older 3 WiFi manager which cannot locate the MiFi when connected. Links to other sites, and other images of the device Good first impressions from Ben Smith, http://thereallymobileproject.com/2010/06/3uk-announce-a-new-mifi-with-a-screen/ Also, a round up of other sneak preview posts, http://www.3mobilebuzz.com/2010/06/11/mifi-round-two-your-view/ Pictures Here is a comparison of the old MiFi device next to the new device, complete with OLED display and the Huawei logo now being a prominent feature on the front of the device. One of my fellow bloggers had a Linux based netbook, showing off the web based dashboard complete with Text messages panel to manage SMS. And finally, I never thought that my blog sub title would ever end up printed onto a cup cake, ... and here's some of the other cup cakes ...

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