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  • The Hunger Games for Aspiring IT Professionals

    - by Dain C. Hansen
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} It seems that no one can escape the buzz around Hunger Games. And who could? Stephen King said it best in his review when he referred to the Collins’ novel as “a violent, jarring speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense and may also generate a fair amount of controversy”. So what’s the tie in for IT? Let’s leave the dystopia of District 12 and come back to today’s reality. This is the world of radical IT paradigm shifts that haven’t been seen since Java was introduced in 1995. Everything you learned in school is probably outdated as of Friday. And everything you learned on Friday will probably change when you get to work on Monday. Nevertheless, we’re eager, we’re aspiring, we’re hungry to learn. While the challenges upon us may not rival the venomous bees (or ‘tracker jackers’) seen in this blockbuster, there are certainly obstacles to be found. In preparation, I leave you two pieces of advice - aside from avoiding werewolves… Learn the Cloud If you had asked me what to learn in 1995, I would have said, “Go learn Java”. But now my advice is “Go learn Java and then learn Cloud”. Cloud computing and Java go hand in hand. This is especially true for Oracle’s own Public Cloud which uses Java (via WebLogic 12c) as well as Oracle Database at its core foundation. Understanding the connotations of elasticity, scale, virtualization, and multi-tenancy, (to name just a few) requires a strong foundation in computer science and especially Java to get it right. Without Java, the Cloud is nothing more than a brittle application meagerly deployed on the internet. Get Social and Actively Participate And at all levels. Socializing your ideas internally is dreadfully important. And this means socializing and communicating your good ideas to lines of business, to architects, business analysts, developers, DBAs and Operations. But don’t forget to go external. Stay current by being on the lookout for blogs, tweets, webcasts, papers, podcasts and videos for your technology area. Be not just a subscriber but a participant in these channels as well. Attend industry and vendor sponsored events to learn from the experts – and seek out opportunities to stay connected with those that are smarter than you. You’ll gain more understanding if you participate actively. At the same time you’ll make friends (and allies) and you’ll be glad you did. Tell help you get social and actively participate [while learning the Cloud] here are a couple of pointers for you: See our website on Cloud and Fusion Middleware Subscribe to our regular Fusion Middleware Newsletter Follow us on Twitter and Facebook Find us at one of our key events Meanwhile, happy IT hunger games!

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  • Returning a list from a function in Python

