Search Results

Search found 93609 results on 3745 pages for 'one terrorist'.

Page 804/3745 | < Previous Page | 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811  | Next Page >

• Big Data – Role of Cloud Computing in Big Data – Day 11 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the NewSQL. In this article we will understand the role of Cloud in Big Data Story What is Cloud? Cloud is the biggest buzzword around from last few years. Everyone knows about the Cloud and it is extremely well defined online. In this article we will discuss cloud in the context of the Big Data. Cloud computing is a method of providing a shared computing resources to the application which requires dynamic resources. These resources include applications, computing, storage, networking, development and various deployment platforms. The fundamentals of the cloud computing are that it shares pretty much share all the resources and deliver to end users as a service.  Examples of the Cloud Computing and Big Data are Google and Amazon.com. Both have fantastic Big Data offering with the help of the cloud. We will discuss this later in this blog post. There are two different Cloud Deployment Models: 1) The Public Cloud and 2) The Private Cloud Public Cloud Public Cloud is the cloud infrastructure build by commercial providers (Amazon, Rackspace etc.) creates a highly scalable data center that hides the complex infrastructure from the consumer and provides various services. Private Cloud Private Cloud is the cloud infrastructure build by a single organization where they are managing highly scalable data center internally. Here is the quick comparison between Public Cloud and Private Cloud from Wikipedia:   Public Cloud Private Cloud Initial cost Typically zero Typically high Running cost Unpredictable Unpredictable Customization Impossible Possible Privacy No (Host has access to the data Yes Single sign-on Impossible Possible Scaling up Easy while within defined limits Laborious but no limits Hybrid Cloud Hybrid Cloud is the cloud infrastructure build with the composition of two or more clouds like public and private cloud. Hybrid cloud gives best of the both the world as it combines multiple cloud deployment models together. Cloud and Big Data – Common Characteristics There are many characteristics of the Cloud Architecture and Cloud Computing which are also essentially important for Big Data as well. They highly overlap and at many places it just makes sense to use the power of both the architecture and build a highly scalable framework. Here is the list of all the characteristics of cloud computing important in Big Data Scalability Elasticity Ad-hoc Resource Pooling Low Cost to Setup Infastructure Pay on Use or Pay as you Go Highly Available Leading Big Data Cloud Providers There are many players in Big Data Cloud but we will list a few of the known players in this list. Amazon Amazon is arguably the most popular Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider. The history of how Amazon started in this business is very interesting. They started out with a massive infrastructure to support their own business. Gradually they figured out that their own resources are underutilized most of the time. They decided to get the maximum out of the resources they have and hence  they launched their Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) service in 2006. Their products have evolved a lot recently and now it is one of their primary business besides their retail selling. Amazon also offers Big Data services understand Amazon Web Services. Here is the list of the included services: Amazon Elastic MapReduce – It processes very high volumes of data Amazon DynammoDB – It is fully managed NoSQL (Not Only SQL) database service Amazon Simple Storage Services (S3) – A web-scale service designed to store and accommodate any amount of data Amazon High Performance Computing – It provides low-tenancy tuned high performance computing cluster Amazon RedShift – It is petabyte scale data warehousing service Google Though Google is known for Search Engine, we all know that it is much more than that. Google Compute Engine – It offers secure, flexible computing from energy efficient data centers Google Big Query – It allows SQL-like queries to run against large datasets Google Prediction API – It is a cloud based machine learning tool Other Players Besides Amazon and Google we also have other players in the Big Data market as well. Microsoft is also attempting Big Data with the Cloud with Microsoft Azure. Additionally Rackspace and NASA together have initiated OpenStack. The goal of Openstack is to provide a massively scaled, multitenant cloud that can run on any hardware. Thing to Watch The cloud based solutions provides a great integration with the Big Data’s story as well it is very economical to implement as well. However, there are few things one should be very careful when deploying Big Data on cloud solutions. Here is a list of a few things to watch: Data Integrity Initial Cost Recurring Cost Performance Data Access Security Location Compliance Every company have different approaches to Big Data and have different rules and regulations. Based on various factors, one can implement their own custom Big Data solution on a cloud. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about various Operational Databases supporting Big Data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

  Read the article

• 2010 Collaboration Summit Impressions

  - by Elena Zannoni

  It's a bit late, but there you have it anyway. April 14 to 16 I attended the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in SFO. I was running two tracks, one on tracing and one on tools. You can see the tracks and the slides here: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/slides I was pretty busy both days, Thursday with a whole day tracing track, Friday with a half day toolchain track. The sessions were well attended, the rooms were full, with people spilling in the hallways. Some new things were presented, like Kernelshark, by Steve Rostedt, a GUI (yes, believe it or not, a GUI) written in GTK. It is very nice, showing a timeline for traced kernel events, and you can zoom in and filter at will. It works on the latest kernels, and it requires some new things/fixes in GTK. I don't recall exactly what version of GTK though. Dominique Toupin from Ericsson presented something about user requirements for tracing. Mostly though about who's who in the embedded world, and eclipse. Masami and Mathieu presented an update on their work. See their slides. The interesting thing to me was of course the new version of uprobes w/o underlying utrace presented by Jim Keniston. At the end of the session we had a discussion about the future of utrace. Roland wasn't there, butTom Tromey (also from RedHat) collected the feedback. Basically we are at a standstill now that utrace has been rejected yet again. There wasn't much advise that anybody could give, except jokingly, we decided that the only way in is to make it a part of perf events. There needs to be another refactoring, but most of all, this "killer app" that would be enabled because of utrace hasn't materialized yet. We think that having a good debugging story on Linux is enough of a killer app, for instance allowing multiple tracers, and not relying on SIGCHLD etc. I think this wasn't completely clear to the kernel community. Trying to achieve debugging via a gdb stub inside the kernel interfacing to utrace and that is controlled via the gdb remote protocol also lost its appeal (thankfully, since the gdb remote protocol is archaic). Somebody would have to be creative in how to submit utrace. It doesn't have to be called utrace (it was really a random choice, for lack of a letter that was not already used in front of the word "trace"). So basically, I think the ideas behind utrace are sound, and the necessity of a new interface is acknowledged. But I believe the integration/submission process with the kernel folks has to restart from scratch, clean slate. We'll see. There are many conferences and meetings coming up in the near future where things can be discussed further. On the second day, Friday, we had the tools talks. It was interesting to observe the more "kernel" oriented people's behavior towards the gcc etc community. The first talk was by Mark Mitchell, about Gcc and its new plugin architecture. After that, Paolo talked about the new C++1x standard, which will be finalized in 2011. Many features are already implemented in the libstdc++ library and gcc and usable today. We had a few minutes (really, the half day track was quite short) where Bradley Kuhn from the Software Freedom Law Center explained the GPLv3 exception for gcc (due to the new gcc plugin architecture and the availability of the intermediate results from the compilation, which is a new thing). I will not try to explain, but basically you cannot take the result of the preprocessing and then use that in your own proprietary compiler. After, we had a talk by Ian Taylor about the new Gold linker. One good thing in that area is that they are trying to make gold the new default linker (for instance Fedora will use gold as the distro linker). However gold is very different from binutils' old linker. It doesn't use a linker script, for instance. The kernel has been linked with gold many times as an exercise (the ground work was done by Kris Van Hees), but this needs to be constantly tested/monitored because the kernel linker script is very complex, and uses esoteric features (Wenji is now monitoring that each kernel RC can be built with gold). It was positive that people are now aware of gold and the need for it to be ported to more architectures. It seems that the porting is very easy, with little arch dependent code. Finally Tom Tromey presented about gdb and the archer project. Archer is a development branch of gdb mostly done by RedHat, where they are focusing on better c++ printing, c++ expression parsing, and plugins. The archer work is merged regularly in the gdb mainline. In general it was a good conference. I did miss most of the first day, because that's when I flew in. But I caught a couple of talks. Nothing earth shattering, except for Google giving each person registered a free Android phone. Yey.

  Read the article

• Leaks on Wikis: "Corporations...You're Next!" Oracle Desktop Virtualization Can Help.

  - by adam.hawley

  Between all the press coverage on the unauthorized release of 251,287 diplomatic documents and on previous extensive releases of classified documents on the events in Iraq and Afghanistan, one could be forgiven for thinking massive leaks are really an issue for governments, but it is not: It is an issue for corporations as well. In fact, corporations are apparently set to be the next big target for things like Wikileaks. Just the threat of such a release against one corporation recently caused the price of their stock to drop 3% after the leak organization claimed to have 5GB of information from inside the company, with the implication that it might be damaging or embarrassing information. At the moment of this blog anyway, we don't know yet if that is true or how they got the information but how did the diplomatic cable leak happen? For the diplomatic cables, according to press reports, a private in the military, with some appropriate level of security clearance (that is, he apparently had the correct level of security clearance to be accessing the information...he reportedly didn't "hack" his way through anything to get to the documents which might have raised some red flags...), is accused of accessing the material and copying it onto a writeable CD labeled "Lady Gaga" and walking out the door with it. Upload and... Done. In the same article, the accused is quoted as saying "Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain." Now think about all the confidential information in your company or non-profit... from credit card information, to phone records, to customer or donor lists, to corporate strategy documents, product cost information, etc, etc.... And then think about that last quote above from what was a very junior level person in the organization...still feeling comfortable with your ability to control all your information? So what can you do to guard against these types of breaches where there is no outsider (or even insider) intrusion to detect per se, but rather someone with malicious intent is physically walking out the door with data that they are otherwise allowed to access in their daily work? A major first step it to make it physically, logistically much harder to walk away with the information. If the user with malicious intent has no way to copy to removable or moble media (USB sticks, thumb drives, CDs, DVDs, memory cards, or even laptop disk drives) then, as a practical matter it is much more difficult to physically move the information outside the firewall. But how can you control access tightly and reliably and still keep your hundreds or even thousands of users productive in their daily job? Oracle Desktop Virtualization products can help.Oracle's comprehensive suite of desktop virtualization and access products allow your applications and, most importantly, the related data, to stay in the (highly secured) data center while still allowing secure access from just about anywhere your users need to be to be productive.  Users can securely access all the data they need to do their job, whether from work, from home, or on the road and in the field, but fully configurable policies set up centrally by privileged administrators allow you to control whether, for instance, they are allowed to print documents or use USB devices or other removable media.  Centrally set policies can also control not only whether they can download to removable devices, but also whether they can upload information (see StuxNet for why that is important...)In fact, by using Sun Ray Client desktop hardware, which does not contain any disk drives, or removable media drives, even theft of the desktop device itself would not make you vulnerable to data loss, unlike a laptop that can be stolen with hundreds of gigabytes of information on its disk drive.  And for extreme security situations, Sun Ray Clients even come standard with the ability to use fibre optic ethernet networking to each client to prevent the possibility of unauthorized monitoring of network traffic.But even without Sun Ray Client hardware, users can leverage Oracle's Secure Global Desktop software or the Oracle Virtual Desktop Client to securely access server-resident applications, desktop sessions, or full desktop virtual machines without persisting any application data on the desktop or laptop being used to access the information.  And, again, even in this context, the Oracle products allow you to control what gets uploaded, downloaded, or printed for example.Another benefit of Oracle's Desktop Virtualization and access products is the ability to rapidly and easily shut off user access centrally through administrative polices if, for example, an employee changes roles or leaves the company and should no longer have access to the information.Oracle's Desktop Virtualization suite of products can help reduce operating expense and increase user productivity, and those are good reasons alone to consider their use.  But the dynamics of today's world dictate that security is one of the top reasons for implementing a virtual desktop architecture in enterprises.For more information on these products, view the webpages on www.oracle.com and the Oracle Technology Network website.

  Read the article

• How to build Open JavaFX for Android.

