Monday, June 20, 2011

It's a So-Lo-Mo World, After All

Let it be said: For a digital information junkie such as myself, traveling abroad without any cellular or consistent Internet connection on my spanking new white iPhone is agonizing.

As in: No social, no local, no mobile.

Rachel Weisz Miranda Kerr Sarah Shahi Anna Paquin Diane Kruger

10 Ad Campaigns That Backfired Badly

Occasionally advertising executives fail to hit the mark; a joke that passed at the focus group stage ends up flatlining when it hits the TV screen or billboard space. However, sometimes we?re cursed, or perhaps even blessed, with beholding the... Read more

Tara Reed Avril Lavigne Bridget Moynahan Noureen DeWulf Nicollette Sheridan

Viral Video: D9 Acting CEO Jane Lynch on the "R-Word"

"Glee" star Jane Lynch opened the ninth D: All Things Digital in a terrific bit of stand-up, posing as the acting CEO of News Corp. and making all kinds of comical proclamations.

But one thing she thinks should not be made fun of are loaded "R-words" that denigrate those with intellectual disabilities, as you will see in this riveting PSA.

Alicia Keys Tyra Banks Vanessa Hudgens Sarah Michelle Gellar Olivia Munn

User: thebigben

Sarah Gellman Eliza Dushku Bonnie Jill Laflin Joanna Krupa Ashley Olsen

Viral Video: Kashmir Stylings on Facebook Facial Recognition

Whatever side of the Facebook facial recognition debate you are on -- is it privacy panic or a Big-Brother crisis? -- this video by Forbes blogger Kashmir Hill is pretty clever.

(Hey, Kashmir: Let me know when the aliens who really created Facebook and Google come for you, after they decide to start harvesting the Earth as planned using their nefarious photo-tagging tools!)

Rachael Leigh Cook Elisha Cuthbert Ciara Rachel Hunter Heidi Montag

Wisdom from the Wealthy: Sunday?s WaPo Column

> In case you missed it, my Sunday Washington Post column is on the interesting life lessons I have learned from people of great wealth. I excerpted it yesterday. Rather than run yet another excerpt, I’d rather a) Point you to “7 life lessons from the very wealthy,” and 2) pull some of the quotes [...]

Talisa Soto Julianne Hough Paula Garcés Genelle Frenoy Shania Twain

US Foreclosures: Kicking the Can Down the Road?

click for ginormous graphic > Today’s WTF data point is how long it will take to work through the backlog of foreclosures at the current pace: “In New York State, it would take lenders 62 years at their current pace, the longest time frame in the nation, to repossess the 213,000 houses now in severe [...]

Emmanuelle Vaugier Sarah Silverman Larissa Meek Gina Carano Sanaa Lathan

Kindle Book Review: The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life

Book Reviewer Vacations With Kindle and Karma

In part 1 of this three-part review series, I told you that I had purchased a Kindle 3 with Wi-Fi to feed my business book addiction while on vacation.� One of my first purchases came as a recommendation from a fellow entrepreneur:�The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life.

The original�Diamond Cutter is an ancient book of teachings given by the Buddha over 2,500 yearsRead More

From Small Business Trends

Kindle Book Review: The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life

Samantha Mathis Samantha Morton Grace Park Jill Wagner Susie Castillo

American Eejits Demand Magic Answers!

Aaliyah Katherine Heigl Lorri Bagley Leslie Bega Maria Sharapova

Unofficial Problem Bank list at 996 Institutions

Elisha Cuthbert Ciara Rachel Hunter Heidi Montag Katharine McPhee

10 Expensive and Exploitative Beauty Pageant Strategies

You may have been born ugly, but your children are the future! Thanks to medical science, technology and your low self-esteem, you can now make them beautiful and live vicariously through them. All it takes is beauty pageant, a healthy... Read more

Rachel Weisz Miranda Kerr Sarah Shahi Anna Paquin Diane Kruger

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Blog Post: Two new Certifications achieved this year

WoHoo! Two new certifications achieved. The logos are downloadable from MCP site, only of one passed the exams.

