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  • javascript div movement not working

    - by William
    For some reason I can't move this div at all. Can anyone help me out with why this won't work? <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Move Div Test</title> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <link href="/bms/style.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <style> body { text-align: center; background-color: #ffffff;} #box { position: absolute; left: 610px; top: 80px; height: 50px; width: 50px; background-color: #ff0000;} </style> <script type="text/javascript"> document.onkeydown=function(event){keyDown(event)}; document.onkeyup=function(event){keyUp(event)}; var box = document.getElementById('box'); var speed = 5; var keys = new Array(256); var i = 0; for (i = 0;i <= 256; i++){ keys[i] = false; } function keyDown(event){ if(!event){ //for IE event = window.event; } keys[event.keyCode] = true; } function keyUp(event){ if(!event){ //for IE event = window.event; } keys[event.keyCode] = false; } function update(){ if(keys[37]) box.style.left = parseInt(box.style.left) - speed + "px"; if(keys[39]) box.style.left = parseInt(box.style.left) + speed + "px"; if(keys[38]) box.style.top = parseInt(box.style.top) - speed + "px"; if(keys[40]) box.style.top = parseInt(box.style.top) + speed + "px"; } setInterval('update();', 1000/60); </script> </head> <body> <div id="box">blah</div> </body> </html>

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  • scrollable banner using buttons and mouse scroller

    - by Psinyee
    I'm creating a scrollable banner for my homepage with 'up' and 'down' button for user to scroll the banner. How do I make it so that the mouse scroller is able to scroll the banner too and also once I click on the down or up button the user will be able to see the transition of the banner scrolling upwards or downwards? scroll script: <script> var t = 0; function up() { t += 600; with(document.getElementById("contents")) { if (t > 0) t = 0; if(style) style.top = t + "px"; else setAttribute("style", "top: " + t + "px"); } } function down() { t -= 600; with(document.getElementById("contents")) { if(t < -clientHeight) t = -clientHeight; if(style) style.top = t + "px"; else setAttribute("style", "top: " + t + "px"); } } </script> scrollable banner: <table width="950px" height="600px"> <tr> <td valign="top"> <div id="scrollable" style="height:600px; width:950px"> <div id="contents" style="height:600px; width:950px"> <table bgcolor="#dcdcdc" width="950px" height="600px"> <tr> <td height="490px"></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="100px"><img src="images/banner_title.png"/></td> </tr> </table> <table bgcolor="#ffd07e" width="950px" height="600px"> <tr> <td height="490px"></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="100px"><img src="images/banner_title.png"/></td> </tr> </table> buttons: <table> <tr> <td width="30px"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="up()"><img src="images/arrow_up.png"/></a></td> <td width="30px"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="down()"><img src="images/arrow_down.png"/></a></td> </tr> </table>

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  • Transformation of Product Management in Telecommunications for Rapid Launch of Next Generation Products

    - by raul.goycoolea
    @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } The Telecom industry continues to evolve through disruptive products, uncertain markets, shorter product lifecycles and convergence of technologies. Today’s market has moved from network centric to consumer centric and focuses primarily on the customer experience. It has resulted in several product management challenges such as an increased complexity and volume of offerings, creating product variants, accelerating time-to-market, ability to provide multiple product views for varied stakeholders, leveraging OSS intelligence to BSS layer, product co-creation and increasing audit and security concerns for service providers. The document discusses how enterprise product management enabled by PLM-based product catalogue solutions helps to launch next generation products rapidly in the context of the Telecommunication Industry.   1.0.       Introduction   Figure 1: Business Scenario   Modern business demands the launch of complex products in a very short timeframe and effecting changes in the price plan faster without IT intervention. One of the key transformation initiatives companies are focusing on is in the area of product management transformation and operational efficiency improvement. As part of these initiatives, companies are investing in best- in-class COTs-based Product Management solutions developed on industry-wide standards.   The new COTs packages are planned to integrate with existing or new B/OSS systems to provide a strategic end-to-end agile solution for reduced time-to-market and order journey time. In addition, system rationalization is being undertaken to phase out legacy systems and migrate to strategic systems.   2.0.       An Overview of Product Management in Telecom   Product data in telecom is multi- dimensional and difficult to manage. It increased significantly due to the complexity of the product, product offerings on the converged network, increased volume of offerings, bundled offering structures and ever increasing regulatory requirements.   In addition, the shrinking product lifecycle in telecom makes it difficult to manage the dynamic product data. Mergers and acquisitions coupled with organic growth pose major challenges in product portfolio management. It is a roadblock in the journey towards becoming an agile organization.       Figure 2: Complexity in Product Management   Network Technology’ is the new dimension in telecom product management where the same products are realized through different networks i.e., Soiled network to Converged network. Consequently, the product solution is different.     Figure 3: Current Scenario - Pain Points in Product Management   The major business implications arising out of the current scenario are slow time-to-market and an inefficient process that affects innovation.   3.0. Transformation of Next Generation Product Management   Companies must focus on their Product Management Transformation Journey in the areas of:   ·       Management of single truth of product information across the organization/geographies which is currently managed in heterogeneous systems   ·       Management of the Intellectual Property (IP) on the product concept and partnership in the design of discrete components to integrate into the system   ·       Leveraging structured and unstructured product data within the extended enterprise to extract consumer insights and drive innovation   ·       Management of effective operational separation to comply with regulatory bodies   ·       Reuse of existing designs and add relevant features such as value-added services to enable effective product bundling     Figure 4: Next generation needs   PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions efficiently address the above requirements and act as an enabler towards product management transformation and rapid product launch.   4.0. PLM-based Enterprise Product Management     Figure 5: PLM-based Enterprise Product Mastering   Enterprise Product Management (EPM) enables the business to manage complex product attributes of data in complex environments. Product Mastering helps create a 'single view' of the product by creating a business-driven, IT-supported environment where a global 'single truth record' is created, managed and reused.   4.1 The Business Case for Telco PLM-based solutions for Enterprise Product Management   ·       Telco PLM-based Product Mastering solutions provide a centralized authoring environment for product definition and control of all product data and rules   ·       PLM packages are designed to support multiple perspectives of product data (ordering perspective, billing perspective, provisioning perspective)   ·       Maintains relationships/links between different elements of the entire product definition   ·       Telco PLM packages are specialized in next generation lifecycle management requirements of products such as revision and state management, test and release management, role management and impact analysis)   ·       Takes into consideration all aspects of OSS product requirements compared to CRM product catalogue solutions where the product data managed is mostly order oriented and transactional     ·       New breed of Telco PLM packages are designed with 'open' standards such as SID and eTOM. They are interoperable, support integration frameworks such as subscription and notification.   ·       Telco PLM packages have developed good collaboration frameworks to integrate suppliers and partners into the product development value chain   4.2 Various Architectures/Approaches for Product Mastering using Telco PLM systems   4. 2.a Single Central Product Management (Mastering) Approach   Figure 6: Single Central Product Management (Master) Approach       This approach is implemented across verticals such as aerospace and automotive. It focuses on a physically centralized product master to which other sources are dependent on. The product definition data (Product bundles, service bundles, price plans, offers and discounts, product configuration rules and market campaigns) is created and maintained physically in a centralized environment. In addition, the product definition/authoring environment is centralized. The existing legacy product definition data available in CRM product catalogue, billing catalogue and the legacy product catalogue is migrated to the centralized PLM-based Enterprise Product Management solution.   Architectural changes must be made in the existing business landscape of applications to create and revise data because the applications have to refer to the central repository for approvals and validation of product configurations. It is achieved by modifying how the applications write data or how the applications can be adapted to use the rules to be managed and published.   Complete product configuration validation will be done in enterprise / central product catalogue and final configuration will be sent to the B/OSS system through the SOA compliant product distribution architecture. The approach/architecture enables greater control in terms of product data management and product data governance.   4.2.b Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture     Figure 7: Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture   In the federated product mastering approach, the basic unique product definition data (product id, description product hierarchy, basic price plans and simple product design rules) will be centrally created and will be maintained. And, the advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers & discount plans) will be created in respective down stream OSS systems. The advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers and discount plans) will be created in respective downstream OSS systems.   For example, basic product definitions such as attributes, product hierarchy and basic price plans will be created and maintained in Enterprise/Central product reference catalogue and distributed to downstream OSS systems. Respective downstream OSS systems build product bundles, promotions, advanced price plans over the basic product definition and master the advanced product definition. Central reference database accesses the respective other source product master data and assembles a point-in-time consolidated view of the product. The approach is typically adapted in some merger and acquisition scenarios where there is a low probability of a central physical authority managing the data. In addition, the migration effort in this case is minimal and there are no big architectural changes to the organization application landscape. However, this approach will not result in better product data management and data governance.   5.0 Customer Scenario – Before EPC deployment   A leading global telecommunications service provider wanted to launch a quad play and triple play service offering in the shortest possible lead time. The service provider was offering Broadband and VoIP services to customers. The company wanted to reuse a majority of the Broadband services and price plans and bundle them with new wireless and IPTV services for quad play and triple play. The challenges in launching the new service offerings were:       Figure 8: Triple Play Plan   ·       Broadband product data was stored in multiple product catalogues (CRM catalogue, Billing catalogue, spread sheets)   ·       Product managers spent a lot of time performing tasks involving duplication or re-keying of data. Manual effort caused errors, cost and time over-runs.   ·       No effective product and price data governance mechanism. Price change issues arising from the lack of data consistency across systems resulted in leakage of customer value and revenue.   ·       Product data had re-usability issues and was not in a structured format. It resulted in uncontrolled product portfolio creation and product management issues.   ·       Lack of enterprise product model resulted into product distribution challenges and thus delays in product launch.   ·       Designers are constrained by existing legacy product management solutions to model product/service requirements and product configuration rules such as upgrading, downgrading and cross selling.    5.1 Customer Scenario - After EPC deployment     Figure 9: SOA-based end-to-end EPC Solution   The company deployed PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions to launch quad play service after evaluating various product catalogues. The broadband product offering, service and price data were migrated to the new system, and the product and price plan hierarchy for new offerings were created using the entities defined in the Enterprise Product Model. Supplier product catalogue data such as routers and set up boxes were loaded onto the new solution through SOA-based web service. Price plans and configuration rules were built in the new system. The validated final product configurations were extracted from the product catalogue in a SID format and were distributed to the downstream B/OSS systems through exposed SOA-based web services. The transformations required for the B/OSS system were handled using the transformation layer as part of the solution.   6.0 How PLM enabled Product Management Transformation         Figure 10: Product Management Transformation     PLM-based Product Catalogue Solution helped the customer reduce the product launch cycle time by 30% and enable transformation of Product Management for next generation services.   7.0 Conclusion   On the one hand, the telecom industry is undergoing changes due to disruptions, uncertain product markets and increased complexity of products. On the other hand, the ARPU is decreasing year-on-year. Communications Service Providers are embarking on convergence, bundled service offerings, flexibility to cross-sell and up-sell, introduce new value-added services, leverage Web 2.0 concepts and network capabilities. Consequently, large scale IT transformation initiatives to improve their ARPU supporting network and business transformations are a business imperative. Product Management has become a focus area. Companies are investing in best-in- class COTS solutions to reduce time-to-market, ensure rapid service delivery and improve operational efficiency. An efficient PLM-based enterprise product mastering solution plays a key role in achieving zero touch automation and rapid product launch.   References:   1.     Preston G.Smith, Donald G.Reineristsem, Van Nostrand Reinhold “Developing Products in Half the time”.   2.     John G. Innes, "Achieving Successful Product Change", Pitman Publishing.   3.     D T Pham and R M Setchi (16th Jan, 2001) "Authoring environment for documentation development" University of Wales Cardiff, U.K., Proceedings on Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 215, Part B.   4.     Oracle Product Hub for Communications:   http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/master-data-management/product-hub-082059.html  