  - by PictureCo

  Here's a short recipe for baking JavaFX for Android dalvik. We will need just a few ingredients but each one requires special care. So let's get down to the business.  SourcesThe first ingredient is an open JavaFX repository. This should be piece of cake. As always there's a catch. You probably know that dalvik is jdk6 compatible  and also that certain APIs are missing comparing to good old java vm from Oracle.  Fortunately there is a repository which is a backport of regular OpenJFX to jdk7 and going from jdk7 to jdk6 is possible. The first thing to do is to clone or download the repository from https://bitbucket.org/narya/jfx78. Main page of the project says "It works in some cases" so we will presume that it will work in most cases As I've said dalvik vm misses some APIs which would lead to a build failures. To get them use another compatibility repository which is available on GitHub https://github.com/robovm/robovm-jfx78-compat. Download the zip and unzip sources into jfx78/modules/base.We need also a javafx binary stubs. Use jfxrt.jar from jdk8.The last thing to download are freetype sources from http://freetype.org. These will be necessary for native font rendering. Toolchain setup I have to point out that these instructions were tested only on linux. I suppose they will work with minimal changes also on Mac OS. I also presume that you were able to build open JavaFX. That means all tools like ant, gradle, gcc and jdk8 have been installed and are working all right. In addition to this you will need to download and install jdk7, Android SDK and Android NDK for native code compilation.  Installing all of them will take some time. Don't forget to put them in your path. export ANDROID_SDK=/opt/android-sdk-linux export ANDROID_NDK=/opt/android-ndk-r9b export JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_NDK FreetypeUnzip freetype release sources first. We will have to cross compile them for arm. Firstly we will create a standalone toolchain for cross compiling installed in ~/work/ndk-standalone-19. $ANDROID_NDK/build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh  --platform=android-19 --install-dir=~/work/ndk-standalone-19 After the standalone toolchain has been created cross compile freetype with following script: export TOOLCHAIN=~/work/freetype/ndk-standalone-19 export PATH=$TOOLCHAIN/bin:$PATH export FREETYPE=`pwd` ./configure --host=arm-linux-androideabi --prefix=$FREETYPE/install --without-png --without-zlib --enable-shared sed -i 's/\-version\-info \$(version_info)/-avoid-version/' builds/unix/unix-cc.mk make make install It will compile and install freetype library into $FREETYPE/install. We will link to this install dir later on. It would be possible also to link openjfx font support dynamically against skia library available on Android which already contains freetype. It creates smaller result but can have compatibility problems. Patching Download patches javafx-android-compat.patch + android-tools.patch and patch jfx78 repository. I recommend to have look at patches. First one android-compat.patch updates openjfx build script, removes dependency on SharedSecret classes and updates LensLogger to remove dependency on jdk specific PlatformLogger. Second one android-tools.patch creates helper script in android-tools. The script helps to setup javaFX Android projects. Building Now is time to try the build. Run following script: JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 JDK_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 ANDROID_SDK=/opt/android-sdk-linux ANDROID_NDK=/opt/android-ndk-r9b PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_NDK:$PATH gradle -PDEBUG -PDALVIK_VM=true -PBINARY_STUB=~/work/binary_stub/linux/rt/lib/ext/jfxrt.jar \ -PFREETYPE_DIR=~/work/freetype/install -PCOMPILE_TARGETS=android If everything went all right the output is in build/android-sdk Create first JavaFX Android project Use gradle script int android-tools. The script sets the project structure for you.   Following command creates Android HelloWorld project which links to a freshly built javafx runtime and to a HelloWorld application. NAME is a name of Android project. DIR where to create our first project. PACKAGE is package name required by Android. It has nothing to do with a packaging of javafx application. JFX_SDK points to our recently built runtime. JFX_APP points to dist directory of javafx application. (where all application jars sit) JFX_MAIN is fully qualified name of a main class. gradle -PDEBUG -PDIR=/home/user/work -PNAME=HelloWorld -PPACKAGE=com.helloworld \ -PJFX_SDK=/home/user/work/jfx78/build/android-sdk -PJFX_APP=/home/user/NetBeansProjects/HelloWorld/dist \ -PJFX_MAIN=com.helloworld.HelloWorld createProject Now cd to the created project and use it like any other android project. ant clean, debug, uninstall, installd will work. I haven't tried it from any IDE Eclipse nor Netbeans. Special thanks to Stefan Fuchs and Daniel Zwolenski for the repositories used in this blog post.

  Read the article

• SQLAuthority News – Why VoIP Service Providers Should Think About NuoDB’s Geo Distribution

  - by Pinal Dave

  You can always tell when someone’s showing off their cool, cutting edge comms technology. They tend to raise their voice a lot. Back in the day they’d announce their gadget leadership to the rest of the herd by shouting into their cellphone. Usually the message was no more urgent than “Hi, I’m on my cellphone!” Now the same types will loudly name-drop a different technology to the rest of the airport lounge. “I’m leveraging the wifi,” a fellow passenger bellowed, the other day, as we filtered through the departure gate. Nobody needed to know that, but the subtext was “look at me everybody”. You can tell the really advanced mobile user – they tend to whisper. Their handset has a microphone (how cool is that!) and they know how to use it. Sometimes these shouty public broadcasters aren’t even connected anyway because the database for their Voice over IP (VoIP) platform can’t cope. This will happen if they are using a traditional SQL model to try and cope with a phone network which has far flung offices and hundreds of mobile employees. That, like shouting into your phone, is just wrong on so many levels. What VoIP needs now is a single, logical database across multiple servers in different geographies. It needs to be updated in real-time and automatically scaled out during times of peak demand. A VoIP system should scale up to handle increased traffic, but just as importantly is must then go back down in the off peak hours. Try this with a MySQL database. It can’t scale easily enough, so it will keep your developers busy. They’ll have spent many hours trying to knit the different databases together. Traditional relational databases can possibly achieve this, at a price. Mind you, you could extend baked bean cans and string to every point on the network and that would be no less elegant. That’s not really following engineering principles though is it? Having said that, most telcos and VoIP systems use a separate, independent solution for each office location, which they link together – loosely.  The more office locations, the more complex and expensive the solution becomes and so the more you spend on maintenance. Ideally, you’d have a fluid system that can automatically shift its shape as the need arises. That’s the point of software isn’t it – it adapts. Otherwise, we might as well return to the old days. A MySQL system isn’t exactly baked bean cans attached by string, but it’s closer in spirit to the old many teethed mechanical beast that was employed in the first type of automated switchboard. NuoBD’s NewSQL is designed to be a single database that works across multiple servers, which can scale easily, and scale on demand. That’s one system that gives high connectivity but no latency, complexity or maintenance issues. MySQL works in some circumstances, but a period of growth isn’t one of them. So as a company moves forward, the MySQL database can’t keep pace. Data storage and data replication errors creep in. Soon the diaspora of offices becomes a problem. Your telephone system isn’t just distributed, it is literally all over the place. Though voice calls are often a software function, some of the old habits of telephony remain. When you call an engineer out, some of them will listen to what you’re asking for and announce that it cannot be done. This is what happens if you ask, say, database engineers familiar with Oracle or Microsoft to fulfill your wish for a low maintenance system built on a single, fluid, scalable database. No can do, they’d say. In fact, I heard one shouting something similar into his VoIP handset at the airport. “I can’t get on the network, Mac. I’m on MySQL.” You can download NuoDB from here. “NuoDB provides the ability to replicate data globally in real-time, which is not available with any other product offering,” states Weeks.  “That alone is remarkable and it works. I’ve seen it. I’ve used it.  I’ve tested it. The ability to deploy NuoDB removes a tremendous burden from our support and engineering teams.” Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: NuoDB

  Read the article

• Invariant code contracts – using class-wide contracts

  - by DigiMortal

  It is possible to define invariant code contracts for classes. Invariant contracts should always hold true whatever member of class is called. In this posting I will show you how to use invariant code contracts so you understand how they work and how they should be tested. This is my randomizer class I am using to demonstrate code contracts. I added one method for invariant code contracts. Currently there is one contract that makes sure that random number generator is not null. public class Randomizer {     private IRandomGenerator _generator;       private Randomizer() { }       public Randomizer(IRandomGenerator generator)     {         _generator = generator;     }       public int GetRandomFromRangeContracted(int min, int max)     {         Contract.Requires<ArgumentOutOfRangeException>(             min < max,             "Min must be less than max"         );           Contract.Ensures(             Contract.Result<int>() >= min &&             Contract.Result<int>() <= max,             "Return value is out of range"         );           return _generator.Next(min, max);     }       [ContractInvariantMethod]     private void ObjectInvariant()     {         Contract.Invariant(_generator != null);     } } Invariant code contracts are define in methods that have ContractInvariantMethod attribute. Some notes: It is good idea to define invariant methods as private. Don’t call invariant methods from your code because code contracts system does not allow it. Invariant methods are defined only as place where you can keep invariant contracts. Invariant methods are called only when call to some class member is made! The last note means that having invariant method and creating Randomizer object with null as argument does not automatically generate exception. We have to call at least one method from Randomizer class. Here is the test for generator. You can find more about contracted code testing from my posting Code Contracts: Unit testing contracted code. There is also explained why the exception handling in test is like it is. [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(Exception))] public void Should_fail_if_generator_is_null() {     try     {         var randomizer = new Randomizer(null);         randomizer.GetRandomFromRangeContracted(1, 4);     }     catch (Exception ex)     {         throw new Exception(ex.Message, ex);     } } Try out this code – with unit tests or with test application to see that invariant contracts are checked as soon as you call some member of Randomizer class.

  Read the article

• Management and Monitoring Tools for Windows Azure

  - by BuckWoody

  With such a large platform, Windows Azure has a lot of moving parts. We’ve done our best to keep the interface as simple as possible, while giving you the most control and visibility we can. However, as with most Microsoft products, there are multiple ways to do something – and I’ve always found that to be a good strength. Depending on the situation, I might want a graphical interface, a command-line interface, or just an API so I can incorporate the management into my own tools, or have third-party companies write other tools. While by no means exhaustive, I thought I might put together a quick list of a few tools you can use to manage and monitor Windows Azure components, from our IaaS, SaaS and PaaS offerings. Some of the products focus on one area more than another, but all are available today. I’ll try and maintain this list to keep it current, but make sure you check the date of this post’s update – if it’s more than six months old, it’s most likely out of date. Things move fast in the cloud. The Windows Azure Management Portal The primary tool for managing Windows Azure is our portal – most everything you need is there, from creating new services to querying a database. There are two versions as of this writing – a Silverlight client version, and a newer HTML5 version. The latter is being updated constantly to be in parity with the Silverlight client. There’s a balance in this portal between simplicity and power – we’re following the “less is more” approach, with increasing levels of detail as you work through the portal rather than overwhelming you with a single, long “more is more” page. You can find the Portal here: http://windowsazure.com (then click “Log In” and then “Portal”) Windows Azure Management API You can also use programming tools to either write your own interface, or simply provide management functions directly within your solution. You have two options – you can use the more universal REST API’s, which area bit more complex but work with any system that can write to them, or the more approachable .NET API calls in code. You can find the reference for the API’s here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee460799.aspx  All Class Libraries, for each part of Windows Azure: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee393295.aspx  PowerShell Command-lets PowerShell is one of the most powerful scripting languages I’ve used with Windows – and it’s baked into all of our products. When you need to work with multiple servers, scripting is really the only way to go, and the Windows Azure PowerShell Command-Lets allow you to work across most any part of the platform – and can even be used within the services themselves. You can do everything with them from creating a new IaaS, PaaS or SaaS service, to controlling them and even working with security and more. You can find more about the Command-Lets here: http://wappowershell.codeplex.com/documentation (older link, still works, will point you to the new ones as well) We have command-line utilities for other operating systems as well: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/downloads/  Video walkthrough of using the Command-Lets: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-859T  System Center System Center is actually a suite of graphical tools you can use to manage, deploy, control, monitor and tune software from Microsoft and even other platforms. This will be the primary tool we’ll recommend for managing a hybrid or contiguous management process – and as time goes on you’ll see more and more features put into System Center for the entire Windows Azure suite of products. You can find the Management Pack and README for it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11324  SQL Server Management Studio / Data Tools / Visual Studio SQL Server has two built-in management and development, and since Version 2008 R2, you can use them to manage Windows Azure Databases. Visual Studio also lets you connect to and manage portions of Windows Azure as well as Windows Azure Databases. You can read more about Visual Studio here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee405484  You can read more about the SQL tools here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee621784.aspx  Vendor-Provided Tools Microsoft does not suggest or endorse a specific third-party product. We do, however, use them, and see lots of other customers use them. You can browse to these sites to learn more, and chat with their folks directly on how they support Windows Azure. Cerebrata: Tools for managing from the command-line, graphical diagnostics, graphical storage management - http://www.cerebrata.com/  Quest Cloud Tools: Monitoring, Storage Management, and costing tools - http://communities.quest.com/community/cloud-tools  Paraleap: Monitoring tool - http://www.paraleap.com/AzureWatch  Cloudgraphs: Monitoring too -  http://www.cloudgraphs.com/  Opstera: Monitoring for Windows Azure and a Scale-out pattern manager - http://www.opstera.com/products/Azureops/  Compuware: SaaS performance monitoring, load testing -  http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/gomez-apm-products.html  SOASTA: Penetration and Security Testing - http://www.soasta.com/cloudtest/enterprise/  LoadStorm: Load-testing tool - http://loadstorm.com/windows-azure  Open-Source Tools This is probably the most specific set of tools, and the list I’ll have to maintain most often. Smaller projects have a way of coming and going, so I’ll try and make sure this list is current. Windows Azure MMC: (I actually use this one a lot) http://wapmmc.codeplex.com/  Windows Azure Diagnostics Monitor: http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/wazdmon  Azure Application Monitor: http://azuremonitor.codeplex.com/  Azure Web Log: http://www.xentrik.net/software/azure_web_log.html  Cloud Ninja:Multi-Tennant billing and performance monitor -  http://cnmb.codeplex.com/  Cloud Samurai: Multi-Tennant Management- http://cloudsamurai.codeplex.com/    If you have additions to this list, please post them as a comment and I’ll research and then add them. Thanks!

