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• Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Executive Weighs in on Policy Administration Modernization

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  James Klauer, vice president of Client Services Technology at Fidelity Investment Life Insurance, weighs in on the rationale and challenges associated with policy administration system replacement in this month's digital issue of Insurance Networking News.    In "The Policy Administration Replacement Quandary"  Klauer shared the primary business benefit that can be realized by adopting a modern policy administration system--a timely topic given that recent industry analyst surveys indicate policy administration replacement and modernization will continue to be a top priority for insurers this year.    "Modern policy administration systems are more flexible than systems of the past," Klauer says in the article. " This has allowed us to shorten our delivery time for new products and product changes.  We have also had a greater ability to integrate with other systems and to deliver process efficiencies."   Klauer goes on to advise that insurers ensure they have a solid understanding of the requirements when replacing their legacy policy administration system. "If you can afford the time, take the opportunity to re-engineer your business processes.  We were able to drastically change our death processes, introducing automation and error-proofing." Click here to read more of Klauer's insights and recommendations for best practices in the publication's "Ask & Answered" column.   You also can learn more the benefits of an adaptive, rules-driven approach to policy administration and how to mitigate risks associated with system replacement by attending the free Oracle Insurance Virtual Summit:  Fueling the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise, 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. EST, Wednesday, January 26.      Insurance Networking News and Oracle Insurance have teamed up to bring you this first-of-its-kind event. This year's theme, "Fueling the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise," will focus on bringing you information about exciting new technology concepts, which can help your company react more quickly to new market opportunities and, ultimately, grow the business.    Visit virtual booths and chat online with Oracle product specialists, network with other insurers, learn about exciting new product announcements, win prizes, and much more--all without leaving your office.  Be sure and attend the on-demand session, "Adapt, Transform and Grow: Accelerate Speed to Market with Adaptive Insurance Policy Administration," hosted by Kate Fowler, product strategy director for Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity.   Register Now!   Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• Introducing the Oracle MDM Blog - Why All MDM Solutions Aren't Equal

  - by ken.pulverman

  Welcome to the Oracle MDM Blog.  Dave Butler, Tony Ouk, and myself - Ken Pulverman, will be bringing you news and information from the world of MDM at Oracle.  Dave is our resident expert with more than 30 years of experience in data and information management. Tony has deep expertise in our Exadata product line which provides a strong hardware synergy with MDM.  I come from Siebel Systems where I helped found the team that built our integration product line and then our Universal Customer Master with is part of our MDM offering at Oracle. I thought I'd hit the ground running with a topic we are going to want to continue to bend your ear about.  We had a recent meeting with Ford Goodman, our head of MDM commercial sales in the US and he was very fired up about and important topic.  He's irked that all MDM solutions get painted with the same brush even though they aren't the same at all. There are companies out there trying to represent frameworks and toolkits as out of the box solutions.  They give you the pleasure (read pain) of doing things like developing your own multi-application data model, building your own web services, or creating your own APIs.  Huh?  What gets sold as flexibility in reality is a barrier to ever going live.  At Siebel Systems we obsessed over the notion of a customer.  Our data model took over 10 years to perfect as defining a customer is a very complex task indeed.  There are divisions, subsidiaries, branches, acquisitions, sites etc., etc., etc..  You'll want to do your homework, but trust me - you aren't going to want to take the time or resource to build these canonical data structures yourself.  And what about APIs?  Again, it sounds flexible.  In reality it's a lot of work. Our DNA at Oracle is to reduce the cost of information technology so we pre-integrate our technology with all of our major applications and pre-build integrations and connectors for all the major systems you work with.  This is tedious work that requires detailed knowledge of the interfaces of all the applications involved.  It is also version specific as the interface features and technology are always changing.  We have a substantial organization to manage this complexity so you don't have to.  Suffice to say, we'd like to help our customers peel back the rhetoric of companies that fly the MDM flag without a real offering that you can quickly benefit from. Please watch this space for more information on this storyline as well as news and information around Oracle MDM.

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• SQL SERVER – Online Index Rebuilding Index Improvement in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Have you ever faced situation when you see something working and you feel it should not be working? Well, I had similar moments few days ago. I know that SQL Server 2008 supports online indexing. However, I also know that I cannot rebuild index ONLINE if I have used VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX) or few other data types. While I held my belief very strongly I came across situation, where I had to go online and do little bit reading from Book Online. Here is the similar example. First of all – run following code in SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. USE TempDB GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, FirstCol NVARCHAR(10), SecondCol NVARCHAR(MAX)) GO CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TestTable] ON TestTable (ID) GO CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TestTable_Cols] ON TestTable (FirstCol) INCLUDE (SecondCol) GO USE [tempdb] GO ALTER INDEX [IX_TestTable_Cols] ON [dbo].[TestTable] REBUILD WITH (ONLINE = ON) GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO Now run the same code in SQL Server 2012 version. Observe the difference between both of the execution. You will be get following resultset. In SQL Server 2008/R2 it will throw following error: Msg 2725, Level 16, State 2, Line 1 An online operation cannot be performed for index ‘IX_TestTable_Cols’ because the index contains column ‘SecondCol’ of data type text, ntext, image, varchar(max), nvarchar(max), varbinary(max), xml, or large CLR type. For a non-clustered index, the column could be an include column of the index. For a clustered index, the column could be any column of the table. If DROP_EXISTING is used, the column could be part of a new or old index. The operation must be performed offline. In SQL Server 2012 it will run successfully and will not throw any error. Command(s) completed successfully. I always thought it will throw an error if there is VARCHAR(MAX) or NVARCHAR(MAX) used in table schema definition. When I saw this result it was clear to me that it will be for sure not bug enhancement in SQL Server 2012. For matter for the fact, I always wanted this feature to be added in SQL Server Engine as this will enable ONLINE Index Rebuilding for mission critical tables which needs to be always online. I quickly searched online and landed on Jacob Sebastian’s blog where he has blogged about it as well. Well, is there any other new feature in SQL Server 2012 which gave you good surprise? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Regular Expressions Reference Tables Updated