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  • Understanding the value of Customer Experience & Loyalty for the Telecommunications Industry

    - by raul.goycoolea
    Worried by economic woes and market forces, especially in mature markets, communications service providers (CSPs) increasingly focus on improving customer experience. In fact, it seems difficult to find a major message by a C-level executive in the developed world that does not include something on "meeting and exceeding customers' needs". Frequently in customer satisfaction studies by prominent firms, CSPs fall short of the leadership demonstrated by other industries that take customer-centric approaches to their bottom-line strategies. Consider the following:Despite the continued impact of global economic crisis, in July 2010, Apple Computer posted record revenue and net quarterly profit. Those who attribute the results primarily to the iPhone 4 launch should note that Apple also shipped around 30% more Macintosh computers than the same period the previous year. Even sales of the iPod line increased by 8% in a highly commoditized, shrinking media player market. Finally, Apple began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of more than 3 million units. What does Apple have that the others lack? Well, some great products (and services) to be sure, but it also excels at customer service and support, marketing, and distribution, and has one of the strongest brands globally. Its products are useful, simple to use, easy to acquire and augment, high quality, and considered very cool. They also evoke such an emotional response from many of Apple's customers, which they turn up their noses at competitive products.In other words, Apple appears to have mastered virtually every aspect of customer experience and the resultant loyalty of its customer base - even in difficult financial times. Through that unwavering customer focus, Apple continues to drive its revenues and profits to new heights. Other customer loyalty leaders like Wal-Mart, Google, Toyota and Honda are also doing well by focusing on customer experience as an essential driver of profitability. Service providers should note this performance and ask themselves how they might leverage the same principles to increase their own profitability. After all, that is what customer experience and loyalty are all about: profitability.To successfully manage all the critical touch points of customer experience, CSPs must shun the one-size-fits-all approach. They can no longer afford to view customer service fundamentally as an act of altruism - which mentality dates back to the industry's civil service days, when CSPs were typically government organizations that were critical to economic development and public safety.As regulators and public officials have pushed, and continue to push, service providers to new heights of reliability - using incentives and punishments - most CSPs already have some of the fundamental building blocks of customer service in place. Yet despite that history and experience, service providers still lag other industries in providing what is seen as good customer service.As we observed in the TMF's 2009 Insights Research report, Customer Experience Management: Driving Loyalty & Profitability there has been resurgence in interest by CSPs. More and more of them have stated ambitions to catch up other industries, and they are realizing that good customer service is a powerful strategy for increasing business performance and profitability, not an act of good will.CSPs are recognizing the connection between customer experience and profitability, as demonstrated in many studies. For example, according to research by Bain & Company, a 5 percent improvement in customer retention rates can yield as much as a 75 percent increase in profits for companies across a range of industries.After decades of customer experience strategy formulation, Bain partner and business author, Frederick Reichheld, considers "would you recommend us to a friend?" as the ultimate question for a customer. How many times have you or your friends recommended an iPod, iPhone or a Mac? What do your children recommend to their peers? Their peers to them?There are certain steps service providers have to take to create more personalized relationships with their customers, as well as reduce churn and increase profitability, all while becoming leaner and more agile. First, they have to define customer experience, we define it as the result of the sum of observations, perceptions, thoughts and feelings arising from interactions and relationships between customers and their service provider(s). Virtually every customer touch point - whether directly or indirectly linked to service providers and their partners - contributes to customer perception, satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately profitability. Gaining leadership in customer experience and satisfaction will not be a simple task, as it is affected by virtually every customer-facing aspect of the service provider, and in turn impacts the service provider deeply - especially on the all-important bottom line. The scope of issues affecting customer experience is complex and dynamic.With new services, devices and applications extending the basis of customer experience to domains beyond the direct control of the service provider, it is likely to increase in complexity and dynamism.Customer loyalty = increased profitsAs stated earlier, customer experience programs are not fundamentally altruistic exercises, but a strategic means of improving competitiveness and profitability in the short and long term. Loyalty is essential to deriving long term profits from customers.Some of the earliest loyalty programs date back to the 1930s, when packaged goods companies offered embedded coupons for rewards to buyers, and eventually retail chains began offering reward programs to frequent shoppers. These programs continued for decades but were leapfrogged in the 1980s by more aggressive programs from the airlines.This movement was led by American Airlines, which launched the first full-scale loyalty marketing program of the modern era with the AAdvantage frequent flyer scheme. It was the first to reward frequent fliers with notional air miles that could be accumulated and later redeemed for free travel. Figure 1: Opportunities example of Customer loyalty driven profitOther airlines and travel providers were quick to grasp the incredible value of providing customers with an incentive to use their company exclusively. Within a few years, dozens of travel industry companies launched similar initiatives and now loyalty programs are achieving near-ubiquity in many service industries, especially those in which it is difficult to differentiate offerings by product attributes.The belief is that increased profitability will result from customer retention efforts because:•    The cost of acquisition occurs only at the beginning of a relationship: the longer the relationship, the lower the amortized cost;•    Account maintenance costs decline as a percentage of total costs, or as a percentage of revenue, over the lifetime of the relationship;•    Long term customers tend to be less inclined to switch and less price sensitive which can result in stable unit sales volume and increases in dollar-sales volume;•    Long term customers may initiate word-of-mouth promotions and referrals, which cost the company nothing and arguably are the most effective form of advertising;•    Long-term customers are more likely to buy ancillary products and higher margin supplemental products;•    Long term customers tend to be satisfied with their relationship with the company and are less likely to switch to competitors, making market entry or competitors gaining market share difficult;•    Regular customers tend to be less expensive to service, as they are familiar with the processes involved, require less 'education', and are consistent in their order placement;•    Increased customer retention and loyalty makes the employees' jobs easier and more satisfying. In turn, happy employees feed back into higher customer satisfaction in a virtuous circle. Figure 2: The virtuous circle of customer loyaltyFigure 2 represents a high-level example of a virtuous cycle driven by customer satisfaction and loyalty, depicting how superiority in product and service offerings, as well as strong customer support by competent employees, lead to higher sales and ultimately profitability. As stated above, this is not a new concept, but succeeding with it is difficult. It has eluded many a company driven to achieve profitability goals. Of course, for this circle to be virtuous, the customer relationship(s) must be profitable.Trying to maintain the loyalty of unprofitable customers is not a viable business strategy. It is, therefore, important that marketers can assess the profitability of each customer (or customer segment), and either improve or terminate relationships that are not profitable. This means each customer's 'relationship costs' must be understood and compared to their 'relationship revenue'. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the most commonly used metric here, as it is generally accepted as a representation of exactly how much each customer is worth in monetary terms, and therefore a determinant of exactly how much a service provider should be willing to spend to acquire or retain that customer.CLV models make several simplifying assumptions and often involve the following inputs:•    Churn rate represents the percentage of customers who end their relationship with a company in a given period;•    Retention rate is calculated by subtracting the churn rate percentage from 100;•    Period/horizon equates to the units of time into which a customer relationship can be divided for analysis. A year is the most commonly used period for this purpose. Customer lifetime value is a multi-period calculation, often projecting three to seven years into the future. In practice, analysis beyond this point is viewed as too speculative to be reliable. The model horizon is the number of periods used in the calculation;•    Periodic revenue is the amount of revenue collected from a customer in a given period (though this is often extended across multiple periods into the future to understand lifetime value), such as usage revenue, revenues anticipated from cross and upselling, and often some weighting for referrals by a loyal customer to others; •    Retention cost describes the amount of money the service provider must spend, in a given period, to retain an existing customer. Again, this is often forecast across multiple periods. Retention costs include customer support, billing, promotional incentives and so on;•    Discount rate means the cost of capital used to discount future revenue from a customer. Discounting is an advanced method used in more sophisticated CLV calculations;•    Profit margin is the projected profit as a percentage of revenue for the period. This may be reflected as a percentage of gross or net profit. Again, this is generally projected across the model horizon to understand lifetime value.A strong focus on managing these inputs can help service providers realize stronger customer relationships and profits, but there are some obstacles to overcome in achieving accurate calculations of CLV, such as the complexity of allocating costs across the customer base. There are many costs that serve all customers which must be properly allocated across the base, and often a simple proportional allocation across the whole base or a segment may not accurately reflect the true cost of serving that customer;  This is made worse by the fragmentation of customer information, which is likely to be across a variety of product or operations groups, and may be difficult to aggregate due to different representations.In addition, there is the complexity of account relationships and structures to take into consideration. Complex account structures may not be understood or properly represented. For example, a profitable customer may have a separate account for a second home or another family member, which may appear to be unprofitable. If the service provider cannot relate the two accounts, CLV is not properly represented and any resultant cancellation of the apparently unprofitable account may result in the customer churning from the profitable one.In summary, if service providers are to realize strong customer relationships and their attendant profits, there must be a very strong focus on data management. This needs to be coupled with analytics that help business managers and those who work in customer-facing functions offer highly personalized solutions to customers, while maintaining profitability for the service provider. It's clear that acquiring new customers is expensive. Advertising costs, campaign management expenses, promotional service pricing and discounting, and equipment subsidies make a serious dent in a new customer's profitability. That is especially true given the rising subsidies for Smartphone users, which service providers hope will result in greater profits from profits from data services profitability in future.  The situation is made worse by falling prices and greater competition in mature markets.Customer acquisition through industry consolidation isn't cheap either. A North American service provider spent about $2,000 per subscriber in its acquisition of a smaller company earlier this year. While this has allowed it to leapfrog to become the largest mobile service provider in the country, it required a total investment of more than $28 billion (including assumption of the acquiree's debt).While many operating cost synergies clearly made this deal more attractive to the acquiring company, this is certainly an expensive way to acquire customers: the cost per subscriber in this case is not out of line with the prices others have paid for acquisitions.While growth by acquisition certainly increases overall revenues, it often creates tremendous challenges for profitability. Organic growth through increased customer loyalty and retention is a more effective driver of profit, as well as a stronger predictor of future profitability. Service providers, especially those in mature markets, are increasingly recognizing this and taking steps toward a creating a more personalized, flexible and satisfying experience for their customers.In summary, the clearest path to profitability for companies in virtually all industries is through customer retention and maximization of lifetime value. Service providers would do well to recognize this and focus attention on profitable customer relationships.

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  • SQLAuthority News – Job Interviewing the Right Way (and for the Right Reasons) – Guest Post by Feodor Georgiev

