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• Helpful advice on developing a professional MS Word add-on

  - by Dan Tao

  A few months back I put together a simple proof-of-concept piece of software for a small firm with an idea for a document editing tool. The company wanted this tool to be integrated into Microsoft Word, understandably, to maximize its accessibility to the average user. I essentially wrote the underlying library with all of the core functionality as a C# project, and then used VSTO to get it running inside of Word. It felt like a bit of a duct tape solution, really; but then, I have (practically) zero experience developing tools for integration with MS Office, and it was only a proof of concept anyway. Well, the firm was quite pleased with my work overall, and they're looking to move from "proof of concept" to the real deal. Fortunately, as I said, the core functionality is all there and will only need to be somewhat tweaked and enhanced. My main concern is figuring out how to put together an application that will integrate with MS Word in a clean and polished way, and which can be deployed easily in accordance with a regular user's expectations (i.e., simply running an install program and voila, it's there in Word). I seem to remember reading somewhere that nobody uses VSTO for real professional projects. Is this true? False? What are the alternatives? And what are the tips and gotchas that I should be aware of before getting started on this issue of MS Word integration?

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• How do I mock a method with an open array parameter in PascalMock?

  - by Oliver Giesen

  I'm currently in the process of getting started with unit testing and mocking for good and I stumbled over the following method that I can't seem to fabricate a working mock implementation for: function GetInstance(const AIID: TGUID; out AInstance; const AArgs: array of const; const AContextID: TImplContextID = CID_DEFAULT): Boolean; (TImplContextID is just an alias for Integer) I thought it would have to look something like this: function TImplementationProviderMock.GetInstance( const AIID: TGUID; out AInstance; const AArgs: array of const; const AContextID: TImplContextID): Boolean; begin Result := AddCall('GetInstance') .WithParams([@AIID, AContextID]) .ReturnsOutParams([AInstance]) .ReturnValue; end; But the compiler complains about the .ReturnsOutParams([AInstance]) saying "Bad argument type in variable type array constructor.". Also I haven't found a way to specify the open array parameter AArgs at all. Also, is using the @-notation for the TGUID-typed parameter the right way to go? Is it possible to mock this method with the current version of PascalMock at all? Update: I now realize I got the purpose of ReturnsOutParams completely wrong: It's intended to be used for populating the values to be returned when defining the expectations rather than for mocking the call itself. I now think the correct syntax for mocking the out parameter would probably have to look more like this: function TImplementationProviderMock.GetInstance( const AIID: TGUID; out AInstance; const AArgs: array of const; const AContextID: TImplContextID): Boolean; var lCall: TMockMethod; begin lCall := AddCall('GetInstance').WithParams([@AIID, AContextID]); Pointer(AInstance) := lCall.OutParams[0]; Result := lCall.ReturnValue; end; The questions that remain are how to mock the open array parameter AArgs and whether passing the TGUID argument (i.e. a value type) by address will work out...

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• Counting string length in javascript and Ruby on Rails

  - by williamjones

  I've got a text area on a web site that should be limited in length. I'm allowing users to enter 255 characters, and am enforcing that limit with a Rails validation: validates_length_of :body, :maximum => 255 At the same time, I added a javascript char counter like you see on Twitter, to give feedback to the user on how many characters he has already used, and to disable the submit button when over length, and am getting that length in Javascript with a call like this: element.length Lastly, to enforce data integrity, in my Postgres database, I have created this field as a varchar(255) as a last line of defense. Unfortunately, these methods of counting characters do not appear to be directly compatible. Javascript counts the best, in that it counts what users consider as number of characters where everything is a single character. Once the submission hits Rails, however, all of the carriage returns have been converted to \r\n, now taking up 2 characters worth of space, which makes a close call fail Rails validations. Even if I were to handcode a different length validation in Rails, it would still fail when it hits the database I think, though I haven't confirmed this yet. What's the best way for me to make all this work the way the user would want? Best Solution: an approach that would enable me to meet user expectations, where each character of any type is only one character. If this means increasing the length of the varchar database field, a user should not be able to sneakily send a hand-crafted post that creates a row with more than 255 letters. Somewhat Acceptable Solution: a javascript change that enables the user to see the real character count, such that hitting return increments the counter 2 characters at a time, while properly handling all symbols that might have these strange behaviors.

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• How do I programatically verify, create, and update SQL table structure?

  - by JYelton

  Scenario: I have an application (C#) that expects a SQL database and login, which are set by a user. Once connected, it checks for the existence of several table and creates them if not found. I'd like to expand on this by having the program be capable of adding columns to those tables if I release a new version of the program which relies upon the new columns. Question: What is the best way to programatically check the structure of an existing SQL table and create or update it to match an expected structure? I am planning to iterate through the list of required columns and alter the existing table whenever it does not contain the new column. I can't help but wonder if there's an approach that is different or better. Criteria: Here are some of my expectations and self-imposed rules: Newer versions of the program might no longer use certain columns, but they would be retained for data logging purposes. In other words, no columns will be removed. Existing data in the table must be preserved, so the table cannot simply be dropped and recreated. In all cases, newly added columns would allow null data, so the population of old records is taken care of by having default null values. Example: Here is a sample table (because visual examples help!): id sensor_name sensor_status x1 x2 x3 x4 1 na019 OK 0.01 0.21 1.41 1.22 Then, in a new version, I may want to add the column x5. The "x-columns" are all data-storage columns that accept null.

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• How might one cope with the ambiguous value produced by GetDllDirectory?

  - by Integer Poet

  GetDllDirectory produces an ambiguous value. When the string this call produces is empty, it means one of the following: nobody has called SetDllDirectory somebody passed NULL to SetDllDirectory somebody passed an empty string to SetDllDirectory The first two cases are equivalent for my purposes, but the third case is a problem. If I want to write save/restore code (call GetDllDirectory to save the "old" value, SetDllDirectory to set a "new" value temporarily, and later SetDllDirectory again to restore the "old" value), I run the risk of reversing some other programmer's intent. If the other programmer intended for the current working directory to be in the DLL search order (in other words, one of the first two bullets is true), and I pass an empty string to SetDllDirectory, I will be taking the current working directory out of the DLL search order, reversing the other programmer's intent. Can anyone suggest an approach to eliminate or work around this ambiguity? P.S. I know having the current working directory in the DLL search order could be interpreted as a security hole. Nevertheless, it is the default behavior, and my code is not in a position to undo that; my code needs to be compatible with the expectations of all potential callers, many of which are large and old and beyond my control.

