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• One Step-Ahead A-Star

  - by Jonathan Dickinson

  I am attempting to create a server-centric RTS (as opposed to usual parallel synchronised simulation route of most RTS games today) - however I am still leveraging the discreet N-turns-ahead paradigm discussed by one of the AOE developers on Gamasutra. I have [possibly questionably?] decided that the path finding should only ever find the next cell the entity needs to move to, and was wondering if anyone has any clever ideas on how to optimize the algorithm for this specific scenario - or any other ideas on how to keep the pathfinding as lean as possible on the server. I have investigated a few possible algorithms but could only come up with one appropriation: Tiered A-Star - Relatively large T1 tiles, work out (and cache) each cell as you enter it. Other than that: doing the full A-Star pass and caching the entire path, which might use too much memory if a large amount of units are present. I know about the existence of naive progressive pathfinding algorithms (if you hit a block, turn in the direction closer to your target etc.) but they suffer from infinite feedback loops - and very poor pathing even if visited blocks are memorised. Not an option. Many thanks.

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• Upcoming events : OBUG Connect Conference 2012

  - by Maria Colgan

  The Oracle Benelux User Group (OBUG) have given me an amazing opportunity to present a one day Optimizer workshop at their annual Connect Conference in Maastricht on April 24th. The workshop will run as one of the parallel tracks at the conference and consists of three 45 minute sessions. Each session can be attended stand alone but they will build on each other to allow someone new to the Oracle Optimizer or SQL tuning to come away from the conference with a better understanding of how the Optimizer works and what techniques they should deploy to tune their SQL. Below is a brief description of each of the sessions Session 7 - 11:30 am Oracle Optimizer: Understanding Optimizer StatisticsThe workshop opens with a discussion on Optimizer statistics and the features introduced in Oracle Database 11g to improve the quality and efficiency of statistics-gathering. The session will also provide strategies for managing statistics in various database environments. Session 27 -  14:30 pm Oracle Optimizer: Explain the Explain PlanThe workshop will continue with a detailed examination of the different aspects of an execution plan, from selectivity to parallel execution, and explains what information you should be gleaning from the plan. Session 47 -  15:45 pm Top Tips to get Optimal Execution Plans Finally I will show you how to identify and resolving the most common SQL execution performance problems, such as poor cardinality estimations, bind peeking issues, and selecting the wrong access method.   Hopefully I will see you there! +Maria Colgan

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• Most effective way to do daily standup meeting when a few people are remote

  - by Burhan Ali

  I am a software developer in a small team of seven. We are not an Agile (with a big 'A') team but are experimenting with some aspects of agile. One of these is the daily "standup" meeting. The difficulty here is that for two days of the week we have at least one person working from home so the full team isn't available in the same room. What is the best way to carry out a daily standup in this situation? Some facts that may be relevant: We all work in a single open plan room. We use Skype in our company. We don't have any video conferencing capability. We all work the same hours so there are no timezone complexities involved. The development manager is one of the people who works from home one day a week. Things we have tried: Conference call using Skype: This is tricky for those in the office because you can hear people speak in the room and then a split second later through the headset. This can e very distracting. Conference phone: Awful experience. Hard to get them to work and poor quality audio. Text-based updates using Skype. This is not as engaging and is no different than just firing off a status email in the morning. I have seen other questions about remote collaboration but they are mainly about completely remote teams and/or teams that span multiple time zones. We are not affected by either of these problems. What can we do to make our standup meetings better in these circumstances?

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• Office arangement - comfort vs. teamwork?

  - by finrod

  Our team works in an open-space office. Luckily the cubicles are quite big (L shaped tables for everyone!), there is quite a lot of space so we are not sandwiched. Without going into further detail, there are comfortable spots (window), normal spots and stupid spots (near the corridor). Until recently, the development team of twelve engineers was seated so that all types of spots were occupied and we were all close together. In the old arrangement, verbal communication was very easy - half of the team was withing talking distance. The other half was like ten steps away. Often times I could ask, discuss, solve problems without leaving the cube. Most of the communication is work related, no bullshit or mental masturbation that would unnecessarily distract others. Now we have moved to another part of the building and have larger space to occupy. At this point, everyone could pick their spot. Naturally all stupid spots are left empty (for the poor newcomers to occupy bwehaha). In the new arrangement, the development team is stretched across the floor and some of the key engineers are seated 'far' from each other - definitely not within talking distance. I have yet to experience how this works out but am getting concerned that team work and communication may have been traded for personal comfort. Finally the questions... What do you think is better office arrangement? Such that allows for free verbal communication but trading for some developer's comfort, or such that potentially hinders verbal communication but makes developer's more comfortable in their spot? Or maybe it does not matter at all and we will evolve to be efficient in any arrangement? What is your personal experience? Note - yes I read books and posts how workplace is important in our job. However in this case - we are all still in open space and the difference between the different spots are not really groundbreaking. So I'm thinking the little comfort that few developers gain is not worth the loss of easy communication.

