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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 18, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 18, 2010New ProjectsBare Bones Email Trace Listener: Bare Bones Email Trace Listener is about the simplest email trace listener you can have. No bells, no whistles, and no good if you need authenticat...Cartellino: Scopo del progetto è la realizzazione di un software in grado di rilevare i dati dai rilevatori 3Tec (www.3tec.it) e stampare i cartellini presenza...Castle Windsor app.config Properties: The Castle Windsor app.config Properties library makes it possible for users of Castle Windsor to reference appSettings values in Windsor's XML pro...DeskD: This is a simple desktop dictionary application(something like WordWeb) created in Java using Netbeans IDE. Since i am new to codeplex all updates ...FunPokerMakerOnline: It is a play of poker online with a game editor. It is done with .net 4 and WPF and SOAP or WCF. KLOCS Team GIN Project: This is a Master's Degree program group project. It may have academic interest, but won't be maintained after June 2010KNN: This is KNN projectProject Santa: Program to organize teams using mysql databases and c# in a clean and robust task and group system. For more information see my blog post at http:/...ProjetoIntegradoJuridico: Sistema Integrado de Acompanhamento JurídicoRSSR for Windows Phone 7: This is a simple RSS reader application, the project aims to show people that it is easy to build application for windows phones. The applicatio...Simple Rcon: Simple Rcon is a simple lightweight rcon client for HL1/HL2 Servers. It is developed in C# and WPFTAB METHOD SQL Create a data dictionary from your Transact SQL code: TABMETHODSQL makes it easier for data/information workers to document their work. Create a data governance solution that maps sql data process, inc...TM BF Tournament: WPF software to manage Trackmania tournament with Battle France RulesviBlog: visinia plugin, this plugin is used to add blogging facility in visinia cmsviNews: visinia plugin, this plugin can be used to create a news portal like cnn.com nytimeVolumeMaster: VolumeMaster is an On Screen Display (OSD) that gets activated whenever the volume changes. It's written in WPF and uses Vista Core Audio API by Ra...WiiCIS.NET: This is a managed port of WiiCIS, which is a Nintendo Wiimote library originally created by TheOboeNerd and posted on Sourceforge.New ReleasesCastle Windsor app.config Properties: Version 1.0: Initial release.Code for Rapid C# Windows Development eBook: Enumerable Debugger Visualizer Version 1.1: Second release of the Enumerable Debugger Visualizer. There are more classes registered and it is more robust. The list of classes I have register...Convection Game Engine (Basic Edition): Convection Basic (40223): Compiled version of Convection Basic change set 40223.CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.59: See Source Code tab for recent change history.DbEntry.Net (Lephone Framework): DbEntry.Net 3.9: DbEntry.Net is a lightweight Object Relational Mapping (ORM) database access compnent for .Net 3.5. It has clearly and easily programing interface ...Hash Calculator: HashCalculator 2.0: Upgraded to .NET Framework 4.0 Added support to calculate CRC32 hash function Added "Cancel" button in the Windows 7 taskbar thumbnailHKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201004172120): New features: Added jump links at top of page of message. Bug fix: Fixed page count bug. Improvements: HKGolden Express now uses DocumentBuild...HTML Ruby: 6.21.4: Styles added to override those on some sites for better rendering of ruby Fix regression on complex ruby annotation rendering Better spacingHTML Ruby: 6.21.5: Removed debug code in preference handling Status bar indicator now resets for each action Replace ruby in place without using document fragment...IceChat: IceChat 2009 Alpha 12.4 EXE Update: This is simply an update to the main IceChat program files and DLL. Simpply overwrite the ones in the place where IceChat 2009 is installed.IceChat: IceChat 2009 Alpha 12.4 Full Install: Build Alpha 12.4 - April 17 2010 Added IceChatScript.dll , needs to be added in same folder with EXE and IPluginIceChat.dll Added Self Notice in ...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v05 x64: With this version, PokeIn library has become a stable. Numerous tests have completed. This is the first release candidate of PokeIn. Cheers!PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v05 x86: PokeIn Library version 0.5 (x86) With this version, PokeIn library has become a stable. Numerous tests have completed. This is the first release c...Project Santa: Project Santa V1.0: The first initial release of my project manager program, for more information see http://coderplex.blogspot.com/2010/04/project-manager-using-mysq...Salient: TestingWithVSDevServer v1: Using code from Salient, I have assembled a few strategies for programmatic contol of the Visual Studio Development Server (WebDev.WebServer.exe). ...SharePoint Navigation Menu: spNavigationMenu 1.1: Changed the CAML query so it will order by Link Order, then Title. Added the ability to override the On Hover event on the parent menu to use On ...Simple Rcon: Simple Rcon Version 1: Version 1TAB METHOD SQL Create a data dictionary from your Transact SQL code: RELEASE 1: TESTING THE RELEASE SYSTEMTribe.Cache: Tribe.Cache Beta 0.1: Beta release of Tribe.Cache - Now with cache expiration serviceviBlog: viBlog_beta: visinia plugin to add blogging facility in visinia cmsviNews: viNews_beta: visinia plugin.visinia: visinia_beta2: visinia beta 2 released with many new feature.Visual Studio DSite: Visual C++ 2008 Login Form: A simple login form made in visual c 2008. Source code only.WiiCIS.NET: WiiCIS.NET v0.11: 0.11 Removed an unnecessary function from the Wiimote class, and improved the demo. You will need the latest version of SlimDX to compile the sourc...WinControls TreeListView: TreeListView 1.5.1: -fixes issue #5837 -Preliminary feature #5874WoW Character Viewer: Viewer Setup: Finally, I've brought out the next setup of WoW Viewer. Most loose ends have been tied up. Loading and Saving of character files has been fixed.Most Popular ProjectsRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseMicrosoft SQL Server Community & Samplespatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelFacebook Developer ToolkitBlogEngine.NETMvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation projectIronPythonMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryIndustrial DashboardFarseer Physics EnginejQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationProxi [Proxy Interface]BlogEngine.NETCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlight

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• User Experience Highlights in PeopleSoft and PeopleTools: Direct from Jeff Robbins

  - by mvaughan

  By Kathy Miedema, Oracle Applications User Experience  This is the fifth in a series of blog posts on the user experience (UX) highlights in various Oracle product families. The last posted interview was with Nadia Bendjedou, Senior Director, Product Strategy on upcoming Oracle E-Business Suite user experience highlights. You’ll see themes around productivity and efficiency, and get an early look at the latest mobile offerings coming through these product lines. Today’s post is on the user experience in PeopleSoft and PeopleTools. To learn more about what’s ahead, attend PeopleSoft or PeopleTools OpenWorld presentations.This interview is with Jeff Robbins, Senior Director, PeopleSoft Development. Jeff Robbins Q: How would you describe the vision you have for the user experience of PeopleSoft?A: Intuitive – Specifically, customers use PeopleSoft to help their employees do their day-to-day work, and the UI (user interface) has been helpful and assistive in that effort. If it’s not obvious what they need to do a task, then the UI isn’t working. So the application needs to make it simple for users to find information they need, complete a task, do all the things they are responsible for, and it really helps when the UI just makes sense. Productive – PeopleSoft is a tool used to support people to do their work, and a lot of users are measured by how much work they’re able to get done per hour, per day, etc. The UI needs to help them be as productive as possible, and can’t make them waste time or energy. The UI needs to reflect the type of work necessary for a task -- if it's data entry, the UI needs to assist the user to get information into the system. For analysts, the UI needs help users assess or analyze information in a particular way. Innovative – The concept of the UI being innovative is something we’ve been working on for years. It’s not just that we want to be seen as innovative, the fact is that companies are asking their employees to do more than they’ve ever asked before. More often companies want to roll out processes as employee or manager self-service, where an employee is responsible to review and maintain their own data. So we’ve had to reinvent, and ask,  “How can we modify the ways an employee interacts with our applications so that they can be more productive and efficient – even with tasks that are entirely unfamiliar?”  Our focus on innovation has forced us to design new ways for users to interact with the entire application.Q: How are the UX features you have delivered so far resonating with customers?  A: Resonating very well. We’re hearing tremendous responses from users, managers, decision-makers -- who are very happy with the improved user experience. Many of the individual features resonate well. Some have really hit home, others are better than they used to be but show us that there’s still room for improvement.A couple innovations really stand out; features that have a significant effect on how users interact with PeopleSoft.First, the deployment of PeopleSoft in a way that’s more like a consumer website with the PeopleSoft Home page and Dashboards.  This new approach is very web-centric, where users feel they’re coming to a website rather than logging into an enterprise application.  There’s lots of information from all around the organization collected in a way that feels very familiar to users. In order to do your job, you can come to this web site rather than having to learn how to log into an application and figure out a complicated menu. Companies can host these really rich web sites for employees that are home pages for accessing critical tasks and information. The UI elements of incorporating search into the whole navigation process is another hit. Rather than having to log in and choose a task from a menu, users come to the web site and begin a task by simply searching for data: themselves, another employee, a customer record, whatever.  The search results include the data along with a set of actions the user might take, completely eliminating the need to hunt through a complicated system menu. Search-centric navigation is really sitting well with customers who are trying to deploy an intuitive set of systems. Q: Are any UX highlights more popular than you expected them to be?  A: We introduced a feature called Pivot Grid in the last release, which is a combination of an interactive grid, like an Excel Pivot Table, along with a dynamic visual chart that automatically graphs the data. I wasn’t certain at first how extensively this would be used. It looked like an innovative tool, but it wasn’t clear how it would be incorporated in business process applications. The fact is that everyone who sees Pivot Grids is thrilled with that kind of interactivity.  It reflects the amount of analytical thinking customers are asking employees to do. Employees can’t just enter data any more. They must interact with it, analyze it, and make decisions. Pivot Grids fit into this way of working. Q: What can you tell us about PeopleSoft’s mobile offerings?A: A lot of customers are finding that mobile is the chief priority in their organization.  They tell us they want their employees to be able to access company information from their mobile devices.  Of course, not everyone has the same requirements, so we’re working to make sure we can help our customers accomplish what they’re trying to do.  We’ve already delivered a number of mobile features.  For instance, PeopleSoft home pages, dashboards and workcenters all work well on an iPad, straight out of the box.  We’ve delivered a number of key functions and tasks for mobile workers – those who are responsible for using a mobile device to manage inventory, for example.  Customers tell us they also need a holistic strategy, one that allows their employees to access nearly every task from a mobile device.  While we don’t expect users to do extensive data entry from their smartphone, it makes sense that they have access to company information and systems while away from their desk.  That’s where our strategy is going now.  We plan to unveil a number of new mobile offerings at OpenWorld.  Some will be available then, some shortly after. Q: What else are you working on now that you think is going to be exciting to customers at Oracle OpenWorld?A: Our next release -- the big thing is PeopleSoft 9.2, and we’ll be talking about the huge amount of work that’s gone into the next versions. A new toolset, 8.53, will be coming, and there’s a lot to talk about there, and the next generation of PeopleSoft 9.2.  We have a ton of new stuff coming.Q: What do you want PeopleSoft customers to know? A: We have been focusing on the user experience in PeopleSoft as a very high priority for the last 4 years, and it’s had interesting effects. One thing is that the application is better, more usable.  We’ve made visible improvements. Another aspect is that in customers’ minds, the PeopleSoft brand is being reinvigorated. Customers invested in PeopleSoft years ago, and then they weren’t sure where PeopleSoft was going.  This investment in the UI and overall user experience keeps PeopleSoft current, innovative and fresh.  Customers  are able to take advantage of a lot of new features, even on the older applications, simply by upgrading their PeopleTools. The interest in that ability has been tremendous. Knowing they have a lot of these features available -- right now, that’s pretty huge. There’s been a tremendous amount of positive response, just on the fact that we’re focusing on the user experience. Editor’s note: For more on PeopleSoft and PeopleTools user experience highlights, visit the Usable Apps web site.To find out more about these enhancements at Openworld, be sure to check out these sessions: GEN8928     General Session: PeopleSoft Update and Product RoadmapCON9183     PeopleSoft PeopleTools Technology Roadmap CON8932     New Functional PeopleSoft PeopleTools Capabilities for the Line-of-Business UserCON9196     PeopleSoft PeopleTools Roadmap: Mobile ApplicationsCON9186     Case Study: Delivering a Groundbreaking User Interface with PeopleSoft PeopleTools

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• Brighton Rocks: UA Europe 2011

