Advice request - Collections vs Keywords

Greetings,
This is a question from a Lightroom newbie.
I have a large number of photos (86,000). They are mostly botanical photos of plants. I need to quickly find all photos of a particular species. I have photos of about 800 different species.
Should I use Collections for this or Keywords? Or something else?
I had been using filenames in Windows. But I have found I used different names for the same species, or have misspelled the name or done typos. So I can no longer rely on that.
Thanks in advance!

Either approach would work if you just want to use Lightroom to locate all photos of a particular species. That said, I would use keywords, because (1) you can force the metadata to be written out to a file, which means that the keywords could be used by other programs, and (2) logically speaking, it seems to make more sense -- the species is an inherent property of (the object in) the picture, so the categorization should be applied to the picture. Hope this helps... -- jeff <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected].. > Greetings, > This is a question from a Lightroom newbie. > I have a large number of photos (86,000). They are mostly botanical photos > of plants. I need to quickly find all photos of a particular species. I > have photos of about 800 different species. > Should I use Collections for this or Keywords? Or something else? > I had been using filenames in Windows. But I have found I used different > names for the same species, or have misspelled the name or done typos. So > I can no longer rely on that. > > Thanks in advance!

Similar Messages

Lightroom 5: Can't make smart collection using keywords?

I watched a tutorial about how to make smart collections using keywords.
I spent a couple hours selecting the photos (using the paint can, good tip) and giving about 700 photos the keyword "use". Then I went to make a smart collection and discovered that it only allows you "any text field" with no reference to keywords. Many photos in my huge collection have the letters "use" in their titles.
So is there no way to select keywords as a basis for smart collections????

Jim Wilde wrote:
To be honest, I'm still not sure of the purpose/benefit of the change!
Definitely: to reduce time it takes to scroll from top to bottom .
Hopefully: to pave the way for additional metadata items in the future .
R

Smart Collections : Without Keywords does not update when removing items

I removed a folder from Lightroom 4 (Beta1)
Smart Collections : Without Keywords shows 325,
But there are only 8 photos in my entire catalog.
It appears the number of Pictures without keywords is not updating after importing or removing photos
Lightroom 4 (Beta 1) x64 Windows
Windows 7 x64

had another go today
It appears its only updates when openeing or closing LR4, or if you add/remove a keyword

Feature Request: Fast Multi Keyword Filtering

At the current time, in the grid view, if I want to filter by a KW (Keyword), I can click the right facing arrow at the right end of a keyword in the KW list. When I do this, the filter tool opens ar the top of the mid section, and the clicked on keyword is automatically highlighted in the left filter column which is a KW column. If I then click on the right arrow of a different KW in the KW list in the right panel, the new one replaces the old one in the filter.
This is great but it doesn't go far enough.
After doing the above, If I want to select another KW to be used in addition to the first one (in an AND relation), I'd like to <Ctrl>+<Click> on the right arrow for the second keyword in the right panel KW list to have the 2nd KW ADDED to the filter by placing it in a second KW column in the filter giving me a filter of the first KW AND the second KW. To do this as it is now one must convert an unused filter column to KW (if one not already there), then enlarge the filter window, scroll down to the desired KW (which can be quite time consuming if you have several hundred keywords - even in a hierarchy view), then click the second one, and then shrink the filter window back down to reasonable size.

I have a related FR, so I decided to integrate it with the above, which I also like. The FR is for: Smarter Finds with and/or logic and Smarter Smart collections with And/Or logic. For example, I want to find (or to make a smart collection of) all the photos that are in a folder which meet these criteria:
Their file name contains the word "Cuba" AND they have modifications (in the develop module)
OR
Their file name contains the word "Cuba" AND the file extension is .psd
This is because most photos in this folder are NEF, some of those have been developed in LR, and some have been exported to Photoshop to be worked on. It's frustrating not being able to make this preselection to find ALL the photos I've worked on. Anyone agree we need and/or/not/but logic and to be able to combine criteria in a find request?