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• Testing form submission with Cucumber

  - by picardo

  I wrote a simple Cuke feature for a form on a demo site. The feature looks like this. Given I am on the home page When I set the "Start Date" to "2010-10-25" And I set the "End Date" to "2011-1-3" And I press the "Go" button Then I should see "Cake Shop" The idea is that after I press the Go button, a new page will load, showing a list of results, and one of the results should be "Cake Shop." But I have not managed to get this to work. Is there something that I am missing? Edit: here is the step definitions. Given /^I am on the "([^"]*)" page$/ do |page| visit root_path end When /^I set the "([^"]*)" to "([^"]*)"$/ do |field, date| fill_in field, :with=>date end When /^I press the "([^"]*)" button$/ do |arg1| click_button('Go') end The final step is defined in web_steps.rb I believe....and it's always there that it's failing. Then I should see "Cake Shop" # features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:107 expected #has_content?("Cake Shop") to return true, got false (RSpec::Expectations::ExpectationNotMetError) ./features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:110:in block (2 levels) in <top (required)>' ./features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:14:in with_scope' ./features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:108:in /^(?:|I )should see "([^"]*)"(?: within "([^"]*)")?$/' features/specify_timerange.feature:12:in Then I should see "Cake Shop"'

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• HTTP POST with URL query parameters -- good idea or not?

  - by Steven Huwig

  I'm designing an API to go over HTTP and I am wondering if using the HTTP POST command, but with URL query parameters only and no request body, is a good way to go. Considerations: "Good Web design" requires non-idempotent actions to be sent via POST. This is a non-idempotent action. It is easier to develop and debug this app when the request parameters are present in the URL. The API is not intended for widespread use. It seems like making a POST request with no body will take a bit more work, e.g. a Content-Length: 0 header must be explicitly added. It also seems to me that a POST with no body is a bit counter to most developer's and HTTP frameworks' expectations. Are there any more pitfalls or advantages to sending parameters on a POST request via the URL query rather than the request body? Edit: The reason this is under consideration is that the operations are not idempotent and have side effects other than retrieval. See the HTTP spec: In particular, the convention has been established that the GET and HEAD methods SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action other than retrieval. These methods ought to be considered "safe". This allows user agents to represent other methods, such as POST, PUT and DELETE, in a special way, so that the user is made aware of the fact that a possibly unsafe action is being requested. ... Methods can also have the property of "idempotence" in that (aside from error or expiration issues) the side-effects of N 0 identical requests is the same as for a single request. The methods GET, HEAD, PUT and DELETE share this property. Also, the methods OPTIONS and TRACE SHOULD NOT have side effects, and so are inherently idempotent.

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• Why does this ActionFilterAttribute not import data to the ViewModel?

  - by Tomas Lycken

  I have the following attribute public class ImportStatusAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute { public override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext) { var model = (IHasStatus)filterContext.Controller.ViewData.Model; model.Status = (StatusMessageViewModel)filterContext.Controller.TempData["status"]; filterContext.Controller.ViewData.Model = model; } } which I test with the following test method (the first of several I'll write when this one passes...) [TestMethod] public void OnActionExecuted_ImportsStatusFromTempDataToModel() { // Arrange Expect(new { Status = new StatusMessageViewModel() { Subject = "The test", Predicate = "has been tested" }, Key = "status" }); var filterContext = new Mock<ActionExecutedContext>(); var model = new Mock<IHasStatus>(); var tempData = new TempDataDictionary(); var viewData = new ViewDataDictionary(model.Object); var controller = new FakeController() { ViewData = viewData, TempData = tempData }; tempData.Add(expected.Key, expected.Status); filterContext.Setup(c => c.Controller).Returns(controller); var attribute = new ImportStatusAttribute(); // Act attribute.OnActionExecuted(filterContext.Object); // Assert Assert.IsNotNull(model.Object.Status, "The status was not exported"); Assert.AreEqual(model.Object.Status.ToString(), ((StatusMessageViewModel)expected.Status).ToString(), "The status was not the expected"); } (Expect() is a method that saves some expectations in the expected object...) When I run the test, it fails on the first assertion, and I can't get my head around why. Debugging, I can see that model is populated correctly, and that (StatusMessageViewModel)filterContext.Controller.TempData["status"] has the correct data. But after model.Status = (StatusMessageViewModel)filterContext.Controller.TempData["status"]; model.Status is still null in my watch window. Why can't I do this?

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• How do you unit-test a method with complex input-output

  - by Dan

  When you have a simple method, like for example sum(int x, int y), it is easy to write unit tests. You can check that method will sum correctly two sample integers, for example 2 + 3 should return 5, then you will check the same for some "extraordinary" numbers, for example negative values and zero. Each of these should be separate unit test, as a single unit test should contain single assert. What do you do when you have a complex input-output? Take a Xml parser for example. You can have a single method parse(String xml) that receives the String and returns a Dom object. You can write separate tests that will check that certain text node is parsed correctly, that attributes are parsed OK, that child node belongs to parent etc. For all these I can write a simple input, for example <root><child/></root> that will be used to check parent-child relationships between nodes and so on for the rest of expectations. Now, take a look at follwing Xml: <root> <child1 attribute11="attribute 11 value" attribute12="attribute 12 value">Text 1</child1> <child2 attribute21="attribute 21 value" attribute22="attribute 22 value">Text 2</child2> </root> In order to check that method worked correctly, I need to check many complex conditions, like that attribute11 and attribute12 belong to element1, that Text 1 belongs to child1 etc. I do not want to put more than one assert in my unit-test. How can I accomplish that?

