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• Windows 8 Will be Here Tomorrow; but Should Silverlight be Gone Today?

  - by andrewbrust

  The software industry lives within an interesting paradox. IT in the enterprise moves slowly and cautiously, upgrading only when safe and necessary.  IT interests intentionally live in the past.  On the other hand, developers, and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) not only want to use the latest and greatest technologies, but this constituency prides itself on gauging tech’s future, and basing its present-day strategy upon it.  Normally, we as an industry manage this paradox with a shrug of the shoulder and musings along the lines of “it takes all kinds.”  Different subcultures have different tendencies.  So be it. Microsoft, with its Windows operating system (OS), can’t take such a laissez-faire view of the world though.  Redmond relies on IT to deploy Windows and (at the very least) influence its procurement, but it also relies on developers to build software for Windows, especially software that has a dependency on features in new versions of the OS.  It must indulge and nourish developers’ fetish for an early birthing of the next generation of software, even as it acknowledges the IT reality that the next wave will arrive on-schedule in Redmond and will travel very slowly to end users. With the move to Windows 8, and the corresponding shift in application development models, this paradox is certainly in place. On the one hand, the next version of Windows is widely expected sometime in 2012, and its full-scale deployment will likely push into 2014 or even later.  Meanwhile, there’s a technology that runs on today’s Windows 7, will continue to run in the desktop mode of Windows 8 (the next version’s codename), and provides absolutely the best architectural bridge to the Windows 8 Metro-style application development stack.  That technology is Silverlight.  And given what we now know about Windows 8, one might think, as I do, that Microsoft ecosystem developers should be flocking to it. But because developers are trying to get a jump on the future, and since many of them believe the impending v5.0 release of Silverlight will be the technology’s last, not everyone is flocking to it; in fact some are fleeing from it.  Is this sensible?  Is it not unprecedented?  What options does it lead to?  What’s the right way to think about the situation? Is v5.0 really the last major version of the technology called Silverlight?  We don’t know.  But Scott Guthrie, the “father” and champion of the technology, left the Developer Division of Microsoft months ago to work on the Windows Azure team, and he took his people with him.  John Papa, who was a very influential Redmond-based evangelist for Silverlight (and is a Visual Studio Magazine author), left Microsoft completely.  About a year ago, when initial suspicion of Silverlight’s demise reached significant magnitude, Papa interviewed Guthrie on video and their discussion served to dispel developers’ fears; but now they’ve moved on. So read into that what you will and let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, speculation that Silverlight’s days of major revision and iteration are over now is correct.  Let’s assume the shine and glimmer has dimmed.  Let’s assume that any Silverlight application written today, and that therefore any investment of financial and human resources made in Silverlight development today, is destined for rework and extra investment in a few years, if the application’s platform needs to stay current. Is this really so different from any technology investment we make?  Every framework, language, runtime and operating system is subject to change, to improvement, to flux and, yes, to obsolescence.  What differs from project to project, is how near-term that obsolescence is and how disruptive the change will be.  The shift from .NET 1.1. to 2.0 was incremental.  Some of the further changes were too.  But the switch from Windows Forms to WPF was major, and the change from ASP.NET Web Services (asmx) to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) was downright fundamental. Meanwhile, the transition to the .NET development model for Windows 8 Metro-style applications is actually quite gentle.  The finer points of this subject are covered nicely in Magenic’s excellent white paper “Assessing the Windows 8 Development Platform.” As the authors of that paper (including Rocky Lhotka)  point out, Silverlight code won’t just “port” to Windows 8.  And, no, Silverlight user interfaces won’t either; Metro always supports XAML, but that relationship is not commutative.  But the concepts, the syntax, the architecture and developers’ skills map from Silverlight to Windows 8 Metro and the Windows Runtime (WinRT) very nicely.  That’s not a coincidence.  It’s not an accident.  This is a protected transition.  It’s not a slap in the face. There are few things that are unnerving about this transition, which make it seem markedly different from others: The assumed end of the road for Silverlight is something many think they can see.  Instead of being ignorant of the technology’s expiration date, we believe we know it.  If ignorance is bliss, it would seem our situation lacks it. The new technology involving WinRT and Metro involves a name change from Silverlight. .NET, which underlies both Silverlight and the XAML approach to WinRT development, has just about reached 10 years of age.  That’s equivalent to 80 in human years, or so many fear. My take is that the combination of these three factors has contributed to what for many is a psychologically compelling case that Silverlight should be abandoned today and HTML 5 (the agnostic kind, not the Windows RT variety) should be embraced in its stead.  I understand the logic behind that.  I appreciate the preemptive, proactive, vigilant conscientiousness involved in its calculus.  But for a great many scenarios, I don’t agree with it.  HTML 5 clients, no matter how impressive their interactivity and the emulation of native application interfaces they present may be, are still second-class clients.  They are getting better, especially when hardware acceleration and fast processors are involved.  But they still lag.  They still feel like they’re emulating something, like they’re prototypes, like they’re not comfortable in their own skins.  They are based on compromise, and they feel compromised too. HTML 5/JavaScript development tools are getting better, and will get better still, but they are not as productive as tools for other environments, like Flash, like Silverlight or even more primitive tooling for iOS or Android.  HTML’s roots as a document markup language, rather than an application interface, create a disconnect that impedes productivity.  I do not necessarily think that problem is insurmountable, but it’s here today. If you’re building line-of-business applications, you need a first-class client and you need productivity.  Lack of productivity increases your costs and worsens your backlog.  A second class client will erode user satisfaction, which is never good.  Worse yet, this erosion will be inconspicuous, rather than easily identified and diagnosed, because the inferiority of an HTML 5 client over a native one is hard to identify and, notably, doing so at this juncture in the industry is unpopular.  Why would you fault a technology that everyone believes is revolutionary?  Instead, user disenchantment will remain latent and yet will add to the malaise caused by slower development. If you’re an ISV and you’re coveting the reach of running multi-platform, it’s a different story.  You’ve likely wanted to move to HTML 5 already, and the uncertainty around Silverlight may be the only remaining momentum or pretext you need to make the shift.  You’re deploying many more copies of your application than a line-of-business developer is anyway; this makes the economic hit from lower productivity less impactful, and the wider potential installed base might even make it profitable. But no matter who you are, it’s important to take stock of the situation and do it accurately.  Continued, but merely incremental changes in a development model lead to conservatism and general lack of innovation in the underlying platform.  Periods of stability and equilibrium are necessary, but permanence in that equilibrium leads to loss of platform relevance, market share and utility.  Arguably, that’s already happened to Windows.  The change Windows 8 brings is necessary and overdue.  The marked changes in using .NET if we’re to build applications for the new OS are inevitable.  We will ultimately benefit from the change, and what we can reasonably hope for in the interim is a migration path for our code and skills that is navigable, logical and conceptually comfortable. That path takes us to a place called WinRT, rather than a place called Silverlight.  But considering everything that is changing for the good, the number of disruptive changes is impressively minimal.  The name may be changing, and there may even be some significance to that in terms of Microsoft’s internal management of products and technologies.  But as the consumer, you should care about the ingredients, not the name.  Turkish coffee and Greek coffee are much the same. Although you’ll find plenty of interested parties who will find the names significant, drinkers of the beverage should enjoy either one.  It’s all coffee, it’s all sweet, and you can tell your fortune from the grounds that are left at the end.  Back on the software side, it’s all XAML, and C# or VB .NET, and you can make your fortune from the product that comes out at the end.  Coffee drinkers wouldn’t switch to tea.  Why should XAML developers switch to HTML?

