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  • Who is Jeremiah Owyang?

    - by Michael Hylton
    12.00 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: What’s your current role and what career path brought you here? J.O.: I'm currently a partner and one of the founding team members at Altimeter Group.  I'm currently the Research Director, as well as wear the hat of Industry Analyst. Prior to joining Altimeter, I was an Industry Analyst at Forrester covering Social Computing, and before that, deployed and managed the social media program at Hitachi Data Systems in Santa Clara.  Around that time, I started a career blog called Web Strategy which focused on how companies were using the web to connect with customers --and never looked back. Q: As an industry analyst, what are you focused on these days? J.O.: There are three trends that I'm focused my research on at this time:  1) The Dynamic Customer Journey:  Individuals (both b2c and b2b) are given so many options in their sources of data, channels to choose from and screens to consume them on that we've found that at each given touchpoint there are 75 potential permutations.  Companies that can map this, then deliver information to individuals when they need it will have a competitive advantage and we want to find out who's doing this.  2) One of the sub themes that supports this trend is Social Performance.  Yesterday's social web was disparate engagement of humans, but the next phase will be data driven, and soon new technologies will emerge to help all those that are consuming, publishing, and engaging on the social web to be more efficient with their time through forms of automation.  As you might expect, this comes with upsides and downsides.  3) The Sentient World is our research theme that looks out the furthest as the world around us (even inanimate objects) become 'self aware' and are able to talk back to us via digital devices and beyond.  Big data, internet of things, mobile devices will all be this next set. Q: People cite that the line between work and life is getting more and more blurred. Do you see your personal life influencing your professional work? J.O.: The lines between our work and personal lives are dissolving, and this leads to a greater upside of being always connected and have deeper relationships with those that are not.  It also means a downside of society expectations that we're always around and available for colleagues, customers, and beyond.  In the future, a balance will be sought as we seek to achieve the goals of family, friends, work, and our own personal desires.  All of this is being ironically written at 430 am on a Sunday am.  Q: How can people keep up with what you’re working on? J.O.: A great question, thanks.  There are a few sources of information to find out, I'll lead with the first which is my blog at web-strategist.com.  A few times a week I'll publish my industry insights (hires, trends, forces, funding, M&A, business needs) as well as on twitter where I'll point to all the news that's fit to print @jowyang.  As my research reports go live (we publish them for all to read --called Open Research-- at no cost) they'll emerge on my blog, or checkout the research tab to find out more now.  http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/research/ Q: Recently, you’ve been working with us here at Oracle on something exciting coming up later this week. What’s on the horizon?  J.O.: Absolutely! This coming Thursday, September 13th, I’m doing a webcast with Oracle on “Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise”. This is going to be a great discussion with Reggie Bradford, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Oracle and Christian Finn, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter. I’m looking forward to a great discussion around all those issues that so many companies are struggling with these days as they realize how much social media is impacting their business. It’s changing the way your customers and employees interact with your brand. Today it’s no longer a matter of when to become a social-enabled enterprise, but how to become a successful one. 12.00 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: You’ve been very actively pursued for media interviews and conference and company speaking engagements – anything you’d like to share to give us a sneak peak of what to expect on Thursday’s webcast?  J.O.: Below is a 15 minute video which encapsulates Altimeter’s themes on the Dynamic Customer Journey and the Sentient World. I’m really proud to have taken an active role in the first ever LeWeb outside of Paris. This one, which was featured in downtown London across the street from Westminster Abbey was sold out. If you’ve not heard of LeWeb, this is a global Internet conference hosted by Loic and Geraldine Le Meur, a power couple that stem from Paris but are also living in Silicon Valley, this is one of my favorite conferences to connect with brands, technology innovators, investors and friends. Altimeter was able to play a minor role in suggesting the theme for the event “Faster Than Real Time” which stems off previous LeWebs that focused on the “Real time web”. In this radical state, companies are able to anticipate the needs of their customers by using data, technology, and devices and deliver meaningful experiences before customers even know they need it. I explore two of three of Altimeter’s research themes, the Dynamic Customer Journey, and the Sentient World in my speech, but due to time, did not focus on Adaptive Organization.

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  • Who is Jeremiah Owyang?

    - by Michael Snow
    12.00 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: What’s your current role and what career path brought you here? J.O.: I'm currently a partner and one of the founding team members at Altimeter Group.  I'm currently the Research Director, as well as wear the hat of Industry Analyst. Prior to joining Altimeter, I was an Industry Analyst at Forrester covering Social Computing, and before that, deployed and managed the social media program at Hitachi Data Systems in Santa Clara.  Around that time, I started a career blog called Web Strategy which focused on how companies were using the web to connect with customers --and never looked back. Q: As an industry analyst, what are you focused on these days? J.O.: There are three trends that I'm focused my research on at this time:  1) The Dynamic Customer Journey:  Individuals (both b2c and b2b) are given so many options in their sources of data, channels to choose from and screens to consume them on that we've found that at each given touchpoint there are 75 potential permutations.  Companies that can map this, then deliver information to individuals when they need it will have a competitive advantage and we want to find out who's doing this.  2) One of the sub themes that supports this trend is Social Performance.  Yesterday's social web was disparate engagement of humans, but the next phase will be data driven, and soon new technologies will emerge to help all those that are consuming, publishing, and engaging on the social web to be more efficient with their time through forms of automation.  As you might expect, this comes with upsides and downsides.  3) The Sentient World is our research theme that looks out the furthest as the world around us (even inanimate objects) become 'self aware' and are able to talk back to us via digital devices and beyond.  Big data, internet of things, mobile devices will all be this next set. Q: People cite that the line between work and life is getting more and more blurred. Do you see your personal life influencing your professional work? J.O.: The lines between our work and personal lives are dissolving, and this leads to a greater upside of being always connected and have deeper relationships with those that are not.  It also means a downside of society expectations that we're always around and available for colleagues, customers, and beyond.  In the future, a balance will be sought as we seek to achieve the goals of family, friends, work, and our own personal desires.  All of this is being ironically written at 430 am on a Sunday am.  Q: How can people keep up with what you’re working on? J.O.: A great question, thanks.  There are a few sources of information to find out, I'll lead with the first which is my blog at web-strategist.com.  A few times a week I'll publish my industry insights (hires, trends, forces, funding, M&A, business needs) as well as on twitter where I'll point to all the news that's fit to print @jowyang.  As my research reports go live (we publish them for all to read --called Open Research-- at no cost) they'll emerge on my blog, or checkout the research tab to find out more now.  http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/research/ Q: Recently, you’ve been working with us here at Oracle on something exciting coming up later this week. What’s on the horizon?  J.O.: Absolutely! This coming Thursday, September 13th, I’m doing a webcast with Oracle on “Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise”. This is going to be a great discussion with Reggie Bradford, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Oracle and Christian Finn, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter. I’m looking forward to a great discussion around all those issues that so many companies are struggling with these days as they realize how much social media is impacting their business. It’s changing the way your customers and employees interact with your brand. Today it’s no longer a matter of when to become a social-enabled enterprise, but how to become a successful one. 12.00 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Q: You’ve been very actively pursued for media interviews and conference and company speaking engagements – anything you’d like to share to give us a sneak peak of what to expect on Thursday’s webcast?  J.O.: Below is a 15 minute video which encapsulates Altimeter’s themes on the Dynamic Customer Journey and the Sentient World. I’m really proud to have taken an active role in the first ever LeWeb outside of Paris. This one, which was featured in downtown London across the street from Westminster Abbey was sold out. If you’ve not heard of LeWeb, this is a global Internet conference hosted by Loic and Geraldine Le Meur, a power couple that stem from Paris but are also living in Silicon Valley, this is one of my favorite conferences to connect with brands, technology innovators, investors and friends. Altimeter was able to play a minor role in suggesting the theme for the event “Faster Than Real Time” which stems off previous LeWebs that focused on the “Real time web”. In this radical state, companies are able to anticipate the needs of their customers by using data, technology, and devices and deliver meaningful experiences before customers even know they need it. I explore two of three of Altimeter’s research themes, the Dynamic Customer Journey, and the Sentient World in my speech, but due to time, did not focus on Adaptive Organization.

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  • My Thoughts On the Xbox 180

    - by Chris Gardner
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/06/21/my-thoughts-on-the-xbox-180.aspx Everyone seems to be putting their 0.00237 cents into the wishing well over Microsoft's recent decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. However, there have been a few issues that nobody has touched. As such, I have decided to dig 0.00237 cents out of my pocket. First, let me be clear about this point. I do not support the decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. I wanted that point to be expressed first and unambiguously. I will say it again. I do not support the decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. Now that I have that out of the way, let me go into my rationale. This decision removes most of the cool features that enticed me to pre-order the console. No, I didn't cancel my pre-order. There is still five months before the release of the console, and there is still a plethora of information that we, as consumers, do not have. With that, it should be noted that much of the talk in this post is speculation and rhetoric. I do not have any insider information that you do not possess. The persistent connection would have allowed the console to do many of the functions for which we have been begging. That demo where someone was playing Ryse, seamlessly accepted a multiplayer challenge in Killer Instinct, played the match (and a rematch,) and then jumped back into Ryse. That's gone, if you bought the game on disc. The new, DRM free system will require the disc in the system to play a game. That bullet point where one Xbox Live account could have up to 10 slave accounts so families could play together, no matter where they were located. That's gone as well. The promise of huge, expansive, dynamically changing worlds that was brought to us with the power of cloud computing. Well, "the people" didn't want there to be a forced, persistent connection. As such, developers can't rely on a connection and, as such, that feature is gone. This is akin to the removal of the hard drive on the Xbox 360. The list continues, but the enthusiast press has enumerated the list far better than I wish. All of this is because the Xbox team saw the HUGE success of Steam and decided to borrow a few ideas. Yes, Steam. The service that everyone hated for the first six months (for the same reasons the Xbox One is getting flack.) There was an initial growing pain. However, it is now lauded as the way games distribution should be handled. Unless you are Microsoft. I do find it curious that many of the features were originally announced for the PS4 during its unveiling. However, much of that was left strangely absent for Sony's E3 press conference. Instead, we received a single, static slide that basically said the exact opposite of Microsoft's plans. It is not farfetched to believe that slide came into existence during the approximately seven hours between the two media briefings. The thing that majorly annoys me over this whole kerfuffle is that the single thing that caused the call to arms is, really, not an issue. Microsoft never said they were going to block used sales. They said it was up to the publisher to make that decision. This would have allowed publishers to reclaim some of the costs of development in subsequent sales of the product. If you sell your game to GameStop for 7 USD, GameStop is going to sell it for 55 USD. That is 48 USD pure profit for them. Some publishers asked GameStop for a small cut. Was this a huge, money grubbing scheme? Well, yes, but the idea was that they have to handle server infrastructure for dormant accounts, etc. Of course, GameStop flatly refused, and the Online Pass was born. Fortunately, this trend didn’t last, and most publishers have stopped the practice. The ability to sell "licenses" has already begun to be challenged. Are you living in the EU? If so, companies must allow you to sell digital property. With this precedent in place, it's only a matter of time before other areas follow suit. If GameStop were smart, they should have immediately contacted every publisher out there to get the rights to become a clearing house for these licenses. Then, they keep their business model and could reduce their brick and mortar footprint. The digital landscape is changing. We need to not block this process. As Seth MacFarlane best said "Some issues are so important that you should drag people kicking and screaming." I believe this was said on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher about the issue of Gay Marriages. Much like the original source, this is an issue that we need to drag people to the correct, progressive position. Microsoft, as a company, actually has the resources to weather the transition period. They have a great pool of first and second party developers that can leverage this new framework to prove the validity. Over time, the third party developers will get excited to use these tools. As an old C++ guy, I resisted C# for years. Now, I think it's one of the best languages I've ever used. I have a server room and a Co-Lo full of servers, so I originally didn't see the value in Azure. Now, I wish I could move every one of my projects into the cloud. I still LOVE getting physical packaging, which my music and games collection will proudly attest. However, I have started to see the value in pure digital, and have found ways to integrate this into the ways I consume those products. I can, honestly, understand how some parts of the population would be very apprehensive about this new landscape. There were valid arguments about people with no internet access. There are ways to combat these problems. These methods do not require us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. However, the number of people in the computer industry that I have seen cry foul is truly appalling. We are the forward looking people that help show how technology can improve people's lives. If we can't see the value of the brief pain involved with an exciting new ecosystem, than who will?

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  • Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM by Brian Mozinski (Accenture)

    - by Greg Jensen
    Today, technical requirements for IAM are evolving rapidly, and the bar is continuously raised for high performance IAM solutions as organizations look to roll out high volume use cases on the back of legacy systems.  Existing solutions were often designed and architected to support offline transactions and manual processes, and the business owners today demand globally scalable infrastructure to support the growth their business cases are expected to deliver. To help IAM practitioners address these challenges and make their organizations and themselves more successful, this series we will outline the: • Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM The explosive growth in expectations for IAM infrastructure, and the business cases they support to gain investment in new security programs. • "Necessity is the mother of invention": Technical solutions developed in the field Well proven tricks of the trade, used by IAM guru’s to maximize your solution while addressing the requirements of global organizations. • The Art & Science of Performance Tuning of Oracle IAM 11gR2 Real world examples of performance tuning with Oracle IAM • No Where to go but up: Extending the benefits of accelerated IAM Anything is possible, compelling new solutions organizations are unlocking with accelerated Oracle IAM Let’s get started … by talking about the changing dynamics driving these discussions. Big Companies are getting bigger everyday, and increasingly organizations operate across state lines, multiple times zones, and in many countries or continents at the same time.  No longer is midnight to 6am a safe time to take down the system for upgrades, to run recon’s and import or update user accounts and attributes.  Further IT organizations are operating as shared services with SLA’s similar to telephone carrier levels expected by their “clients”.  Workers are moved in and out of roles on a weekly, daily, or even hourly rate and IAM is expected to support those rapid changes.  End users registering for services during business hours in Singapore are expected their access to be green-lighted in custom apps hosted in Portugal within the hour.  Many of the expectations of asynchronous systems and batched updates are not adequate and the number and types of users is growing. When organizations acted more like independent teams at functional or geographic levels it was manageable to have processes that relied on a handful of people who knew how to make things work …. Knew how to get you access to the key systems to get your job done.  Today everyone is expected to do more with less, the finance administrator previously supporting their local Atlanta sales office might now be asked to help close the books for the Johannesburg team, and access certification process once completed monthly by Joan on the 3rd floor is now done by a shared pool of resources in Sao Paulo.   Fragmented processes that rely on institutional knowledge to get access to systems and get work done quickly break down in these scenarios.  Highly robust processes that have automated workflows for connected or disconnected systems give organizations the dynamic flexibility to share work across these lines and cut costs or increase productivity. As the IT industry computing paradigms continue to change with the passing of time, and as mature or proven approaches become clear, it is normal for organizations to adjust accordingly. Businesses must manage identity in an increasingly hybrid world in which legacy on-premises IAM infrastructures are extended or replaced to support more and more interconnected and interdependent services to a wider range of users. The old legacy IAM implementation models we had relied on to manage identities no longer apply. End users expect to self-request access to services from their tablet, get supervisor approval over mobile devices and email, and launch the application even if is hosted on the cloud, or run by a partner, vendor, or service provider. While user expectations are higher, they are also simpler … logging into custom desktop apps to request approvals, or going through email or paper based processes for certification is unacceptable.  Users expect security to operate within the paradigm of the application … i.e. feel like the application they are using. Citizen and customer facing applications have evolved from every where, with custom applications, 3rd party tools, and merging in from acquired entities or 3rd party OEM’s resold to expand your portfolio of services.  These all have their own user stores, authentication models, user lifecycles, session management, etc.  Often the designers/developers are no longer accessible and the documentation is limited.  Bringing together underlying directories to scale for growth, and improve user experience is critical for revenue … but also for operations. Job functions are more dynamic.... take the Olympics for example.  Endless organizations from corporations broadcasting, endorsing, or marketing through the event … to non-profit athletic foundations and public/government entities for athletes and public safety, all operate simultaneously on the world stage.  Each organization needs to spin up short-term teams, often dealing with proprietary information from hot ads to racing strategies or security plans.  IAM is expected to enable team’s to spin up, enable new applications, protect privacy, and secure critical infrastructure.  Then it needs to be disabled just as quickly as users go back to their previous responsibilities. On a more technical level … Optimized system directory; tuning guidelines and parameters are needed by businesses today. Business’s need to be making the right choices (virtual directories) and considerations via choosing the correct architectural patterns (virtual, direct, replicated, and tuning), challenge is that business need to assess and chose the correct architectural patters (centralized, virtualized, and distributed) Today's Business organizations have very complex heterogeneous enterprises that contain diverse and multifaceted information. With today's ever changing global landscape, the strategic end goal in challenging times for business is business agility. The business of identity management requires enterprise's to be more agile and more responsive than ever before. The continued proliferation of networking devices (PC, tablet, PDA's, notebooks, etc.) has caused the number of devices and users to be granted access to these devices to grow exponentially. Business needs to deploy an IAM system that can account for the demands for authentication and authorizations to these devices. Increased innovation is forcing business and organizations to centralize their identity management services. Access management needs to handle traditional web based access as well as handle new innovations around mobile, as well as address insufficient governance processes which can lead to rouge identity accounts, which can then become a source of vulnerabilities within a business’s identity platform. Risk based decisions are providing challenges to business, for an adaptive risk model to make proper access decisions via standard Web single sign on for internal and external customers,. Organizations have to move beyond simple login and passwords to address trusted relationship questions such as: Is this a trusted customer, client, or citizen? Is this a trusted employee, vendor, or partner? Is this a trusted device? Without a solid technological foundation, organizational performance, collaboration, constituent services, or any other organizational processes will languish. A Single server location presents not only network concerns for distributed user base, but identity challenges. The network risks are centered on latency of the long trip that the traffic has to take. Other risks are a performance around availability and if the single identity server is lost, all access is lost. As you can see, there are many reasons why performance tuning IAM will have a substantial impact on the success of your organization.  In our next installment in the series we roll up our sleeves and get into detailed tuning techniques used everyday by thought leaders in the field implementing Oracle Identity & Access Management Solutions.

