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• SQLAuthority News – Virtual Launch Event for Office 2010 – Contest – Win MS Office License

  - by pinaldave

  Office products are integral products of any PC. I accept that without Office Suites, I can not survive or make enough leaving. I am blogger and use word to create my blogs. I am SQL Server Trainer  and I use PowerPoint as my presentation tool. I am SQL Server consultant and I use Excel to keep my work log. I can not see my life with Office Tools. Just like any other Microsoft Product there is strong community following Office Tools. Please count me in. The same community is hosting a Virtual Launch Event for Office 2010 on May 25 and 26th. The webcasts is FREE to attend and people can take part either online or by going to the nearest available center. The sessions will be delivered by MVPs. To register please visit: http://www.meraoffice.com. In June, limited cities will be hosting Community Launch Events for Office 2010. At the launch events, attendees will get to see Office 2010 in action and learn how to do their work better with Office 2010.  The details are available on http://office.merawindows.com. To support one of the largest community, I am announcing one contents. It is very easy to take part in the contest. You just have to answer one very simple question. Contest: Choose best option: With which Microsoft Office Product Powerpivot is associated? Options: 1) PowerPoint 2) Excel 3) Word Hint: http://search.sqlauthority.com Rules: Winner will be awarded 1 Office 2007 Home and Student. This will be freely upgradeable to Office 2010 once it releases in June. The winners will be sent emails and they will redeem their awards via microsoftstore.co.in The prizes can only be shipped to India and Indian residents are eligible. Winner will be selected by selected community leaders and MVPs at their sole discretion. Winner will be informed by email about the award. Most creative and informative comment will win the contest. Please spread the words about this contest. SQLAuthority.com will also send SQL Server book to the person who generates the most traffic to this blog post using Twitter, Facebook and other social media. This competition is also open to Indian residents only. I will measure the traffic using my wordpress.com stats plugin. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Office

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• Four Emerging Payment Stories

  - by David Dorf

  The world of alternate payments has been moving fast of late.  Innovation in this area will help both consumers and retailers, but probably hurt the banks (at least that's the plan).  Here are four recent news items in this area: Dwolla, a start-up in Iowa, is trying to make credit cards obsolete.  Twelve guys in Des Moines are using $1.3M they raised to allow businesses to skip the credit card networks and avoid the fees.  Today they move about $1M a day across their network with an average transaction size of $500. Instead of charging merchants 2.9% plus $.30 per transaction, Dwolla charges a quarter -- yep, that coin featuring George Washington. Dwolla (Web + Dollar = Dwolla) avoids the credit networks and connects directly to bank accounts using the bank's ACH network.  They are signing up banks and merchants targeting both B2B and C2B as well as P2P payments.  They leverage social networks to notify people they have a money transfer, and also have a mobile app that uses GPS location. However, all is not rosy.  There have been complaints about unexpected chargebacks and with debit fees being reduced by the big banks, the need is not as pronounced.  The big banks are working on their own network called clearXchange that could provide stiff competition. VeriFone just bought European payment processor Point for around $1B.  By itself this would not have caught my attention except for the fact that VeriFone also announced the acquisition of GlobalBay earlier this month.  In addition to their core business of selling stand-beside payment terminals, with GlobalBay they get employee-operated mobile selling tools and with Point they get a very big payment processing platform. MasterCard and Intel announced a partnership around payments, starting with PayPass, MasterCard's new payment technology.  Intel will lend its expertise to add additional levels of security, which seems to be the biggest barrier for consumer adoption.  Everyone is scrambling to get their piece of cash transactions, which still represents 85% of all transactions. Apple was awarded another mobile payment patent further cementing the rumors that the iPhone 5 will support NFC payments.  As usual, Apple is upsetting the apple cart (sorry) by moving control of key data from the carriers to Apple.  With Apple's vast number of iTunes accounts, they have a ready-made customer base to use the payment infrastructure, which I bet will slowly transition people away from credit cards and toward cheaper ACH.  Gary Schwartz explains the three step process Apple is taking to become a payment processor. Below is a picture I drew representing payments in the retail industry. There's certainly a lot of innovation happening.

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• To File Share or to not File Share, that is the Question.

  To file share or to not file share, that is the question. The concept of the internet was developed in the 1960’s as a revolutionary idea to share information and data amongst a group of computers. The original concept was to allow universities and the United States Military share data for research and field operations. This network of computers was designed to provide redundant data storage and communications in case one or more locations were destroyed. Since the inception of the internet, people have attempted to use it for sharing data. As the Internet has evolved so did the users and the information they wanted to share. In today’s modern internet people can share information through various avenues, for example: websites, social networks, email, documents, executable files, data files and much more.  Unfortunately, as the internet and its users have grown, some industries have not paid attention. Currently, there are several industries that have really fallen behind in keeping up with current trends, and are severely paying the price for their lack of action. A current example of this is with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and file sharing. RIAA contends that customers who purchase music can only listen to the music and cannot share it with others. This can be seen when the RIAA sued Napster for distributing copyrighted music through a technology called file sharing. File sharing as defined by the Media Awareness Network is downloadable software that permits users to share music, video, image or book files directly with peers. Users of file sharing networks simply had to extract the music from a CD into a music compatible format. Typically most music files at that time where saved as MPEG file format. Once the users got music in this format it was very easy share their music with others. The big question now is who actually owns the music, does the music industry still retain the rights of the music regarding who has access to listen to it, or is it up to the owner of the music CD.  According to the First – Sale Doctrine, it is the right of the purchaser of the CD to decide who can access the information on the CD. In addition, the original owner looses all rights to the music once it has been sold.  The importance of defining who actually owns the music has a great impact on the future of the industry. If the industry is determined to be the actual owner of the music then anyone who has shared at least 1 fine with another is guilty of violating the copyright. However, if the owners of the CD are determined to be the owners of the music then the music industry will have to figure out some other way to protect their music so that it is more lucrative for them or they will go out of business. References: http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/special_initiatives/wa_resources/wa_shared/backgrounders/internet_glossary.cfm#F