IPhoto Importing Advice Requested

Hello All,
I hope someone could perhaps help me with an iPhoto issue. I am helping my friend switch from PC to Mac. Yes, a victory within itself!
He has a rather large photo collection on his PC, and he has everything in precise Folders as far as Named Folders and even Named Folders within Folders.
Does anyone know of a way to maintain the folder names and keep the folder relationships he currently has?
My first attempt was to import his whole library, but iPhoto did not do a good job of keeping form. What it yielded was a massive amount of "events" but still did not Ring true to his folder namings.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
DA

If you want to duplicate a Folder Tree in iPhoto:
Start at the bottom of the hierarchy and drag a folder of images to the Album Heading in iPhoto. The pics will be imported and an Album of the same name created.
You can then create the Enclosing Folders in the iPhoto Window (File -> New Folder) and drag the Album to it. Folders can contain other Folders (Nested Folders) and Albums.
Mimicing the Finder organisation is a bit pointless and wasting the power of iPhoto.
Is your folder system date based? The Calendar tool (Click on the wee magnifying glass in the Search Box) mean you can find the photos taken on any day, month or year at a click. With Smart Albums it's easy to find photos from specific range - say, June 3 to August 25, 2009 etc.
If your folder system is theme based - Xmas pics, Birthday pics etc, then you'll find Keywords are much more flexible, and can be used in conjunction with other criteria for making Smart Albums and searches.
Regards
TD

Web Service Request Collection/Complex Objects doesn't work

I am unable to call a .net web service using Adobe LiveCycle Designer 8.0. My test web service accepts either a complex object or a collection of the same object.
EX)
[WebMethod]
public string CostChange(CostChangeNotificationItem change1, CostChangeNotificationItem change2)
return "Success";
[WebMethod]
public string CostChangeColl(CostChangeNotificationCol changes)
return "Success";
I can successfullly create the connection to the web service. When i drag and drop the connection request/button/and response onto the designer i can call the web service successfully.
However you never see the request objects on the form unless you change the subforms to flowed and the min and initial count of the object to 1. When this is done the web service never gets called. You can click the button until you are blue in the face with no successful call.

Hello ,
our problem was a result of a corrupt database. Please check the Log files in CUCM . have a look for "missed table entries "
cli
utils dbreplication repair
check logs again the path to the log is displayed after the repair.
hope it helps
good luck

Smart Collection Criteria (keywords)

I'm just starting to create some Smart Collections, which is a nice feature that I'm trying to understand. I've read some of the tips and tricks, but I'm trying to figure out something:
I want to create a smart collection that has a particular keyword, but no other keywords. For example, I may have a bunch of photos with several different keywords, but I want to single out one keyword for the smart collection. I don't just want photos with that keyword, but photos with ONLY that keyword. I see you can specify "contains", "contains all", "contains words", "doesn't contain" - but nothing that specifies "contains ONLY".
So let's say I tag my photos with the names of my kids (we have three of them). I want to single out photos of just my son, Brandon. If I do the "contains" criteria, it's going to give me all of the Brandon photos, but also the photos with my other kids in the pictures as well. I don't see a way to specify that I ONLY want photos with the keyword "Brandon" and no other keywords in the photos.
Is there a way to do this? Or am I just not thinking clearly? ;-)

You can specify "Brandon", "but not Jason" "but not Susie."- that'd be all right for your kids, but I have almost no photos with just one keyword. I'd usually have setting or holiday or vacation or something else besides my kid's names in any event.

Feature Request: Collection Support

I already submitted this as part of a long laundry list of feature requests. Its becoming pressing enough that I thought it warranted its own post.
The purpose of this feature is to allow collections to be built using any programmatic algorithm combining information available ala SDK or XMP. Example function calls:
- LrCollections.createNewCollection( collectionName, clearIfAlreadyExisting )
- LrCollections.addToCollection( photo )
That would do it.