    - by pinaldave
    Feodor Georgiev is a SQL Server database specialist with extensive experience of thinking both within and outside the box. He has wide experience of different systems and solutions in the fields of architecture, scalability, performance, etc. Feodor has experience with SQL Server 2000 and later versions, and is certified in SQL Server 2008. Feodor has written excellent article on Job Interviewing the Right Way. Here is his article in his own language. A while back I was thinking to start a blog post series on interviewing and employing IT personnel. At that time I had just read the ‘Smart and gets things done’ book (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/05.html) and I was hyped up on some debatable topics regarding finding and employing the best people in the branch. I have no problem with hiring the best of the best; it’s just the definition of ‘the best of the best’ that makes things a bit more complicated. One of the fundamental books one can read on the topic of interviewing is the one mentioned above. If you have not read it, then you must do so; not because it contains the ultimate truth, and not because it gives the answers to most questions on the subject, but because the book contains an extensive set of questions about interviewing and employing people. Of course, a big part of these questions have different answers, depending on location, culture, available funds and so on. (What works in the US may not necessarily work in the Nordic countries or India, or it may work in a different way). The only thing that is valid regardless of any external factor is this: curiosity. In my belief there are two kinds of people – curious and not-so-curious; regardless of profession. Think about it – professional success is directly proportional to the individual’s curiosity + time of active experience in the field. (I say ‘active experience’ because vacations and any distractions do not count as experience :)  ) So, curiosity is the factor which will distinguish a good employee from the not-so-good one. But let’s shift our attention to something else for now: a few tips and tricks for successful interviews. Tip and trick #1: get your priorities straight. Your status usually dictates your priorities; for example, if the person looking for a job has just relocated to a new country, they might tend to ignore some of their priorities and overload others. In other words, setting priorities straight means to define the personal criteria by which the interview process is lead. For example, similar to the following questions can help define the criteria for someone looking for a job: How badly do I need a (any) job? Is it more important to work in a clean and quiet environment or is it important to get paid well (or both, if possible)? And so on… Furthermore, before going to the interview, the candidate should have a list of priorities, sorted by the most importance: e.g. I want a quiet environment, x amount of money, great helping boss, a desk next to a window and so on. Also it is a good idea to be prepared and know which factors can be compromised and to what extent. Tip and trick #2: the interview is a two-way street. A job candidate should not forget that the interview process is not a one-way street. What I mean by this is that while the employer is interviewing the potential candidate, the job seeker should not miss the chance to interview the employer. Usually, the employer and the candidate will meet for an interview and talk about a variety of topics. In a quality interview the candidate will be presented to key members of the team and will have the opportunity to ask them questions. By asking the right questions both parties will define their opinion about each other. For example, if the candidate talks to one of the potential bosses during the interview process and they notice that the potential manager has a hard time formulating a question, then it is up to the candidate to decide whether working with such person is a red flag for them. There are as many interview processes out there as there are companies and each one is different. Some bigger companies and corporates can afford pre-selection processes, 3 or even 4 stages of interviews, small companies usually settle with one interview. Some companies even give cognitive tests on the interview. Why not? In his book Joel suggests that a good candidate should be pampered and spoiled beyond belief with a week-long vacation in New York, fancy hotels, food and who knows what. For all I can imagine, an interview might even take place at the top of the Eifel tower (right, Mr. Joel, right?) I doubt, however, that this is the optimal way to capture the attention of a good employee. The ‘curiosity’ topic What I have learned so far in my professional experience is that opinions can be subjective. Plus, opinions on technology subjects can also be subjective. According to Joel, only hiring the best of the best is worth it. If you ask me, there is no such thing as best of the best, simply because human nature (well, aside from some physical limitations, like putting your pants on through your head :) ) has no boundaries. And why would it have boundaries? I have seen many curious and interesting people, naturally good at technology, though uninterested in it as one  can possibly be; I have also seen plenty of people interested in technology, who (in an ideal world) should have stayed far from it. At any rate, all of this sums up at the end to the ‘supply and demand’ factor. The interview process big-bang boils down to this: If there is a mutual benefit for both the employer and the potential employee to work together, then it all sorts out nicely. If there is no benefit, then it is much harder to get to a common place. Tip and trick #3: word-of-mouth is worth a thousand words Here I would just mention that the best thing a job candidate can get during the interview process is access to future team members or other employees of the new company. Nowadays the world has become quite small and everyone knows everyone. Look at LinkedIn, look at other professional networks and you will realize how small the world really is. Knowing people is a good way to become more approachable and to approach them. Tip and trick #4: Be confident. It is true that for some people confidence is as natural as breathing and others have to work hard to express it. Confidence is, however, a key factor in convincing the other side (potential employer or employee) that there is a great chance for success by working together. But it cannot get you very far if it’s not backed up by talent, curiosity and knowledge. Tip and trick #5: The right reasons What really bothers me in Sweden (and I am sure that there are similar situations in other countries) is that there is a tendency to fill quotas and to filter out candidates by criteria different from their skill and knowledge. In job ads I see quite often the phrases ‘positive thinker’, ‘team player’ and many similar hints about personality features. So my guess here is that discrimination has evolved to a new level. Let me clear up the definition of discrimination: ‘unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice’. And prejudice is the ‘partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation’. In other words, there is not much difference whether a job candidate is filtered out by race, gender or by personality features – it is all a bad habit. And in reality, there is no proven correlation between the technology knowledge paired with skills and the personal features (gender, race, age, optimism). It is true that a significantly greater number of Darwin awards were given to men than to women, but I am sure that somewhere there is a paper or theory explaining the genetics behind this. J This topic actually brings to mind one of my favorite work related stories. A while back I was working for a big company with many teams involved in their processes. One of the teams was occupying 2 rooms – one had the team members and was full of light, colorful posters, chit-chats and giggles, whereas the other room was dark, lighted only by a single monitor with a quiet person in front of it. Later on I realized that the ‘dark room’ person was the guru and the ultimate problem-solving-brain who did not like the chats and giggles and hence was in a separate room. In reality, all severe problems which the chatty and cheerful team members could not solve and all emergencies were directed to ‘the dark room’. And