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• User Group Meeting Summary - April 2010

  - by Michael Stephenson

  Thanks to everyone who could make it to what turned out to be an excellent SBUG event.  First some thanks to:  Speakers: Anthony Ross and Elton Stoneman Host: The various people at Hitachi who helped to organise and arrange the venue.   Session 1 - Getting up and running with Windows Mobile and the Windows Azure Service Bus In this session Anthony discussed some considerations for using Windows Mobile and the Windows Azure Service Bus from a real-world project which Hitachi have been working on with EasyJet.  Anthony also walked through a simplified demo of the concepts which applied on the project.   In addition to the slides and demo it was also very interesting to discuss with the guys involved on this project to hear about their real experiences developing with the Azure Service Bus and some of the limitations they have had to work around in Windows Mobiles ability to interact with the service bus.   On the back of this session we will look to do some further activities around this topic and the guys offered to share their wish list of features for both Windows Mobile and Windows Azure which we will look to share for user group discussion.   Another interesting point was the cost aspects of using the ISB which were very low.   Session 2 - The Enterprise Cache In the second session Elton used a few slides which are based around one of his customer scenario's where they are looking into the concept of an Enterprise Cache within the organisation.  Elton discusses this concept and also a codeplex project he is putting together which allows you to take advantage of a cache with various providers such as Memcached, AppFabric Caching and Ncache.   Following the presentation it was interesting to hear peoples thoughts on various aspects such as the enterprise cache versus an out of process application cache.  Also there was interesting discussion around how people would like to search the cache in the future.   We will again look to put together some follow-up activity on this   Meeting Summary Following the meeting all slide decks are saved in the skydrive location where we keep content from all meetings: http://cid-40015ea59a1307c8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/SBUG/SBUG%20Meetings/2010%20April   Remember that the details of all previous events are on the following page. http://uksoabpm.org/Events.aspx   Competition We had three copies of the Windows Identity Foundation Patterns and Practices book that were raffles on the night, it would be great to hear any feedback on the book from those who won it.   Recording The user group meeting was recorded and we will look to make this available online sometime soon.   UG Business The following things were discussed as general UG topics:   We will change the name of the user group to the UK Connected Systems User Group to we are more inline with other user groups who cover similar topics and we believe this will help us to attract more members.  The content or focus of the user group is not expected to change.   The next meeting is 26th May and can be registered at the following link: http://sbugmay2010.eventbrite.com/

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• Save Links for Later Reading in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  Do you want a simple way to save and manage links for reading later? The Save-To-Read extension for Firefox makes it easy to do without an account. Using Save-To-Read As soon as you install the extension you will notice two new additions to your UI. You will see a small plus sign in the address bar and a new toolbar button (opens and closes the sidebar shown here). Your bookmarks menu will also have a new folder entry. For our example we chose to save three pages for later reading. Each time you want to save a website click on the small plus sign, and it is automatically added to your read later list. Our second article… And finally the third article. Notice that the small plus sign has become a minus sign after adding the article to our list. Opening the sidebar shows our three entries waiting to be read. Checking the bookmarks menu shows the same articles available there. When you are ready to read your articles simply click on the link in the sidebar, bookmarks menu, etc. Notice that the entry is still available at the moment…there are no automatic deletions until you are finished with an article. This is great if you accidentally click the wrong link before you are ready for it. Removing an article from the list is as simple as clicking on the address bar minus sign. It will revert to a plus sign and the entry is no longer visible in your list. For those who want to avoid using a sidebar there is a different toolbar button available too. The alternate toolbar button provides access to a drop-down article list. Choose the access style that best suits your needs. Preferences The preferences are simple to work with and focus on appearance/ease-of-use. Conclusion If you have been looking for a simpler alternative to other “read later” extensions, then Save-To-Read could be just what you have been waiting for. Another cool option for reading posts later, even on eReaders, then check out our article on saving articles to read later with Instapaper. Links Download the Save-To-Read extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Save Pages for Later With Reading List Extension for FirefoxInstall Adobe PDF Reader on Ubuntu EdgyQuick Hits: 11 Firefox Tab How-TosSave Webpage Links & URLs as Files in FirefoxQuick Tip: Save Windows and Tabs When Restarting Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries

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• How do I (tactfully) tell my project manager or lead developer that the project's codebase needs serious work?

  - by Adam Maras

  I just joined a (relatively) small development team that's been working on a project for several months, if not a year. As with most developer joining a project, I spent my first couple of days reviewing the project's codebase. The project (a medium- to large-sized ASP.NET WebForms internal line of business application) is, for lack of a more descriptive term, a disaster. There are three immediately noticeable problems with the coding standards: The standard is very loose. It describes more of what not to do (don't use Hungarian notation, etc..) than what to do. The standard isn't always followed. There are inconsistencies with the code formatting everywhere. The standard doesn't follow Microsoft's style guidelines. In my opinion, there's no value in deviating from the guidelines that were set forth by the developer of the framework and the largest contributor to the language specification. As for point 3, perhaps it bothers me more because I've taken the time to get my MCPD with a focus on web applications (specifically, ASP.NET). I'm also the only Microsoft Certified Professional on the team. Because of what I learned in all of my schooling, self-teaching, and on-the-job learning (including my preparation for the certification exams) I've also spotted several instances in the project's code where things are simply not done in the best way. I've only been on this team for a week, but I see so many issues with their codebase that I imagine I'll be spending more time fighting with what's already written to do things in "their way" than I would if I were working on a project that, for example, followed more widely accepted coding standards, architecture patterns, and best practices. This brings me to my question: Should I (and if so, how do I) propose to my project manager and team lead that the project needs to be majorly renovated? I don't want to walk into their office, waving my MCTS and MCPD certificates around, saying that their project's codebase is crap. But I also don't want to have to stay silent and have to write kludgey code atop their kludgey code, because I actually want to write quality software and I want the end product to be stable and easily maintainable.

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• Digital Storage for Airline Entertainment

