Search Results

Search found 3416 results on 137 pages for 'scene graph'.

Page 118/137 | < Previous Page | 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125  | Next Page >

• Flash compiler error 1061: Call to a possibly undefined method run... but run exists!

  - by Zane Geiger

  So I've been working on making a game in Processing but I think Flash would be a better way to get more people playing it, so I've decided to learn Flash. The problem is that I keep getting really stupid errors on incredibly simple things. For instance, I want to make a 'Block' object to use in a platform game. So I make a new .as file, name it Block.as, and define the Block class within it like so: package { public class Block { public function Block() { // constructor code } public function run() { } } } I don't want to add the code yet, I just want to ensure that this works. So in my main timeline code, I try to create an instance of the Block object and execute its run method: var block1:Block = new Block(); block1.run(); Every time it gives me this inane error: Scene 1, Layer 'Layer 1', Frame 1, Line 2 1061: Call to a possibly undefined method run through a reference with static type Block. What undefined method!? It's defined RIGHT THERE in Block.as. The class file is even in the same folder and everything. I'm getting REALLY annoyed at how poorly Flash handles such a ridiculously simple project. Does anyone know why Flash hates me?

  Read the article

• Which is the best way to encode batch videos on server side?

  - by albanx

  Hello I am making a general question since I am a developer and I have no advance experience on video elaboration. I have to preparare a web application with the purpose to allow video files upload on our company server and then video elaboration by server, on user command. The purpose of the web application is to allow to the user to make some elaboration on video depending on user action launch from the web app: (server has to ) convert video in different format(mp4, flv...) extact keyframes from video and saves them in jpeg format possibility to extract audio from video automatic control of quality audio & video (black frames,silences detection) change scene detection and keyframe extraction ..... This what's my bosses wanted from the web based application (with the server support obviously), and I understand only the first 3 points of this list, the rest for me was arabic.... My question is: Which is the best and fastest server side application for this works, that can support multiple batch video conversions, from command line (comand line for php-soap-socket interaction or something else..)? Is suitable Adobe Media Server for batch video conversion? Which are adobe products that can be used for this purpose? Note: I have experience with Indesign Server scripting programing (sending xml with php and soap call...), and I am looking to something similiar for video elaboration. I will appreciate any answers. THANKS ALL

  Read the article

• AndEngine: Black screen when using LayoutGameActivity

  - by Lemuel Hogben

  I used to use SimpleBaseGameActivity for my app and everything was ok, but now I want to add some ads into the app, so I tried to use LayoutGameActivity. But I get the screen completely black and I don't know why. That's my code: public class AcGame extends LayoutGameActivity { [...] @Override protected int getLayoutID() { return R.layout.ad; } @Override protected int getRenderSurfaceViewID() { return R.id.layout_render; } @Override public EngineOptions onCreateEngineOptions() { [...] return new EngineOptions(true, ScreenOrientation.PORTRAIT_FIXED, resolution, camera); } @Override public void onCreateResources(OnCreateResourcesCallback pOnCreateResourcesCallback) throws Exception { createResources(); pOnCreateResourcesCallback.onCreateResourcesFinished(); } @Override public void onCreateScene(OnCreateSceneCallback pOnCreateSceneCallback) throws Exception { pOnCreateSceneCallback.onCreateSceneFinished(createScene()); } @Override public void onPopulateScene(Scene pScene, OnPopulateSceneCallback pOnPopulateSceneCallback) throws Exception { pOnPopulateSceneCallback.onPopulateSceneFinished(); } And that's my layout: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"> <LinearLayout android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:gravity="top" android:id="@+id/layout_ad" > <Button android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:text="Ad Sample"/> </LinearLayout> <org.andengine.opengl.view.RenderSurfaceView android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:gravity="center" android:id="@+id/layout_render" /> </LinearLayout> When I'm trying to debug, I can see that EngineOptions are creating, but no one of the LayoutGameActivity's methods was called (onCreateResources, onCreateScene or onPopulateScene). Can someone tell me what I've missed?

  Read the article

• Best ways to construct Dynamic Search Conditions for Sql

  - by CoolBeans

  I have always wondered what's the best way to achieve this task. In most web based applications you have to provide search options on many different criteria. Based on what criteria is chosen behind the scene you modify your SQL. Generally, this is how I tend to go about it:- Have a base SQL template. In the base template have conditions like this WHERE [#PRE_COND1] AND [#PRE_COND2] .. so on and so forth. So an example SQL might look something like SELECT NAME,AGE FROM PERSONS [,#TABLE2] [,#TABLE3] WHERE [#PRE_COND1] AND [#PRE_COND2] ORDER BY [#ORD_COND1] AND [#ORD_COND2] etc. During run time after figuring out the all the search criteria user has entered, I replace the [#PRE_COND1]s and [#ORD_COND1]s with the appropriate SQLs and then execute the query. I personally do not like this brute force method. However, I never came across a better approach either. How do you accomplish such tasks generally given you are either using native JDBC or Spring JDBC? It is almost like I need a C MACRO like functionality in Java to do this.

  Read the article

• Problem in calling a function from different class using protocols-iphone

  - by Muniraj

  I use cocos2d for my game. In which I play a movie and have a separate overlay view for controls.The touches are detected in the overlay view. Now when the touches are detected the function in the game code has to be invoked. But the function is not detected and there is no error. I dont know what has gone wrong. Someone please help me. The code are as follows The protocol part is @protocol Protocol @required -(void) transition1:(id) sender; @end The function which is to be invoked in the game code is (void) transition1:(id) sender { [[Director sharedDirector] replaceScene: [ [Scene node] addChild: [Layer4 node] z:0] ]; } The code in the overlay view in MovieOverlayViewController.h import "Protocol.h" @interface MovieOverlayViewController : UIViewController { UIImageView *overlay; NSObject <Protocol> *transfer; } @end The code in the overlay view in MovieOverlayViewController.m @implementation MovieOverlayViewController (id)init { if ((self = [super init])) self.view = [[[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]] autorelease]; return self; } -(void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated { overlay = [[[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"overlay.png"]] autorelease]; [self.view addSubview:overlay]; } (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { UITouch *touch = [touches anyObject]; CGPoint point = [touch locationInView:self.view]; NSLog(@"pointx: %f pointy:%f", point.x, point.y); if (CGRectContainsPoint(CGRectMake(1, 440, 106, 40), point)) { // the function is called here [transfer transition1: nil]; } else if (CGRectContainsPoint(CGRectMake(107, 440, 106, 40), point)) NSLog(@"tab 2 touched"); } (void)dealloc { [overlay release]; [super dealloc]; } @end

  Read the article

• iOS OpenGL ES 1.1 jerky animation using CADisplayLink (reboot fixes for a while)