thus all worked out well. The moral of the story: Personality has nothing to do with technology knowledge and skills. End of story. Summary: I’d like to stress the fact that there is no ultimately perfect candidate for a job, and there is no such thing as ‘best-of-the-best’. From my personal experience, the main criteria by which I measure people (co-workers and bosses) is the curiosity factor; I know from experience that the more curious and inventive a person is, the better chances there are for great achievements in their field. Related stories: (for extra credit) 1) Get your priorities straight. A while back as a consultant I was working for a few days at a time at different offices and for different clients, and so I was able to compare and analyze the work environments. There were two different places which I compared and recently I asked a friend of mine the following question: “Which one would you prefer as a work environment: a noisy office full of people, or a quiet office full of faulty smells because the office is rarely cleaned?” My friend was puzzled for a while, thought about it and said: “Hmm, you are talking about two different kinds of pollution… I will probably choose the second, since I can clean the workplace myself a bit…” 2) The interview is a two-way street. One time, during a job interview, I met a potential boss that had a hard time phrasing a question. At that particular time it was clear to me that I would not have liked to work under this person. According to my work religion, the properly asked question contains at least half of the answer. And if I work with someone who cannot ask a question… then I’d be doing double or triple work. At another interview, after the technical part with the team leader of the department, I was introduced to one of the team members and we were left alone for 5 minutes. I immediately jumped on the occasion and asked the blunt question: ‘What have you learned here for the past year and how do you like your job?’ The team member looked at me and said ‘Nothing really. I like playing with my cats at home, so I am out of here at 5pm and I don’t have time for much.’ I was disappointed at the time and I did not take the job offer. I wasn’t that shocked a few months later when the company went bankrupt. 3) The right reasons to take a job: personality check. A while back I was asked to serve as a job reference for a coworker. I agreed, and after some weeks I got a phone call from the company where my colleague was applying for a job. The conversation started with the manager’s question about my colleague’s personality and about their social skills. (You can probably guess what my internal reaction was… J ) So, after 30 minutes of pouring common sense into the interviewer’s head, we finally agreed on the fact that a shy or quiet personality has nothing to do with work skills and knowledge. Some years down the road my former colleague is taking the manager’s position as the manager is demoted to a different department. Reference: Feodor Georgiev, Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Server Cabinet/Room Cooling

    - by user37226
    Hello all. I currently have two desktops and three servers in my office sitting on the floor (I know this is bad). With that many servers the ambient temperature in the room goes up quickly. I am located in Dallas, TX so during the winter, if the heat is kept low, it is not a problem, but during the summer it easily jumps the room +10 degrees. I have decided and found a free 42U server cabinet that a hosting company was throwing away to house all of these systems in. One server is in a rack mount case while the other four servers are housed in mid-tower cases. I have purchased shelves for each computer and plan to lay the towers side ways on these shelves (as replacing the cases costs a heck of a lot of money). I like the idea of housing all of these systems in the cabinet because it will save a lot of room and clean up all of the cabling currently laying all over the office floor. When putting this setup together over the next couple of weeks, I want to address issues with dust and cooling. The server cabinet has a fan on top, front plexiglass door and a rear metal door with vent wholes on the bottom. First the cooling issues. I know I am going to want to have cool air enter the bottom of the cabinet and exit the top. I do not want the room heating up though as this will make my work area hot and then make the servers warmer as the air eventually reenters the cabinet. I had an idea to fix this problem, but am unsure if it will work. I was thinking of taking flexible piping and adapting it to the back fans of the computer having the other end of the pipe at the top close to the cabinet's top mounted fan. I was then thinking of creating a duct around the top fan into the attic. Now I am very concerned that the attic will cause issues with this type of setup because during July/August time frame, the attic is easily 120 degrees F. I could also use the flexible pipe to take it to an attic exhaust vent if it would be better to vent it into the 100 degree air outside (at least there may be wind. The other option would be to buy a small portable air conditioner. This may be a possibility, but do I want to spend the extra money on power? I bet this increases the noise. Plus they are around $250 on Amazon. What would you all recommend? Depending on the solution I end up running with above, I would also like to limit the dust that gets into the cabinet. If I were to cut a whole and mount a second cabinet fan on the bottom of the rear door, could I possibly mount a standard home air filter on the other side of that whole? Thanks in advance for your recommendations. I look forward to reading your interesting ideas.

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  • Server Cabinet/Room Cooling

    - by user37226
    Hello all. I currently have two desktops and three servers in my office sitting on the floor (I know this is bad). With that many servers the ambient temperature in the room goes up quickly. I am located in Dallas, TX so during the winter, if the heat is kept low, it is not a problem, but during the summer it easily jumps the room +10 degrees. I have decided and found a free 42U server cabinet that a hosting company was throwing away to house all of these systems in. One server is in a rack mount case while the other four servers are housed in mid-tower cases. I have purchased shelves for each computer and plan to lay the towers side ways on these shelves (as replacing the cases costs a heck of a lot of money). I like the idea of housing all of these systems in the cabinet because it will save a lot of room and clean up all of the cabling currently laying all over the office floor. When putting this setup together over the next couple of weeks, I want to address issues with dust and cooling. The server cabinet has a fan on top, front plexiglass door and a rear metal door with vent wholes on the bottom. First the cooling issues. I know I am going to want to have cool air enter the bottom of the cabinet and exit the top. I do not want the room heating up though as this will make my work area hot and then make the servers warmer as the air eventually reenters the cabinet. I had an idea to fix this problem, but am unsure if it will work. I was thinking of taking flexible piping and adapting it to the back fans of the computer having the other end of the pipe at the top close to the cabinet's top mounted fan. I was then thinking of creating a duct around the top fan into the attic. Now I am very concerned that the attic will cause issues with this type of setup because during July/August time frame, the attic is easily 120 degrees F. I could also use the flexible pipe to take it to an attic exhaust vent if it would be better to vent it into the 100 degree air outside (at least there may be wind. The other option would be to buy a small portable air conditioner. This may be a possibility, but do I want to spend the extra money on power? I bet this increases the noise. Plus they are around $250 on Amazon. What would you all recommend? Depending on the solution I end up running with above, I would also like to limit the dust that gets into the cabinet. If I were to cut a whole and mount a second cabinet fan on the bottom of the rear door, could I possibly mount a standard home air filter on the other side of that whole? Thanks in advance for your recommendations. I look forward to reading your interesting ideas.