  Read the article

• Building a Distributed Commerce Infrastructure in the Cloud using Azure and Commerce Server

  - by Lewis Benge

  One of the biggest questions I routinely get asked is how scalable Commerce Server is. Of course the text book answer is the product has been around for 10 years, powers some of the largest e-Commerce websites in the world, so it scales horizontally extremely well. One argument however though is what if you can't predict the growth of demand required of your Commerce Platform, or need the ability to scale up during busy seasons such as Christmas for a retail environment but are hesitant on maintaining the infrastructure on a year-round basis? The obvious answer is to utilise the many elasticated cloud infrastructure providers that are establishing themselves in the ever-growing market, the problem however is Commerce Server is still product which has a legacy tightly coupled dependency on Windows and IIS components. Commerce Server 2009 codename "R2" however introduced to the concept of an n-tier deployment of Microsoft Commerce Server, meaning you are no longer tied to core objects API but instead have serializable Commerce Entity objects, and business logic allowing for Commerce Server to now be built into a WCF-based SOA architecture. Presentation layers no-longer now need to remain on the same physical machine as the application server, meaning you can now build the user experience into multiple-technologies and host them in multiple places – leveraging the transport benefits that a WCF service may bring, such as message queuing, security, and multiple end-points. All of this logic will still need to remain in your internal infrastructure, for two reasons. Firstly cloud based computing infrastructure does not support PCI security requirements, and secondly even though many of the legacy Commerce Server dependencies have been abstracted away within this version of the application, it is still not a fully supported to be deployed exclusively into the cloud. If you do wish to benefit from the scalability of the cloud however, you can still achieve a great Commerce Server and Azure setup by utilising both the Azure App Fabric in terms of the service bus, and authentication services and Windows Azure to host any online presence you may require. The architecture would be something similar to this: This setup would allow you to construct your Commerce Services as part of your on-site infrastructure. These services would contain all of the channels custom business logic, and provide the overall interface back into the underlying Commerce Server components. It would be recommended that services are constructed around the specific business domain of the application, which based on your business model would usually consist of separate services around Catalogue, Orders, Search, Profiles, and Marketing. The App Fabric service bus is then used to abstract and aggregate further the services, making them available to the cloud and subsequently secured by App Fabrics authentication services. These services are now available for consumption by any client, using any supported technology – not just .NET. Thus meaning you are now able to construct apps for IPhone, integrate with Java based POS Devices, and any many other potential uses. This aggregation is useful, and forms the basis of the further strategy around diversifying and enhancing the e-Commerce experience, but also provides the foundation for the scalability we want to gain from utilising a cloud-based application platform. The Windows Azure application platform is Microsoft solution to benefiting from the true economies of scale in terms of the elasticity of the cloud. Just before the launch of the Azure Platform – Domino's pizza actually managed to run their whole SuperBowl operation from the scalability of Windows Azure, and simply switching back to their traditional operation the next day with no residual infrastructure costs. The platform also natively can subscribe to services and messages exposed within the AppFabric service bus, making it an ideal solution to build and deploy a presentation layer which will need to support of scalable infrastructure – such as a high demand public facing e-Commerce portal, or a promotion element of a brand. Windows Azure has excellent support for ASP.NET, including its own caching providers meaning expensive operations such as catalogue queries can persist in memory on the application server, reducing the demand on internal infrastructure and prioritising it for more business critical operations such as receiving orders and processing payments. Windows Azure also supports other languages too, meaning utilising this approach you can technically build a Commerce Server presentation layer in Java, PHP, or Ruby – or equally in ASP.NET or Silverlight without having to change any of the underlying business or Commerce Server implementation. This SOA-style architecture is one of the primary differentiators for Commerce Server as a product in the e-Commerce market, and now with the introduction of a WCF capability in Commerce Server 2009/2009 R2 the opportunities for extensibility of the both the user experience, and integration into third parties, are drastically increased, all with no effect to the underlying channel logic. So if you are looking at deployment options for your e-Commerce application to help support demand in a cost effective way. I would highly recommend you consider looking at Windows Azure, and if you have any questions in-particular about this style of deployment, please feel free to get in touch!

  Read the article

• Hack Extension Files to Make Them Version-Compatible for Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  A well known drawback in using Firefox is the problem with extension compatibility when a new major version is released. Whether it is for a new extension that you are trying for the first time or an old favorite we have a way to get those extensions working for you again. There are multiple reasons why you might want to choose this method to fix a non-compatible extension: You are uncomfortable with tweaking the “about:config” settings You prefer to maintain the original “about:config” settings in a pristine state and like having compatibility checking active You are looking to gain some “geek cred” Keep in mind that most extensions will work perfectly well with a new version of Firefox and simply have the “version compatibility number” problem. But once in a while there may be one that needs to have some work done on it by the extension’s author. The Problem Here is a perfect example of everyone’s least favorite “extension message”. This is the last thing that you need when all that you want is for your favorite extension (or a new one) to work on a fresh clean install. Note: This works nicely to “replace” non-compatible extensions already present in your browser if you are simply upgrading. Hacking the XPI File For this procedure you will need to manually download the extension to your hard-drive (right click on the extension’s “Install Button” and select “Save As”). Once you have done that you are ready to start hacking the extension. For our example we chose the “GCal Popup Extension”. The best thing to do is place the extension in a new folder (i.e. the Desktop or other convenient location) then unzip it just the same way that you would with any regular zip file. Once it is unzipped you will see the various folders and files that were in the “xpi file” (we had four files here but depending on the extension the number may vary). There is only one file that you need to focus on…the “install.rdf” file. Note: At this point you should move the original extension file to a different location (i.e. outside of the folder) so that it is no longer present. Open the file in “Notepad” so that you can change the number for the “maxVersion”. Here the number is listed as “3.5.*” but we needed to make it higher… Replacing the “5” with a “7” is all that we needed to do. Once you have entered your new “maxVersion” number save the file. At this point you will need to re-zip all of the files back into a single file. Make certain that you “create” a file with the “.zip file extension” otherwise this will not work. Once you have the new zip file created you will need to rename the entire file including the “file extension”. For our example we copied and pasted the original extension name. Once you have changed the name click outside of the “text area”. You will see a small message window like this asking for confirmation…click “Yes” to finish the process. Now your modified/updated extension is ready to install. Drag the extension into your browser to install it and watch that wonderful “Restart to complete the installation.” message appear. As soon as your browser starts you can check the “Add-ons Manager Window” and see the version compatibility numbers for the extension. Looking very very nice! And just like that your extension should be up and running without any problems. Conclusion If you are looking to try something new, gain some geek cred, or just want to keep your Firefox install as close to the original condition as possible this method should get those extensions working nicely for you again. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Firefox Extensions Compatible After Firefox Update Breaks Them For No Good ReasonCheck Extension Compatibility for Upcoming Firefox ReleasesFirefox 3.6 Release Candidate Available, Here’s How to Fix Your Incompatible ExtensionsHow To Force Extension Compatibility with Firefox 3.6+Test and Report Add-on Compatibility in Firefox 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more Download Microsoft Office Help tab

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Identifying guest User using Policy Based Management

  - by pinaldave

  If you are following my recent blog posts, you may have noticed that I’ve been writing a lot about Guest User in SQL Server. Here are all the blog posts which I have written on this subject: SQL SERVER – Disable Guest Account – Serious Security Issue SQL SERVER – Force Removing User from Database – Fix: Error: Could not drop login ‘test’ as the user is currently logged in SQL SERVER – Detecting guest User Permissions – guest User Access Status SQL SERVER – guest User and MSDB Database – Enable guest User on MSDB Database One of the requests I received was whether we could create a policy that would prevent users unable guest user in user databases. Well, here is a quick tutorial to answer this. Let us see how quickly we can do it. Requirements Check if the guest user is disabled in all the user-created databases. Exclude master, tempdb and msdb database for guest user validation. We will create the following conditions based on the above two requirements: If the name of the user is ‘guest’ If the user has connect (@hasDBAccess) permission in the database Check in All user databases, except: master, tempDB and msdb Once we create two conditions, we will create a policy which will validate the conditions. Condition 1: Is the User Guest? Expand the Database >> Management >> Policy Management >> Conditions Right click on the Conditions, and click on “New Condition…”. First we will create a condition where we will validate if the user name is ‘guest’, and if it’s so, then we will further validate if it has DB access. Check the image for the necessary configuration for condition: Facet: User Expression: @Name = ‘guest’ Condition 2: Does the User have DBAccess? Expand the Database >> Management >> Policy Management >> Conditions Right click on Conditions and click on “New Condition…”. Now we will validate if the user has DB access. Check the image for necessary configuration for condition: Facet: User Expression: @hasDBAccess = False Condition 3: Exclude Databases Expand the Database >> Management >> Policy Management >> Conditions Write click on Conditions and click on “New Condition…” Now we will create condition where we will validate if database name is master, tempdb or msdb and if database name is any of them, we will not validate our first one condition with them. Check the image for necessary configuration for condition: Facet: Database Expression: @Name != ‘msdb’ AND @Name != ‘tempdb’ AND @Name != ‘master’ The next step will be creating a policy which will enforce these conditions. Creating a Policy Right click on Policies and click “New Policy…” Here, we justify what condition we want to validate against what the target is. Condition: Has User DBAccess Target Database: Every Database except (master, tempdb and MSDB) Target User: Every User in Target Database with name ‘guest’ Now we have options for two evaluation modes: 1) On Demand and 2) On Schedule We will select On Demand in this example; however, you can change the mode to On Schedule through the drop down menu, and select the interval of the evaluation of the policy. Evaluate the Policies We have selected OnDemand as our policy evaluation mode. We will now evaluate by means of executing Evaluate policy. Click on Evaluate and it will give the following result: The result demonstrates that one of the databases has a policy violation. Username guest is enabled in AdventureWorks database. You can disable the guest user by running the following code in AdventureWorks database. USE AdventureWorks; REVOKE CONNECT FROM guest; Once you run above query, you can already evaluate the policy again. Notice that the policy violation is fixed now. You can change the method of the evaluation policy to On Schedule and validate policy on interval. You can check the history of the policy and detect the violation. Quiz I have created three conditions to check if the guest user has database access or not. Now I want to ask you: Is it possible to do the same with 2 conditions? If yes, HOW? If no, WHY NOT? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, CodeProject, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Policy Management

