Search Results

Search found 2193 results on 88 pages for 'scott forsyth mvp'.

Page 74/88 | < Previous Page | 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81  | Next Page >

• Book &ldquo;Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter&rdquo; published

  - by terje

  During the summer and fall this year, me and my colleague Jakob Ehn has worked together on a book project that has now finally hit the stores! The title of the book is Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter and is published by Packt Publishing. Get it from http://www.packtpub.com/team-foundation-server-2012-starter/book or from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1849688389                     The book is part of a concept that Packt have with starter-books, intended for people new to Team Foundation Server 2012 and who want a quick guideline to get it up and working.  It covers the fundamentals, from installing and configuring it, and how to use it with source control, work items and builds. It is done as a step-by-step guide, but also includes best practices advice in the different areas. It covers the use of both the on-premises and the TFS Services version. It also has a list of links and references in the end to the most relevant Visual Studio 2012 ALM sites. Our good friend and fellow ALM MVP Mathias Olausson have done the review of the book, thanks again Mathias! We hope the book fills the gap between the different online guide sites and the more advanced books that are out. Book Description Your quick start guide to TFS 2012, top features, and best practices with hands on examples Overview Install TFS 2012 from scratch Get up and running with your first project Streamline release cycles for maximum productivity In Detail Team Foundation Server 2012 is Microsoft's leading ALM tool, integrating source control, work item and process handling, build automation, and testing. This practical "Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter Guide" will provide you with clear step-by-step exercises covering all major aspects of the product. This is essential reading for anyone wishing to set up, organize, and use TFS server. This hands-on guide looks at the top features in Team Foundation Server 2012, starting with a quick installation guide and then moving into using it for your software development projects. Manage your team projects with Team Explorer, one of the many new features for 2012. Covering all the main features in source control to help you work more efficiently, including tools for branching and merging, we will delve into the Agile Planning Tools for planning your product and sprint backlogs. Learn to set up build automation, allowing your team to become faster, more streamlined, and ultimately more productive with this "Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter Guide". What you will learn from this book Install TFS 2012 on premise Access TFS Services in the cloud Quickly get started with a new project with product backlogs, source control, and build automation Work efficiently with source control using the top features Understand how the tools for branching and merging in TFS 2012 help you isolate work and teams Learn about the existing process templates, such as Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 Manage your product and sprint backlogs using the Agile planning tools Approach This Starter guide is a short, sharp introduction to Team Foundation Server 2012, covering everything you need to get up and running. Who this book is written for If you are a developer, project lead, tester, or IT administrator working with Team Foundation Server 2012 this guide will get you up to speed quickly and with minimal effort.

  Read the article

• OpenGL - Cascaded shadow mapping - Texture lookup

  - by Silverlan

  I'm trying to implement cascaded shadow mapping in my engine, but I'm somewhat stuck at the last step. For testing purposes I've made sure all cascades encompass my entire scene. The result is currently this: The different intensity of the cascades is not on purpose, it's actually the problem. This is how I do the texture lookup for the shadow maps inside the fragment shader: layout(std140) uniform CSM { vec4 csmFard; // far distances for each cascade mat4 csmVP[4]; // View-Projection Matrix int numCascades; // Number of cascades to use. In this example it's 4. }; uniform sampler2DArrayShadow csmTextureArray; // The 4 shadow maps in vec4 csmPos[4]; // Vertex position in shadow MVP space float GetShadowCoefficient() { int index = numCascades -1; vec4 shadowCoord; for(int i=0;i<numCascades;i++) { if(gl_FragCoord.z < csmFard[i]) { shadowCoord = csmPos[i]; index = i; break; } } shadowCoord.w = shadowCoord.z; shadowCoord.z = float(index); shadowCoord.x = shadowCoord.x *0.5f +0.5f; shadowCoord.y = shadowCoord.y *0.5f +0.5f; return shadow2DArray(csmTextureArray,shadowCoord).x; } I then use the return value and simply multiply it with the diffuse color. That explains the different intensity of the cascades, since I'm grabbing the depth value directly from the texture. I've tried to do a depth comparison instead, but with limited success: [...] // Same code as above shadowCoord.w = shadowCoord.z; shadowCoord.z = float(index); shadowCoord.x = shadowCoord.x *0.5f +0.5f; shadowCoord.y = shadowCoord.y *0.5f +0.5f; float z = shadow2DArray(csmTextureArray,shadowCoord).x; if(z < shadowCoord.w) return 0.25f; return 1.f; } While this does give me the same shadow value everywhere, it only works for the first cascade, all others are blank: (I colored the cascades because otherwise the transitions wouldn't be visible in this case) What am I missing here?