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• Week 21: FY10 in the Rear View Mirror

  - by sandra.haan

  FY10 is coming to a close and before we dive into FY11 we thought we would take a walk down memory lane and reminisce on some of our favorite Oracle PartnerNetwork activities. June 2009 brought One Red Network to partners offering access to the same virtual kickoff environment used by Oracle employees. It was a new way to deliver valuable content to key stakeholders (and without the 100+ degree temperatures). Speaking of hot, Oracle also announced in June new licensing options for our ISV partners. This model enables an even broader community of ISVs to build, deploy and manage SaaS applications on the same platform. While some people took the summer off, the OPN Program team was working away to deliver a brand new partner program - Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized - at Oracle OpenWorld in October. Specialized. Recognized. Preferred. If you haven't gotten the message yet, we may need an emergency crew to pull you out from that rock you've been hiding under. But seriously, the announcement at the OPN Forum drew a big crowd and our FY11 event is shaping up to be just as exciting. OPN Specialized was announced in October and opened our doors for enrollment in December 2009. To mark our grand opening we held our first ever social webcast allowing partners from around the world to interact with us live throughout the day. We had a lot of great conversations and really enjoyed the chance to speak with so many of you. After a short holiday break we were back at it - just a small announcement - Oracle's acquisition of Sun. In case you missed it, here is a short field report from Ted Bereswill, SVP North America Alliances & Channels on the partner events to support the announcement: And while we're announcing things - did we mention that both Ted Bereswill and Judson Althoff were named Channel Chiefs by CRN? Not only do we have a couple of Channel Chiefs, but Oracle also won the Partner Program 5 Star Programs Award and took top honors at the CRN Channel Champion Awards for Financial Factors/Financial Performance in the category of Data and Information Management and the and Xchange Solution Provider event in March 2010. We actually caught up with Judson at this event for a quick recap of our participation: But awards aside, let's not forget our main focus in FY10 and that is Specialization. In April we announced that we had over 35 Specializations available for partners and a plan to deliver even more in FY11. We are just days away from the end of FY10 but hope you enjoyed our walk down memory lane. We are already planning lots of activity for our partners in FY11 starting with our Partner Kickoff event on June 29th. Join us to hear the vision and strategy for FY11 and interact with regional A&C leaders. We look forward to talking with you then. The OPN Communications Team

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• Make Your Coworker’s Day in Ubuntu

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  It can be difficult to express your appreciation for your coworkers in person – what if they take it the wrong way, or think you’re fishing for a compliment of your own? If you use Ubuntu in your office, here’s a quick way to show your appreciation while avoiding the social pitfalls of face-to-face communication. Make sure their computer is locked An unlocked computer is a vulnerable computer. Vulnerable to malware sure, but much more vulnerable to the local office prankster, who thinks it’s hilarious to make a screenshot of your desktop, change your background to that screenshot, then hide all of your desktop icons. These incidents have taught us that you should lock your computer when taking a break. Hopefully your coworker has learned the same lesson, and pressed Ctrl+Alt+L before stepping out for a coffee. Leave a carefully worded message Now is your opportunity to leave your message of appreciation on your coworker’s computer. Click on the Leave Message button and type away! Click on Save. Wait, possibly in the shadows If you sit near your coworker, then wait for them to return. If you sit farther away, then try to listen for their footsteps. Eventually they will return to their computer and enter their password to unlock it. Observe smile Once they return to their desktop, they will be greeted with the message you left. Look to see if they appreciated the message, and if so, feel free to take credit. If they look annoyed, or press the Cancel button, continue on with your day like nothing happened. You may also try to slip into a conversation that you saw Jerry tinkering with their computer earlier. Conclusion Leaving your coworkers a nice message is easy and can brighten up their dull afternoon. We’re pretty sure that this method can only be used for good and not evil, but if you have any other suggestions of messages to leave, let us know in the comments! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Ubuntu Automatically Save Changes to Your SessionAdding extra Repositories on UbuntuInstall IceWM on Ubuntu LinuxInstall Blackbox on Ubuntu LinuxMake Firefox Display Large Images Full Size TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7? Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper Live PDF Searches PDF Files and Ebooks Converting Mp4 to Mp3 Easily

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• Mejores prácticas de Recursos Humanos: Cross Company Mentoring

  - by Fabian Gradolph

  Una de las cosas positivas de trabajar en una gran organización como Oracle es la posibilidad de participar en iniciativas de gran alcance que normalmente no están disponibles en muchas empresas. Ayer se presentó, junto con American Express y CocaCola, la tercera edición del programa Cross Company Mentoring, una iniciativa en la que las tres empresas colaboran facilitando mentores (profesionales experimentados) para promover el desarrollo profesional de individuos de talento en las tres empresas. La originalidad del programa estriba en que los mentores colaboran con el desarrollo de los profesionales de las otras empresas participantes y no sólo con los propios. La presentación inicial fue realizada por Alfredo García-Valverde, presidente de American Express en España. Posteriormente, Julia B. López, de American Express, y Rosa María Arias, de Oracle (en ese orden en la foto), han detallado en qué consiste la iniciativa, además de hacer balance de la edición anterior. Aunque este programa -complementario de los que ya funcionan en las tres empresas- está disponible para hombres y mujeres, hay que destacar que buena parte de su razón de ser está en potenciar el papel de mujeres profesionales de talento en las compañías. En términos generales, todas las grandes organizaciones se encuentran con un problema similar en el desarrollo del talento femenino. Independientemente del número de mujeres que formen parte de la plantilla de la empresa, lo cierto es que su número decrece de forma drástica cuando hablamos de los puestos directivos. La ruptura de ese "techo de cristal" es una prioridad para las empresas, tanto por motivos de simple justicia social, como por aprovechar al máximo todo el potencial del talento que ya existe dentro de las organizaciones, evitando que el talento femenino se "pierda" por no poder facilitar las oportunidades adecuadas para su desarrollo. La iniciativa de Cross Company Mentoring tiene unos objetivos bien definidos. En primer lugar, desarrollar el talento con un método innovador que permite conocer las mejores prácticas en otras empresas y aprovechar el talento externo. Adicionalmente, como ha señalado Julia López, es un método que nos fuerza a salir de la zona de confort, de las prácticas tradicionalmente aceptadas dentro de cada organización y que difícilmente se ponen en cuestión. El segundo objetivo es que el Mentee, el máximo beneficiario del programa, aprenda de la experiencia de profesionales de gran trayectoria para desarrollar sus propias soluciones en los retos que le plantee su carrera profesional. El programa que se ha presentado ahora, la tercera edición, arrancará en el próximo mes y estará vigente hasta finales de año. Seguro que tendrá tanto éxito como en las dos ediciones anteriores.