Dynu.com uses a HTTP-update mechanism. So you can change the updater-settings in your config to match the syntax from dynu. The URL is shown in their SDK: http://downloads.dynu.com/files/basic_sdk.txt
Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App

Advice Requested - High Availability WITHOUT Failover Clustering

We're creating an entirely new Hyper-V virtualized environment on Server 2012 R2. My question is: Can we accomplish high availability WITHOUT using failover clustering?
So, I don't really have anything AGAINST failover clustering, and we will happily use it if it's the right solution for us, but to be honest, we really don't want ANYTHING to happen automatically when it comes to failover. Here's what I mean:
In this new environment, we have architected 2 identical, very capable Hyper-V physical hosts, each of which will run several VMs comprising the equivalent of a scaled-back version of our entire environment. In other words, there is at least a domain
controller, multiple web servers, and a (mirrored/HA/AlwaysOn) SQL Server 2012 VM running on each host, along with a few other miscellaneous one-off worker-bee VMs doing things like system monitoring. The SQL Server VM on each host has about 75% of the
physical memory resources dedicated to it (for performance reasons). We need pretty much the full horsepower of both machines up and going at all times under normal conditions.
So now, to high availability. The standard approach is to use failover clustering, but I am concerned that if these hosts are clustered, we'll have the equivalent of just 50% hardware capacity going at all times, with full failover in place of course
(we are using an iSCSI SAN for storage).
BUT, if these hosts are NOT clustered, and one of them is suddenly switched off, experiences some kind of catastrophic failure, or simply needs to be rebooted while applying WSUS patches, the SQL Server HA will fail over (so all databases will remain up
and going on the surviving VM), and the environment would continue functioning at somewhat reduced capacity until the failed host is restarted. With this approach, it seems to me that we would be running at 100% for the most part, and running at 50%
or so only in the event of a major failure, rather than running at 50% ALL the time.
Of course, in the event of a catastrophic failure, I'm also thinking that the one-off worker-bee VMs could be replicated to the alternate host so they could be started on the surviving host if needed during a long-term outage.
So basically, I am very interested in the thoughts of others with experience regarding taking this approach to Hyper-V architecture, as it seems as if failover clustering is almost a given when it comes to best practices and high availability. I guess
I'm looking for validation on my thinking.
So what do you think? What am I missing or forgetting? What will we LOSE if we go with a NON-clustered high-availability environment as I've described it?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Udo -
Yes your responses are very helpful.
Can we use the built-in Server 2012 iSCSI Target Server role to convert the local RAID disks into an iSCSI LUN that the VMs could access? Or can that not run on the same physical box as the Hyper-V host? I guess if the physical box goes down
the LUN would go down anyway, huh? Or can I cluster that role (iSCSI target) as well? If not, do you have any other specific product suggestions I can research, or do I just end up wasting this 12TB of local disk storage?
- Morgan
That's a bad idea. First of all Microsoft iSCSI target is slow (it's non-cached @ server side). So if you really decided to use dedicated hardware for storage (maybe you do have a reason I don't know...) and if you're fine with your storage being a single
point of failure (OK, maybe your RTOs and RPOs are fair enough) then at least use SMB share. SMB at least does cache I/O on both client and server sides and also you can use Storage Spaces as a back end of it (non-clustered) so read "write back flash cache
for cheap". See:
What's new in iSCSI target with Windows Server 2012 R2
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn305893.aspx
Improved optimization to allow disk-level caching
Updated
iSCSI Target Server now sets the disk cache bypass flag on a hosting disk I/O, through Force Unit Access (FUA), only when the issuing initiator explicitly requests it. This change can potentially improve performance.
Previously, iSCSI Target Server would always set the disk cache bypass flag on all I/O’s. System cache bypass functionality remains unchanged in iSCSI Target Server; for instance, the file system cache on the target server is always bypassed.
Yes you can cluster iSCSI target from Microsoft but a) it would be SLOW as there would be only active-passive I/O model (no real use from MPIO between multiple hosts) and b) that would require a shared storage for Windows Cluster. What for? Scenario was
usable with a) there was no virtual FC so guest VM cluster could not use FC LUs and b) there was no shared VHDX so SAS could not be used for guest VM cluster as well. Now both are present so scenario is useless: just export your existing shared storage without
any Microsoft iSCSI target and you'll be happy. For references see:
MSFT iSCSI Target in HA mode
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg232621(v=ws.10).aspx
Cluster MSFT iSCSI Target with SAS back end
http://techontip.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/microsoft-iscsi-target-cluster-building-walkthrough/
Guest
VM Cluster Storage Options
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn440540.aspx
Storage options
The following tables lists the storage types that you can use to provide shared storage for a guest cluster.
Storage Type
Description
Shared virtual hard disk
New in Windows Server 2012 R2, you can configure multiple virtual machines to connect to and use a single virtual hard disk (.vhdx) file. Each virtual machine can access the virtual hard disk just like servers
would connect to the same LUN in a storage area network (SAN). For more information, see Deploy a Guest Cluster Using a Shared Virtual Hard Disk.
Virtual Fibre Channel
Introduced in Windows Server 2012, virtual Fibre Channel enables you to connect virtual machines to LUNs on a Fibre Channel SAN. For more information, see Hyper-V
Virtual Fibre Channel Overview.
iSCSI
The iSCSI initiator inside a virtual machine enables you to connect over the network to an iSCSI target. For more information, see iSCSI
Target Block Storage Overviewand the blog post Introduction of iSCSI Target in Windows
Server 2012.
Storage requirements depend on the clustered roles that run on the cluster. Most clustered roles use clustered storage, where the storage is available on any cluster node that runs a clustered
role. Examples of clustered storage include Physical Disk resources and Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). Some roles do not require storage that is managed by the cluster. For example, you can configure Microsoft SQL Server to use availability groups that replicate
the data between nodes. Other clustered roles may use Server Message Block (SMB) shares or Network File System (NFS) shares as data stores that any cluster node can access.
Sure you can use third-party software to replicate 12TB of your storage between just a pair of nodes to create a fully fault-tolerant cluster. See (there's also a free offering):
StarWind VSAN [Virtual SAN] for Hyper-V
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/native-san-for-hyper-v-free-edition
Product is similar to what VMware had just released for ESXi except it's selling for ~2 years so is mature :)
There are other guys doing this say DataCore (more playing for Windows-based FC) and SteelEye (more about geo-cluster & replication). But you may want to give them a try.
Hope this helped a bit :)
StarWind VSAN [Virtual SAN] clusters Hyper-V without SAS, Fibre Channel, SMB 3.0 or iSCSI, uses Ethernet to mirror internally mounted SATA disks between hosts.

