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• Silverlight Cream for May 11, 2010 -- #859

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this All Submittal Issue: Colin Eberhardt, Ken Johnson, Alan Beasley, Pencho Popadiyn, Phil Middlemiss, Khawar(-2-), Levente Mihály, Alex van Beek, Bart Czernicki, Michael Washington, and Mark Monster. Shoutout: Not Silverlight necessarily, but definitely VS2010, read what Brett Balmer has to say In Defense of Portrait Mode From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight MultiBinding solution for Silverlight 4 Colin Eberhardt updated his Silverlight Multibinding solution to Silverlight 4. Great article with explanatory graphics, and links to the code... congrats on the use in the FaceBook Client too! Spirograph Shapes: WPF Bezier shapes from math formulae Wow... I haven't seen this much math since my Master's Thesis! ... Check out all the shapes Ken Johnson has built... don't let the math scare you... just use it :) Busy Dizzy Bee-sley Spirographic Animation in Expression Blend and Silverlight This is just fun... I saw Michael Washington playing with this yesterday at the Arizona Day of .NET but didn't have a chance to ask what it was.. Alan Beasley had a good time building this, and is sharing a very detailed tutorial with us. ModalDialogs, IEditableObject and MVVM in Silverlight 4 Pencho Popadiyn said the 'M' word over at SilverlightShow... actually the 'MVVM' word :) ... he's discussing Modal dialogs with no code in the View ... check out how he did it. A Chrome and Glass Theme - Part 6 Phil Middlemiss is up to episode 6 in his Theme-building tutorial... this time out, he's giving the TabControl and TabItem new clothes ... specifically discussing what to change and what to allow to inherit ... good stuff! Silverlight 4 Fonts gotcha Check out Khawar's ATM Machine demo -- there's a link on the page for this post... he had an issue with fonts, ratted it out, and explains it for all of us... thanks Khawar Demystifying Silverlight Obfuscation Khawar also has a good post up on Obfuscating your Silverlight... definitely showing that it's not all that difficult to do. geoGallery, a WinPhone7 sample OK this is interesting... using the geoLocation feature of WP7, Levente Mihály hits Google Picasa to find pictures... good write-up and all the code. Silverlight 4: Digitally signing a XAP with Visual Studio 2010 Alex van Beek has a nice tutorial on Signing your XAP file using Visual Studio 2010... of course you may want to visit Tim Heuer's blog (search at SC) to find the two good deals on certificates that are still in play. Creating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Expression Blend 4 for Business Intelligence applications In an interesting post, Bart Czernicki describes using the shape assets in Blend 4 to produce a KPI display in Silverlight or WPF. A discussion of the shape's evolution for KPI is included as well as some alternate shape uses. A DotNetNuke Silverlight 4 Drag and Drop File Manager Michael Washington has blogged about his Drag and Drop File Manager using the View Model Style pattern. This is covered in two CodeProject articles listed in the post. The design work was done by Alan Beasely and links to his work is there as well as covered in other SC posts. How to select a ListItem on Hover Mark Monster had a Use Case for Selecting a ListBox entry by hovering ... but he did it with a Behavior and for a ListBox and PathListBox and it works with DataBinding... Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Something other than Vertex Welding with Texture Atlas?

  - by Tim Winter

  What options (in C# with XNA) would there be for texture usage in a procedural generated 3D world made of cubes to increase performance? Yes, it's like Minecraft. I've been doing a texture atlas and rendering faces individually (4 vertices per face), but I've also read in a couple places about using texture wrapping with two 1D atlases to merge adjacent faces with the same texture. If two or more adjacent faces share the same image, it'd be quite easy to wrap in this way reducing vertices by a large amount. My problem with this is having too many textures, swapping too often, and many image related things like non-power of 2 images. Is there a middle ground option between the 1D texture atlas trick and rendering 4 vertices per cube face? This is a picture of what I have currently (in wireframe). 4 vertices per face seems extremely inefficient to me.