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• World Economic Crisis. IT prospects

  - by Andrew Florko

  There was alike question in 2008, 2 years passed. Please, share your expectations about IT market and employment in the next year or two (or so far you can predict). IMHO Russia (my native country) fully met Crisis in spring, 2008. Stock markets shrank 3(!) times during half a year. Many developers were fired those days but I suppose just because business was shocked and freezed some projects. Developers expected +20% salary growth per year in 2004-2007 (Developer salary in Moscow was about 2-3K$ in early 2008). Then there was 30% (very subjective) salary cut-off in 2008 and salaries were frozen till 2009. Now things are slowly coming back to 2008. Looking in the future I expect pessimistic scenario and another crash. Our economic depends more and more on oil & gas every year. IT that serves industry will be shrinked because we can't compete to China in real production. Due to high currency board (rubble is strong compared to dollar) we can't rely on offshore programming. Our officials are concerned on innovative economic breakthrough but it's an ordinary budget money assignemtn in practice. I don't believe in innovations either because who require innovations if you have debts and tomorrow is vapor?

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• Can anyone help why my mockery doesn't work?

  - by user509550

  The test call real method(service) without mocking some expecations @Test public void testPropertyList() { Credentials creds = new Credentials(); creds.setUsername("someEmail"); creds.setPassword("somePassword"); creds.setReferrer("someReferrer"); final Collection<PropertyInfo> propertyInfoCollection = new LinkedList<PropertyInfo>(); final List<ListingInfo> listings = new ArrayList<ListingInfo>(); listings.add(listingInfoMock); listings.add(listingInfoMock); propertyInfoCollection.add(new PropertyInfo("c521bf5796274bd587c00bec80583c00", listings)); MultivaluedMap<String, String> params = new MultivaluedMapImpl(); params.add("page", "5"); params.add("size", "5"); instance.setPropertyListFacade(propertyListFacadeMock); mockery.checking(new Expectations() { { one(propertyListFacadeMock).getUserProperties(); will(returnValue(propertyInfoCollection)); one(listingInfoMock).getPropertyName(); allowing(listingInfoMock).getThumbnailURL(); one(listingInfoMock).getListingSystemId(); one(listingInfoMock).getPropertyURL(); one(listingInfoMock).getListingSystemId(); one(listingInfoMock).getPropertyURL(); } }); instance.setSessionManager(dashboardSessionManagerMock); testSuccessfulAuthenticate(); ClientResponse response = resource.path(PROPERTIES_PATH).queryParams(params).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML) .get(ClientResponse.class); assertEquals(200, response.getStatus()); mockery.assertIsSatisfied(); }

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• Deal with update location for click-once.

  - by Assimilater

  I'm not sure how many people here are experts with visual studios, but I'd imagine a handful (not to raise expectations but to appeal to your egos :P). I'm working primarily in visual basic for now (though I hope to switch to c# in the near future and maybe a java or web app). Basically I'm trying to create an update feature that will work similarly to how common programs such as firefox or itunes update automatically. There is supposed to be provided functionality for this in what is called click once. I carry out the following procedures and get the following errors when trying to change the update url of my program to a password-protected ftp location. Go to project properties Go to publish click updates click browse click FTP Site Under Server put: web###.opentransfer.com Under Port: 21 Under Directory put: CMSOFT Passive mode is selected (which is what filezilla tells me the server is accessed with) Anonymous User is unselected and a username and password are typed in Push Ok Under Update location it shows: ftp://web###.opentransfer.com/CMSOFT I push Ok I see a message box titled Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Express with an x icon Publish.UpdateUrl: The string must be a fully qualified URL or UNC path, for example "http://www.microsoft.com/myapplication" or "\server\myapplication". I've tried changing the directory to "CMSOFT/PQCM.exe" and the results are the same...hope this was descriptive enough.

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• I need a fast runtime expression parser

  - by Chris Lively

  I need to locate a fast, lightweight expression parser. Ideally I want to pass it a list of name/value pairs (e.g. variables) and a string containing the expression to evaluate. All I need back from it is a true/false value. The types of expressions should be along the lines of: varA == "xyz" and varB==123 Basically, just a simple logic engine whose expression is provided at runtime. UPDATE At minimum it needs to support ==, !=, , =, <, <= Regarding speed, I expect roughly 5 expressions to be executed per request. We'll see somewhere in the vicinity of 100/requests a second. Our current pages tend to execute in under 50ms. Usually there will only be 2 or 3 variables involved in any expression. However, I'll need to load approximately 30 into the parser prior to execution. UPDATE 2012/11/5 Update about performance. We implemented nCalc nearly 2 years ago. Since then we've expanded it's use such that we average 40+ expressions covering 300+ variables on post backs. There are now thousands of post backs occurring per second with absolutely zero performance degradation. We've also extended it to include a handful of additional functions, again with no performance loss. In short, nCalc met all of our needs and exceeded our expectations.

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• Is it possible to wrap an asynchronous event and its callback in a function that returns a boolean?

  - by Rob Flaherty

  I'm trying to write a simple test that creates an image element, checks the image attributes, and then returns true/false. The problem is that using the onload event makes the test asynchronous. On it own this isn't a problem (using a callback as I've done in the code below is easy), but what I can't figure out is how to encapsulate this into a single function that returns a boolean. I've tried various combinations of closures, recursion, and self-executing functions but have had no luck. So my question: am I being dense and overlooking something simple, or is this in fact not possible, because, no matter what, I'm still trying to wrap an asynchronous function in synchronous expectations? Here's the code: var supportsImage = function(callback) { var img = new Image(); img.onload = function() { //Check attributes and pass true or false to callback callback(true); }; img.src = 'data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAD/ACwAAAAAAQABAAACADs='; }; supportsImage(function(status){ console.log(status); }); To be clear, what I want is to be able to wrap this in something such that it can be used like: if (supportsImage) { //Do some crazy stuff } Thanks! (Btw, I know there are a ton of SO questions regarding confusion about synchronous vs. asynchronous. Apologies if this can be reduced to something previously answered.)

