michael density - Page 114

Guest blog: A Closer Look at Oracle Price Analytics by Will Hutchinson

- by Takin Babaei

Overview: Price Analytics helps companies understand how much of each sale goes into discounts, special terms, and allowances. This visibility lets sales management see the panoply of discounts and start seeing whether each discount drives desired behavior. In Price Analytics monitors parts of the quote-to-order process, tracking quotes, including the whole price waterfall and seeing which result in orders. The “price waterfall” shows all discounts between list price and “pocket price”. Pocket price is the final price the vendor puts in its pocket after all discounts are taken. The value proposition: Based on benchmarks from leading consultancies and companies I have talked to, where they have studied the effects of discounting and started enforcing what many of them call “discount discipline”, they find they can increase the pocket price by 0.8-3%. Yes, in today’s zero or negative inflation environment, one can, through better monitoring of discounts, collect what amounts to a price rise of a few percent. We are not talking about selling more product, merely about collecting a higher pocket price without decreasing quantities sold. Higher prices fall straight to the bottom line. The best reference I have ever found for understanding this phenomenon comes from an article from the September-October 1992 issue of Harvard Business Review called “Managing Price, Gaining Profit” by Michael Marn and Robert Rosiello of McKinsey & Co. They describe the outsized impact price management has on bottom line performance compared to selling more product or cutting variable or fixed costs. Price Analytics manages what Marn and Rosiello call “transaction pricing”, namely the prices of a given transaction, as opposed to what is on the price list or pricing according to the value received. They make the point that if the vendor does not manage the price waterfall, customers will, to the vendor’s detriment. It also discusses its findings that in companies it studied, there was no correlation between discount levels and any indication of customer value. I urge you to read this article. What Price Analytics does: Price analytics looks at quotes the company issues and tracks them until either the quote is accepted or rejected or it expires. There are prebuilt adapters for EBS and Siebel as well as a universal adapter. The target audience includes pricing analysts, product managers, sales managers, and VP’s of sales, marketing, finance, and sales operations. It tracks how effective discounts have been, the win rate on quotes, how well pricing policies have been followed, customer and product profitability, and customer performance against commitments. It has the concept of price waterfall, the deal lifecycle, and price segmentation built into the product. These help product and sales managers understand their pricing and its effectiveness on driving revenue and profit. They also help understand how terms are adhered to during negotiations. They also help people understand what segments exist and how well they are adhered to. To help your company increase its profits and revenues, I urge you to look at this product. If you have questions, please contact me. Will HutchinsonMaster Principal Sales Consultant – Analytics, Oracle Corp. Will Hutchinson has worked in the business intelligence and data warehousing for over 25 years. He started building data warehouses in 1986 at Metaphor, advancing to running Metaphor UK’s sales consulting area. He also worked in A.T. Kearney’s business intelligence practice for over four years, running projects and providing training to new consultants in the IT practice. He also worked at Informatica and then Siebel, before coming to Oracle with the Siebel acquisition. He became Master Principal Sales Consultant in 2009. He has worked on developing ROI and TCO models for business intelligence for over ten years. Mr. Hutchinson has a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago.

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Data Security Through Structure, Procedures, Policies, and Governance

Security Structure and Procedures One of the easiest ways to implement security is through the use of structure, in particular the structure in which data is stored. The preferred method for this through the use of User Roles, these Roles allow for specific access to be granted based on what role a user plays in relation to the data that they are manipulating. Typical data access actions are defined by the CRUD Principle. CRUD Principle: Create New Data Read Existing Data Update Existing Data Delete Existing Data Based on the actions assigned to a role assigned, User can manipulate data as they need to preform daily business operations. An example of this can be seen in a hospital where doctors have been assigned Create, Read, Update, and Delete access to their patient’s prescriptions so that a doctor can prescribe and adjust any existing prescriptions as necessary. However, a nurse will only have Read access on the patient’s prescriptions so that they will know what medicines to give to the patients. If you notice, they do not have access to prescribe new prescriptions, update or delete existing prescriptions because only the patient’s doctor has access to preform those actions. With User Roles comes responsibility, companies need to constantly monitor data access to ensure that the proper roles have the most appropriate access levels to ensure users are not exposed to inappropriate data. In addition this also protects rouge employees from gaining access to critical business information that could be destroyed, altered or stolen. It is important that all data access is monitored because of this threat. Security Governance Current Data Governance laws regarding security Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Sarbanes-Oxley Act Database Breach Notification Act The US Department of Health and Human Services defines HIIPAA as a Privacy Rule. This legislation protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information. Currently, HIPAA sets the national standards for securing electronically protected health records. Additionally, its confidentiality provisions protect identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety. In 2002 after the wake of the Enron and World Com Financial scandals Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley lead the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This act administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dramatically altered corporate financial practices and data governance. In addition, it also set specific deadlines for compliance. The Sarbanes-Oxley is not a set of standard business rules and does not specify how a company should retain its records; In fact, this act outlines which pieces of data are to be stored as well as the storage duration. The Database Breach Notification Act requires companies, in the event of a data breach containing personally identifiable information, to notify all California residents whose information was stored on the compromised system at the time of the event, according to Gregory Manter. He further explains that this act is only California legislation. However, it does affect “any person or business that conducts business in California, and that owns or licenses computerized data that includes personal information,” regardless of where the compromised data is located. This will force any business that maintains at least limited interactions with California residents will find themselves subject to the Act’s provisions. Security Policies All companies must work in accordance with the appropriate city, county, state, and federal laws. One way to ensure that a company is legally compliant is to enforce security policies that adhere to the appropriate legislation in their area or areas that they service. These types of polices need to be mandated by a company’s Security Officer. For smaller companies, these policies need to come from executives, Directors, and Owners.

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Microsoft Build 2012 Day 1 Keynote Summary

- by Tim Murphy

So I have finally dried the tears after watching the Keynote for Build 2012. This wasn’t because it was an emotional presentation, but because for the second year I missed the goodies. Each on site attendee got a Surface RT, a Lumia 920 and a voucher for 100GB of SkyDrive storage. The event was opened with the announcement that in the three days since the launch of Windows 8 over 4 million upgrades have been sold. I don’t care who you are that is an impressive stat. Ballmer then spent a fair amount of time remaking the case for the Windows and Windows Phone platforms similar to what we have heard over the last to launch events. There were some cool, but non-essential demos. The one that was the most fun was the Perceptive Pixel 82” slate device. At first glance I wondered why I would ever want such a device, but then Ballmer explained it’s possible use for schools and boardrooms. The actually made sense. Then things got strange. Steve started explaining features that developers could leverage. Usually this type of information is left to the product leads. He focused on the integration with the Charms features such as Search and Share. Steve “Guggs” Guggenheim showed off an app that would appeal to my kids from Disney called “Agent P” which is base on Phineas and Ferb. Then he got to the meat of the presentation. We found out that you could add a tile that can be used to sell ad space. In the same vein we also found out that you could use Microsoft’s, Paypal’s or any commerce engine of your own creation or choosing. For those who are interested in sports and especially developing sports apps you would have found the small presentation from Michael Bayle of ESPN. He introduced the ESPN app which has tons of features. For the developers in the crowd he also mentioned that ESPN has an API available at developer.espn.com. During the launch events we were told apps were coming. In this presentation we were actually shown a scrolling list of logos and told about a couple of them. Ballmer mentioned specifically Twitter, SAP and DropBox. These are impressive names that were just a couple of the list impressive names. Steve Ballmer addressed the question of why you should develop for the Windows 8 platform. He feels that Microsoft has the best commercial terms for developers, a better way to build apps than other platforms and a variety of form factors. His key point though was the available volume of customers given the current Windows install base and assuming even a flat growth of the platform. This he backed with a promise that Microsoft is going to do better at marketing and you won’t be able to avoid the ads that they are bringing out. The last section of the key note was present by Kevin Gallo from the Windows Phone team. This was the real reason I tuned into the webcast. He impressed upon those watching that the strength of developing for the Microsoft platform is the common programming model that now exist. While there are difference between form factor implementations you can leverage code across them. He claimed that 90% of developer requests for Windows Phone 8 had been implemented. These include: More controls with better performance Better live tiles including lock screen integration Speech support in custom apps Easier submission to the market place App camera integration VOIP and chat support Bluetooth and NFC support Native C++ development Direct 3D development The quote from Kevin that stood out for me was that “Take your Dramamine and buckle your seatbelt type of games are coming to Windows Phone 8”. He back this up by displaying a list of game development frameworks and then having Unity come out and do a demo. Ok, almost done … The last two things of note for me were the announcement that the SDK is immediately available at dev.windowsphone.com and that they were reducing the cost of an individual developer account to $8 for the next 8 days. Let the development commence. del.icio.us Tags: Build 2012,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Windows Phone

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Simple MVVM Walkthrough – Refactored