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  • Thread placement policies on NUMA systems - update

    - by Dave
    In a prior blog entry I noted that Solaris used a "maximum dispersal" placement policy to assign nascent threads to their initial processors. The general idea is that threads should be placed as far away from each other as possible in the resource topology in order to reduce resource contention between concurrently running threads. This policy assumes that resource contention -- pipelines, memory channel contention, destructive interference in the shared caches, etc -- will likely outweigh (a) any potential communication benefits we might achieve by packing our threads more densely onto a subset of the NUMA nodes, and (b) benefits of NUMA affinity between memory allocated by one thread and accessed by other threads. We want our threads spread widely over the system and not packed together. Conceptually, when placing a new thread, the kernel picks the least loaded node NUMA node (the node with lowest aggregate load average), and then the least loaded core on that node, etc. Furthermore, the kernel places threads onto resources -- sockets, cores, pipelines, etc -- without regard to the thread's process membership. That is, initial placement is process-agnostic. Keep reading, though. This description is incorrect. On Solaris 10 on a SPARC T5440 with 4 x T2+ NUMA nodes, if the system is otherwise unloaded and we launch a process that creates 20 compute-bound concurrent threads, then typically we'll see a perfect balance with 5 threads on each node. We see similar behavior on an 8-node x86 x4800 system, where each node has 8 cores and each core is 2-way hyperthreaded. So far so good; this behavior seems in agreement with the policy I described in the 1st paragraph. I recently tried the same experiment on a 4-node T4-4 running Solaris 11. Both the T5440 and T4-4 are 4-node systems that expose 256 logical thread contexts. To my surprise, all 20 threads were placed onto just one NUMA node while the other 3 nodes remained completely idle. I checked the usual suspects such as processor sets inadvertently left around by colleagues, processors left offline, and power management policies, but the system was configured normally. I then launched multiple concurrent instances of the process, and, interestingly, all the threads from the 1st process landed on one node, all the threads from the 2nd process landed on another node, and so on. This happened even if I interleaved thread creating between the processes, so I was relatively sure the effect didn't related to thread creation time, but rather that placement was a function of process membership. I this point I consulted the Solaris sources and talked with folks in the Solaris group. The new Solaris 11 behavior is intentional. The kernel is no longer using a simple maximum dispersal policy, and thread placement is process membership-aware. Now, even if other nodes are completely unloaded, the kernel will still try to pack new threads onto the home lgroup (socket) of the primordial thread until the load average of that node reaches 50%, after which it will pick the next least loaded node as the process's new favorite node for placement. On the T4-4 we have 64 logical thread contexts (strands) per socket (lgroup), so if we launch 48 concurrent threads we will find 32 placed on one node and 16 on some other node. If we launch 64 threads we'll find 32 and 32. That means we can end up with our threads clustered on a small subset of the nodes in a way that's quite different that what we've seen on Solaris 10. So we have a policy that allows process-aware packing but reverts to spreading threads onto other nodes if a node becomes too saturated. It turns out this policy was enabled in Solaris 10, but certain bugs suppressed the mixed packing/spreading behavior. There are configuration variables in /etc/system that allow us to dial the affinity between nascent threads and their primordial thread up and down: see lgrp_expand_proc_thresh, specifically. In the OpenSolaris source code the key routine is mpo_update_tunables(). This method reads the /etc/system variables and sets up some global variables that will subsequently be used by the dispatcher, which calls lgrp_choose() in lgrp.c to place nascent threads. Lgrp_expand_proc_thresh controls how loaded an lgroup must be before we'll consider homing a process's threads to another lgroup. Tune this value lower to have it spread your process's threads out more. To recap, the 'new' policy is as follows. Threads from the same process are packed onto a subset of the strands of a socket (50% for T-series). Once that socket reaches the 50% threshold the kernel then picks another preferred socket for that process. Threads from unrelated processes are spread across sockets. More precisely, different processes may have different preferred sockets (lgroups). Beware that I've simplified and elided details for the purposes of explication. The truth is in the code. Remarks: It's worth noting that initial thread placement is just that. If there's a gross imbalance between the load on different nodes then the kernel will migrate threads to achieve a better and more even distribution over the set of available nodes. Once a thread runs and gains some affinity for a node, however, it becomes "stickier" under the assumption that the thread has residual cache residency on that node, and that memory allocated by that thread resides on that node given the default "first-touch" page-level NUMA allocation policy. Exactly how the various policies interact and which have precedence under what circumstances could the topic of a future blog entry. The scheduler is work-conserving. The x4800 mentioned above is an interesting system. Each of the 8 sockets houses an Intel 7500-series processor. Each processor has 3 coherent QPI links and the system is arranged as a glueless 8-socket twisted ladder "mobius" topology. Nodes are either 1 or 2 hops distant over the QPI links. As an aside the mapping of logical CPUIDs to physical resources is rather interesting on Solaris/x4800. On SPARC/Solaris the CPUID layout is strictly geographic, with the highest order bits identifying the socket, the next lower bits identifying the core within that socket, following by the pipeline (if present) and finally the logical thread context ("strand") on the core. But on Solaris on the x4800 the CPUID layout is as follows. [6:6] identifies the hyperthread on a core; bits [5:3] identify the socket, or package in Intel terminology; bits [2:0] identify the core within a socket. Such low-level details should be of interest only if you're binding threads -- a bad idea, the kernel typically handles placement best -- or if you're writing NUMA-aware code that's aware of the ambient placement and makes decisions accordingly. Solaris introduced the so-called critical-threads mechanism, which is expressed by putting a thread into the FX scheduling class at priority 60. The critical-threads mechanism applies to placement on cores, not on sockets, however. That is, it's an intra-socket policy, not an inter-socket policy. Solaris 11 introduces the Power Aware Dispatcher (PAD) which packs threads instead of spreading them out in an attempt to be able to keep sockets or cores at lower power levels. Maximum dispersal may be good for performance but is anathema to power management. PAD is off by default, but power management polices constitute yet another confounding factor with respect to scheduling and dispatching. If your threads communicate heavily -- one thread reads cache lines last written by some other thread -- then the new dense packing policy may improve performance by reducing traffic on the coherent interconnect. On the other hand if your threads in your process communicate rarely, then it's possible the new packing policy might result on contention on shared computing resources. Unfortunately there's no simple litmus test that says whether packing or spreading is optimal in a given situation. The answer varies by system load, application, number of threads, and platform hardware characteristics. Currently we don't have the necessary tools and sensoria to decide at runtime, so we're reduced to an empirical approach where we run trials and try to decide on a placement policy. The situation is quite frustrating. Relatedly, it's often hard to determine just the right level of concurrency to optimize throughput. (Understanding constructive vs destructive interference in the shared caches would be a good start. We could augment the lines with a small tag field indicating which strand last installed or accessed a line. Given that, we could augment the CPU with performance counters for misses where a thread evicts a line it installed vs misses where a thread displaces a line installed by some other thread.)

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  • .NET to iOS: From WinForms to the iPad

    - by RobertChipperfield
    One of the great things about working at Red Gate is getting to play with new technology - and right now, that means mobile. A few weeks ago, we decided that a little research into the tablet computing arena was due, and purely from a numbers point of view, that suggested the iPad as a good target device. A quick trip to iPhoneDevCon in San Diego later, and Marine and I came back full of ideas, and with some concept of how iOS development was meant to work. Here's how we went from there to the release of Stacks & Heaps, our geeky take on the classic "Snakes & Ladders" game. Step 1: Buy a Mac I've played with many operating systems in my time: from the original BBC Model B, through DOS, Windows, Linux, and others, but I'd so far managed to avoid buying fruit-flavoured computer hardware! If you want to develop for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, that's the first thing that needs to change. If you've not used OS X before, the first thing you'll realise is that everything is different! In the interests of avoiding a flame war in the comments section, I'll only go so far as to say that a lot of my Windows-flavoured muscle memory no longer worked. If you're in the UK, you'll also realise your keyboard is lacking a # key, and that " and @ are the other way around from normal. The wonderful Ukelele keyboard layout editor restores some sanity here, as long as you don't look at the keyboard when you're typing. I couldn't give up the PC entirely, but a handy application called Synergy comes to the rescue - it lets you share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple machines. There's a few limitations: Alt-Tab always seems to go to the Mac, and Windows 7's UAC dialogs require the local mouse for security reasons, but it gets you a long way at least. Step 2: Register as an Apple Developer You can register as an Apple Developer free of charge, and that lets you download XCode and the iOS SDK. You also get the iPhone / iPad emulator, which is handy, since you'll need to be a paid member before you can deploy your apps to a real device. You can either enroll as an individual, or as a company. They both cost the same ($99/year), but there's a few differences between them. If you register as a company, you can add multiple developers to your team (all for the same $99 - not $99 per developer), and you get to use your company name in the App Store. However, you'll need to send off significantly more documentation to Apple, and I suspect the process takes rather longer than for an individual, where they just need to verify some credit card details. Here's a tip: if you're registering as a company, do so as early as possible. The approval process can take a while to complete, so get the application in in plenty of time. Step 3: Learn to love the square brackets! Objective-C is the language of the iPad. C and C++ are also supported, and if you're doing some serious game development, you'll probably spend most of your time in C++ talking OpenGL, but for forms-based apps, you'll be interacting with a lot of the Objective-C SDK. Like shifting from Ctrl-C to Cmd-C, it feels a little odd at first, with the familiar string.format(.) turning into: NSString *myString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Hello world, it's %@", [NSDate date]]; Thankfully XCode's auto-complete is normally passable, if not up to Visual Studio's standards, which coupled with a huge amount of content on Stack Overflow means you'll soon get to grips with the API. You'll need to get used to some terminology changes, though; here's an incomplete approximation: Coming from a .NET background, there's some luxuries you no longer have developing Objective C in XCode: Generics! Remember back in .NET 1.1, when all collections were just objects? Yup, we're back there now. ReSharper. Or, more generally, very much refactoring support. The not-many-keystrokes to rename a class, its file, and al references to it in Visual Studio turns into a much more painful experience in XCode. Garbage collection. This is actually rather less of an issue than you might expect: if you follow the rules, the reference counting provided by Objective C gets you a long way without too much pain. Circular references are their usual problematic self, though. Decent exception handling. You do have exceptions, but they're nowhere near as widely used. Generally, if something goes wrong, you get nil (see translation table above) back. Which brings me on to. Calling a method on a nil object isn't a failure - it just returns nil itself! There's many arguments for and against this, but personally I fall into the "stuff should fail as quickly and explicitly as possible" camp. Less specifically, I found that there's more chance of code failing at runtime rather than getting caught at compile-time: using the @selector(.) syntax to pass a method signature isn't (can't be) checked at compile-time, so the first you know about a typo is a crash when you try and call it. The solution to this is of course lots of great testing, both automated and manual, but I still find comfort in provably correct type safety being enforced in addition to testing. Step 4: Submit to the App Store Assuming you want to distribute to more than a handful of devices, you're going to need to submit your app to the Apple App Store. There's a few gotchas in terms of getting builds signed with the right certificates, and you'll be bouncing around between XCode and iTunes Connect a fair bit, but eventually you get everything checked off the to-do list, and are ready to upload your first binary! With some amount of anticipation, I pressed the Upload button in XCode, ready to release our creation into the world, but was instead greeted by an error informing me my XML file was malformed. Uh. A little Googling later, and it turned out that a simple rename from "Stacks&Heaps.app" to "StacksAndHeaps.app" worked around an XML escaping bug, and we were good to go. The next step is to wait for approval (or otherwise). After a couple of weeks of intensive development, this part is agonising. Did we make it? The Apple jury is still out at the moment, but our fingers are firmly crossed! In the meantime, you can see some screenshots and leave us your email address if you'd like us to get in touch when it does go live at the MobileFoo website. Step 5: Profit! Actually, that wasn't the idea here: Stacks & Heaps is free; there's no adverts, and we're not going to sell all your data either. So why did we do it? We wanted to get an idea of what it's like to move from coding for a desktop environment, to something completely different. We don't know whether in a year's time, the iPad will still be the dominant force, or whether Android will have smoothed out some bugs, tweaked the performance, and polished the UI, but I think it's a fairly sure bet that the tablet form factor is here to stay. We want to meet people who are using it, start chatting to them, and find out about some of the pain they're feeling. What better way to do that than do it ourselves, and get to write a cool game in the process?

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  • What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

    - by jatin.thaker
    Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; John Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and John Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. John Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patanjali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardinian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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  • SATA errors reported during boot: exception Emask 0x40 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x80800 action 0x0

