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• Silverlight Cream Monday WP7 App Review # 2

  - by Dave Campbell

  Today's Review (alphabetic order): GooNews, Grocery Shopping List, Need for Speed, SurfCube, and United Nations News. I'm a day late if these are going to be 'Monday' posts, but there are lots of apps, lots of goodness, and lots of email, so I might try to do 2 a week, we'll see. So once again I've got a small review of 5 apps that are either on my phone or have been. Disclaimers at the end. In this Issue:   GooNews is a very cool app from Shawn Wildermuth (AgiliTrain). I don't know if he uses this as a demo during his instruction, but it definitely serves a purpose... wanna pick up the top news items from Google on a never-ending basis? ... this is it. You can add your own keyword searches, and send stories to InstaPaper or share via email. I like this because it brings me the news quickly and updated, and works great. GooNews is by AgiliTrain and is Free This was a request by the author, and actually surprised me. I'm a big one for lists, but I would have just done a OneNote list to SkyDrive and to my phone. This app is a lot more than that, but will take you some setup to make it be 'yours'. For obvious reasons, there are no unit prices on things, so you have to set that up to get some idea of the cost of what you're shopping for. But if you do that, you'll get a nice total. Lots of thought went into the various categories and you can add your own. There's a bit of animation on the category selection that's nice. He seems to have covered all the bases necessary to use this, even shopping 'plans' that can be saved, and emailing of lists. As I said, I'm more of a raw list person, but if you take the time to set this up, it should work very nicely for you. Grocery Shopping List is by Grocery Shopper and is $0.99 ($1.99 after Feb 1) with a free trial. This was my 2nd commercial game I bought, and the one I've played the most. I ran the trial, thought it worked great, and bought it. I've had a lot of fun with this... there's no gas pedal.. your foot is in the carbeurator from the GO!, and unless you wanna tap the screen and brake like a little girl, just hang onto the steering wheel (the phone), and guide your way through. Hours of fun and challenges here. I like this because it's got some challenge to it, and the cars seem to be very realistic in their reactions. Need for Speed Undercover is by Electronic Arts is $4.99 and has a free trial. SurfCube Browser is another app by the folks that did the GuitarTuner I reviewed on Monday. You have to see SurfCube to believe it. You've probably seen the YouTube video, if not check SilverlightCream number 1017. The app works very solid, and just as the video demonstrates. I downloaded and tried this, and it immediately did 2 things: bought it, and pinned it to my start page. I like this because it's fun to work with, and it works great as a browser. I'm about *this* close to replacing the IE tile on my front page with SurfCube. SurfCube Browser is by Kinabalu Innovation Limited and is $1.99 and has a free trial. Coming in with another News app is United Nations News by Justin Angel. This is definitely a news aggregator for 'grown ups'... news, photos, videos, and radio broadcsts from the international community all in one very slick app. This is an amazingly well thought-out and complete app. Even better yet, Justin has the code on CodePlex. A very well-done International news aggregator. United Nations News is by Justin Angel and is Free. A few disclaimers: Feel free to write me about your app and tell me about it. While it would be very cool to receive a whole bunch of xap files to review, at this point, for technical reasons, I'm unable to side-load my device. Since I plan on only doing this one day a week (twice if I find time), and only 5, I may never get caught up, so if you send me some info, be patient. Re: games ... remember I'm old... I'm from the era of Colossal Cave and Zork. Duke-Nukem 2D and Captain Comic were awesome. I don't own an XBOX or any other game system, so take game reviews from my perspective -- who knows, it may be refreshing :) I won't pay for an app or game just to try it. If you expect me to test-drive your app, it's going to have to have a Free Trial. I'm still playing with the format, comments are welcome. I decided I should alphabetize the list today... so there's no order implied Let me know what you think of the idea of doing reviews, or the layout/whatever, and Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• .NET development on a Retina MacBook Pro with Windows 8

  - by Jeff

  I remember sitting in Building 5 at Microsoft with some of my coworkers, when one of them came in with a shiny new 11” MacBook Air. It was nearly two years ago, and we found it pretty odd that the OEM’s building Windows machines sucked at industrial design in a way that defied logic. While Dell and HP were in a race to the bottom building commodity crap, Apple was staying out of the low-end market completely, and focusing on better design. In the process, they managed to build machines people actually wanted, and maintain an insanely high margin in the process. I stopped buying the commodity crap and custom builds in 2006, when Apple went Intel. As a .NET guy, I was still in it for Microsoft’s stack of development tools, which I found awesome, but had back to back crappy laptops from HP and Dell. After that original 15” MacBook Pro, I also had a Mac Pro tower (that I sold after three years for $1,500!), a 27” iMac, and my favorite, a 17” MacBook Pro (the unibody style) with an SSD added from OWC. The 17” was a little much to carry around because it was heavy, but it sure was nice getting as much as eight hours of battery life, and the screen was amazing. When the rumors started about a 15” model with a “retina” screen inspired by the Air, I made up my mind I wanted one, and ordered it the day it came out. I sold my 17”, after three years, for $750 to a friend who is really enjoying it. I got the base model with the upgrade to 16 gigs of RAM. It feels solid for being so thin, and if you’ve used the third generation iPad or the newer iPhone, you’ll be just as thrilled with the screen resolution. I’m typically getting just over six hours of battery life while running a VM, but Parallels 8 allegedly makes some power improvements, so we’ll see what happens. (It was just released today.) The nice thing about VM’s are that you can run more than one at a time. Primarily I run the Windows 8 VM with four cores (the laptop is quad-core, but has 8 logical cores due to hyperthreading or whatever Intel calls it) and 8 gigs of RAM. I also have a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM I spin up when I need to test stuff in a “real” server environment, and I give it two cores and 4 gigs of RAM. The Windows 8 VM spins up in about 8 seconds. Visual Studio 2012 takes a few more seconds, but count part of that as the “ReSharper tax” as it does its startup magic. The real beauty, the thing I looked most forward to, is that beautifully crisp C# text. Consolas has never looked as good as it does at 10pt. as it does on this display. You know how it looks great at 80pt. when conference speakers demo stuff on a projector? Think that sharpness, only tiny. It’s just gorgeous. Beyond that, everything is just so responsive and fast. Builds of large projects happen in seconds, hundreds of unit tests run in seconds… you just don’t spend a lot of time waiting for stuff. It’s kind of painful to go back to my 27” iMac (which would be better if I put an SSD in it before its third birthday). Are there negatives? A few minor issues, yes. As is the case with OS X, not everything scales right. You’ll see some weirdness at times with splash screens and icons and such. Chrome’s text rendering (in Windows) is apparently not aware of how to deal with higher DPI’s, so text is fuzzy (the OS X version is super sharp, however). You’ll also have to do some fiddling with keyboard settings to use the Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts. Overall, it’s as close to a no-compromise development experience as I’ve ever had. I’m not even going to bother with Boot Camp because the VM route already exceeds my expectations. You definitely get what you pay for. If this one also lasts three years and I can turn around and sell it, it’s worth it for something I use every day.

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• WIF-less claim extraction from ACS: SWT

  - by Elton Stoneman

  WIF with SAML is solid and flexible, but unless you need the power, it can be overkill for simple claim assertion, and in the REST world WIF doesn’t have support for the latest token formats.  Simple Web Token (SWT) may not be around forever, but while it's here it's a nice easy format which you can manipulate in .NET without having to go down the WIF route. Assuming you have set up a Relying Party in ACS, specifying SWT as the token format: When ACS redirects to your login page, it will POST the SWT in the first form variable. It comes through in the BinarySecurityToken element of a RequestSecurityTokenResponse XML payload , the SWT type is specified with a TokenType of http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2009/11/swt-token-profile-1.0 : <t:RequestSecurityTokenResponse xmlns:t="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust">   <t:Lifetime>     <wsu:Created xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">2012-08-31T07:31:18.655Z</wsu:Created>     <wsu:Expires xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">2012-08-31T09:11:18.655Z</wsu:Expires>   </t:Lifetime>   <wsp:AppliesTo xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy">     <EndpointReference xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">       <Address>http://localhost/x.y.z</Address>     </EndpointReference>   </wsp:AppliesTo>   <t:RequestedSecurityToken>     <wsse:BinarySecurityToken wsu:Id="uuid:fc8d3332-d501-4bb0-84ba-d31aa95a1a6c" ValueType="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2009/11/swt-token-profile-1.0" EncodingType="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0#Base64Binary" xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"> [ base64string ] </wsse:BinarySecurityToken>   </t:RequestedSecurityToken>   <t:TokenType>http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2009/11/swt-token-profile-1.0</t:TokenType>   <t:RequestType>http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust/Issue</t:RequestType>   <t:KeyType>http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/NoProofKey</t:KeyType> </t:RequestSecurityTokenResponse> Reading the SWT is as simple as base-64 decoding, then URL-decoding the element value:     var wrappedToken = XDocument.Parse(HttpContext.Current.Request.Form[1]);     var binaryToken = wrappedToken.Root.Descendants("{http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd}BinarySecurityToken").First();     var tokenBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(binaryToken.Value);     var token = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(tokenBytes);     var tokenType = wrappedToken.Root.Descendants("{http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust}TokenType").First().Value; The decoded token contains the claims as key/value pairs, along with the issuer, audience (ACS realm), expiry date and an HMAC hash, which are in query string format. Separate them on the ampersand, and you can write out the claim values in your logged-in page:     var decoded = HttpUtility.UrlDecode(token);     foreach (var part in decoded.Split('&'))     {         Response.Write("<pre>" + part + "</pre><br/>");     } - which will produce something like this: http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/authenticationinstant=2012-08-31T06:57:01.855Z http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/authenticationmethod=http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/authenticationmethod/windows http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/windowsaccountname=XYZ http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/[email protected] http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/[email protected] http://schemas.microsoft.com/accesscontrolservice/2010/07/claims/identityprovider=http://fs.svc.xyz.com/adfs/services/trust Audience=http://localhost/x.y.z ExpiresOn=1346402225 Issuer=https://x-y-z.accesscontrol.windows.net/ HMACSHA256=oDCeEDDAWEC8x+yBnTaCLnzp4L6jI0Z/xNK95PdZTts= The HMAC hash lets you validate the token to ensure it hasn’t been tampered with. You'll need the token signing key from ACS, then you can re-sign the token and compare hashes. There's a full implementation of an SWT parser and validator here: How To Request SWT Token From ACS And How To Validate It At The REST WCF Service Hosted In Windows Azure, and a cut-down claim inspector on my github code gallery: ACS Claim Inspector. Interestingly, ACS lets you have a value for your logged-in page which has no relation to the realm for authentication, so you can put this code into a generic claim inspector page, and set that to be your logged-in page for any relying party where you want to check what's being sent through. Particularly handy with ADFS, when you're modifying the claims provided, and want to quickly see the results.