1. For .NET 3.5 I took earlier in the fiscal year

image

2. For TFS 2010 Administration and Configuration I took recently.

image

Definitely feels good.

BuzzNet Tags:

Marika Dominczyk Dita Von Teese Rachel Nichols Dido Joss Stone

Pandora: The Latest Sign of Tech Bubble 2.0

Investment Underground submits:

By Andrew Hawkins

Pandora Media (P) is the newest internet IPO on the street that has earned huge evaluations along with a lot of skepticism. Pandora is following in the wake of some other high profile IPO?s like LinkedIn (LNKD) and Renren (RENN). Pandora shot out of the gates on Wednesday from $20/share


Complete Story »

Michelle Branch Melissa Howard Samantha Mumba Busy Philipps Thora Birch

Penn West: Reasonably Priced, Fat Dividend Yield

Devon Shire submits:

I?ve written before about my interest in unconventional oil investments in Western Canada. Some of the companies I?m interested in have shrewdly accumulated large land positions in emerging oil plays in recent years . These companies are taking advantage of technology which is unlocking oil that was previously not recoverable economically.

But it isn?t just the companies on the forefront of pushing technology forward that are benefiting. Companies that are sitting on huge land positions from decades ago are also enormous beneficiaries. These companies, with legacy positions in what was previously thought to be fully explored land, now find themselves with acreage that is worth multiples of what it was five years ago. And this acreage gives them a simple path to long term production and reserve growth as technology unlocks oil that they previously couldn?t produce.

In Western Canada there is no company that will benefit more from the


Complete Story »

Rose Byrne Willa Ford Desiree Dymond Teri Polo Summer Altice

Subconscious Information Processing

It's fathers day and I thought I'd tell a story about my dad and something he taught me a long time ago. I was in middle school and I had a school project due the next day and it came...

Maggie Gyllenhaal Foxy Brown Ivana Bozilovic Cristina Dumitru Cat Power

Why I'm Upgrading Adolor to a Buy

Smith On Stocks submits:

Investment Thesis

Adolor has gained back Glaxo?s (GSK) rights to Entereg (alvimopan) in a transaction that I regard as a highly positive, company changing event. Entereg has the critical sales mass to enable Adolor to be a self-sufficient, cash flow positive company. I believe that the Entereg sales run rate entering 2012 could be on the order of $40 million, $50 million entering 2013, and over the next several years could grow to $100 million.

The terms of the deal were amazingly favorable to Adolor, and the company has much for which to thank Glaxo. On its own, Adolor could not have brought Entereg to this sales level and might not have been able to launch it in the first place. The difficulties of introducing a first-in-class drug to an increasingly cost-conscious hospital marketplace has made the launch and sales ramp of a new product much more difficult, and it


Complete Story »

Julie Benz Saira Mohan Brittny Gastineau Ashley Tisdale Rachel Blanchard

Could the Eurozone Break Up?

Could the Eurozone Break Up? By John Mauldin June 17, 2011 > Could the Eurozone Break Up? The EMU Has Always Fallen Short? Surely a Break-Up Remains Inconceivable? Has it Really Come to This? Kiev, Geneva and London Is it possible for the Eurozone to break up? It was so inconceivable when they formed it [...]

Pink Mila Kunis Samaire Armstrong Selita Ebanks Michael Michele

With Yahoo Shares Dropping Below $15, Will Shareholder Patience Collapse Too?

Yahoo's stock in on a downward slide again, just in time for its annual meeting next week.

So, WWSD (What will shareholders do)?

Nicole Scherzinger Jill Arrington Tami Donaldson Padma Lakshmi Sarah Mutch

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Blog Post: Migrating to TFS 2010 from multiple TFS 200x servers

 

The other day a question came from a colleague, that sounded like this.

My client has been using TFS for many years now and has a production deployment consisting of about 4 TFS 2008 servers containing about 50, 50, 25 & 25 team projects respectively.

Now they are in the process of migrating to TFS 2010 and they want to understand the options: their eventual goal is to move all the team projects to one very large TFS 2010 instance.

This is my response, as it could be useful to others.

In your customer scenario you have to choose between:

  • A full-fidelity migration, mapping each TFS instance to a separate collection, or
  • A loose data migration, moving data around.