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• Rendering skybox in first person shooter

  - by brainydexter

  I am trying to get a skybox rendered correctly in my first person shooter game. I have the skybox cube rendering using GL_TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP. I author the cube with extents of -1 and 1 along X,Y and Z. However, I can't wrap my head around the camera transformations that I need to apply to get it right. My render loop looks something like this: mp_Camera-ApplyTransform() :: Takes the current player transformation and inverts it and pushes that on the modelview stack. Draw GameObjects Draw Skybox DrawSkybox does the following: glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP); glDepthMask(GL_FALSE); // draw the cube here with extents glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP); glDepthMask(GL_TRUE); Do I need to translate the skybox by the translation of the camera ? (btw, that didn't help either) EDIT: I forgot to mention: It looks like a small cube with unit extents. Also, I can strafe in/out of the cube. Screenshot:

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• How can I generate a 2d navigation mesh in a dynamic environment at runtime?

  - by Stephen

  So I've grasped how to use A* for path-finding, and I am able to use it on a grid. However, my game world is huge and I have many enemies moving toward the player, which is a moving target, so a grid system is too slow for path-finding. I need to simplify my node graph by using a navigational mesh. I grasp the concept of "how" a mesh works (finding a path through nodes on the vertices and/or the centers of the edges of polygons). My game uses dynamic obstacles that are procedurally generated at run-time. I can't quite wrap my head around how to take a plane that has multiple obstacles in it and programatically divide the walkable area up into polygons for the navigation mesh, like the following image. Where do I start? How do I know when a segment of walk-able area is already defined, or worse, when I realize I need to subdivide a previously defined walk-able area as the algorithm "walks" through the map? I'm using javascript in nodejs, if it matters.

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• regarding the Windows Phone 7 series, XNA and Visual Basic

  - by Chris Williams

  as long as we're talking about VB... I figured I would share this as well. Hi everyone, I'm about to express a sentiment that might ruffle a few feathers, but I think most of you know me well enough to know I love like accept VB for what it is and that what I'm about to say is with good intentions. (The rest of you, who don't know me, please take my word for it.) The world is full of VB developers, I was one of them for a long time. I think it's safe to assume that none of us are ignorant people who require handholding. We're working professionals, making a living by using our skills as developers. I'm also willing to bet that quite a few of us are fluent in C# as well as VB. It may not be your preferred language, but many of you can do it and you prove that nearly every day. Honestly, I don't know ANY developers or consultants that have only known ONE language ever. So it pains me greatly when I see the word "CAN'T" being tossed around like a crutch... as in "we CAN'T develop for the windows phone or we CAN'T develop XNA games." At MIX, Microsoft hath decreed that C# is the language of choice for developing for the Windows Phone 7. I think it's a safe bet that you won't see VB support if it isn't there already. (Just like XNA... which is up to version 4.0 by now.)  So what? (Yeah... I said it.) I think everyone here can agree that actual coding is only one part of software design and development. There is nothing stopping ANY of you from beginning the process of designing your killer phone app, writing up specs, requirements, doing UI design, workflow, mockups, storyboards, art, etc.... None of these things are language dependent. IF by the time you've got that stuff out of the way, and there's still no VB support, then start doing some rapid prototyping of your app in C# (I know, I know... heresy!)  You still have to spend time learning how the phone does things, what UI tricks do what, what paradigms make sense, how to use to accelerometer and the tilt and the multitouch functionality. I can guarantee you that time spent doing this is a great investment, no matter WHAT extension your code files have. Eventually, you may have a working prototype. IF by this time, there's STILL no VB support... fret not, you've made significant progress on your app. You've designed it, prototyped it, figured out how to use the phone specific features... so you might as well finish it and pat yourself on the back for learning something new... and possibly being first to market with your new app. I'll be happy to argue any and all of these points online or off with anyone who cares to do so, but there is one undeniable point that you simply can't argue:  Your potential customers do not care AT ALL what programming language you used to write the app they are about to purchase. They care that it works. If your biggest concern is being first to market, than stop complaining and get busy because you're running out of time and the 3000+ people who were at MIX certainly aren't waiting for you. They've already started working on their apps.