  - by Jan Goyvaerts

  The regular expressions reference on the Regular-Expressions.info website was completely overhauled with the big update of that site last month. In the past, the reference section consisted of two parts. One part was a summary of the regex features commonly found in Perl-style regex flavors with short descriptions and examples. This part of the reference ignored differences between regex flavors and omitted most features that don’t have wide support. The other part was a regular expression flavor comparison that listed many more regex features along with YES/no indicators for many regex flavors, but without any explanations of the features. When reworking the site, I wanted to make the reference section more detailed, with descriptions and examples of all the syntax supported by the flavors discussed on the site. Doing that resulted in a reference that lists many features that are only supported by a few regex flavors. For such a reference to be usable, it needs to indicate which flavors support each feature. My original design for the new reference table used two rows for each feature. The first row had 4 columns with a label, syntax, description, and example, similar to the old reference tables. The second row had 20 columns indicating which versions of which flavors support these features. While the double-row design allowed all the information to fit within the table without requiring horizontal scrolling, it made it more difficult to quickly scan the tables for the feature you’re looking for. To make the new reference tables easier to read, they now have only a single row for each feature. The first 4 columns are the same as before. The remaining two columns show which versions of two regular expression flavors support the feature. You can use the drop-down lists above the table to choose the flavors the table should indicate. The site uses cookies to allow the flavor choices to persist while you navigate the reference. The result of this latest update is that the new regex tables are now just as easy to read as the ten-year-old tables on the old site were, while still covering all the features big and small of all the flavors discussed on the site.

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• Book Review: Inside Windows Communicat?ion Foundation by Justin Smith

  - by Sam Abraham

  In gearing up for a new major project, I have taken it upon myself to research and review various aspects of our Microsoft stack of choice seeking new creative ways for us to leverage in our upcoming state-of-the-art solution projected to position us ahead of the competition. While I am a big supporter of search engines and online articles as a quick and usually reliable source of information, I have opted in my investigative quest to actually “hit the books”.  I have also made it a habit to provide quick reviews for material I go over hoping this can be of help to someone who may be looking for items others may have had success using for reference. I have started a few months ago by investigating better ways to implementing, profiling and troubleshooting SQL Server 2008. My reference of choice was Itzik Ben-Gan et al’s “Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008” series. While it has been a month since my last book review, this by no means meant that I have been sitting idle. It has been pretty challenging to balance research with the continuous flow of projects and deadlines all while balancing that with my family duties which, of course, always comes first. In this post, I will be providing a quick review of my latest reading: Inside Windows Communication Foundation by Justin Smith. This book has been on my reading list for a very long time and I am proud to have finally tackled it. Justin’s book presents a great coverage of WCF internals. His simple, concise and well-worded style has simplified the relatively complex internals of WCF and made it comprehensible. Justin opted to organize the book into three parts: an introduction to WCF, coverage of the Channel Layer and a look at WCF internals at the ServiceModel layer. Part I introduced the concepts and made the case behind WCF while covering a simplified version of WCF’s message patterns, endpoints and contracts. In Part II, Justin provided a thorough coverage of the internals of Messages, Channels and Channel Managers. Part III concluded this nice reading with coverage of Bindings, Contracts, Dispatchers and Clients. While one would not likely need to extend WCF at that low level of the API, an understanding of the inner-workings of WCF is a must to avoid pitfalls mainly caused by misinformation or erroneous assumptions. Problems can quickly arise in high-traffic hosted solutions, but most can be easily avoided with some minimal time investment and education. My next goal is to pay a closer look at WCF from the programmer’s API perspective now that I have acquired a better understanding of its inner working.   Many thanks to the O’Reilly User Group Program and its support of our West Palm Beach Developers’ Group.   Stay tuned for more… All the best, --Sam

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• Site Studio Mobile Example - WCM Reuse

  - by john.brunswick

  Mobile internet usage is growing by leaps and bounds and it is theorized that in the not-to-distant future it will eclipse traditional access via desktop browsers. Mary Meeker, a managing director at Morgan Stanley and head of their global technology research team, recently predicted that mobile usage will eclipse desktop usage within the next 5 years in an Events@Google series presentation. In order for organizations to reach their prospects, customers and business partners, they will need to make their content readily available on mobile devices. A few years ago it was fairly challenging to provide a special, separate, site to cater to mobile users using technologies like WML (Wireless Markup Language). Modern mobile browsers have rendered the need for this as irrelevant and now the focus has moved toward providing a browsing experience that works well on small screen sizes and is highly performant. What does all of this mean for Oracle UCM? Taking site content from an existing Site Studio site and targeting it for consumption for mobile devices is a very straightforward process that is aided by a number of native capabilities in the product. The example highlighted in this post takes advantage of dynamic conversion capabilities in Oracle UCM to enable site content to be created and updated via MS Office documents. These documents are then converted to a simple, clean HTML format for consumption in the desktop and mobile browsing experiences. To help better understand how this is possible the example below shows a fictional .COM and its mobile site counterpart that both leverage the same underlying content. The scenario is not complete or production ready, but highlights that a mobile experience may be best delivered by omitting portions of a site that would be present within the version served to desktop clients. If you have browsed CNet (news.com) on a mobile device it becomes quickly apparent that they are serving an optimized version for your mobile device. An iPhone style version can be accessed at http://iphone.cnet.com/. In order to do that they leveraged some work done for the iPhone iUi project developed by Joe Hewitt that provides mobile browsers an experience that is similar to what users may find in a native iPhone application. For our example parts of this framework are used (the CSS) and this approach provides a page that will degrade nicely over a wide range of mobile browsers, since it is comprised of lightweight HTML markup and CSS. The iPhone iUi framework also provides some nice JavaScript to enable animated transitions between pages, but for the widest range of mobile browser compatibility we will only incorporate the CSS and HTML DIV / UL based page markup in our example.