    - by Jasper
    Hi, I'm creating a game for my sister, and I want a function to return a list variable, so I can pass it to another variable. The relevant code is as follows: def startNewGame(): while 1: #Introduction: print print """Hello, You will now be guided through the setup process. There are 7 steps to this. You can cancel setup at any time by typing 'cancelSetup' Thankyou""" #Step 1 (Name): print print """Step 1 of 7: Type in a name for your PotatoHead: """ inputPHName = raw_input('|Enter Name:|') if inputPHName == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 2 (Gender): print print """Step 2 of 7: Choose the gender of your PotatoHead: input either 'm' or 'f' """ inputPHGender = raw_input('|Enter Gender:|') if inputPHGender == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 3 (Colour): print print """Step 3 of 7: Choose the colour your PotatoHead will be: Only Red, Blue, Green and Yellow are currently supported """ inputPHColour = raw_input('|Enter Colour:|') if inputPHColour == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 4 (Favourite Thing): print print """Step 4 of 7: Type your PotatoHead's favourite thing: """ inputPHFavThing = raw_input('|Enter Favourite Thing:|') if inputPHFavThing == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() # Step 5 (First Toy): print print """Step 5 of 7: Choose a first toy for your PotatoHead: """ inputPHFirstToy = raw_input('|Enter First Toy:|') if inputPHFirstToy == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 6 (Check stats): while 1: print print """Step 6 of 7: Check the following details to make sure that they are correct: """ print print """Name:\t\t\t""" + inputPHName + """ Gender:\t\t\t""" + inputPHGender + """ Colour:\t\t\t""" + inputPHColour + """ Favourite Thing:\t""" + inputPHFavThing + """ First Toy:\t\t""" + inputPHFirstToy + """ """ print print "Enter 'y' or 'n'" inputMCheckStats = raw_input('|Is this information correct?|') if inputMCheckStats == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() elif inputMCheckStats == 'y': break elif inputMCheckStats == 'n': print "Re-enter info: ..." print break else: "The value you entered was incorrect, please re-enter your choice" if inputMCheckStats == 'y': break #Step 7 (Define variables for the creation of the PotatoHead): MFCreatePH = [] print print """Step 7 of 7: Your PotatoHead will now be created... Creating variables... """ MFCreatePH = [inputPHName, inputPHGender, inputPHColour, inputPHFavThing, inputPHFirstToy] time.sleep(1) print "inputPHName" print time.sleep(1) print "inputPHFirstToy" print return MFCreatePH print "Your PotatoHead varibles have been successfully created!" Then it is passed to another function that was imported from another module from potatohead import * ... welcomeMessage() MCreatePH = startGame() myPotatoHead = PotatoHead(MCreatePH) the code for the PotatoHead object is in the potatohead.py module which was imported above, and is as follows: class PotatoHead: #Initialise the PotatoHead object: def __init__(self, data): self.data = data #Takes the data from the start new game function - see main.py #Defines the PotatoHead starting attributes: self.name = data[0] self.gender = data[1] self.colour = data[2] self.favouriteThing = data[3] self.firstToy = data[4] self.age = '0.0' self.education = [self.eduScience, self.eduEnglish, self.eduMaths] = '0.0', '0.0', '0.0' self.fitness = '0.0' self.happiness = '10.0' self.health = '10.0' self.hunger = '0.0' self.tiredness = 'Not in this version' self.toys = [] self.toys.append(self.firstToy) self.time = '0' #Sets data lists for saving, loading and general use: self.phData = (self.name, self.gender, self.colour, self.favouriteThing, self.firstToy) self.phAdvData = (self.name, self.gender, self.colour, self.favouriteThing, self.firstToy, self.age, self.education, self.fitness, self.happiness, self.health, self.hunger, self.tiredness, self.toys) However, when I run the program this error appears: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Users/Jasper/Documents/Programming/Potato Head Game/Current/main.py", line 158, in <module> myPotatoHead = PotatoHead(MCreatePH) File "/Users/Jasper/Documents/Programming/Potato Head Game/Current/potatohead.py", line 15, in __init__ self.name = data[0] TypeError: 'NoneType' object is unsubscriptable What am i doing wrong? -----EDIT----- The program finishes as so: Step 7 of 7: Your PotatoHead will now be created... Creating variables... inputPHName inputPHFirstToy Then it goes to the Tracback -----EDIT2----- This is the EXACT code I'm running in its entirety: #+--------------------------------------+# #| main.py |# #| A main module for the Potato Head |# #| Game to pull the other modules |# #| together and control through user |# #| input |# #| Author: |# #| Date Created / Modified: |# #| 3/2/10 | 20/2/10 |# #+--------------------------------------+# Tested: No #Import the required modules: import time import random import sys from potatohead import * from toy import * #Start the Game: def welcomeMessage(): print "----- START NEW GAME -----------------------" print "==Print Welcome Message==" print "loading... \t loading... \t loading..." time.sleep(1) print "loading..." time.sleep(1) print "LOADED..." print; print; print; print """Hello, Welcome to the Potato Head Game. In this game you can create a Potato Head, and look after it, like a Virtual Pet. This game is constantly being updated and expanded. Please look out for updates. """ #Choose whether to start a new game or load a previously saved game: def startGame(): while 1: print "--------------------" print """ Choose an option: New_Game or Load_Game """ startGameInput = raw_input('>>> >') if startGameInput == 'New_Game': startNewGame() break elif startGameInput == 'Load_Game': print "This function is not yet supported" print "Try Again" print else: print "You must have mistyped the command: Type either 'New_Game' or 'Load_Game'" print #Set the new game up: def startNewGame(): while 1: #Introduction: print print """Hello, You will now be guided through the setup process. There are 7 steps to this. You can cancel setup at any time by typing 'cancelSetup' Thankyou""" #Step 1 (Name): print print """Step 1 of 7: Type in a name for your PotatoHead: """ inputPHName = raw_input('|Enter Name:|') if inputPHName == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 2 (Gender): print print """Step 2 of 7: Choose the gender of your PotatoHead: input either 'm' or 'f' """ inputPHGender = raw_input('|Enter Gender:|') if inputPHGender == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 3 (Colour): print print """Step 3 of 7: Choose the colour your PotatoHead will be: Only Red, Blue, Green and Yellow are currently supported """ inputPHColour = raw_input('|Enter Colour:|') if inputPHColour == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 4 (Favourite Thing): print print """Step 4 of 7: Type your PotatoHead's favourite thing: """ inputPHFavThing = raw_input('|Enter Favourite Thing:|') if inputPHFavThing == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() # Step 5 (First Toy): print print """Step 5 of 7: Choose a first toy for your PotatoHead: """ inputPHFirstToy = raw_input('|Enter First Toy:|') if inputPHFirstToy == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() #Step 6 (Check stats): while 1: print print """Step 6 of 7: Check the following details to make sure that they are correct: """ print print """Name:\t\t\t""" + inputPHName + """ Gender:\t\t\t""" + inputPHGender + """ Colour:\t\t\t""" + inputPHColour + """ Favourite Thing:\t""" + inputPHFavThing + """ First Toy:\t\t""" + inputPHFirstToy + """ """ print print "Enter 'y' or 'n'" inputMCheckStats = raw_input('|Is this information correct?|') if inputMCheckStats == 'cancelSetup': sys.exit() elif inputMCheckStats == 'y': break elif inputMCheckStats == 'n': print "Re-enter info: ..." print break else: "The value you entered was incorrect, please re-enter your choice" if inputMCheckStats == 'y': break #Step 7 (Define variables for the creation of the PotatoHead): MFCreatePH = [] print print """Step 7 of 7: Your PotatoHead will now be created... Creating variables... """ MFCreatePH = [inputPHName, inputPHGender, inputPHColour, inputPHFavThing, inputPHFirstToy] time.sleep(1) print "inputPHName" print time.sleep(1) print "inputPHFirstToy" print return MFCreatePH print "Your PotatoHead varibles have been successfully created!" #Run Program: welcomeMessage() MCreatePH = startGame() myPotatoHead = PotatoHead(MCreatePH) The potatohead.py module is as follows: #+--------------------------------------+# #| potatohead.py |# #| A module for the Potato Head Game |# #| Author: |# #| Date Created / Modified: |# #| 24/1/10 | 24/1/10 |# #+--------------------------------------+# Tested: Yes (24/1/10) #Create the PotatoHead class: class PotatoHead: #Initialise the PotatoHead object: def __init__(self, data): self.data = data #Takes the data from the start new game function - see main.py #Defines the PotatoHead starting attributes: self.name = data[0] self.gender = data[1] self.colour = data[2] self.favouriteThing = data[3] self.firstToy = data[4] self.age = '0.0' self.education = [self.eduScience, self.eduEnglish, self.eduMaths] = '0.0', '0.0', '0.0' self.fitness = '0.0' self.happiness = '10.0' self.health = '10.0' self.hunger = '0.0' self.tiredness = 'Not in this version' self.toys = [] self.toys.append(self.firstToy) self.time = '0' #Sets data lists for saving, loading and general use: self.phData = (self.name, self.gender, self.colour, self.favouriteThing, self.firstToy) self.phAdvData = (self.name, self.gender, self.colour, self.favouriteThing, self.firstToy, self.age, self.education, self.fitness, self.happiness, self.health, self.hunger, self.tiredness, self.toys) #Define the phStats variable, enabling easy display of PotatoHead attributes: def phDefStats(self): self.phStats = """Your Potato Head's Stats are as follows: ---------------------------------------- Name: \t\t""" + self.name + """ Gender: \t\t""" + self.gender + """ Colour: \t\t""" + self.colour + """ Favourite Thing: \t""" + self.favouriteThing + """ First Toy: \t""" + self.firstToy + """ Age: \t\t""" + self.age + """ Education: \t""" + str(float(self.eduScience) + float(self.eduEnglish) + float(self.eduMaths)) + """ -> Science: \t""" + self.eduScience + """ -> English: \t""" + self.eduEnglish + """ -> Maths: \t""" + self.eduMaths + """ Fitness: \t""" + self.fitness + """ Happiness: \t""" + self.happiness + """ Health: \t""" + self.health + """ Hunger: \t""" + self.hunger + """ Tiredness: \t""" + self.tiredness + """ Toys: \t\t""" + str(self.toys) + """ Time: \t\t""" + self.time + """ """ #Change the PotatoHead's favourite thing: def phChangeFavouriteThing(self, newFavouriteThing): self.favouriteThing = newFavouriteThing phChangeFavouriteThingMsg = "Your Potato Head's favourite thing is " + self.favouriteThing + "." #"Feed" the Potato Head i.e. Reduce the 'self.hunger' attribute's value: def phFeed(self): if float(self.hunger) >=3.0: self.hunger = str(float(self.hunger) - 3.0) elif float(self.hunger) < 3.0: self.hunger = '0.0' self.time = str(int(self.time) + 1) #Pass time #"Exercise" the Potato Head if between the ages of 5 and 25: def phExercise(self): if float(self.age) < 5.1 or float(self.age) > 25.1: print "This Potato Head is either too young or too old for this activity!" else: if float(self.fitness) <= 8.0: self.fitness = str(float(self.fitness) + 2.0) elif float(self.fitness) > 8.0: self.fitness = '10.0' self.time = str(int(self.time) + 1) #Pass time #"Teach" the Potato Head: def phTeach(self, subject): if subject == 'Science': if float(self.eduScience) <= 9.0: self.eduScience = str(float(self.eduScience) + 1.0) elif float(self.eduScience) > 9.0 and float(self.eduScience) < 10.0: self.eduScience = '10.0' elif float(self.eduScience) == 10.0: print "Your Potato Head has gained the highest level of qualifications in this subject! It cannot learn any more!" elif subject == 'English': if float(self.eduEnglish) <= 9.0: self.eduEnglish = str(float(self.eduEnglish) + 1.0) elif float(self.eduEnglish) > 9.0 and float(self.eduEnglish) < 10.0: self.eduEnglish = '10.0' elif float(self.eduEnglish) == 10.0: print "Your Potato Head has gained the highest level of qualifications in this subject! It cannot learn any more!" elif subject == 'Maths': if float(self.eduMaths) <= 9.0: self.eduMaths = str(float(self.eduMaths) + 1.0) elif float(self.eduMaths) > 9.0 and float(self.eduMaths) < 10.0: self.eduMaths = '10.0' elif float(self.eduMaths) == 10.0: print "Your Potato Head has gained the highest level of qualifications in this subject! It cannot learn any more!" else: print "That subject is not an option..." print "Please choose either Science, English or Maths" self.time = str(int(self.time) + 1) #Pass time #Increase Health: def phGoToDoctor(self): self.health = '10.0' self.time = str(int(self.time) + 1) #Pass time #Sleep: Age, change stats: #(Time Passes) def phSleep(self): self.time = '0' #Resets time for next 'day' (can do more things next day) #Increase hunger: if float(self.hunger) <= 5.0: self.hunger = str(float(self.hunger) + 5.0) elif float(self.hunger) > 5.0: self.hunger = '10.0' #Lower Fitness: if float(self.fitness) >= 0.5: self.fitness = str(float(self.fitness) - 0.5) elif float(self.fitness) < 0.5: self.fitness = '0.0' #Lower Health: if float(self.health) >= 0.5: self.health = str(float(self.health) - 0.5) elif float(self.health) < 0.5: self.health = '0.0' #Lower Happiness: if float(self.happiness) >= 2.0: self.happiness = str(float(self.happiness) - 2.0) elif float(self.happiness) < 2.0: self.happiness = '0.0' #Increase the Potato Head's age: self.age = str(float(self.age) + 0.1) The game is still under development - There may be parts of modules that aren't complete, but I don't think they're causing the problem

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  • After tarball restore my PC (tar xvfpz backup.tgz -C /), my sound card and network are not working. How to detect?

