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Extract Zip File In ASP.NET

2009-02-09T21:45:00.001+07:00

Summary
Extract your zip file in webhostforasp.net using OpenSource Zip Library in asp.net (SharpZipLib)

.NET Classes used :
# using System;
# using System.IO;
# using ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip;

I have used open source zip library. Which you have to download from http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SharpZipLib/Download.aspx

Put ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.DLL into your bin folder of asp.net application.

Use Following function to extract zip file. Assign your zipfilename in ZipFileName variable.

You Need Folder Rights to Create File Programmatically.

try
{
string ZipFileName = txtFileName.Text;
if (!File.Exists(Server.MapPath(ZipFileName)))
{
lblStatus.Text="File Does Not Exists.";
return;
}

using (ZipInputStream s = new ZipInputStream(File.OpenRead(Server.MapPath(ZipFileName))))
{

ZipEntry theEntry;
while ((theEntry = s.GetNextEntry()) != null)
{
string directoryName = Path.GetDirectoryName(theEntry.Name);
string fileName = Path.GetFileName(theEntry.Name);

// create directory
if (directoryName.Length > 0)
{
Directory.CreateDirectory(Server.MapPath(directoryName));
}

if (fileName != String.Empty)
{
using (FileStream streamWriter = File.Create(Server.MapPath(theEntry.Name)))
{

int size = 2048;
byte[] data = new byte[2048];
while (true)
{
size = s.Read(data, 0, data.Length);
if (size > 0)
{
streamWriter.Write(data, 0, size);
}
else
{
break;
}
}
}
}
}
}
lblStatus.Text = "Done";
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
lblStatus.Text = ex.Message;
}
finally
{

}

Enjoy!!

Formatting numbers for decimals and significant digits in JavaScript

2008-11-15T09:22:00.002+07:00

Formatting numbers so they confirm to a specific format can be deceivingly tricky. For example, one of the most common tasks is to format a number for currency display- an integer followed by two decimals. You may be tempted to use number rounding to first shift the number's decimal places (via multiplication), round it, then shift the decimal back (via division) to pound the number into your hard earned dollar, though that won't work in many cases. For example, consider the number 120. Number rounding certainly won't get you to 120.00.

To easily format numbers for a specific number of trailing decimals or total digits (aka padding), JavaScript 1.5 introduces the below two nifty methods:

Number.toFixed(x) :Formats any number for "x" number of trailing decimals. The number is rounded up, and "0"s are used after the decimal point if needed to create the desired decimal length.

Number.toPrecision(x):Formats any number so it is of "x" length. Also called significant digits. A decimal point and "0"s are used if needed to create the desired length.

The best way to see all the subtleties of toFixed() is to see it in action:

var profits=2489.8237
profits.toFixed(3) //returns 2489.824 (round up)
profits.toFixed(2) //returns 2489.82
profits.toFixed(7) //returns 2489.8237000 (padding)

Displaying any number in currency format can't get any easier!
Number.toPrecision()

To toPrecision() now:

var anumber=123.45
anumber.toPrecision(6) //returns 123.450 (padding)
anumber.toPrecision(4) //returns 123.5 (round up)
anumber.toPrecision(2) //returns 1.2e+2 (you figure it out!)

toPrecision() is useful if your number must be of a certain length.

Browser considerations

Now, as noted, our two heros above are JavaScript 1.5 methods. What this means is that they'll only work in IE5.5+ and NS6+. The issue of legacy browsers not performing the desired formatting operation not withstanding, how do you ensure that these two methods at least degrade well? Well, by using method detection in your code. For example:

var profits=2489.8237
if (profits.toFixed) //if browser supports toFixed() method
profits.toFixed(2)

For those of you who also need to ensure legacy browsers such as IE5 also perform the desired number formatting operation, well, then it's time to roll your own function. But be warned, it won't as pretty as what has taken place here!

Examples of how to Calculate Different SQL Server Dates

2008-10-22T22:17:00.000+07:00

Every now and then, you need to take the current date and calculate some other date. For instance, you might have an application that needs to determine what date is the first day of the month, or need to know the last day of the month. Now most of you probably already know how to separate the date into its piece (year, month, day, etc.) and use those pieces along with a number of functions to calculate a date that you might need. In this article, I will be showing how to use just the DATEADD and DATEDIFF function to calculate a number of different dates you might need to use in your applications.

In order to understand these examples, let's first review the DATEDIFF and DATEADD functions. The DATEDIFF function calculates the amount of time between two dates, where the time part is based on an interval of time, such as hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc. The DATEADD function calculates a date by taking an interval of time, and adding it to a date, where the interval of time will be the same as those used by the DATEDIFF function. To find out more about the DATEDIFF and DATEADD functions, and the different intervals of time read Microsoft Books Online.

Using the DATEADD and DATEDIFF functions to calculated dates requires you to think a little differently about what it takes to convert the current date into a date you need. You must think in terms of date intervals. Such as, how many date intervals it is from the current date to the date you want to calculate. Or how many date intervals is it from today to some other date like '1900-01-01', and so on. Understanding how to look at date intervals will help you more easily understand my different date examples.
First Day of Month

For the first example, let me show you how to get the first day of the month from the current date. Remember now, this example and all the other examples in this article will only be using the DATEADD and DATEDIFF functions to calculate our desired date. Each example will do this by calculating date intervals from the current date, and then adding or subtracting intervals to arrive at the desired calculated date. Here is the code to calculate the first day of the month:

select DATEADD(mm, DATEDIFF(mm,0,getdate()), 0)

Let me review how this works, by breaking this statement apart. The inner most function call "getdate()", as most of you probably already know, returns the current date and time. Now the next executed function call "DATEDIFF(mm,0,getdate())" calculates the number of months between the current date and the date "1900-01-01 00:00:00.000". Remember date and time variables are stored as the number of milliseconds since "1900-01-01 00:00:00.000"; this is why you can specify the first datetime expression of the DATEDIFF function as "0." Now the last function call, DATEADD, adds the number of months between the current date and '1900-01-01". By adding the number of months between our pre-determined date '1900-01-01' and the current date, I am able to arrive at the first day of the current month. In addition, the time portion of the calculated date will be "00:00:00.000."

The technique shown here for calculating a date interval between the current date and the year "1900-01-01," and then adding the calculated number of interval to "1900-01-01," to calculate a specific date, can be used to calculate many different dates. The next four examples use this same technique to generate different dates based on the current date.
Monday of the Current Week

Here I use the week interval (wk) to calculate what date is Monday of the current week. This example assumes Sunday is the first day of the week.

select DATEADD(wk, DATEDIFF(wk,0,getdate()), 0)

If you don't want Sunday to be the first day of the week, then you will need to use a different method. Here is a method that David O Malley showed me that uses the DATEFIRST setting to set the first day of the week. This example sets Monday as the first day of the week.

set DATEFIRST 1
select DATEADD(dd, 1 - DATEPART(dw, getdate()), getdate())

But now if you want to change this example to calculate a different first day of the week like “First Tuesday of the Week” you can change the set command above to “set DATEFIRST 2”.
First Day of the Year

Now I use the year interval (yy) to display the first day of the year.

select DATEADD(yy, DATEDIFF(yy,0,getdate()), 0)

First Day of the Quarter

If you need to calculate the first day of the current quarter then here is an example of how to do that.

select DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq,0,getdate()), 0)

Midnight for the Current Day

Ever need to truncate the time portion for the datetime value returned from the getdate() function, so it reflects the current date at midnight? If so then here is an example that uses the DATEADD and DATEDIFF functions to get the midnight timestamp.

select DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd,0,getdate()), 0)

Expanding on the DATEADD and DATEDIFF Calculation

As you can see, by using this simple DATEADD and DATEDIFF calculation you can come up with many different dates that might be valuable.

All of the examples so far only calculated the current number of date intervals between the current date and "1900-01-01," and then added the number of intervals to "1900-01-01" to arrive at the calculated date. Say you modify the number of intervals to be added, or added additional DATEADD functions that used different time intervals, or subtracted intervals instead of adding intervals; by making these minor changes you can come up with many different dates.

Here are four examples that add an additional DATEADD function to calculate the last day dates for both the current and prior intervals.
Last Day of Prior Month

Here is an example that calculates the last day of the prior month. It does this by subtracting 3 milliseconds from the first day of the month example. Now remember the time portion in SQL Server is only accurate to 3 milliseconds. This is why I needed to subtract 3 milliseconds to arrive at my desired date and time.

select dateadd(ms,-3,DATEADD(mm, DATEDIFF(mm,0,getdate() ), 0))

The time portion of the calculated date contains a time that reflects the last millisecond of the day ("23:59:59.997") that SQL Server can store.
Last Day of Prior Year

Like the prior example to get the last date of the prior year you need to subtract 3 milliseconds from the first day of year.

select dateadd(ms,-3,DATEADD(yy, DATEDIFF(yy,0,getdate() ), 0))

Last Day of Current Month

Now to get the last day of the current month I need to modify slightly the query that returns the last day of the prior month. The modification needs to add one to the number of intervals return by DATEDIFF when comparing the current date with "1900-01-01." By adding 1 month, I am calculating the first day of next month and then subtraction 3 milliseconds, which allows me to arrive at the last day of the current month. Here is the TSQL to calculate the last day of the current month.

select dateadd(ms,-3,DATEADD(mm, DATEDIFF(m,0,getdate() )+1, 0))

Last Day of Current Year

You should be getting the hang of this by now. Here is the code to calculate the last day of the current year.

select dateadd(ms,-3,DATEADD(yy, DATEDIFF(yy,0,getdate() )+1, 0))

First Monday of the Month

Ok, I am down to my last example. Here I am going to calculate the first Monday of the current month. Here is the code for that calculation.

select DATEADD(wk, DATEDIFF(wk,0,
dateadd(dd,6-datepart(day,getdate()),getdate())
), 0)

In this example, I took the code for "Monday of the Current Week," and modified it slightly. The modification was to change the "getdate()" portion of the code to calculate the 6th day of the current month. Using the 6th day of the month instead of the current date in the formula allows this calculation to return the first Monday of the current month.
Conclusion

I hope that these examples have given you some ideas on how to use the DATEADD and DATEDIFF functions to calculate dates. When using this date interval math method of calculating dates I have found it valuable to have a calendar available to visualize the intervals between two different dates. Remember this is only one way to accomplish these date calculations. Keep in mind there are most likely a number of other methods to perform the same calculations. If you know of another way, great, although if you do not, I hope these examples have given you some ideas of how to use DATEADD and DATEDIFF to calculate dates your applications might need.

http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3076421

Understanding INNER join in detail

2008-07-10T13:40:00.000+07:00

By Susantha Bathige,

Understanding INNER join in detail.

The objective of this article is dig into detail of how INNER joins produce the result set. The INNER join is the common join type used in many cases. Even though it is used very often I have seen most people are not certain how it produces the result set when changing the join condition.

Before go into the article contents, I need to create the two tables below to illustrate the examples used here.

Table 1

CREATE TABLE #InnerJoinTest1
(
InnerJoinTest1_PK INT IDENTITY(1,1)
)
GO

Table 2

CREATE TABLE #InnerJoinTest2
(
InnerJoinTest2_PK int
)
GO

Since the tables above are created in tempdb, the database currently used in your query editor will not matter. Then I use the queries below to populate the created tables with some sample data.

To keep the explanation easy I used only 5 records in each table. However once you understand the theory behind it you can map it to larger tables as well. The concept is similar despite of the number records in the tables.

Populate table 1

WHILE SCOPE_IDENTITY()<5 OR SCOPE_IDENTITY() IS NULL
INSERT INTO #InnerJoinTest1
DEFAULT VALUES

Populate table 2

INSERT INTO #InnerJoinTest2
SELECT * FROM #InnerJoinTest1

Once you have executed all the queries above successfully, everything is set for our discussion.
The Scenario

I will present you all the queries which involve an INNER JOIN in advance so that you can manipulate and decide how many records each query will return. Finally you can compare your answers with the result set that actual query execution produces by the SQL Server.

Query 1

SELECT a.*,b.* FROM #InnerJoinTest1 a
INNER JOIN #InnerJoinTest2 b
ON a.InnerJoinTest1_PK=b.InnerJoinTest2_PK

Query 2

SELECT a.*,b.* FROM #InnerJoinTest1 a
INNER JOIN #InnerJoinTest2 b
ON a.InnerJoinTest1_PK>b.InnerJoinTest2_PK

Query 3

SELECT a.*,b.* FROM #InnerJoinTest1 a
INNER JOIN #InnerJoinTest2 b
ON a.InnerJoinTest1_PK>=b.InnerJoinTest2_PK

Query 4

SELECT b.*,a.* FROM #InnerJoinTest1 a
INNER JOIN #InnerJoinTest2 b
ON a.InnerJoinTest1_PK<b.InnerJoinTest2_PK
ORDER BY a.InnerJoinTest1_PK

Query 5

SELECT b.*,a.* FROM #InnerJoinTest1 a
INNER JOIN #InnerJoinTest2 b
ON a.InnerJoinTest1_PK<=b.InnerJoinTest2_PK
ORDER BY a.InnerJoinTest1_PK

Query 6

SELECT a.*,b.* FROM #InnerJoinTest1 a
INNER JOIN #InnerJoinTest2 b
ON a.InnerJoinTest1_PK<>b.InnerJoinTest2_PK

Take a piece of paper and manually determine the result set of each query will return.
Cartesian Product

First of all, I would like to mention that I will consider table 1 as set 1 and table 2 as set 2. (according to the set theory).

Let's produce the Cartesian product of the two sets. The Cartesian product of the two sets is given below.

You can produce the Cartesian product when you join every row of one table to every row of another table. You can also get one by joining every row of a table to every row of itself.

It is very important to understand how the result set is produced for the Cartesian product from the queries above. The Cartesian product will give you the maximum possible number of combinations that can be created from the given two sets. The number of records in the Cartesian product can be computed by using the following formula.

Number of records = No.of records of table 1 X No.of record of table2

In our case it is 25. (5x5)

Rationalization

Let's look at the first query. This kind of INNER JOIN is the most popular and often you may be able to determine the result set it produces. This INNER JOIN with the equal condition will give you the matching records of both sets. If you look at the above Cartesian product, how many matching records you will be able to find?

I have highlighted the matching instances in the above Cartesian product. So that the first query will give you the highlighted records as the output.

Then consider the second query.

In this case you need to find all the possible record combinations where the first table value is greater than the second table values.

the image below shows the Cartesian product and I have highlighted the record combination for query 2.

Execute query 2 and compare the result set with the highlighted records shown above. The actual query execution result should match with the above highlighted result set.

Applying the same theory for rest of the queries, you should be able to figure out the result set of each one.

Let's take query 3. Again I'm using the Cartesian product to determine the result set. This query will produce the records where InnerJoinTest1_PK is greater than or equal to the InnerJoinTest2_PK.

It is quite easier now to determine the result set if you consider the Cartesian product of two tables.

Let's look at the next two queries. (Query 4 &5) The Cartesian product below is shown the result set of both queries 4 and 5.
The green highlighted records are the output of query 4 where as query 5 will give you the combination of green highlighted and yellow highlighted records. Because the difference of query 4 and 5 is the '=' operator. So that the query 5 will output equal values of both columns in addition to the output of the query 4. The query 4 will produce the records where InnerJoinTest1_PK is less than the InnerJoinTest2_PK of the table 2.

The order of results from the actual execution of this query may be different with the Cartesian product. But it is not really a matter for our discussion. You use simply an ORDER BY clause to order the result set as you desire.

Finally consider the last query. (Query 6) This query will output the records where both columns are not equal. Again look at out most important Cartesian product shown below.

The green highlighted records show where both columns are not equal. Theoretically this result set is similar to Cartesian product - intersection. The intersection is the INNER JOIN result with equal operator. (Output of the query 1)

source http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63322/

PIVOT working incorrectly?

2008-07-08T08:12:00.000+07:00

By Ryan Clare

In some situations there may be a reason to total data alongside a column you want to pivot. In this example we will get a grand total of saverPoints that each salesperson earns with their sales as well as separating the number of sales by month.

create table #tmpPivotTest
(salesPersonsName varchar(25),
numberOfSales int,
monthAbv varchar(3),
saverPoints int)

insert into #tmpPivotTest values ('Yagnesh', 1, 'Jan', 1)
insert into #tmpPivotTest values ('Yagnesh', 2, 'Feb', 2)
insert into #tmpPivotTest values ('Yagnesh', 2, 'Feb', 2)
insert into #tmpPivotTest values ('Yagnesh', 2, 'Jan', 2)
insert into #tmpPivotTest values ('Jason', 3, 'Feb', 2)
insert into #tmpPivotTest values ('Jason', 1, 'Feb', 1)

--Shows how many sales each sales person gets per month
select salesPersonsName, [Jan], [Feb] from
(select salesPersonsName, numberOfSales, monthAbv from #tmpPivotTest) as SourceTable
PIVOT (sum(numberOfSales) for monthAbv in ([Jan],[Feb]) )as PivotTable

salesPersonsName Jan Feb
------------------------- ----------- -----------
Jason NULL 4
Yagnesh 3 4

This basic pivot works flawlessly. When we try to add another column to the select we don't get everything.

--Try to get the saver points as well
select salesPersonsName, [Jan], [Feb], saverPoints from
(select * from #tmpPivotTest) as SourceTable
PIVOT (sum(numberOfSales) for monthAbv in ([Jan], [Feb]) )as PivotTable

salesPersonsName Jan Feb saverPoints
------------------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Jason NULL 1 1
Yagnesh 1 NULL 1
Jason NULL 3 2
Yagnesh 2 4 2

We are missing some of the saver points in here and it splits the sales person with each distinct value of saverPoints. For some reason pivot isn't working correctly! It's actually losing data! Lets try to sum the values together again...

select salesPersonsName, sum([Jan]) as Jan, sum([Feb]) as Feb, sum(saverPoints) as saverPoints from
(select * from #tmpPivotTest) as SourceTable
PIVOT (sum(numberOfSales) for monthAbv in ([Jan], [Feb]) )as PivotTable
group by salesPersonsName

select salesPersonsName, sum(saverPoints) as saverPoints from #tmpPivotTest group by salesPersonsName

salesPersonsName Jan Feb saverPoints
------------------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Jason NULL 4 3
Yagnesh 3 4 3

salesPersonsName saverPoints
------------------------- -----------
Jason 3
Yagnesh 7

The saver points are still missing. The saver points are ignored since they are the same on both rows. If we change the rows ever so slightly we can get the correct answer.

select salesPersonsName, sum([Jan]) as Jan, sum([Feb]) as Feb, sum(saverPoints) as saverPoints from
(select *, newid() as superDecombobulatorV2
from #tmpPivotTest) as SourceTable
PIVOT (sum(numberOfSales) for monthAbv in ([Jan], [Feb]) )as PivotTable
group by salesPersonsName

select salesPersonsName, sum(saverPoints) as saverPoints from #tmpPivotTest group by salesPersonsName

salesPersonsName Jan Feb saverPoints
------------------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Jason NULL 4 3
Yagnesh 3 4 7

salesPersonsName saverPoints
------------------------- -----------
Jason 3
Yagnesh 7

After being frustrated with pivot not working "correctly" and finally looking at books online with a cool head. We find that it is working according to the documentation in books online. From books online:

The following is annotated syntax for PIVOT.
SELECT <non-pivoted column> ,
[first pivoted column] AS <column name> ,
[second pivoted column] AS <column name> ,
...
[last pivoted column] AS <column name>
FROM
( <SELECT query that produces the data> )
AS <alias for the source query>
PIVOT
(
<aggregation function>( <column being aggregated> )
FOR
[<column that contains the values that will become column headers>]
IN ( [first pivoted column] , [second pivoted column] ,
... [last pivoted column] )
) AS <alias for the pivot table>
<optional ORDER BY clause>

Notice it only has one non-pivoted column and each value of the pivoted column listed. If I'd of had been level headed instead of trying to force pivot to work I would have just done two queries. One to get the pivoted data into a temp table, and the other to get the summed data and update the temp table. So let the lesson be learned. You can sometimes force your way through "incorrect" things in SQL Server, but it may just be easier to calm down and read the documentation.