  - by timthecoder

  I'm using OpenGL ES 1.1 and CADisplayLink to animate a 3d scene. If the iOS device has been rebooted fairly recently, the animation is smooth and the time delta between two displayLink.timestamp calls is fairly even. But after a few hours or days of the iOS device being used and my app is sometimes run a few times, the animation becomes jerky and the time deltas ramp up and then reset to a lower value only to ramp up again. Like this: 2012-09-01 23:42:58.770 [2678:707] dt= 0.021139 2012-09-01 23:42:58.787 [2678:707] dt= 0.022183 2012-09-01 23:42:58.804 [2678:707] dt= 0.023223 2012-09-01 23:42:58.820 [2678:707] dt= 0.024270 2012-09-01 23:42:58.837 [2678:707] dt= 0.009679 2012-09-01 23:42:58.853 [2678:707] dt= 0.010750 2012-09-01 23:42:58.870 [2678:707] dt= 0.011766 2012-09-01 23:42:58.887 [2678:707] dt= 0.012806 2012-09-01 23:42:58.903 [2678:707] dt= 0.013847 2012-09-01 23:42:58.920 [2678:707] dt= 0.014890 2012-09-01 23:42:58.937 [2678:707] dt= 0.015933 2012-09-01 23:42:58.953 [2678:707] dt= 0.016976 2012-09-01 23:42:58.970 [2678:707] dt= 0.018011 2012-09-01 23:42:58.987 [2678:707] dt= 0.019055 2012-09-01 23:42:59.003 [2678:707] dt= 0.020097 2012-09-01 23:42:59.020 [2678:707] dt= 0.021143 2012-09-01 23:42:59.037 [2678:707] dt= 0.022181 2012-09-01 23:42:59.054 [2678:707] dt= 0.023222 2012-09-01 23:42:59.071 [2678:707] dt= 0.024288 2012-09-01 23:42:59.087 [2678:707] dt= 0.009624 2012-09-01 23:42:59.103 [2678:707] dt= 0.010728 2012-09-01 23:42:59.121 [2678:707] dt= 0.011763 2012-09-01 23:42:59.137 [2678:707] dt= 0.012808 2012-09-01 23:42:59.153 [2678:707] dt= 0.013847 2012-09-01 23:42:59.170 [2678:707] dt= 0.014891 2012-09-01 23:42:59.187 [2678:707] dt= 0.016002 2012-09-01 23:42:59.203 [2678:707] dt= 0.016979 2012-09-01 23:42:59.220 [2678:707] dt= 0.018016 2012-09-01 23:42:59.237 [2678:707] dt= 0.019042 2012-09-01 23:42:59.253 [2678:707] dt= 0.020099 2012-09-01 23:42:59.270 [2678:707] dt= 0.021138 2012-09-01 23:42:59.287 [2678:707] dt= 0.022185 2012-09-01 23:42:59.304 [2678:707] dt= 0.023222 2012-09-01 23:42:59.320 [2678:707] dt= 0.024265 2012-09-01 23:42:59.337 [2678:707] dt= 0.009681 2012-09-01 23:42:59.354 [2678:707] dt= 0.010736 And then if the iOS device is rebooted the animation is smooth again. The problem even occurs on my menu screen when almost no game related calculations are going on in the UpdateAnimation() function. I don't understand what is going on and why a fresh reboot will always fix this problem for a while.

  Read the article

• WebGL pass array shader

  - by user987058

  I'm new to WebGL and I'm facing some problems of the shaders. I wanna do multiple light sources in the scene. I searched online and knew that in WebGL, you can't pass an array into the fragment shader, so the only way is use the texture. Here is the problem I can't figure out. First, I create a 32x32 texture using the following code: var pix = []; for(var i=0;i<32;i++) { for(var j=0;j<32;j++) pix.push(0.8,0.8,0.1); } gl.activeTexture(gl.TEXTURE0); gl.bindTexture(gl.TEXTURE_2D, lightMap); gl.pixelStorei(gl.UNPACK_ALIGNMENT,1); gl.texImage2D(gl.TEXTURE_2D, 0, gl.RGB, 32,32,0, gl.RGB, gl.UNSIGNED_BYTE,new Float32Array(pix)); gl.texParameteri(gl.TEXTURE_2D, gl.TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, gl.LINEAR); gl.texParameteri(gl.TEXTURE_2D, gl.TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, gl.LINEAR); gl.uniform1i(g_loader.program.set_uniform["u_texture2"],0); But however, when I tried to access the texture in the shader: [Fragment Shader] varying vec2 v_texcoord; uniform sampler2D u_texture2; void main(void) { vec3 lightLoc = texture2D(u_texture, v_texcoord).rgb; gl_FragData[0] = vec4(lightLoc,1.0); } The result is totally black. Is there anyone knows how to acces or create the texture correctly?

  Read the article

• How can I differentiate two different touches on a layer ?

  - by srikanth rongali

  I am writing an app in cocos2d. I hava a sprite and a text in my scene. I have written two separate classes for sprite and text. And I added both of them to another class. In sprite class I have written - (void)ccTouchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event And in text class I have written -(void) registerWithTouchDispatcher { [[CCTouchDispatcher sharedDispatcher]addTargetedDelegate:self priority:0 swallowsTouches:YES]; } -(BOOL) ccTouchBegan:(UITouch *)touch withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { return YES; } -(void) ccTouchEnded:(UITouch *)touch withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { NSLog(@"Recognized tOuches in Instructions");// CGSize windowSize = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize]; CCNode *node = [self getChildByTag:kTagNode]; [node setPosition: ccp(text1.contentSize.width/2,text1.contentSize.height/2 - windowSize.height)]; } -(void) ccTouchMoved:(UITouch *)touch withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { CGPoint touchLocation = [touch locationInView: [touch view]]; CGPoint prevLocation = [touch previousLocationInView: [touch view]]; touchLocation = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] convertToGL: touchLocation]; prevLocation = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] convertToGL: prevLocation]; CGPoint diff = ccpSub(touchLocation,prevLocation); CCNode *node = [self getChildByTag:kTagNode]; CGPoint currentPos = [node position]; [node setPosition: ccpAdd(currentPos, diff)]; } But, only touches in the text are recognized and touch of sprite is not recognized ? How can I differentiate the two touches.

  Read the article

• Most Efficient way to deal with multiple CCSprites?

  - by nardsurfer

  I have four different types of objects within my environment(box2d), each type of object having multiple instances of itself, and would like to find the most efficient way to deal with adding and manipulating all the CCSprites. The sprites are all from different files, so would it be best to create each sprite and add it to a data structure (NSMutableArray) or would I use a CCSpriteBatchNode even though each CCSprite file is different (for each type of object)? Thanks. @interface LevelScene : CCLayer { b2World* world; GLESDebugDraw *m_debugDraw; CCSpriteBatchNode *ballBatch; CCSpriteBatchNode *blockBatch; CCSpriteBatchNode *springBatch; CCSprite *goal; } +(id) scene; // adds a new sprite at a given coordinate -(void) addNewBallWithCoords:(CGPoint)p; // loads the objects (blocks, springs, and the goal), returns the Level Object -(Level) loadLevel:(int)level; @end or using NSMutableArray objects within the Level object... @interface zLevel : zThing { NSMutableArray *springs; NSMutableArray *blocks; NSMutableArray *balls; zGoal *goal; int levelNumber; } @property(nonatomic,retain)NSMutableArray *springs; @property(nonatomic,retain)NSMutableArray *blocks; @property(nonatomic,retain)NSMutableArray *balls; @property(nonatomic,retain)zGoal *goal; @property(nonatomic,assign)int levelNumber; -(void)initWithLevel:(int)level; -(void)loadLevelThings; @end

  Read the article

• Removing random object from parent CCprite

  - by Natty

  probably this is a simple problem to solve, since I'm quite new. I have a scene with a waiter holding a tray of food (the food is a random CCSprite choosen from an array) each time he comes onscreen he holds a new piece of food (the user touches the food and the waiter walks off to return again with a new piece of food however I cant seem to delete the old peice of food from the screen as it says the child is already added... any help would be great -(id) init { ///other code then... waiterOnSCreen = [CCSprite spriteWithSpriteFrameName:@"CatUP.png"]; waiterOnSCreen.position = ccp(CatOffSCreenPosX, catXpos); [self addChild:waiterOnSCreen z:0]; //moving the waiter // the random food sprite is added later to the waiter // [waiterOnSCreen addChild:myRandomSprite]; } -(void)LoadRandomFood { ///I make my array here then... int i = arc4random() % [RandomFood count]; myRandomSprite = (CCSprite *)[RandomFood objectAtIndex:i]; //waiterOnSCreen is a CCSprite added on the init [waiterOnSCreen addChild:myRandomSprite]; myRandomSprite.position=ccp(290,220); myRandomSprite.tag = RandomFoodTag; } } later in if(CGRectContainsPoint(waiterOnSCreen.boundingBox, location)) { //trying to remove the food here //Ive already tried to remove the sprite using [self removeChildByTag:RandomeObjectTag]; //and also CCSprite *wantedSprite = (CCSprite *)[self getChildByTag:RandomFoodTag]; [wantedSprite removeFromParentAndCleanup:YES]; } }