  Read the article

• Silverlight Cream for March 05, 2011 -- #1053

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this all-sumbittal (while I was at MVP11) Issue: Michael Washington(-2-), goldytech, JFo, Andrea Boschin, Jonathan Marbutt, Gregor Biswanger, Michael Wolf, and Peter Kuhn. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "A Simple Bindable CheckboxList Control" Jonathan Marbutt WP7: "Struggles with the Panorama Control" JFo Lightswitch: "HTML (including HTML 5) and LightSwitch at the same time?" Michael Washington From SilverlightCream.com: LightSwitch vs HTML 5 ? In his first post-MVP11 post, Michael Washington takes on HTML5 with a Lightswitch discussion. Good discussion follows in the comments also. HTML (including HTML 5) and LightSwitch at the same time? Michael Washington's 2nd post is a great tutorial on creating a re-usable business layer with Lightswitch... all good stuff, and look for more from Michael as Lightswitch matures. How to add Computed Properties in WCF Ria Services on client goldytech has a new post up about providing real-time solutions to client-side calculations with WCF RIA services. Struggles with the Panorama Control JFo details a problem he had with the Panorama control on WP7... detailing 4 problems she had and her solutions... well thought-out explanations too.. a definite good read... and another blogger to add to my list! Windows Phone 7 - Part #7: Understanding Push Notifications Andrea Boschin has part 7 of his WP7 series up at SilverlightShow, concentrating on Push Notifications this time out... great explanation of push notifications in this tutorial from the service and phone side with a working sample to boot. A Simple Bindable CheckboxList Control Jonathan Marbutt took a completely different direction than most and created his own Bindable CheckboxList by starting with ContentControl rather than a Listbox as most do... pretty cool and all the source. Own routed events in Silverlight I met Gregor Biswanger at the MVP Summit and asked him to send me his blog run through Microsoft Translator ... here's a great post on routed events he did back in November... and a discussion of his CallMethodAction Behavior... which looks like another good post subject! Creating a Silverlight Out-of-Browser Splash Screen Michael Wolf has a post up discussing OOB splash screens... I like his "White screen of Awesome" definition ... I'm very familiar with that :) ... check out his solution for getting around that white screen, and lots of external links too. XNA for Silverlight developers: Part 5 - Input (touch + gestures) Peter Kuhn has Part 5 in his tutorial series on XNA for Silverlight devs up at SilverlightShow... this time covering touch and gestures ... how to enable and read gestures, and the difference between Silverlight and XNA in the touch department. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

  Read the article

• Finding the lowest average Hamming distance when the order of the strings matter

  - by user1049697

  I have a sequence of binary strings that I want to find a match for among a set of longer sequences of binary strings. A match means that the compared sequence gives the lowest average Hamming distance when all elements in the shorter sequence have been matched against a sequence in one of the longer sets. Let me try to explain with an example. I have a set of video frames that have been hashed using a perceptual hashing algorithm so that the video frames that look the same has roughly the same hash. I want to match a short video clip against a set of longer videos, to see if the clip is contained in one of these. This means that I need to find out where the sequence of the hashed frames in the short video has the lowest average Hamming distance when compared with the long videos. The short video is the sub strings Sub1, Sub2 and Sub3, and I want to match them against the hashes of the long videos in Src. The clue here is that the strings need to match in the specific order that they are given in, e.g. that Sub1 always has to match the element before Sub2, and Sub2 always has to match the element before Sub3. In this example it would map thusly: Sub1-Src3, Sub2-Src4 and Sub3-Src5. So the question is this: is there an algorithm for finding the lowest average Hamming distance when the order of the elements compared matter? The naïve approach to compare the substring sequence to every source string won't cut it of course, so I need something that preferably can match a (much) shorter sub string to a set of million of elements. I have looked at MVP-trees, BK-trees and similar, but everything seems to only take into account one binary string and not a sequence of them. Sub1: 100111011111011101 Sub2: 110111000010010100 Sub3: 111111010110101101 Src1: 001011010001010110 Src2: 010111101000111001 Src3: 101111001110011101 Src4: 010111100011010101 Src5: 001111010110111101 Src6: 101011111111010101 I have added a calculation of the examples below. (The Hamming distances aren't correct, but it doesn't matter) **Run 1.** dist(Sub1, Src1) = 8 dist(Sub2, Src2) = 10 dist(Sub3, Src3) = 12 average = 10 **Run 2.** dist(Sub1, Src2) = 10 dist(Sub2, Src3) = 12 dist(Sub3, Src4) = 10 average = 11 **Run 3.** dist(Sub1, Src3) = 7 dist(Sub2, Src4) = 6 dist(Sub3, Src5) = 10 average = 8 **Run 4.** dist(Sub1, Src3) = 10 dist(Sub2, Src4) = 4 dist(Sub3, Src5) = 2 average = 5 So the winner here is sequence 4 with an average distance of 5.