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  • Assign highest priority to my local repository

    - by Anwar Shah
    Original question was : "How to assign highest priority to local repository without using sources.list file" I have setup a local repository with packages I downloaded. I use it to avoid downloading the same packages over the Internet, when I need to reinstall my Ubuntu. It is a basic repository, created with apt-ftparchive packages . > Packages. I made this a trusted repository to avoid "unauthenticated repository" warning. (When you have a untrusted repository, apt or synaptic try to download the same packages over the Internet, 'cause it is trusted). I have been using this local repository for at least 1 years. But I have to always put my local repository line at the top of the sources.list file to use this. But this is annoying, since I must open a terminal and do some typing on it every time I reinstall Ubuntu, though there is a better tool software-properties-gtk. I cannot use this tool since it place the source line at the end of `sources.list. And the real problem is that, the apt or synaptic always download a package from the source which is mentioned earlier, without inspecting whether the packages are already available in the local repository. So, I have no choice but to place the local source at the top of sources.list doing terminal (I actually don't hate terminal, but I need a solution) . I have tried this method. But this does not help me. My preference file is this in /etc/apt/preferences.d/local-pin-900 Package: * Pin: release o=Local,n=ubuntu-local Pin-Priority: 900 My release file is this Origin: Local Label: Local-Ubuntu Description: Local Ubuntu Repository Codename: ubuntu-local MD5Sum: ed43222856d18f389c637ac3d7dd6f85 1043412 Packages d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e 0 Sources When I enable the apt-preference, the apt-cache policy correctly shows the preference, e.g. It shows the local repository has the highest priority. But when I do this sudo apt-get install <package-name>, apt tries to download it from Internet. But when I place my local-repo at the top, it installs from local repository. So, My question is - 'Is it possible to force apt to use local repository when the package is available in local repository, without explicitly placing "the local source" at the top of my repository list (e.g sources.list file) ?' Edit: output of apt-cache policy $package_name is as follows nautilus-wipe: Installed: (none) Candidate: 0.1.1-2 Version table: 0.1.1-2 0 500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe i386 Packages 900 file:/media/Main/Linux-Software/Ubuntu/Precise/ Packages It is showing that my local repository has higher preference, though it is not the one which comes first in sources.list file. Here is the output of apt-get install nautilus-wipe Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: nautilus-wipe 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 131 not upgraded. Need to get 30.7 kB of archives. After this operation, 150 kB of additional disk space will be used. 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/n/nautilus-wipe/nautilus-wipe_0.1.1-2_i386.deb' nautilus-wipe_0.1.1-2_i386.deb 30730 MD5Sum:7d497b8dfcefe1c0b51a45f3b0466994 It is still trying to get the file from Internet, though I think it should be happy with the local one.

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  • Building ATLAS (and later Octave w/ ATLAS)

    - by David Parks
    I'm trying to set up ATLAS (so I can later compile octave with ATLAS support). If I'm correct, I still need to build this manually due to the environment specific optimizations. I do see a package for ATLAS, but it looks like it's using the cross platform generic build options (e.g. "it'll be slow"). So, running the configure script as described in the docs seems to go poorly. As a java developer I never do well at making heads or tails of errors in these build processes. Am I missing dependencies (if so is there any documentation on what I need)? allusers@vbubuntu:~/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu$ ../configure -b 64 -D c -DPentiumCPS=3000 --with-netlib-lapack-tarfile=/home/allusers/Downloads/lapack-3.5.0.tgz make: `xconfig' is up to date. ./xconfig -d s /home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu/../ -d b /home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu -b 64 -D c -DPentiumCPS=3000 -Si lapackref 1 OS configured as Linux (1) Assembly configured as GAS_x8664 (2) Vector ISA Extension configured as SSE3 (6,448) ERROR: enum fam=3, chip=2, mach=0 make[3]: *** [atlas_run] Error 44 make[2]: *** [IRunArchInfo_x86] Error 2 Architecture configured as Corei1 (25) ERROR: enum fam=3, chip=2, mach=0 make[3]: *** [atlas_run] Error 44 make[2]: *** [IRunArchInfo_x86] Error 2 Clock rate configured as 2350Mhz ERROR: enum fam=3, chip=2, mach=0 make[3]: *** [atlas_run] Error 44 make[2]: *** [IRunArchInfo_x86] Error 2 Maximum number of threads configured as 4 Parallel make command configured as '$(MAKE) -j 4' ERROR: enum fam=3, chip=2, mach=0 make[3]: *** [atlas_run] Error 44 make[2]: *** [IRunArchInfo_x86] Error 2 Cannot detect CPU throttling. rm -f config1.out make atlas_run atldir=/home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu exe=xprobe_comp redir=config1.out \ args="-v 0 -o atlconf.txt -O 1 -A 25 -Si nof77 0 -V 448 -b 64 -d b /home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu" make[1]: Entering directory `/home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu' cd /home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu ; ./xprobe_comp -v 0 -o atlconf.txt -O 1 -A 25 -Si nof77 0 -V 448 -b 64 -d b /home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu > config1.out make[2]: gfortran: Command not found make[2]: *** [IRunF77Comp] Error 127 make[2]: g77: Command not found make[2]: *** [IRunF77Comp] Error 127 make[2]: f77: Command not found make[2]: *** [IRunF77Comp] Error 127 Unable to find usable compiler for F77; abortingMake sure compilers are in your path, and specify good compilers to configure (see INSTALL.txt or 'configure --help' for details)make[1]: *** [atlas_run] Error 8 make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu' make: *** [IRun_comp] Error 2 ERROR 512 IN SYSCMND: 'make IRun_comp args="-v 0 -o atlconf.txt -O 1 -A 25 -Si nof77 0 -V 448 -b 64"' mkdir src bin tune interfaces mkdir: cannot create directory ‘src’: File exists mkdir: cannot create directory ‘bin’: File exists mkdir: cannot create directory ‘tune’: File exists mkdir: cannot create directory ‘interfaces’: File exists make: *** [make_subdirs] Error 1 make -f Make.top startup make[1]: Entering directory `/home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu' Make.top:1: Make.inc: No such file or directory Make.top:325: warning: overriding commands for target `/AtlasTest' Make.top:76: warning: ignoring old commands for target `/AtlasTest' make[1]: *** No rule to make target `Make.inc'. Stop. make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/allusers/Downloads/atlas3.10.1/build_vbubuntu' make: *** [startup] Error 2 mv: cannot move ‘lapack-3.5.0’ to ‘../reference/lapack-3.5.0’: Directory not empty mv: cannot stat ‘lib/Makefile’: No such file or directory ../configure: 450: ../configure: cannot create lib/Makefile: Directory nonexistent ../configure: 451: ../configure: cannot create lib/Makefile: Directory nonexistent ../configure: 452: ../configure: cannot create lib/Makefile: Directory nonexistent ../configure: 453: ../configure: cannot create lib/Makefile: Directory nonexistent ../configure: 509: ../configure: cannot create lib/Makefile: Directory nonexistent DONE configure

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  • Help understand GLSL directional light on iOS (left handed coord system)