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• What is the basic loadout for an open source web developer?

  - by DeveloperDon

  Thus far, I have mainly been an embedded developer, but I am interested in having the flexibility to do mobile and web development as well. I think my tools should include the following, but probably a lot more. LAMP stack. Java IDEs like Eclipse and IntelliJ. JS frameworks like Dojo, Node.JS, AngularJS, (is it better to mix or commit to one?). Cloud solutions like EC2 and Azure (again, ok to mix or better to commit to one?). Google APIs. Continuous integration server. Source control tools with Git for new work, SVN, CVS, +others for imports. FTP server. Unit test runners. Bug trackers. OOAD modeling tools or plug-ins? Graphic design tools? Hosting services. XML / JSON / other markup? Content management, SEO? I am also interested to know if there are tools where it might be better to mix, match, or support all available (maybe for source control) and others where the full focus should be on one (maybe Java vs. C# or Windows vs. Linux vs. MacOS). Perhaps some of these questions need context of whether the projects will be greenfield (just pick favorite) or maintenance (no choice, each project continues legacy, sometimes with a poor tools).

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• The Bing Sting - an alternative opinion

  - by Charles Young

  I know I'm a bit of an MS fanboy at times, but please, am I missing something here? Microsoft, with permission of users, exploits clickstream data gathered by observing user behaviour. One use for this data is to improve Bing queries. Google equips twenty of its engineers with laptops and installs the widgets required to provide Microsoft with clickstream data. It then gets their engineers to repeatedly (I assume) type in 'synthetic' queries which bring back 'doctored' hits. It asks its engineers to then click these results (think about this!). So, the behaviour of the engineers is observed and the resulting clickstream data goes off to Microsoft. It is processed and 'improves' Bing results accordingly.   What exactly did Microsoft do wrong here?   Google's so-called 'Bing sting' is clearly a very effective attack from a propaganda perspective, but is poor practice from a company that claims to do no evil. Generating and sending clickstream data deliberately so that you can then subsequently claim that your competitor 'copied' that data from you is neither fair nor reasonable, and suggests to me a degree of desperation in the face of real competition.   Monopolies are undesirable, whether they are Microsoft monopolies or Google monopolies.    Personally, I'm glad Microsoft has technology in place to observe user behaviour (with permission, of course) and improve their search results using such data. I can only assume Google doesn't implement similar capabilities. Sounds to me as if, at least in this respect, Microsoft may offer the better technology.

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• Old Lock Retrofitted for Wireless and Key-free Entry

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  What do you do if the old key your landlord gave you is poor fit for your apartment’s lock? If you’re the geeky sort, you build a wireless unlocking module to do the work for you. Instructables user Rybitski writes: The key to my apartment never worked quite right because it is a copy of a copy of a copy. I am fairly certain that the dead bolt is original to the building and the property manager seems to have lost the original key years ago. As a result unlocking the door was always a pain. Changing the lock wasn’t an option, but eliminating the need to use a key was. To that end, he built the device seen in the video above. An Arduino Uno drives a servo which in turn opens the deadbolt. The whole thing is controlled by a simple wireless key fob. Hit up the link below for the full build guide including code. Key Fob Deadbolt [via Hack A Day] How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows HTG Explains: Why Screen Savers Are No Longer Necessary 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7

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• What can be done against language inertia?