  - by ultan o'broin

  User Assistance Europe 2011 was held in Brighton, UK. Having seen Quadrophenia a dozen times, I just had to go along (OK, I wanted to talk about messages in enterprise applications). Sadly, it rained a lot, though that was still eminently more tolerable than being stuck home in Dublin during Bloomsday. So, here are my somewhat selective highlights and observations from the conference, massively skewed towards my own interests, as usual. Enjoyed Leah Guren's (Cow TC) great start ‘keynote’ on the Cultural Dimensions of Software Help Usage. Starting out by revisiting Hofstede's and Hall's work on culture (how many times I have done this for Multilingual magazine?) and then Neilsen’s findings on age as an indicator of performance, Leah showed how it is the expertise of the user that user assistance (UA) needs to be designed for (especially for high-end users), with some considerations made for age, while the gender and culture of users are not major factors. Help also needs to be contextual and concise, embedded close to the action. That users are saying things like “If I want help on Office, I go to Google ” isn't all that profound at this stage, but it is always worth reiterating how search can be optimized to return better results for users. Interestingly, regardless of user education level, the issue of information quality--hinging on the lynchpin of terminology reflecting that of the user--is critical. Major takeaway for me there. Matthew Ellison’s sessions on embedded help and demos were also impressive. Embedded help that is concise and contextual is definitely a powerful UX enabler, and I’m pleased to say that in Oracle Fusion Applications we have embraced the concept fully. Matthew also mentioned in his session about successful software demos that the principle of modality with demos is a must. Look no further than Oracle User Productivity Kit demos See It!, Try It!, Know It, and Do It! modes, for example. I also found some key takeaways in the presentation by Marie-Louise Flacke on notes and warnings. Here, legal considerations seemed to take precedence over providing any real information to users. I was delighted when Marie-Louise called out the Oracle JDeveloper documentation as an exemplar of how to use notes and instructions instead of trying to scare the bejaysus out of people and not providing them with any real information they’d find useful instead. My own session on designing messages for enterprise applications was well attended. Knowing your user profiles (remember user expertise is the king maker for UA so write for each audience involved), how users really work, the required application business and UI rules, what your application technology supports, and how messages integrate with the enterprise help desk and support policies and you will go much further than relying solely on the guideline of "writing messages in plain language". And, remember the value in warnings and confirmation messages too, and how you can use them smartly. I hope y’all got something from my presentation and from my answers to questions afterwards. Ellis Pratt stole the show with his presentation on applying game theory to software UA, using plenty of colorful, relevant examples (check out the Atlassian and DropBox approaches, for example), and striking just the right balance between theory and practice. Completely agree that the approach to take here is not to make UA itself a game, but to invoke UA as part of a bigger game dynamic (time-to-task completion, personal and communal goals, personal achievement and status, and so on). Sure there are gotchas and limitations to gamification, and we need to do more research. However, we'll hear a lot more about this subject in coming years, particularly in the enterprise space. I hope. I also heard good things about the different sessions about DITA usage (including one by Sonja Fuga that clearly opens the door for major innovation in the community content space using WordPress), the progressive disclosure of information (Cerys Willoughby), an overview of controlled language (or "information quality", as I like to position it) solutions and rationale by Dave Gash, and others. I also spent time chatting with Mike Hamilton of MadCap Software, who showed me a cool demo of their Flare product, and the Lingo translation solution. I liked the idea of their licensing model for workers-on-the-go; that’s smart UX-awareness in itself. Also chatted with Julian Murfitt of Mekon about uptake of DITA in the enterprise space. In all, it's worth attending UA Europe. I was surprised, however, not to see conference topics about mobile UA, community conversation and content, and search in its own right. These are unstoppable forces now, and the latter is pretty central to providing assistance now to all but the most irredentist of hard-copy fetishists or advanced technical or functional users working away on the back end of applications and systems. Only saw one iPad too (says the guy who carries three laptops). Tweeting during the conference was pretty much nonexistent during the event, so no community energy there. Perhaps all this can be addressed next year. I would love to see the next UA Europe event come to Dublin (despite Bloomsday, it's not a bad place place, really) now that hotels are so cheap and all. So, what is my overall impression of the state of user assistance in Europe? Clearly, there are still many people in the industry who feel there is something broken with the traditional forms of user assistance (particularly printed doc) and something needs to be done about it. I would suggest they move on and try and embrace change, instead. Many others see new possibilities, offered by UX and technology, as well as the reality of online user behavior in an increasingly connected world and that is encouraging. Such thought leaders need to be listened to. As Ellis Pratt says in his great book, Trends in Technical Communication - Rethinking Help: “To stay relevant means taking a new perspective on the role (of technical writer), and delivering “products” over and above the traditional manual and online Help file... there are a number of new trends in this field - some complementary, some conflicting. Whatever trends emerge as the norm, it’s likely the status quo will change.” It already has, IMO. I hear similar debates in the professional translation world about the onset of translation crowd sourcing (the Facebook model) and machine translation (trust me, that battle is over). Neither of these initiatives has put anyone out of a job and probably won't, though the nature of the work might change. If anything, such innovations have increased the overall need for professional translators as user expectations rise, new audiences emerge, and organizations need to collate and curate user-generated content, combining it with their own. Perhaps user assistance professionals can learn from other professions and grow accordingly.

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

  - by Greg Jensen

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

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• A Good Developer is So Hard to Find

  - by James Michael Hare

  Let me start out by saying I want to damn the writers of the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever – 2. It is eating every last shred of my free time! But as I've been churning through each puzzle and marvelling at the brain teasers and trivia within, I began to think about interviewing developers and why it seems to be so hard to find good ones.  The problem is, it seems like no matter how hard we try to find the perfect way to separate the chaff from the wheat, inevitably someone will get hired who falls far short of expectations or someone will get passed over for missing a piece of trivia or a tricky brain teaser that could have been an excellent team member.   In shops that are primarily software-producing businesses or other heavily IT-oriented businesses (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) there often exists a much tighter bond between HR and the hiring development staff because development is their life-blood. Unfortunately, many of us work in places where IT is viewed as a cost or just a means to an end. In these shops, too often, HR and development staff may work against each other due to differences in opinion as to what a good developer is or what one is worth.  It seems that if you ask two different people what makes a good developer, often you will get three different opinions.   With the exception of those shops that are purely development-centric (you guys have it much easier!), most other shops have management who have very little knowledge about the development process.  Their view can often be that development is simply a skill that one learns and then once aquired, that developer can produce widgets as good as the next like workers on an assembly-line floor.  On the other side, you have many developers that feel that software development is an art unto itself and that the ability to create the most pure design or know the most obscure of keywords or write the shortest-possible obfuscated piece of code is a good coder.  So is it a skill?  An Art?  Or something entirely in between?   Saying that software is merely a skill and one just needs to learn the syntax and tools would be akin to saying anyone who knows English and can use Word can write a 300 page book that is accurate, meaningful, and stays true to the point.  This just isn't so.  It takes more than mere skill to take words and form a sentence, join those sentences into paragraphs, and those paragraphs into a document.  I've interviewed candidates who could answer obscure syntax and keyword questions and once they were hired could not code effectively at all.  So development must be more than a skill.   But on the other end, we have art.  Is development an art?  Is our end result to produce art?  I can marvel at a piece of code -- see it as concise and beautiful -- and yet that code most perform some stated function with accuracy and efficiency and maintainability.  None of these three things have anything to do with art, per se.  Art is beauty for its own sake and is a wonderful thing.  But if you apply that same though to development it just doesn't hold.  I've had developers tell me that all that matters is the end result and how you code it is entirely part of the art and I couldn't disagree more.  Yes, the end result, the accuracy, is the prime criteria to be met.  But if code is not maintainable and efficient, it would be just as useless as a beautiful car that breaks down once a week or that gets 2 miles to the gallon.  Yes, it may work in that it moves you from point A to point B and is pretty as hell, but if it can't be maintained or is not efficient, it's not a good solution.  So development must be something less than art.   In the end, I think I feel like development is a matter of craftsmanship.  We use our tools and we use our skills and set about to construct something that satisfies a purpose and yet is also elegant and efficient.  There is skill involved, and there is an art, but really it boils down to being able to craft code.  Crafting code is far more than writing code.  Anyone can write code if they know the syntax, but so few people can actually craft code that solves a purpose and craft it well.  So this is what I want to find, I want to find code craftsman!  But how?   I used to ask coding-trivia questions a long time ago and many people still fall back on this.  The thought is that if you ask the candidate some piece of coding trivia and they know the answer it must follow that they can craft good code.  For example:   What C++ keyword can be applied to a class/struct field to allow it to be changed even from a const-instance of that class/struct?  (answer: mutable)   So what do we prove if a candidate can answer this?  Only that they know what mutable means.  One would hope that this would infer that they'd know how to use it, and more importantly when and if it should ever be used!  But it rarely does!  The problem with triva questions is that you will either: Approve a really good developer who knows what some obscure keyword is (good) Reject a really good developer who never needed to use that keyword or is too inexperienced to know how to use it (bad) Approve a really bad developer who googled "C++ Interview Questions" and studied like hell but can't craft (very bad) Many HR departments love these kind of tests because they are short and easy to defend if a legal issue arrises on hiring decisions.  After all it's easy to say a person wasn't hired because they scored 30 out of 100 on some trivia test.  But unfortunately, you've eliminated a large part of your potential developer pool and possibly hired a few duds.  There are times I've hired candidates who knew every trivia question I could throw out them and couldn't craft.  And then there are times I've interviewed candidates who failed all my trivia but who I took a chance on who were my best finds ever.    So if not trivia, then what?  Brain teasers?  The thought is, these type of questions measure the thinking power of a candidate.  The problem is, once again, you will either: Approve a good candidate who has never heard the problem and can solve it (good) Reject a good candidate who just happens not to see the "catch" because they're nervous or it may be really obscure (bad) Approve a candidate who has studied enough interview brain teasers (once again, you can google em) to recognize the "catch" or knows the answer already (bad). Once again, you're eliminating good candidates and possibly accepting bad candidates.  In these cases, I think testing someone with brain teasers only tests their ability to answer brain teasers, not the ability to craft code. So how do we measure someone's ability to craft code?  Here's a novel idea: have them code!  Give them a computer and a compiler, or a whiteboard and a pen, or paper and pencil and have them construct a piece of code.  It just makes sense that if we're going to hire someone to code we should actually watch them code.  When they're done, we can judge them on several criteria: Correctness - does the candidate's solution accurately solve the problem proposed? Accuracy - is the candidate's solution reasonably syntactically correct? Efficiency - did the candidate write or use the more efficient data structures or algorithms for the job? Maintainability - was the candidate's code free of obfuscation and clever tricks that diminish readability? Persona - are they eager and willing or aloof and egotistical?  Will they work well within your team? It may sound simple, or it may sound crazy, but when I'm looking to hire a developer, I want to see them actually develop well-crafted code.

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• Oracle Tutor: Top 10 to Implement Sustainable Policies and Procedures