Audio output advice request

Hello,
Hoping someone can help guide me on the most efficent way to deal with the following scenario. I have a late 2008 alum macbook that I am using as my primary home computer. I have a toslink optical out to my DTS decoder stereo receiver so that I can enjoy 5.1 dts sound from itunes and other sources. However, I also have Bose companion 2 desktop speakers that I would like to easily be able to toggle between for sound output from my Mac (for example, when my stereo reciever is otherwise occupied with television or other sound, I'd like to be able to use the desktop speakers simultaneously without having to unplug the mini-toslink from my headphone jack and switching it with the bose headphone jack. I'm looking for a way to have both the toslink and the bose sperakers hooked up to my mac at the same time. Any recommendations on how best to accomplish this??
Is there a better or easier scenario than the following? Will this scenario even work?
Get a USB 2.0 external digital sound output card (like creative soundblaster) to use for the itunes to stereo DTS decoder receiver and use the built-in headphone jack exclusively for the Bose speakers?
Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated!
Matt
Message was edited by: mattmck73

you can give it a quick test by making sure "auto Normalize" is enabled in GB's prefs and export, but my guess is that you're going to have to use a volume curve to increase his parts if it's all on one track.
another thing you might experiment with is any of GB's dynamics processors (compressors, limiters, etc).

Advice request - which external HDD for Adobe Lightroom?

Hi,
I'm going to buy myself an external hdd this week, and I would be very grateful for your advice.
1) I'm shooting with Nikon D70, Canon A520, and my mobile(;]).
2) After over 1 year of shooting I have ~130GB of photos taken with these cameras + I have some negative from analog times, which I'm going to scan (I estimate them to be next ~20GB)
3) I would like to keep all of above photos on external hdd and import them into Abobe Lightroom (tagging + developing), and and of course apply retouching to some of them in PS CS2.
4) My computers are : old PC desktop with XP, on which I will be only viewing these pictures, and IBM T43 with Vista on which I'm going to do all the developing. [Yes, I know that Apple is better, and I love Apple, but I can'tafford one yet].
Given above assumptions, which external hdd from the ones I've preselected should I choose ? I'm on the budget here, and the ones that I can afford are :
WD My Book Pro 250GB USB 2.0/FireWire400/FireWire800 16MB Cache
WD My Book Premium 320GB USB 2.0/FireWire400 8MB Cache
WD My Book Essential 500GB USB2.0 8MB Cache
LaCie Porsche 500GB USB 2.0 8MB Cache
I'm asking mainly because I don't have any idea about how fast should a drive be to work with Lightroom with decent speed.
Also : should I buy FireWire controller for my T43 laptop, or will USB 2.0 be enough for my purposes ?
Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.
Chris