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• My View on ASP.NET Web Forms versus MVC

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Introduction A lot has been said on Web Forms and MVC, but since I was recently asked about my opinion on the subject, here it is. First, I have to say that I really like both technologies and I don’t think any is going away – just remember SharePoint, which is built on top of Web Forms. I see them as complementary, targeting different needs and leveraging different skills. Let’s go through some of their differences. Rapid Application Development Rapid Application Development (RAD) is the development process by which you have an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), a visual design surface and a toolbox, and you drag components from the toolbox to the design surface and set their properties through a property inspector. It was introduced with some of the earliest Windows graphical IDEs such as Visual Basic and Delphi. With Web Forms you have RAD out of the box. Visual Studio offers a generally good (and extensible) designer for the layout of pages and web user controls. Designing a page may simply be about dragging controls from the toolbox, setting their properties and wiring up some events to event handlers, which are implemented in code behind .NET classes. Most people will be familiar with this kind of development and enjoy it. You can see what you are doing from the beginning. MVC also has designable pages – called views in MVC terminology – the problem is that they can be built using different technologies, some of which, at the moment (MVC 4) do not support RAD – Razor, for example. I believe it is just a matter of time for that to be implemented in Visual Studio, but it will mostly consist on HTML editing, and until that day comes, you have to live with source editing. Development Model Web Forms features the same development model that you are used to from Windows Forms and other similar technologies: events fired by controls and automatic persistence of their properties between postbacks. For that, it uses concepts such as view state, which some may love and others may hate, because it may be misused quite easily, but otherwise does its job well. Another fundamental concept is data binding, by which a collection of data can be fed to a control and have it render that data somehow – just thing of the GridView control. The focus is on the page, that’s where it all starts, and you can place everything in the same code behind class: data access, business logic, layout, etc. The controls take care of generating a great part of the HTML and JavaScript for you. With MVC there is no free lunch when it comes to data persistence between requests, you have to implement it yourself. As for event handling, that is at the core of MVC, in the form of controllers and action methods, you just don’t think of them as event handlers. In MVC you need to think more in HTTP terms, so action methods such as POST and GET are relevant to you, and may write actions to handle one or the other. Also of crucial importance is model binding: the way by which MVC converts your posted data into a .NET class. This is something that ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms has introduced as well, but it is a cornerstone in MVC. MVC also has built-in validation of these .NET classes, which out of the box uses the Data Annotations API. You have full control of the generated HTML - except for that coming from the helper methods, usually small fragments - which requires a greater familiarity with the specifications. You normally rely much more on JavaScript APIs, they are even included in the Visual Studio template, that is because much less is done for you. Reuse It is difficult to accept a professional company/project that does not employ reuse. It can save a lot of time thus cutting costs significantly. Code reused in several projects matures as time goes by and helps developers learn from past experiences. ASP.NET Web Forms was built with reuse in mind, in the form of controls. Controls encapsulate functionality and are generally portable from project to project (with the notable exception of web user controls, those with an associated .ASCX markup file). ASP.NET has dozens of controls and it is very easy to develop new ones, so I believe this is a great advantage. A control can inject JavaScript code and external references as well as generate HTML an CSS. MVC on the other hand does not use controls – it is possible to use them, with some view engines like ASPX, but it is just not advisable because it breaks the flow – where do Init, Load, PreRender, etc, fit? The most similar to controls is extension methods, or helpers. They serve the same purpose – generating HTML, CSS or JavaScript – and can be reused between different projects. What differentiates them from controls is that there is no inheritance and no context – an extension method is just a static method which doesn’t know where it is being called. You also have partial views, which you can reuse in the same project, but there is no inheritance as well. This, in my view, is a weakness of MVC. Architecture Both technologies are highly extensible. I have writtenstarted writing a series of posts on ASP.NET Web Forms extensibility and will probably write another series on MVC extensibility as well. A number of scenarios are covered in any of these models, and some extensibility points apply to both, because, of course both stand upon ASP.NET. With Web Forms, if you’re like me, you start by defining you master pages, pages and controls, with some helper classes to glue everything. You may as well throw in some JavaScript, but probably you’re main work will be with plain old .NET code. The controls you define have the chance to inject JavaScript code and references, through either the ScriptManager or the page’s ClientScript object, as well as generating HTML and CSS code. The master page and page model with code behind classes offer a number of “hooks” by which you can change the normal way of things, for example, in a page you can access any control on the master page, add script or stylesheet references to its head and even change the page’s title. Also, with Web Forms, you typically have URLs in the form “/SomePath/SomePage.aspx?SomeParameter=SomeValue”, which isn’t really SEO friendly, no to mention the HTML that some controls produce, far from standards, optimization and best practices. In MVC, you also normally start by defining the master page (or layout) and views, which are the visible parts, and then define controllers on separate files. These controllers do not know anything about the views, except the names and types of the parameters that will be passed to and from them. The controller will be responsible for the data access and business logic, eventually relying on additional classes for this purpose. On a controller you only receive parameters and return a result, which may be a request for the rendering of a view, a redirection to another URL or a JSON object, to name just a few. The controller class does not know anything about the web, so you can effectively reuse it in a non-web project. This separation and the lack of programmatic access to the UI elements, makes it very difficult to implement, for example, something like SharePoint with MVC. OK, I know about Orchard, but it isn’t really a general purpose development framework, but instead, a CMS that happens to use MVC. Not having controls render HTML for you gives you in turn much more control over it – it is your responsibility to create it, which you can either consider a blessing or a curse, in the later case, you probably shouldn’t be using MVC at all. Also MVC URLs tend to be much more SEO-oriented, if you design your controllers and actions properly. Testing In a well defined architecture, you should separate business logic, data access logic and presentation logic, because these are all different things and it might even be the need to switch one implementation for another: for example, you might design a system which includes a data access layer, a business logic layer and two presentation layers, one on top of ASP.NET and the other with WPF; and the data access layer might be implemented first using NHibernate and later on switched for Entity Framework Code First. These changes are not that rare, so care should be taken in designing the system to make them possible. Web Forms are difficult to test, because it relies on event handlers which are only fired in web contexts, when a form is submitted or a page is requested. You can call them with reflection, but you have to set up a number of mocking objects first, HttpContext.Current first coming to my mind. MVC, on the other hand, makes testing controllers a breeze, so much that it even includes a template option for generating boilerplate unit test classes up from start. A well designed – from the unit test point of view - controller will receive everything it needs to work as parameters to its action methods, so you can pass whatever values you need very easily. That doesn’t mean, of course, that everything can be tested: views, for instance, are difficult to test without actually accessing the site, but MVC offers the possibility to compile views at build time, so that, at least, you know you don’t have syntax errors beforehand. Myths Some popular but unfounded myths around MVC include: You cannot use controls in MVC: not true, actually, you can, at least with the Web Forms (ASPX) view engine; the declaration and usage is exactly the same as with Web Forms; You cannot specify a base class for a view: with the ASPX view engine you can use the Inherits Page directive, with this and all the others you can use the pageBaseType and userControlBaseType attributes of the <page> element; MVC shields you from doing “bad things” on your views: well, you can place any code on a code block, at least with the ASPX view engine (you may be starting to see a pattern here), even data access code; The model is the entity model, tied to an O/RM: the model is actually any class that you use to pass values to a view, including (but generally not recommended) an entity model; Unit tests come with no cost: unit tests generally don’t cover the UI, although there are frameworks just for that (see WatiN, for example); also, for some tests, you will have to mock or replace either the HttpContext.Current property or the HttpContextBase class yourself; Everything is testable: views aren’t, without accessing the site; MVC relies on HTML5/some_cool_new_javascript_framework: there is no relation whatsoever, MVC renders whatever you want it to render and does not require any framework to be present. The thing is, the subsequent releases of MVC happened in a time when Microsoft has become much more involved in standards, so the files and technologies included in the Visual Studio templates reflect this, and it just happens to work well with jQuery, for example. Conclusion Well, this is how I see it. Some folks may think that I am being too rude on MVC, probably because I don’t like it, but that’s not true: like I said, I do like MVC and I am starting my new projects with it. I just don’t want to go along with that those that say that MVC is much superior to Web Forms, in fact, some things you can do much more easily with Web Forms than with MVC. I will be more than happy to hear what you think on this!

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• Android Design - Service vs Thread for Networking

  - by Nevyn

  I am writing an Android app, finally (yay me) and for this app I need persistant, but user closeable, network sockets (yes, more than one). I decided to try my hand at writing my own version of an IRC Client. My design issue however, is I'm not sure how to run the Socket connectivity itself. If I put the sockets at the Activity level, they keeps getting closed shortly after the Activity becomes non-visible (also a problem that needs solving...but I think i figured that one out)...but if I run a "connectivity service", I need to find out if I can have multiple instances of it running (the service, that is...one per server/socket). Either that or a I need a way to Thread the sockets themselves and have multiple threads running that I can still communicate with directly (ID system of some sort). Thus the question: Is it a 'better', or at least more "proper" design pattern, to put the Socket and networking in a service, and have the Activities consume said service...or should I tie the sockets directly to some Threaded Process owned by the UI Activity and not bother with the service implementation at all? I do know better than to put the networking directly on the UI thread, but that's as far as I've managed to get.

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• Oracle SQL Developer: Single Object Compare

  - by thatjeffsmith

  There’s a nasty rumor going around that you can’t compare database objects and/or code in Oracle SQL Developer. So let’s put that to bed right now. First, here’s how to compare: PL/SQL to PL/SQL or a SQL statement to another SQL statement So now that that’s settled, why don’t we take a look at how to compare a single table, to another table – whether it’s in the same database or a different database. Database Diff There’s no additional licensing requirement here. If you have SQL Developer, you can use this feature. if you’re going to compare 1 table to another, make sure you ONLY have ‘tables’ checked And then, use this dialog to select your table(s): Move over the object(s) you want to compare over to the right hand side. And now we can move onto the results. The differences, side-by-side, and the script to make B look like A Common lines with differences are highlighted in blue, new lines are highlighted in red. So that’s why they are different, but here’s the script to synch up the differences: Read the script, TEST the script, apply the script. And that’s it. Well, that’s mostly it. If you have questions about how to compare a database object in a schema you don’t have the login information for, read this post next.

