Search Results

Search found 3515 results on 141 pages for 'energy saving'.

Page 122/141 | < Previous Page | 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129  | Next Page >

• Convert Markdown text to RTF, using Ruby and Pandoc?

  - by niteshade

  Playing with Ruby and Ruby-Pandoc. Seems like a nice tool, if I can get it to work. I'd like to convert some Markdown text (with embedded lists and other fanciness) to Rich Text. Here's the text I'm converting: Title === This is a paragraph. Hallelujah. Here comes a nested list. --- * List item 1 * List item 1.1 * List item 1.2 * List item 2 * List item 2.1 Here's my Ruby code... require 'pandoc-ruby' input = File.read(test.md) converter = PandocRuby.new(input, from: :markdown, to: :rtf) puts converter.convert ... which (after saving the output to a file) produces a document without anything but a title: Here's the code of the RTF file: {\pard \ql \f0 \sa180 \li0 \fi0 \b \fs36 Title\par} {\pard \ql \f0 \sa180 \li0 \fi0 This is a paragraph. Hallelujah.\par} {\pard \ql \f0 \sa180 \li0 \fi0 \b \fs32 Here comes a nested list.\par} {\pard \ql \f0 \sa0 \li360 \fi-360 \bullet \tx360\tab List item 1\par} {\pard \ql \f0 \sa0 \li360 \fi-360 \bullet \tx360\tab List item 1.1\par} {\pard \ql \f0 \sa0 \li360 \fi-360 \bullet \tx360\tab List item 1.2\par} {\pard \ql \f0 \sa0 \li360 \fi-360 \bullet \tx360\tab List item 2\par} {\pard \ql \f0 \sa0 \li360 \fi-360 \bullet \tx360\tab List item 2.1\sa180\par} In addition, even if it did show up in my RTF viewer (Mac TextEdit), the RTF code seems to have lost all list nesting. I don't know how to diagnose this, whether I have not stated necessary header information or something in Ruby-Pandoc. Thanks in advance!

  Read the article

• How to replace same text in a text file

  - by user1688220

  i created a c# windows login form and i am saving username or password to a text file but every time i use same username or password that i have saved before it takes new place in that text file. But What i want is to replace the same username or password that is already saved in that text file. this is my code: private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { try { FileStream fs = new FileStream("data.txt", FileMode.Append, FileAccess.Write); StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs); sw.Write("Email ID: "); sw.WriteLine(textBox1.Text); sw.Write("Password: "); sw.Write(textBox2.Text); sw.WriteLine(); sw.WriteLine(); sw.Flush(); sw.Close(); fs.Close(); } catch (Exception) { MessageBox.Show("Error", "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error); this.Close(); } MessageBox.Show("DONE", "Done", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information); textBox1.Clear(); textBox2.Clear(); }

  Read the article

• Can't grab foreign key during after_create callback because it doesn't exist yet!

  - by Randy

  I have some models all linked together in memory (parent:child:child:child) and saved at the same time by saving the top-most parent. This works fine. I'd like to tap into the after_create callback of one of the children to populate a changelog table. One of the attributes I need to copy/push into the changelog table is the child's foreign_key to it's direct parent, but it doesn't exist at the time after_create fires!?! Without the after_create callback, I can look in the log and see that the child is being saved before it's parent (foreign key blank) then the parent is inserted... then the child is updated with the id from the parent. The child's after_create is firing at the right time, but it happens before Rails has had a chance to update the child with the foreign_key. Is there any way to force Rails to save such a linkage of models in a certain order? ie.parent, then child (parent foreign_key exists), then that child's child (again, foreign_key is accessible) etc. ?? If not, how would I have my routine fire after a record is created AND get the foreign_key? Seems a callback like this would be helpful: after_create_with_foreign_keys

  Read the article

• sending the data from form to db in django

  - by BharatKrishna

  I have a form in which I can input text through text boxes. How do I make these data go into the db on clicking submit. this is the code of the form in the template. <form method="post" action="app/save_page"> <p> Title:<input type="text" name="title"/> </p> <p> Name:<input type="text" name="name"/> </p> <p> Phone:<input type="text" name="phone"/> </p> <p> Email:<input type="text" name="email"/> </p> <p> <textarea name="description" rows=20 cols=60> </textarea><br> </p> <input type="submit" value="Submit"/> </form> I have a function in the views.py for saving the data in the page. But I dont know how to impliment it properly: def save_page(request): title = request.POST["title"] name = request.POST["name"] phone = request.POST["phone"] email = request.POST["email"] description = request.POST["description"] Now how do I send these into the db? And what do I put in views.py so that those data goes into the db? so how do I open a database connection and put those into the db and save it? should I do something like : connection=sqlite3.connect('app.db') cursor= connection.cursor() ..... ..... connection.commit() connection.close() Thank you.

  Read the article

• Exporting to CSV/Excel in Java

  - by WIOijwww

  I'm trying to export data into a CSV file through Java and I've got some code to do it but it doesn't seem to be outputting the CSV file. Could someone tell me what's wrong? What I would like to do is rather than saving the file somewhere, I would like it to be directly exported to the user. EDIT: Just in case it's not clear, I don't want the file to be saved anywhere but would like it to be outputted automatically to the user i.e. they click export and get the "Run/Save results.csv" window and they open the file. Currently the file is getting saved so I know that the method seems to work, just in the opposite way that I want it to. public static void writeToCSV(List<Map> objectList) { String CSV_SEPARATOR = ","; try { BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter( new FileOutputStream("results.csv"), "UTF-8")); for (Map objectDetails : objectList) { StringBuffer oneLine = new StringBuffer(); Iterator it = objectDetails.values().iterator(); while (it.hasNext()) { Object value = it.next(); if(value !=null){ oneLine.append(value.toString()); } if (it.hasNext()) { oneLine.append(CSV_SEPARATOR); } } bw.write(oneLine.toString()); bw.newLine(); } bw.flush(); bw.close(); } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { } catch (FileNotFoundException e) { } catch (IOException e) { } }

  Read the article

• PHP Array to CSV

  - by JohnnyFaldo

  I'm trying to convert an array of products into a CSV file, but it doesn't seem to be going to plan. The CSV file is one long line, here is my code: for($i=0;$i<count($prods);$i++) { $sql = "SELECT * FROM products WHERE id = '".$prods[$i]."'"; $result = $mysqli->query($sql); $info = $result->fetch_array(); } $header = ''; for($i=0;$i<count($info);$i++) { $row = $info[$i]; $line = ''; for($b=0;$b<count($row);$b++) { $value = $row[$b]; if ( ( !isset( $value ) ) || ( $value == "" ) ) { $value = "\t"; } else { $value = str_replace( '"' , '""' , $value ); $value = '"' . $value . '"' . "\t"; } $line .= $value; } $data .= trim( $line ) . "\n"; } $data = str_replace( "\r" , "" , $data ); if ( $data == "" ) { $data = "\n(0) Records Found!\n"; } header("Content-type: application/octet-stream"); header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=your_desired_name.xls"); header("Pragma: no-cache"); header("Expires: 0"); print "$data"; Also, the header doesn't force a download. I've been copy and pasting the output and saving as .csv

  Read the article

• Should Service Depend on Many Repositories, or Break Them Up?