>Yes, I know that Apple is better, and I love Apple, but I can't afford one yet
Either a PC or MAC is fine, but you've entered a field where affordability is proportional to the number of photos you manage, the type of processing you perform and the level of security you are comfortable with. This is entirely separate of your budget.
USB2 and/or Firewire Drives work fine. From your list, I've owned both the LaCie Porsche and a WD MyBook. They both failed for different reasons. All hard drives will eventually fail. If you can't afford to lose your photo library you need some sort of redundency. The reliability of that redundency (RAID) and or speed of retrieval determines what technology is the minimum you need to afford. Or, if you have more time than budget, you can archive on DVDs. Keep in mind that even DVD's will fail over time.
The faster the drive, the faster the backup (redundency), the faster the throughput, and the faster you have access to managing and processing your image library.
Did I answer your question: No. However, whatever you get, and assuming you value your photos, make sure you get two of them so you can build some redundency into your budget. If you're feeling lucky, get the largest drive you can afford and make sure you leave yourself a lot of time for those backups.
Welcome to "photo shoebox management" of the new millenium! It ain't cheap ... :-)

Color Adjustment Advice Request

Good Evening
I am requesting help with correcting some color issues with this image of one of my acrylic on canvas paintings. I am NOT having color issues with any of the other photos I have taken of my other paintings, just this one. (I calibrated my monitors with ColorMunki Display the other day.)
The image below was saved as a web version for posting here. It was originally a .NEF that I converted to a .TIF and I even tried saving it as a .JPG and viewing it outside of PSE. I have not yet tried to correct the black portion or anything else yet in this particular copy of the image below.
This particular image is one of probably 100 I have taken. I have tried various light sources and three different cameras. The third camera is a Canon D3200 and I have tried many, many different settings, this image was taken with this camera. The strange thing to me is not even this "good" camera shows the greenish color even in the camera view window or on the camera LCD screen. Again, this is the only subject so far I am having this difficulty with.
The bluer areas are possibly the best I can do as far as being representative of the original painting. THE ISSUE IS THE "GREEN" AREAS.
I can not get them to be a good/acceptable representation of the color of the original painting.
I have tried many various tools and adjustments and still can not attain a result I am satisfied with. I am still learning the PSE program and perhaps I just have not hit upon the tool or combination of tools I need.
I'd like to select ONLY the areas that are supposed to be the green color/tone/hue? and adjust them to make them more vivid/bright? Especially the area to the left of the eye which in this image appears almost blackish. In the original those areas are not blackish, they are the greenish like the other areas that are supposed to be greenish. These green areas here appear too dull and washed out.
I have tried the MAGIC WAND but I don't think I'm adjusting it correctly. I either get too much area or too little. I have tried contiguious and not contiguous. Is this indeed the best tool for this job? Also, which tool should I be using or adjustment should I be making to obtain what I am looking for? The ADJUST HUE SATURATION? THE BRIGHTNESS CONTRAST? Which one?
If more clarification is needed I'll be here all night to provide it.
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for any assistance.
P.