PS: Don't forget to clean up

drop table #tmpPivotTest

source : http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/pivot/62808/

What is the difference between Server.Transfer and Response.Redirect methods?

2008-06-12T10:42:00.001+07:00

You can transfer current users page request to another page with two methods:

* Server.Transfer (HttpServerUtility.Transfer Method)
* Response.Redirect (HttpResponse.Redirect Method)

Its not always clear how these two approaches differ so let us try to clarify things a little:

Response.Redirect sends HTTP code 302 down to the users browser along with the new URL location of the wanted page.
HTTP Code 302 actually means ' The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI'.
After browser receives this code it tries to open the new location of the resource that was suggested by the server.
This actually causes two requests to the server, first one to the original URL, and second to the new URL that is suggested via 302 response.
All the Query Strings and Form variables are lost during the redirect and they are not available to the redirected URL.

Also its important to say that the new URL can reside on the same server but also it can be on some other server and the redirected URL does not need to be .aspx page it can be regular HTML page also).

So we can us the Redirect method to redirect users request to another page on our server like this:

Response.Redirect("newPage.html");

or to redirect our it to some other server like this:

Response.Redirect("http://www.someotherserver.com/newPage.aspx");

In contrast to all this when we call Server.Transfer we do not initiate another request to the server, but the original request is simply rewritten and transfered to some other page on the same server.
(This off course means that we can use it only to transfer requests to the pages on the same server, not to some other servers and we can only transfer to .aspx pages and not other page types like HTML, php etc).

All posted Form variables and query strings can optionally remain available to the second Page where we transfered request (if we use second overload Server.Transfer(string path, bool preserveForm) and supply true for the second parameter).
Otherwise the Form Variables and Query String are cleared just like when we use Redirect.
WARNING: If you use this method to preserve Query String and Form variables and receive error: "View State Is Invalid" its because your EnableViewStateMac attribute of the element is set to true. More on this error on this page: PRB: "View State Is Invalid" Error Message When You Use Server.Transfer

Its also important to note that because of the way Server.Transfer works, after the transfer, the URL shown in the users Web Browser remains the original one that was requested, because browser has no knowledge that its request was transfered (transfer occurs on the server side).

TIP: One thing to be careful about when using the Server.Transfer is to clear the the HttpResponse object with Response.Clear method on the transfered page to avoid any output from the first page to be shown on the second page.

So now that we know what are the similarities and differences between these two approaches we can try to use them wisely.

Here is the summary:

Response.Redirect should be used when:

* we want to redirect the request to some plain HTML pages on our server or to some other web server
* we don't care about causing additional roundtrips to the server on each request
* we do not need to preserve Query String and Form Variables from the original request
* we want our users to be able to see the new redirected URL where he is redirected in his browser (and be able to bookmark it if its necessary)

Server.Transfer should be used when:

* we want to transfer current page request to another .aspx page on the same server
* we want to preserve server resources and avoid the unnecessary roundtrips to the server
* we want to preserve Query String and Form Variables (optionally)
* we don't need to show the real URL where we redirected the request in the users Web Browser

How to programmatically Encrypt and Decrypt sections of web.config file?

2008-06-12T10:35:00.000+07:00

Asp.Net 2.0 has built-in support for encryption and decryption of configuration file sections
with the .Net 2.0 Configuration API.

There are various sections of typical web.config file that usually contain sensitive information:

* - username and password used to connect to databases
* - usernam and password needed for runtime impersonation of fixed identity
* - your smtp server username and password
* etc

These important parts of web.config files are ideal candidates for encryption, especially if your website is hosted on
shared-hosting.

By using the built-in Encryption methods we can protect those configuration sections, so even if someone somehow manages
to obtain our web.config files or just take a brief look at them , there will not be much for him to see there.

The fun part is that those encrypted sections are automagically decrypted on-the-fly when our web application reads them,
so no change in application code is needed to be done after we protect web.config!

ASP.NET 2.0 comes with two encryption providers we can use to protect our configuration files:

* DataProtectionConfigurationProvider
* RSAProtectedConfigurationProvider
* also you can implement your own Providers, because its a plugin based model

The DataProtectionConfigurationProvider uses Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI) and this provider
uses a amchine-specific secret key for encryption and decryption.
This means that when you encrypt some data on one server, you can only decrypt it on the same server.

If you need to move configuration files with encrypted sections from server to server or if you have a Server-Farm
you will need to use the RSAProtectedConfigurationProvider. This provider uses RSA public key protection,
and you can use command line tool aspnet_regiis to create, import and export keypairs for encryption.

more on that on this link: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998283.aspx

We will consider the simpler case where we use a machine specific DataProtectionConfigurationProvider
to programmatically encrypt our configuration files.
We pass the DataProtection provider name as a string to the ProtectSection method to protect our config sections.

here are two simple methods to protect and unprotect your config files sections.

using System.Web.Configuration;

public void EncryptSection(string sectionName, string provider)

{

Configuration cfg = WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration(Request.ApplicationPath);

if (cfg == null)

return;

ConfigurationSection section = cfg.GetSection(sectionName);

if (section == null)

return;

if (!section.SectionInformation.IsProtected)

{

section.SectionInformation.ProtectSection(provider);

cfg.Save();

}

}

public void DecryptSection(string sectionName)

{

Configuration cfg = WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration(Request.ApplicationPath);

if (cfg == null)

return;

ConfigurationSection section = cfg.GetSection(sectionName);

if (section == null)

return;

if (section.SectionInformation.IsProtected)

{

section.SectionInformation.UnprotectSection();

cfg.Save();

}

}

and here is an example on how to use these methods to encrypt/decrypt conectionStrings section of your web.config file:

EncryptSection("connectionStrings","RSAProtectedConfigurationProvider");
and

DecryptSection("connectionStrings");

or using the DataProtectionConfigurationProvider:

EncryptSection("connectionStrings","DataProtectionConfigurationProvider");
and

DecryptSection("connectionStrings");

To be positive that our configuration file is indeed protected, here is a code that
reads the web.config file from website root using server's FileSystem IO and
displays it in the TextBox component on ASP.NET page:
(we must use the IO commands to read the web.config file to see if its encrypted,
because if we would just read the settings directly from our web application they
would be decrypted on the fly and we would receive the real values).
When using FileSystem IO functions to read the web.config file we receive its true
encrypted contents:

using System.IO;

public void ShowWebConfigFile()

{

StreamReader sr = File.OpenText(Path.Combine(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath,"Web.Config"));

string contents = sr.ReadToEnd();

sr.Close();

webconfig.Text = contents;

TextBox1.Text = WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["local"].ConnectionString;

}

and here is how our connectionStrings section should look when read this way:

AQAAANCMnd8BFdERjHoAwE/Cl+sBAAAAevxuCHpsWkK7mJZZB5u9DQQAAAACAAAAAAADZgAAqAAAABAAAADTY4+
89xTx8n6fgJu3M4AEAAAAAASAAACgAAAAEAAAAJj77evc30ixlYD7sXdZyUbIAAAATK3ZOyiXebQMhT7KOT1TpRDqPxd/zeD2uwg0
4LeC7CHmMquRKcXGI5Xb7LJnNKysbfXycu7ZmUgd4i7mp3ly/unc/FVWG9PAk6b5LG8BTsdNzTQeZYT7u8Iap2BDFKPgiZqLA4SvM
ti1MyjAK6P+lQCp0irWiE2yqWpMiQ82+k1SZj6AdYjNvYLmoAPFzqX1++ybMdcHueXsv4dvd5Fw2fFTh6iiBdR2xQtvgMrtP9OHmm
CTM1IJ6G8Jv0oxqG7J1b3JWQSIs9MUAAAA4/q1tlT5sNGslF4/yogmvKEz4MY=

Put your ASP.NET 2.0 application Offline - the user friendly way!

2008-06-12T10:32:00.002+07:00

Every web application has its Life Cycle. This cycle involves (among many other things) developing, deploying, debugging, maintenance etc.

When your web application is already deployed on production server, making some critical changes on it can be a challenging
task if you have multiple visitors online.

Developers at Microsoft added one nice feature to ASP.NET 2.0 that addresses this very problem:

if you upload a html file named "app_offline.htm" to the root of your website, ASP.NET recognizes this file, shuts down your application, and for every next requested page, contents of your "app_offline.htm" file is server instead.

When you are done updating your website, you can delete this file or just rename it, and your website will start working again

NOTE:
One thing to be careful about: It is recommended that your "app_offline.htm" file size is minimum 512 bytes in order to be shown correctly in Internet Explorer 6.
(This is because IE6 has setting called "Show Friendly Http Errors" that shows its own error messages instead of the pages returned from web server - if they have HTTP status code different than 200 and if they are smaller than 512 bytes in size).

Introduction to Language Integrated Query (LINQ)

2008-06-08T14:47:00.002+07:00

ProblemLanguage-Integrated Query (LINQ) is a groundbreaking innovation in Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework version 3.5 that bridges the gap between the world of objects and the world of data. As LINQ is part of the development enhancements in SQL Server 2008, how can I have an understanding of how it works and how I can use it in other areas of administration, not just SQL Server?
SolutionLet's start off by explaining LINQ. LINQ is a codename for a project which is a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompasses language-integrated query, set and transform operations. It extends C# and VB with native language syntax for queries and provides class libraries to take advantage of these capabilities, available only in .NET Framework 3.5. For developers who write code that regularly access a recordset, this means a lot. The fact that queries are usually expressed in a specialized query language for different data sources makes it difficult for developers to learn a query language for each data source or data format that they must access. This is what LINQ is all about. It simplifies data access by providing a consistent model for working with data across various kinds of sources and formats. In LINQ, data is translated into objects, something that developers are more comfortable with working . Understanding LINQ will give us an idea of its capabilities and its benefits
Create a simple LINQ project
Let's start by creating a simple console project using the C# language in Visual Studio 2008. You can also download the free Visual C# 2008 Express Edition from the MSDN Download Center. Make sure you select .NET Framework 3.5 from the target framework drop-down menu.
This will open up your Program.cs file. Notice that by simply creating a project that targets the .NET Framework 3.5 automatically adds a using directive for the System.Linq namespace as this is already a part of the System.Core assembly. The System.Linq namespace provides classes and interfaces that support queries that use LINQ. We will start with this to understand the basics of LINQ.
Let's start writing some code inside the static void Main(string[] args):
//Obtaining the data source string[] carNames = {"Ferrari", "Porsche", "Mercedes" , "McLaren", "Audi", "BMW"}; // Create the query // query is an IEnumerable var query = from name in carNames where name.Contains("e") select name; // Execute the query foreach (string name in query) { Console.WriteLine(name); }
//Pause the application Console.ReadLine();
We'll examine the basic components of a LINQ query. Any LINQ query consists of three distinct actions. These are obtaining the data source, creating the query and executing the query. The first thing that we need to do is to have a data source. In this case, it's an array of strings which supports the generic IEnumerable(T) interface. This makes it available for LINQ to query. A queryable type does not require special modification to serve as a LINQ data source as long as it is already loaded in memory. If not, you would have to load it into memory so LINQ can query the objects. This is applicable to data sources like XML files. Next, is the query. A query specifies information to retrieve from the data source. This is similar to a SQL query which includes syntaxes like SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, etc. Looking at the code above, you'll notice that its not like your typical SQL statement as the FROM clause appeared before the SELECT clause. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, it adheres to the programming concept of declaring the variable before using it. Also, from the point of view of Visual Studio, this makes it easy to provide the IntelliSense feature using the dot (.) notation as the variable has already been declared and that the framework has already inferred the correct type to the object. This provides the appropriate properties and methods, making it easy for the developers to write their code.
Let's look at how the code was constructed. The from clause specifies the data source, in this case, the carNames collection. The where clause applies the filter, in this case, the list of all elements in the collection containing the letter 'e'. The select clause specifies the type of the returned elements. This means that you can create an instance of the elements in your collection. An example could be creating an instance of an object with fewer attributes. The query variable, query, just stores the information required to produce the results when the query is executed, maybe at a later point. Simply defining the query variable does not return any data nor takes any action. The third component of the code above is query execution. As I mentioned, the query variable does not contain any data, but rather simply contains only the query commands. The actual execution of the query is when we iterate over the query variable. There are a couple of ways to do this. One of which is shown above. The use of a foreach statement iterates thru the query variable and execute it as well. This concept is called deferred query execution. This is very much important when dealing with data sources such as highly-transactional database systems as you minimize connecting to the database unless necessary (database connections are additional resources on the database server as well). You can opt to execute the query immediately by using aggregate functions such as Count, Max, Average and First or calling the ToList() or ToArray() methods. Another way is to bind the collection to a data-bound control in either a web or windows form control similar to how you would do it in previous versions of Visual Studio - specifying the DataSource property of the control to be the query variable and calling the DataBind() method.
Another area to highlight in the code is the use of the keyword var, which is a new keyword introduced in C# 3.0. What this does is it looks at the value assigned to the variable, then determines and sets the appropriate one. This concept is called type inference. From the code above, the query variable, query, appears to be an array of string. So the compiler will automatically assume that it is a variable of type IEnumerable. This is helpful if you do not know the variable type during runtime. But this does not mean that any type can be assigned to the variable after the initial assignment - something like a dynamic type - since .NET is a strongly typed language platform. This simply means that an object can take on a different type and the compiler can simply handle that. Assigning a different type to an already existing one violates the concept of polymorphism in object-oriented programming. Let's say you assign the value 12 to the query variable, query. This will throw a type conversion exception as the original type of the variable is a string collection.
Your output will look like this when you run your project in Visual Studio. You can press F5 or click on Debug - Start Debugging in Visual Studio
Next Steps
You have seen how powerful LINQ queries are and how similar they are to SQL queries. There are other data access methods that LINQ implements including
LINQ to SQL
LINQ to XML
LINQ to Objects
LINQ to Entities
LINQ to DataSets
Give this example a try and change the query parameters so you can have a feel of how LINQ works.
Have a look at the 101 LINQ Samples at the MSDN Visual C# Developer Center.
For samples in Visual Basic, you can check the Getting Started with LINQ in Visual Basic site from MSDN

source : http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1502

Power Of Empati

2008-06-08T14:41:00.001+07:00

Anda tidak akan tahu dimana besok, minggu depan atau bulan depan berada. Sekarang mungkin anda sedang asik memainkan remote televisi anda sambil menikmati long weekend anda. Tapi terbayangkah oleh anda bahwa senin besok dikarena satu dan lain hal anda haus di pindahkan ke propinsi baru? Mungkin di Aceh atau mungkin daerah Paapua? Hal yang baru bukan? Dan mungkin ini menjadi suatu tantangan tersendiri bagi anda. Berat menantang tapi itulah hidup, dimana semuanya akan selalu berubah dan berganti. Dan satu yang pasti walaupun dunia berubah, namun anda akan dan harus tetap struggling. How to survive and struggling to every condition, empaty is the solution for this.
Empati atau yang secara gamblang sering dibilang berpikir seperti orang lain (how to thinks like others), terlebih pihak lain disaat kita berkomunikasi atau berkerja dengan orang lain. Mengerti orang lain dan memahami orang lain akan memudahkan anda untuk bekerja dan berkembang dimanapun anda berada. Empati sudah menjadi ilmu dasar bagi kita, cuma terkadang kita terlalu sombong untuk mau dan berusaha mengerti orang lain. Padahal anda tahu bahwa ilmu dan kepintaran anda memahami orang lain merupakan senjata anda untuk berperang agar survive dan maju dalam kehidupan anda.
Bila anda mau menyisihkan sedikit waktu anda dan melihat di sekitar anda, Pelajarilah! Bahwa belum tentu orang yang pintar itu akan lebih mudah berhasil dibandingkan dengan orang-orang yang memiliki kemampuan untuk bisa berempati dan bekerja sama dengan orang lain. Kenapa demikian? Hal yang menarik bukan? Hal ini terjadi karena orang yang memiliki kemampuan berempati lebih mampu untuk memuaskan orang lain yang bekerja sama dengannya. Tentu saja anda akan bisa menyenangkan orang lain pada saat anda mengetahui apa yang dibutuhkan orang lain dan memenuhi kebutuhannya. Bagaimana anda bisa mengetahui orang lain, inilah the power of empathy. Dia mampu membawa anda untuk menyenangkan orang lain. Dan bila anda mampu untuk melakukan hal ini maka semua orang akan berusaha bekerja dengan anda dan ingin merasakan kepuasan berkerjasama dengan anda. Melalui inilah orang akan datang kepada anda dan membukakan pintu-pintu kehidupan baru (kesempatan) untuk anda.
Untuk membantu anda dalam memahami kekuatan empati ini, saya akan membawakan kepada anda salah satu cerita menarik dari buku yang saya baca yaitu “How to Get Rich” karangan Donald J. Trump. Di dalam buku ini dia bercerita bahwa salah satu temannya Wayne Newton sedang mengalami masalah dengan para bangkirnya. Di mana dia tidak bisa membayar hutang-hutangnya kepada para bangkirnya. Lalu Wayne menghubungi Trump dan bertanya apa yang harus dia lakukan untuk menghadapi masalahnya ini. Lalu trump menjawab â€œWayne, aturlah pertemuan dengan mereka. Idealnya makan malam dengan mereka dan keluarganya dan kenali mereka, maka akhirnya mereka akan menyukai anda.
Tiga minggu kemudian setelah pembicaraan itu Wayne menelepon Trump dan mengatakan ia telah makan malam dengan ketiga banker dan berkata bahwa mereka adalah orang-orang teramah yang pernah ia temui, dan sebagai hasilnya bank-bank tempat Wayne berhutang mereschedule hutang-hutang Wayne dan membuat Wayne mampu untuk survive sampai sekarang.
Anda lihat bukan bahwa empati memiliki power yang sangat besar di dalam kehidupan anda. Semua hal bisa anda hadapi bila anda tahu dengan siapa anda berhadapan, dengan siapa anda berkomunikasi dan bagaimana mereka mengharapkan anda memperlakukan mereka. Jadi pelajarilah sifat dan kepribadian mereka, maka mereka akan mengantarkan anda ke pintu-pintu kesempatan yang mereka miliki.
Buat mereka suka dan percaya kepada anda, maka mereka tidak akan ragu untuk memberikan kesempatan kepada anda.
Salam Sukses!
D_LoebizFounder & Moderator Beranie Gagal

Free Tools for the SQL Server DBA

2008-06-06T19:14:00.005+07:00

We've all done it.

Scourer the Internet for a script or free tool to help do our job or solve a problem. SQL Server Central and similar sites contain an abundance of scripts and guides to assist us. There are times when I want to use a tool instead of a collection of scripts and commands. A tool more often than not requires less customization than a script and sometimes less technical know how to get them to work. So I decided to share a list of free tools that I use from time to time.

NVU

To start with I wrote this article using NVU an open source WYSIWYG HTML editor. It creates HTML pages with very simple HTML code. It still adds a few extra commands such as " " but that's nothing compared to what MS Word generates for HTML code.
NVU is open source software and does not require any registration to download or use.

FullSun SQL Server Toolkit

It is a nice tool kit with many helpful features. Currently this tool is for SQL Server 2000 but a 2005 version is being developed. Here are some of the functions available with this tool:
List all SQL ids with very easy passwords so they can be fixed.
Review all the errors or failed logins in the SQL Error Log files.
Monitor database growth through their backup file sizes along with viewing the current table sizes.
Check nine predefined performance counters.
Read a database log file. (This was primary reason I got this tool. It's nothing fancy but I like it.)This tool is CharityWare software. Every time the tool is started, a panel pops up in the background with instructions on using the tool and a request for a charitable donation.

EMS SQL Manager for SQL Server Lite

EMS provides a free lite version of their SQL Manager tool with limited administration functions. The SQL Monitor is fairly simple and only works on SQL Server 2005. The feature I like most about this tool is when I am browsing or editing data in a table, I can view the data in a grid or form. The form shows the contents of one row vertically. This is very helpful for reading long columns.To download from the EMS website you need to register. There are two download options. One is a full download of the product and the other is just the executable. So far I've only used the 2.73 MB executable because it does not require any installation. The full download of this tool is available from an alternate site:

http://www.download.com/3001-10255_4-10594854.html

Toad for SQL Server

Quest has a freeware version of their toad for SQL Server. I downloaded it because I heard how popular Toad for Oracle was. It seems to have all the basic functions of Enterprise Manager. The SQL Editor is incorporated into the tool as a separate tab. Yes, it uses tabs to provide access to the various functions. The export wizard supports a variety of formats. It does disappoint me that you need the commercial version to export a table as insert statements. You would start to think they are in the business of making money. Wait, I guess they are.Quest does not seem to require any registration to download and use this tool. Previously it required you to download the product every 60 days but that restriction has been removed for the current release.