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• Java - Counting how many characters show up in another string

  - by Vu Châu

  I am comparing two strings, in Java, to see how many characters from the first string show up in the second string. The following is some expectations: matchingChars("AC", "BA") ? 1 matchingChars("ABBA", "B") ? 2 matchingChars("B", "ABBA") ? 1 My approach is as follows: public int matchingChars(String str1, String str2) { int count = 0; for (int a = 0; a < str1.length(); a++) { for (int b = 0; b < str2.length(); b++) { char str1Char = str1.charAt(a); char str2Char = str2.charAt(b); if (str1Char == str2Char) { count++; str1 = str1.replace(str1Char, '0'); } } } return count; } I know my approach is not the best, but I think it should do it. However, for matchingChars("ABBA", "B") ? 2 My code yields "1" instead of "2". Does anyone have any suggestion or advice? Thank you very much.

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• Our Oracle Recruitment Team is Growing - Multiple Job Opportunities in Bangalore, India

  - by david.talamelli

  DON"T GET STUCK IN THE MATRIXSEE YOUR FUTUREVISIT THE ORACLE The position(s): CORPORATE RECRUITING RESEARCH ANALYST(S) ABOUT ORACLE Oracle's business is information--how to manage it, use it, share it, protect it. For three decades, Oracle, the world's largest enterprise software company, has provided the software and services that allow organizations to get the most up-to-date and accurate information from their business systems. Only Oracle powers the information-driven enterprise by offering a complete, integrated solution for every segment of the process industry. When you run Oracle applications on Oracle technology, you speed implementation, optimize performance, and maximize ROI. Great hiring doesn't happen by accident; it's the culmination of a series of thoughtfully planned and well executed events. At the core of any hiring process is a sourcing strategy. This is where you come in... Do you want to be a part of a world-class recruiting organization that's on the cutting edge of technology? Would you like to experience a rewarding work environment that allows you to further develop your skills, while giving you the opportunity to develop new skills? If you answered yes, you've taken your first step towards a future with Oracle. We are building a Research Team to support our North America Recruitment Team, and we need creative, smart, and ambitious individuals to help us drive our research department forward. Oracle has a track record for employing and developing the very best in the industry. We invest generously in employee development, training and resources. Be a part of the most progressive internal recruiting team in the industry. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com Escape the hum drum job world matrix, visit the Oracle and be a part of a winning team, apply today. POSITION: Corporate Recruiting Research Analyst LOCATION: Bangalore, India RESPONSIBILITIES: •Develop candidate pipeline using Web 2.0 sourcing strategies and advanced Boolean Search techniques to support U.S. Recruiting Team for various job functions and levels. •Engage with assigned recruiters to understand the supported business as well as the recruiting requirements; partner with recruiters to meet expectations and deliver a qualified pipeline of candidates. •Source candidates to include both active and passive job seekers to provide a strong pipeline of qualified candidates for each recruiter; exercise creativity to find candidates using Oracle's advanced sourcing tools/techniques. •Fully evaluate candidate's background against the requirements provided by recruiter, and process leads using ATS (Applicant Tracking System). •Manage your efforts efficiently; maintain the highest levels of client satisfaction as well as strong operations and reporting of research activities. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: •Fluent in English, with excellent written and oral communication skills. •Undergraduate degree required, MBA or Masters preferred. •Proficiency with Boolean Search techniques desired. •Ability to learn new software applications quickly. •Must be able to accommodate some U.S. evening hours. •Strong organization and attention to detail skills. •Prior HR or corporate in-house recruiting experiences a plus. •The fire in the belly to learn new ideas and succeed. •Ability to work in team and individual environments. This is an excellent opportunity to join Oracle in our Bangalore Offices. Interested applicants can send their resume to [email protected] or contact David on +61 3 8616 3364

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• Today's Links (6/29/2011)

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Event-Driven SOA: Events meet Services | Guido Schmutz Oracle ACE Director Guido Schmutz shows you how to achieve extreme loose coupling within a Service-Oriented Architecture by using event-driven interactions. Misconceptions About Software Architecture | Sanjeev Kumar A concise, to-the-point, and informative article by Sanjeev Kumar. Good Leaders Acknowledge What Can't Be Done - Jeffrey Pfeffer - Harvard Business Review "None of us likes to admit to bad decisions," says Jeffrey Pfeffer. "But imagine how much harder that is for someone who has been chosen to lead a large organization precisely because he or she is thought to have the power to see the future more clearly and chart a wise course." Suboptimal Thinking within Enterprise Architecture | James McGovern McGovern says: "We need to remember that enterprises live and thrive beyond just the current person at the helm." Boundaryless Information Flow | Richard Veryard "If all the boundaries are removed or porous, then the (extended) enterprise or ecosystem becomes like a giant sponge, in which all information permeates the whole," Veryard says. "Some people may think that's a good idea, but it's not what I'd call loose coupling." Coming to a City Near You: Oracle Business Analytics Summits | Rob Reynolds This series of events includes a Technology and Architecture track. New Date for Implementation of Sun Hands-On Course Requirement (Oracle Certification) As announced on the Oracle Certification website, Java Architect, Java Developer, Solaris System Administrator and Solaris Security Administrator certification tracks will include a new mandatory course attendance requirement. VirtualBox 4.0.10 is now available for download | Bob Netherton Netherton shares information on the new release. Updated Technical Best Practices whitepaper | Anthony Shorten The Technical Best Practices whitepaper has been updated with the latest advice. "New advice includes new installation advice, advanced settings, new security settings and advice for both Oracle WebLogic and IBM WebSphere installations," says Shorten. Kscope 11 ADF, AIA and Business Rules | Peter Paul van de Beek Whitehorses Solution Architect Peter Paul van de Beek shares his impressions of KScope11 presentations by Markus Eisele, Sten Vesterli, and Edwin Biemond. Amazon AWS for the learning experience | Andrej Koelewijn "Using AWS changes your expectations how your internal data center should operate," says Koelewijn. BPMN is dead, long live BPEL! (SOA Partner Community Blog) Jürgen Kress shares information -- including a long list of speakers -- for the SOA & BPM Integration Days 2011 conference, October 12th & 13th 2011 in Düsseldorf. InfoQ: HTML5 and the Dawn of Rich Mobile Web Applications James Pearce introduces cross-platform web apps development using HTML5 and web frameworks, such as jQTouch, jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, PhoneGap, outlining what makes a good framework. InfoQ: Interview and Book Excerpt: CMMI for Development "Frameworks like TOGAF are used to define an architecture that aligns IT assets and resources to support key business needs and processes of key stakeholders," says SEI's Mike Konrad. "But the individual application systems, capabilities, services, networks, and other IT assets and infrastructure still need to be acquired, developed, or sustained." InfoQ: Architecting a Cloud-Scale Identity Fabric | Eric Olden "The most cited reason for not moving to the cloud is concern about security," says Olden. "In particular, managing user identity and access in the cloud is a tough problem to solve and a big security concern for organizations."