  - by emily.chorba(at)oracle.com

  Overview Your organization (executives, managers, and employees) understands the value of having written business process documents (process maps, procedures, instructions, reference documents, and form abstracts). Policies and procedures should be documented because they help to reduce the range of individual decisions and encourage management by exception: the manager only needs to give special attention to unusual problems, not covered by a specific policy or procedure. As more and more procedures are written to cover recurring situations, managers will begin to make decisions which will be consistent from one functional area to the next.Companies should take a project management approach when implementing an environment for a sustainable documentation program and do the following:1. Identify an Executive Champion2. Put together a winning team3. Assign ownership4. Centralize publishing5. Establish the Document Maintenance Process Up Front6. Document critical activities only7. Document actual practice8. Minimize documentation9. Support continuous improvement10. Keep it simple 1. Identify an Executive ChampionAppoint a top down driver. Select one key individual to be a mentor for the procedure planning team. The individual should be a senior manager, such as your company president, CIO, CFO, the vice-president of quality, manufacturing, or engineering. Written policies and procedures can be important supportive aids when known to express the thinking for the chief executive officer and / or the president and to have his or her full support. 2. Put Together a Winning TeamChoose a strong Project Management Leader and staff the procedure planning team with management members from cross functional groups. Make sure team members have the responsibility - and the authority - to make things happen.The winning team should consist of the Documentation Project Manager, Document Owners (one for each functional area), a Document Controller, and Document Specialists (as needed). The Tutor Implementation Guide has complete job descriptions for these roles. 3. Assign Ownership It is virtually impossible to keep process documentation simple and meaningful if employees who are far removed from the activity itself create it. It is impossible to keep documentation up-to-date when responsibility for the document is not clearly understood.Key to the Tutor methodology, therefore, is the concept of ownership. Each document has a single owner, who is responsible for ensuring that the document is necessary and that it reflects actual practice. The owner must be a person who is knowledgeable about the activity and who has the authority to build consensus among the persons who participate in the activity as well as the authority to define or change the way an activity is performed. The owner must be an advocate of the performers and negotiate, not dictate practices.In the Tutor environment, a document's owner is the only person with the authority to approve an update to that document. 4. Centralize Publishing Although it is tempting (especially in a networked environment and with document management software solutions) to decentralize the control of all documents -- with each owner updating and distributing his own -- Tutor promotes centralized publishing by assigning the Document Administrator (gate keeper) to manage the updates and distribution of the procedures library. 5. Establish a Document Maintenance Process Up Front (and stick to it) Everyone in your organization should know they are invited to suggest changes to procedures and should understand exactly what steps to take to do so. Tutor provides a set of procedures to help your company set up a healthy document control system. There are many document management products available to automate some of the document change and maintenance steps. Depending on the size of your organization, a simple document management system can reduce the effort it takes to track and distribute document changes and updates. Whether your company decides to store the written policies and procedures on a file server or in a database, the essential tasks for maintaining documents are the same, though some tasks are automated. 6. Document Critical Activities Only The best way to keep your documentation simple is to reduce the number of process documents to a bare minimum and to include in those documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary. The first step to reducing process documentation is to document only those activities that are deemed critical. Not all activities require documentation. In fact, some critical activities cannot and should not be standardized. Others may be sufficiently documented with an instruction or a checklist and may not require a procedure. A document should only be created when it enhances the performance of the employee performing the activity. If it does not help the employee, then there is no reason to maintain the document. Activities that represent little risk (such as project status), activities that cannot be defined in terms of specific tasks (such as product research), and activities that can be performed in a variety of ways (such as advertising) often do not require documentation. Sometimes, an activity will evolve to the point where documentation is necessary. For example, an activity performed by single employee may be straightforward and uncomplicated -- that is, until the activity is performed by multiple employees. Sometimes, it is the interaction between co-workers that necessitates documentation; sometimes, it is the complexity or the diversity of the activity.7. Document Actual Practices The only reason to maintain process documentation is to enhance the performance of the employee performing the activity. And documentation can only enhance performance if it reflects reality -- that is, current best practice. Documentation that reflects an unattainable ideal or outdated practices will end up on the shelf, unused and forgotten.Documenting actual practice means (1) auditing the activity to understand how the work is really performed, (2) identifying best practices with employees who are involved in the activity, (3) building consensus so that everyone agrees on a common method, and (4) recording that consensus.8. Minimize Documentation One way to keep it simple is to document at the highest level possible. That is, include in your documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary.When writing a document, you should ask yourself, What is the purpose of this document? That is, what problem will it solve?By focusing on this question, you can target the critical information.• What questions are the end users likely to have?• What level of detail is required?• Is any of this information extraneous to the document's purpose? Short, concise documents are user friendly and they are easier to keep up to date. 9. Support Continuous Improvement Employees who perform an activity are often in the best position to identify improvements to the process. In other words, continuous improvement is a natural byproduct of the work itself -- but only if the improvements are communicated to all employees who are involved in the process, and only if there is consensus among those employees.Traditionally, process documentation has been used to dictate performance, to limit employees' actions. In the Tutor environment, process documents are used to communicate improvements identified by employees. How does this work? The Tutor methodology requires a process document to reflect actual practice, so the owner of a document must routinely audit its content -- does the document match what the employees are doing? If it doesn't, the owner has the responsibility to evaluate the process, to build consensus among the employees, to identify "best practices," and to communicate these improvements via a document update. Continuous improvement can also be an outgrowth of corrective action -- but only if the solutions to problems are communicated effectively. The goal should be to solve a problem once and only once, which means not only identifying the solution, but ensuring that the solution becomes part of the process. The Tutor system provides the method through which improvements and solutions are documented and communicated to all affected employees in a cost-effective, timely manner; it ensures that improvements are not lost or confined to a single employee. 10. Keep it Simple Process documents don't have to be complex and unfriendly. In fact, the simpler the format and organization, the more likely the documents will be used. And the simpler the method of maintenance, the more likely the documents will be kept up-to-date. Keep it simply by:• Minimizing skills and training required• Following the established Tutor document format and layout• Avoiding technology just for technology's sake No other rule has as major an impact on the success of your internal documentation as -- keep it simple. Learn More For more information about Tutor, visit Oracle.Com or the Tutor Blog. Post your questions at the Tutor Forum.   Emily Chorba Principle Product Manager Oracle Tutor & BPM 

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• SQL SERVER – Create a Very First Report with the Report Wizard

  - by Pinal Dave

  This example is from the Beginning SSRS by Kathi Kellenberger. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. What is the report Wizard? In today’s world automation is all around you. Henry Ford began building his Model T automobiles on a moving assembly line a century ago and changed the world. The moving assembly line allowed Ford to build identical cars quickly and cheaply. Henry Ford said in his autobiography “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Today you can buy a car straight from the factory with your choice of several colors and with many options like back up cameras, built-in navigation systems and heated leather seats. The assembly lines now use robots to perform some tasks along with human workers. When you order your new car, if you want something special, not offered by the manufacturer, you will have to find a way to add it later. In computer software, we also have “assembly lines” called wizards. A wizard will ask you a series of questions, often branching to specific questions based on earlier answers, until you get to the end of the wizard. These wizards are used for many things, from something simple like setting up a rule in Outlook to performing administrative tasks on a server. Often, a wizard will get you part of the way to the end result, enough to get much of the tedious work out of the way. Once you get the product from the wizard, if the wizard is not capable of doing something you need, you can tweak the results. Create a Report with the Report Wizard Let’s get started with your first report!  Launch SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) from the Start menu under SQL Server 2012. Once SSDT is running, click New Project to launch the New Project dialog box. On the left side of the screen expand Business Intelligence and select Reporting Services. Configure the properties as shown in . Be sure to select Report Server Project Wizard as the type of report and to save the project in the C:\Joes2Pros\SSRSCompanionFiles\Chapter3\Project folder. Click OK and wait for the Report Wizard to launch. Click Next on the Welcome screen.  On the Select the Data Source screen, make sure that New data source is selected. Type JProCo as the data source name. Make sure that Microsoft SQL Server is selected in the Type dropdown. Click Edit to configure the connection string on the Connection Properties dialog box. If your SQL Server database server is installed on your local computer, type in localhost for the Server name and select the JProCo database from the Select or enter a database name dropdown. Click OK to dismiss the Connection Properties dialog box. Check Make this a shared data source and click Next. On the Design the Query screen, you can use the query builder to build a query if you wish. Since this post is not meant to teach you T-SQL queries, you will copy all queries from files that have been provided for you. In the C:\Joes2Pros\SSRSCompanionFiles\Chapter3\Resources folder open the sales by employee.sql file. Copy and paste the code from the file into the Query string Text Box. Click Next. On the Select the Report Type screen, choose Tabular and click Next. On the Design the Table screen, you have to figure out the groupings of the report. How do you do this? Well, you often need to know a bit about the data and report requirements. I often draw the report out on paper first to help me determine the groups. In the case of this report, I could group the data several ways. Do I want to see the data grouped by Year and Month? Do I want to see the data grouped by Employee or Category? The only thing I know for sure about this ahead of time is that the TotalSales goes in the Details section. Let’s assume that the CIO asked to see the data grouped first by Year and Month, then by Category. Let’s move the fields to the right-hand side. This is done by selecting Page > Group or Details >, as shown in, and click Next. On the Choose the Table Layout screen, select Stepped and check Include subtotals and Enable drilldown, as shown in. On the Choose the Style screen, choose any color scheme you wish (unlike the Model T) and click Next. I chose the default, Slate. On the Choose the Deployment Location screen, change the Deployment folder to Chapter 3 and click Next. At the Completing the Wizard screen, name your report Employee Sales and click Finish. After clicking Finish, the report and a shared data source will appear in the Solution Explorer and the report will also be visible in Design view. Click the Preview tab at the top. This report expects the user to supply a year which the report will then use as a filter. Type in a year between 2006 and 2013 and click View Report. Click the plus sign next to the Sales Year to expand the report to see the months, then expand again to see the categories and finally the details. You now have the assembly line report completed, and you probably already have some ideas on how to improve the report. Tomorrow’s Post Tomorrow’s blog post will show how to create your own data sources and data sets in SSRS. If you want to learn SSRS in easy to simple words – I strongly recommend you to get Beginning SSRS book from Joes 2 Pros. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Reporting Services, SSRS

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• Mobile BI Comes of Age

  - by rich.clayton(at)oracle.com

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} One of the hot topics in the Business Intelligence industry is mobility.  More specifically the question is how business can be transformed by the iPhone and the iPad.  In June 2003, Gartner predicted that Mobile BI would be obsolete and that the technology was headed for the 'trough of disillusionment'.  I agreed with them at that time.  Many vendors like MicroStrategy and Business Objects jumped into the fray attempting to show how PDA's like Palm Pilots could be integrated with BI.  Their investments resulted in interesting demos with no commercial traction.  Why, because wireless networks and mobile operating systems were primitive, immature and slow. In my opinion, Apple's iOS has changed everything in Mobile BI.  Yes Blackberry, Android and Symbian and all the rest have their place in the market but I believe that increasingly consumers (not IT departments) influence BI decision making processes.  Consumers are choosing the iPhone and the iPad. The number of iPads I see in business meetings now is staggering.  Some use it for email and note taking and others are starting to use corporate applications.  The possibilities for Mobile BI are countless and I would expect to see iPads enterprise-wide over the next few years.   These new devices will provide just-in-time access to critical business information.  Front-line managers interacting with customers, suppliers, patients or citizens will have information literally at their fingertips. I've experimented with several mobile BI tools.  They look cool but like their Executive Information System (EIS) predecessors of the 1990's these tools lack a backbone and a plausible integration strategy.  EIS was a viral technology in the early 1990's.  Executives from every industry and job function were showcasing their dashboards to fellow co-workers and colleagues at the country club.  Just like the iPad, every senior manager wanted one.  EIS wasn't a device however, it was a software application.   EIS quickly faded into the software sunset as it lacked integration with corporate information systems.  BI servers  replaced EIS because the technology focused on the heavy data lifting of integrating, normalizing, aggregating and managing large, complex data volumes.  The devices are here to stay. The cute stand-alone mobile BI tools, not so much. If all you're looking to do is put Excel files on your iPad, there are plenty of free tools on the market.  You'll look cool at your next management meeting but after a few weeks, the cool factor will fade away and you'll be wondering how you will ever maintain it.  If however you want secure, consistent, reliable information on your iPad, you need an integration strategy and a way to model the data.  BI Server technologies like the Oracle BI Foundation is a market leading approach to tackle that issue. I liken the BI mobility frenzy to buying classic cars.  Classic Cars have two buying groups - teenagers and middle-age folks looking to tinker.  Teenagers look at the pin-stripes and the paint job while middle-agers (like me)  kick the tires a bit and look under the hood to check out the quality and reliability of the engine.  Mobile BI tools sure look sexy but don't go very far without an engine and a transmission or an integration strategy. The strategic question in Mobile BI is can these startups build a motor and transmission faster than Oracle can re-paint the car?  Oracle has a great engine and a transmission that connects to all enterprise information assets.  We're working on the new paint job and are excited about the possibilities.  Just as vertical integration worked in the automotive business, it too works in the technology industry.