  Read the article

• Aptronyms: fitting the profession to the name

  - by Tony Davis

  Writing a recent piece on the pains of index fragmentation, I found myself wondering why, in SQL Server, you can’t set the equivalent of a fill factor, on a heap table. I scratched my head…who might know? Phil Factor, of course! I approached him with a due sense of optimism only to find that not only did he not know, he also didn’t seem to care much either. I skulked off thinking how this may be the final nail in the coffin of nominative determinism. I’ve always wondered if there was anything in it, though. If your surname is Plumb or Leeks, is there even a tiny, extra percentage chance that you’ll end up fitting bathrooms? Some examples are quite common. I’m sure we’ve all met teachers called English or French, or lawyers called Judge or Laws. I’ve also known a Doctor called Coffin, a Urologist called Waterfall, and a Dentist called Dentith. Two personal favorites are Wolfgang Wolf who ended up managing the German Soccer team, Wolfsburg, and Edmund Akenhead, a Crossword Editor for The Times newspaper. Having forgiven Phil his earlier offhandedness, I asked him for if he knew of any notable examples. He had met the famous Dr. Batty and Dr. Nutter, both Psychiatrists, knew undertakers called Death and Stiff, had read a book by Frederick Page-Turner, and suppressed a giggle at the idea of a feminist called Gurley-Brown. He even managed to better my Urologist example, citing the article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology (vol.49, pp.173-176, 1977) by A. J. Splatt and D. Weedon. What, however, if you were keen to gently nudge your child down the path to a career in IT? What name would you choose? Subtlety probably doesn’t really work, although in a recent interview, Rodney Landrum did congratulate PowerShell MVP Max Trinidad on being named after a SQL function. Grant “The Memory” Fritchey (OK, I made up that nickname) doesn’t do badly either. Some surnames, seem to offer a natural head start, although I know of no members of the Page-Reid clan in the profession. There are certainly families with the Table surname, although sadly, Little Bobby Tables was merely a legend by xkcd. A member of the well-known Key family would need to name their son Primary, or maybe live abroad, to make their mark. Nominate your examples of people seemingly destined, by name, for their chosen profession (extra points for IT). The best three will receive a prize. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Arcball 3D camera - how to convert from camera to object coordinates

  - by user38873

  I have checked multiple threads before posting, but i havent been able to figure this one out. Ok so i have been following this tutorial, but im not using glm, ive been implementing everything up until now, like lookat etc. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenGL_Programming/Modern_OpenGL_Tutorial_Arcball So i can rotate with the click and drag of the mouse, but when i rotate 90º degrees around Y and then move the mouse upwards or donwwards, it rotates on the wrong axis, this problem is demonstrated on this part of the tutorial An extra trick is converting the rotation axis from camera coordinates to object coordinates. It's useful when the camera and object are placed differently. For instace, if you rotate the object by 90° on the Y axis ("turn its head" to the right), then perform a vertical move with your mouse, you make a rotation on the camera X axis, but it should become a rotation on the Z axis (plane barrel roll) for the object. By converting the axis in object coordinates, the rotation will respect that the user work in camera coordinates (WYSIWYG). To transform from camera to object coordinates, we take the inverse of the MV matrix (from the MVP matrix triplet). What i have to do acording to the tutorial is convert my axis_in_camera_coordinates to object coordinates, and the rotation is done well, but im confused on what matrix i use to do just that. The tutorial talks about converting the axis from camera to object coordinates by using the inverse of the MV. Then it shows these 3 lines of code witch i havent been able to understand. glm::mat3 camera2object = glm::inverse(glm::mat3(transforms[MODE_CAMERA]) * glm::mat3(mesh.object2world)); glm::vec3 axis_in_object_coord = camera2object * axis_in_camera_coord; So what do i aply to my calculated axis?, the inverse of what, i supose the inverse of the model view? So my question is how do you transform camera axis to object axis. Do i apply the inverse of the lookat matrix? My code: if (cur_mx != last_mx || cur_my != last_my) { va = get_arcball_vector(last_mx, last_my); vb = get_arcball_vector( cur_mx, cur_my); angle = acos(min(1.0f, dotProduct(va, vb)))*20; axis_in_camera_coord = crossProduct(va, vb); axis.x = axis_in_camera_coord[0]; axis.y = axis_in_camera_coord[1]; axis.z = axis_in_camera_coord[2]; axis.w = 1.0f; last_mx = cur_mx; last_my = cur_my; } Quaternion q = qFromAngleAxis(angle, axis); Matrix m; qGLMatrix(q,m); vi = mMultiply(m, vi); up = mMultiply(m, up); ViewMatrix = ogLookAt(vi.x, vi.y, vi.z,0,0,0,up.x,up.y,up.z);