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• Inside Red Gate - Divisions

  - by Simon Cooper

  When I joined Red Gate back in 2007, there were around 80 people in the company. Now, around 3 years later, it's grown to more than 200. It's a constant battle against Dunbar's number; the maximum number of people you can keep track of in a social group, to try and maintain that 'small company' feel that attracted myself and so many others to apply in the first place. There are several strategies the company's developed over the years to try and mitigate the effects of Dunbar's number. One of the main ones has been divisionalisation. Divisions The first division, .NET, appeared around the same time that I started in 2007. This combined the development, sales, marketing and management of the .NET tools (then, ANTS Profiler v3) into a separate section of the office. The idea was to increase the cohesion and communication between the different people involved in the entire lifecycle of the tools; from initial product development, through to marketing, then to customer support, who would feed back to the development team. This was such a success that the other development teams were re-worked around this model in 2009. Nowadays there are 4 divisions - SQL Tools, DBA, .NET, and New Business. Along the way there have been various tweaks to the details - the sales teams have been merged into the divisions, marketing and product support have been (mostly) centralised - but the same basic model remains. So, how has this helped? As Red Gate has continued to grow over the years, divisionalisation has turned Red Gate from a monolithic software company into what one person described as a 'federation of small businesses'. Each division is free to structure itself as it sees fit, it's free to decide what to concentrate development work on, organise its own newsletters and webinars, decide its own release schedule. Each division is its own small business. In terms of numbers, the size of each division varies from 20 people (.NET) to 52 (SQL Tools); well below Dunbar's number. From a developer's perspective, this means organisational structure is very flat & wide - there's only 2 layers between myself and the CEOs (not that it matters much; everyone can go and have a chat to Neil or Simon, or anyone else inbetween, whenever they want. Provided you can catch them at their desk!). As Red Gate grows, and expands into new areas, new divisions will be created as needed, old ones merged or disbanded, but the division structure will help to maintain that small-company feel that keeps Red Gate working as it does.

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• “Cloud Integration in Minutes” – True or False?

  - by Bruce Tierney

  The short answer is “yes”. Connecting on-premise and cloud applications “in minutes” is true…provided you only consider the connectivity subset of integration and have a small number of cloud integration touch points. At the recent Gartner AADI conference, 230 attendees filled up the Oracle session to get a more comprehensive answer to this question. During the session, titled “Simplifying Integration – The Cloud & Mobile Pre-requisite”, Oracle’s Tim Hall described cloud connectivity and then, equally importantly, the other essential and sometimes overlooked aspects of integration required to ensure a long term application and service integration strategy. To understand the challenges and opportunities faced by cloud integration, the session started off with a slide that describes how connectivity can quickly transition from simplicity to complexity as the number of applications and service vendor instances grows: Increased complexity puts increased demand on the integration platform As companies expand from on-premise applications into a hybrid on-premise/cloud infrastructure with support for mobile, cloud, and social, there is a new sense of urgency to implement a unified and comprehensive service integration platform. Without getting this unified platform in place, companies face increased complexity and cost managing a growing patchwork of niche integration toolsets as well as the disparate standards mandated by each SaaS vendor as shown in the image below: dddddddddddddddddddd Incomplete and overlapping offerings from a patchwork of niche vendors Also at Gartner AADI, Oracle SOA Suite customer Geeta Pyne, Director of Middleware at BMC presented their successful strategy on how BMC efficiently manages their cloud integration despite disparate requirements from each vendor. From one of Geeta’s slide: Interfaces are dictated by SaaS vendors; wide variety (SOAP, REST, Socket, HTTP/POX, SFTP); Flexibility of Oracle Service Bus/SOA Suite helps to support Every vendor has their way to handle Security; WS-Security, Custom Header; Support in Oracle Service Bus helps to adhere to disparate requirements At BMC, the flexibility of Oracle Service Bus and Oracle SOA Suite allowed them to support the wide variation in the functional requirements as mandated by their SaaS vendors. In contrast to the patchwork platform approach of escalating complexity from overlapping SaaS toolkits, Oracle’s strategy is to provide a unified platform to support disparate requirements from your SaaS vendors, on-premise apps, legacy apps, and more. Furthermore, Oracle SOA Suite includes the many aspects of comprehensive integration beyond basic connectivity including orchestration, analytics (BAM, events…), service virtualization and more in a single unified interface. Oracle SOA Suite – Unified and comprehensive To summarize, yes you can achieve “cloud integration in minutes” when considering the connectivity subset of integration but be sure to look for ways to simplify as you consider a more comprehensive view of integration beyond basic connectivity such as service virtualization, management, event processing and more. And finally, be sure your integration platform has the deep flexibility to handle the requirements of all your future SaaS applications…many of which are unknown to you now.

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• Have you really fixed that problem?