  Read the article

• OpenGL multiple threads, variable handling [closed]

  - by toeplitz

  I have written an OpenGL program which runs in the following way: Main: - Initialize SDL - Create thread which has the OpenGL context: - Renderloop - Set camera (view) matrix with glUniform. - glDrawElements() .... etc. - Swapbuffers(); - Main SDL loop handling input events and such. - Update camera matrix of type glm::mat4. This is how I pass my camera object to the class that handles opengl. Camera *cam = new Camera(); gl.setCam(cam); where void setCam(Camera *camera) { this->camera = camera; } For rendering in the opengl context thread, this happens: glm::mat4 modelView = camera->view * model; glUniformMatrix4fv(shader->bindUniform("modelView"), 1, GL_FALSE, glm::value_ptr(modelView)); In the main program where my SDL and other things are handles I then recompute the view matrix. This his working fine without me using any mutex locks. Is this correct? On the other hand, I add objects to my scene by an "upload queue" and in this case I have to mutex lock my upload queue vector (vector class type) when adding items to it or else the program crashes. In summary: I recompute my matrix in a different thread and then use it in the opengl thread without any mutex lock. Why is this working? Edit: I think my question is similar to what was asked here: Should I lock a variable in one thread if I only need it's value in other threads, and why does it work if I don't?, only in my case it is even more simple with only one matrix being changed.

  Read the article

• Wrong class type in objective C

  - by Max Hui

  I have a parent class and a child class. GameObjectBase (parent) GameObjectPlayer(child). When I override a method in Child class and call it using [myPlayerClass showNextFrame] It is calling the parent class one. It turns out in the debugger, I see the myPlayerClass was indeed class type GameObjectBase (which is the parent class) How come? GameObjectBase.h #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> #import "cocos2d.h" @class GameLayer; @interface GameObjectBase : NSObject { /* CCSprite *gameObjectSprite; // Sprite representing this game object GameLayer *parentGameLayer; */ // Reference of the game layer this object // belongs to } @property (nonatomic, assign) CCSprite *gameObjectSprite; @property (nonatomic, assign) GameLayer *parentGameLayer; // Class method. Autorelease + (id) initWithGameLayer:(GameLayer *) gamelayer imageFileName:(NSString *) fileName; // "Virtual methods" that the derived class should implement. // If not implemented, this method will be called and Assert game - (void) update: (ccTime) dt; - (void) showNextFrame; @end GameObjectPlayer.h #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> #import "GameObjectBase.h" @interface GameObjectPlayer : GameObjectBase { int direction; } @property (nonatomic) int direction; @end GameLayer.h #import "cocos2d.h" #import "GameObjectPlayer.h" @interface GameLayer : CCLayer { } // returns a CCScene that contains the GameLayer as the only child +(CCScene *) scene; @property (nonatomic, strong) GameObjectPlayer *player; @end When I call examine in debugger what type "temp" is in this function inside GameLayer class, it's giving parent class GameObjectBase instead of subclass GameObjectPlayer - (void) update:(ccTime) dt { GameObjectPlayer *temp = _player; [temp showNextFrame]; }

  Read the article

• Is Steam for Mac effectively running as superuser?

  - by godDLL

  When you download the client it does not weigh too much, and seems to do very little. Inside the app bundle there is a script that—upon inspecting the environment and deciding you're not running Linux—launches the client, which downloads the full support environment and resources. For this to happen (all of this is saved inside the bundle, the app bundle gets updated in this process) Steam wants Universal Access for Assistive Devices, and your password. Cacheable resources, preferences (like keyboard shortcuts), support files (like game hardware requirement lookup tables) live inside the bundle, not in ~/Library/{Application Support|Preferences|Cache}; games' data get dumped into ~/Documents/Steam Content. I'd describe myself as a bit OCD (which really says a lot), and I wouldn't care that much still. I'd go comb this hairy mess and find out where stuff is, when and if I need to, even if it's in an unfamiliar place; that does not actually tick me off. Well, a little bit. What makes me concerned is the way Steam needs both Access for Assistive Devices, and my password to run. The former gives it the ability to talk very intimately with running apps and the underlying system; while the latter (admin account) could very well give it and it's publishers unrestricted access to all my software, hardware and data. With publishers like Rockstar using scene NOCD cracks to publish their games on Steam, I'm not so sure I'm OK with this. I'd like more games made available for the MacOS X and all the pretty machines that run it, but this arrangement does not seem very Mac-like to me. It looks like Valve is going around system security measures and best practices, foregoing sandboxing, code signing, relatively sane structured organization; all the things that would appeal to someone who's no fun at parties at all, and will die alone, in his long dead mother's basement… wait. Right. Anyway. Can we get some input on Steam for Mac security at the end-user machine, from someone who understands how Accessibility API works, whether games distributed on Steam can read and write outside the user homefolder, collect data from other running apps, or similar?

  Read the article

• NDepend tool – Why every developer working with Visual Studio.NET must try it!

  - by hajan

  In the past two months, I have had a chance to test the capabilities and features of the amazing NDepend tool designed to help you make your .NET code better, more beautiful and achieve high code quality. In other words, this tool will definitely help you harmonize your code. I mean, you’ve probably heard about Chaos Theory. Experienced developers and architects are already advocates of the programming chaos that happens when working with complex project architecture, the matrix of relationships between objects which simply even if you are the one who have written all that code, you know how hard is to visualize everything what does the code do. When the application get more and more complex, you will start missing a lot of details in your code… NDepend will help you visualize all the details on a clever way that will help you make smart moves to make your code better. The NDepend tool supports many features, such as: Code Query Language – which will help you write custom rules and query your own code! Imagine, you want to find all your methods which have more than 100 lines of code :)! That’s something simple! However, I will dig much deeper in one of my next blogs which I’m going to dedicate to the NDepend’s CQL (Code Query Language) Architecture Visualization – You are an architect and want to visualize your application’s architecture? I’m thinking how many architects will be really surprised from their architectures since NDepend shows your whole architecture showing each piece of it. NDepend will show you how your code is structured. It shows the architecture in graphs, but if you have very complex architecture, you can see it in Dependency Matrix which is more suited to display large architecture Code Metrics – Using NDepend’s panel, you can see the code base according to Code Metrics. You can do some additional filtering, like selecting the top code elements ordered by their current code metric value. You can use the CQL language for this purpose too. Smart Search – NDepend has great searching ability, which is again based on the CQL (Code Query Language). However, you have some options to search using dropdown lists and text boxes and it will generate the appropriate CQL code on fly. Moreover, you can modify the CQL code if you want it to fit some more advanced searching tasks. Compare Builds and Code Difference – NDepend will also help you compare previous versions of your code with the current one at one of the most clever ways I’ve seen till now. Create Custom Rules – using CQL you can create custom rules and let NDepend warn you on each build if you break a rule Reporting – NDepend can automatically generate reports with detailed stats, graph representation, dependency matrixes and some additional advanced reporting features that will simply explain you everything related to your application’s code, architecture and what you’ve done. And that’s not all. As I’ve seen, there are many other features that NDepend supports. I will dig more in the upcoming days and will blog more about it. The team who built the NDepend have also created good documentation, which you can find on the NDepend website. On their website, you can also find some good videos that will help you get started quite fast. It’s easy to install and what is very important it is fully integrated with Visual Studio. To get you started, you can watch the following Getting Started Online Demo and Tutorial with explanations and screenshots. If you are interested to know more about how to use the features of this tool, either visit their website or wait for my next blogs where I will show some real examples of using the tool and how it helps make your code better. And the last thing for this blog, I would like to copy one sentence from the NDepend’s home page which says: ‘Hence the software design becomes concrete, code reviews are effective, large refactoring are easy and evolution is mastered.’ Website: www.ndepend.com Getting Started: http://www.ndepend.com/GettingStarted.aspx Features: http://www.ndepend.com/Features.aspx Download: http://www.ndepend.com/NDependDownload.aspx Hope you like it! Please do let me know your feedback by providing comments to my blog post. Kind Regards, Hajan