  - by Josh Pollard

  I'm using a repository pattern for my data access. So I basically have a repository per table/class. My UI currently uses service classes to actually get things done, and these service classes wrap, and therefore depend on repositories. In many cases my services are only dependent upon one or two repositories, so things aren't too crazy. Unfortunately, one of my forms in the UI expects the user to enter data that will span five different tables. For this form I made a single service class that depends upon five repositories. Then the methods within the service for saving and loading the data call the appropriate methods on all of the corresponding repositories. As you can imagine, the save and load methods in this service are really big. Also, unit testing this service is getting really difficult because I have to setup so many fake repositories. Would it have been a better choice to break this single service apart into a few smaller services? It would put more code at the UI layer, but would make the services smaller and more testable.

  Read the article

• '<=' operator is not working in sql server 2000

  - by Lalit

  Hello, Scenario is, database is in the maintenance phase. this database is not developed by ours developer. it is an existing database developed by the 'xyz' company in sql server 2000. This is real time database, where i am working now. I wanted to write the stored procedure which will retrieve me the records From date1 to date 2.so query is : Select * from MyTableName Where colDate>= '3-May-2010' and colDate<= '5-Oct-2010' and colName='xyzName' whereas my understanding I must get data including upper bound date as well as lower bound date. but somehow I am getting records from '3-May-2010' (which is fine but) to '10-Oct-2010' As i observe in table design , for ColDate, developer had used 'varchar' to store the date. i know this is wrong remedy by them. so in my stored procedure I have also used varchar parameters as @FromDate1 and @ToDate to get inputs for SP. this is giving me result which i have explained. i tried to take the parameter type as 'Datetime' but it is showing error while saving/altering the stored procedure that "@FromDate1 has invalid datatype", same for "@ToDate". situation is that, I can not change the table design at all. what i have to do here ? i know we can use user defined table in sql server 2008 , but there is version sql server 2000. which does not support the same. Please guide me for this scenario. **Edited** I am trying to write like this SP: CREATE PROCEDURE USP_Data (@Location varchar(100), @FromDate DATETIME, @ToDate DATETIME) AS SELECT * FROM dbo.TableName Where CAST(Dt AS DATETIME) >=@fromDate and CAST(Dt AS DATETIME)<=@ToDate and Location=@Location GO but getting Error: Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type datetime. in sql server 2000 What should be that ? is i am wrong some where ? also (202 row(s) affected) is changes every time in circular manner means first time sayin (122 row(s) affected) run again saying (80 row(s) affected) if again (202 row(s) affected) if again (122 row(s) affected) I can not understand what is going on ?

  Read the article

• Ruby on Rails sortable list

  - by mdgrech

  I created a sortable list in my RoR project, unfortunately it's not saving the list position. Upon page refresh the items return to their normal spot. I've pasted the code below or you can git it: git://github.com/mdgrech/23notes-.git app/views/notes/index.html.erb ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// <div id="newNoteDiv"></div> <ul id="notesList"> <% for note in @notes %> <li id="<%=h note.position %>"> <span class="handle">[drag]</span> <div id="listContent"> <h3><%= link_to note.title, edit_note_path(note) %></h3> <p><%=h note.content %></p> <%= link_to "Destroy", note, :confirm => 'Are you sure?', :method => :delete %> </div> </li> <% end %> </ul> <%= sortable_element("notesList", :url => sort_notes_path, :handle => "handle" ) %> app/controllers/notes_controller.rb ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// def index @notes = Note.all(:order => "position") end def sort params[:notes].each_with_index do |id, index| Note.update_all(['position=?', index+1], ['id=?', id]) end render :nothing => true end config/routes.rb ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// map.resources :notes, :collection => { :sort => :post } map.root :notes app/models/note.rb ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// class Note < ActiveRecord::Base acts_as_list end

  Read the article

• Does Entity Framework saves related classes automatically?

  - by herbatnic

  Let's assume that we have such classes public class A{ string someField { get; set; } public virtual B B {get; set; } } public class B { int someIntField {get; set; } [ForeignKey("Id")] [Required] public virtual A A { get; set; } } In code I create new instances for both of them and making relation like: A a = new A () { someField = "abcd"}; B b = new B () { someIntField = 42 }; A.B = b; B.A = a; Should I using DBContext to save both classes like that: using (var db = new myDbContext()) { myDbContext.As.Add(A); myDbContext.Bs.Add(B); myDBContext.SaveChanges(); } Or saving it like that: using (var db = new myDbContext()) { myDbContext.As.Add(A); myDbContext.SaveChanges(); } is enough to store related objects into database?

  Read the article

• Get the package of a Java source file

  - by Oak

  My goal is to find the package (as string) of a Java source file, given as plaintext and not already sorted in folders. I can't just locate the first instance of the keyword package in the file, because it may appear inside a comment. So I was thinking about two alternatives: Scan the file word-by-word, maintaining a "inside-a-comment" flag for the scanner. The first time the package keyword is encountered while not inside a comment, stop the scanning and report the result. Use a regex - should be theoretically possible because block comments do not next in Java, but I tried making such a regex and it turned out to be quite complicated - for me, at least. Another difference between the two approaches is that when scanning manually I can stop the scan when I can be certain the package keyword can no longer appear, saving some time... and I'm not sure I can do something similar with regexes. On the other hand, the decision "when it can no longer appear" is not necessarily simple, though I could use some heuristic for that. I would like to hear any input on this problem, and would welcome any help with the regex. My solution is written in Java as well.