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• Conditional AddHandler Directive

  - by Itai

  Is it possible to conditionally call AddHandler in the .htaccess under Apache (2.x)? My present situation requires that a certain AddHandler is needed by one production server but that one breaks the development server. This requires to have 2 versions of .htaccess which is pain. So, instead I would like to wrap one AddHandler within a conditional. Something of this sort: IF IP=='1.2.3.4' THEN AddHandler type/foo .ext ENDIF The problem is new but out of my control for now. I know this is far from ideal and the servers used to match 100% as they should but temporarily they cannot.

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• SQL SERVER – Introduction to Big Data – Guest Post

  - by pinaldave

  BIG Data – such a big word – everybody talks about this now a days. It is the word in the database world. In one of the conversation I asked my friend Jasjeet Sigh the same question – what is Big Data? He instantly came up with a very effective write-up.  Jasjeet is working as a Technical Manager with Koenig Solutions. He leads the SQL domain, and holds rich IT industry experience. Talking about Koenig, it is a 19 year old IT training company that offers several certification choices. Some of its courses include SharePoint Training, Project Management certifications, Microsoft Trainings, Business Intelligence programs, Web Design and Development courses etc. Big Data, as the name suggests, is about data that is BIG in nature. The data is BIG in terms of size, and it is difficult to manage such enormous data with relational database management systems that are quite popular these days. Big Data is not just about being large in size, it is also about the variety of the data that differs in form or type. Some examples of Big Data are given below : Scientific data related to weather and atmosphere, Genetics etc Data collected by various medical procedures, such as Radiology, CT scan, MRI etc Data related to Global Positioning System Pictures and Videos Radio Frequency Data Data that may vary very rapidly like stock exchange information Apart from difficulties in managing and storing such data, it is difficult to query, analyze and visualize it. The characteristics of Big Data can be defined by four Vs: Volume: It simply means a large volume of data that may span Petabyte, Exabyte and so on. However it also depends organization to organization that what volume of data they consider as Big Data. Variety: As discussed above, Big Data is not limited to relational information or structured Data. It can also include unstructured data like pictures, videos, text, audio etc. Velocity:  Velocity means the speed by which data changes. The higher is the velocity, the more efficient should be the system to capture and analyze the data. Missing any important point may lead to wrong analysis or may even result in loss. Veracity: It has been recently added as the fourth V, and generally means truthfulness or adherence to the truth. In terms of Big Data, it is more of a challenge than a characteristic. It is difficult to ascertain the truth out of the enormous amount of data and the one that has high velocity. There are always chances of having un-precise and uncertain data. It is a challenging task to clean such data before it is analyzed. Big Data can be considered as the next big thing in the IT sector in terms of innovation and development. If appropriate technologies are developed to analyze and use the information, it can be the driving force for almost all industrial segments. These include Retail, Manufacturing, Service, Finance, Healthcare etc. This will help them to automate business decisions, increase productivity, and innovate and develop new products. Thanks Jasjeet Singh for an excellent write up.  Jasjeet Sign is working as a Technical Manager with Koenig Solutions. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Database, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Big Data

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• problem with loading in .FBX meshes in DirectX 10