In the first case, you use the upgrade wizard for the first server, then repeat the process using tfsconfig import.

In the latter case, you use the Tfs Integration Platform. Don?t be distracted by finding it on Codeplex: there is also a supported version in the VS Gallery and is routinely used internally at Microsoft.

In my opinion, you should ask the customer what they really want to achieve and when. Here some possible approaches to the problem:

  • Piecemeal: you create a new instance of TFS 2010 and move a team (create an new Team Project and check-in the code) at their ease leaving history on the old server
    Pros: easy to implement; zero downtime
    Cons: slow and need more resources
  • One Team Project Collection for all: use integration tools
    Pros: simplified view and management; less resources
    Cons: they lose some history; more work to implement
  • Multiple Team Project Collections, one from each old server, plus a ?consolidated wharehouse? Team Project Collection: an hybrid solution that uses the out-of-the-box upgrade/import feature, with the integration tool you consolidate the data in a new Team Project Collection for reporting and other consolidated views
    Pros: full-fidelity
    Cons: need more resources, e.g. one Controller per Team Project Collection

You can also think of a mix of these strategies, selecting the best approach for different teams.

Daniella Alonso Gina Gershon Ehrinn Cummings Sienna Miller Cindy Taylor

3 Simple Ways to Empower Your Customers to Sell For You

3 Simple Ways to Empower Your Customers to Sell For You

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

3 Simple Ways to Empower Your Customers to Sell For YouThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Have you ever received a comment from a happy customer that went something like this: ?Let me know if I can ever do anything to help you grow your business.? My experience is that most businesses have at least [...]

Kristin Kreuk Molly Sims Monika Kramlik Lacey Chabert Amber Brkich

14 Public Apologies for Private Lives

We the people of the United States of America are a very fickle people. We like to worship our celebrities. But we also like to tear down those celebrities and harshly judge them when they mess up. We also like to forgive them? if they... Read more

Kelly Rowland Danica Patrick Josie Maran Leighton Meester Dominique Swain

Emerging Markets: Time to Buy Again Approaching Fast

Nigam Arora submits:

The famed investor John Templeton said, ?Buy when there is blood in the streets.? Right now there is a lot of blood in the stock prices of emerging markets. As my long time readers know, I follow the ZYX Change Method. We closely follow 15 emerging markets for the ZYX Emerging Markets ETF Alert.

Our calls to be long on emerging markets last year were spot on. The ZYX Change Method got us out of most emerging markets right near the top. Since then we have had a short-term sell or neutral rating on all but Turkey or Taiwan.

Our models are now close to giving a buy signal on several of the emerging markets again. Emerging markets can be extremely lucrative if one can avoid the steep corrections. Our plan is rather simple, buy close to the swing bottoms and sell close to the swing tops.

A distinguishing


Complete Story »

Samantha Mathis Samantha Morton Grace Park Jill Wagner Susie Castillo

14 Public Apologies for Private Lives

We the people of the United States of America are a very fickle people. We like to worship our celebrities. But we also like to tear down those celebrities and harshly judge them when they mess up. We also like to forgive them? if they... Read more

Radha Mitchell Melissa Rycroft Chloë Sevigny Janet Jackson Georgianna Robertson

Startup Advice in the Small Business News

What are some of the best pieces of advice you could give to a fellow small business owner during startup? Starting a business can be a very stressful�but also�a very exhilarating experience.�We’re always aiming to help�the Small Business Trends community with the best advice for both starting and running a small business. Read the links in the roundup below and, if you can think of anything we’ve missed, be sure to share it in the comments. Enjoy! :)

From Small Business Trends

Startup Advice in the Small Business News

Ashanti Jennie Finch Lisa Snowdon Mariah Carey Taylor Swift

Unofficial Problem Bank list at 996 Institutions

Kasey Chambers Megan Ewing Kristanna Loken Aubrey ODay Drew Barrymore

Exclusive: Former Yahoo Brad Williams Takes Over as PR Head Honcho at Groupon

A Chicago boy is going home, as former Yahoo PR exec Bradford Williams takes over as VP of Global Communications at Groupon.