    - by axton hunger
    1 . I have a old laptop I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on. (It was ACER) 2 . I booted into single user mode and backed it up via cd / sudo -i tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/dev --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys / 3 . I installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 1204 on my new laptop (It is Dell) 4 . I boot into single user mode 5 . I backup the existing /boot directory 6 . I untar my backup to restore on to the Dell sudo tar xvfpz backup.tgz -C / 7 . I restore the previous /boot directory again 8 . I boot it up, and my profile and settings are loaded ok but, Ubuntu shows that there is no Sound Card.. I cannot use unity to drag and change volume. I noticed that the network card also doesnt work. ** How do you make ubuntu recognize changed hardware, if the hardware is already configured for a different laptop? Does anyone know?**

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  • Adult Swim Brings Their Programming Lineup to iOS Devices

    - by ETC
    If you’re a fan of the programming lineup on Adult Swim–such as Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and The Boondocks–you can now get the entire lineup for free on your iOS device. Adult Swim’s new iOS app streams Adult Swim’s programming lineup including popular shows such as Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Family Guy, The Boondocks, Metalocalypse. Hit up the link below to read more and grab a free copy. Adult Swim [iTunes App Store via Download Squad] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Make Efficient Use of Tab Bar Space by Customizing Tab Width in Firefox See the Geeky Work Done Behind the Scenes to Add Sounds to Movies [Video] Use a Crayon to Enhance Engraved Lettering on Electronics Adult Swim Brings Their Programming Lineup to iOS Devices Feel the Chill of the South Atlantic with the Antarctica Theme for Windows 7 Seas0nPass Now Offers Untethered Apple TV Jailbreaking

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  • Game Design Dilemma

    - by Chris Williams
    I'm working on a 2d tilemapped RPG. I've actually made quite a fair amount of progress, but I'm at a point where I need to make a UI decision. I have the overland world completely mapped out, and I have several towns and special areas. I'm on the fence about how to integrate the two. Scenario 1: I have one ginormous map, where everything is the same scale. This means you can walk in and out of towns without having to load or wait and transition in any way. With everything the same scale, movement costs the same no matter where you are (in terms of time/turns/energy/hunger/whatever/etc...)  The potential downside to this is that it could take quite a long time to get anywhere on foot. Scenario 2: I have an overland map, a set of town maps, overland tactical maps, dungeon maps & special area maps. The overland map is at a different scale than the other maps. This means that time/turns/energy/hunger/whatever/etc is calculated at a different rate than on the other maps, which have a 1:1 scale. When entering a town, dungeon, special area or having a random encounter, you would effectively zoom in from the overland scale to the tactical scale. When you are done with combat, or exit a dungeon or town, it would zoom back out to the overland map. The downside to this is that at the zoomed out scale, the overland map isn't all that big (comparitively) and you can traverse it fairly quickly (in real time, not game world time.) Options: 1) Go with scenario 1, as is. 2) Go with scenario 1 and introduce a slightly speedier version of overland travel, such as a horse. 3) Go with scenario 1 and introduce "instant" travel, via portals or some kind of "click the big map" mechanism. This would only work with places you've already been, or somehow unlocked (perhaps via a quest.) 4) Go with Scenario 2, as is.   Thoughts, opinions, suggestions?  Feedback appreciated.

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  • precise geolocalization via IP

    - by meo
    I tied the iPad the other day, and was amazed about the precision of the geolocalization by ip. Actually there is this action against hunger in the world that shows you very precisely where the persons are located that have took part to this petition: http://www.1billionhungry.org/meodai/impact/ I would like to integrate that in one of my projects. I took a look at the source but i could not figure out how they did it. Can someone help me out? is there a web service for that? Is the google map api doing this or are they using an other service? PS: Its not just the country/region of your IP/ISP IP that the service gives back, its a pretty precise positioning.

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  • Does Scrum turn active developers into passive developers?

    - by Saeed Neamati
    I'm a web developer working in a team of three developers and one designer. It's now about five months that we've implemented the agile scrum software development methodology. But I have a weird feeling I just wanted to share in this site. One important factor in human life is decision-making process. However, there is a big difference in decisions you make. Some decisions are just the outcome of an internal or external force, while other decisions are completely based on your free will, and some decisions are simply something in between. The more freedom you have in making decisions, the more self-driven your work would become. This seems to be a rule. Because we tend to shape our lives ourselves. There is a big difference between you deciding what to do, or being told what to do. Before scrum, I felt like having more freedom in making the decisions which were related to development, analysis, prioritizing implementation, etc. I had more feeling like I'm deciding what I'm doing. However, due to the scrum methodology, now many decisions simply come from the product owner. He prioritizes PBIs, he analyzes how the software should work, even sometimes how the UI and functionality should be implemented. I know that this is part of the scrum methodology, and I also know that this may result in better sales of product in future. However, I now feel like I'm always getting told to do something, instead of deciding to do something. This syndrome now has made me more passive towards the work. I tend to search less to find a better solution, approach, or technique I don't wake up in the morning expecting to get to an enjoyable work. Rather, I feel like being forced to work in order to live I have more hunger to work on my own hobby projects after work I won't push the team anymore to get to the higher technological levels I spend more time now on dinner, or tea-times and have less enthusiasm to get back to work I'm now willing more for the work to finish sooner, so that I can get home The big problem is, I see and diagnose this behavior in my colleagues too. Is it the outcome of scrum? Does scrum really makes the development team feel like they have no part in forming the overall software, thus making the passive to the project? How can I overcome this feeling?

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  • Embracing Imperfection

    - by Johnm
    The pursuit of perfection is a road on which we often find ourselves traveling. It is an unpaved road filed with pot-holes and ruts that often destroy our stride. The shoulders of this road are lined with the bones and rotting carcasses of well planned projects, solutions and dreams of others who have dared the journey. Often the choice to engage in this travel is a compulsive one. We can't help but to pack our bags and make the trip. We justify it by equating it to the delivery of a quality product or service. We use our past travels as validation of our worthiness and value. Our shared experience, as tortured pilgrims of perfection, reveals that each odyssey that bewitched us resulted in a stark reminder of the very weaknesses and fears that we were attempting to mollify. The voice of the critic that berated us for the lack of craftsmanship was our own. Although, at the end of the journey our own critical voice was joined by the gnashing of teeth of those who could not reap the fruit of your labor due to its lack of timely delivery. There is another road in which to travel. It is the pursuit of embracing imperfection. The cost of traveling this route is your contribution to its eternal construction. Each segment is designed uniquely. At times it has the appearance of a patchwork quilt; while other times it is well organized and highly measured. In all cases, its construction has continually advanced and been utilized as each segment was delivered by its architect. Those who choose to select this spindle of these crossroads crack open the shells of their fears to reveal the vapor that is within. They construct their houses upon these shells. Through their hunger for mastery they wring every drop of nectar from failure and discard its husks to the ditches of this road. Through their efforts the thoroughfare begins to develop a personality of its own, a beautifully human one, rich with the strengths and weaknesses of all of its contributors. Like many of us, the pursuit of perfection has not served me well. In fact, I would say that it has been more damaging than it has been helpful. While the perfectionist in me occasionally makes its presence known, I consider myself a "recovering perfectionist". It is evident to me that there is immense beauty found in imperfection. I choose to embrace it. It is grounding. It is constructive. It is honest.