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g is Here!

  - by chung.wu

  We hope that you enjoyed the launch event. If you missed it, you may still watch it via our on demand webcast, which is being produced and will be posted very shortly. 11gR1 is a major release of Oracle Enterprise Manager, and as one would expect from a big release, there are many new capabilities that appeal to a broad set of audience. Before going into the laundry list of new features, let's talk about the key themes for this release to put things in perspective. First, this release is about Business Driven Application Management. The traditional paradigm of component centric systems management simply cannot satisfy the management needs of modern distributed applications, as they do not provide adequate visibility of whether these applications are truly meeting the service level expectations of the business users. Business Driven Application Management helps IT manage applications according to the needs of the business users so that valuable IT resources can be better focused to help deliver better business results. To support Business Driven Application Management, 11gR1 builds on the work that we started in 10g to provide better support for user experience management. This capability helps IT better understand how users use applications and the experience that the applications provide so that IT can take actions to help end users get their work done more effectively. In addition, this release also delivers improved business transaction management capabilities to make it faster and easier to understand and troubleshoot transaction problems that impact end user experience. Second, this release includes strengthened Integrated Application-to-Disk Management. Every component of an application environment, from the application logic to the application server, to database, host machines and storage devices, etc... can affect end user experience. After user experience improvement needs are identified, IT needs tools that can be used do deep dive diagnostics for each of the application environment component, analyze configurations and deploy changes. Enterprise Manager 11gR1 extends coverage of key application environment components to include full support for Oracle Database 11gR2, Exadata V2, and Fusion Middleware 11g. For composite and Java application management, two key pieces of technologies, JVM Diagnostic and Composite Application Monitoring and Modeler, are now fully integrated into Enterprise Manager so there is no need to install and maintain separate tools. In addition, we have delivered the first set of integration between Enterprise Manager Grid Control and Enterprise Manager Ops Center so that hardware level events can be centrally monitored via Grid Control. Finally, this release delivers Integrated Systems Management and Support for customers of Oracle technologies. Traditionally, systems management tools and tech support were separate silos. When problems occur, administrators used internally deployed tools to try to solve the problems themselves. If they couldn't fix the problems, then they would use some sort of support website to get help from the vendor's support staff. Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g integrates problem diagnostic and remediation workflow. Administrators can use Oracle Enterprise Manager's various diagnostic tools to begin the troubleshooting process. They can also use the integrated access to My Oracle Support to look up solutions and download software patches. If further help is needed, administrators can open service requests from right within Oracle Enterprise Manager and track status update. Oracle's support staff, using Enterprise Manager's configuration management capabilities, can collect important configuration information about customer environments in order to expedite problem resolution. This tight integration between Oracle Enterprise Manager and My Oracle Support helps Oracle customers achieve a Superior Ownership Experience for their Oracle products. So there you have it. This is a brief 50,000 feet overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g. We know you are hungry for the details. We are going to write about it in the coming days and weeks. For those of you that absolutely can't wait to find out more, you may download our software to try it out today. In fact, for the first time ever, the initial release of Oracle Enterprise Manager is available for both 32 and 64 bit Linux. Additional O/S ports will arrive in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned on the Oracle Enterprise Manager blog for additional updates.

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• You Are Hiring But Do Candidate&rsquo;s Want to Work For You

  - by david.talamelli

  So here you are – it has happened, you are now interviewing for that position that you have either applied for or maybe were called about. Whether you are an “active” candidate looking for a job or a “passive” candidate who was contacted about the opportunity, it doesn’t matter now. Regardless of the circumstances of how you got to the interview stage, how you and your new potential manager connect with each other at interview will play a part in whether you are successful in landing that job. The best manager/employee relationships I think tend to be the ones where both the manager and employee have a common goal that they are both working towards and they work together in unison to achieve these goals. Candidates – when you are interviewing for a role, remember that an interview is a two way process. An interview shouldn’t be just a case of a company interviewing you to see if you are a good fit for a certain role. Don’t forget in an interview process it is equally important that you take the opportunity to similarly interview the company to see if that role/company are the right place for you to move to as the next step in your career. I think an interview should not only be a chance for a Hiring Manager to get to better know a candidate and asses his capability and cultural fit for a team/company but it should also be a chance for the candidate to similarly assess a company or manager about whether they are someone that they want to work with. Managers – I know Recruiters have been talking about the “war for talent” since before many of you were managers, but there is no denying it – it exists. You are not only competing with other companies for talented individuals but you are also competing with the existing companies that those talented individuals are working at. Companies are not going to let the people they have identified as superstars resign without a fight (this is the classic Counter Offer scenario which may be another blog post in itself). So how do we get these great people – their current employer will do all they can to keep them, everyone else wants them – does this mean all hope is lost? No, absolutely not. The same reasons that have always existed on why candidates are interested in other opportunities is still there: it could be that someone is looking for career advancement, or they want the chance to work with new technology or maybe you have an opportunity that is exactly what that person is looking to do. As a Hiring Manager don’t just conduct your interviews in question/answer mode. You should talk to that individual to work out what it is they are looking for and you can then relate how your role addresses that. It is potentially going to be the two of you working together so you two are the ones who have to be most comfortable with each other. Don’t oversell the role – set realistic expectations of what that candidate can expect working in your team – give them the good, the bad and the ugly so they can make an informed decision. Manager’s think back to when you last were looking for a job and put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. When you were looking for a job, what was it that you wanted to know about Oracle, or what was it that you wanted more information about. There are some great Business Leaders that work here at Oracle – if you are one of them it is likely that you already are doing all these things anyway. The good news for you is that you are also likely raising yourself head and shoulders above what many interviewers do – that in itself gives you a competitive advantage in this ‘war for talent’ but as a great Business Leader you already know that