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• Data and Secularism

  - by kaleidoscope

  Ever since we’ve been using Data we’ve been religious. Religious about the way we represent it and equally religious about the way we access it. Be it plain old SQL, DAO, ADO, ADO.Net and I am just referring to religions in MSFT world. A peek outside and I’d need a separate book to list out the Data faiths. Various application areas in networked computing are converging under the HTTP umbrella with a plausible transition to purist HTTP and in turn REST fuelled by the Web2.0 storm. It was time the Data access faiths also gave up the religious silos wrapped around our long worshipped data publishing and access methods. OData is the secular solution we have at hand today. It is an open protocol for sharing data. It can be exposed via REST. It is Open as in the Microsoft Open Specification Promise. This allows virtually everyone to build Data Services for any runtime. OData is one of the key standards for Data publishing/subscribing on Microsoft Codename Dallas. For us .Netters OData data sources can be exposed/consumed via WCF Data Services and the process is very simple, elegant and intuitive. Applications exposing OData Services Sharepoint 2010 IBM Web Sphere Microsoft SQL Azure Windows Azure Table Storage SQL Server Reporting Services   Live OData Services Netflix Open Science Data Initiative Open Government Data Initiatives Northwind database exposed as OData Service and many others Some may prefer to call it commoditization of data, unification of data access strategies or any other sweet name. I for one will stick to my secular definition. :) Technorati Tags: Sarang,OData,MOSP

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• Go Big or Go Home

  - by Justin Kestelyn

  The Oracle Develop conference (#oracledevelop10), being co-located for the first time ever with JavaOne in San Francisco, is guaranteed to be the ultimate rush for developers this year. Where else can you go to learn about, interact with, and meet fellow devotees of the entire Oracle Development stack (welcome, Oracle Solaris)? This will also be the first time that the community space traditionally located at Oracle OpenWorld - and hosted by Oracle Technology Network, as always - will be present at the "developer" conference during this busy week. So, Oracle OpenWorld's loss is Oracle Develop's gain. And what a community space it will be: nearly 4,000 square feet for meeting space, contests and give-aways, consumption of various beverages, special speakers (Oracle ACEs among them, no doubt), and video-casting. The entire Oracle Technology Network crew will be on hand to "facilitate" your experience, of course. Even better, you can rub shoulders and share war stories with attendees from that "other" conference, JavaOne. (You have access to both conferences as a single package, so you may be having a conversation with yourself.) We call the whole enchilada "The Zone". As time goes on, we'll bring you more news about the activities described above, as well as OTN Night (which proves to be more raucous than ever), technical sessions and keynotes not to be missed, the unconference/open sessions, things to do at night, and more. In the meantime, stay in touch with us via Twitter or Oracle Mix.

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• MSCC: Purpose and benefits of Version Control Systems (VCS)

  You're working in IT and not using any kind of version control system? Sorry, then you're doing something wrong! RSVP for MSCC meetup of June This month's meetup will be an introduction into the mechanics of version control systems (VCS) like git, Mercurial, TFS, and others in general. VCS are not optional but compulsory in any area of IT. Whether you're developing source code for the next buzz app, writing SQL scripts for your database, or automating your administrative tasks with shell scripts it's better to have a "time machine" in order to keep multiple version, stay organised and leverage the power of differences. git - a modern approach to VCS - Nayar Nayar is going to give us a brief overview of the basic principles of working with git. Which are the necessary steps to get started and which are the usual commands in order to get the most out of git. Visual Studio Online (VSO) - Jochen Are you mainly rooted on the Windows platform and looking for a good alternative to Team Foundation Services (TFS), then VSO might give you hand at achieving this. Similar to git VSO is an open infrastructure but plays very well together with the Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. Recent and upcoming events in Mauritius Let's have a chat about recent events like WebCup 2014 or Emtel Knowledge Series and have a head start on upcoming events like Code Challenge, and others to come. Networking and general discussions Of course, there will be plenty of time to chat and exchange with other like-minded craftsmen. Bring your topics and discuss various issues with other professionals. Share your experience and use the ability to learn from others. Looking forward to meet soon.

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Predicate, Comparison, and Converter Generic Delegates