SQLCheck

SQLCheck is a free performance dashboard from Idera. It provides real time monitoring of about a dozen key performance indicators such as Buffer Cache Ratio, User Connections, and Processor Time. In addition, you can review SQL processes, SQL error log, jobs, and configurations. All this information is available using other tools but this tool provides a single location to finding this information.Idera requires you to register before you download the product. You will probably get a phone call from the company, but you won't be continually spammed.

WinSql

Synametrics provides a free lite version of their WinSql product. It is an ODBC SQL Query tool with create table options. I work with some developers who love using it. Since developers use it, I use it to help troubleshoot any problems they are having executing SQL statements.
To use this product you need to register.

SQLinForm

SQLinForm is a free online SQL Formatter for many database engines. This tool is great for cleaning up complex SQL and making it more readable. There are other sites with free online SQL formatting tools (like SQL Parser). When one parser has trouble formatting a SQL statement you can try it on another site.These tools are free to use online with no registration required.SpaceMonger It happens, a drive is running out of space. To get a quick view of what is taking up the space, I use SpaceMonger v1.4.0. It provides a bird's-eye, graphical view of the file allocations on a single drive. Plus it is faster than some similar tools. The tool consist of a single 212k executable that can be copied to servers and executed locally to create the report as fast as possible. When needed, it can be used remotely on mapped drives.
Sixty-Five has released a purchasable version of this tool that contains more functions. They are still providing the version 1.4.0 of SpaceMonger at no cost.

This free version does not require any installation or registration to download and use.

ExamDiff

There are times when I need to compare SQL code, stored procedures, table counts, and other data. For this I use ExamDiff. It has a clean GUI interface for selecting files and browsing the results. While browsing the results, it has an option to edit the files. The company PrestoSoft provides a more advance version, but for simple text file comparisons the free version is adequate.This program does not require any installation or registration to use. Just download the zip and click on the executable.

Windows Sysinternals

Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell at Sysinternals created a large collection of free tools to help troubleshoot and diagnose window servers and desktops. In 2006 Microsoft purchased Sysinternals. Most of these tools are still free and continue to be updated. I am a big fan of the tools Process Explorer and Handle. When I have trouble with a locked file, I turn to these tools. Most of tools are executables and require no installation.Last I knew they still do not require registration to use.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a compression tool that supports multiple formats and files larger than 4 GB. WinZip v8 does not compress files larger than 4 GB. My company was not going to pay the $50 dollars for a newer version. Why? Because that's the way they are. So I found 7-zip which does support zip files > 4 GB. It is slower than WinZip 11 and does not include encryption but at least it gets the job done. I don't use the 7z format because it is really slow on big files even though the files it creates are suppose to 30-70% smaller than Zip.7-Zip is open source software and does not require any registration to download or use.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

This site does not have any database specific tools. Instead it has 46 other categories of tools that are reviewed and rated by the site owner. So if you are looking for an FTP client, text editor, registry editor or some other tool give it a look.This site only provides links to other sites from which you can download the software.

Yahoo E-mail

Many companies released free tools that require registration. I use a free Yahoo e-mail account when I register. It provides an excellent spam filter. Yeah it's not 100% but it's sure better than some others I've had. Sometimes registration information gets caught as SPAM but as long as it goes to the Bulk (SPAM) folder you can retrieve it.Yahoo sometimes sends you an advertisement, but they are easily identified and deleted.

Conclusion
That's it for my list of DBA tools. Most of the time, purchased tools provide more functionality. But when it comes to free, these tools do fill a need. Last I checked all these tools where still available and free. If you know of any other useful free tools for a SQL Server DBA be sure to mention it in "Your Opinion" discussion for this article.

By David Bird,

source : http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Miscellaneous/2959/

Undocumented Extended and Stored Procedures

2008-06-04T07:32:00.000+07:00

Undocumented Extended and Stored Procedures
By Timothy A Wiseman
t

Introduction

There are several undocumented system stored procedures and extended stored procedures in SQL Server 2005 which can be of enormous use. Since they are undocumented, it can be risky to rely upon them. There is always the possibility that they will be dropped or altered, which can be worse, with the next version of SQL Server or even the next service pack. If it is important that the code in question works with the next version of SQL Server then it is wise to avoid undocumented procedures. But they can be more than worth that small risk when compatibility with future versions is not a priority.

XP_FileExist

The usage is:

EXEC xp_fileexist <filename> [, <file_exists INT> OUTPUT]

If executed without providing an output variable, it will display 3 columns indicating whether the table passed exists, whether it is a directory, and if the parent directory exists. For instance:

exec master.dbo.xp_fileexist 'C:\temp'

Results in this output:
xp_fileexist Output File Exists File is a Directory Parent Directory Exists
0 1 1

If it is executed with the output parameter it will set the value to one if the file exists and 0 otherwise. It will set the variable to 0 if the name given is a directory.

Generally, it is better to check validate the existence of any files prior to calling the T-SQL script, but there are certainly times when it is convenient to be able to do it from within a T-SQL script. This syntax is far more graceful than work arounds which can be achieved with xp_cmdshell.

SP_MSForEachDb

sp_msforeachdb will execute the attached string as a command against every database on the server. Any question marks (?), within the string will be replaced by every database name. It can be useful for finding the database which holds a given table on a server. For example:

exec dbo.sp_MSforeachdb 'select ''?'', * from [?].INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES where table_name like ''authors'' '

will find every table named authors on the server. It can also be useful for running maintenance routines against every database. For instance, this:

exec dbo.sp_MSforeachdb 'DBCC SHRINKDATABASE(N''?'' )'

will shrink the file size of every database on the server. It may be worth noting that on a well designed production system it would not be a good idea to run that command, but it can be useful for reclaiming file space on test and development servers and illustrates the broader ways it can be used for administrative commands when needed.

SP_MSForEachTable

sp_msforeachtable is very similar to sp_msforeachdb, except executing the command against every table in the database. For instance, if there is a test database and all tables in the test database need to emptied while retaining the table structures, this command could be used:

exec dbo.sp_msforeachtable 'delete test.dbo.[?]'

SP_who2

Sp_who2 is like sp_who's bigger brother. It functions in a very similar fashion to the documented procedure sp_who except that some of the column names are slightly changed, the ecid column is dropped, and some additional columns are listed. It adds the cputime, diskio, lastbatch, and programname columns to the information provided by sp_who. Its output appears as:

sp_who2 output SPID Status Login HostName BlkBy DBName Command CPUTime DiskIO LastBatch ProgramName SPID REQUESTID
1 BACKGROUND sa . . NULL RESOURCE MONITOR 100 0 04/12 15:58:54 1 0
2 BACKGROUND sa . . NULL LAZY WRITER 10 0 04/12 15:58:54 2 0
3 SUSPENDED sa . . NULL LOG WRITER 0 0 04/12 15:58:54 0 0
4 BACKGROUND sa . . NULL LOCK MONITOR 0 0 04/12 15:58:54 4 0

Both sp_who and sp_who2 with its added columns can be tremendously valuable in scripts and programs, but for use on an ad hoc basis it is often more convenient to invoke the Activity Monitor GUI.

sp_MSdependencies

sp_MSdependencies is a powerful procedure that can be used to determine all dependencies for an object within a database. Its usage is:

exec dbo.sp_MSdependencies [<object name> ] , [<object type>], [<Flags>], [<objlist>]

The procedure also accepts an integer variable @intrans, but it does nothing. All of the variables are optional and in most cases it is not necessary to pass both an object name and an object type. If

exec sp_msdependencies '?'

is executed it will provide a brief description of the usage options.

sp_MSdependencies is similar to the documented stored procedure sp_depends, but it is simultaneously more flexible and more difficult to use. sp_depends will return two result sets, the first lists those things that the targeted object depends on directly and the second listing those things which depend directly on the targeted object, and in both cases it does not consider foreign key relationships to be dependencies. sp_MSdependencies on the other hand does count foreign key relationships and will return either things which depend on the target or on which the target depends and precisely what it returns is determined by the flags passed. By default, it will not return system tables or other internal objects or user defined data types, but it can be set to do so by using the flags switch. It also formats its results different from sp_depends.

If it is executed with only an object name, it will return everything on which that object depends. For instance:

exec sp_msdependencies 'dbo.titleview'

exected in the pubs database returns
sp_msdependencies output oType oObjName oOwner oSequence
8 authors dbo 1
8 publishers dbo 1
8 titles dbo 2
8 titleauthor dbo 3

Which indicates that dbo.titleview depends on authors, titles, and titleauthor while authors depends on the publishers table. The oType of 8 indicates that they are all tables.

Providing only an object type by number will result in a list of everything which depends directly or indirectly on any object of that type within the current database. In the sample pubs database, the dbo.titleview is the only view, so if views were selected and

exec sp_msdependencies NULL, 2

were executed the results would be

oType oObjName oOwner oSequence
----------- ------------------------ ------------------------------- ---------
8 authors dbo 1
8 publishers dbo 1
8 titles dbo 2
8 titleauthor dbo 3
4 titleview dbo 4

Providing everything which any view depends on, including the view itself.

The flags can be added to either an object name or an object type and they determine precisely what is returned. The flags paramater is a bitmap expressed in hexadecimal. It permits precise control over what types of objects are returned and will allow the return of children, or objects which depend on the target, instead of parents, or objects on which the target depends. Using the flags, it can be set to return the system objects and user defined data types which are normally skipped. It can also be set to return only first level relationships which makes it more like sp_depends. For instance, to retrieve the objects which depend on the titles table execute:

exec sp_msdependencies 'titles', NULL, 0x401fd

which returns:
sp_msdependencies output oType oObjName oOwner oSequence
8 roysched dbo 1
8 sales dbo 1
8 titleauthor dbo 1
16 reptq1 dbo 1
16 reptq2 dbo 1
16 reptq3 dbo 1
4 titleview dbo 2
16 byroyalty dbo 2

Everything on the list depends either directly or indirectly on the titles table. For instance, the procedure byroyalty does not directly rely on the titles table, but it relies on titleview which in turn is dependant on the titles table.

In general, it is more convenient and user friendly to simply use the GUI provided in the SSMS to gather the dependencie information when it is needed on an ad hoc basis, but sp_msdepencies can be invaluable in creating scripts in which dependencies need to be evaluated. Its ability to consider foreign key relationships and indirect dependencies can also make it valuable in situations where the documented sp_depends is not appropriate.

Conclusion

Undocumented procedures should always be used cautiously, especially when dealing with procedures that are expected to be able to migrate from one version of SQL server to another. Undocumented procedures are far more likely than their documented counterparts to be changed, and they will not be officially supported if technical support is ever required. With those risks in mind, they can often be tremendously useful. This provides a short list of some of the more useful ones and how they can be used in SQL Server 2005.
By Timothy A Wiseman

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Stored+Procedures/62868/

Ciptakan Kehidupan, Bukan Sekedar Hidup

2008-06-04T07:30:00.000+07:00

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. ?Kesuksesan dan kebahagiaan akan sangat berarti jika kau mau berbagi dengan orang lain." Albert Camus

Untuk dapat sekedar hidup, mungkin kita tidak perlu bersusah payah mencari peluang ataupun memikirkan bagaimana meningkatkan kualitas dan manfaat diri kita. Namun sebagai mahluk yang paling spesial diantara mahluk ciptaan Tuhan YME, kita berkewajiban untuk mendapatkan kehidupan yang berarti. Kita harus berupaya semaksimal mungkin. Sebuah pepatah bijak menyebutkan, "Find a meaningful need and fill it better than anyone else. Kejarlah sesuatu yang bermakna, dan gunakanlah setiap peluang yang ada secara lebih baik dari siapapun."

Ada beberapa langkah untuk menjadikan kehidupan kita menjadi lebih berarti.

*Langkah pertama adalah memperbesar kemauan untuk belajar.

Manusia mempunyai pikiran yang luar biasa, maka gunakan pikiran tersebut untuk belajar menciptakan kemajuan-kemajuan dalam hidup.

Kita dapat belajar dari berbagai hal, diantaranya adalah belajar kepada pengalaman hidup, kegagalan, kejadian sehari-hari, orang lain dan sebagainya. Maka tingkatkan terus kemauan
belajar.

*Langkah kedua supaya kehidupan kita lebih berati adalah mencoba melakukan sesuatu agar lebih dekat dengan impian yang diidamkan.

Bekerjalah lebih keras, lebih aktif atau produktif. Langkah ini sangat efektif dalam meningkatkan kemungkinan mendapatkan uang, kekayaan atau segala sesuatu yang berharga bagi manusia.

Satu hal yang patut dijadikan pedoman bahwasanya kerja keras itu bukan semata-mata mengejar 5 P, yaitu power (kekuasaan), position (posisi), pleasure (kesenangan), prestige (kewibawaan) dan prosperity (kekayaan).

Setiap usaha yang hanya berorientasi kepada lima hal tersebut memang menjamin kesuksesan atau bahkan hasil yang melimpah ruah, tetapi tidak menjamin sebuah akhir yang menyenangkan. Contohnya adalah sebuah fakta tentang delapan orang miliarder di Amerika Serikat yang berkumpul di Hotel Edge Water Beach di Chicago, Illionis pada tahun 1923. Mereka adalah orang-orang yang sangat sukses, tetapi mengalami nasib tragis 25 tahun kemudian.

Salah seorang diantara mereka adalah Charles Schwab, CEO perusahaan besi baja ternama pada waktu itu, yaitu Bethlehem Steel. Tetapi Charles Schwab mengalami kebangkrutan total. Sehingga ia terpaksa berhutang untuk membiayai hidupnya selama 5 tahun sebelum meninggal.

Yang kedua adalah Richard Whitney, President New York Stock Exchange.
Namun pria ini ternyata menghabiskan sisa hidupnya dipenjara Sing Sing. Orang ketiga adalah Jesse Livermore, raja saham "The Great Bear" di Wall Street. Tetapi Jesse mati bunuh diri.

Orang ke empat adalah "The Match King", Ivar Krueger, CEO perusahaan hak cipta, yang juga mati bunuh diri. Begitu juga dengan Leon Fraser, Chairman of Bank of International Settlement, ia mati bunuh diri.

Yang keenam adalah Howard Hupson, CEO perusahaan gas terbesar di Amerika Utara. Tetapi ia sakit jiwa dan dirawat di rumah sakit jiwa hingga akhir hidupnya. Arthur Cutton sebelumnya adalah pemilik pabrik tepung terbesar di dunia, tetapi ia meninggal di negri orang lain.

Sedangkan Albert Fall, waktu itu ia adalah anggota kabinet presiden Amerika Serikat. Namun ia meninggal di rumahnya di Texas ketika baru saja keluar dari penjara.

Di dunia ini tidak sedikit orang yang semula sangat sukses, tetapi merana di tahun-tahun terakhir kehidupan mereka.

Kehidupan mereka seakan-akan tidak berarti meskipun sebelumnya sangat kaya raya. Upaya terbaik memang dapat menghasilkan kesuksesan besar, tetapi bukan berarti merupakan jaminan sebuah akhir kehidupan sebagai manusia yang penuh arti.

Karena itu langkah berikutnya yang harus kita lakukan adalah mengimbangi kerja keras dengan berbuat kebaikan.

Seorang penulis pada abad 20-an yang berkebangsaan Perancis, Andr?Gide, mendefinisikan kebaikan itu sebagai berikut; "True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one's own the suffering and joys of others. ?nbsp; Kebaikan yang sesungguhnya adalah kemampuan merasakan penderitaan maupun kebahagiaan orang lain."

Kerja keras yang diimbangi dengan berbuat kebaikan akan menghasilkan semangat yang tinggi untuk mendapatkan lebih dari apa yang dibutuhkan. Hal itu terdorong oleh keinginan untuk dapat berbagi kebahagiaan dengan orang lain. Pada akhirnya kebaikan tersebut berpengaruh positif terhadap semangat hidup, motivasi, dan kemajuan sikap dan ekonomi. James Allen, penulis buku berjudul As a Man Thinketh mengatakan, "Pemikiran serta perbuatan baik tidak mungkin mendatangkan hasil yang buruk; pemikiran dan perbuatan buruk tidak mungkin mendatangkan hasil baik."

Dengan belajar, bekerja keras dan berbuat kebaikan maka kita akan dapat menciptakan kehidupan yang jauh lebih berarti.

Langkah-langkah sebagaimana dijelaskan diatas terbukti juga sangat efektif menjadikan kesan positif tentang diri kita tidak mudah dilupakan orang. Saya meyakini bahwa kita masih mempunyai banyak kesempatan dan potensi untuk mendapatkan kehidupan berharga itu dimanapun dan apapun pekerjaan kita.

Sumber: Make A Life, Not Merely A Living - Ciptakan Kehidupan, Bukan Sekedar Hidup

By Andrew Ho

Upgrading SQL Server 2000 DTS Packages to SSIS

2008-05-23T13:23:00.000+07:00

By Brian Knight
If you're like me and most companies, you probably have dozens if not hundreds of SQL Server 2000 DTS packages in you SQL Server environment. The idea of upgrading those packages to SQL Server 2005 SSIS can be daunting. The packages probably drive production loads and you've spent years stabilizing them and don't want that 4AM call. This article shows you your options for upgrading the packages automatically and what components won't be upgraded.
The Server and Workstation Upgrade

After you upgrade your SQL Server to SQL Server 2005, the packages carry over in place and are not upgraded as part of the process. All of your production jobs that call the packages are also carried over without change. Without touching the packages, you can continue to run the 2000 packages since the DTS runtime environment comes over. You'll be able to find your 2000 packages in the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio under the Management node then Legacy -> Data Transformation Services. The problem is going to be that you'll need to install the SQL Server 2005 Feature Pack (specifically, the Package Designer for 2000) to modify the package after the upgrade. This was not installed by default to give you a smaller surface area in your install. After you upgrade the last node on your SQL Server, the SQL Server 2000 tools are completely removed.

Note: Support for the Metadata Repository has been removed in SQL Server 2005 so those packages will not come over. You will need to save those packages into a different storage area like MSDB or the file structure before upgrading your instance.

You can also use the SQL Server 2005 tools to connect to SQL Server 2000 databases to manage the server and packages. I've been using the 2005 tools since an early CTP to manage my entire SQL Server 2000 environment and have encountered very few issues even in beta. The problem will lie in if you chose not to upgrade your tools. You cannot manage or design against a SQL Server 2005 environment with the 2000 tools. In other words, the 2000 tools aren't forward compatible as in past releases of SQL Server.
Package Upgrade Options

The first step that I would recommend in your upgrade path is to run the SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Advisor. The Upgrade Advisor will report also against DTS packages. It will give you warnings and errors and identify specific packages that will cause you grief in the upgrade.

In SQL Server 2005 SSIS packages, you have a new task called Execute SQL Server 2000 Package task. Another way to inch into an upgrade is to create a SQL Server 2005 SSIS package with a single Execute SQL Server 2000 Package task that executes the old package until you can execute have time to upgrade each component. The task has the option to embed the 2000 package into the task itself so as you move the SSIS package, the DTS package comes with it. This tactic will be used later by the Upgrade Wizard for complex logic.

The best way to upgrade your packages is with the Package Upgrade Wizard. The wizard will leave the old package and calling jobs in place but clone the package with no job. The wizard isn't perfect though. It was developed to perfectly upgrade simple workflow and transforms written with the Import/Export Wizard or similar logic. If you have customized transforms like one that does a upper case transform, it will not be ported over exactly as is. If you have any complex transforms or tasks, a small 2000 DTS package that contains that step will be created and a Execute SQL Server 2000 Package task will be created to call that package. The package will be embedded in the task and you can modify the 2000 package by clicking Design Package inside that task (it won't show up in your legacy packages node). Using the wizard, I was able to upgrade about 75% of the packages (with simple logic) and 10% upgraded with issues like I just mentioned and the remainder had to have manual intervention.