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  • Syncing Multiple Google Calendars and with Outlook and Android

    - by Fred Thomas
    Perhaps this is a multipart question, but I deal with a lot of calendars in my life, and want to know if there is some way to sync them all together, and maintain appropriate privacy. So I have a family calendar that my ex and I maintain for kid events, and I have a personal calendar for my own life, and I have an Outlook work calendar, for work. Ideally I'd look at my calendar on my Android phone. Is it possible to sync them all together? Is it possible for there to be one calendar to rule them all on my phone, but have the other calendars blank out spaces that are from other calendars, but only show the blanked out without the details. (I don't want my date with Miss Hottie to appear that way on the family calendar, and I probably don't want my visit to the proctologist to appear in the corporate exchange server.) Are there tools available to do this? Bonus question, can I do the same with my to do lists? Double bouns question -- how can I solve world hunger and help us to all live together in peace? :-)

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  • MySQL ADO.NET Connector & MSSQL Integration Services

    - by user1114330
    Here I am, day three... attempting to sync a data view on a Windows Vista box (64 bit) running MSSQL 2012 and Visual Studio 2010. Sanity is slipping and hunger for progress fills my attention. I went through hell trying to get the MySQL ODBC drivers to get the job but to no avail...everyone seems to be lost and all the threads I can find are solutions that do not work for me. The problem: System DSN's not being seen by SSIS. SSIS DSN Not Showing as ODBC Data Source I make the decision to try out the ADO.NET connector...and to my surprise it is actually in the selection list in data sources in SSIS. So I take off running to create a Data Flow Task, create an ADO.NET Source (a local MSSQL DB)...all is good as usual. Then I move swiftly to creating a ADO.NET Destination, enter my credentials...wow, I am selecting a database finally on my linux server! Happy thinking that I finally have figured a way to get the job done. Then I move to mappings...nope, something is wrong...I am getting an error that hurts my eyes: Pipeline component has returned HRESULT error code 0xC0208457 from a a method call. Error at Data Flow Task [ADO NET Destination [81]]: Failed to get properties of external columns. The table name you entered may not exist or you do not have SELECT permission on the table object and an alternative attempt to get column properties through connection has failed. Detailed error messages are" You have an error in your SQL syntax check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near "database".tablename" at line 1. The descriptor files on path C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\ProviderDescriptors\ does not contain schema information for connection of type MySQL.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlConnection. So it looks like it can't the information and therefore I cannot map the tables properly. Any ideas on this would be ultra helpful...thanks in advance to All!

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  • Full Text Search like Google

    - by Eduardo
    I would like to implement full-text-search in my off-line (android) application to search the user generated list of notes. I would like it to behave just like Google (since most people are already used to querying to Google) My initial requirements are: Fast: like Google or as fast as possible, having 100000 documents with 200 hundred words each. Searching for two words should only return documents that contain both words (not just one word) (unless the OR operator is used) Case insensitive (aka: normalization): If I have the word 'Hello' and I search for 'hello' it should match. Diacritical mark insensitive: If I have the word 'así' a search for 'asi' should match. In Spanish, many people, incorrectly, either do not put diacritical marks or fail in correctly putting them. Stop word elimination: To not have a huge index meaningless words like 'and', 'the' or 'for' should not be indexed at all. Dictionary substitution (aka: stem words): Similar words should be indexed as one. For example, instances of 'hungrily' and 'hungry' should be replaced with 'hunger'. Phrase search: If I have the text 'Hello world!' a search of '"world hello"' should not match it but a search of '"hello world"' should match. Search all fields (in multifield documents) if no field specified (not just a default field) Auto-completion in search results while typing to give popular searches. (just like Google Suggest) How may I configure a full-text-search engine to behave as much as possible as Google? (I am mostly interested in Open Source, Java and in particular Lucene)

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  • What does it mean to say "Instance variables are not over-rided" in java?

    - by Ankit
    I am aware of the concept called field hiding in java. But still I am having a confusion in relation to instance variable being not over-ridden. According to my present knowledge, overriding a method of super-class means that the JVM will call the sub-class's over-ridden method though the super-class's method is available to the sub-class. And I read the similar thing for field hiding via the link:- Hiding Fields So, in any case we are over-ridding the instance if we change the values of the inherited instance variable in the sub-class. I am confused please help. I am using the following super-class:- public class Animal{ File picture; String food; int hunger; int width, height; int xcoord, ycoord; public void makeNoise(){ ......... } public void eat(){ ............. } public void sleep(){ .......... } public void roam(){ ............. } } It has sub-classes like Tiger, cat, dog,hippo etc. The sub-classes over-ride the makeNoise(), eat and roam() method. But each sub-class also uses a different set of values for instance variables. So as per my confusion, I am kind-of overriding all the instance variables and 3 methods of the super-class Animal; and I still have the super-class instance variables available to the sub-class with the use of the super keyword.

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  • Feedback on "market manipulation", a peripheral game mechanic for a satirical MMO

    - by BerndBrot
    This question asks for feedback on a specific game-mechanic. Since there is not one right feedback on a game mechanic, I tried to provide enough context and guidelines to still make it possible for users to rate answers and to accept an answer as the best answer (following these criteria from Writer.SE's meta website). Please comment if you have any suggestions on how I could improve the question in that regard. So, let's begin with the game itself and some of its elements which are relevant for this question. Context I'm working on a satirical, text-based multiplayer adventure and role-playing game set in modern-day London. The game resolves around the concept of sin and features a myriad of (venomous) allusions to all the things that go wrong in this world. Players can choose between character classes like bullshit artist (consultant), bankster, lawyer, mobster, celebrity, politician, etc. In order to complete the game, the player has to live so sinfully with regard to any of the seven deadly sins that a demon is willing to offer them a contract of sponsorship. On their quest to live a sinful live, characters explore more and more locations of modern-day London (on a GoogleMap), fight "monsters" like insurance sales agents or Jehovah's Witnesses, and complete quests, like building a PowerPoint presentation out of marketing buzz words or keeping up a number of substance abuse effects in order to progress on the gluttony path. Battles are turn based with both combatants having a deck of cards, with which they try to make their enemy give in to temptations of all sorts. Tempted enemies sometimes become contacts (an item drop mechanic), which can be exploited for various benefits, depending on their area of influence (finance, underworld, bureaucracy, etc.), level of influence, and kind of sway that the player has over them (bribed, seduced, threatened, etc.) Once a contract has been exploited, the player loses that contact. Most actions require turns. Turns are limited, but refill each day. Criteria A number of peripheral game mechanics are supposed to represent real world abuses and mischief in a humorous way integrate real world data and events to strengthen the feeling of relevance of the game's humor with regard to real world problems add fun ways of interacting with other players add ways for players to express themselves through game-play Market manipulation is one such peripheral game mechanic and should fulfill all of these goals. Market manipulation This is my initial design of the mechanic: Players can enter the London Stock Exchange (LSE) (without paying a turn) LSE displays the stock prices of a number of companies in industries like weapons or tobacco as well as some derivatives based on wheat and corn. The stock prices are calculated based on the actual stock prices of these companies and derivatives (in real time) any market manipulations that were conducted by the players any market corrections of the system Players can buy and sell shares with cash, a resource in the game, at current in-game market value (without paying a turn). Players can manipulate the market, i.e. let the price of a share either rise or fall, by some amount, over a certain period of time. Manipulating the market requires 1 turn A contact in the financial sector (see above). The higher the level of influence of the contact, the stronger the effect of the manipulation on the stock price, and/or the shorter it takes for the manipulation to manifest itself. Market manipulation also adds a crime to the player's record. (There are a multitude of ways to take care of that, but it is still another "cost" of market manipulations.) The system continuously corrects market manipulations by letting the in-game prices converge towards their real world counterparts at a rate of 2% of the difference between the two per hour. Because of this market correction mechanism, pushing up prices (and screwing down prices) becomes increasingly difficult the higher (lower) the price already is. Whenever food prices reach a certain level, in-game stories are posted about hunger catastrophes happening somewhere far, far away (maybe with links to real world news stories). Whenever a player sells a certain number of shares with a sufficiently high margin, they are mentioned in that day's in-game financial news. Since the number of stock options is very limited, players will inevitably collide in their efforts to manipulate the market in their favor. Hopefully, it will also be a fun side-arena for guilds and covenants to fight each other. Question(s) What do you think of this mechanism given the criteria for peripheral game mechanics that I specified for my game? Do you have any ideas how the mechanic could be improved with regard to these criteria (or otherwise)? Could it be improved to allow for more expressive game-play, or involve an allusion to some other real world madness (like short selling, leveraging, or some other banking magic)? Are there any game-theoretic problems with this mechanic, like maybe certain dominant individual strategies that, collectively, lead to every player profiting and thus eliminating the idea of market manipulation PVP? Also, if you like (or dislike) this question, feel free to participate in the discussion on GDSE meta: "Should we be more lax with regard to SE's question/answer format to make game design questions possible?"