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. In the last three weeks, we examined the Action family of delegates (and delegates in general), the Func family of delegates, and the EventHandler family of delegates and how they can be used to support generic, reusable algorithms and classes. This week I will be completing my series on the generic delegates in the .NET Framework with a discussion of three more, somewhat less used, generic delegates: Predicate<T>, Comparison<T>, and Converter<TInput, TOutput>. These are older generic delegates that were introduced in .NET 2.0, mostly for use in the Array and List<T> classes.  Though older, it’s good to have an understanding of them and their intended purpose.  In addition, you can feel free to use them yourself, though obviously you can also use the equivalents from the Func family of delegates instead. Predicate<T> – delegate for determining matches The Predicate<T> delegate was a very early delegate developed in the .NET 2.0 Framework to determine if an item was a match for some condition in a List<T> or T[].  The methods that tend to use the Predicate<T> include: Find(), FindAll(), FindLast() Uses the Predicate<T> delegate to finds items, in a list/array of type T, that matches the given predicate. FindIndex(), FindLastIndex() Uses the Predicate<T> delegate to find the index of an item, of in a list/array of type T, that matches the given predicate. The signature of the Predicate<T> delegate (ignoring variance for the moment) is: 1: public delegate bool Predicate<T>(T obj); So, this is a delegate type that supports any method taking an item of type T and returning bool.  In addition, there is a semantic understanding that this predicate is supposed to be examining the item supplied to see if it matches a given criteria. 1: // finds first even number (2) 2: var firstEven = Array.Find(numbers, n => (n % 2) == 0); 3:  4: // finds all odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) 5: var allEvens = Array.FindAll(numbers, n => (n % 2) == 1); 6:  7: // find index of first multiple of 5 (4) 8: var firstFiveMultiplePos = Array.FindIndex(numbers, n => (n % 5) == 0); This delegate has typically been succeeded in LINQ by the more general Func family, so that Predicate<T> and Func<T, bool> are logically identical.  Strictly speaking, though, they are different types, so a delegate reference of type Predicate<T> cannot be directly assigned to a delegate reference of type Func<T, bool>, though the same method can be assigned to both. 1: // SUCCESS: the same lambda can be assigned to either 2: Predicate<DateTime> isSameDayPred = dt => dt.Date == DateTime.Today; 3: Func<DateTime, bool> isSameDayFunc = dt => dt.Date == DateTime.Today; 4:  5: // ERROR: once they are assigned to a delegate type, they are strongly 6: // typed and cannot be directly assigned to other delegate types. 7: isSameDayPred = isSameDayFunc; When you assign a method to a delegate, all that is required is that the signature matches.  This is why the same method can be assigned to either delegate type since their signatures are the same.  However, once the method has been assigned to a delegate type, it is now a strongly-typed reference to that delegate type, and it cannot be assigned to a different delegate type (beyond the bounds of variance depending on Framework version, of course). Comparison<T> – delegate for determining order Just as the Predicate<T> generic delegate was birthed to give Array and List<T> the ability to perform type-safe matching, the Comparison<T> was birthed to give them the ability to perform type-safe ordering. The Comparison<T> is used in Array and List<T> for: Sort() A form of the Sort() method that takes a comparison delegate; this is an alternate way to custom sort a list/array from having to define custom IComparer<T> classes. The signature for the Comparison<T> delegate looks like (without variance): 1: public delegate int Comparison<T>(T lhs, T rhs); The goal of this delegate is to compare the left-hand-side to the right-hand-side and return a negative number if the lhs < rhs, zero if they are equal, and a positive number if the lhs > rhs.  Generally speaking, null is considered to be the smallest value of any reference type, so null should always be less than non-null, and two null values should be considered equal. In most sort/ordering methods, you must specify an IComparer<T> if you want to do custom sorting/ordering.  The Array and List<T> types, however, also allow for an alternative Comparison<T> delegate to be used instead, essentially, this lets you perform the custom sort without having to have the custom IComparer<T> class defined. It should be noted, however, that the LINQ OrderBy(), and ThenBy() family of methods do not support the Comparison<T> delegate (though one could easily add their own extension methods to create one, or create an IComparer() factory class that generates one from a Comparison<T>). So, given this delegate, we could use it to perform easy sorts on an Array or List<T> based on custom fields.  Say for example we have a data class called Employee with some basic employee information: 1: public sealed class Employee 2: { 3: public string Name { get; set; } 4: public int Id { get; set; } 5: public double Salary { get; set; } 6: } And say we had a List<Employee> that contained data, such as: 1: var employees = new List<Employee> 2: { 3: new Employee { Name = "John Smith", Id = 2, Salary = 37000.0 }, 4: new Employee { Name = "Jane Doe", Id = 1, Salary = 57000.0 }, 5: new Employee { Name = "John Doe", Id = 5, Salary = 60000.0 }, 6: new Employee { Name = "Jane Smith", Id = 3, Salary = 59000.0 } 7: }; Now, using the Comparison<T> delegate form of Sort() on the List<Employee>, we can sort our list many ways: 1: // sort based on employee ID 2: employees.Sort((lhs, rhs) => Comparer<int>.Default.Compare(lhs.Id, rhs.Id)); 3:  4: // sort based on employee name 5: employees.Sort((lhs, rhs) => string.Compare(lhs.Name, rhs.Name)); 6:  7: // sort based on salary, descending (note switched lhs/rhs order for descending) 8: employees.Sort((lhs, rhs) => Comparer<double>.Default.Compare(rhs.Salary, lhs.Salary)); So again, you could use this older delegate, which has a lot of logical meaning to it’s name, or use a generic delegate such as Func<T, T, int> to implement the same sort of behavior.  All this said, one of the reasons, in my opinion, that Comparison<T> isn’t used too often is that it tends to need complex lambdas, and the LINQ ability to order based on projections is much easier to use, though the Array and List<T> sorts tend to be more efficient if you want to perform in-place ordering. Converter<TInput, TOutput> – delegate to convert elements The Converter<TInput, TOutput> delegate is used by the Array and List<T> delegate to specify how to convert elements from an array/list of one type (TInput) to another type (TOutput).  It is used in an array/list for: ConvertAll() Converts all elements from a List<TInput> / TInput[] to a new List<TOutput> / TOutput[]. The delegate signature for Converter<TInput, TOutput> is very straightforward (ignoring variance): 1: public delegate TOutput Converter<TInput, TOutput>(TInput input); So, this delegate’s job is to taken an input item (of type TInput) and convert it to a return result (of type TOutput).  Again, this is logically equivalent to a newer Func delegate with a signature of Func<TInput, TOutput>.  In fact, the latter is how the LINQ conversion methods are defined. So, we could use the ConvertAll() syntax to convert a List<T> or T[] to different types, such as: 1: // get a list of just employee IDs 2: var empIds = employees.ConvertAll(emp => emp.Id); 3:  4: // get a list of all emp salaries, as int instead of double: 5: var empSalaries = employees.ConvertAll(emp => (int)emp.Salary); Note that the expressions above are logically equivalent to using LINQ’s Select() method, which gives you a lot more power: 1: // get a list of just employee IDs 2: var empIds = employees.Select(emp => emp.Id).ToList(); 3:  4: // get a list of all emp salaries, as int instead of double: 5: var empSalaries = employees.Select(emp => (int)emp.Salary).ToList(); The only difference with using LINQ is that many of the methods (including Select()) are deferred execution, which means that often times they will not perform the conversion for an item until it is requested.  This has both pros and cons in that you gain the benefit of not performing work until it is actually needed, but on the flip side if you want the results now, there is overhead in the behind-the-scenes work that support deferred execution (it’s supported by the yield return / yield break keywords in C# which define iterators that maintain current state information). In general, the new LINQ syntax is preferred, but the older Array and List<T> ConvertAll() methods are still around, as is the Converter<TInput, TOutput> delegate. Sidebar: Variance support update in .NET 4.0 Just like our descriptions of Func and Action, these three early generic delegates also support more variance in assignment as of .NET 4.0.  Their new signatures are: 1: // comparison is contravariant on type being compared 2: public delegate int Comparison<in T>(T lhs, T rhs); 3:  4: // converter is contravariant on input and covariant on output 5: public delegate TOutput Contravariant<in TInput, out TOutput>(TInput input); 6:  7: // predicate is contravariant on input 8: public delegate bool Predicate<in T>(T obj); Thus these delegates can now be assigned to delegates allowing for contravariance (going to a more derived type) or covariance (going to a less derived type) based on whether the parameters are input or output, respectively. Summary Today, we wrapped up our generic delegates discussion by looking at three lesser-used delegates: Predicate<T>, Comparison<T>, and Converter<TInput, TOutput>.  All three of these tend to be replaced by their more generic Func equivalents in LINQ, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t understand what they do or can’t use them for your own code, as they do contain semantic meanings in their names that sometimes get lost in the more generic Func name.   Tweet Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,delegates,generics,Predicate,Converter,Comparison

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• Java, the Cloud, and Oracle at QCon San Francisco 2011

  - by Bob Rhubart

  If you're part of the lucky bunch attending this week's sold-out QCon San Francisco conference at Westin San Francisco Market Street, I'd like to bring several sessions to your attention. On Wednesday Nov 16, Alex Buckley, specification lead for the Java Language and the Java Virtual Machine at Oracle, will present Java 7 and 8: Where We've Been, Where We're Going, part of the Why is Java still sexy? track. The session begins at 10:35 a.m. in the Olympic room. On Thursday Nov 17, Tyler Jewell, VP Product Management for Oracle's Platform as a Service, will participate in the Performance and Scalability Panel moderated by InfoQ founder and QCon SF Program Committee Member Floyd Marinescu. That panel, part of the Performance and Scalability Solutions track, begins at 10:35 a.m. in the Olympic room. Following that panel discussion, Tyler will fly solo with a presentation on Java EE 7: Developing for the Cloud, also part of the Performance and Scalability Solutions track. That session kicks off at 12:05 p.m., also in the Olympic room. On Friday Nov 18 Tyler will jump tracks, so to speak, when he presents The Architecture of Oracle's Public Cloud, part of the Architecture Case Studies: Cloud track. That session begins at 4:50 p.m. in the Stanford room. Of course, QCon also offers ample meet-and-greet opportunities. One such opportunity happens in the hospitality suite hosted by the Java Community Process Executive Committee. That shindig gets in gear at 5:50 pm on Thursday. Throughout the QCon San Francisco conference, members of the OTN team (including your's truly) and members of the Oracle Fusion Middleware team will be on hand at the OTN booth in the conference lobby. Stop by to say hello, score some swag, and catch a demo or two.

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• Xamarin Designer for Android Article

  - by Wallym

  The latest version of Mono for Android includes a long-awaited design surface. Learn how it works.It's interesting to look at the needs of various segments of developers. When I first start looking at an environment, the first thing I need to understand is the UI. I'm not magically born with some knowledge about the environment and don't learn well by just reading, so I need some help in getting started. I found this was true when I started Windows based development in the early 1990s, Dynamic Web in the late 1990s, ASP.NET in 2000, Silverlight/WPF, iPhone and Android. I find that getting up to speed with a UI is the single biggest deterrent for someone learning a platform. I find that as a beginner I need the features provided by a design surface. It's only as I grow and become comfortable with a platform that I find that building a UI by hand is more productive. Even as I get more advanced, I still can learn from a designer, so it has value as I grow into a platform.I hope that this article helps you as you dive into Android Development.

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• Partner Webcast - Extend Your Application Reach to Mobile Devices. The Fusion Way!

  - by Thanos

  Mobile access to enterprise applications is fast becoming a standard part of corporate life. Such applications increase organizational efficiency because mobile devices are more readily at hand than their desktop counterparts. However, the speed with which mobile platforms are evolving creates challenges as enterprises define their mobile strategies. Extending Oracle Enterprise and Fusion Applications to mobile devices comes natural with Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Mobile, which provides all the necessary tools, services, and infrastructure to protect against technology shifts. Oracle ADF Mobile, part of Oracle ADF - the strategic, standards based framework for Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware, is an HTML5 and Java mobile development framework that enables developers to build and extend enterprise applications for iOS and Android from a single code base. Based on a hybrid mobile architecture, ADF Mobile supports access to native device services, enables offline applications and protects enterprise investments from future technology shifts. Oracle ADF Mobile is part of Oracle ADF, the strategic, standards based framework for Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Join us to find out more about Oracle ADF Mobile and how to extend your applications to tablets & mobiles building the next generation mobile applications. Agenda: Enterprise Challenges & Mobile Computing Oracle ADF Mobile Features & Benefits Visual and Declarative Development Develop Once and Deploy Java Technology & Runtime Architecture Mobile Optimized User Experience Device Services Offline Support Authentication & Security Live Demonstration Q&A Delivery Format This FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web. Registrations received less than 24hours prior to start time may not receive confirmation to attend. Duration: 1 hour Register Now! For any questions please contact us at [email protected] Visit our ISV Migration Center blog Or Follow us @oracleimc to learn more on Oracle Technologies, upcoming partner webcasts and events. Existing content available YouTube - SlideShare - Oracle Mix.