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• Three Easy Ways of Providing Feedback to the Oracle AutoVue Team

  - by Celine Beck

  Customer feedback is essential in helping us deliver best-in-class Enterprise Visualization solutions which are centered around real-world usage. As the Oracle AutoVue Product Management team is busy prioritizing the next round of improvements, enhancements and new innovation to the AutoVue platform, I thought it would be a good idea to provide our blog-readers with a recap of how best to provide product feedback to the AutoVue Product Management team. This gives you the opportunity to help shape our future agenda and make our solutions better for you. Enterprise Visualization Special Interest Group (EV SIG): the AutoVue EV SIG is a customer-driven initiative that has recently been created to share knowledge and information between members and discuss common and best practices around Enterprise Visualization. The EV SIG also serves as a mechanism for establishing and communicating to AutoVue Product Management users’ collective priorities for the future development, direction and enhancement of the AutoVue product family with the objective of ensuring their continuous improvement. Essentially, EV SIG members meet in order to share and prioritize feedback and use this input to begin dialog with the AutoVue Product Management team on what they deem to be the most important improvements to Enterprise Visualization solutions. The AutoVue EV SIG is by far the best platform for sharing and relaying feedback to our Product Strategy / Management team regarding general product enhancements, industry-specific scenarios, new use cases, usability, support, deployability, etc, and helping us shape the future direction of Enterprise Visualization solutions. We strongly encourage ALL our customers to sign up for the SIG;  here is how you can do so: Sign up for the EVSIG mailing list b.    Visit the group’s website c.    Contact Dennis Walker at Harris Corporation directly should you have any questions: dwalke22-AT-harris-DOT-com Customer / Partner Advisory Boards: The AutoVue Product Strategy / Management team also periodically runs Customer and Partner Advisory Boards. These invitation-only events bring together individuals chosen from Oracle AutoVue’s top customers that are using AutoVue at the enterprise level, as well as strategic partners.  The idea here is to establish open lines of communication between top customers and partners and the Oracle AutoVue Product Strategy team, help us communicate AutoVue’s product direction, share perspectives on today and tomorrow’s challenges and needs for Enterprise Visualization, and validate that proposed additions to the product are valid industry solutions. Our next Customer / Partner Advisory Board will be held in San Francisco during Oracle Open World, please contact your account manager to find out more about the CAB Members’ nomination process. Enhancement Requests:  Enhancement requests are request logged by customers or partners with Product Development for a feature that is not currently available in Oracle AutoVue. Enhancement requests (ER) can be logged easily via the My Oracle Support portal. This is the best way to share feedback with us at the functionality level; for instance if you would like to see a new format supported in AutoVue or make suggestions as per how certain functionality can be improved or should behave. Once the ER is logged, it is then evaluated by Product Management based on feasibility, product adequation and business justification. Product Management then decides whether to consider this ER for future release or not. What helps accelerate the process is hearing from a large number of customers who urgently need a particular feature or configuration. Hence the importance of logging Metalink Service Requests, and describing in details your business expectations. You can include key milestones dates and justifications as to why this request is important and the benefits your organization stands to gain should this request be accepted. Again, feedback from customers and partners is critical to ensure we offer solutions that have the biggest impact on customers’ business processes and day-to-day operations. All feedback is welcome,. So please don’t be shy! 

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• To sample or not to sample...

  - by [email protected]

  Ideally, we would know the exact answer to every question. How many people support presidential candidate A vs. B? How many people suffer from H1N1 in a given state? Does this batch of manufactured widgets have any defective parts? Knowing exact answers is expensive in terms of time and money and, in most cases, is impractical if not impossible. Consider asking every person in a region for their candidate preference, testing every person with flu symptoms for H1N1 (assuming every person reported when they had flu symptoms), or destructively testing widgets to determine if they are "good" (leaving no product to sell). Knowing exact answers, fortunately, isn't necessary or even useful in many situations. Understanding the direction of a trend or statistically significant results may be sufficient to answer the underlying question: who is likely to win the election, have we likely reached a critical threshold for flu, or is this batch of widgets good enough to ship? Statistics help us to answer these questions with a certain degree of confidence. This focuses on how we collect data. In data mining, we focus on the use of data, that is data that has already been collected. In some cases, we may have all the data (all purchases made by all customers), in others the data may have been collected using sampling (voters, their demographics and candidate choice). Building data mining models on all of your data can be expensive in terms of time and hardware resources. Consider a company with 40 million customers. Do we need to mine all 40 million customers to get useful data mining models? The quality of models built on all data may be no better than models built on a relatively small sample. Determining how much is a reasonable amount of data involves experimentation. When starting the model building process on large datasets, it is often more efficient to begin with a small sample, perhaps 1000 - 10,000 cases (records) depending on the algorithm, source data, and hardware. This allows you to see quickly what issues might arise with choice of algorithm, algorithm settings, data quality, and need for further data preparation. Instead of waiting for a model on a large dataset to build only to find that the results don't meet expectations, once you are satisfied with the results on the initial sample, you can  take a larger sample to see if model quality improves, and to get a sense of how the algorithm scales to the particular dataset. If model accuracy or quality continues to improve, consider increasing the sample size. Sampling in data mining is also used to produce a held-aside or test dataset for assessing classification and regression model accuracy. Here, we reserve some of the build data (data that includes known target values) to be used for an honest estimate of model error using data the model has not seen before. This sampling transformation is often called a split because the build data is split into two randomly selected sets, often with 60% of the records being used for model building and 40% for testing. Sampling must be performed with care, as it can adversely affect model quality and usability. Even a truly random sample doesn't guarantee that all values are represented in a given attribute. This is particularly troublesome when the attribute with omitted values is the target. A predictive model that has not seen any examples for a particular target value can never predict that target value! For other attributes, values may consist of a single value (a constant attribute) or all unique values (an identifier attribute), each of which may be excluded during mining. Values from categorical predictor attributes that didn't appear in the training data are not used when testing or scoring datasets. In subsequent posts, we'll talk about three sampling techniques using Oracle Database: simple random sampling without replacement, stratified sampling, and simple random sampling with replacement.

