VSTS Database Edition for SQL 2008 is Available

Just announced at the PDC:  the Visual Studio Team System Database Edition GDR Release Candidate is available.  See this link for information, or skip right to the download page.

There are no new features since the September CTP release, just bug fixes and performance enhancements.

You must have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 installed, as well as SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 SP1.  If you have a previous version of the GDR installed, you must uninstall it before installing this version.

According to an earlier post, this version is a "go-live" release, meaning you can use it to develop code that you intend to go live with, though you'll need to wait for the RTM version before doing so.  However, there is no mention on the latest blog post as to whether this is actually a "go-live" release, so do your own due diligence before assuming anything.  I've pinged the blogger, GertD, about whether this is the case, and I'll update this post when I have an answer.

SpringCM Document Management Solution

SpringCM delivers a broad set of content management functionality and is available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

About SpringCM

SpringCM is the leader in on-demand document management and workflow. Their solution makes customers more profitable, competitive and effective with resources that accelerate revenue, reduce costs and improve content leveragability. Capture of print and electronic content, secure hosting with full-text search, routing and approval workflows, document delivery, out-of-the-box configurability and many other features make SpringCM the award-winning document management and workflow choice.

SpringCM: Company History

SpringCM was named to the 2007 list of "100 Companies That Matter in KM" by KMWorld, a leading content, knowledge and document management resource.
Their seasoned executives are industry veterans from companies such as Open Text, FileNet, Interwoven, Hyland, Stellent and others. Thanks to the executive team's leadership, SpringCM has experienced double-digit growth each quarter. In their customer base there are great name brand businesses like GE, Avon, Stratus, Comcast, Dresser Industries and Cox Communications; public sector groups like the State of Alaska; services firms such as Corefino and Pacific Crest Securities; and a host of smaller companies, all of which are reaping the benefits of on-demand ECM.
SpringCM is headquartered in San Mateo, Calif. and maintains a major regional office in Chicago, Ill. The company is backed by Foundation Capital, a premier venture company that was an early investor in leading content management companies, including Documentum and Interwoven.

Online Language Barrier for networks

By Brenda Zulu
Community Information and Communication Support Centre (CAICC) a joint initiative of national organizations working in the field of community ICTs is still finding it difficult to access information beyond Brazil for its network online because most of the content online was not in Portuguese.

Polly Gaster Eduardo Mondlane University Information Communication Technology for development (ICT4D) Director asked if there were other sources apart from Brazil where they could access relevant content for their network as most online databases where in English and French.

Gaster explained that they get a lot of resources information from Brazilian websites which have been of great help in terms of information provision for their networks.
She explained that equitable access to education and communication and the means to produce and disseminate information were key factors in social-economic development and civic participation. Local activities were reinforced through building horizontal and multi-directional networks- national, regional and international.

Over 50 of Mozambiques’s 128 districts already enjoy the benefits of community radios, community multimedia centres or telecentres and that the number was growing every year. She said they were providing local access to information and communication tools, the opportunity for citizens to acquire new skills, and services for local institutions and civil society.

This factors was discussed during the workshop that was held on Sustainable Rural Telecentres for Africa held in Lusaka last week.

Chuckwalla: Digital Asset Management Beyond The Enterprise

Digital Asset Management (DAM) has become one of the digital content delivery industry's most familiar buzz phrases. Coming out of the enterprise database management space, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Chuckwalla, Inc. is developing Digital Asset Management technology that manages rich content across multiple communications channels.

"What Digital Asset Management has done for a number of industries is establish a difference between elements stored in a database that have value and those that do not. An asset has value," says Jon Lewis, vice president of sales & marketing for Chuckwalla.

"There are three sets of tools in the digital asset management space," Lewis continues. "There are desktop products, workflow tools, and enterprise models that are client server based." Chuckwalla develops products for the entire enterprise. "Because digital content comes in multiple formats, we have to be agnostic to all content," he says. "That's the only way to ensure that once an asset has been created it can be used over and over again."