  - by Bill Evjen

  by Thomas Coughlin Common flash memory cards The most common flash memory products currently in use are SD cards and derivative products (e.g. mini and micro-SD cards) Some compact flash used for professional applications (such as DSLR cameras) Evolution of leading flash formats Standardization –> market expansion Market expansion –> volume iNAND –> focus is on enabling embedded X3 iSSD –> ideal for thin form factor devices Flash memory applications Phones are the #1 user of flash memory Flash memory is used as embedded and removable storage in many mobile applications Flash memory is being used in computers as USB sticks and SSDs Possible use of flash memory in computer combined with HDDs (hybrid HDDs and paired or dual storage computers) It can be a removable card or an embedded card These devices can only handle a specific number of writes Flash memory reads considerably quicker than hard drives Hybrid and dual storage in computers SSDs can provide fast performance but they are expensive HDDs can provide cheap storage but they are relatively slow Combining some flash memory with a HDD can provide costs close to those of HDDs and performance close to flash memory Seagate Momentus XT hybrid HDD Various dual storage offerings putting flash memory with HDDs Other common flash memory devices USB sticks All forms and colors Used for moving files around Some sold with content on them (Sony Movies on USB sticks) Solid State Drives (SSDs) Floating Gate Flash Memory Cell When a bit is programmed, electrons are stored upon the floating gate This has the effect of offsetting the charge on the control gate of the transistor If there is no charge upon the floating gate, then the control gate’s charge determines whether or not a current flows through the channel A strong charge on the control gate assumes that no current flows. A weak charge will allow a strong current to flow through. Similar to HDDs, flash memory must provide: Bit error correction Bad block management NAND and NOR memories are treated differently when it comes to managing wear In many NOR-based systems no management is used at all, since the NOR is simply used to store code, and data is stored in other devices. In this case, it would take a near-infinite amount of time for wear to become an issue since the only time the chip would see an erase/write cycle is when the code in the system is being upgraded, which rarely if ever happens over the life of a typical system. NAND is usually found in very different application than is NOR Flash memory wears out This is expected to get worse over time Retention: Disappearing data Bits fade away Retention decreases with increasing read/writes Bits may change when adjacent bits are read Time and traffic are concerns Controllers typically groom read disturb errors Like DRAM refresh Increases erase/write frequency Application characteristics Music – reads high / writes very low Video – r high / writes very low Internet Cache – r high / writes low On airplanes Many consumers now have their own content viewing devices – do they need the airlines? Is there a way to offer more to consumers, especially with their own viewers Additional special content tie into airplane network access to electrical power, internet Should there be fixed embedded or removable storage for on-board airline entertainment? Is there a way to leverage personal and airline viewers and content in new and entertaining ways?

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• JSR 360 and JSR 361: A Big Leap for Java ME 8

  - by terrencebarr

  It might have gone unnoticed to some, but Java ME took a big leap forward a couple of weeks ago with the filing of two new JSRs: JSR 360: “Connected Limited Device Configuration 8″ (aka CLDC 8) JSR 361: “Java ME Embedded Profile” (aka ME EP) Together, these two JSRs will significantly update, enhance, and modernize the Java ME platform, and specifically small embedded Java, with a host of new features and functionality. JSR 360 – Connected Limited Device Configuration 8 CLDC 8 is based on JSR 139 (CLDC 1.1) and updates the core Java ME VM, language support, libraries, and features to be aligned with Java SE 8. This will include: VM updated to comply with the JVM language specification version 2 Support for SE 7/8 language features like Generics, Assertions, Annotations, Try-with-Resources, and more New libraries such as Collections, NIO subset, Logging API subset A consolidated and enhanced Generic Connection Framework for multi-protocol I/O With CLDC 8, Java ME and Java SE are entering their next phase of alignment – making Java the only technology today that truly scales application development, code re-use, and tooling across the whole range of IT platforms, from small embedded to large enterprise. JSR 361 – Java ME Embedded Profile ME EP is based on JSR 228 (IMP-NG) and updates the specification in key areas to provide a powerful and flexible application environment for small embedded Java platforms, building on the features of CLDC 8:  A new, lightweight component and services model Shared libraries Multi-application concurrency, inter-application communication, and event system Application management API optionality, to address low-footprint use cases With ME EP, application developers will have a modern application environment which allows development and deployment of  modular, robust, sophisticated, and footprint-optimized solutions for a wide range of embedded use cases and devices. Summary While these JSRs are still under development, it’s clear that there are exciting new times ahead for Java ME – turning into a serious application platform while maintaining the focus on resource-constrained devices to address the expected explosion of small, smart, and connected embedded platforms. To learn more, click on the above links for JSR 360 and JSR 361. Or review the JavaOne 2012 online presentations on the topic: CON11300: Expanding the reach of the Java ME Platform CON5943: Java ME 8 Service Platform And stay tuned for more in this space! Cheers, – Terrence Filed under: Mobile & Embedded Tagged: "jsr 360", "jsr 361", "me 8", embedded, Embedded Java, JCP

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• JSR 360 and JSR 361: A Big Leap for Java ME 8

  - by terrencebarr

  It might have gone unnoticed to some, but Java ME took a big leap forward a couple of weeks ago with the filing of two new JSRs: JSR 360: “Connected Limited Device Configuration 8″ (aka CLDC 8) JSR 361: “Java ME Embedded Profile” (aka ME EP) Together, these two JSRs will significantly update, enhance, and modernize the Java ME platform, and specifically small embedded Java, with a host of new features and functionality. JSR 360 – Connected Limited Device Configuration 8 CLDC 8 is based on JSR 139 (CLDC 1.1) and updates the core Java ME VM, language support, libraries, and features to be aligned with Java SE 8. This will include: VM updated to comply with the JVM language specification version 2 Support for SE 7/8 language features like Generics, Assertions, Annotations, Try-with-Resources, and more New libraries such as Collections, NIO subset, Logging API subset A consolidated and enhanced Generic Connection Framework for multi-protocol I/O With CLDC 8, Java ME and Java SE are entering their next phase of alignment – making Java the only technology today that truly scales application development, code re-use, and tooling across the whole range of IT platforms, from small embedded to large enterprise. JSR 361 – Java ME Embedded Profile ME EP is based on JSR 228 (IMP-NG) and updates the specification in key areas to provide a powerful and flexible application environment for small embedded Java platforms, building on the features of CLDC 8:  A new, lightweight component and services model Shared libraries Multi-application concurrency, inter-application communication, and event system Application management API optionality, to address low-footprint use cases With ME EP, application developers will have a modern application environment which allows development and deployment of  modular, robust, sophisticated, and footprint-optimized solutions for a wide range of embedded use cases and devices. Summary While these JSRs are still under development, it’s clear that there are exciting new times ahead for Java ME – turning into a serious application platform while maintaining the focus on resource-constrained devices to address the expected explosion of small, smart, and connected embedded platforms. To learn more, click on the above links for JSR 360 and JSR 361. Or review the JavaOne 2012 online presentations on the topic: CON11300: Expanding the reach of the Java ME Platform CON5943: Java ME 8 Service Platform And stay tuned for more in this space! Cheers, – Terrence Filed under: Mobile & Embedded Tagged: "jsr 360", "jsr 361", "me 8", embedded, Embedded Java, JCP

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• The Niantic Project: Ingress by Felicia Hajra-Lee