  - by gerrit

  Often, projects use programming language X, but would use programming language Y if they were started from scratch. For example, big numerical models may be written entirely in Fortran. Whereas this might be a reasonable choice for the components that need to run fast (alternative would be C or C++), it might be a poor choice for components that either do not need to run fast (such as things dealing with human input or simple visualisations), or where runtime is not the limiting factor (such as I/O, particularly when from the network). Another example may be when a project is built using a propriety language (such as Matlab; no, FOSS clones are not good enough) and was started at a time when FOSS alternatives were not viable, but ten years later, they are; and it would be beneficial to migrate. However, due to language inertia, a migration does not happen. Code that works should not be touched, porting code is a time-consuming, expensive process, and programmers are familiar in language X but not necessarily in language Y. Still, in the long term, a migration would likely be beneficial. Can anything be done to mitigate the problems associated with language inertia? Are there any notable examples of big projects that have successfully overcome this problem? Or is a project bound to stick forever with the initial choices?

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• c++ How to use angular velocity that derived from inertia and force(torque) in 3d

  - by user1217203

  I am relatively new to game development. May my terminology and description are not appropriate. Please excuse my poor phrasing and help me by giving advice on how to question better if this question seems less fitting. I really appreciate your efforts. Hi. I am having hard time interpreting the set of values I have. I have inertia and force(torque) in terms of x y z. FYI I used x and y coordinates as my ground, flat coordinates and z as my up/down. I am assuming that since f = ma, that angular acceleration must be a = f / m. So I divide my torque by inertia. Then I add those x y z values to my angular velocity variable's x y z. However these x y z values confuse me. Don't I need angle/sec or radian/sec sort of values in order to apply rotation? The x y z values I have seemed to not say anything about radians or angular movement. Question : If I have ( 1, 2, 3 ) or any ( x, y, z ) as my angular velocity, how do I actually apply it as angular movement? FYI Here I am pasting my code : float mass = 100; float devidedMass = 1.0/12 * mass; Vec3 innertia( devidedMass* (_box._size.z*_box._size.z + _box._size.x*_box._size.x), devidedMass* (_box._size.y*_box._size.y + _box._size.x*_box._size.x), devidedMass* (_box._size.y*_box._size.y + _box._size.z*_box._size.z )); box._angAccel += forceAng/innertia; box._angVelo += box._angAccel; box._angAccel.allZero(); source of my inertia calculation http://www.health.uottawa.ca/biomech/courses/apa4311/solids.pdf

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• Keep getting smbd errors, but apport asks questions I can't answer

  - by Steve Kroon

  What I want to know below is where to bug report the poor series of questions I'm being asked... Every time I reboot (at least), I get a crash dialog ("Sorry, Ubuntu 12.04 has experienced an internal error"). Clicking on show details shows the problem is with smbd, but the rest of the trace does not appear. When I wish to continue to send a bug report, I am told I will be asked a series of questions in a window titled "Apport". The first question asks: How would you best describe your setup? -I am running a Windows File Server -I am connecting to a Windows File Server. Since I am doing both, I have no idea which to choose. In any case, selecting one leads to the next question: Did this used to work properly with a previous release? -No -Yes But I never tried to use Samba in a previous release, so I can't seriously answer this. After picking an option here, I get more questions in a similar vein. Surely there should be "I don't know/I haven't tried" options, even if they simply mean you can't submit a useful bug report.

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• Do you leverage the benefits of the open-closed principle?

  - by Kaleb Pederson

  The open-closed principle (OCP) states that an object should be open for extension but closed for modification. I believe I understand it and use it in conjunction with SRP to create classes that do only one thing. And, I try to create many small methods that make it possible to extract out all the behavior controls into methods that may be extended or overridden in some subclass. Thus, I end up with classes that have many extension points, be it through: dependency injection and composition, events, delegation, etc. Consider the following a simple, extendable class: class PaycheckCalculator { // ... protected decimal GetOvertimeFactor() { return 2.0M; } } Now say, for example, that the OvertimeFactor changes to 1.5. Since the above class was designed to be extended, I can easily subclass and return a different OvertimeFactor. But... despite the class being designed for extension and adhering to OCP, I'll modify the single method in question, rather than subclassing and overridding the method in question and then re-wiring my objects in my IoC container. As a result I've violated part of what OCP attempts to accomplish. It feels like I'm just being lazy because the above is a bit easier. Am I misunderstanding OCP? Should I really be doing something different? Do you leverage the benefits of OCP differently? Update: based on the answers it looks like this contrived example is a poor one for a number of different reasons. The main intent of the example was to demonstrate that the class was designed to be extended by providing methods that when overridden would alter the behavior of public methods without the need for changing internal or private code. Still, I definitely misunderstood OCP.