One of the biggest problems content-owning companies and even major corporations face according to Lewis is the inability to locate specific materials once they have been created. "No one ever loses an asset," says Lewis, "but they often can't find one when they need it. And that's what asset management is all about: being able to find what you need, when and how you need it."

Digital Asset Xchange (DAX)

Digital Asset Xchange (DAX) is a highly secure, web-based, content exchange and asset management solution for film and television production companies. It enables studio personnel to upload, stage and collaborate on all digital content from anywhere in the world. Simply put, DAX is a universal command center for every aspect of production, post-production, servicing, distribution, marketing and publicity. DAX services the following industries:

• ilm & Television Production Studios
• Broadcast and Cable Networks
• Production and Distribution Companies
• Stock Footage Libraries
• Post-Production Facilities
• Advertising Agencies

Digital Asset Xchange: The Production Workflow Accelerator was created by industry workflow experts with backgrounds in production, post-production, marketing, e-commerce and digital media. By incorporating collaboration, workflow and full digital asset management capabilities,
Digital Asset Xchange: The Production Workflow Accelerator creates a secure online environment where producers, creative, clients, management, distribution and licensing partners can share ideas, information and content created throughout the production or campaign lifecycle; or required for trafficking, distribution and archival of final product â€" from script to screen to archive.
Using Digital Asset Xchange: The Production Workflow Accelerator results in faster time to decision; a dramatic reduction in hard and soft cost expenditures; streamlined collaboration; more creative control; and the simplification of managing and distributing of production content and information worldwide.

Subscription is Disabled When User!UserID Global Variable is Used in SSRS Report

I recently had a problem where I was unable to create a data-driven subscription for a SQL Server Reporting Services report.  I opened SQL Server Management Studio, connected to Reporting Services, navigated to a report, then right clicked on it's Subscriptions node and both the New Subscription and New Data-Driven Subscription menu options were grayed out.

The report in question had five parameters that the users could enter at runtime.  I wanted to implement the data-driven subscription to execute the report with all possible combinations of the parameters in order to get every possible version of the report to be cached.  Since the data for the report was only refreshed once a week, this seemed like a good idea.

I eventually found the answer in Books On Line.  Subscriptions are disabled when you use the User!UserID global variable.  The User!UserID global variable contains the domainusername of the user running the report.  In my case I used the User!UserID global variable to filter the various dropdown lists for parameters so users could only run the report for specific regions and/or offices that they are allowed to see.

Extensis Portfolio 8.5.1

Extensis Portfolio 8.5.1 has been released on January 28th. The new version of Extensis Portfolio 8.5 digital asset management software family is recommended for all Portfolio, Portfolio Server, Portfolio NetPublish, and Portfolio SQL Connect users.

The updated version of this digital asset management software has implemented full compatibility for users of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and also the following general performance improvements for all users:

• Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) support for all components
• Additional Raw file formats added:
  • Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, EOS 40D, and PowerShot G9
  • Nikon D3 and D300
  • Olympus E-3
  • Sony DSLR-A700
  • etc.
• Enhanced metadata support and management via Adobe® Bridge.
  
• Support for saving and exporting Catalog Types
• Improved asset usage logging in NetPublish
• Additional enhancements to performance and stability

The price for Extensis Portfolio 8.5.1 starts at US$199.95. The update is free for version 8.5 users.

SharePoint SSRS Manage Menus

Issue:
After uploading a Reporting Services Report to a SharePoint site, clicking on the drop down next to the report to bring up Manage Data Sources, Manage Subscriptions, Manage Paramters and Manage Process Options returned the following error:
The resource object with classname of “ReportServer” and key of “DataSourceList” was not found. DataSourceList was replaced with either SubscriptionList, ParameterList or ProcessingList dependent on which menu was selected.

The environment is setup with Two Front End Web Servers and One Central Application SharePoint server.

Answer:
It turns out that it had to do with the Web Front End servers not configured the same as the Central SharePoint server and this is what was causing the error.

The following are the steps that were done to get the menus the work as intended:
It turns out the ReportServer.resx was missing on the two front ends. In IIS on the Web Front Ends, navigate to WebsitesDefault Web SiteApp_GlobalResources and paste a copy of ReportServer.resx which was found in the InetPub folder tree.