  Read the article

• Draw multiple objects with textures

  - by Simplex

  I want to draw cubes using textures. void OperateWithMainMatrix(ESContext* esContext, GLfloat offsetX, GLfloat offsetY, GLfloat offsetZ) { UserData *userData = (UserData*) esContext->userData; ESMatrix modelview; ESMatrix perspective; //Manipulation with matrix ... glVertexAttribPointer(userData->positionLoc, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, cubeFaces); //in cubeFaces coordinates verticles cube glVertexAttribPointer(userData->normalLoc, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, cubeFaces); //for normals (use in fragment shaider for textures) glEnableVertexAttribArray(userData->positionLoc); glEnableVertexAttribArray(userData->normalLoc); // Load the MVP matrix glUniformMatrix4fv(userData->mvpLoc, 1, GL_FALSE, (GLfloat*)&userData->mvpMatrix.m[0][0]); //Bind base map glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP, userData->baseMapTexId); //Set the base map sampler to texture unit to 0 glUniform1i(userData->baseMapLoc, 0); // Draw the cube glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 36); } (coordinates transformation is in OperateWithMainMatrix() ) Then Draw() function is called: void Draw(ESContext *esContext) { UserData *userData = esContext->userData; // Set the viewport glViewport(0, 0, esContext->width, esContext->height); // Clear the color buffer glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); // Use the program object glUseProgram(userData->programObject); OperateWithMainMatrix(esContext, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); eglSwapBuffers(esContext->eglDisplay, esContext->eglSurface); } This work fine, but if I try to draw multiple cubes (next code for example): void Draw(ESContext *esContext) { ... // Use the program object glUseProgram(userData->programObject); OperateWithMainMatrix(esContext, 2.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); OperateWithMainMatrix(esContext, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); OperateWithMainMatrix(esContext, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); OperateWithMainMatrix(esContext, -1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); OperateWithMainMatrix(esContext, -2.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); eglSwapBuffers(esContext->eglDisplay, esContext->eglSurface); } A side faces overlapes frontal face. The side face of the right cube overlaps frontal face of the center cube. How can i remove this effect and display miltiple cubes without it?

  Read the article

• On the art of self-promotion

  - by Tony Davis

  I attended Brent Ozar’s Building the Fastest SQL Servers session at Tech Ed last week, and found myself engulfed in a ‘perfect storm’ of excellent technical and presentational skills coupled with an astute awareness of the value of promoting one’s work. I spend a lot of time at such events talking to developers and DBAs about the value of blogging and writing articles, and my impression is that some could benefit from a touch less modesty and a little more self-promotion. I sense a reticence in many would-be writers. Is what I have to say important enough? Haven’t far more qualified and established commentators, MVPs and so on, already said it? While it’s a good idea to pick reasonably fresh and interesting topics, it’s more important not to let such fears lead to writer’s block. In the eyes of any future employer, your published writing is an extension of your resume. They will not care that a certain MVP knows how to solve problem x, but they will be very interested to see that you have tackled that same problem, and solved it in your own way, and described the process in your own voice. In your current job, your writing is one of the ways you can express to your peers, and to the organization as a whole, the value of what you contribute. Many Developers and DBAs seem to rely on the idea that their work will speak for itself, and that their skill shines out from it. Unfortunately, this isn’t always true. Many Development DBAs, for example, will be painfully aware of the massive effort involved in tuning and adding resilience to rapidly developed applications. However, others in the organization who are unaware of what’s involved in getting an application that is ‘done’ ready for production may dismiss such efforts as fussiness or conservatism. At the dark end of the development cycle, chickens come home to roost, but their droppings tend to land on those trying to clear up the mess. My advice is this: next time you fix a bug or improve the resilience or performance of a database or application, make sure that you use team meetings, informal discussions and so on to ensure that people understand what the problem was and what you had to do to fix it. Use your blog to describe, generally, the process you adopted, the resources you used and the insights that came from your work. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. By spreading the art of self-promotion to everyone involved in an IT project, we get a better idea of the extent of the work and the value of the contribution of all the team members. As always, we’d love to hear what you think. This very week, Simple-talk launches its new blogging platform. If any of this has moved you to ‘throw your hat into the ring’, drop us a mail at [email protected]. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• On the art of self-promotion

  - by Tony Davis

  I attended Brent Ozar's Building the Fastest SQL Servers session at Tech Ed last week, and found myself engulfed in a 'perfect storm' of excellent technical and presentational skills coupled with an astute awareness of the value of promoting one's work. I spend a lot of time at such events talking to developers and DBAs about the value of blogging and writing articles, and my impression is that some could benefit from a touch less modesty and a little more self-promotion. I sense a reticence in many would-be writers. Is what I have to say important enough? Haven't far more qualified and established commentators, MVPs and so on, already said it? While it's a good idea to pick reasonably fresh and interesting topics, it's more important not to let such fears lead to writer's block. In the eyes of any future employer, your published writing is an extension of your resume. They will not care that a certain MVP knows how to solve problem x, but they will be very interested to see that you have tackled that same problem, and solved it in your own way, and described the process in your own voice. In your current job, your writing is one of the ways you can express to your peers, and to the organization as a whole, the value of what you contribute. Many Developers and DBAs seem to rely on the idea that their work will speak for itself, and that their skill shines out from it. Unfortunately, this isn't always true. Many Development DBAs, for example, will be painfully aware of the massive effort involved in tuning and adding resilience to rapidly developed applications. However, others in the organization who are unaware of what's involved in getting an application that is 'done' ready for production may dismiss such efforts as fussiness or conservatism. At the dark end of the development cycle, chickens come home to roost, but their droppings tend to land on those trying to clear up the mess. My advice is this: next time you fix a bug or improve the resilience or performance of a database or application, make sure that you use team meetings, informal discussions and so on to ensure that people understand what the problem was and what you had to do to fix it. Use your blog to describe, generally, the process you adopted, the resources you used and the insights that came from your work. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. By spreading the art of self-promotion to everyone involved in an IT project, we get a better idea of the extent of the work and the value of the contribution of all the team members. As always, we'd love to hear what you think. This very week, Simple-talk launches its new blogging platform. If any of this has moved you to 'throw your hat into the ring', drop us a mail at [email protected]. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Memories about Tadeusz Golonka