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• Tab Sweep: FacesMessage enhancements, Look up thread pool resources, JQuery/JSF integration, Galleria, ...

  - by arungupta

  Recent Tips and News on Java, Java EE 6, GlassFish & more : • Fixing remote GlassFish server errors on NetBeans (Igor Cardoso) • FacesMessage Enhancements (PrimeFaces) • How to create and look up thread pool resource in GlassFish (javahowto) • Jersey 1.12 is released (Jakub Podlesak) • VisualVM problem connecting to monitor Glassfish (Raymond Reid) • JSF 2.0 JQuery-JSF Integration (John Yeary) • JDBC-ODBC Bridge Example (John Yeary) • The Java EE 6 Example - Gracefully dealing with Errors in Galleria - Part 6 (Markus Eisele) • Logout functionality in Java web applications (JavaOnly) • LDAP PASSWORD POLICIES AND JAVAEE (Ricky's Hodgepodge) • Java User Groups Promote Java Education (java.net Editor's Daily Blog) • JavaEE Revisits Design Patterns: Aspects (Interceptor) (Developer Chronicles) • Java EE 6 Hand-on Workshop @ IIUI (Shahzad Badar) • javaee6-crud-example (Arjan Tims) • Sample CRUD application with JSF and RichFaces (Mark van der Tol) • 5 useful methods JSF developers should know (Java Code Geeks) Here are some tweets from this week ... Almost 9000 Parleys views at the #JavaEE6 #Devoxx talk I did with @BertErtman. Not even made available for free yet! #JavaEE6 is hot :-) Sent three proposals for Øredev, about #JavaEE6, #OSGi and a case study about Leren-op-Maat (OSGi in the cloud) together with @m4rr5 [blog] The Java EE 6 #Example - Gracefully dealing with #Errors in #Galleria - Part 6 http://t.co/Drg1EQvf #javaee6 Tomorrow, there is a session about Java EE6 #javaee6 at islamia university #bahawalpur under #pakijug.about 150 students going to attend it.

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• Storage Forum at Oracle OpenWorld

  - by kgee

  For anyone attending Oracle OpenWorld and involved in Storage, join us at the Storage Forum & Reception. This special engagement offers you the ability to meet Oracle’s top storage executives, architects and fellow storage colleagues. Features include interactive sessions and round-table discussions on Oracle's storage strategy, product direction, and real-world customer implementations. It’s your chance to ask questions and learn first-hand about Oracle's response to top trends and what keeps storage managers up at night, including how to contain storage costs, improve performance, and ensure seamless integration with Oracle software environments. Featured Speakers: Mike Workman, SVP of Pillar Axiom Storage Group; Phil Bullinger, SVP of Sun ZFS Storage Group; and Jim Cates, VP of Tape Systems Storage Group Added Bonus: The Storage Forum will be followed by an exclusive Wine and Cocktail Reception where you can... Meet and network with peers, and other storage professionals Interact with Oracle’s experts in a fun and relaxed setting Wind down and prepare for the Oracle Customer Appreciation Event featuring Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon Date & Times:Wednesday, October 3, 20123:30 – 5:00 p.m. Forum 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. Reception Disclaimer: Space is limited, so register at http://bit.ly/PULcyR as soon as possible! If you want any more information, feel free to email [email protected]

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• $TERM set to "dumb" causes problems with suspend

  - by julkiewicz

  I've just upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10. So far I love it, everything seems just so much snappier. Now I just have one minor issue. When I try to suspend my laptop, it doesn't work - instead it fades out the screen, blocks it and then instantly wakes back. I've checked the logs in /var/log/pm-suspend.log and this fragment seems relevant: /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/000kernel-change suspend suspend: success. Running hook /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/00clear suspend suspend: TERM environment variable not set. /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/00clear suspend suspend: Returned exit code 1. Sat Nov 19 12:23:20 CET 2011: Inhibit found, will not perform suspend Sat Nov 19 12:23:20 CET 2011: Running hooks for resume The mentioned script at /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/00clear reads: #!/bin/bash clear When I open a terminal anywhere by hand, $TERM is set to either "linux" or "xterm". However somehow when the 00clear command is executed $TERM is set to "dumb". Two questions: What is the correct value for $TERM when running 00clear script? Where can I set it up? I've looked for solutions on the web, however I could only find information on how to configure $TERM in a regular terminal (and this one is set properly).

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• Get Ready to Meet Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 at OpenWorld

  - by Irem Radzik

    Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2 could not come at a better time. At Oracle OpenWorld 2012 we have a great set of sessions and demos for Oracle GoldenGate users: deep dives into the new features of Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2, as well as great customer presentations from Comcast, Bank of America, Turk Telekom, Ticketmaster, St. Jude Medical Center, and more. Here are 3 must-attend sessions for GoldenGate users and for those who want to get to know GoldenGate’s capabilities: Real-World Zero-Downtime Operations with Oracle GoldenGate: Customer Panel Oct 1st 1:45 PM Moscone West – 3005 Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2 New Features Oct 1st 3:15 PM Moscone West – 3005 Real-World Operational Reporting with Oracle GoldenGate: Customer Panel Oct 2nd 11:45 AM Moscone West - 3005 For a full list of GoldenGate and data integration sessions, please check out our Focus-On for Data Integration. Similar to last year, Hands-on-Labs will be available for those who want to experience the power of GoldenGate first hand. One of these instructor-led sessions provides “Deep Dive into Oracle GoldenGate” will be held on Thursday Oct 4th 11:15am at Marriott Marquis - Salon ½. I expect the spots will fill out fast in this session. Oracle GoldenGate Demos will be running Monday through Wednesday in Moscone South in both Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware sections of the Oracle demo grounds. We will be showcasing: Monitoring Oracle GoldenGate for End-to-End Visibility Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 New Features Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2: Real-Time, Transactional Database Replication Oracle GoldenGate Veridata Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture If you are not able to attend OpenWorld, you should not miss this week’s live webcast introducing Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2. On Wednesday the webcast will present the new features of GoldenGate and attendees will have a long, live Q&A panel session with the PM team.  I also recommend checking out the resources for GoldenGate to download new white papers. The whole team is looking forward to sharing with you the latest and greatest features of GoldenGate at the launch webcast and at OpenWorld.

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• Architect Day Artifacts

  - by Bob Rhubart

  In the last eight days the Oracle Technology Network Architect Day tour has stopped in Dallas, Anaheim (Disneyland, to be precise) , and at Oracle HQ in Redwood Shores,  CA. I was on-scene for the Dallas event, where I pulled a TMZ-style ambush on Chris Benedict from the Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group to capture this short video.     The other presenters escaped. But the slide decks from several of the presentations are now available on Slideshare:  IT Optimization: Reduce Data Center Costs and Set the Foundation for Future Growth as presented by Alan Levine, Oracle Enterprise Architect Senior Director Implementing Applications with SOA and Application Integration Architecture as presented by Vish Gaitonde, Director, Ecosystem Strategy, Application Integration Architecture Application Grid: Platform for Virtualization and Consolidation of Your Java Applications as presented by Sam Shah, Director, SOA and Integration, Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group Infrastructure Consolidation and Virtualization as presented by Steve Bennett, also a Director with the Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group Security in a Cloudy Architecture as presented by Geri Born, Security Specialist with the Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group I'll post more Architect Day presentations as soon as I track them down. A special thank you to Oracle ACE Directors Jordan Braunstein, Billy Tong, and Kai Yu, who were on hand in Dallas, and to fellow ACE Directors Basheer Khan and Floyd Teter for their participation in the Anaheim event.  (Floyd and his iPad came through again, allowing me to record the Anaheim panel discussion via Skype while sitting in my home office in Cleveland.) That audio, as well as audio from the panel discussion and a roundtable from the Dallas event, will be available soon as ArchBeat podcast programs. If you attended one of these events, a big thanks. Your active participation, your questions and input, are what these events are all about.  As new cities are added to the tour, we expect more of the same from the OTN architect community. And did I mention that the food is free? So stay tuned... del.icio.us Tags: oracle,otn,enterprise architecture,enterprise architect,archbeat,arch2arch,architect day Technorati Tags: oracle,otn,enterprise architecture,enterprise architect,archbeat,arch2arch,architect day   Cross-posted to the ArchBeat blog