The ReportServer.resx is the resource object XML file that has sections for DataSourceList, ParameterList, SubscriptionList, etc., which would explain the error we saw if the file was missing.

In the event that you run into this in the future, checking the Web Front End servers as well as the Central Admin server and ensuring that the files are in synch is a good troubleshooting tactic to solve any strange behavior.

Radio, Cell phone and Television most owned ICT assets

Brenda Zulu

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) 2006 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS IV) results in Zambia indicate that the most owned assets were the radio at 55.6 percent, Cell phones at 24.2 percent and Television at 24 .1 percent while the least owned asset was the internet connection with 0.1 percent.

The CSO June monthly publications shows that the 2006 LCMS IV collected information on information communication and technology (ICTs) facilities which included radios, televisions, video player, land phone, cellular phone, satellite dish and decoder, computer and internet connection.

Analysis by rural and urban shows that, ownership of a radio, cell phone and television was more in urban areas that in rural areas. The proportion of households that owned a radio in urban areas was 65.8 percent compared to 50.1 percent in rural areas while that of those who owned a cell phone was 53 and 8.8 percent in urban and rural areas respectively. The proportion of households that owned a television was 54.6 percent in urban areas compared to 7.8 percent in rural areas.

The survey also revealed that there has been an increase in the proportion of households that own cell phone while those that owned land telephone lines declined. The proportion of household that own a cell phone increased from 10.8 percent in 2004 to 24.2 percent in 2006. The proportion of household that own land telephone line declined from 5.2 percent to 1.2 percent during the same period.

Analysis of ICT assets by sex of household head shows that male headed household own more ICT facilities that female headed households. About 62 percent of male headed households and 35.5 percent of female headed households own a radio. The results also indicate that 26% male headed household owned a cell phone than 18.4 percent female headed households.

Digital Asset Management with MediaBin

Interwoven MediaBin helps companies to deliver a more solid customer experience by effectively managing, distributing, and publishing the thousands of customer-facing digital assets used to their promote products and brands.
MediaBin is a leader in Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution sphere. It lets marketing teams give their global sales force and business companions instant, self-service access to current, approved marketing content â€" including pictures, photos, logos, presentations, CAD drawings, marketing collateral, audio, video, and others.
MediaBin speeds the delivery of brand-correct, current marketing content so that internal departments and external partners can get what they needâ€"when they need it. Marketers can speed time-to-market for marketing campaigns, product launches, and other marketing initiatives. And the more quickly sales people can get what they need, the faster they can sell and increase top-line income.
MediaBin helps organizations raise control of their brands by providing easy access to the most up-to-date, brand-approved marketing materials. Marketing and brand managers choose which content to make available to internal employees and external partners, thereby protecting and controlling the brand more carefully.
MediaBin reduces costs associated with manual processes by automating the production and distribution of marketing content. By providing constituents with self-service access, marketing personnel no longer have to spend time fulfilling content requests from the field. For example, Presentation WorkBench makes it possible to assemble custom PowerPoint® presentations in MediaBin, using brand-approved templates. This not only saves the company finances, it also frees marketing staff to work on additional marketing activities to yield further income.

If you are migrating DTS packages to SQL Server 2005 or 2008...

… your options include
1. Saving the DTS packages to the new server and executing them directly.
2. Running DTS Migration Wizard and letting it convert the packages to SSIS packages for control flow invoking DTS components for the data flow.
3. Rewriting DTS packages completely in SSIS.

Neither option guarantees a performance gain. In fact, moving data directly from a source to a destination table without much transformation logic you will likely see similar performance for all the options. So unless you are taking advantage of new features in SSIS, you are better off selecting the option that fits best into your operating procedures.

If you continue using DTS packages on the new server, you will certainly need Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DTS Designer Components. That applies to options 1 and 2. With option 2, the Migration Wizard generates SSIS control flow, but creates an embedded DTS package for every Data Pump, instead of converting it to a Data Flow Task. Option 3 will likely require the most amount of work, and that's where the fun begins!