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• When does implementing MVVM not make sense

  - by Kelly Sommers

  I am a big fan of various patterns and enjoy learning new ones all the time however I think with all the evangelism around popular patterns and anti-patterns sometimes this causes blind adoption. I think most things have individual pros and cons and it's important to educate what the cons are and when it doesn't make sense to make a particular choice. The pros are constantly advocated. "It depends" I think applies most times but the industry does a poor job at communicating what it depends ON. Also many patterns surfaced from inheriting values from previous patterns or have derivatives, which each one brings another set of pros and cons to the table. The sooner we are more aware of the trade off's of decisions we make in software architecture the sooner we make better decisions. This is my first challenge to the community. Even if you are a big fan of said pattern, I challenge you to discover the cons and when you shouldn't use it. Define when MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) may not make sense in a particular piece of software and based on what reasons. MVVM has a set of pros and cons. Let's try to define them. GO! :)

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• Tips about how to spread Object Oriented practices

  - by Augusto

  I work for a medium company that has around 250 developers. Unfortunately, lots of them are stuck in a procedural way of thinking and some teams constantly deliver big Transactional Script applications, when in fact the application contains rich logic. They also fail to manage the design dependencies, and end up with services which depend on another large number of services (a clean example of Big Ball of Mud). My question is: Can you suggest how to spread this type of knowledge? I know that the surface of the problem is that these applications have a poor architecture and design. Another issue is that there are some developers who are against writing any kind of test. A few things I'm doing to change this (but I'm either failing or the change is too small are) Running presentations about design principles (SOLID, clean code, etc). Workshops about TDD and BDD. Coaching teams (this includes using sonar, findbugs, jdepend and other tools). IDE & Refactoring talks. A few things I'm thinking to do in the future (but I'm concern that they might not be good) Form a team of OO evangelists, who disseminate an OO way of thinking in differet teams (these people would need to change teams every few months). Running design review sessions, to criticise the design and suggest improvements (even if the improvements are not done because of time constraints, I think this might be useful) . Something I found with the teams I coach, is that as soon as I leave them, they revert back to the old practices. I know I don't spend a lot of time with them, usually just one month. So whatever I'm doing, it doesn't stick. I'm sorry this question is spattered with frustration, but the alterative to write this was to hit my head on the wall until I pass out.

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• Ninject/DI: How to correctly pass initialisation data to injected type at runtime

  - by MrLane

  I have the following two classes: public class StoreService : IStoreService { private IEmailService _emailService; public StoreService(IEmailService emailService) { _emailService = emailService; } } public class EmailService : IEmailService { } Using Ninject I can set up bindings no problem to get it to inject a concrete implementation of IEmailService into the StoreService constructor. StoreService is actually injected into the code behind of an ASP.NET WebForm as so: [Ninject.Inject] public IStoreService StoreService { get; set; } But now I need to change EmailService to accept an object that contains SMTP related settings (that are pulled from the ApplicationSettings of the Web.config). So I changed EmailService to now look like this: public class EmailService : IEmailService { private SMTPSettings _smtpSettings; public void SetSMTPSettings(SMTPSettings smtpSettings) { _smtpSettings = smtpSettings; } } Setting SMTPSettings in this way also requires it to be passed into StoreService (via another public method). This has to be done in the Page_Load method in the WebForms code behind (I only have access to the Settings class in the UI layer). With manual/poor mans DI I could pass SMTPSettings directly into the constructor of EmailService and then inject EmailService into the StoreService constructor. With Ninject I don't have access to the instances of injected types outside of the objects they are injected to, so I have to set their data AFTER Ninject has already injected them via a separate public setter method. This to me seems wrong. How should I really be solving this scenario?

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• How to adopt scrum agile methodology for a small .Net team

  - by Thabo

  I am working on a small product based company developing .Net applications. There is a small team with 5-6 developers. I am a person responsible for planning everything. But my primary role is Software developer. Now our current project is very unstable because of poor organization. Today my boss called me and told to submit a report about required resources, appropriate methodology, required man power and their salary scales to make the current project success. I know I don’t have enough organization skills and I need to go deep in my programming skills. So I need to focus only in the development. So I can’t manage the project anymore. Now I am searching some other ways to make ongoing development success. My questions are What is the suitable agile methodology to my team? Is Scrum is suitable for above mentioned scenario? If we adopt Scrum, what we have to do next? (I think hiring new one to manage the project is more suitable. So we have to get Scrum master and some other developers.) Are there any resources (books, Blogs and etc) to get some tips and advices to solve this problem? If Scrum is not a suitable methodology for our scenario, what else can be more suitable methodology to adopt? Can anyone give a good solution for my problem?