    - by digby280
    I have noticed some error during the Linux boot. They seem to continue to occur after the boot adding lines to the log every few seconds. Once booted this normally does not appear to be causing any problems. However, around 1 in 10 boots results in a kernel panic and the computer has on two or three occasions suddenly rebooted after being powered on for a number of hours. I presume the cause of the reboot is a kernel panic as well. I am running Ubuntu 11.10 and I have had Ubuntu installed on the computer for around a year. I have googled around and not found anything useful. I have provided the kernel log lines and the output of smartctl. Can anyone explain exactly what these errors mean, or better still how to resolve them? Apr 2 16:51:27 dell580 kernel: [ 19.831140] EXT4-fs (sdb2): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro,user_xattr,commit=0 Apr 2 16:51:27 dell580 kernel: [ 19.934194] tg3 0000:03:00.0: eth0: Link is down Apr 2 16:51:28 dell580 kernel: [ 20.929468] tg3 0000:03:00.0: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex Apr 2 16:51:28 dell580 kernel: [ 20.929471] tg3 0000:03:00.0: eth0: Flow control is on for TX and on for RX Apr 2 16:51:28 dell580 kernel: [ 20.929727] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 21.609381] EXT4-fs (sdb2): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro,user_xattr,commit=0 Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 21.616515] ata2.01: exception Emask 0x40 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x80800 action 0x0 Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 21.616519] ata2.01: SError: { HostInt 10B8B } Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 21.616525] ata2.00: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 21.934036] ata2.01: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 22.408890] ata2.00: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 22.408907] ata2.01: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 22.440934] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/100 Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 22.449040] ata2.01: configured for UDMA/133 Apr 2 16:51:29 dell580 kernel: [ 22.449818] ata2: EH complete Apr 2 16:51:33 dell580 kernel: [ 26.122664] ata2.01: exception Emask 0x40 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x80800 action 0x0 Apr 2 16:51:33 dell580 kernel: [ 26.122670] ata2.01: SError: { HostInt 10B8B } Apr 2 16:51:33 dell580 kernel: [ 26.122677] ata2.00: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:33 dell580 kernel: [ 26.442684] ata2.01: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:34 dell580 kernel: [ 26.925545] ata2.00: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:34 dell580 kernel: [ 26.925561] ata2.01: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:34 dell580 kernel: [ 26.961542] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/100 Apr 2 16:51:34 dell580 kernel: [ 26.969616] ata2.01: configured for UDMA/133 Apr 2 16:51:34 dell580 kernel: [ 26.970400] ata2: EH complete Apr 2 16:51:35 dell580 kernel: [ 28.111180] ata2.01: exception Emask 0x40 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x80800 action 0x0 Apr 2 16:51:35 dell580 kernel: [ 28.111184] ata2.01: SError: { HostInt 10B8B } Apr 2 16:51:35 dell580 kernel: [ 28.111191] ata2.00: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:35 dell580 kernel: [ 28.429674] ata2.01: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:36 dell580 kernel: [ 28.904557] ata2.00: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:36 dell580 kernel: [ 28.904572] ata2.01: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:36 dell580 kernel: [ 28.936609] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/100 Apr 2 16:51:36 dell580 kernel: [ 28.944692] ata2.01: configured for UDMA/133 Apr 2 16:51:36 dell580 kernel: [ 28.945464] ata2: EH complete Apr 2 16:51:38 dell580 kernel: [ 31.581756] eth0: no IPv6 routers present Apr 2 16:51:38 dell580 kernel: [ 32.103066] ata2.01: exception Emask 0x40 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x80800 action 0x0 Apr 2 16:51:38 dell580 kernel: [ 32.103074] ata2.01: SError: { HostInt 10B8B } Apr 2 16:51:38 dell580 kernel: [ 32.103085] ata2.00: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:38 dell580 kernel: [ 32.419669] ata2.01: hard resetting link Apr 2 16:51:39 dell580 kernel: [ 32.894518] ata2.00: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:39 dell580 kernel: [ 32.894533] ata2.01: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) Apr 2 16:51:39 dell580 kernel: [ 32.926536] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/100 Apr 2 16:51:39 dell580 kernel: [ 32.934715] ata2.01: configured for UDMA/133 Apr 2 16:51:39 dell580 kernel: [ 32.935578] ata2: EH complete Here's the output of smartctl for the drive. smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [x86_64-linux-3.0.0-17-generic] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: SAMSUNG SpinPoint F1 DT Device Model: SAMSUNG HD103UJ Serial Number: S13PJ90QC19706 LU WWN Device Id: 5 0000f0 00b1c7960 Firmware Version: 1AA01113 User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB] Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 8 ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 3b Local Time is: Mon Apr 2 17:13:48 2012 BST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity was never started. Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled. Self-test execution status: ( 41) The self-test routine was interrupted by the host with a hard or soft reset. Total time to complete Offline data collection: (11772) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate. Auto Offline data collection on/off support. Suspend Offline collection upon new command. Offline surface scan supported. Self-test supported. Conveyance Self-test supported. Selective Self-test supported. SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering power-saving mode. Supports SMART auto save timer. Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported. General Purpose Logging supported. Short self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 197) minutes. Conveyance self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 21) minutes. SCT capabilities: (0x003f) SCT Status supported. SCT Error Recovery Control supported. SCT Feature Control supported. SCT Data Table supported. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 076 076 011 Pre-fail Always - 7940 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 521 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 253 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0025 100 100 015 Pre-fail Offline - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 642 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 482 13 Read_Soft_Error_Rate 0x000e 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 183 Runtime_Bad_Block 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 759 184 End-to-End_Error 0x0033 100 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 073 069 000 Old_age Always - 27 (Min/Max 16/27) 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 073 067 000 Old_age Always - 27 (Min/Max 16/28) 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 320028 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1494 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 SMART Error Log Version: 1 ATA Error Count: 211 (device log contains only the most recent five errors) CR = Command Register [HEX] FR = Features Register [HEX] SC = Sector Count Register [HEX] SN = Sector Number Register [HEX] CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX] CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX] DH = Device/Head Register [HEX] DC = Device Command Register [HEX] ER = Error register [HEX] ST = Status register [HEX] Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes, SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days. Error 211 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 84 51 0f 31 63 8f e1 Error: ICRC, ABRT 15 sectors at LBA = 0x018f6331 = 26174257 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- c8 00 00 40 62 8f e1 08 00:01:00.460 READ DMA c8 00 20 00 7c 30 e0 08 00:01:00.450 READ DMA c8 00 00 10 49 8f e1 08 00:01:00.440 READ DMA c8 00 e0 20 d0 30 e0 08 00:01:00.420 READ DMA c8 00 00 c0 59 90 e1 08 00:01:00.400 READ DMA Error 210 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 84 51 cf e9 cf 66 e0 Error: ICRC, ABRT 207 sectors at LBA = 0x0066cfe9 = 6737897 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- c8 00 00 b8 cf 66 e0 08 00:08:29.780 READ DMA c8 00 60 60 c9 18 e0 08 00:08:29.770 READ DMA c8 00 40 20 c9 18 e0 08 00:08:29.770 READ DMA c8 00 20 00 c9 18 e0 08 00:08:29.760 READ DMA c8 00 20 98 cf 66 e0 08 00:08:29.750 READ DMA Error 209 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 84 51 2f d1 74 e0 e0 Error: ICRC, ABRT 47 sectors at LBA = 0x00e074d1 = 14709969 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- c8 00 00 00 74 e0 e0 08 00:00:30.940 READ DMA c8 00 20 18 36 de e0 08 00:00:30.930 READ DMA c8 00 08 48 f1 dd e0 08 00:00:30.930 READ DMA c8 00 08 a8 f0 dd e0 08 00:00:30.930 READ DMA c8 00 08 90 f0 dd e0 08 00:00:30.930 READ DMA Error 208 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 84 51 7f 21 88 9d e0 Error: ICRC, ABRT 127 sectors at LBA = 0x009d8821 = 10324001 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- c8 00 a0 00 88 9d e0 08 00:00:27.610 READ DMA c8 00 58 a8 e7 9c e0 08 00:00:27.610 READ DMA c8 00 00 28 e6 9c e0 08 00:00:27.610 READ DMA c8 00 00 e0 e4 9c e0 08 00:00:27.610 READ DMA c8 00 00 90 e0 9c e0 08 00:00:27.600 READ DMA Error 207 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 04 51 26 6a 6a c3 e0 Error: ABRT at LBA = 0x00c36a6a = 12806762 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- ca 00 00 90 69 c3 e0 08 00:29:39.350 WRITE DMA ca 00 40 90 68 c3 e0 08 00:29:39.350 WRITE DMA ca 00 40 50 65 c3 e0 08 00:29:39.350 WRITE DMA ca 00 40 d0 64 c3 e0 08 00:29:39.350 WRITE DMA ca 00 40 90 63 c3 e0 08 00:29:39.350 WRITE DMA SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Short offline Interrupted (host reset) 90% 638 - # 2 Short offline Interrupted (host reset) 90% 638 - # 3 Extended offline Interrupted (host reset) 90% 638 - # 4 Short offline Interrupted (host reset) 90% 638 - # 5 Extended offline Interrupted (host reset) 90% 638 - SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1 SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS 1 0 0 Not_testing 2 0 0 Not_testing 3 0 0 Not_testing 4 0 0 Not_testing 5 0 0 Not_testing Selective self-test flags (0x0): After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

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  • Five Ways Enterprise 2.0 Can Transform Your Business - Q&A from the Webcast

    - by [email protected]
    A few weeks ago, Vince Casarez and I presented with KMWorld on the Five Ways Enterprise 2.0 Can Transform Your Business. It was an enjoyable, interactive webcast in which Vince and I discussed the ways Enterprise 2.0 can transform your business and more importantly, highlighted key customer examples of how to do so. If you missed the webcast, you can catch a replay here. We had a lot of audience participation in some of the polls we conducted and in the Q&A session. We weren't able to address all of the questions during the broadcast, so we attempted to answer them here: Q: Which area within your firm focuses on Web 2.0? Meaning, do you find new departments developing just to manage the web 2.0 (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) user experience or are you structuring current departments? A: There are three distinct efforts within Oracle. The first is around delivery of these Web 2.0 services for enterprise deployments. This is the focus of the WebCenter team. The second effort is injecting these Web 2.0 services into use cases that drive the different enterprise applications. This effort is focused on how to manage these external services and bring them into a cohesive flow for marketing programs, customer care, and purchasing. The third effort is how we consume these services internally to enhance Oracle's business delivery. It leverages the technologies and use cases of the first two but also pushes the envelope with regards to future directions of these other two areas. Q: In a business, Web 2.0 is mostly like action logs. How can we leverage the official process practice versus the logs of a recent action? Example: a system configuration modified last night on a call out versus the official practice that everybody would use in the morning.A: The key thing to remember is that most Web 2.0 actions / activity streams today are based on collaboration and communication type actions. At least with public social sites like Facebook and Twitter. What we're delivering as part of the WebCenter Suite are not just these types of activities but also enterprise application activities. These enterprise application activities come from different application modules: purchasing, HR, order entry, sales opportunity, etc. The actions within these systems are normally tied to a business object or process: purchase order/customer, employee or department, customer and supplier, customer and product, respectively. Therefore, the activities or "logs" as you name them are able to be "typed" so that as a viewer, you can filter or decide to see only certain types of information. In your example, you could have a view that only showed you recent "configuration" changes and this could be right next to a view that showed off the items to be watched every morning. Q: It's great to hear about customers using the software but is there any plan for future webinars to show what the products/installs look like? That would be very helpful.A: We don't have a webinar planned to show off the install process. However, we have a viewlet that's posted on Oracle Technology Network. You can see it here:http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/testcontent/wcs-install-098014.htmlAnd we've got excellent documentation that walks you through the steps here:http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/install.1111/e12001/install.htmAnd there's a whole set of demos and examples of what WebCenter can do at this URL:http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/webcenter/release11-demos-097468.html Q: How do you anticipate managing metadata across the enterprise to make content findable?A: We need to first make sure we are all talking about the same thing when we use a word like "metadata". Here's why...  For a developer, metadata means information that describes key elements of the portal or application and what the portal or application can do. For content systems, metadata means key terms that provide a taxonomy or folksonomy about the information that is being indexed, ordered, and managed. For business intelligence systems, metadata means key terms that provide labels to groups of data that most non-mathematicians need to understand. And for SOA, metadata means labels for parts of the processes that business owners should understand that connect development terminology. There are also additional requirements for metadata to be available to the team building these new solutions as well as requirements to make this metadata available to the running system. These requirements are often separated by "design time" and "run time" respectively. So clearly, a general goal of managing metadata across the enterprise is very challenging. We've invested a huge amount of resources around Oracle Metadata Services (MDS) to be able to provide a more generic system for all of these elements. No other vendor has anything like this technology foundation in their products. This provides a huge benefit to our customers as they will now be able to find content, processes, people, and information from a common set of search interfaces with consistent enterprise wide results. Q: Can you give your definition of terms as to document and content, please?A: Content applies to a broad category of information from Word documents, presentations and reports through attachments to invoices and/or purchase orders. Content is essentially any type of digital asset including images, video, and voice. A document is just one type of content. Q: Do you have special integration tools to realize an interaction between UCM and WebCenter Spaces/Services?A: Yes, we've dedicated a whole team of engineers to exploit the key features of Oracle UCM within WebCenter.  While ensuring that WebCenter can connect to other non-Oracle systems, we've made sure that with the combined set of Oracle technology, no other solution can match the combined power and integration.  This is part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware strategy which is to provide best in class capabilities for Content and Portals.  When combined together, the synergy between the two products enables users to quickly add capabilities when they are needed.  For example, simple document sharing is part of the combined product offering, but if legal discovery or archiving is required, Oracle UCM product includes these capabilities that can be quickly added.  There's no need to move content around or add another system to support this, it's just a feature that gets turned on within Oracle UCM. Q: All customers have some interaction with their applications and have many older versions, how do you see some of these new Enterprise 2.0 capabilities adding value to existing enterprise application deployments?A: Just as Service Oriented Architectures allowed for connecting the processes of different applications systems to work together, there's a need for a similar approach with regards to these enterprise 2.0 capabilities. Oracle WebCenter is built on a core architecture that allows for SOA of these Enterprise 2.0 services so that one set of scalable services can be used and integrated directly into any type of application. In this way, users can get immediate value out of the Enterprise 2.0 capabilities without having to wait for the next major release or upgrade. These centrally managed WebCenter services expose a set of standard interfaces that make it extremely easy to add them into existing applications no matter what technology the application has been implemented. Q: We've heard about Oracle Next Generation applications called "Fusion Applications", can you tell me how all this works together?A: Oracle WebCenter powers the core collaboration and social computing services found within Fusion Applications. It is the core user experience technology for how all the application screens have been implemented. And the core concept of task flows allows for all the Fusion Applications modules to be adaptable and composable by business users and IT without needing to be a professional developer. Oracle WebCenter is at the heart of the new Fusion Applications. In addition, the same patterns and technologies are now being added to the existing applications including JD Edwards, Siebel, Peoplesoft, and eBusiness Suite. The core technology enables all these customers to have a much smoother upgrade path to Fusion Applications. They get immediate benefits of injecting new user interactions into their existing applications without having to completely move to Fusion Applications. And then when the time comes, their users will already be well versed in how the new capabilities work. Q: Does any of this work with non Oracle software? Other databases? Other application servers? etc.A: We have made sure that Oracle WebCenter delivers the broadest set of development choices so that no matter what technology you developers are using, WebCenter capabilities can be quickly and easily added to the site or application. In addition, we have certified Oracle WebCenter to run against non-Oracle databases like DB2 and SQLServer. We have stated plans for certification against MySQL as well. Later in CY 2011, Oracle will provide certification on non-Oracle application servers such as WebSphere and JBoss. Q: How do we balance User and IT requirements in regards to Enterprise 2.0 technologies?A: Wrong decisions are often made because employee knowledge is not tapped efficiently and opportunities to innovate are often missed because the right people do not work together. Collaboration amongst workers in the right business context is critical for success. While standalone Enterprise 2.0 technologies can improve collaboration for collaboration's sake, using social collaboration tools in the context of business applications and processes will improve business responsiveness and lead companies to a more competitive position. As these systems become more mission critical it is essential that they maintain the highest level of performance and availability while scaling to support larger communities. Q: What are the ways in which Enterprise 2.0 can improve business responsiveness?A: With a wide range of Enterprise 2.0 tools in the marketplace, CIOs need to deploy solutions that will meet the requirements from users as well as address the requirements from IT. Workers want a next-generation user experience that is personalized and aggregates their daily tools and tasks, while IT needs to ensure the solution is secure, scalable, flexible, reliable and easily integrated with existing systems. An open and integrated approach to deploying portals, content management, and collaboration can enhance your business by addressing both the needs of knowledge workers for better information and the IT mandate to conserve resources by simplifying, consolidating and centralizing infrastructure and administration.  

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  • WPA2 authentication fails on Ubuntu 12.04 using Rosewill RNX-N1

    - by user94156
    Decided to reduce the clutter in the house and replace a wired connection with a wireless one on my wife's system using USB network device Rosewill RNX-X1. I can see and connect to unprotected network, but WPA2 authentication repeatedly fails. RNX-X1 works on other systems (including TV); also have 2 of 'em and tried each. Worth noting that I recently switched from Comcast to CenturyLink and so switched routers. The system connected successfully to previous router (Linksys EA4500) using WPA2. Would think it is the router (Actiontec C1000A) but all other devices (TV, iPad, Windows, Blackberry, and Squeezebox) connect ok. Would appreciate some diagnostic guidance and insight (phrased for a newbie!) Tests to date: sudo lshw -class network *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 01 serial: 00:e0:4d:30:40:a1 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:47 ioport:ac00(size=256) memory:fdcff000-fdcfffff memory:fdb00000-fdb1ffff *-network description: Wireless interface physical id: 1 bus info: usb@1:2 logical name: wlan1 serial: 00:02:6f:bd:30:a0 capabilities: ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800usb driverversion=3.2.0-31-generic firmware=0.29 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn sudo lspci -v 00:00.0 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 Capabilities: [44] HyperTransport: Slave or Primary Interface Capabilities: [dc] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable+ Fixed- 00:01.0 ISA bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 ISA Bridge (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 00:01.1 SMBus: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 SMBus (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel, IRQ 11 I/O ports at fc00 [size=64] I/O ports at 1c00 [size=64] I/O ports at 1c40 [size=64] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: nForce2_smbus Kernel modules: i2c-nforce2 00:01.2 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2) Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel 00:02.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 Memory at fe02f000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:02.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at fe02e000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: [44] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=0098 Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:04.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21 Memory at fe02d000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:04.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20 Memory at fe02c000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: [44] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=0098 Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:06.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 IDE Controller (rev a1) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 [virtual] Memory at 000001f0 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8] [virtual] Memory at 000003f0 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1] [virtual] Memory at 00000170 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8] [virtual] Memory at 00000370 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1] I/O ports at f000 [size=16] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: pata_amd Kernel modules: pata_amd 00:07.0 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 820c Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at fe024000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable+ 64bit+ Capabilities: [6c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+ Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:08.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode]) Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32 I/O behind bridge: 0000c000-0000cfff Memory behind bridge: fdf00000-fdffffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: fd000000-fd0fffff Capabilities: [b8] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device cb84 Capabilities: [8c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- 00:09.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 AHCI Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 85 [Master SecO PriO]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 5407 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 I/O ports at 09f0 [size=8] I/O ports at 0bf0 [size=4] I/O ports at 0970 [size=8] I/O ports at 0b70 [size=4] I/O ports at dc00 [size=16] Memory at fe02a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [8c] SATA HBA v1.0 Capabilities: [b0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/8 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [cc] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+ Kernel driver in use: ahci 00:0b.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000b000-0000bfff Memory behind bridge: fde00000-fdefffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fdd00000-00000000fddfffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0c.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000a000-0000afff Memory behind bridge: fdc00000-fdcfffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fdb00000-00000000fdbfffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0d.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00009000-00009fff Memory behind bridge: fda00000-fdafffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd900000-00000000fd9fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0e.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=05, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00008000-00008fff Memory behind bridge: fd800000-fd8fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd700000-00000000fd7fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0f.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=06, subordinate=06, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00007000-00007fff Memory behind bridge: fd600000-fd6fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd500000-00000000fd5fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:10.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=07, subordinate=07, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00006000-00006fff Memory behind bridge: fd400000-fd4fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd300000-00000000fd3fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:11.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=08, subordinate=08, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00005000-00005fff Memory behind bridge: fd200000-fd2fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd100000-00000000fd1fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:12.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C68 [GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 1406 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21 Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] Memory at fc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] [virtual] Expansion ROM at 80000000 [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+ Kernel driver in use: nvidia Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nouveau, nvidiafb 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration Flags: fast devsel Capabilities: [80] HyperTransport: Host or Secondary Interface 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map Flags: fast devsel 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller Flags: fast devsel 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control Flags: fast devsel Capabilities: [f0] Secure device <?> Kernel driver in use: k8temp Kernel modules: k8temp 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 2305 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47 I/O ports at ac00 [size=256] Memory at fdcff000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] [virtual] Expansion ROM at fdb00000 [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [48] Vital Product Data Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] Express Endpoint, MSI 00 Capabilities: [84] Vendor Specific Information: Len=4c <?> Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting Capabilities: [12c] Virtual Channel Capabilities: [148] Device Serial Number 32-00-00-00-10-ec-81-68 Capabilities: [154] Power Budgeting <?> Kernel driver in use: r8169 Kernel modules: r8169 sudo rfkill list all 2: phy2: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no