  Read the article

• ASP.NET MVC: Converting business objects to select list items

  - by DigiMortal

  Some of our business classes are used to fill dropdown boxes or select lists. And often you have some base class for all your business classes. In this posting I will show you how to use base business class to write extension method that converts collection of business objects to ASP.NET MVC select list items without writing a lot of code. BusinessBase, BaseEntity and other base classes I prefer to have some base class for all my business classes so I can easily use them regardless of their type in contexts I need. NB! Some guys say that it is good idea to have base class for all your business classes and they also suggest you to have mappings done same way in database. Other guys say that it is good to have base class but you don’t have to have one master table in database that contains identities of all your business objects. It is up to you how and what you prefer to do but whatever you do – think and analyze first, please. :) To keep things maximally simple I will use very primitive base class in this example. This class has only Id property and that’s it. public class BaseEntity {     public virtual long Id { get; set; } } Now we have Id in base class and we have one more question to solve – how to better visualize our business objects? To users ID is not enough, they want something more informative. We can define some abstract property that all classes must implement. But there is also another option we can use – overriding ToString() method in our business classes. public class Product : BaseEntity {     public virtual string SKU { get; set; }     public virtual string Name { get; set; }       public override string ToString()     {         if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(Name))             return base.ToString();           return Name;     } } Although you can add more functionality and properties to your base class we are at point where we have what we needed: identity and human readable presentation of business objects. Writing list items converter Now we can write method that creates list items for us. public static class BaseEntityExtensions {            public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ToSelectListItems<T>         (this IList<T> baseEntities) where T : BaseEntity     {         return ToSelectListItems((IEnumerator<BaseEntity>)                    baseEntities.GetEnumerator());     }       public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ToSelectListItems         (this IEnumerator<BaseEntity> baseEntities)     {         var items = new HashSet<SelectListItem>();           while (baseEntities.MoveNext())         {             var item = new SelectListItem();             var entity = baseEntities.Current;               item.Value = entity.Id.ToString();             item.Text = entity.ToString();               items.Add(item);         }           return items;     } } You can see here to overloads of same method. One works with List<T> and the other with IEnumerator<BaseEntity>. Although mostly my repositories return IList<T> when querying data there are always situations where I can use more abstract types and interfaces. Using extension methods in code In your code you can use ToSelectListItems() extension methods like shown on following code fragment. ... var model = new MyFormModel(); model.Statuses = _myRepository.ListStatuses().ToSelectListItems(); ... You can call this method on all your business classes that extend your base entity. Wanna have some fun with this code? Write overload for extension method that accepts selected item ID.

  Read the article

• My Tech Ed North America Preview - Content Edition

  - by Chris Gardner

  As I promised in my last post, I feel the need to give you a rundown on all the technical content I am looking forward to checking out at Tech Ed this year. We shall start with the content I know I'll be able to see. This would be some demo stations in the Technical Learning Center. I will DEFINITELY be checking out the Windows Phone Device Bar. I will admit that I am a bit of a phone snob, and I just want to manhandle all that sexy, sexy tech. I am also planning on talking to the Windows Phone team and the Azure team. Year after year, I end up spending more time in either the TLC or taking certification tests than anywhere else. This leads me to the one "Exam Cram" session I hope to attend. There is a session to cram for 70-599: Designing and Developing Windows Phone Applications. I know this seems odd. I'm (sort of) an XNA guru. However, I'm not that up on my Silverlight. I know enough to add Silverlight to an XNA project. Now, let's talk breakout sessions. We always need to keep track of where we're going. I know, I talk about solving problems over forcing buzz words. However, it is important to know what those buzz words before you tell people not to use them. For this, we will look to the "What's New in Visual Studio 11" and "What's New in Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5." Of course, we do talk bad about buzz words around here. For this, I'm really looking forward to "Visual C#/Visual Basic: Becoming a Guru with Existing Features." I still have .NET 2 tricks that are crucial to my internal libraries. In depth knowledge will NEVER trump shortcut libraries. There is a session in ASP.NET for phones and tablets. For those of you that have not tried to use ASP.NET on a mobile device, there is one thing you really need to understand. Mobile devices don't use scroll bars. That's right; the thing with the least screen real estate doesn't use scroll bars. Thus, I am hoping this session will give some good advice in having an ASP.NET site target both mobile and desktop. The last "business only" session "The Accidental Team Foundation Server Admin." T & W Operations is a VERY small business. As such, I am the TFS admin because I'm the developer that is also the SQL Guru. I keep my server up, but it'd be nice to know some really cool tricks for the part time guy. This leads us the the fun sessions. Coding4Fun has a Kinect session. The Twitter followers will remember that I now have a Kinect for Windows sitting on my desk at work. I have gotten pretty handy with the device, but I KNOW I'm missing some good stuff. Finally, we come to Brian Prince's session on "Making Crazy Money with Games and the Cloud." Never mind the fact that we're using Azure at work. Never mind the fact that I'm actually using the cloud in a game. Never mind the fact that the session has the terms "Crazy Money" and "Games" in the title. If you've never seen Brian Prince speak, you're missing out. In the Hands-on-Labs, we are not allowed to make our own schedule. Instead, we're asked what sessions we can't miss, and they try to schedule around those times. This was the one session I said I couldn't miss. This should complete the technical content for the conference. Coming soon, I'll dig into the certifications I hope to attain. Then, we'll talk about the social activities for the week. Here's a preview of that. I am a member of The Krewe...

  Read the article

• FAT Volume and CE

  - by Kate Moss' Open Space

  Whenever we format a disk volume, it is a good idea to name the label so it will be easier to categorize. To label a volume, we can use LABEL command or UI depends on your preference. Windows CE does provide FAT driver and support various format (FAT12, FAT16,FAT32, ExFAT and TFAT - transaction-safe FAT) and many feature to let you scan and even defrag the volume but not labeling. At any time you format a volume in CE and then mount it on PC, the label is always empty! Of course, you can always label the volume on PC, even it is formatted in CE. So looks like CE does not care about the volume label at all, neither report the label to OS nor changing the label on FAT.So how can we set the volume label in CE? To Answer this question, we need to know how does FAT stores the volume label. Here are some on-line resources are handy for parsing FAT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table http://www.pjrc.com/tech/8051/ide/fat32.html http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/fatgen.mspx You can refer to PUBLIC\COMMON\OAK\DRIVERS\FSD\FATUTIL\MAIN\bootsec.h and dosbpb.h or the above links for the fields we discuss here. The first sector of a FAT Volume (it is not necessary to be the first sector of a disk.) is a FAT boot sector and BPB (BIOS Parameter Block). And at offset 43, bgbsVolumeLabel (or bsVolumeLabel on FAT16) is for storing the volume lable, but note in the spec also indicates "FAT file system drivers should make sure that they update this field when the volume label file in the root directory has its name changed or created.". So we can't just simply update the bgbsVolumeLabel but also need to create a volume lable file in root directory. The volume lable file is not a real file but just a file entry in root directory with zero file lenth and a very special file attribute, ATTR_VOLUME_ID. (defined in public\common\oak\drivers\fsd\fatutil\MAIN\fatutilp.h) Locating and accessing bootsector is quite straight forward, as long as we know the starting sector of a FAT volume, that's it. But where is the root directory? The layout of a typical FAT is like this Boot sector (Volume ID in the figure) followed by Reserved Sectors (1 on FAT12/16 and 32 on FAT32), then FAT chain table(s) (can be 1 or 2), after that is the root directory (FAT12/16 and not shows in the figure) then begining of the File and Directories. In FAT12/16, the root directory is placed right after FAT so it is not hard to caculate the offset in the volume. But in FAT32, this rule is no longer true: the first cluster of the root directory is determined by BGBPB_RootDirStrtClus (or offset 44 in boot sector). Although this field is usually 0x00000002 (it is how CE initial the root directory after formating a volume. Note we should never assume it is always true) which means the first cluster contains data but not like the root directory is contiguous in FAT12/16, it is just like a regular file can be fragmented. So we need to access the root directory (of FAT32) hopping one cluster to another by traversing FAT table. Let's trace the code now. Although the source of FAT driver is not available in CE Shared Source program, but the formatter, Fatutil.dll, is available in public\common\oak\drivers\fsd\fatutil\MAIN\formatdisk.cpp. Be aware the public code only provides formatter for FAT12/16/32 for ExFAT it is still not available. FormatVolumeInternal is the main worker function. With the knowledge here, you should be able the trace the code easily. But I would like to discuss the following code pieces     dwReservedSectors = (fo.dwFatVersion == 32) ? 32 : 1;     dwRootEntries = (fo.dwFatVersion == 32) ? 0 : fo.dwRootEntries; Note the dwReservedSectors is 32 in FAT32 and 1 in FAT12/16. Root Entries is another different mentioned in previous paragraph, 0 for FAT32 (dynamic allocated) and fixed size (usually 512, defined in DEFAULT_ROOT_ENTRIES in public\common\sdk\inc\fatutil.h) And then here   memset(pBootSec->bsVolumeLabel, 0x20, sizeof(pBootSec->bsVolumeLabel)); It sets the Volume Label as empty string. Now let's carry on to the next section - write the root directory.     if (fo.dwFatVersion == 32) {         if (!(fo.dwFlags & FATUTIL_FORMAT_TFAT)) {             dwRootSectors = dwSectorsPerCluster;         }         else {             DIRENTRY    dirEntry;             DWORD       offset;             int               iVolumeNo;             memset(pbBlock, 0, pdi->di_bytes_per_sect);             memset(&dirEntry, 0, sizeof(DIRENTRY));                         dirEntry.de_attr = ATTR_VOLUME_ID;             // the first one is volume label             memcpy(dirEntry.de_name, "TFAT       ", sizeof (dirEntry.de_name));             memcpy(pbBlock, &dirEntry, sizeof(dirEntry));              ...             // Skip the next step of zeroing out clusters             dwCurrentSec += dwSectorsPerCluster;             dwRootSectors = 0;         }     }     // Each new root directory sector needs to be zeroed.     memset(pbBlock, 0, cbSizeBlk);     iRootSec=0;     while ( iRootSec < dwRootSectors) { Basically, the code zero out the each entry in root directory depends on dwRootSectors. In FAT12/16, the dwRootSectors is calculated as the sectors we need for the root entries (512 for most of the case) and in FAT32 it just zero out the one cluster. Please note that, if it is a TFAT volume, it initialize the root directory with special volume label entries for some special purpose. Despite to its unusual initialization process for TFAT, it does provide a example for how to create a volume entry. With some minor modification, we can assign the volume label in FAT formatter and also remember to sync the volume label with bsVolumeLabel or bgbsVolumeLabel in boot sector.