  - by DavidWimbush

  The day before yesterday I saw our main live server's CPU go up to constantly 100% with just the occasional short drop to a lower level. The exact opposite of what you'd want to see. We're log shipping every 15 minutes and part of that involves calling WinRAR to compress the log backups before copying them over. (We're on SQL2005 so there's no native compression and we have bandwidth issues with the connection to our remote site.) I realised the log shipping jobs were taking about 10 minutes and that most of that was spent shipping a 'live' reporting database that is completely rebuilt every 20 minutes. (I'm just trying to keep this stuff alive until I can improve it.) We can rebuild this database in minutes if we have to fail over so I disabled log shipping of that database. The log shipping went down to less than 2 minutes and I went off to the SQL Social evening in London feeling quite pleased with myself. It was a great evening - fun, educational and thought-provoking. Thanks to Simon Sabin & co for laying that on, and thanks too to the guests for making the effort when they must have been pretty worn out after doing DevWeek all day first. The next morning I came down to earth with a bump: CPU still at 100%. WTF? I looked in the activity monitor but it was confusing because some sessions have been running for a long time so it's not a good guide what's using the CPU now. I tried the standard reports showing queries by CPU (average and total) but they only show the top 10 so they just show my big overnight archiving and data cleaning stuff. But the Profiler showed it was four queries used by our new website usage tracking system. Four simple indexes later the CPU was back where it should be: about 20% with occasional short spikes. So the moral is: even when you're convinced you've found the cause and fixed the problem, you HAVE to go back and confirm that the problem has gone. And, yes, I have checked the CPU again today and it's still looking sweet.

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• COLLABORATE 12: Oracle WebCenter Featured at Largest Oracle User Conference

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  With more than 70 out of about 800 individual sessions, Oracle WebCenter will be a major focus of COLLABORATE 12, this year's Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) conference, taking place April 22–26 in Las Vegas, Nevada. "COLLABORATE 12 provides a unique chance to share experiences with Oracle customers, product managers, and partners, so you can deepen your knowledge about Oracle WebCenter upgrades, user provisioning, workflow, integration, and much more," says Roel Stalman, vice president of product management for Oracle WebCenter. "In fact, COLLABORATE can form a key part of your training plans for 2012." Full-Day Oracle WebCenter Deep Dive On Sunday, April 22, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., registered conference attendees can attend a special deep dive into Oracle WebCenter. During the program, experts from Oracle product management and development teams will delve into all four pillars of Oracle WebCenter—and explore how all four are integrated together. Attendees can also expect A preview of Oracle WebCenter 12c Detailed product demos Prize giveaways throughout the day Going Mobile Oracle WebCenter and mobile technology will be a major theme at this year's conference, with a number of sessions devoted to maximizing the availability of content while also ensuring security. Sessions include Are You Making These Mistakes in Your Oracle Site Studio Implementations? Monday, April 23 at 11 a.m. Case Study: How Medtronic Brought Oracle WebCenter Content to the iPad Tuesday, April 24 at 10:45 a.m. Exposing Oracle WebCenter Data on Mobile and Desktop Devices Through the REST API Tuesday, April 24 at 10:45 a.m. Mobile First: Delivering a Compelling Mobile Experience with Oracle WebCenter Tuesday, April 24 at 4:30 p.m. Optimizing Your Oracle WebCenter Portal Solution for Mobile Devices Wednesday, April 25 at 8:15 a.m. Build an iPhone App Using Oracle WebCenter Portal REST APIs Wednesday, April 25 at 9:30 a.m. Other Don't-Miss Sessions Conference organizers have indicated that the following sessions in particular should be of wide interest to attendees. Oracle WebCenter: Vision, Strategy, and Overview Monday, April 23 at 9:45 a.m. This session explores Oracle's integrated approach to portals and composite applications, Web experience management, enterprise content management, and enterprise social collaboration. It also provides insight into Oracle's strategic direction for Oracle WebCenter. Oracle Webcenter Content, Oracle WebCenter Spaces, Oracle WebCenter Sites: Which Is Right for Me? Monday, April 23 at 1:15 p.m. This session helps attendees determine the best Oracle WebCenter solution to meet their needs for an intranet, corporate Website, or partner portal. Learn more and register to attend COLLABORATE 12.

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• Share Your Top 30 Visited Domains with Visitation Cloud for Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  Curious about the domains that you visit most or perhaps you want a way to share that information on a social website? Now you can see and share the 30 most visited domains in your browser’s history with the Visitation Cloud extension. Accessing Visitation Cloud As soon as you install the extension you can get started using it. Depending on how your browser’s UI is set up there are three methods for accessing Visitation Cloud: a “Visitation Cloud Button” inserted at the end of your “Bookmarks Toolbar”, a menu listing in the “Tools Menu”, and a “Toolbar Button” (not shown here). Visitation Cloud in Action As soon as you activate Visitation Cloud a new window will appear with your top domains displayed in a cloud format. Keep in mind that this is more than just a static image…each listing is actually a clickable link. Clicking on any of the listings will open that domain in a new tab or window depending on your particular browser settings. If you feel that you have a great set of links and want to share it with your friends then that is easy to do. Right click anywhere within the Visitation Cloud Window and select “Save as…”. The “cloud image” can be saved in “.png, .jpg, or Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg)” format. For our example we chose the “.svg format”. Perhaps you love the set of links but not the layout…right click and select “Randomize” to change how the cloud looks. Here is our cloud after being “Randomized”. Things definitely got moved around… Accessing the Visitation Cloud Image in other Browsers Once you have your “cloud image” saved you can share it with friends or save it for your own future use in other browsers. Here is our “cloud image” open in Opera Browser with link opening in progress. The same “cloud image” open in Google Chrome. Very nice… Conclusion While this may not be something that everyone will use Visitation Cloud does make for a rather unique, interesting, & fun way to access and share your most visited domains. Links Download the Visitation Cloud extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fix "Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch" Warning in FirefoxAdd Variety to Your Searches with Search CloudletRestore Your Missing/Deleted Smart Bookmarks Folder in Firefox 3Blocking Spam from International Senders in Windows Vista MailSee Where a Package is Installed on Ubuntu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Share High Res Photos using Divvyshot Draw Online using Harmony How to Browse Privately in Firefox Kill Processes Quickly with Process Assassin Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar

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• CodeStock 2012 Review: Michael Eaton( @mjeaton ) - 3 Simple Things for Increased Productivity

  3 Simple Things for Increased ProductivitySpeaker: Michael EatonTwitter: @mjeatonBlog: http://mjeaton.net/blog This was the first time I had seen Michael Eaton speak but have hear a lot of really good things about his speaking abilities. Needless to say I was really looking forward to his session. He basically addressed the topic of distractions and how they can decrease or increase your productivity as a developer. He makes the case that in order to become more productive you must block/limit all distractions. For example, he covered his top distractions as a developer. Top Distractions Social Media(Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) Wiki sites Phone Email Video Games Coworkers, Friends, Family Michael stated that he uses various types of music to help him block out these distractions in order for him to get into his coding zone. While he states that music works for him, he also notes that he knows of others that cannot really work with music. I have to say I am in the latter group because I require a quiet environment in order to work. A few session attendees also recommended listening to really loud white noise or music in another language other than your own. This allows for less focus to be placed on words being sung compared to the rhythmic beats being played. I have to say that I have not tried these suggestions yet but will in the near future. However, distractions can be very beneficial to productivity in that they give your mind a chance to relax and not think about the issues at hand. He spoke highly of taking vacations, and setting boundaries at work so that develops prevent the problem of burnout. One way he suggested that developer’s combat distractions is to use the Pomodoro technique. In his example he selects one task to do for 20 minutes and he can only do that task during that time. He ignores all other distractions until this task or time limit is complete. After it is completed he allows himself to relax and distract himself for another 5- 10 minutes before his next Pomodoro. This allows him to stay completely focused on a task and when the time is up he can then focus on other things.

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• The 2010 Life Insurance Conference - Washington, DC

  - by [email protected]

  How ironic to be in Washington, DC on April 15 - TAX DAY! Fortunately, I avoided IRS offices and attended the much more enjoyable 2010 Life Insurance Conference, presented by LIMRA, LOMA SOA and ACLI. This year's conference offered a variety of tracks focused on the Life Industry including Distribution/Marketing Marketing, Administration, Actuarial/Product Development, Regulatory, Reinsurance and Strategic Management. President and CEO of the ACLI, Frank Keating, opened the event by moderating a session titled "Executive Viewpoint on new Opportunities." Guest speakers included Ted Mathas, President and CEO of NY Life, and John Walters, President and CEO of Hartford Life. Both speakers were insightful as they shared the challenges and opportunities each company faces and the key role life insurance companies play in our society and the global economy. There were several key themes that were reiterated in multiple sessions throughout the conference - the economy is on the rebound, optimism is growing, consumer spending is up and an uptick in employment is likely to follow. The threat of a double dip recession has seemed to passed. Good news for our industry, and welcomed by all in attendance. Of special interest to me, given my background, was some research shared by both The Nolan Group and Novarica in separate sessions. Both firms indicate that policy administration upgrades/replacement projects remain a top priority in 2010. Carriers continue to invest in modern technology. Modern ultra-configurable systems enable carriers to switch from a waterfall to an agile project methodology, which often entails a "culture change" within an organization. Other themes heard throughout the two-day event: Virtually all sessions focused on People, Process and Technology! Product innovation, agility and speed to market are as important as ever. Social Networks and Twitter are becoming more popular ways of communicating with both field and dispersed staff. Several sessions focused on the application, new business and underwriting process. Companies continue looking for ways to increase market agility, accelerate speed to market, address cost issues and improve service levels across the process. They recognize the need to ease the way to do business with both producers and consumers. Author and economic futurist Jeff Thredgold presented an entertaining, informative and humorous general session on Wednesday afternoon that focused on the US and global economies, financial markets and retirement outlook. Thredgold did not disappoint anyone with his message! The Thursday morning general session was keynoted by Therese Vaughan (CEO - NAIC) and Thomas Crawford (President of C2 Group). Both speakers gave a poignant view of the recent financial crisis and discussed "Putting the Pieces Back Together." Therese spoke of the recent financial turmoil and likely changes to regulations to the financial services sector. Tom's topics focused on economic recovery and the political environment in Washington, and how that impacts our industry. Next year's event will be April 11-13, 2011 in Las Vegas. Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• Mini Theater at OTN Lounge During JavaOne

  - by Tori Wieldt

  This year, the Oracle Technology Network Lounge at JavaOne will be in the Hilton Ballroom, right in the center of theJavaOne DEMOgrounds. We'll have Java experts, community members and OTN staff to answer your questions. We've also even created a "Mini Theater" for casual demos from community members and Oracle staff. We are keeping the slots short, there will be no tests afterwards. It's your chance to talk to the experts 1 on 1. See how easy it is to turn on a lightbulb with Java and a violin. Here is the full schedule: Monday, October 1 9:40-9:50am  Learn about the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge 11:20-11:30  Update from the Oracle Academy 11:40-11:50  Caroline Kvitka, @OracleJavaMag, Editor-in-Chief of Java Magazine 12:00-12:20pm  SouJava demonstrates Duke's Choice Award Winner JHome 12:20-12:30pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) Shows What's new in NetBeans 12:40-12:50pm  Learn about the OSN Developer Challenge  2:00-2:10pm  Java.net Robotics  2:30-2:40pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) Java EE and NetBeans Tuesday, October 2 9:40-9:50am  Greenfoot/Kinect demo by Michael Kolling 11:20-11:30  Caroline Kvitka, @OracleJavaMag, Editor-in-Chief of Java Magazine 11:40-11:50  Stephen Chin and Jim Weaver, Top Ten JavaFX Features 12:00-12:10pm  Nokia Student Developer 12:20-12:30pm Arun Gupta, HTML 5 and Java EE 7 1:00-1:10pm Update on the Java Community Process (JCP) 1:20-1:30pm  Update from the Oracle Academy  2:00-2:10pm  Java.net Robotics  2:30-2:40pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) NetBeans Java Editor Wednesday, October 3 9:40-9:50am  Greenfoot/Kinect demo by Michael Kolling 11:00-11:10  Caroline Kvitka, @OracleJavaMag, Editor-in-Chief of Java Magazine 11:20-11:30  Angela Caicedo and Jim Weaver, Leveraging JavaFX and HTML5 12:00-12:10pm  Nokia Student Developer 12:10-12:30pm  SouJava demonstrates Duke's Choice Award Winner JHome  2:00-2:10pm  Stephen Chin and Jim Weaver, JavaFX Deployment with Self-Contained Apps  2:30-2:40pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) NetBeans Platform  2:50-3:00pm  Petr Jiricka, Project Easel Changes to this schedule will be announced on @JavaOneConf.