- by Sean Feldman

JR has put together a good introduction post into MVVM pattern. I love kick start examples that serve the purpose well. And even more than that I love examples that also can pass the real world projects check. So I took the sample code and refactored it slightly for a few aspects that a lot of developers might raise a brow. Michael has mentioned model (entity) visibility from view. I agree on that. A few other items that don’t settle are using property names as string (magical strings) and Saver class internal casting of a parameter (custom code for each Saver command). Fixing a property names usage is a straight forward exercise – leverage expressions. Something simple like this would do the initial job: class PropertyOf<T> { public static string Resolve(Expression<Func<T, object>> expression) { var member = expression.Body as MemberExpression; return member.Member.Name; } } With this, refactoring of properties names becomes an easy task, with confidence that an old property name string will not get left behind. An updated Invoice would look like this: public class Invoice : INotifyPropertyChanged { private int id; private string receiver; public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; private void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName) { if (PropertyChanged != null) { PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } } public int Id { get { return id; } set { if (id != value) { id = value; OnPropertyChanged(PropertyOf<Invoice>.Resolve(x => x.Id)); } } } public string Receiver { get { return receiver; } set { receiver = value; OnPropertyChanged(PropertyOf<Invoice>.Resolve(x => x.Receiver)); } } } For the saver, I decided to change it a little so now it becomes a “view-model agnostic” command, one that can be used for multiple commands/view-models. Updated Saver code now accepts an action at construction time and executes that action. No more black magic internal class Command : ICommand { private readonly Action executeAction; public Command(Action executeAction) { this.executeAction = executeAction; } public bool CanExecute(object parameter) { return true; } public event EventHandler CanExecuteChanged; public void Execute(object parameter) { // no more black magic executeAction(); } } Change in InvoiceViewModel is instantiation of Saver command and execution action for the specific command. public ICommand SaveCommand { get { if (saveCommand == null) saveCommand = new Command(ExecuteAction); return saveCommand; } set { saveCommand = value; } } private void ExecuteAction() { DisplayMessage = string.Format("Thanks for creating invoice: {0} {1}", Invoice.Id, Invoice.Receiver); } This way internal knowledge of InvoiceViewModel remains in InvoiceViewModel and Command (ex-Saver) is view-model agnostic. Now the sample is not only a good introduction, but also has some practicality in it. My 5 cents on the subject. Sample code MvvmSimple2.zip

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How to properly add texture to multi-fixture/shape b2Body

- by Blazej Wdowikowski

Hello to everyone this is my first poste here I hope that will be not fail start. At start I must say I make part 1 in Ray's Tutorial "How To Make A Game Like Fruit Ninja With Box2D and Cocos2D". But I wonder what when I want make more complex body with texture? Simple just add n b2FixtureDef to the same body. OK but what about texture? If I will take code from that tutorial it only fill last fixture. Probably it does not takes every b2Vec2 point. I was right, it did not. So quick refactor and from that -(id)initWithTexture:(CCTexture2D*)texture body:(b2Body*)body original:(BOOL)original { // gather all the vertices from our Box2D shape b2Fixture *originalFixture = body->GetFixtureList(); b2PolygonShape *shape = (b2PolygonShape*)originalFixture->GetShape(); int vertexCount = shape->GetVertexCount(); NSMutableArray *points = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:vertexCount]; for(int i = 0; i < vertexCount; i++) { CGPoint p = ccp(shape->GetVertex(i).x * PTM_RATIO, shape->GetVertex(i).y * PTM_RATIO); [points addObject:[NSValue valueWithCGPoint:p]]; } if ((self = [super initWithPoints:points andTexture:texture])) { _body = body; _body->SetUserData(self); _original = original; // gets the center of the polygon _centroid = self.body->GetLocalCenter(); // assign an anchor point based on the center self.anchorPoint = ccp(_centroid.x * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.width, _centroid.y * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.height); } return self; } I came up with that -(id)initWithTexture:(CCTexture2D*)texture body:(b2Body*)body original:(BOOL)original { int vertexCount = 0; //gather total number of b2Vect2 points b2Fixture *currentFixture = body->GetFixtureList(); while (currentFixture) { //new b2PolygonShape *shape = (b2PolygonShape*)currentFixture->GetShape(); vertexCount += shape->GetVertexCount(); currentFixture = currentFixture->GetNext(); } NSMutableArray *points = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:vertexCount]; // gather all the vertices from our Box2D shape b2Fixture *originalFixture = body->GetFixtureList(); while (originalFixture) { //new NSLog((NSString*)@"-"); b2PolygonShape *shape = (b2PolygonShape*)originalFixture->GetShape(); int currentVertexCount = shape->GetVertexCount(); for(int i = 0; i < currentVertexCount; i++) { CGPoint p = ccp(shape->GetVertex(i).x * PTM_RATIO, shape->GetVertex(i).y * PTM_RATIO); [points addObject:[NSValue valueWithCGPoint:p]]; } originalFixture = originalFixture->GetNext(); } if ((self = [super initWithPoints:points andTexture:texture])) { _body = body; _body->SetUserData(self); _original = original; // gets the center of the polygon _centroid = self.body->GetLocalCenter(); // assign an anchor point based on the center self.anchorPoint = ccp(_centroid.x * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.width,_centroid.y * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.height); } return self; } I was working for simple two fixtures body like b2BodyDef bodyDef; bodyDef.type = b2_dynamicBody; bodyDef.position = position; bodyDef.angle = rotation; b2Body *body = world->CreateBody(&bodyDef); b2FixtureDef fixtureDef; fixtureDef.density = 1.0; fixtureDef.friction = 0.5; fixtureDef.restitution = 0.2; fixtureDef.filter.categoryBits = 0x0001; fixtureDef.filter.maskBits = 0x0001; b2Vec2 vertices[] = { b2Vec2(0.0/PTM_RATIO,50.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(0.0/PTM_RATIO,0.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(50.0/PTM_RATIO,30.1/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(60.0/PTM_RATIO,60.0/PTM_RATIO) }; b2PolygonShape shape; shape.Set(vertices, 4); fixtureDef.shape = &shape; body->CreateFixture(&fixtureDef); b2Vec2 vertices2[] = { b2Vec2(20.0/PTM_RATIO,50.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(20.0/PTM_RATIO,0.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(70.0/PTM_RATIO,30.1/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(80.0/PTM_RATIO,60.0/PTM_RATIO) }; shape.Set(vertices2, 4); fixtureDef.shape = &shape; body->CreateFixture(&fixtureDef); But if I try put secondary shape upper than first it starting wierd, texture goes crazy. For example not mention about more complex shapes. What's more if shapes have one common point texture will not render for them at all [For that I use Physics Edytor like in tutorial part1] BTW. I use PolygonSprite and in method createWithWorld... another shapes. Uff.. Question So my question is, why texture coords are in such a mess up? It's my modify method or just wrong approach? Maybe I should remove duplicated from points array?

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Passed: Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3

First off: Mission accomplished successfully. And it was fun! Using the resources listed in my previous article about Learning Content, I'd like to thank Microsoft Technical Evangelists Jeremy Foster and Michael Palermo for their excellent jump start videos on Channel 9, and the various authors at Pluralsight. Local Prometric testing centre Back in November I chose a local testing centre which was the easiest to access from my office despite the horrible traffic you might experience here on the island. Actually, it was not the closest one. But due to their website, their awards as Microsoft Learning Center, and my general curiosity about the premises, I gave FRCI my priority. Boy, how should I regret this decision this morning... The official Prometric exam guide asks any attendee to show up at least 30 minutes prior to the scheduled time of the test. Well, this should have been the easier part but unfortunately due to heavier traffic than usual I arrived only 20 minutes before time. Not too bad but more to come. The building called 'le Hub' is nicely renovated and provides the right environment for an IT group of companies like FRCI. I think they have currently 5 independent IT departments over there. Even the handling at the reception was straight forward, welcoming and at my ease. But then... first shock: "We don't have any exam registration for today." - Hm, that's nice... Here's my mail confirmation from Prometric. First attack successfully handled and the lady went off again to check their records. Next shock: A couple of minutes later, another guy tries to explain me that "the staff of the testing centre is already on vacation and the centre is officially closed." - Are you kidding me? Here's the official confirmation by Prometric, and I don't find it funny that I take a day off today only to hear this kind of blubbering nonsense. I thought that I'll be on the safe side choosing a company with a good reputation here on the island. Another 40 (!) minutes later, they finally come back to the waiting area with a pre-filled form about the test appointment. And finally, after an hour of waiting, discussing, restarting the testing PC, and lots of talk, I am allowed to sit down and take the exam. Exam details Well, you know the rules. Signing an NDA doesn't allow me to provide you any details about the questions or topics that have been covered. Please check out the official exam description, and you're on the right way. Sorry, guys... ;-) The result "Congratulations! You have passed this Microsoft Certification exam." - In general, I have to admit that the parts on HTML5 and CSS3 were the easiest after all, and that I have to get myself a little bit more familiar with certain Javascript features like class definitions, inheritance and data security. Anyway, exam passed - who cares about the details? Next goal Of course, the journey to Microsoft Certifications continues and my next goal is to pass exams 70-481 - Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and 70-482 - Advanced Windows Store App Development using HTML5 and JavaScript. This would allow me to achieve the certification of MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5. I guess, during 2013 I'll be busy with various learning and teaching lessons.

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Why googling by keycaptcha gives results on reCAPTCHA? [closed]

- by vgv8

EDIT: I'd like to change this title to: How to STOP Google's manipulation of Google search engine presented to general public? I am frequently googling and more and more frequently bump when searching by one software product I am given instead the results on Google's own products. For ex., if I google by keyword keycaptcha for the "Past 24 hours" (after clicking on "Show search tools" -- "Past 24 hours" on the left sidebar of a browser) I am getting the Google's search results show only results on reCAPTCHA. Image uploaded later: Though, if confine keycaptcha in quotes the results are "correct" (well, kind of since they are still distorted in comparison with other search engines). I checked this during few months from different domains at different ISPs, different operating systems and from a dozen of browsers. The results are the same. Why is it and how can it be possibly corrected? My related posts: "How Gmail spam filter works?" IP adresses blacklisting Update: It is impossible for me to directly start using google.com as I am always redirected to google.ru (from google.com) by my ip-address "auto-detect location" google's "convenience". The google's help tells that it is impossible to switch off my location auto-detection because it is very helpful feature. There is a work-around to use google.com/ncr (to get google.com) (?anybody know what does it mean) to prevent redirection from google.com but even. But all results are exactly the same OK, I can search by quoted "keycaptcha", I am already accustomed to these google's quirks, but the question arises why the heck to burn time promoting someone's product if GOOGLE uses other product brands for showing its own interests/brands (reCAPTCHA) instead and what can be done with it? The general user will not understand that he was cheated and just will pick up the first (wrong) results Update2: Note that this googling behaviour: is independent on whether I am logged-in (or log-out-ed of) a google account, which account, on browser (I tried Opera, Chrome, FireFox, IE of different versions, Safari), OS or even domain; there are many such cases but I just targeted one concrete restricted example speciffically to to prevent wandering between unrelated details and peculiarities; @Michael, first it is not true and this text contains 2 links for real and significant results.. I also wrote that this is just one concrete example from many and based on many-month exp. These distortions happen upon clicking on: Past 24 hours, Past week, Past month, Past year in many other keywords, occasions/configurations of searches, etc. Second, the absence of the results is the result and there is no point to sneakingly substitute it by another unsolicited one. It is the definition of spam and scam. 3d, the question is not abt workarounds like how to write search queries or use another searching engines. The question is how to straighten the googling's results in order to stop disorienting general public about. Update: I could not understand: nobody reproduces the described by me behavior (i.e. when I click "Past 24 hours" link in google search searching for keycaptcha, the presented results are only on reCAPTCHA presented)? Update: And for the "Past week":

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Open Source MariaDB, the MySQL fork to replace MySQL?