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  • WPA2 authentication fails using USB network devices (Linksys and Rosewill)

    - by Greg Youtz
    Decided to reduce the clutter in the house and replace a wired connection with a wireless one on my wife's system using USB network device Rosewill RNX-X1. I can see and connect to unprotected network, but WPA2 authentication repeatedly fails. Tried the same with a Linksys USB network adapter. Both failed to authenticate. Worth noting that I recently switched from Comcast to CenturyLink and so switched routers. The system connected successfully to previous router (Linksys EA4500) using WPA2. Would think it is the router (Actiontec C1000A) but all other devices (TV, iPad, Windows, Blackberry, and Squeezebox) connect ok. Would appreciate some diagnostic guidance and insight (phrased for a newbie!) Tests to date: sudo lshw -class network *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 01 serial: 00:e0:4d:30:40:a1 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:47 ioport:ac00(size=256) memory:fdcff000-fdcfffff memory:fdb00000-fdb1ffff *-network description: Wireless interface physical id: 1 bus info: usb@1:2 logical name: wlan1 serial: 00:02:6f:bd:30:a0 capabilities: ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800usb driverversion=3.2.0-31-generic firmware=0.29 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn sudo lspci -v 00:00.0 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 Capabilities: [44] HyperTransport: Slave or Primary Interface Capabilities: [dc] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable+ Fixed- 00:01.0 ISA bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 ISA Bridge (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 00:01.1 SMBus: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 SMBus (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel, IRQ 11 I/O ports at fc00 [size=64] I/O ports at 1c00 [size=64] I/O ports at 1c40 [size=64] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: nForce2_smbus Kernel modules: i2c-nforce2 00:01.2 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2) Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel 00:02.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 Memory at fe02f000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:02.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at fe02e000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: [44] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=0098 Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:04.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21 Memory at fe02d000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:04.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20 Memory at fe02c000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: [44] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=0098 Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:06.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 IDE Controller (rev a1) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 [virtual] Memory at 000001f0 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8] [virtual] Memory at 000003f0 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1] [virtual] Memory at 00000170 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8] [virtual] Memory at 00000370 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1] I/O ports at f000 [size=16] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: pata_amd Kernel modules: pata_amd 00:07.0 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 820c Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at fe024000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable+ 64bit+ Capabilities: [6c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+ Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:08.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode]) Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32 I/O behind bridge: 0000c000-0000cfff Memory behind bridge: fdf00000-fdffffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: fd000000-fd0fffff Capabilities: [b8] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device cb84 Capabilities: [8c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- 00:09.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 AHCI Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 85 [Master SecO PriO]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 5407 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 I/O ports at 09f0 [size=8] I/O ports at 0bf0 [size=4] I/O ports at 0970 [size=8] I/O ports at 0b70 [size=4] I/O ports at dc00 [size=16] Memory at fe02a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [8c] SATA HBA v1.0 Capabilities: [b0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/8 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [cc] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+ Kernel driver in use: ahci 00:0b.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000b000-0000bfff Memory behind bridge: fde00000-fdefffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fdd00000-00000000fddfffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0c.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000a000-0000afff Memory behind bridge: fdc00000-fdcfffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fdb00000-00000000fdbfffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0d.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00009000-00009fff Memory behind bridge: fda00000-fdafffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd900000-00000000fd9fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0e.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=05, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00008000-00008fff Memory behind bridge: fd800000-fd8fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd700000-00000000fd7fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0f.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=06, subordinate=06, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00007000-00007fff Memory behind bridge: fd600000-fd6fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd500000-00000000fd5fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:10.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=07, subordinate=07, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00006000-00006fff Memory behind bridge: fd400000-fd4fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd300000-00000000fd3fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:11.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=08, subordinate=08, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00005000-00005fff Memory behind bridge: fd200000-fd2fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd100000-00000000fd1fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:12.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C68 [GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 1406 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21 Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] Memory at fc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] [virtual] Expansion ROM at 80000000 [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+ Kernel driver in use: nvidia Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nouveau, nvidiafb 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration Flags: fast devsel Capabilities: [80] HyperTransport: Host or Secondary Interface 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map Flags: fast devsel 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller Flags: fast devsel 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control Flags: fast devsel Capabilities: [f0] Secure device <?> Kernel driver in use: k8temp Kernel modules: k8temp 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 2305 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47 I/O ports at ac00 [size=256] Memory at fdcff000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] [virtual] Expansion ROM at fdb00000 [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [48] Vital Product Data Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] Express Endpoint, MSI 00 Capabilities: [84] Vendor Specific Information: Len=4c <?> Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting Capabilities: [12c] Virtual Channel Capabilities: [148] Device Serial Number 32-00-00-00-10-ec-81-68 Capabilities: [154] Power Budgeting <?> Kernel driver in use: r8169 Kernel modules: r8169 sudo rfkill list all 2: phy2: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no Would appreciate insight on how to chase this down.

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  • The Java Specialist: An Interview with Java Champion Heinz Kabutz

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    Dr. Heinz Kabutz is well known for his Java Specialists’ Newsletter, initiated in November 2000, where he displays his acute grasp of the intricacies of the Java platform for an estimated 70,000 readers; for his work as a consultant; and for his workshops and trainings at his home on the Island of Crete where he has lived since 2006 -- where he is known to curl up on the beach with his laptop to hack away, in between dips in the Mediterranean. Kabutz was born of German parents and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, where he developed a love of programming in junior high school through his explorations on a ZX Spectrum computer. He received a B.S. from the University of Cape Town, and at 25, a Ph.D., both in computer science. He will be leading a two-hour hands-on lab session, HOL6500 – “Finding and Solving Java Deadlocks,” at this year’s JavaOne that will explore what causes deadlocks and how to solve them. Q: Tell us about your JavaOne plans.A: I am arriving on Sunday evening and have just one hands-on-lab to do on Monday morning. This is the first time that a non-Oracle team is doing a HOL at JavaOne under Oracle's stewardship and we are all a bit nervous about how it will turn out. Oracle has been immensely helpful in getting us set up. I have a great team helping me: Kirk Pepperdine, Dario Laverde, Benjamin Evans and Martijn Verburg from jClarity, Nathan Reynolds from Oracle, Henri Tremblay of OCTO Technology and Jeff Genender of Savoir Technologies. Monday will be hard work, but after that, I will hopefully get to network with fellow Java experts, attend interesting sessions and just enjoy San Francisco. Oh, and my kids have already given me a shopping list of things to get, like a GoPro Hero 2 dive housing for shooting those nice videos of Crete. (That's me at the beginning diving down.) Q: What sessions are you attending that we should know about?A: Sometimes the most unusual sessions are the best. I avoid the "big names". They often are spread too thin with all their sessions, which makes it difficult for them to deliver what I would consider deep content. I also avoid entertainers who might be good at presenting but who do not say that much.In 2010, I attended a session by Vladimir Yaroslavskiy where he talked about sorting. Although he struggled to speak English, what he had to say was spectacular. There was hardly anybody in the room, having not heard of Vladimir before. To me that was the highlight of 2010. Funnily enough, he was supposed to speak with Joshua Bloch, but if you remember, Google cancelled. If Bloch has been there, the room would have been packed to capacity.Q: Give us an update on the Java Specialists’ Newsletter.A: The Java Specialists' Newsletter continues being read by an elite audience around the world. The apostrophe in the name is significant.  It is a newsletter for Java specialists. When I started it twelve years ago, I was trying to find non-obvious things in Java to write about. Things that would be interesting to an advanced audience.As an April Fool's joke, I told my readers in Issue 44 that subscribing would remain free, but that they would have to pay US$5 to US$7 depending on their geographical location. I received quite a few angry emails from that one. I would have not earned that much from unsubscriptions. Most readers stay for a very long time.After Oracle bought Sun, the Java community held its breath for about two years whilst Oracle was figuring out what to do with Java. For a while, we were quite concerned that there was not much progress shown by Oracle. My newsletter still continued, but it was quite difficult finding new things to write about. We have probably about 70,000 readers, which is quite a small number for a Java publication. However, our readers are the top in the Java industry. So I don't mind having "only" 70000 readers, as long as they are the top 0.7%.Java concurrency is a very important topic that programmers think they should know about, but often neglect to fully understand. I continued writing about that and made some interesting discoveries. For example, in Issue 165, I showed how we can get thread starvation with the ReadWriteLock. This was a bug in Java 5, which was corrected in Java 6, but perhaps a bit too much. Whereas we could get starvation of writers in Java 5, in Java 6 we could now get starvation of readers. All of these interesting findings make their way into my courseware to help companies avoid these pitfalls.Another interesting discovery was how polymorphism works in the Server HotSpot compiler in Issue 157 and Issue 158. HotSpot can inline methods from interfaces that have only one implementation class in the JVM. When a new subclass is instantiated and called for the first time, the JVM will undo the previous optimization and re-optimize differently.Here is a little memory puzzle for your readers: public class JavaMemoryPuzzle {  private final int dataSize =      (int) (Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory() * 0.6);  public void f() {    {      byte[] data = new byte[dataSize];    }    byte[] data2 = new byte[dataSize];  }  public static void main(String[] args) {    JavaMemoryPuzzle jmp = new JavaMemoryPuzzle();    jmp.f();  }}When you run this you will always get an OutOfMemoryError, even though the local variable data is no longer visible outside of the code block.So here comes the puzzle, that I'd like you to ponder a bit. If you very politely ask the VM to release memory, then you don't get an OutOfMemoryError: public class JavaMemoryPuzzlePolite {  private final int dataSize =      (int) (Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory() * 0.6);  public void f() {    {      byte[] data = new byte[dataSize];    }    for(int i=0; i<10; i++) {      System.out.println("Please be so kind and release memory");    }    byte[] data2 = new byte[dataSize];  }  public static void main(String[] args) {    JavaMemoryPuzzlePolite jmp = new JavaMemoryPuzzlePolite();    jmp.f();    System.out.println("No OutOfMemoryError");  }}Why does this work? When I published this in my newsletter, I received over 400 emails from excited readers around the world, most of whom sent me the wrong explanation. After the 300th wrong answer, my replies became unfortunately a bit curt. Have a look at Issue 174 for a detailed explanation, but before you do, put on your thinking caps and try to figure it out yourself. Q: What do you think Java developers should know that they currently do not know?A: They should definitely get to know more about concurrency. It is a tough subject that most programmers try to avoid. Unfortunately we do come in contact with it. And when we do, we need to know how to protect ourselves and how to solve tricky system errors.Knowing your IDE is also useful. Most IDEs have a ton of shortcuts, which can make you a lot more productive in moving code around. Another thing that is useful is being able to read GC logs. Kirk Pepperdine has a great talk at JavaOne that I can recommend if you want to learn more. It's this: CON5405 – “Are Your Garbage Collection Logs Speaking to You?” Q: What are you looking forward to in Java 8?A: I'm quite excited about lambdas, though I must confess that I have not studied them in detail yet. Maurice Naftalin's Lambda FAQ is quite a good start to document what you can do with them. I'm looking forward to finding all the interesting bugs that we will now get due to lambdas obscuring what is really going on underneath, just like we had with generics.I am quite impressed with what the team at Oracle did with OpenJDK's performance. A lot of the benchmarks now run faster.Hopefully Java 8 will come with JSR 310, the Date and Time API. It still boggles my mind that such an important API has been left out in the cold for so long.What I am not looking forward to is losing perm space. Even though some systems run out of perm space, at least the problem is contained and they usually manage to work around it. In most cases, this is due to a memory leak in that region of memory. Once they bundle perm space with the old generation, I predict that memory leaks in perm space will be harder to find. More contracts for us, but also more pain for our customers. Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone.

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  • The Java Specialist: An Interview with Java Champion Heinz Kabutz

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    Dr. Heinz Kabutz is well known for his Java Specialists’ Newsletter, initiated in November 2000, where he displays his acute grasp of the intricacies of the Java platform for an estimated 70,000 readers; for his work as a consultant; and for his workshops and trainings at his home on the Island of Crete where he has lived since 2006 -- where he is known to curl up on the beach with his laptop to hack away, in between dips in the Mediterranean. Kabutz was born of German parents and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, where he developed a love of programming in junior high school through his explorations on a ZX Spectrum computer. He received a B.S. from the University of Cape Town, and at 25, a Ph.D., both in computer science. He will be leading a two-hour hands-on lab session, HOL6500 – “Finding and Solving Java Deadlocks,” at this year’s JavaOne that will explore what causes deadlocks and how to solve them. Q: Tell us about your JavaOne plans.A: I am arriving on Sunday evening and have just one hands-on-lab to do on Monday morning. This is the first time that a non-Oracle team is doing a HOL at JavaOne under Oracle's stewardship and we are all a bit nervous about how it will turn out. Oracle has been immensely helpful in getting us set up. I have a great team helping me: Kirk Pepperdine, Dario Laverde, Benjamin Evans and Martijn Verburg from jClarity, Nathan Reynolds from Oracle, Henri Tremblay of OCTO Technology and Jeff Genender of Savoir Technologies. Monday will be hard work, but after that, I will hopefully get to network with fellow Java experts, attend interesting sessions and just enjoy San Francisco. Oh, and my kids have already given me a shopping list of things to get, like a GoPro Hero 2 dive housing for shooting those nice videos of Crete. (That's me at the beginning diving down.) Q: What sessions are you attending that we should know about?A: Sometimes the most unusual sessions are the best. I avoid the "big names". They often are spread too thin with all their sessions, which makes it difficult for them to deliver what I would consider deep content. I also avoid entertainers who might be good at presenting but who do not say that much.In 2010, I attended a session by Vladimir Yaroslavskiy where he talked about sorting. Although he struggled to speak English, what he had to say was spectacular. There was hardly anybody in the room, having not heard of Vladimir before. To me that was the highlight of 2010. Funnily enough, he was supposed to speak with Joshua Bloch, but if you remember, Google cancelled. If Bloch has been there, the room would have been packed to capacity.Q: Give us an update on the Java Specialists’ Newsletter.A: The Java Specialists' Newsletter continues being read by an elite audience around the world. The apostrophe in the name is significant.  It is a newsletter for Java specialists. When I started it twelve years ago, I was trying to find non-obvious things in Java to write about. Things that would be interesting to an advanced audience.As an April Fool's joke, I told my readers in Issue 44 that subscribing would remain free, but that they would have to pay US$5 to US$7 depending on their geographical location. I received quite a few angry emails from that one. I would have not earned that much from unsubscriptions. Most readers stay for a very long time.After Oracle bought Sun, the Java community held its breath for about two years whilst Oracle was figuring out what to do with Java. For a while, we were quite concerned that there was not much progress shown by Oracle. My newsletter still continued, but it was quite difficult finding new things to write about. We have probably about 70,000 readers, which is quite a small number for a Java publication. However, our readers are the top in the Java industry. So I don't mind having "only" 70000 readers, as long as they are the top 0.7%.Java concurrency is a very important topic that programmers think they should know about, but often neglect to fully understand. I continued writing about that and made some interesting discoveries. For example, in Issue 165, I showed how we can get thread starvation with the ReadWriteLock. This was a bug in Java 5, which was corrected in Java 6, but perhaps a bit too much. Whereas we could get starvation of writers in Java 5, in Java 6 we could now get starvation of readers. All of these interesting findings make their way into my courseware to help companies avoid these pitfalls.Another interesting discovery was how polymorphism works in the Server HotSpot compiler in Issue 157 and Issue 158. HotSpot can inline methods from interfaces that have only one implementation class in the JVM. When a new subclass is instantiated and called for the first time, the JVM will undo the previous optimization and re-optimize differently.Here is a little memory puzzle for your readers: public class JavaMemoryPuzzle {  private final int dataSize =      (int) (Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory() * 0.6);  public void f() {    {      byte[] data = new byte[dataSize];    }    byte[] data2 = new byte[dataSize];  }  public static void main(String[] args) {    JavaMemoryPuzzle jmp = new JavaMemoryPuzzle();    jmp.f();  }}When you run this you will always get an OutOfMemoryError, even though the local variable data is no longer visible outside of the code block.So here comes the puzzle, that I'd like you to ponder a bit. If you very politely ask the VM to release memory, then you don't get an OutOfMemoryError: public class JavaMemoryPuzzlePolite {  private final int dataSize =      (int) (Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory() * 0.6);  public void f() {    {      byte[] data = new byte[dataSize];    }    for(int i=0; i<10; i++) {      System.out.println("Please be so kind and release memory");    }    byte[] data2 = new byte[dataSize];  }  public static void main(String[] args) {    JavaMemoryPuzzlePolite jmp = new JavaMemoryPuzzlePolite();    jmp.f();    System.out.println("No OutOfMemoryError");  }}Why does this work? When I published this in my newsletter, I received over 400 emails from excited readers around the world, most of whom sent me the wrong explanation. After the 300th wrong answer, my replies became unfortunately a bit curt. Have a look at Issue 174 for a detailed explanation, but before you do, put on your thinking caps and try to figure it out yourself. Q: What do you think Java developers should know that they currently do not know?A: They should definitely get to know more about concurrency. It is a tough subject that most programmers try to avoid. Unfortunately we do come in contact with it. And when we do, we need to know how to protect ourselves and how to solve tricky system errors.Knowing your IDE is also useful. Most IDEs have a ton of shortcuts, which can make you a lot more productive in moving code around. Another thing that is useful is being able to read GC logs. Kirk Pepperdine has a great talk at JavaOne that I can recommend if you want to learn more. It's this: CON5405 – “Are Your Garbage Collection Logs Speaking to You?” Q: What are you looking forward to in Java 8?A: I'm quite excited about lambdas, though I must confess that I have not studied them in detail yet. Maurice Naftalin's Lambda FAQ is quite a good start to document what you can do with them. I'm looking forward to finding all the interesting bugs that we will now get due to lambdas obscuring what is really going on underneath, just like we had with generics.I am quite impressed with what the team at Oracle did with OpenJDK's performance. A lot of the benchmarks now run faster.Hopefully Java 8 will come with JSR 310, the Date and Time API. It still boggles my mind that such an important API has been left out in the cold for so long.What I am not looking forward to is losing perm space. Even though some systems run out of perm space, at least the problem is contained and they usually manage to work around it. In most cases, this is due to a memory leak in that region of memory. Once they bundle perm space with the old generation, I predict that memory leaks in perm space will be harder to find. More contracts for us, but also more pain for our customers.