  Read the article

• Nerdstock 2012: A photo review of Microsoft TechEd North America 2012

  - by The Un-T Guy

  Not only could I not fathom that I would ever be attending a tech event of the magnitude of TechEd, neither could any of my co-workers.  As the least technical person in the history of Information Technology ever, I felt as though I were walking into the belly of the beast, fearing I’d not be allowed out until I could write SSIS packages, program in Visual Basic, or at least arm wrestle a DBA.  Most of my fears were unrealized.   But I made it.  I was here.  I even got to wear the Mark of the Geek neck package with schedule, eyeglass cleaners, name badge (company name obfuscated so they don’t fire me), and a pen.  The name  badge was seemingly the key element, as every vendor in the place wanted to scan it to capture name, email address, and numbers to show their bosses back home.  It also let me eat the food and drink the coffee so that’s a fair trade.   A recurring theme throughout the presentations and vendor demos was “the Cloud” and BYOD (bring your own device).  The below was a common site throughout the week, as attendees from all over the world brought their own devices and were able to (seemingly) seamlessly connect to the Worldwide Innerwebs.  Apparently proof that Microsoft and the event organizers were practicing what they were preaching.   “Cavernous” is one way to describe the downstairs facility itself.  “Freaking cavernous” might be more accurate.  Work sessions were held in classrooms on the second and third floors but the real action was happening downstairs.  Microsoft bookstore, blogger hub (shoutout to Geekswithblogs.net), The Wall (sans Pink Floyd, sadly), couches, recharging stations…   …a game zone with pool and air hockey tables, pinball machines, foosball…   …vintage video games…           …and a even giant chess board.  Looked like this guy was opening with the Kaspersky parry.   The blend of technology and fantasy even went so far as to bring childhood favorites to life.  Assuming, of course, your childhood was pre-video games (like mine) and you were stuck with electric football and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robots:   And, lest the “combatants” become unruly or – God forbid – afternoon snacks were late, Orange County’s finest was on the scene to keep the peace.  On a high-tech mode of transport, of course.   She wasn’t the only one to think this was a swell way to transition from one concourse to the next.  Given the level of support provided by the entire Orange County Convention Center staff, I knew they had to have some secret.   Here’s one entrance to the vendor zone/”Technical Learning Center.”  Couldn’t help but think of them as the remora attached to the Whale Shark that is Microsoft…   …or perhaps planets orbiting the sun. Microsoft is just that huge and it seemed like every vendor in the industry looks forward to partnering with the tech behemoth.   Aside from the free stuff from the vendors, probably the most popular place in the house was the dining area.  Amazing spreads every day, multiple times a day.  While no attendance numbers were available at press time, literally thousands of attendees were fed, and fed well, every day.  And lest you think my post from earlier in the week exaggerated about the backpacks…   …or that I’m exaggerating about the lunch crowds.  This represents only about between 25-30% of the lunch crowd – it was all my camera could capture at once.  No one went away hungry.   The only thing missing was a a vat of Red Bull but apparently organizers went old school, with probably 100 urns of the original energy drink – coffee – all around the venue.   Of course, following lunch and afternoon sessions, some preferred the even older school method of re-energizing.  There were rumors that Microsoft was serving graham crackers and milk in this area.  But they were only rumors.   Cannot overstate the wonderful service provided by the Orange County Convention Center staff.  Coffee, soft drinks, juice, and water were available always.  Buffet meals were delicious with a wide range of healthy options available, in addition to hundreds (at least) special meal requests supported every day.  Ever tried to keep up with an estimated 9,000 hungry and thirsty IT-ers?  These folks did.  Kudos to all of the staff and many thanks!   And while I occasionally poke fun at the Whale Shark, if nothing else this experience convinced me of one thing:  Microsoft knows how to put on a professional event.  Hundreds of informative, professionally delivered sessions, covering a wide range of topics set at varying levels of expertise (some that even I was able to follow), social activities, vendor partnerships…they brought everything you could ask for to inform, educate, and inspire an entire IT industry.   So as I depart the belly of the beast, I can both take pride in the fact that I survived the week and marvel at the brilliance surrounding me.  The IT industry – or at least the segment associated with Microsoft – is in good, professional hands.  And what won’t fit in their hands can be toted in the Microsoft provided backpacks.  Win-win.   Until New Orleans…

  Read the article

• SanjayP&rsquo;s venture after Microsoft involves no Microsoft

  - by eddraper

  When I was at Microsoft, I always found Sanjay Parthasarathy to be a bright and passionate leader.  While he was a bit disconnected at times with what was really going on out in the trenches, I always thought he was true believer in what we in Developer Platform and Evangelism (DPE) were doing.  He got it.  He had started DPE and kicked a lot of doors down up in Redmond to make it happen.  Back in the early 2000s, battles over platform choices at large customers was trench warfare… bayonets and hand grenades at the P-Code level.  This model was not at all suited to Microsoft’s org structure at the time.  While there were plenty of people fully able to have competitive conversations around Windows Server, or AD, or Exchange, or the desktop, there weren’t many that could have deep technical conversations around Java vs .NET and the platform “stack” as a cohesive, unified unit of value.  This task fell to DPE. Sanjay ended up leaving Microsoft a number of months before me in 2009 and I remember thinking these exact words: “holy shit, SanjayP left Microsoft.”  When SanjayP left DPE years before that,  Sheila Gulati had stepped into his shoes and I thought we where starting to miss a beat.  Sheila had built an amazing business at Microsoft India, but I don’t recall being inspired by her as a leader.  SanjayP’s talks felt like the opening scene of “Patton” with George C. Scott pacing in front of the American flag.  Sheila was a voice on a con-call.  When she moved on in 2007, Walid Abu-Hadba was given the reigns.  Personally, I don’t ever recall even seeing his face.  I think I might recall hearing his voice on some con-calls, but for all intents and purposes he was invisible to me.  Perhaps this was the beginning of my carelessness around seeking “visibility.” Fast forward to Build 2011.  First off, we have no PDC – we have Build.  Microsoft had made an 11 year investment by this time in building an organization to make its technology relevant to developers.  One would think such an org would be in the driver’s seat of such an event, but we see Windows product group people on the podiums.  Watching, I could see the messaging unfold… but no story.  It was like the old days.  Demos and PowerPoints by team members building the tech, and in many cases VPs.  The ensuing confusion is almost legendary now.  Windows 8 was, and is, a pretty big deal… but who is telling the story – not just features and benefits, but the story around how it all fits together. Having been out of Microsoft for two years now, and looking in, I can only conclude that the “DPE of old” has at best been emasculated, and at worst been completely marginalized by internal politics, or perhaps the eternal march of the corporate entropy generator that resides at all large companies.  I don’t think this is a good thing for anyone. And now, back to Sanjay who is the father of Microsoft DPE… I noticed that he has moved back to India and is doing start-up work.  His current company Indix looks to be doing some interesting things with “big data” and here’s their stack: Nary a trace of anything Microsoft.  What could account for this?  I wonder….  Better availability of labor and expertise in India for this stack?  Donno, but even in India, leet R and Hadoop skills have to be hard to find. Technical superiority?  This, I sincerely doubt. This stack, with SanjayP’s name as CEO leaves me with an unsettling feeling.  If he did believe, he no longer does.  One doesn’t place bets with real money on things they don’t believe in.  Perhaps he never did believe, and was a corporate creature seeking to find a niche for himself after which he manipulated me and others.  Or perhaps… anger… be it passive aggression or an outright “in your face F*** you” to his former masters. I guess in the end, only he knows the true reason… But I have my theory...