  Despite the current fact that the augmented reality game for Android is still in beta phase, it is amazing to see that the world of literature is already taking momentum on this 'real-life' universe. After reading 'The Alignment: Ingress' by Thomas Greanias it took only a blink of the eye to go for 'The Niantic Project: Ingress' by Felicia Hajra-Lee, too. Here is the review I posted on Amazon.com: Ingress, a parallel universe to our reality, is here. There is no doubt about this anymore... The Niantic Project, originated at the CERN collider in Geneva, Switzerland, got into focus of global players. And the game is hard; fair-play is only for the fainted ones. Felicia understands to drag the audience directly into the action of the Niantic Project and its protagonists. The novella is heavily based on the investigations posted daily on the website of Ingress. She really understands how to interweave the various clues and creates an atmosphere where it sometimes feels challenging to differentiate between fiction and reality. It all starts with 'Epiphany Night' at the Niantic Labs, the high exposure of Exotic Matter (XM) and the escape of scientist Dr. Devra Bogdanovich and 'sentinel' Roland Jarvis. Of course, a new research, or should we name it technology, like the Niantic Project has to be protected and there are multiple parties on the hunt. Throughout the various chapters Felicia introduces new potential buyers from all over the globe, gives us detailed insights on the hunters and their brutal effectiveness to finish an assignment, and manages to keep the reader in high-pitched mode thanks to a couple of turn-arounds in the overall story. Personally, I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this title. Felicia's love to details is absolutely amazing, and sometimes I was really wondering whether she would be one of the assassins. But unfortunately I also have to say that I'm not a great fan of the structural organization of the (title-less) chapters. It is fascinating to follow the ventures of Devra, Farlowe and 855 but occasionally I had to go back to previous paragraphs in order to keep track of the individual plots. Overall a great title, captivating and rich in details but simply too short. Please Fecilia, gives us more to read. As an owner of an Android smartphone or tablet, you should get yourself into the world of Ingress. Check out the Play Store to install the app. Now. ;-)

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• Introduction to Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems

  - by Ben Griswold

  Last year I took myself through a crash course on Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems in preparation for an in-house presentation.  I learned a bunch.  In this series, I’ll be sharing what I learned with you.   If your career looks anything like mine, you have probably been affiliated with a company or two which pushed requirements gathering and documentation to the nth degree. To add insult to injury, they probably added planning process (documentation, requirements, policies, meetings, committees) to the extent that it possibly retarded any progress. In my opinion, the typical company resembles the quote from Tom DeMarco. It isn’t enough just to do things right – we also had to say in advance exactly what we intended to do and then do exactly that. In the 1980s, Toyota turned the tables and revolutionize the automobile industry with their approach of “Lean Manufacturing.” A massive paradigm shift hit factories throughout the US and Europe. Mass production and scientific management techniques from the early 1900’s were questioned as Japanese manufacturing companies demonstrated that ‘Just-in-Time’ was a better paradigm. The widely adopted Japanese manufacturing concepts came to be known as ‘lean production’. Lean Thinking capitalizes on the intelligence of frontline workers, believing that they are the ones who should determine and continually improve the way they do their jobs. Lean puts main focus on people and communication – if people who produce the software are respected and they communicate efficiently, it is more likely that they will deliver good product and the final customer will be satisfied. In time, the abstractions behind lean production spread to logistics, and from there to the military, to construction, and to the service industry. As it turns out, principles of lean thinking are universal and have been applied successfully across many disciplines. Lean has been adopted by companies including Dell, FedEx, Lens Crafters, LLBean, SW Airlines, Digital River and eBay. Lean thinking got its name from a 1990’s best seller called The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production. This book chronicles the movement of automobile manufacturing from craft production to mass production to lean production. Tom and Mary Poppendieck, that is.  Here’s one of their books: Implementing Lean Software Thinking: From Concept to Cash Our in-house presentations are supposed to run no more than 45 minutes.  I really cranked and got through my 87 slides in just under an hour. Of course, I had to cheat a little – I only covered the 7 principles and a single practice. In the next part of the series, we’ll dive into Principle #1: Eliminate Waste. And I am going to be a little obnoxious about listing my Lean and Kanban references with every series post.  The references are great and they deserve this sort of attention. 

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• Oracle Announces Availability of Oracle Exaskeleton with Extreme Scale

  - by J Swaroop

  Re-posting Bruce Tierney's original post - albeit a day late: I reckon this is Oracle's most interesting launch this year. Enjoy! The World’s First Human Scale Body Surface (HSBS) Designed to Toughen Spineless Wimps April 1, 2012 Building on the success of Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Exadata, and Oracle Exalytics, Oracle today announced the general availability of Oracle Exaskeleton, toughening up spineless wimps across the globe through the introduction of extreme scalability over the human body leveraging a revolutionary new technology called Human Scale Body Surface (HSBS). First Customer Ship (FCS) was received by the little known and mostly unsuccessful superhero Awkwardman. After applying Oracle Exaskeleton with extreme scale, he has since rebranded himself as Aquaman. Said Aquaman, “I used to feel so helpless in my skin…now I feel like…well…a highly scaled Engineered System thanks to Oracle!” Thousand of meek and mild individuals eagerly lined up outside Oracle Corporation’s Redwood Shores office to purchase the new Oracle Exaskeleton, with the hope of finally gaining the spine they never had. Unfortunately for the individuals, a bully was spotted allegedly kicking the sand covering the beaches of Redwood Shores into the still spineless Exaskeleton hopefuls. Supporting Quotes “Industry analysts are inquiring if Oracle Exaskeleton is a radical departure from Oracle’s traditional enterprise focus into new markets”, said Oracle representative Sabrina Twich, “Oracle has extensive expertise in unified backbone solutions for application infrastructures…this is simply a new port to the human body combining our Business Intelligence (BI) and RDBC (Remote Direct Brain Cell) technologies.” “With this release of Oracle Exaskeleton, Oracle has redefined scalability. Software and hardware vendors had it all wrong” said the Director of Oracle Exaskeleton, “Scalability for hardware is like…um…you know…so scale-ful. No, wait…can I say that again? I didn’t get that right…Scalability is hardware-on-demand with public and private…hybrid clouds, no…<long pause>…Scalability for… nevermind, I don’t want to be in this stupid press release anyway” Releases An upcoming Oracle Exaskeleton service pack release will include a new datasheet with an extensive library of three-letter acronyms (TLAs) as well as the introduction of more four-letter acronyms (FLAs) since technologies vendors have used up almost all of the 17,576 TLA permutations (TLAPs). About Oracle Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. It would be an amazing coincidence if any of this is true in some secret Oracle lab, but I doubt it. Trademarks Really…you’re still reading this? Cool! Aquaman - First Customer Ship (FCS) - Oracle Exaskeleton

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• Engagement: Don’t Forget Your Employees!