  - by Damian

  Today at 10:55 AM, Tadeusz Golonka - my greatest  Mentor and Teacher  passed away. I had te opportunity to met Tadek in person several times last years. It was always a great experience to see how he shared his energy and passion. I was always impressed and had a lot of new ideas after such meeting or lecture. I can remember the meeting  in early 2009 and his briliant speech he did for us, the MVP community in Poland. We spent two days together and he talked to us all the time. He gave us examples how to share IT passion to other people and how to be better person for others. He was the greates Mentor I have ever met - I realized this during that meeting. My greates dream was and still is to be "like Tadek". Many Times I just went to events to see / hear him on stage ("in action"). I always wanted to have his energy, empathy and passion. Now I have to live without his good words and advices....Let me put here the words that Adam Cogan wrote on Tadek's profile on Facebook. I just can't write about that fatal accident. "The circumstances of Tadeusz Golonka death are too tragic. Tad stood up to offer his seat to an elderly lady, he lost his balance and then he slipped and hit the tram door hard. He then fell out of the tram and hit the metal barriers that separate the tram rails from the street. It was a severe accident...... So horrible.  At first it was a miracle is that he survived... he fought for several days.  My thoughts are with his lovely family. The family have asked for blood donations as a symbolic gift. Tad received a lot of blood.  Thank you Tad, you were a wonderful person. I will remember you as a kind man, a gentleman. "RIP Tadeusz- You will never ever be forgotten. You are with us all the time  

  Read the article

• Releasing the new Sample Browser Phone app

  - by Jialiang

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Jialiang/archive/2014/06/05/releasing-the-new-sample-browser-phone-app.aspx Starting its journey in 2010, Sample Browser is achieving its tetralogy by releasing a Windows Phone version Sample Browser today. The new Windows Phone app is the fourth milestone of Sample Browser since we released the desktop version and the Visual Studio version in 2012 and the Windows Store version in 2013. This time, by providing a sample browser designed for a ‘walking’ platform in response to MVPs’ suggestions during last year’s MVP Global Summit, we are literally putting a world of code samples "at developers’ fingertips”. If you like to have a code gallery of over 7000 quality code samples in your pocket, then click here to download our Windows Phone Sample Browser and start a fantastic mobile experience. With Windows Phone version Sample Browser and the Internet, you can search for code samples on MSDN at anytime and anywhere you want, 24/7 and–even to bed. You can also check code sample details and share them with your friends. Compared to the other 3 pieces in the tetralogy (desktop version, Visual Studio version, and the Windows Store version), the Windows Phone version Sample Browser sells itself for convenience and instant connectivity. For those who need to reach code samples under mobile circumstances where no PCs is available, Windows Phone version Sample Browser will definitely be the right service you are seeking for. Aside from sharing samples via emails as the other 3 do, the Windows Phone version Sample Browser also allows you to share the sample via SMS and Near Field Communication (NFC).   What's Next Currently, the Windows Phone Sample Browser only supports online MSDN code searching, but we already plan to upgrade Sample Browser to allow users to do ‘Bing code search’, and add and manage their private code snippets.  We will also upgrade the app to universal app. Universal App is a new concept brought up in the Microsoft Build Developer Conference 2014. It is a new development model that allows for a single app to be deployed across multiple Windows devices such as Windows Phone, Windows 8.1, and XBox. Therefore, once we finish upgrading Sample Browser to a universal app, you can synchronize your own code snippets across different devices; You can also mark a code sample as favorite on your Windows Phone and continue to study the sample when you are on your desktop. By then, sharing data between platforms will be a piece of cake. Also, the user experience of Sample Browser on different platforms will be more consistent.  The best is yet to come!   We sincerely suggest you give Sample Browser a try (click here to download). If you love what you see in Sample Browser, please recommend it to your friends and colleagues. If you encounter any problems or have any suggestions for us, please contact us at [email protected]. Your precious opinions and comments are more than welcome.