Williams, who worked at Yahoo during its ugly takeover fight with Microsoft, will need his even-keeled personality more than ever now, as the social buying phenom heads into its upcoming IPO.

Erica Leerhsen Angela Marcello Paz Vega Rebecca Mader Eva Green

Misc: Empire State Survey indicates contraction, Inflation rate lower, French Bank Rating Reviewed

Monica Keena Anne Marie Kortright Paige Butcher Amanda Peet Xenia Seeberg

Blog Post: ?????? ????? #60 ? Kinect for Windows SDK Beta ???

6?25?(?)??????? ?????????????????API???GPU ????????????????Kinect for Windows SDK Beta ????NUI????????????????????

Foxy Brown Ivana Bozilovic Cristina Dumitru Cat Power January Jones

Friday, June 17, 2011

NAHB Builder Confidence index declines in June

Jennifer Gareis Ashlee Simpson Donna Feldman Jodi Lyn OKeefe Emma Watson

The Post Frequency Rule

The frequency of posts in a service is inversely proportional to the size of the post. Said another way, the longer the post, the less frequently they will happen. Take a look at stats from the three largest "default public"...

Christina Ricci Missi Pyle Jessica Alba Kylie Bax Diora Baird

Where Overseas Buyers Search for American Homes

Last year, international buyers spent a whopping $41 billion to purchase US residential Real Estate. Some of this is attributable to the weak American Peso, but lower US RRE prices relative to European counterparts are also a factor. Via Trulia, we can see the fascinating data flow of what overseas home buyers are looking at [...]

Elisabeth Röhm Lily Allen Emmanuelle Chriqui Anna Faris Lil Kim

The Hacking Education Contest

On Monday I wrote about contests as a way to raise money. They are also a way to raise the profile of you and/or your startup. This post is about a developer contest that is in the latter camp. This...

Norah Jones Nicky Hilton Garcelle Beauvais Kristy Swanson Ali Campoverdi

Weekend Favs June Eleven

Weekend Favs June Eleven

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Weekend Favs June ElevenThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is [...]

The Avatars of Second Life Daniella Alonso Gina Gershon Ehrinn Cummings Sienna Miller

Residential Investment: Mutli-family Starts and Completions

Cameron Richardson Chandra West Kasey Chambers Megan Ewing Kristanna Loken

Key Question: Is the slowdown temporary?

Tricia Vessey Aki Ross Ashley Tappin Carmen Electra Amanda Marcum

Exclusive: Myspace in Advanced Deal Talks With Investor Group, Including Activision's Kotick

And then there was one?

According to sources close to the situation, News Corp. is down to one possible investing group in its quest to make lemonade out of the lemon that its Myspace social entertainment hub has become.

In the lastest of many scenarios considered, several sources said its owner, News Corp., will continue to own about 20 percent of Myspace. The main bidder is a dark horse bidding group, which includes Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick as one of the potential investors.

Thalía Brooke Burke Thandie Newton Liz Phair Aaliyah

Viral Video: "The Smurfs" (I Have Absolutely No Defense Here)

Okay, it is the little blue peeps from the upcoming August 3-D movie "The Smurfs," and I like them. A lot.

No more need be said. Except: Smurf happens.

Olivia Munn Melissa Sagemiller Roselyn Sanchez Soft Cell Beyoncé

The Biggest Loser: Wall St. Edition

The financial crisis is undeniable in the United States, and other countries around the world have faced their own as well. But who are the people who have contributed to these fiscal problems? The team from the Credit Score Site helps us find... Read more

Ana Paula Lemes Vanessa Simmons Chyler Leigh Julie Berry Lori Heuring

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Exclusive: Myspace in Advanced Deal Talks With Investor Group, Including Activision's Kotick

And then there was one?

According to sources close to the situation, News Corp. is down to one possible investing group in its quest to make lemonade out of the lemon that its Myspace social entertainment hub has become.

In the lastest of many scenarios considered, several sources said its owner, News Corp., will continue to own about 20 percent of Myspace. The main bidder is a dark horse bidding group, which includes Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick as one of the potential investors.