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• SQL SERVER – Tricks to Replace SELECT * with Column Names – SQL in Sixty Seconds #017 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  You might have heard many times that one should not use SELECT * as there are many disadvantages to the usage of the SELECT *. I also believe that there are always rare occasion when we need every single column of the query. In most of the cases, we only need a few columns of the query and we should retrieve only those columns. SELECT * has many disadvantages. Let me list a few and remaining you can add as a comment.  Retrieves unnecessary columns and increases network traffic When a new columns are added views needs to be refreshed manually Leads to usage of sub-optimal execution plan Uses clustered index in most of the cases instead of using optimal index It is difficult to debug. There are two quick tricks I have discussed in the video which explains how users can avoid using SELECT * but instead list the column names. 1) Drag the columns folder from SQL Server Management Studio to Query Editor 2) Right Click on Table Name >> Script TAble AS >> SELECT To… >> Select option It is extremely easy to list the column names in the table. In today’s sixty seconds video, you will notice that I was able to demonstrate both the methods very quickly. From now onwards there should be no excuse for not listing ColumnName. Let me ask a question back – is there ever a reason to SELECT *? If yes, would you please share that as a comment. More on SELECT *: SQL SERVER – Solution – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) SQL SERVER – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) SQL SERVER – SELECT vs. SET Performance Comparison I encourage you to submit your ideas for SQL in Sixty Seconds. We will try to accommodate as many as we can. If we like your idea we promise to share with you educational material. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• Fair Comments

  - by Tony Davis

  To what extent is good code self-documenting? In one of the most entertaining sessions I saw at the recent PASS summit, Jeremiah Peschka (blog | twitter) got a laugh out of a sleepy post-lunch audience with the following remark: "Some developers say good code is self-documenting; I say, get off my team" I silently applauded the sentiment. It's not that all comments are useful, but that I mistrust the basic premise that "my code is so clearly written, it doesn't need any comments". I've read many pieces describing the road to self-documenting code, and my problem with most of them is that they feed the myth that comments in code are a sign of weakness. They aren't; in fact, used correctly I'd say they are essential. Regardless of how far intelligent naming can get you in describing what the code does, or how well any accompanying unit tests can explain to your fellow developers why it works that way, it's no excuse not to document fully the public interfaces to your code. Maybe I just mixed with the wrong crowd while learning my favorite language, but when I open a stored procedure I lose the will even to read it unless I see a big Phil Factor- or Jeff Moden-style header summarizing in plain English what the code does, how it fits in to the broader application, and a usage example. This public interface describes the high-level process and should explain the role of the code, clearly, for fellow developers, language non-experts, and even any non-technical stake holders in the project. When you step into the body of the code, the low-level details, then I agree that the rules are somewhat different; especially when code is subject to frequent refactoring that can quickly render comments redundant or misleading. At their worst, here, inline comments are sticking plaster to cover up the scars caused by poor naming conventions, failure in clarity when mapping a complex domain into code, or just by not entirely understanding the problem (/ this is the clever part). If you design and refactor your code carefully so that it is as simple as possible, your functions do one thing only, you avoid having two completely different algorithms in the same piece of code, and your functions, classes and variables are intelligently named, then, yes, the need for inline comments should be minimal. And yet, even given this, I'd still argue that many languages (T-SQL certainly being one) just don't lend themselves to readability when performing even moderately-complex tasks. If the algorithm is complex, I still like to see the occasional helpful comment. Please, therefore, be as liberal as you see fit in the detail of the comments you apply to this editorial, for like code it is bound to increase its' clarity and usefulness. Cheers, Tony.

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• Share Your Top 30 Visited Domains with Visitation Cloud for Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  Curious about the domains that you visit most or perhaps you want a way to share that information on a social website? Now you can see and share the 30 most visited domains in your browser’s history with the Visitation Cloud extension. Accessing Visitation Cloud As soon as you install the extension you can get started using it. Depending on how your browser’s UI is set up there are three methods for accessing Visitation Cloud: a “Visitation Cloud Button” inserted at the end of your “Bookmarks Toolbar”, a menu listing in the “Tools Menu”, and a “Toolbar Button” (not shown here). Visitation Cloud in Action As soon as you activate Visitation Cloud a new window will appear with your top domains displayed in a cloud format. Keep in mind that this is more than just a static image…each listing is actually a clickable link. Clicking on any of the listings will open that domain in a new tab or window depending on your particular browser settings. If you feel that you have a great set of links and want to share it with your friends then that is easy to do. Right click anywhere within the Visitation Cloud Window and select “Save as…”. The “cloud image” can be saved in “.png, .jpg, or Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg)” format. For our example we chose the “.svg format”. Perhaps you love the set of links but not the layout…right click and select “Randomize” to change how the cloud looks. Here is our cloud after being “Randomized”. Things definitely got moved around… Accessing the Visitation Cloud Image in other Browsers Once you have your “cloud image” saved you can share it with friends or save it for your own future use in other browsers. Here is our “cloud image” open in Opera Browser with link opening in progress. The same “cloud image” open in Google Chrome. Very nice… Conclusion While this may not be something that everyone will use Visitation Cloud does make for a rather unique, interesting, & fun way to access and share your most visited domains. Links Download the Visitation Cloud extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fix "Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch" Warning in FirefoxAdd Variety to Your Searches with Search CloudletRestore Your Missing/Deleted Smart Bookmarks Folder in Firefox 3Blocking Spam from International Senders in Windows Vista MailSee Where a Package is Installed on Ubuntu 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Share High Res Photos using Divvyshot Draw Online using Harmony How to Browse Privately in Firefox Kill Processes Quickly with Process Assassin Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar

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• Microsoft Technical Computing