  Read the article

• Real time content editing html5

  - by Mark Lauzon

  So I've seen things like WordPress and FCKEditor, and basically a bunch of stuff that uses external code that I can't see or edit. Whenever I ask about editing and saving the content of a page in real time I just get referenced to an API or I get handed code that only changes the page until it's reloaded. What I want to know is how do I code it myself? I want to add real time content editing to a page without the use of someone else's code. I've checked out code for various forums and wikipedia and whatnot, and all of it references code I don't have access to. Is this a thing? Can I edit a page in real time? I thought of writing the edited text to a file on the server, and then when they click save, reading it back into the code to the section they were editing, but I don't know how to do that or if it's even possible. As a side note, I'm very new to html, but not new to coding. EDIT: The structure can be very much like Wikipedia, it doesn't have to be real time, it just has to work

  Read the article

• java.awt -- when java outputs an image to my monitor (screen), where is the file that is output to the monitor card?

  - by user1405870

  Suppose that I am drawing a set of images using java graphics objects. Suppose that I java is outputting these images to my monitor. Where is the file or files that are sent to the monitor card (the graphical representation files). How can I take this file and save it to disk, or how can I take this file and write it to an array, or how can I take these files and combine the results of their output (to the monitor) into a single file for saving? I don't want to use a screen shot feature, I want to be able to redirect (xor capture also) the output to the monitor to some sort of byte-stream. I note that monitors are much better than semaphores, when you are talking about display capabilities; I don't need a counter example. I might not be asking the correct question. It might be that I want to capture the file while it is still in User Space, before it is put into 'Device Space'. I would like to try and capture the byte stream so that I can convert it to MPEG-4 format. I either need a streaming output from the MPEG-4 converter, coming from the streaming input, or else, I need to take static images at discrete times and convert the images. What format will the output from User Space be in? What format will the Device Space output be in? Try to keep speculation to a minimum. http://docs.oracle.com/javame/config/cdc/opt-pkgs/api/jsr927/index.html I guess that Java has made a means of displaying AWT objects on a television screen. Thank you. Ryan Zoerner

  Read the article

• How to write a cgi script in perl that accepts output (an image file) from a urlconnection in a Java applet and writes it to the server?

  - by Brad Rock

  I created a Java applet for my web page that creates an image file. I want users to be able to run the applet and create unique images, click a button, and have the image they created be saved to the web server. I think I have the code down for writing the image to a URLconnection in the Java applet itself after having successfully written a file while running the applet on my system rather than the web page and saving a file to the local disk, and then altering a few things to write to a URLConnection instead of to the local disk (although we shall see how that works too). I am now trying to write a cgi script in perl that takes the image output from the URLConnection and writes the image to a file on my web server (note: I am a newbie to perl). I have found many examples of how to do something similar with simple text coming from an applet and then writing it to a text file, but I want to know how to apply the same concept to an image. Particularly, how do I read in the image? I've seen text input get read by using read(STDIN, $some_variable)--does the same thing work with an image? Likewise, how do I write the image file? What function do I use? Thanks for your help. I know that I am rather naive about all of this.

  Read the article

• Assigning address to array from heap

  - by Schaltfehler

  I want to save the state of my structs as a binary file and load them again. My structs look like this: typedef struct { uint8_t pointerLength; uint8_t *pointer; uint8_t NumBla; uinT16 Bla[MAX_NUM_Bla]; ... } BAR_STRUCT, *BAR; typedef struct { int numBar; BAR bars[MAX_NUM_BAR]; } FOO_STRUCT, *FOO; Saving is no problem, but restoring the state. Iam at the point where the bytestring from the file is on the heap and a pointer is pointing to the first adress of this string. And I do as follows: const void* dataPointer //points to adress in heap unsigned char* bytePointer = (unsigned char*)dataPointer; FOO foo = (FOO_STRUCT*)bytePointer; bytePointer += sizeof(FOO_STRUCT); for (int i=0; i < MAX_NUM_BAR; i++) { foo->bars[i] = (BAR_STRUCT*)bytePointer; } The last assignment doesn't work and I get an EXC_BAD_ACCESS. Because bars is an array of pointers i need to correct the adresses of each element is pointing to. Because they are not valid anymore. So I try to assign the adress of the object I saved in the bytesteam to foo-bars[i]; But I can not change foo-bars[i] at all. Accessing works but but assigning a new adress doesn't. I wonder why.

  Read the article

• Save Cookies, Then Open Link in New Tab

  - by speedplane

  I have some javascript code that saves a cookie. However, if after saving the cookie, the user opens a new tab, it appears that the cookie is not saved. The new tab is on the same domain. Here is my cookie setting/getting code: function setCookie(c_name,value,exdays) { var exdate=new Date(); exdate.setDate(exdate.getDate() + exdays); var c_value=escape(value) + ((exdays==null) ? "" : "; expires="+exdate.toUTCString()); document.cookie=c_name + "=" + c_value; } function getCookie(c_name) { var i,x,y,ARRcookies=document.cookie.split(";"); for (i=0;i<ARRcookies.length;i++) { x=ARRcookies[i].substr(0,ARRcookies[i].indexOf("=")); y=ARRcookies[i].substr(ARRcookies[i].indexOf("=")+1); x=x.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g,""); if (x==c_name) { return unescape(y); } } } If some javascript calls setCookie('mycookie', 1) and then the user clicks on a link where the _target is set to _blank, the cookie does not load in the new tab. So getCookie('mycookie') will not return 1. What is the problem here?

  Read the article

• Wordpress curl save Images

  - by Jeton Ramadani

  I am working on saving images from external sites into a folder in my wordpress theme. And I was wondering if its Ok to call curl twice or can it be done with one time. Example: $data = get_url('http://www.veoh.com/watch/v19935546Y8hZPgbZ'); // getting the url first curl instance preg_match('/fullHighResImagePath="(.*?)"/', $data, $thumbnail); // find the image from content savePhoto($thumbnail, $post->ID); //2nd instance of curl to save the image function get_url($url) { $user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2)"; $ytc = curl_init(); // initialize curl handle curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_URL, $url); // set url to post to curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, 1); // Fail on errors curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1); // allow redirects curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); // return into a variable curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_PORT, 80); //Set the port number curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 15); // times out after 15s curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1); // include HTTP headers curl_setopt($ytc, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent); $source = curl_exec($ytc); curl_close($ytc); $data = trim( $source ); return $data; } function savePhoto($remoteImage, $isbn) { $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $remoteImage); curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 0); $fileContents = curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch); if (DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR=='/'){ $absolute_path = dirname(__FILE__).'/'; } else { $absolute_path = str_replace('\\', '/', dirname(__FILE__)).'/'; } $newImg = imagecreatefromstring($fileContents); return imagejpeg($newImg, $absolute_path ."video_images/{$isbn}.jpg",100); }