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• Emtel Knowledge Series - Q2/2014

  From Cyber Island to Smart Mauritius Cyber Island? Smart Mauritius? - What is Emtel talking about? "With the majority of the population living in urban environments today, the concept of "Smart Cities" has become an urgent necessity. "Smart Cities" refer to an urban transformation which, by using latest ICT technologies makes cities more efficient. Many Governments are setting out ambitious plans to build the cities of the future based on massive connectivity, high bandwidth communications, intelligent sensors and analysis of huge volumes of data. Various researches have shown four key enablers for smart city success - Government leadership, suitable technology infrastructure, solid public-private partnerships and engaged citizens. It is around these enabling factors that telecoms companies can play a vital role in assisting governments to deliver on the smart city vision." The Emtel Knowledge Series goes in compliance with Emtel's 25th anniversary celebrations throughout the year and the master of ceremony, Kim Andersen, mentioned that there will be more upcoming events on a quarterly base. As a representative of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) there was absolutely no hesitation to join in again. Following my visit to the first Emtel Knowledge Series workshop back in February this year, it was great to have another opportunity to meet and exchange with technology experts. But quite frankly what is it with those buzz words... As far as I remember and how it was mentioned "Cyber Island" is an old initiative from around 2005/2006 which has been refreshed in 2010. It implies the empowerment of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) as an essential factor of growth by the government here in Mauritius. Actually, the first promotional period of Cyber Island brought me here but that's another story. The venue and its own problems Like last time the event was organised and held at the Conference Hall at Cyber Tower I in Ebene. As I've been working there for some years, I know about the frustrating situation of finding a proper parking. So, does Smart Island include better solutions for the search of parking spaces? Maybe, let's see whether I will be able to answer that question at the end of the article. Anyway, after circling around the tower almost two times, I finally got a decent space to put the car, without risking to get a ticket or damage actually. International speakers and their experience Once again, Emtel did a great job to get international expertise onto the stage to share their experience and vision on this kind of embarkment. Personally, I really appreciated the fact they were speakers of global reach and could provide own-experience knowledge. Johan Gott spoke about the fundamental change that the Swedish government ignited in order to move their society and workers' environment away from heavy industry towards a knowledge-based approach. Additionally, we spoke about the effort and transformation of New York City into a greener and more efficient Smart City. Given modern technology he also advised that any kind of available Big Data should be opened to the general public - this openness would provide a playground for anyone to garner new ideas and most probably solid solutions of which no one else thought about before. Emtel Knowledge Series on moving from Cyber Island to Smart Mauritus Later during the afternoon that exact statement regarding openness to and transparency of government-owned Big Data has been emphasised again by the Danish speaker Kim Andersen and his former colleague Mika Jantunen from Finland. Mika continued to underline the important role of the government to provide a solid foundation for a knowledge-based society and mentioned that Finnish citizens have a constitutional right to broadband connectivity. Next to free higher (tertiary) education Finland already produced a good number of innovations, among them are: First country to grant voting rights to women Free higher education Constitutional right to broadband connectivity Nokia Linux Angry Birds Sauna and others...  General access to internet via broadband and/or mobile connectivity is surely a key factor towards Smart Cities, or better said Smart Mauritius given the area dimensions and size of population. CTO Paul Valette gave the audience a brief overview of the essential role that Emtel will have to move Mauritius forward towards a knowledge-based and innovation-driven environment for its citizen. What I have seen looks really promising and with recently published information that Mauritians have 127% of mobile capacity - meaning more than 1 mobile, smartphone or tablet per person - it will be crucial to have the right infrastructure for these connected devices. How would it be possible to achieve a knowledge-based society? YouTube to the rescue!Seriously, gaining more knowledge will require to have fast access to educational course material as explained by Dr Kaviraj Sukon, General Director of the Open University of Mauritius. According to him a good number of high-profile universities in the world have opened their course libraries to the general public, among them EDX, Coursera and Open University. Nowadays, you're actually able and enabled to learn for and earn a BSc or even MSc certification on your own pace - no need to attend classed on campus. It was really impressive to see the number of available hours - more than enough for a life-long learning experience! {loadposition content_adsense} Networking in the name of MSCC As briefly mentioned above I was about to combine two approaches for this workshop. Of course, getting latest information and updates on Emtel services available, especially for my business here on the west coast of the island, but also to meet and greet new people for the MSCC. And I think it was very positive on both sides. Let me quickly describe some of the key aspects that happened during the day: Met with Arnaud Meslier and Kellie, both Microsoft to swap latest information on IT events. Hereby, I got an invite to Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 Dev Camp. Got in touch with Arvin Lockee, Emtel to check our options to meet with the data team, and seizing the opportunity to have a visiting tour at the Emtel Data Centre. Had a great chat with Avinash Meetoo, Knowledge 7, Kim Andersen and Mika Jantunen about the situation of teaching and learning in general and specifically in the private sector here in Mauritius. Additionally, a number of various other interesting chats... Once again, I'm catching up on a couple of business cards in order to provide more background information about the MSCC, and to create a better awareness of MSCC within the local IT businesses. There is more to come soon!  Resume of the day The number of attendees during this event has been doubled or even tripled this time. The whole organisation has been improved massively and the combination of presentation and summarizing panel discussions was better than during the previous workshop back in February. Overall, once again a well-organised workshop and I'm already looking forward to join the next workshop in Q3. Update End of July we finally managed to visit the Emtel Data Centre in Arsenal. It was an interesting opportunity for some of our MSCC members.

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• Free Document/Content Management System Using SharePoint 2010

  - by KunaalKapoor

  That’s right, it’s true. You can use the free version of SharePoint 2010 to meet your document and content management needs and even run your public facing website or an internal knowledge bank.  SharePoint Foundation 2010 is free. It may not have all the features that you get in the enterprise license but it still has enough to cater to your needs to build a document management system and replace age old file shares or folders. I’ve built a dozen content management sites for internal and public use exploiting SharePoint. There are hundreds of web content management systems out there (see CMS Matrix).  On one hand we have commercial platforms like SharePoint, SiteCore, and Ektron etc. which are the most frequently used and on the other hand there are free options like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Plone etc. which are pretty common popular as well. But I would be very surprised if anyone was able to find a single CMS platform that is all things to all people. Infact not a lot of people consider SharePoint’s free version under the free CMS side but its high time organizations benefit from this. Through this blog post I wanted to present SharePoint Foundation as an option for running a FREE CMS platform. Even if you knew that there is a free version of SharePoint, what most people don’t realize is that SharePoint Foundation is a great option for running web sites of all kinds – not just team sites. It is a great option for many reasons, but in reality it is supported by Microsoft, and above all it is FREE (yay!), and it is extremely easy to get started.  From a functionality perspective – it’s hard to beat SharePoint. Even the free version, SharePoint Foundation, offers simple data connectivity (through BCS), cross browser support, accessibility, support for Office Web Apps, blogs, wikis, templates, document support, health analyzer, support for presence, and MUCH more.I often get asked: “Can I use SharePoint 2010 as a document management system?” The answer really depends on ·          What are your specific requirements? ·          What systems you currently have in place for managing documents. ·          And of course how much money you have J Benefits? Not many large organizations have benefited from SharePoint yet. For some it has been an IT project to see what they can achieve with it, for others it has been used as a collaborative platform or in many cases an extended intranet. SharePoint 2010 has changed the game slightly as the improvements that Microsoft have made have been noted by organizations, and we are seeing a lot of companies starting to build specific business applications using SharePoint as the basis, and nearly every business process will require documents at some stage. If you require a document management system and have SharePoint in place then it can be a relatively straight forward decision to use SharePoint, as long as you have reviewed the considerations just discussed. The collaborative nature of SharePoint 2010 is also a massive advantage, as specific departmental or project sites can be created quickly and easily that allow workers to interact in a variety of different ways using one source of information.  This also benefits an organization with regards to how they manage the knowledge that they have, as if all of their information is in one source then it is naturally easier to search and manage. Is SharePoint right for your organization? As just discussed, this can only be determined after defining your requirements and also planning a longer term strategy for how you will manage your documents and information. A key factor to look at is how the users would interact with the system and how much value would it get for your organization. The amount of data and documents that organizations are creating is increasing rapidly each year. Therefore the ability to archive this information, whilst keeping the ability to know what you have and where it is, is vital to any organizations management of their information life cycle. SharePoint is best used for the initial life of business documents where they need to be referenced and accessed after time. It is often beneficial to archive these to overcome for storage and performance issues. FREE CMS – SharePoint, Really? In order to show some of the completely of what comes with this free version of SharePoint 2010, I thought it would make sense to use Wikipedia (since every one trusts it as a credible source). Wikipedia shows that a web content management system typically has the following components: Document Management:   -       CMS software may provide a means of managing the life cycle of a document from initial creation time, through revisions, publication, archive, and document destruction. SharePoint is king when it comes to document management.  Version history, exclusive check-out, security, publication, workflow, and so much more.  Content Virtualization:   -       CMS software may provide a means of allowing each user to work within a virtual copy of the entire Web site, document set, and/or code base. This enables changes to multiple interdependent resources to be viewed and/or executed in-context prior to submission. Through the use of versioning, each content manager can preview, publish, and roll-back content of pages, wiki entries, blog posts, documents, or any other type of content stored in SharePoint.  The idea of each user having an entire copy of the website virtualized is a bit odd to me – not sure why anyone would need that for anything but the simplest of websites. Automated Templates:   -       Create standard output templates that can be automatically applied to new and existing content, allowing the appearance of all content to be changed from one central place. Through the use of Master Pages and Themes, SharePoint provides the ability to change the entire look and feel of site.  Of course, the older brother version of SharePoint – SharePoint Server 2010 – also introduces the concept of Page Layouts which allows page template level customization and even switching the layout of an individual page using different page templates.  I think many organizations really think they want this but rarely end up using this bit of functionality.  Easy Edits:   -       Once content is separated from the visual presentation of a site, it usually becomes much easier and quicker to edit and manipulate. Most WCMS software includes WYSIWYG editing tools allowing non-technical individuals to create and edit content. This is probably easier described with a screen cap of a vanilla SharePoint Foundation page in edit mode.  Notice the page editing toolbar, the multiple layout options…  It’s actually easier to use than Microsoft Word. Workflow management: -       Workflow is the process of creating cycles of sequential and parallel tasks that must be accomplished in the CMS. For example, a content creator can submit a story, but it is not published until the copy editor cleans it up and the editor-in-chief approves it. Workflow, it’s in there. In fact, the same workflow engine is running under SharePoint Foundation that is running under the other versions of SharePoint.  The primary difference is that with SharePoint Foundation – you need to configure the workflows yourself.   Web Standards: -       Active WCMS software usually receives regular updates that include new feature sets and keep the system up to current web standards. SharePoint is in the fourth major iteration under Microsoft with the 2010 release.  In addition to the innovation that Microsoft continuously adds, you have the entire global ecosystem available. Scalable Expansion:   -       Available in most modern WCMSs is the ability to expand a single implementation (one installation on one server) across multiple domains. SharePoint Foundation can run multiple sites using multiple URLs on a single server install.  Even more powerful, SharePoint Foundation is scalable and can be part of a multi-server farm to ensure that it will handle any amount of traffic that can be thrown at it. Delegation & Security:  -       Some CMS software allows for various user groups to have limited privileges over specific content on the website, spreading out the responsibility of content management. SharePoint Foundation provides very granular security capabilities. Read @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee537811.aspx Content Syndication:  -       CMS software often assists in content distribution by generating RSS and Atom data feeds to other systems. They may also e-mail users when updates are available as part of the workflow process. SharePoint Foundation nails it.  With RSS syndication and email alerts available out of the box, content syndication is already in the platform. Multilingual Support: -       Ability to display content in multiple languages. SharePoint Foundation 2010 supports more than 40 languages. Read More Read more @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776256(v=office.12).aspxYou can download the free version from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5970