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  By Mark Brown, Sr. Director, Oracle WebCenter  This week we want to focus on Employee Engagement, and how it is critical to your business. Today we hear and read a great deal about “Customer Engagement” – and rightly so, it is those customers, whether they be traditional paying customers, citizens, students, club members, or whomever it is that are “paying the bills”.  A more engaged customer is more likely to make it easier to pay those bills by buying more, giving good reviews, or spreading the word of how wonderful their experience was. But what about those who are providing those services, those who design and make those goods; why is it that all too often they are left out of conversations concerning engagement? In fact, it is critical that we consider our employees as customers since they are using internal systems that run your organization the same way customers use external systems. Studies have shown that an organization in which the employees feel “engaged” or better able to make decisions, do their jobs, and are connected to their peers have better return to their stakeholders. (shareholders).  On the surface this seems obvious, happy employees are more productive employees. But it leads to the question – how many of our existing policies, systems and processes are actually reducing that level of engagement? Let’s look at a couple examples. If posting new information that may be of great value to everyone in the larger organization is hard to do because we use an antiquated system, then we’re making it hard to share and increasing the potential for duplicate work. If it is not trivially obvious how to create and publish this post, then chances are very high that I’ll put it on the bottom of my queue. And finally, when critical information is spread across various systems, intranet sites, workgroups and peoples inboxes, then it is very hard to learn and grow from that information.  These may sound trivial, but how often do we push things off not because it is intellectually challenging, we may have the answer at our fingertips, but because it is hard to make that information readily available.  If an engaged employee is a productive employee, then what can we do to increase their level of engagement? We can start by looking for opportunities to provide self-documenting self-service solutions. Our newer employees grew up using simplified web interfaces everyday and they loathe calling a help-desk unless it is the last resort. Sadly, many of our enterprise applications have not kept pace and we all still have processes that are based on sending an email -- like discount approvals, vacation requests, or even offer-letter approvals.   My suggestion is to pick one highly visible, high-impact process where employees are either reticent to execute on the process or openly complain about how cumbersome it is and look at the mechanism for that process. If there are better ways, streamlined steps, better UIs that could be done, then you have a candidate to reconfigure that process and make it more engaging. Looking to better engage your employees? Start here!

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• Oracle OpenWorld Preview: Get Your Hands Dirty with Oracle WebCenter

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Feel like getting your hands dirty with Oracle WebCenter during Oracle OpenWorld next week?  Roll up your sleeves and sharpen you skills sets by mastering Oracle WebCenter technology in one of our Hand-On Labs.  These labs are self-paced, practical learning sessions where you’re guaranteed to discover new ways to derive maximum benefits from Oracle WebCenter.  Experts will be available in person to answer questions and guide you through each lab. HOL10208 - Add Social Capabilities to Your Enterprise Applications Monday, Oct 1, 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2 Oracle Social Network enables you to add real-time collaboration capabilities into your enterprise applications, so that conversations can happen directly within your business systems. In this hands-on lab, you will try out the Oracle Social Network product to collaborate with other attendees, using real-time conversations with document sharing capabilities. Next you will embed social capabilities into a sample Web-based enterprise application, using embedded UI components. Experts will also write simple REST-based integrations, using the Oracle Social Network API to programmatically create social interactions.HOL10194 - Enterprise Content Management Simplified: Oracle WebCenter Content’s Next-Generation UI Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2Regardless of the nature of your business, unstructured content underpins many of its daily functions. Whether you are working with traditional presentations, spreadsheets, or text documents—or even with digital assets such as images and multimedia files—your content needs to be accessible and manageable in convenient and intuitive ways to make working with the content easier. Additionally, you need the ability to easily share documents with coworkers to facilitate a collaborative working environment. Come to this session to see how Oracle WebCenter Content’s next-generation user interface helps modern knowledge workers easily manage personal and enterprise documents in a collaborative environment.HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2 Wednesday, Oct 3, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity.HOL10206 - Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g: Transforming the Content Contributor Experience Wednesday, Oct 3, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Marriott Marquis - Salon 1/2Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g makes it easy for marketers and business users to contribute to and manage Websites with the new visual, contextual, and intuitive Web authoring interface. In this hands-on lab, you will create and manage content for a sports-themed Website, using many of the new and enhanced features of the 11g release. See Your Favorite WebCenter Products in Action Visit us in the exhibition hall to see demonstrations of WebCenter products.  Demo pod locations are in Moscone South, Right: Oracle Social Network: S-244 Oracle WebCenter Content: S-246, S245 Oracle WebCenter Sites: S-247 Oracle WebCenter Portal: S-249 More Info: Oracle OpenWorld Oracle WebCenter Focus On Guide Oracle Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld

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• Simple tips to design a Customer Journey Map

  - by Isabel F. Peñuelas

  “A model can abstract to a level that is comprehensible to humans, without getting lost in details.” -The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual. Inception using Post-it, StoryBoards, Lego or Mindmaping Techniques The first step in a Customer Experience project is to describe customer interactions creating a customer journey map. Modeling is never easy, so to succeed on this effort, it is very convenient that your CX´s team have some “abstract thinking” skills. Besides is very helpful to consult a Business Service Design offered by an Interactive Agency to lead your inception process. Initially, you may start by a free discussion using post-it cards; storyboards; even lego or any other brainstorming technique you like. This will help you to get your mind into the path followed by the customer to purchase your product or to consume any business service you actually offer to your customers, or plan to offer in the near future. (from www.servicedesigntools.org) Colorful Mind Maps are very useful to document and share meeting ideas. Some Mind Maps software providers as ThinkBuzzan provide trial versions, and you will find more mindmapping options on this post by Mashable. Finally to produce a quick one, I do recommend Wise, an entirely online mindmaping service. On my view the best results in terms of communication will always come for an artistic hand-made drawing. Customer Experience Mind Map Example Making your first Customer Journey Map To add some more formalization to your thoughts, there is a wide offering for designing Customer Journey Maps. A Customer Map can be represented as an oriented graph in which another follows each step. The one below is the most simple Customer Journey you can draw. Nothing more than a couple of pictures, numbers and lines to design the customer steps sequence in the purchase process. Very simple Customer Journey for Social Mobile Shopping There are a lot of Customer Journey templates much more sophisticated available  in the Web using a variety of styles, as per example this one with a focus on underlining emotional experience, or this other worksheet template. Representing different interaction devices on the vertical axis, and touchpoints / requirements and existing gaps horizontally  is today´s most common format for Customer Journeys. From Customer Journey Maps to CX Technology Adoption Plans Once you have your map ready, you can start to identify the IT infrastructure requirements for your CXProject. By analyzing customer problems and improvement opportunities with maps, you will then identify the technology gaps and the new investment requirements in your IT infrastructure. Deeping step by step from the more abstract to the more concrete is the best guarantee to take the right IT investment decisions.  ¡Remember to keep your initial customer journey safe on your pocket in every one of your CX´s project meetings- that´s you map to success!

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• Is hiring a "chief intern" a good idea?

  - by dukeofgaming

  I'm starting an internship program for our software department and I was wondering about creating a position ("chief intern", intern supervisor, or whatever one should call it) with the following responsibilities: Train interns Coach interns Manage projects and tasks for interns Supervise intern's work in terms of rhythm and quality Act as a liaison between the main team's needs and interns performance/aspirations Evaluate and facilitate intern's progress when they want to grab a higher-level domain-specific task (at this point, a main dev team member can do mentoring) Get freely involved in the main team's software development tasks so that he himself can grow, and have full mentorship from the main dev team. I'm thinking that an apprentice-level engineer (below Jr., or Jr.; but being a graduate and working full-time) can handle this for a while (he will be trained by the main dev team first), until one of two things happen: He/she decides to move on to the main dev team by recommending an appropriate replacement (or me finding another one as a new hire) Keep leading the interns while still being able to grow to Jr. Eng., Eng., Sr. Eng I know the notion of a "chief intern" is common within the medical world, but I don't really know about that in the software world (I was a freelancer for most of my university years). A side-intention to this is also that, if this ends up being a higher rotation position (organically) because the intern supervisor wants to join the main dev team, this could help interns that aspire this position emerge as leaders. My main intention for this, though, is removing distractions from the main team but without making the interns suffer the lack of attention, which could lead to boredom and little intern retention. Is this "chief intern" idea common (or good at least)?, are there any obvious risks to it that I might not be seeing? Edit: I have a draft plan for the kind of work the interns would be doing: Are R&D mini-projects a good activity for interns? Edit #2: My intention is not keeping them isolated, but having someone focus on giving attention to them when we cannot. Edit #3: I'm now convince it is a good idea, but I will take the organic approach to hiring someone in such position: do it myself until I cannot. This way I'll know better what to expect from a person I hire for this role in the future, as well as what works and what doesn't with interns.