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• Mini Theater at OTN Lounge During JavaOne

  - by Tori Wieldt

  This year, the Oracle Technology Network Lounge at JavaOne will be in the Hilton Ballroom, right in the center of theJavaOne DEMOgrounds. We'll have Java experts, community members and OTN staff to answer your questions. We've also even created a "Mini Theater" for casual demos from community members and Oracle staff. We are keeping the slots short, there will be no tests afterwards. It's your chance to talk to the experts 1 on 1. See how easy it is to turn on a lightbulb with Java and a violin. Here is the full schedule: Monday, October 1 9:40-9:50am  Learn about the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge 11:20-11:30  Update from the Oracle Academy 11:40-11:50  Caroline Kvitka, @OracleJavaMag, Editor-in-Chief of Java Magazine 12:00-12:20pm  SouJava demonstrates Duke's Choice Award Winner JHome 12:20-12:30pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) Shows What's new in NetBeans 12:40-12:50pm  Learn about the OSN Developer Challenge  2:00-2:10pm  Java.net Robotics  2:30-2:40pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) Java EE and NetBeans Tuesday, October 2 9:40-9:50am  Greenfoot/Kinect demo by Michael Kolling 11:20-11:30  Caroline Kvitka, @OracleJavaMag, Editor-in-Chief of Java Magazine 11:40-11:50  Stephen Chin and Jim Weaver, Top Ten JavaFX Features 12:00-12:10pm  Nokia Student Developer 12:20-12:30pm Arun Gupta, HTML 5 and Java EE 7 1:00-1:10pm Update on the Java Community Process (JCP) 1:20-1:30pm  Update from the Oracle Academy  2:00-2:10pm  Java.net Robotics  2:30-2:40pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) NetBeans Java Editor Wednesday, October 3 9:40-9:50am  Greenfoot/Kinect demo by Michael Kolling 11:00-11:10  Caroline Kvitka, @OracleJavaMag, Editor-in-Chief of Java Magazine 11:20-11:30  Angela Caicedo and Jim Weaver, Leveraging JavaFX and HTML5 12:00-12:10pm  Nokia Student Developer 12:10-12:30pm  SouJava demonstrates Duke's Choice Award Winner JHome  2:00-2:10pm  Stephen Chin and Jim Weaver, JavaFX Deployment with Self-Contained Apps  2:30-2:40pm  Geertjan Wielenga (@geertjanw) NetBeans Platform  2:50-3:00pm  Petr Jiricka, Project Easel Changes to this schedule will be announced on @JavaOneConf.

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• The Kids Are Alright. With Facebook and SMS. But Not Twitter

  - by ultan o'broin

  I delivered a lecture to business and technology freshmen (late teens, I reckon) in Trinity College Dublin recently. I spoke about user experience in enterprise applications, trends that UX pros need to be aware of such as social media, community support, mobile and tablet platforms and a bunch of nuances around those areas (data and device security, privacy, reputation, branding, and so on). It was all fairly high level stuff given the audience, and I included lots of colorful screenshots. Irish-related examples helped to get the message across. During the lecture I did a quick poll. “How many students here use Twitter?” Answer: None. “How many use Facebook?” All (pretty much). So what do these guys like to use instead of Twitter? Easy - text messaging (or SMS if you like). They all had phones. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised about Twitter, but it’s always great to have research validated by some guerilla UX research on the street. There’s already quite a bit of research about teen uptake (or lack) of Twitter, telling us young adults don’t tweet. Twitter is seen as something for er, older people. Affordable devices and data plans that allow students to text really quickly are also popular (BlackBerry, for example). Younger people just luuurve to text each other. A lot.  Facebook versus Twitter for younger folks? Well, we know the story. No contest. I would love to engage more with students like these. I’ll plan for it. It will also be interesting to see if Twitter becomes more important to them over time. There were a few other interesting observations about the lack of uptake of Foursquare, Gowalla and mobile apps like that. I  don’t think there’s a huge uptake in these kind of apps in Ireland anyway, but maybe students have different priorities anyway?   I’ll return to that another day. Technorati Tags: Gowalla,FourSquare,Twitter,UX,user experience,user assistance,Trinity College Dublin

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• How Microsoft listens

  - by Stacy Vicknair

  This being my freshman year as an MVP, I had a realization that I perhaps should be embarrassed hasn’t happened sooner. The realization comes much like the iconic M&Ms commercial where the M&Ms run into Santa and exclaim, “He does exist!” My personal realization arguably has a greater implication: Microsoft does listen. This is the most important lesson that I received this year attending the MVP Summit. My hope is that I can convince you that we are empowered to make a difference. Instead of using “Man I hate how this works / doesn’t work!” as cooler conversation, we can use it as true interaction with Microsoft. We as customers to Microsoft need to stop asking the question “Will this work for me?” and instead ask “How can this work for me?” There are three quick resources that the average developer has access to today that they can use to be heard by the product teams, and by no means should you think twice if you have a concern that you’d like a real response on. MVPs MVPs are members of your community who have a deep relationship with Microsoft and will have connections to their associated product group. Don’t think of them as just a resource for answers, but also as your ambassador for getting your experiences heard. You can find your local MVPs by browsing the directory at: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx Evangelists Evangelists are employees of Microsoft who work to foster and grow communities in their assigned region. They are first-class citizens of Microsoft and are often deeply involved with the product groups. As a result, they will be more than glad to direct your questions or concerns to those who can answer them most expertly. With that said, evangelists are also very busy people (who do amazing things for the community) and might not be able to get you that conversation as quickly as a local MVP. You can find your local evangelist at the following website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb905078.aspx Microsoft Connect This is one of the resources that I haven’t used enough, but it cannot be understated. Connect is the starting point of the social conversation that happens between Microsoft and the community daily. Connect acts as a portal where you can provide new feedback as well as comment and rate the feedback provided by others. Power is in numbers when it comes to Connect, so the exposure that your feedback can get not only lets you know that you aren’t the only one who wants change, but also lets Microsoft know the same. https://connect.microsoft.com   Technorati Tags: Microsoft,MVP,Feedback,Connect