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• From Pocket to Instapaper

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  Some time ago I’ve described the issues that I’ve had since a new version of Read It Later, named Pocket, was introduced.I’ve waited with hope for a new upgrade, but I had a huge disappointment with the latest version 16 June 2012. It didn’t fixed any of the two major problems, that I  experienced since new Pocket was introduced-  1. iPad app still didn’t show many of the saved links. 2. ability to rename articles on iPad still wasn’t restored.I’ve posted the message into their forum. They did not show my comment on their forum( I would name it censorship, not moderation), but a few days ago I’ve received an email, recommending “try logging out of the app on your iPad, and back in again.” Their suggestion helped,  but I don’t understand, why it is not posted as a recommendation on their support site.So I decided to try InstAPaper on my iPad, Previously I’ve used it for Kindle. I never considered it before on iPad, because there were no free demo and I was very satisfied with RIL free and then RIL Pro. Currently InstAPaper cost $3, so the price is not an issue.I’ve checked that it has most of features that I am using(e.g. renaming, folders) and I am quite happy with it now. Actually I am using Pocket (or RIL free) for old bookmarks( I have 1000+ stored on my iPad) and for new bookmarks I am using InstAPaper.Having a solid experience with RIL/Pocket I’ve created a list of suggestions to Marco Arment to implement.1. Some pages stored in InstAPaper have removed essential sections of the text. E.g in many blogs comments are not stored in  InstAPaper. Some pages lost almost all of important links (e.g. http://www.lib.rus.ec/a/32416 -sorry, in Russian). RIL/Pocket has 2 modes to store offline- Web view and Article view. Web View includes all links/images of the original page, but it’s very reliable. Article view suppose to strip unrelated information, but often corrupts the content. I prefer to use offline Web view.InstAPaper should also support offline Web view, in case if stripped view removes important part of content.2.  Black full screen Saving on iPad Safari is very annoying. After user pressed a bookmark, the saving has some delay and then for a few seconds prevents from reading the text.Would be better to show as message on the top part(as in Pocket ). I am surprised, that  a full screen popup was  implemented recently as a desired feature. 3.There are no comments allowed on http://blog.instapaper.com/. I would prefer to post some of these notes as comments on http://blog.instapaper.com/ rather than write them in my blog and then send link to Marco.(I found recommendation how to add support of comments on tumblr at http://www.tumblr.com/help, but then realized that Marko was the lead developer ofTumblr.)4. Also there is no support forum. I understand that maintenance of the forum ican be a hassle, but stackexchange fSome time ago I’ve described the issues that I’ve had since a new version of Read It Later, named Pocket, was introduced.I’ve waited with hope for a new upgrade, but I had a huge disappointment with the latest version 16 June 2012. It didn’t fixed any of the two major problems, that I  experienced since new Pocket was introduced- orums can be referred on  http://www.instapaper.com/main/support page, i.e.http://webapps.stackexchange.com/search?q=Instapaper  or http://apple.stackexchange.com/search?q=Instapaper 5. Tags are more convenient than folders. i.e. an ability for the same article to have more than one tag. Also creating of new folders is not supported offline, which is an annoying limitation.6. I would like to have a narrow list - additionally to existing list modes have a subject only list or subject+site list to show more list items on a screen.7. Limit of 500 offline articles sounds quite big, but my RIL list exceeded 1000, so it could be a issue in the future.8. Search button on iPad version is visible, but doesn’t work- it forces to buy Premium subscription. I think, that it’s not correct. If the button in a paid version is visible and enabled, it should  provide  a working functionality, e.g. search in article names only. And leave full-text search for the premium support.9..Copy URL is an important operation and deserves to be in a first level of Action menu, rather than in Share sub-menu.I’ve also have comment re post http://www.marco.org/2011/04/28/removed-instapaper-free. Marco Arment  explained, why he doesn’t provide free version of Instapaper.  I believe that he is loosing essential part of his customers. When I decided which of iPad application to choose, I’ve selected RIL, because I was able to play with free version, and I liked it. I didn’t have a chance to compare RIL and InstAPaper on iPad, so I’ve bought  RIL pro. For a user there is no point to pay even $3 , if there are similar free product, that user can try and see, is it suitable for him/her.I’ve also played with Readability. It doesn’t have folders or tags(which is very important for me), but nicely supports full text search

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• OpenGL 3 and the Radeon HD 4850x2

  - by rotard

  A while ago, I picked up a copy of the OpenGL SuperBible fifth edition and slowly and painfully started teaching myself OpenGL the 3.3 way, after having been used to the 1.0 way from school way back when. Making things more challenging, I am primarily a .NET developer, so I was working in Mono with the OpenTK OpenGL wrapper. On my laptop, I put together a program that let the user walk around a simple landscape using a couple shaders that implemented per-vertex coloring and lighting and texture mapping. Everything was working brilliantly until I ran the same program on my desktop. Disaster! Nothing would render! I have chopped my program down to the point where the camera sits near the origin, pointing at the origin, and renders a square (technically, a triangle fan). The quad renders perfectly on my laptop, coloring, lighting, texturing and all, but the desktop renders a small distorted non-square quadrilateral that is colored incorrectly, not affected by the lights, and not textured. I suspect the graphics card is at fault, because I get the same result whether I am booted into Ubuntu 10.10 or Win XP. I did find that if I pare the vertex shader down to ONLY outputting the positional data and the fragment shader to ONLY outputting a solid color (white) the quad renders correctly. But as SOON as I start passing in color data (whether or not I use it in the fragment shader) the output from the vertex shader is distorted again. The shaders follow. I left the pre-existing code in, but commented out so you can get an idea what I was trying to do. I'm a noob at glsl so the code could probably be a lot better. My laptop is an old lenovo T61p with a Centrino (Core 2) Duo and an nVidia Quadro graphics card running Ubuntu 10.10 My desktop has an i7 with a Radeon HD 4850 x2 (single card, dual GPU) from Saphire dual booting into Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows XP. The problem occurs in both XP and Ubuntu. Can anyone see something wrong that I am missing? What is "special" about my HD 4850x2? string vertexShaderSource = @" #version 330 precision highp float; uniform mat4 projection_matrix; uniform mat4 modelview_matrix; //uniform mat4 normal_matrix; //uniform mat4 cmv_matrix; //Camera modelview. Light sources are transformed by this matrix. //uniform vec3 ambient_color; //uniform vec3 diffuse_color; //uniform vec3 diffuse_direction; in vec4 in_position; in vec4 in_color; //in vec3 in_normal; //in vec3 in_tex_coords; out vec4 varyingColor; //out vec3 varyingTexCoords; void main(void) { //Get surface normal in eye coordinates //vec4 vEyeNormal = normal_matrix * vec4(in_normal, 0); //Get vertex position in eye coordinates //vec4 vPosition4 = modelview_matrix * vec4(in_position, 0); //vec3 vPosition3 = vPosition4.xyz / vPosition4.w; //Get vector to light source in eye coordinates //vec3 lightVecNormalized = normalize(diffuse_direction); //vec3 vLightDir = normalize((cmv_matrix * vec4(lightVecNormalized, 0)).xyz); //Dot product gives us diffuse intensity //float diff = max(0.0, dot(vEyeNormal.xyz, vLightDir.xyz)); //Multiply intensity by diffuse color, force alpha to 1.0 //varyingColor.xyz = in_color * diff * diffuse_color.xyz; varyingColor = in_color; //varyingTexCoords = in_tex_coords; gl_Position = projection_matrix * modelview_matrix * in_position; }"; string fragmentShaderSource = @" #version 330 //#extension GL_EXT_gpu_shader4 : enable precision highp float; //uniform sampler2DArray colorMap; //in vec4 varyingColor; //in vec3 varyingTexCoords; out vec4 out_frag_color; void main(void) { out_frag_color = vec4(1,1,1,1); //out_frag_color = varyingColor; //out_frag_color = vec4(varyingColor, 1) * texture(colorMap, varyingTexCoords.st); //out_frag_color = vec4(varyingColor, 1) * texture(colorMap, vec3(varyingTexCoords.st, 0)); //out_frag_color = vec4(varyingColor, 1) * texture2DArray(colorMap, varyingTexCoords); }"; Note that in this code the color data is accepted but not actually used. The geometry is outputted the same (wrong) whether the fragment shader uses varyingColor or not. Only if I comment out the line varyingColor = in_color; does the geometry output correctly. Originally the shaders took in vec3 inputs, I only modified them to take vec4s while troubleshooting.