Good morning everyone
Have you ever been asleep and then have an idea pop into your mind as you are waking up? I did, this morning. But I don't know what to do with it or if I should bother. Maybe someone has some input for me?
(I did speak with a technical support person at Nikon yesterday who tried to help me. He gave me guidance on various settings for my camera that should have helped me get better results. I was to take multiple pictures with different settings and email them to him. I did take the photos, approximately 40 of them at all conceivable settings, including the settings he specifically suggested. I did this OUTDOORS and INDOORS. The outdoor lighting was supposed to be, according to everything I have read, ideal...cloudy day. None of the images are acceptable to me. Not in the camera LCD screen, which I KNOW is not where one should make ultimate decisions about their images, nor on my computer monitor. The images appear on my computer monitor as they do in the camera LCD screen by the way.
I also decided to PRINT a number of the images hoping that this would isolate the issue. The images printed out pretty much exactly like the images in the LCD monitor and the computer monitor. I KNOW I SHOULD GIVE UP AND JUST BUY THE DEVICES AND SOFTWARE THAT ARE OUT THERE TO FIX THIS ENTIRE ISSUE, I JUST DIDN'T REALIZE I PROBABLY NEEDED THEM. I INITIALLY THOUGHT PROPERLY CALIBRATING THE MONITOR WAS ALL THAT NEEDED TO BE DONE. I HAVE LEARNED AS I HAVE GONE ALONG THAT THERE ARE OTHER CALIBRATIONS THAT SHOULD BE DONE AND I WILL PURCHASE THE NECESSARY ITEMS. I JUST WANT TO SEE WHAT I CAN DO IN THE MEANTIME WITH WHAT I HAVE AVAILABLE. AND I STILL WONDER WHY THE CAMERA IS DOING SUCH A POOR JOB WITH THE COLORS AS WELL, AT LEAST I'M THINKING THERE IS AN ISSUE WITH THE CAMERA TOO?)
SOOO, back to my idea. When I woke up I thought to myself, I wonder how the images would look if I SCANNED the painting with my extra printer's scanner bed? The painting is small enough, this will help me figure out what is happening. Hmmmm.
I scanned in millions of colors, billions of colors, various adaptive light settings, color correction on, color correction off, etc. etc. The results were just as bad as what I am getting from the camera(?). I put this in BOLD because now I'm not so sure that is an issue with the camera. Read on if you so desire
Then another idea popped into my head. My mother, who is an artist/architect as it happens, had sent me as a present a while back a box of 100 PANTONE Postcards (I don't snail mail anymore and I wonder if this was a hint, they are all pre-addressed). Most of the postcard is the color and a name of the color and its appropriate number/code?
I scanned five color cards, chosen to represent as much as possible the colors in the painting. I scanned them to my monitor. I am viewing as .tif which is the setting I used to scan them. They are off slightly? from their actual colors
I wondered if the issue is just with my monitor, so I then PRINTED the image file out on the Pixma using the proper media choice for Canon Pro Platinum paper so that the correct ICC profile would be utilized.
The colors are still off. Especially the GREEN, Pantone 3278, which on the post card is a pretty, cheerful, lively green. On the monitor and in the print it appears as a yucky, duller, muddier, darker green. (I just don't know how to describe color, sorry.)
The BLUES aren't so great either. The Pantone colors listed on the cards for the blues are Pantone 18-4525 Caribbean Sea, Pantone 291,Pantone 18-4530 Celestial, and Pantone 18-4330 Swedish Blue.
This whole situation indicates to me that ALL the other colors in all my other work that I THOUGHT were as accurate as they should be, are not.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE ME AT THIS POINT?
1) Should I have posted this in another forum? Printers and Monitors I suppose. But just thought this would be a continuation of the thread I started.
2) Should I try to find the appropriate HEX code conversions for the colors and use them to tweak the color settings menu that I saw somewhere and was too afraid to use?
3) NOT in anyway spend any more time on this at all until I purchase the other devices and software?
4) Give up entirely because this is as good at is going to get?
5) Still wondering about the accuracy of my camera in capturing the colors the way they are in life?
Sigh...what do you all have to say...be gentle
Regards,
P.
PS. I hope it is okay to post this in the other couple of forums I am a member of because they have been helpful too

Advice request - visually condensing content

Any advice on this would be much appreciated...
I do my wife's business website for her - she's been doing a
blog every day in January and it's proved very good for connecting
with site visitors and encouraging them to contact her.
I've been using Spry collapsible panels to "store" entries to
date. But when January's over I want to find a way of making the
blog area tidier - and possibly using the same page as a hub for
the blog, testimonials and press references.
I'd be very grateful for any advice on useability / design /
coding requirements.
I did see one interesting example on the adobe site where 3
inter-related boxes (towards the middle / bottom of the page) were
used, with each one growing / shrinking accordingly when clicked -
but I can't seem to find it again, and it could well be beyond me
anyway...
Bear in mind that I'm just at the level of self-taught html
& css - whilst I'm up for learning, there are limits to how far
I can go!
Thanks, Matt.
The page is at
http://www.magic-dust.co.uk/wedding-planners-coordinators-news-themes.html

jjust giving it a bump - any advice much apreciated...