SCC MediaServer

SCC MediaServer is a fully integrated Text, Graphics, PDF Page, Sound, Photo, and Video storage management system, composed of an industry standard SQL relational database and incorporating free-text search technology licensed from Autonomy Corporation. Optional MediaServer modules allow to perform the following:

• management of assignments and news budgets;
• automated delivery of content to Web sites and online vendors;
• hosting of electronic Tearsheets;
• dynamic integration with Microsoft Word;
• offsite MediaServer database replication.

Access to the MediaServer database available from a standard Web browser or from the SCC MediaGrid client (for Windows and Macintosh OSX) . The SCC MediaGrid client, which is oriented at super users such as Librarians or Photo Editors, includes many powerful features made to simplify the data enhancing, data manipulation and delivery processes. Files for inclusion in the SCC MediaServer database are simply saved to one or more network folders from where they are automatically inserted and cataloged within the database. Text and preview metadata is extracted automatically during insertion and indexed in real-time for fast full text searching. Files from live wire feeds can be simply directed into one or more of these server folders for automatic insertion into the SCC MediaServer database.

Southern Africa Telecentre Network underway

By Brenda Zulu
Efforts to set up Southern Africa Telecentre Network (SATNET) are underway with the Zambia Association for Advancement of ICTs (ZAA-ICTs) being the lead network for the project.
ZAA-ICT Executive Coordinator, Dean Mulozi said there was need to have this network to help support the information development of rural telecentres. He said they were facilitating the development of the SATNET.
A visit to Chinyunyu Community Multipurpose Telecentre in rural Zambia showed that when a community is involved in the setting up of a Telecentre the people embrace the centre as their own. Set up in 2006, the centre last year installed solar energy and a very small aperture terminal (VSAT) with the help of UNIDO which has enabled farmers to charge their mobile phone barriers and have access to the internet.
It is important that the centre realizes the money that it pays to the Communications Authority of Zambia as regulators fees and also the monthly subscription for the VSAT connection which is a very big challenge as the centre was in a rural location.
Austin Chilala Head of Kasis Agricultural Training Centre said the centre had received a seven acres of land as a donation to the project from Chief Bunda Bunda. The steering committee now plans to put up demonstration plots for the farmers and housing for stuff.
It is clear that Chinyunyu Telecentre does not need to exist in isolation but needs to learn from other telecentres are sustaining themselves which makes initiatives of setting up SATNET relevant.
There is also need of creating an electronic network before creating a physical network as this is very vital now that telecentres are being encouraged to provide internet services to their communities.
So far feedback from Chinyunyu farmers include that fact that they had learnt how to process chili and expand their fish farming activities as they accessed information from Chinyunyu Telecentre.

Radiance Technologies Digital Asset Delivery System

Radiance Technologies is a provider of asset delivery systems (ADS).
In April 2007 Radiance Technologies announced that it was planning to deliver a completely integrated, single platform that combines digital asset management (DAM) with its field-proven digital asset delivery system.
Tom Engdahl, president and CEO of Radiance Technologies, said:
"Radiance becomes an ever more robust and cost-effective delivery infrastructure for any high-value, asset-driven collaborative workflow through this integration with leading digital asset management products.
With this unified platform, customers not only have the ability to manage, transform and format content but they can remove the time-consuming manual tasks of delivering their ever-larger files such as video, audio, and high-resolution images while gaining greater control over distributing those assets.
The first unified digital asset management and delivery solution for immediate implementation will be announced in 2007 through a technology integration and co-marketing partnership agreement between Radiance and a leading digital asset management provider."
Radiance Technologies will integrate its TrueDelivery asset delivery software with LightBox Live, a set of flexible editing tools that enable collaboration between photographers and videographers and their customers - including print houses and editors and re-touchers at magazines, newspapers and retailers.
Radiance Technologies, in tandem with LightBox Live, virtually automates the process flow from the moment a photo or video image is shot, all the way through post-production and publishing.
Radiance Technologies enables the delivery of those digital assets to creative professionals in the collaborative environment.