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• LiveMeeting VC PowerShell PASS – Troubleshooting SQL Server with PowerShell

  - by Laerte Junior

  Guys, join me on Wednesday July 18th 12 noon EDT (GMT -4) for a presentation called Troubleshooting SQL Server With PowerShell. It will be in English, so please make allowances for this. I’m sure that you’re aware that my English is not perfect, but it is not so bad. I will do my best, you can be sure. The registration link will be available soon from PowerShell.sqlpass.org, so I hope to see you there. It will be a session without slides. Just code; pure PowerShell code. Trust me, We will see a lot of COOL stuff.Big thanks to Aaron Nelson (@sqlvariant) for the opportunity! Here are some more details about the presentation: “Troubleshooting SQL Server with PowerShell – The Next Level’ It is normal for us to have to face poorly performing queries or even complete failure in our SQL server environments. This can happen for a variety of reasons including poor Database Designs, hardware failure, improperly-configured systems and OS Updates applied without testing. As Database Administrators, we need to take precaution to minimize the impact of these problems when they occur, and so we need the tools and methodology required to identify and solve issues quickly. In this Session we will use PowerShell to explore some common troubleshooting techniques used in our day-to-day work as s DBA. This will include a variety of such activities including Gathering Performance Counters in several servers at the same time using background jobs, identifying Blocked Sessions and Reading & filtering the SQL Error Log even if the Instance is offline The approach will be using some advanced PowerShell techniques that allow us to scale the code for multiple servers and run the data collection in asynchronous mode.

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• How can i make Brightness Control work?

  - by Semen

  I have Xubuntu 12.04 with latest updates on Toshiba Satellite A210-15K laptop semen@bloknot:~$ uname -a Linux bloknot 3.2.0-24-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 25 08:43:22 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux ...and I can't adjust LCD brightness (. I tried to use fnfx tool: semen@bloknot:~$ fnfx-client FnFX Client v0.3 (c) 2003, 2004 Timo Hoenig <[email protected]> fatal error: Could not open "/home/semen/.fnfxrc". Please make sure that the default config is accessible. ...and xbacklight: semen@bloknot:~$ xbacklight No outputs have backlight property ...and I tried to add acpi_osi=Linux and acpi_backlight=vendor parameters in GRUB config, but nothing happens. I soppose .fnfxrc file must be available after installation or first fnfx demon lauch. Isn't it? semen@bloknot:~$ cat /sys/class/backlight/toshiba/brightness -5 semen@bloknot:~$ cat /sys/class/backlight/toshiba/max_brightness 7 semen@bloknot:~$ echo 6 | sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/toshiba/brightness [sudo] password for semen: 6 ... ...but brightness is the same. Help, please. P.S. Execuse me for my poor English. UPD. I have spent 2 days to solve this boring problem, but I can't. So. If I wish linux work correctly, I have to choose another distro.

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• Launcher icons are invisible after upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04

  - by Clo Knibbe

  I am re-purposing an old laptop. I installed 11.10 on it and then immediately upgraded to 12.04. (I could not directly install 12.04 as my system does not support PAE.) When my system was (briefly) 11.10, the desktop appeared as expected. However, after the upgrade to 12.04, the icons in the launcher area are invisible. If I hover over the spot where the icon should be the little popup window showing the tool's name appears, and I can click to invoke the tool. I just cannot see the icons. ![invisible icons in launcher][1] The icons do appear as expected in other contexts, for example in the Home folder and in Dash Home. My theme is "Ambiance (default)" I do not have a ~/.icons folder. This is the top level contents of /usr/share/icons: default DMZ-Black DMZ-White gnome handhelds hicolor HighContrast HighContrastInverse Humanity Humanity-Dark locolor LoginIcons LowContrast redglass ubuntu-mono-dark ubuntu-mono-light unity-icon-theme whiteglass (Sorry for the poor formatting, can't get it to show in list.) I suspect that the launcher isn't looking for the icons in the right place, but I don't know how to confirm that, or how to correct. This is my first foray into Linux, although I used to use Unix a few decades ago. This doesn't look much like my old Sun workstation, though! Does anyone have any suggestions or insights for me? Thanks.