  - by Daniel Moth

  In the past I have described the team I belong to here at Microsoft (Parallel Computing Platform) in terms of contributing to Visual Studio and related products, e.g. .NET Framework. To be more precise, our team is part of the Technical Computing group, which is still part of the Developer Division. This was officially announced externally earlier this month in an exec email (from Bob Muglia, the president of STB, to which DevDiv belongs). Here is an extract: "… As we build the Technical Computing initiative, we will invest in three core areas: 1. Technical computing to the cloud: Microsoft will play a leading role in bringing technical computing power to scientists, engineers and analysts through the cloud. Existing high- performance computing users will benefit from the ability to augment their on-premises systems with cloud resources that enable ‘just-in-time’ processing. This platform will help ensure processing resources are available whenever they are needed—reliably, consistently and quickly. 2. Simplify parallel development: Today, computers are shipping with more processing power than ever, including multiple cores, but most modern software only uses a small amount of the available processing power. Parallel programs are extremely difficult to write, test and trouble shoot. However, a consistent model for parallel programming can help more developers unlock the tremendous power in today’s modern computers and enable a new generation of technical computing. We are delivering new tools to automate and simplify writing software through parallel processing from the desktop… to the cluster… to the cloud. 3. Develop powerful new technical computing tools and applications: We know scientists, engineers and analysts are pushing common tools (i.e., spreadsheets and databases) to the limits with complex, data-intensive models. They need easy access to more computing power and simplified tools to increase the speed of their work. We are building a platform to do this. Our development efforts will yield new, easy-to-use tools and applications that automate data acquisition, modeling, simulation, visualization, workflow and collaboration. This will allow them to spend more time on their work and less time wrestling with complicated technology. …" Our Parallel Computing Platform team is directly responsible for item #2, and we work very closely with the teams delivering items #1 and #3. At the same time as the exec email, our marketing team unveiled a website with interviews that I invite you to check out: Modeling the World. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• What I like about WIF&rsquo;s Claims-based Authorization

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  In “traditional” .NET with its IPrincipal interface and IsInRole method, developers were encouraged to write code like this: public void AddCustomer(Customer customer) {     if (Thread.CurrentPrincipal.IsInRole("Sales"))     {         // add customer     } } In code reviews I’ve seen tons of code like this. What I don’t like about this is, that two concerns in your application get tightly coupled: business and security logic. But what happens when the security requirements change – and they will (e.g. members of the sales role and some other people from different roles need to create customers)? Well – since your security logic is sprinkled across your project you need to change the security checks in all relevant places (and make sure you don’t forget one) and you need to re-test, re-stage and re-deploy the complete app. This is clearly not what we want. WIF’s claims-based authorization encourages developers to separate business code and authorization policy evaluation. This is a good thing. So the same security check with WIF’s out-of-the box APIs would look like this: public void AddCustomer(Customer customer) {     try     {         ClaimsPrincipalPermission.CheckAccess("Customer", "Add");           // add customer     }     catch (SecurityException ex)     {         // access denied     } } You notice the fundamental difference? The security check only describes what the code is doing (represented by a resource/action pair) – and does not state who is allowed to invoke the code. As I mentioned earlier – the who is most probably changing over time – the what most probably not. The call to ClaimsPrincipalPermission hands off to another class called the ClaimsAuthorizationManager. This class handles the evaluation of your security policy and is ideally in a separate assembly to allow updating the security logic independently from the application logic (and vice versa). The claims authorization manager features a method called CheckAccess that retrieves three values (wrapped inside an AuthorizationContext instance) – action (“add”), resource (“customer”) and the principal (including its claims) in question. CheckAccess then evaluates those three values and returns true/false. I really like the separation of concerns part here. Unfortunately there is not much support from Microsoft beyond that point. And without further tooling and abstractions the CheckAccess method quickly becomes *very* complex. But still I think that is the way to go. In the next post I will tell you what I don’t like about it (and how to fix it).

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• ERP in a Flash! Latest News on JD Edwards and Oracle VM Templates

  - by Kem Butller-Oracle

  Oracle Announces the Availability of Oracle VM Templates for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1 Update 2 and Tools 9.1 Update 4.4 Continuing the commitment to rapid and predictable deployments of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle announces the general availability of Oracle VM templates for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Application release 9.1 Update 2 and Tools release 9.1 Update 4.4. These templates can be used with Oracle VM for x86, on the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and on the Oracle Database Machine. Oracle VM Templates for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne accelerate the process of setting up a working environment compared to the traditional installation process. The templates can be a key component to a well-managed cloud infrastructure, allowing system administrators to quickly provision fully functional JD Edwards EnterpriseOne environments for evaluation, development, or production use. The templates contain preconfigured images of the major JD Edwards EnterpriseOne server components, including: • Enterprise server • HTML server • Database server • BI Publisher (for use with One View Reporting) • Business Services Server and ADF Runtime (for use with Mobile Smartphone Applications) • Application Interface Services (new with this release, for use with Mobile Enterprise Applications) • Server Manager (new with this release) The virtual server images are built on a complete Oracle technology stack, including Oracle VM for x86, Oracle Linux, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Database, and Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher. The templates can be installed into an Oracle VM for x86 system running on standard x86 servers, the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and the Oracle Database Appliance as a composite “all-in-one” system. The database can be deployed as a fully preconfigured VM template, or it can be deployed to a preexisting database server, for example, the Oracle Exadata Database Machine or the Oracle Database Appliance. This latest set of templates includes the following applications and technology components: • JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Applications Release 9.1 Update 2 with ESUs as of April 8, 2014 • JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 9.1 Update 4, maintenance pack 4 (9.1.4.4) • Oracle Database 12c (12.1.0.1) • Oracle WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.2) • Oracle Linux 5 Update 8, 64-bit • Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher 11.1.1.7.1, for use with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne One View Reporting • JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Business Services Server and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) 11.1.1.5, for use with the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Mobile Applications. The delivery also includes a JD Edwards EnterpriseOne deployment server preconfigured to match the content of the templates. This edition of the templates also includes enhanced configuration utilities that greatly simplify the process of configuring the templates for deployment into a running system. The templates are immediately available for download from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. For more information see: • My Oracle Support article 884592.1 • Oracle Technology Network

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• Music before bells and whistles