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• FREE Windows Azure evening in London on April 15th including FREE access to Windows Azure

  - by Eric Nelson

  [Did I overdo the use of FREE in the title? :-)] April 12th to 16th is Microsoft Tech Days – 5 days of sessions on Visual Studio 2010 through to Windows 7 Phone Series. Many of these days are now full (Tip - Thursday still has room if rich client applications is your thing) but the good news is the development community in the UK has pulled together an awesome series of “fringe events” during April in London and elsewhere in the UK. There are sessions on Silverlight, SQL Server 2008 R2, Sharepoint 2010 and … the Windows Azure Platform. The UK AzureNET user group is planning to put on a great evening and AzureNET will be giving away hundreds of free subscriptions to the Windows Azure Platform during the evening. The subscription includes up to 20 Windows Azure Compute nodes and 3 SQL Azure databases for you to play with over the 2 weeks following the event. This is a great opportunity to really explore the Windows Azure Platform in detail – without a credit card! Register now! (and you might also want to join the UK Fans of Azure Community while I have your attention) FYI The Thursday day time event includes an introduction to Windows Azure session delivered by my colleague David – which would be an ideal session to attend if you are new to Azure and want to get the most out of the evening session. 7:00pm: See the difference: How Windows Azure helped build a new way of giving Simon Evans and James Broome (@broomej) They will cover the business context for Azure and then go into patterns used and lessons learnt from the project....as well as showing off the app of course! 8:00pm: UK AzureNET update 8:15pm: NoSQL databases or: How I learned to love the hash table Mark Rendle (@markrendle) In this session Mark will look at how Azure Table Service works and how to use it. We’ll look briefly at the high-level Data Services SDK, talk about its limitations, and then quickly move on to the REST API and how to use it to improve performance and reduce costs. We’ll make-up some pretend real-world problems and solve them in new and interesting ways. We’ll denormalise data (for fun and profit). We’ll talk about how certain social networking sites can deal with huge volumes of data so quickly, and why it sometimes goes wrong. Check out the complete list of fringe events which covers the UK fairly well:

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• Add Bookmarks and Notes to Delicious in IE 8

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you constantly adding bookmarks to your Delicious account while browsing but want to keep UI use to a minimum? Add bookmarks directly to your account from the context menu using the Share with Delicious accelerator. Share with Delicious in Action To add the accelerator click on Add to Internet Explorer and confirm the installation when the secondary window appears. This is going to be much better than having the Favorites Bar or a new toolbar taking up precious UI room. When you find a webpage that you would like to bookmark right click within the page, go to All Accelerators and select Share with Delicious. The form for the new bookmark will open in a new tab with the URL and title filled in. All that you need to do is add any desired notes/tags and save the bookmark. Suppose that you want notes from the page added to the bookmark. Highlight the desired text, right click on it, then go to All Accelerators and select Share with Delicious. As before the form will open in a new tab…you can see the highlighted text was entered into the notes section for the new bookmark. All that is left to do is add an appropriate tag and save. Once you save your new bookmark the tab will auto navigate to the webpage that you just saved. Returning to our account showed the new bookmark ready for future use along with a the notes for later reference. Conclusion If you add bookmarks to your Delicious account but want to save UI room, then the Share with Delicious accelerator will make a nice addition to Internet Explorer. Links Add the Share with Delicious accelerator to Internet Explorer 8 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Access and Manage Your Delicious Bookmarks the Easy WayQuickly Add Bookmarks to Delicious in FirefoxAutomate Adding Bookmarks to del.icio.usHow Many Times Has an Article Been Bookmarked on del.icio.us?Add Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress Blog TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule

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• Not Dead, Just Busy

  - by MOSSLover

  So I didn’t die in a freak smelting accident yet, but I have been dealing with a lot of different things.  I had to take a bit of a break to deal with the cat death issue.  I am not fully recovered, because well it just happened a few months ago.  It kind of sucked.  Plus the apartment feels a lot bigger. Then you have the whole New York Comic Con thing where I had to plan some cosplay costumes.  I have been trying to find time to hang out with friends and have a social life.  That plus I built an entire presentation for iOS development for New York Code Camp.  I am also planning a couple MS Community dinners (namely one a week from Tuesday) plus a give camp.  I am also planning a vacation around SPS UK plus I will be at SPC.  Life is just incredibly hectic and when you factor in dating to the mix it’s gotten insane to the point where some day I just have to go dark.  Hence the lack of blogging.  I am just trying to keep up with everything and everyone without losing myself. If you guys will be at SPC or SPS UK I will be at both places this year.  Stop by the Planet Technologies booth and see me or I’ll be around somewhere.  I am really sorry if I don’t remember you from an event or if you are someone following me on twitter.  I am trying to get better at the mnemonic memory devices, but I think things broke down around the 47th event I attended or spoke at or something to that nature.  If anyone wants to talk to Cathy, Lori, or I about Women in SharePoint definitely find us at the event.  Anyway good night and good luck guys.  I promise to check back at least once before the year ends.  In the meantime twitter stalking is always possible.  Sometimes I even respond back. Technorati Tags: SPC,SPS UK,NYCC,NYC Code Camp,MOSSLover