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• ADF version of "Modern" dialog windows

  - by Martin Deh

  It is no surprise with the popularity of the i-devices (iphone, ipad), that many of the iOS UI based LnF (look and feel) would start to inspire web designers to incorporate the same LnF into their web sites.  Take for example, a normal dialog popup.  In the iOS world, the LnF becomes a bit more elegant by add just a simple element as a "floating" close button: In this blog post, I will describe how this can be accomplished using OOTB ADF components and CSS3 style elements. There are two ways that this can be achieved.  The easiest way is to simply replace the default image, which looks like this, and adjust the af|panelWindow:close-icon-style skin selector.   Using this simple technique, you can come up with this: The CSS code to produce this effect is pretty straight forward: af|panelWindow.test::close-icon-style{    background-image: url("../popClose.gif");    line-height: 10px;    position: absolute;    right: -10px;    top: -10px;    height:38px;    width:38px;    outline:none; } You can see from the CSS, the position of the region, which holds the image, is relocated based on the position based attributes.  Also, the addition of the "outline" attribute removes the border that is visible in Chrome and IE.  The second example, is based on not having an image to produce the close button.  Like the previous sample, I will use the OOTB panelWindow.  However, this time I will use a OOTB commandButton to replace the image.  The construct of the components looks like this: The commandButton is positioned first in the hierarchy making the re-positioning easier.  The commandButton will also need a style class assigned to it (i.e. closeButton), which will allow for the positioning and the over-riding of the default skin attributes of a default button.  In addition, the closeIconVisible property is set to false, since the default icon is no longer needed.  Once this is done, the rest is in the CSS.  Here is the sample that I created that was used for an actual customer POC: The CSS code for the button: af|commandButton.closeButton, af|commandButton.closeButton af|commandButton:text-only{     line-height: 10px;     position: absolute;     right: -10px;     top: -10px;     -webkit-border-radius: 70px;     -moz-border-radius: 70px;     -ms-border-radius: 70px;     border-radius: 70px;     background-image:none;     border:#828c95 1px solid;     background-color:black;     font-weight: bold;     text-align: center;     text-decoration: none;     color:white;     height:30px;     width:30px;     outline:none; } The CSS uses the border radius to create the round effect on the button (in IE 8, since border-radius is not supported, this will only work with some added code). Also, I add the box-shadow attribute to the panelWindow style class to give it a nice shadowing effect.

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• Trouble with AABB collision response and physics

  - by WCM

  I have been racking my brain trying to figure out a problem I am having with physics and basic AABB collision response. I am fairly close as the physics are mostly right. Gravity feels good and movement is solid. The issue I am running into is that when I land on the test block in my project, I can jump off of it most of the time. If I repeatedly jump in place, I will eventually get stuck one or two pixels below the surface of the test block. If I try to jump, I can become free of the other block, but it will happen again a few jumps later. I feel like I am missing something really obvious with this. I have two functions that support the detection and function to return a vector for the overlap of the two rectangle bounding boxes. I have a single update method that is processing the physics and collision for the entity. I feel like I am missing something very simple, like an ordering of the physics vs. collision response handling. Any thoughts or help can be appreciated. I apologize for the format of the code, tis prototype code mostly. The collision detection function: public static bool Collides(Rectangle source, Rectangle target) { if (source.Right < target.Left || source.Bottom < target.Top || source.Left > target.Right || source.Top > target.Bottom) { return false; } return true; } The overlap function: public static Vector2 GetMinimumTranslation(Rectangle source, Rectangle target) { Vector2 mtd = new Vector2(); Vector2 amin = source.Min(); Vector2 amax = source.Max(); Vector2 bmin = target.Min(); Vector2 bmax = target.Max(); float left = (bmin.X - amax.X); float right = (bmax.X - amin.X); float top = (bmin.Y - amax.Y); float bottom = (bmax.Y - amin.Y); if (left > 0 || right < 0) return Vector2.Zero; if (top > 0 || bottom < 0) return Vector2.Zero; if (Math.Abs(left) < right) mtd.X = left; else mtd.X = right; if (Math.Abs(top) < bottom) mtd.Y = top; else mtd.Y = bottom; // 0 the axis with the largest mtd value. if (Math.Abs(mtd.X) < Math.Abs(mtd.Y)) mtd.Y = 0; else mtd.X = 0; return mtd; } The update routine (gravity = 0.001f, jumpHeight = 0.35f, moveAmount = 0.15f): public void Update(GameTime gameTime) { Acceleration.Y = gravity; Position += new Vector2((float)(movement * moveAmount * gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds), (float)(Velocity.Y * gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds)); Velocity.Y += Acceleration.Y; Vector2 previousPosition = new Vector2((int)Position.X, (int)Position.Y); KeyboardState keyboard = Keyboard.GetState(); movement = 0; if (keyboard.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { movement -= 1; } if (keyboard.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { movement += 1; } if (Position.Y + 16 > GameClass.Instance.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height) { Velocity.Y = 0; Position = new Vector2(Position.X, GameClass.Instance.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height - 16); IsOnSurface = true; } if (Collision.Collides(BoundingBox, GameClass.Instance.block.BoundingBox)) { Vector2 mtd = Collision.GetMinimumTranslation(BoundingBox, GameClass.Instance.block.BoundingBox); Position += mtd; Velocity.Y = 0; IsOnSurface = true; } if (keyboard.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space) && !previousKeyboard.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { if (IsOnSurface) { Velocity.Y = -jumpHeight; IsOnSurface = false; } } previousKeyboard = keyboard; } This is also a full download to the project. https://www.box.com/s/3rkdtbso3xgfgc2asawy P.S. I know that I could do this with the XNA Platformer Starter Kit algo, but it has some deep flaws that I am going to try to live without. I'd rather go the route of collision response via an overlay function. Thanks for any and all insight!

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• Collision Detection problems in Voxel Engine (XNA)

  - by Darestium

  I am creating a minecraft like terrain engine in XNA and have had some collision problems for quite some time. I have checked and changed my code based on other peoples collision code and I still have the same problem. It always seems to be off by about a block. for instance, if I walk across a bridge which is one block high I fall through it. Also, if you walk towards a "row" of blocks like this: You are able to stand "inside" the left most one, and you collide with nothing in the right most side (where there is no block and is not visible on this image). Here is all my collision code: private void Move(GameTime gameTime, Vector3 direction) { float speed = playermovespeed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Matrix rotationMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationY(player.Camera.LeftRightRotation); Vector3 rotatedVector = Vector3.Transform(direction, rotationMatrix); rotatedVector.Normalize(); Vector3 testVector = rotatedVector; testVector.Normalize(); Vector3 movePosition = player.position + testVector * speed; Vector3 midBodyPoint = movePosition + new Vector3(0, -0.7f, 0); Vector3 headPosition = movePosition + new Vector3(0, 0.1f, 0); if (!world.GetBlock(movePosition).IsSolid && !world.GetBlock(midBodyPoint).IsSolid && !world.GetBlock(headPosition).IsSolid) { player.position += rotatedVector * speed; } //player.position += rotatedVector * speed; } ... public void UpdatePosition(GameTime gameTime) { player.velocity.Y += playergravity * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Vector3 footPosition = player.Position + new Vector3(0f, -1.5f, 0f); Vector3 headPosition = player.Position + new Vector3(0f, 0.1f, 0f); // If the block below the player is solid the Y velocity should be zero if (world.GetBlock(footPosition).IsSolid || world.GetBlock(headPosition).IsSolid) { player.velocity.Y = 0; } UpdateJump(gameTime); UpdateCounter(gameTime); ProcessInput(gameTime); player.Position = player.Position + player.velocity * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; velocity = Vector3.Zero; } and the one and only function in the camera class: protected void CalculateView() { Matrix rotationMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationX(upDownRotation) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(leftRightRotation); lookVector = Vector3.Transform(Vector3.Forward, rotationMatrix); cameraFinalTarget = Position + lookVector; Vector3 cameraRotatedUpVector = Vector3.Transform(Vector3.Up, rotationMatrix); viewMatrix = Matrix.CreateLookAt(Position, cameraFinalTarget, cameraRotatedUpVector); } which is called when the rotation variables are changed: public float LeftRightRotation { get { return leftRightRotation; } set { leftRightRotation = value; CalculateView(); } } public float UpDownRotation { get { return upDownRotation; } set { upDownRotation = value; CalculateView(); } } World class: public Block GetBlock(int x, int y, int z) { if (InBounds(x, y, z)) { Vector3i regionalPosition = GetRegionalPosition(x, y, z); Vector3i region = GetRegionPosition(x, y, z); return regions[region.X, region.Y, region.Z].Blocks[regionalPosition.X, regionalPosition.Y, regionalPosition.Z]; } return new Block(BlockType.none); } public Vector3i GetRegionPosition(int x, int y, int z) { int regionx = x == 0 ? 0 : x / Variables.REGION_SIZE_X; int regiony = y == 0 ? 0 : y / Variables.REGION_SIZE_Y; int regionz = z == 0 ? 0 : z / Variables.REGION_SIZE_Z; return new Vector3i(regionx, regiony, regionz); } public Vector3i GetRegionalPosition(int x, int y, int z) { int regionx = x == 0 ? 0 : x / Variables.REGION_SIZE_X; int X = x % Variables.REGION_SIZE_X; int regiony = y == 0 ? 0 : y / Variables.REGION_SIZE_Y; int Y = y % Variables.REGION_SIZE_Y; int regionz = z == 0 ? 0 : z / Variables.REGION_SIZE_Z; int Z = z % Variables.REGION_SIZE_Z; return new Vector3i(X, Y, Z); } Any ideas how to fix this problem? EDIT 1: Graphic of the problem: EDIT 2 GetBlock, Vector3 version: public Block GetBlock(Vector3 position) { int x = (int)Math.Floor(position.X); int y = (int)Math.Floor(position.Y); int z = (int)Math.Ceiling(position.Z); Block block = GetBlock(x, y, z); return block; } Now, the thing is I tested the theroy that the Z is always "off by one" and by ceiling the value it actually works as intended. Altough it still could be greatly more accurate (when you go down holes you can see through the sides, and I doubt it will work with negitive positions). I also does not feel clean Flooring the X and Y values and just Ceiling the Z. I am surely not doing something correctly still.

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• How You Helped Shape Java EE 7...