- by Jenson

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Frankly speaking, I’ve been out of touch with the Open source world for quite some time. Until recently, after I’ve joined the new government agency, I managed to do some research while given time to learn new technologies and languages. I started reading tech blogs and tech news again (since I’m not as busy as before where I need to rush for project deadlines in and out), and I spotted this MariaDB that really attracts my attention, this is the link to ZDNet article - http://www.zdnet.com/open-source-mariadb-a-mysql-fork-challenges-oracle-7000008311/ Open-Source MariaDB, a MySQL fork, challenges Oracle Yes, you’re right, MariaDB is a MySQL fork, and as mentioned in the article, MariaDB is run by the founder of MySQL, Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius, and he claims MariaDB is faster, more secure and has more features than MySQL. I’m actually very excited to know that the code is maintained by the same dedicated core team of MySQL in the past 18 years. They even bother to form a foundation, the MariaDB Foundation, to promote MariaDB. Already, there’s a lot of open source software officially supporting MariaDB, such as Drupal, Jelastic – Java in the cloud, Kajona, MediaWiki, phpMyAdmin, Plone, SaltOs, WordPress, and Zend Framework. But the hosting service provider might not be readily supporting MariaDB in their hosting solution. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Time will tell whether MariaDB would be the real replacement for MySQL, I’m sorry I don’t think I should use alternative here ;-) For more information, please visit MariaDB official site. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

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Do Great Work

- by user12601034

Have you ever attended an online conference and actually had a desire to attend all of it?? Yesterday I attended the first day of the Great Work MBA program, sponsored by Box of Crayons and hosted by Michael Bungay Stanier. The topic of the day was “Grounding Yourself,” and the day featured five speakers on five different topics. I have to admit that I started the first session with kind of a “blech” feeling that I didn’t really want to participate, but for some reason I did. So I listened to the first session, and I was hooked. I ended up listening to all of the sessions for the day, and I had some great take-aways from the sessions – my highlights included: The opposite of bravery isn’t fear, it’s settling. In essence, you need to be brave in order to accomplish anything. If you’re settling, you’re not being brave, and your accomplishments will likely be lackluster. Bravery requires confidence and permission. You need to work at being brave by taking small wins, build them up and then take slightly larger risks. Additionally, you need to “claim your own crown.” Nobody in the business world is going to give you permission to be a guru in X – you need to give yourself permission to become a guru in X and then do it. Fall in love with obstacles. Everyone is going to face some form of failure. One way to deal with this is to fall in love with solving the puzzle of obstacles. You don’t have to hit it if you can go around it. Understanding purpose brings out the best in people and the best people. As a leader, drawing in people who are passionate and highly motivated about their work creates velocity for your organization. Being clear about purpose is the first step in doing this. You must own your own story. Everything about you creates a “unique you” that is distinct from everyone else. As you take ownership of this, it becomes part of your strength. It’s not a strength if you’re running away from it. Focus on what’s right. Be aware of your tendency to interpret a situation a certain way and differentiate between helpful and unhelpful interpretations. Three questions for how to think differently: 1) Why? 2) Who says so? 3) What would happen if? These three questions can help you build alternative perspectives and options that can increase resiliency. Even though this first day was focused on “Grounding Yourself,” I see plenty of application in the corporate environment for both individuals and leaders of teams. To apply these highlights to my work environment, I would do the following: Understand the purpose – of my company, of my team and of my role on the team. If I know the purpose, I know what I need to bring to the table to make me, my team and my company successful. Declare your goals…your BEHAGS (big, hairy, audacious goals).Have the confidence to declare what you and/or your team is going to accomplish.Sure, you might have to re-state those goals down the line, but you can learn from that as well. Get creative about achieving your goals.Break down your obstacles by asking yourself what is going to stop you from achieving your goals and then, for each obstacles, ask those three questions:Why?Who says so? What would happen if? Focus on what’s right.I had a manager who asked us to write status reports every week.“Status” consisted of 1) What did I accomplish; 2) What will I accomplish next week; 3) How can my manager help me.The focus on our status report was always “what’s right”(“what’s wrong” was always a conversation at the point in time it was needed). I’m normally a skeptic of online webcasts/conferences, and I normally expect to take away maybe one or two ideas. I’m really glad, however, that I took the time to listen to all of the sessions yesterday, and I hope that my take-aways inspire you to think about how you might do great work also. --

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EMEA Analytics & Data Integration Oracle Partner Forum

- by milomir.vojvodic

MONDAY 12TH NOVEMBER, 2012 IN LONDON (UK) For Oracle Partners across Europe, Middle East and Africa: come to hear the latest news from Oracle OpenWorld about Oracle BI & Data Integration, and propel your business growth as an Oracle partner. This event should appeal to BI or Data Integration specialized partners, Executives, Sales, Pre-sales and Solution architects: with a choice of participation in the plenary day and then a set of special interest (technical) sessions. The follow on breakout sessions from the 13th November provide deeper dives and technical training for those of you who wish to stay for more detailed and hands-on workshops. Keynote: Andrew Sutherland, SVP Oracle Technology Hot agenda items will include: The Fusion Middleware Stack: Engineered to work together A complete Analytics and Data Integration Solution Architecture: Big Data and Little Data combined In-Memory Analytics for Extreme Insight Latest Product Development Roadmap for Data Integration and Analytics Venue: Oracles London CITY Moorgate Offices Places are limited, Register from this Link Note: Registration for the conference and the deeper dives and technical training is free of charge to OPN member Partners, but you will be responsible for your own travel and hotel expenses. Event Schedule During this event you can learn about partner success stories, participate in an array of break-out sessions, exchange information with other partners and enjoy a vibrant panel discussion. Nov. 12th : Day 1 Main Plenary Session : Full day, starting 10.30 am. Oracle Hosted Dinner in the Evening Nov. 13th onwards Architecture Masterclass : IM Reference Architecture – Big Data and Little Data combined (1 day) BI-Apps Bootcamp (4-days) Oracle GoldenGate workshop (1 day) Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle Enterprise Data Quality workshop (1 day) For further information and detail download the Agenda (pdf) or contact Michael Hallett at [email protected] and Milomir Vojvodic at [email protected] v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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How can I estimate the entropy of a password?