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  • What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

    - by Applications User Experience
    Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; Jonathan Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and Jonathan Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. Jonathan Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patnajali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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  • The Birth of a Method - Where did OUM come from?

    - by user702549
    It seemed fitting to start this blog entry with the OUM vision statement. The vision for the Oracle® Unified Method (OUM) is to support the entire Enterprise IT lifecycle, including support for the successful implementation of every Oracle product.  Well, it’s that time of year again; we just finished testing and packaging OUM 5.6.  It will be released for general availability to qualifying customers and partners this month.  Because of this, I’ve been reflecting back on how the birth of Oracle’s Unified method - OUM came about. As the Release Director of OUM, I’ve been honored to package every method release.  No, maybe you’d say it’s not so special.  Of course, anyone can use packaging software to create an .exe file.  But to me, it is pretty special, because so many people work together to make each release come about.  The rich content that results is what makes OUM’s history worth talking about.   To me, professionally speaking, working on OUM, well it’s been “a labor of love”.  My youngest child was just 8 years old when OUM was born, and she’s now in High School!  Watching her grow and change has been fascinating, if you ask her, she’s grown up hearing about OUM.  My son would often walk into my home office and ask “How is OUM today, Mom?”  I am one of many people that take care of OUM, and have watched the method “mature” over these last 6 years.  Maybe that makes me a "Method Mom" (someone in one of my classes last year actually said this outloud) but there are so many others who collaborate and care about OUM Development. I’ve thought about writing this blog entry for a long time just to reflect on how far the Method has come. Each release, as I prepare the OUM Contributors list, I see how many people’s experience and ideas it has taken to create this wealth of knowledge, process and task guidance as well as templates and examples.  If you’re wondering how many people, just go into OUM select the resources button on the top of most pages of the method, and on that resources page click the ABOUT link. So now back to my nostalgic moment as I finished release 5.6 packaging.  I reflected back, on all the things that happened that cause OUM to become not just a dream but to actually come to fruition.  Here are some key conditions that make it possible for each release of the method: A vision to have one method instead of many methods, thereby focusing on deeper, richer content People within Oracle’s consulting Organization  willing to contribute to OUM providing Subject Matter Experts who are willing to write down and share what they know. Oracle’s continued acquisition of software companies, the need to assimilate high quality existing materials from these companies The need to bring together people from very different backgrounds and provide a common language to support Oracle Product implementations that often involve multiple product families What came first, and then what was the strategy? Initially OUM 4.0 was based on Oracle’s J2EE Custom Development Method (JCDM), it was a good “backbone”  (work breakdown structure) it was Unified Process based, and had good content around UML as well as custom software development.  But it needed to be extended in order to achieve the OUM Vision. What happened after that was to take in the “best of the best”, the legacy and acquired methods were scheduled for assimilation into OUM, one release after another.  We incrementally built OUM.  We didn’t want to lose any of the expertise that was reflected in AIM (Oracle’s legacy Application Implementation Method), Compass (People Soft’s Application implementation method) and so many more. When was OUM born? OUM 4.1 published April 30, 2006.  This release allowed Oracles Advanced Technology groups to begin the very first implementations of Fusion Middleware.  In the early days of the Method we would prepare several releases a year.  Our iterative release development cycle began and continues to be refined with each Method release.  Now we typically see one major release each year. The OUM release development cycle is not unlike many Oracle Implementation projects in that we need to gather requirements, prioritize, prepare the content, test package and then go production.  Typically we develop an OUM release MoSCoW (must have, should have, could have, and won’t have) right after the prior release goes out.   These are the high level requirements.  We break the timeframe into increments, frequent checkpoints that help us assess the content and progress is measured through frequent checkpoints.  We work as a team to prioritize what should be done in each increment. Yes, the team provides the estimates for what can be done within a particular increment.  We sometimes have Method Development workshops (physically or virtually) to accelerate content development on a particular subject area, that is where the best content results. As the written content nears the final stages, it goes through edit and evaluation through peer reviews, and then moves into the release staging environment.  Then content freeze and testing of the method pack take place.  This iterative cycle is run using the OUM artifacts that make sense “fit for purpose”, project plans, MoSCoW lists, Test plans are just a few of the OUM work products we use on a Method Release project. In 2007 OUM 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 were published.  With the release of 4.5 our Custom BI Method (Data Warehouse Method FastTrack) was assimilated into OUM.  These early releases helped us align Oracle’s Unified method with other industry standards Then in 2008 we made significant changes to the OUM “Backbone” to support Applications Implementation projects with that went to the OUM 5.0 release.  Now things started to get really interesting.  Next we had some major developments in the Envision focus area in the area of Enterprise Architecture.  We acquired some really great content from the former BEA, Liquid Enterprise Method (LEM) along with some SMEs who were willing to work at bringing this content into OUM.  The Service Oriented Architecture content in OUM is extensive and can help support the successful implementation of Fusion Middleware, as well as Fusion Applications. Of course we’ve developed a wealth of OUM training materials that work also helps to improve the method content.  It is one thing to write “how to”, and quite another to be able to teach people how to use the materials to improve the success of their projects.  I’ve learned so much by teaching people how to use OUM. What's next? So here toward the end of 2012, what’s in store in OUM 5.6, well, I’m sure you won’t be surprised the answer is Cloud Computing.   More details to come in the next couple of weeks!  The best part of being involved in the development of OUM is to see how many people have “adopted” OUM over these six years, Clients, Partners, and Oracle Consultants.  The content just gets better with each release.   I’d love to hear your comments on how OUM has evolved, and ideas for new content you’d like to see in the upcoming releases.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 19, 2014

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 19, 2014Popular ReleasesLINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter v3.0.3: Supports .NET 4.5x, Windows Phone 8.x, Windows 8.x, Windows Azure, Xamarin.Android, and Xamarin.iOS. New features include Status/Lookup, Mute APIs, and bug fixes. 100% Twitter API v1.1 coverage, Async, Portable Class Library (PCL).CS-Script for Notepad++ (C# intellisense and code execution): Release v1.0.26.0: Added access to the Release Notes during 'Check for Updates...'' Debug panels Added support for generic types members Members are grouped into 'Raw View' and 'Non-Public members' categories Implemented dedicated (array-like) view for Lists and Dictionaries http://download-codeplex.sec.s-msft.com/Download?ProjectName=csscriptnpp&DownloadId=846498ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.70.0: A lot of fixes. See history.SFDL.NET: SFDL.NET (2.2.9.2): Changelog: Neues Icon Xup.in CnL Plugin BugfixSEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.030.008 Release 1: Fixed cube editor failing to apply color to cubes. Added to cube editor, replace cube dialog, and Build Percent dialog. Corrected for hidden asteroid ore, allowing rare ore to show when importing an asteroid, or converting a 3d model to an asteroid (still appears to be limitations on rare ore in small asteroids). Allowed ore selection to Asteroid file import. (Can copy/import and convert existing asteroid to another ore). Added progress bars to common long running operations. Fixed ...Better Robocopy GUI: Command Line GUI for Robocopy: Better Robocopy GUI had become the primary plugin in Command Line GUI built on .NET 4Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query (1.0.71.456): Minor fixes and template corrections.HMS_TEST: ??1: ?? ???????TFS Planning and Disaster Recovery Avoidance Guide: v1.4.BETA - TFS, DR and Azure IaaS Planning Guides: Welcome to the TFS Planning and DR Avoidance Guidance What is new? A new crisper, more compact style, which is easier to consume on multiple devices without sacrificing any content. Also included are the new TFS on Azure IaaS guide and supplementary guides. Note Capacity planning workbook and posters are included in the Everything Zip package. Quality-Bar Detail Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has been through an independent technical review ...CRM Web API Lead Capture Example: CRM Web API Lead Capture Example: Sample Visual Studio 2013 project that provides an example of how you could use Web API and Microsoft Azure (could be deployed anywhere) to capture simple HTML form data into Dynamics CRM without directly having to integrate a .NET component.MB Tools: MDT Monitor Tool v1.4: This tool is used to connect to an MDT 2013 Monitor Webservice. The purpose is to provide an alternative to the MDT Deployment Workbench. Update: New in v1.4: Fixed bug where Dart Remote Viewer didnt work Option to show client local time instead of UTC, edit config.xml to enable/disable New in v1.2: Fixed Dart Remote Viewer not connection to full ip Issue: 1222 New in v1.1: Added timers for autorefresh of webservice info Added some better errorchecking and cleaned up the code a bit ...Bob The Simple Text Game: Bob The Simple Text Game: Bob The Simple Text GameWinAudit: WinAudit Freeware v3.0: WinAudit.exe v3.0 MD5: 88750CCF49FF7418199B2645755830FA Known Issues: 1. Report creation can be very slow when right-to-left (Hebrew) characters are present. 2. Emsisoft Anti-Malware may stop and/or quarantine WinAudit. This happens when WinAudit attempts to obtain a list if running programmes. You will need to set an exception rule in Emsisoft to allow WinAudit to run.crashme: crashme source tarball 2.7: Updated for 64-bit Linux environments with a system call to change the default no-execute-data protection. This tarball is equivalent to committed source revision 108727LUA for Windows CE: LUA 5.2.3 for Windows CE 5.0 (ARMV4I): LUA for Windows CE This is a preliminary porting of the latest LUA release (5.2.3) to the Windows CE platform. Command-line compiler, interpreter, dynamic-link-library, and import-library (both static and dynamic stubs) are provided as a binary release. In this release, the Windows CE compatibility CRT static library has been added, in order to embed statically the LUA interpreter. Moreover, the include files are present in the distribution archive, too.Jquery Dirty Flag: Beta Version 1.0: Simple Way to Manage Dirty Flag @ Client SideProView: ProView-2: Added a new short-cut key: Ctrl+D copies the value from the above cell to the current cell. The key combination Shift+NumPadMinus makes an underscore character Fixed a bug during renaming that displayed the message "The file is in use by another process" The spread sheet can now be customized with a highlighting row color for the currently displayed image.TerraMap (Terraria World Map Viewer): TerraMap 1.0.4: Added support for the new Terraria v1.2.4 update. New items, walls, and tiles Fixed Issue 35206: Hightlight/Find doesn't work for Demon Altars Fixed finding Demon Hearts/Shadow Orbs Added ability to find Enchanted Swords (in the stone) and Water Bolt books Fixed installer not uninstalling older versions The setup file will make sure .NET 4 is installed, install TerraMap, create desktop and start menu shortcuts, add a .wld file association, and launch TerraMap. If you prefer the zip ...WPF Localization Extension: v2.2.1: Issue #9277 Issue #9292 Issue #9311 Issue #9312 Issue #9313 Issue #9314CtrlAltStudio Viewer: CtrlAltStudio Viewer 1.2.1.41167 Release: This release of the CtrlAltStudio Viewer includes the following significant features: Oculus Rift support. Stereoscopic 3D display support. Variable walking / flying speed. Xbox 360 Controller support. Kinect for Windows support. Based on Firestorm viewer 4.6.5 codebase. For more details, see the release notes linked to below. Release notes: http://ctrlaltstudio.com/viewer/release-notes/1-2-1-41167-release Support info: http://ctrlaltstudio.com/viewer/support Privacy policy: http:/...New Projects.NET Development Library: .NET Development LibraryBizTalk Flow Visualizer: This tool has been designed to help BizTalk developers and administrators visualize the flow of messages through their implementation of BizTalk Server.BlackSwan: Provides tools for value investingCamel Case Parser: Simple method with unit tests for splitting an up or down camel cased word into the words that comprise it.eukota_sandbox: really just a repository for practicing with some students i mentor.Hyperlapse: Software repository for Hyperlapse, a Universal Store App for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, National Level entry in code.fun.do hackathon by Microsoft.Informiamoci Partecipando: Progetto presentato al #code4italyKipLink: MVC5 Web Api 2 EF DB First Oracle 11g Custom MembershipMatAcademyPlayground: MatAcademy 2014 playgroundOgCRM: Proyecto OgCRMPowerSYDI: This is an re-engineering of SYDI vbscript created by Patrick Ogenstad in PowerShell. SharpLightReporting: SharpLightReporting is a reporting system for .Net developers, based on open source SpreadsheetLight excel/spreadsheet automation system. T4 Template to pre-generate views for Entity Framework 5.0, .NET 4.5: T4 Template to pre-generate views for Entity Framework 6.0, .NET 4.5Task Board: Simple TaskboardWentex OS: Wentex das kostenfrei Betriebssystem für alleWinldTunnel - VIPBrowserProject: NoneWintcy: Wintcy's only function is to disable taskbar transparency that Microsoft for some reason has left in Windows 8.????????-????????【??】????????????: ????????????????????????,??????????,????,????,?????????、??????,??????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????,?????????????? ??。????????、????、????、?????????? ???????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????????????????:????、????、??????????????,????????。????????! ??????-【??】??????????: ???????????????????,????,????,????,???????,?????,?????.??????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????????????????:???????,??????,????,????,????,?????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????,??,??,??,??? ?,??,,??,??,??,??,??,??,????????,??????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????????,?????????????。????????????,???????,???????,?????,?????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ??????? ?????,????????????????. ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????、????、????、??????、????、????????,????????、?????????,?????。 ???????-???????【??】???????????: ?????????????????????,??????????,????????、????,??????????,??????????。 ???????-???????【??】???????????: ???????????????????、????,??100%????,??????,????????????,???????????! ???????-???????【??】???????????: ?????????,??????:?????,?????,??????,??????????,????????。????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????【.????.????.????.????.】??【??】:、??、??、??、??、??、??、??、??、??、??、?????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????????,????,??.??.??.??.??.??.??.???,????,???????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????????、????、??????、????????,????????????,???????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????????,???????????????。???????????,??????:????、????、???????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????????????,????,????,??????????。???????????????,??,??,??????????,??????... ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????,?????????????,????,?????????,?????????????,?????,?????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????,???????、???????????,????????、????、????、??????、????????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????、?????,????????????????????,????,????,??????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????:??????、????、????、????、????、??????、??????,???????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ??????? ?????,????????????????. ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????????:?????? ???? ??????,???????,??????,???????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????,????,??????????? ???? ???? ?????????,???,??,?????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????,????,????,??????,????“????、????、????、????”????????,??????. ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????、????、????、??????、????、????????,????????、?????????,?????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????????,?????????????。????????????,???????,???????,?????,?????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????????????????????、????、????、???????????,????,????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????6?,???????????????????????????,??????????????,?????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????8?,????????,????????,??????????,?????,????? ,????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????????,??????????????、???????、???????、???????、?????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????????????????,???????????,????????,?????????????????????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????????,????????????????,????????????????,??????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????,????,??????????? ???? ???? ?????????,???,??,?????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????????????????????,???????????????????????,???????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????:?????? ???? ??????,???????,??????,???????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????、???、??、??????????????????????????????,????????????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????????,????????:??、??、???,?????????????????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????,?????,???????????,???????,????,????,????,?????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????????,????,???????、???????????,???????????,????,?????,???????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????????,???????????,??????????????,??????????,??????????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????,?????????????? ??。??????????、????、????、?????????? ???????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????,??????????、??????,??????????、????、????、???????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????、??????????????????,????????,?????,??????,????,????,????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????????????,????????,??????????,?????,????? ,????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????,????????,?????,???,???????????,???????????,?????,??????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????,??????????????????????,???????????????,?????????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ?????????????????????,?????????/?,,???????????,??????????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????,?????????、??、??、????,??????????,?????????????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????、????、????、??????????,???,?????,???????????????. ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????????????,?????, ... ????????????,????,????,?????,???????。