Diora Baird Laura Prepon Ashley Scott Michelle Behennah Julie Benz

Spotlight on SPDR KBW Bank ETF

Tom Lydon submits:

ETF Spotlight on SPDR KBW Bank ETF (NYSEArca: KBE), part of a weekly series.

The bank ETF was higher in midday trading Thursday as top holding Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) saw its shares advance while Citigroup (NYSE: C) was fractionally lower.

Assets: $1.44 billion

Ojective: The SPDR KBW Bank ETF tries to reflect the performance of the KBW Bank Index (BKX).

Holdings: Top holdings include: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) 8.76%, Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) 6.86%, Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) 6.64%, Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) 6.36% and US Bancorp 6.04%.

What You Should Know

  • KBE has an expense ratio of 0.35%.
  • The fund has 26 holdings.
  • Sector allocations include: Regional Banks 42.42%, Other Diversified Financial Services 22.02%, Diversified Banks 16.17%, Asset Management & Custody Banks 8.14%, Thrifts & Mortgage Finance 6.78% and Consumer Finance 4.46%.

The Latest News

  • Bank stocks have been under pressure

Complete Story »

Tricia Helfer Elena Lyons Brooke Burns Lena Headey Ali Larter

Blog Post: The Technical Jamboree at MVP Open Day ? India

The following is a guest post written by MVP Lead Abhishek Kant

Q: What do you get when 60 techies talk tech 24x7 for 4 days?

A: An Open Day. Did we say 24x7 talk? What else would it be for the Graveyard Shifts that started at 11pm and went on for about four hours?

Microsoft IDC

The recently concluded MVP Open Day in India scored big on the technical and the fun quotient in equal measures. Attended by MVPs from India, Australia and Sri Lanka, the objectives of the event included networking amongst MVPs and Microsoft and sharing the latest technical developments. Hosted by the Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC), Hyderabad, India, the MVP Open day was an event eagerly awaited by the MVPs in the APGC region for the whole year. The event held from May 19 – 23, 2011, brought together all divisions of Microsoft India under one roof – SMSG, IDC, MSR, GTSC and MTC— sharing knowledge and experiences with the MVPs. MVP Open Day featured a roster of keynote addresses and deep-dive technical sessions delivered by Microsoft. The speaker lineup included more than 20 speakers from MSIDC, five from MTC and five from DPE. While over 40 sessions were delivered during the MVP Open Day, the most talked about topics included Microsoft Cloud Offerings and Windows Phone. The Open Day sessions were divided into 3 tracks: Developer, IT Pro and Consumer with sessions in each track targeted towards audiences in these categories.

The Open Day started a week earlier to the physical event with the MVPs engaging in online games that promoted networking amongst them and gave them opportunities to showcase their community work.

 The event kicked off with MVPs sharing their feedback and suggestions with the evangelism team on 

MVPs discussing feedback

MVPs presenting feedback to Microsoft

various aspects of the community. The first keynote was made by Amit Chatterjee, general manager of Microsoft IDC, who talked about development excellence and how Microsoft development teams are evolving including deep focus on user experience. He highlighted the important contributions that MSIDC is making towards the Microsoft product lines. The day followed with deep technical sessions with the product teams. These high level technical sessions included future roadmaps of products and Concept Value Tests with a focus on getting feedback from MVPs on each one of them.

Keynote by Amit Chatterjee, GM, MSIDC

Dr. A. Kumaran, MSR

On Day Three, Dr. A. Kumaran presented the keynote on Microsoft Research philosophy and the various projects in the works that are going to lead to development of technology in these areas. The last day of the event was reserved to explore industry solutions around Virtualisation and Cloud offerings.

Ample networking opportunities for MVPs were weaved right through the event. The identification badges for the event carried MS Tags for sharing contact information. Product team members were able to network with MVPs over a relaxed dinner on the first evening. The paintball tournament between MVPs on the second evening enabled them to experience team work. The final evening went full throttle on fun with a theme party complete with dance performances and a dance floor that thumped with MVPs dancing to the party music late into the night.