Design Advice Request - Using JDBC in a utility class

I have a utility class that I would like to use from any client code, regardless of whether that code is executing in a transaction or not.
          This seems to greatly complicate the JDBC access from within the utility class. I appreciate any advice.
          The utility class may both read from and write to the database. It currently attempts to detect whether it is in a transaction (it tests whether TransactionHelper.getTransactionHelper().getTransaction() is null to do this -- please point out if there is a better way.)
          If in a transaction, the utility uses a data source which is linked to an XA connection pool, since it must assume other database activity may be occurring on the tx. If not in a transaction, however, it uses a data source linked to a non-XA connection pool, since the XA connection pool will not work outside of a transaction.
          It seems like there should be an easier way -- are we overlooking some simpler solution?
          The database is Oracle 9i and we are using the Oracle thin drivers.
          Thanks in advance,
          Ken Clark

Ken Clark wrote:
          > I am not sure what you mean by this:
          >
          > "do all your JDBC work in the
          > scope of a top-level method (or methods)
          > with *all* jdbc variables method-level
          > variables,"
          I saw the code you sent me, and that is what it does, so no worries here.
          >
          > I originally built this with a non-XA DataSource, but found that when the utility was called from within a transaction, I would get errors that there was already a connection in use and that I therefore needed to use an XA connection.
          >
          > Switching to XA DataSource fixed that problem, but then in other cases when not in a transaction, I would get errors saying that an XA Connection could not be used outside a transaction.
          >
          > Since my utility has no control over the callers state, I came up with the solution stated previously, where I determine if in a Tx and then use the corresponding DataSource.
          >
          > Is there just a matter of configuration such that I can use a non-XA DS in all cases?
          I am saying a non transactional DataSource, not a non XA data source. Ie, a datasource that
          is unaware of whether there is a UserTransaction underway. A transactional data source can
          be either XA or not. In the former case, multiple XA connections can and will be entrained
          in any ongoing transactino, and non-XA (but transactional) datasources can and will be
          used in a tx, but only one per tx because they have no 2-phase commit capability.
          Ie; In the config file, you will see TxDataSource for a transactional datasource
          to a pool (whether XA or not), and you will see DataSource for a non-transactional
          data source.
          Joe

1st gen imac,dual core no power? Some helpful advice requested please....

Please pardon my grammar, sentence syntax and perhaps spelling!
Yes I have read all the gloom and doom posts regarding logic boards etc, what are the chances it might be a power supply issue?
Cord in and out, pram reset, no power light, no response to keyboard, no connected accessories, nothing on screen, no response to attempted insertion of disks, so sound (start up or otherwise), no sound of disk trying to boot etc, etc. Tried alternative cord as well...rarely shut down except for moving unit, days away etc
Please could you helpful guys and girls throw some ideas about what my issue with this rather old (first intel imac early 2006, 2o" screen) but beloved piece of tech might be?
My Imac simply went to sleep one fine spring morning and never woke up. Thanks in advance!!

I am on the phone right now with a product specialist about my iMac G5 power supply issues. Kind of ***** because he has, in so many words, said that the Genius is the Alpha and Omega and can extend the 3 year coverage. For me that is great except that the Apple store is over an hour away. I don't understand why the dude on the phone can't pull the switch and make it happen as well.
Factor in:
Unplugging iMac G5 and all peripherals
Loading it in the car
Driving an hour
Carrying it into the Mall (apple store)
Waiting for my Genius appointment
More than likely getting it fixed for free (from the sounds of things)
Driving back after it is fixed
Doing everything listed in reverse.
Would it just be easier to pay the $108 for a new power supply, wait a few days, undo some screws, and BAM! it works again?
Update. Off the phone now. The product specialist flexed his muscles, back handed the Genius to gain authority, and basically stated that they WILL DEFINITELY repair either the power supply or the logic board or both if needed. I have already had them replace the logic board once. BUT, I still have to load it up and take it to the Apple Store. Boo.

Advice request - Collections vs Keywords

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for