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  • Infiniband: a highperformance network fabric - Part I

    - by Karoly Vegh
    Introduction:At the OpenWorld this year I managed to chat with interesting people again - one of them answering Infiniband deepdive questions with ease by coffee turned out to be one of Oracle's IB engineers, Ted Kim, who actually actively participates in the Infiniband Trade Association and integrates Oracle solutions with this highspeed network. This is why I love attending OOW. He granted me an hour of his time to talk about IB. This post is mostly based on that tech interview.Start of the actual post: Traditionally datatransfer between servers and storage elements happens in networks with up to 10 gigabit/seconds or in SANs with up to 8 gbps fiberchannel connections. Happens. Well, data rather trickles through.But nowadays data amounts grow well over the TeraByte order of magnitude, and multisocket/multicore/multithread Servers hunger data that these transfer technologies just can't deliver fast enough, causing all CPUs of this world do one thing at the same speed - waiting for data. And once again, I/O is the bottleneck in computing. FC and Ethernet can't keep up. We have half-TB SSDs, dozens of TB RAM to store data to be modified in, but can't transfer it. Can't backup fast enough, can't replicate fast enough, can't synchronize fast enough, can't load fast enough. The bad news is, everyone is used to this, like back in the '80s everyone was used to start compile jobs and go for a coffee. Or on vacation. The good news is, there's an alternative. Not so-called "bleeding-edge" 8gbps, but (as of now) 56. Not layers of overhead, but low latency. And it is available now. It has been for a while, actually. Welcome to the world of Infiniband. Short history:Infiniband was born as a result of joint efforts of HPAQ, IBM, Intel, Sun and Microsoft. They planned to implement a next-generation I/O fabric, in the 90s. In the 2000s Infiniband (from now on: IB) was quite popular in the high-performance computing field, powering most of the top500 supercomputers. Then in the middle of the decade, Oracle realized its potential and used it as an interconnect backbone for the first Database Machine, the first Exadata. Since then, IB has been booming, Oracle utilizes and supports it in a large set of its HW products, it is the backbone of the famous Engineered Systems: Exadata, SPARC SuperCluster, Exalogic, OVCA and even the new DB backup/recovery box. You can also use it to make servers talk highspeed IP to eachother, or to a ZFS Storage Appliance. Following Oracle's lead, even IBM has jumped the wagon, and leverages IB in its PureFlex systems, their first InfiniBand Machines.IB Structural Overview: If you want to use IB in your servers, the first thing you will need is PCI cards, in IB terms Host Channel Adapters, or HCAs. Just like NICs for Ethernet, or HBAs for FC. In these you plug an IB cable, going to an IB switch providing connection to other IB HCAs. Of course you're going to need drivers for those in your OS. Yes, these are long-available for Solaris and Linux. Now, what protocols can you talk over IB? There's a range of choices. See, IB isn't accepting package loss like Ethernet does, and hence doesn't need to rely on TCP/IP as a workaround for resends. That is, you still can run IP over IB (IPoIB), and that is used in various cases for control functionality, but the datatransfer can run over more efficient protocols - like native IB. About PCI connectivity: IB cards, as you see are fast. They bring low latency, which is just as important as their bandwidth. Current IB cards run at 56 gbit/s. That is slightly more than double of the capacity of a PCI Gen2 slot (of ~25 gbit/s). And IB cards are equipped usually with two ports - that is, altogether you'd need 112 gbit/s PCI slots, to be able to utilize FDR IB cards in an active-active fashion. PCI Gen3 slots provide you with around ~50gbps. This is why the most IB cards are configured in an active-standby way if both ports are used. Once again the PCI slot is the bottleneck. Anyway, the new Oracle servers are equipped with Gen3 PCI slots, an the new IB HCAs support those too. Oracle utilizes the QDR HCAs, running at 40gbp/s brutto, which translates to a 32gbp/s net traffic due to the 10:8 signal-to-data information ratio. Consolidation techniques: Technology never stops to evolve. Mellanox is working on the 100 gbps (EDR) version already, which will be optical, since signal technology doesn't allow EDR to be copper. Also, I hear you say "100gbps? I will never use/need that much". Are you sure? Have you considered consolidation scenarios, where (for example with Oracle Virtual Network) you could consolidate your platform to a high densitiy virtualized solution providing many virtual 10gbps interfaces through that 100gbps? Technology never stops to evolve. I still remember when a 10mbps network was impressively fast. Back in those days, 16MB of RAM was a lot. Now we usually run servers with around 100.000 times more RAM. If network infrastrucure speends could grow as fast as main memory capacities, we'd have a different landscape now :) You can utilize SRIOV as well for consolidation. That is, if you run LDoms (aka Oracle VM Server for SPARC) you do not have to add physical IB cards to all your guest LDoms, and you do not need to run VIO devices through the hypervisor either (avoiding overhead). You can enable SRIOV on those IB cards, which practically virtualizes the PCI bus, and you can dedicate Physical- and Virtual Functions of the virtualized HCAs as native, physical HW devices to your guests. See Raghuram's excellent post explaining SRIOV. SRIOV for IB is supported since LDoms 3.1.  This post is getting lengthier, so I will rename it to Part I, and continue it in a second post. 

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  • Jersey 2 in GlassFish 4 - First Java EE 7 Implementation Now Integrated (TOTD #182)