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• Projected Results

  - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP

  Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Monica Mehta Yasser Mahmud has seen a revolution in project management over the past decade. During that time, the former Primavera product strategist (who joined Oracle when his company was acquired in 2008) has not only observed a transformation in the way IT systems support corporate projects but the role project portfolio management (PPM) plays in the enterprise. “15 years ago project management was the domain of project management office (PMO),” Mahmud recalls of earlier days. “But over the course of the past decade, we've seen it transform into a mission critical enterprise discipline, that has made Primavera indispensable in the board room. Now, as a senior manager, a board member, or a C-level executive you have direct and complete visibility into what’s kind of going on in the organization—at a level of detail that you're going to consume that information.” Now serving as Oracle’s vice president of product strategy and industry marketing, Mahmud shares his thoughts on how Oracle’s Primavera solutions have evolved and how best-in-class project portfolio management systems can help businesses stay competitive. Profit: What do you feel are the market dynamics that are changing project management today? Mahmud: First, the data explosion. We're generating data at twice the rate at which we can actually store it. The same concept applies for project-intensive organizations. A lot of data is gathered, but what are we really doing with it? Are we turning data into insight? Are we using that insight and turning it into foresight with analytics tools? This is a key driver that will separate the very good companies—the very competitive companies—from those that are not as competitive. Another trend is centered on the explosion of mobile computing. By the year 2013, an estimated 35 percent of the world’s workforce is going to be mobile. That’s one billion people. So the question is not if you're going to go mobile, it’s how fast you are going to go mobile. What kind of impact does that have on how the workforce participates in projects? What worked ten to fifteen years ago is not going to work today. It requires a real rethink around the interfaces and how data is actually presented. Profit: What is the role of project management in this new landscape? Mahmud: We recently conducted a PPM study with the Economist Intelligence Unit centered to determine how important project management is considered within organizations. Our target was primarily CFOs, CIOs, and senior managers and we discovered that while 95 percent of participants believed it critical to their business, only six percent were confident that projects were delivered on time and on budget. That’s a huge gap. Most organizations are looking for efficiency, especially in these volatile financial times. But senior management can’t keep track of every project in a large organization. As a result, executives are attempting to inventory the work being conducted under their watch. What is often needed is a very high-level assessment conducted at the board level to say, “Here are the 50 initiatives that we have underway. How do they line up with our strategic drivers?” This line of questioning can provide early warning that work and strategy are out of alignment; finding the gap between what the business needs to do and the actual performance scorecard. That’s low-hanging fruit for any executive looking to increase efficiency and save money. But it can only be obtained through proper assessment of existing projects—and you need a project system of record to get that done. Over the next decade or so, project management is going to transform into holistic work management. Business leaders will want make sure key projects align with corporate strategy, but also the ability to drill down into daily activity and smaller projects to make sure they line up as well. Keeping employees from working on tasks—even for a few hours—that don’t line up with corporate goals will, in many ways, become a competitive differentiator. Profit: How do all of these market challenges and shifting trends impact Oracle’s Primavera solutions and meeting customers’ needs? Mahmud: For Primavera, it’s a transformation from being a project management application to a PPM system in the enterprise. Also making that system a mission-critical application by connecting to other key applications within the ecosystem, such as the enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain, and CRM systems. Analytics have also become a huge component. Business analytics have made Oracle’s Primavera applications pertinent in the boardroom. Now, as a senior manager, a board member, a CXO, CIO, or CEO, you have direct visibility into what’s going on in the organization at a level that you're able to consume that information. In addition, all of this information pairs up really well with your financials and other data. Certainly, when you're an Oracle shop, you have that visibility that you didn’t have before from a project execution perspective. Profit: What new strategies and tools are being implemented to create a more efficient workplace for users? Mahmud: We believe very strongly that just because you call something an enterprise project portfolio management system doesn’t make it so—you have to get people to want to participate in the system. This can’t be mandated down from the top. It simply doesn’t work that way. A truly adoptable solution is one that makes it super easy for all types users to participate, by providing them interfaces where they live. Keeping that in mind, a major area of development has been alternative user interfaces. This is increasingly resulting in the creation of lighter weight, targeted interfaces such as iOS applications, and smartphones interfaces such as for iPhone and Android platform. Profit: How does this translate into the development of Oracle’s Primavera solutions? Mahmud: Let me give you a few examples. We recently announced the launch of our Primavera P6 Team Member application, which is a native iOS application for the iPhone. This interface makes it easier for team members to do their jobs quickly and effectively. Similarly, we introduced the Primavera analytics application, which can be consumed via mobile devices, and when married with Oracle Spatial capabilities, users can get a geographical view of what’s going on and which projects are occurring in various locations around the world. Lastly, we introduced advanced email integration that allows project team members to status work via E-mail. This functionality leverages the fact that users are in E-mail system throughout the day and allows them to status their work without the need to launch the Primavera application. It comes back to a mantra: provide as many alternative user interfaces as possible, so you can give people the ability to work, to participate, to raise issues, to create projects, in the places where they live. Do it in such a way that it’s non-intrusive, do it in such a way that it’s easy and intuitive and they can get it done in a short amount of time. If you do that, workers can get back to doing what they're actually getting paid for.

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• Simplifying Human Capital Management with Mobile Applications

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Aaron Green If you're starting to think 'mobility' is a recurring theme in your reading, you'd be right. For those who haven't started to build organisational capabilities to leverage it, it's fair to say you're late to the party. The good news: better late than never. Research firm eMarketer says the worldwide smartphone audience will total 1.75 billion this year, while communications technology and services provider Ericsson suggests smartphones will triple to 5.6 billion globally by 2019. It should be no surprise, smart phone adoption is reaching the farthest corners of the globe; the subsequent impact of enterprise applications enabled by these devices is driving business performance improvement and will continue to do so. Companies using advanced workforce analytics can add significantly to the bottom line, while impacting customer satisfaction, quality and productivity. It's a statement that makes most business leaders sit forward in their chairs. Achieving these three standards is like sipping The Golden Elixir for the business world. No-one would argue their importance. So what are 'advanced workforce analytics?' Simply, they're unprecedented access to workforce trends and performance markers. Many are made possible by a mobile world and the enterprise applications that come with it on smart devices. Some refer to it as 'the consumerisation of IT'. As this phenomenon has matured and become more widely appreciated it has impacted the spectrum of functional units within an enterprise differently, but powerfully. Whether it's sales, HR, marketing, IT, or operations, all have benefited from a more mobile approach. It has been the catalyst for improvement in, and management of, the employee experience. The net result of which is happier customers. The obvious benefits but the lesser realised impact Most people understand that mobility allows for greater efficiency and productivity, collaboration and flexibility, but how that translates into business outcomes within the various functional groups is lesser known. In actuality mobility has helped galvanise partnerships between cross-functional groups within the enterprise. Where in some quarters it was once feared mobility could fragment a workforce, its rallying cry of support is coming from what you might describe as an unlikely source - HR. As the bedrock of an enterprise, it is conceivable HR might contemplate the possible negative impact of a mobile workforce that no-longer sits in an office, at the same desks every day. After all, who would know what they were doing or saying? How would they collaborate? It's reasonable to see why HR might have a legitimate claim to try and retain as much 'perceived control' as possible. The reality however is mobility has emancipated human capital and its management. Mobility and enterprise applications are expediting decision making. Google calls it Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT. It enables smoother operation and can contribute to faster growth. From a collaborative perspective, with the growing use of enterprise social media, which in many cases is being driven by HR, workforce planning and the tangible impact of change is much easier to map. This in turn provides a platform from which individuals and teams can thrive. With more agility and ability to anticipate, staff satisfaction and retention is higher, and real time feedback constant. The management team can save time, energy and costs with more accurate data, which is then intelligently applied across the workforce to truly engage with staff, customers and partners. From a human capital management (HCM) perspective, mobility can help you close the loop on true talent management. It can enhance what managers can offer and what employees can provide in return. It can create nested relationships and powerful partnerships. IT and HR - partners and stewards of mobility One effect of enterprise mobility is an evolution in the nature of the relationship between HR and IT from one of service provision to partnership. The reason for the dynamic shift is largely due to the 'bring your own device' (BYOD) movement, which is transitioning to a 'bring your own application' (BYOA) scenario. As enterprise technology has in some ways reverse-engineered its solutions to help manage this situation, the partnership between IT (the functional owner) and HR (the strategic enabler) is deeply entrenched. And it has to be. The CIO and the HR leader are faced with compliance and regulatory issues and concerns around information security and personal privacy on a daily basis, complicated by global reach and varied domestic legislation. There are tens of thousands of new mobile apps entering the market each month and, unlike many consumer applications which get downloaded but are often never opened again after initial perusal, enterprise applications are being relied upon by functional groups, not least by HR to enhance people management. It requires a systematic approach across all applications in use within the enterprise in order to ensure they're used to best effect. No turning back, and no desire to With real time analytics on performance and the ability for immediate feedback, there is no turning back for managers. In my experience with Oracle, our customers' operational efficiency is at record levels. It's clear as a result of the combination of individual KPIs and organisational goals, CIOs have been able to give HR leaders the ability to build predictive models that feed into an enterprise organisations' evolving strategy. It also helps them ensure regulatory compliance much more easily. Once an arduous task, with mobile enabled automation and quality data, compliance is simpler. Their world has changed for the better. For the CIO, mobility also assists them to optimise performance. While it doesn't come without challenges, mobile-enabled applications and the native experience users have with them means employees don't need high-level technical expertise to train users. It reduces the training and engagement required from the IT team so they can focus on other things that deliver value to the bottom line; all the while lowering the cost of assets and related maintenance work by simplifying processes. Rewards of a mobile enterprise outweigh risks With mobile tools allowing us to increasingly integrate our personal and professional lives, terms like "office hours" are becoming irrelevant, so work/life balance is a cultural must. Enterprises are expected to offer tools that enable workers to access information from anywhere, at any time, from any device. Employees want simplicity and convenience but it doesn't stop at private enterprise. This is a societal shift. Governments, which traditionally have been known to be slower to adopt newer technology, are also offering support for local businesses to go mobile. Several state government websites have advice on how to create mobile apps and more. And as recently as last week the Victorian Minister for Technology Gordon Rich-Phillips unveiled his State government's ICT roadmap for the next two years, which details an increased use of the public cloud, as well as mobile communications, and improved access to online data-sets. Tech giants are investing significantly in solutions designed to simplify mobile deployment and enablement. The mobility trend is creating a wave of change in the industry and driving transformation in the enterprise. If you're not on that wave, the business risk continues to rise as your competitiveness drops. Aaron is the Vice President of HCM Strategy at Oracle Corporation where he is responsible for researching and identifying emerging trends in the practice of Human Resources and works to deliver industry-leading technology solutions. Other responsibilities include, ownership of Oracle's innovative HCM solutions across JAPAC and enabling organisations to transform and modernise their workforce tools. Follow him on Twitter @aaronjgreen

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• Getting Started With Tailoring Business Processes

  - by Richard Bingham

  In this article, and for the sake of simplicity, we will use the term “On-Premise” to mean a deployment where you have design-time development access to the instance, including administration of the technology components, the applications filesystem, and the database. In reality this might be a local development instance that is then supported by a team who can deploy your customizations to the restricted production instance equivalents. Tools Overview Firstly let’s look at the Design-Time tools within JDeveloper for customizing and extending the artifacts of a Business Process. In essence this falls into two buckets; SOA Composite Editor for working with BPEL processes, and the BPM Studio. The SOA Composite Editor As a standard extension to JDeveloper, this graphical design tool should be familiar to anyone previously worked with Oracle SOA Server. With easy-to-use modeling capability, backed-up by full XML source-view (for read-only), it provides everything that is needed to implement the technical design. In simple terms, once deployed to the remote SOA Server the composite components (like Mediator) leverage the Event Delivery Network (EDN) for interaction with the application logic. If you are customizing an existing Fusion Applications BPEL process then be aware that it does support MDS-based customization layers just like Page Composer where different customizations are used based on the run-time context, like for a specific Product or Business Unit. This also makes them safe from patching and upgrades, although only a single active version of the composite is available at run-time. This is defined by a field on the composite record, available in Enterprise Manager. Obviously if you wish to fire different activities and tasks based on the user context then you can should include switches to fork the flows in your custom BPEL process. Figure 1 – A BPEL process in Composite Editor The following describes the simplified steps for making customizations to BPEL processes. This is the most common method of changing the business processes of Fusion Applications, as over 400 BPEL-based composite applications are provided out-of-the-box. Setup your local Fusion Applications JDeveloper environment. The SOA Composite Editor should be installed as part of the Fusion Applications extension. If there are problems you can also find it under the ‘Check for Updates’ help menu option. Since SOA Server is not part of the JDeveloper integrated WebLogic Server, setup a standalone WebLogic environment for deploying and testing. Obviously you might use a Fusion Applications development instance also. Package the existing standard Fusion Applications SOA Composite using Enterprise Manager and export it as a complete SOA Archive (SAR) file, resulting in a local .jar file. You may need to ask your system administrator for this. Import the exported SAR .jar file into JDeveloper using the File menu, under the option ‘SOA Archive into SOA Project’. In JDeveloper set the appropriate customization layer values, and then change from the default role to the Fusion Applications Customization Developer role. Make the customizations and save the application project. Finally redeploy the composite application, either to a direct Application Server connection, or as a fresh SAR (jar) file that can then be re-imported and deployed via Enterprise Manager. The Business Process Management (BPM) Suite In addition to the relatively low-level development environment associated with BPEL process creation, Oracle provides a suite of products that allow business process adjustments to be made without the need for some of the programming skills.  The aim is to abstract much of the technical implementation and to provide a Business Analyst tools for immediately implementing organization changes. Obviously there are some limitations on what they can do, however the BPM Suite functionality increases with each release and for the majority of the cases the tools remains as applicable as its developer-orientated sister. At the current time business processes must be explicitly coded to support just one of these use-cases, either BPEL for developer use or BPM for business analyst use. That said, they both run on the same SOA Server in much the same way. The components bundled in each SOA Composite Application can be verified by inspection through Enterprise Manager. Figure 2 – A BPM Process in JDeveloper BPM Suite. BPM processes are written in a standard notation (BPMN) and the modeling tools are very similar to that of BPEL. The steps to deploy a custom BPM process are also essentially much the same, since the BPM process is bundled into a SOA Composite just like a BPEL process. As such the SOA Composite Editor  actually has support for both artifacts and even allows use of them together, such as a calling a BPM process as a partnerlink from a BPEL process. For more details see the references below. Business Analyst Tooling In addition to using JDeveloper extensions for BPM development, there are run-time tools that Business Analysts can use to make adjustments, so that without high costs of an IT project the system can be tuned to match changes to the business operation. The first tool to consider is the BPM Composer, deployed with the middleware SOA Server and accessible online, and for Fusion Applications it is under the Business Process icon on the homepage of the Application Composer. Figure 3 – Business Process Composer showing a CRM process flow. The key difference between this and using JDeveloper is that the BPM Composer has a Business Catalog prepopulated with features and functions that can be used, mostly through registered WebServices. This means no coding or complex interface development is required, simply drag-drop-configure. The items in the business catalog are seeded by either Oracle (as a BPM Template) or added to by your own custom development. You cannot create or generate catalog content from BPM Composer directly. As per the screenshot you can see the Business Catalog content in the BPM Project browser region. In addition, other online tools for use by Business Analysts include the BPM Worklist application for editing business rules and approval management configuration, plus the SOA Composer which focuses on non-approval business rules and domain value maps. At the current time there are only a handful of BPM processes shipped with Fusion Applications HCM and CRM, including on-boarding workers and processing customer registrations.  This also means a limited number of associated BPM Templates provided out-of-the-box, therefore a limited Business Catalog. That said, BPM-based extension is a powerful capability to leverage and will most likely develop going forwards, especially for use in SaaS deployments where full design-time JDeveloper access is not available. Further Reading For BPEL – Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide – Section 12 For BPM – Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide – Section 7 The product-specific documentation and implementation guides for Fusion Applications Fusion Middleware Developers Guide for SOA Suite Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management User’s Guide for Oracle Business Process Composer Oracle University courses on BPM Suite and SOA Development