  - by reza_rahman

  I have been working with the JCP in various roles since EJB 3/Java EE 5 (much of it on my own time), eventually culminating in my decision to accept my current role at Oracle (despite it's inevitable set of unique challenges, a role I find by and large positive and fulfilling). During these years, it has always been clear to me that pretty much everyone in the JCP genuinely cares about openness, feedback and developer participation. Perhaps the most visible sign to date of this high regard for grassroots level input is a survey on Java EE 7 gathered a few months ago. The survey was designed to get open feedback on a number of critical issues central to the Java EE 7 umbrella specification including what APIs to include in the standard. When we started the survey, I don't think anyone was certain what the level of participation from developers would really be. I also think everyone was pleasantly surprised that a large number of developers (around 1100) took the time out to vote on these very important issues that could impact their own professional life. And it wasn't just a matter of the quantity of responses. I was particularly impressed with the quality of the comments made through the survey (some of which I'll try to do justice to below). With Java EE 7 under our belt and the horizons for Java EE 8 emerging, this is a good time to thank everyone that took the survey once again for their thoughts and let you know what the impact of your voice actually was. As an aside, you may be happy to know that we are working hard behind the scenes to try to put together a similar survey to help kick off the agenda for Java EE 8 (although this is by no means certain). I'll break things down by the questions asked in the survey, the responses and the resulting change in the specification. APIs to Add to Java EE 7 Full/Web Profile The first question in the survey asked which of four new candidate APIs (WebSocket, JSON-P, JBatch and JCache) should be added to the Java EE 7 Full and Web profile respectively. Developers by and large wanted all the new APIs added to the full platform. The comments expressed particularly strong support for WebSocket and JCache. Others expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of a JSON binding (as opposed to JSON processing) API. WebSocket, JSON-P and JBatch are now part of Java EE 7. In addition, the long-awaited Java EE Concurrency Utilities API was also included in the Full Profile. Unfortunately, JCache was not finalized in time for Java EE 7 and the decision was made not to hold up the Java EE release any longer. JCache continues to move forward strongly and will very likely be included in Java EE 8 (it will be available much sooner than Java EE 8 to boot). An emergent standard for JSON-B is also a strong possibility for Java EE 8. When it came to the Web Profile, developers were supportive of adding WebSocket and JSON-P, but not JBatch and JCache. Both WebSocket and JSON-P are now part of the Web Profile, now also including the already popular JAX-RS API. Enabling CDI by Default The second question asked whether CDI should be enabled in Java EE by default. The overwhelming majority of developers supported the default enablement of CDI. In addition, developers expressed a desire for better CDI/Java EE alignment (with regards to EJB and JSF in particular). Some developers expressed legitimate concerns over the performance implications of enabling CDI globally as well as the potential conflict with other JSR 330 implementations like Spring and Guice. CDI is enabled by default in Java EE 7. Respecting the legitimate concerns, CDI 1.1 was very careful to add additional controls around component scanning. While a lot of work was done in Java EE 6 and Java EE 7 around CDI alignment, further alignment is under serious consideration for Java EE 8. Consistent Usage of @Inject The third question was around using CDI/JSR 330 @Inject consistently vs. allowing JSRs to create their own injection annotations (e.g. @BatchContext). A majority of developers wanted consistent usage of @Inject. The comments again reflected a strong desire for CDI/Java EE alignment. A lot of emphasis in Java EE 7 was put into using @Inject consistently. For example, the JBatch specification is focused on using @Inject wherever possible. JAX-RS remains an exception with it's existing custom injection annotations. However, the JAX-RS specification leads understand the importance of eventual convergence, hopefully in Java EE 8. Expanding the Use of @Stereotype The fourth question was about expanding CDI @Stereotype to cover annotations across Java EE beyond just CDI. A solid majority of developers supported the idea of making @Stereotype more universal in Java EE. The comments maintained the general theme of strong support for CDI/Java EE alignment Unfortunately, there was not enough time and resources in Java EE 7 to implement this fairly pervasive feature. However, it remains a serious consideration for Java EE 8. Expanding Interceptor Use The final set of questions was about expanding interceptors further across Java EE. Developers strongly supported the concept. Along with injection, interceptors are now supported across all Java EE 7 components including Servlets, Filters, Listeners, JAX-WS endpoints, JAX-RS resources, WebSocket endpoints and so on. I hope you are encouraged by how your input to the survey helped shape Java EE 7 and continues to shape Java EE 8. Participating in these sorts of surveys is of course just one way of contributing to Java EE. Another great way to stay involved is the Adopt-A-JSR Program. A large number of developers are already participating through their local JUGs. You could of course become a Java EE JSR expert group member or observer. You should stay tuned to The Aquarium for the progress of Java EE 8 JSRs if that's something you want to look into...

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• Hybrid IT or Cloud Initiative – a Perfect Enterprise Architecture Maturation Opportunity

  - by Ted McLaughlan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} All too often in the growth and maturation of Enterprise Architecture initiatives, the effort stalls or is delayed due to lack of “applied traction”. By this, I mean the EA activities - whether targeted towards compliance, risk mitigation or value opportunity propositions – may not be attached to measurable, active, visible projects that could advance and prove the value of EA. EA doesn’t work by itself, in a vacuum, without collaborative engagement and a means of proving usefulness. A critical vehicle to this proof is successful orchestration and use of assets and investment resources to meet a high-profile business objective – i.e. a successful project. More and more organizations are now exploring and considering some degree of IT outsourcing, buying and using external services and solutions to deliver their IT and business requirements – vs. building and operating in-house, in their own data centers. The rapid growth and success of “Cloud” services makes some decisions easier and some IT projects more successful, while dramatically lowering IT risks and enabling rapid growth. This is particularly true for “Software as a Service” (SaaS) applications, which essentially are complete web applications hosted and delivered over the Internet. Whether SaaS solutions – or any kind of cloud solution - are actually, ultimately the most cost-effective approach truly depends on the organization’s business and IT investment strategy. This leads us to Enterprise Architecture, the connectivity between business strategy and investment objectives, and the capabilities purchased or created to meet them. If an EA framework already exists, the approach to selecting a cloud-based solution and integrating it with internal IT systems (i.e. a “Hybrid IT” solution) is well-served by leveraging EA methods. If an EA framework doesn’t exist, or is simply not mature enough to address complex, integrated IT objectives – a hybrid IT/cloud initiative is the perfect project to advance and prove the value of EA. Why is this? For starters, the success of any complex IT integration project - spanning multiple systems, contracts and organizations, public and private – depends on active collaboration and coordination among the project stakeholders. For a hybrid IT initiative, inclusive of one or more cloud services providers, the IT services, business workflow and data governance challenges alone can be extremely complex, requiring many diverse layers of organizational expertise and authority. Establishing subject matter expertise, authorities and strategic guidance across all the disciplines involved in a hybrid-IT or hybrid-cloud system requires top-level, comprehensive experience and collaborative leadership. Tools and practices reflecting industry expertise and EA alignment can also be very helpful – such as Oracle’s “Cloud Candidate Selection Tool”. Using tools like this, and facilitating this critical collaboration by leading, organizing and coordinating the input and expertise into a shared, referenceable, reusable set of authority models and practices – this is where EA shines, and where Enterprise Architects can be most valuable. The “enterprise”, in this case, becomes something greater than the core organization – it includes internal systems, public cloud services, 3rd-party IT platforms and datacenters, distributed users and devices; a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Through facilitated project collaboration, leading to identification or creation of solid governance models and processes, a durable and useful Enterprise Architecture framework will usually emerge by itself, if not actually identified and managed as such. The transition from planning collaboration to actual coordination, where the program plan, schedule and resources become synchronized and aligned to other investments in the organization portfolio, is where EA methods and artifacts appear and become most useful. The actual scope and use of these artifacts, in the context of this project, can then set the stage for the most desirable, helpful and pragmatic form of the now-maturing EA framework and community of practice. Considering or starting a hybrid-IT or hybrid-cloud initiative? Running into some complex relationship challenges? This is the perfect time to take advantage of your new, growing or possibly latent Enterprise Architecture practice.

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• Styling ASP.NET MVC Error Messages