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• Oracle WebCenter @ OpenWorld 2012

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  This week, we want to focus on giving our blog readers a preview of Oracle WebCenter related events and activities happening at Oracle OpenWorld this year! Today's guest post comes from Jamie Rancourt, Senior Manager of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter. Are you registered to attend OpenWorld 2012 in San Francisco from September 30 – October 4?  If not, the conference details and registration information can be found at http://oracle.com/openworld!  Here’s a brief run down of the planned activities for Oracle WebCenter at this year’s event. WebCenter Sessions This year WebCenter will be featured in 36 sessions across the following tracks: Web Experience Management, Portals, Content Management and Social Network Middleware for Enterprise Applications Financial Management Oracle ADF and Fusion Application Development Applications Tools and Technology Applications Strategy Life Sciences Customer Relationship Management Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Siebel Applications SOA and Business Process Management Oracle Fusion Applications Oracle Commerce Retail Social Business Cloud Computing Here are a few of the sessions to wet your appetite: Oracle WebCenter Strategy: Engaging your Customers.  Empowering your Business Oracle WebCenter Sites Strategy & Vision Oracle WebCenter Content Strategy & Vision Oracle WebCenter Portal Strategy & Vision Oracle Social Network Strategy & Vision Develop a Mobile Strategy with Oracle WebCenter: Engage Customers, Employees, and Partners Oracle WebCenter’s Cloud Strategy: From Social and Platform Services to Mash-ups We also have 4 interactive customer panels planned for the event: Using Web Experience Management to Drive Online Marketing Success Land Mines, Potholes, and Dirt Roads: Navigating the Way to ECM Nirvana Becoming a Social Business: Stories from the Front Lines of Change Building Next-Generation Portals: An Interactive Customer Panel Discussion And there are many more sessions for you to attend to learn everything there is to know about Oracle WebCenter from our product experts and partners. Make sure to visit the Content Catalog for the complete session details Labs and Demos This year’s event also features 4 WebCenter hands on labs, each focusing on a different product area including Portal, Content, Sites and Social Network.  In addition to the labs, there will be 6 demos featuring Oracle WebCenter in both the Fusion Middleware and Cloud pavilions.  Make sure you stop by to see the latest demos and meet our knowledgeable product managers! And don't forget about the Oracle WebCenter Customer Appreciation Event, which is sponsored by our Partners and will take place on Tuesday, October 2nd at The Palace Hotel. Be sure to watch the blog for more information in the coming months with how to register! We look forward to seeing you at Oracle OpenWorld 2012!

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• Live CD / Live USB much faster than full install

  - by user29347

  I've observed it on both laptops I own! HP Compaq nx6125 and Ubuntu 11.04 x64 - somewhat solved Lenovo Thinkpad T500 and Ubuntu 11.10 x64 - help needed! I'm still struggling with the Thinkpad to get performance level similar to that of 10 y.o. laptops... All in all a really serious issue with multiple versions of Ubuntu that renders computers with perfectly compatible hardware unusable, as far as out of the box experience is concerned. Troubleshooting resultant issues seems to be a hard case even for users with some experience with installing graphics drivers. EDIT: I can't really post additional details. Two different ubuntu versions, two laptops, two different set of graph. drivers (OS vs ATI prop.) - all with the same symptoms. Also I can't stress enough how massive the performance degradation is compared to a healthy system. For that reason I ask for input from people who may know roughly what are we dealing with here. I can post more details if we were to focus on my current Thinkpad T500. In that case my current system details: Lenovo Thinkpad T500 Ubuntu 11.10 x64 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 (also see the "What I have already tried" section about Intel graphics tested) ATI Catalyst 11.10 drivers OCZ Agility 3 SSD but! same with the default driver for ATI the card same with the prop. driver for the ATI card from Jockey (Additional drivers applet) What I have already tried: 0. Switching to Intel integrated card (Intel GMA 4500M HD) with the default driver - same effects = may indicate not driver related problem but a problem with something of global influence like e.g. nomodeset or other I don't even know about. (What you can read above) ATI Catalyst 11.10 and radeon.modeset=0 boot parameter + disabled Wait for VBlank. Unity 2D Ubuntu 10.04 LTS tested (ubuntu-10.04.3-desktop-i386.iso): Both live USB and installed version blazing fast! (on the default drivers - without even installing the proprietary fglrx drivers). re2 a) seems to give me the only significant results (still poor) - perfect Unity elements performance with the same crawling stuttering/lagging when dragging windows around. re2 b) this happens often http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b68/Bucic/ubuntuforumsorg/Screenshotat2011-10-28083140.png re2 c) Sometimes I am able to witness a normal performance when dragging a window around but only for a second or two. When I try to shake it longer it starts to lag and it will keep lagging like that with an increased probability of what you see in the sshot in point re2 b). re2 d) I can't establish the radeon.modeset=0 influence though. Once it seems to work be smooth with it, the other time - without it. Really can't tell.

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• TechEd 2012: Day 3 &ndash; Morning TFS

  - by Tim Murphy

  My morning sessions for day three were dominated by Team Foundation Server.  This has been a hot topic for our clients lately, so this topic really stuck a chord. The speaker for the first session was from Boeing.  It was nice to hear how how a company mixes both agile and waterfall project management.   The approaches that he presented were very pragmatic.  For their needs reporting is the crucial part of their decision to use TFS.  This was interesting since this is probably the last aspect that most shops would think about. The challenge of getting users to adopt TFS was brought up by the audience.  As with the other discussion point he took a very level headed stance.  The approach he was prescribing was to eat the elephant a bite at a time instead of all at once.  If you try to convert you entire shop at once the culture shock will most likely kill the effort. Another key point he reminded us of is that you need to make sure that standards and compliance are taken into account when you setup TFS.  If you don’t implement a tool and processes around it that comply with the standards bodies that govern your business you are in for a world of hurt. Ultimately the reason they chose TFS was because it was the first tool that incorporated all the ALM features that they needed. Reduced licensing cost because of all the different tools they would need to buy to complete the same tasks.  They got to this point by doing an industry evaluation.  Although TFS came out on top he said that it still has a big gap is in the Java area.  Of course in this market there are vendors helping to close that gap. The second session was on how continuous feedback in agile is a new focus in VS2012.  The problems they intended to address included cycle time and average time to repair, root cause analysis. The speakers fired features at us as if they were firing a machine gun.  I will just say that I am looking forward to digging into the product after seeing this presentation.  Beyond that I will simply list some of the key features that caught my attention. Feature – Ability to link documents into tasks as artifacts Web access portal PowerPoint storyboards Exploratory testing Request feedback (allows users to record notes, screen shots and video/audio) See you after the second half. del.icio.us Tags: TechEd,TechEd 2012,TFS,Team Foundation Server