  Read the article

• On the art of self-promotion

  - by Tony Davis

  I attended Brent Ozar's Building the Fastest SQL Servers session at Tech Ed last week, and found myself engulfed in a 'perfect storm' of excellent technical and presentational skills coupled with an astute awareness of the value of promoting one's work. I spend a lot of time at such events talking to developers and DBAs about the value of blogging and writing articles, and my impression is that some could benefit from a touch less modesty and a little more self-promotion. I sense a reticence in many would-be writers. Is what I have to say important enough? Haven't far more qualified and established commentators, MVPs and so on, already said it? While it's a good idea to pick reasonably fresh and interesting topics, it's more important not to let such fears lead to writer's block. In the eyes of any future employer, your published writing is an extension of your resume. They will not care that a certain MVP knows how to solve problem x, but they will be very interested to see that you have tackled that same problem, and solved it in your own way, and described the process in your own voice. In your current job, your writing is one of the ways you can express to your peers, and to the organization as a whole, the value of what you contribute. Many Developers and DBAs seem to rely on the idea that their work will speak for itself, and that their skill shines out from it. Unfortunately, this isn't always true. Many Development DBAs, for example, will be painfully aware of the massive effort involved in tuning and adding resilience to rapidly developed applications. However, others in the organization who are unaware of what's involved in getting an application that is 'done' ready for production may dismiss such efforts as fussiness or conservatism. At the dark end of the development cycle, chickens come home to roost, but their droppings tend to land on those trying to clear up the mess. My advice is this: next time you fix a bug or improve the resilience or performance of a database or application, make sure that you use team meetings, informal discussions and so on to ensure that people understand what the problem was and what you had to do to fix it. Use your blog to describe, generally, the process you adopted, the resources you used and the insights that came from your work. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. By spreading the art of self-promotion to everyone involved in an IT project, we get a better idea of the extent of the work and the value of the contribution of all the team members. As always, we'd love to hear what you think. This very week, Simple-talk launches its new blogging platform. If any of this has moved you to 'throw your hat into the ring', drop us a mail at [email protected]. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Microsoft Azure News: Capturing VM Images

  - by Herve Roggero

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/hroggero/archive/2014/05/21/microsoft-azure-news-capturing-vm-images.aspxIf you have a Virtual Machine (VM) in Microsoft Azure that has a specific configuration, it used to be difficult to clone that VM. You had to sysprep the VM, and clone the data disks. This was slow, prone to errors, and stopped you from being productive. No more! A new option, called Capture, allows you to easily select a VM, running or not. The capture will copy the OS disk and data disks and create a new image out of it automatically for you. This means you can now easily clone an entire VM without affecting productivity.  To capture a VM, simply browse to your Virtual Machines in the Microsoft Azure management website, select the VM you want to clone, and click on the Capture button at the bottom. A window will come up asking to name your image. It took less than 1 minute for me to build a clone of my server. And because it is stored as an image, I can easily create a new VM with it. So that’s what I did… And that took about 5 minutes total.  That’s amazing…  To create a new VM from your image, click on the NEW icon (bottom left), select Compute/Virtual Machine/From Gallery, and select My Images from the left menu when selecting an Image. You will find your newly created image. Because this is a clone, you will not be prompted for a new login; the user id/password is the same. About Herve Roggero Herve Roggero, Microsoft Azure MVP, @hroggero, is the founder of Blue Syntax Consulting (http://www.bluesyntaxconsulting.com). Herve's experience includes software development, architecture, database administration and senior management with both global corporations and startup companies. Herve holds multiple certifications, including an MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University. Herve is the co-author of "PRO SQL Azure" and “PRO SQL Server 2012 Practices” from Apress, a PluralSight author, and runs the Azure Florida Association.

  Read the article

• Remote Graphics Diagnostics with Windows RT 8.1 and Visual Studio 2013

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2013/11/12/remote-graphics-diagnostics-with-windows-rt-8.1-and-visual-studio.aspxThis blog post is a brief follow up to my What’s New in Graphics and Game Development in Visual Studio 2013 post on the MVP Award blog. While writing that post I was testing out various features to try to make sure everything worked as expected. I had some trouble getting Remote Graphics Diagnostics (a/k/a remote graphics debugging) working on my first generation Surface RT (upgraded to Windows RT 8.1). It was more strange since I could use remote debugging when doing CPU debugging; it was just graphics debugging that was causing trouble. After some discussions with the great folks who work on the graphics tools in Visual Studio, they were able to repro the problem and recommend a solution. My Surface RT needed the ARM Kits policy installed on it. Once I followed the instructions on the previous link, I could successfully use Remote Graphics Diagnostics on my Surface RT. Please note that this requires Windows RT 8.1 RTM (i.e. not Preview) and that Remote Graphics Diagnostics on ARM only works when you are using Visual Studio 2013 as it is a new feature (it should work just fine using the Express for Windows version). Also, when I installed the ARM Kits policy I needed to do two things to get it to work properly. First, when following the “How to install the Kits policy” instructions, I needed to copy the SecureBoot folder into Program Files on my Surface RT (specifically, I copied the SecureBoot folder to “C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\8.1\bin\arm\” on my Surface RT, creating any necessary directories). It may work if it’s in any system folder; I didn’t test any others after I got it working. I had initially put it in my Downloads folder and tried installing it from there. When the machine restarted it displayed a worrisome error message. I repeatedly pressed the button that would allow me to retry and eventually the machine rebooted and managed to recover itself to its previous state. Second, I needed to install it as an Administrator. The instructions say that this might be necessary. For me it was. This is a Remote Graphics Diagnostics is a great new feature in Visual Studio 2013 so I definitely encourage all of you to check it out!