- by Wug

Having read various resources about password strength I'm trying to create an algorithm that will provide a rough estimation of how much entropy a password has. I'm trying to create an algorithm that's as comprehensive as possible. At this point I only have pseudocode, but the algorithm covers the following: password length repeated characters patterns (logical) different character spaces (LC, UC, Numeric, Special, Extended) dictionary attacks It does NOT cover the following, and SHOULD cover it WELL (though not perfectly): ordering (passwords can be strictly ordered by output of this algorithm) patterns (spatial) Can anyone provide some insight on what this algorithm might be weak to? Specifically, can anyone think of situations where feeding a password to the algorithm would OVERESTIMATE its strength? Underestimations are less of an issue. The algorithm: // the password to test password = ? length = length(password) // unique character counts from password (duplicates discarded) uqlca = number of unique lowercase alphabetic characters in password uquca = number of uppercase alphabetic characters uqd = number of unique digits uqsp = number of unique special characters (anything with a key on the keyboard) uqxc = number of unique special special characters (alt codes, extended-ascii stuff) // algorithm parameters, total sizes of alphabet spaces Nlca = total possible number of lowercase letters (26) Nuca = total uppercase letters (26) Nd = total digits (10) Nsp = total special characters (32 or something) Nxc = total extended ascii characters that dont fit into other categorys (idk, 50?) // algorithm parameters, pw strength growth rates as percentages (per character) flca = entropy growth factor for lowercase letters (.25 is probably a good value) fuca = EGF for uppercase letters (.4 is probably good) fd = EGF for digits (.4 is probably good) fsp = EGF for special chars (.5 is probably good) fxc = EGF for extended ascii chars (.75 is probably good) // repetition factors. few unique letters == low factor, many unique == high rflca = (1 - (1 - flca) ^ uqlca) rfuca = (1 - (1 - fuca) ^ uquca) rfd = (1 - (1 - fd ) ^ uqd ) rfsp = (1 - (1 - fsp ) ^ uqsp ) rfxc = (1 - (1 - fxc ) ^ uqxc ) // digit strengths strength = ( rflca * Nlca + rfuca * Nuca + rfd * Nd + rfsp * Nsp + rfxc * Nxc ) ^ length entropybits = log_base_2(strength) A few inputs and their desired and actual entropy_bits outputs: INPUT DESIRED ACTUAL aaa very pathetic 8.1 aaaaaaaaa pathetic 24.7 abcdefghi weak 31.2 H0ley$Mol3y_ strong 72.2 s^fU¬5ü;y34G< wtf 88.9 [a^36]* pathetic 97.2 [a^20]A[a^15]* strong 146.8 xkcd1** medium 79.3 xkcd2** wtf 160.5 * these 2 passwords use shortened notation, where [a^N] expands to N a's. ** xkcd1 = "Tr0ub4dor&3", xkcd2 = "correct horse battery staple" The algorithm does realize (correctly) that increasing the alphabet size (even by one digit) vastly strengthens long passwords, as shown by the difference in entropy_bits for the 6th and 7th passwords, which both consist of 36 a's, but the second's 21st a is capitalized. However, they do not account for the fact that having a password of 36 a's is not a good idea, it's easily broken with a weak password cracker (and anyone who watches you type it will see it) and the algorithm doesn't reflect that. It does, however, reflect the fact that xkcd1 is a weak password compared to xkcd2, despite having greater complexity density (is this even a thing?). How can I improve this algorithm? Addendum 1 Dictionary attacks and pattern based attacks seem to be the big thing, so I'll take a stab at addressing those. I could perform a comprehensive search through the password for words from a word list and replace words with tokens unique to the words they represent. Word-tokens would then be treated as characters and have their own weight system, and would add their own weights to the password. I'd need a few new algorithm parameters (I'll call them lw, Nw ~= 2^11, fw ~= .5, and rfw) and I'd factor the weight into the password as I would any of the other weights. This word search could be specially modified to match both lowercase and uppercase letters as well as common character substitutions, like that of E with 3. If I didn't add extra weight to such matched words, the algorithm would underestimate their strength by a bit or two per word, which is OK. Otherwise, a general rule would be, for each non-perfect character match, give the word a bonus bit. I could then perform simple pattern checks, such as searches for runs of repeated characters and derivative tests (take the difference between each character), which would identify patterns such as 'aaaaa' and '12345', and replace each detected pattern with a pattern token, unique to the pattern and length. The algorithmic parameters (specifically, entropy per pattern) could be generated on the fly based on the pattern. At this point, I'd take the length of the password. Each word token and pattern token would count as one character; each token would replace the characters they symbolically represented. I made up some sort of pattern notation, but it includes the pattern length l, the pattern order o, and the base element b. This information could be used to compute some arbitrary weight for each pattern. I'd do something better in actual code. Modified Example: Password: 1234kitty$$$$$herpderp Tokenized: 1 2 3 4 k i t t y $ $ $ $ $ h e r p d e r p Words Filtered: 1 2 3 4 @W5783 $ $ $ $ $ @W9001 @W9002 Patterns Filtered: @P[l=4,o=1,b='1'] @W5783 @P[l=5,o=0,b='$'] @W9001 @W9002 Breakdown: 3 small, unique words and 2 patterns Entropy: about 45 bits, as per modified algorithm Password: correcthorsebatterystaple Tokenized: c o r r e c t h o r s e b a t t e r y s t a p l e Words Filtered: @W6783 @W7923 @W1535 @W2285 Breakdown: 4 small, unique words and no patterns Entropy: 43 bits, as per modified algorithm The exact semantics of how entropy is calculated from patterns is up for discussion. I was thinking something like: entropy(b) * l * (o + 1) // o will be either zero or one The modified algorithm would find flaws with and reduce the strength of each password in the original table, with the exception of s^fU¬5ü;y34G<, which contains no words or patterns.

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Subversion vision and roadmap

- by gbjbaanb

Recently C Michael Pilato of the core subversion team posted a mail to the subversion dev mailing list suggesting a vision and roadmap for the future of Subversion. Naturally, he wanted as much feedback and response as possible which is why I'm posting this here - to elicit some suggestions and contributions from you, the administrators of Subversion. Any comments are welcome, and I shall feedback a synopsis with a link to this question to the dev mailing list. Similarly, I've created a post on StackOverflow to get feedback from the programmer/user side of things too. So, without further ado: Vision The first thing on his "vision statement" is: Subversion has no future as a DVCS tool. Let's just get that out there. At least two very successful such tools exist already, and to squeeze another horse into that race would be a poor investment of energy and talent. There's no need to suggest distributed features for subversion. If you want a DVCS, there should be no ill-feeling if you migrate to Git, Mercurial or Bazaar. As he says, its pointless trying to make SVN like them when they already exist, especially when there are different usage patterns that SVN should be targetting. The vision for Subversion is: Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations. Roadmap Several ideas were suggested as being "very nice to have" and are offered as the starting point of a future roadmap. These are: Obliterate Shelve/Checkpoint Repository-dictated Configuration Rename Tracking Improved Merging Improved Tree Conflict Handling Enterprise Authentication Mechanisms Forward History Searching Log Message Templates Repository-dictated Configuration If anyone has suggestions to add, or comments on these, the subversion community would welcome all of them. Community And lastly, there was a call for more people to become involved with Subversion development. As with most OSS projects it can be daunting to join, but there is now a push for more to be done to help. If you feel like you can contribute, please do so.

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Showing Directory Root When Launching Rails App Using Apache2 and Passenger

- by LightBe Corp

I have done the following in an attempt to host a Rails 3.2.3 application using Apache 2.2.21 and Passenger 3.0.13: Installed gem Passenger rvmsudo passenger-install-apache2-module Added website info in /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf Added line to /etc/hosts (not sure if this was needed or not; not mentioned in Passenger documentation Uncommented out the line in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf to Include /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf Restarted Apache When I try to pull up my website the following displays: Index of / Name Last modified Size Description Apache/2.2.21 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.21 OpenSSL/0.9.8r DAV/2 PHP/5.3.10 with Suhosin-Patch Phusion_Passenger/3.0.13 Server at lightbesandbox2.com Port 443 Here is /etc/hosts entry for the website: 127.0.0.1 www.lightbesandbox2.com Here is my /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf entry for the website: NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName www.lightbesandbox2.com ServerAlias lightbesandbox2.com PassengerAppRoot /Users/server1/Sites/iktusnetlive_RoR/ DocumentRoot /Users/server1/Sites/iktusnetlive_RoR/public <Directory /Users/server1/Sites/iktusnetlive_RoR/public> AllowOverride all Options -MultiViews </Directory> </VirtualHost> When I do rvmsudo passenger-status I get the following output: ----------- General information ----------- max = 6 count = 1 active = 0 inactive = 1 Waiting on global queue: 0 ----------- Application groups ----------- /Users/server1/Sites/iktusnetlive_RoR/: App root: /Users/server1/Sites/iktusnetlive_RoR/ * PID: 8140 Sessions: 0 Processed: 2 Uptime: 20m 51s None of my assets are in the public folder in my Rails app. I have written an application using the template presented in Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial. The home page is in /app/views/static_pages/home.html.erb. I decided to copy an index.html file in the public folder to see if it would display. It displayed as I had hoped.. Is there a way to get Passenger to find my assets without me having to rewrite my application? Any help would be appreciated. Update 6/23/2012 10:00 am CDT GMT-6 I corrected the problems with my file and have successfully executed the rake assets:precompile command. I still get the index page as before. I have made no other changes. I did a passenger-status command and it is still loaded. Restarting Apache did nothing.

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Android: manifest targetSdkVersion change resulted in: icon not visible, widget no longer works, and

- by Casey

I recently upgraded my Android app to support multiple resolutions. Previously, my Android.manifest file had a line: To support multiple density and resolution devices, I changed this to: <supports-screens android:smallScreens="false" android:normalScreens="true" android:largeScreens="true" android:anyDensity="true" /> <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="3" android:targetSdkVersion="4" /> I then added a couple of new directories, like drawable-hdpi-v4 and drawable-long-hdpi-v4 that includes the high-res versions of the graphics. That's about it. Ever since releasing this update, there have been a decent number of users complaining about various problems: - the app icon doesn't appear (I did not create a high res version of the icon) - the home screen widget no longer works, even if they delete and re-add it (this code did not change with the update). I've had a user send me their error log, which shows: 03-19 20:59:41.617 W/ActivityManager( 1854): Unable to launch app com.alt12.babybump/10078 for broadcast Intent { action=android.appwidget.action.APPWIDGET_UPDATE flags=0x4 comp={com.alt12.babybump/com.alt12.babybump.WidgetGirl} (has extras) }: process is bad There is one questionable section in my existing widget code that may be relevant: @Override public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) { // v1.5 fix that doesn't call onDelete Action final String action = intent.getAction(); if (AppWidgetManager.ACTION_APPWIDGET_DELETED.equals(action)) { final int appWidgetId = intent.getExtras().getInt( AppWidgetManager.EXTRA_APPWIDGET_ID, AppWidgetManager.INVALID_APPWIDGET_ID); if (appWidgetId != AppWidgetManager.INVALID_APPWIDGET_ID) { this.onDeleted(context, new int[] { appWidgetId }); } } else { super.onReceive(context, intent); } } And perhaps most troublesome: the sqlite database is no longer accessible/writeable for some users so their data is no longer available. I did add the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission to the manifest. This is only happening to certain users and it tends to be HTC Eris users. In that error log I see things such as: 03-19 16:00:56.173 E/FlurryAgent( 4791): java.io.FileNotFoundException: /data/data/com.alt12.babybump/files/.flurryagent.-2333f5cb 03-19 16:00:56.173 E/FlurryAgent( 4791): at org.apache.harmony.luni.platform.OSFileSystem.open(OSFileSystem.java:231) 03-19 16:01:09.393 E/Database( 4791): sqlite3_open_v2("/data/data/com.alt12.babybump/databases/uitematmamad.db", &handle, 6, NULL) failed 03-19 16:01:09.393 W/System.err( 4791): android.database.sqlite.SQLiteException: unable to open database file It's as if the update has caused a new process and it can't access the old process's data, or something. Any help appreciated!

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Why does filter: blur(0) still cause text to blur under Webkit?