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• Architect Day Artifacts

  - by Bob Rhubart

  In the last eight days the Oracle Technology Network Architect Day tour has stopped in Dallas,  Anaheim (Disneyland, to be precise) , and at Oracle HQ in Redwood Shores,  CA. I was on-scene for the Dallas event, where I pulled a TMZ-style ambush on Chris Benedict from the Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group to capture this short video.     The other presenters escaped. But the slide decks from several of the presentations are now available on Slideshare:  IT Optimization: Reduce Data Center Costs and Set the Foundation for Future Growth as presented by Alan Levine, Oracle Enterprise Architect Senior Director Implementing Applications with SOA and Application Integration Architecture as presented by Vish Gaitonde, Director, Ecosystem Strategy, Application Integration Architecture Application Grid: Platform for Virtualization and Consolidation of Your Java Applications as presented by Sam Shah, Director, SOA and Integration, Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group Infrastructure Consolidation and Virtualization as presented by Steve Bennett, also a Director with the Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group Security in a Cloudy Architecture as presented by Geri Born, Security Specialist with the Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group I’ll post more Architect Day presentations as soon as I track them down. A special thank you to Oracle ACE Directors Jordan Braunstein, Billy Tong, and Kai Yu, who were on hand in Dallas, and to fellow ACE Directors Basheer Khan and Floyd Teter for their participation in the Anaheim event.  (Floyd and his iPad came through again, allowing me to record the Anaheim panel discussion via Skype while sitting in my home office in Cleveland.) That audio, as well as audio from the panel discussion and a roundtable from the Dallas event, will be available soon as ArchBeat podcast programs. If you attended one of these events, a big thanks. Your active participation, your questions and input, are what these events are all about.  As new cities are added to the tour, we expect more of the same from the OTN architect community. And did I mention that the food is free? So stay tuned… del.icio.us Tags: oracle,otn,enterprise architecture,enterprise architect,archbeat,arch2arch,architect day Technorati Tags: oracle,otn,enterprise architecture,enterprise architect,archbeat,arch2arch,architect day   Cross-posted to the Oracle Technology Network Blog

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• Menu widget - no jQuery nor Javascript required - pure CSS

  - by Renso

  Goal: Create a menu widget that does not require any javascript, extremely lightweight, very fast, soley based on CSS, compatible with FireFox and Chrome. Issues: May have some rendering issues in some versions of IE, sorry :-) Instruments: css file html with specific menu format jQuery-ui library - optional if you want to use your own images/colors Implementation Details: HTML: <div id="header">   <div id="header_Menubar">     <ul class="linkList0 ui-tabs-nav ui-helper-reset ui-helper-clearfix ui-widget-header ui-corner-all">         <li class="first more ui-state-default ui-corner-top ui-tabs-selected"><a title="Home" href="/Home">Home</a>             <ul class="linkList01 ui-tabs-nav ui-helper-reset ui-helper-clearfix ui-widget-header ui-corner-all">                 <li class="ifirst ui-state-default ui-corner-top"><abbr title="Go Home"></abbr><a title="Home" href="/Home">Home</a></li>             </ul>         </li>         <li class="more ui-state-default ui-corner-top ui-tabs-selected"><a title="Menu 2" href="/Menu2a">Menu 2</a>             <ul class="linkList01 ui-tabs-nav ui-helper-reset ui-helper-clearfix ui-widget-header ui-corner-all">                 <li class="ifirst ui-state-default ui-corner-top"><abbr title="Menu 2 a"></abbr><a title="Menu 2 a" href="/Menu2a">Menu 2 a</a></li>                 <li class="ilast ui-state-default ui-corner-top"><abbr title="Menu 2 b"></abbr><a title="Menu 2 b" href="/Menu2b">Menu 2 b</a></li>             </ul>         </li>         <li class="more red ui-state-default ui-corner-top ui-tabs-selected"><a title="Menu 3" href="/Menu3 d">Menu 3</a>             <ul class="linkList01 ui-tabs-nav ui-helper-reset ui-helper-clearfix ui-widget-header ui-corner-all">                 <li class="ifirst ui-state-default ui-corner-top"><abbr title="Menu 3 a"><a title="Menu 3 a" href="/Menu3a">Menu 3 a</a></abbr></li>                 <li class="ui-state-default ui-corner-top"><abbr title="Menu 3 b"><a title="Menu 3 b" href="/Menu3b">Menu 3 b</a></abbr></li>                 <li class="ui-state-default ui-corner-top"><abbr title="Menu 3 c"><a title="Menu 3 c" href="/Menu3c">Menu 3 c</a></abbr></li>                 <li class="ilast ui-state-default ui-corner-top"><abbr title="Menu 3 d"><a title="Menu 3 d" href="/Menu3d">Menu 3 d</a></abbr></li>             </ul>         </li>     </ul>     </div> </div> CSS: /*    =Menu     -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------    */ #header #header_Menubar {     margin: 0;     padding: 0;     border: 0;     width: 100%;     height: 22px; } #header {     background-color: #99cccc;     background-color: #aaccee;     background-color: #5BA3E0;     background-color: #006cb1; } /* Set menu bar background color     */ #header #header_Menubar {     background-attachment: scroll;     background-position: left center;     background-repeat: repeat-x; } /*    Set main (horizontal) menu typology    */ #header .linkList0 {     padding: 0 0 1em 0;     margin-bottom: 1em;     font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Lucida Grande',           Verdana, Lucida, Geneva, Helvetica,           Arial, sans-serif;     font-weight: bold;     font-size: 1.085em;     font-size: 1em; } /*    Set all ul properties    */ #header .linkList0, #header .linkList0 ul {     list-style: none;     margin: 0;     padding: 0;     list-style-position: outside; } /*    Set all li properties    */ #header .linkList0 > li {     float: left;     position: relative;     font-size: 90%;     margin: 0 0 -1px;     width: 9.7em;     padding-right: 2em;     z-index: 100;    /*IE7:    Fix for IE7 hiding drop down list behind some other page elements    */ } /*    Set all li properties    */ #header .linkList01 > li {     width: 190px; } #header .linkList0 .linkList01 li {     margin-left: 0px; } /*    Set all list background image properties    */ /*#header .linkList0 li a {     background-position: left center;     background-image: url(  '../Content/Images/VerticalButtonBarGradientFade.png' );     background-repeat: repeat-x;     background-attachment: scroll; }*/ /*    Set all A ancor properties    */ #header .linkList0 li a {     display: block;     text-decoration: none;     line-height: 22px; } /*    IE7: Fix for a bug in IE7 where the margins between list items is doubled - need to set height explicitly    */ *+html #header .linkList0 ul li {     height: auto;     margin-bottom: -.3em; } /*    Menu:    Set different borders for different nested level lists     --------------------------------------------------------------    */ #header .linkList0 > li a {     border-left: 10px solid Transparent;     border-right: none; } #header .linkList0 > li a {     border-left: 0px;     margin-left: 0px;     border-right: none; } #header .linkList0 .linkList01 > li a {     border-left: 8px solid #336699;     border-right: none;     border: 1px solid Transparent;     -moz-border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px;     -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 4px #696969; } #header .linkList0 .linkList01 .linkList001 > li a {     border-left: 6px solid #336699;     border-right: none;     border: 1px solid Transparent;     -moz-border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px;     -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 4px #696969; } #header .linkList0 .linkList01 .linkList001 .linkList0001 > li a {     border-left: 4px solid #336699;     border-right: none;     border: 1px solid Transparent;     -moz-border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px;     -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 4px #696969; }     /*    Link and Visited pseudo-class settings for all lists (ul)    */ #header .linkList0 a:link, #header .linkList0 a:visited {     display: block;     text-decoration: none;     padding-left: 1em; } /*    Hide all the nested/sub menu items    */ #header .linkList0 ul {     display: none;     padding: 0;     position: absolute;    /*Important: must not impede on other page elements when drop down opens up    */ } /*    Hide all detail popups    */ #header .detailPopup {     display: none; } /*    Set the typology of all sub-menu list items li    */ /*#header .linkList0 ul li {     background-color: #AACCEE;     background-position: left center;     background-image: url(  '../Content/Images/VerticalButtonBarGradientFade.png' );     background-repeat: repeat-x;     background-attachment: scroll; }*/ #header .linkList0 ul li.more {     background: Transparent url('../Content/Images/ArrowRight.gif') no-repeat right center; } /*    Header list's margin and padding for all list items    */ #header .linkList0 ul li {     margin: 0 0 0 1em;     padding: 0; } #header .linkList01 ul li {     margin: 0;     padding: 0;     width: 189px; } /*    Set margins for the third li sibling (Plan a Call) to display to the right of the parent menu     to avoid the sub-menu overlaying the menu items below    */ #header .linkList0 li.more .linkList01 li.more > ul.linkList001 {     margin: -1.7em 0 0 13.2em;    /*Important, must be careful, if tbe EM since gap increases too much bewteen nested lists the gap will make the nested-list collapse prematurely    */ } /*    Set right hand arrow for list items with sub-menus (class-more)    */ #header li.more {     background: Transparent url('../Content/Images/ArrowRight.gif') no-repeat right center;     padding-right: 48px; } /*    Menu:    Dynamic Behavior of menu items (hover, visted, etc)     -----------------------------------------------------------    */ #header .linkList0 li a:link, #header .linkList01 li a:link {     display: block; } #header .linkList0 li a:visited, #header .linkList01 li a:visited {     display: block; } #header .linkList0 > li:hover { } #header .linkList01 > li:hover a ,#header .linkList001 > li:hover a {     text-decoration: underline; } #header .linkList0 > li abbr:hover span.detailPopup {     display: block;     position: absolute;     top: 1em;     left: 17em;     border: double 1px #696969;     border-style: outset;     width: 120%;     height: auto;     padding: 5px;     font-weight: 100; } #header .linkList0 > li:hover ,#header .linkList0 .linkList01 > li:hover { } #header .linkList0 .linkList01 .linkList001 > li:hover { } #header .linkList0 .linkList01 .linkList001 .linkList0001 > li:hover { } /*    Display the hidden sub menu when hovering over the parent ul's li    */ #header .linkList0 li:hover > ul {     display: block; } /*    Display the hidden sub menu when hovering over the parent ul's li    */ #header .linkList0 .linkList01 li:hover > ul {     display: block;         background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #1E83CC, #619FCD);     /* Chrome, Safari:*/     background: -webkit-gradient(linear,                 center top, center bottom, from(#1E83CC), to(#619FCD)); } /*    Display the hidden sub menu when hovering over the parent ul's li    */ #header .linkList0 .linkList01 .linkList001 li:hover > ul {     display: block; } /*    Set right hand arrow for list items with sub-menus (class-more) on hover    */ #header li.more:hover { } Also some CSS for global settings that will affect this menu, you of course will have some other styling, but included it here so you can see how/why some css properties were set here: /* Neutralize styling:    Elements we want to clean out entirely: */ html, body {     margin: 0;     padding: 0;     font: 62.5%/120% Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } /* Neutralize styling:    Elements with a vertical margin: */ h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, pre, blockquote, ul, ol, dl, address {     margin: 0;    /*    most browsers set some default value that is not shared by all browsers    */     padding: 0;        /*    some borowsers default padding, set to 0 for all    */ } /* Apply left margin:    Only to the few elements that need it: */ li, dd, blockquote {     margin-left: 1em; }

