Metro Design

A Windows applications UI is not changed for many years.  The recent big change was office Ribbon.  Now there is major shift in UI design which is Metro style design. Metro design is already adopted completely in Windows Phone 7, Zune.  Windows 8 will also be based on Metro design.  The design is from the inspiration of sign boards in Metro cities.  Hence the name.
 
Principles

• Light & simple: No glassy buttons are rich graphics.  Simple flat graphics
• Typography: Beauty is given importance, Have specific type (ex Segoe) use at various weightages to have textual hierarchy
• Motion: The lively of the application is given importance, little animation added for every user interface and page transitions
• Content, not chrome: Important is for the content not for controls, so unnecessary controls are removed, so no more scroll bar for a list, a list it self can be scrollable.
• Honesty: It is unique and new style

Design Language
Principles talks about abstract concepts language takes a shape. 

• Navigation: Pivot & Panaroma
• Motion: Animations
• Iconography: Flat icon set
• Images & Photos
• Themes & Personalization
• Touch Gestures & Targets
• UI controls: Application Bar, Application Bar Menu
• Hardware
• Services
• Marketplace and Branding

Tutorial: http://blendinsider.com/tutorial/blend-tutorial-part-1-design-your-first-metro-style-app-with-javascript-html5-css-2012-1-20/

For more detail check out Channel 9,  MSDN, Blog Reference

SQL Server 2008 High Availability

High availability configuration is a tricky area for me, I feel Operation team will take care on them!! and never ventured to understand in depth.  But today I came across simple video on configuring high availability options in a simple way.  It is simple and clear.

• Log Shipping – 1
• Log Shipping - 2
• Mirroring – 1
• Mirroring – 2
• Configuring Distribution
• Snapshot Replication – CodeProject Article
• Merge Replication
• Transactional Replication
• Transaction Replication-Push

Grouping set in SQL Server 2008

Aggregation is primary need when you are building reports.  The simple GROUP BY is not sufficient when you are building reports.  The ROLLUP and CUBE are handy features for cumulative aggregates.  These ROLLUP and CUBE are replaced with GROUPING SET in SQL 2008.  

The features like ROLLUP, CUBE exists for backward compatibility, so in if you are in SQL 2008 start using GROUPING SET.  

Instead of explaining GROUPING SET, I just listed set of query and output which is self explanatory. .

Sample Table	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000.00 1 2006 18000.00 1 2007 25000.00 2 2005 15000.00 2 2006 6000.00
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY EmpId, Yr WITH ROLLUP OR SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY ROLLUP(EmpId, Yr)	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000 1 2006 18000 1 2007 25000 1 NULL 55000 2 2005 15000 2 2006 6000 2 NULL 21000 NULL NULL 76000
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY EmpId, Yr WITH CUBE OR SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY CUBE(EmpId, Yr)	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000 2 2005 15000 NULL 2005 27000 1 2006 18000 2 2006 6000 NULL 2006 24000 1 2007 25000 NULL 2007 25000 NULL NULL 76000 1 NULL 55000 2 NULL 21000
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((EmpId, Yr), (EmpId), ())	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000 1 2006 18000 1 2007 25000 1 NULL 55000 2 2005 15000 2 2006 6000 2 NULL 21000 NULL NULL 76000
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((EmpId, Yr), (EmpId))	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000 1 2006 18000 1 2007 25000 1 NULL 55000 2 2005 15000 2 2006 6000 2 NULL 21000
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((EmpId, Yr), (EmpId))	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000 1 2006 18000 1 2007 25000 1 NULL 55000 2 2005 15000 2 2006 6000 2 NULL 21000
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((EmpId), (Yr))	EmpId Yr Sales NULL 2005 27000 NULL 2006 24000 NULL 2007 25000 1 NULL 55000 2 NULL 21000
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((EmpId, Yr))	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000 2 2005 15000 1 2006 18000 2 2006 6000 1 2007 25000
SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((EmpId, Yr), (EmpId) ) OR SELECT EmpId, Yr, SUM(Sales) AS Sales FROM Sales GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((EmpId), (Yr, EmpId))	EmpId Yr Sales 1 2005 12000 1 2006 18000 1 2007 25000 1 NULL 55000 2 2005 15000 2 2006 6000 2 NULL 21000