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• Pulseaudio is no longer working in Debian Squeeze: 'Failed to open module "module-combine-sink": file not found'

  - by mattalexx

  I'm having a problem with pulseaudio. My machine crashed, and when I rebooted and ran pavucontrol, I got a "Connection Failed: Connection refused" dialog. When I run pulseaudio --log-level=info --log-target=stderr from the command line, I get the following output: [...] I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device front:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:1: No such file or directory I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:iec958:1: Invalid argument I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:iec958:1: Invalid argument I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:iec958:1: Invalid argument I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:iec958:1: Invalid argument I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:iec958:1: Invalid argument I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=1,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=1,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=1,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=1,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=1,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:1 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device front:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:1: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:1: No such file or directory I: card.c: Created 0 "alsa_card.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio" I: alsa-sink.c: Successfully opened device front:1. I: alsa-sink.c: Selected mapping 'Analog Stereo' (analog-stereo). I: alsa-sink.c: Successfully enabled mmap() mode. I: alsa-sink.c: Successfully enabled timer-based scheduling mode. I: (alsa-lib)control.c: Invalid CTL front:1 I: alsa-mixer.c: Unable to attach to mixer front:1: No such file or directory I: alsa-mixer.c: Successfully attached to mixer 'hw:1' W: alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0.00 dB to 0.00 dB which makes no sense. I: module-device-restore.c: Restoring volume for sink alsa_output.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio.analog-stereo. I: sink.c: Created sink 0 "alsa_output.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio.analog-stereo" with sample spec s16le 2ch 44100Hz and channel map front-left,front-right I: sink.c: alsa.resolution_bits = "16" I: sink.c: device.api = "alsa" I: sink.c: device.class = "sound" I: sink.c: alsa.class = "generic" I: sink.c: alsa.subclass = "generic-mix" I: sink.c: alsa.name = "USB Audio" I: sink.c: alsa.id = "USB Audio" I: sink.c: alsa.subdevice = "0" I: sink.c: alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0" I: sink.c: alsa.device = "0" I: sink.c: alsa.card = "1" I: sink.c: alsa.card_name = "DigiHug USB Audio" I: sink.c: alsa.long_card_name = "FiiO DigiHug USB Audio at usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.2, full speed" I: sink.c: alsa.driver_name = "snd_usb_audio" I: sink.c: device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1a.0-usb-0:1.2:1.1" I: sink.c: sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2/1-1.2:1.1/sound/card1" I: sink.c: udev.id = "usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio" I: sink.c: device.bus = "usb" I: sink.c: device.vendor.id = "1852" I: sink.c: device.vendor.name = "GYROCOM C&C Co., LTD" I: sink.c: device.product.id = "7022" I: sink.c: device.product.name = "DigiHug_USB_Audio" I: sink.c: device.serial = "FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio" I: sink.c: device.string = "front:1" I: sink.c: device.buffering.buffer_size = "352800" I: sink.c: device.buffering.fragment_size = "176400" I: sink.c: device.access_mode = "mmap+timer" I: sink.c: device.profile.name = "analog-stereo" I: sink.c: device.profile.description = "Analog Stereo" I: sink.c: device.description = "DigiHug_USB_Audio Analog Stereo" I: sink.c: alsa.mixer_name = "USB Mixer" I: sink.c: alsa.components = "USB1852:7022" I: sink.c: module-udev-detect.discovered = "1" I: sink.c: device.icon_name = "audio-card-usb" I: source.c: Created source 0 "alsa_output.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio.analog-stereo.monitor" with sample spec s16le 2ch 44100Hz and channel map front-left,front-right I: source.c: device.description = "Monitor of DigiHug_USB_Audio Analog Stereo" I: source.c: device.class = "monitor" I: source.c: alsa.card = "1" I: source.c: alsa.card_name = "DigiHug USB Audio" I: source.c: alsa.long_card_name = "FiiO DigiHug USB Audio at usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.2, full speed" I: source.c: alsa.driver_name = "snd_usb_audio" I: source.c: device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1a.0-usb-0:1.2:1.1" I: source.c: sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2/1-1.2:1.1/sound/card1" I: source.c: udev.id = "usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio" I: source.c: device.bus = "usb" I: source.c: device.vendor.id = "1852" I: source.c: device.vendor.name = "GYROCOM C&C Co., LTD" I: source.c: device.product.id = "7022" I: source.c: device.product.name = "DigiHug_USB_Audio" I: source.c: device.serial = "FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio" I: source.c: device.string = "1" I: source.c: module-udev-detect.discovered = "1" I: source.c: device.icon_name = "audio-card-usb" I: alsa-sink.c: Using 2.0 fragments of size 176400 bytes (1000.00ms), buffer size is 352800 bytes (2000.00ms) I: alsa-sink.c: Time scheduling watermark is 20.00ms I: alsa-sink.c: Hardware volume ranges from 0 to 110. I: alsa-sink.c: Using hardware volume control. Hardware dB scale not supported. I: alsa-sink.c: Using hardware mute control. I: core-util.c: Successfully enabled SCHED_RR scheduling for thread, with priority 5. I: alsa-sink.c: Starting playback. I: module.c: Loaded "module-alsa-card" (index: #4; argument: "device_id="1" name="usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio" card_name="alsa_card.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio" tsched=yes ignore_dB=no card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""). I: module-udev-detect.c: Card /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2/1-1.2:1.1/sound/card1 (alsa_card.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio) module loaded. I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device front:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device front:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device front:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device front:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device front:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround40:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround40:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround40:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround40:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround40:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround41:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround41:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround41:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround41:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround41:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround50:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround50:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround50:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround50:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround50:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround51:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround51:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround51:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround51:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround51:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround71:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround71:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround71:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround71:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device surround71:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: open '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p' failed (-2) I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device iec958:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM a52:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device a52:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=2,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=2,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=2,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=2,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:2: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)confmisc.c: Unable to find definition 'cards.USB-Audio.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=2,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2' I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)conf.c: Evaluate error: No such file or directory I: (alsa-lib)pcm.c: Unknown PCM hdmi:2 I: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hdmi:2: No such file or directory I: alsa-util.c: Device hw:2 doesn't support 44100 Hz, changed to 8000 Hz. I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:front:2: Invalid argument I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:hw:2: Invalid argument I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:iec958:2: Invalid argument I: alsa-util.c: Failed to set hardware parameters on plug:iec958:2: Invalid argument I: module-card-restore.c: Restoring profile for card alsa_card.usb-046d_08d7-01-U0x46d0x8d7. I: card.c: Created 1 "alsa_card.usb-046d_08d7-01-U0x46d0x8d7" I: module.c: Loaded "module-alsa-card" (index: #5; argument: "device_id="2" name="usb-046d_08d7-01-U0x46d0x8d7" card_name="alsa_card.usb-046d_08d7-01-U0x46d0x8d7" tsched=yes ignore_dB=no card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""). I: module-udev-detect.c: Card /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.6/1-1.6:1.1/sound/card2 (alsa_card.usb-046d_08d7-01-U0x46d0x8d7) module loaded. I: module-udev-detect.c: Found 3 cards. I: module.c: Loaded "module-udev-detect" (index: #6; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-esound-protocol-unix" (index: #7; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-native-protocol-unix" (index: #8; argument: ""). I: module-default-device-restore.c: Saved default sink 'alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-surround-41' not existant, not restoring default sink setting. I: module-default-device-restore.c: Saved default source 'alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-surround-41.monitor' not existant, not restoring default source setting. I: module.c: Loaded "module-default-device-restore" (index: #9; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-rescue-streams" (index: #10; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-always-sink" (index: #11; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-intended-roles" (index: #12; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-suspend-on-idle" (index: #13; argument: ""). I: client.c: Created 0 "ConsoleKit Session /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session2" I: module.c: Loaded "module-console-kit" (index: #14; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-position-event-sounds" (index: #15; argument: ""). I: module.c: Loaded "module-cork-music-on-phone" (index: #16; argument: ""). E: module.c: Failed to open module "module-combine-sink": file not found E: main.c: Module load failed. E: main.c: Failed to initialize daemon. I: module.c: Unloading "module-device-restore" (index: #0). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-device-restore" (index: #0). I: module.c: Unloading "module-stream-restore" (index: #1). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-stream-restore" (index: #1). I: module.c: Unloading "module-card-restore" (index: #2). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-card-restore" (index: #2). I: module.c: Unloading "module-augment-properties" (index: #3). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-augment-properties" (index: #3). I: module.c: Unloading "module-alsa-card" (index: #4). I: sink.c: Freeing sink 0 "alsa_output.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio.analog-stereo" I: source.c: Freeing source 0 "alsa_output.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio.analog-stereo.monitor" I: card.c: Freed 0 "alsa_card.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio" I: module.c: Unloaded "module-alsa-card" (index: #4). I: module.c: Unloading "module-alsa-card" (index: #5). I: card.c: Freed 1 "alsa_card.usb-046d_08d7-01-U0x46d0x8d7" I: module.c: Unloaded "module-alsa-card" (index: #5). I: module.c: Unloading "module-udev-detect" (index: #6). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-udev-detect" (index: #6). I: module.c: Unloading "module-esound-protocol-unix" (index: #7). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-esound-protocol-unix" (index: #7). I: module.c: Unloading "module-native-protocol-unix" (index: #8). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-native-protocol-unix" (index: #8). I: module.c: Unloading "module-default-device-restore" (index: #9). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-default-device-restore" (index: #9). I: module.c: Unloading "module-rescue-streams" (index: #10). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-rescue-streams" (index: #10). I: module.c: Unloading "module-always-sink" (index: #11). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-always-sink" (index: #11). I: module.c: Unloading "module-intended-roles" (index: #12). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-intended-roles" (index: #12). I: module.c: Unloading "module-suspend-on-idle" (index: #13). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-suspend-on-idle" (index: #13). I: module.c: Unloading "module-console-kit" (index: #14). I: client.c: Freed 0 "ConsoleKit Session /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session2" I: module.c: Unloaded "module-console-kit" (index: #14). I: module.c: Unloading "module-position-event-sounds" (index: #15). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-position-event-sounds" (index: #15). I: module.c: Unloading "module-cork-music-on-phone" (index: #16). I: module.c: Unloaded "module-cork-music-on-phone" (index: #16). I: main.c: Daemon terminated. I believe the relevant part is this: E: module.c: Failed to open module "module-combine-sink": file not found E: main.c: Module load failed. E: main.c: Failed to initialize daemon. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling pulseaudio, I tried to find a way to install module-combine-sink. Nothing worked. I'm on a Debian Squeeze 32-bit machine. What can I do to fix this?