  Read the article

• Ajax Control Toolkit and Superexpert

  - by Stephen Walther

  Microsoft has asked my company, Superexpert Consulting, to take ownership of the development and maintenance of the Ajax Control Toolkit moving forward. In this blog entry, I discuss our strategy for improving the Ajax Control Toolkit. Why the Ajax Control Toolkit? The Ajax Control Toolkit is one of the most popular projects on CodePlex. In fact, some have argued that it is among the most successful open-source projects of all time. It consistently receives over 3,500 downloads a day (not weekends -- workdays). A mind-boggling number of developers use the Ajax Control Toolkit in their ASP.NET Web Forms applications. Why does the Ajax Control Toolkit continue to be such a popular project? The Ajax Control Toolkit fills a strong need in the ASP.NET Web Forms world. The Toolkit enables Web Forms developers to build richly interactive JavaScript applications without writing any JavaScript. For example, by taking advantage of the Ajax Control Toolkit, a Web Forms developer can add modal dialogs, popup calendars, and client tabs to a web application simply by dragging web controls onto a page. The Ajax Control Toolkit is not for everyone. If you are comfortable writing JavaScript then I recommend that you investigate using jQuery plugins instead of the Ajax Control Toolkit. However, if you are a Web Forms developer and you don’t want to get your hands dirty writing JavaScript, then the Ajax Control Toolkit is a great solution. The Ajax Control Toolkit is Vast The Ajax Control Toolkit consists of 40 controls. That’s a lot of controls (For the sake of comparison, jQuery UI consists of only 8 controls – those slackers J). Furthermore, developers expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work on browsers both old and new. For example, people expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work with Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 9 and every version of Internet Explorer in between. People also expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work on the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. And, people expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work with different operating systems. Yikes, that is a lot of combinations. The biggest challenge which my company faces in supporting the Ajax Control Toolkit is ensuring that the Ajax Control Toolkit works across all of these different browsers and operating systems. Testing, Testing, Testing Because we wanted to ensure that we could easily test the Ajax Control Toolkit with different browsers, the very first thing that we did was to set up a dedicated testing server. The dedicated server -- named Schizo -- hosts 4 virtual machines so that we can run Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 at the same time (We also use the virtual machines to host the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari). The five developers on our team (plus me) can each publish to a separate FTP website on the testing server. That way, we can quickly test how changes to the Ajax Control Toolkit affect different browsers. QUnit Tests for the Ajax Control Toolkit Introducing regressions – introducing new bugs when trying to fix existing bugs – is the concern which prevents me from sleeping well at night. There are so many people using the Ajax Control Toolkit in so many unique scenarios, that it is difficult to make improvements to the Ajax Control Toolkit without introducing regressions. In order to avoid regressions, we decided early on that it was extremely important to build good test coverage for the 40 controls in the Ajax Control Toolkit. We’ve been focusing a lot of energy on building automated JavaScript unit tests which we can use to help us discover regressions. We decided to write the unit tests with the QUnit test framework. We picked QUnit because it is quickly becoming the standard unit testing framework in the JavaScript world. For example, it is the unit testing framework used by the jQuery team, the jQuery UI team, and many jQuery UI plugin developers. We had to make several enhancements to the QUnit framework in order to test the Ajax Control Toolkit. For example, QUnit does not support tests which include postbacks. We modified the QUnit framework so that it works with IFrames so we could perform postbacks in our automated tests. At this point, we have written hundreds of QUnit tests. For example, we have written 135 QUnit tests for the Accordion control. The QUnit tests are included with the Ajax Control Toolkit source code in a project named AjaxControlToolkit.Tests. You can run all of the QUnit tests contained in the project by opening the Default.aspx page. Automating the QUnit Tests across Multiple Browsers Automated tests are useless if no one ever runs them. In order for the QUnit tests to be useful, we needed an easy way to run the tests automatically against a matrix of browsers. We wanted to run the unit tests against Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari automatically. Expecting a developer to run QUnit tests against every browser after every check-in is just too much to expect. It takes 20 seconds to run the Accordion QUnit tests. We are testing against 8 browsers. That would require the developer to open 8 browsers and wait for the results after each change in code. Too much work. Therefore, we built a JavaScript Test Server. Our JavaScript Test Server project was inspired by John Resig’s TestSwarm project. The JavaScript Test Server runs our QUnit tests in a swarm of browsers (running on different operating systems) automatically. Here’s how the JavaScript Test Server works: 1. We created an ASP.NET page named RunTest.aspx that constantly polls the JavaScript Test Server for a new set of QUnit tests to run. After the RunTest.aspx page runs the QUnit tests, the RunTest.aspx records the test results back to the JavaScript Test Server. 2. We opened the RunTest.aspx page on instances of Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, FireFox, Chrome, Opera, Google, and Safari. Now that we have the JavaScript Test Server setup, we can run all of our QUnit tests against all of the browsers which we need to support with a single click of a button. A New Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit Each Month The Ajax Control Toolkit Issue Tracker contains over one thousand five hundred open issues and feature requests. So we have plenty of work on our plates J At CodePlex, anyone can vote for an issue to be fixed. Originally, we planned to fix issues in order of their votes. However, we quickly discovered that this approach was inefficient. Constantly switching back and forth between different controls was too time-consuming. It takes time to re-familiarize yourself with a control. Instead, we decided to focus on two or three controls each month and really focus on fixing the issues with those controls. This way, we can fix sets of related issues and avoid the randomization caused by context switching. Our team works in monthly sprints. We plan to do another release of the Ajax Control Toolkit each and every month. So far, we have competed one release of the Ajax Control Toolkit which was released on April 1, 2011. We plan to release a new version in early May. Conclusion Fortunately, I work with a team of smart developers. We currently have 5 developers working on the Ajax Control Toolkit (not full-time, they are also building two very cool ASP.NET MVC applications). All the developers who work on our team are required to have strong JavaScript, jQuery, and ASP.NET MVC skills. In the interest of being as transparent as possible about our work on the Ajax Control Toolkit, I plan to blog frequently about our team’s ongoing work. In my next blog entry, I plan to write about the two Ajax Control Toolkit controls which are the focus of our work for next release.