  - by N0xus

  I'm trying to load in meshes into DirectX 10. I've created a bunch of classes that handle it and allow me to call in a mesh with only a single line of code in my main game class. How ever, when I run the program this is what renders: In the debug output window the following errors keep appearing: D3D10: ERROR: ID3D10Device::DrawIndexed: Input Assembler - Vertex Shader linkage error: Signatures between stages are incompatible. The reason is that Semantic 'TEXCOORD' is defined for mismatched hardware registers between the output stage and input stage. [ EXECUTION ERROR #343: DEVICE_SHADER_LINKAGE_REGISTERINDEX ] D3D10: ERROR: ID3D10Device::DrawIndexed: Input Assembler - Vertex Shader linkage error: Signatures between stages are incompatible. The reason is that the input stage requires Semantic/Index (POSITION,0) as input, but it is not provided by the output stage. [ EXECUTION ERROR #342: DEVICE_SHADER_LINKAGE_SEMANTICNAME_NOT_FOUND ] The thing is, I've no idea how to fix this. The code I'm using does work and I've simply brought all of that code into a new project of mine. There are no build errors and this only appears when the game is running The .fx file is as follows: float4x4 matWorld; float4x4 matView; float4x4 matProjection; struct VS_INPUT { float4 Pos:POSITION; float2 TexCoord:TEXCOORD; }; struct PS_INPUT { float4 Pos:SV_POSITION; float2 TexCoord:TEXCOORD; }; Texture2D diffuseTexture; SamplerState diffuseSampler { Filter = MIN_MAG_MIP_POINT; AddressU = WRAP; AddressV = WRAP; }; // // Vertex Shader // PS_INPUT VS( VS_INPUT input ) { PS_INPUT output=(PS_INPUT)0; float4x4 viewProjection=mul(matView,matProjection); float4x4 worldViewProjection=mul(matWorld,viewProjection); output.Pos=mul(input.Pos,worldViewProjection); output.TexCoord=input.TexCoord; return output; } // // Pixel Shader // float4 PS(PS_INPUT input ) : SV_Target { return diffuseTexture.Sample(diffuseSampler,input.TexCoord); //return float4(1.0f,1.0f,1.0f,1.0f); } RasterizerState NoCulling { FILLMODE=SOLID; CULLMODE=NONE; }; technique10 Render { pass P0 { SetVertexShader( CompileShader( vs_4_0, VS() ) ); SetGeometryShader( NULL ); SetPixelShader( CompileShader( ps_4_0, PS() ) ); SetRasterizerState(NoCulling); } } In my game, the .fx file and model are called and set as follows: Loading in shader file //Set the shader flags - BMD DWORD dwShaderFlags = D3D10_SHADER_ENABLE_STRICTNESS; #if defined( DEBUG ) || defined( _DEBUG ) dwShaderFlags |= D3D10_SHADER_DEBUG; #endif ID3D10Blob * pErrorBuffer=NULL; if( FAILED( D3DX10CreateEffectFromFile( TEXT("TransformedTexture.fx" ), NULL, NULL, "fx_4_0", dwShaderFlags, 0, md3dDevice, NULL, NULL, &m_pEffect, &pErrorBuffer, NULL ) ) ) { char * pErrorStr = ( char* )pErrorBuffer->GetBufferPointer(); //If the creation of the Effect fails then a message box will be shown MessageBoxA( NULL, pErrorStr, "Error", MB_OK ); return false; } //Get the technique called Render from the effect, we need this