Content DSI Digital Asset Management System

A widespread increase in the amount of electronic files that companies need to maintain has been given rise by the evolution of the Web and by the shift to digital print production. It quickly becomes challenging for companies to keep track of the following digital assets for use in publications, product catalogs, marketing collateral, Web sites, broadcasts, or other output with all of the different logos, photos, illustrations, audio clips, video clips, and other media.
Content DSI can help your company implement a digital asset management (DAM) system that enables you to organize digital files and support their use in multiple output media. digital asset management systems from Content DSI can help address critical business needs, such as:

• Providing a central repository for enterprise-wide digital assets
• Supporting multiple outputs from a single source
• Automating conversion to different formats and sizes for multiple applications
• Reducing time spent looking for existing assets
• Enforcing rights management for both internal and externally-licensed assets

Content DSI builds digital asset management systems on a solid Enterprise Content Management (ECM) foundation, spanning the entire process from content creation to management to delivery. This approach ensures that the system will support multi-media management from an individual to global level, allowing for more efficient collaboration among users and reducing costs.
Content DSI also offers a wide range of capabilities that can assist with the implementation of the system and the various business processes involved, such as:

• Data Analysis
• Data Conversion
• Data Repository Design
• Workflow Automation
• Systems Integration Services

Content DSI maintains partnerships with leading technology vendors to support the implementation of digital asset management systems. These systems offer robust functionality and clear upgrade paths to support future growth and initiatives.
Content DSI can also help you implement a media asset management system to help manage your digital and electronic files.

Citizens have a right to talk about activities

By Brenda Zulu
Telkcom has recognised that democracy requires that citizens have the right to know about activities that affect their lives and the recognition of the importance of their participation within the democratic system to make it work and flourish.
In her welcome address Bintu Petsana, Acting Group Executive: Corporate Communication at the opening of Highway Africa said that it was important to have the right of expression and human rights culture .
Petsan said the precondition was that people could not be regarded as consumers or markets or passive recipients in a multi-directional social dialogue.
“We look at the media to provide the framework for such a discourse and to act as a mechanism that allows citizens to develop their level of awareness,” explained Petsane.
She observed that when one speaks of informed citizens with a heightened level of awareness, one would have to search far to better illustrate the power of the media in the 21st century information society, than the war in Iraq.
Looking at Media Columinist, Stephen glover who writes:
“ As any armchair general will tel l you, the second Gulf war is something else. It is the first media war. This means that we experts, safely ensconced on our sofas, can follow battlefield events almost before they happen. It has never been remotely like this before. The advances of technology allow reporters to stand before a camera in the middle of Iraqi desert an dbring the war into our sitting rooms.”
Petsan observed that since these words were written a few years ago, the proliferation and increasing sophistication of information communication technologies (ICTs) has given the war and other events be it mundane or global importance, an immediacy unparelled in the history of Journalism.
“It is citizen Journalism in action, and it is here to stay. It is driven by ICTs and it will change the way we evaluate information and view the world,” said Petsan

Lookup Cache

Lookup transformation supports 3 types of cache.
Full Cache - This brings the reference table into memory - Its good if you have lots of memory. Partial - It adds rows to the cache as they are used - Good if using less memory or the range of rows looked up could be less.
None - Always queries the Database every time - useful in low memory conditions

Users sometimes run into a puzzling situation when they use caching in the lookup. With caching settings set to Full Cache they get no hits - all the rows flow to the error output. However, with caching set to Partial or none, (memory restriction is enabled), things work as expected. The common reason for this is that they are comparing strings which have leading or trailing spaces, for example: “John” with “John “

When caching is Full (memory restriction is off) SSIS builds a hash table for the cache in order to do the comparisons more quickly. The hash values for the strings quoted are, of course, different.
When memory restriction is on, string compares are used and the two quoted strings match.
You can trim incoming datea in the source query or using an expression.
Trim reference data using a SQL query rather then selecting a table in the lookup. SQL queries are better in lookup anyway because you only cache the columns (and rows) you asked for, rather than the entire table.