There are some components that will not be compatible with SQL Server 2005. Just because they're not compatible though, doesn't mean there's not an upgrade path. The areas of special consideraExecute SQL Server 2000 Package tasktion are:

* Dynamic Properties task has no 2005 task to port to. A placeholder Script Task will upgrade over but will not have any functionality. Your package will not work as expected until you upgrade the logic using the new Package Configuration option or expressions.
* Analysis Services tasks are wrapped in a Execute 2000 Package task.
* ActiveX Script tasks that take extensive use of the DTS object model will not be supported. For example, if you used the model to call other packages or loop, this will not port. You will want to implement some of the built-in controls for this like the For Each Loop container.
* Global Variables are ported to package variables with no issues.
* Data Driven Query tasks are not supported. The upgrade wizard will use a sub-2000 package to make this work.
* Any custom task will be wrapped in a subtask as well.

It's important to note that long term support of SQL Server 2000 DTS is not in the cards. You need to spend this release of SQL Server 2005 getting off of DTS because I can't imagine support of DTS existing in the next release (code named Avalon). I hope some useful information to get you start down the path to upgrading your DTS packages to SSIS.

source : http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQL+Server+2005+-+SSIS/upgradingsqlserver2000dtspackagestossis/2201/

Measuring Performance of Stored Procedures

2008-05-23T13:19:00.000+07:00

by Preethiviraj Kulasingham
Database developers need to write stored procedures which are not only fully functional, but also which perform acceptably. As database servers use permanent storage media heavily (mainly because of ACID properties), which are known for slow performance, optimizing the stored procedures for performance is very important. This article concentrates on some of the counters used to measure performance and analyses methods of capturing these counters. This article is intended for database developers who write stored procedures and optimize for performance.

Currently there are three counters widely used for measuring performance of the system.

* Execution time
* CPU Cost
* IO Cost

Execution Time

The most primitive method is to get the time taken to execute the query from SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). The status bar displays the time taken in terms of hour, minute and second. This may be a measure used when a query takes a longer time (Usually more than 10 seconds, so that a 10% improvement to the query could be measured) and the time difference in sub seconds is insignificant. When a query executes within a second, SSMS rounds the value. Thus this value could not be used to get the value if the query executes within sub seconds.

Another method is to get the system time before and after the execution of the stored procedure and analyze the difference. SQL Server management studio could be used for this purpose, simply by adding print statements before and after the stored procedure.

PRINT CONVERT(varchar, GETDATE(), 114)

The developer could also use variables to hold the values and calculate the time difference.

The advantage over this method is it could be used within a query too. For a stored procedure to be executed multiple times with different parameter for each time, print statement could be injected between each execution to analyze the time difference. For a multi statement procedure, Developers need to modify the stored procedure adding print statement, but it gives better control over the data to the developers. On the disadvantages side, one of the major points is its disability over getting time taken for compilation. Instead of PRINT statements, the time could be inserted into a table for further analysis is required. As datetime data type as it allows the value to be accurate up to 3 milliseconds the results may have vary with actual up to 3 milliseconds, and better than the previous method.

SQL Server has some other methods too.

SQL Server has a Set option which could be used to display the time taken: SET STATISTICS TIME ON

The setting could be reversed by using SET STATISTICS TIME OFF statement after the query. When this set option is ON. SQL Server will return message which may look similar to:

SQL Server Execution Times:
CPU time = 109 ms, elapsed time = 164 ms.

Elapsed time is the execution time of the query.

However, there is another time involved in this query: The time taken to compile the query. To view that, the statement should be issued when SET STATISTICS TIME ON Statement is already executed. When a batch of statements is submitted, SQL Server goes through ALL of them but compiles one by one. As GO is considered as batch separator, inserting a GO statement between the SET command and the query will make SQL Server to consider each statement as a batch and compile and execute them separately. Executing the set command first and executing the query (i.e. in two batches) will also do the trick.

When done the messages may be different.

SQL Server parse and compile time:
CPU time = 62 ms, elapsed time = 72 ms.

(1139 row(s) affected)

SQL Server Execution Times:
CPU time = 109 ms, elapsed time = 167 ms.

In this case, the time taken by the server for execution is 167 milliseconds. In addition to this, 72 milliseconds have been taken for compilation. The unit of measurement is in milliseconds and smaller figures will be rounded. When a multi statement stored procedure is called, the total time may slightly differ from the calculation. For this reason, SQL Server provides a summary too. Additionally, some of the internal operations like creating worktables, statistics on temporary tables etc. may create additional load but not be captured as individual statements. However, they will be added to the final cost.

1. IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.bsp_GetBigSales_ByTerritoryGroup') IS NOT NULL
2. DROP PROCEDURE dbo.bsp_GetBigSales_ByTerritoryGroup
3. GO
4.

5. CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.bsp_GetBigSales_ByTerritoryGroup
6.

7. @Group nvarchar(100)
8. AS
9. CREATE TABLE #Territory
10. (
11. TerritoryID int NOT NULL,
12. TerritoryName nvarchar(100)
13. )
14.

15. INSERT INTO #Territory (
16. TerritoryID,
17. TerritoryName)
18. SELECT T.TerritoryID,
19. T.[Name]
20. FROM Sales.SalesTerritory T
21. WHERE T.[Group] = @Group
22.

23. SELECT T.TerritoryName,
24. SH.ShipDate,
25. SUM(SD.LineTotal) AS ProductValue
26. FROM #Territory T
27. INNER JOIN Sales.Customer C
28. ON T.TerritoryID = C.TerritoryID
29. INNER JOIN Sales.SalesOrderHeader SH
30. ON SH.CustomerID = C.CustomerID
31. INNER JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail SD
32. ON SH.SalesOrderID = SD.SalesOrderID
33. GROUP BY T.TerritoryName,
34. SH.ShipDate
35. ORDER BY SH.ShipDate
36.

37. DROP TABLE #Territory
38. GO
39.

40.

41. SET STATISTICS TIME ON
42. GO
43. EXEC bsp_GetBigSales_ByTerritoryGroup
44. @Group = N'Europe'
45. SET STATISTICS TIME OFF
46. GO

The above stored procedure contains four SQL statements;

1. Creates a Temporary table (Lines 8 - 12)
2. Inserts Territory data into temporary table (Lines 14 - 20)
3. Selects the required data (Lines 22 - 34)
4. Drops the temporary table (Line 36)

When the stored procedure is executed it produces multiple lines of messages. The number of lines and values may vary based on several factors.

SQL Server parse and compile time:
CPU time = 0 ms, elapsed time = 1 ms.
SQL Server parse and compile time:
CPU time = 0 ms, elapsed time = 1 ms.

SQL Server Execution Times:
CPU time = 0 ms, elapsed time = 1 ms.

SQL Server Execution Times:
CPU time = 0 ms, elapsed time = 8 ms.

(3 row(s) affected)

(1139 row(s) affected)

SQL Server Execution Times:
CPU time = 93 ms, elapsed time = 549 ms.

SQL Server Execution Times:
CPU time = 0 ms, elapsed time = 11 ms.

SQL Server Execution Times:
CPU time = 93 ms, elapsed time = 568 ms.

The first two sets of messages are compilation related. As we have four SQL statements, the next four statements refer the time taken for execution. The fifth line specifies the total time taken for the execution of the stored procedure. Users can note that the sum of time on each statement exceeds the value on the last line.

When a query with single statement or a few statements is used, this figure may be acceptable to use. When a stored procedure with multiple statements is executed, it will return multiple lines of information and it is difficult to get the values for each statement. This becomes extremely difficult if the stored procedure contains a while loop. Additionally, it is difficult to export the value into a table or spreadsheet for further calculation unless string manipulation is used.

Another method is to use Profiler. In profiler, the events that could be used for getting duration are

Stored Procedures

* RPC: Completed
* Sp: Completed
* Sp: Stmt Completed

TSQL

* SQL: Batch Completed
* SQL: Stmt Completed

The profiler could be set up to capture these events with these events by any user who has ALTER TRACE permission. Alternately, users could use a built-in template named Tuning too. Once set, Until it is stopped (or closed) it will capture the data. text data, start time and end time are additional columns which could be used. These two columns use SQL Server's date time data type and can hold data with 3/10 milliseconds accuracy. Users can include some more columns including CPU, Reads & Writes which is covered later in this article. To get maximum performance, the user should add filters on the application name, database ID (This ID could be obtained by executing the statement SELECT DB_ID() against the database or SELECT DB_ID('') against the server.), login name or host name (client computer which connects to the database server) could be used to get only the exact information needed. However, Profiler does not provide a mechanism to capture the time taken for compilation.

The duration in profiler is by default measured in milliseconds. However, SQL Server 2005 includes an option to measure the duration in microseconds. It is useful when examining statements which do not take much time but may being executed very frequently.

Running profiler from a client computer against a busy server is not recommended. It creates comparatively high volume of network traffic. Server side trace events could be used during the situation. It produces an output file which could be analyzed using profiler. Users can create the script for server side trace using Profiler from File -> Export menu

SQL Server 2005 provides feature rich dynamic management views and functions which displays the information on query execution time. sys.dm_exec_query_stats displays the information on elapsed time. In addition to elapsed time, this view displays time related to CLR code. The following code displays the details of cached executions for all code executed against AdventureWorks:

SELECT query.objectid
,SUBSTRING(text, stat.statement_start_offset/2,
(CASE WHEN stat.statement_end_offset = -1 THEN LEN(CONVERT(nvarchar(MAX),query.[text])) * 2
ELSE stat.statement_end_offset
END
- stat.statement_start_offset)/2) as query_text
,stat.execution_count
,stat.total_worker_time
,stat.last_worker_time
,stat.min_worker_time
,stat.max_worker_time
,stat.total_clr_time
,stat.last_clr_time
,stat.min_clr_time
,stat.max_clr_time
,stat.total_elapsed_time
,stat.last_elapsed_time
,stat.min_elapsed_time
,stat.max_elapsed_time
FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats stat
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle) AS query
WHERE [query].dbid = DB_ID('AdventureWorks')

Issues with Elapsed time

Elapsed time of a stored procedure may vary even in the same server at different times based on the number of operations in progress at that time, the resources it uses, number of pages cached and the parameters passed. Let's have a look on these reasons

*

A Change in resources available for query processing. This could happen when another process is running in parallel. It could be either some users running a resource intensive query, or SQL Server Agent may start certain jobs which may take some resources. Further, if the same computer could be used to run many services and a process running on a different service too could be the cause of the problem. However, developers can evaluate the stored when no other process is happening. Most of the jobs could be stopped temporarily. Creating such a situation in development environment is highly possible.
*

The plan would have been compiled during the first execution but reused during the second execution. Also, DBCC FREEPROCCACHE command could be used to remove the cached procedure information from memory. It will ensure the procedure is recompiled again and again and the same execution plan is not re-used. (The execution plan may be the same in terms of content, but the DBCC command ensures that it was recreated and not reused)
*

A check point process may occur in the middle of the executions which unload the data pages from memory, or some of the pages which were not available in the cache during the first execution and loaded into memory for the execution are used by the second execution. The check point process too could be controlled using command CHECKPOINT. DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS command could be issued to clean the buffers so that the data will always be read from the disk and not from memory.
*

Based on the values passed for the parameters, the number of data pages to be loaded may differ. They may cause even a recompile at certain statements within a stored procedure, and the execution plan may not be the same.

All the solutions provided above are good if the database is isolated for other users. But, if the developers are working against a centralized database server it may not be possible to run all tests during a time when no one else is working. In this case, running the same stored procedure for multiple times and analyzing the average time taken could be a good solution. Remember the application should issue the command multiple times for RPC: Completed event to capture the counters well.

CPU Cost

CPU cost will show how much of CPU cost is taken to execute the stored procedure. CPU is a valuable resource and taking more from CPU may make not only the database but the entire server system to be non-responsive. Adding a few cycles may not cost much high but, when many processes are doing that, the server may go into high CPU usage.

As seen before, SET STATISTICS TIME ON command displays the CPU time taken. Again, this option could not be used to get the information into a table or spread sheet application for further analysis. However, this refers the actual time taken for execution and not the estimated time calculated by the compiler

Again, Trace events (wither from server side or from client side using Profiler) could be used to capture the CPU usage. This is the actual usage during the execution and not the expected CPU time. The best events to capture CPU time are

Stored Procedures

* RPC: Completed
* Sp: Stmt Completed

TSQL

* SQL: Batch Completed
* SQL: Stmt Completed

SP: Completed event under stored procedure section cannot be used to capture CPU cost.

@@CPU_BUSY system global variable displays the time (in ticks) the CPU was busy since the last restart. It adds the time from all CPUs. When that number is multiplied by another global variable @@TIMETICKS it results the microseconds the CPU was busy. By selecting the values before and after the execution of the query, The CPU time taken by the query could be calculated. However, @@CPU_BUSY always return a whole number.

The set commands (SET SHOWPLAN_ALL ON, SET SHOWPLAN_XML ON and ET STATISTICS PROFILE ON) display the not the actual CPU cost, but the estimated cost along with other information. When the first two commands are issued, only the estimated execution plan is generated and the expected CPU cost (and expected IO cost) which the (actual) execution plan used will be displayed. Even though the last command does not prevent the code from being executed, it also displays the estimated cost from the plan used for execution.

The estimated costs do play a part when analyzing a query and optimizing it. However, it cannot be used to measure the performance of a query.

Windows Operating system comes with a tool called PerfMon.exe. The display name of the utility differs from operating system to operating system. In Windows XP and Windows 2003 it is named as "Performance". During the Windows 2000 days it had the name as "System Monitor". Even before, it was called as "Performance Monitor". This tool is mainly used to measure the activities happening at the server. Even though it has mechanism to monitor CPU usage Disk activity and Memory usage (and many more), it is not useful to monitor the resource usage as per a single query. Rather, it could be used to monitor the activities and the change when large column of transactions happen. This article excludes this tool from evaluation.

IO Cost

IO cost is one of the critical costs of the system. As discussed in the beginning, IO is one of the critical resources and unless IO cost is kept low, the performance of the stored procedure will go down. Cached pages (Cached page = 8kb of data loaded from hard disk into memory) may increase the performance by not reading the data from hard disk.

SET STATISTICS IO ON is one of the commands that could be used to identify the IO cost. Again, it has the same issue of, SET STATISTICS TIME ON as it prints the statement in the messages tab, and it is difficult to process. A typical output looks like this:

(2750 row(s) affected)
Table 'SalesOrderHeader'. Scan count 1, logical reads 1403, physical reads 1, read-ahead reads 1, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

1. The above lines stats quite a few information against this query which uses Sales.SalesOrderHeader:
2. A total of 1403 pages were read to complete the query (logical reads 1403).
3. Out of the above pages, only one page was read (physical reads 1) from disk and the rest were either already in memory or read into data cache by the read-ahead mechanism.
4. 1 page was read into the data cache by the read-ahead mechanism.
5. The pages were read from disk through a single pass scan.
6. The rest refers to large objects and if there is no large object (like nvarchar(MAX) or text) involved in the query, the figures will show zero values.

In this example, even though logical scan shows as 1403, it does not mean the query has processed 14903 distinct pages. If a particular page is scanned twice, the local scan will consider it as two. To get clear picture of actual pages scanned, DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS should be executed (to make the pages loaded before to be dropped) and the sum of physical and read-ahead reads to be calculated.

These statistics related commands can be combined with Print statements to identify the cost involved in each statement. These are really useful to identify the IO operations and the cost of them.

Using profiler (or server side trace events) the read and write (of pages) occurred could be captured. It will differentiate the pages read and pages written separately, but not the pages already in memory and read from disk. All the events mentioned for CPU cost could be used to capture reads and writes.

The dynamic management view sys.dm_exec_query_stats also could be used to view IO Cost. Simply adding the following columns in the query specified to measure elapsed time will give the details:

* total_physical_reads
* last_physical_reads
* min_physical_reads
* max_physical_reads
* total_logical_writes
* last_logical_writes
* min_logical_writes
* max_logical_writes
* total_logical_reads
* last_logical_reads
* min_logical_reads
* max_logical_reads

This view does not separate read-ahead reads and LOB related reads/writes. However, this could be used as calculated statistics against a query.

The details of this view will be available until the cache is cleared. If a stored procedure is not used for some time it will be removed from memory. Until such time this view could be used to gather data.

In the development environment, it is better to clear the cache (both data cache and proc cache) before starting with any tests.

Additionally, @@IO_BUSY also be used to measure the IO time. Like the CPU counterpart this system variable displays the number of ticks which the IO was busy. By using the same calculation method used to calculate CPU time, the microseconds of IO time also could be calculated.

What is important

The importance of these counters may differ from environment to environment and based on the nature and time of operation. For example during busy hours for some organizations it may be more important to serve as many requests as possible rather than responding faster. (A job could be done faster if all resources are used; but it may lead to system hanging for some time or no response to other requests.) Additionally, performance is also works with the mindset of the end users (users complain only when their expectations are not met!) and the developers need to understand and meet these expectations. When writing the stored procedures, developers need to analyze the critical area in the system they are working with, and choose the importance to the counters appropriately.

Conclusion

This article describes different counters used for measuring performance and ways of calculating them. This article also described on the issues with those methods and ways of overcoming them. These counters are useful for measuring how a stored procedure behaves and to optimize them.

source : http://sqlserveruniverse.com/content/PERF0600104282008MeasuringPerformanceOfStoredProcedures.aspx

Verification and Validation Techniques

2008-05-23T13:13:00.000+07:00

Software Verification and Validation (V&V) is the process of ensuring that software being developed or changed will satisfy functional and other requirements (validation) andeach step in the process of building the software yields the right products (verification).

Verification Techniques

There are many different verification techniques but they all basically fall into two major categories - dynamic testing and static testing.

* Dynamic testing - Testing that involves the execution of a system or component. Basically, a number of test cases are chosen, where each test case consists of test data. These input test cases are used to determine output test results. Dynamic testing can be further divided into three categories - functional testing, structural testing, and random testing.

* Functional testing - Testing that involves identifying and testing all the functions of the system as defined within the requirements. This form of testing is an example of black-box testing since it involves no knowledge of the implementation of the system.
* Structural testing - Testing that has full knowledge of the implementation of the system and is an example of white-box testing. It uses the information from the internal structure of a system to devise tests to check the operation of individual components. Functional and structural testing both chooses test cases that investigate a particular characteristic of the system.
* Random testing - Testing that freely chooses test cases among the set of all possible test cases. The use of randomly determined inputs can detect faults that go undetected by other systematic testing techniques. Exhaustive testing, where the input test cases consists of every possible set of input values, is a form of random testing. Although exhaustive testing performed at every stage in the life cycle results in a complete verification of the system, it is realistically impossible to accomplish. [Andriole86]

* Static testing - Testing that does not involve the operation of the system or component. Some of these techniques are performed manually while others are automated. Static testing can be further divided into 2 categories - techniques that analyze consistency and techniques that measure some program property.

* Consistency techniques - Techniques that are used to insure program properties such as correct syntax, correct parameter matching between procedures, correct typing, and correct requirements and specifications translation.
* Measurement techniques - Techniques that measure properties such as error proneness, understandibility, and well-structuredness. [Andriole86]

Validation Techniques

Validation usually takes place at the end of the development cycle, and looks at the complete system as opposed to verification, which focuses on smaller sub-systems.

* Formal methods - Formal methods is not only a verification technique but also a validation technique. Formal methods means the use of mathematical and logical techniques to express, investigate, and analyze the specification, design, documentation, and behavior of both hardware and software.

* Fault injection - Fault injection is the intentional activation of faults by either hardware or software means to observe the system operation under fault conditions.

* Hardware fault injection - Can also be called physical fault injection because we are actually injecting faults into the physical hardware.
* Software fault injection - Errors are injected into the memory of the computer by software techniques. Software fault injection is basically a simulation of hardware fault injection.

* Dependability analysis - Dependability analysis involves identifying hazards and then proposing methods that reduces the risk of the hazard occuring.