for rendering later on m_pTechnique=m_pEffect->GetTechniqueByName("Render"); //Number of elements in the layout UINT numElements = TexturedLitVertex::layoutSize; //Get the Pass description, we need this to bind the vertex to the pipeline D3D10_PASS_DESC PassDesc; m_pTechnique->GetPassByIndex( 0 )->GetDesc( &PassDesc ); //Create Input layout to describe the incoming buffer to the input assembler if (FAILED(md3dDevice->CreateInputLayout( TexturedLitVertex::layout, numElements,PassDesc.pIAInputSignature, PassDesc.IAInputSignatureSize, &m_pVertexLayout ) ) ) { return false; } model loading: m_pTestRenderable=new CRenderable(); //m_pTestRenderable->create<TexturedVertex>(md3dDevice,8,6,vertices,indices); m_pModelLoader = new CModelLoader(); m_pTestRenderable = m_pModelLoader->loadModelFromFile( md3dDevice,"armoredrecon.fbx" ); m_pGameObjectTest = new CGameObject(); m_pGameObjectTest->setRenderable( m_pTestRenderable ); // Set primitive topology, how are we going to interpet the vertices in the vertex buffer md3dDevice->IASetPrimitiveTopology( D3D10_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_TRIANGLELIST ); if ( FAILED( D3DX10CreateShaderResourceViewFromFile( md3dDevice, TEXT( "armoredrecon_diff.png" ), NULL, NULL, &m_pTextureShaderResource, NULL ) ) ) { MessageBox( NULL, TEXT( "Can't load Texture" ), TEXT( "Error" ), MB_OK ); return false; } m_pDiffuseTextureVariable = m_pEffect->GetVariableByName( "diffuseTexture" )->AsShaderResource(); m_pDiffuseTextureVariable->SetResource( m_pTextureShaderResource ); Finally, the draw function code: //All drawing will occur between the clear and present m_pViewMatrixVariable->SetMatrix( ( float* )m_matView ); m_pWorldMatrixVariable->SetMatrix( ( float* )m_pGameObjectTest->getWorld() ); //Get the stride(size) of the a vertex, we need this to tell the pipeline the size of one vertex UINT stride = m_pTestRenderable->getStride(); //The offset from start of the buffer to where our vertices are located UINT offset = m_pTestRenderable->getOffset(); ID3D10Buffer * pVB=m_pTestRenderable->getVB(); //Bind the vertex buffer to input assembler stage - md3dDevice->IASetVertexBuffers( 0, 1, &pVB, &stride, &offset ); md3dDevice->IASetIndexBuffer( m_pTestRenderable->getIB(), DXGI_FORMAT_R32_UINT, 0 ); //Get the Description of the technique, we need this in order to loop through each pass in the technique D3D10_TECHNIQUE_DESC techDesc; m_pTechnique->GetDesc( &techDesc ); //Loop through the passes in the technique for( UINT p = 0; p < techDesc.Passes; ++p ) { //Get a pass at current index and apply it m_pTechnique->GetPassByIndex( p )->Apply( 0 ); //Draw call md3dDevice->DrawIndexed(m_pTestRenderable->getNumOfIndices(),0,0); //m_pD3D10Device->Draw(m_pTestRenderable->getNumOfVerts(),0); } Is there anything I've clearly done wrong or are missing? Spent 2 weeks trying to workout what on earth I've done wrong to no avail. Any insight a fresh pair eyes could give on this would be great.