  Read the article

• 2d movement solution

  - by Phil

  Hi! I'm making a simple top-down tank game on the ipad where the user controls the movement of the tank with the left "joystick" and the rotation of the turret with the right one. I've spent several hours just trying to get it to work decently but now I turn to the pros :) I have two referencial objects, one for the movement and one for the rotation. The referencial objects always stay max two units away from the tank and I use them to tell the tank in what direction to move. I chose this approach to decouple movement and rotational behaviour from the raw input of the joysticks, I believe this will make it simpler to implement whatever behaviour I want for the tank. My problem is 1; the turret rotates the long way to the target. With this I mean that the target can be -5 degrees away in rotation and still it rotates 355 degrees instead of -5 degrees. I can't figure out why. The other problem is with the movement. It just doesn't feel right to have the tank turn while moving. I'd like to have a solution that would work as well for the AI as for the player. A blackbox function for the movement where the player only specifies in what direction it should move and it moves there under the constraints that are imposed on it. I am using the standard joystick class found in the Unity iPhone package. This is the code I'm using for the movement: public class TankFollow : MonoBehaviour { //Check angle difference and turn accordingly public GameObject followPoint; public float speed; public float turningSpeed; void Update() { transform.position = Vector3.Slerp(transform.position, followPoint.transform.position, speed * Time.deltaTime); //Calculate angle var forwardA = transform.forward; var forwardB = (followPoint.transform.position - transform.position); var angleA = Mathf.Atan2(forwardA.x, forwardA.z) * Mathf.Rad2Deg; var angleB = Mathf.Atan2(forwardB.x, forwardB.z) * Mathf.Rad2Deg; var angleDiff = Mathf.DeltaAngle(angleA, angleB); //print(angleDiff.ToString()); if (angleDiff > 5) { //Rotate to transform.Rotate(new Vector3(0, (-turningSpeed * Time.deltaTime),0)); //transform.rotation = new Quaternion(transform.rotation.x, transform.rotation.y + adjustment, transform.rotation.z, transform.rotation.w); } else if (angleDiff < 5) { transform.Rotate(new Vector3(0, (turningSpeed * Time.deltaTime),0)); //transform.rotation = new Quaternion(transform.rotation.x, transform.rotation.y + adjustment, transform.rotation.z, transform.rotation.w); } else { } transform.position = new Vector3(transform.position.x, 0, transform.position.z); } } And this is the code I'm using to rotate the turret: void LookAt() { var forwardA = -transform.right; var forwardB = (toLookAt.transform.position - transform.position); var angleA = Mathf.Atan2(forwardA.x, forwardA.z) * Mathf.Rad2Deg; var angleB = Mathf.Atan2(forwardB.x, forwardB.z) * Mathf.Rad2Deg; var angleDiff = Mathf.DeltaAngle(angleA, angleB); //print(angleDiff.ToString()); if (angleDiff - 180 > 1) { //Rotate to transform.Rotate(new Vector3(0, (turretSpeed * Time.deltaTime),0)); //transform.rotation = new Quaternion(transform.rotation.x, transform.rotation.y + adjustment, transform.rotation.z, transform.rotation.w); } else if (angleDiff - 180 < -1) { transform.Rotate(new Vector3(0, (-turretSpeed * Time.deltaTime),0)); //transform.rotation = new Quaternion(transform.rotation.x, transform.rotation.y + adjustment, transform.rotation.z, transform.rotation.w); print((angleDiff - 180).ToString()); } else { } } Since I want the turret reference point to turn in relation to the tank (when you rotate the body, the turret should follow and not stay locked on since it makes it impossible to control when you've got two thumbs to work with), I've made the TurretFollowPoint a child of the Turret object, which in turn is a child of the body. I'm thinking that I'm making it too difficult for myself with the reference points but I'm imagining that it's a good idea. Please be honest about this point. So I'll be grateful for any help I can get! I'm using Unity3d iPhone. Thanks!

  Read the article

• Integrate Microsoft Translator into your ASP.Net application

  - by sreejukg

  In this article I am going to explain how easily you can integrate the Microsoft translator API to your ASP.Net application. Why we need a translation API? Once you published a website, you are opening a channel to the global audience. So making the web content available only in one language doesn’t cover all your audience. Especially when you are offering products/services it is important to provide contents in multiple languages. Users will be more comfortable when they see the content in their native language. How to achieve this, hiring translators and translate the content to all your user’s languages will cost you lot of money, and it is not a one time job, you need to translate the contents on the go. What is the alternative, we need to look for machine translation. Thankfully there are some translator engines available that gives you API level access, so that automatically you can translate the content and display to the user. Microsoft Translator API is an excellent set of web service APIs that allows developers to use the machine translation technology in their own applications. The Microsoft Translator API is offered through Windows Azure market place. In order to access the data services published in Windows Azure market place, you need to have an account. The registration process is simple, and it is common for all the services offered through the market place. Last year I had written an article about Bing Search API, where I covered the registration process. You can refer the article here. http://weblogs.asp.net/sreejukg/archive/2012/07/04/integrate-bing-search-api-to-asp-net-application.aspx Once you registered with Windows market place, you will get your APP ID. Now you can visit the Microsoft Translator page and click on the sign up button. http://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/bing/microsofttranslator As you can see, there are several options available for you to subscribe. There is a free version available, great. Click on the sign up button under the package that suits you. Clicking on the sign up button will bring the sign up form, where you need to agree on the terms and conditions and go ahead. You need to have a windows live account in order to sign up for any service available in Windows Azure market place. Once you signed up successfully, you will receive the thank you page. You can download the C# class library from here so that the integration can be made without writing much code. The C# file name is TranslatorContainer.cs. At any point of time, you can visit https://datamarket.azure.com/account/datasets to see the applications you are subscribed to. Click on the Use link next to each service will give you the details of the application. You need to not the primary account key and URL of the service to use in your application. Now let us start our ASP.Net project. I have created an empty ASP.Net web application using Visual Studio 2010 and named it Translator Sample, any name could work. By default, the web application in solution explorer looks as follows. Now right click the project and select Add -> Existing Item and then browse to the TranslatorContainer.cs. Now let us create a page where user enter some data and perform the translation. I have added a new web form to the project with name Translate.aspx. I have placed one textbox control for user to type the text to translate, the dropdown list to select the target language, a label to display the translated text and a button to perform the translation. For the dropdown list I have selected some languages supported by Microsoft translator. You can get all the supported languages with their codes from the below link. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh456380.aspx The form looks as below in the design surface of Visual Studio. All the class libraries in the windows market place requires reference to System.Data.Services.Client, let us add the reference. You can find the documentation of how to use the downloaded class library from the below link. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg312154.aspx Let us evaluate the translatorContainer.cs file. You can refer the code and it is self-explanatory. Note the namespace name used (Microsoft), you need to add the namespace reference to your page. I have added the following event for the translate button. The code is self-explanatory. You are creating an object of TranslatorContainer class by passing the translation service URL. Now you need to set credentials for your Translator container object, which will be your account key. The TranslatorContainer support a method that accept a text input, source language and destination language and returns DataServiceQuery<Translation>. Let us see this working, I just ran the application and entered Good Morning in the Textbox. Selected target language and see the output as follows. It is easy to build great translator applications using Microsoft translator API, and there is a reasonable amount of translation you can perform in your application for free. For enterprises, you can subscribe to the appropriate package and make your application multi-lingual.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Parsing SSIS Catalog Messages – Notes from the Field #030

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Note from Pinal]: This is a new episode of Notes from the Field series. SQL Server Integration Service (SSIS) is one of the most key essential part of the entire Business Intelligence (BI) story. It is a platform for data integration and workflow applications. The tool may also be used to automate maintenance of SQL Server databases and updates to multidimensional cube data. In this episode of the Notes from the Field series I requested SSIS Expert Andy Leonard to discuss one of the most interesting concepts of SSIS Catalog Messages. There are plenty of interesting and useful information captured in the SSIS catalog and we will learn together how to explore the same. The SSIS Catalog captures a lot of cool information by default. Here’s a query I use to parse messages from the catalog.operation_messages table in the SSISDB database, where the logged messages are stored. This query is set up to parse a default message transmitted by the Lookup Transformation. It’s one of my favorite messages in the SSIS log because it gives me excellent information when I’m tuning SSIS data flows. The message reads similar to: Data Flow Task:Information: The Lookup processed 4485 rows in the cache. The processing time was 0.015 seconds. The cache used 1376895 bytes of memory. The query: USE SSISDB GO DECLARE @MessageSourceType INT = 60 DECLARE @StartOfIDString VARCHAR(100) = 'The Lookup processed ' DECLARE @ProcessingTimeString VARCHAR(100) = 'The processing time was ' DECLARE @CacheUsedString VARCHAR(100) = 'The cache used ' DECLARE @StartOfIDSearchString VARCHAR(100) = '%' + @StartOfIDString + '%' DECLARE @ProcessingTimeSearchString VARCHAR(100) = '%' + @ProcessingTimeString + '%' DECLARE @CacheUsedSearchString VARCHAR(100) = '%' + @CacheUsedString + '%' SELECT operation_id , SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1))) AS LookupRowsCount , SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1))) AS LookupProcessingTime , CASE WHEN (CONVERT(numeric(3,3),SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1))))) = 0 THEN 0 ELSE CONVERT(bigint,SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1)))) / CONVERT(numeric(3,3),SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@ProcessingTimeSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@ProcessingTimeString) + 1)))) END AS LookupRowsPerSecond , SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@CacheUsedSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@CacheUsedString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@CacheUsedSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@CacheUsedString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@CacheUsedSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@CacheUsedString) + 1))) AS LookupBytesUsed ,CASE WHEN (CONVERT(bigint,SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1)))))= 0 THEN 0 ELSE CONVERT(bigint,SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@CacheUsedSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@CacheUsedString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@CacheUsedSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@CacheUsedString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@CacheUsedSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@CacheUsedString) + 1)))) / CONVERT(bigint,SUBSTRING(MESSAGE, (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1), ((CHARINDEX(' ', MESSAGE, PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString,MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1)) - (PATINDEX(@StartOfIDSearchString, MESSAGE) + LEN(@StartOfIDString) + 1)))) END AS LookupBytesPerRow FROM [catalog].[operation_messages] WHERE message_source_type = @MessageSourceType AND MESSAGE LIKE @StartOfIDSearchString GO Note that you have to set some parameter values: @MessageSourceType [int] – represents the message source type value from the following results: Value     Description 10           Entry APIs, such as T-SQL and CLR Stored procedures 20           External process used to run package (ISServerExec.exe) 30           Package-level objects 40           Control Flow tasks 50           Control Flow containers 60           Data Flow task 70           Custom execution message Note: Taken from Reza Rad’s (excellent!) helper.MessageSourceType table found here. @StartOfIDString [VarChar(100)] – use this to uniquely identify the message field value you wish to parse. In this case, the string ‘The Lookup processed ‘ identifies all the Lookup Transformation messages I desire to parse. @ProcessingTimeString [VarChar(100)] – this parameter is message-specific. I use this parameter to specifically search the message field value for the beginning of the Lookup Processing Time value. For this execution, I use the string ‘The processing time was ‘. @CacheUsedString [VarChar(100)] – this parameter is also message-specific. I use this parameter to specifically search the message field value for the beginning of the Lookup Cache  Used value. It returns the memory used, in bytes. For this execution, I use the string ‘The cache used ‘. The other parameters are built from variations of the parameters listed above. The query parses the values into text. The string values are converted to numeric values for ratio calculations; LookupRowsPerSecond and LookupBytesPerRow. Since ratios involve division, CASE statements check for denominators that equal 0. Here are the results in an SSMS grid: This is not the only way to retrieve this information. And much of the code lends itself to conversion to functions. If there is interest, I will share the functions in an upcoming post. If you want to get started with SSIS with the help of experts, read more over at Fix Your SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: SSIS