* Hazard analysis - Involves using guidelines to identify hazards, their root causes, and possible countermeasures.
* Risk analysis - Takes hazard analysis further by identifying the possible consequences of each hazard and their probability of occuring. [Kopetz97]

The IEEE Standard for Software Verification and Validation (IEEE Std 1012-1998) contains information on software integrity levels, the V & V process, the Software V & V reporting, administrative, and documentation requirements, and an outline of the software verification and validation plan.

Verification and validation is a very time consuming process as it consists of planning from the start, the development of test cases, the actual testing, and the analysis of the testing results. It is important that there are people specifically in charge of V & V that can work with the designers. Since exhaustive testing is not feasible for any complex system, an issue that occurs is how much testing is enough testing. Sure, the more testing the better but when do the cost and time of testing outweigh the advantages gained from testing.

source : http://softwareqatestings.com/testing-and-qa/introduction-to-software-testing/verification-and-validation-techniques.html

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Basics for Testings

2008-05-23T13:11:00.001+07:00

* SOA is an architecture that relies on service-orientation as its fundamental design principle. Service-orientation describes an architecture that uses loosely coupled(Loose coupling describes a resilient relationship between two or more systems or organizations with some kind of exchange relationship) services to support the requirements of business processes and users.
* SOA is a design for linking business and computational resources (principally, organizations, applications and data) on demand to achieve the desired results for service consumers (which can be end users or other services).
* SOA may be built on Web services standards (e.g., using SOAP) that have gained broad industry acceptance. These standards (also referred to as web service specifications) also provide greater interoperability and some protection from lock-in to proprietary vendor software. One can, however, implement SOA using any service-based technology

Why Service Oriented Architecture?

* Enables flexible connectivity of applications or resources.
* Promotes encapsulation which enables re-use: each aspect of your business is captured and implemented in only one place, so changing it is straightforward.
* Requires the use of implementation independent interfaces which means that heterogeneous systems can be integrated, and changes to one lead to fewer negative effects.
* Enabler for process modeling and automation. With clearly defined interfaces between all business systems, you can start modeling (and changing) the business process captured by them at a level above individual systems.

Why testers should know SOA testing?

* Usually testers test a web based application based on UI is a general practice. But testing application implemented on SOA technology needs testing the web services. SOA-based environments can include many services which exchange messages to perform tasks. Depending on the design, a single application may generate millions of messages. Managing and providing information on how services interact is a complicated task. Hence It becomes essential for the testers to test these services whether they are functioning properly.
*

What is a Web Service?

A web service is a collection of protocols and standards used for exchanging data between applications or systems . A Web Service is a software component that is described via WSDL and is capable of being accessed via standard network protocols such as but not limited to SOAP over HTTP Software applications written in various programming languages and running on various platforms can use web services to exchange data over computer networks like the Internet in a manner similar to inter-process communication on a single computer. Web service is any piece of software that makes itself available over the Internet and uses a standardized XML messaging system

What is SOAP?

* SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a simple XML-based protocol to let applications exchange information over HTTP
* This is a communication protocol which communicates between different Apps
* It is a format for sending messages and is designed to communicate via Internet
* SOAP is platform and language independent and is developed as a W3C standard

* What is JMS?
* Java messaging service is the standard API for sending and receiving messages . It has two message protocols: point to point and pub/sub instead of only one, as many earlier middleware systems did. Additionally, JMS also doesn't care whether you use a wire or wireless protocol, and provide different levels of message delivery assurance as well.

* What is ESB?
* ESB( Enterprise Service Bus) is a set of tools and programs that can share information based on messages. The messages (mostly xml) are created and published and received over TCP/IP by deamons/applications/adapters that listen to the protocol
* Most ESB providers now build ESBs to incorporate SOA principles and increase their sales, e.g. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL).

What is WSDL?

* WSDL stands for Web Services Description Language
* WSDL is written in XML
* WSDL is an XML document
* WSDL is used to describe Web services
* WSDL is also used to locate Web services
* WSDL is a W3C standard
* WSDL is a document written in XML. The document describes a Web service. It specifies the location of the service and the operations (or methods) the service exposes

What is SCA?

* The Service Component Architecture "provides an open, technology neutral model for implementing IT services that are defined in terms of a business function and make middleware functions more accessible to the application developer. SCA also provides a model for the assembly of business solutions from collections of individual services, with control over aspects of the solution such as access methods and security.

SOA Testing challenges

* Different service implementation

- Web Service (WSDL)

- SCA (SCDL)

- EJB

- Others (JMS or XML/MQ)

* Distribute environment

- Loose coupled services are developed independently by different parties.

- Services may depend on the implement of other services

- Hard to do problem determination

* Test need to be as early as possible

- How can we start testing a service though its dependency services are not available?

- How to do testing the process while some dependency service are not available?

* Test need to be as much as possible

- How to verify service implementation is good

- How to verify a set of service operations can work together

* Automatically test business process

- How to test a process with human tasks?

- How to test an timeout branch?

* Event Driven Programming model with SOA

- Fire and forget model: no answer to a service call

- Publish and subscribe model: one to many

* High Skill requirement to tester

- Tester must code test cases manually

- Many standards and programming model to understand

source : http://softwareqatestings.com/testing-and-qa/web-testing/service-oriented-architecture-soa-basics-for-testings.html

Nilai yang berbeda

2008-05-23T10:03:00.000+07:00

Sudah tepatkah keberadaan anda sekarang?

Ada 3 kaleng coca cola, ketiga kaleng tersebut diproduksi di pabrik yang sama

Ketika tiba harinya, sebuah truk datang ke pabrik, mengangkut kaleng-kaleng coca cola dan menuju ke tempat yang berbeda untuk pendistribusian.

Pemberhentian pertama adalah supermaket lokal. Kaleng coca cola pertama di turunkan disini. Kaleng itu dipajang di rak bersama dengan kaleng coca cola lainnya dan diberi harga Rp. 4.000.

Pemberhentian kedua adalah pusat perbelanjaan besar. Di sana , kaleng kedua diturunkan. Kaleng tersebut ditempatkan di dalam kulkas supaya dingin dan dijual dengan harga Rp. 7.500.

Pemberhentian terakhir adalah hotel bintang 5 yang sangat mewah. Kaleng coca cola ketiga diturunkan di sana . Kaleng ini tidak ditempatkan di rak atau di dalam kulkas. Kaleng ini hanya akan dikeluarkan jika ada pesanan dari pelanggan. Dan ketika ada yang pesan, kaleng ini dikeluarkan besama dengan gelas kristal berisi batu es. Semua disajikan di atas baki dan pelayan hotel akan membuka kaleng coca cola itu, menuangkannya ke dalam gelas dan dengan sopan menyajikannya ke pelanggan. Harganya Rp. 60.000.

Sekarang, pertanyaannya adalah : Mengapa ketiga kaleng coca cola tersebut memiliki harga yang berbeda padahal diproduksi dari pabrik yang sama, diantar dengan truk yang sama dan bahkan mereka memiliki rasa yang sama ?

Lingkungan Anda mencerminkan harga Anda. Lingkungan berbicara tentang RELATIONSHIP.

Apabila Anda berada dilingkungan yang bisa mengeluarkan terbaik dari diri Anda, maka Anda akan menjadi cemerlang. Tapi bila Anda berada dilingkungan yang meng-kerdil-kan diri Anda, maka Anda akan menjadi kerdil.

(Orang yang sama, bakat yang sama, kemampuan yang sama) + lingkungan yang berbeda = NILAI YANG BERBEDA

http://www.beraniegagal.com

Kenapa Harus Menikah? (persepektif Islam)

2008-05-16T07:41:00.000+07:00

Berikut beberapa alasan mengapa harus menikah, semoga bisa memotivasi kaum
muslimin untuk memeriahkan dunia dengan nikah.
Berikut beberapa alasan mengapa harus menikah, semoga bisa memotivasi kaum
muslimin untuk memeriahkan dunia dengan nikah.

1. Melengkapi agamanya
"Barang siapa menikah, maka ia telah melengkapi separuh dari agamanya. Dan
hendaklah ia bertaqwa kepada Allah dalam memelihara yang separuhnya lagi. (HR.
Thabrani dan Hakim).

2. Menjaga kehormatan diri
"Wahai para pemuda! Barang siapa diantara kalian berkemampuan untuk nikah, maka
nikahlah, karena nikah itu lebih mudah menundukkan pandangan dan lebih
membentengi farji (kemaluan). Dan barang siapa yang tidak mampu, maka hendaklah
ia puasa, karena puasa itu dapat membentengi dirinya. (HSR. Ahmad, Bukhari,
Muslim, Tirmidzi, Nasaiy, Darimi, Ibnu Jarud dan Baihaqi).

3. Senda guraunya suami-istri bukanlah perbuatan sia-sia
"Segala sesuatu yang di dalamnya tidak mengandung dzikrullah merupakan perbuatan
sia-sia, senda gurau, dan permainan, kecuali empat (perkara), yaitu senda gurau
suami dengan istrinya, melatih kuda, berlatih memanah, dan mengajarkan renang."
(Buku Adab Az Zifaf Al Albani hal 245; Silsilah Al Ahadits Ash Shahihah no.
309).

Hidup berkeluarga merupakan ladang meraih pahala
4. Bersetubuh dengan istri termasuk sedekah
Pernah ada beberapa shahabat Nabi SAW berkata kepada beliau, "Wahai Rasulullah,
orang-orang kaya telah memborong pahala. Mereka bisa shalat sebagaimana kami
shalat; mereka bisa berpuasa sebagaimana kami berpuasa; bahkan mereka bisa
bersedekah dengan kelebihan harta mereka." Beliau bersabda, "Bukankah Allah
telah memberikan kepada kalian sesuatu yang bisa kalian sedekahkan? Pada
tiap-tiap ucapan tasbih terdapat sedekah; (pada tiap-tiap ucapan takbir terdapat
sedekah; pada tiap-tiap ucapan tahlil terdapat sedekah; pada tiap-tiap ucapan
tahmid terdapat sedekah); memerintahkan perbuatan baik adalah sedekah; mencegah
perbuatan munkar adalah sedekah; dan kalian bersetubuh dengan istri pun
sedekah." Mereka bertanya, "Wahai Rasulullah, kok bisa salah seorang dari kami
melampiaskan syahwatnya akan mendapatkan pahala?" Beliau menjawab, "Bagaimana
menurut kalian bila nafsu syahwatnya itu dia salurkan pada tempat yang haram,
apakah dia akan mendapatkan dosa dengan
sebab perbuatannya itu?" (Mereka menjawab, "Ya, tentu." Beliau bersabda,)
"Demikian pula bila dia salurkan syahwatnya itu pada tempat yang halal, dia pun
akan mendapatkan pahala." (Beliau kemudian menyebutkan beberapa hal lagi yang
beliau padankan masing-masingnya dengan sebuah sedekah, lalu beliau bersabda,
"Semua itu bisa digantikan cukup dengan shalat dua raka'at Dhuha.") (Buku Adab
Az Zifaf Al Albani hal 125).

5. Adanya saling nasehat-menasehati

6. Bisa mendakwahi orang yang dicintai

7. Pahala memberi contoh yang baik
"Siapa saja yang pertama memberi contoh perilaku yang baik dalam Islam, maka ia
mendapatkan pahala kebaikannya dan mendapatkan pahala orang-orang yang meniru
perbuatannya itu tanpa dikurangi sedikit pun. Dan barang siapa yang pertama
memberi contoh perilaku jelek dalam Islam, maka ia mendapatkan dosa kejahatan
itu dan mendapatkan dosa orang yang meniru perbuatannya tanpa dikurangi sedikit
pun." (HR. Muslim, Buku Riyadush Shalihin Bab Orang yang pertama kali melakukan
kebaikan atau kejahatan.)

Bagaimana menurut Anda bila ada seorang kepala keluarga yang memberi contoh
perbuatan yang baik bagi keluarganya dan ditiru oleh istri dan anak-anaknya?
Demikian juga sebaliknya bila seorang kepala keluarga memberi contoh yang jelek
bagi keluarganya?

8. Seorang suami memberikan nafkah, makan, minum, dan pakaian kepada istrinya
dan keluarganya akan terhitung sedekah yang paling utama. Dan akan diganti oleh
Allah, ini janji Allah.
Dari Abu Hurairah r.a., ia berkata: Rasulullah SAW, bersabda: "Satu dinar yang
kamu nafkahkan di jalan Allah, satu dinar yang kamu nafkahkan untuk memerdekakan
budak, satu dinar yang kamu berikan kepada orang miskin dan satu dinar yang kamu
nafkahkan kepada keluargamu, maka yang paling besar pahalanya yaitu satu dinar
yang kamu nafkahkan kepada keluargamu." (HR Muslim, Buku Riyadush Shalihin Bab
Memberi nafkah terhadap keluarga).

Dari Abu Abdullah (Abu Abdurrahman) Tsauban bin Bujdud., ia berkata: Rasulullah
SAW bersabda: "Dinar yang paling utama adalah dinar yang dinafkahkan seseorang
kepada keluarganya, dinar yang dinafkahkan untuk kendaraan di jalan Allah, dan
dinar yang dinafkahkan untuk membantu teman seperjuangan di jalan Allah." (HR.
Muslim, Buku Riyadush Shalihin Bab Memberi nafkah terhadap keluarga).

Seorang suami lebih utama menafkahkan hartanya kepada keluarganya daripada
kepada yang lain karena beberapa alasan, diantaranya adalah nafkahnya kepada
keluarganya adalah kewajiban dia, dan nafkah itu akan menimbulkan kecintaan
kepadanya.

Muawiyah bin Haidah RA., pernah bertanya kepada Rasulullah SAW: 'Wahai
Rasulullah, apa hak istri terhadap salah seorang di antara kami?" Beliau
menjawab dengan bersabda, "Berilah makan bila kamu makan dan berilah pakaian
bila kamu berpakaian. Janganlah kamu menjelekkan wajahnya, janganlah kamu
memukulnya, dan janganlah kamu memisahkannya kecuali di dalam rumah. Bagaimana
kamu akan berbuat begitu terhadapnya, sementara sebagian dari kamu telah bergaul
dengan mereka, kecuali kalau hal itu telah dihalalkan terhadap mereka." (Adab Az
Zifaf Syaikh Albani hal 249).

Dari Sa'ad bin Abi Waqqash RA., dalam hadits yang panjang yang kami tulis pada
bab niat, ia berkata: Rasulullah SAW bersabda kepadanya: "Sesungguhnya apa saja
yang kamu nafkahkan dengan maksud kamu mencari keridhaan Allah, niscaya kamu
akan diberi pahala sampai apa saja yang kamu sediakan untuk istrimu." (HR.
Bukhari dan Muslim, Buku Riyadush Shalihin Bab Memberi nafkah terhadap keluarga)

Dari Abdullah bin Amr bin 'Ash ra., ia berkata: Rasulullah SAW bersabda:
"Seseorang cukup dianggap berdosa apabila ia menyianyiaka orang yang harus
diberi belanja." (HR. Bukhari dan Muslim, Buku Riyadush Shalihin Bab Memberi
nafkah terhadap keluarga).

Dan akan diganti oleh Allah, ini janji Allah

"Dan barang apa saja yang kamu nafkahkan maka Allah akan menggantinya. " (Saba':
39).

Dari Abu Hurairah RA, ia berkata: Nabi SAW bersabda: "Setiap pagi ada dua
malaikat yang datang kepada seseorang, yang satu berdoa: "Ya Allah, berikanlah
ganti kepada orang yang menafkahkan hartanya." Dan yang lain berdoa: "Ya Allah,
binasakanlah harta orang yang kikir." (HR. Bukhari dan Muslim, Buku Riyadush
Shalihin Bab Memberi nafkah terhadap keluarga).

9. Seorang pria yang menikahi janda yang mempunyai anak, berarti ikut memelihara
anak yatim

Janji Allah berupa pertolongan- Nya bagi mereka yang menikah.
1. Dan kawinkanlah orang-orang yang sendirian diantara kamu dan orang-orang yang
layak (berkawin) dari hamba-hamba sahayamu yang laki-laki dan perempuan. Jika
mereka miskin Allah akan memampukan mereka dengan karunia-Nya. Dan Allah Maha
Luas (Pemberian-Nya) lagi Maha Mengetahui. (An Nur: 32)
2. Ada tiga golongan manusia yang berhak Allah tolong mereka, yaitu seorang
mujahid fi sabilillah, seorang hamba yang menebus dirinya supaya merdeka dan
seorang yang menikah karena ingin memelihara kehormatannya. (HR. Ahmad 2: 251,
Nasaiy, Tirmidzi, Ibnu Majah hadits no. 2518, dan Hakim 2: 160)

sumber :
Erwin Arianto,SE
Internal Auditor
PT.Sanyo Indonesia
Ejip Industrial Park Plot 1a Cikarang-Bekasi

Berpikir Positif

2008-05-15T18:11:00.001+07:00

Tadi pagi saya dengar satu cerita perumpamaan yang sangat bagus dari sebuah radio lokal..bagi saya layak untuk dibagikan..cerita tentang seorang ceria dan pemurung. si ceria yang mempunyai sebuah handphone selalu dengan senang hati meminjamkan kepada si pemurung jika membutuhkan untuk telepon ke teman-temannya atau kerumah. Sebaliknya si pemurung yang secara sengaja tidak mempunyai handphone karena dalam pikiran si pemurung, jika mempunyai handphone maka dia harus dengan berat meminjamkan juga kepada si ceria atau teman-temannya. Bahkan si pemurung selalu merasa orang tuanya tidak menyayanginya dan selalu mengeluarkan keluhan kepada orang tuanya. Orang tua dari si ceria dan pemurung mengetahui hal ini dan situasi yang ada diantara si ceria dan pemurung. Maka itu mereka berencana untuk melakukan pengujian terhadap mereka berdua. Mereka ingin bisa masing-masing dari anak mereka merasakan perasaan yang berbeda dengan kebiasaannya sehari-hari.

Orang tua mereka memberikan si pemurung sebuah handphone dengan harapan agar dapat merasakan sukacita. Hadiah tersebut ditaruh diatas tempat tidur dan ketika si pemurung pulang dari sekolah, secepat mungkin membuka hadiah tersebut dan tersenyum selama dalam proses membuka hadiahnya. Namun senyum itu berubah lagi ketika mengetahui bahwa hadiah yang diberikan adalah sebuah handphone. Seketika pikiran negatif muncul, jika si pemurung mempunyai handphone maka dia harus menanggung beban bahwa si ceria dan teman-temannya akan meminjam dan akhirnya menjadi rusak. Atau muncul juga pikiran mengapa orang tuanya memberikan handphone? Dan keluhan-keluhan lain yang terus diucapkan oleh si pemurung.

Sedangkan si ceria diberikan hadiah kotoran kuda oleh orang tuanya. Alasan mengapa dihadiahkan begitu karena si ceria adalah orang yang selalu ceria dan melihat segala sesuatu dalam pandangan positif. Oleh karena itu, sang orang tua berusaha agar si ceria mengalami perasaan yang sangat sedih dan ingin melihat bagaimana reaksi kelanjutan si ceria. Ketika hadiah tersebut ditaruh dikotak dan dibuka oleh si ceria, reaksi ceria langsung bingung dan mengerutkan kening sesaat. Dan sambil berpikir keras, dan akhirnya mulai tersenyum kecil dan akhirnya semakin tersenyum dengan lepasnya. Lalu si ceria langsung bertanya kepada orang tuanya sambil tersenyum,

"Aku tahu mengapa ayah dan ibu memberikan kado ini!".

Sang orang tua kebingungan dan membalas,"Mengapa kamu tersenyum nak? padahal kami memberikan hadiah seperti itu?". Si ceria menjawab,

"Awalnya sedikit bingung tapi aku tahu kalau ayah dan ibu pasti akan memberikan sesuatu yang lebih besar dan jauh lebih baik dari hadiah yang aku terima ini!"

"Mengapa kamu berpikir seperti itu?", tanya balik sang ayah dengan cepat.

"Karena aku tahu kalo ayah dan ibu sayang ama aku sehingga hadiah itu hanya salah satu petunjuk akan hadiah yang jauuuhh lebih bagus..!! Pasti ayah akan memberikan aku seekor kuda yang sangat baguus kan?? hayo ngaku!! ", sambil bertanya dengan semangat.