    - by Robse
    I now have changed from GLKBaseEffect to a own shader implementation. I have a shader management, which compiles and applies a shader to the right time and does some shader setup like lights. Please have a look at my vertex shader code. Now, light direction should be provided in eye space, but I think there is something I don't get right. After I setup my view with camera I save a lightMatrix to transform the light from global space to eye space. My modelview and projection setup: - (void)setupViewWithWidth:(int)width height:(int)height camera:(N3DCamera *)aCamera { aCamera.aspect = (float)width / (float)height; float aspect = aCamera.aspect; float far = aCamera.far; float near = aCamera.near; float vFOV = aCamera.fieldOfView; float top = near * tanf(M_PI * vFOV / 360.0f); float bottom = -top; float right = aspect * top; float left = -right; // projection GLKMatrixStackLoadMatrix4(projectionStack, GLKMatrix4MakeFrustum(left, right, bottom, top, near, far)); // identity modelview GLKMatrixStackLoadMatrix4(modelviewStack, GLKMatrix4Identity); // switch to left handed coord system (forward = z+) GLKMatrixStackMultiplyMatrix4(modelviewStack, GLKMatrix4MakeScale(1, 1, -1)); // transform camera GLKMatrixStackMultiplyMatrix4(modelviewStack, GLKMatrix4MakeWithMatrix3(GLKMatrix3Transpose(aCamera.orientation))); GLKMatrixStackTranslate(modelviewStack, -aCamera.position.x, -aCamera.position.y, -aCamera.position.z); } - (GLKMatrix4)modelviewMatrix { return GLKMatrixStackGetMatrix4(modelviewStack); } - (GLKMatrix4)projectionMatrix { return GLKMatrixStackGetMatrix4(projectionStack); } - (GLKMatrix4)modelviewProjectionMatrix { return GLKMatrix4Multiply([self projectionMatrix], [self modelviewMatrix]); } - (GLKMatrix3)normalMatrix { return GLKMatrix3InvertAndTranspose(GLKMatrix4GetMatrix3([self modelviewProjectionMatrix]), NULL); } After that, I save the lightMatrix like this: [self.renderer setupViewWithWidth:view.drawableWidth height:view.drawableHeight camera:self.camera]; self.lightMatrix = [self.renderer modelviewProjectionMatrix]; And just before I render a 3d entity of the scene graph, I setup the light config for its shader with the lightMatrix like this: - (N3DLight)transformedLight:(N3DLight)light transformation:(GLKMatrix4)matrix { N3DLight transformedLight = N3DLightMakeDisabled(); if (N3DLightIsDirectional(light)) { GLKVector3 direction = GLKVector3MakeWithArray(GLKMatrix4MultiplyVector4(matrix, light.position).v); direction = GLKVector3Negate(direction); // HACK -> TODO: get lightMatrix right! transformedLight = N3DLightMakeDirectional(direction, light.diffuse, light.specular); } else { ... } return transformedLight; } You see the line, where I negate the direction!? I can't explain why I need to do that, but if I do, the lights are correct as far as I can tell. Please help me, to get rid of the hack. I'am scared that this has something to do, with my switch to left handed coord system. My vertex shader looks like this: attribute highp vec4 inPosition; attribute lowp vec4 inNormal; ... uniform highp mat4 MVP; uniform highp mat4 MV; uniform lowp mat3 N; uniform lowp vec4 constantColor; uniform lowp vec4 ambient; uniform lowp vec4 light0Position; uniform lowp vec4 light0Diffuse; uniform lowp vec4 light0Specular; varying lowp vec4 vColor; varying lowp vec3 vTexCoord0; vec4 calcDirectional(vec3 dir, vec4 diffuse, vec4 specular, vec3 normal) { float NdotL = max(dot(normal, dir), 0.0); return NdotL * diffuse; } ... vec4 calcLight(vec4 pos, vec4 diffuse, vec4 specular, vec3 normal) { if (pos.w == 0.0) { // Directional Light return calcDirectional(normalize(pos.xyz), diffuse, specular, normal); } else { ... } } void main(void) { // position highp vec4 position = MVP * inPosition; gl_Position = position; // normal lowp vec3 normal = inNormal.xyz / inNormal.w; normal = N * normal; normal = normalize(normal); // colors vColor = constantColor * ambient; // add lights vColor += calcLight(light0Position, light0Diffuse, light0Specular, normal); ... }

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  • 2D Tile based Game Collision problem

    - by iNbdy
    I've been trying to program a tile based game, and I'm stuck at the collision detection. Here is my code (not the best ^^): void checkTile(Character *c, int **map) { int x1,x2,y1,y2; /* Character position in the map */ c->upY = (c->y) / TILE_SIZE; // Top left corner c->downY = (c->y + c->h) / TILE_SIZE; // Bottom left corner c->leftX = (c->x) / TILE_SIZE; // Top right corner c->rightX = (c->x + c->w) / TILE_SIZE; // Bottom right corner x1 = (c->x + 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from left side point x2 = (c->x + c->w - 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from right side point y1 = (c->y + 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from top side point y2 = (c->y + c->h - 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from bottom side point /* Top */ if (map[c->upY][x1] > 2 || map[c->upY][x2] > 2) c->topCollision = 1; else c->topCollision = 0; /* Bottom */ if ((map[c->downY][x1] > 2 || map[c->downY][x2] > 2)) c->downCollision = 1; else c->downCollision = 0; /* Left */ if (map[y1][c->leftX] > 2 || map[y2][c->leftX] > 2) c->leftCollision = 1; else c->leftCollision = 0; /* Right */ if (map[y1][c->rightX] > 2 || map[y2][c->rightX] > 2) c->rightCollision = 1; else c->rightCollision = 0; } That calculates 8 collision points My moving function is like that: void movePlayer(Character *c, int **map) { if ((c->dirX == LEFT && !c->leftCollision) || (c->dirX == RIGHT && !c->rightCollision)) c->x += c->vx; if ((c->dirY == UP && !c->topCollision) || (c->dirY == DOWN && !c->downCollision)) c->y += c->vy; checkPosition(c, map); } and the checkPosition: void checkPosition(Character *c, int **map) { checkTile(c, map); if (c->downCollision) { if (c->state != JUMPING) { c->vy = 0; c->y = (c->downY * TILE_SIZE - c->h); } } if (c->leftCollision) { c->vx = 0; c->x = (c->leftX) * TILE_SIZE + TILE_SIZE; } if (c->rightCollision) { c->vx = 0; c->x = c->rightX * TILE_SIZE - c->w; } } This works, but sometimes, when the player is landing on ground, right and left collision points become equal to 1. So it's as if there were collision coming from left or right. Does anyone know why this is doing this?

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  • Introducing the Metro User Interface on Windows 2012

    - by andywe
    Although I am a big fan of using PowerShell to do many of my server operations, that aspect is well covered by those far more knowledgeable than I, and there is vast information around the web already on that. The new Metro interface, and getting around both Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 though is relatively new, even for those whop ran the previews. What is this? A blank Desktop!   Where did the start button go? Well, it is still there...sort of. It is hidden, and acts like an auto hidden component that appear only when the mouse is hovered over the lower left corner of the screen. Those familiar with Gnome or OSX can relate this to the "Hot Corners" functions. To get to the start button, hover your mouse in the very left corner of the task bar. Let it sit there a moment, and a small blue square with colored tiles in it called start will appear. Click it. I clicked it and now I have all the tiles..What is this?   Welcome to the Metro interface. This is a much more modern look, and although at first seems weird and cumbersome, I have actually found that it is a bit more extensible, allowing greater organization and customization than the older explorer desktop. If you look closely, you'll see each box represents either a program, or program group. First, a few basics about using the start view. First and foremost, a right mouse click will bring up a bar on the bottom, with an icon towards the right. Notice it is titled “All Apps”. An even easier way in many places is to hover your mouse in the exact opposite corner, in the upper right. A sidebar will open and expose what used to be a widget bar (remember Vista?), and there are options for Search, Start, and Settings.   Ok Great, but where is everything? It’s all there…Click the All Apps icon.   Look better? Notice the scroll bar at the bottom. Move it right..your desktop is sized to your content..so you can have a smaller, or larger amount of programs exposed. Each icon can be secondary clicked (right mouse click for most of us, and an options bar at the bottom, rather than the old small context menu, is opened with some very familiar options.   Notice the top of the Windows Explorer window has some new features. You still have your right mouse click functions, but since the shortcuts for these items already exist..just copy them. There are many ways, but here is a long way to show you more of the interface. 1. Right mouse click a program icon, and select the Open File Location option. 2. Trusty file manager opens…but if you look closely up at top edge of the window, you’ll see a nifty enhancement. An orange colored box that is titled Shortcut Tools and another lavender box Title Application tools. Each of these adds options at the top of the file manager window to make selection easy. Of course, you can still secondary click an item in the listing window too. 3. Click shortcut tools, right click your app shortcut and copy it. Then simply paste it into the desktop outside the File Explorer window Also note some of the newer features. The large icons up top below the menu that has many common operations. The options change as you select each menu item. Well, that’s it for this installment. I hope this helps you out.