  - by Tony Davis

  Why is it that Windows has so much difficulty in finding content on its file system? This is not an insurmountable technical problem; on my laptop, I have a database within which I can instantly find text or names within millions of records, within 300 milliseconds. I have a copy of Google Desktop that can find phrases within emails or documents, almost as quickly. It is an important, though mundane, part of an operating system to be able to find files. The first thing I notice within Windows is that the facility to find files or text within files is called 'search' rather than 'find'. Hmm. This doesn’t bode well. What’s this? It does a brute-force search for file names? Here we are in an age when we can breed mice that glow in the dark, and manufacture computers that fit in our shirt pockets, and we find an operating system that is still entirely innocent of managing and indexing content in hierarchical data. I can actually read the files of my PC into a database, mimic the directory/folder hierarchies and then find files in a flash; but when I do the same with Windows Vista, we are suddenly back in a 1960s time warp. Finding files based on their name is bad enough, but finding files based on the content that they contain is more or less asking for an opportunity to wait 20 minutes in order to see a "file not found" message. Sadly, with Windows 7, Microsoft seems to have fallen into the familiar trap of adding bells and whistles before finishing the song. It's certainly true that Microsoft has added new features and a certain polish to Windows Search 4.0, the latest incarnation. It works more like a web search and offers a new search syntax, called Advanced Query Syntax, which allows you to search on file author, file size, date ranges (e.g. date:=7/4/09still does not work reliably. I've experienced first-hand its stubborn refusal, despite a full index, to acknowledge the existence of a file I know exists, based on a search for a specific term within that file that I know is in there somewhere; a file that Google Desktop search, or old wingrep, finds in seconds. When users hark back to the halcyon days of Windows XP search, you know something is seriously amiss. Shouldn't applications get the functionality right before applying animated menus and Teletubby graphics, or is advancing age making me grumpy? I’d be pleased to hear your views, as always. Cheers, Tony.

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• The Kids Are Alright. With Facebook and SMS. But Not Twitter

  - by ultan o'broin

  I delivered a lecture to business and technology freshmen (late teens, I reckon) in Trinity College Dublin recently. I spoke about user experience in enterprise applications, trends that UX pros need to be aware of such as social media, community support, mobile and tablet platforms and a bunch of nuances around those areas (data and device security, privacy, reputation, branding, and so on). It was all fairly high level stuff given the audience, and I included lots of colorful screenshots. Irish-related examples helped to get the message across. During the lecture I did a quick poll. “How many students here use Twitter?” Answer: None. “How many use Facebook?” All (pretty much). So what do these guys like to use instead of Twitter? Easy - text messaging (or SMS if you like). They all had phones. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised about Twitter, but it’s always great to have research validated by some guerilla UX research on the street. There’s already quite a bit of research about teen uptake (or lack) of Twitter, telling us young adults don’t tweet. Twitter is seen as something for er, older people. Affordable devices and data plans that allow students to text really quickly are also popular (BlackBerry, for example). Younger people just luuurve to text each other. A lot.  Facebook versus Twitter for younger folks? Well, we know the story. No contest. I would love to engage more with students like these. I’ll plan for it. It will also be interesting to see if Twitter becomes more important to them over time. There were a few other interesting observations about the lack of uptake of Foursquare, Gowalla and mobile apps like that. I  don’t think there’s a huge uptake in these kind of apps in Ireland anyway, but maybe students have different priorities anyway?   I’ll return to that another day. Technorati Tags: Gowalla,FourSquare,Twitter,UX,user experience,user assistance,Trinity College Dublin

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• How Microsoft listens

  - by Stacy Vicknair

  This being my freshman year as an MVP, I had a realization that I perhaps should be embarrassed hasn’t happened sooner. The realization comes much like the iconic M&Ms commercial where the M&Ms run into Santa and exclaim, “He does exist!” My personal realization arguably has a greater implication: Microsoft does listen. This is the most important lesson that I received this year attending the MVP Summit. My hope is that I can convince you that we are empowered to make a difference. Instead of using “Man I hate how this works / doesn’t work!” as cooler conversation, we can use it as true interaction with Microsoft. We as customers to Microsoft need to stop asking the question “Will this work for me?” and instead ask “How can this work for me?” There are three quick resources that the average developer has access to today that they can use to be heard by the product teams, and by no means should you think twice if you have a concern that you’d like a real response on. MVPs MVPs are members of your community who have a deep relationship with Microsoft and will have connections to their associated product group. Don’t think of them as just a resource for answers, but also as your ambassador for getting your experiences heard. You can find your local MVPs by browsing the directory at: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx Evangelists Evangelists are employees of Microsoft who work to foster and grow communities in their assigned region. They are first-class citizens of Microsoft and are often deeply involved with the product groups. As a result, they will be more than glad to direct your questions or concerns to those who can answer them most expertly. With that said, evangelists are also very busy people (who do amazing things for the community) and might not be able to get you that conversation as quickly as a local MVP. You can find your local evangelist at the following website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb905078.aspx Microsoft Connect This is one of the resources that I haven’t used enough, but it cannot be understated. Connect is the starting point of the social conversation that happens between Microsoft and the community daily. Connect acts as a portal where you can provide new feedback as well as comment and rate the feedback provided by others. Power is in numbers when it comes to Connect, so the exposure that your feedback can get not only lets you know that you aren’t the only one who wants change, but also lets Microsoft know the same. https://connect.microsoft.com   Technorati Tags: Microsoft,MVP,Feedback,Connect

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• The Legend of the Filtered Index

  - by Johnm

  Once upon a time there was a big and bulky twenty-nine million row table. He tempestuously hoarded data like a maddened shopper amid a clearance sale. Despite his leviathan nature and eager appetite he loved to share his treasures. Multitudes from all around would embark upon an epiphanous journey to sample contents of his mythical purse of knowledge. After a long day of performing countless table scans the table was overcome with fatigue. After a short period of unavailability, he decided that he needed to consider a new way to share his prized possessions in a more efficient manner. Thus, a non-clustered index was born. She dutifully directed the pilgrims that sought the table's data - no longer would those despicable table scans darken the doorsteps of this quaint village. and yet, the table's veracious appetite did not wane. Any bit or byte that wondered near him was consumed with vigor. His columns and rows continued to expand beyond the expectations of even the most liberal estimation. As his rows grew grander they became more difficult to organize and maintain. The once bright and cheerful disposition of the non-clustered index began to dim. The wait time for those who sought the table's treasures began to increase. Some of those who came to nibble upon the banquet of knowledge even timed-out and never realized their aspired enlightenment. After a period of heart-wrenching introspection, the table decided to drop the index and attempt another solution. At the darkest hour of the table's desperation came a grand flash of light. As his eyes regained their vision there stood several creatures who looked very similar to his former, beloved, non-clustered index. They all spoke in unison as they introduced themselves: "Fear not, for we come to organize your data and direct those who seek to partake in it. We are the filtered index." Immediately, the filtered indexes began to scurry about. One took control of the past quarter's data. Another took control of the previous quarter's data. All of the remaining filtered indexes followed suit. As the nearly gluttonous habits of the table scaled forward more filtered indexes appeared. Regardless of the table's size, all of the eagerly awaiting data seekers were delivered data as quickly as a Jimmy John's sandwich. The table was moved to tears. All in the land of data rejoiced and all lived happily ever after, at least until the next data challenge crept from the fearsome cave of the unknown. The End.