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  • HTG Explains: Should You Build Your Own PC?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    There was a time when every geek seemed to build their own PC. While the masses bought eMachines and Compaqs, geeks built their own more powerful and reliable desktop machines for cheaper. But does this still make sense? Building your own PC still offers as much flexibility in component choice as it ever did, but prebuilt computers are available at extremely competitive prices. Building your own PC will no longer save you money in most cases. The Rise of Laptops It’s impossible to look at the decline of geeks building their own PCs without considering the rise of laptops. There was a time when everyone seemed to use desktops — laptops were more expensive and significantly slower in day-to-day tasks. With the diminishing importance of computing power — nearly every modern computer has more than enough power to surf the web and use typical programs like Microsoft Office without any trouble — and the rise of laptop availability at nearly every price point, most people are buying laptops instead of desktops. And, if you’re buying a laptop, you can’t really build your own. You can’t just buy a laptop case and start plugging components into it — even if you could, you would end up with an extremely bulky device. Ultimately, to consider building your own desktop PC, you have to actually want a desktop PC. Most people are better served by laptops. Benefits to PC Building The two main reasons to build your own PC have been component choice and saving money. Building your own PC allows you to choose all the specific components you want rather than have them chosen for you. You get to choose everything, including the PC’s case and cooling system. Want a huge case with room for a fancy water-cooling system? You probably want to build your own PC. In the past, this often allowed you to save money — you could get better deals by buying the components yourself and combining them, avoiding the PC manufacturer markup. You’d often even end up with better components — you could pick up a more powerful CPU that was easier to overclock and choose more reliable components so you wouldn’t have to put up with an unstable eMachine that crashed every day. PCs you build yourself are also likely more upgradable — a prebuilt PC may have a sealed case and be constructed in such a way to discourage you from tampering with the insides, while swapping components in and out is generally easier with a computer you’ve built on your own. If you want to upgrade your CPU or replace your graphics card, it’s a definite benefit. Downsides to Building Your Own PC It’s important to remember there are downsides to building your own PC, too. For one thing, it’s just more work — sure, if you know what you’re doing, building your own PC isn’t that hard. Even for a geek, researching the best components, price-matching, waiting for them all to arrive, and building the PC just takes longer. Warranty is a more pernicious problem. If you buy a prebuilt PC and it starts malfunctioning, you can contact the computer’s manufacturer and have them deal with it. You don’t need to worry about what’s wrong. If you build your own PC and it starts malfunctioning, you have to diagnose the problem yourself. What’s malfunctioning, the motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card, or power supply? Each component has a separate warranty through its manufacturer, so you’ll have to determine which component is malfunctioning before you can send it off for replacement. Should You Still Build Your Own PC? Let’s say you do want a desktop and are willing to consider building your own PC. First, bear in mind that PC manufacturers are buying in bulk and getting a better deal on each component. They also have to pay much less for a Windows license than the $120 or so it would cost you to to buy your own Windows license. This is all going to wipe out the cost savings you’ll see — with everything all told, you’ll probably spend more money building your own average desktop PC than you would picking one up from Amazon or the local electronics store. If you’re an average PC user that uses your desktop for the typical things, there’s no money to be saved from building your own PC. But maybe you’re looking for something higher end. Perhaps you want a high-end gaming PC with the fastest graphics card and CPU available. Perhaps you want to pick out each individual component and choose the exact components for your gaming rig. In this case, building your own PC may be a good option. As you start to look at more expensive, high-end PCs, you may start to see a price gap — but you may not. Let’s say you wanted to blow thousands of dollars on a gaming PC. If you’re looking at spending this kind of money, it would be worth comparing the cost of individual components versus a prebuilt gaming system. Still, the actual prices may surprise you. For example, if you wanted to upgrade Dell’s $2293 Alienware Aurora to include a second NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 graphics card, you’d pay an additional $600 on Alienware’s website. The same graphics card costs $650 on Amazon or Newegg, so you’d be spending more money building the system yourself. Why? Dell’s Alienware gets bulk discounts you can’t get — and this is Alienware, which was once regarded as selling ridiculously overpriced gaming PCs to people who wouldn’t build their own. Building your own PC still allows you to get the most freedom when choosing and combining components, but this is only valuable to a small niche of gamers and professional users — most people, even average gamers, would be fine going with a prebuilt system. If you’re an average person or even an average gamer, you’ll likely find that it’s cheaper to purchase a prebuilt PC rather than assemble your own. Even at the very high end, components may be more expensive separately than they are in a prebuilt PC. Enthusiasts who want to choose all the individual components for their dream gaming PC and want maximum flexibility may want to build their own PCs. Even then, building your own PC these days is more about flexibility and component choice than it is about saving money. In summary, you probably shouldn’t build your own PC. If you’re an enthusiast, you may want to — but only a small minority of people would actually benefit from building their own systems. Feel free to compare prices, but you may be surprised which is cheaper. Image Credit: Richard Jones on Flickr, elPadawan on Flickr, Richard Jones on Flickr     

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  • How to Never Use iTunes With Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

    - by Chris Hoffman
    iTunes isn’t an amazing program on Windows. There was a time when Apple device users had to plug their devices into their PCs or Macs and use iTunes for device activation, updates, and syncing, but iTunes is no longer necessary. Apple still allows you to use iTunes for these things, but you don’t have to. Your iOS device can function independently from iTunes, so you should never be forced to plug it into a PC or Mac. Device Activation When the iPad first came out, it was touted as a device that could replace full PCs and Macs for people who only needed to perform light computing tasks. Yet, to set up a new iPad, users had to plug it into a PC or Mac running iTunes and use iTunes to activate the device. This is no longer necessary. With new iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, you can simply go through the setup process after turning on your new device without ever having to plug it into iTunes. Just connect to a Wi-Fi or cellular data network and log in with your Apple ID when prompted. You’ll still see an option that allows you to activate the device via iTunes, but this should only be necessary if you don’t have a wireless Internet connection available for your device. Operating System Updates You no longer have to use Apple’s iTunes software to update to a new version of Apple’s iOS operating system, either. Just open the Settings app on your device, select the General category, and tap Software Update. You’ll be able to update right from your device without ever opening iTunes. Purchased iTunes Media Apple allows you to easily access content you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store on any device. You don’t have to connect your device to your computer and sync via iTunes. For example, you can purchase a movie from the iTunes Store. Then, without any syncing, you can open the iTunes Store app on any of your iOS devices, tap the Purchased section, and see stuff you’ve downloaded. You can download the content right from the store to your device. This also works for apps — apps you purchase from the App Store can be accessed in the Purchased section on the App Store on your device later. You don’t have to sync apps from iTunes to your device, although iTunes still allows you to. You can even set up automatic downloads from the iTunes & App Store settings screen. This would allow you to purchase content on one device and have it automatically download to your other devices without any hassle. Music Apple allows you to re-download purchased music from the iTunes Store in the same way. However, there’s a good chance you have your own music you didn’t purchase from iTunes. Maybe you spent time ripping it all from your old CDs and you’ve been syncing it to your devices via iTunes ever since. Apple’s solution for this is named iTunes Match. This feature isn’t free, but it’s not a bad deal at all. For $25 per year, Apple allows you to upload all your music to your iCloud account. You can then access all your music from any iPhone, IPad, or iPod Touch. You can stream all your music — perfect if you have a huge library and little storage on your device — and choose which songs you want to download to your device for offline use. When you add additional music to your computer, iTunes will notice it and upload it using iTunes Match, making it available for streaming and downloading directly from your iOS devices without any syncing. This feature is named iTunes Match because it doesn’t just upload music — if Apple already has a song you upload, it will “match” your song with Apple’s copy. This means you may get higher-quality versions of your songs if you ripped them from CD at a lower bitrate. Podcasts You don’t have to use iTunes to subscribe to podcasts and sync them to your devices. Even if you have a lowly iPod Touch, you can install APple’s Podcasts app from the app store. Use it to subscribe to podcasts and configure them to automatically download directly to your device. You can use other podcast apps for this, too. Backups You can continue backing up your device’s data through iTunes, generating local backups that are stored on your computer. However, new iOS devices are configured to automatically back up their data to iCloud. This happens automatically in the background without you even having to think about it, and you can restore such backups when setting up a device simply by logging in with your Apple ID. Personal Data In the days of PalmPilots, people would use desktop programs like iTunes to sync their email, contacts, and calendar events with their mobile devices. You probably shouldn’t have to sync this data form your computer. Just sign into your email account — for example, a Gmail account — on your device and iOS will automatically pull your email, contacts, and calendar events from your associated account. Photos Rather than connecting your iOS device to your computer and syncing photos from it, you can use an app that automatically uploads your photos to a web service. Dropbox, Google+, and even Flickr all have this feature in their apps. You’ll be able to access your photos from any computer and have a backup copy without any syncing required. You may still need to use iTunes if you want to sync local music without paying for iTunes Match or copy local video files to your device. Copying large local files over is the only real scenario where you’d need iTunes. If you don’t need to copy such files over, you can go ahead and uninstall iTunes from your Windows PC if you like. You shouldn’t need it.     

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  • External File Upload Optimizations for Windows Azure

    - by rgillen
    [Cross posted from here: http://rob.gillenfamily.net/post/External-File-Upload-Optimizations-for-Windows-Azure.aspx] I’m wrapping up a bit of the work we’ve been doing on data movement optimizations for cloud computing and the latest set of data yielded some interesting points I thought I’d share. The work done here is not really rocket science but may, in some ways, be slightly counter-intuitive and therefore seemed worthy of posting. Summary: for those who don’t like to read detailed posts or don’t have time, the synopsis is that if you are uploading data to Azure, block your data (even down to 1MB) and upload in parallel. Set your block size based on your source file size, but if you must choose a fixed value, use 1MB. Following the above will result in significant performance gains… upwards of 10x-24x and a reduction in overall file transfer time of upwards of 90% (eg, uploading a 1GB file averaged 46.37 minutes prior to optimizations and averaged 1.86 minutes afterwards). Detail: For those of you who want more detail, or think that the claims at the end of the preceding paragraph are over-reaching, what follows is information and code supporting these claims. As the title would indicate, these tests were run from our research facility pointing to the Azure cloud (specifically US North Central as it is physically closest to us) and do not represent intra-cloud results… we have performed intra-cloud tests and the overall results are similar in notion but the data rates are significantly different as well as the tipping points for the various block sizes… this will be detailed separately). We started by building a very simple console application that would loop through a directory and upload each file to Azure storage. This application used the shipping storage client library from the 1.1 version of the azure tools. The only real variation from the client library is that we added code to collect and record the duration (in ms) and size (in bytes) for each file transferred. The code is available here. We then created a directory that had a collection of files for the following sizes: 2KB, 32KB, 64KB, 128KB, 512KB, 1MB, 5MB, 10MB, 25MB, 50MB, 100MB, 250MB, 500MB, 750MB, and 1GB (50 files for each size listed). These files contained randomly-generated binary data and do not benefit from compression (a separate discussion topic). Our file generation tool is available here. The baseline was established by running the application described above against the directory containing all of the data files. This application uploads the files in a random order so as to avoid transferring all of the files of a given size sequentially and thereby spreading the affects of periodic Internet delays across the collection of results.  We then ran some scripts to split the resulting data and generate some reports. The raw data collected for our non-optimized tests is available via the links in the Related Resources section at the bottom of this post. For each file size, we calculated the average upload time (and standard deviation) and the average transfer rate (and standard deviation). As you likely are aware, transferring data across the Internet is susceptible to many transient delays which can cause anomalies in the resulting data. It is for this reason that we randomized the order of source file processing as well as executed the tests 50x for each file size. We expect that these steps will yield a sufficiently balanced set of results. Once the baseline was collected and analyzed, we updated the test harness application with some methods to split the source file into user-defined block sizes and then to upload those blocks in parallel (using the PutBlock() method of Azure storage). The parallelization was handled by simply relying on the Parallel Extensions to .NET to provide a Parallel.For loop (see linked source for specific implementation details in Program.cs, line 173 and following… less than 100 lines total). Once all of the blocks were uploaded, we called PutBlockList() to assemble/commit the file in Azure storage. For each block transferred, the MD5 was calculated and sent ensuring that the bits that arrived matched was was intended. The timer for the blocked/parallelized transfer method wraps the entire process (source file splitting, block transfer, MD5 validation, file committal). A diagram of the process is as follows: We then tested the affects of blocking & parallelizing the transfers by running the updated application against the same source set and did a parameter sweep on the block size including 256KB, 512KB, 1MB, 2MB, and 4MB (our assumption was that anything lower than 256KB wasn’t worth the trouble and 4MB is the maximum size of a block supported by Azure). The raw data for the parallel tests is available via the links in the Related Resources section at the bottom of this post. This data was processed and then compared against the single-threaded / non-optimized transfer numbers and the results were encouraging. The Excel version of the results is available here. Two semi-obvious points need to be made prior to reviewing the data. The first is that if the block size is larger than the source file size you will end up with a “negative optimization” due to the overhead of attempting to block and parallelize. The second is that as the files get smaller, the clock-time cost of blocking and parallelizing (overhead) is more apparent and can tend towards negative optimizations. For this reason (and is supported in the raw data provided in the linked worksheet) the charts and dialog below ignore source file sizes less than 1MB. (click chart for full size image) The chart above illustrates some interesting points about the results: When the block size is smaller than the source file, performance increases but as the block size approaches and then passes the source file size, you see decreasing benefit to the point of negative gains (see the values for the 1MB file size) For some of the moderately-sized source files, small blocks (256KB) are best As the size of the source file gets larger (see values for 50MB and up), the smallest block size is not the most efficient (presumably due, at least in part, to the increased number of blocks, increased number of individual transfer requests, and reassembly/committal costs). Once you pass the 250MB source file size, the difference in rate for 1MB to 4MB blocks is more-or-less constant The 1MB block size gives the best average improvement (~16x) but the optimal approach would be to vary the block size based on the size of the source file.    (click chart for full size image) The above is another view of the same data as the prior chart just with the axis changed (x-axis represents file size and plotted data shows improvement by block size). It again highlights the fact that the 1MB block size is probably the best overall size but highlights the benefits of some of the other block sizes at different source file sizes. This last chart shows the change in total duration of the file uploads based on different block sizes for the source file sizes. Nothing really new here other than this view of the data highlights the negative affects of poorly choosing a block size for smaller files.   Summary What we have found so far is that blocking your file uploads and uploading them in parallel results in significant performance improvements. Further, utilizing extension methods and the Task Parallel Library (.NET 4.0) make short work of altering the shipping client library to provide this functionality while minimizing the amount of change to existing applications that might be using the client library for other interactions.   Related Resources Source code for upload test application Source code for random file generator ODatas feed of raw data from non-optimized transfer tests Experiment Metadata Experiment Datasets 2KB Uploads 32KB Uploads 64KB Uploads 128KB Uploads 256KB Uploads 512KB Uploads 1MB Uploads 5MB Uploads 10MB Uploads 25MB Uploads 50MB Uploads 100MB Uploads 250MB Uploads 500MB Uploads 750MB Uploads 1GB Uploads Raw Data OData feeds of raw data from blocked/parallelized transfer tests Experiment Metadata Experiment Datasets Raw Data 256KB Blocks 512KB Blocks 1MB Blocks 2MB Blocks 4MB Blocks Excel worksheet showing summarizations and comparisons