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• Thank you for your support throughout 2010!!!

  - by Mike Dietrich

  Now as the calendar year 2010 is close to its end, it's time for a quick wrap-up. The TV stations have shown all their flashbacks already in early December but we'll wait until end of the year ;-) I will post some pictures done by Roy or my throughout our travel in the next days. We've visited a lot of countries - and did more than 60 full-day Upgrade Workshops in 28 different countries: . But the most important thing: We'd like to say THANK YOU to all the wonderful people who'd attend to one of our upgrade workshops in Europe, Asia, Africa or Northern America. It was really great and a big pleasure for Roy and me to meet with you, get a lot of useful feedback, insight views into your environments, plenty of good contacts, recommendations for the slides - and finally some cheers and claps :-) Thanks for all your support, have a great holiday season with your families and your friends wherever you are - and we hope to see you soon again!!! Roy and Mike

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• IE9 Beta

  - by Daniel Moth

  I've been using Internet Explorer 8 since the early pre-release bits, but I never tried IE9 until today – the day the Beta is available. I downloaded it from here: http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/ The download took longer than what I expected, but I was doing other stuff, so no bother. After coming down, it asked me to reboot my computer. Really hate when apps do that, but I did it anyway. The first time I launched it, it prompted me with a list of add-ons I should disable including the start-up time that I could save fore each one. It even let me configure the prompt so, for example, it won't prompt me again unless an add-on contributes to more than 1 second of the startup time. Cool. First thing I noticed is that the search bar had gone and, as you'd expect, you have to search from the address box. I totally despise this feature. The first thing I've been doing with all versions of IE is to turn off the automatic searching from the address bar and now I have no way of searching if I do that. Ridiculous. The second thing I notice is that the tabs are next to the address bar and cannot be moved to go below it. One word for that decision: appalling (and, no, I didn't accidentally drop an 'e' and added an 'l' in the previous word). The third thing I notice to the right is the favorites button (star icon) and when I click on it, it brings up the favorites explorer under it on the right; then I pin the explorer and it jumps to the left(!). Why move the entry point to this feature to the right instead of leaving it on the left is beyond me (other than wanting to retrain me on what I've been used to for all this time), but the fact that pinning it makes it jump sides is… an "astonishing" design decision. As I browse I notice a little annoying pop up in the bottom left every time I hover over a link; there is no status bar. I correctly guessed to right click at the top and turn on the status bar (which also got rid of the popup thereafter) and while I am at it, I bring back my favorites bar which was hidden by default (and am pleased to see that all my favorites are still there). The next thing I notice, I like: IE9 is fast. No joke, I visit sites and they seem to be loading visibly much faster – try it! Beyond the speed, I am interested to find out what else is new. I searched and found a few good links: What's new in Internet Explorer 9 Internet Explorer 9 Features (check out the links under "Clean") Top Features If you are a developer, check out IE's msdn home for many articles, e.g. this section on Canvas and SVG. Either way: wherever you are, get IE9 Beta now and judge for yourself. If you don't like it, you can always uninstall (which auto-restores the previous version). Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• A tour of the GlassFish 3.1.2 DCOM support

  - by alexismp

  While we've mentioned the DCOM support in GlassFish 3.1.2 several times before, you'll probably find Byron's DCOM blog entry to be useful if you're using Windows as a deployment platform for your GlassFish cluster. Byron discusses how DCOM is used to communicate with remote Windows nodes participating in a GlassFish cluster, what Java libraries were used to wrap around DCOM, what new asadmin commands were addd (in particular validate-dcom) as well as some tips to make this all work on your specific environment. In addition to this blog post, you should considering reading the official product documentation : • Considerations for Using DCOM for Centralized Administration • Setting Up DCOM and Testing the DCOM Set Up

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• JSF 2.2 Update from Ed Burns

  - by arungupta

  In a recent interview the JavaServer Faces specification lead, Ed Burns, gave an update on JSF 2.2. This is a required component of the Java EE 7 platform. The work is expected to wrap up by CY 2012 and the schedule is publicly available. The interview provide an update on how Tenant Scope from CDI and multi-templating will be included. It also provide details on which HTML 5 content categories will be addressed. The EG discussions are mirrored at jsr344-experts@javaserverfaces-spec-public. You can also participate in the discussion by posting a message to users@javaserverfaces-spec-public. All the mailing lists are open for subscription anyway and JIRA for spec provide more details about features targeted for the upcoming release. A blog at J-Development provide complete details about the new features coming in this version. And an Early Draft of the specification is available for some time now.

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• How important is Programming for a Level Designer?

  - by WryGrin

  I'm currently attending school in a Level Design program, and I was wondering how important programming really is in being a Level Designer? I'm apparently incapable of learning programming (despite my best efforts), and tend to do very well in all other courses 3D modelling, story/character design, narrative and dialogue writing, environmental and conceptual design etc. I'm wondering if my strengths in the other areas are enough (with practice) to let me become a Level Designer, or I'm wasting my time if I can't program? I really want to be a Designer, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the "language" of programming in general (Java kicks my teeth in even with tutoring and additional work on my own).

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• Conference networking for the socially awkward