  Read the article

• Thursday Community Keynote: "By the Community, For the Community"

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  Sharat Chander, JavaOne Community Chairperson, began Thursday's Community Keynote. As part of the morning’s theme of "By the Community, For the Community," Chander noted that 60% of the material at the 2012 JavaOne conference was presented by Java Community members. "So next year, when the call for papers starts, put-in your submissions," he urged.From there, Gary Frost, Principal Member of Technical Staff, AMD, expanded upon Sunday's Strategy Keynote exploration of Project Sumatra, an OpenJDK project targeted at bringing Java to heterogeneous computing platforms (which combine the CPU and the parallel processor of the GPU into a single piece of silicon). Sumatra entails enhancing the JVM to make maximum use of these advanced platforms. Within this development space, AMD created the Aparapi API, which converts Java bytecode into OpenCL for execution on such GPU devices. The Aparapi API was open sourced in September 2011.Whether it was zooming-in on a Mandelbrot set, "the game of life," or a swarm of 10,000 Dukes in a space-bound gravitational dance, Frost's demos, using an Aparapi/OpenCL implementation, produced stunningly faster display results. He indicated that the Java 9 timeframe is where they see Project Sumatra coming to ultimate fruition, employing the Lamdas of Java 8.Returning to the theme of the keynote, Donald Smith, Director, Java Product Management, Oracle, explored a mind map graphic demonstrating the importance of Community in terms of fostering innovation. "It's the sharing and mixing of culture, the diversity, and the rapid prototyping," he said. Within this topic, Smith, brought up a panel of representatives from Cloudera, Eclipse, Eucalyptus, Perrone Robotics, and Twitter--ideal manifestations of community and innovation in the world of Java.Marten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus Systems, explored his company's open source cloud software platform, written in Java, and used by gaming companies, technology companies, media companies, and more. Chris Aniszczyk, Operations Engineering,Twitter, noted the importance of the JVM in terms of their multiple-language development environment. Mike Olson, CEO, Cloudera, described his company's Apache Hadoop-based software, support, and training. Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director, Eclipse Foundation, noted that they have about 270 tools projects at Eclipse, with 267 of them written in Java. Milinkovich added that Eclipse will even be going into space in 2013, as part of the control software on various experiments aboard the International Space Station. Lastly, Paul Perrone, CEO, Perrone Robotics, detailed his company's robotics and automation software platform built 100% on Java, including Java SE and Java ME--"on rat, to cat, to elephant-sized systems." Milinkovic noted that communities are by nature so good at innovation because of their very openness--"The more open you make your innovation process, the more ideas are challenged, and the more developers are focused on justifying their choices all the way through the process."From there, Georges Saab, VP Development Java SE OpenJDK, continued the topic of innovation and helping the Java Community to "Make the Future Java." Martijn Verburg, representing the London Java Community (winner of a Duke's Choice Award 2012 for their activity in OpenJDK and JCP), soon joined Saab onstage. Verburg detailed the LJC's "Adopt a JSR" program--"to get day-to-day developers more involved in the innovation that's happening around them."  From its London launching pad, the innovative program has spread to Brazil, Morocco, Latvia, India, and more.Other active participants in the program joined Verburg onstage--Ben Evans, London Java Community; James Gough, Stackthread; Bruno Souza, SOUJava; Richard Warburton, jClarity; and Cecelia Borg, Oracle--OpenJDK Onboarding. Together, the group explored the goals and tasks inherent in the Adopt a JSR program--from organizing hack days (testing prototype implementations), to managing mailing lists and forums, to triaging issues, to evangelism—all with the goal of fostering greater community/developer involvement, but equally importantly, building better open standards. “Come join us, and make your ecosystem better!" urged Verburg.Paul Perrone returned to profile the latest in his company's robotics work around Java--including the AARDBOTS family of smaller robotic vehicles, running the Perrone MAX platform on top of the Java JVM. Perrone took his "Rumbles" four-wheeled robot out for a spin onstage--a roaming, ARM-based security-bot vehicle, complete with IR, ultrasonic, and "cliff" sensors (the latter, for the raised stage at JavaOne). As an ultimate window into the future of robotics, Perrone displayed a "head-set" controller--a sensor directed at the forehead to monitor brainwaves, for the someday-implementation of brain-to-robot control.Then, just when it seemed this might be the end of the day's futuristic offerings, a mystery voice from offstage pronounced "I've got some toys"--proving to be guest-visitor James Gosling, there to explore his cutting-edge work with Liquid Robotics. While most think of robots as something with wheels or arms or lasers, Gosling explained, the Liquid Robotics vehicle is an entirely new and innovative ocean-going 'bot. Looking like a floating surfboard, with an attached set of underwater wings, the autonomous devices roam the oceans using only the energy of ocean waves to propel them, and a single actuated rudder to steer. "We have to accomplish all guidance just by wiggling the rudder," Gosling said. The devices offer applications from self-installing weather buoy, to pollution monitoring station, to marine mammal monitoring device, to climate change data gathering, to even ocean life genomic sampling. The early versions of the vehicle used C code on very tiny industrial micro controllers, where they had to "count the bytes one at a time."  But the latest generation vehicles, which just hit the water a week or so ago, employ an ARM processor running Linux and the ARM version of JDK 7. Gosling explained that vehicle communication from remote locations is achieved via the Iridium satellite network. But because of the costs of this communication path, the data must be sent in very small bursts--using SBD short burst data. "It costs $1/kb, so that rules everything in the software design,” said Gosling. “If you were trying to stream a Netflix video over this, it would cost a million dollars a movie. …We don't have a 'big data' problem," he quipped. There are currently about 150 Liquid Robotics vehicles out traversing the oceans. Gosling demonstrated real time satellite tracking of several vehicles currently at sea, noting that Java is actually particularly good at AI applications--due to the language having garbage collection, which facilitates complex data structures. To close-out his time onstage, Gosling of course participated in the ceremonial Java tee-shirt toss out to the audience…In parting, Chander passed the JavaOne Community Chairperson baton to Stephen Chin, Java Technology Evangelist, Oracle. Onstage in full motorcycle gear, Chin noted that he'll soon be touring Europe by motorcycle, meeting Java Community Members and streaming live via UStream--the ultimate manifestation of community and technology!  He also reminded attendees of the upcoming JavaOne Latin America 2012, São Paulo, Brazil (December 4-6, 2012), and stated that the CFP (call for papers) at the conference has been extended for one more week. "Remember, December is summer in Brazil!" Chin said.