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• Outlook Anywhere inconsistencies with authentication methods

  - by gravyface

  So I've read this question and attempted just about every other workaround I've found online. Problem seems completely illogical to me, anyways: SBS 2011, vanilla install; haven't touched anything in IIS or Exchange outside of what's been done through the checklist (brand new domain, completely new customer) except to import an existing wildcard certificate for *.example.com (which is valid, Remote Web Workplace and Outlook Web Access work fine). On the two test machines and one production machine running a mixture of Windows XP Pro, Windows 7 and Outlook 2003 through to 2010, I've had no problem saving the password after configuring Outlook Anywhere using the wrong authentication method. I repeat, I have had no issues using the wrong authentication method on these test machines; password saves the first time, no problem, can verify it exists in the credentials manager (Start Run control userpasswords2), close Outlook, reboot, go make a sammie, come back, credentials are still saved. When I say wrong, it's because I was choosing NTLM and Exchange (under Exchange Console Server Configuration Client Access) was set by default to use Basic. On two completely different machines setup by a co-worker, they had (under my guidance) used NTLM as well... except that frustratingly, Outlook would always ask for a password. One machine was Windows XP with Outlook 2010, the other was Windows 7 with Outlook 2003. When these two machines were set to use Basic -- the correct settings -- the option to save was there and now works without issue. Puzzled by how my machines could possibly work with the wrong authentication, I then went into one of them and changed the authentication method to Basic. Now here's where it gets a little crazy: if I go under Outlook and change the authentication to use the correct setting (Basic) it fails to save the password and Outlook prompts every time (without a "remember me" checkbox). I have not had a chance to change it to Basic on the other two machines to see if this is just a fluke or not, but something just isn't right here. My two hunches are either a missing/installed KB Update or perhaps a local security policy. I should add that none of the 5 test machines in the equation here have ever been joined to the domain.

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• Low framerate on background apps

  - by user1698923

  My problem is that when a game is running in the foreground, in Full Screen mode, any applications on my second monitor (such as youtube videos, videos, not app specific) drop their frame-rate to about 2-3 FPS. It seems like some sort of power management option that I can't track down. As far as I can tell, it's not due to the GPU not being able to keep up. For instance, my PC can play League of Legends at about 280FPS when the framerate is uncapped. If i cap it at 60FPS using the in-game option, it has no affect on the performance of the background app. Summary Operating System Windows 8 Pro 64-bit CPU Intel Core i7 3820 @ 3.60GHz 42 °C Sandy Bridge-E 32nm Technology RAM 12.0GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 533MHz (7-7-7-20) Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X79-UD3 (SOCKET 0) 37 °C Graphics DELL U2713HM (2560x1440@59Hz) DELL U2713HM (2560x1440@59Hz) 1280MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (Gigabyte) 58 °C Hard Drives 212GB Volume0 (RAID) 1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 (SATA) 36 °C 1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 (SATA) 34 °C Optical Drives No optical disk drives detected Audio ASUS Xonar Essence STX Audio Device Operating System Windows 8 Pro 64-bit Computer type: Desktop Graphics Monitor 1 Name DELL U2713HM on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 Current Resolution 2560x1440 pixels Work Resolution 2560x1400 pixels State Enabled, Output devices support Multiple displays Extended, Secondary, Enabled Monitor Width 2560 Monitor Height 1440 Monitor BPP 32 bits per pixel Monitor Frequency 59 Hz Device \\.\DISPLAY4\Monitor0 Monitor 2 Name DELL U2713HM on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 Current Resolution 2560x1440 pixels Work Resolution 2560x1400 pixels State Enabled, Output devices support Multiple displays Extended, Primary, Enabled Monitor Width 2560 Monitor Height 1440 Monitor BPP 32 bits per pixel Monitor Frequency 59 Hz Device \\.\DISPLAY5\Monitor0 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 Manufacturer NVIDIA Model GeForce GTX 570 GPU GF110 Device ID 10DE-1086 Revision A2 Subvendor Gigabyte (1458) Series GeForce GTX 500 Current Performance Level Level 3 Current GPU Clock 845 MHz Current Memory Clock 1900 MHz Current Shader Clock 1690 MHz Voltage 0.988 V Technology 40 nm Die Size 520 mm² Release Date Dec 07, 2010 DirectX Support 11.0 OpenGL Support 5.0 Bus Interface PCI Express x16 Temperature 57 °C Driver version 9.18.13.2018 BIOS Version 70.10.55.00.01 ROPs 40 Shaders 512 unified Memory Type GDDR5 Memory 1280 MB Bus Width 64x5 (320 bit) Filtering Modes 16x Anisotropic Noise Level Moderate Max Power Draw 219 Watts Count of performance levels : 3 Level 1 - "Default" GPU Clock 50 MHz Memory Clock 135 MHz Shader Clock 101 MHz Level 2 - "2D Desktop" GPU Clock 405 MHz Memory Clock 324 MHz Shader Clock 810 MHz Level 3 - "3D Applications" GPU Clock 845 MHz Memory Clock 1900 MHz Shader Clock 1690 MHz Things I've tried: 1) Updating the graphics driver 2) Setting windows power mode to High Performance 3) Reset Nvidia Global Performance settings to default

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• How to Block a HTTP Website along with Its All Subdomain using IPTABLE

  - by netnovice

  I run a small HTTP web proxy site . We can not modify anything there in Proxy program. Few users mainly use Yahoo Web mail for Spamming and We need to block yahoo web mail access only ( complete yahoo website is also Ok) through our proxy . specially .mail.yahoo.com.. Like - we need to block URL like - http://uk-mg61.mail.yahoo.com http://in-mg61.mail.yahoo.com etc. etc. Note : We generaly open http://mail.yahoo.com in browser - but after loggin in it forwards it to Urls like above but all those are subdomain of mail.yahoo.com My target is if we can get all IP list for all available subdomain of mail.yahoo.com I can block it totally . We can only use IPTABLE ...I know using proxy itself we can check HTTP header and check Host field for .mail.yahoo.com. and block it. Solution : Follwoign what I did using IPtable . I collected IP CIDR block for yahoo mainly for yahoo web mail ( mail.yahoo.com ) as much as possible ( using linux host and whois command ) [ like 66.163.160.0/19 nd 98.136.0.0/14 etc ] and applied follwing command Like iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d 66.163.160.0/19 -m state --state NEW -j DROP etc. Things are working fine. user can not access yahoo mail BUT the problem is I need to be updated with the avaialble CIDR YAHOO IP list ... I am ready to do it every week. I collected many from Net... You know theer are countles subdomain of mail.yahoo.com and seems every week Yahoo adding new IP... But what I observed some time user can bypass our rule and the reason obvously all the avaialble Ips are not entered in IPtable yet. What we need to do is enter all Ips of mail.yahoo.co But where do I find all subdomain for mail.yahoo.com I know we can get it from DNS but I must not be allowed to make DNS axfr query. Also doing reverse DNS will have performance issue. I want to know all subdomain of .mail.yahoo.c Can I get it from yahoo site. I have the list of all YAHOO smtp IP....but I need webmail Ip... ( http://public.yahoo.com/carloc/ymail.html ) Can you please share your Idea. Thank you

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• Compress with Gzip or Deflate my CSS & JS files

  - by muhammad usman

  i ve a fashion website & using wordpress. I want to Compress or Gzip or Deflate my CSS & JS files. i have tried many codes with .htaccess to compress but not working. Would any body help me please? My phpinfo is http://deemasfashion.co.uk/1.php below are the codes i have tried not not working. Few of them might be same but there is a difference in the syntax. <ifModule mod_gzip.c> mod_gzip_on Yes mod_gzip_dechunk Yes mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$ mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$ mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.* mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.* mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.* mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.* </ifModule> other code I have tried but not working... <files *.css> SetOutputFilter DEFLATE </files> <files *.js> SetOutputFilter DEFLATE </files> I have also tried this code as well but no success. <ifModule mod_gzip.c> mod_gzip_on Yes mod_gzip_dechunk Yes mod_gzip_item_include file \.(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$ mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$ mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.* mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.* mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.* mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.* </ifModule> This code is also not working <FilesMatch "\.(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$"> SetOutputFilter DEFLATE </FilesMatch> Here is another code not working. <ifmodule mod_deflate.c> AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x- javascript application/javascript </ifmodule> Here is another code not working. <IFModule mod_deflate.c> <filesmatch "\.(js|css|html|jpg|png|php)$"> SetOutputFilter DEFLATE </filesmatch> </IFModule> Here is another code not working. <IfModule mod_deflate.c> AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript text/javascript application/javascript application/json <FilesMatch "\.(css|js)$" > SetOutputFilter DEFLATE </FilesMatch> </IfModule> Here is another code not working. #Gzip - compress text, html, javascript, css, xml <ifmodule mod_deflate.c> AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript </ifmodule> #End Gzip Here is another code not working. <Location /> SetOutputFilter DEFLATE SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:exe|t?gz|zip|gz2|sit|rar)$ no-gzip dont-vary </Location>

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• Tutorial for configuring OpenVPN [on hold]

  - by user2699451

  I have been through 10+ tutorials on setting up a OpenVPN, and each tutorial gives a different problem... Does anyone know of a decent and helpful website/tutorial which I could go to to get it set up? I have been battling through it for almost 2 months now. Yes, I have also bugged forums.openvpn, but I think I have "reached my post limit" with them. I have to configure it remotely via ssh. UPDATE: okay, I have been asked to be more clear on the topic I followed this tutorial (as a example) - http://www.servermom.com/how-to-build-openvpn-server-on-centos-6-x/732/ I had no issues setting up, etc. except when I boot into windows and run the OpenVPN GUI Client, it connects and gives this error: WARNING: Bad encapsulated packet length from peer (21331), which must be 0 and <= 1576 -- please ensure that --tun-mtu or --link-mtu is equal on both peers -- this condition could also indicate a possible active attack on the TCP link -- [Attemping restart...] Here is my server config: port 1194 #- port proto udp #- protocol dev tun tun-mtu 1500 tun-mtu-extra 32 mssfix 1450 reneg-sec 0 ca /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/ca.crt cert /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/server.crt key /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/server.key dh /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/dh1024.pem plugin /usr/lib64/openvpn/plugin/lib/openvpn-auth-pam.so /etc/pam.d/login #- Co$ #plugin /etc/openvpn/radiusplugin.so /etc/openvpn/radiusplugin.cnf #- Uncomment$ client-cert-not-required username-as-common-name server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0 push "redirect-gateway def1" push "dhcp-option DNS 8.8.8.8" push "dhcp-option DNS 8.8.4.4" keepalive 5 30 comp-lzo persist-key persist-tun status 1194.log verb 3 and my client config: client dev tun proto udp remote [server ip] 1194 # - Your server IP and OpenVPN Port resolv-retry infinite nobind tun-mtu 1500 tun-mtu-extra 32 mssfix 1450 persist-key persist-tun ca ca.crt auth-user-pass comp-lzo reneg-sec 0 verb 3 OpenVPN Client Log: Thu Oct 31 11:51:29 2013 OpenVPN 2.0.9 Win32-MinGW [SSL] [LZO] built on Oct 1 2006 Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 IMPORTANT: OpenVPN's default port number is now 1194, based on an official port number assignment by IANA. OpenVPN 2.0-beta16 and earlier used 5000 as the default port. Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 WARNING: No server certificate verification method has been enabled. See http://openvpn.net/howto.html#mitm for more info. Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 LZO compression initialized Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 Control Channel MTU parms [ L:1576 D:140 EF:40 EB:0 ET:0 EL:0 ] Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1576 D:1450 EF:44 EB:135 ET:32 EL:0 AF:3/1 ] Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 Local Options hash (VER=V4): '2547efd2' Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 Expected Remote Options hash (VER=V4): '77cf0943' Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 Attempting to establish TCP connection with x.x.x.x:1194 Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 TCP connection established with x.x.x.x:1194 Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 TCPv4_CLIENT link local: [undef] Thu Oct 31 11:51:44 2013 TCPv4_CLIENT link remote: x.x.x.x:1194 // after this it just hangs, nothing happens So I dont know what I am doing wrong but I am getting a bit impatient and on each forum I post this, I get stupid/unrelated/unhelpful answers...

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• Ubuntu Natty: 32-bit userland, 64-bit kernel?

  - by dsimcha

  I'm trying to manually install a 64-bit kernel for 32-bit Ubuntu. I have my reasons for doing so, but they're too complicated to explain here. Prior to Natty, this worked fine. Now, on Natty, I get the following error message when I try doing it the same way: dsimcha@dsimcha-laptop:~$ sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture linux-image-2.6.38-8-server_2.6.38-8.42_amd64.deb [sudo] password for dsimcha: dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.38-8-server_2.6.38-8.42_amd64.deb (--install): cannot access archive: No such file or directory Errors were encountered while processing: linux-image-2.6.38-8-server_2.6.38-8.42_amd64.deb dsimcha@dsimcha-laptop:~$ cd Downloads/ dsimcha@dsimcha-laptop:~/Downloads$ sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture linux-image-2.6.38-8-server_2.6.38-8.42_amd64.deb dpkg: warning: overriding problem because --force enabled: package architecture (amd64) does not match system (i386) (Reading database ... 159153 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 2.6.38-8.42 (using linux-image-2.6.38-8-server_2.6.38-8.42_amd64.deb) ... Done. Unpacking replacement linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 ... Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 2.6.38-8-server /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-server run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 2.6.38-8-server /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-server dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64: linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 depends on initramfs-tools (>= 0.36ubuntu6). linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 depends on coreutils | fileutils (>= 4.0); however: Package coreutils:amd64 is not installed. linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 depends on module-init-tools (>= 3.3-pre11-4ubuntu3); however: linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 depends on wireless-crda; however: dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 (--install): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Errors were encountered while processing: linux-image-2.6.38-8-server:amd64 When I try the dependencies manually, I get, for example: dsimcha@dsimcha-laptop:~/Downloads$ sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture coreutils_8.5-1ubuntu6_amd64.deb dpkg: warning: overriding problem because --force enabled: package architecture (amd64) does not match system (i386) dpkg: error processing coreutils_8.5-1ubuntu6_amd64.deb (--install): coreutils:amd64 8.5-1ubuntu6 (Multi-Arch: no) is not co-installable with coreutils:i386 8.5-1ubuntu6 (Multi-Arch: no) which is currently installed Errors were encountered while processing: coreutils_8.5-1ubuntu6_amd64.deb Has anyone had any success installing 64-bit kernels on 32-bit Natty? If so, how can this be done?