  Read the article

• PHP OCI8 and Oracle 11g DRCP Connection Pooling in Pictures

  - by christopher.jones

  Here is a screen shot from a PHP OCI8 connection pooling demo that I like to run. It graphically shows how little database host memory is needed when using DRCP connection pooling with Oracle Database 11g. Migrating to DRCP can be as simple as starting the pool and changing the connection string in your PHP application. The script that generated the data for this graph was a simple "Parts" query application being run under various simulated user loads. I was running the database on a small Oracle Linux server with just 2G of memory. I used PHP OCI8 1.4. Apache is in pre-fork mode, as needed for PHP. Each graph has time on the horizontal access in arbitrary 'tick' time units. Click the image to see it full sized. Pooled connections Beginning with the top left graph, At tick time 65 I used Apache's 'ab' tool to start 100 concurrent 'users' running the application. These users connected to the database using DRCP: $c = oci_pconnect('phpdemo', 'welcome', 'myhost/orcl:pooled'); A second hundred DRCP users were added to the system at tick 80 and a final hundred users added at tick 100. At about tick 110 I stopped the test and restarted Apache. This closed all the connections. The bottom left graph shows the number of statements being executed by the database per second, with some spikes for background database activity and some variability for this small test. Each extra batch of users adds another 'step' of load to the system. Looking at the top right Server Process graph shows the database server processes doing the query work for each web user. As user load is added, the DRCP server pool increases (in green). The pool is initially at its default size 4 and quickly ramps up to about (I'm guessing) 35. At tick time 100 the pool increases to my configured maximum of 40 processes. Those 40 processes are doing the query work for all 300 web users. When I stopped the test at tick 110, the pooled processes remained open waiting for more users to connect. If I had left the test quiet for the DRCP 'inactivity_timeout' period (300 seconds by default), the pool would have shrunk back to 4 processes. Looking at the bottom right, you can see the amount of memory being consumed by the database. During the initial quiet period about 500M of memory was in use. The absolute number is just an indication of my particular DB configuration. As the number of pooled processes increases, each process needs more memory. You can see the shape of the memory graph echoes the Server Process graph above it. Each of the 300 web users will also need a few kilobytes but this is almost too small to see on the graph. Non-pooled connections Compare the DRCP case with using 'dedicated server' processes. At tick 140 I started 100 web users who did not use pooled connections: $c = oci_pconnect('phpdemo', 'welcome', 'myhost/orcl'); This connection string change is the only difference between the two tests. At ticks 155 and 165 I started two more batches of 100 simulated users each. At about tick 195 I stopped the user load but left Apache running. Apache then gradually returned to its quiescent state, killing idle httpd processes and producing the downward slope at the right of the graphs as the persistent database connection in each Apache process was closed. The Executions per Second graph on the bottom left shows the same step increases as for the earlier DRCP case. The database is handling this load. But look at the number of Server processes on the top right graph. There is now a one-to-one correspondence between Apache/PHP processes and DB server processes. Each PHP processes has one DB server processes dedicated to it. Hence the term 'dedicated server'. The memory required on the database is proportional to all those database server processes started. Almost all my system's memory was consumed. I doubt it would have coped with any more user load. Summary Oracle Database 11g DRCP connection pooling significantly reduces database host memory requirements allow more system memory to be allocated for the SGA and allowing the system to scale to handled thousands of concurrent PHP users. Even for small systems, using DRCP allows more web users to be active. More information about PHP and DRCP can be found in the PHP Scalability and High Availability chapter of The Underground PHP and Oracle Manual.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #005

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 SQL SERVER – Cursor to Kill All Process in Database I indeed wrote this cursor and when I often look back, I wonder how naive I was to write this. The reason for writing this cursor was to free up my database from any existing connection so I can do database operation. This worked fine but there can be a potentially big issue if there was any important transaction was killed by this process. There is another way to to achieve the same thing where we can use ALTER syntax to take database in single user mode. Read more about that over here and here. 2007 Rules of Third Normal Form and Normalization Advantage – 3NF The rules of 3NF are mentioned here Make a separate table for each set of related attributes, and give each table a primary key. If an attribute depends on only part of a multi-valued key, remove it to a separate table If attributes do not contribute to a description of the key, remove them to a separate table. Correct Syntax for Stored Procedure SP Sometime a simple question is the most important question. I often see in industry incorrectly written Stored Procedure. Few writes code after the most outer BEGIN…END and few writes code after the GO Statement. In this brief blog post, I have attempted to explain the same. 2008 Switch Between Result Pan and Query Pan – SQL Shortcut Many times when I am writing query I have to scroll the result displayed in the result set. Most of the developer uses the mouse to switch between and Query Pane and Result Pane. There are few developers who are crazy about Keyboard shortcuts. F6 is the keyword which can be used to switch between query pane and tabs of the result pane. Interesting Observation – Use of Index and Execution Plan Query Optimization is a complex game and it has its own rules. From the example in the article we have discovered that Query Optimizer does not use clustered index to retrieve data, sometime non clustered index provides optimal performance for retrieving Primary Key. When all the rows and columns are selected Primary Key should be used to select data as it provides optimal performance. 2009 Interesting Observation – TOP 100 PERCENT and ORDER BY If you pull up any application or system where there are more than 100 SQL Server Views are created – I am very confident that at one or two places you will notice the scenario wherein View the ORDER BY clause is used with TOP 100 PERCENT. SQL Server 2008 VIEW with ORDER BY clause does not throw an error; moreover, it does not acknowledge the presence of it as well. In this article we have taken three perfect examples and demonstrated which clause we should use when. Comma Separated Values (CSV) from Table Column A Very common question – How to create comma separated values from a table in the database? The answer is also very common if we use XML. Check out this article for quick learning on the same subject. Azure Start Guide – Step by Step Installation Guide Though Azure portal has changed a quite bit since I wrote this article, the concept used in this article are not old. They are still valid and many of the functions are still working as mentioned in the article. I believe this one article will put you on the track to use Azure! Size of Index Table for Each Index – Solution Earlier I have posted a small question on this blog and requested help from readers to participate here and provide a solution. The puzzle was to write a query that will return the size for each index that is on any particular table. We need a query that will return an additional column in the above listed query and it should contain the size of the index. This article presents two of the best solutions from the puzzle. 2010 Well, this week in 2010 was the week of puzzles as I posted three interesting puzzles. Till today I am noticing pretty good interesting in the puzzles. They are tricky but for sure brings a great value if you are a database developer for a long time. I suggest you go over this puzzles and their answers. Did you really know all of the answers? I am confident that reading following three blog post will for sure help you enhance the experience with T-SQL. SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Usage of FAST Hint SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Challenge – Error While Converting Money to Decimal SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Why does RIGHT JOIN Exists 2011 DVM sys.dm_os_sys_info Column Name Changed in SQL Server 2012 Have you ever faced a situation where something does not work? When you try to fix it - you enjoy fixing it and started to appreciate the breaking changes. Well, this was exactly I felt yesterday. Before I begin my story, I want to candidly state that I do not encourage anybody to use * in the SELECT statement. Now the disclaimer is over – I suggest you read the original story – you will love it! Get Directory Structure using Extended Stored Procedure xp_dirtree Here is the question to you – why would you do something in SQL Server where you can do the same task in command prompt much easily. Well, the answer is sometime there are real use cases when we have to do such thing. This is a similar example where I have demonstrated how in SQL Server 2012 we can use extended stored procedure to retrieve directory structure. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Upcoming EMEA, APAC & US Events with MySQL in 2014

  - by Lenka Kasparova

  As an update to the previous announcement from Mar 25, 2014 please find below the updated list of events where MySQL Community team is attending and/or supporting. This time you can find not only EMEA & APAC ones but also conferences & events we are covering in the US & Canada. You are invited to meet our engineers at the events below.   EMEA  NEW!! BGOUG, Sandanski, Bulgaria, June 13, 2014  Georgi Kodinov will attend and speak at this local Oracle User Group event. Feel free to come. PHP Tour Lyon, Lyon, France, June 23-24, 2014 MySQL team is going to be part of this show as well, we are not going to have a booth here but very active networking by our french MySQL team around the event. Come to meet us and talk to us! NEW!! Converge Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, August 15-16, 2014  MySQL Community Manager, David Stokes attends with MySQL talk. NEW!! CakeFest, Madrid, Spain, August 21-24, 2014  A talk on "Scaling Your MySQL instances AND keeping your Sanity" will be given by the MySQL Community Manager, David Stokes. Froscon 2014, St.Augustin, Germany, August 23-24, 2014 Please visit our booth as well as watch the Froscon website for the schedule updates. NEW!! SymfonyLive, UK, London, September 25-26, 2014 MySQL Community Magers, David Stokes & Morgan Tocker submitted MySQL talks for this show. Schedule will be announced later on. DrupalCon Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 29-Oct 3, 2014 Meet us at our booth at DrupalCon Amsterdam. For the schedule please watch the DrupalCon website. All Your Base, Oxford UK, October 17, 2014  Come to visit our MySQL booth and talk to our MySQL experts. NEW!! WebTechCon / IPC, Munich Germany, October 26-29, 2014 NEW!! DOAG, Nuremberg, Germany, November 18-20, 2014 There will be a full day of MySQL talks and one full day of MySQL workshop & sessions with live demo. This event is simply hard to miss! NEW!! Forum PHP Paris, France, November 21-22, 2014 More details: TBD NEW!! UK OUG, Liverpool, UK, December 8-10, 2014 MySQL will be part of the Oracle booth and we hope to get more space for MySQL talks.  USA NEW!! Texas Linux Fest, Austin, Texas, US, June 13-14, 2014 NEW!! SouthEast Linux Fest, Charlotte, US, June 20-22, 2014 NEW!! Debian Conference 2014, Portland, OR, US, August 23-31, 2014 NEW!! FossetCon, Orlando, US, September 11-13, 2014 NEW!! Oracle Open World, San Francisco, US, September 29-October 3, 2014 NEW!! MySQL Central @ Open/World, San Francisco, US, September 29-October 3, 2014 NEW!! PyTexas 2014, Dallas, TX, US, October 3-5, 2014 NEW!! All Things Open (replacing POSSCON), Raleigh, NC, October 23-24, 2014 NEW!! Ohio LinuxFest 2014, Columbus, Ohio, US, October 24-25, 2014 NEW!! ZendCon PHP, Santa Clara, US, October 27-30, 2014 NEW!! Kuali Days 2014, Indianapolis, US, November 10-13, 2014 NEW!! Live 360, Orlando, FL, US, November 17-20, 2014 APAC OpenSourceConference Japan, Hokkaido, June 13-14, 2014 MySQL is represented by Ryusuke Kajiyama with the talk on "MySQL Technology Updates". NEW!! db tech showcase, Osaka Japan, June 18-20, 2014 Three MySQL talks are scheduled for this show, "MySQL for Oracle DBA" & "MySQL Technology Updates" by Ryusuke Kajiyama. The last talk will be on MySQL Fabric by Yoshiaki Yamasaki. NEW!! PyCon Singapore, Singapore, June 18-20, 2014 Ryusuke Kajiyama will be talking about "Sharding and scale-out using Python-based MySQL Fabric". NEW!! COSCUP, Taipei, Taiwan, July 19-20, 2014 We are going to run a technical session on MySQL Workbench & one talk on how to make MySQL better MySQL. NEW!! PyCon New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand, September 13-14, 2014 MySQL talks were submitted as well as one talk by Solaris Modernization team on Python & Solaris, watch the website for schedule updates. NEW!! PyCon Japan, Tokyo Japan, September 13-15, 2014 MySQL will be a MySQL session speaker, no schedule is announced yet. Ruby Kaigi, Tokyo, Japan, September 18-20, 2014 Another event MySQL supports and attends in APAC region. Ruby Kaigi is the international Ruby Conference in Japan, Tokyo. Ruby started in Japan, so Ruby Kaigi has excellent speakers and developers! MySQL team is going to be present at this conference with MySQL talks and active networking around the venue. NEW!! PyCon India, Bangalore, India, September 26-28, 2014 A MySQL talk on "MySQL Utilities scaling MySQL with Python" has been submitted, please watch the PyCon website for the schedule updates. NEW!! OpenSourceConference Japan, Tokyo, October 18-19, 2014 NEW!! OpenSource India, Bengaluru, India, November 7-8, 2014 NEW!! OpenSourceConference Japan, Fukuoka, November 14-15, 2014 You can check the MySQL wikis for updates on the conferences we are attending. Next time I hope to have more details for each event above (especially for the US ones).