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  • Christmas in the Clouds

    - by andrewbrust
    I have been spending the last 2 weeks immersing myself in a number of Windows Azure and SQL Azure technologies.  And in setting up a new business (I’ll speak more about that in the future), I have also become a customer of Microsoft’s BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services).  In short, it has been a fortnight of Microsoft cloud computing. On the Azure side, I’ve looked, of course, at Web Roles and Worker Roles.  But I’ve also looked at Azure Storage’s REST API (including coding to it directly), I’ve looked at Azure Drive and the new VM Role; I’ve looked quite a bit at SQL Azure (including the project “Houston” Silverlight UI) and I’ve looked at SQL Azure labs’ OData service too. I’ve also looked at DataMarket and its integration with both PowerPivot and native Excel.  Then there’s AppFabric Caching, SQL Azure Reporting (what I could learn of it) and the Visual Studio tooling for Azure, including the storage of certificate-based credentials.  And to round it out with some user stuff, on the BPOS side, I’ve been working with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and LiveMeeting. I have to say I like a lot of what I’ve been seeing.  Azure’s not perfect, and BPOS certainly isn’t either.  But there’s good stuff in all these products, and there’s a lot of value. Azure Goes Deep Most people know that Web and Worker roles put the platform in charge of spinning virtual machines up and down, and keeping them up to date. But you can go way beyond that now.  The still-in-beta VM Role gives you the power to craft the machine (much as does Amazon’s EC2), though it takes away the platform’s self-managing attributes.  It still spins instances up and down, making drive storage non-durable, but Azure Drive gives you the ability to store VHD files as blobs and mount them as virtual hard drives that are readable and writeable.  Whether with Azure Storage or SQL Azure, Azure does data.  And OData is everywhere.  Azure Table Storage supports an OData Interface.  So does SQL Azure and so does DataMarket (the former project “Dallas”).  That means that Azure data repositories aren’t just straightforward to provision and configure…they’re also easy to program against, from just about any programming environment, in a RESTful manner.  And for more .NET-centric implementations, Azure AppFabric caching takes the technology formerly known as “Velocity” and throws it up into the cloud, speeding data access even more. Snapping in Place Once you get the hang of it, this stuff just starts to work in a way that becomes natural to understand.  I wasn’t expecting that, and I was really happy to discover it. In retrospect, I am not surprised, because I think the various Azure teams are the center of gravity for Redmond’s innovation right now.  The products belie this and so do my observations of the product teams’ motivation and high morale.  It is really good to see this; Microsoft needs to lead somewhere, and they need to be seen as the underdog while doing so.  With Azure, both requirements are in place.   BPOS: Bad Acronym, Easy Setup BPOS is about products you already know; Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting and Office Communications Server.  As such, it’s hard not to be underwhelmed by BPOS.  Until you realize how easy it makes it to get all that stuff set up.  I would say that from sign-up to productive use took me about 45 minutes…and that included the time necessary to wrestle with my DNS provider, set up Outlook and my SmartPhone up to talk to the Exchange account, create my SharePoint site collection, and configure the Outlook Conferencing add-in to talk to the provisioned Live Meeting account. Never before did I think setting up my own Exchange mail could come anywhere close to the simplicity of setting up an SMTP/POP account, and yet BPOS actually made it faster.   What I want from my Azure Christmas Next Year Not everything about Microsoft’s cloud is good.  I close this post with a list of things I’d like to see addressed: BPOS offerings are still based on the 2007 Wave of Microsoft server technologies.  We need to get to 2010, and fast.  Arguably, the 2010 products should have been released to the off-premises channel before the on-premise sone.  Office 365 can’t come fast enough. Azure’s Internet tooling and domain naming, is scattered and confusing.  Deployed ASP.NET applications go to cloudapp.net; SQL Azure and Azure storage work off windows.net.  The Azure portal and Project Houston are at azure.com.  Then there’s appfabriclabs.com and sqlazurelabs.com.  There is a new Silverlight portal that replaces most, but not all of the HTML ones.  And Project Houston is Silvelright-based too, though separate from the Silverlight portal tooling. Microsoft is the king off tooling.  They should not make me keep an entire OneNote notebook full of portal links, account names, access keys, assemblies and namespaces and do so much CTRL-C/CTRL-V work.  I’d like to see more project templates, have them automatically reference the appropriate assemblies, generate the right using/Imports statements and prime my config files with the right markup.  Then I want a UI that lets me log in with my Live ID and pick the appropriate project, database, namespace and key string to get set up fast. Beta programs, if they’re open, should onboard me quickly.  I know the process is difficult and everyone’s going as fast as they can.  But I don’t know why it’s so difficult or why it takes so long.  Getting developers up to speed on new features quickly helps popularize the platform.  Make this a priority. Make Azure accessible from the simplicity platforms, i.e. ASP.NET Web Pages (Razor) and LightSwitch.  Support .NET 4 now.  Make WebMatrix, IIS Express and SQL Compact work with the Azure development fabric. Have HTML helpers make Azure programming easier.  Have LightSwitch work with SQL Azure and not require SQL Express.  LightSwitch has some promising Azure integration now.  But we need more.  WebMatrix has none and that’s just silly, now that the Extra Small Instance is being introduced. The Windows Azure Platform Training Kit is great.  But I want Microsoft to make it even better and I want them to evangelize it much more aggressively.  There’s a lot of good material on Azure development out there, but it’s scattered in the same way that the platform is.   The Training Kit ties a lot of disparate stuff together nicely.  Make it known. Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot All in all, diving deep into Azure was a good way to end the year.  Diving deeper into Azure should a great way to spend next year, not just for me, but for Microsoft too.

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  • How to create a virtual network with Azure Connect

    - by Herve Roggero
    If you are trying to establish a virtual network between machines located in disparate networks, you can either use VPN, Virtual Network or Azure Connect. If you want to establish a connection between machines located in Windows Azure, you should consider using the Virtual Network service. If you want to establish a connection between local machines and Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, you may be able to use your existing VPN device (assuming you have one), as long as the device is supported by Microsoft. If the VPN device you are using isn’t supported, or if you are trying to create a virtual network between machines from disparate networks (such as machines located in another cloud provider), you can use Azure Connect. This blog post explains how Azure Connect can help you create virtual networks between multiple servers in the cloud, various servers in different cloud environments, and on-premise. Note: Azure Connect is currently in Technical Preview. About Azure Connect Let’s do a quick review of Azure Connect. This technology implements an IPSec tunnel from machines to to a relay service located in the Microsoft cloud (Azure). So in essence, Azure Connect doesn’t provide a point-to-point connection between machines; the network communication is tunneled through the relay service. The relay service in turn offers a mechanism to enforce basic communication rules that you define through Groups. We will review this later. You could network two or more VMs in the Azure cloud (although you should consider using a Virtual Network if you go this route), or servers in the Azure cloud and other machines in the Amazon cloud for example, or even two or more on-premise servers located in different locations for which a direct network connection is not an option. You can place any number of machines in your topology. Azure Connect gives you great flexibility on how you want to build your virtual network across various environments. So Azure Connect makes sense when you want to: Connect machines located in different cloud providers Connect on-premise machines running in different locations Connect Azure VMs with on-premise (if you do not have a VPN device, or if your device is not supported) Connect Azure Roles (Worker Roles, Web Roles) with on-premise servers or in other cloud providers The diagram below shows you a high level network topology that involves machines in the Windows Azure cloud, other cloud providers and on-premise. You should note that the only required component in this diagram is the Relay itself. The other machines are optional (although your network is useful only if you have two or more machines involved). Relay agents are currently available in three geographic areas: US, Europe and Asia. You can change which region you want to use in the Windows Azure management portal. High Level Network Topology With Azure Connect Azure Connect Agent Azure Connect establishes a virtual network and creates virtual adapters on your machines; these virtual adapters communicate through the Relay using IPSec. This is achieved by installing an agent (the Azure Connect Agent) on all the machines you want in your network topology. However, you do not need to install the agent on Worker Roles and Web Roles; that’s because the agent is already installed for you. Any other machine, including Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, needs the agent installed.  To install the agent, simply go to your Windows Azure portal (http://windows.azure.com) and click on Networks on the bottom left panel. You will see a list of subscriptions under Connect. If you select a subscription, you will be able to click on the Install Local Endpoint icon on top. Clicking on this icon will begin the download and installation process for the agent. Activating Roles for Azure Connect As previously mentioned, you do not need to install the Azure Connect Agent on Worker Roles and Web Roles because it is already loaded. However, you do need to activate them if you want the roles to participate in your network topology. To do this, you will need to click on the Get Activation Token icon. The activation token must then be copied and placed in the configuration file of your roles. For more information on how to perform this step, visit MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg432964.aspx. Firewall Rules Note that specific firewall rules must exist to allow the agent to communicate through the Relay. You will need to allow TCP 443 and ICMPv6. For additional information, please visit MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg433061.aspx. CA Certificates You can optionally require agents to sign their activation request with the Relay using a trusted certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). Click on Activation Options to learn more. Groups To create your network topology you must first create a group. A group represents a logical container of endpoints (or machines) that can communicate through the Relay. You can create multiple groups allowing you to manage network communication differently. For example you could create a DEVELOPMENT group and a PRODUCTION group. To add an endpoint you must first install an agent that will create a virtual adapter on the machine on which it is installed (as discussed in the previous section). Once you have created a group and installed the agents, the machines will appear in the Windows Azure management portal and you can start assigning machines to groups. The next figure shows you that I created a group called LocalGroup and assigned two machines (both on-premise) to that group. Groups and Computers in Azure Connect As I mentioned previously you can allow these machines to establish a network connection. To do this, you must enable the Interconnected option in the group. The following diagram shows you the definition of the group. In this topology I chose to include local machines only, but I could also add worker roles and web roles in the Azure Roles section (you must first activate your roles, as discussed previously). You could also add other Groups, allowing you to manage inter-group communication. Defining a Group in Azure Connect Testing the Connection Now that my agents have been installed on my two machines, the group defined and the Interconnected option checked, I can test the connection between my machines. The next screenshot shows you that I sent a PING request to DEVLAP02 from DEVDSK02. The PING request was successful. Note however that the time is in the hundreds of milliseconds on average. That is to be expected because the machines are connecting through the Relay located in the cloud. Going through the Relay introduces an extra hop in the communication chain, so if your systems rely on high performance, you may want to conduct some basic performance tests. Sending a PING Request Through The Relay Conclusion As you can see, creating a network topology between machines using the Azure Connect service is simple. It took me less than five minutes to create the above configuration, including the time it took to install the Azure Connect agents on the two machines. The flexibility of Azure Connect allows you to create a virtual network between disparate environments, as long as your operating systems are supported by the agent. For more information on Azure Connect, visit the MSDN website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg432997.aspx. About Herve Roggero Herve Roggero, Windows Azure MVP, is the founder of Blue Syntax Consulting, a company specialized in cloud computing products and services. Herve's experience includes software development, architecture, database administration and senior management with both global corporations and startup companies. Herve holds multiple certifications, including an MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University. Herve is the co-author of "PRO SQL Azure" from Apress and runs the Azure Florida Association (on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4177626). For more information on Blue Syntax Consulting, visit www.bluesyntax.net. Special Thanks I would like thank those that helped me figure out how Azure Connect works: Marcel Meijer - http://blogs.msmvps.com/marcelmeijer/ Michael Wood - Http://www.mvwood.com Glenn Block - http://www.codebetter.com/glennblock Yves Goeleven - http://cloudshaper.wordpress.com/ Sandrino Di Mattia - http://fabriccontroller.net/ Mike Martin - http://techmike2kx.wordpress.com

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  • Oracle OpenWorld 2013 – Wrap up by Sven Bernhardt

    - by JuergenKress
    OOW 2013 is over and we’re heading home, so it is time to lean back and reflecting about the impressions we have from the conference. First of all: OOW was great! It was a pleasure to be a part of it. As already mentioned in our last blog article: It was the biggest OOW ever. Parallel to the conference the America’s Cup took place in San Francisco and the Oracle Team America won. Amazing job by the team and again congratulations from our side Back to the conference. The main topics for us are: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c Adaptive Case management (ACM) Big Data Fast Data Cloud Mobile Below we will go a little more into detail, what are the key takeaways regarding the mentioned points: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c During the five days at OOW, first details of the upcoming major release of Oracle SOA Suite 12c and Oracle BPM Suite 12c have been introduced. Some new key features are: Managed File Transfer (MFT) for transferring big files from a source to a target location Enhanced REST support by introducing a new REST binding Introduction of a generic cloud adapter, which can be used to connect to different cloud providers, like Salesforce Enhanced analytics with BAM, which has been totally reengineered (BAM Console now also runs in Firefox!) Introduction of templates (OSB pipelines, component templates, BPEL activities templates) EM as a single monitoring console OSB design-time integration into JDeveloper (Really great!) Enterprise modeling capabilities in BPM Composer These are only a few points from what is coming with 12c. We are really looking forward for the new realese to come out, because this seems to be really great stuff. The suite becomes more and more integrated. From 10g to 11g it was an evolution in terms of developing SOA-based applications. With 12c, Oracle continues it’s way – very impressive. Adaptive Case Management Another fantastic topic was Adaptive Case Management (ACM). The Oracle PMs did a great job especially at the demo grounds in showing the upcoming Case Management UI (will be available in 11g with the next BPM Suite MLR Patch), the roadmap and the differences between traditional business process modeling. They have been very busy during the conference because a lot of partners and customers have been interested Big Data Big Data is one of the current hype themes. Because of huge data amounts from different internal or external sources, the handling of these data becomes more and more challenging. Companies have a need for analyzing the data to optimize their business. The challenge is here: the amount of data is growing daily! To store and analyze the data efficiently, it is necessary to have a scalable and flexible infrastructure. Here it is important that hardware and software are engineered to work together. Therefore several new features of the Oracle Database 12c, like the new in-memory option, have been presented by Larry Ellison himself. From a hardware side new server machines like Fujitsu M10 or new processors, such as Oracle’s new M6-32 have been announced. The performance improvements, when using one of these hardware components in connection with the improved software solutions were really impressive. For more details about this, please take look at our previous blog post. Regarding Big Data, Oracle also introduced their Big Data architecture, which consists of: Oracle Big Data Appliance that is preconfigured with Hadoop Oracle Exdata which stores a huge amount of data efficently, to achieve optimal query performance Oracle Exalytics as a fast and scalable Business analytics system Analysis of the stored data can be performed using SQL, by streaming the data directly from Hadoop to an Oracle Database 12c. Alternatively the analysis can be directly implemented in Hadoop using “R”. In addition Oracle BI Tools can be used to analyze the data. Fast Data Fast Data is a complementary approach to Big Data. A huge amount of mostly unstructured data comes in via different channels with a high frequency. The analysis of these data streams is also important for companies, because the incoming data has to be analyzed regarding business-relevant patterns in real-time. Therefore these patterns must be identified efficiently and performant. To do so, in-memory grid solutions in combination with Oracle Coherence and Oracle Event Processing demonstrated very impressive how efficient real-time data processing can be. One example for Fast Data solutions that was shown during the OOW was the analysis of twitter streams regarding customer satisfaction. The feeds with negative words like “bad” or “worse” have been filtered and after a defined treshold has been reached in a certain timeframe, a business event was triggered. Cloud Another key trend in the IT market is of course Cloud Computing and what it means for companies and their businesses. Oracle announced their Cloud strategy and vision – companies can focus on their real business while all of the applications are available via Cloud. This also includes Oracle Database or Oracle Weblogic, so that companies can also build, deploy and run their own applications within the cloud. Three different approaches have been introduced: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) Using the IaaS approach only the infrastructure components will be managed in the Cloud. Customers will be very flexible regarding memory, storage or number of CPUs because those parameters can be adjusted elastically. The PaaS approach means that besides the infrastructure also the platforms (such as databases or application servers) necessary for running applications will be provided within the Cloud. Here customers can also decide, if installation and management of these infrastructure components should be done by Oracle. The SaaS approach describes the most complete one, hence all applications a company uses are managed in the Cloud. Oracle is planning to provide all of their applications, like ERP systems or HR applications, as Cloud services. In conclusion this seems to be a very forward-thinking strategy, which opens up new possibilities for customers to manage their infrastructure and applications in a flexible, scalable and future-oriented manner. As you can see, our OOW days have been very very interresting. We collected many helpful informations for our projects. The new innovations presented at the confernce are great and being part of this was even greater! We are looking forward to next years’ conference! Links: http://www.oracle.com/openworld/index.html http://thecattlecrew.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/first-impressions-from-oracle-open-world-2013 SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: cattleCrew,Sven Bernhard,OOW2013,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • HTG Explains: Why Does Rebooting a Computer Fix So Many Problems?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Ask a geek how to fix a problem you’ve having with your Windows computer and they’ll likely ask “Have you tried rebooting it?” This seems like a flippant response, but rebooting a computer can actually solve many problems. So what’s going on here? Why does resetting a device or restarting a program fix so many problems? And why don’t geeks try to identify and fix problems rather than use the blunt hammer of “reset it”? This Isn’t Just About Windows Bear in mind that this soltion isn’t just limited to Windows computers, but applies to all types of computing devices. You’ll find the advice “try resetting it” applied to wireless routers, iPads, Android phones, and more. This same advice even applies to software — is Firefox acting slow and consuming a lot of memory? Try closing it and reopening it! Some Problems Require a Restart To illustrate why rebooting can fix so many problems, let’s take a look at the ultimate software problem a Windows computer can face: Windows halts, showing a blue screen of death. The blue screen was caused by a low-level error, likely a problem with a hardware driver or a hardware malfunction. Windows reaches a state where it doesn’t know how to recover, so it halts, shows a blue-screen of death, gathers information about the problem, and automatically restarts the computer for you . This restart fixes the blue screen of death. Windows has gotten better at dealing with errors — for example, if your graphics driver crashes, Windows XP would have frozen. In Windows Vista and newer versions of Windows, the Windows desktop will lose its fancy graphical effects for a few moments before regaining them. Behind the scenes, Windows is restarting the malfunctioning graphics driver. But why doesn’t Windows simply fix the problem rather than restarting the driver or the computer itself?  Well, because it can’t — the code has encountered a problem and stopped working completely, so there’s no way for it to continue. By restarting, the code can start from square one and hopefully it won’t encounter the same problem again. Examples of Restarting Fixing Problems While certain problems require a complete restart because the operating system or a hardware driver has stopped working, not every problem does. Some problems may be fixable without a restart, though a restart may be the easiest option. Windows is Slow: Let’s say Windows is running very slowly. It’s possible that a misbehaving program is using 99% CPU and draining the computer’s resources. A geek could head to the task manager and look around, hoping to locate the misbehaving process an end it. If an average user encountered this same problem, they could simply reboot their computer to fix it rather than dig through their running processes. Firefox or Another Program is Using Too Much Memory: In the past, Firefox has been the poster child for memory leaks on average PCs. Over time, Firefox would often consume more and more memory, getting larger and larger and slowing down. Closing Firefox will cause it to relinquish all of its memory. When it starts again, it will start from a clean state without any leaked memory. This doesn’t just apply to Firefox, but applies to any software with memory leaks. Internet or Wi-Fi Network Problems: If you have a problem with your Wi-Fi or Internet connection, the software on your router or modem may have encountered a problem. Resetting the router — just by unplugging it from its power socket and then plugging it back in — is a common solution for connection problems. In all cases, a restart wipes away the current state of the software . Any code that’s stuck in a misbehaving state will be swept away, too. When you restart, the computer or device will bring the system up from scratch, restarting all the software from square one so it will work just as well as it was working before. “Soft Resets” vs. “Hard Resets” In the mobile device world, there are two types of “resets” you can perform. A “soft reset” is simply restarting a device normally — turning it off and then on again. A “hard reset” is resetting its software state back to its factory default state. When you think about it, both types of resets fix problems for a similar reason. For example, let’s say your Windows computer refuses to boot or becomes completely infected with malware. Simply restarting the computer won’t fix the problem, as the problem is with the files on the computer’s hard drive — it has corrupted files or malware that loads at startup on its hard drive. However, reinstalling Windows (performing a “Refresh or Reset your PC” operation in Windows 8 terms) will wipe away everything on the computer’s hard drive, restoring it to its formerly clean state. This is simpler than looking through the computer’s hard drive, trying to identify the exact reason for the problems or trying to ensure you’ve obliterated every last trace of malware. It’s much faster to simply start over from a known-good, clean state instead of trying to locate every possible problem and fix it. Ultimately, the answer is that “resetting a computer wipes away the current state of the software, including any problems that have developed, and allows it to start over from square one.” It’s easier and faster to start from a clean state than identify and fix any problems that may be occurring — in fact, in some cases, it may be impossible to fix problems without beginning from that clean state. Image Credit: Arria Belli on Flickr, DeclanTM on Flickr     