  Read the article

• Big Data: Size isn’t everything

  - by Simon Elliston Ball

  Big Data has a big problem; it’s the word “Big”. These days, a quick Google search will uncover terabytes of negative opinion about the futility of relying on huge volumes of data to produce magical, meaningful insight. There are also many clichéd but correct assertions about the difficulties of correlation versus causation, in massive data sets. In reading some of these pieces, I begin to understand how climatologists must feel when people complain ironically about “global warming” during snowfall. Big Data has a name problem. There is a lot more to it than size. Shape, Speed, and…err…Veracity are also key elements (now I understand why Gartner and the gang went with V’s instead of S’s). The need to handle data of different shapes (Variety) is not new. Data developers have always had to mold strange-shaped data into our reporting systems, integrating with semi-structured sources, and even straying into full-text searching. However, what we lacked was an easy way to add semi-structured and unstructured data to our arsenal. New “Big Data” tools such as MongoDB, and other NoSQL (Not Only SQL) databases, or a graph database like Neo4J, fill this gap. Still, to many, they simply introduce noise to the clean signal that is their sensibly normalized data structures. What about speed (Velocity)? It’s not just high frequency trading that generates data faster than a single system can handle. Many other applications need to make trade-offs that traditional databases won’t, in order to cope with high data insert speeds, or to extract quickly the required information from data streams. Unfortunately, many people equate Big Data with the Hadoop platform, whose batch driven queries and job processing queues have little to do with “velocity”. StreamInsight, Esper and Tibco BusinessEvents are examples of Big Data tools designed to handle high-velocity data streams. Again, the name doesn’t do the discipline of Big Data any favors. Ultimately, though, does analyzing fast moving data produce insights as useful as the ones we get through a more considered approach, enabled by traditional BI? Finally, we have Veracity and Value. In many ways, these additions to the classic Volume, Velocity and Variety trio acknowledge the criticism that without high-quality data and genuinely valuable outputs then data, big or otherwise, is worthless. As a discipline, Big Data has recognized this, and data quality and cleaning tools are starting to appear to support it. Rather than simply decrying the irrelevance of Volume, we need as a profession to focus how to improve Veracity and Value. Perhaps we should just declare the ‘Big’ silent, embrace these new data tools and help develop better practices for their use, just as we did the good old RDBMS? What does Big Data mean to you? Which V gives your business the most pain, or the most value? Do you see these new tools as a useful addition to the BI toolbox, or are they just enabling a dangerous trend to find ghosts in the noise?

  Read the article

• The New Social Developer Community: a Q&A

  - by Mike Stiles

  In our last blog, we introduced the opportunities that lie ahead for social developers as social applications reach across every aspect and function of the enterprise. Leading the upcoming JavaOne Social Developer Program October 2 at the San Francisco Hilton is Roland Smart, VP of Social Marketing at Oracle. I got to ask Roland a few of the questions an existing or budding social developer might want to know as social extends beyond interacting with friends and marketing and into the enterprise. Why is it smart for developers to specialize as social developers? What opportunities lie in the immediate future that’s making this a critical, in-demand position? Social has changed the way we interact with brands and with each other across the web. As we acclimate to a new social paradigm we also look to extend its benefits into new areas of our lives. The workplace is a logical next step, and we're starting to see social interactions more and more in this context. But unlocking the value of social interactions requires technical expertise and knowledge of developing social apps that tap into the social graph. Developers focused on integrating social experiences into enterprise applications must be familiar with popular social APIs and must understand how to build enterprise social graphs of their own. These developers are part of an emerging community of social developers and are key to socially enabling the enterprise. Facebook rebranded their Preferred Developer Consultant Group (PDC) and the Preferred Marketing Developers (PMD) to underscore the fact developers are required inside marketing organizations to unlock the full potential of their platform. While this trend is starting on the marketing side with marketing developers, this is just an extension of the social developer concept that will ultimately drive social across the enterprise. What are some of the various ways social will be making its way into every area of enterprise organizations? How will it be utilized and what kinds of applications are going to be needed to facilitate and maximize these changes? Check out Oracle’s vision for the social-enabled enterprise. It’s a high-level overview of how social will impact across the enterprise. For example: HR can leverage social in recruiting and retentionSales can leverage social as a prospecting toolMarketing can use social to gain market insightCustomer support can use social to leverage community support to improve customer satisfaction while reducing service costOperations can leverage social improve systems That’s only the beginning. Once sleeves get rolled up and social developers and innovators get to work, still more social functions will no doubt emerge. What makes Java one of, if not the most viable platform on which to build these new enterprise social applications? Java is certainly one of the best platforms on which to build social experiences because there’s such a large existing community of Java developers. This means you can affordably recruit talent, and it's possible to effectively solicit advice from the community through various means, including our new Social Developer Community. Beyond that, there are already some great proof points Java is the best platform for creating social experiences at scale. Consider LinkedIn and Twitter. Tell us more about the benefits of collaboration and more about what the Oracle Social Developer Community is. What opportunities does that offer up and what are some of the ways developers can actively participate in and benefit from that community? Much has been written about the overall benefits of collaborating with other developers. Those include an opportunity to introduce yourself to the community of social developers, foster a reputation, establish an expertise, contribute to the advancement of the space, get feedback, experiment with the latest concepts, and gain inspiration. In short, collaboration is a tool that must be applied properly within a framework to get the most value out of it. The OSDC is a place where social developers can congregate to discuss the opportunities/challenges of building social integrations into their applications. What “needs” will this community have? We don't know yet. But we wanted to create a forum where we can engage and understand what social developers are thinking about, excited about, struggling with, etc. The OSDL can then step in if we can help remove barriers and add value in a serious and committed way so Oracle can help drive practice development.

  Read the article

• Red Gate does Byte Night 2012

  - by red(at)work

  On the 5th of October 2012, a team of nine plucky Red Gaters braved the howling wind and the driving rain to sleep outside. No tents or mattresses were allowed – all we took for protection were sleeping bags, groundsheets, plastic sacks and Colin’s enormous fishing umbrella (a godsend in umbrella-y disguise). Why would we do such a thing? For Byte Night, an annual tech sector sleepout in support of Action for Children, who tackle the causes as well as the consequences of youth homelessness. Byte Night encourages technology professionals to do for one night a year what thousands of young people have to do every night – sleep rough.  We signed up for Byte Night in the warm, heady midst of the British summer, thinking it couldn’t possibly be all that bad. Even on the night itself – before the rain began to fall, sat in the comfort and warmth of a company canteen, drinking wine and eating chill and preparing to win the pub quiz – we were excited and optimistic about the night that lay ahead of us. All of that changed as soon as we stepped out into one of the worst rainstorms of the year. Brian, the team’s birthday boy, describes it best: Picture the scene: it’s 3 am on a Friday. I’m lying outside, fully clothed in a sleeping bag, wearing a raincoat, trussed up inside a large plastic pocket, on a ground sheet beneath a giant umbrella, wedged so tightly between two of my colleagues that I can’t move my arms. I’m wide awake, staring up at the grey sky beyond the edge of the umbrella; a limp, flickering white glow hints at a moon somewhere behind the drifting clouds. I haven’t slept since we first moved outside at 11 pm. Outside. Did I mention we were outside? I’m hung over. I need the loo. But there is no way on earth that I’m getting out of this sleeping bag. It’s cold. It’s raining. Not just raining, but chucking it down. It’s been doing this non-stop since 10pm. The rain sounds like a hyperactive drummer on the fishing umbrella, and the noise is loud and relentless. Puddles of water are forming all over the groundsheet, and, despite being ensconced inside the plastic pouch, I am wet. The fishing umbrella is protecting me from the worst of the driving rain, but not all of me is under it, and five hours of rain is no match for it. Everything is wet. My left side has become horribly damp. My trainers, which I placed next to my sleeping bag, are now completely soaked through. Mmm. That’ll be fun in the morning. My head is next to Colin’s head on one side, and a multi-pack of McCoy’s cheddar and onion crisps on the other. Don’t ask about the tub of hummus. That’s somewhere down by my ankles, abandoned to the night. Jess, who is lying next to me, rolls over onto her side. A mini waterfall cascades from her rain-pouch onto my face. Bah. I continue to stare into the heavens, willing the dawn to hurry up. Something lands on my face. It’s a mosquito. Great. Midnight, when this still seemed like fun – when we opened some champagne and my colleagues presented me with a caterpillar birthday cake, when everyone was drunk and jolly and full of stoic resolve – feels like a long time ago. Did I mention that today is my birthday? The remains of the caterpillar cake endure the same fate as the hummus, left out in the rain like a metaphor for sadness. It’s getting colder. I can see my breath. Silence has descended on the group, apart from the rustle of plastic. And the rain, obviously. Someone snores, and I envy whoever it is the sweet escape of sleep. I try to wriggle a bit further down inside my sleeping bag, but it doesn’t want to be wriggled into. Only 3 hours till dawn. 180 minutes. I begin to count them off, one at a time.  All nine of us got to go home in the morning, but thousands of children across the UK don’t have that luxury. If you’d like to sponsor the Red Gate Byte Night team, our JustGiving page can be found here.   Chris, before the outside bit actually happened. More photos from Byte Night Cambridge 2012 can be found here.