  Read the article

• Data Mining Resources

  - by Dejan Sarka

  There are many different types of analyses, each one with its own pros and cons. Relational reports have a predefined structure, and end users cannot change it. They are simple to use for end users. Reports can use real-time data and snapshots of data to show the state of a report at specific points in time. One of the drawbacks is that report authoring is limited to IT pros and advanced users. Any kind of dynamic restructuring is very limited. If real-time data is used for a report, the report has a negative impact on the performance of the source system. Processing of the reports might be slow because the data comes from relational database management systems, which are not optimized for reporting only. If you create a semantic model of your data, your end users can create ad-hoc report structures. However, the development is more complex because a developer is needed to create these semantic models. For OLAP, you typically use specialized database management systems. You get lightning speed of analyses. End users can use rich and thin clients to interactively change the structure of the report. Typically, they do it graphically. However, the development of an OLAP system is many times quite complex. It involves the preparation and maintenance of an enterprise data warehouse and OLAP cubes. In order to exploit the possibility of real-time restructuring of reports, the users must be both active and educated. The data is usually stale, as it is loaded into data warehouses and OLAP cubes with a scheduled process. With data mining, a structure is not selected in advance; it searches for the structure. As a result, data mining can give you the most valuable results because you can discover patterns you did not expect. A data mining model structure is limited only by the attributes that you use to train the model. One of the drawbacks is that a lot of knowledge is needed for a successful data mining project. End users have to understand the results. Subject matter experts and IT professionals need to understand business problem thoroughly. The development might be sometimes even more complex than the development of OLAP cubes. Each type of analysis has its own place in an enterprise system. SQL Server has tools for all kinds of analyses. However, data mining is the most advanced way of analyzing the data; this is the “I” in BI. In order to get the most out of it, you need to learn quite a lot. In this blog post, I am gathering together resources for learning, including forthcoming events. Books Multiple authors: SQL Server MVP Deep Dives – I wrote an introductory data mining chapter there. Erik Veerman, Teo Lachev and Dejan Sarka: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-448): Microsoft SQL Server 2008 - Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance – you can find a good overview of a complete BI solution, including data mining, in this book. Jamie MacLennan, ZhaoHui Tang, and Bogdan Crivat: Data Mining with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – can’t miss this book if you want to mine your data with SQL Server tools. Michael Berry, Gordon Linoff: Mastering Data Mining: The Art and Science of Customer Relationship Management – data mining from both, business and technical perspective. Dorian Pyle: Data Preparation for Data Mining – an in-depth book about data preparation. Thomas and Ronald Wonnacott: Introductory Statistics – if you thought that you could get away without statistics, then you are not serious about data mining. Jiawei Han and Micheline Kamber: Data Mining Concepts and Techniques – in-depth explanation of the most popular data mining algorithms. Michael Berry and Gordon Linoff: Data Mining Techniques – another book that explains data mining algorithms, more fro a business perspective. Paolo Guidici: Applied Data Mining – very mathematical book, only if you enjoy statistics and mathematics in general. Forthcoming presentations I am presenting two data mining related sessions during the PASS Summit in Charlotte, NC: Wednesday, October 16th, 2013 - Fraud Detection: Notes from the Field – I am showing how to use data mining for a specific business problem. The presentation is based on real-life projects. Friday, October 18th: Excel 2013 Advanced Analytics – I am focusing on Excel Data Mining Add-ins, and how to use them together with Power Pivot and other add-ins. This is the most you can get out of Excel. Sinergija 2013, Belgrade, Serbia Tuesday, October 22nd: Excel 2013 Analytics to the Max – another presentation focusing on the most advanced analytics you can get in Excel. SQL Rally Amsterdam, Netherlands Thursday, November 7th: Advanced Analytics in Excel 2013 – and again I am presenting about data mining in Excel. Why three different titles for the same presentation? I don’t know, I guess I forgot the name I proposed every time right after I sent the proposal. Courses Data Mining with SQL Server 2012 – I wrote a 3-day course for SolidQ. If you are interested in this course, which I could also deliver in a shorter seminar way, you can contact your closes SolidQ subsidiary, or, of course, me directly on addresses [email protected] or [email protected]. This course could also complement the existing courseware portfolio of training providers, which are welcome to contact me as well. OK, now you know: no more excuses, start learning data mining, get the most out of your data

  Read the article

• Persisting settings without using Options dialog in Visual Studio

  - by Utkarsh Shigihalli

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/onlyutkarsh/archive/2013/11/02/persisting-settings-without-using-options-dialog-in-visual-studio.aspxIn one of my previous blog post we have seen persisting settings using Visual Studio's options dialog. Visual Studio options has many advantages in automatically persisting user options for you. However, during our latest Team Rooms extension development, we decided to provide our users; ability to use our preferences directly from Team Explorer. The main reason was that we had only one simple option for user and we thought it is cumbersome for user to go to Tools –> Options dialog to change this. Another reason was, we wanted to highlight this setting to user as soon as he is using our extension.   So if you are in such a scenario where you do not want to use VS options window, but still would like to persist the settings, this post will guide you through. Visual Studio SDK provides two ways to persist settings in your extensions. One is using DialogPage as shown in my previous post. Another way is to use by implementing IProfileManager interface which I will explain in this post. Please note that the class implementing IProfileManager should be independent class. This is because, VS instantiates this class during Tools –> Import and Export Settings. IProfileManager provides 2 different sets of methods (total 4 methods) to persist the settings. They are LoadSettingsFromXml and SaveSettingsToXml – Implement these methods to persist settings to disk from VS settings storage. The VS will persist your settings along with other options to disk. LoadSettingsFromStorage and SaveSettingsToStorage – Implement these methods to persist settings to local storage, usually it be registry. VS calls LoadSettingsFromStorage method when it is initializing the package too. We are going to use the 2nd set of methods for this example. First, we are creating a separate class file called UserOptions.cs. Please note that, we also need to implement IComponent, which can be done by inheriting Component along with IProfileManager. [ComVisible(true)] [Guid("XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX")] public class UserOptions : Component, IProfileManager { private const string SUBKEY_NAME = "TForVS2013"; private const string TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING = "TrayNotifications"; ... } Define the property so that it can be used to set and get from other classes. public bool TrayNotifications { get; set; } Implement the members of IProfileManager. public void LoadSettingsFromStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. TrayNotifications = Convert.ToBoolean(reg.GetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, true)); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { TrayNotifications = true; ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void LoadSettingsFromXml(IVsSettingsReader reader) { reader.ReadSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, out _isTrayNotificationsEnabled); TrayNotifications = (_isTrayNotificationsEnabled == 1); } public void ResetSettings() { } public void SaveSettingsToStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME, true)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } else { reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.CreateSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME); reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void SaveSettingsToXml(IVsSettingsWriter writer) { writer.WriteSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications ? 1 : 0); } Let me elaborate on the method implementation. The Package class provides UserRegistryRoot (which is HKCU\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 for VS2013) property which can be used to create and read the registry keys. So basically, in the methods above, I am checking if the registry key exists already and if not, I simply create it. Also, in case there is an exception I return the default values. If the key already exists, I update the value. Also, note that you need to make sure that you close the key while exiting from the method. Very simple right? Accessing and settings is simple too. We just need to use the exposed property. UserOptions.TrayNotifications = true; UserOptions.SaveSettingsToStorage(); Reading settings is as simple as reading a property. UserOptions.LoadSettingsFromStorage(); var trayNotifications = UserOptions.TrayNotifications; Lastly, the most important step. We need to tell Visual Studio shell that our package exposes options using the UserOptions class. For this we need to decorate our package class with ProvideProfile attribute as below. [ProvideProfile(typeof(UserOptions), "TForVS2013", "TeamRooms", 110, 110, false, DescriptionResourceID = 401)] public sealed class TeamRooms : Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package { ... } That's it. If everything is alright, once you run the package you will also see your options appearing in "Import Export settings" window, which allows you to export your options.

  Read the article

• Talking JavaOne with Rock Star Martijn Verburg

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  JavaOne Rock Stars, conceived in 2005, are the top-rated speakers at each JavaOne Conference. They are awarded by their peers, who, through conference surveys, recognize them for their outstanding sessions and speaking ability. Over the years many of the world’s leading Java developers have been so recognized. Martijn Verburg has, in recent years, established himself as an important mover and shaker in the Java community. His “Diabolical Developer” session at the JavaOne 2011 Conference got people’s attention by identifying some of the worst practices Java developers are prone to engage in. Among other things, he is co-leader and organizer of the thriving London Java User Group (JUG) which has more than 2,500 members, co-represents the London JUG on the Executive Committee of the Java Community Process, and leads the global effort for the Java User Group “Adopt a JSR” and “Adopt OpenJDK” programs. Career highlights include overhauling technology stacks and SDLC practices at Mizuho International, mentoring Oracle on technical community management, and running off shore development teams for AIG. He is currently CTO at jClarity, a start-up focusing on automating optimization for Java/JVM related technologies, and Product Advisor at ZeroTurnaround. He co-authored, with Ben Evans, "The Well-Grounded Java Developer" published by Manning and, as a leading authority on technical team optimization, he is in high demand at major software conferences.Verburg is participating in five sessions, a busy man indeed. Here they are: CON6152 - Modern Software Development Antipatterns (with Ben Evans) UGF10434 - JCP and OpenJDK: Using the JUGs’ “Adopt” Programs in Your Group (with Csaba Toth) BOF4047 - OpenJDK Building and Testing: Case Study—Java User Group OpenJDK Bugathon (with Ben Evans and Cecilia Borg) BOF6283 - 101 Ways to Improve Java: Why Developer Participation Matters (with Bruno Souza and Heather Vancura-Chilson) HOL6500 - Finding and Solving Java Deadlocks (with Heinz Kabutz, Kirk Pepperdine, Ellen Kraffmiller and Henri Tremblay) When I asked Verburg about the biggest mistakes Java developers tend to make, he listed three: A lack of communication -- Software development is far more a social activity than a technical one; most projects fail because of communication issues and social dynamics, not because of a bad technical decision. Sadly, many developers never learn this lesson. No source control -- Developers simply storing code in local filesystems and emailing code in order to integrate Design-driven Design -- The need for some developers to cram every design pattern from the Gang of Four (GoF) book into their source code All of which raises the question: If these practices are so bad, why do developers engage in them? “I've seen a wide gamut of reasons,” said Verburg, who lists them as: * They were never taught at high school/university that their bad habits were harmful.* They weren't mentored in their first professional roles.* They've lost passion for their craft.* They're being deliberately malicious!* They think software development is a technical activity and not a social one.* They think that they'll be able to tidy it up later.A couple of key confusions and misconceptions beset Java developers, according to Verburg. “With Java and the JVM in particular I've seen a couple of trends,” he remarked. “One is that developers think that the JVM is a magic box that will clean up their memory, make their code run fast, as well as make them cups of coffee. The JVM does help in a lot of cases, but bad code can and will still lead to terrible results! The other trend is to try and force Java (the language) to do something it's not very good at, such as rapid web development. So you get a proliferation of overly complex frameworks, libraries and techniques trying to get around the fact that Java is a monolithic, statically typed, compiled, OO environment. It's not a Golden Hammer!”I asked him about the keys to running a good Java User Group. “You need to have a ‘Why,’” he observed. “Many user groups know what they do (typically, events) and how they do it (the logistics), but what really drives users to join your group and to stay is to give them a purpose. For example, within the LJC we constantly talk about the ‘Why,’ which in our case is several whys:* Re-ignite the passion that developers have for their craft* Raise the bar of Java developers in London* We want developers to have a voice in deciding the future of Java* We want to inspire the next generation of tech leaders* To bring the disparate tech groups in London together* So we could learn from each other* We believe that the Java ecosystem forms a cornerstone of our society today -- we want to protect that for the futureLooking ahead to Java 8 Verburg expressed excitement about Lambdas. “I cannot wait for Lambdas,” he enthused. “Brian Goetz and his group are doing a great job, especially given some of the backwards compatibility that they have to maintain. It's going to remove a lot of boiler plate and yet maintain readability, plus enable massive scaling.”Check out Martijn Verburg at JavaOne if you get a chance, and, stay tuned for a longer interview yours truly did with Martijn to be publish on otn/java some time after JavaOne.