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• Naming a class that processes orders

  - by p.campbell

  I'm in the midst of refactoring a project. I've recently read Clean Code, and want to heed some of the advice within, with particular interest in Single Responsibility Principle (SRP). Currently, there's a class called OrderProcessor in the context of a manufacturing product order system. This class is currently performs the following routine every n minutes: check database for newly submitted + unprocessed orders (via a Data Layer class already, phew!) gather all the details of the orders mark them as in-process iterate through each to: perform some integrity checking call a web service on a 3rd party system to place the order check status return value of the web service for success/fail email somebody if web service returns fail constantly log to a text file on each operation or possible fail point I've started by breaking out this class into new classes like: OrderService - poor name. This is the one that wakes up every n minutes OrderGatherer - calls the DL to get the order from the database OrderIterator (? seems too forced or poorly named) - OrderPlacer - calls web service to place the order EmailSender Logger I'm struggling to find good names for each class, and implementing SRP in a reasonable way. How could this class be separated into new class with discrete responsibilities?

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• Can I improve my AdWords quality scores with better landing pages?

  - by Eric

  I noticed that I have some keywords in my AdWords that are totally applicable to my site but the quality score of the keyword is 4 or 5. I'd like to get it up higher by creating custom versions of my site's home page (landing page) targeted specifically for people searching on those keywords. So for example, if we pretend my site sells pet food, my current home page has the phrase "dog food." I have a specific AdWords campaign for people searching on cat food (with cat food-specific ads). I'm thinking about changing the URL on those ads to something like http://mysite.com/cat.html, so a different home page comes up with the phrase "cat food." My thinking is that will help Google see that this new landing page is appropriate for the keywords and will raise my quality score for the "cat food" keywords. (Note that none of what I'm doing is shady or misleading; nobody would disagree that all of the keywords and ads I've created are perfect and appropriate for what my site offers.) Question: is what I describe the correct way to raise poor quality scores on keywords, and will it help?

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• How do I get away from PHP in the web industry?

  - by Kurtis

  I'm just looking for some tips on getting away from using PHP for web development. I'm self-employed but it seems like all of the work I find deals with PHP. I'm not complaining about the work -- just the poor choice of a language that is incredibly popular. I'd love to do my web development in Python, Perl, C#, or even a fun and fancy functional language. There's the old saying that you don't tell a carpenter what kind of a hammer to use. At the same time, you do tell them what kind of material to build your house out of and how much you're willing to spend. The problem I am running in to is that I don't know how to get out of this spiral. I can't just turn down work because then I wouldn't have any. I really don't want to go work for another company -- and even if I did, I'd probably still be stuck using something I don't enjoy. I'm hoping someone has "been there" before and might have some good ideas on how to get out of this situation. Thanks!

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• How to Reap Anticipated ROI in Large-Scale Capital Projects

  - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP

  Only a small fraction of companies in asset-intensive industries reliably achieve expected ROI for major capital projects 90 percent of the time, according to a new industry study. In addition, 12 percent of companies see expected ROIs in less than half of their capital projects. The problem: no matter how sophisticated and far-reaching the planning processes are, many organizations struggle to manage risks or reap the expected value from major capital investments. The data is part of the larger survey of companies in oil and gas, mining and metals, chemicals, and utilities industries. The results appear in Prepare for the Unexpected: Investment Planning in Asset-Intensive Industries, a comprehensive new report sponsored by Oracle and developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Analysts say the shortcomings in large-scale, long-duration capital-investments projects often stem from immature capital-planning processes. The poor decisions that result can lead to significant financial losses and disappointing project benefits, which are particularly harmful to organizations during economic downturns. The report highlights three other important findings. Teaming the right data and people doesn’t guarantee that ROI goals will be achieved. Despite involving cross-functional teams and looking at all the pertinent data, executives are still failing to identify risks and deliver bottom-line results on capital projects. Effective processes are the missing link. Project-planning processes are weakest when it comes to risk management and predicting costs and ROI. Organizations participating in the study said they fail to achieve expected ROI because they regularly experience unexpected events that derail schedules and inflate budgets. But executives believe that using more-robust risk management and project planning strategies will help avoid delays, improve ROI, and more accurately predict the long-term cost of initiatives. Planning for unexpected events is a key to success. External factors, such as changing market conditions and evolving government policies are difficult to forecast precisely, so organizations need to build flexibility into project plans to make it easier to adapt to the changes. The report outlines a series of steps executives can take to address these shortcomings and improve their capital-planning processes. Read the full report or take the benchmarking survey and find out how your organization compares.