  Read the article

• WHERE x = @x OR @x IS NULL

  - by steveh99999

  Every SQL DBA and developer should read the blog of MVP Erland Sommarskog – but particularly  his article on dynamic search conditions in T-SQL. I’ve linked above to his SQL 2005 article but his 2008 version is also a must-read. I seem to regularly come across uses of the SQL in the title above… Erland’s article explains in detail why this is inefficient, but I came across a nice example recently… A stored procedure contained the following code :- WHERE @Name is null or [Name] like @Name as a nonclustered index exists on the Name column, you might assume this would be handled efficiently by SQL Server. However, I got the following output from SET STATISTICS IO Table 'xxxxx'. Scan count 15, logical reads 47760, physical reads 9, read-ahead reads 13872, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0. Note the high number of logical reads… After a bit of investigation, we found that @Name could never actually be set to NULL in this particular example. ie the @x IS NULL was spurious… So, we changed the call to WHERE  [Name] like @Name Now, how much more efficient is this code ? Table 'xxxxx'. Scan count 3, logical reads 24, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0 A nice easy win in this case…… a full index scan has been replaced by a significantly more efficient index seek. I managed to recreate the same behaviour on Adventureworks – here’s a quick query to demonstrate :- USE adventureworks SET STATISTICS IO ON DECLARE @id INT = 51721 SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE @id IS NULL OR salesorderid = @id SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE salesorderid = @id Take a look at the STATISTICS IO output and compare the actual query plans used to prove the impact of  WHERE @id IS NULL. And just to follow some of Erland’s advice – here’s how you could get similar performance if it was possible that @id could actually sometimes contain NULL. DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(4000), @parameterlist NVARCHAR(4000) DECLARE @id INT = 51721 – or change to NULL to prove query is functionally correct SET @sql = 'SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE 1 = 1' IF @id IS NOT NULL SET @sql = @sql + ' AND salesorderid = @id' IF @id IS NULL SET @sql = @sql + ' AND salesorderid IS NULL' SET @parameterlist = '@id INT' EXEC sp_executesql @sql, @parameterlist,@id Sometimes I think we focus too much on hardware and SQL Server configuration – when really the answer is focus on writing efficient SQL.

  Read the article

• How do I make a PPT file as small as possible?

  - by grunwald2.0

  Currently I am agonizing over several large presentation files, which I happened to reprint to PDFs... One thing I wondered: Do PPT's (from Microsoft Powerpoint) always to have to be that big? And what would be the strategies to make a PPT smaller? (If we say "ceterus paribus" at e.g. 25 slides and assuming that one isn't allowed to use a cloud-based service like GDocs, rocketslide or Prezio.) Of course there are the obvious "bad guys": Images and graphics. But: How about roll-over animations etc, who knows how much space they take? How about "smart arts"? Could one save file size if one would use "Open Office" or "Libre Office" Impress? (I didn't try it yet.) And "what if": What if we need to include e.g. five images (or charts that can't be remade in Excel in time), how would we best reduce the file size impact of those five images, if we needed to? I ask all this from an honest "business" perspective. I am no nerd or "Microsoft MVP" and I don't intend on delving into LATeX or similar yet. But that doesn't mean that I am not curious and very willing to learn. I am basically interested in (proven) best practices. Yes I know this question is lacking "initial research", but I think the perspective of my question is interesting and unique to a lot of people and if we intend to make SE a "Q&A" / Wiki kind-of reference site, this question might be a good way to "collect" advice on a question that has a very defined goal: Minimum file-size.

  Read the article

• Is LINQ to SQL deprecated?

  - by Mayo

  Back in late 2008 there was alot of debate about the future of LINQ to SQL. Many suggested that Microsoft's investments in the Entity Framework in .NET 4.0 were a sign that LINQ to SQL had no future. I figured I'd wait before making my own decision since folks were not in agreement. Fast-forward 18 months and I've got vendors providing solutions that rely on LINQ to SQL and I have personally given it a try and really enjoyed working with it. I figured it was here to stay. But I'm reading a new book (C# 4.0 How-To by Ben Watson) and in chapter 21 (LINQ), he suggests that it "has been more or less deprecated by Microsoft" and suggests using LINQ to Entity Framework. My question to you is whether or not LINQ to SQL is officially deprecated and/or if authoritative entities (Microsoft, Scott Gu, etc.) officially suggest using LINQ to Entities instead of LINQ to SQL.

  Read the article

• Custom app_offline.htm file during publish

  - by Charlino

  When I publish my ASP.NET MVC application it generates a app_offline.htm file to take the site offline while it updates the website and then deletes the file once the publish is successful. This is cool and I really like the idea, but I want to create my own custom app_offline.htm file that the publish action is aware of and put it somewhere where it doesn't effect my development site - i.e. it doesn't sit in the root of my development site rendering it offline all the time. TIA, Charles EDIT: From the comments on Scott Gu's post about app_offline.htm, it seems that customization of the app_offline.htm file wasn't possible with VS 2005 - has this changed with VS 2008 and now VS 2010?