    - by arungupta
    The JAX-RS 2.0 specification released their Early Draft 3 recently. One of my earlier blogs explained as the features were first introduced in the very first draft of the JAX-RS 2.0 specification. Last week was another milestone when the first Java EE 7 specification implementation was added to GlassFish 4 builds. Jakub blogged about Jersey 2 integration in GlassFish 4 builds. Most of the basic functionality is working but EJB, CDI, and Validation are still a TBD. Here is a simple Tip Of The Day (TOTD) sample to get you started with using that functionality. Create a Java EE 6-style Maven project mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.codehaus.mojo.archetypes -DarchetypeArtifactId=webapp-javaee6 -DgroupId=example -DartifactId=jersey2-helloworld -DarchetypeVersion=1.5 -DinteractiveMode=false Note, this is still a Java EE 6 archetype, at least for now. Open the project in NetBeans IDE as it makes it much easier to edit/add the files. Add the following <respositories> <repositories> <repository> <id>snapshot-repository.java.net</id> <name>Java.net Snapshot Repository for Maven</name> <url>https://maven.java.net/content/repositories/snapshots/</url> <layout>default</layout> </repository></repositories> Add the following <dependency>s <dependency> <groupId>junit</groupId> <artifactId>junit</artifactId> <version>4.10</version> <scope>test</scope></dependency><dependency> <groupId>javax.ws.rs</groupId> <artifactId>javax.ws.rs-api</artifactId> <version>2.0-m09</version> <scope>test</scope></dependency><dependency> <groupId>org.glassfish.jersey.core</groupId> <artifactId>jersey-client</artifactId> <version>2.0-m05</version> <scope>test</scope></dependency> The complete list of Maven coordinates for Jersey2 are available here. An up-to-date status of Jersey 2 can always be obtained from here. Here is a simple resource class: @Path("movies")public class MoviesResource { @GET @Path("list") public List<Movie> getMovies() { List<Movie> movies = new ArrayList<Movie>(); movies.add(new Movie("Million Dollar Baby", "Hillary Swank")); movies.add(new Movie("Toy Story", "Buzz Light Year")); movies.add(new Movie("Hunger Games", "Jennifer Lawrence")); return movies; }} This resource publishes a list of movies and is accessible at "movies/list" path with HTTP GET. The project is using the standard JAX-RS APIs. Of course, you need the trivial "Movie" and the "Application" class as well. They are available in the downloadable project anyway. Build the project mvn package And deploy to GlassFish 4.0 promoted build 43 (download, unzip, and start as "bin/asadmin start-domain") as asadmin deploy --force=true target/jersey2-helloworld.war Add a simple test case by right-clicking on the MoviesResource class, select "Tools", "Create Tests", and take defaults. Replace the function "testGetMovies" to @Testpublic void testGetMovies() { System.out.println("getMovies"); Client client = ClientFactory.newClient(); List<Movie> movieList = client.target("http://localhost:8080/jersey2-helloworld/webresources/movies/list") .request() .get(new GenericType<List<Movie>>() {}); assertEquals(3, movieList.size());} This test uses the newly defined JAX-RS 2 client APIs to access the RESTful resource. Run the test by giving the command "mvn test" and see the output as ------------------------------------------------------- T E S T S-------------------------------------------------------Running example.MoviesResourceTestgetMoviesTests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.561 secResults :Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0 GlassFish 4 contains Jersey 2 as the JAX-RS implementation. If you want to use Jersey 1.1 functionality, then Martin's blog provide more details on that. All JAX-RS 1.x functionality will be supported using standard APIs anyway. This workaround is only required if Jersey 1.x functionality needs to be accessed. The complete source code explained in this project can be downloaded from here. Here are some pointers to follow JAX-RS 2 Specification Early Draft 3 Latest status on specification (jax-rs-spec.java.net) Latest JAX-RS 2.0 Javadocs Latest status on Jersey (Reference Implementation of JAX-RS 2 - jersey.java.net) Latest Jersey API Javadocs Latest GlassFish 4.0 Promoted Build Follow @gf_jersey Provide feedback on Jersey 2 to [email protected] and JAX-RS specification to [email protected].

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  • 4 Ways Your Brand Can Jump From the Edge of Space

    - by Mike Stiles
    Can your brand’s social media content captivate the world and make it hold its collective breath? Can you put something on the screen that’s so compelling that your audience can’t look away? Will they want to make sure their friends see it so they can talk about it? If not, you’re probably not with Red Bull. I was impressed with Red Bull’s approach to social content even before Felix Baumgartner’s stunning skydive from the edge of space. And then they did this. According to Visible Measures, videos of the jump scored 50 million views in 4 days. 1,700 clips were generated from both official and organic sources. The live stream was the most watched YouTube Stream of all time (8 million concurrent viewers). The 2nd most watched live stream was…Felix’ first attempt Oct. 9. Are you ready to compete with that? I ask that question because some brands are still out there tying themselves up in knots about whether or not they should tweet. The public’s time and attention are scarce commodities, commodities they value greatly. The competition amongst brands for that time and attention is intense and going up like Felix’s capsule. If you still view your press releases as “content,” you won’t even be counted as being among the competition. Here are 5 lessons learned from Red Bull’s big leap: 1. They have a total understanding of their target market and audience. Not only do they have an understanding of it, they do something about it. They act on it. They fill the majority of their thoughts with what the audience wants. They hunger for wild applause from that audience. They want to do things that embrace the audience’s lifestyle and immerse in it so the target will identify the brand as “one of them.” Takeaway: BE your target market. 2. They deliver content that strikes the audience right where they emotionally live. If you want your content to have impact, you have to make your audience’s heart race, or make them tear up, or make them laugh. Label them “data points” all you want, but humans are emotional creatures. No message connects that’s not carried in on an emotion. Takeaway: You’re on the inside. If your content doesn’t make you say “wow,” it’s unlikely it will register with fans. 3. They put aside old school marketing and don’t let their content be degraded into a commercial. Their execs seem to understand the value in keeping a lid on the hard sell. So many brands just can’t bring themselves to disconnect advertising and social content. The result is, otherwise decent content gets contaminated with a desperation the viewer can smell a mile away. Think the Baumgartner skydive didn’t do Red Bull any good since he wasn’t drinking one on the way down while singing a jingle? Analysis company Taykey discovered that at the peak of the skydive buzz, about 1% of all online conversation was about the jump. Mentions of Red Bull constituted 1/3 of 1% of all Internet activity. Views of other Red Bull videos also shot up. Takeaway: Chill out with the ads. Your brand will get full credit for entertaining/informing fans in a relevant way, provided you do it. 4. They don’t hesitate to ask, “What can we do next”? Most corporate cultures are a virtual training facility for “we can’t do that.” Few are encouraged to innovate or think big, if think at all. Thinking big involves faith, and work. It means freedom and letting employees run a little wild with their ideas. There will always be the opportunity to let fear of everything that moves creep in and kill grand visions dead in their tracks. Experimenting must be allowed. Failure must be allowed. Red Bull didn’t think big. They thought mega. They tried to outdo themselves. Felix could have gone ahead and jumped halfway up, thinking, “This is still relatively high up. Good enough.” But that wouldn’t have left us breathless. Takeaway: Go for it. Jump. In putting up social properties and gathering fans of your brand, you’ve basically invited people to a party. A good host doesn’t just set out warm beer and stale chips because that’s inexpensive and easy. Be on the lookout for ways to make your guests walk away saying, “That was epic.”

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  • SharePoint – The Most Important Feature