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• Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project

  Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project include and are not limited to: cost reduction, increased return on investment (ROI), reduced time to market, increased speed and efficiency, increased security, and increased interoperability. These drivers primarily focus on streamlining and reducing cost to make a company more profitable with less overhead. According to Answers.com cost reduction is defined as reducing costs to improve profitability, and may be implemented when a company is having financial problems or prevent problems. ROI is defined as the amount of value received relative to the amount of money invested according to PayperclickList.com.  With the ever increasing demands on businesses to compete in today’s market, companies are constantly striving to reduce the time it takes for a concept to become a product and be sold within the global marketplace. In business, some people say time is money, so if a project can reduce the time a business process takes it in fact saves the company which is always good for the bottom line. The Social Security Administration states that data security is the protection of data from accidental or intentional but unauthorized modification, destruction. Interoperability is the capability of a system or subsystem to interact with other systems or subsystems. In my personal opinion, these drivers would not really differ for a profit-based organization, compared to a non-profit organization. Both corporate entities strive to reduce cost, and strive to keep operation budgets low. However, the reasoning behind why they want to achieve this does contrast. Typically profit based organizations strive to increase revenue and market share so that the business can grow. Alternatively, not-for-profit businesses are more interested in increasing their reach within communities whether it is to increase annual donations or invest in the lives of others. Success or failure of a project can be determined by one or more of these drivers based on the scope of a project and the company’s priorities associated with each of the drivers. In addition, if a project attempts to incorporate multiple drivers and is only partially successful, then the project might still be considered to be a success due to how close the project was to meeting each of the priorities. Continuous evaluation of the project could lead to a decision to abort a project, because it is expected to fail before completion. Evaluations should be executed after the completion of every software development process stage. Pfleeger notes that software development process stages include: Requirements Analysis and Definition System Design Program Design Program Implementation Unit Testing Integration Testing System Delivery Maintenance Each evaluation at every state should consider all the business drivers included in the scope of a project for how close they are expected to meet expectations. In addition, minimum requirements of acceptance should also be included with the scope of the project and should be reevaluated as the project progresses to ensure that the project makes good economic sense to continue. If the project falls below these benchmarks then the project should be put on hold until it does make more sense or the project should be aborted because it does not meet the business driver requirements.   References Cost Reduction Program. (n.d.). Dictionary of Accounting Terms. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/cost-reduction-program Government Information Exchange. (n.d.). Government Information Exchange Glossary. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from SSA.gov Web site: http://www.ssa.gov/gix/definitions.html PayPerClickList.com. (n.d.). Glossary Term R - Pay Per Click List. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from PayPerClickList.com Web site: http://www.payperclicklist.com/glossary/termr.html Pfleeger, S & Atlee, J.(2009). Software Engineering: Theory and Practice. Boston:Prentice Hall Veluchamy, Thiyagarajan. (n.d.). Glossary « Thiyagarajan Veluchamy’s Blog. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Thiyagarajan.WordPress.com Web site: http://thiyagarajan.wordpress.com/glossary/

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• PHP Web Services - Nice try

  Thanks to the membership in the O'Reilly User Group Programme the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (short: MSCC) recently received a welcome package with several book titles. Among them is the latest publication of Lorna Jane Mitchell - 'PHP Web Services: APIs for the Modern Web'. Following is the book review I put on Amazon: Nice try! Initially, I was astonished that a small book like 'PHP Web Services' would be able to cover all the interesting topics about APIs and Web Services, independently whether they are written in PHP or not. And unfortunately, the title isn't able to stand up to the readers (or at least my) expectations. Maybe as a light defense, there is no usual paragraph about the intended audience of that book, but still I have to admit that the first half (chapters 1 to 8) are well written and Lorna has her points on the various technologies. Also, the code samples in PHP are clean and easy to understand. With chapter 'Debugging Web Services' the book started to change my mind about the clarity of advice and the instructions on designing and developing good APIs. Eventually, this might be related to the fact that I'm used to other tools since years, like Telerik Fiddler as HTTP proxy in order to trace and inspect any kind of request/response handling. Including localhost monitoring, SSL certification acceptance, and the ability to debug mobile devices, especially iOS-based ones. Compared to Charles, Fiddler is available for free. What really got me off the hook is the following statement in chapter 10 about Service Type Decisions: "For users who have larger systems using technology stacks such as Java, C++, or .NET, it may be easier for them to integrate with a SOAP service." WHAT? A couple of pages earlier the author recommends to stay away from 'old-fashioned' API styles like SOAP (if possible). And on top of that I wonder why there are tons of documentation towards development of RESTful Web Services based on WebAPI. The ASP.NET stack clearly moves away from SOAP to JSON and REST since years! Honestly, as a software developer on the .NET stack this leaves a mixed feeling after all. As for the remaining chapters I simply consider them as 'blah blah' without any real value and lots of theoretical advice. Related to the chapter 13 about 'Documentation', I just had the 'pleasure' to write a C#-based client against a Java-based SOAP Web Service. Personally, I take the WSDL as the master reference in the first place and Visual Studio generates all the stub types involved in the communication. During the implementation and testing I came across a 'java.lang.NullPointerException' in various methods and for various method parameters. The WSDL and the generated types were declared as Nullable, so nothing to worry about, or? Well, I logged in a support ticket, and guess what was the response to that scenario? "The service definition in the WSDL is wrong, please refer to the documentation in order to use the methods and parameters correctly" - No comment! Lorna's title is a quick read and in some areas she has good advice on designing and implementing Web Services and APIs. But roughly 100 pages aren't enough to cover a vast topic like that. After all, nice try and I'm looking forward to an improved second edition. Honestly, I never thought that I would come across a poor review. In general, it's a good book but it clearly has a lack of depth, the PHP code samples are incomplete (closing tags missing), and there are too many assumptions and theoretical statements.