MVPs engaged in the PaintBall Tournament

Dance performance at Attendee Party

The really special sessions during the Open Days are the Graveyard Shifts that started at 11:00 PM. These are unstructured open discussions where MVPs discuss about myriad technology topics. 

Graveyard Shift in Progress

Graveyard Shift

Some attendee accounts of the MVP Open Day 2011:

http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/microsoft-mvp-open-day/

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ujjwalk/archive/2011/05/29/mvp-open-days-2011-microsoft-idc-hyderabad.aspx

http://www.kunal-chowdhury.com/2011/05/my-experience-at-mvp-open-day-india-day.html

http://www.kunal-chowdhury.com/2011/05/my-experience-at-mvp-open-day-india-day_21.html

http://www.kunal-chowdhury.com/2011/05/my-experience-at-mvp-open-day-india-day_23.html

http://www.abhisheksur.com/2011/05/first-day-experience-with-mvp-open-days.html

While on one hand, the event provided an opportunity for the MVPs to network and socialize with their community peers and share “real world” feedback with the product groups; on the other, it set the tone for the year ahead for the Microsoft communities and forged friendships that will last a lifetime. 

Gina Carano Sanaa Lathan Ana Beatriz Barros Maria Menounos Shakira

Pandora Pulls a LinkedIn, As Tech-Starved Investors Gorge on IPO

How starved are investors for high-profile, high-growth Internet companies?

Hungry enough to lift the value of Pandora to just under $4 billion in an hour of trading for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "P."

Evangeline Lilly Lisa Marie Keira Knightley Monica Keena Anne Marie Kortright

Philip Morris: Still More Malignant Than Cancer

In all likelihood, you?ve never heard of Altria Group, Inc., but you?re probably familiar with their former name: Philip Morris Inc. The mega-corporation changed their name in 2003, probably realizing that, in the public mind, the name was... Read more

Soft Cell Beyoncé Nelly Furtado Leeann Tweeden Bali Rodriguez

Philly Fed: Worst Three Month Decline Ever

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:

Today's Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook came in weaker than expected and showed the largest three month decline in the history of the index (-51.1). Above, we highlight the three-month change of the overall index as well as each subcomponent of the main index. Strangely enough, even though the headline index for current and future conditions showed its largest ever three-month decline, most of the subcomponents did not.

In the chart below, we highlight the two other periods where the Philadelphia Fed headline index declined more than 40 points


Complete Story »

Katie Cassidy Estella Warren Cinthia Moura Monica Potter Brittany Snow

Here's the Groupon S-1 IPO Filing: What the Heck Is Adjusted CSOI?

Never heard of "adjusted consolidated segment operating income" before?

Well, if you want to buy shares in the upcoming Groupon IPO, you might want to learn about the accounting term.

Gina Gershon Ehrinn Cummings Sienna Miller Cindy Taylor Halle Berry

Philip Morris: Still More Malignant Than Cancer

In all likelihood, you?ve never heard of Altria Group, Inc., but you?re probably familiar with their former name: Philip Morris Inc. The mega-corporation changed their name in 2003, probably realizing that, in the public mind, the name was... Read more

Dita Von Teese Rachel Nichols Dido Joss Stone Majandra Delfino

Methodology vs Outcome: BP Trade, One Year Later

Last June, as BP was plummeting towards $27-30 level, we gave some advice to traders who were trying to figure out how to play this. We also had a debate on buying in at these levels on Fast Money� (Video is here, starting at the 4:30 mark). For those of you who followed the advice [...]

Drea de Matteo Trista Rehn Moon Bloodgood Kristin Kreuk Molly Sims

It's a So-Lo-Mo World, After All

Let it be said: For a digital information junkie such as myself, traveling abroad without any cellular or consistent Internet connection on my spanking new white iPhone is agonizing.

As in: No social, no local, no mobile.

Lucy Liu LeAnn Rimes Adrianne Curry Jennifer Gimenez Katie Cassidy

Misc: Flippers in Sacramento, and more "Hate" for Housing

Amber Brkich Gretha Cavazzoni Marla Sokoloff Jennifer Love Hewitt Tina Fey

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Ready for His Digital Close-Up: The NYT's Media Dude, David Carr, Talks About "Page One"

A documentary about the New York Times and its fight to survive the onslaught of the Internet called "Page One: Inside the New York Times" opens Friday.