  Read the article

• Oracle Products Reflect Key Trends Shaping Enterprise 2.0

  - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

  Following up on his predictions for 2011, we asked Enterprise 2.0 veteran Andy MacMillan to map out the ways Oracle solutions are at the forefront of industry trends--and how Oracle customers can benefit in the coming year. 1. Increase organizational awareness | Oracle WebCenter Suite Oracle WebCenter Suite provides a unique set of capabilities to drive organizational awareness. In particular, the expansive activity graph connects users directly to key enterprise applications, activities, and interests. In this way, applicable and critical business information is automatically and immediately visible--in the context of key tasks--via real-time dashboards and comprehensive reporting. Oracle WebCenter Suite also integrates key E2.0 services, such as blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds, into critical business processes, including back-office systems of records such as ERP and CRM systems. 2. Drive online customer engagement | Oracle Real-Time Decisions With more and more business being conducted on the Web, driving increased online customer engagement becomes a critical key to success. This effort is usually spearheaded by an increasingly important executive role, the Head of Online, who usually reports directly to the CMO. To help manage the Web experience online, Oracle solutions are driving a new kind of intelligent social commerce by combining Oracle Universal Content Management, Oracle WebCenter Services, and Oracle Real-Time Decisions with leading e-commerce and product recommendations. Oracle Real-Time Decisions provides multichannel recommendations for content, products, and services--including seamless integration across Web, mobile, and social channels. The result: happier customers, increased customer acquisition and retention, and improved critical success metrics such as shopping cart abandonment. 3. Easily build composite applications | Oracle Application Development Framework Thanks to the shared user experience strategy across Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Fusion Applications and many other Oracle Applications, customers can easily create real, customer-specific composite applications using Oracle WebCenter Suite and Oracle Application Development Framework. Oracle Application Development Framework components provide modular user interface components that can build rich, social composite applications. In addition, a broad set of components spanning BPM, SOA, ECM, and beyond can be quickly and easily incorporated into composite applications. 4. Integrate records management into a global content platform | Oracle Enterprise Content Management 11g Oracle Enterprise Content Management 11g provides leading records management capabilities as part of a unified ECM platform for managing records, documents, Web content, digital assets, enterprise imaging, and application imaging. This unique strategy provides comprehensive records management in a consistent, cost-effective way, and enables organizations to consolidate ECM repositories and connect ECM to critical business applications. 5. Achieve ECM at extreme scale | Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Exadata To support the high-performance demands of a unified and rationalized content platform, Oracle has pioneered highly scalable and high-performing ECM infrastructures. Two innovations in particular helped make this happen. The core ECM platform itself moved to an Enterprise Java architecture, so organizations can now use Oracle WebLogic Server for enhanced scalability and manageability. Oracle Enterprise Content Management 11g can leverage Oracle Exadata for extreme performance and scale. Likewise, Oracle Exalogic--Oracle's foundation for cloud computing--enables extreme performance for processor-intensive capabilities such as content conversion or dynamic Web page delivery. Learn more about Oracle's Enterprise 2.0 solutions.

  Read the article

• Is Linear Tape File System (LTFS) Best For Transportable Storage?

  - by rickramsey

  Those of us in tape storage engineering take a lot of pride in what we do, but understand that tape is the right answer to a storage problem only some of the time. And, unfortunately for a storage medium with such a long history, it has built up a few preconceived notions that are no longer valid. When I hear customers debate whether to implement tape vs. disk, one of the common strikes against tape is its perceived lack of usability. If you could go back a few generations of corporate acquisitions, you would discover that StorageTek engineers recognized this problem and started developing a solution where a tape drive could look just like a memory stick to a user. The goal was to not have to care about where files were on the cartridge, but to simply see the list of files that were on the tape, and click on them to open them up. Eventually, our friends in tape over at IBM built upon our work at StorageTek and Sun Microsystems and released the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) feature for the current LTO5 generation of tape drives as an open specification. LTFS is really a wonderful feature and we’re proud to have taken part in its beginnings and, as you’ll soon read, its future. Today we offer LTFS-Open Edition, which is free for you to use in your in Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 environment - not only on your LTO5 drives, but also on your Oracle StorageTek T10000C drives. You can download it free from Oracle and try it out. LTFS does exactly what its forefathers imagined. Now you can see immediately which files are on a cartridge. LTFS does this by splitting a cartridge into two partitions. The first holds all of the necessary metadata to create a directory structure for you to easily view the contents of the cartridge. The second partition holds all of the files themselves. When tape media is loaded onto a drive, a complete file system image is presented to the user. Adding files to a cartridge can be as simple as a drag-and-drop just as you do today on your laptop when transferring files from your hard drive to a thumb drive or with standard POSIX file operations. You may be thinking all of this sounds nice, but asking, “when will I actually use it?” As I mentioned at the beginning, tape is not the right solution all of the time. However, if you ever need to physically move data between locations, tape storage with LTFS should be your most cost-effective and reliable answer. I will give you a few use cases examples of when LTFS can be utilized. Media and Entertainment (M&E), Oil and Gas (O&G), and other industries have a strong need for their storage to be transportable. For example, an O&G company hunting for new oil deposits in remote locations takes very large underground seismic images which need to be shipped back to a central data center. M&E operations conduct similar activities when shooting video for productions. M&E companies also often transfers files to third-parties for editing and other activities. These companies have three highly flawed options for transporting data: electronic transfer, disk storage transport, or tape storage transport. The first option, electronic transfer, is impractical because of the expense of the bandwidth required to transfer multi-terabyte files reliably and efficiently. If there’s one place that has bandwidth, it’s your local post office so many companies revert to physically shipping storage media. Typically, M&E companies rely on transporting disk storage between sites even though it, too, is expensive. Tape storage should be the preferred format because as IDC points out, “Tape is more suitable for physical transportation of large amounts of data as it is less vulnerable to mechanical damage during transportation compared with disk" (See note 1, below). However, tape storage has not been used in the past because of the restrictions created by proprietary formats. A tape may only be readable if both the sender and receiver have the same proprietary application used to write the file. In addition, the workflows may be slowed by the need to read the entire tape cartridge during recall. LTFS solves both of these problems, clearing the way for tape to become the standard platform for transferring large files. LTFS is open and, as long as you’ve downloaded the free reader from our website or that of anyone in the LTO consortium, you can read the data. So if a movie studio ships a scene to a third-party partner to add, for example, sounds effects or a music score, it doesn’t have to care what technology the third-party has. If it’s written back to an LTFS-formatted tape cartridge, it can be read. Some tape vendors like to claim LTFS is a “standard,” but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s a specification at this point, not a standard. That said, we’re already seeing application vendors create functionality to write in an LTFS format based on the specification. And it’s my belief that both customers and the tape storage industry will see the most benefit if we all follow the same path. As such, we have volunteered to lead the way in making LTFS a standard first with the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA), and eventually through to standard bodies such as American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Expect to hear good news soon about our efforts. So, if storage transportability is one of your requirements, I recommend giving LTFS a look. It makes tape much more user-friendly and it’s free, which allows tape to maintain all of its cost advantages over disk! Note 1 - IDC Report. April, 2011. “IDC’s Archival Storage Solutions Taxonomy, 2011” - Brian Zents Website Newsletter Facebook Twitter