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• Doing your first mock with JustMock

  - by mehfuzh

  In this post, i will start with a  more traditional mocking example that  includes a fund transfer scenario between two different currency account using JustMock.Our target interface that we will be mocking looks similar to: public interface ICurrencyService {     float GetConversionRate(string fromCurrency, string toCurrency); } Moving forward the SUT or class that will be consuming the  service and will be invoked by user [provided that the ICurrencyService will be passed in a DI style] looks like: public class AccountService : IAccountService         {             private readonly ICurrencyService currencyService;               public AccountService(ICurrencyService currencyService)             {                 this.currencyService = currencyService;             }               #region IAccountService Members               public void TransferFunds(Account from, Account to, float amount)             {                 from.Withdraw(amount);                 float conversionRate = currencyService.GetConversionRate(from.Currency, to.Currency);                 float convertedAmount = amount * conversionRate;                 to.Deposit(convertedAmount);             }               #endregion         }   As, we can see there is a TransferFunds action implemented from IAccountService  takes in a source account from where it withdraws some money and a target account to where the transfer takes place using the provided conversion rate. Our first step is to create the mock. The syntax for creating your instance mocks is pretty much same and  is valid for all interfaces, non-sealed/sealed concrete instance classes. You can pass in additional stuffs like whether its an strict mock or not, by default all the mocks in JustMock are loose, you can use it as default valued objects or stubs as well. ICurrencyService currencyService = Mock.Create<ICurrencyService>(); Using JustMock, setting up your expectations and asserting them always goes with Mock.Arrang|Assert and this is pretty much same syntax no matter what type of mocking you are doing. Therefore,  in the above scenario we want to make sure that the conversion rate always returns 2.20F when converting from GBP to CAD. To do so we need to arrange in the following way: Mock.Arrange(() => currencyService.GetConversionRate("GBP", "CAD")).Returns(2.20f).MustBeCalled(); Here, I have additionally marked the mock call as must. That means it should be invoked anywhere in the code before we do Mock.Assert, we can also assert mocks directly though lamda expressions  but the more general Mock.Assert(mocked) will assert only the setups that are marked as "MustBeCalled()”. Now, coming back to the main topic , as we setup the mock, now its time to act on it. Therefore, first we create our account service class and create our from and to accounts respectively. var accountService = new AccountService(currencyService);   var canadianAccount = new Account(0, "CAD"); var britishAccount = new Account(0, "GBP"); Next, we add some money to the GBP  account: britishAccount.Deposit(100); Finally, we do our transfer by the following: accountService.TransferFunds(britishAccount, canadianAccount, 100); Once, everything is completed, we need to make sure that things were as it is we have expected, so its time for assertions.Here, we first do the general assertions: Assert.Equal(0, britishAccount.Balance); Assert.Equal(220, canadianAccount.Balance); Following, we do our mock assertion,  as have marked the call as “MustBeCalled” it will make sure that our mock is actually invoked. Moreover, we can add filters like how many times our expected mock call has occurred that will be covered in coming posts. Mock.Assert(currencyService); So far, that actually concludes our  first  mock with JustMock and do stay tuned for more. Enjoy!!

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• Chrome Web Browser Messages: Some Observations

  - by ultan o'broin

  I'm always on the lookout for how different apps handle errors and what kind of messages are shown (I probably need to get out more), I use this 'research' to reflect on our own application error messages patterns and guidelines and how we might make things better for our users in future. Users are influenced by all sorts of things, but their everyday experiences of technology, and especially what they encounter on the internet, increasingly sets their expectations for the enterprise user experience too. I recently came across a couple of examples from Google's Chrome web browser that got me thinking. In the first case, we have a Chrome error about not being able to find a web page. I like how simple, straightforward messaging language is used along with an optional ability to explore things a bit further--for those users who want to. The 'more information' option shows the error encountered by the browser (or 'original' error) in technical terms, along with an error number. Contrasting the two messages about essentially the same problem reveals what's useful to users and what's not. Everyone can use the first message, but the technical version of the message has to be explicitly disclosed for any more advanced user to pursue further. More technical users might search for a resolution, using that Error 324 number, but I imagine most users who see the message will try again later or check their URL again. Seems reasonable that such an approach be adopted in the enterprise space too, right? Maybe. Generally, end users don't go searching for solutions based on those error numbers, and help desk folks generally prefer they don't do so. That's because of the more critical nature of enterprise data or the fact that end users may not have the necessary privileges to make any fixes anyway. What might be more useful here is a link to a trusted source of additional help provided by the help desk or reputable community instead. This takes me on to the second case, this time more closely related to the language used in messaging situations. Here, I first noticed by the using of the (s) approach to convey possibilities of there being one or more pages at the heart of the problem. This approach is a no-no in Oracle style terms (the plural would be used) and it can create translation issues (though it is not a show-stopper). I think Google could have gone with the plural too. However, of more interest is the use of the verb "kill", shown in the message text and as an action button label. For many writers, words like "kill" and "abort" are to be avoided as they can give offense. I am not so sure about that judgment, as really their use cannot be separated from the context. Certainly, for more technical users, they're fine and have been in use for years, so I see no reason to avoid these terms if the audience has accepted them. Most end users too, I think would find the idea of "kill" usable and may even use the term in every day speech. Others might disagree--Apple uses a concept of Force Quit, for example. Ultimately, the only way to really know how to proceed is to research these matter by asking users of differing roles and expertise to perform some tasks, encounter these messages and then make recommendations based on those findings for our designs. Something to do in 2011!

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