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• Announcing Release of Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1!

  - by user9159196

  Oct 26, 2012We are very happy to announce the release of  Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1, providing High Availability (HA) and  Disaster Recovery (DR) capabilities for Oracle Solaris 11.1.  This is yet another proof of Oracle's continued investment in Oracle Solaris technologies such as Oracle Solaris Cluster. For this new release we have improved the Solaris Cluster integration within the Oracle environment. For example  we've created new agents such as PeopleSoft JobScheduler or added the support of the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance replication in the Geo Edition module (to facilitate disaster recovery in multi-site configuration equipped with those types of storage.) We have also extended the Oracle Solaris Zone Cluster feature with support of Oracle Solaris 10 zone clusters and exclusive-IP to facilitate deployment of virtualized or cloud architecture.And there are many more new features to discover in this release. Stay tuned for more specific articles. In the mean time check out the What's new document or even better, download the latest version from  here.Also, join the Oracle Solaris 11 Online Event on November 7 where an entire session will be devoted to discussing Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1. Our Oracle Solaris Cluster engineers will be on hand to respond to your questions. We look forward to your feedback and inputs! -Nancy Chow and Eve Kleinknecht 

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• 50 Years of LEDs: An Interview with Inventor Nick Holonyak [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  The man who powered on the first LED half a century ago is still around to talk about it; read on to watch an interview with LED inventor Nick Holonyak. The most fascinating thing about Holonyak’s journey to the invention of the LED was that he started off trying to build a laser and ended up inventing a super efficient light source: Holonyak got his PhD in 1954. In 1957, after a year at Bell Labs and a two year stint in the Army, he joined GE’s research lab in Syracuse, New York. GE was already exploring semiconductor applications and building the forerunners of modern diodes called thyristors and rectifiers. At a GE lab in Schenectady, the scientist Robert Hall was trying to build the first diode laser. Hall, Holonyak and others noticed that semiconductors emit radiation, including visible light, when electricity flows through them. Holonyak and Hall were trying to “turn them on,” and channel, focus and multiply the light. Hall was the first to succeed. He built the world’s first semiconductor laser. Without it, there would be no CD and DVD players today. “Nobody knew how to turn the semiconductor into the laser,” Holonyak says. “We arrived at the answer before anyone else.” But Hall’s laser emitted only invisible, infrared light. Holonyak spent more time in his lab, testing, cutting and polishing his hand-made semiconducting alloys. In the fall of 1962, he got first light. “People thought that alloys were rough and turgid and lumpy,” he says. “We knew damn well what happened and that we had a very powerful way of converting electrical current directly into light. We had the ultimate lamp.” How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference How To Troubleshoot Internet Connection Problems 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows

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• Going Paperless

  - by Jesse

  One year ago I came to work for a company where the entire development team is 100% “remote”; we’re spread over 3 time zones and each of us works from home. This seems to be an increasingly popular way for people to work and there are many articles and blog posts out there enumerating the advantages and disadvantages of working this way. I had read a lot about telecommuting before accepting this job and felt as if I had a pretty decent idea of what I was getting into, but I’ve encountered a few things over the past year that I did not expect. Among the most surprising by-products of working from home for me has been a dramatic reduction in the amount of paper that I use on a weekly basis. Hoarding In The Workplace Prior to my current telecommute job I worked in what most would consider pretty traditional office environments. I sat in cubicles furnished with an enormous plastic(ish) modular desks, had a mediocre (at best) PC workstation, and had ready access to a seemingly endless supply of legal pads, pens, staplers and paper clips. The ready access to paper, countless conference room meetings, and abundance of available surface area on my desk and in drawers created a perfect storm for wasting paper. I brought a pad of paper with me to every meeting I ever attended, scrawled some brief notes, and then tore that sheet off to keep next to my keyboard to follow up on any needed action items. Once my immediate need for the notes was fulfilled, that sheet would get shuffled off into a corner of my desk or filed away in a drawer “just in case”. I would guess that for all of the notes that I ever filed away, I might have actually had to dig up and refer to 2% of them (and that’s probably being very generous). That said, on those rare occasions that I did have to dig something up from old notes, it was usually pretty important and I ended up being very glad that I saved them. It was only when I would leave a job or move desks that I would finally gather all those notes together and take them to shredding bin to be disposed of. When I left my last job the amount of paper I had accumulated over my three years there was absurd, and I knew coworkers who had substance-abuse caliber paper wasting addictions that made my bad habit look like nail-biting in comparison. A Product Of My Environment I always hated using all of this paper, but simply couldn’t bring myself to stop. It would look bad if I showed up to an important conference room meeting without a pad of paper. What if someone said something profound! Plus, everyone else always brought paper with them. If you saw someone walking down the hallway with a pad of paper in hand you knew they must be on their way to a conference room meeting. Some people even had fancy looking portfolio notebook sheaths that gave their legal pads all the prestige of a briefcase. No one ever worried about running out of fresh paper because there was an endless supply, and there certainly was no shortage of places to store and file used paper. In short, the traditional office was setup for using tons and tons of paper; it’s baked into the culture there. For that reason, it didn’t take long for me to kick the paper habit once I started working from home. In my home office, desk and drawer space are at a premium. I don’t have the budget (or the tolerance) for huge modular office furniture in my spare bedroom. I also no longer have access to a bottomless pit of office supplies stock piled in cabinets and closets. If I want to use some paper, I have to go out and buy it. Finally (and most importantly), all of the meetings that I have to attend these days are “virtual”. We use instant messaging, VOIP, video conferencing, and e-mail to communicate with each other. All I need to take notes during a meeting is my computer, which I happen to be sitting right in front of all day. I don’t have any hard numbers for this, but my gut feeling is that I actually take a lot more notes now than I ever did when I worked in an office. The big difference is I don’t have to use any paper to do so. This makes it far easier to keep important information safe and organized. The Right Tool For The Job When I first started working from home I tried to find a single application that would fill the gap left by the pen and paper that I always had at my desk when I worked in an office. Well, there are no silver bullets and I’ve evolved my approach over time to try and find the best tool for the job at hand. Here’s a quick summary of how I take notes and keep everything organized. Notepad++ – This is the first application I turn to when I feel like there’s some bit of information that I need to write down and save. I use Launchy, so opening Notepad++ and creating a new file only takes a few keystrokes. If I find that the information I’m trying to get down requires a more sophisticated application I escalate as needed. The Desktop – By default, I save every file or other bit of information to the desktop. Anyone who has ever had to fix their parents computer before knows that this is a dangerous game (any file my mother has ever worked on is saved directly to the desktop and rarely moves anywhere else). I agree that storing things on the desktop isn’t a great long term approach to keeping organized, which is why I treat my desktop a bit like my e-mail inbox. I strive to keep both empty (or as close to empty as I possibly can). If something is on my desktop, it means that it’s something relevant to a task or project that I’m currently working on. About once a week I take things that I’m not longer working on and put them into my ‘Notes’ folder. The ‘Notes’ Folder – As I work on a task, I tend to accumulate multiple files associated with that task. For example, I might have a bit of SQL that I’m working on to gather data for a new report, a quick C# method that I came up with but am not yet ready to commit to source control, a bulleted list of to-do items in a .txt file, etc. If the desktop starts to get too cluttered, I create a new sub-folder in my ‘Notes’ folder. Each sub-folder’s name is the current date followed by a brief description of the task or project. Then all files related to that task or project go into that sub folder. By using the date as the first part of the folder name, these folders are automatically sorted in reverse chronological order. This means that things I worked on recently will generally be near the top of the list. Using the built-in Windows search functionality I now have a pretty quick and easy way to try and find something that I worked on a week ago or six months ago. Dropbox – Dropbox is a free service that lets you store up to 2GB of files “in the cloud” and have those files synced to all of the different computers that you use. My ‘Notes’ folder lives in Dropbox, meaning that it’s contents are constantly backed up and are always available to me regardless of which computer I’m using. They also have a pretty decent iPhone application that lets you browse and view all of the files that you have stored there. The free 2GB edition is probably enough for just storing notes, but I also pay $99/year for the 50GB storage upgrade and keep all of my music, e-books, pictures, and documents in Dropbox. It’s a fantastic service and I highly recommend it. Evernote – I use Evernote mostly to organize information that I access on a fairly regular basis. For example, my Evernote account has a running grocery shopping list, recipes that my wife and I use a lot, and contact information for people I contact infrequently enough that I don’t want to keep them in my phone. I know some people that keep nearly everything in Evernote, but there’s something about it that I find a bit clunky, so I tend to use it sparingly. Google Tasks – One of my biggest paper wasting habits was keeping a running task-list next to my computer at work. Every morning I would sit down, look at my task list, cross off what was done and add new tasks that I thought of during my morning commute. This usually resulted in having to re-copy the task list onto a fresh sheet of paper when I was done. I still keep a running task list at my desk, but I’ve started using Google Tasks instead. This is a dead-simple web-based application for quickly adding, deleting, and organizing tasks in a simple checklist style. You can quickly move tasks up and down on the list (which I use for prioritizing), and even create sub-tasks for breaking down larger tasks into smaller pieces. Balsamiq Mockups – This is a simple and lightweight tool for creating drawings of user interfaces. It’s great for sketching out a new feature, brainstorm the layout of a interface, or even draw up a quick sequence diagram. I’m terrible at drawing, so Balsamiq Mockups not only lets me create sketches that other people can actually understand, but it’s also handy because you can upload a sketch to a common location for other team members to access. I can honestly say that using these tools (and having limited resources at home) have lead me to cut my paper usage down to virtually none. If I ever were to return to a traditional office workplace (hopefully never!) I’d try to employ as many of these applications and techniques as I could to keep paper usage low. I feel far less cluttered and far better organized now.