- by johnkavanagh

I've come across a bug today that's taken far longer than I would like to admit to identify. Essentially: setting a filter: blur(0) (or the vendor-specific -webkit-filter) on an element should - I believe - mean that no form of blur is applied. However, having tested this today, it would appear that Webkit based browsers still blur the text within any element with either blur(0) or blur(0px) assigned to it. I've knocked together a quick Fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/f9rBE/ These are three identical dixs containing text (no custom fonts): This has absolutely nothing assigned Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam facilisis orci in quam venenatis, in tempus ipsum sagittis. Suspendisse potenti. Donec ullamcorper lacus vel odio accumsan, vel aliquam libero tempor. Praesent nec libero venenatis, ultrices arcu non, luctus quam. Morbi scelerisque sit amet turpis sit amet tincidunt. Praesent semper erat non purus pretium consequat. Aenean et iaculis turpis. Curabitur diam tellus, consectetur non massa et, commodo venenatis metus. One has no styles at all assigned, the other two have blur(0) and blur(0px): .no-blur{} .zero-px-blur{ -webkit-filter: blur(0px); -moz-filter: blur(0px); -o-filter: blur(0px); -ms-filter: blur(0px); filter: blur(0px); } .zero-blur{ -webkit-filter: blur(0); -moz-filter: blur(0); -o-filter: blur(0); -ms-filter: blur(0); filter: blur(0); } If you preview this under Chrome/Safari you'll see that the text in the second two are still blurred: A few things worth noting: This unintentional blurring occurs in Safari on iOS7 devices (both iPhones and iPads); It also occurs on Chrome and Safari under OSX; It doesn't happen under FireFox in OSX. Of course, this isn't supported at all in Firefox just yet so it's hard to tell whether the behaviour I'm seeing is intentional/expected behaviour, or whether this is a bug in Webkit? Is it possible that this is only prevalent in higher-density resolution devices (ie: retina MacBook/iPhone/iPad)? With this in mind, how do you actually overwrite an item that has blur applied to it to set it back to non-blurred?

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Modeling distribution of performance measurements

- by peterchen

How would you mathematically model the distribution of repeated real life performance measurements - "Real life" meaning you are not just looping over the code in question, but it is just a short snippet within a large application running in a typical user scenario? My experience shows that you usually have a peak around the average execution time that can be modeled adequately with a Gaussian distribution. In addition, there's a "long tail" containing outliers - often with a multiple of the average time. (The behavior is understandable considering the factors contributing to first execution penalty). My goal is to model aggregate values that reasonably reflect this, and can be calculated from aggregate values (like for the Gaussian, calculate mu and sigma from N, sum of values and sum of squares). In other terms, number of repetitions is unlimited, but memory and calculation requirements should be minimized. A normal Gaussian distribution can't model the long tail appropriately and will have the average biased strongly even by a very small percentage of outliers. I am looking for ideas, especially if this has been attempted/analysed before. I've checked various distributions models, and I think I could work out something, but my statistics is rusty and I might end up with an overblown solution. Oh, a complete shrink-wrapped solution would be fine, too ;) Other aspects / ideas: Sometimes you get "two humps" distributions, which would be acceptable in my scenario with a single mu/sigma covering both, but ideally would be identified separately. Extrapolating this, another approach would be a "floating probability density calculation" that uses only a limited buffer and adjusts automatically to the range (due to the long tail, bins may not be spaced evenly) - haven't found anything, but with some assumptions about the distribution it should be possible in principle. Why (since it was asked) - For a complex process we need to make guarantees such as "only 0.1% of runs exceed a limit of 3 seconds, and the average processing time is 2.8 seconds". The performance of an isolated piece of code can be very different from a normal run-time environment involving varying levels of disk and network access, background services, scheduled events that occur within a day, etc. This can be solved trivially by accumulating all data. However, to accumulate this data in production, the data produced needs to be limited. For analysis of isolated pieces of code, a gaussian deviation plus first run penalty is ok. That doesn't work anymore for the distributions found above. [edit] I've already got very good answers (and finally - maybe - some time to work on this). I'm starting a bounty to look for more input / ideas.

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Stata - Multiple rotated plots on graph (including distributions on sides of axes)

- by meerak

I would like to produce a single graph containing both: (1) a scatter plot (2) either histograms or kernel density functions of the Y and X variables to the left of the Y axis and below the X axis. I found a graph that does this in MATLAB -- I would just like to produce something similar in Stata: That graph was produced using the following MATLAB code: n = 1000; rho = .7; Z = mvnrnd([0 0], [1 rho; rho 1], n); U = normcdf(Z); X = [gaminv(U(:,1),2,1) tinv(U(:,2),5)]; [n1,ctr1] = hist(X(:,1),20); [n2,ctr2] = hist(X(:,2),20); subplot(2,2,2); plot(X(:,1),X(:,2),'.'); axis([0 12 -8 8]); h1 = gca; title('1000 Simulated Dependent t and Gamma Values'); xlabel('X1 ~ Gamma(2,1)'); ylabel('X2 ~ t(5)'); subplot(2,2,4); bar(ctr1,-n1,1); axis([0 12 -max(n1)*1.1 0]); axis('off'); h2 = gca; subplot(2,2,1); barh(ctr2,-n2,1); axis([-max(n2)*1.1 0 -8 8]); axis('off'); h3 = gca; set(h1,'Position',[0.35 0.35 0.55 0.55]); set(h2,'Position',[.35 .1 .55 .15]); set(h3,'Position',[.1 .35 .15 .55]); colormap([.8 .8 1]); UPDATE: The Stata13 manual entry for "graph combine" has precisely this example (http://www.stata.com/manuals13/g-2graphcombine.pdf). Here is the code: use http://www.stata-press.com/data/r13/lifeexp, clear generate loggnp = log10(gnppc) label var loggnp "Log base 10 of GNP per capita" scatter lexp loggnp, ysca(alt) xsca(alt) xlabel(, grid gmax) fysize(25) saving(yx) twoway histogram lexp, fraction xsca(alt reverse) horiz fxsize(25) saving(hy) twoway histogram loggnp, fraction ysca(alt reverse) ylabel(,nogrid) xlabel(,grid gmax) saving(hx) graph combine hy.gph yx.gph hx.gph, hole(3) imargin(0 0 0 0) graphregion(margin(l=22 r=22)) title("Life expectancy at birth vs. GNP per capita") note("Source: 1998 data from The World Bank Group")

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May 20th Links: ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET, .NET 4, VS 2010, Silverlight

- by ScottGu

Here is the latest in my link-listing series. Also check out my VS 2010 and .NET 4 series and ASP.NET MVC 2 series for other on-going blog series I’m working on. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET MVC How to Localize an ASP.NET MVC Application: Michael Ceranski has a good blog post that describes how to localize ASP.NET MVC 2 applications. ASP.NET MVC with jTemplates Part 1 and Part 2: Steve Gentile has a nice two-part set of blog posts that demonstrate how to use the jTemplate and DataTable jQuery libraries to implement client-side data binding with ASP.NET MVC. CascadingDropDown jQuery Plugin for ASP.NET MVC: Raj Kaimal has a nice blog post that demonstrates how to implement a dynamically constructed cascading dropdownlist on the client using jQuery and ASP.NET MVC. How to Configure VS 2010 Code Coverage for ASP.NET MVC Unit Tests: Visual Studio enables you to calculate the “code coverage” of your unit tests. This measures the percentage of code within your application that is exercised by your tests – and can give you a sense of how much test coverage you have. Gunnar Peipman demonstrates how to configure this for ASP.NET MVC projects. Shrinkr URL Shortening Service Sample: A nice open source application and code sample built by Kazi Manzur that demonstrates how to implement a URL Shortening Services (like bit.ly) using ASP.NET MVC 2 and EF4. More details here. Creating RSS Feeds in ASP.NET MVC: Damien Guard has a nice post that describes a cool new “FeedResult” class he created that makes it easy to publish and expose RSS feeds from within ASP.NET MVC sites. NoSQL with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC Part 1 and Part 2: Nice two-part blog series by Shiju Varghese on how to use MongoDB (a document database) with ASP.NET MVC. If you are interested in document databases also make sure to check out the Raven DB project from Ayende. Using the FCKEditor with ASP.NET MVC: Quick blog post that describes how to use FCKEditor – an open source HTML Text Editor – with ASP.NET MVC. ASP.NET Replace Html.Encode Calls with the New HTML Encoding Syntax: Phil Haack has a good blog post that describes a useful way to quickly update your ASP.NET pages and ASP.NET MVC views to use the new <%: %> encoding syntax in ASP.NET 4. I blogged about the new <%: %> syntax – it provides an easy and concise way to HTML encode content. Integrating Twitter into an ASP.NET Website using OAuth: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that describes how to take advantage of Twiter within an ASP.NET Website using the OAuth protocol – which is a simple, secure protocol for granting API access. Creating an ASP.NET report using VS 2010 Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3: Raj Kaimal has a nice three part set of blog posts that detail how to use SQL Server Reporting Services, ASP.NET 4 and VS 2010 to create a dynamic reporting solution. Three Hidden Extensibility Gems in ASP.NET 4: Phil Haack blogs about three obscure but useful extensibility points enabled with ASP.NET 4. .NET 4 Entity Framework 4 Video Series: Julie Lerman has a nice, free, 7-part video series on MSDN that walks through how to use the new EF4 capabilities with VS 2010 and .NET 4. I’ll be covering EF4 in a blog series that I’m going to start shortly as well. Getting Lazy with System.Lazy: System.Lazy and System.Lazy<T> are new features in .NET 4 that provide a way to create objects that may need to perform time consuming operations and defer the execution of the operation until it is needed. Derik Whittaker has a nice write-up that describes how to use it. LINQ to Twitter: Nifty open source library on Codeplex that enables you to use LINQ syntax to query Twitter. Visual Studio 2010 Using Intellitrace in VS 2010: Chris Koenig has a nice 10 minute video that demonstrates how to use the new Intellitrace features of VS 2010 to enable DVR playback of your debug sessions. Make the VS 2010 IDE Colors look like VS 2008: Scott Hanselman has a nice blog post that covers the Visual Studio Color Theme Editor extension – which allows you to customize the VS 2010 IDE however you want. How to understand your code using Dependency Graphs, Sequence Diagrams, and the Architecture Explorer: Jennifer Marsman has a nice blog post describes how to take advantage of some of the new architecture features within VS 2010 to quickly analyze applications and legacy code-bases. How to maintain control of your code using Layer Diagrams: Another great blog post by Jennifer Marsman that demonstrates how to setup a “layer diagram” within VS 2010 to enforce clean layering within your applications. This enables you to enforce a compiler error if someone inadvertently violates a layer design rule. Collapse Selection in Solution Explorer Extension: Useful VS 2010 extension that enables you to quickly collapse “child nodes” within the Visual Studio Solution Explorer. If you have deeply nested project structures this extension is useful. Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Building a Simple Windows Phone 7 Application: A nice tutorial blog post that demonstrates how to take advantage of Expression Blend to create an animated Windows Phone 7 application. If you haven’t checked out my Windows Phone 7 Twitter Tutorial I also recommend reading that. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. If you haven’t already, check out this month’s "Find a Hoster” page on the www.asp.net website to learn about great (and very inexpensive) ASP.NET hosting offers.