Sang orang tua akhirnya tersenyum dan mengiyakan pemberian seekor kuda yang sangat bagus kepada si ceria.

Cerita ini menunjukkan pada saya 3 hal dimana hal tersebut bersifat sangat mendasar namun sulit untuk dilakukan.

1. Semangat untuk berpikir POSITIF dalam semua keadaan.

Berpikir positif adalah hal mendasar yang telah diberikan Tuhan semenjak kita lahir. Namun seiring bertambah usia dimana banyak pengaruh pikiran negatif dalam lingkungan kita maka membuat cara berpikir semakin sering dalam kondisi negatif. Bahkan banyak pengalaman dari hidup yang mengkondisikan dalam pengalaman negatif akhirnya memaksa kita terus menerus untuk melakukan kebiasaan berpikir negatif.

Dari cerita diatas, juga menunjukkan bahwa hidup tidaklah selalu dalam keadaan yang baik-baik saja. Akan ada banyak tantangan, kesulitan dan masalah yang memaksa kita dalam kondisi tidak baik-baik saja. Nah, saat itulah dibutuhkan Pikiran POSITIF yang dapat membawa kita lebih mantap dan stabil dalam menghadapi kondisi yang tidak baik-baik tersebut. Namun akan ada banyak pendapat bahwa melakukan Pemikiran Positif tidaklah berpengaruh banyak terhadap kondisi emosi kita atau juga ada yang berpendapat untuk melakukannya cenderung sulit dan akhirnya tidak dilakukan.

Memang yang saya tuliskan disini bukannya berarti saya sendiri tidak mengalami saat-saat sulit tersebut, saya sempat mengalami jatuh bangun dalam tetap konsisten meunculkan pikiran Positif tersebut. Namun yang menjadi kekuatan buat saya pada akhirnya adalah keinginan untuk terus berpikir Positif yang akhirnya membuat diri kita menjadi Terlatih. Mengenai Berpikir Positif tidak memberi banyak pengaruh kepada kondisi emosi kita, hal ini terjadi karena memang diri kita terbiasa untuk melakukan pemikiran secara Negatif. Maka itu disaat kita melakukan Pemikiran secara Positif maka bawa semua bagian dari diri kita untuk IKUT berpikir Positif. Nantinya keputusan selanjutnya yang kita ambil akan semakin lebih jernih dan atmosfir tergesa-gesa akan hilang. Sehingga dampaknya tindakan kita selanjutnya akan lebih baik. Pikiran Positif = Emosi lebih tenang + Mampu mengambil keputusan dengan dapak yang lebih baik + Lingkungan sekitar akan ikut terkena imbas positif.

2. Yakin bahwa segala sesuatu yang kita kerjakan dengan baik akan membawa TUJUAN AKHIR dan BERKAT yang lebih baik.

Hal ini ditunjukkan dengan cara berpikir si ceria yang awalnya bingung namun akhirnya berpikir bahwa segala sesuatu yang terlihat jelek dan tidak baik serta berat untuk dilakukan akan berakhir dengan hadiah kehidupan yang jauh lebih baik. Tetapi ada syarat khusus supaya kita benar-benar akan mendapatkan Tujuan Akhir dan Berkat yang lebih baik yaitu asalkan kita melakukan apa yang kita kerjakan tidak merugikan orang lain dan malah membawa kebaikan buat orang lain serta diri kita sendiri. Saya pernah ditanya oleh orang dalam satu sesi presentasi, " Menurut Anda apa yang disebut dengan BAIK dan SALAH?". Terus terang saya kesulitan untuk menjawab pertanyaan ini namun ada 1 hal yang menjadi kepastian dan tetap saya yakini sampai saat ini adalah nilai kebaikan itu tergantung dampak yang diterima oleh orang lain/sekitar kita dan diri kita sendiri. Jadi yang disebut BAIK adalah selama pekerjaan tersebut tidak merugikan orang lain kecuali memang orang lain itu sengaja berpikiran tidak baik terhadap kita. Karena itu diperlukan third party justification yang melibatkan orang lain yang cukup obyektif untuk memberi evaluasi apakah tindakan kita termasuk kategori Baik atau Tidak.

Nah penjelasan Baik atau Tidak Baik ini berkaitan dengan keyakinan pada point 2 diatas. Memang butuh proses internal yang mendalam dan kontinyu, namun saya pikir inilah resiko yang harus diambil ketika kita berkehendak menjadi manusia yang semakin Sempurna di bumi.

3. Berkaitan dengan manusia Sempurna di Bumi dengan point no.2 diatas,untuk mampu dengan keyakinan bahwa kita mempunyai Tujuan Akhir dan Berkat yang lebih baik maka kita harus mempunyai hubungan yang baik dengan Tuhan Pencipta kita. Dalam cerita diatas, si anak yang ceria tersebut mempunyai pengalaman yang dalam dengan sang orang tua dan membuat anak tersebut mempunyai keyakinan bahwa sang orang tua tidak akan memberikan hadiah yang tidak baik. Walaupun kenyataannya, si ceria diberikan hadiah yang tidak baik tetapi si ceria dapat melihat hal yang lebih besar dan lebih indah dari sang orang tua berdasarkan keyakinan tersebut. Maka itu, sebaiknya masing-masing dari kita mempunyai hubungan yang baik dengan Tuan Pencipta kita. Dengan begitu, segala sesuatu yang kita kerjakan membuat hidup menjadi lebih baik baik untuk diri kita sendiri dan orang sekitar kita.

3 hal diatas merupakan pengetahuan dasar dalam hidup kita tetapi sudahkah kita melakukannya? sekedar melakukannya merupakan hal baik namun dengan konsisten melakukannya adalah hal yang jauh lebih baik bagi hidup kita. Seperti kata temen saya, "Sulit bukan berarti tidak dapat dilakukan, mudah bukan berarti dilupakan".

Sumber : Dedy M

Pemenang dan Pecundang

2008-05-15T18:10:00.001+07:00

Akhir tahun sering dipenuhi dengan perasaan waswas. Penilaian kinerja segera dilaksanakan. Bagai palu godam, hasilnya hendak meluluhlantakkan si pecundang. Jangankan bonus yang cukup untuk tamasya ke mancanegara, untuk ongkos fiskalnya pun kadang tak mencukupi. Sebaliknya, bagi pemenang, selain bonus besar, juga jaminan kenaikan gaji yang lumayan di tahun depan. Ini adalah siklus yang terus terjadi tahun demi tahun. Tak ada hal yang baru. Namun kenyataannya, gejolaknya masih dirasakan dramatis bagi banyak orang.

Si pecundang akan memainkan trik tertentu untuk memperoleh penilaian yang lebih besar dari yang seharusnya ia terima. Beribu alasan dan excuse terus dilontarkan. Industri sedang meradang, kompetisi bertambah berat, pesaing meluncurkan produk baru, prinsipal tidak

mendukung, persaingan yang tak wajar, pesaing banting harga - itu adalah alasan basi yang terus dikumandangkan. Si pecundang selalu akan menunjuk hidung orang lain sebagai biang keladi kekalahan. Lagu kata "andaikan" terus dimainkan. Andaikan bagian produksi meluncurkan produknya tahun ini; andaikan bagian keuangan menyetujui down payment

split; andaikan bagian support melakukan factory campaign. Tunjuk hidung, bukan tunjuk dada. Kesalahan bukan ditudingkan pada dirinya sendiri.

Kalau pun 8 dari 10 target tidak tercapai, si pecundang masih bisa menunjukkan bahwa dua target itu sebenarnya sangat besar implikasinya dibandingkan dengan yang 8. Pecundang memang tak pernah lelah mengibarkan kesuksesannya, walaupun bagai setitik nila di antara

sebelangga susu. Ia berusaha menjadi pemenang bagi dirinya sendiri. Sebuah penyangkalan fakta yang teramat naif.

Lain halnya dengan si pemenang, apalagi yang mendapat kategori istimewa, biasanya tak menduga mendapat predikat itu. Ia pikir biasa-biasa saja. Ia hanya berpikir yang terbaik saat ini. Kalau sang bos melihat ia memiliki prestasi prima, baginya itu sebuah pecutan untuk

lari lebih cepat lagi. Penilaian akhir tahun adalah sebuah jeda bagi si pemenang untuk mengambil ancang-ancang etape berikutnya.

Piala akhir tahun yang ia peroleh, bonus dan kenaikan gaji atau promosi, selalu beriringan dengan prestasi seluruh anggota kelompoknya. Pemenang selalu dikelilingi oleh para juara. Ia tidak pemain tunggal yang berdiri sendiri di puncak. Melainkan, ia adalah pemain kelompok yang berada di belakang sebuah kelompok juara yang saling mendukung. Pemenang tidak pernah merasa kesepian seperti pecundang. Pemenang selalu berbagi tawa dengan kelompoknya. Pemenang memiliki pendukung pemenang juga, yang pada saatnya bakal

menggantikannya sebagai pemenang baru.

Pemenang selalu merujuk pada rekan sekerja untuk menunjukkan pemenang sebenarnya. Tidak menunjuk pada dirinya sendiri. Atau meminjam teori kodok yang perlu menekan ke bawah supaya ia dapat terangkat tinggi. Hanya soal waktu, pemenang macam beginilah yang dapat bertahan. Sayangnya, banyak yang mengabaikan hukum alam ini.

Saya teringat pada sebuah cerita yang pernah saya kliping 8 tahun silam, ditulis oleh sahabat saya, Debora. Ia berujar tentang pemenang yang menang justru dalam sebuah kekalahan. Bukan menang tanpo ngasorake, melainkan menang tanpa sebuah kemenangan. Pemenang yang sejati bukan ditentukan oleh sebuah piala, atau rekor, atau medali fisik, melainkan ditentukan pula oleh sikapnya sebagai pemenang tatkala medali dan piala itu justru ia berikan kepada orang lain. Ia bisa dan mampu meraihnya, tetapi ia sadar bahwa medali ini sebaiknya

diserahkan kepada orang lain agar mereka menikmati kemenangan. Ia sendiri larut dalam kenikmatan kemenangan orang lain.

Begini ceritanya. Kim Peek, seorang anak yang menderita kerusakan otak, ikut dalam lomba lari 50 meter di olimpiade khusus kaum cacat tahun 1968. Sebagai atlet yang mewakili negaranya, Kim berharap membawa pulang medali karena ia memiliki rekor lari dengan kursi roda

yang fantastis. Ia menanti hari pertandingan dengan antusias persis seperti atlet normal lainnya.

Saat pertandingan tiba, Kim dan kedua peserta lain memasuki arena pertandingan yang kala itu sudah di babak final. Kim bergerak cepat mendahului kedua lawannya ketika pistol berbunyi tanda perlombaan dimulai. Dia berada 20 meter di depan dan 10 meter dari garis akhir

pada saat ia mendengar bunyi benda yang tertubruk di belakangnya. Ia memperlambat laju kursi rodanya. Ia melihat ke belakang.

Ia melihat seorang lawannya, anak perempuan, terbentur dinding. Kursi rodanya berbalik arah dan ia kesulitan untuk mengembalikan ke arah semula. Kim melihat, peserta lainnya - anak laki-laki - berusaha mendorong kursi roda si anak perempuan untuk kembali pada arah yang

tepat.

Kim berhenti. Lalu ia pun berbalik dan menolong si anak perempuan sehingga kembali seperti semula. Bukan hanya itu. Dengan segenap kekuatannya, ia mendorong kursi roda si anak perempuan sampai ke garis akhir. Anak laki-laki yang sempat berbalik arah tadi memenangi

perlombaan itu; sementara si anak perempuan meraih juara kedua; sedangkan Kim kalah.

Benarkah Kim kalah? Para penonton berdiri memberi tepuk tangan meriah untuk Kim. Mereka tidak berpikir bahwa Kim kalah. Kim tersenyum, ia merangkul si anak perempuan dan si anak laki-laki yang menjadi lawannya. Kim memang kehilangan medali emas, tetapi ia puas.

Kim adalah pemenang sejati. Sejatinya ia tidak merasa kehilangan medali. Ia tidak merasa kalah. Ia adalah sosok pemenang yang dibutuhkan bangsa ini untuk maju. Memberi jalan agar yang lain berada di karpet merah kemenangan. Ia tersenyum bangga, bahwa ia telah

melahirkan jawara baru. Ia adalah jawara sejati. Kapan kita bisa seperti Kim?

Sumber: Pemenang dan Pecundang oleh Paulus Bambang W.S.

Bergerak

2008-05-15T18:08:00.000+07:00

“Sebagian besar orang yang melihat belum tentu bergerak, dan yang bergerak belum tentu menyelesaikan (perubahan).”

Kalimat ini mungkin sudah pernah Anda baca dalam buku baru Saya, “ChaNge”. Minggu lalu, dalam sebuah seminar yang diselenggarakan Indosat, iseng-iseng Saya mengeluarkan dua lembaran Rp 50.000. Di tengah-tengah ratusan orang yang tengah menyimak isi buku, Saya tawarkan uang itu. “Silahkan, siapa yang mau boleh ambil,” ujar Saya. Saya menunduk ke bawah menghindari tatapan ke muka audiens sambil menjulurkan uang Rp 100.000.

Seperti yang Saya duga, hampir semua audiens hanya diam terkesima. Saya ulangi kalimat Saya beberapa kali dengan mimik muka yang lebih serius. Beberapa orang tampak tersenyum, ada yang mulai menarik badannya dari sandaran kursi, yang lain lagi menendang kaki temannya. Seorang ibu menyuruh temannya maju, tetapi mereka semua tak bergerak. Belakangan, dua orang pria maju ke depan sambil celingak-celinguk. Orang yang maju dari sisi sebelah kanan mulanya bergerak cepat, tapi ia segera menghentikan langkahnya dan termangu, begitu melihat seseorang dari sisi sebelah kiri lebih cepat ke depan. Ia lalu kembali ke kursinya. Sekarang hanya tinggal satu orang saja yang sudah berada di depan Saya. Gerakannya begitu cepat, tapi tangannya berhenti manakala uang itu disentuhnya. Saya dapat merasakan tarikan uang yang dilakukan dengan keragu-raguan. Semua audiens tertegun.

Saya ulangi pesan Saya, “Silahkan ambil, silahkan ambil.” Ia menatap wajah Saya, dan Saya pun menatapnya dengan wajah lucu. Audiens tertawa melihat keberanian anak muda itu. Saya ulangi lagi kalimat Saya, dan Ia pun merampas uang kertas itu dari tangan Saya dan kembali ke kursinya. Semua audiens tertawa terbahak-bahak. Seseorang lalu berteriak, “Kembalikan, kembalikan!” Saya mengatakan, “Tidak usah. Uang itu sudah menjadi miliknya.”

Setidaknya, dengan permainan itu seseorang telah menjadi lebih kaya Rp.100.000. Saya tanya kepada mereka, mengapa hampir semua diam, tak bergerak. Bukankah uang yang Saya sodorkan tadi adalah sebuah kesempatan? Mereka pun menjawab dengan berbagai alasan:

“Saya pikir Bapak cuma main-main ............”
“Nanti uangnya toh diambil lagi.”
“Malu-maluin aja.”
“Saya tidak mau kelihatan nafsu. Kita harus tetap terlihat cool!”
“Saya enggak yakin bapak benar-benar akan memberikan uang itu .....”
“Pasti ada orang lain yang lebih membutuhkannya....”
“Saya harus tunggu dulu instruksi yang lebih jelas.....”
“Saya takut salah, nanti cuma jadi tertawaan doang.........”
“Saya, kan duduk jauh di belakang...”
dan seterusnya.

Saya jelaskan bahwa jawaban mereka sama persis dengan tindakan mereka sehari-hari. Hampir setiap saat kita dilewati oleh rangkaian opportunity (kesempatan), tetapi kesempatan itu dibiarkan pergi begitu saja. Kita tidak menyambarnya, padahal kita ingin agar hidup kita berubah. Saya jadi ingat dengan ucapan seorang teman yang dirawat di sebuah rumah sakit jiwa di daerah Parung. Ia tampak begitu senang saat Saya dan keluarga membesuknya. Sedih melihat seorang sarjana yang punya masa depan baik terkerangkeng dalam jeruji rumah sakit bersama orang-orang tidak waras. Saya sampai tidak percaya ia berada di situ. Dibandingkan teman-temannya, ia adalah pasien yang paling waras. Ia bisa menilai ”gila” nya orang di sana satu persatu dan berbicara waras dengan Saya. Cuma, matanya memang tampak agak merah. Waktu Saya tanya apakah ia merasa sama dengan mereka, ia pun protes. ”Gila aja....ini kan gara-gara saudara-saudara Saya tidak mau mengurus Saya. Saya ini tidak gila. Mereka itu semua sakit.....”. Lantas, apa yang kamu maksud ’sakit’?”

”Orang ’sakit’ (gila) itu selalu berorientasi ke masa lalu, sedangkan Saya selalu berpikir ke depan. Yang gila itu adalah yang selalu mengharapkan perubahan, sementara melakukan hal yang sama dari hari ke hari.....,” katanya penuh semangat.” Saya pun mengangguk-angguk.

Pembaca, di dalam bisnis, gagasan, pendidikan, pemerintahan dan sebagainya, Saya kira kita semua menghadapi masalah yang sama. Mungkin benar kata teman Saya tadi, kita semua mengharapkan perubahan, tapi kita tak tahu harus mulai dari mana. Akibatnya kita semua hanya melakukan hal yang sama dari hari ke hari, Jadi omong kosong perubahan akan datang. Perubahan hanya bisa datang kalau orang-orang mau bergerak bukan hanya dengan omongan saja.

Dulu, menjelang Soeharto turun orang-orang sudah gelisah, tapi tak banyak yang berani bergerak. Tetapi sekali bergerak, perubahan seperti menjadi tak terkendali, dan perubahan yang tak terkendali bisa menghancurkan misi perubahan itu sendiri, yaitu perubahan yang menjadikan hidup lebih baik. Perubahan akan gagal kalau pemimpin-pemimpinnya hanya berwacana saja. Wacana yang kosong akan destruktif.

“Manajemen tentu berkepentingan terhadap bagaimana menggerakkan orang-orang yang tidak cuma sekedar berfikir, tetapi berinisiatif, bergerak, memulai, dan seterusnya.”

Get Started. Get into the game. Get into the playing field, Now. Just do it!

“Janganlah mereka dimusuhi, jangan inisiatif mereka dibunuh oleh orang-orang yang bermental birokratik yang bisanya cuma bicara di dalam rapat dan cuma membuat peraturan saja.”

Makanya tranformasi harus bersifat kultural, tidak cukup sekedar struktural. Ia harus bisa menyentuh manusia, yaitu manusia-manusia yang aktif, berinisiatif dan berani maju.

Manusia pemenang adalah manusia yang responsif. Seperti kata Jack Canfield, yang menulis buku Chicken Soup for the Soul, yang membedakan antara winners dengan losers adalah :

“Winners take action…they simply get up and do what has to be done…”.

Selamat bergerak!

Rhenald Kasali

Bukan Tidak Bisa Hanya Belum Dicoba!!!

2008-05-14T20:27:00.000+07:00

Banyak orang bilang, bisnis itu susah, berisiko tinggi, harus memiliki darah keturunan, harus berpendidikan tinggi dan sebagainya. Padahal sebenarnya bisnis itu mudah kok, memang sih risikonya lebih tinggi daripada seorang karyawan, namun ada satu hal yang harus Anda ingat, bahwa rezeki itu berbanding lurus dengan risiko.

Jadi kalau Anda ingin mendapatkan hasil yang tinggi, Anda juga harus siap menanggung risiko yang tinggi pula. Itu hukum alam loh!.

Jika Anda hanya berani mengambil risiko yang kecil-kecilan maka Anda pun juga harus siap mendapatkan hasil yang kecil-kecilan pula.