  - by MightyZot

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/MightyZot/archive/2013/11/11/styling-asp.net-mvc-error-messages.aspxOff the cuff, it may look like you’re stuck with the presentation of your error messages (model errors) in ASP.NET MVC. That’s not the case, though. You actually have quite a number of options with regard to styling those boogers. Like many of the helpers in MVC, the Html.ValidationMessageFor helper has multiple prototypes. One of those prototypes lets you pass a dictionary, or anonymous object, representing attribute values for the resulting markup. @Html.ValidationMessageFor( m => Model.Whatever, null, new { @class = “my-error” }) By passing the htmlAttributes parameter, which is the last parameter in the call to the prototype of Html.ValidationMessageFor shown above, I can style the resulting markup by associating styles to the my-error css class.  When you run your MVC project and view the source, you’ll notice that MVC adds the class field-validation-valid or field-validation-error to a span created by the helper. You could actually just style those classes instead of adding your own…it’s really up to you. Now, what if you wanted to move that error message around? Maybe you want to put that error message in a box or a callout. How do you do that? When I first started using MVC, it didn’t occur to me that the Html.ValidationMessageFor helper just spits out a little bit of markup. I wanted to put the error messages in boxes with white backgrounds, our site originally had a black background, and show a little nib on the side to make them look like callouts or conversation bubbles. Not realizing how much freedom there is in the styling and markup, and after reading someone else’s post, I created my own version of the ValidationMessageFor helper that took out the span and replaced it with divs. I styled the divs to produce the effect of a popup box and had a lot of trouble with sizing and such. That’s a really silly and unnecessary way to solve this problem. If you want to move your error messages around, all you have to do is move the helper. MVC doesn’t appear to care where you put it, which makes total sense when you think about it. Html.ValidationMessageFor is just spitting out a little markup using a little bit of reflection on the name you’re passing it. All you’ve got to do to style it the way you want it is to put it in whatever markup you desire. Take a look at this, for example… <div class=”my-anchor”>@Html.ValidationMessageFor( m => Model.Whatever )</div> @Html.TextBoxFor(m => Model.Whatever) Now, given that bit of HTML, consider the following CSS… <style> .my-anchor { position:relative; } .field-validation-error {    background-color:white;    border-radius:4px;    border: solid 1px #333;    display: block;    position: absolute;    top:0; right:0; left:0;    text-align:right; } </style> The my-anchor class establishes an anchor for the absolutely positioned error message. Now you can move the error message wherever you want it relative to the anchor. Using css3, there are some other tricks. For example, you can use the :not(:empty) selector to select the span and apply styles based upon whether or not the span has text in it. Keep it simple, though. Moving your elements around using absolute positioning may cause you issues on devices with screens smaller than your standard laptop or PC. While looking for something else recently, I saw someone asking how to style the output for Html.ValidationSummary.  Html.ValidationSummery is the helper that will spit out a list of property errors, general model errors, or both. Html.ValidationSummary spits out fairly simple markup as well, so you can use the techniques described above with it also. The resulting markup is a <ul><li></li></ul> unordered list of error messages that carries the class validation-summary-errors In the forum question, the user was asking how to hide the error summary when there are no errors. Their errors were in a red box and they didn’t want to show an empty red box when there aren’t any errors. Obviously, you can use the css3 selectors to apply different styles to the list when it’s empty and when it’s not empty; however, that’s not support in all browsers. Well, it just so happens that the unordered list carries the style validation-summary-valid when the list is empty. While the div rendered by the Html.ValidationSummary helper renders a visible div, containing one invisible listitem, you can always just style the whole div with “display:none” when the validation-summary-valid class is applied and make it visible when the validation-summary-errors class is applied. Or, if you don’t like that solution, which I like quite well, you can also check the model state for errors with something like this… int errors = ViewData.ModelState.Sum(ms => ms.Value.Errors.Count); That’ll give you a count of the errors that have been added to ModelState. You can check that and conditionally include markup in your page if you want to. The choice is yours. Obviously, doing most everything you can with styles increases the flexibility of the presentation of your solution, so I recommend going that route when you can. That picture of the fat guy jumping has nothing to do with the article. That’s just a picture of me on the roof and I thought it was funny. Doesn’t every post need a picture?

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• Collaborative Whiteboard using WebSocket in GlassFish 4 - Text/JSON and Binary/ArrayBuffer Data Transfer (TOTD #189)

  - by arungupta

  This blog has published a few blogs on using JSR 356 Reference Implementation (Tyrus) as its integrated in GlassFish 4 promoted builds. TOTD #183: Getting Started with WebSocket in GlassFish TOTD #184: Logging WebSocket Frames using Chrome Developer Tools, Net-internals and Wireshark TOTD #185: Processing Text and Binary (Blob, ArrayBuffer, ArrayBufferView) Payload in WebSocket TOTD #186: Custom Text and Binary Payloads using WebSocket One of the typical usecase for WebSocket is online collaborative games. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) explains a sample that can be used to build such games easily. The application is a collaborative whiteboard where different shapes can be drawn in multiple colors. The shapes drawn on one browser are automatically drawn on all other peer browsers that are connected to the same endpoint. The shape, color, and coordinates of the image are transfered using a JSON structure. A browser may opt-out of sharing the figures. Alternatively any browser can send a snapshot of their existing whiteboard to all other browsers. Take a look at this video to understand how the application work and the underlying code. The complete sample code can be downloaded here. The code behind the application is also explained below. The web page (index.jsp) has a HTML5 Canvas as shown: <canvas id="myCanvas" width="150" height="150" style="border:1px solid #000000;"></canvas> And some radio buttons to choose the color and shape. By default, the shape, color, and coordinates of any figure drawn on the canvas are put in a JSON structure and sent as a message to the WebSocket endpoint. The JSON structure looks like: { "shape": "square", "color": "#FF0000", "coords": { "x": 31.59999942779541, "y": 49.91999053955078 }} The endpoint definition looks like: @WebSocketEndpoint(value = "websocket",encoders = {FigureDecoderEncoder.class},decoders = {FigureDecoderEncoder.class})public class Whiteboard { As you can see, the endpoint has decoder and encoder registered that decodes JSON to a Figure (a POJO class) and vice versa respectively. The decode method looks like: public Figure decode(String string) throws DecodeException { try { JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(string); return new Figure(jsonObject); } catch (JSONException ex) { throw new DecodeException("Error parsing JSON", ex.getMessage(), ex.fillInStackTrace()); }} And the encode method looks like: public String encode(Figure figure) throws EncodeException { return figure.getJson().toString();} FigureDecoderEncoder implements both decoder and encoder functionality but thats purely for convenience. But the recommended design pattern is to keep them in separate classes. In certain cases, you may even need only one of them. On the client-side, the Canvas is initialized as: var canvas = document.getElementById("myCanvas");var context = canvas.getContext("2d");canvas.addEventListener("click", defineImage, false); The defineImage method constructs the JSON structure as shown above and sends it to the endpoint using websocket.send(). An instant snapshot of the canvas is sent using binary transfer with WebSocket. The WebSocket is initialized as: var wsUri = "ws://localhost:8080/whiteboard/websocket";var websocket = new WebSocket(wsUri);websocket.binaryType = "arraybuffer"; The important part is to set the binaryType property of WebSocket to arraybuffer. This ensures that any binary transfers using WebSocket are done using ArrayBuffer as the default type seem to be blob. The actual binary data transfer is done using the following: var image = context.getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);var buffer = new ArrayBuffer(image.data.length);var bytes = new Uint8Array(buffer);for (var i=0; i<bytes.length; i++) { bytes[i] = image.data[i];}websocket.send(bytes); This comprehensive sample shows the following features of JSR 356 API: Annotation-driven endpoints Send/receive text and binary payload in WebSocket Encoders/decoders for custom text payload In addition, it also shows how images can be captured and drawn using HTML5 Canvas in a JSP. How could this be turned in to an online game ? Imagine drawing a Tic-tac-toe board on the canvas with two players playing and others watching. Then you can build access rights and controls within the application itself. Instead of sending a snapshot of the canvas on demand, a new peer joining the game could be automatically transferred the current state as well. Do you want to build this game ? I built a similar game a few years ago. Do somebody want to rewrite the game using WebSocket APIs ? :-) Many thanks to Jitu and Akshay for helping through the WebSocket internals! Here are some references for you: JSR 356: Java API for WebSocket - Specification (Early Draft) and Implementation (already integrated in GlassFish 4 promoted builds) Subsequent blogs will discuss the following topics (not necessary in that order) ... Error handling Interface-driven WebSocket endpoint Java client API Client and Server configuration Security Subprotocols Extensions Other topics from the API

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• Lesi, from Graduate Trainee to Territory Manager

  - by Maria Sandu

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 It’s the final year, University is now coming to an end. A new chapter now awaits my arrival. This part of my life is called “Looking for a Job”. With no form of experience whatsoever, getting a job at a well renowned IT company is something that every IT student dreams about. CV: v, Application form: v, interviews: v. Acceptance Call, “Lesi I’m pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to be part of the Oracle Graduate Program for 2012”. Life would never again be the same. Being Part of the Graduate Program Going into the Graduate program, I felt like a baby seeing candy for the first time. The Program gave me the platform to not only break in to the workplace but also to help launch my career. Over the next 3 months, I went through various trainings / workshops / events / coaching / mentorship sessions. Like a construction worker building a solid foundation for a beautifully designed architecture, a clear path to build my career was set. With training out the way, it was now time to start working closely with my team. For the rest of the year, it was all about selling. Sales, Pipeline, Forecasting and numbers soon became the common words in my career. As the saying goes, “once a sales man, always a sales man”. There was no turning back now, a career in sales was the new hustle in my life. I worked closely with my mentor & coach (Ibrahim) who was heading up Zambia and Malawi. This was to be one of my best moments in the program as I started engaging with customers and getting some hands on experience in the field. By the end of the program all the experience, hard work, training and resources came in handy as I was now ready and fully groomed to be a sales rep. Life after the Graduate Program I’m proud to say that now I’m a Territory Manager, heading up Malawi, selling Technology, Middleware & Applications across all industries. I’m part of the Transition Cluster Team, a powerful team headed by the seasoned Senior Director. As a Territory Manager my role is to push for coverage, to penetrate the market by selling Oracle from end- to- end to all accounts in Malawi. I now spend my days living out of a suitcase, moving from hotel to hotel, chasing after business in all areas of Malawi. It’s the life of a Sales Man and I’m enjoying every minute of it. I’m truly fortunate and grateful to have been part of such a wonderful graduate program. I owe my Sales career to the graduate program, and I truly hope that the program will continue to develop and to groom new talent amongst the youth of this world. If you're interested in joining the Graduate Program in South Africa keep an eye on our CampusatOracle Facebook Page page to get the latest updates! /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Mousin' down the PathListBox