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March 21st Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, AJAX, Visual Studio, Silverlight

- by ScottGu

Here is the latest in my link-listing series. If you haven’t already, check out this month’s "Find a Hoster” page on the www.asp.net website to learn about great (and very inexpensive) ASP.NET hosting offers. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET URL Routing in ASP.NET 4: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that talks about the new URL routing features coming to Web Forms applications with ASP.NET 4. Also check out my previous blog post on this topic. Control of Web Control ClientID Values in ASP.NET 4: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that describes how it is now easy to control the client “id” value emitted by server controls with ASP.NET 4. Web Deployment Made Awesome: Very nice MIX10 talk by Scott Hanselman on the new web deployment features coming with VS 2010, MSDeploy, and .NET 4. Makes deploying web applications much, much easier. ASP.NET 4’s Browser Capabilities Support: Nice blog post by Stephen Walther that talks about the new browser definition capabilities support coming with ASP.NET 4. Integrating Twitter into an ASP.NET Website: Nice article by Scott Mitchell that demonstrates how to call and integrate Twitter from within your ASP.NET applications. Improving CSS with .LESS: Nice article by Scott Mitchell that describes how to optimize CSS using .LESS – a free, open source library. ASP.NET MVC Upgrading ASP.NET MVC 1 applications to ASP.NET MVC 2: Eilon Lipton from the ASP.NET team has a nice post that describes how to easily upgrade your ASP.NET MVC 1 applications to ASP.NET MVC 2. He has an automated tool that makes this easy. Note that automated MVC upgrade support is also built-into VS 2010. Use the tool in this blog post for updating existing MVC projects using VS 2008. Advanced ASP.NET MVC 2: Nice video talk by Brad Wilson of the ASP.NET MVC team. In it he describes some of the more advanced features in ASP.NET MVC 2 and how to maximize your productivity with them. Dynamic Select Lists with ASP.NET MVC and jQuery: Michael Ceranski has a nice blog post that describes how to dynamically populate dropdownlists on the client using AJAX. AJAX Microsoft AJAX Minifier: We recently shipped an updated minifier utility that allows you to shrink/minify both JavaScript and CSS files – which can improve the performance of your web applications. You can run this either manually as a command-line tool or now automatically integrate it using a Visual Studio build task. You can download it for free here. Visual Studio VS 2010 Tip: Quickly Closing Documents: Nice blog post that describes some techniques for optimizing how windows are closed with the new VS 2010 IDE. Collpase to Definitions with Outlining: Nice tip from Zain on how to collapse your code editor to outline mode using Ctrl + M, Ctrl + O. Also check out his post on copy/paste with outlining here. $299 VS 2010 Upgrade Offer for VS 2005/2008 Standard Users: Soma blogs about a nice VS 2010 upgrade offer you can take advantage of if you have VS 2005 or VS 2008 Standard editions. For $299 you can upgrade to VS 2010 Professional edition. Dependency Graphics: Jason Zander (who runs the VS team) has a nice blog post that covers the new dependency graph support within VS 2010. This makes it easier to visualize the dependencies within your application. Also check out this video here. Layer Validation: Jason Zander has a nice blog post that talks about the new layer validation features in VS 2010. This enables you to enforce cleaner layering within your projects and solutions. VS 2010 Profiler Blog: The VS 2010 Profiler Team has their own blog and on it you can find a bunch of nice posts from the last few months that talk about a lot of the new features coming with VS 2010’s Profiler support. Some really nice features coming. Silverlight Silverlight 4 Training Course: Nice free set of training courses from Microsoft that can help bring you up to speed on all of the new Silverlight 4 features and how to build applications with them. Updated and current with the recently released Silverlight 4 RC build and tools. Getting Started with Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Development: Nice blog post by Tim Heuer that summarizes how to get started building Windows Phone 7 applications using Silverlight. Also check out my blog post from last week on how to build a Windows Phone 7 Twitter application using Silverlight. A Guide to What Has Changed with the Silverlight 4 RC: Nice summary post by Tim Heuer that describes all of the things that have changed between the Silverlight 4 Beta and the Silverlight 4 RC. Path Based Layout - Part 1 and Part 2: Christian Schormann has a nice blog post about a really cool new feature in Expression Blend 4 and Silverlight 4 called Path Layout. Also check out Andy Beaulieu’s blog post on this. Hope this helps, Scott

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Dec 5th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, jQuery, Silverlight, Visual Studio

- by ScottGu

Here is the latest in my link-listing series. Also check out my VS 2010 and .NET 4 series for another on-going blog series I’m working on. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET ASP.NET Code Samples Collection: J.D. Meier has a great post that provides a detailed round-up of ASP.NET code samples and tutorials from a wide variety of sources. Lots of useful pointers. Slash your ASP.NET compile/load time without any hard work: Nice article that details a bunch of optimizations you can make to speed up ASP.NET project load and compile times. You might also want to read my previous blog post on this topic here. 10 Essential Tools for Building ASP.NET Websites: Great article by Stephen Walther on 10 great (and free) tools that enable you to more easily build great ASP.NET Websites. Highly recommended reading. Optimize Images using the ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework: A nice article by 4GuysFromRolla that discusses how to use the open-source ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework (one of the tools recommended by Stephen in the previous article). You can use this to significantly improve the load-time of your pages on the client. Formatting Dates, Times and Numbers in ASP.NET: Scott Mitchell has a great article that discusses formatting dates, times and numbers in ASP.NET. A very useful link to bookmark. Also check out James Michael’s DateTime is Packed with Goodies blog post for other DateTime tips. Examining ASP.NET’s Membership, Roles and Profile APIs (Part 18): Everything you could possibly want to known about ASP.NET’s built-in Membership, Roles and Profile APIs must surely be in this tutorial series. Part 18 covers how to store additional user info with Membership. ASP.NET with jQuery An Introduction to jQuery Templates: Stephen Walther has written an outstanding introduction and tutorial on the new jQuery Template plugin that the ASP.NET team has contributed to the jQuery project. Composition with jQuery Templates and jQuery Templates, Composite Rendering, and Remote Loading: Dave Ward has written two nice posts that talk about composition scenarios with jQuery Templates and some cool scenarios you can enable with them. Using jQuery and ASP.NET to Build a News Ticker: Scott Mitchell has a nice tutorial that demonstrates how to build a dynamically updated “news ticker” style UI with ASP.NET and jQuery. Checking All Checkboxes in a GridView using jQuery: Scott Mitchell has a nice post that covers how to use jQuery to enable a checkbox within a GridView’s header to automatically check/uncheck all checkboxes contained within rows of it. Using jQuery to POST Form Data to an ASP.NET AJAX Web Service: Rick Strahl has a nice post that discusses how to capture form variables and post them to an ASP.NET AJAX Web Service (.asmx). ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC Diagnostics Using NuGet: Phil Haack has a nice post that demonstrates how to easily install a diagnostics page (using NuGet) that can help identify and diagnose common configuration issues within your apps. ASP.NET MVC 3 JsonValueProviderFactory: James Hughes has a nice post that discusses how to take advantage of the new JsonValueProviderFactory support built into ASP.NET MVC 3. This makes it easy to post JSON payloads to MVC action methods. Practical jQuery Mobile with ASP.NET MVC: James Hughes has another nice post that discusses how to use the new jQuery Mobile library with ASP.NET MVC to build great mobile web applications. Credit Card Validator for ASP.NET MVC 3: Benjii Me has a nice post that demonstrates how to build a [CreditCard] validator attribute that can be used to easily validate credit card numbers are in the correct format with ASP.NET MVC. Silverlight Silverlight FireStarter Keynote and Sessions: A great blog post from John Papa that contains pointers and descriptions of all the great Silverlight content we published last week at the Silverlight FireStarter. You can watch all of the talks online. More details on my keynote and Silverlight 5 announcements can be found here. 31 Days of Windows Phone 7: 31 great tutorials on how to build Windows Phone 7 applications (using Silverlight). Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit Update: David Anson has a nice post that discusses some of the additional controls provided with the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit. Visual Studio JavaScript Editor Extensions: A nice (and free) Visual Studio plugin built by the web tools team that significantly improves the JavaScript intellisense support within Visual Studio. HTML5 Intellisense for Visual Studio: Gil has a blog post that discusses a new extension my team has posted to the Visual Studio Extension Gallery that adds HTML5 schema support to Visual Studio 2008 and 2010. Team Build + Web Deployment + Web Deploy + VS 2010 = Goodness: Visual blogs about how to enable a continuous deployment system with VS 2010, TFS 2010 and the Microsoft Web Deploy framework. Visual Studio 2010 Emacs Emulation Extension and VIM Emulation Extension: Check out these two extensions if you are fond of Emacs and VIM key bindings and want to enable them within Visual Studio 2010. Hope this helps, Scott