So, it seemed like a good idea to talk to the film's star, media columnist David Carr, to find out what he thinks will happen to the Gray Lady in the multi-colored digital future.

Michelle Branch Melissa Howard Samantha Mumba Busy Philipps Thora Birch

Canvas

I posted this on the USV blog yesterday but thought I should share it with the AVC community as well. ---- We are big fans of communities at Union Square Ventures. The partners in our firm have been investing in...

Nicole Scherzinger Jill Arrington Tami Donaldson Padma Lakshmi Sarah Mutch

Viral Video: Kashmir Stylings on Facebook Facial Recognition

Whatever side of the Facebook facial recognition debate you are on -- is it privacy panic or a Big-Brother crisis? -- this video by Forbes blogger Kashmir Hill is pretty clever.

(Hey, Kashmir: Let me know when the aliens who really created Facebook and Google come for you, after they decide to start harvesting the Earth as planned using their nefarious photo-tagging tools!)

Kristin Cavallari Brittany Murphy Britney Spears Amanda Swisten Scarlett Chorvat

Wednesday Options Recap

Frederic Ruffy submits:

Sentiment


Stocks are broadly lower on disappointing economic data and worries about the ongoing European Debt Crisis. The euro was slammed for a 1.8 percent loss against the buck after protestors clashed with police in Athens. The violence is raising concerns that the debt problems in Greece are going to escalate out of control. Meanwhile, the domestic economic news included another round of disappointing data. The NY Empire State Index fell to -7.8 last month, from 11.9 in April. Oops. Economists were expecting an increase to 14. The Consumer Price Index [CPI] increased by .2 percent, compared to expectations for no change, and Industrial Production rose .1 percent, half as much as expected. The latest NAHB Housing Index was also well below estimates (of 16). The index fell 3 points to 13 and to levels last seen in September. The combination of bearish headlines from Europe and disappointing domestic economic


Complete Story »

Daisy Fuentes Asia Argento Charisma Carpenter Hilarie Burton Kelly Carlson

Employee Time Off: A Tale of Two Mind-Sets

Two recent news items got me thinking about two extremely different mind-sets when it comes to giving employees time off.

Earlier this month, Connecticut made history by becoming the first state in the U.S. to mandate paid sick leave for service workers. The Hartford Courant reports that the sick leave bill, in the works for years, was the subject of bitter controversy and, after 11 hours of intense debate, squeaked by with a vote of 76-65.

The newRead More

From Small Business Trends

Employee Time Off: A Tale of Two Mind-Sets

Scarlett Johansson Christina Ricci Missi Pyle Jessica Alba Kylie Bax

Blog Post: Microsoft Platform Ready Website Updated to Include Office 365

clip_image002The MPR website has been updated to include Office 365 under the Develop Tab. Here are some of the resource available at the site:

Microsoft Office 365 Resources

Online Services

  • Get free access to Office 365 tools and resources by signing up for the online services beta to get a full-featured look at what it can do.
  • View a customer overview of Office 365 in this downloadable presentation (PPT).
  • See how Office 365 can power your business in this video.

Developer Resources

Training

Learn in-depth about the individual services by watching these videos for developers:

Other Great Office 365 Resources

TechEd 2011 Office 365 Greatest Hits

Office 365 Training Course on MSDN: We released this training course along with the public Beta. The course includes 7 sessions, over 10 hours of video, and 16 labs as both an offline training kit as well as an online training course on MSDN. We’ll be including the School of Fine Art demo with the GA version of the kit. Stay tuned for more details!

Getting Your Own Office 365 Beta Account: Sign up at http://office365.com to get access to the Beta.

Natalie Portman Jessica Biel Christina Milian Kelly Brook Robin Tunney

Annual Inflation Now at 3.6 Percent

Tim Iacono submits:

The Labor Department reported that U.S. inflation was modest in the month of May, largely due to the impact of seasonal adjustments that turned energy price increases into declines, overall consumer prices rising just 0.2 percent, now up 3.6 percent from a year ago.