  - by T

  While modifying the standard media player with a new look and feel for Ineta Live I saw a unique opportunity to use their logo with a dotted I with and attached arc as the scrub control. So I created a PathListBox that I wanted an object to follow when a user did a click and drag action.  Below is how I solved the problem.  Please let me know if you have improvements or know of a completely different way.  I am always eager to learn. First, I created a path using the pen tool in Expression Blend (see the yellow line in image below).  Then I right clicked that path and chose [Path] --> [Make Layout Path].   That created a new PathListBox.  Then I chose the object I want to move down the new PathListBox and Placed it as a child in the Objects and Timeline window (see image below).  If the child object (the thing the user will click and drag) is XAML, it will move much smoother than images. Just as another side note, I wanted there to be no highlight when the user selects the “ball” to drag and drop.  This is done by editing the ItemContainerStyle under Additional Templates on the PathListBox.  Post a question if you need help on this and I will expand my explanation. Here is a pic of the object and the path I wanted it to follow.  I gave the path a yellow solid brush here so you could see it but when I lay this over another object, I will make the path transparent.   To animate this object down the path, the trick is to animate the Start number for the LayoutPath.  Not the StartItemIndex, the Start above Span. In order to enable animation when a user clicks and drags, I put in the following code snippets in the code behind. the DependencyProperties are not necessary for the Drag control.   namespace InetaPlayer { public partial class PositionControl : UserControl { private bool _mouseDown; private double _maxPlayTime; public PositionControl() { // Required to initialize variables InitializeComponent(); //mouse events for scrub control positionThumb.MouseLeftButtonDown += new MouseButtonEventHandler(ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonDown); positionThumb.MouseLeftButtonUp += new MouseButtonEventHandler(ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonUp); positionThumb.MouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(ValueThumb_MouseMove); positionThumb.LostMouseCapture += new MouseEventHandler(ValueThumb_LostMouseCapture); } // exposed for binding to real slider using a DependencyProperty enables animation, styling, binding, etc.... public double MaxPlayTime { get { return (double)GetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty); } set { SetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty MaxPlayTimeProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("MaxPlayTime", typeof(double), typeof(PositionControl), null);   // exposed for binding to real slider using a DependencyProperty enables animation, styling, binding, etc....   public double CurrSliderValue { get { return (double)GetValue(CurrSliderValueProperty); } set { SetValue(CurrSliderValueProperty, value); } }   public static readonly DependencyProperty CurrSliderValueProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("CurrSliderValue", typeof(double), typeof(PositionControl), new PropertyMetadata(0.0, OnCurrSliderValuePropertyChanged));   private static void OnCurrSliderValuePropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) { PositionControl control = d as PositionControl; control.OnCurrSliderValueChanged((double)e.OldValue, (double)e.NewValue); }   private void OnCurrSliderValueChanged(double oldValue, double newValue) { _maxPlayTime = (double) GetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty); if (!_mouseDown) if (_maxPlayTime!=0) sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start = newValue / _maxPlayTime; else sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start = 0; }   //mouse control   void ValueThumb_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { if (!_mouseDown) return; //get the offset of how far the drag has been //direction is handled automatically (offset will be negative for left move and positive for right move) Point mouseOff = e.GetPosition(positionThumb); //Divide the offset by 1000 for a smooth transition sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start +=mouseOff.X/1000; _maxPlayTime = (double)GetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty); SetValue(CurrSliderValueProperty ,sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start*_maxPlayTime); }   void ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonUp(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { _mouseDown = false; } void ValueThumb_LostMouseCapture(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { _mouseDown = false; } void ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { _mouseDown = true; ((UIElement)positionThumb).CaptureMouse(); }   } }   I made this into a user control and exposed a couple of DependencyProperties in order to bind it to a standard Slider in the overall project.  This control is embedded into the standard Expression media player template and is used to replace the standard scrub bar.  When the player goes live, I will put a link here.

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• The Dreaded Startup Repair Loop on Win 7

  - by HighAltitudeCoder

  For most people, upgrading to Windows 7 has been a relatively painless process.  Not me.  I am in the unlucky 1% or less who had a somewhat less pleasant experience.  First, I cloned my entire onto a larger (and much faster) solid state hard drive, only experiencing minimal problems. Then, I bought the Retail version of Windows 7 Ultimate, took a deep breath and... oh yeah, I almost forgot - BACK UP THE COMPUTER.  The next morning I upgraded to Win 7 and everything seemed fine, until... I rebooted the system, the nice Windows 7 launch graphics come up, it's about to launch and AWWW, are you kidding me?!?!  Back to the BIOS splash screen?  Next comes the sequence of failure - attempt repair - unable to repair - do you want to wipe your hard drive decisions. Because I purchased the retail version, a number is provided where I could call Microsoft Tech support.  When I did, they instructed me to click "Install" from my installation CD, which did not work.  When I tried the "Upgrade" option, it reaches an impasse, telling you that yoiu have a newer version of Win 7, and thus cannot Upgrade.  If you choose "Install" you willl lose everything... files, programs, EVERYTHING.  Or at least this is what it tells you.  I was not willing to take the risk. To make things worse, I had installed a new antivirus software application before I realized my system was unstable (Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security), and this was causing additional problems. One interesting thing, and the only saving grace as it turns out, was that my system WOULD successfully reboot into the OS if I chose to restart it, rather than shut it down.  If I chose to shut down, I would have to go through the loop again until I was given the option to restart. As it turned out, I needed to update my BIOS.  I assumed that since I had updated my BIOS a long time ago to settings that were stable under Windows Vista Ultimate x64, I incorrectly expected Win 7 to adopt the same settings and didn't expect there to be any problems.  WRONG. My BIOS had a setting to halt the boot cycle if various kinds of errors were detected.  Windows Vista didn't care about this, but forget it under Windows 7.  I turned immediately corrected that BIOS setting.  Next, there were the two separate BIOS settings: enable USB mouse and enable USB keyboard.  The only sequence of events that would work were to start my reboot process over from stratch with a hard-wired non-usb keyboard and mouse.  Whent the system booted under these settings, it doesn't detect any errors due to either the mouse or keyboard, and actually booted for the first time in a long while (let me tell ya, that's an amazing experience after fiddling with settings for two entire weekends!) Next step: leave your old mouse and keyboard connected, but also connect your other two devices (mouse, keyboard) that use USB connections.  During the boot cycle, the operating system will not fail due to missing requirements during startup, and it will then pick up the new drivers necessary to use your new hardware. If you think you are in the clear here, you are wrong.  The next VERY IMPORTANT step is to remember to change your settings in the BIOS upon next startup.  Specifically, yoiu will need ot change your BIOS to enable USB mouse and enable USB keyboard input.  If you don't, Windows will detect an incompatibility upon the next startup, and you will be stuck once again in the endless cycle of reboot/Startup Repair/reboot/Startup Repair, without ever reaching a successful boot. Here's the thing - the BIOS and the drivers registered in Win 7 need to match.  If they don't, you're going to lose another weekend worrying and fiddling, all the while wondering if you've permanently damaged your hard drive beyond repair. (Sigh).  In the end, things worked out.  I must note that it is saddening to see how many posts there are out there that recommend just doing a clean install, as if it's the only option.  How many countless poor souls have lost their data, their backups, their pictures and videos, all for nothing other than the fact that the person giving advice just didn't know what to do at that point? My advice to you, try having a look at your BIOS settings first and making sure Win 7 can find your BIOS settings, and also disabling in your BIOS anything that might halt your system boot-up process if it encounters errors.

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• Mousin' down the PathListBox

  - by T

  While modifying the standard media player with a new look and feel for Ineta Live I saw a unique opportunity to use their logo with a dotted I with and attached arc as the scrub control. So I created a PathListBox that I wanted an object to follow when a user did a click and drag action.  Below is how I solved the problem.  Please let me know if you have improvements or know of a completely different way.  I am always eager to learn. First, I created a path using the pen tool in Expression Blend (see the yellow line in image below).  Then I right clicked that path and chose [Path] --> [Make Layout Path].   That created a new PathListBox.  Then I chose the object I want to move down the new PathListBox and Placed it as a child in the Objects and Timeline window (see image below).  If the child object (the thing the user will click and drag) is XAML, it will move much smoother than images. Just as another side note, I wanted there to be no highlight when the user selects the “ball” to drag and drop.  This is done by editing the ItemContainerStyle under Additional Templates on the PathListBox.  Post a question if you need help on this and I will expand my explanation. Here is a pic of the object and the path I wanted it to follow.  I gave the path a yellow solid brush here so you could see it but when I lay this over another object, I will make the path transparent.   To animate this object down the path, the trick is to animate the Start number for the LayoutPath.  Not the StartItemIndex, the Start above Span. In order to enable animation when a user clicks and drags, I put in the following code snippets in the code behind. the DependencyProperties are not necessary for the Drag control. namespace InetaPlayer{ public partial class PositionControl : UserControl { private bool _mouseDown; private double _maxPlayTime; public PositionControl() { // Required to initialize variables InitializeComponent(); //mouse events for scrub control positionThumb.MouseLeftButtonDown += new MouseButtonEventHandler(ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonDown); positionThumb.MouseLeftButtonUp += new MouseButtonEventHandler(ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonUp); positionThumb.MouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(ValueThumb_MouseMove); positionThumb.LostMouseCapture += new MouseEventHandler(ValueThumb_LostMouseCapture); } // exposed for binding to real slider using a DependencyProperty enables animation, styling, binding, etc.... public double MaxPlayTime { get { return (double)GetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty); } set { SetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty MaxPlayTimeProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("MaxPlayTime", typeof(double), typeof(PositionControl), null);   // exposed for binding to real slider using a DependencyProperty enables animation, styling, binding, etc....   public double CurrSliderValue { get { return (double)GetValue(CurrSliderValueProperty); } set { SetValue(CurrSliderValueProperty, value); } }   public static readonly DependencyProperty CurrSliderValueProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("CurrSliderValue", typeof(double), typeof(PositionControl), new PropertyMetadata(0.0, OnCurrSliderValuePropertyChanged));   private static void OnCurrSliderValuePropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) { PositionControl control = d as PositionControl; control.OnCurrSliderValueChanged((double)e.OldValue, (double)e.NewValue); }   private void OnCurrSliderValueChanged(double oldValue, double newValue) { _maxPlayTime = (double) GetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty); if (!_mouseDown) if (_maxPlayTime!=0) sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start = newValue / _maxPlayTime; else sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start = 0; }  //mouse control   void ValueThumb_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { if (!_mouseDown) return; //get the offset of how far the drag has been //direction is handled automatically (offset will be negative for left move and positive for right move) Point mouseOff = e.GetPosition(positionThumb); //Divide the offset by 1000 for a smooth transition sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start +=mouseOff.X/1000; _maxPlayTime = (double)GetValue(MaxPlayTimeProperty); SetValue(CurrSliderValueProperty ,sliderPathListBox.LayoutPaths[0].Start*_maxPlayTime); }   void ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonUp(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { _mouseDown = false; } void ValueThumb_LostMouseCapture(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { _mouseDown = false; } void ValueThumb_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { _mouseDown = true; ((UIElement)positionThumb).CaptureMouse(); }   }}  I made this into a user control and exposed a couple of DependencyProperties in order to bind it to a standard Slider in the overall project.  This control is embedded into the standard Expression media player template and is used to replace the standard scrub bar.  When the player goes live, I will put a link here.