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• Oracle Announces Availability of Oracle Exaskeleton with Extreme Scale

  - by Bruce Tierney

  The World’s First Human Scale Body Surface (HSBS) Designed to Toughen Spineless Wimps April 1, 2012 Building on the success of Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Exadata, and Oracle Exalytics, Oracle today announced the general availability of Oracle Exaskeleton, toughening up spineless wimps across the globe through the introduction of extreme scalability over the human body leveraging a revolutionary new technology called Human Scale Body Surface (HSBS). First Customer Ship (FCS) was received by the little known and mostly unsuccessful superhero Awkwardman. After applying Oracle Exaskeleton with extreme scale, he has since rebranded himself as Aquaman. Said Aquaman, “I used to feel so helpless in my skin…now I feel like…well…a highly scaled Engineered System thanks to Oracle!” Thousand of meek and mild individuals eagerly lined up outside Oracle Corporation’s Redwood Shores office to purchase the new Oracle Exaskeleton, with the hope of finally gaining the spine they never had. Unfortunately for the individuals, a bully was spotted allegedly kicking the sand covering the beaches of Redwood Shores into the still spineless Exaskeleton hopefuls. Supporting Quotes “Industry analysts are inquiring if Oracle Exaskeleton is a radical departure from Oracle’s traditional enterprise focus into new markets”, said Oracle representative Sabrina Twich, “Oracle has extensive expertise in unified backbone solutions for application infrastructures…this is simply a new port to the human body combining our Business Intelligence (BI) and RDBC (Remote Direct Brain Cell) technologies.” “With this release of Oracle Exaskeleton, Oracle has redefined scalability. Software and hardware vendors had it all wrong” said the Director of Oracle Exaskeleton, “Scalability for hardware is like…um…you know…so scale-ful. No, wait…can I say that again? I didn’t get that right…Scalability is hardware-on-demand with public and private…hybrid clouds, no…<long pause>…Scalability for… nevermind, I don’t want to be in this stupid press release anyway” Releases An upcoming Oracle Exaskeleton service pack release will include a new datasheet with an extensive library of three-letter acronyms (TLAs) as well as the introduction of more four-letter acronyms (FLAs) since technologies vendors have used up almost all of the 17,576 TLA permutations (TLAPs). About Oracle Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. It would be an amazing coincidence if any of this is true in some secret Oracle lab, but I doubt it. Trademarks Really…you’re still reading this? Cool! Aquaman - First Customer Ship (FCS) - Oracle Exaskeleton

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• Best Platform/Engine for turn based Client/Server Android game

  - by Paradine

  I'm currently designing a turn based game for tablets. Initially for Android with porting to iOS later considered in design. I'm having trouble narrowing down the available technologies to even know where to spend my research time. I am hoping that if I explain what I am trying to achieve someone may be able to suggest a platform and/or engine. I've looked into some of the open source Engines ( http://www.cuteandroid.com/ten-open-source-android-2d-or-3d-game-engine-for-android-developers ) and some appear to handle much of what I might require - although with a higher focus on graphics than i need. Mages looks interesting although development appears to have ceased. If I could somehow leverage GoogleApps that would be excellent. Here is what I am trying to achieve: PvP turn based strategy game over internet - minimal animation and bandwidth required Players match up online using MetaGame system MatchID created on Resolution Server and Game starts Clients have 30 second countdown to select MoveString Clients sends small secure timestamped and MatchIDed MoveString to Resolution server Resolution server looks up Move String for each player, Resolves and Updates Players status in MatchID on Server Resolution server updates Client Views Repeat until victory conditions met - MatchID Closed, Rewards earned in MetaGame There will also need to be a full social and account system and metagame backend - but this could be running on separate system(s) Tablet in Offline mode would be catalog browsing and perhaps single player AI - bum I'm focusing on the Resolution Server at this point I'm not even certain if I would be looking at an Android App or a WebApp at this stage! I want a custom GUI so I guess an app - but maybe as I have little animation a WebApp might also work. Probably some combination of both. There will be very small overhead in data between client server - essentially a small text string every 30 seconds sent to the Resolution server which looks up the Effect and applies it to the Opponents string and determines some results to apply to the match. The client view is updated minimally with the results (only 5 in game Integers tracked) - perhaps triggering small animations/popups on the client to show the end result. e.g Explosion. If you have suggestions for a good technology or platform to best achieving the Resolution Server I'd love to hear. Also if you have experience with open source Engines - and could narrow down which (if any ) might be most suitable that would be a big help. Thanks in advance

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• Talking JavaOne with Rock Star Adam Bien

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  Among the most celebrated developers in recent years, especially in the domain of Java EE and JavaFX, is consultant Adam Bien, who, in addition to being a JavaOne Rock Star for Java EE sessions given in 2009 and 20011, is a Java Champion, the winner of Oracle Magazine’s 2011 Top Java Developer of the Year Award, and recently won a 2012 JAX Innovation Award as a top Java Ambassador. Bien will be presenting the following sessions: TUT3907 - Java EE 6/7: The Lean Parts CON3906 - Stress-Testing Java EE 6 Applications Without Stress CON3908 - Building Serious JavaFX 2 Applications CON3896 - Interactive Onstage Java EE Overengineering I spoke with Bien to get his take on Java today. He expressed excitement that the smallest companies and startups are showing increasing interest in Java EE. “This is a very good sign,” said Bien. “Only a few years ago J2EE was mostly used by larger companies -- now it becomes interesting even for one-person shows. Enterprise Java events are also extremely popular. On the Java SE side, I'm really excited about Project Nashorn.” Nashorn is an upcoming JavaScript engine, developed fully in Java by Oracle, and based on the Da Vinci Machine (JSR 292) which is expected to be available for Java 8.   Bien expressed concern about a common misconception regarding Java's mediocre productivity. “The problem is not Java,” explained Bien, “but rather systems built with ancient patterns and approaches. Sometimes it really is ‘Cargo Cult Programming.’ Java SE/EE can be incredibly productive and lean without the unnecessary and hard-to-maintain bloat. The real problems are ‘Ivory Towers’ and not Java’s lack of productivity.” Bien remarked that if there is one thing he wanted Java developers to understand it is that, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Or at least of some evil. Modern JVMs and application servers are hard to optimize upfront. It is far easier to write simple code and measure the results continuously. Identify the hotspots first, then optimize.” He advised Java EE developers to, “Rethink everything you know about Enterprise Java. Before you implement anything, ask the question: ‘Why?’ If there is no clear answer -- just don't do it. Most well known best practices are outdated. Focus your efforts on the domain problem and not the technology.” Looking ahead, Bien said, “I would like to see open source application servers running directly on a hypervisor. Packaging the whole runtime in a single file would significantly simplify the deployment and operations.”Check out a recent Java Magazine interview with Bien about his Java EE 6 stress monitoring tool here. Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for August 1, 2013