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• CodeStock 2012 Review: Michael Eaton( @mjeaton ) - 3 Simple Things for Increased Productivity

  3 Simple Things for Increased ProductivitySpeaker: Michael EatonTwitter: @mjeatonBlog: http://mjeaton.net/blog This was the first time I had seen Michael Eaton speak but have hear a lot of really good things about his speaking abilities. Needless to say I was really looking forward to his session. He basically addressed the topic of distractions and how they can decrease or increase your productivity as a developer. He makes the case that in order to become more productive you must block/limit all distractions. For example, he covered his top distractions as a developer. Top Distractions Social Media(Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) Wiki sites Phone Email Video Games Coworkers, Friends, Family Michael stated that he uses various types of music to help him block out these distractions in order for him to get into his coding zone. While he states that music works for him, he also notes that he knows of others that cannot really work with music. I have to say I am in the latter group because I require a quiet environment in order to work. A few session attendees also recommended listening to really loud white noise or music in another language other than your own. This allows for less focus to be placed on words being sung compared to the rhythmic beats being played. I have to say that I have not tried these suggestions yet but will in the near future. However, distractions can be very beneficial to productivity in that they give your mind a chance to relax and not think about the issues at hand. He spoke highly of taking vacations, and setting boundaries at work so that develops prevent the problem of burnout. One way he suggested that developer’s combat distractions is to use the Pomodoro technique. In his example he selects one task to do for 20 minutes and he can only do that task during that time. He ignores all other distractions until this task or time limit is complete. After it is completed he allows himself to relax and distract himself for another 5- 10 minutes before his next Pomodoro. This allows him to stay completely focused on a task and when the time is up he can then focus on other things.

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• Simple tips to design a Customer Journey Map

  - by Isabel F. Peñuelas

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

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• Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon

  - by T

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/08/computer-visionaries-2014-kinect-hackathon.aspxA big thank you to Computer Vision Dallas and Microsoft for putting together the Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon that took place July 18th and 19th 2014.  Our team had a great time and learned a lot from the Kinect MVP's and Microsoft team.  The Dallas Entrepreneur Center was a fantastic venue. In total, 114 people showed up to form 15 teams. Burger ITS & Friends team members with Ben Lower:  Shawn Weisfeld, Teresa Burger, Robert Burger, Harold Pulcher, Taylor Woolley, Cori Drew (not pictured), and Katlyn Drew (not pictured) We arrived Friday after a long day of work/driving.  Originally, our idea was to make a learning game for kids.  It was intended to be multi-simultaneous players dragging and dropping tiles into a canvas area for kids around 5 years old. We quickly learned that we were limited to two simultaneous players. After working on the game for the rest of the evening and into the next morning we decided that a fast multi-player game with hand gestures was not going to happen without going beyond what was provided with the API. If we were going to have something to show, it was time to switch gears. The next idea on the table was the Photo Anywhere Kiosk. The user can use voice and hand gestures to pick a place they would like to be.  After the user says a place (or anything they want) and then the word "search", the app uses Bing to display a bunch of images for him/her to choose from. With the use of hand gesture (grab and slide to move back and forth and push/pull to select an image) the user can get the perfect image to pose with. I couldn't get a snippet with the hand but when a the app is in use, a hand shows up to cue the user to use their hand to control it's movement. Once they chose an image, we use the Kinect background removal feature to super impose the user on that image. When they are in the perfect position, they say "save" to save the image. Currently, the image is saved in the images folder on the users account but there are many possibilities such as emailing it, posting to social media, etc.. The competition was great and we were honored to be recognized for third place. Other related posts: http://jasongfox.com/computer-visionaries-2014-incredible-success/ A couple of us are continuing to work on the kid's game and are going to make it a Windows 8 multi-player game without Kinect functionality. Stay tuned for more updates.

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• on coding style

  - by user12607414

  I vastly prefer coding to discussing coding style, just as I would prefer to write poetry instead of talking about how it should be written. Sometimes the topic cannot be put off, either because some individual coder is messing up a shared code base and needs to be corrected, or (worse) because some officious soul has decided, "what we really need around here are some strongly enforced style rules!" Neither is the case at the moment, and yet I will venture a post on the subject. The following are not rules, but suggested etiquette. The idea is to allow a coherent style of coding to flourish safely and sanely, as a humane, inductive, social process. Maxim M1: Observe, respect, and imitate the largest-scale precedents available. (Preserve styles of whitespace, capitalization, punctuation, abbreviation, name choice, code block size, factorization, type of comments, class organization, file naming, etc., etc., etc.) Maxim M2: Don't add weight to small-scale variations. (Realize that Maxim M1 has been broken many times, but don't take that as license to create further irregularities.) Maxim M3: Listen to and rely on your reviewers to help you perceive your own coding quirks. (When you review, help the coder do this.) Maxim M4: When you touch some code, try to leave it more readable than you found it. (When you review such changes, thank the coder for the cleanup. When you plan changes, plan for cleanups.) On the Hotspot project, which is almost 1.5 decades old, we have often practiced and benefited from such etiquette. The process is, and should be, inductive, not prescriptive. An ounce of neighborliness is better than a pound of police-work. Reality check: If you actually look at (or live in) the Hotspot code base, you will find we have accumulated many annoying irregularities in our source base. I suppose this is the normal condition of a lived-in space. Unless you want to spend all your time polishing and tidying, you can't live without some smudge and clutter, can you? Final digression: Grammars and dictionaries and other prescriptive rule books are sometimes useful, but we humans learn and maintain our language by example not grammar. The same applies to style rules. Actually, I think the process of maintaining a clean and pleasant working code base is an instance of a community maintaining its common linguistic identity. BTW, I've been reading and listening to John McWhorter lately with great pleasure. (If you end with a digression, is it a tail-digression?)

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

  - by Paradine

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

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