Tentang garis keturunan, memang banyak juga sih pengusaha sukses yang berasal dari kalangan pengusaha sukses pula, misalnya di group-group usaha para konglomerat memang pengecualian. Mereka yang sekarang menjadi pengusaha sukses memang memiliki darah keturunan orang-orang sukses dimasa yang lalu. Namun itu tidak berlaku mutlak. Banyak lho, sekarang ini muncul pengusaha-pengusaha sukses yang sama sekali tidak memiliki darah keturunan pengusaha. Ada anak petani, anak pegawai negeri, anak tukang ojeg dan lain sebagainya yang sukses menjadi pengusaha besar. Jadi “darah keturunan” itu tidaklah penting dalam rangka untuk memulai bisnis.

Sekarang tentang pendidikan, rasanya banyak pengusaha sukses yang tidak berpendidikan tinggi namun sukses menjadi pengusaha besar. Katakanlah I Nyoman Londen, Bos Edola Burger yang hanya berpendidikan “S.III” , yaitu SD, SMP dan SMA namun sukses mengelola usaha Burger hingga mencapai 400 outlet. Ada juga H. Mas Nur Huda yang “hanya” berpendidikan di Pesantren namun sukses mengelola bisnis Waralaba Es Cendol dengan omset mencapai 5 juta rupiah per-hari.

Nah, dengan demikian sebenarnya nggak ada alasan bagi Anda untuk berkata tidak bisa berbisnis, karena saya yakin bahwa sebenarnya Anda bukannya tidak bisa berbisnis, melainkan belum mencoba untuk berbisnis.

Salam

Cak Eko
www.cakeko.blogspot.com

I Love You Mom

2008-05-14T20:01:00.001+07:00

Ini adalah mengenai Nilai kasih Ibu dari Seorang anak yang mendapatkan ibunya sedang sibuk menyediakan makan malam di dapur. Kemudian dia menghulurkan sekeping kertas yang bertulis sesuatu. Si ibu segera membersihkan tangan dan lalu menerima kertas yang dihulurkan oleh si anak dan membacanya.

Ongkos upah membantu ibu:

Membantu Pergi Ke Warung: Rp20.000
Menjaga adik Rp20.000
Membuang sampah Rp5.000
Membereskan Tempat Tidur Rp10.000
Menyiram bunga Rp15.000
Menyapu Halaman Rp15.000

Jumlah : Rp85.000

Selesai membaca, si ibu tersenyum memandang si anak yang raut mukanya berbinar-binar. Si ibu mengambil pena dan menulis sesuatu dibelakang kertas yang sama.

Ongkos mengandungmu selama 9bulan- GRATIS
Ongkos berjaga malam karena menjagamu -GRATIS
Ongkos air mata yang menetes karenamu -GRATIS
Ongkos khawatir kerana selalu memikirkan keadaanmu -GRATIS
Ongkos menyediakan makan minum, pakaian dan keperluanmu -GRATIS

Jumlah keseluruhan nilai kasihku - GRATIS

Air mata si anak berlinang setelah membaca. Si anak menatap wajah ibu, memeluknya dan berkata, “Saya Sayang Ibu”.Kemu dian si anak mengambil pena dan menulis sesuatu didepan surat yang ditulisnya: “Telah Dibayar” .

KAMU SAYANG IBUMU????

Mother is the best super hero in the world

Sumber : Anonymous

Tuhan Itu Tidak Ada

2008-05-14T19:02:00.001+07:00

Seorang konsumen datang ke tempat tukang cukur untuk memotong rambut dan merapikan brewoknya.

Si tukang cukur mulai memotong rambut konsumennya dan mulailah terlibat pembicaraan yang mulai menghangat.

Mereka membicarakan banyak hal dan berbagai variasi topik pembicaraan, dan sesaat topik pembicaraan beralih tentang Tuhan.

Si tukang cukur bilang, "Saya tidak percaya Tuhan itu ada".

"Kenapa kamu berkata begitu ???" timpal si konsumen.

"Begini, coba Anda perhatikan di depan sana , di jalanan... untuk menyadari bahwa Tuhan itu tidak ada. Katakan kepadaku, jika Tuhan itu ada, Adakah yang sakit??, Adakah anak terlantar?? Jika Tuhan ada, tidak akan ada sakit ataupun kesusahan. Saya tidak dapat membayangkan Tuhan Yang Maha Penyayang akan membiarkan ini semua terjadi."

Si konsumen diam untuk berpikir sejenak, tapi tidak merespon karena dia tidak ingin memulai adu pendapat.

Si tukang cukur menyelesaikan pekerjaannya dan si konsumen pergi meninggalkan tempat si tukang cukur.

Beberapa saat setelah dia meninggalkan ruangan itu dia melihat ada orang di jalan dengan rambut yang panjang, berombak kasar (mlungker-mlungker- istilah jawa-nya), kotor dan brewok yang tidak dicukur. Orang itu terlihat kotor dan tidak terawat.

Si konsumen balik ke tempat tukang cukur dan berkata, "Kamu tahu, sebenarnya TIDAK ADA TUKANG CUKUR."

Si tukang cukur tidak terima," Kamu kok bisa bilang begitu ??".

"Saya disini dan saya tukang cukur. Dan barusan saya mencukurmu!"

"Tidak!" elak si konsumen.

"Tukang cukur itu tidak ada, sebab jika ada, tidak akan ada orang dengan rambut panjang yang kotor dan brewokan seperti orang yang di luar sana ", si konsumen menambahkan.

"Ah tidak, tapi tukang cukur tetap ada!", sanggah si tukang cukur.

" Apa yang kamu lihat itu adalah salah mereka sendiri, kenapa mereka tidak datang ke saya", jawab si tukang cukur membela diri.

"Cocok!" kata si konsumen menyetujui.

"Itulah point utama-nya!. Sama dengan Tuhan, TUHAN ITU JUGA ADA ! Tapi apa yang terjadi... orang-orang TIDAK MAU DATANG kepada-NYA, dan TIDAK MAU MENCARI-NYA. Oleh karena itu banyak yang sakit dan tertimpa kesusahan di dunia ini."

Si tukang cukur terbengong !!!

Sumber : Anonymous

Menjadi Tidak Pantas Lagi

2008-05-14T18:52:00.001+07:00

Seorang pendengar radio bertanya kepada Pak Mario Teguh; Apa yang harus dilakukannya, ketika ditunjuk menduduki jabatan yang lebih tinggi?

Dan, sang Gurupun dengan indah menjawab; “Mulailah dari tidak pantas, buat diri Anda menjadi pantas, kemudian menjadi tidak pantas lagi”.

Arti yang terkandung dalam kalimat penuh makna adalah: Dalam setiap pekerjaan, apapun jabatan Anda saat ini, Anda harus segera menjadi qualified (menjadi pantas!). Setelah itu, dengan kecepatan tinggi lampauilah pekerjaan itu dengan menjadi over-qualified (menjadi tidak pantas lagi) dan bersiap untuk naik ke jenjang berikutnya.

Rekan Business Owner yang terhormat,

Ilmu tersebut dapat juga Anda applikasikan dalam perusahaan Anda!

Anda harus segera membuat bisnis Anda, dari yang bertahan hidup, dari yang ‘hanya’ usaha kecil menengah (tidak pantas), apapun statusnya sekarang, menjadi perusahaan yang lebih besar, lebih mapan dan dapat bekerja tanpa Anda (pantas). Dan setelah itu, … bangunlah bisnis lain lagi (menjadi tidak pantas lagi). demikian seterusnya dan seterusnya…

“Jangan pernah berharap pekerjaan Anda menjadi lebih mudah, berharaplah Anda yang menjadi lebih pintar” (Jim Rohn? /Brad Sugars?).

So, segera buat diri Anda tidak pantas lagi…!!!
Kejarlah Bintang….. !!!

See You At The Top,

Johny Rusly
Buku Agenda Standard
www.andatidaksendiri.com

Sumber: Mario Teguh, Brad Sugar

JSON vs XML

2008-05-13T21:22:00.002+07:00

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) merupakan format pertukaran data berdasarkan notasi JavaScript. Dari beberapa sumber mengatakan bahwa JSON lebih baik dari XML sebagai format pertukaran data. Benarkah demikian? Saya coba untuk membuat test sedarhana membandingkan kedua format data tersebut pada ASP.NET WebService.

Saya menggunakan dua parameter pembanding yaitu besar stream yang ditransmisikan dan response time. Untuk menganalisis kinerja keduanya saya gunakan tool buatan Nikhil Kotari yaitu Web Development Helper yang dapat di download dari situs pribadinya di Nikhil Kothari's Projects - Web Development Helper

Pertama saya buat sebuat object Employee dengan data EmpId, Name, Sex dan Title. object ini yang akan diserialisasi ke JSON dan XML sebagai return value WebService.

[code:c#]

namespace JSONSample
{
public class Employee
{
public string EmpId { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public char Sex { get; set; }
}
}

[/code]

Selanjutnya buat web service dengan dua method yang mengembalikan Employee dalam format JSON dan XML. Jangan lupa untuk menambahkan namespace System.Web.Script.Services dan class attribute [ScriptService]

[code:c#]

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Services;
using System.Web.Services.Protocols;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using System.Web.Script.Services;

namespace JSONSample
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for WebService1
/// </summary>
[WebService(Namespace = "">http://tempuri.org/")]
[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
[ToolboxItem(false)]
[ScriptService]
// To allow this Web Service to be called from script, using ASP.NET AJAX, uncomment the following line.
// [System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService]
public class WebService1 : System.Web.Services.WebService
{

[WebMethod]
[ScriptMethod(ResponseFormat = ResponseFormat.Xml)]
public Employee GetEmployee(string EmpId)
{
var emp = new Employee();
emp.EmpId = EmpId;
emp.Name = "Ahmad Masykur";
emp.Sex = 'M';
emp.Title = "Analyst, Application Architecture";
return emp;
}
[WebMethod]
[ScriptMethod(ResponseFormat = ResponseFormat.Json)]
public Employee GetEmployeeJSON(string EmpId)
{
var emp = new Employee();
emp.EmpId = EmpId;
emp.Name = "Ahmad Masykur";
emp.Sex = 'M';
emp.Title = "Analyst, Application Architecture";
return emp;
}
}
}

[/code]

Berikutnya adalah buat kode javascript untuk memanggil memanggil kedua method pada WebService yang telah dibuat sebelumnya.

[code:js]

var displayElement1;
var displayElement2;

// Initializes global variables and session state.
function pageLoad()
{
displayElement1 = $get("ResultId1");
displayElement2 = $get("ResultId2");
}
function getEmployee() {
JSONSample.WebService1.GetEmployee("894683", OnSucceeded, OnFailed);
JSONSample.WebService1.GetEmployeeJSON("894683", OnSucceeded, OnFailed);
}

// Callback function invoked on successful
// completion of the page method.
function OnSucceeded(result, userContext, methodName)
{
if (methodName=="GetEmployee") { // xml
displayElement1.innerHTML = result.documentElement.selectSingleNode('//Name').text;
}
else { // json
displayElement2.innerHTML = result.Name;
}
}

// Callback function invoked on failure
// of the page method.
function OnFailed(error, userContext, methodName)
{
if(error !== null)
{
displayElement.innerHTML = "An error occurred: " +
error.get_message();
}
}

if (typeof(Sys) !== "undefined") Sys.Application.notifyScriptLoaded();

[/code]

Terakhir buat halaman ASP.NET AJAX yang akan meregister JavaScript dan WebService sehingga WebService dapat dipanggil melalui JavaScript oleh ASP.NET AJAX proxy service.

[code:html] <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" Inherits="System.Web.UI.Page" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server">
<Scripts>
<asp:ScriptReference Path="~/clientscript.js" />
</Scripts>
<Services>
<asp:ServiceReference Path="~/WebService1.asmx" />
</Services>
</asp:ScriptManager>
<input type="button" value="Invoke" onclick="getEmployee()" />
<div id="ResultId1"></div>
<div id="ResultId2"></div>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html> [/code]

Dari hasil keluaran log dapat dilihat bahwa dengan data yang sama, format XML memerlukan 226 byte sedangkan JSON hanya 132 byte. Ini jauh lebih kecil (kurang dari setengah) dibandingkan XML. Dari sisi response time, pada invoke yang pertama XML membutuhkan waktu 0:0:3430 sedangkan JSON 0:0:3280 dan invoke berikutnya untuk XML 0:0:0150 sedangkan JSON 0:0:0000. Dari data ini membuktikan bahwa JSON memang lebih ringan dibandingkan XML baik dari sisi ukuran stream yang ditransmisikan lebih kecil maupun waktu proses di server juga lebih singkat.

source :http://www.masykur.web.id

Session Management in ASP.NET

2008-05-13T20:57:00.003+07:00

ASP.NET Session State: Architectural and Performance Considerations

I recently came across a great post on one of the internal forums describing the strengths and weaknesses of different ASP.NET session state strategies.

As you’re probably aware, state management is an important consideration for web developers. The HTTP protocol is connectionless, so any web application that persists data across multiple web page requests needs some mechanism to ensure this session-based data is maintained. Examples of session-based data include shopping carts (on an ecommerce site), the currently logged-on user credentials, and other application-specific data that would normally be held on a client. Various strategies have been utilised over the last few years, including hidden forms, cookies and server-based state engines. Of these choices, the latter is perhaps architecturally most attractive since it reduces the dependence on a client; unfortunately, maintaining session state on the server can be expensive on resources and makes it hard to scale out using web farms or secure pages with HTTPS.

Enter the ASP.NET session state engine, which attempts to make server-side session state a much more viable option. ASP.NET offers three separate choices for session state storage when it’s switched on: locally on the server (InProc), remotely in a SQL Server database (SqlServer), or remotely using a session state service (StateServer). I’ll go through each of those options and compare the benefits of each.

InProc

The local option is not dissimilar to that provided by ASP, in that it requires all requests to come to the same physical server rather than being randomly split across multiple IIS machines. The upside is that it’s very fast (it runs in-process), and it’s simple to implement. If you’ve just got one web server, this is the best choice in most scenarios. The only time when you might want to consider something else in this scenario is when the session data is expensive to rebuild, since any InProc session data is flushed when the ASP.NET worker process or IIS restarts. If, for example, you’re maintaining a shopping cart as local session data that gets cleared out, you risk annoying customers sufficiently that they take their business elsewhere.

For multiple servers, InProc is unsuitable unless you can implement some form of server affinity, so that every time a particular client requests a web page they are directed back to that same server. Services such as Network Load Balancing (part of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition) can provide this, although they inevitably add their own overhead.

StateServer

I’ve come across a few developers who haven’t come across this choice. The state server relies on a Windows service which is disabled by default, which perhaps explains why people haven’t noticed it - go to Administrative Tools / Services and enable the ASP.NET State Service to get it working. You can run the state service on a dedicated machine or shared with a web server host; the main requirement to make this service work efficiently is plenty of RAM. Because the service is isolated from IIS, you can restart IIS without losing the session data contained within it, and you can point multiple distributed ASP.NET boxes at the same service, thereby removing server affinity issues. However, the session data isn’t persisted onto disk, so it can’t be backed up and a server reboot will lose the data. On the plus side, you don’t need SQL Server or anything beyond a Windows licence to run it, making this option easy to set up and maintain. This option is however signficantly slower than using InProc, due to network latency and roundtrip costs. Keeping the state server on a dedicated private LAN with the other web server boxes will help.

Finally, don’t forget that you can run the ASP.NET State Service in a single web server environment - this provides durability against IIS restarts, but at a performance cost due to it running out of process.

SqlServer

This is the high-end option in terms of flexibility and reliability, but is also the most expensive to build and maintain. Rather than storing session data in memory, it is persisted to a SQL Server instance. It’s more reliable than any of the other approaches, since the data is persisted in a more durable form (e.g. it will survive a server restart and can be backed up). You can even use SQL Server clustering support to increase session state reliability still further. From a performance point of view, it’s generally comparable to the StateServer service when you’ve got multiple web servers using it for session state. The session state itself is stored as a BLOB in a persisted or temporary table, which can reduce the serialization cost but makes it harder to view the session data itself.

In most cases, integrated Windows authentication is the best choice, preferably utilising Kerberos (NTLM requires an extra roundtrip for authentication). Connection pooling can be used to minimise the initial performance hit.

Happy Programming !!

source : http://chiragrdarji.wordpress.com

Better To Give Than To Receive

2008-05-13T20:27:00.000+07:00

A young man, a student in one of our universities, was one day taking a walk with a professor, who was commonly called the student's friend, from his kindness to those who waited on his instructions. As they went along, they saw lying in the path a pair of old shoes, which they supposed to belong to a poor man who was employed in a field close by, and who had nearly finished his day's work.

The student turned to the professor, saying: "Let us play the man a trick: we will hide his shoes, and conceal ourselves behind those bushes, and wait to see his perplexity when he cannot find them." "My young friend," answered the professor, "we should never amuse ourselves at the expense of the poor. But you are rich, and may give yourself a much greater pleasure by means of this poor man. Put a coin in each shoe, and then we will hide ourselves and watch how this affects him." The student did so and they both placed themselves behind the bushes close by. The poor man soon finished his work, and came across the field to the path where he had left his coat and shoes.

While putting on his coat he slipped his foot into one of his shoes, but feeling something hard, he stooped down to feel what it was, and found the coin. Astonishment and wonder were seen upon his countenance. He gazed upon the coin, turned it around, and looked at it again and again. He then looked around him on all sides, but no person was to be seen. He now put the money into his pocket, and proceeded to put on the other shoe; but his surprise was doubled on finding the other coin.

His feelings overcame him; he fell upon his knees, looked up to heaven and uttered aloud a fervent thanksgiving in which he spoke of his wife, sick and helpless, and his children without bread, whom this timely bounty, from some unknown hand, would save from perishing. The student stood there deeply affected, and his eyes filled with tears. "Now," said the professor, are you not much better pleased than if you had played your intended trick?" The youth replied, "You have taught me a lesson which I will never forget. I feel now the truth of these words, which I never understood before: "It's more blessed to give than to receive."

Source : Anonymous

Siapa Yang Tidak Ingin Sukses?

2008-05-13T20:12:00.000+07:00

Siapa yang tidak ingin sukses? Kelihatannya aneh menanyakan hal tersebut. Tetapi hampir sebagian besar orang yang Anda kenal tidak pernah meraih kesuksesan. Mereka hanya memimpikannya dan membicarakannya, tetapi tidak menjalankannya. Itu yang sangat disayangkan. Mengapa ? Karena sebagian besar orang tidak memahami sukses. Sukses bukanlah hasil keberuntungan, bukan juga sesuatu yang Anda peroleh di waktu-waktu keajaiban di dalam hidup anda. Sukses bukanlah tujuan melainkan gaya hidup. Satu-satunya cara untuk meraih sukses sejati adalah dengan melakukannya setiap hari.

Yang perlu Anda ketahui untuk menjadi sukses yaitu Anda adalah apa yang Anda lakukan sehari-hari, mula-mula Anda membentuk kebiasaan kemudian kebiasaan itu membentuk Anda, membentuk kebiasaan sukses adalah semudah membangun kebiasaan gagal. Setiap hari Anda hidup, Anda sedang dalam proses menjadi sesuatu. Menjadi sesuatu yang yang lebih baik atau lebih buruk semuanya bergantung kepada apa yang Anda berikan untuk diri Anda sendiri.

Banyak orang sebelum Anda mencari kesuksesan dan tidak pernah menemukannya. Mereka membayangkannya seperti mencari kitab kuno atau mata air awet muda, sesuatu yang perlu diperoleh pada akhir petualangan yang panjang. Ada yang percaya bahwa sukses adalah seperti hubungan yang perlu dimenangkan. Sementara yang lainnya menganggapnya sebagai jabatan untuk diraih atau benda untuk dimiliki. Tetapi sukses bukanlah itu semua. Sukses bukan tujuan untuk dicapai. Sukses adalah proses perjalanan untuk dilalui. Dan Anda sedang melaluinya setiap hari.

Perlu waktu yang lama bagi kebanyakan orang untuk mengetahui apa maksud Tuhan menciptakan mereka. Jika Anda mau, Anda dapat menjelajahi hal-hal di dalam dunia dan belajar lebih banyak mengenai tujuan hidup Anda setiap hari. Anda dapat terlibat di dalam kegiatan-kegiatan yang menolong pikiran, tubuh, dan batin Anda lebih bertumbuh. Dan Anda dapat menunjukkan dalam tindakan besar atau kecil yang menolong orang lain.