Lookup is case sensitive, so you may need to force the case for the test to succeed.
Data types must match exactly. The join columns, between the input or source data and the reference data must be of exactly the same type.Lookup does not support the full range of SSIS data types. The following types cannot be used as join columns.

DT_R4
DT_R8
DT_TEXT
DT_NTEXT
DT_IMAGE

Southern Africa Postal Administrators invest in ICTs

By Brenda Zulu
The call by the Zambian government to urge Postal administrators in the Southern African region to invest in Information Communication technologies for them to provide value added products and services to their countries is valid.
Press reports show that Deputy Minister of Communications and Transport, Mubika Mubika said this in Siavonga on Monday June 17 when he opened the Southern African Postal Operators Association annual general meeting. Mubika urged Postal administration to reform their traditional operation led organizations and adopt customer and service led organizations.
For Zambia it should be noted that, in 1994, Parliament enacted the Telecommunications Act, which resulted in the restructuring of the telecommunications sub sector by separating the Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) into two commercial entities which are the Zambia Telecommunications Limited (ZAMTEL) and the Zambia Postal Services Corporation (ZAMPOST). In additional this included the removal of regulatory functions from the PTC; thus resulting in the establishment of an autonomous regulatory agency, the Communications Authority of Zambia (CAZ). On the other hand regulation of the postal sub sector was still carried out by the Ministry of Communications and Transport through a Licensing committee comprising various stakeholders.
Postal and courier services are mainly provided by ZAMPOST. The Corporation covers the country through a network of about 116 Post offices, 64 Sub Post Offices and 55 Postal agencies.
A large percentage of the 72 districts have an operational post office. In addition, there are private courier services, which are concentrated along Livingstone Copperbelt corridor for delivery of parcels. However, some private courier operators now service provincial centres as well.
In relation to provision of ICTs, ZAMPOST offers a money transfer service called “SWIFT CASH” which has enabled many people within the country to receive and send money. Many Zambians are happy are please with the services as it is an alternative to Western Union a money transfer service which many Zambians now use to receive and send money to people living out of the country.

Tips to get optimum performance from large dataset manipulation

Here is a non exhaustive list of ways to get the best performance from large dataset DML.
Depending on system configuration and design, the effect of these recommendations may vary.

1-Do not create more than 16 exact match joins.

2- make sure indexes are created on exact match columns only if necessary for reporting

3- Avoid join on large views use temporary tables instead; Proceed by loading data from the view into a temp table then use the temp table in the join instead.

4- Avoid as much as possible creating indexes on temporary tables as it will impact insert performance

5- Avoid grouping as much as possible, if necessary make sure that the non- aggregated columns actually regroup data.

Most of the times as developement advances more columns are added onto the query. At some point the columns in the 'group by' clause may become candidate key to the dataset causing grouping to be ineffective; on a large query the effect on performance can be very important.

--The classics

6- Avoid table scans

7- Avoid nested Sql queries; join are more effective.

8- Avoid cursors. An effective use of Case statement can replace the use of cursors and deliver much better performance.
This sample query is for illustration only:

SELECT VENDORID, PRODUCTID,

SUM(CASE WHEN MONTH(SALESDATE)=1
THEN SUM(ISNULL(SALESAMOUNT,0))
ELSE 0 END) AS JAN_SALES,

SUM(CASE WHEN MONTH(SALESDATE)=2
THEN SUM(ISNULL(SALESAMOUNT,0))
ELSE 0 END) AS FEB_SALES,

SUM(CASE WHEN MONTH(SALESDATE)=3
THEN SUM(ISNULL(SALESAMOUNT,0))
ELSE 0 END) AS MAR_SALES

--...