    - by Bil Simser
    Watching twitter and doing a search for SharePoint and you see a lot (almost one every few minutes) of tweets about the top 10 new features in SharePoint. What answer do you get when you ask the question, “What’s the most important feature in SharePoint?”. Chances are the answer will vary. Some will say it’s the collaboration aspect, others might say it’s the new ribbon interface, multi-item editing, external content types, faceted search, large list support, document versioning, Silverlight, etc. The list goes on. However I think most people might be missing the most important feature that’s sitting right under their noses all this time. The most important feature of SharePoint? It’s called User Empowerment. Huh? What? Is that something I find in the Site Actions menu? Nope. It’s something that’s always been there in SharePoint, you just need to get the word out and support it. How many times have you had a team ask you for a team site (assuming you had SharePoint up and running). Or to create them a contact list. Or how long have you employed that guy in the corner who’s been copying and pasting content from Corporate Communications into the web from a Word document. Let’s stop the insanity. It doesn’t have to be this way. SharePoint’s strongest feature isn’t anything you can find in the Site Settings screen or Central Admin. It’s all about empowering your users and letting them take control of their content. After all, SharePoint really is a bunch of tools to allow users to collaborate on content isn’t it? So why are you stepping in as IT and helping the user every moment along the way. It’s like having to ask users to fill out a help desk ticket or call up the Windows team to create a folder on their desktop or rearrange their Start menu. This isn’t something IT should be spending their time doing nor is it something the users should be burdened with having to wait until their friendly neighborhood tech-guy (or gal) shows up to help them sort the icons on their desktop. SharePoint IS all about empowerment. Site owners can create whatever lists and libraries they need for their team, and if the template isn’t there they can always turn to my friend and yours, the Custom List. From that can spew forth approval tracking systems, new hire checklists, and server inventory. You’re only limited by your imagination and needs. Users should be able to create new sites as they need. Want a blog to let everyone know what your team is up to? Go create one, here’s how. What’s a blog you ask? Here’s what it is and why you would use one. SharePoint is the shift in the balance of power and you need, and an IT group, let go of certain responsibilities and let your users run with the tools. A power user who knows how to create sites and what features are available to them can help a team go from the forming stage to the storming stage overnight. Again, this all hinges on you as an IT organization and what you can and empower your users with as far as features go. Running with tools is great if you know how to use them, running with scissors not recommended unless you enjoy trips to the hospital. With Great Power comes Great Responsibility so don’t go out on Monday and send out a memo to the organization saying “This Bil guy says you peeps can do anything so here it is, knock yourself out” (for one, they’ll have *no* idea who this Bil guy is). This advice comes with the task of getting your users ready for empowerment. Whether it’s through some kind of internal training sessions, in-house documentation; videos; blog posts; on how to accomplish things in SharePoint, or full blown one-on-one sit downs with teams or individuals to help them through their problems. The work is up to you. Helping them along also should be part of your governance (you do have one don’t you?). Just because you have InfoPath client deployed with your Office suite, doesn’t mean users should just start publishing forms all over your SharePoint farm. There should be some governance behind that in what you’ll support and what is possible. The other caveat to all this is that SharePoint is not everything for everyone. It can’t cook you breakfast and impregnate your cat or solve world hunger. It also isn’t suited for every IT solution out there. It’s a horrible source control system (even though some people try to use it as such) and really can’t do financials worth a darn. Again, governance is key here and part of that governance and your responsibility in setting up and unleashing SharePoint into your organization is to provide users guidance on what should be in SharePoint and (more importantly) what should not be in SharePoint. There are boundaries you have to set where you don’t want your end users going as they might be treading into trouble. Again, this is up to you to set these constraints and help users understand why these pylons are there. If someone understands why they can’t do something they might have a better understanding and respect for those that put them there in the first place. Of course you’ll always have the power-users who want to go skiing down dead mans curve so this doesn’t work for everyone, but you can catch the majority of the newbs who don’t wander aimlessly off the beaten path. At the end of the day when all things are going swimmingly your end users should be empowered to solve the needs they have on a day to day basis and not having to keep bugging the IT department to help them create a view to show only approved documents. I wouldn’t go as far as business users building out full blown solutions and handing the keys to SharePoint Designer or (worse) Visual Studio to power-users might not be a path you want to go down but you also don’t have to lock up the SharePoint system in a tight box where users can’t use what’s there. So stop focusing on the shiny things in SharePoint and maybe consider making a shift to what’s really important. Making your day job easier and letting users get the most our of your technology investment.

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  • Too Many Kittens To Juggle At Once

    - by Bil Simser
    Ahh, the Internet. That crazy, mixed up place where one tweet turns into a conversation between dozens of people and spawns a blogpost. This is the direct result of such an event this morning. It started innocently enough, with this: Then followed up by a blog post by Joel here. In the post, Joel introduces us to the term Business Solutions Architect with mad skillz like InfoPath, Access Services, Excel Services, building Workflows, and SSRS report creation, all while meeting the business needs of users in a SharePoint environment. I somewhat disagreed with Joel that this really wasn’t a new role (at least IMHO) and that a good Architect or BA should really be doing this job. As Joel pointed out when you’re building a SharePoint team this kind of role is often overlooked. Engineers might be able to build workflows but is the right workflow for the right problem? Michael Pisarek wrote about a SharePoint Business Architect a few months ago and it’s a pretty solid assessment. Again, I argue you really shouldn’t be looking for roles that don’t exist and I don’t suggest anyone create roles to hire people to fill them. That’s basically creating a solution looking for problems. Michael’s article does have some great points if you’re lost in the quagmire of SharePoint duties though (and I especially like John Ross’ quote “The coolest shit is worthless if it doesn’t meet business needs”). SharePoinTony summed it up nicely with “SharePoint Solutions knowledge is both lacking and underrated in most environments. Roles help”. Having someone on the team who can dance between a business user and a coder can be difficult. Remember the idea of telling something to someone and them passing it on to the next person. By the time the story comes round the circle it’s a shadow of it’s former self with little resemblance to the original tale. This is very much business requirements as they’re told by the user to a business analyst, written down on paper, read by an architect, tuned into a solution plan, and implemented by a developer. Transformations between what was said, what was heard, what was written down, and what was developed can be distant cousins. Not everyone has the skill of communication and even less have negotiation skills to suit the SharePoint platform. Negotiation is important because not everything can be (or should be) done in SharePoint. Sometimes it’s just not appropriate to build it on the SharePoint platform but someone needs to know enough about the platform and what limitations it might have, then communicate that (and/or negotiate) with a customer or user so it’s not about “You can’t have this” to “Let’s try it this way”. Visualize the possible instead of denying the impossible. So what is the right SharePoint team? My cromag brain came with a fairly simpleton answer (and I’m sure people will just say this is a cop-out). The perfect SharePoint team is just enough people to do the job that know the technology and business problem they’re solving. Bridge the gap between business need and technology platform and you have an architect. Communicate the needs of the business effectively so the entire team understands it and you have a business analyst. Can you get this with full time workers? Maybe but don’t expect miracles out of the gate. Also don’t take a consultant’s word as gospel. Some consultants just don’t have the diversity of the SharePoint platform to be worth their value so be careful. You really need someone who knows enough about SharePoint to be able to validate a consultants knowledge level. This is basically try for any consultant, not just a SharePoint one. Specialization is good and needed. A good, well-balanced SharePoint team is one of people that can solve problems with work with the technology, not against it. Having a top developer is great, but don’t rely on them to solve world hunger if they can’t communicate very well with users. An expert business analyst might be great at gathering requirements so the entire team can understand them, but if it means building 100% custom solutions because they don’t fit inside the SharePoint boundaries isn’t of much value. Just repeat. There is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. A few people pointed out Nick Inglis’ article Excluding The Information Professional In SharePoint. It’s a good read too and hits home that maybe some developers and IT pros need some extra help in the information space. If you’re in an organization that needs labels on people, come up with something everyone understands and go with it. If that’s Business Solutions Architect, SharePoint Advisor, or Guy Who Knows A Lot About Portals, make it work for you. We all wish that one person could master all that is SharePoint but we also know that doesn’t scale very well and you quickly get into the hit-by-a-bus syndrome (with the organization coming to a full crawl when the guy or girl goes on vacation, gets sick, or pops out a baby). There are too many gaps in SharePoint knowledge to have any one person know it all and too many kittens to juggle all at once. We like to consider ourselves experts in our field, but trying to tackle too many roles at once and we end up being mediocre jack of all trades, master of none. Don't fall into this pit. It's a deep, dark hole you don't want to try to claw your way out of. Trust me. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. In the end I don’t disagree with Joel. SharePoint is a beast and not something that should be taken on by newbies. If you just read “Teach Yourself SharePoint in 24 Hours” and want to go build your corporate intranet or the next killer business solution with all your new found knowledge plan to pony up consultant dollars a few months later when everything goes to Hell in a handbasket and falls over. I’m not saying don’t build solutions in SharePoint. I’m just saying that building effective ones takes skill like any craft and not something you can just cobble together with a little bit of cursory knowledge. Thanks to *everyone* who participated in this tweet rush. It was fun and educational.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 14, 2013