  - by OTN ArchBeat

  Performance Tuning – Systems Running BPEL Processes | Ravi Saraswathi and Jaswant Sing Ravi Saraswathi and Jaswant Singh, the authors of "Oracle SOA BPEL Process Manager 11gR1 - A Hands-on Tutorial" explain performance tuning of SOA composite applications for optimal performance and scalability. Steps to configure SAML 2.0 with Weblogic Server | Puneeth The blogger known only as Punteeth shares an illustrated technical post that will be of interest to those working with Oracle WebLogic and the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). Video: Planning and Getting Started - Developer PCs | Chris Muir Tune in to the latest episode of ADF Architecture TV to see Chris Muir explain why you don't have to buy the most expensive PCs in order to run JDeveloper. Key User Experience Design Principles for working with Big Data | John Fuller User Experience Designer John Fuller shares 6 core design principles for working with big data that focus on "helping people bring together a variety of data types in a fast and flexible way." Event: OTN Developer Day: ADF Mobile - Burlington, MA - Aug 28 Through six sessions, including a hands-on workshop, you'll learn a simpler way to leverage your existing skills to develop enterprise mobile applications using Oracle ADF Mobile. Registration is free, but seating is limited. Optimizing WebCenter Portal Mobile Delivery | Jeevan Joseph FMW solution architect Jeevan Joseph "walks you through identifying and analyzing some common WebCenter Portal performance bottlenecks related to page weight and describes a generic approach that can streamline your portal while improving the performance and response times." Customizing specific instances of a WebCenter task flow | Jeevan Joseph Fusion Middleware A-Team solution architect Jeevan Joseph strikes again with this article that explains "how to set up parameters on MDS customization so that it is applied only under certain conditions...making it possible to customize individual instances of task flows." Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets – Modifying Memory, CPU and Storage on a vServer | Andrew Hopkinson FMW solution architect Andrew Hopkinson walks you through "the simple process of resizing the resources associated with an already existing Exalogic vServer." Oracle ADF Mobile Virtual Developer Day - Next Week | Shay Shmeltzer JDeveloper product team lead Shay Schmeltzer shares agenda information for the OTN Virtual Developer Day event covering Mobile Application Development for iOS and Android, coming up one week from today, on August 7, 2013, 9am PT/Noon ET/1pm BRT. What's New In Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 12.1.2.1.0? New features and updates on the newly-released Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 12.1.2.1.0, now available for download from OTN. IOUG Cloud Builders Unite | Jeff Erickson Check out this great Oracle Magazine article by Jeff Erickson about IOUG members organizing around their common interest in building private clouds. Thought for the Day "Stuff that's hidden and murky and ambiguous is scary because you don't know what it does." — Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) Source: brainyquote.com

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• Silverlight Cream for March 13, 2011 -- #1059

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: András Velvárt, WIndowsPhoneGeek(-2-), Jesse Liberty(-2-), Victor Gaudioso, Kunal Chowdhury, Jeremy Likness, Michael Crump, and Dhananjay Kumar. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Application Library Caching in Silverlight 4" Kunal Chowdhury WP7: "Handling WP7 orientation changes via Visual States" András Velvárt Shoutouts: Joe McBride gave a MEF Head User Group presentation and has posted How to Become a MEF Head – Slides & Code From SilverlightCream.com: Handling WP7 orientation changes via Visual States András Velvárt has an Expression Blend/WP7 post up discussing WP7 orientation changes and handling them via Visual States ... see an example from his SurfCube app, and a behavior to handle the control... with source. WP7 PerformanceProgressBar in depth WIndowsPhoneGeek has a post up discussing the WP7 Performance bar from the Windows Phone Toolkit. This is an update on the Toolkit based on the Feb 2011 release. Great explanation of the PerformanceProgressBar, external links, and sample code. Getting data out of WP7 WMAppManifest is easy with Coding4Fun PhoneHelper Next WindowsPhoneGeek has a post up about the PhoneHelper in the Coding4Fun TOolkit, and using it to get data out of the WMAppManifest easily. Good discussion, Links, and code as always Silverlight Unit Test For Phone In Jesse Liberty's "Windows Phone From Scratch" number 41, he's discussing Unit Testing for WP7... he gives some good external links and some good examples. Yet Another Podcast #27–Paul Betts Jesse Liberty's next post is his "Yet Another Podcast" number 27, and an interview with Paul Betts, the creator of Reactive UI... check out the podcast and also the good links listed. New Silverlight Video Tutorial: How to use the Fluid Move Behavior Victor Gaudioso has a new video tutorial up on using the Fluid Move Behavior... making a selected item animate from a ListBox to a Master Details Grid. Application Library Caching in Silverlight 4 Kunal Chowdhury takes a break from SilverlightZone long enough to write a post about Application Library Caching... for example on-demand loading of a 3rd-party XAP. Jounce Part 13: Navigation Parameters Jeremy Likness has his 13th post of a series in understanding his Jounce MVVM framework up. This episode surrounds a new release and what it contains, the primary focus being navigation parameters... that is you can raise a navigation event with a payload. Profiling Silverlight Applications after installing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Michael Crump digs into the performance wizard for Silverlight that we get with VS2010 SP1. He shows how to get and read a profile... great intro to a new tool. Binding XML File to Data Grid in Silverlight Dhananjay Kumar demonstrates reading an XML file using LINQ to XML and binding the result to a Silverlight DataGrid Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• SQLOS and Cloud Infrastructure sessions at PASS Summit 2012

  - by SQLOS Team

  The SQL Pass Summit 2012, the largest yet, is in full swing. Here's a summary of the sessions this week on cloud infrastructure and SQLOS topics. Some of these were today, and you can catch the recordings. One more session takes place on Friday covering SQL Server solution patterns in Windows Azure VMs... Also, catch Thursday's keynote with Quentin Clark which will feature a cool IaaS demo!   SQL Server in Windows Azure VM Sessions CLD-309-A SQLCAT: Best Practices and Lessons Learned on SQL Server in an Azure VM Steve Howard, Arvind Ranasaria - Wednesday 11/6 10:15 This session looked at some best practices to optimize Networking, Memory, Disk IO and high availability based on lessons learned during SQLCat work with customer deployments. Well worth catching the recording.   SQL Server in Azure VM patterns: Hybrid Disaster Recovery, data movement and BI Guy Bowerman, Peter Saddow, Michael Washam, Ross LoForte - Friday 11/9 9:45 Rm 613 [Note: In the guides this has an outdated title.] This session has a focus on SQL Server Azure VM solutions. Starting with the basics and then going deeper into: - New features in the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 8.0 to help plan and size SQL VM migrations.- A Look at a Windows Azure VM SQL Server app making use of load balancing and SQL Server high availability features.- A BI case study running SQL BI components in Azure VMs and making use of Windows 8 tiles.- A training class in a VM case study.   SQLOS Sessions DBA-500-HD Inside SQLOS 2012 (half-day session) Bob Ward - Wednesday 11/6 1:30pm Bob Ward from CSS applies his wealth of experience to look at the internals of SQLOS and what's changed in the various SQL 2012 components, including memory, resource governor, scheduler.   DBA-403-M: SQLCAT: Memory Manager Changes in SQL Server 2012 Gus Apostol, Jerome Halmans - 1:30pm Covers the redesigned SQLOS memory manager in SQL Server 2012 including the new page allocator for any size pages (and all that implies), DMVs, demo's. Not sure why this was placed at the same time as the SQLOS half-day session, but since it's recorded it's available for catch-up.   - Guy   Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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• MDM Poised for Growth