  - by Melanie Townsend

  Do you approach a room full of strangers with excitement at all the new people you’re going to chat to over coffee and a muffin as you swap tales of how you convinced your manager to give you the day “off”? Or, do you find rooms full of strangers intimidating and begin by scouting out a place you can stand quietly and not be in someone’s way until the next session begins? If you’re on the train to extrovert city, that’s great, well done, move along. If, on the other hand, a room full of strangers who all seem to inexplicably know each other already is more challenge than opportunity, then making those connections with other professionals can be more difficult. So, here’s some advice, some gleaned from other things I’ve read online when trying to overcome my own discomfort in large groups (hopefully minus the infuriating condescension), others are just things I’ve found helpful over the years. Start small Smaller groups are less intimidating, and, now that you’ve taken the plunge to show up, it’s harder to remain inconspicuous. I find it’s easier to speak to new people once the option NOT to has been taken away. You’re there now, smile through the awkward and you’ll be forever grateful when the three people you’ve met and gotten to know here are also at that gigantic conference later on (ideally, introducing you to other people). Smile, or at the very least, stop scowling You probably don’t even know you’re doing it. If your resting face doesn’t come across as manically happy, tinge that with some social anxiety and you become one great ball of unapproachable. Normally, I wouldn’t suggest this as a problem that needs fixing, I have personally honed this face to use while travelling alone all the time. However, if you are indeed hoping to meet some useful people and get the most out of this conference, you may need to remind yourself to smile. Prepare some ice breakers This is going to sound stupid, like “no one does this right?” stupid, but, just, trust me a minute. It’s okay to prepare. You don’t need to write word-for-word questions to ask people and practice them in a mirror – that would be strange. I’m suggesting to just have an arsenal of questions to ask people if you get stuck, what session has been your favorite, which ones are you most looking forward to, have you heard X presenter speak before, what did you think of them? Even just thinking about these things in advance can help, and, as a bonus, while the other person is answering it gives you a moment to tamp down that panic, I mean breathe, I mean get to know them. You’re not alone (in the least creepy way possible) See that person in the corner clutching their phone with a mild deer in the headlights look?  That is potentially your new conference buddy. Starting with something along the lines of: I don’t know about you, the sessions here are great but I find the crowds a little tough to deal with. Mind if I park here for a second? is a decent opener. Just walking around and looking at exhibitors (if applicable) is fine, but it’s a little too easy to wander about and not actually speak to anyone if that’s all you’re doing. If joining a group of people talking is too much to start with, one-on-one can be easier. Have goals Are there people in particular you wanted to speak to? Did you have a personal goal of speaking to at least “x” new people? Are you trying to get a contact in a specific company because you want to work with them on something? Does the business have vague goals as well that you may or may not be judged on later? Making specific goals you can accomplish lets you know whether you’ve actually succeeded in your “networking pursuits” or what you need to work on more for next time. Everyone’s got their own coping technique. Some people are able to remind themselves that “humans are fundamentally social creatures” and somehow that helps them, others drink which is not really something I recommend for professional conferences but to each their own, and some focus on the fact that networking can play a big role in their career path. Just do what works for you, and if there’re any tricks you’ve found helpful over the years, please share em.

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• Can WinRT really be used at just the boundaries?

  - by Bret Kuhns

  Microsoft (chiefly, Herb Sutter) recommends when using WinRT with C++/CX to keep WinRT at the boundaries of the application and keep the core of the application written in standard ISO C++. I've been writing an application which I would like to leave portable, so my core functionality was written in standard C++, and I am now attempting to write a Metro-style front end for it using C++/CX. I've had a bit of a problem with this approach, however. For example, if I want to push a vector of user-defined C++ types to a XAML ListView control, I have to wrap my user-defined type in a WinRT ref/value type for it to be stored in a Vector^. With this approach, I'm inevitably left with wrapping a large portion of my C++ classes with WinRT classes. This is the first time I've tried to write a portable native application in C++. Is it really practical to keep WinRT along the boundaries like this? How else could this type of portable core with a platform-specific boundary be handled?

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• Indexing data from multiple tables with Oracle Text