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 14, 2013Popular ReleasesBlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.1: 2013.06.13 Ver5.9.1 (1) Web??????SSI?#include???、CGI?????????????????????? (2) ???????????????????????????BrightstarDB: BrightstarDB 1.3.40613: This is the first "official" BrightstarDB release under the MIT open source license. The code base has been reworked to replace / remove the use of third-party closed-source tools and has been updated to use a patched version of dotNetRDF 1.0 that includes the most recent updates for SPARQL 1.1 and Turtle. We have also extended the core RDF API to support targeting a specific graph with an update or query operation and made a change to the core profiling code to disable it by default, leadin...Lakana - WPF Framework: Lakana V2.1 RTM: - Dynamic text localization - A new application wide message busPokemon Battle Online: ETV: ETV???2012?12??????,????,???????$/PBO/branches/PrivateBeta??。 ???????bug???????。 ???? Server??????,?????。 ?????????,?????????????,?????????。 ????????,????,?????????,???????????(??)??。 ???? ????????????。 ???????。 ???PP????,????????????????????PP????,??3。 ?????????????,??????????。 ???????? ??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????????? ?? ??? ??? ??? ???????? ???? ???? ???????????????、???????????,??“???????”??。 ???bug ???Web Pages CMS: 0.5.0.5: Added empty media directoryModern UI for WPF: Modern UI 1.0.4: The ModernUI assembly including a demo app demonstrating the various features of Modern UI for WPF. Related downloads NuGet ModernUI for WPF is also available as NuGet package in the NuGet gallery, id: ModernUI.WPF Download Modern UI for WPF Templates A Visual Studio 2012 extension containing a collection of project and item templates for Modern UI for WPF. The extension includes the ModernUI.WPF NuGet package. DownloadToolbox for Dynamics CRM 2011: XrmToolBox (v1.2013.6.11): XrmToolbox improvement Add exception handling when loading plugins Updated information panel for displaying two lines of text Tools improvementMetadata Document Generator (v1.2013.6.10)New tool Web Resources Manager (v1.2013.6.11)Retrieve list of unused web resources Retrieve web resources from a solution All tools listAccess Checker (v1.2013.2.5) Attribute Bulk Updater (v1.2013.1.17) FetchXml Tester (v1.2013.3.4) Iconator (v1.2013.1.17) Metadata Document Generator (v1.2013.6.10) Privilege...Document.Editor: 2013.23: What's new for Document.Editor 2013.23: New Insert Emoticon support Improved Format support Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsChristoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Template: DotNetNuke 7 Project Templates V2.4 for VS2012: V2.4 - Release Date 6/10/2013 Items addressed in this 2.4 release Updated MSBuild Community Tasks reference to 1.4.0.61 Setting up your DotNetNuke Module Development Environment Installing Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Templates Customizing the latest DotNetNuke Module Development Project TemplatesLayered Architecture Sample for .NET: Leave Sample - June 2013 (for .NET 4.5): Thank You for downloading Layered Architecture Sample. Please read the accompanying README.txt file for setup and installation instructions. This is the first set of a series of revised samples that will be released to illustrate the layered architecture design pattern. This version is only supported on Visual Studio 2012. This samples illustrates the use of ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET Model Binding, Windows Communications Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Microsoft Ente...Papercut: Papercut 2013-6-10: Feature: Shows From, To, Date and Subject of Email. Feature: Async UI and loading spinner. Enhancement: Improved speed when loading large attachments. Enhancement: Decoupled SMTP server into secondary assembly. Enhancement: Upgraded to .NET v4. Fix: Messages lost when received very fast. Fix: Email encoding issues on display/Automatically detect message Encoding Installation Note:Installation is copy and paste. Incoming messages are written to the start-up directory of Papercut. If you do n...Supporting Guidance and Whitepapers: v1.BETA Unit test Generator Documentation: Welcome to the Unit Test Generator Once you’ve moved to Visual Studio 2012, what’s a dev to do without the Create Unit Tests feature? Based on the high demand on User Voice for this feature to be restored, the Visual Studio ALM Rangers have introduced the Unit Test Generator Visual Studio Extension. The extension adds the “create unit test” feature back, with a focus on automating project creation, adding references and generating stubs, extensibility, and targeting of multiple test framewor...MapWindow 4: MapWindow GIS v4.8.8 - Release Candidate - 32Bit: Download the release notes here: http://svn.mapwindow.org/svnroot/MapWindow4Dev/Bin/MapWindowNotes.rtfLINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter v2.1.06: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, Windows Phone 8, Client Profile, Windows 8, and Windows Azure. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also supports Twitter API v1.1! Also on NuGet.VR Player: VR Player 0.3.1 ALPHA: New plugin system with individual folders TrackIR support Maya and 3ds max formats support Dual screen support Mono layouts (left and right) Cylinder height parameter Barel effect factor parameter Razer hydra filter parameter VRPN bug fixes UI improvements Performances improvements Stabilization and logging with Log4Net New default values base on users feedback CTRL key to open menuSimCityPak: SimCityPak 0.1.0.8: SimCityPak 0.1.0.8 New features: Import BMP color palettes for vehicles Import RASTER file (uncompressed 8.8.8.8 DDS files) View different channels of RASTER files or preview of all layers combined Find text in javascripts TGA viewer Ground textures added to lot editor Many additional identified instances and propertiesWsus Package Publisher: Release v1.2.1306.09: Add more verifications on certificate validation. WPP will not let user to try publishing an update until the certificate is valid. Add certificate expiration date on the 'About' form. Filter Approbation to avoid a user to try to approve an update for uninstallation when the update do not support uninstallation. Add the server and console version on the 'About' form. WPP will not let user to publish an update until the server and console are not at the same level. WPP do not let user ...AJAX Control Toolkit: June 2013 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - June 2013 Release Version 7.0607June 2013 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4.5 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - Instructions for using the AJAX Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5 can be found at...Rawr: Rawr 5.2.1: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr Addon (NOT UPDATED YET FOR MOP)We now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including ba...VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: PG-Ripper 1.4.13: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageJumbo.com" links FIXED: Ripping of Threads with multiple pagesNew ProjectsControl de stock: sistema para control de stockEmails Outlook Mac Recovery Software That Is Provenly Better Than Others: Recover OLM Emails with Outlook Mac Recovery Software that restore Mac OLM files as well as Convert OLM files in EML and DBX file format. Horarios e Disciplinas: O projeto de Grade Horária do CEPE é desenvolvido por um analista programador experiente e dois estagiários ciosos de conhecimento nas linguagens C#, Razor, Entity Framework, AJAX.Hyper-v VHost and VM Inventory Reports: Get a detailed inventory/report from your VHost and it's VMs. Powershell script that dumps the report as a test file.jean0614changbranch: ddjean0614jabbrchangebranch: dLandscape: Planned Maintenance System, is a system being used for any fleet of assets where a regular maintenance is required.MongoCamp: MongoCamp for MongoDBNo-nonsense Flickr Uploader: Simple, easy to-use, stable, flickr uploader for large batch uploads.Outlook PST Converter to Export, Convert & Save PST in Other Formats: Outlook PST Converter to export Outlook emails in other formats from PST format which will be a better option to change format of Outlook PST file to PDF, MSG.Penrose Tiles: A simple windows forms based penrose tile generator.Ranch Master - an Object Oriented Progamming 2013 College Project: Raise the sheep by maintaining the Hunger & Thirst level low, keep the condition to 'Healthy', collect wools produced, trade the wools into points.SH Demo App: Summary!Stock Right: Initial releaseTesting Project: testingtestjabbr0613: testUnits of Measure: Simple solution to cope with units of measure in C# applications. You can develop your own unit system, be it SI-based or anything else that suits your needs.User Friendly Registration Plugin for DotNetNuke: This plugin makes DotNetNuke registration process more user friendly. Main idea is to inform user about possible mistakes in the registration form immediately,

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