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• Gmail sends bulk messages sent by postfix to spam - spf, rDNS are set up (headers inside)

  - by snitko

  here are the headers of the blocked messages (actual domain replaced with domain.com, ip address with n.n.n.n and gmail account name with person.account): Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: by 10.216.89.137 with SMTP id c9cs247685wef; Tue, 6 Dec 2011 16:06:37 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.224.199.134 with SMTP id es6mr14447757qab.2.1323216395590; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:06:35 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: from mail.domain.com (domain.com. [n.n.n.n]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id b16si7471407qcv.131.2011.12.06.16.06.35; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:06:35 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates n.n.n.n as permitted sender) client-ip=n.n.n.n; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates n.n.n.n as permitted sender) [email protected] Received: by mail.domain.com (Postfix, from userid 5001) id 26ADE381E3; Tue, 6 Dec 2011 19:06:35 -0500 (EST) Received: from domain.com (domain.com [127.0.0.1]) by mail.domain.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0148638030 for <[email protected]>; Tue, 6 Dec 2011 19:06:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:06:31 -0500 From: DomainApp <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Subject: Roman Snitko says hi Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-No-Spam: True Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: [email protected] Messages go to Spam folder on various gmail accounts, so it's not a coincidence. I followed all gmail guides on sending bulk emails from here https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81126. I also checked my ip-address here http://www.dnsblcheck.co.uk/ and it's NOT on the blacklists. Thus I have two questions: What may be the possible reason for the messages to go to Spam folder? Is there any way to contact Google and ask them what causes this? Update: I have set up openDKIM on my server, everything works, gmail message headers say that dkim=pass, which means everything is set up correctly. Messages still end up in Spam folder.

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• Hibernating and booting into another OS: will my filesystems be corrupted?

  - by Ryan Thompson

  Suppose I have Windows and Linux installed on the same computer. If I hibernate Windows, can I boot into Linux without corrupting the Windows filesystem when I resume Windows? What about the other way around? What if I hibernate one, boot into the other, and mount the hibernated filesystem read/write? Read-only? If this is unsafe, is there any way to detect the hibernated state of the other OS and prevent mounting its filesystem? Basically, how far can I push this before it breaks, and how dangerous is it near the edge? I think I know the answers to some of the above questions, but for other ones, I have no idea, and for obvious reasons I have not tested this on my own computer. If someone has tested these, please enlighten the rest of us. I'm not necessarily looking for a specific answer to every question; I'll accept any response that answers a reasonable portion. EDIT: Let me clarify that when I say "hibernate," I mean the process of writing the contents of RAM to the hard disk and completely powering down the computer. In this state, powering the computer back on brings you through the BIOS and bootloader again, and you could theoretically select another operating system on a multi-boot system. Anyway, on with the original question: RESULTS Ok, after everyone's assurances that this would work, I tested it for myself. I set up Ubuntu to remount all ntfs filesystems and external drives read-only before hibernating. There was no need for a similar Windows setup because Windows does not read Linux filesystems. Then, I tried alternately hibernating one operating system and resuming the other, back and forth a few times. I even tried mounting the Windows filesystem from Ubuntu read-write, and creating a few files. Windows didn't complain when I resumed. So, in conclusion, you can more or less freely hibernate in a dual-boot Windows/Linux scenario. Note that I did not test a dual Linux/Linux co-hibernation situation. If you have two or more Linux installs and you hibernate one of them, you might be able to corrupt the filesystem by mounting it from another.

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• Apache works on http and https, SVN only on http

  - by user27880

  I asked a question about this before, and got most of it fixed. If I switch off https redirect and go to http://mydomain.com/svn/test0, I get the authentication window popping up, and I can enter my AD credentials, and bingo. Switching https redirect back on, if I go to http://mydomain.com I am automatically redirected to https, which is what I want, and the 'CerntOS test page' pops up. Perfect. The problem occurs when I want to go to one of my test repos via https. Here is my httpd.conf file, with confidential information suitably hosed... === NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin [email protected] ServerName svn.mycompany.com ErrorLog logs/subversion-error_log CustomLog logs/subversion-access_log common Redirect permanent / https://svn.mycompany.com </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost svn.mycompany.com:443> SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/ssl/wildcard.mycompany.com.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/ssl/wildcard.mycompany.com.key SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/httpd/ssl/intermediate.crt ServerName svn.mycompany.com ServerAdmin [email protected] ErrorLog logs/subversion-error_log CustomLog logs/subversion-access_log common <Location /svn> DAV svn SVNParentPath /usr/local/subversion SVNListParentPath off AuthName "Subversion Repositories" # NT Logon Details Require valid-user AuthBasicProvider file ldap AuthType Basic AuthzLDAPAuthoritative off AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/conf/svnpasswd AuthName "Subversion Server II" AuthLDAPURL "ldap://our-pdc:389/OU=Company Name,DC=com,DC=co,DC=uk?sAMAccountName?sub?(objectClass=*)" AuthLDAPBindDN "DOMAIN\subversion" AuthLDAPBindPassword XXXXXXX AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/httpd/conf/svnaccessfile </Location> </VirtualHost> === Now, in ssl_error_log, I get === ==> /etc/httpd/logs/ssl_error_log <== [Fri Nov 01 16:07:55 2013] [error] [client XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/svn === This comes from the DocumentRoot directive further up the httpd.conf file, which of course points to /var/www/html. I know that this location is wrong, but how can I get SVN to serve the repo? I tried an Alias directive as so .. Alias /svn /usr/local/subversion .. but this didn't work. I tried to alter the Location directive. That didn't work either. Can someone help? I sense that this is so close to being solved ... Thanks. Edit: apachectl -S output: [root@svn conf]# apachectl -S VirtualHost configuration: 127.0.0.1:443 svn.mycompany.com (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1020) wildcard NameVirtualHosts and default servers: default:443 svn.mycompany.com (/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf:74) *:80 is a NameVirtualHost default server svn.mycompany.com (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1012) port 80 namevhost svn.mycompany.com (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1012) Syntax OK

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• usb_modeswitch not switching

  - by deniz

  After I upgraded from kernel 2.6.18 to 3.5.3 modeswitch started not to work for me. Although lsusb shows my usb modem, usb_modeswitch does not switch it. My system information is like below. I ran lsusb, dmesg, usb-devices and usb_modeswitch their output is like below. usb_modeswitch instead of switching my modem it says "No devices in default mode found. Nothing to do. Bye.". Can you offer a solution? Kernel: Linux 3.5.3 usb_modeswitch: 1.2.3-1 usb_modeswitch-data: 20120120-1 usbutils: 006-1 libusb: 1.0.8-0.1 root@localhost$ lsusb Bus 002 Device 029: ID 12d1:1446 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. root@localhost$ dmesg [70112.477080] usb 2-1.4: new high-speed USB device number 30 using ehci_hcd [70112.567757] scsi49 : usb-storage 2-1.4:1.0 [70112.567842] scsi50 : usb-storage 2-1.4:1.1 [70113.571433] scsi 49:0:0:0: CD-ROM HUAWEI Mass Storage 2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 [70113.572304] scsi 50:0:0:0: Direct-Access HUAWEI TF CARD Storage PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 [70113.574169] sr0: scsi-1 drive [70113.574223] sr 49:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 [70113.574250] sr 49:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5 [70113.574350] sd 50:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 [70113.577173] sd 50:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk root@localhost$ usb-devices T: Bus=02 Lev=02 Prnt=02 Port=03 Cnt=01 Dev#= 30 Spd=480 MxCh= 0 D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=12d1 ProdID=1446 Rev=00.00 S: Manufacturer=Huawei Technologies S: Product=HUAWEI Mobile C: #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr=500mA I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage I: If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage root@localhost$ cat /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1\:1446 # Huawei, newer modems TargetVendor= 0x12d1 TargetProductList="1001,1406,140b,140c,1412,141b,1433,1436,14ac,1506" MessageContent="55534243123456780000000000000011062000000100000000000000000000" root@localhost$ usb_modeswitch -c /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1:1446 -v 12d1 -p 1446 -W * usb_modeswitch: handle USB devices with multiple modes * Version 1.2.3 (C) Josua Dietze 2012 * Based on libusb0 (0.1.12 and above) ! PLEASE REPORT NEW CONFIGURATIONS ! DefaultVendor= 0x12d1 DefaultProduct= 0x1446 TargetVendor= 0x12d1 TargetProduct= not set TargetClass= not set TargetProductList="1001,1406,140b,140c,1412,141b,1433,1436,14ac,1506" DetachStorageOnly=0 HuaweiMode=0 SierraMode=0 SonyMode=0 QisdaMode=0 GCTMode=0 KobilMode=0 SequansMode=0 MobileActionMode=0 CiscoMode=0 MessageEndpoint= not set MessageContent="55534243123456780000000000000011062000000100000000000000000000" NeedResponse=0 ResponseEndpoint= not set InquireDevice enabled (default) Success check disabled System integration mode disabled usb_set_debug: Setting debugging level to 15 (on) usb_os_find_busses: Skipping non bus directory devices usb_os_find_busses: Skipping non bus directory drivers usb_os_find_busses: Skipping non bus directory uevent usb_os_find_busses: Skipping non bus directory drivers_probe usb_os_find_busses: Skipping non bus directory drivers_autoprobe Looking for target devices ... No devices in target mode or class found Looking for default devices ... No devices in default mode found. Nothing to do. Bye. Thanks in advance.

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• Some sites won't load on Ubuntu/Mint

  - by Or W

  I have a REALLY weird problem with either my network or my OS. Last week I've suddenly had difficulties loading some websites or even more odd some parts of different websites. For example, I could load gmail.com, login and view the list of emails in my inbox but when I clicked one of them it would just time out. Another example is http://www.ynet.co.il, I can view the home page but going into any one of the articles fails (times out). I've tried Chrome, Firefox and Opera, all fail the same way. If I take a URL of a page I cannot load via the browser and try to wget it though the console I get the file just fine. I've formatted my machine (Used to run Ubuntu 13.04) and installed Mint Linux this time, it worked fine for a few days and now, again, having the same exact issues. Important to note that I have other machines connected either directly or via Wi-Fi to the router and they are all working fine (two win7 machines and 1 raspberry pi). Another strange behavior is that I can ftp or ssh to remote machines but cannot send files via ftp (times out) even if I set passive mode ON and when using ssh I can do just about anything but I cannot paste text into the remote machine, for example if I nano a file on the remote machine and try to paste anything from my clipboard it freezes. What I've tried so far: Disable IPv6 on the networking admin (and on firefox disabling ipv6 on the about:config page) Changing the port and the network cable I went to the store and bought a new standalone PCIe network adapter Connected my win7 laptop using the same cable and router port (sites that were not working on my Mint are working just fine on the win7 machine) Loaded Mint from a livecd, got the same result Tried changing the MTU (was 1500, tried 1492) Some observations: When I clear my browser cache and go to facebook.com for example, the homepage loads but I fail to load any profile/group page. If I refresh facebook.com homepage a couple of times it stops and fails to load until I clear my browser cache. I changed the chrome cache folder permissions to 0777 but that did not help. When I run netstat -n I see A LOT of connections that are in 'FIN_WAIT' mode (I'm guessing that's when I try to refresh pages that are not working and timing out), I have no idea what it means or if it helps anyone figure out what's wrong. The sites that are not loading correctly are always that same, they don't vary or anything and they fail to load exactly the same way on all three browsers that I've tried. When I Googled 'Ubuntu some sites not loading' I see a huge amount of complaints just like mine, but none of them that I could find actually says what the problem is or how they fixed it. Technical stuff: netstat -n ps aux netstat -nr

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