  Read the article

• 7 reasons you had to be at JavaOne Latin America 2012

  - by Bruno.Borges

  Yesterday was 12/12/12, and everybody went crazy on Twitter with cool memes like this one. And maybe you are now wondering why I mentioned 7 (seven) on the blog title. Because I want to play numbers? Yes! Today is 7 days after JavaOne Latin America 2012 is over (... and I had to figure out an excuse for taking so long to blog about it...). So unless you were at JavaOne Latin America this year, here are 7 things you missed: OTN Lounge mini-theatreThere was a mini-theatre holding several lightning talks. We had people from SouJava JUG, GoJava JUG, Globalcode, and several other Java gurus and companies running demos, talks, and even more. For example, @drspockbr talked about the ScrumToys project, that demonstrates the power of JSF. Hands On Lab for JAX-RS and WebSocketsOne of the cool things to do during JavaOne is to come to these Hands On labs and really do something using new technologies with the help of experts. This one in particular, was covered by me, Arun Gupta, and Reza Rahman. The HOL had more people than laptops (and we had 48 laptops!) interested on understanding and learning about the new stuff that is coming within Java EE 7. Things like JAX-RS, Server-sent Events and WebSockets. Hey, if you want to try this HOL by yourself, it is available on Github, so go for it! If you have questions, just let me know! Java Community KeynoteThis keynote presented a lot of cool things like startups using Java in their projects, the Duke Awards, SouJava winning the JCP Outstanding Award, the Java Band, and even more! It was really a space where the Java community could present what they are doing and what they want to do. There's a lot of interest on the Adopt-a-JSR program and the Adopt-OpenJDK. There's also an Adopt-a-JavaEE-JSR program! Take a look if you want to participate and Make the Future Java. Java EE (JMS, JAX-RS) sessions from Reza Rahman, the HeavyMetal guyReza is a well know professional and Java EE enthusiast from the communitty who just joined Oracle this year. His sessions were very well attended, perhaps because of a high interest on the new things coming to Java EE 7 like JMS 2.0 and JAX-RS 2.0. If you want to look at what he did at this JavaOne edition, read his blog post. By the way, if you like Java and heavymetal, you should follow him on Twitter as well! :-) Java EE (WebSockets, HTML5) sessions from Arun Gupta, the GlassFish guyIf you don't know Arun Gupta, no worries. You will have time to know about him while you read his Java EE 6 Pocket Guide. Arun has been evangelizing Java EE for a long time, and is now spreading his word about the new upcoming version Java EE 7. He gave one talk about HTML5 Productivity on the Java EE 7 platform, and another one on building web apps with WebSockets. Pretty neat! Arun blogged about JavaOne Latin America as well. Read it here. Java Embedded and JavaFXIf there are two things that are really trending in the Java World right now besides Java EE 7, certainly they are JavaFX and Java Embedded. There were 14 talks covering Java Embedded, from Java Cards to Raspberry.pi, from Java ME to Java on your TV with Ginga-J. The Internet of Things is becoming true, and Java is the only platform today that can connect it all in an standardized and concise way. JavaFX gained a lot of attention too. There were 8 sessions covering what the platform has to offer in terms of Rich User Experience. The JavaFX Scene Builder is an awesome tool to start playing designing an UI, and coding for JavaFX is like coding Swing with 8 hands, one holding your coffee cup. You can achieve a lot, with your two hands (unless, you really have 8 hands, then you can achieve 4 times more :-). If you want to read more about JavaFX, go to Stephen Chin's blog post. GlassFish and Friends Party, 1st edition at JavaOne Lating AmericaThis is probably the thing that I'm most proud. We brought to Brasil the tradition of holding a happy hour for all GlassFish, Java EE friends. This party started almost 7 years ago in San Francisco, and it was about time to bring it to Brazil! The party happened on Tuesday night, right after JavaOne General Keynote, at the Tribeca Pub. We had about 80 attendees and met a lot of Java EE developers there! People from JUGs, Oracle, Locaweb and Red Hat showed up too, including some execs from Oracle that didn't resist and could not miss a party like this one.Lots of caipirinhas, beer and food to everyone, some cool music... even The Fish walking around the party with Juggy!You can see more photos from the party on an album I shared with the recently created GlassFish Brasil community on Google+ here (but you may be more interested in joining the GlassFish english community). There's also more pictures that Arun took and shared on this link. So now you may want to consider coming to Brazil next year! Java EE 7 is on its way, and Brazil is happily and patiently waiting for it, with a lot of enthusiasm. By the way, GlassFish and Java EE 6 just celebrated a Happy Birthday!

  Read the article

• My Take on Hadoop World 2011

  - by Jean-Pierre Dijcks

  I’m sure some of you have read pieces about Hadoop World and I did see some headlines which were somewhat, shall we say, interesting? I thought the keynote by Larry Feinsmith of JP Morgan Chase & Co was one of the highlights of the conference for me. The reason was very simple, he addressed some real use cases outside of internet and ad platforms. The following are my notes, since the keynote was recorded I presume you can go and look at Hadoopworld.com at some point… On the use cases that were mentioned: ETL – how can I do complex data transformation at scale Doing Basel III liquidity analysis Private banking – transaction filtering to feed [relational] data marts Common Data Platform – a place to keep data that is (or will be) valuable some day, to someone, somewhere 360 Degree view of customers – become pro-active and look at events across lines of business. For example make sure the mortgage folks know about direct deposits being stopped into an account and ensure the bank is pro-active to service the customer Treasury and Security – Global Payment Hub [I think this is really consolidation of data to cross reference activity across business and geographies] Data Mining Bypass data engineering [I interpret this as running a lot of a large data set rather than on samples] Fraud prevention – work on event triggers, say a number of failed log-ins to the website. When they occur grab web logs, firewall logs and rules and start to figure out who is trying to log in. Is this me, who forget his password, or is it someone in some other country trying to guess passwords Trade quality analysis – do a batch analysis or all trades done and run them through an analysis or comparison pipeline One of the key requests – if you can say it like that – was for vendors and entrepreneurs to make sure that new tools work with existing tools. JPMC has a large footprint of BI Tools and Big Data reporting and tools should work with those tools, rather than be separate. Security and Entitlement – how to protect data within a large cluster from unwanted snooping was another topic that came up. I thought his Elephant ears graph was interesting (couldn’t actually read the points on it, but the concept certainly made some sense) and it was interesting – when asked to show hands – how the audience did not (!) think that RDBMS and Hadoop technology would overlap completely within a few years. Another interesting session was the session from Disney discussing how Disney is building a DaaS (Data as a Service) platform and how Hadoop processing capabilities are mixed with Database technologies. I thought this one of the best sessions I have seen in a long time. It discussed real use case, where problems existed, how they were solved and how Disney planned some of it. The planning focused on three things/phases: Determine the Strategy – Design a platform and evangelize this within the organization Focus on the people – Hire key people, grow and train the staff (and do not overload what you have with new things on top of their day-to-day job), leverage a partner with experience Work on Execution of the strategy – Implement the platform Hadoop next to the other technologies and work toward the DaaS platform This kind of fitted with some of the Linked-In comments, best summarized in “Think Platform – Think Hadoop”. In other words [my interpretation], step back and engineer a platform (like DaaS in the Disney example), then layer the rest of the solutions on top of this platform. One general observation, I got the impression that we have knowledge gaps left and right. On the one hand are people looking for more information and details on the Hadoop tools and languages. On the other I got the impression that the capabilities of today’s relational databases are underestimated. Mostly in terms of data volumes and parallel processing capabilities or things like commodity hardware scale-out models. All in all I liked this conference, it was great to chat with a wide range of people on Oracle big data, on big data, on use cases and all sorts of other stuff. Just hope they get a set of bigger rooms next time… and yes, I hope I’m going to be back next year!