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EBS Techstack Sessions at OAUG/Collaborate 2010

- by Steven Chan

We have a large contingent of E-Business Suite Applications Technology Group staff rolling out to the OAUG/Collaborate 2010 conference in Las Vegas new week. Our Applications Technology Group staff will be appearing as guest speakers or full-speakers at the following E-Business Suite technology stack related sessions:Database Special Interest GroupSunday, April 18, 11:00 AM, Breakers FSIG Leaders: Michael Brown, Colibri; Sandra Vucinic, Vlad GroupGuest Speaker: Steven ChanCovering database upcoming and past desupport dates, and database support policies as they apply to E-Business Suite environments, general Q&A E-Business Suite Technology Stack Special Interest GroupSunday, April 18, 3:00 PM, Breakers FSIG Leaders: Elke Phelps, Paul Jackson, HumanaGuest Speaker: Steven ChanCovering the latest EBS technology stack certifications, roadmap, desupport noticesupgrade options for Discoverer, OID, SSO, Portal, general Q&A E-Business Suite Applications Technology Roadmap & VisionMonday, April 19, 8:00 AM, South Seas GOracle Speaker: Uma PrabhalaLatest developments for SOA, AOL, OAF, Web ADI, SES, AMP, ACMP, security, and other technologies Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Strategy and General Manager UpdateMonday, April 19, 2:30 PM, Mandalay Bay Ballroom DOracle Speaker: Cliff GodwinUpdate on the entire Oracle E-Business Suite product line. The session covers the value delivered by the current release of Oracle E-Business Suite applications, the momentum, and how Oracle E-Business Suite applications integrate into Oracle's overall applications strategy 10 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for the Next Generation ApplicationsTuesday, April 20, 8:00 AM, South Seas FOracle Speaker: Nadia Bendjedou"Common sense" and "practical" steps that can be taken today to increase the value of your Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JDE) investments by using the latest Oracle solutions and technologiesReducing TCO using Oracle E-Business Suite Management PacksTuesday, April 20, 10:30 AM, South Seas EOracle Speaker: Angelo RosadoLearn how you can reduce the Total Cost of Ownership by implementing Application Management Pack (AMP) and Application Change Management Pack (ACP) for E-Business Suite 11i, R12, R12.1. AMP is Oracle's next generation system manageability product offering that provides a centralized platform to manage and maintain EBS. ACP is Oracle's offering to monitor and manage E-Business Suite changes in the areas of E-Business Suite Customizations, Patches and Functional Setups. E-Business Suite Upgrade Special Interest GroupTuesday, April 20, 3:15 PM, South Seas ESIG Leaders: John Stouffer; Sandra Vucinic, Vlad GroupGuest Speaker: Steven ChanParticipating in general Q&A E-Business Suite Technology Essentials: Using the Latest Oracle Technologies with E-Business Suite Wednesday, April 21, 8:00 AM, South Seas HOracle Speaker: Lisa ParekhOracle continues to build new functionality into the Oracle Database, Fusion Middleware, and Enterprise Manager. Come see how you can enhance the value of E-Business Suite for your users and lower your costs of ownership by utilizing the latest features of these Oracle technologies with E-Business Suite. Learn about the latest advanced E-Business Suite topologies and features, including new options for security, performance, third-party integration, SOA, virtualization, clouds, systems management, and much more How to Leverage the New E-Business Suite R12.1 Solutions Without Upgrading your 11.5.10 EnvironmentWednesday, April 21, 10:30 AMOracle Speaker: Nadia Bendjedou, South Seas ELearn how you can use the latest E-Business Suite 12.1 standalone solutions without upgrading from your E-Business Suite 11.5.10 environment Web 2.0 User Experience and Oracle Fusion Middleware Integration with Oracle E-Business SuiteWednesday, April 21, 4:00 PM, South Seas FOracle Speaker: Padmaprabodh AmbaleSee the next generation Oracle E-Business Suite OA framework improvements that will provide new rich interactions in components such as LOV, Tables and Attachments. See new components like the Rich Container that allows any Web 2.0 content like Flash or OBIEE to be embedded in OA Framework pages. Advanced Technology Deployment Architectures for E-Business Suite Wednesday, April 21, 2:15 PM, South Seas EOracle Speaker: Steven ChanLearn how to take advantage of the latest version of Oracle Fusion Middleware with Oracle E-Business Suite. Learn how to utilize identity management systems and LDAP directories. In addition, come to this session for answers about advanced network deployments involving reverse proxy servers, load balancers, and DMZ's, and to see how you can take benefit from virtualization and new system management capabilities. Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 - Best PracticesThursday, April 22, 11:00 AM, South Seas EOracle Speaker: Lester Gutierrez, Udayan ParvateFundamental of upgrading to Release 12.1, which includes the technology stack components and differences, the upgrade path from various releases of Oracle E-Business Suite, upgrade steps, monitoring the upgrade, hints and tips for minimizing downtime and upgrade best practices for making the upgrade to Release 12.1 a success. We look forward to seeing you there!

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XNA Notes 011

- by George Clingerman

Even with a lot of the XNA community working on Dream Build Play entries ( I swear I’m going to finish mine this year!) people are still finding time to do side projects and be amazingly active in the XNA and XBLIG community. With my one eye on my code and one eye on the community, here’s what I noticed these over achievers doing this past week! Time Critical XNA News: Xbox LIVE Indie Games sales data will be delayed March 17-20th due to some schedule maintenance http://create.msdn.com/en-us/news/indie_games_data_delay_march2011 GameMarx is releasing a series of videos to help raise donations for victims of the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan. Help out if you can! http://www.gamemarx.com/video/special/29/help-japan-sushido.aspx XNA MVPs: Catalin Zima shares his thoughts on the MVP summit and my book! http://www.catalinzima.com/2011/03/mvp-summit-2011/ Glenn Wilson (@mykre) helps the XNA team announce some new educational content that you don’t want to miss if you’re porting your app or game to Windows Phone 7 http://www.virtualrealm.com.au/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/653/Porting-your-App-or-Game-to-Windows-Phone-7.aspx and Windows Phone 7 from scratch http://www.virtualrealm.com.au/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/654/Windows-Phone-from-Scratch.aspx and shares a link to some free architectural models and textures http://twitter.com/#!/Mykre/status/46410160784158720 George (that’s me!) shares his MVP Summit 2011 summary and XBLIG thoughts http://geekswithblogs.net/clingermangw/archive/2011/03/15/144366.aspx XNA Developers: @SmallCaveGames shares a Code of Ethics for Xbox LIVE Indie Game Developers http://smallcavegames.blogspot.com/2011/03/unofficial-xblig-developers-code-of.html Derek S adds more Xbox LIVE Indie Game studios to his master list of XBLIG links http://twitter.com/#!/Mr_Deeke/status/46140996056125440 http://xbl-indieverse.blogspot.com/p/xblig-links.html Making games and want to help kids? Then share your story with GameFace: America! http://gameitupinitiative.com/about-the-initiative/programs/gameface-america/ Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): XonaGames shares some video footage of their booth from GDC 2011 Video 1: http://youtu.be/lxIV9nk3Gq4 Video 2: http://youtu.be/GgfrjqkxR_o Video 3: http://youtu.be/yVcpXrTX7SQ Joystiq on Mommy’s Best Games Serious Sam Double D http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/16/the-most-important-thing-about-serious-sam-double-d/ And The Escapist recommends that gamers start learning to avoid cleavage now http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108543-Boobie-Bomber-Makes-First-Appearance-in-Serious-Sam-Double-D Magiko Gaming started a blog on the XBLIG dashboard daily Top 10 games in the US. Good way to go back in time and look at the history of which games were in the the Top 10. http://dailytop10indiegames.wordpress.com/ Where are they going now? XBLIG developers at a crossroads.. http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/where_are_they_going_now_xblig.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33527/InDepth_Where_Are_They_Going_Now_XBLIG_Developers_At_A_Crossroads_.php BinaryTweed’s Clover: A Curious Tail is Xbox LIVE’s Deal of the Week! http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/15/what-luck-clover-a-curious-tale-is-half-price-this-week/ Looking for an Xbox LIVE Indie Game to buy? Writings of Mass Deduction has over 125 suggestions at this point! http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/ SkaStudios shares Vampire Smile Achievements AND their PAX East 2011 Both Setup video http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/14/vampire-smile-achievement/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/15/pax-booth-setup-time-lapse/ MasterBlud and VVGTV starts a new community for XBLIG developers and gamers to join http://vvgtv.forumotion.com/ Raymond Matthews (@DrakstarMatryx) covers Mommy’s Best Games getting Serious http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=286 XNA Development: Dave Henry (@mort8088) posts the 4th tutorial in his series XNA 4.0 SpriteBatch extended http://mort8088.com/2011/03/11/xna-4-0-tutorial-4-spritebatch-extended/ Tutorial 5 - Creating a manual blank texture http://mort8088.com/2011/03/13/xna-4-tutorial-5-manual-blank-texture/ XNA 4.0 Tutorial 6 - Spritesheet Object http://mort8088.com/2011/03/18/xna-4-0-tutorial-6-spritesheet-object/ Jason Mitchell shares a tutorial on setting the alpha value for spritebatch in XNA 4.0 http://www.jason-mitchell.com/index.php/2011/03/13/setting-alpha-value-for-spritebatch-draw-in-xna-4/ XNA for Silverlight Developers: Part 7 - Collision Detection http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-7-Collision-detection.aspx Markus Ewald (@Cygon4) shares the full Ninject 2.0 binding for XNA and Sunburn http://twitter.com/#!/Cygon4/status/48330203826622464 Michael B. McLaughlin shares an AccelerometerInput XNA GameComponent he created (which I’m probably going to snag for a game I’m working on...) http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/17/accelerometerinput-xna-gamecomponent.aspx Extra Credit tackles the building of a good tutorial. Must watch for all Indie game devs (thanks for pointing it out Evan Johnson!) http://twitter.com/#!/johnsonevan/status/48452115680604160 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2921-Tutorials-101 ExEn is fully funded at this point so definitely something for XBLIG developers to keep an eye on as they consider releasing their games on other platforms http://rockethub.com/projects/752-exen-xna-for-iphone-android-and-silverlight Channel 9 and Greg Duncan post Mixing the Game State Management and Platformer XNA Recipes http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Mixing-the-Game-State-Management-and-Platformer-XNA-Recipes Sgt. Conker has noticed Mike McLaughlin has been crazy productive and has done a recap of his recent posts http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/03/recap-of-mikebmcls-posts/