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• Alternative to Game State System?

  - by Ricket

  As far as I can tell, most games have some sort of "game state system" which switches between the different game states; these might be things like "Intro", "MainMenu", "CharacterSelect", "Loading", and "Game". On the one hand, it totally makes sense to separate these into a state system. After all, they are disparate and would otherwise need to be in a large switch statement, which is obviously messy; and they certainly are well represented by a state system. But at the same time, I look at the "Game" state and wonder if there's something wrong about this state system approach. Because it's like the elephant in the room; it's HUGE and obvious but nobody questions the game state system approach. It seems silly to me that "Game" is put on the same level as "Main Menu". Yet there isn't a way to break up the "Game" state. Is a game state system the best way to go? Is there some different, better technique to managing, well, the "game state"? Is it okay to have an intro state which draws a movie and listens for enter, and then a loading state which loops on the resource manager, and then the game state which does practically everything? Doesn't this seem sort of unbalanced to you, too? Am I missing something?

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• SQL Monitor Alerts in Outlook Without Configuring Email Settings

  - by Fatherjack

  SQL Monitor is a Red Gate tool that I have a long history with and I have worked closely with the development team from a time before it was called SQL Monitor. It is with that history in mind I am a little disappointed in myself that I have only just found out about a pretty cool feature. Out of the box SQL Monitor keeps itself to itself, it busily goes about watching over your servers, noting down when things look suspicious, change drastically or are just out and out wrong. You have to go into the settings and provide email details (SMTP server, account details etc.) before it starts getting at all intrusive with warning and alerts on the condition of your servers. However, it was after installing the most recent version that I was going through the application screen by screen looking for new and interesting changes that I noticed something that had avoided my attention. On the Alerts tab there is an option in the left hand menu. I don’t know how long ago it appeared or why I have never explored it previously but it appears that you can see your Alerts in the format of an RSS feed. Now when you click that link you are taken to a page that is the raw RSS XML – not too interesting but clearly you can use this in an RSS aggregator. Such as Outlook. Note the URL in the newly opened page take it with you into Outlook. For me it is in the form of http://SQLMonitorServerName/Alerts/Inbox/Feed. Again, this is something that I have only recently noticed – Outlook can aggregate RSS feeds. Down below the Inbox, Drafts folders etc, one up from the bottom is RSS Feeds. If you right click that and choose to Add a feed then you can supply the URL for SQL Monitor Alerts: And there you have it, your SQL Monitor Alerts available in Outlook where you can keep an eye on the number of unread items and pick them off at your convenience.

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• Enjoy Seamless Reading at Twitter in Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Twitter can be a lot of fun but having to constantly use the More Button to view a large number of tweets is frustrating. All that you need to be rid of that frustration is the More Tweets! extension for Google Chrome. Before Here it is…the classic “More Button”. If you are only interested in viewing a few tweets on occasion then it is not a problem. But if you are looking at a large number of tweets on a daily basis then it can be very frustrating. Notice the last tweet from TinyHacker shown here… After After installing the extension the only thing that you will need to do is refresh your Twitter page if you had it open before-hand. Now there will be a seamless connection from page to page when you are reading through tweets. You can see the TinyHacker tweet from above followed oh so nicely by tweets from the second page…this is definitely an improvement. For those who may be curious if you are quick enough with your mouse you can see what the “automated connection process” looks like. Conclusion If you are tired of constantly clicking the “More Button” and just want to read tweets without interruption then you will be very satisfied after adding this extension to your browser. Links Download the More Tweets! extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Integrate Twitter With Microsoft OutlookMake Mail.app’s Reading Pane More Like OutlookBlip.fm is a Fun Social Way to Share MusicDisable YouTube Comments while using ChromeAdd Shareaholic Goodness to Google Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data

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• How to install Canon MP610 printer on Ubuntu 12.04 x64

  - by Arkadius

  I installed Ubuntu 12.04 x64. Orginal Canon drivers are only for 32-bit version. How can I install this printer in 64-bit version ? Arkadius HERE IS SOLUTION I looked for solution some time and finally found it. First I try to do it by adding repository like it is written here: http://www.iheartubuntu.com/2012/02/install-canon-printer-for-ubuntu-linux.html BUT it did NOT work. Printer was installed but every print JOB goes somewhere ( probably to /dev/null :) ) Also installing sudo apt-get install ia32-libs did NOT worked (it was already installed) Finally I found solution. NOTE I did NOT use orginal Canon drivers for 32-bit. I also removed drivers from repository: ppa:michael-gruz/canon I found solution almost at the end of this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1967725&page=10 Most important hint was found in Response #97 "Do NOT install any PPA" I did as follows: Removed all copies of my printer Removed Canon drivers from repository ppa:michael-gruz/canon sudo apt-get remove cnijfilter* Added new repository and installed CUPS for Canon: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:robbiew/cups-bjnp sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install cups-bjnp Installed Gutenprint: sudo apt-get install printer-driver-gutenprint Restarted CUPS: sudo restart cups Add myself to group lp: sudo usermod -G lp -a your_user_name Added printer usings steps from link above: Don't install any PPA for the drivers. Click the Cog up in the right-hand corner and select Printers. Turn on the printer and make sure it is connected. When the Printers windows appears, click +Add and wait a few minutes. Your printer should appear within the configuration wizard. Mine did and its an Canon MX330. Click the defaults and continue on. Cups should identify your printer. I saw a few other models in the list. I was able to successfully print a test page afterwards. I hope this will also help someone else. Arkadius .

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