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  • Rails3 server and bundler error: uninitialized constant Bundler (NameError)

    - by .yandex.rurap-kasta
    I just install rails 3 and all gems that it need, but when I try to start server, it says about problem in boot script. [rap-kasta@acerAspire testR3]$ script/rails server /home/rap-kasta/tmp/testR3/config/boot.rb:7:in `rescue in <top (required)>': uninitialized constant Bundler (NameError) from /home/rap-kasta/tmp/testR3/config/boot.rb:2:in `<top (required)>' from script/rails:9:in `require' from script/rails:9:in `<main> So, I tried to reinstall Bundler, install "pre"-version (but really it has version number lower then i install by gem install bundler Now there are next gems in system: abstract (1.0.0) actionmailer (3.0.0.beta, 2.3.5, 2.3.4) actionpack (3.0.0.beta, 2.3.5, 2.3.4) activemodel (3.0.0.beta) activerecord (3.0.0.beta, 2.3.5, 2.3.4) activeresource (3.0.0.beta, 2.3.5, 2.3.4) activesupport (3.0.0.beta, 2.3.5, 2.3.4) arel (0.2.1, 0.2.pre) builder (2.1.2) bundler (0.9.5) erubis (2.6.5) fxri (0.3.7) fxruby (1.6.20) i18n (0.3.3) jemini (2010.1.24, 2010.1.5) mail (2.1.2) memcache-client (1.7.8) mime-types (1.16) mysql (2.8.1) nifty-generators (0.3.2, 0.3.0) rack (1.1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.0) rack-mount (0.5.1, 0.4.0) rack-openid (0.2.3, 0.2.2) rack-test (0.5.3) rails (3.0.0.beta, 2.3.5, 2.3.4) railties (3.0.0.beta) rake (0.8.7) rawr (1.3.8) RedCloth (4.2.2) ruby-mysql (3.0.2) ruby-openid (2.1.7) rubygems-update (1.3.5) rubyzip (0.9.4, 0.9.1) rubyzip2 (2.0.1) sqlite3-ruby (1.2.5) text-format (1.0.0) text-hyphen (1.0.0) thor (0.13.2, 0.13.1) tzinfo (0.3.16) Also, there is same error with rails console and similar with bundle check: [rap-kasta@acerAspire testR3]$ bundle check /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-0.9.5/bin/bundle:12:in `rescue in <top (required)>': uninitialized constant Bundler::BundlerError (NameError) from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-0.9.5/bin/bundle:10:in `<top (required)>' from /usr/bin/bundle:19:in `load' from /usr/bin/bundle:19:in `<main>'

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  • Single player 'pong' game

    - by Jam
    I am just starting out learning pygame and livewires, and I'm trying to make a single-player pong game, where you just hit the ball, and it bounces around until it passes your paddle (located on the left side of the screen and controlled by the mouse), which makes you lose. I have the basic code, but the ball doesn't stay on the screen, it just flickers and doesn't remain constant. Also, the paddle does not move with the mouse. I'm sure I'm missing something simple, but I just can't figure it out. Help please! Here's what I have: from livewires import games import random games.init(screen_width=640, screen_height=480, fps=50) class Paddle(games.Sprite): image=games.load_image("paddle.bmp") def __init__(self, x=10): super(Paddle, self).__init__(image=Paddle.image, y=games.mouse.y, left=10) self.score=games.Text(value=0, size=25, top=5, right=games.screen.width - 10) games.screen.add(self.score) def update(self): self.y=games.mouse.y if self.top<0: self.top=0 if self.bottom>games.screen.height: self.bottom=games.screen.height self.check_collide() def check_collide(self): for ball in self.overlapping_sprites: self.score.value+=1 ball.handle_collide() class Ball(games.Sprite): image=games.load_image("ball.bmp") speed=5 def __init__(self, x=90, y=90): super(Ball, self).__init__(image=Ball.image, x=x, y=y, dx=Ball.speed, dy=Ball.speed) def update(self): if self.right>games.screen.width: self.dx=-self.dx if self.bottom>games.screen.height or self.top<0: self.dy=-self.dy if self.left<0: self.end_game() self.destroy() def handle_collide(self): self.dx=-self.dx def end_game(self): end_message=games.Message(value="Game Over", size=90, x=games.screen.width/2, y=games.screen.height/2, lifetime=250, after_death=games.screen.quit) games.screen.add(end_message) def main(): background_image=games.load_image("background.bmp", transparent=False) games.screen.background=background_image paddle_image=games.load_image("paddle.bmp") the_paddle=games.Sprite(image=paddle_image, x=10, y=games.mouse.y) games.screen.add(the_paddle) ball_image=games.load_image("ball.bmp") the_ball=games.Sprite(image=ball_image, x=630, y=200, dx=2, dy=2) games.screen.add(the_ball) games.mouse.is_visible=False games.screen.event_grab=True games.screen.mainloop() main()

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  • CSS positioning inside div

    - by christian
    I am using a div with 2 elements inside and I want to position my 1st element to be vertically aligned top and 2nd element to the bottom of the div. The div is the right portion of my page and equal to the height of my main content. #right { float:right; width: 19%; background:#FF3300; margin-left:2px; padding-bottom: 100%; margin-bottom: -100%; } #right .top { display:block; background-color:#CCCCCC; } #right .bottom { bottom:0px; display:block; background-color:#FFCCFF; height:60px; } HTML: <div id="right"> <span class="top">Top element</span> <span class="bottom"><img src="images/logo_footer1.gif" width="57" height="57" align="left" class="img">&nbsp;<img src="images/logo_footer2.gif" width="57" height="57" align="right" class="img"></span> </div> I want the right div to be like this:

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  • Scrolling issues with GridView in Android

    - by Jared Thigpen
    I am having weird scrolling issues in my pretty simple GridView. Each item in the Grid is simply and ImageView and a TextView. The activity itself is simply an application selector. It looks like a rough version of the basic App Tray in Android. The issue is that after spending some times scrolling through my view, it will inevitably allow me to continue scrolling past the top row of icons, to a blank screen, and the scroll bar will disappear, leaving me stuck. It doesn't happen every time I go to the top of the view, only sometimes, and usually only after some excessive scrolling. If I happen to notice the problem and catch it before the top row disappears off the bottom of the screen, I can usually scroll back through the view and spot some icons missing. There are empty spaces in the grid, and I can only assume that those icons have been moved to some bizarre position, which is allowing the view to scroll past the top. This is my first Android app beyond a basic Hello World, so it's likely that I've just screwed up something in my layout files. I also realize that this is probably a pretty confusing description, so I'm hoping someone has experienced this and my search abilities simply were unable to find it. I can post my layout files or other code if someone thinks that's useful. Oh, and the program is built against 1.5, but is running on 2.2 (whatever state of 2.2 that was that snuck out last week) on my phone. I don't have enough apps to test this on an emulator, but could probably set something up if someone felt it necessary. Thanks in advance for any help on the issue.

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  • Arrrg! MovieClip object refuses to moved in any rational way in as3?

    - by Aaron H.
    I have a MovieClip object, which is exported for actionscript (AS3) in an .swc file. When I place an instance of the clip on the stage without any modifications, it appears in the upper left corner, about half off stage (i.e. only the lower right quadrant of the object is visible). I understand that this is because the clip has a registration point which is not the upper left corner. If you call getBounds() on the movieclip you can get the bounds of the clip (presumably from the "point" that it's aligned on) which looks something like (left: -303, top: -100, right: 303, bottom: 100), you can subtract the left and top values from the clip x and y: clip.x -= bounds.left; clip.y -= bounds.top; This seems to properly align the clip fully on stage with the top left of the clip squarely in the corner of the stage. But! Following that logic doesn't seem to work when aligning it on the center of the stage! clip.x = (stage.stageWidth / 2); etc... This creates the crazy parallel universe where the clip is now down in the lower right corner of the stage. The only clue I have is that looking at: clip.transform.matrix and clip.transform.concatenatedMatrix matrix has a tx value of 748 (half of stage height) ty value of 426 (Half of stage height) concatenatedMatrix has a tx value of 1699.5 and ty value of 967.75 That's also obviously where the movieclip is getting positioned, but why? Where is this additional translation coming from?

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  • Program Managers: Do you exist? How do I become you?