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• Control Sysinternals Suite & NirSoft Utilities with a Single Interface

  - by Asian Angel

  Sysinternals and NirSoft both provide helpful utilities for your Windows system but may not be very convenient to access. Using the Windows System Control Center you can easily access everything through a single UI front end. Setup The first thing to do is set up three new folders in Program Files (or Program Files (x86) if you are using a 64bit system) with the following names (the first two need to exactly match what is shown here): Sysinternals Suite NirSoft Utilities (create this folder only if you have any of these apps downloaded) Windows System Control Center (or WSCC depending on your preferences) Unzip the contents of the Sysinternals Suite into its’ folder. Then unzip any individual NirSoft Utilities programs that you have downloaded into the NirSoft folder. All that is left to do is to unzip the WSCC software into its’ folder and create a shortcut. WSCC in Action When you start WSCC up for the first time you will see the following message with a brief explanation about the software. Next the options window will appear providing you an opportunity to look around and make any desired changes. WSCC can access utilities for both suites using a live connection if needed (utilities accessed live are not downloaded). Note: This occurs on the first run only. This is the main WSCC window…you can choose the utility that you want to use by sorting through an all items list or based on category. Note: WSCC may occasionally experience a problem downloading a particular utility if using the live service. We conducted a quick test by accessing two Sysinternals apps. First PsInfo… Followed by DiskView. Both opened quickly and were ready to go. There were no NirSoft Utilities installed on our test system in order to provide a live access example. Within moments WSCC accessed the CurrProcess utility and had it running on our system. Our recommendation is to download your favorite utilities from both suites (in order to always have easy access to them). Conclusion WSCC provides an easy way to access all of the apps in the Sysinternals Suite and NirSoft Utilities in one place. Note: A PortableApps version is also available. Links Download Windows System Control Center (WSCC) Download Windows Sysinternals Suite Download individual NirSoft Utilities programs Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Get Detailed Information About Your PCAccess and Launch Windows Utilities the Easy WayWhat is svchost.exe And Why Is It Running?How to Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context MenuRemove NVIDIA Control Panel from Desktop Right-Click Menu 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 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox)

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• Play a New Random Game Each Day in Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  Being able to unwind for a few moments each day can make the time pass so much better and help you feel refreshed. If your favorite method for relaxing is playing a quick game, then join us as we take a look at the Random Games from MyGiochi.net extension for Google Chrome. Random Games from MyGiochi.net in Action The really great thing about this extension is that each day you can have a new random game to play. If you love variety this is definitely going to be a perfect match for you. We got “Power Golf” as our random game of the day. Here is a look at things once we got started…this one can be a lot of fun to play. Time to move on to the third hole now… What if you want something different from the game available on any given day? In the upper right corner you will find links for “game categories” that you can look through (clicking on the links will open a new tab). Since the links are in Italian you might need to experiment a little bit to find the category that you want to browse through. We chose the “Games for Girls Category”. With Chrome’s new built in “Translation Bar” you can easily switch the page over to the language of your choice. Note: Translation Bar available in Dev Channel releases. Ready to choose a fun game to play! You really can have a lot of fun with the games available at My Giochi. With our “game of the day” we had a second option for other games to try. More games equals more fun! Conclusion If playing online games is your favorite way to relax then the MyGiochi.net extension will make a great addition to your browser. Have fun with all of those new games each day! Links Download the Random Games from MyGiochi.net extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Play Alien Arena the Free FPS GamePlay Avalanche!! in Google ChromeFriday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: Play Bubble QuodFriday Fun: 13 Days in Hell 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional How to Browse Privately in Firefox Kill Processes Quickly with Process Assassin Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar Explore Google Public Data Visually The Ultimate Excel Cheatsheet

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• Walking to the North Pole to raise money to protect children from cruelty.

  - by jessica.ebbelaar

  Hi, my name is Luca. I joined Oracle in 2005 and I am currently working as a Dell EMEA Channel Manager UK, Ireland and Iberia and I am responsible for the Oracle Dell relationship for the above 3 countries. On the 31st of March 2011 I will set out to complete the ultimate challenge. I will walk and ski across the frozen Arctic to the Top of The World: the GEOGRAPHIC North Pole. While dragging all my supplies over 60 Nautical miles of moving sea ice, in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. I will spend 8 to 10 days preparing, working, living and travelling to the North Pole to 90 degree north. In November I spent a full week of training for this trip.( watch my video). This gave me the opportunity to meet the rest of the team, testing all the gear and carrying an 18inch tyre around the country side for 8 hours per day. I am honored to embark this challenging journey to support the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). The NSPCC helped more than 750,000 young people to speak out for the first time about abuse they had suffered. I am a firm believer that in order to build a stronger, healthier and wiser society we need to support and help future generations from the beginning of their life journey. This is why cruelty to children must stop. FULL STOP.   Through Virgin Money Giving, you can sponsor me and donations will be quickly processed and passed to NSPCC. Virgin Money Giving is a non-profit organization and will claim gift aid on a charity's behalf where the donor is eligible for this. If you are a UK tax payer please don't forget to select Gift Aid. Gift Aid is great because it means charities get extra money added to their donations at no extra cost to the donor. For every £1 donated, the charity currently receives £1.28 when you add Gift Aid. Anyone who would like to find out more can visit my Facebook page ‘Luca North Pole charity fundraising trip’ I really appreciate all your support and thank you for supporting the NSPCC. Tags van Technorati: Channel Manager,challenge,Arctic,North Pole,NSPCC,cruelty to children,Luca North Pole charity fundraising trip. If fou have any questions related to this article contact [email protected].

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• Is there a way to update all Java related alternatives?