[Click all to enlarge]

Analysts were expecting no change in May after a string of price increases in recent months that had the three-month annualized rate of inflation at over five percent and the six-month annualized rate at over four percent.

Perhaps more importantly (at least for Fed economists), after a gain of 0.2 percent in April, the ?core? rate of inflation (excluding food and energy) jumped 0.3 percent in May, its largest increase since July 2008. On a year-over-year basis, core inflation is now at 1.5 percent.

By category, despite what you may have seen at gas stations last month, energy prices fell after seasonal


Complete Story »

Eva Mendes Sarah Polley Aisha Tyler K. D. Aubert Sara Spraker

Financing Options: Government Grants

Governments will provide capital for startups and I've seen many entrepreneurs over the years take advantage of this form of financing. The grants are usually "free money" in the sense that they do not need to be paid back and...

Christina Ricci Missi Pyle Jessica Alba Kylie Bax Diora Baird

Blog Post: Session state provider for Azure AppFabric Cache with useBlobMode=false results in error "Key referred to does not exist"

 

 

Problem

If you are using Session state provider (Windows Azure AppFabric) and configure useBlobMode=false, you might run into below error

ErrorCode<ERRCA0006>:SubStatus<ES0001>:Key referred to does not exist. Create objects based on a Key to fix the error.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details:
Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCacheException: ErrorCode<ERRCA0006>:SubStatus<ES0001>:Key referred to does not exist. Create objects based on a Key to fix the error.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.


Stack Trace:

 

[DataCacheException: ErrorCode<ERRCA0006>:SubStatus<ES0001>:Key referred to does not exist. Create objects based on a Key to fix the error.]

   Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCache.ThrowException(ResponseBody respBody) +568

   Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCache.InternalPutAndUnlock(String key, Object value, DataCacheLockHandle lockHandle, TimeSpan timeout, DataCacheTag[] tags, String region, IMonitoringListener listener) +288

   Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.<>c__DisplayClass8a.<PutAndUnlock>b__89() +149

   Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCache.PutAndUnlock(String key, Object value, DataCacheLockHandle lockHandle, TimeSpan timeout) +276

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.<>c__DisplayClass19.<PutAndUnlock>b__18() +52

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.<>c__DisplayClass2e`1.<PerformCacheOperation>b__2d() +19

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.DataCacheRetryWrapper.PerformCacheOperation(Action action) +208

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.DataCacheForwarderBase.PerformCacheOperation(Func`1 func) +167

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.DataCacheForwarderBase.PutAndUnlock(String key, Object value, DataCacheLockHandle lockHandle, TimeSpan timeout) +162

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.GranularSessionStoreProvider.SetAndReleaseItemExclusiveImpl(HttpContextBase context, String id, SessionStateStoreData item, Object lockId, Boolean newItem) +3925

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.<>c__DisplayClass15.<SetAndReleaseItemExclusive>b__14() +47

   Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.GranularSessionStoreProvider.ExecNonAbortable(Action a) +33

   System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule.OnReleaseState(Object source, EventArgs eventArgs) +929

   System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule.OnEndRequest(Object source, EventArgs eventArgs) +208

   System.Web.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +80

   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +266

 


Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.225

Cause

In this case, below configuration is being used

 

       <sessionState mode="Custom" customProvider="AppFabricCacheSessionStoreProvider">

      <providers>

        <add name="AppFabricCacheSessionStoreProvider"

             type="Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.DistributedCacheSessionStateStoreProvider, Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache"

             cacheName="default"

             useBlobMode="false"

             dataCacheClientName="default" />

      </providers>

    </sessionState>

 

useBlobMode=false is not supported scenario for cloud. The reason this mode is not supported is because, as of today, there is no control over eviction policy when cache is hosted in Windows Azure platform.

Resolution

Consider using  useBlobMode=true if you are using session state provider with Windows Azure Appfabric cache.

More Info

Current MSDN documentation does not explicitly call out this scenario and will be updated shortly.

Applies To

  • Windows Azure AppFabric Cache
  • Session State Provider (Azure)

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