  Read the article

• Config transformations and “TransformXml task failed” error message

  - by Troy Hunt

  I’ve just enabled config transformations on a .NET 3.5 project in VS2010 RC after watching Scott Hanselman’s video on web deployment. Unfortunately every time I go to publish I now get the following error: The "TransformXml" task failed unexpectedly. System.UriFormatException: Invalid URI: The URI is empty. at System.Uri.CreateThis(String uri, Boolean dontEscape, UriKind uriKind) at System.Uri..ctor(String uriString) at Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.TransformXml.Execute() at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute() at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.ExecuteInstantiatedTask(ITaskExecutionHost taskExecutionHost, TaskLoggingContext taskLoggingContext, TaskHost taskHost, ItemBucket bucket, TaskExecutionMode howToExecuteTask, Boolean& taskResult) If I take a brand new VS2010 web application which already has the config transformations by default I don’t have a problem so I suspect my issue is project related. Has anyone come across this before or have any ideas on a fix?

  Read the article

• Best Non-Microsoft/.NET Development Blogs and Podcasts

  - by Mark Lubin

  I really don't want to rile anyone's feathers and I really enjoy blogs like Joel, Coding Horror, Scott Hanselman, etc. However, what are some good blogs/podcasts that focus on other platforms besides Microsoft based ones or maybe even no particular platform at? In particular I am interested in areas like Python, Ruby, Java, C, but any area besides Microsoft fits the bill. There may be other similar questions to this but I think this one is unique since we might get some answers we wouldn't see otherwise, that is, everyone knows Coding Horror is great. Please try to refrain from religious debates; the content of the blog is more important than the platform they are talking about, I just want to get an idea of what is out there and worth the time.

  Read the article

• Urlrewriting.net pages are not causing postbacks

  - by Nick

  I'm using webforms with UrlRewriting.Net to rewrite pages, e.g. http://www.example.com/stuff.aspx?c=30 becomes http://www.example.com/stuff/30-this-stuff.aspx. It works in so far as the correct content is loading; however, none of the postbacks are working (mostly buttons on the page). If I set up a breakpoint on Page_Load, I see that IsPostBack is always false. Any ideas on how to fix this? Right now I'm just on Visual Studio 2008. EDIT: I have since switched to UrlRewriter.Net, which worked after a few tweaks (see Scott Gu's article). Besides here, I have posted my original problem to the developer's forum: if I ever get an answer, I'll post it here (unless else posts it here first).

  Read the article

• Using GIT Smart HTTP via IIS

  - by Andrew Matthews

  I recently read Scott Chacon's post "Smart HTTP Transport", and I was hoping that it might have become possible via IIS (windows 7) since that post was written. I haven't been able to find anything showing how it can be done, and Apache is not an option in my IIS 7 based environment. So, I'm at a loss (git daemon was foiled for me by a combination of AVG anti-virus and AD). I want to provide LDAP authenticated read/write access for selected users. So this question seems not to be relevant. Do you know of a way to provide access to GIT via IIS?

  Read the article

• SQL Server Gender Swap Query

  - by Sanju

  I have a Table having the following column: ID, Name, Designation, Salary, Contact, Address, Gender Accidentally for all male Gender i have entered 'Female' and similarly for all Female gender i have entered 'Male'. For Exmaple 0023 Scott Developer 15000 4569865 Cliff_Eddington,USA Female I the above line There should be Male instead of female. And there are all Male whose gender has been updated as Female. Same case for all Female Gender has been updated as Male. Is there any Single query through which i can change all the Rows whose Gender is Male Change it to Female and All the Rows whose Gender is Female Change it to Male.

  Read the article

• Best Practices - Data Annotations vs OnChanging in Entity Framework 4

  - by jptacek

  I was wondering what the general recommendation is for Entity Framework in terms of data validation. I am relatively new to EF, but it appears there are two main approaches to data validation. The first is to create a partial class for the model, and then perform data validations and update a rule violation collection of some sort. This is outlined at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc716747.aspx The other is to use data annotations and then have the annotations perform data validation. Scott Guthrie explains this on his blog at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/01/15/asp-net-mvc-2-model-validation.aspx. I was wondering what the benefits are of one over the other. It seems the data annotations would be the preferred mechanism, especially as you move to RIA Services, but I want to ensure I am not missing something. Of course, nothing precludes using both of them together. Thanks John

  Read the article

• What initial modelling/design activities on Agile Projects do you do??

  - by dalton

  When developing an application using agile techniques, what if any initial modelling/architecture activities do you do, and how do you capture that knowledge?? I'm not after a bullet list about XP, Scrum, Crystal, DSDM..etc as I'm familiar with the methodologies. But what do you do above and beyond the guidance given by these. I find I work best by thinking the system through first, but also like the benefits of timeboxing, story cards, pairing, tdd. The closest thing I've seen so far is Scott Ambler's Initial Architecture Modelling, but was wondering what alternatives are used out there?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81  | Next Page >