  Read the article

• TFS, G.I. Joe and Under-doing

  If I were to rank the most consistently irritating parts of my work day, using TFS would come in first by a wide margin. Even repeated network outages this week seem like a pleasant reprieve from this monolithic beast. This is not a reflexive anti-Microsoft feeling, that attitude just wouldnt work for a consultant who does .NET development. It is also not an utter dismissal of TFS as worthless; Ive seen people use it effectively on several projects. So why? Ill start with a laundry list of shortcomings. An out of the box UI for work items that is insultingly bad, a source control system that is confoundingly fragile when handling merges, folder renames and long file names, the arcane XML wizardry necessary to customize a template and a build system that adds an extra layer of oddness on top of msbuild. Im sure my legion of readers will soon point out to me how I can work around all these issues, how this is fixed in TFS 2010 or with this add-in, and how once you have everything set up, youre fine. And theyd be right, any one of these problems could be worked around. If not dirty laundry, what else? I thought about it for a while, and came to the conclusion that TFS is so irritating to me because it represents a vision of software development that I find unappealing. To expand upon this, lets start with some wisdom from those great PSAs at the end of the G.I. Joe cartoons of the 80s: Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. In software development, Id go further and say knowing is more than half the battle. Understanding the dimensions of the problem you are trying to solve, the needs of the users, the value that your software can provide are more than half the battle. Implementation of this understanding is not easy, but it is not even possible without this knowledge. Assuming we have a fixed amount of time and mental energy for any project, why does this spell trouble for TFS? If you think about what TFS is doing, its offering you a huge array of options to track the day to day implementation of your project. From tasks, to code churn, to test coverage. All valuable metrics, but only in exchange for valuable time to get it all working. In addition, when you have a shiny toy like TFS, the temptation is to feel obligated to use it. So the push from TFS is to encourage a project manager and team to focus on process and metrics around process. You can get great visibility, and graphs to show your project stakeholders, but none of that is important if you are not implementing the right product. Not just unimportant, these activities can be harmful as they drain your time and sap your creativity away from the rest of the project. To be more concrete, lets suppose your organization has invested the time to create a template for your projects and trained people in how to use it, so there is no longer a big investment of time for each project to get up and running. First, Id challenge if that template could be specific enough to be full featured and still applicable for any project. Second, the very existence of this template would be a indication to a project manager that the success of their project was somehow directly related to fitting management of that project into this format. Again, while the capabilities are wonderful, the mirage is there; just get everything into TFS and your project will run smoothly. Ill close the loop on this first topic by proposing a thought experiment. Think of the projects youve worked on. How many times have you been chagrined to discover youve implemented the wrong feature, misunderstood how a feature should work or just plain spent too much time on a screen that nobody uses? That sounds like a really worthwhile area to invest time in improving. How about going back to these projects and thinking about how many times you wished you had optimized the state change flow of your tasks or been embarrassed to not have a code churn report linked back to the latest changeset? With thanks to the Real American Heroes, Ill move on to a more current influence, that of the developers at 37signals, and their philosophy towards software development. This philosophy, fully detailed in the books Getting Real and Rework, is a vision of software that under does the competition. This is software that is deliberately limited in functionality in order to concentrate fully on making sure ever feature that is there is awesome and needed. Why is this relevant? Well, in one of those fun seeming paradoxes in life, constraints can be a spark for creativity. Think Twitter, the small screen of an iPhone, the limitations of HTML for applications, the low memory limits of older or embedded system. As long as there is some freedom within those constraints, amazing things emerge. For project management, some of the most respected people in the industry recommend using just index cards, pens and tape. They argue that with change the constant in software development, your process should be as limited (yet rigorous) as possible. Looking at TFS, this is not a system designed to under do anybody. It is a big jumble of components and options, with every feature you could think of. Predictably this means many basic functions are hard to use. For task management, many people just use an Excel spreadsheet linked up to TFS. Not a stirring endorsement of the tooling there. TFS as a whole would be far more appealing to me if there was less of it, but better. Id cut 50% of the features to make the other half really amaze and inspire me. And thats really the heart of the matter. TFS has great promise and I want to believe it can work better. But ultimately it focuses your attention on a lot of stuff that doesnt really matter and then clamps down your creativity in a mess of forms and dialogs obscuring what does.   --- Relevant Links --- All those great G.I. Joe PSAs are on YouTube, including lots of mashed up versions. A simple Google search will get you on the right track.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