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  David Nixon, an Oracle colleague of mine, was doing some research on MDM the other day. He came up with some well founded insights that I thought I’d share with you. Gartner recently published a note asking “Should Organizations Using ERP 'Do' Master Data Management?”  It may seem a bit strange but that’s a question Gartner has been asked by a number of companies as organizations are beginning to understand the importance of data governance and data stewardship.  That’s because ERP Suites typically “focus on integrating their own applications within suites, but have little interest in making their suites interoperate with the applications or suites of other vendors.”  Therefore, Gartner is advising customers that “have deployed or plan to support multiple packaged application suites (even from the same vendor) that have different semantic data and/or process models” to add an MDM solution. And it appears that customers are taking note.  In a more recent note entitled “Search Analytics Trends: Master Data Management”, Gartner noted that MDM searches on gartner.com in November 2010 “were 300% higher than [in] May 2009, indicating the increased interest an importance that businesses are placing on MDM.”  Why the increased interest?  Moving towards a single version of the truth is a familiar theme, but customers are talking more about the underlying business value that this enables.  For example, businesses are talking about the need to fix master data before they can successfully move forward on SOA initiatives.  And the growing demands for compliance continue to be a major driver.  In short, companies are talking more about specific and tangible business value, and they are looking for help creating business cases for an MDM initiative. Why This Matters Gartner’s notes make three things clear.  First, MDM is poised for growth as organizations gain a greater understanding for it and the need they have.  Many are still sorting it out, but the demand is growing and is sure to rise.  Second, any organization with a heterogeneous computing environment should invest in MDM.  Even solutions from the same vendor may have different data models and could benefit from MDM.  But the key to growth, or which vendors will benefit the most from it, is the third and perhaps most critical point: companies need help with the business case for MDM. Oracle can help your organization build a compelling business case for MDM. We have seen our 1100+ MDM customers gain competitive advantages in a wide variety of implementations. Give us a ring.

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• Before the Summit of 2012

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Today, Monday, was the first day of the PASS Summit Preconference training events, but instead I spent the day at the free SQL in the City event put on by Red Gate. For me this was not a financial decision (pre-con sessions cost extra above the general Summit registration) but rather a matter of interest.  I had already included money for pre-cons in this year’s training budget, but none of them really stood out to me, so even if the Red-Gate event were not going on at the same time, I probably would not have gone to any pre-cons this year.  However, the topics being presented at the SQL in the City event were of great interest to me.  There promised to be good information on Continuous Integration and automated deployment of database changes, which lately has been a real hot topic at my work.  And indeed, Red-Gate announced the release of a new tool (still in Early Access Program…a.k.a. Beta) which is called the Deployment Manager.  Since we are in the middle of a TFS implementation project, it will be interesting to see how this plays out and compares to what we put together with the automated builds in TFS.  But, as I understand it, the primary focus of Deployment Manager is not to be the Build process (Red Gate uses JetBrains’ Team City for that in their shop) but rather to aid in the deployment of those build packages, as well as providing easy rollback and a good visualization of which versions of software are in which environments.  It looks promising and I’ve already downloaded the installer package to play with it later. Overall, I was quite impressed with the SQL in the City event.  Having heard many current and past members of the PASS Board of Directors describe the challenges of putting on a large conference, and the growing pains that the PASS Summit has gone through, I am even more impressed that the Red Gate event ran as smoothly as it did.  And it is quite impressive the amount of money that Red Gate must have spent given that this was a no-charge event to attend, they had a very nice hot lunch, and the after-event drinks celebration.  Well done, folks! Of course it was great to hear from a variety of speakers.  Today I listened to some folks from Red Gate like Grant Fritchey (blog | @GFritchey) and David Atkinson (Product Manager for SQL Source Control and now the Deployment Manager tool set); and also Brent Ozar (blog | @BrentO) and Buck Woody (blog | @BuckWoody).  By the way, if you have never seen either Brent or Buck speak, you really should.  Different styles, but both are very entertaining and educational at the same time.  I love Buck’s sense of humor (here’s a tip…don’t be late to Buck’s session or you’ll become part of the presentation) and I praise Brent’s slides.  Brent’s style very much reminds me of that espoused by Garr Reynolds on his Presentation Zen blog (and book) and I am impressed that he can make a technical presentation so engaging. It was a great day, a great way to kick off the week, and I am excited to get into the full Summit!

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• Voxel Face Crawling (Mesh simplification, possibly using greedy)

  - by Tim Winter

  This is in regards to a Minecraft-like terrain engine. I store blocks in chunks (16x256x16 blocks in a chunk). When I generate a chunk, I use multiple procedural techniques to set the terrain and to place objects. While generating, I keep one 1D array for the full chunk (solid or not) and a separate 1D array of solid blocks. After generation, I iterate through the solid blocks checking their neighbors so I only generate block faces that don't have solid neighbors. I store which faces to generate in their own list (that's 6 lists, one per possible face). When rendering a chunk, I render all lists in the camera's current chunk and only the lists facing the camera in all other chunks. Using a 2D atlas with this little shader trick Andrew Russell suggested, I want to merge similar faces together completely. That is, if they are in the same list (same normal), are adjacent to each other, have the same light level, etc. My assumption would be to have each of the 6 lists sorted by the axis they rest on, then by the other two axes (the list for the top of a block would be sorted by it's Y value, then X, then Z). With this alone, I could quite easily merge strips of faces, but I'm looking to merge more than just strips together when possible. I've read up on this greedy meshing algorithm, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding it. To even use it, I would think I'd need to perform a type of flood-fill per sorted list to get the groups of merge-able faces. Then, per group, perform the greedy algorithm. It all sounds awfully expensive if I would ever want dynamic terrain/lighting after initial generation. So, my question: To perform merging of faces as described (ignoring whether it's a bad idea for dynamic terrain/lighting), is there perhaps an algorithm that is simpler to implement? I would also quite happily accept an answer that walks me through the greedy algorithm in a much simpler way (a link or explanation). I don't mind a slight performance decrease if it's easier to implement or even if it's only a little better than just doing strips. I worry that most algorithms focus on triangles rather than quads and using a 2D atlas the way I am, I don't know that I could implement something triangle based with my current skills. PS: I already frustum cull per chunk and as described, I also cull faces between solid blocks. I don't occlusion cull yet and may never.

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