Tour of Munich, Budapest, Vienna, Prague and Salzburg - 5

 Vienna

It was free day for those who wanted to explore more of Vienna. We opted to take the Danube river cruise. We went from Vienna to Dürnstein, after about an hour or more bus ride. We did some sightseeing of this town with the blue church over the hill and 16th century residences. It was typically a town for tourists with lots of shops, restaurants, wine shops etc. on both sides of narrow cobbled streets. We then boarded the boat at Dürnstein pier around 10:00 AM. The ride was for about 3 hours or more and the boat had an on-board restaurant. At a distance, you can see the castle now in ruins that had held Richard the Lionheart captive.  Lots of wine, beer and snacks could be exchanged for euros. We finally got off at a place called Melk (see map references) and visited the Melk Abbey.  It has an awesome library. We then drove to a winery at Pfeffel in der Wachau. The owner showed us round the orchard. We were served wine (free) but of course there were cheese plates and cold cuts as well (not free). They do not export their wine as the local market is strong enough. We returned to the hotel around 5:00 PM. Some members from our group went out to the city for more fun. We called it a day.

Here are some pictures in a slide show:


If you somehow cannot get to see the slides here is another option.

Review my recent SQL Anywhere 17 posts on HodentekMSSS

There are a number of SQL Anywhere 17 posts on my HodentekMSSS blog related to using Power BI. Perhaps you may want to read.

   
SQL Anywhere 17 Reports using Power BI                                                                     12/1/2016
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/12/sql-anywhere-17-reports-using-power-bi.html

Retrieve data from SQL Anywhere 17 in JSON format                                                    11/28/2016
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/11/retrieve-data-from-sql-anywhere-17-in.html
   
Problem connecting to SQL Anywhere 17 to Power BI using OLE DB                           11/23/2016
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/11/problem-connecting-to-sql-anywhere-17.html

Problem connecting to SQL Anywhere 17 to Power BI using OLE DB - the workaround 11/24/2016
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/11/problem-connecting-to-sql-anywhere-17_24.html
   
Trick to querying a SAP SQL Anywhere Server database with R                                      9/5/2016
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/09/trick-to-querying-sap-sql-anywhere.html

Tour of Munich, Budapest, Vienna, Prague and Salzburg - 4

Vienna

Vienna is a historic city in Europe with its fine music and arts. It has very nice restaurants albeit expensive. The area around the Imperial Gardens speaks volumes about its past glory. The Schonbrunn Palace which was very near to where we stayed is worth visiting.  It was built to surpass Versailles but comes somewhat short. The Gloriette at the elevated place looks very impressive. The city tour has lots of other interesting places like the Hundertwasser haus and the Mozart Statue in the Burggarten. The Albertina museum was somewhat of a disappointment. They were exhibiting 'Monet and Picasso'. The entry fee was expensive. The number of exhibits were small.Perhaps your impressions are different.

There was also an optional event, the Viennese traditional Heurigen dinner. We skipped. Being a vegetarian I would have been an inconsonant participant.

Here is the embedded slide show:



If for some reason you are unable to open this document you can visit this link on Google.
 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yHu8UdCYKZ5h8kQ2KFoaNKvidXJGy_jrdvbmUGkimK4/edit?usp=sharing

Get moving installing SQL Server 2016 SP1

SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 is released  and now generally available(GA).

According to the above release blog:

Many of the features (listed in the table here) available in Enterprise Edition are now available in several other editions as well after installing the SP1 (Standard, web, express and LocalDB).

SQLSrvrSp1_00

Note that Change Data Capture requires SQL Server Agent not available in Express and In Memory OLTP not possible in LocalDB due to security reasons

DBCC CLONEDATABASE added supports cloning of CLR, Filestream/Filetable, Hekaton and Query Store objects are available after installing SP1

DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name)    –– Default CLONE WITH SCHEMA, STATISTICS and QUERYSTORE metadata.
DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name) WITH NO_STATISTICS                                                                                               –– SCHEMA AND QUERY STORE ONLY CLONE
DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name) WITH NO_QUERYSTORE                                                                                              –– SCHEMA AND STATISTICS ONLY CLONE
DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name) WITH NO_STATISTICS,NO_QUERYSTORE                                                          –– SCHEMA ONLY CLONE
New Create/Alter supports modifying and deploying database objects such as
Stored Procedures, 
Triggers, 
User–Defined Functions, and 
Views

This is just a short list from more than a dozen others. Make sure you visit the link referenced at the top.

The SQL Server 2016 Enterprise specific sample database, WorldWorldImporters can now be used in Standard and Express editions.

Download SQL Server 2016 SP1 here .

IoT and changing direction of Intel XDK

If you have been using Intel XDK to build apps both HTML5 based and native apps, there is going to be (actually has been going on) a change in the direction. A number of frameworks were used with Intel XDK in the designer. You might have noticed that the number of frameworks are being deprecated. Presently, in version (the latest) 3641 only the Twitter Bootstrap is currently supported and the others are being deprecated.

Intel XDK is going to focus more on IoT apps. The other apps are not going to be supported in the Intel XDK. Since most of the technologies used in developing non-IoT apps are mature, Intel XDK will get provide documentation help to use these technologies.

This is according to Paul, one of the Intel XDK moderators:

" it's not that there is a benefit for developing IoT apps over mobile apps, they are quite different apps; the point is that we are focusing the tool to emphasize IoT app development, especially since the free and open-source tools available for developing, debugging and building Cordova mobile apps have now become quite mature. We will continue to support the development of Cordova mobile apps, but will rely more heavily on these freely available tools, rather than try to compete with them. The product today supports the creation of two basic types of apps: IoT apps and mobile Cordova apps. When we say "IoT companion apps" we simply mean a mobile Cordova app that is focused on working with an IoT app and any supporting IoT cloud services. As the product progresses it will make more sense."



In version 3641

That going forward the emphasis will be on IoT apps makes great sense from the point  view of Intel Corporation. Intel Corporation makes IoT boards of different kinds and will be investing a lot of effort on IoT.

What better way can be there than this change of direction.

More here for all comments on related topic:
https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk/topic/700951