    - by sixtyfootersdude
    I am a Computer Science major who is interesting in exploring a career as a program manager. I knew since starting my degree that that was the role that was interested in but I just found out the actual job name recently. Q: Is this a common position? Do many companies have "program managers"? What should I do/read to improve my chances to become a project manager upon graduation? I have already completed three co-op terms at different companies none of which had this position.

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  • jQuery Bounce ignores positioning

    - by ashansky
    I'm having a problem trying to use the jQuery effect "bounce" on an absolutely position div inside of a relatively positioned div. The #Bounce div is positioned to be slightly above the container div and when a certain message is received it is supposed to bounce on top of it. But what ends up happening is that the #bounce div drops down into the container div and bounces inside of it till it stops and then correctly repositions itself on top of the container div. This same code is working in Firefox but doesn't seem to be working in Webkit or IE. Can anyone help me understand why this is happening? if (jQuery("#Bounce").data("bouncing") == false || jQuery("#Bounce").data("bouncing") == undefined) { jQuery("#Bounce").show().effect("bounce",{times:10,distance:50},300,function(){jQuery("#Bounce").data("bouncing", false);}); jQuery("#Bounce").data("bouncing", true); } <div id="Container" style="height: 28px; float: right; position: relative; top: 2px; cursor: pointer; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3px; "> ... <div id="Bounce" style="bottom: 28px; right: 0px; height: 26px; width: 26px; z-index: 989; display: none; position: absolute; ">...</div> </div>

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  • OpenGL-ES Texture Atlas. t axis is inverted.

    - by Feet
    I'm mapping a texture from my texture atlas to a square on a cube. For some reason, the t axis is inverted with 0 being at the top and 1 being at the bottom. Also, I have to specify the texture coordinates in clockwise order rather than counter-clockwise. I am using counter-clockwise windings. The vertices, indices and texture coordinates I'm using are below. float vertices[] = { // Front face -width, -height, depth, // 0 width, -height, depth, // 1 width, height, depth, // 2 -width, height, depth, // 3 // Back Face width, -height, -depth, // 4 -width, -height, -depth, // 5 -width, height, -depth, // 6 width, height, -depth, // 7 // Left face -width, -height, -depth, // 8 -width, -height, depth, // 9 -width, height, depth, // 10 -width, height, -depth, // 11 // Right face width, -height, depth, // 12 width, -height, -depth, // 13 width, height, -depth, // 14 width, height, depth, // 15 // Top face -width, height, depth, // 16 width, height, depth, // 17 width, height, -depth, // 18 -width, height, -depth, // 19 // Bottom face -width, -height, -depth, // 20 width, -height, -depth, // 21 width, -height, depth, // 22 -width, -height, depth, // 23 }; short indices[] = { // Front // Back 0,1,2, 0,2,3, 4,5,6, 4,6,7, // Left // Right 8,9,10, 8,10,11, 12,13,14, 12,14,15, // Top // Bottom 16,17,18, 16,18,19, 20,21,22, 20,22,23, }; float textures[] = { // Front 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.25f, 0.0f, 0.25f, 0.25f, 0.0f, 0.25f, // Back 0.25f, 0.0f, 0.50f, 0.0f, 0.50f, 0.25f, 0.25f, 0.25f, // Left 0.50f, 0.0f, 0.75f, 0.0f, 0.75f, 0.25f, 0.50f, 0.25f, // Right 0.75f, 0.0f, 1f, 0.0f, 1f, 0.25f, 0.75f, 0.25f, // Top 0.0f, 0.25f, 0.25f, 0.25f, 0.25f, 0.50f, 0.0f, 0.50f, // Bottom 0.25f, 0.25f, 0.50f, 0.25f, 0.50f, 0.50f, 0.25f, 0.50f, };

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  • How can I make an AJAX link work once it is moved out of the iFrame?

    - by KcYxA
    Hi, I am using an iFrame with a form that return some content with an AJAX link. I am then moving the returned content out of the iFrame into the main page. However, then the ajax link does not work and the error "Element is null" is created once the link is clicked. How can I move content from the iFrame and still have the AJAX link working? Here's the code returned by the iFrame: <span id="top"> <a id="link8" onclick=" event.returnValue = false; return false;" href="/item_pictures/delete/7"> <img src="/img/delete.bmp"/> </a> <script type="text/javascript"> parent.Event.observe('link8', 'click', function(event) { new Ajax.Updater('top','/item_pictures/delete/3', { asynchronous:true, evalScripts:true, onCreate:function(request, xhr) { document.getElementById("top").innerHTML = "<img src=\"/img/spinner_small.gif\">"; }, requestHeaders:['X-Update', 'top'] }) }, false); </script> </span>

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  • Recommendations OutSourcing .NET Work To Indian Team [closed]

    - by MT
    hi there, I've been asked to research outsourcing some of our C# winform development work. The aim is to employ a dedicated Indian team of around 5 developers reporting to myself. A google search provides a plethora of different companies, none of which I have ever heard of before. I'm a little skeptical about this plan at the moment but remain open minded. I was hoping some of you guys had some general advice about how to approach this. Or even better recommendations for companies to contact based upon your experiences? Many thanks

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  • Implementing arrays using a stack

    - by Zack
    My programming language has no arrays, no lists, no pointers, no eval and no variable variables. All it has: Ordinary variables like you know them from most programming languages: They all have an exact name and a value. One stack. Functions provided are: push (add element to top), pop (remove element from top, get value) and empty (check if stack is empty) My language is turing-complete. (Basic arithmetics, conditional jumps, etc implemented) That means, it must be possible to implement some sort of list or array, right? But I have no idea how... What I want to achieve: Create a function which can retrieve and/or change an element x of the stack. I could easily add this function in the implementation of my language, in the interpreter, but I want to do it in my programming language. "Solution" one (Accessing an element x, counting from the stack top) Create a loop. Pop off the element from the stack top x times. The last element popped of is element number x. I end up with a destroyed stack. Solution two: Do the same as above, but store all popped off values in a second stack. Then you could move all elements back after you are done. But you know what? I don't have a second stack!

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  • How can I select values from different rows depending on the most recent entry date, all for the sam

    - by user321185
    Basically I have a table which is used to hold employee work wear details. It is formed of the columns: EmployeeID, CostCentre, AssociateLevel, IssueDate, TrouserSize, TrouserLength, TopSize & ShoeSize. An employee can be assigned a pair of trousers, a top and shoes at the same time or only one or two pieces of clothing. As we all know peoples sizes and employee levels can change which is why I need help really. Different types of employees (associatelevels) require different colours of clothing but you can ignore this part. Everytime an employee receives an item of clothing a new row will be inserted into the table with an input date. I need to be able to select the most recent clothes size for each item of clothing for each employee. It is not necessary for all the columns to hold values because an employee could receive trousers or poloshirts at different times in the year. So for example if employee '54664LSS' was given a pair of 'XL' trousers and a 'L' top on 24/03/11 but then received a 'M' top on 26/05/10. The input of these items would be help on two different rows obviously. So if I wanted to select the most recent clothing for each clothes category. Then the values of the 'M' sized top and the 'L' sized trousers would need to be returned. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm pretty stuck :(. Thanks.

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  • Can I add round cornres to HtmlPanelGrid in code or in page? If yes - how?

    - by Elena
    Hi all! I have a task - add round corners to HtmlPanelGrid. Now I am trying to do it with css (using 4 images for each corner - that css create our designer). I load css and try to do this in my code: this.grid = new HtmlPanelGrid(); this.grid.setStyleClass("toplist,toplist-top"); But no changes I could see in my page. I tried to load css and use it with tags, but it also didnt work and created one more problem - my jsf didn't reload and redisplay: <div class="toplist"> <div class="toplist-top"><h2>Top 10 List</h2></div> <div class="toplist-bg"> <div class="toplist-cont"> <rich:tab label="Top-List" id="screenTop"> <h:panelGrid id="topListTable" binding="#{chartBean.topListTable}" /> </rich:tab> <a4j:support event="onclick" reRender="menuSection" actionListener="#{chartBean.doChangeTab}" /> </div> </div> <div class="toplist-bottom"></div> </div> I am interesting of adding round corners to topListTable in the code. How can I do it? I load my css as: <link href="#{facesContext.externalContext.requestContextPath}/css/stylesheet.css" rel="styleSheet" type="text/css"/> If anybody knows, how can I add corners to the panelGrid. Sorry for stupid question, but I am newborn in jsf and richfaces, and I want to solve this task right Thanks!

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