  - by James McMahon

  Is there a way to quickly switch over all the Java related alternatives using update-alternatives? For instance, if want to switch Java over to 7, I run sudo update-alternatives --config java and select the Java 7 OpenJdk. But if I run update-alternatives --get-selections | grep java I get the following, appletviewer auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/appletviewer extcheck auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/extcheck idlj auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/idlj itweb-settings auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/itweb-settings jar auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jar jarsigner auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jarsigner java manual /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java javac auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac javadoc auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javadoc javah auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javah javap auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javap javaws auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/javaws jconsole auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jconsole jdb auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jdb jexec auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/jexec jhat auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jhat jinfo auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jinfo jmap auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jmap jps auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jps jrunscript auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jrunscript jsadebugd auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jsadebugd jstack auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jstack jstat auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jstat jstatd auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/jstatd keytool auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/keytool native2ascii auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/native2ascii orbd auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/orbd pack200 auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/pack200 policytool auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/policytool rmic auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/rmic rmid auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/rmid rmiregistry auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/rmiregistry schemagen auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/schemagen serialver auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/serialver servertool auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/servertool tnameserv auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/tnameserv unpack200 auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/unpack200 wsgen auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/wsgen wsimport auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/wsimport xjc auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/xjc As you can see, my Java alternative was switched over to 7, but every other alternative based on OpenJDK 6 was not switched over. Sure I could switch each one manually or write a script to do so, but I assume there is a better way to accomplish this.

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• IT Admin for Thrill Seekers

  - by Tony Davis

  A developer suggested to me recently that the life of the DBA was, surely, a dull one. My first reaction was indignation, but quickly followed by the thought that for many people excitement isn't necessarily the most desirable aspect of their job. It's true that some aspects of the DBA role seem guaranteed to quieten the pulse; in the days of tape backups, time must have slowed to eternity for the person whose job it was to oversee this process, placing tapes into secure containers, ensuring correct labeling, and.sorry, I drifted off there for a second. On the other hand, if you follow the adventures of the likes of Brent Ozar or Tom LaRock, you'd be forgiven for thinking that much of a database guy's time is spent, metaphorically, diving through plate glass windows in tight fitting underwear in order to extract grateful occupants from burning database applications. Alas it isn't true of the majority, but it isn't as dull as some people imagine, and is a helter-skelter ride compared with some other IT roles. Every IT department has people who toil away in shadowy corners doing quiet but mysterious tasks. When you ask them to explain what they do, you almost immediately want them to stop, but you hear enough to appreciate that these tasks are often absolutely vital to the smooth functioning of an IT organization. Compared with them, the DBAs are prima donnas. Here are a few nominations: Installation engineer - install all of the company's laptops and workstations, and software, deal with licensing, shipping and data entry.many organizations, especially those subject to tight regulation, would simply grind to a halt without their efforts. Localization engineer - Not quite software engineering, not quite translation, the job is to rebuild a product in a different language and make sure everything still works. QA Tester - firstly, I should say that the testers at Red Gate seem to me some of the most-fulfilled in the company. I refer here to the QA Tester whose job is more-or-less entirely to read a script, click some buttons and make sure the actual and expected values match. Configuration manager - for example, someone whose main job is to configure build environments so that devs can access their source code; assuredly necessary for the smooth functioning and productivity of the team, and hopefully well-paid. So what other sort of job in IT should one choose if the work of a DBA proves to be too exciting? Or are these roles secretly more exciting than many imagine? I invite you all to put forward your own suggestions. Cheers, Tony.

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• Friday Fun: Games that Look Like Productivity Apps

  - by Mysticgeek

  We’ve been showing you fun flash games to play during company time on a Friday afternoon. Hopefully while playing them, you haven’t received a “talking to”. Today we show you some cool games to play that look like productivity apps, so the boss will be none the wiser. The website cantyouseeimbusy.com has developed some very neat little games that look like productivity apps like Word and Excel. These apps look exactly like some project you would be working on, but are really neat little games. Here we take a look at three cool ones on the site called Breakdown, Leadership, and Cost Cutter. Leadership Leadership is a cool game that looks like something you would be working in Excel and is a spin off of the classic game Moon Lander. You navigate your ship through a variety of challenging line graphs. Breakdown This one is a knock off of the classic game Break Out. Use your mouse to scroll the racket at the bottom and bounce the ball off of the text in the document. Press the space bar to pause the game and the elements will disappear…good for when the boss comes around. Cost Cutter This one is a puzzle game where it looks like your working on some bar charts in Excel. You need to click combinations of two or more blocks that are the same color. Again, hit the spacebar and the game elements will disappear. If you’re looking for a way to goof off with some simple games without the boss knowing, these will definitely do the trick. Another cool game along these lines is Excit! which we covered previously. Play Cost Cutter, Breakdown, and Leadership at cantyouseeimbusy.com Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Friday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: Bricks Breaking & Cube CrashFriday Fun: Fancy Pants AdventuresFriday Fun: GemCraft is a Totally Addictive Tower Defense GameFriday Fun: Five More Time Wasting Online Games 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Download Microsoft Office Help tab The Growth of Citibank Quickly Switch between Tabs in IE Windows Media Player 12: Tweak Video & Sound with Playback Enhancements Own a cell phone, or does a cell phone own you? Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI

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• Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon

  - by T

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/08/computer-visionaries-2014-kinect-hackathon.aspxA big thank you to Computer Vision Dallas and Microsoft for putting together the Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon that took place July 18th and 19th 2014.  Our team had a great time and learned a lot from the Kinect MVP's and Microsoft team.  The Dallas Entrepreneur Center was a fantastic venue. In total, 114 people showed up to form 15 teams. Burger ITS & Friends team members with Ben Lower:  Shawn Weisfeld, Teresa Burger, Robert Burger, Harold Pulcher, Taylor Woolley, Cori Drew (not pictured), and Katlyn Drew (not pictured) We arrived Friday after a long day of work/driving.  Originally, our idea was to make a learning game for kids.  It was intended to be multi-simultaneous players dragging and dropping tiles into a canvas area for kids around 5 years old. We quickly learned that we were limited to two simultaneous players. After working on the game for the rest of the evening and into the next morning we decided that a fast multi-player game with hand gestures was not going to happen without going beyond what was provided with the API. If we were going to have something to show, it was time to switch gears. The next idea on the table was the Photo Anywhere Kiosk. The user can use voice and hand gestures to pick a place they would like to be.  After the user says a place (or anything they want) and then the word "search", the app uses Bing to display a bunch of images for him/her to choose from. With the use of hand gesture (grab and slide to move back and forth and push/pull to select an image) the user can get the perfect image to pose with. I couldn't get a snippet with the hand but when a the app is in use, a hand shows up to cue the user to use their hand to control it's movement. Once they chose an image, we use the Kinect background removal feature to super impose the user on that image. When they are in the perfect position, they say "save" to save the image. Currently, the image is saved in the images folder on the users account but there are many possibilities such as emailing it, posting to social media, etc.. The competition was great and we were honored to be recognized for third place. Other related posts: http://jasongfox.com/computer-visionaries-2014-incredible-success/ A couple of us are continuing to work on the kid's game and are going to make it a Windows 8 multi-player game without Kinect functionality. Stay tuned for more updates.

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• JavaFX, Google Maps, and NetBeans Platform

  - by Geertjan

  Thanks to a great new article by Rob Terpilowski, and other work and research he describes in that article, it's now trivial to introduce a map component to a NetBeans Platform application. Making use of the GMapsFX library, as described in Rob's article, which provides a JavaFX API for Google Maps, you can very quickly knock this application together. Click to enlarge the image. Here's all the code (from Rob's article): @TopComponent.Description( preferredID = "MapTopComponent", persistenceType = TopComponent.PERSISTENCE_ALWAYS ) @TopComponent.Registration(mode = "editor", openAtStartup = true) @ActionID(category = "Window", id = "org.map.MapTopComponent") @ActionReference(path = "Menu/Window" /*, position = 333 */) @TopComponent.OpenActionRegistration( displayName = "#CTL_MapWindowAction", preferredID = "MapTopComponent" ) @NbBundle.Messages({ "CTL_MapWindowAction=Map", "CTL_MapTopComponent=Map Window", "HINT_MapTopComponent=This is a Map window" }) public class MapWindow extends TopComponent implements MapComponentInitializedListener { protected GoogleMapView mapComponent; protected GoogleMap map; private static final double latitude = 52.3667; private static final double longitude = 4.9000; public MapWindow() { setName(Bundle.CTL_MapTopComponent()); setToolTipText(Bundle.HINT_MapTopComponent()); setLayout(new BorderLayout()); JFXPanel panel = new JFXPanel(); Platform.setImplicitExit(false); Platform.runLater(() -> { mapComponent = new GoogleMapView(); mapComponent.addMapInializedListener(this); BorderPane root = new BorderPane(mapComponent); Scene scene = new Scene(root); panel.setScene(scene); }); add(panel, BorderLayout.CENTER); } @Override public void mapInitialized() { //Once the map has been loaded by the Webview, initialize the map details. LatLong center = new LatLong(latitude, longitude); MapOptions options = new MapOptions(); options.center(center) .mapMarker(true) .zoom(9) .overviewMapControl(false) .panControl(false) .rotateControl(false) .scaleControl(false) .streetViewControl(false) .zoomControl(false) .mapType(MapTypeIdEnum.ROADMAP); map = mapComponent.createMap(options); //Add a couple of markers to the map. MarkerOptions markerOptions = new MarkerOptions(); LatLong markerLatLong = new LatLong(latitude, longitude); markerOptions.position(markerLatLong) .title("My new Marker") .animation(Animation.DROP) .visible(true); Marker myMarker = new Marker(markerOptions); MarkerOptions markerOptions2 = new MarkerOptions(); LatLong markerLatLong2 = new LatLong(latitude, longitude); markerOptions2.position(markerLatLong2) .title("My new Marker") .visible(true); Marker myMarker2 = new Marker(markerOptions2); map.addMarker(myMarker); map.addMarker(myMarker2); //Add an info window to the Map. InfoWindowOptions infoOptions = new InfoWindowOptions(); infoOptions.content("<h2>Center of the Universe</h2>") .position(center); InfoWindow window = new InfoWindow(infoOptions); window.open(map, myMarker); } } Awesome work Rob, will be useful for many developers out there.

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• When should complexity be removed?

  - by ElGringoGrande

  Prematurely introducing complexity by implementing design patterns before they are needed is not good practice. But if you follow all (or even most of) the SOLID principles and use common design patterns you will introduce some complexity as features and requirements are added or changed to keep your design as maintainable and flexible as needed. However once that complexity is introduced and working like a champ when do you removed it? Example. I have an application written for a client. When originally created there where several ways to give raises to employees. I used the strategy pattern and factory to keep the whole process nice and clean. Over time certain raise methods where added or removed by the application owner. Time passes and new owner takes over. This new owner is hard nosed, keeps everything simple and only has one single way to give a raise. The complexity needed by the strategy pattern is no longer needed. If I where to code this from the requirements as they are now I would not introduce this extra complexity (but make sure I could introduce it with little or no work should the need arise). So do I remove the strategy implementation now? I don't think this new owner will ever change how raises are given. But the application itself has demonstrated that this could happen. Of course this is just one example in an application where a new owner takes over and has simplified many processes. I could remove dozens of classes, interfaces and factories and make the whole application much more simple. Note that the current implementation does works just fine and the owner is happy with it (and surprised and even happier that I was able to implement her changes so quickly because of the discussed complexity). I admit that a small part of this doubt is because it is highly likely the new owner isn't going to use me any longer. I don't really care that somebody else will take this over since it has not been a big income generator. But I do care about 2 (related) things I care a bit that the new maintainer will have to think a bit harder when trying to understand the code. Complexity is complexity and I don't want to anger the psycho maniac coming after me. But even more I worry about a competitor seeing this complexity and thinking I just implement design patterns to pad my hours on jobs. Then spreading this rumor to hurt my other business. (I have heard this mentioned.) So... In general should previously needed complexity be removed even though it works and there has been a historically demonstrated need for the complexity but you have no indication that it will be needed in the future? Even if the question above is generally answered "no" is it wise to remove this "un-needed" complexity if handing off the project to a competitor (or stranger)?

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