FROM SALES S (NOLOCK)
JOIN PRODUCT P (NOLOCK) ON P.PRODUCTID=S.PRODUCTID
JOIN VENDOR V (NOLOCK) ON V.VENDORID=P.VENDORID
WHERE SALESDATE BETWEEN @PERIODSTART AND @PERIODEND
GROUP BY V.VENDORID,P.PRODUCTID

NetXposure' s Advanced Digital Asset Management

NetXposure, Inc., a leader in providing focused Web applications, today announced they have extended their long-standing relationship with Adobe Systems Incorporated by completing a worldwide OEM agreement for Adobe Graphics Server and will simultaneously release Image Portal 2.0. NetXposure' s Image Portal 2.0 is a customized web application that leverages Adobe Graphics Server software to provide businesses with the capabilities of an enterprise digital asset management system at an affordable price point. "Image Portal 2.0 was designed to fill the void in the digital asset management solutions market," said Devin Donnelly, president of NetXposure. "We focused on the specific digital asset management requirements for marketing, IT and creative managers in corporations and agencies. Today we are delivering a product that provides the vital functions of an enterprise digital asset management solution without the heavy price tag."

Until now, enterprise digital asset management solutions have been out of reach for most organizations, offering extensive, yet often unused functionality. Image Portal 2.0 makes dynamic imaging and image management affordable by unlocking the value of digital assets and streamlining workflow in browser-based solution that eliminates the need for special software and frees users from platform limitations.

"Throughout our long-standing relationship with NetXposure, as both a customer and partner, they have demonstrated a deep understanding of our products and capabilities," said Shawn Cadeau, director of product marketing at Adobe Systems Inc. "Image Portal 2.0 leverages the power of Adobe Graphics Server to streamline the process of managing large image libraries."

Image Portal 2.0 provides a layer of management, control, and access functionality to an image repository. Image Portal supports XMP, EXIF and IPTC image metadata that can be searched, viewed and edited with the same interface that is used to browse, process and download images. Individual image control allows administrators to customize fields for expanded flexibility and tailor access to individuals or groups with a simple tiered structure.

NetXposure' s Image Portal 2.0 is available now in English and Japanese versions for both Microsoft Windows and Sun Microsystems Solaris with a base price of $24,995 (US) including a license for Adobe Graphics Server 2.0.

QuickBooks Pro for Mac Financial Management Solutions

QuickBooks Pro for Mac is a financial management solution for small businesses.

Store and organize your financial and employee data in one place with QuickBooks Pro for Mac. Save time on bookkeeping and stay on top of your finances with a single solution that lets you see the money coming in and going out of your business.

QuickBooks can help you understand how your company is doing, so you can make better business decisions. Track sales and expenses; invoices and purchase orders; inventory and sales tax from a single program. Getting set up and started is easy. The QuickBooks tutorial center offers guided interacted instruction to help you quickly learn key tasks.

With QuickBooks all your data is stored in one place, so you don't have to go through hundreds of files and papers. You can see everything at a glance: employees hours, customer contact information, outstanding and paid invoices, payment histories and future payments.

The data that is belong together is shown together, so you can find what you need when you need it. When you create an invoice - you enter a customer's contact information the first time and QuickBooks stores it and keeps track of how much they owe. When you receive a payment you can review the customer outstanding invoices and apply the payment to the right invoice. If you lock an expense to the customer, the next time you invoice them, you get remind of rebuild the expenses.

QuickBooks makes it easy to keep track the money coming in and money going out. It's great that my financial data works together. QuickBooks organizes your information, so it can be instantly accessed to make everyday accounting task easier.

Pivot Transformation

Pivot transformation converts rows into columns. I see most of the people are not aware of setting the transformation properties.

Here is a small example.

My source data looks like this




Pivot transformation organizes data as below.



To implement this, add a Data flow task. Take OLE DB Source and select the source table. Add a pivot transformation to it. Select all the three columns in the input columns tab. In the Input and Output Properties tab give 1 (setkey) as the pivot usage for customers, 2 (PivotKey) for product and 3 (Pivotvalue) for Qty. Note down the LineageID of customer and Qty.

In the Pivot Default output add a column for customer and give the SourceColumn as the LineageID of the customer in the input column.

Add columns for product. Since there are 6 products add 6 new columns and give them appropriate names. For ChairQty mention Pivotkeyvalue as Chair and the SourceColumn is the LineageID of the qty input column.

Repeat this for the other 5 columns. Add an OLE DB destination to this pivot transformation. When executed rows will be organized into columns.