  Read the article

• Talking JavaOne with Rock Star Martijn Verburg

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  JavaOne Rock Stars, conceived in 2005, are the top-rated speakers at each JavaOne Conference. They are awarded by their peers, who, through conference surveys, recognize them for their outstanding sessions and speaking ability. Over the years many of the world’s leading Java developers have been so recognized. Martijn Verburg has, in recent years, established himself as an important mover and shaker in the Java community. His “Diabolical Developer” session at the JavaOne 2011 Conference got people’s attention by identifying some of the worst practices Java developers are prone to engage in. Among other things, he is co-leader and organizer of the thriving London Java User Group (JUG) which has more than 2,500 members, co-represents the London JUG on the Executive Committee of the Java Community Process, and leads the global effort for the Java User Group “Adopt a JSR” and “Adopt OpenJDK” programs. Career highlights include overhauling technology stacks and SDLC practices at Mizuho International, mentoring Oracle on technical community management, and running off shore development teams for AIG. He is currently CTO at jClarity, a start-up focusing on automating optimization for Java/JVM related technologies, and Product Advisor at ZeroTurnaround. He co-authored, with Ben Evans, "The Well-Grounded Java Developer" published by Manning and, as a leading authority on technical team optimization, he is in high demand at major software conferences.Verburg is participating in five sessions, a busy man indeed. Here they are: CON6152 - Modern Software Development Antipatterns (with Ben Evans) UGF10434 - JCP and OpenJDK: Using the JUGs’ “Adopt” Programs in Your Group (with Csaba Toth) BOF4047 - OpenJDK Building and Testing: Case Study—Java User Group OpenJDK Bugathon (with Ben Evans and Cecilia Borg) BOF6283 - 101 Ways to Improve Java: Why Developer Participation Matters (with Bruno Souza and Heather Vancura-Chilson) HOL6500 - Finding and Solving Java Deadlocks (with Heinz Kabutz, Kirk Pepperdine, Ellen Kraffmiller and Henri Tremblay) When I asked Verburg about the biggest mistakes Java developers tend to make, he listed three: A lack of communication -- Software development is far more a social activity than a technical one; most projects fail because of communication issues and social dynamics, not because of a bad technical decision. Sadly, many developers never learn this lesson. No source control -- Developers simply storing code in local filesystems and emailing code in order to integrate Design-driven Design -- The need for some developers to cram every design pattern from the Gang of Four (GoF) book into their source code All of which raises the question: If these practices are so bad, why do developers engage in them? “I've seen a wide gamut of reasons,” said Verburg, who lists them as: * They were never taught at high school/university that their bad habits were harmful.* They weren't mentored in their first professional roles.* They've lost passion for their craft.* They're being deliberately malicious!* They think software development is a technical activity and not a social one.* They think that they'll be able to tidy it up later.A couple of key confusions and misconceptions beset Java developers, according to Verburg. “With Java and the JVM in particular I've seen a couple of trends,” he remarked. “One is that developers think that the JVM is a magic box that will clean up their memory, make their code run fast, as well as make them cups of coffee. The JVM does help in a lot of cases, but bad code can and will still lead to terrible results! The other trend is to try and force Java (the language) to do something it's not very good at, such as rapid web development. So you get a proliferation of overly complex frameworks, libraries and techniques trying to get around the fact that Java is a monolithic, statically typed, compiled, OO environment. It's not a Golden Hammer!”I asked him about the keys to running a good Java User Group. “You need to have a ‘Why,’” he observed. “Many user groups know what they do (typically, events) and how they do it (the logistics), but what really drives users to join your group and to stay is to give them a purpose. For example, within the LJC we constantly talk about the ‘Why,’ which in our case is several whys:* Re-ignite the passion that developers have for their craft* Raise the bar of Java developers in London* We want developers to have a voice in deciding the future of Java* We want to inspire the next generation of tech leaders* To bring the disparate tech groups in London together* So we could learn from each other* We believe that the Java ecosystem forms a cornerstone of our society today -- we want to protect that for the futureLooking ahead to Java 8 Verburg expressed excitement about Lambdas. “I cannot wait for Lambdas,” he enthused. “Brian Goetz and his group are doing a great job, especially given some of the backwards compatibility that they have to maintain. It's going to remove a lot of boiler plate and yet maintain readability, plus enable massive scaling.”Check out Martijn Verburg at JavaOne if you get a chance, and, stay tuned for a longer interview yours truly did with Martijn to be publish on otn/java some time after JavaOne. Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone.

  Read the article

• Unit testing is… well, flawed.

  - by Dewald Galjaard

  Hey someone had to say it. I clearly recall my first IT job. I was appointed Systems Co-coordinator for a leading South African retailer at store level. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an honest day’s labor and in fact I highly recommend it, however I’m obliged to refer to the designation cautiously; in reality all I had to do was monitor in-store prices and two UNIX front line controllers. If anything went wrong – I only had to phone it in… Luckily that wasn’t all I did. My duties extended to some other interesting annual occurrence – stock take. Despite a bit more curious affair, it was still a tedious process that took weeks of preparation and several nights to complete.  Then also I remember that no matter how elaborate our planning was, the entire exercise would be rendered useless if we couldn’t get the basics right – that being the act of counting. Sounds simple right? We’ll with a store which could potentially carry over tens of thousands of different items… we’ll let’s just say I believe that’s when I first became a coffee addict. In those days the act of counting stock was a very humble process. Nothing like we have today. A staff member would be assigned a bin or shelve filled with items he or she had to sort then count. Thereafter they had to record their findings on a complementary piece of paper. Every night I would manage several teams. Each team was divided into two groups - counters and auditors. Both groups had the same task, only auditors followed shortly on the heels of the counters, recounting stock levels, making sure the original count correspond to their findings. It was a simple yet hugely responsible orchestration of people and thankfully there was one fundamental and golden rule I could always abide by to ensure things run smoothly – No-one was allowed to audit their own work. Nope, not even on nights when I didn’t have enough staff available. This meant I too at times had to get up there and get counting, or have the audit stand over until the next evening. The reason for this was obvious - late at night and with so much to do we were prone to make some mistakes, then on the recount, without a fresh set of eyes, you were likely to repeat the offence. Now years later this rule or guideline still holds true as we develop software (as far removed as software development from counting stock may be). For some reason it is a fundamental guideline we’re simply ignorant of. We write our code, we write our tests and thus commit the same horrendous offence. Yes, the procedure of writing unit tests as practiced in most development houses today – is flawed. Most if not all of the tests we write today exercise application logic – our logic. They are based on the way we believe an application or method should/may/will behave or function. As we write our tests, our unit tests mirror our best understanding of the inner workings of our application code. Unfortunately these tests will therefore also include (or be unaware of) any imperfections and errors on our part. If your logic is flawed as you write your initial code, chances are, without a fresh set of eyes, you will commit the same error second time around too. Not even experience seems to be a suitable solution. It certainly helps to have deeper insight, but is that really the answer we should be looking for? Is that really failsafe? What about code review? Code review is certainly an answer. You could have one developer coding away and another (or team) making sure the logic is sound. The practice however has its obvious drawbacks. Firstly and mainly it is resource intensive and from what I’ve seen in most development houses, given heavy deadlines, this guideline is seldom adhered to. Hardly ever do we have the resources, money or time readily available. So what other options are out there? A quest to find some solution revealed a project by Microsoft Research called PEX. PEX is a framework which creates several test scenarios for each method or class you write, automatically. Think of it as your own personal auditor. Within a few clicks the framework will auto generate several unit tests for a given class or method and save them to a single project. PEX help to audit your work. It lends a fresh set of eyes to any project you’re working on and best of all; it is cost effective and fast. Check them out at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ In upcoming posts we’ll dive deeper into how it works and how it can help you.   Certainly there are more similar frameworks out there and I would love to hear from you. Please share your experiences and insights.

  Read the article

• Independence Day for Software Components &ndash; Loosening Coupling by Reducing Connascence

  - by Brian Schroer

  Today is Independence Day in the USA, which got me thinking about loosely-coupled “independent” software components. I was reminded of a video I bookmarked quite a while ago of Jim Weirich’s “Grand Unified Theory of Software Design” talk at MountainWest RubyConf 2009. I finally watched that video this morning. I highly recommend it. In the video, Jim talks about software connascence. The dictionary definition of connascence (con-NAY-sense) is: 1. The common birth of two or more at the same time 2. That which is born or produced with another. 3. The act of growing together. The brief Wikipedia page about Connascent Software Components says that: Two software components are connascent if a change in one would require the other to be modified in order to maintain the overall correctness of the system. Connascence is a way to characterize and reason about certain types of complexity in software systems. The term was introduced to the software world in Meilir Page-Jones’ 1996 book “What Every Programmer Should Know About Object-Oriented Design”. The middle third of that book is the author’s proposed graphical notation for describing OO designs. UML became the standard about a year later, so a revised version of the book was published in 1999 as “Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML”. Weirich says that the third part of the book, in which Page-Jones introduces the concept of connascence “is worth the price of the entire book”. (The price of the entire book, by the way, is not much – I just bought a used copy on Amazon for $1.36, so that was a pretty low-risk investment. I’m looking forward to getting the book and learning about connascence from the original source.) Meanwhile, here’s my summary of Weirich’s summary of Page-Jones writings about connascence: The stronger the form of connascence, the more difficult and costly it is to change the elements in the relationship. Some of the connascence types, ordered from weak to strong are: Connascence of Name Connascence of name is when multiple components must agree on the name of an entity. If you change the name of a method or property, then you need to change all references to that method or property. Duh. Connascence of name is unavoidable, assuming your objects are actually used. My main takeaway about connascence of name is that it emphasizes the importance of giving things good names so you don’t need to go changing them later. Connascence of Type Connascence of type is when multiple components must agree on the type of an entity. I assume this is more of a problem for languages without compilers (especially when used in apps without tests). I know it’s an issue with evil JavaScript type coercion. Connascence of Meaning Connascence of meaning is when multiple components must agree on the meaning of particular values, e.g that “1” means normal customer and “2” means preferred customer. The solution to this is to use constants or enums instead of “magic” strings or numbers, which reduces the coupling by changing the connascence form from “meaning” to “name”. Connascence of Position Connascence of positions is when multiple components must agree on the order of values. This refers to methods with multiple parameters, e.g.: eMailer.Send("[email protected]", "[email protected]", "Your order is complete", "Order completion notification"); The more parameters there are, the stronger the connascence of position is between the component and its callers. In the example above, it’s not immediately clear when reading the code which email addresses are sender and receiver, and which of the final two strings are subject vs. body. Connascence of position could be improved to connascence of type by replacing the parameter list with a struct or class. This “introduce parameter object” refactoring might be overkill for a method with 2 parameters, but would definitely be an improvement for a method with 10 parameters. This points out two “rules” of connascence:  The Rule of Degree: The acceptability of connascence is related to the degree of its occurrence. The Rule of Locality: Stronger forms of connascence are more acceptable if the elements involved are closely related. For example, positional arguments in private methods are less problematic than in public methods. Connascence of Algorithm Connascence of algorithm is when multiple components must agree on a particular algorithm. Be DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself. If you have “cloned” code in multiple locations, refactor it into a common function.   Those are the “static” forms of connascence. There are also “dynamic” forms, including… Connascence of Execution Connascence of execution is when the order of execution of multiple components is important. Consumers of your class shouldn’t have to know that they have to call an .Initialize method before it’s safe to call a .DoSomething method. Connascence of Timing Connascence of timing is when the timing of the execution of multiple components is important. I’ll have to read up on this one when I get the book, but assume it’s largely about threading. Connascence of Identity Connascence of identity is when multiple components must reference the entity. The example Weirich gives is when you have two instances of the “Bob” Employee class and you call the .RaiseSalary method on one and then the .Pay method on the other does the payment use the updated salary?   Again, this is my summary of a summary, so please be forgiving if I misunderstood anything. Once I get/read the book, I’ll make corrections if necessary and share any other useful information I might learn.   See Also: Gregory Brown: Ruby Best Practices Issue #24: Connascence as a Software Design Metric (That link is failing at the time I write this, so I had to go to the Google cache of the page.)

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811  | Next Page >