  Read the article

• A Guided Tour of Complexity

  - by JoshReuben

  I just re-read Complexity – A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell , protégé of Douglas Hofstadter ( author of “Gödel, Escher, Bach”) http://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Guided-Tour-Melanie-Mitchell/dp/0199798109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339744329&sr=8-1 here are some notes and links:   Evolved from Cybernetics, General Systems Theory, Synergetics some interesting transdisciplinary fields to investigate: Chaos Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory – small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible. System Dynamics / Cybernetics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Dynamics – study of how feedback changes system behavior Network Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory – leverage Graph Theory to analyze symmetric  / asymmetric relations between discrete objects Algebraic Topology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_topology – leverage abstract algebra to analyze topological spaces There are limits to deterministic systems & to computation. Chaos Theory definitely applies to training an ANN (artificial neural network) – different weights will emerge depending upon the random selection of the training set. In recursive Non-Linear systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system – output is not directly inferable from input. E.g. a Logistic map: Xt+1 = R Xt(1-Xt) Different types of bifurcations, attractor states and oscillations may occur – e.g. a Lorenz Attractor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system Feigenbaum Constants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants express ratios in a bifurcation diagram for a non-linear map – the convergent limit of R (the rate of period-doubling bifurcations) is 4.6692016 Maxwell’s Demon - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon - the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty – the universe (and thus information) tends towards entropy. While any computation can theoretically be done without expending energy, with finite memory, the act of erasing memory is permanent and increases entropy. Life & thought is a counter-example to the universe’s tendency towards entropy. Leo Szilard and later Claude Shannon came up with the Information Theory of Entropy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) whereby Shannon entropy quantifies the expected value of a message’s information in bits in order to determine channel capacity and leverage Coding Theory (compression analysis). Ludwig Boltzmann came up with Statistical Mechanics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics – whereby our Newtonian perception of continuous reality is a probabilistic and statistical aggregate of many discrete quantum microstates. This is relevant for Quantum Information Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_information and the Physics of Information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information. Hilbert’s Problems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_problems pondered whether mathematics is complete, consistent, and decidable (the Decision Problem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem – is there always an algorithm that can determine whether a statement is true).  Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems  proved that mathematics cannot be both complete and consistent (e.g. “This statement is not provable”). Turing through the use of Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine symbol processors that can prove mathematical statements) and Universal Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine Turing Machines that can emulate other any Turing Machine via accepting programs as well as data as input symbols) that computation is limited by demonstrating the Halting Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem (is is not possible to know when a program will complete – you cannot build an infinite loop detector). You may be used to thinking of 1 / 2 / 3 dimensional systems, but Fractal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal systems are defined by self-similarity & have non-integer Hausdorff Dimensions !!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fractals_by_Hausdorff_dimension – the fractal dimension quantifies the number of copies of a self similar object at each level of detail – eg Koch Snowflake - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake Definitions of complexity: size, Shannon entropy, Algorithmic Information Content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory - size of shortest program that can generate a description of an object) Logical depth (amount of info processed), thermodynamic depth (resources required). Complexity is statistical and fractal. John Von Neumann’s other machine was the Self-Reproducing Automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine  . Cellular Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton are alternative form of Universal Turing machine to traditional Von Neumann machines where grid cells are locally synchronized with their neighbors according to a rule. Conway’s Game of Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life demonstrates various emergent constructs such as “Glider Guns” and “Spaceships”. Cellular Automatons are not practical because logical ops require a large number of cells – wasteful & inefficient. There are no compilers or general program languages available for Cellular Automatons (as far as I am aware). Random Boolean Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_network are extensions of cellular automata where nodes are connected at random (not to spatial neighbors) and each node has its own rule –> they demonstrate the emergence of complex  & self organized behavior. Stephen Wolfram’s (creator of Mathematica, so give him the benefit of the doubt) New Kind of Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science proposes the universe may be a discrete Finite State Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine whereby reality emerges from simple rules. I am 2/3 through this book. It is feasible that the universe is quantum discrete at the plank scale and that it computes itself – Digital Physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics – a simulated reality? Anyway, all behavior is supposedly derived from simple algorithmic rules & falls into 4 patterns: uniform , nested / cyclical, random (Rule 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30) & mixed (Rule 110 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110 localized structures – it is this that is interesting). interaction between colliding propagating signal inputs is then information processing. Wolfram proposes the Principle of Computational Equivalence - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquivalence.html - all processes that are not obviously simple can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication. Meaning in information may emerge from analogy & conceptual slippages – see the CopyCat program: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/courses/concepts/copycat.pdf Scale Free Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network have a distribution governed by a Power Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law - much more common than Normal Distribution). They are characterized by hubs (resilience to random deletion of nodes), heterogeneity of degree values, self similarity, & small world structure. They grow via preferential attachment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_attachment – tipping points triggered by positive feedback loops. 2 theories of cascading system failures in complex systems are Self-Organized Criticality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality and Highly Optimized Tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_optimized_tolerance. Computational Mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_mechanics – use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. This book is a great intuition pump, but does not cover the more mathematical subject of Computational Complexity Theory – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory I am currently reading this book on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Complexity-Christos-H-Papadimitriou/dp/0201530821/ref=pd_sim_b_1   stay tuned for that review!

  Read the article

• It's not just “Single Sign-on” by Steve Knott (aurionPro SENA)

  - by Greg Jensen

  It is true that Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-on (Oracle ESSO) started out as purely an application single sign-on tool but as we have seen in the previous articles in this series the product has matured into a suite of tools that can do more than just automated single sign-on and can also provide rapidly deployed, cost effective solution to many demanding password management problems. In the last article of this series I would like to discuss three cases where customers faced password scenarios that required more than just single sign-on and how some of the less well known tools in the Oracle ESSO suite “kitbag” helped solve these challenges. Case #1 One of the issues often faced by our customers is how to keep their applications compliant. I had a client who liked the idea of automated single sign-on for most of his applications but had a key requirement to actually increase the security for one specific SOX application. For the SOX application he wanted to secure access by using two-factor authentication with a smartcard. The problem was that the application did not support two-factor authentication. The solution was to use a feature from the Oracle ESSO suite called authentication manager. This feature enables you to have multiple authentication methods for the same user which in this case was a smartcard and the Windows password.  Within authentication manager each authenticator can be configured with a security grade so we gave the smartcard a high grade and the Windows password a normal grade. Security grading in Oracle ESSO can be configured on a per application basis so we set the SOX application to require the higher grade smartcard authenticator. The end result for the user was that they enjoyed automated single sign-on for most of the applications apart from the SOX application. When the SOX application was launched, the user was required by ESSO to present their smartcard before being given access to the application. Case #2 Another example solving compliance issues was in the case of a large energy company who had a number of core billing applications. New regulations required that users change their password regularly and use a complex password. The problem facing the customer was that the core billing applications did not have any native user password change functionality. The customer could not replace the core applications because of the cost and time required to re-develop them. With a reputation for innovation aurionPro SENA were approached to provide a solution to this problem using Oracle ESSO. Oracle ESSO has a password expiry feature that can be triggered periodically based on the timestamp of the users’ last password creation therefore our strategy here was to leverage this feature to provide the password change experience. The trigger can launch an application change password event however in this scenario there was no native change password feature that could be launched therefore a “dummy” change password screen was created that could imitate the missing change password function and connect to the application database on behalf of the user. Oracle ESSO was configured to trigger a change password event every 60 days. After this period if the user launched the application Oracle ESSO would detect the logon screen and invoke the password expiry feature. Oracle ESSO would trigger the “dummy screen,” detect it automatically as the application change password screen and insert a complex password on behalf of the user. After the password event had completed the user was logged on to the application with their new password. All this was provided at a fraction of the cost of re-developing the core applications. Case #3 Recent popular initiatives such as the BYOD and working from home schemes bring with them many challenges in administering “unmanaged machines” and sometimes “unmanageable users.” In a recent case, a client had a dispersed community of casual contractors who worked for the business using their own laptops to access applications. To improve security the around password management the security goal was to provision the passwords directly to these contractors. In a previous article we saw how Oracle ESSO has the capability to provision passwords through Provisioning Gateway but the challenge in this scenario was how to get the Oracle ESSO agent to the casual contractor on an unmanaged machine. The answer was to use another tool in the suite, Oracle ESSO Anywhere. This component can compile the normal Oracle ESSO functionality into a deployment package that can be made available from a website in a similar way to a streamed application. The ESSO Anywhere agent does not actually install into the registry or program files but runs in a folder within the user’s profile therefore no local administrator rights are required for installation. The ESSO Anywhere package can also be configured to stay persistent or disable itself at the end of the user’s session. In this case the user just needed to be told where the website package was located and download the package. Once the download was complete the agent started automatically and the user was provided with single sign-on to their applications without ever knowing the application passwords. Finally, as we have seen in these series Oracle ESSO not only has great utilities in its own tool box but also has direct integration with Oracle Privileged Account Manager, Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle Access Manager. Integrated together with these tools provides a complete and complementary platform to address even the most complex identity and access management requirements. So what next for Oracle ESSO? “Agentless ESSO available in the cloud” – but that will be a subject for a future Oracle ESSO series!                                                                                                                               