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 16, 2014

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 16, 2014Popular ReleasesTHN MVC Web Server: 2014 May 15 release: Added support for URL-encoded form data on HTTP Post.Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query (1.0.71.456): Minor fixes and template corrections.THN Web Server: 2014 May 15 Release: Added support for URL-encoded form data on POST.THN HTTP Stack: 2014 May 15 Release: Added support for URL-encoded form data on POSTQuickMon: Version 3.10: Adding the ability to see 'history' of Collector states (including details of errors or warnings at that time). The history size is configurable (default is switched off) and the Windows Service completely ignores keeping history (no UI or user to access it anyway). The Collector stats window now displays this history plus multiple collector stats windows can be opened at the same time. Additionally fixed a bug in the event log collector that reported an 'Error' state when an 'out of bounds' ...TFS Planning and Disaster Recovery Avoidance Guide: v1.4.BETA - TFS, DR and Azure IaaS Planning Guides: Welcome to the TFS Planning and DR Avoidance Guidance What is new? A new crisper, more compact style, which is easier to consume on multiple devices without sacrificing any content. Also included are the new TFS on Azure IaaS guide and supplementary guides. Note Capacity planning workbook and posters are included in the Everything Zip package. Quality-Bar Detail Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has been through an independent technical review ...WinAudit: WinAudit Freeware v3.0: WinAudit.exe v3.0 MD5: 88750CCF49FF7418199B2645755830FA Known Issues: 1. Report creation can be very slow when right-to-left (Hebrew) characters are present. 2. Emsisoft Anti-Malware may stop and/or quarantine WinAudit. This happens when WinAudit attempts to obtain a list if running programmes. You will need to set an exception rule in Emsisoft to allow WinAudit to run.Aspose for Sitefinity: Sitefinity Export to Microsoft Word and PDF: Aspose Sitefinity Content Export Add-on allow users to export online content into Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat PDF document using Aspose.Words. This Add-on makes it very simple and easy to have an offline copy of your favorite online content for editing, sharing and printing etc. in popular Microsoft Word Doc/Docx or PDF format. It adds simple Export to Word and Export to Pdf buttons at any desired location on the page and clicking the button dynamically exports the content of the page int...MVCwCMS - ASP.NET MVC CMS: MVCwCMS 2.2.2: Updated CKFinder config. For the installation instructions visit the documentation page: https://mvcwcms.codeplex.com/documentationTerraMap (Terraria World Map Viewer): TerraMap 1.0.4: Added support for the new Terraria v1.2.4 update. New items, walls, and tiles Fixed Issue 35206: Hightlight/Find doesn't work for Demon Altars Fixed finding Demon Hearts/Shadow Orbs Added ability to find Enchanted Swords (in the stone) and Water Bolt books Fixed installer not uninstalling older versions The setup file will make sure .NET 4 is installed, install TerraMap, create desktop and start menu shortcuts, add a .wld file association, and launch TerraMap. If you prefer the zip ...WPF Localization Extension: v2.2.1: Issue #9277 Issue #9292 Issue #9311 Issue #9312 Issue #9313 Issue #9314CtrlAltStudio Viewer: CtrlAltStudio Viewer 1.2.1.41167 Release: This release of the CtrlAltStudio Viewer includes the following significant features: Oculus Rift support. Stereoscopic 3D display support. Variable walking / flying speed. Xbox 360 Controller support. Kinect for Windows support. Based on Firestorm viewer 4.6.5 codebase. For more details, see the release notes linked to below. Release notes: http://ctrlaltstudio.com/viewer/release-notes/1-2-1-41167-release Support info: http://ctrlaltstudio.com/viewer/support Privacy policy: http:/...Grade Calculator For BTEC First Diploma in IT level 2: Grade Calculator For BTEC First Diploma in IT: Grade Calculator For BTEC First Diploma in IT level 2Spaghetti CMS: Version 1.50: New: Backend with new design, bootstrap integration New: Patch function for assigning themes, master page files to pages New: Wysiwyg editor (possible to link css file against editor) and filemanager New: Support time triggered content New: Edit css, js, skin, master file within the CMS New: Dynamically add controls to the CMS New: Change password for an user (usermanagement) New: Localize CMS In the near future we will open our new website for documentation and demo. http://...ExtJS based ASP.NET Controls: FineUI v4.0.6: FineUI(???) ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET ??? FineUI??? ?? No JavaScript,No CSS,No UpdatePanel,No ViewState,No WebServices ??????? ?????? IE 8.0+、Chrome、Firefox、Opera、Safari ???? Apache License v2.0 ?:ExtJS ?? GPL v3 ?????(http://www.sencha.com/license) ???? ??:http://fineui.com/ ??:http://fineui.com/bbs/ ??:http://fineui.com/demo/ ??:http://fineui.com/doc/ ??:http://fineui.codeplex.com/ FineUI ???? ExtJS ????????,???? ExtJS ?,?????: 1. ????? FineUI ? ExtJS ? http://fineui.com/bbs/forum.ph...Office App Model Samples: Office App Model Samples v2.0: Office App Model Samples v2.0Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.13.0: Version 0.13.0 Added "mutators" which add uppercase and numbers to passphrases (to help complying with upper, lower, number complexity rules). Additional API methods which help consuming the generator from 3rd party c# projects. 13,160 words in the default dictionary (~600 more than previous release).CS-Script for Notepad++ (C# intellisense and code execution): Release v1.0.25.0: Release v1.0.25.0 MemberInfo/MethodInfo popup is now positioned properly to fit the screen In MethodInfo popup method signatures are word-wrapped Implemented Debug text value visualizer Pining sub-values from Watch PanelR.NET: R.NET 1.5.12: R.NET 1.5.12 is a beta release towards R.NET 1.6. You are encouraged to use 1.5.12 now and give feedback. See the documentation for setup and usage instructions. Main changes for R.NET 1.5.12: The C stack limit was not disabled on Windows. For reasons possibly peculiar to R, this means that non-concurrent access to R from multiple threads was not stable. This is now fixed, with the fix validated with a unit test. Thanks to Odugen, skyguy94, and previously others (evolvedmicrobe, tomasp) fo...SEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.029.006 Release 1: Fix to allow keyboard search on load dialog. (type the first few letters of your save) Fixed check for new release. Changed the way ship details are loaded to alleviate load time for worlds with very large ships (100,000+ blocks). Fixed Image importer, was incorrectly listing 'Asteroid' as import option. Minor changes to menus (text and appearance) for clarity and OS consistency. Added in reading of world palette for color dialog editor. WIP on subsystem editor. Can now multiselec...New ProjectsAmqp.Net Lite: AMQP.Net Lite is a lightweight AMQP client library for use on a broad range of .Net Framework platforms, including .Net Micro Framework, .Net Compact.Aspose for JetBrains: Aspose for NetBeans allows developers to create an Aspose project through a wizard.Connecting Social Media with Sharepoint: Interaction with Twitter and Face book in sharepoint webparteNom DynamicDNS Updater: eNom Dynamic DNS updater client for your dns nameserver hosting with eNomFree Send SMS Software: send SMS from Desktop to Mobifone. Source Data is a Excel file, you can merge you data into SMS content. So each phone number will reveive a SMS with their infohareta_spc_wm: summaryIT eBooks API Info Library: Library to abstract the use of the IT-eBooks API Info.Library Management Mz: This project is aimed to help a librarian manage its daily tasks of book issues and returns etc. This project will make a library fast paced and efficient.PC/SC Tracker: A multi-platform graphical tool to track smart cards states and events.ProjectQLSVTTHH: haizaaaaREST Client: Use this for all your REST development/inspecting needs. Supports Basic authentication. Supports Query string parameters.SymDiff: A Platform for Differential Program Verification: SymDiff (aka Symbolic Differencing) is an infrastructure for leveraging and extending program verification to reason about relationship between two programs. TerminalNowhereplaceGrupo1: Terminal.Ticket to Ride Track Scorer: An HTML- and JavaScript-based track scoring UI for the Ticket to Ride board game.tihai: tihai project support web practise for working betterVerificador Vales 3: DESARROLLADO PARA AUTES 2014????-????【??】????????: ??????????????????,????????????,?????、??、????,?????,??????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????!???????????,??????,????,?????????????,????????,??????,????,?????... ??????-??????【??】??????????: ???????????,??????????????????????:???????,??????,????,????,????,????,????,???????! ????-????【??】????????: ????????!???????????,??????,????,?????????????,????????,??????,????,?????... ?????-?????【??】?????????: ??????????????,??????????????,???????????,??????,????,??????,??????。 ??????-??????【??】??????????: ??????????????????,???、???!???????,????????????????,????????????,???! ????-????【??】????????: ??????????????,?????????????? ??。??????????、????、????、?????????? ???????。 ?????-?????【??】?????????: ????????????、?????、?????、?????、?????、????,???????????,?????,??????! ??????-??????【??】??????????: ????????????????,??????????????????????:???????,??????,????,????,????,????,????,???????! ????-????【??】????????: ??????????????,??????????????,???????????,??????,????,??????,??????。 ?????-?????【??】?????????: ????????????????,?????????????。?????????,???????,???????,?????????????。 ?????-?????【??】?????????: ??????????????,????,???????、???????????,???????????,????,?????,???????。

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  • Variant Management– Which Approach fits for my Product?

    - by C. Chadwick
    Jürgen Kunz – Director Product Development – Oracle ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG Introduction In a difficult economic environment, it is important for companies to understand the customer requirements in detail and to address them in their products. Customer specific products, however, usually cause increased costs. Variant management helps to find the best combination of standard components and custom components which balances customer’s product requirements and product costs. Depending on the type of product, different approaches to variant management will be applied. For example the automotive product “car” or electronic/high-tech products like a “computer”, with a pre-defined set of options to be combined in the individual configuration (so called “Assembled to Order” products), require a different approach to products in heavy machinery, which are (at least partially) engineered in a customer specific way (so-called “Engineered-to Order” products). This article discusses different approaches to variant management. Starting with the simple Bill of Material (BOM), this article presents three different approaches to variant management, which are provided by Agile PLM. Single level BOM and Variant BOM The single level BOM is the basic form of the BOM. The product structure is defined using assemblies and single parts. A particular product is thus represented by a fixed product structure. As soon as you have to manage product variants, the single level BOM is no longer sufficient. A variant BOM will be needed to manage product variants. The variant BOM is sometimes referred to as 150% BOM, since a variant BOM contains more parts and assemblies than actually needed to assemble the (final) product – just 150% of the parts You can evolve the variant BOM from the single level BOM by replacing single nodes with a placeholder node. The placeholder in this case represents the possible variants of a part or assembly. Product structure nodes, which are part of any product, are so-called “Must-Have” parts. “Optional” parts can be omitted in the final product. Additional attributes allow limiting the quantity of parts/assemblies which can be assigned at a certain position in the Variant BOM. Figure 1 shows the variant BOM of Agile PLM. Figure 1 Variant BOM in Agile PLM During the instantiation of the Variant BOM, the placeholders get replaced by specific variants of the parts and assemblies. The selection of the desired or appropriate variants is either done step by step by the user or by applying pre-defined configuration rules. As a result of the instantiation, an independent BOM will be created (Figure 2). Figure 2 Instantiated BOM in Agile PLM This kind of Variant BOM  can be used for „Assembled –To-Order“ type products as well as for „Engineered-to-Order“-type products. In case of “Assembled –To-Order” type products, typically the instantiation is done automatically with pre-defined configuration rules. For „Engineered- to-Order“-type products at least part of the product is selected manually to make use of customized parts/assemblies, that have been engineered according to the specific custom requirements. Template BOM The Template BOM is used for „Engineered-to-Order“-type products. It is another type of variant BOM. The engineer works in a flexible environment which allows him to build the most creative solutions. At the same time the engineer shall be guided to re-use existing solutions and it shall be assured that product variants of the same product family share the same base structure. The template BOM defines the basic structure of products belonging to the same product family. Let’s take a gearbox as an example. The customer specific configuration of the gearbox is influenced by several parameters (e.g. rpm range, transmitted torque), which are defined in the customer’s requirement document.  Figure 3 shows part of a Template BOM (yellow) and its relation to the product family hierarchy (blue).  Figure 3 Template BOM Every component of the Template BOM has links to the variants that have been engineeried so far for the component (depending on the level in the Template BOM, they are product variants, Assembly Variant or single part variants). This library of solutions, the so-called solution space, can be used by the engineers to build new product variants. In the best case, the engineer selects an existing solution variant, such as the gearbox shown in figure 3. When the existing variants do not fulfill the specific requirements, a new variant will be engineered. This new variant must be compliant with the given Template BOM. If we look at the gearbox in figure 3  it must consist of a transmission housing, a Connecting Plate, a set of Gears and a Planetary transmission – pre-assumed that all components are must have components. The new variant will enhance the solution space and is automatically available for re-use in future variants. The result of the instantiation of the Template BOM is a stand-alone BOM which represents the customer specific product variant. Modular BOM The concept of the modular BOM was invented in the automotive industry. Passenger cars are so-called „Assembled-to-Order“-products. The customer first selects the specific equipment of the car (so-called specifications) – for instance engine, audio equipment, rims, color. Based on this information the required parts will be determined and the customer specific car will be assembled. Certain combinations of specification are not available for the customer, because they are not feasible from technical perspective (e.g. a convertible with sun roof) or because the combination will not be offered for marketing reasons (e.g. steel rims with a sports line car). The modular BOM (yellow structure in figure 4) is defined in the context of a specific product family (in the sample it is product family „Speedstar“). It is the same modular BOM for the different types of cars of the product family (e.g. sedan, station wagon). The assembly or single parts of the car (blue nodes in figure 4) are assigned at the leaf level of the modular BOM. The assignment of assembly and parts to the modular BOM is enriched with a configuration rule (purple elements in figure 4). The configuration rule defines the conditions to use a specific assembly or single part. The configuration rule is valid in the context of a type of car (green elements in figure 4). Color specific parts are assigned to the color independent parts via additional configuration rules (grey elements in figure 4). The configuration rules use Boolean operators to connect the specifications. Additional consistency rules (constraints) may be used to define invalid combinations of specification (so-called exclusions). Furthermore consistency rules may be used to add specifications to the set of specifications. For instance it is important that a car with diesel engine always is build using the high capacity battery.  Figure 4 Modular BOM The calculation of the car configuration consists of several steps. First the consistency rules (constraints) are applied. Resulting from that specification might be added automatically. The second step will determine the assemblies and single parts for the complete structure of the modular BOM, by evaluating the configuration rules in the context of the current type of car. The evaluation of the rules for one component in the modular BOM might result in several rules being fulfilled. In this case the most specific rule (typically the longest rule) will win. Thanks to this approach, it is possible to add a specific variant to the modular BOM without the need to change any other configuration rules.  As a result the whole set of configuration rules is easy to maintain. Finally the color specific assemblies respective parts will be determined and the configuration is completed. Figure 5 Calculated Car Configuration The result of the car configuration is shown in figure 5. It shows the list of assemblies respective single parts (blue components in figure 5), which are required to build the customer specific car. Summary There are different approaches to variant management. Three different approaches have been presented in this article. At the end of the day, it is the type of the product which decides about the best approach.  For „Assembled to Order“-type products it is very likely that you can define the configuration rules and calculate the product variant automatically. Products of type „Engineered-to-Order“ ,however, need to be engineered. Nevertheless in the majority of cases, part of the product structure can be generated automatically in a similar way to „Assembled to Order“-tape products.  That said it is important first to analyze the product portfolio, in order to define the best approach to variant management.

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