  Read the article

• Big Data – Operational Databases Supporting Big Data – Key-Value Pair Databases and Document Databases – Day 13 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the Relational Database and NoSQL database in the Big Data Story. In this article we will understand the role of Key-Value Pair Databases and Document Databases Supporting Big Data Story. Now we will see a few of the examples of the operational databases. Relational Databases (Yesterday’s post) NoSQL Databases (Yesterday’s post) Key-Value Pair Databases (This post) Document Databases (This post) Columnar Databases (Tomorrow’s post) Graph Databases (Tomorrow’s post) Spatial Databases (Tomorrow’s post) Key Value Pair Databases Key Value Pair Databases are also known as KVP databases. A key is a field name and attribute, an identifier. The content of that field is its value, the data that is being identified and stored. They have a very simple implementation of NoSQL database concepts. They do not have schema hence they are very flexible as well as scalable. The disadvantages of Key Value Pair (KVP) database are that they do not follow ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties. Additionally, it will require data architects to plan for data placement, replication as well as high availability. In KVP databases the data is stored as strings. Here is a simple example of how Key Value Database will look like: Key Value Name Pinal Dave Color Blue Twitter @pinaldave Name Nupur Dave Movie The Hero As the number of users grow in Key Value Pair databases it starts getting difficult to manage the entire database. As there is no specific schema or rules associated with the database, there are chances that database grows exponentially as well. It is very crucial to select the right Key Value Pair Database which offers an additional set of tools to manage the data and provides finer control over various business aspects of the same. Riak Rick is one of the most popular Key Value Database. It is known for its scalability and performance in high volume and velocity database. Additionally, it implements a mechanism for collection key and values which further helps to build manageable system. We will further discuss Riak in future blog posts. Key Value Databases are a good choice for social media, communities, caching layers for connecting other databases. In simpler words, whenever we required flexibility of the data storage keeping scalability in mind – KVP databases are good options to consider. Document Database There are two different kinds of document databases. 1) Full document Content (web pages, word docs etc) and 2) Storing Document Components for storage. The second types of the document database we are talking about over here. They use Javascript Object Notation (JSON) and Binary JSON for the structure of the documents. JSON is very easy to understand language and it is very easy to write for applications. There are two major structures of JSON used for Document Database – 1) Name Value Pairs and 2) Ordered List. MongoDB and CouchDB are two of the most popular Open Source NonRelational Document Database. MongoDB MongoDB databases are called collections. Each collection is build of documents and each document is composed of fields. MongoDB collections can be indexed for optimal performance. MongoDB ecosystem is highly available, supports query services as well as MapReduce. It is often used in high volume content management system. CouchDB CouchDB databases are composed of documents which consists fields and attachments (known as description). It supports ACID properties. The main attraction points of CouchDB are that it will continue to operate even though network connectivity is sketchy. Due to this nature CouchDB prefers local data storage. Document Database is a good choice of the database when users have to generate dynamic reports from elements which are changing very frequently. A good example of document usages is in real time analytics in social networking or content management system. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about various other Operational Databases supporting Big Data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

  Read the article

• SUPINFO International University in Mauritius

  Since a while I'm considering to pick up my activities as a student and I'd like to get a degree in Computer Science. Personal motivation I mean after all this years as a professional software (and database) developer I have the personal urge to complete this part of my education. Having various certifications by Microsoft and being awarded as an Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) twice looks pretty awesome on a resume but having a "proper" degree would just complete my package. During the last couple of years I already got in touch with C-SAC (local business school with degree courses), the University of Mauritius and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT to check the options to enroll as an experienced software developer. Quite frankly, it was kind of alienating to receive that feedback: Start from scratch! No seriously? Spending x amount of years to sit for courses that might be outdated and form part of your daily routine? Probably being in an awkward situation in which your professional expertise might exceed the lecturers knowledge? I don't know... but if that's path to walk... Well, then I might have to go for it. SUPINFO International University Some weeks ago I was contacted by the General Manager, Education Recruitment and Development of Medine Education Village, Yamal Matabudul, to have a chat on how the local IT scene, namely the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC), could assist in their plans to promote their upcoming campus. Medine went into partnership with the French-based SUPINFO International University and Mauritius will be the 36th location world-wide for SUPINFO. Actually, the concept of SUPINFO is very likely to the common understanding of an apprenticeship in Germany. Not only does a student enroll into the programme but will also be placed into various internships as part of the curriculum. It's a big advantage in my opinion as the person stays in touch with the daily procedures and workflows in the real world of IT. Statements like "We just received a 'crash course' of information and learned new technology which is equivalent to 1.5 months of lectures at the university" wouldn't form part of the experience of such an education. Open Day at the Medine Education Village Last Saturday, Medine organised their Open Day and it was the official inauguration of the SUPINFO campus in Mauritius. It's now listed on their website, too - but be warned, the site is mainly in French language although the courses are all done in English. Not only was it a big opportunity to "hang out" on the campus of Medine but it was great to see the first professional partners for their internship programme, too. Oh, just for the records, IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. will also be among the future employers for SUPINFO students. More about that in an upcoming blog entry. Open Day at Medine Education Village - SUPINFO International University in Mauritius Mr Alick Mouriesse, President of SUPINFO, arrived the previous day and he gave all attendees a great overview of the roots of SUPINFO, the general development of the educational syllabus and their high emphasis on their partnerships with local IT companies in order to assist their students to get future jobs but also feel the heartbeat of technology live. Something which is completely missing in classic institutions of tertiary education in Computer Science. And since I was on tour with my children, as usual during weekends, he also talked about the outlook of having a SUPINFO campus in Mauritius. Apart from the close connection to IT companies and providing internships to students, SUPINFO clearly works on an international level. Meaning students of SUPINFO can move around the globe and can continue their studies seamlessly. For example, you might enroll for your first year in France, then continue to do 2nd and 3rd year in Canada or any other country with a SUPINFO campus to earn your bachelor degree, and then live and study in Mauritius for the next 2 years to achieve a Master degree. Having a chat with Dale Smith, Expand Technologies, after his interesting session on Technological Entrepreneurship - TechPreneur More questions by other craftsmen of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community And of course, this concept works in any direction, giving Mauritian students a huge (!) opportunity to live, study and work abroad. And thanks to this, Medine already announced that there will be new facilities near Cascavelle to provide dormitories and other facilities to international students coming to our island. Awesome! Okay, but why SUPINFO? Well, coming back to my original statement - I'd like to get a degree in Computer Science - SUPINFO has a process called Validation of Acquired Experience (VAE) which is tailor-made for employees in the field of IT, and allows you to enroll in their course programme. I already got in touch with their online support chat but was only redirected to some FAQs on their website, unfortunately. So, during the Open Day I seized the opportunity to have an one-on-one conversation with Alick Mouriesse, and he clearly encouraged me to gather my certifications and working experience. SUPINFO does an individual evaluation prior to their assignment regarding course level, and hopefully my chances of getting some modules ahead of studies are looking better than compared to the other institutes. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go down the easy route but why should someone sit for "Database 101" or "Principles of OOP" when applying and preaching database normalisation and practicing Clean Code Developer are like flesh and blood? Anyway, I'll be off to get my transcripts of certificates together with my course assignments from the old days at the university. Yes, I studied Applied Chemistry for a couple of years before intersecting into IT and software development particularly... ;-)

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125  | Next Page >