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I want to change DPI with Imagemagick without changing the actual byte-size of the image data

- by user1694803

I feel so horribly sorry that I have to ask this question here, but after hours of researching how to do an actually very simple task I'm still failing... In Gimp there is a very simple way to do what I want. I only have the German dialog installed but I'll try to translate it. I'm talking about going to "Picture-PrintingSize" and then adjusting the Values "X-Resolution" and "Y-Resolution" which are known to me as so called DPI values. You can also choose the format which by default is "Pixel/Inch". (In German the dialog is "Bild-Druckgröße" and there "X-Auflösung" and "Y-Auflösung") Ok, the values there are often "72" by default. When I change them to e.g. "300" this has the effect that the image stays the same on the computer, but if I print it, it will be smaller if you look at it, but all the details are still there, just smaller - it has a higher resolution on the printed paper (but smaller size... which is fine for me). I am often doing that when I am working with LaTeX, or to be exact with the command "pdflatex" on a recent Ubuntu-Machine. When I'm doing the above process with Gimp manually everything works just fine. The images will appear smaller in the resulting PDF but with high printing quality. What I am trying to do is to automate the process of going into Gimp and adjusting the DPI values. Since Imagemagick is known to be superb and I used it for many other tasks I tried to achieve my goal with this tool. But it does just not do what I want. After trying a lot of things I think this actually is be the command that should be my friend: convert input.png -density 300 output.png This should set the DPI to 300, as I can read everywhere in the web. It seems to work. When I check the file it stays the same. file input.png output.png input.png: PNG image data, 611 x 453, 8-bit grayscale, non-interlaced output.png: PNG image data, 611 x 453, 8-bit grayscale, non-interlaced When I use this command, it seems like it did what I wanted: identify -verbose output.png | grep 300 Resolution: 300x300 PNG:pHYs : x_res=300, y_res=300, units=0 (Funny enough, the same output comes for input.png which confuses me... so this might be the wrong parameters to watch?) But when I now render my TeX with "pdflatex" the image is still big and blurry. Also when I open the image with Gimp again the DPI values are set to "72" instead of "300". So there actually was no effect at all. Now what is the problem here. Am I getting something completely wrong? I can't be that wrong since everything works just fine with Gimp... Thanks for any help in this. I am also open to other automated solutions which are easily done on a Linux system...

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top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – March 2012

- by JuergenKress

Send us your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/wlscommunity PeterPaul ? RT @JDeveloper: EJB 3 Deployment guide for WebLogic Server Version: 10.3.4.0 dlvr.it/1J5VcV Andrejus Baranovskis ?Open ADF PopUp on Page Load fb.me/1Rx9LP3oW Sten Vesterli ? RT @OracleBlogs: Using the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java on ADF Applications ow.ly/1hVKbB <- Neat! No more WS calls Java Buddy ?JavaFX 2.0: Example of MediaPlay java-buddy.blogspot.com/2012/03/javafx… Georges Saab Build improvements coming to #openJDK for #jdk8 mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/buil… NetBeans Team Share your #Java experience! JavaOne 2012 India call for papers: ow.ly/9xYg0 GlassFish ? GlassFish 3.1.2 Screencasts & Videos – bit.ly/zmQjn2 chriscmuir ?G+: New blog post: ADF Runtimes vs WLS versions as of JDeveloper 11.1.1.6.0 – bit.ly/y8tkgJ Michael Heinrichs New article: Creating a Sprite Animation with JavaFX blog.netopyr.com/2012/03/09/cre… Oracle WebLogic ? #WebLogic Devcast Webinar Series for March: Enterprise Java Scale Out, JPA, Distributed Grid Data Cache bit.ly/zeUXEV #Coherence Andrejus Baranovskis ?Extending Application Module for ADF BC Proxy User DB Connection fb.me/Bj1hLUqm OTNArchBeat ? Oracle Fusion Middleware on JDK 7 | Mark Nelson bit.ly/w7IroZ OTNArchBeat ? Java Champion Jonas Bonér Explains the Akka Platform bit.ly/x2GbXm Adam Bien ? (Java) FX Experience Tools–Feels Like Native Mac App: FX Experience Tools application comes with a native Mac O… bit.ly/waHF3H GlassFish ? GlassFish new recruit and Eclipse integration progress – bit.ly/y5eEkk JDeveloper & ADF Prototyping ADF Libraries dlvr.it/1Hhnw0 Eric Elzinga ?Oracle Fusion Middleware on JDK 7, bit.ly/xkphFQ ADF EMG ? Working with ADF in Arabic, Hebrew or other right-to-left-written language? Oracle UX asks for your help. groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro… Java ? A simple #JavaFX Login Form with a TRON like effect ow.ly/9n9AG JDeveloper & ADF ? Logging in Oracle ADF Applications dlvr.it/1HZhcX OTNArchBeat ? Oracle Cloud Conference: dates and locations worldwide bit.ly/ywXydR UK Oracle User Group ? Simon Haslam, ACE Director present on #WebLogic for DBAs at #oug_ire2012 j.mp/zG6vz3 @oraclewebcenter @oracleace #dublin Steven Davelaar ? Working with ADF and not a member of ADF EMG? You miss lots of valuable info, join now! sites.google.com/site/oracleemg… Simon Haslam @MaciejGruszka: Oracle plans to provide Forms & Reports plug-in for OVAB next year to help deployment. #ukoug MW SIG GlassFish ? Introducing JSR 357: Social Media API – bit.ly/yC8vez JAX London ? Are you coming to Java EE workshops by @AdamBien at JAX Days? Save £100 by registering today. #jaxdays #javaee jaxdays.com WebLogic Community ?Welcome to our Munich WebLogic 12c Bootcamp in Munich! If you also want to attend a training register for the Community oracle.com/partners/goto/… chriscmuir ? My first webcast for Oracle! (be kind) Basing ADF Business Component View Objects on More that one Entity Object bit.ly/ArKija OTNArchBeat ? Oracle Weblogic Server 12c is available on Oracle Solaris 11 (SPARC and x86) bit.ly/xE3TLg JDeveloper & ADF ? Basing ADF Business Component View Objects on More that one Entity Object – YouTube dlvr.it/1H93Qr OTNArchBeat ? Application-Driven Virtualization with Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder | Ronen Kofman bit.ly/wF1C1N Oracle WebLogic ? Steve Button’s blog: WebLogic Server Singleton Services ow.ly/1hOu4U Barbara Ann May ?@oracledevtools: New update: #NetBeans IDE 7.1.1, with support for #GlassFish 3.1.2 bit.ly/mOLcQd #java #developer OTNArchBeat ? Using Coherence with JDeveloper: bit.ly/AkoEQb WebLogic Community ? WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter February 2012 wp.me/p1LMIb-f3 GlassFish ? GlassFish 3.1.2 – new Podcast episode : bit.ly/wc6oBE Frank Nimphius ?Cool! Open JDeveloper 11.1.1.5, go help–>check for updates. First thing shown is that 11.1.1.6 is available. Never miss a new release Adam Bien ?5 Minutes (Video) With Java EE …Or With NetBeans + GlassFish: This screencast covers a 5-minute development of a… bit.ly/xkOJMf WebLogic Community ? Free Oracle WebLogic Certification Application Grid Implementation Specialist wp.me/p1LMIb-eT OTNArchBeat ?Oracle Coherence: First Steps Using Clusters and Basic API Usage | Ricardo Ferreira bit.ly/yYQ3Wz GlassFish ? JMS 2.0 Early Draft is here – bit.ly/ygT1VN OTNArchBeat ? Exalogic Networking Part 2 | The Old Toxophilist bit.ly/xuYMIi OTNArchBeat ?New Release: GlassFish Server 3.1.2. Read All About It! | Paul Davies bit.ly/AtlGxo Oracle WebLogic ?OTN Virtual Developer Day: #WebLogic 12c & #Coherence ost-conference on-demand page live with bonus #Virtualbox lab – bit.ly/xUy6BJ Oracle WebLogic ? Steve Button’s blog: WebLogic Server 11g (10.3.6) Documentation ow.ly/1hJgUB Lucas Jellema ? Just published an article on the AMIS blog: technology.amis.nl/2012/03/adf-11… ADF 11g – programmatically sorting rich table columns. Java Certification ? New Course! Learn how to create mobile applications using Java ME: bit.ly/xZj1Jh Simon Haslam ? @MaciejGruszka WebLogic 12c can run against 11g domain config without changes …and can rollback to 11. #ukoug MW SIG Justin Kestelyn ? Learn Advanced ADF, free and online bit.ly/wEKSRc WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: twitter,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,OPN,Oracle,Jürgen Kress,WebLogic 12c

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