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• What's New in Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.2?

  - by Fat Bloke

  A year is a long time in the IT industry. Since the last VirtualBox feature release, which was a little over a year ago, we've seen: new releases of cool new operating systems, such as Windows 8, ChromeOS, and Mountain Lion; we've seen a myriad of new Linux releases from big Enterprise class distributions like Oracle 6.3, to accessible desktop distros like Ubuntu 12.04 and Fedora 17; and we've also seen the spec of a typical PC or laptop double in power. All of these events have influenced our new VirtualBox version which we're releasing today. Here's how... Powerful hosts  One of the trends we've seen is that as the average host platform becomes more powerful, our users are consistently running more and more vm's. Some of our users have large libraries of vm's of various vintages, whilst others have groups of vm's that are run together as an assembly of the various tiers in a multi-tiered software solution, for example, a database tier, middleware tier, and front-ends.  So we're pleased to unveil a more powerful VirtualBox Manager to address the needs of these users: VM Groups Groups allow you to organize your VM library in a sensible way, e.g.  by platform type, by project, by version, by whatever. To create groups you can drag one VM onto another or select one or more VM's and choose Machine...Group from the menu bar. You can expand and collapse groups to save screen real estate, and you can Enter and Leave a group (think iPad navigation here) by using the right and left arrow keys when groups are selected. But groups are more than passive folders, because you can now also perform operations on groups, rather than all the individual VMs. So if you have a multi-tiered solution you can start the whole stack up with just one click. Autostart Many VirtualBox users run dedicated services in their VMs, for example, running a Wiki. With these types of VM workloads, you really want the VM start up when the host machine boots up. So with 4.2 we've introduced a cross-platform Auto-start mechanism to allow you to treat VMs as host services. Headless VM Launching With VM's such as web servers, wikis, and other types of server-class workloads, the Console of the VM is pretty much redundant. For some time now VirtualBox has offered a separate launch mechanism for these VM's, namely the command-line interface commands VBoxHeadless or VBoxManage startvm ... --type headless commands. But with 4.2 we also allow you launch headless VMs from the Manager. Simply hold down Shift when launching the VM from the Manager.  It's that easy. But how do you stop a headless VM? Well, with 4.2 we allow you to Close the VM from the Manager. (BTW best to use the ACPI Shutdown method which allows the guest VM to close down gracefully.) Easy VM Creation For our expert users, the  New VM Wizard was a little tiresome, so now there's a faster 2-click VM creation mode. Just Hide the description when creating a new VM. Powerful VMs  As the hosts have become more powerful, so are the guests that are running inside them. Here are some of the 4.2 features to accommodate them: Virtual Network Interface Cards  With 4.2, it's now possible to create VMs with up to 36 NICs, when using the ICH9 chipset emulation. But with great power comes great responsibility (didn't Obi-Wan say something similar?), and so we have also introduced bandwidth limiting to prevent a rogue VM stealing the whole pipe. VLAN tagging Some of our users leverage VLANs extensively so we've enhanced the E1000 NICs to support this.  Processor Performance If you are running a CPU which supports Nested Paging (aka EPT in the Intel world) such as most of the Core i5 and i7 CPUs, or are running an AMD Bulldozer or later, you should see some performance improvements from our work with these processors. And while we're talking Processors, we've added support for some of the more modern VIA CPUs too. Powerful Automation Because VirtualBox runs atop a fully blown operating system, it makes sense to leverage the capabilities of the host to run scripts that can drive the guest VMs. Guest Automation was introduced in a prior release but with 4.2 we've revamped the APIs to allow a richer and more powerful set of operations to be executed by the guest. Check out the IGuest APIs in the VirtualBox Programming Guide and Reference (SDK). Powerful Platforms  All the hardcore engineering that has gone into 4.2 has been done for a purpose and that is to deliver a fast and powerful engine that can run almost any x86 OS because of the integrity of the virtualization. So we're pleased to add support for these platforms: Mac OS X "Mountain Lion"  Windows 8 Windows Server 2012 Ubuntu 12.04 (“Precise Pangolin”) Fedora 17 Oracle Linux 6.3  Here's the proof: We don't have time to go into the myriad of smaller improvements such as support for burning audio CDs from a guest, bi-directional clipboard control,  drag-and-drop of files into Linux guests, etc. so we'll leave that as an exercise for the user as soon as you've downloaded from the Oracle or community site and taken a peek at the User Guide. So all in all, a pretty solid release, one that we hope you'll enjoy discovering. - FB 

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• CodeIgniter: Passing variables via URL - alternatives to using GET

  - by John Durrant

  I'm new to CodeIgniter and have just discovered the difficulties using the GET method of passing variables via the URL (e.g. domain.com/page.php?var1=1&var2=2). I gather that one approach is to pass the variables in the URI segments but haven't quite figured out how to do that yet as it seems to create the expectation of having a function in the controller named as the specific URI segment???? Anyway Instead of using GET I've decided to use POST by adapting a submit button (disguised as a link) with the variables in hidden input fields. I've created the following solution which seems to work fine, but am wondering whether I'm on the right track here or whether there is an easier way of passing variables via a link within CodeIgniter? I've created the following class in application/libraries/ <?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed'); class C_variables { function variables_via_link($action, $link_text, $style, $link_data) { $attributes = array('style' => 'margin:0; padding:0; display: inline;'); echo form_open($action, $attributes); $attributes = array('class' => $style, 'name' => 'link'); echo form_submit($attributes, $link_text); foreach ($link_data as $key => $value){ echo form_hidden($key, $value); } echo form_close(); } } ?> With the following CSS: /* SUBMIT BUTTON AS LINK adapted from thread: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=403667 Cross browser support (apparently). */ .submit_as_link { background: transparent; border-top: 0; border-right: 0; border-bottom: 1px solid #00F; border-left: 0; color: #00F; display: inline; margin: 0; padding: 0; cursor: hand /* Added to show hand when hovering */ } *:first-child+html .submit_as_link { /* hack needed for IE 7 */ border-bottom: 0; text-decoration: underline; } * html .submit_as_link { /* hack needed for IE 5/6 */ border-bottom: 0; text-decoration: underline; } Link then created using the following code in the VIEW: <?php $link = new C_variables; $link_data=array('var1' => 1, 'var2' => 2); $link ->variables_via_link('destination_page', 'here is a link!', 'submit_as_link', $link_data); ?> Thanks for your help...

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• This page calls for XML namespace declared with prefix br but no taglibrary exists

  - by Christopher W. Allen-Poole

  I just finished the Netbeans introduction to Hibernate tutorial ( http://netbeans.org/kb/docs/web/hibernate-webapp.html#01 ) and I am getting the following error: "This page calls for XML namespace declared with prefix br but no taglibrary exists" Now, I have seen a similar question somewhere else: http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5430327 but the answer is not listed there. Or, if it is, then I am clearly missing it -- line one of my index.xhtml file reads "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml". It also does not explain why, when I reload localhost:8080, the message disappears. Here is my index.xhtml file: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets" xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"> <ui:composition template="./template.xhtml"> <ui:define name="body"> <h:form> <h:commandLink action="#{filmController.previous}" value="Previous #{filmController.pageSize}" rendered="#{filmController.hasPreviousPage}"/> <h:commandLink action="#{filmController.next}" value="Next #{filmController.pageSize}" rendered="#{filmController.hasNextPage}"/> <h:dataTable value="#{filmController.filmTitles}" var="item" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" rowClasses="jsfcrud_odd_row,jsfcrud_even_row" rules="all" style="border:solid 1px"> <h:column> <f:facet name="header"> <h:outputText value="Title"/> </f:facet> <h:outputText value="#{item.title}"/> </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header"> <h:outputText value="Description"/> </f:facet> <h:outputText value="#{item.description}"/> </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header"> <h:outputText value=" "/> </f:facet> <h:commandLink action="#{filmController.prepareView}" value="View"/> </h:column> </h:dataTable> <br/> </h:form> </ui:define> </ui:composition> </html>

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• jQuery override default validation error message display (Css) Popup/Tooltip like

  - by Phill Pafford

  I'm trying to over ride the default error message label with a div instead of a label. I have looked at this post as well and get how to do it but my limitations with CSS are haunting me. How can I display this like some of these examples: Example #1 (Dojo) - Must type invalid input to see error display Example #2 Here is some example code that overrides the error label to a div element $(document).ready(function(){ $("#myForm").validate({ rules: { "elem.1": { required: true, digits: true }, "elem.2": { required: true } }, errorElement: "div" }); }); Now I'm at a loss on the css part but here it is: div.error { position:absolute; margin-top:-21px; margin-left:150px; border:2px solid #C0C097; background-color:#fff; color:white; padding:3px; text-align:left; z-index:1; color:#333333; font:100% arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-size:15px; font-weight:bold; } UPDATE: Okay I'm using this code now but the image and the placement on the popup is larger than the border, can this be adjusted to be dynamic is height? if (element.attr('type') == 'radio' || element.attr('type') == 'checkbox') { element = element.parent(); offset = element.offset(); error.insertBefore(element) error.addClass('message'); // add a class to the wrapper error.css('position', 'absolute'); error.css('left', offset.left + element.outerWidth()); error.css('top', offset.top - (element.height() / 2)); // Not working for Radio, displays towards the bottom of the element. also need to test with checkbox } else { // Error placement for single elements offset = element.offset(); error.insertBefore(element) error.addClass('message'); // add a class to the wrapper error.css('position', 'absolute'); error.css('left', offset.left + element.outerWidth()); error.css('top', offset.top - (element.height() / 2)); } the css is the same as below (your css code) Html <span> <input type="radio" class="checkbox" value="P" id="radio_P" name="radio_group_name"/> <label for="radio_P">P</label> <input type="radio" class="checkbox" value="S" id="radio_S" name="radio_group_name"/> <label for="radio_S">S</label> </span>

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• DataBinding: 'System.String' does not contain a property with the name 'dbMake'.