Sukses adalah mengetahui tujuan hidup Anda, menabur benih yang menolong orang lain, dan bertumbuh menuju potensi maksimum Anda. Pintu menuju pembebasan potensi Anda sedang menuju Anda. Kuncinya ada di perjalanan Anda. Temukan segera kunci itu. Jika Anda melakukannya, maka Anda sedang sukses hari ini. Andapun akan sukses esok hari.

Bagaimana mengeja SUKSES ?

S = Seleksi tujuan anda
U = Urutkan prioritas dan potensi Anda
K = Komitmen pada rencana anda
S = Siapkan perjalanan Anda
E = Ekspresikan visi dalam tindakan
S = Serahkan hasilnya pada Tuhan

Berikut ini adalah tujuh langkah sukses yang dapat Anda lakukan untuk mencapai kesuksesan Anda :

1. Buatlah komitmen untuk bertumbuh setiap hari.
Satu dari kekeliruan terbesar yang orang buat adalah memiliki fokus yang salah. Sukses bukan datang dari membeli, meraih, atau memperoleh sesuatu. Sukses datang sebagai hasil dari pertumbuhan. Jika Anda membuat sasaran untuk bertumbuh sedikit setiap hari, maka tak lama kemudian Anda akan mulai melihat hasil positif di dalam kehidupan Anda. Seperti ungkapan penulis puisi Robert Browning, "Untuk apa hidup di dunia kalau bukan untuk bertumbuh ?"

2. Hargai proses lebih dari peristiwa yang terjadi.
Peristiwa dalam suatu kurun waktu tertentu memang baik untuk diambil sebagai sumber pengambilan keputusan, tetapi proses perubahan dan pertumbuhan memiliki nilai yang kekal. Jika Anda ingin naik ke tingkat kehidupan selanjutnya, bertekadlah untuk terus menerus memperbaiki diri Anda.

3. Jangan menunggu inspirasi.
Pemain bola basket yang terkenal, Jerry West berkata, "Anda tidak melakukan banyak hal di hidup Nada, jika Anda hanya bekerja di hari-hari yang Anda rasakan baik". Orang-orang menjadi besar karena mereka memotivasi diri dan memberikan yang terbaik dari hidup mereka, tanpa menghiraukan apa yang mereka rasakan. Untuk menjadi sukses, berjuanglah.

4. Bersedia mengorbankan kesenangan demi kesempatan.
Satu dari pelajaran-pelajaran terbesar adalah prinsip : bayar sekarang, bersenang-senang kemudian. Dalam hidup ini, Anda harus membayar untuk segala hal. Bedanya hanyalah Anda membayar di muka atau di belakang. Jika Anda membayar sekarang, Anda akan mendapatkan imbalan yang lebih besar di kemudian hari dan imbalan itu juga terasa lebih manis.

5. Memiliki impian besar.
Memang tidak perlu membayar apa-apa untuk memimpikan hal-hal yang kecil. Robert J. Kriegel dan Louis Patler, penulis buku If It Ain't Broke, Break It, mengungkapkan, "Kita tidak memiliki acuan pasti mengenai sejauh mana keterbatasan manusia itu. Semua tes, stopwatch, dan garis finish tidak dapat mengukur potensi manusia. Ketika seseorang mengejar impiannya, mereka jauh melampaui apa yang kelihatannya menjadi keterbatasan mereka. Potensi yang ada di dalam kita tidak terbatas dan masih banyak yang belum dijelajahi. Saat mana Anda memikirkan keterbatasan, Anda sedang menciptakannya".

6. Urutkan prioritas.
Satu kesamaan yang dimiliki semua orang sukses adalah mereka menguasai kemampuan mengorganisasi manajemen waktu. Yang pertama dan paling utama, mereka telah mengorganisasi diri mereka. Henry Kaiser, pendiri Kaiser Aluminium dan Kaiser Permanente Health Care, berkata, "Setiap menit yang diinvestasikan ke dalam perencanaan akan menghemat dua menit waktu pelaksanaan". Anda tidak akan pernah memperoleh kembali waktu yang hilang, jadi optimalkan setiap waktu yang ada.

7. Berkorban untuk memperoleh peningkatan.
Tidak ada sesuatu yang berharga diperoleh tanpa pengorbanan. Hidup dipenuhi dengan kejadian-kejadian kritis ketika Anda akan mendapat kesempatan untuk menukarkan milik Anda yang berharga dengan yang lainnya. Tetap buka mata untuk kejadian-kejadian seperti itu dan selalu pastikan Anda sedang naik bukan turun.

Jika Anda mendedikasikan diri Anda kepada tujuh langkah diatas, Anda akan tetap meningkatkan diri Anda dan Anda akan sukses. Pertumbuhan mungkin tidak sepesat seperti yang lainnya, tetapi Anda akan melihat kemajuan Anda sendiri hampir dalam seketika. Dan meskipun pengakuan dari orang lain berlangsung dengan lambat, jangan putus asa. Tetap lakukan. Pada akhirnya, Anda akan sukses. [John C. Maxwell]

Sumber : Anonymous

Temukan Cinta Anda

2008-05-13T20:10:00.000+07:00

Bila anda tak mencintai pekerjaan Anda, maka cintailah orang-orang yang bekerja disana.

Rasakan kegembiraan dari pertemanan itu. Dan pekerjaan pun menjadi menggembirakan.

Bila anda tak bisa mencintai rekan-rekan kerja Anda, maka cintailah suasana dan gedung kantor Anda.

Ini mendorong Anda untuk bergairah berangkat kerja dan melakukan tugas-tugas dengan lebih baik lagi.

Bila toh Anda juga tidak bisa melakukannya, cintai setiap pengalaman pulang pergi dari dan ketempat kerja Anda.

Perjalanan yang menyenangkan menjadikan tujuan tampak menyenangkan juga.

Namun, bila anda tak menemukan kesenangan di sana, maka cintai a apa pun yang bisa Anda cintai dari kerja Anda, tanaman penghias meja, cicak di atas dinding, atau gumpalan awan dari balik jendela.

Bila Anda tak menemukan yang bisa Anda cintai dari pekerjaan Anda, maka mengapa Anda ada di situ ?

Tak ada alasan bagi Anda untuk tetap bertahan. Cepat pergi dan carilah apa yang Anda cintai, lalu bekerjalah disana.

Hidup hanya sekali, Tak ada yang lebih indah selain melakukan dengan rasa cinta yang tulus http://www.beraniegagal.com

Apa Yang Kita Sombongkan?

2008-05-13T20:09:00.000+07:00

Seorang pria yang bertamu ke rumah Sang Guru tertegun keheranan. Dia melihat Sang Guru sedang sibuk bekerja; ia mengangkuti air dengan ember dan menyikat lantai rumahnya keras-keras. Keringatnya bercucuran deras. Menyaksikan keganjilan ini orang itu bertanya, apa yang sedang Anda lakukan ?.

Sang Guru menjawab, tadi saya kedatangan serombongan tamu yang meminta nasihat. Saya memberikan banyak nasihat yang bermanfaat bagi mereka. Mereka pun tampak puas sekali. Namun, setelah mereka pulang tiba-tiba saya merasa menjadi orang yang hebat. Kesombongan saya mulai bermunculan. Karena itu, saya melakukan ini untuk membunuh perasaan sombong saya.

Sombong adalah penyakit yang sering menghinggapi kita semua, yang benih-benihnya terlalu kerap muncul tanpa kita sadari. Di tingkat terbawah, sombong disebabkan oleh faktor materi. Kita merasa lebih kaya, lebih rupawan, dan lebih terhormat daripada orang lain. Di tingkat kedua, sombong disebabkan oleh faktor kecerdasan. Kita merasa lebih pintar, lebih kompeten, dan lebih berwawasan dibandingkan orang lain. Di tingkat ketiga, sombong disebabkan oleh faktor kebaikan. Kita sering menganggap diri kita lebih bermoral, lebih pemurah, dan lebih tulus dibandingkan dengan orang lain.

Yang menarik, semakin tinggi tingkat kesombongan, semakin sulit pula kita mendeteksinya. Sombong karena materi sangat mudah terlihat, namun sombong karena pengetahuan, apalagi sombong karena kebaikan, sulit terdeteksi karena seringkali hanya berbentuk benih-benih halus di dalam batin kita.

Akar dari kesombongan ini adalah ego yang berlebihan. Pada tataran yang lumrah, ego menampilkan dirinya dalam bentuk harga diri (self-esteem) dan kepercayaan diri (self-confidence) . Akan tetapi, begitu kedua hal ini berubah menjadi kebanggaan (pride), Anda sudah berada sangat dekat dengan kesombongan. Batas antara bangga dan sombong tidaklah terlalu jelas.

Kita sebenarnya terdiri dari dua kutub, yaitu ego di satu kutub dan kesadaran sejati di lain kutub. Pada saat terlahir ke dunia, kita dalam keadaan telanjang dan tak punya apa-apa. Akan tetapi seiring dengan waktu, kita mulai memupuk berbagai keinginan, lebih dari sekadar yang kita butuhkan dalam hidup. Keenam indra kita selalu mengatakan bahwa kita memerlukan lebih banyak lagi.

Perjalanan hidup cenderung menggiring kita menuju kutub ego. Ilusi ego inilah yang memperkenalkan kita kepada dualisme ketamakan (ekstrem suka) dan kebencian (ekstrem tidak suka). Inilah akar dari segala permasalahan.

Perjuangan melawan kesombongan merupakan perjuangan menuju kesadaran sejati. Untuk bisa melawan kesombongan dengan segala bentuknya, ada dua perubahan paradigma yang perlu kita lakukan.

Pertama, kita perlu menyadari bahwa pada hakikatnya kita bukanlah makhluk fisik, tetapi makhluk spiritual. Kesejatian kita adalah spiritualitas, sementara tubuh fisik hanyalah sarana untuk hidup di dunia. Kita lahir dengan tangan kosong, dan (ingat!) kita pun akan mati dengan tangan kosong.

Pandangan seperti ini akan membuat kita melihat semua makhluk dalam kesetaraan universal. Kita tidak akan lagi terkelabui oleh penampilan, label, dan segala tampak luar lainnya. Yang kini kita lihat adalah tampak dalam. Pandangan seperti ini akan membantu menjauhkan kita dari berbagai kesombongan atau ilusi ego.

Kedua, kita perlu menyadari bahwa apa pun perbuatan baik yang kita lakukan, semuanya itu semata-mata adalah juga demi diri kita sendiri. Kita memberikan sesuatu kepada orang lain adalah juga demi kita sendiri. Dalam hidup ini berlaku hukum kekekalan energi. Energi yang kita berikan kepada dunia tak akan pernah musnah. Energi itu akan kembali kepada kita dalam bentuk yang lain. Kebaikan yang kita lakukan pasti akan kembali kepada kita dalam bentuk persahabatan, cinta kasih, makna hidup, maupun kepuasan batin yang mendalam. Jadi, setiap berbuat baik kepada pihak lain, kita sebenarnya sedang berbuat baik kepada diri kita sendiri.

Kalau begitu, apa yang bisa kita sombongkan ?.

http://www.beraniegagal.com

Beranilah Mengambil Resiko

2008-05-13T20:06:00.001+07:00

*Bila ditulis dalam bahasa Cina, kata krisis terdiri dari dua huruf. Yang satu mewakili ancaman dan yang satu lagi mewakili peluang* - *John F. Kennedy*.

Resiko selalu menakutkan karena ia menawarkan seratus kemungkinan, seribu ketidakpastian dan sejuta kegagalan. Bayang-bayang ini selalu mengerikan bagi siapa saja. Tapi tahukah Anda bahwa resiko selalu menyembunyikan wajah satunya : peluang ? Peluang selalu menggoda siapa saja karena ia menjanjikan seratus kemungkinan, seribu harapan dan sejuta keberhasilan.

Jangan pernah memandang koin kehidupan dari sisi resiko, tapi baliklah, maka Anda akan menemukan sisi peluang.
Mampukah Anda membalik takdir Anda dari resiko menjadi peluang ? Ingat, tidak banyak orang yang berani melakukannya.

Sekitar 100 tahun lalu, seorang dokter tua dari desa pergi ke kota. Setelah mengikatkan kudanya dan masuk ke dalam sebuah toko obat, dia mulai berbicara dengan pegawai muda toko obat itu. Dokter tua itu mencoba menjual sesuatu kepada pemuda itu. Beberapa saat kemudian dokter itu keluar menuju keretanya dan kembali dengan membawa sebuah ketel kuno dan sebuah gayung kayu besar.

Ditunjukkannya ketel tua itu kepada pemuda tersebut yang kemudian memeriksanya. Dimasukkan tangannya ke dalam saku untuk mengambil uang $ 500 - seluruh simpanannya. Uang itu diberikannya kepada dokter itu yang lalu menyerahkan secarik kertas yang memuat sebuah resep rahasia. Kata-kata dalam lembaran kertas itu sebenarnya harta-karun yang besar, yang saat itu tidak disadari baik oleh dokter dan pemuda itu. Dokter tua senang dapat menjual ketel beserta isinya dengan harga $ 500. Sementara pemuda itu mengambil kesempatan besar dengan mempertaruhkan seluruh simpanannya untuk mendapatkan sebuah ketel tua dan secarik kertas belaka...

Pemuda itu sadar bahwa apa yang baru saja dibelinya itu tidak lain adalah sebuah gagasan besar.

Kisah ini selanjutnya telah menjadi sejarah besar karena pegawai toko itu yang bernama Asa Candler - ketel tua dan secarik kertas kecil itu memiliki peran besar mengenalkan Coca Cola ke seluruh dunia.

*INILAH PRINSIP-PRINSIP KESUKSESAN ITU*

Kesuksesan besar berkembang dari sebuah gagasan dan keberanian dalam mengambil resiko.
Asa Candler berani mempertaruhkan seluruh simpanan $ 500 untuk sebuah ketel tua dan resep rahasia. Jika Asa Candler tidak berani mengambil resiko itu mungkin kita tidak mendengar nama Coca Cola. Tapi karena keberanian besar yang diambilnya, dia pantas mendapatkan kekayaan ini dan dunia dapat menikmati minuman coke yang nikmat itu.

http://www.beraniegagal.com

3 Kunci Keberhasilan

2008-05-13T20:03:00.000+07:00

1) Setting Goals.

Menetapkan tujuan-tujuan yang ingin dicapai. Melihat gambaran yang jelas tentang hal-hal yang ingin dicapai di masa depan. Tujuan harus dibuat secara tertulis agar pikiran sadar dan bawah sadar kita bergerak serta menggerakkan diri kita dan diluar diri kita untuk mencapai apapun yang kita inginkan.

2) Personal Development.

Secara aktif dan konsisten berupaya selalu membuat diri kita lebih daripada orang lain melalui pengembangan diri pribadi. Buat standar waktu minimum untuk membaca buku-buku, mendengarkan cd atau kase! t, menghadiri seminar serta berkumpul dengan orang-orang yang lebih sukses dari kita. Kita akan menjadi seperti apa yang kita baca, yang kita dengar dan yang kita pikirkan.

3) Financial Planning.

Buat rencana 70/30. Bila kita mendapatkan penghasilan, aturlah penghasilan tersebut sebagai berikut 10% untuk tabungan, 10% untuk investasi dan 10% untuk sedekah. Lakukan rencana tersebut dan hidup kita akan jauh menjadi lebih baik dan penuh dengan keberkahan. Yakinlah!

To Your Success!

Roike Tambengi

Success Moslem Inspirator

Keyakinan dan Ketekunan

2008-05-13T19:39:00.000+07:00

Sahabat, dalam kehidupan ini seringkali kita dihadapkan pada keadaan dan situasi yang datang bukanlah sesuai dengan yang kita harapkan. Ketika kita dihadapkan pada berbagai situasi seperti ini, hidup di tengah situasi krisis ekonomi yang belum pulih, di negeri kita yang dirundung berbagai masalah dan bencana bertubi-tubi, bagaimanakah kita harus menyingkapinya ?. Apakah anda sedih dan putus asa ? Ataukah kebalikannya anda malahan bertekad untuk berjuang keluar dari lubang masalah dan maju meraih kesuksesan ?.

Sahabat, ada sebuah kisah yang sungguh luarbiasa dan dapat menjadi inspirasi bagi kita semua dibawah ini. Coba bayangkan, apa yang akan anda lakukan bila anda tidak bersalah, tapi akibat suatu kekeliruan anda divonis hukuman seumur hidup di penjara ?.

Tidak bersalah !, namun dipenjara bertahun-tahun tanpa tahu kapan akan bebas. Dan apakah bisa bebas di masa depan ?. Bagaimana kalau anda jadi orang seperti ini ?

Pasrah dengan keadaan ? Tidak memiliki keyakinan untuk terus berjuang ?.

Adalah Anthony Faison (36) dan Charles Sheperd (40) adalah dua pria di Amerika yang tahun 1987 secara keliru dinyatakan membunuh seorang sopir taksi. Kedua pria itu divonis hanya atas dasar kesaksian seorang saksi, dan saksi itu pun mengaku sedang mabuk pada malam terjadinya pembunuhan itu. Kedua pria itu sempat dijatuhi hukuman seumur hidup.

Namun Anthony dan Charles tidak berputus asa. Dia memilii keyakinan bahwa dirinya akan bisa bebas dari penjara. Dengan keyakinan dan ketekunannya selama 14 tahun, orang yang tidak bersalah ini terus berusaha mengirim surat kepada para detektif, para pengacara dan para tokoh politik untuk mengatakan bahwa dirinya tak bersalah.

Berapakah surat yang telah ditulisnya ? Konon mencapai 62.000 surat !. Dan setelah 14 tahun, dari salah satu surat itu, menggerakkan hati seorang detektif yang akhirnya menemukan fakta sebenarnya dari kisah pembunuhan yang salah tangkap itu. Bayangkan !. Selama 14 tahun dan dari 62.000 surat cuma dapat 1 tanggapan ?.

Bagaimana menurut anda ?. Dan akhirnya karena perjuangan LUARBIASA ini, dia mendapat ganti rugi rugi sebesar US$ 3,3 juta (Rp 28 miliar lebih) dari Negara dan di bebaskan dari penjara.

Saya menghitung, kalau selama 14 tahun dia mengirim 62.000 surat. Maka tiap hari minimal dia harus menulis 12 atau 13 surat tanpa henti. Terus menerus selama 14 tahun. Artinya setiap 2 jam dia menulis satu surat selama dipenjara. Dan pikirkan, bahwa dia telah ditolak sebanyak 61.999 kali. Hanya 1 kali diterima.

Sahabat, hukum alam itu sesungguhnya sederhana saja. Barang siapa mencelupkan jarinya ke air mendidih, mendapatkan jarinya lepuh. Pasukan yang lebih gigih berperang, lebih gagah bertempur - tanpa takut akan kegagalan- akan meraih kemenangan. Orang yang lebih tekun bekerja, lebih giat berusaha, tanpa pernah mudah menyerah dalam berusaha - akan memperoleh penghasilan dan kesuksesan.

Sayangnya, banyak orang yang mengingkari hukum ini. Hanya karena mempercayai bahwa "langit itu adil" dan merasa percaya pada sang langit, kemudian kebanyakan orang hanya berharap emas jatuh ke pangkuan begitu saja. Padahal tiada imbalan yang dapat diraih tanpa usaha. Keyakinan dan ketekunan tak pernah jauh dari imbalan itu sendiri. Sebuah keyakinan memberi makna pada usaha yang kita terima. Maka imbalan pun pasti akan memenuhi jiwa kita.

Keyakinan akan memperkaya batin kita. Sedangkan ketekunan akan mendekatkan pada keberhasilan usaha.

Maka, pertahakankanlah keyakinan dan ketekunan dari dalam hati dalam setiap langkah kehidupan ini. Karena dengan Keyakinan kita - maka akan memperkaya tangan dan batin kita. Keyakinan dan Ketekunan dalam hidup, dalam karier dalam bisnis akan sangat dahsyat pengaruhnya bagi kesuksesan seseorang jauh melampaui modal harta benda, kedudukan, pangkat, atau ilmu sekalipun.

Sumber: Keyakinan Dan Ketekunan Oleh Eko Jalu Santoso