  Read the article

• 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

  Read the article

• Visiting the Emtel Data Centre

  Back in February at the first event of the Emtel Knowledge Series (EKS) I spoke to various people at Emtel about their data centre here on the island. I was trying to see whether it would be possible to arrange a meeting over there for a selected group of our community members. Well, let's say it like this... My first approach wasn't that promising and far from successful but during the following months there were more and more occasions to get in touch with the "right" contact persons at Emtel to make it happen... Setting up an appointment and pre-requisites The major improvement came during a Boot Camp for Windows Phone 8.1 App development organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands in cooperation with Emtel at the Emtel World, Ebene. Apart from learning bits and pieces regarding Universal Apps I took the opportunity to get in touch with Arvin Lockee, Sales Executive - Data, during our lunch break. And this really kicked off the whole procedure. Prior to get access to the Emtel data centre it is requested that you provide full name and National ID of anyone going to visit. Also, it should be noted that there was only a limited amount of seats available. Anyways, packed with this information I posted through the usual social media channels. Responses came in very quickly and based on First-come, first-serve (FCFS) principle I noted down the details and forwarded them to Emtel in order to fix a date and time for the visit. In preparation on our side, all attendees exchanged contact details and we organised transport options to go to the data centre in Arsenal. The day before and on the day of our meeting, Arvin send me a reminder to check whether everything is still confirmed and ready to go... Of course, it was! Arriving at the Emtel Data Centre As I'm coming from Flic En Flac towards the North, we agreed that I'm going to pick up a couple of young fellows near the old post office in Port Louis. All went well, except that Sean eventually might be living in another time zone compared to the rest of us. Anyway, after some extended stop we were complete and arrived just in time in Arsenal to meet and greet with Ish and Veer. Again, Emtel is taking access procedures to their data centre very serious and the gate stayed close until all our IDs had been noted and compared to the list of registered attendees. Despite having a good laugh at the mixture of old and new ID cards it was a straight-forward processing. The ward was very helpful and guided us to the waiting area at the entrance section of the building. Shortly after we were welcomed by Kamlesh Bokhoree, the Data Centre Officer. He gave us brief introduction into the rules and regulations during our visit, like no photography allowed, not touching the buttons, and following his instructions through the whole visit. Of course! Inside the data centre Next, he explained us the multi-factor authentication system using a combination of bio-metric data, like finger print reader, and "classic" pin panel. The Emtel data centre provides multiple services and next to co-location for your own hardware they also offer storage options for your backup and archive data in their massive, fire-resistant vault. Very impressive to get to know about the considerations that have been done in choosing the right location and how to set up the whole premises. It should also be noted that there is 24/7 CCTV surveillance inside and outside the buildings. Strengths of the Emtel TIER 3 Data Centre, Mauritius Finally, we were guided into the first server room. And wow, the whole setup is cleverly planned and outlined in the architecture. From the false floor and ceilings in order to provide optimum air flow, over to the separation of cold and hot aisles between the full-size server racks, and of course the monitored air conditions in order to analyse and watch changes in temperature, smoke detection and other parameters. And not surprisingly everything has been implemented in two independent circuits. There is a standardised classification for the construction and operation of data centres world-wide, and the Emtel's one has been designed to be a TIER 4 building but due to the lack of an alternative power supplier on the island it is officially registered as a TIER 3 compliant data centre. Maybe in the long run there might be a second supplier of energy next to CEB... time will tell. Luckily, the data centre is integrated into the National Fibre Optic Gigabit Ring and Emtel already connects internationally through diverse undersea cable routes like SAFE & LION/LION2 out of Mauritius and through several other providers for onwards connectivity. The data centre is part of the National Fibre Optic Gigabit Ring and has redundant internet connectivity onwards. Meanwhile, Arvin managed to join our little group of geeks and he supported Kamlesh in answering our technical questions regarding the capacities and general operation of the data centre. Visiting the NOC and its dedicated team of IT professionals was surely one of the visual highlights. Seeing their wall of screens to monitor any kind of activities on the data lines, the managed servers and the activity in and around the building was great. Even though I'm using a multi-head setup since years I cannot keep it up with that setup... ;-) But I got a couple of ideas on how to improve my work spaces here at the office. Clear advantages of hosting your e-commerce and mobile backends locally After the completely isolated NOC area we continued our Q&A session with Kamlesh and Arvin in the second server room which is dedictated to shared environments. On first thought it should be well-noted that there is lots of space for full-sized racks and therefore co-location of your own hardware. Actually, given the feedback that there will be upcoming changes in prices the facilities at the Emtel data centre are getting more and more competitive and interesting for local companies, especially small and medium enterprises. After seeing this world-class infrastructure available on the island, I'm already considering of moving one of my root servers abroad to be co-located here on the island. This would provide an improved user experience in terms of site performance and latency. This would be a good improvement, especially for upcoming e-commerce solutions for two of my local clients. Later on, we actually started the conversation of additional services that could be a catalyst for the local market in order to attract more small and medium companies to take the data centre into their evaluations regarding online activities. Until today Emtel does not provide virtualised server environments but there might be ongoing plans in the future to cover this field as well. Emtel is a mobile operator and internet connectivity provider in the first place, entering a market of managed and virtualised server infrastructures including capacities in terms of cloud storage and computing are rather new and there is a continuous learning curve at Emtel, too. You cannot just jump into a new market and see how it works out... And I appreciate Emtel's approach towards a solid fundament and then building new services on top of that. Emtel as a future one-stop-shop service provider for all your internet and telecommunications needs. Emtel's promotional video about their TIER 3 data centre in Arsenal, Mauritius More details are thoroughly described in Emtel's brochure of their data centre. Check out their PDF document here. Thanks for this opportunity Visiting and walking through the Emtel data centre for more than 2 hours was a great experience. As representative of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) I would like to thank anyone at Emtel involved in the process of making it happen, and especially to Arvin Lockee and Kamlesh Bokhoree for their time and patience in explaining the infrastructure and answering all the endless questions from our members. Thank You!

  Read the article

• 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.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129  | Next Page >