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• How to suggest changes as a recently-hired employee ?

  - by ereOn

  Hi, I was recently hired in a big company (thousands of people, to give an idea of the size). They said they hired me because of my rigor and because I was, despite my youngness (i'm 25), experienced as a C/C++ programer. Now that I'm in, I can see that the whole system is old and often uses obsolete technologies. There is no naming convention (files, functions, variables, ...), they don't use Version Control, don't use exceptions or polymorphism and it seems like almost everybody lost his passion (some of them are only 30 years old). I'd like to suggest somes changes but i don't want to be "the new guy that wants to change everything just because he doesn't want to fit in". I tried to "fit in", but actually, It takes me one week to do what I would do in one afternoon, just because of the poor tools we're forced to use. A lot my collegues never look at the new "things" and techniques that people use nowadays. It's like they just given up. The situation is really frustrating. Have you ever been in a similar situation and, if so, what advices would you give me ? Is there a subtle way of changing things without becoming the black sheep here ? Or should I just give up my passion and energy as well ? Thank you. Updates Just in case (if anyone cares): following your precious advices I was able to suggest changes and am now in charge of the team that must create and deploy Subversion :D Thanks to all of you !

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• Creating a SQL Azure Database Should be Easier

  - by Ken Cox [MVP]

  Every time I try to create a database + tables + data for Windows Azure SQL I get errors.  One of them is 'Filegroup reference and partitioning scheme' is not supported in this version of SQL Server.' It’s partly due to my poor memory (since I’ve succeeded before) and partly due to the failure of tools that should be helping me. For example, when I want to create a script from an existing database on my local workstation, I use SQL Server Management Studio (currently v 11.0.2100.60).  I go to Tasks > Generate Scripts which brings up the nice Generate and Publish Scripts wizard. When I go into the Advanced button, under Script for Server Version, why don’t I see SQL Azure as an option by now? The tool should be sorting this out for me, right? Maybe this is available in SQL Server Data Tools? I haven’t got into that yet. Just merge the functionality with SSMS, please. Anyway, I pick an older version of SQL for the target and still need to tweak it for Azure. For example, I take out all the “[dbo].” stuff. Why is it put there by the wizard? I also have to get rid of "ON [PRIMARY]"  to deal with the error I noted at the top. Yes, there’s information on what a table needs to look like in SQL Azure but the tools should know this so I don’t have to mess with it.

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• When is it ever ok to write your own development tools? (editor into IDE)

  - by mario

  So I'm foremost using a text editor for coding. It's a very bare bones editor; provides mostly just syntax highlighting. But on rare occasions I also need to debug something. And that's when I have to resort to an IDE (mostly Netbeans, but got fiddly Eclipse/Aptana working as second fallback). For general use however IDEs feel not workable to me. It's a visual thing, being used to console UIs etc. And switching back and forth between a text editor and an IDE is slightly cumbersome too. That's why I'm considering extending the editor, not really into a full-fledged IDE - but at the very least integrate a debug feature. Since I'm working on PHP, it seems not that much effort. The DBGp allows to externalize a debug handler from the editor, so it's just minor integration work and figuring out how to shoehorn a breakpoint feature into the editor (joe btw). And while I've also got time to do that, I'm wondering if this is really worthwhile. In this case it's not a needed development tool. It's just for convenience. And the cause for doing it is basically just not liking the existing solution. While over time I might extend and adapt this debugger thing, it initially will be as circumstantial as Eclipse. It inevitably starts out as poor development tool. Furthermore there is likely not much reuse. (Okay, this is not an important point. Most such software exists sans much of a use case. And also obviously, similar extensions already exist for emacs and vim, so it cannot be completely pointless.) But what's a general guideline on attempting to conoct custom development tools, particularily if they are not really needed but satisfy personal preferences? (Usability enhancement not certain.)

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