  - by marcmiki

  Hi , i am a newbie at ASP.net and after using sqldatasource with a listview to insert and show results from an SQL server db i want to try using the LINQ datasource since it seems to be more flexible in codebehind. My problem is this: i droped a listview control to the page and i created the Linq datasource in codebehind with vb. the issue that i am having when i ..Select d.columms name i get the error system.string does not contain a property with the name "columname".. if i ommit the column name then its works fine.. the funny part is the d.count works fine but after that i get the error.. please see my code below: vb code Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load Dim rowsCount As Integer Dim showSearchForm As String showSearchForm = Request.QueryString("tab") If showSearchForm = "1" Then Dim db As New ASPNETDBDataContext() Dim q = From b In db.PassengerVehiclesTables Select b.dbMake rowsCount = q.Count MsgBox(rowsCount) lvMakes.DataSource = q lvMakes.DataBind() PnlPassengerVehiclesSearch.Visible = True ElseIf showSearchForm = "2" Then aspx code <asp:Panel ID="PnlPassengerVehiclesSearch" Visible="false" runat="server"> Search Passenger Vehicles Form.....<br /> <table style="width: 100%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px"> <tr> <td> <asp:ListView ID="lvMakes" runat="server"> <LayoutTemplate> <asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="itemPlaceholder" /> </LayoutTemplate> <ItemTemplate> <%#Eval("dbMake")%><br /> </ItemTemplate> </asp:ListView> </td> b.dbMake needs to work so that i can use Distinct ,, ia m using asp.net version:3.5 and IIS version 7.0 .. not sure what i am missing ,, but i did try alot of approaches,,1- checked the web.config file and it seems to have two assemblies and two namespaces for LINQ..2- used different databinding syntaxs,,and i searched a lot for the solution.. the last one i read the person ommited the name of the column,, i thought that wasnt the best solution.. also my dbMake column is comming up in the "intellisence" .. thank you in advance for your help..

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• Why do many software projects fail today?

  - by TomTom

  As long as there are software projects, the world is wondering why they fail so often. I would like to know if there is a list or something equivalent which shows how many software projects fail today. Would be nice if there would be a comparison over the last 20 - 30 years. You can also add your top reason why a software project fails. Mine is "Requirements are poor or not even existing." which includes also "No (real) customer / user involved". EDIT: It is nearly impossible to clearly define the term "fail". Let's say that fail means: The project was more than 10% over budget and time. In my opinion the 10% + / - is a good range for an offer / tender. EDIT: Until now (Feb 11) it seems that most posters agree that a fail of the project is basically a failure of the project management (whatever fail means). But IMHO it comes out, that most developers are not happy with this situation. Perhaps because not the manager get penalized when a project was not successful, but the lazy, incompetent developer teams? When I read the posts I can also hear-out that there is a big "gap" between the developer side and the managment side. The expectations (perhaps also the requirements) seem to be so different, that a project cannot be successful in the end (over time / budget; users are not happy; not all first-prio features implemented; too many bugs because developers were forced to implement in too short timeframes ...) I',m asking myself: How can we improve it? Or do we have the possibility to improve it? Everybody seems to be unsatisfied with the way it goes now. Can we close the gap between these two worlds? Should we (the developers) go on strike and fight for "high quality reqiurements" and "realistic / iteration based time shedules"? EDIT: Ralph Westphal and Stefan Lieser have founded a new "community" called: Clean-Code-Developer. The aim of the group is to bring more professionalism into software engineering. Independently if a developer has a degree or tons of years of experience you can be part of this movement. Clean Code Developers live principles like SOLID every day. A professional developer is the biggest reviewer of his own work. And he has an internal value system which helps him to improve and become better. Check it out on: Clean Code Developer EDIT: Our company is doing at the moment a thing called "Application Development and Maintenance Benchmarking". This is a service offered by IBM to get a feedback from someone external on your software engineering process quality etc. When we get the results, I will tell you more about it.

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• CSS3 Gradients to reproduce an 'inner glow' effect from Illustrator with border-radius applied

  - by iamfriendly

  Hello all! First post on here so please be kind :) I am in the process of trying to get my head properly around CSS3 Gradients (specifically radial ones) and in doing so I think I've set myself a relatively tough challenge. In Adobe Illustrator I have created a 'button' style which can be seen here: http://bit.ly/aePPtV (jpg image). To create this image I created a rectangle with a background colour of rgb(63,64,63) or #3F403F, then 'stylized' it to have a 15px border radius. I then applied an 'inner glow' to it with a 25% opacity, 8px blur, white from the center. Finally, I applied a 3pt white stroke on it. (I'm telling you all of this in case you wished to reproduce it, if the image above isn't sufficient.) So, my question is thus: is it possible to recreate this 'button' using CSS without the need for an image? I am aware of the 'limitations' of Internet Explorer (and for the sake of this experiment, I couldn't give a monkeys). I am also aware of the small 'bug' in webkit which incorrectly renders an element with a background colour, border-radius and a border (with a different color to the background-color) - it lets the background color bleed through on the curved corners. My best attempt so far is fairly pathetic, but for reference here is the code: section#featured footer p a { color: rgb(255,255,255); text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.6); text-decoration: none; padding: 5px 10px; border-radius: 15px; -moz-border-radius: 15px; -webkit-border-radius: 15px; border: 3px solid rgb(255,255,255); background: rgb(98,99,100); background: -moz-radial-gradient( 50% 50%, farthest-side, #626364, #545454 ); background: -webkit-gradient( radial, 50% 50%, 1px, 50% 50%, 5px, from(rgb(98,99,100)), to(rgb(84,84,84)) ); } Basically, terrible. Any hints or tips gratefully accepted and thank you very much in advance for them!

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• JSF a4j:commandButton not working when 'disabled' is set

  - by Jon

  Hello, When I include a 'disabled' attribute on an a4j:commandButton, the button's action is not performed. Taking the 'disabled' attribute out causes it to work properly. I am not doing any special validation (that I'm aware of) and am not seeing any validation error messages. Here is part of my page: <t:dataTable id="myTable" var="region" value="#{MyPageBackingBean.regions}" width="100%"> ... <a4j:commandButton value="Update" action="#{region.doUpdate}" oncomplete="alert('done');" disabled="#{!empty region && region.messageEmpty}" immediate="true"/> ... </t:dataTable> Any ideas? Thanks! Edit: I tried setting preserveDataModel="true" on the t:dataTable to no avail. I also made a test having an a4j:commandButton and text box with no data table, but the backing bean action is still not being fired: <h:form> <a4j:region> <a4j:outputPanel id="testregion"> <h:messages id="messages"/> <a4j:status> <f:facet name="start"> <h:graphicImage value="/images/progress_indicator.gif"/> </f:facet> </a4j:status> <h:inputTextarea rows="5" value="#{MyPageBackingBean.myValue}" style="width:100%; border: 1px solid #99CCFF;"> <a4j:support event="onkeyup" reRender="testregion" eventsQueue="messageModificationQueue" ignoreDupResponses="true" requestDelay="500"/> </h:inputTextarea> <a4j:commandButton id="doDelete" value="Delete" action="#{MyPageBackingBean.dummy}" reRender="testregion" disabled="#{empty MyPageBackingBean.myValue}"/> <h:outputText value="#{MyPageBackingBean.myValue}"/> </a4j:outputPanel> </a4j:region> </h:form> Here is the new backing bean code used for testing: private String m_myValue = null; public String getMyValue() { return m_myValue; } public void setMyValue(String value) { m_myValue = value; } private String mystr2 = null; public String dummy() { mystr2 = "hello"; return null; } Thanks!

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• Google slideshow shows a blank screen when calling from ajax

  - by ufk

  I'm having problems implementing google slideshow (http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/slideshow/index.html) to my web application by loading it using a jquery load() function. index.html: <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.3.2.js"></script> <div id="moshe"></div> <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $('#moshe').load('test.html'); }); </script> test.html: <script type="text/javascript"> function load() { var samples = "http://dlc0421.googlepages.com/gfss.rss"; var options = { displayTime: 2000, transistionTime: 600, linkTarget : google.feeds.LINK_TARGET_BLANK }; new GFslideShow(samples, "slideshow", options); } google.load("feeds", "1"); google.setOnLoadCallback(load); </script> <div id="slideshow" class="gslideshow" style="width:300px;height:300px;position:relative; border: 2px solid blue">Loading...</div> When i execute the test.html, it loads the slideshow just fine. when i try to load using index.html that actually calls Jquery's $.load() function that loads the content of test.html into a specific div element, i see that the gallery is loading on that div, but when it's about to show images the entire page clears and all i have is a blank page. Any ideas ? a different version of index.html without using jquery: <script type="text/javascript"> function makeRequest(url) { var httpRequest; if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // Mozilla, Safari, ... httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest(); if (httpRequest.overrideMimeType) { httpRequest.overrideMimeType('text/xml'); // See note below about this line } } else if (window.ActiveXObject) { // IE try { httpRequest = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e) { try { httpRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e) {} } } if (!httpRequest) { alert('Giving up :( Cannot create an XMLHTTP instance'); return false; } httpRequest.onreadystatechange = function() { alertContents(httpRequest); }; httpRequest.open('GET', url, true); httpRequest.send(''); } function alertContents(httpRequest) { if (httpRequest.readyState == 4) { if (httpRequest.status == 200) { document.getElementById('moshe').innerHTML=httpRequest.responseText; } else { alert('There was a problem with the request.'); } } } makeRequest('test.html'); </script>

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