  - by Roger Ford

  It's well known that Oracle Text indexes perform best when all the data to be indexed is combined into a single index. The query select * from mytable where contains (title, 'dog') 0 or contains (body, 'cat') 0 will tend to perform much worse than select * from mytable where contains (text, 'dog WITHIN title OR cat WITHIN body') 0 For this reason, Oracle Text provides the MULTI_COLUMN_DATASTORE which will combine data from multiple columns into a single index. Effectively, it constructs a "virtual document" at indexing time, which might look something like: <title>the big dog</title> <body>the ginger cat smiles</body> This virtual document can be indexed using either AUTO_SECTION_GROUP, or by explicitly defining sections for title and body, allowing the query as expressed above. Note that we've used a column called "text" - this might have been a dummy column added to the table simply to allow us to create an index on it - or we could created the index on either of the "real" columns - title or body. It should be noted that MULTI_COLUMN_DATASTORE doesn't automatically handle updates to columns used by it - if you create the index on the column text, but specify that columns title and body are to be indexed, you will need to arrange triggers such that the text column is updated whenever title or body are altered. That works fine for single tables. But what if we actually want to combine data from multiple tables? In that case there are two approaches which work well: Create a real table which contains a summary of the information, and create the index on that using the MULTI_COLUMN_DATASTORE. This is simple, and effective, but it does use a lot of disk space as the information to be indexed has to be duplicated. Create our own "virtual" documents using the USER_DATASTORE. The user datastore allows us to specify a PL/SQL procedure which will be used to fetch the data to be indexed, returned in a CLOB, or occasionally in a BLOB or VARCHAR2. This PL/SQL procedure is called once for each row in the table to be indexed, and is passed the ROWID value of the current row being indexed. The actual contents of the procedure is entirely up to the owner, but it is normal to fetch data from one or more columns from database tables. In both cases, we still need to take care of updates - making sure that we have all the triggers necessary to update the indexed column (and, in case 1, the summary table) whenever any of the data to be indexed gets changed. I've written full examples of both these techniques, as SQL scripts to be run in the SQL*Plus tool. You will need to run them as a user who has CTXAPP role and CREATE DIRECTORY privilege. Part of the data to be indexed is a Microsoft Word file called "1.doc". You should create this file in Word, preferably containing the single line of text: "test document". This file can be saved anywhere, but the SQL scripts need to be changed so that the "create or replace directory" command refers to the right location. In the example, I've used C:\doc. multi_table_indexing_1.sql : creates a summary table containing all the data, and uses multi_column_datastore Download link / View in browser multi_table_indexing_2.sql : creates "virtual" documents using a procedure as a user_datastore Download link / View in browser

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• OpenGL not rendering my images to the screen

  - by Brendan Webster

  for some reason my game isn't showing the image I am rendering to the screen. My engine is state based, and at the beginning I set the logo, but it isn't showing on the screen. Here is my method of doing so first I create one image and assign some values to it's preset values. //create one image instance for the logo background O_File.v_Create_Images(1); //set the atributes of the background //first Image O_File.sImage[0].nImageDepth = -30.0f; O_File.sImage[0].sImageLocation = "image.bmp"; //load the images int O_File.v_Load_Images(); Then I load them with DevIL void C_File_Manager::v_Load_Images() { ilGenImages(1, &image); ilBindImage(image); for(int i = 0;i < sImage.size();i++) { success = ilLoadImage(sImage[i].sImageLocation.c_str()); if (success) { success = ilConvertImage(IL_RGBA, IL_UNSIGNED_BYTE); glGenTextures(1, &image); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, image); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, 4, ilGetInteger(IL_IMAGE_WIDTH), ilGetInteger(IL_IMAGE_HEIGHT), 0, ilGetInteger(IL_IMAGE_FORMAT), GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, ilGetData()); //asign values to the width and height of the image if they are already not assigned if(sImage[i].nImageHeight == 0) sImage[i].nImageHeight = ilGetInteger(IL_IMAGE_HEIGHT); if(sImage[i].nImageWidth == 0) sImage[i].nImageWidth = ilGetInteger(IL_IMAGE_WIDTH); std::cout << sImage[i].nImageHeight << std::endl; const std::string word = sImage[i].sImageLocation.c_str(); std::cout << sImage[i].sImageLocation.c_str() << std::endl; ilLoadImage(word.c_str()); ilDeleteImages(1, &image); } } } and then I apply them to the screen void C_File_Manager::v_Apply_Images() { glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); glLoadIdentity(); for(int i = 0;i < sImage.size();i++) { //move the image to where it should be on the screen; glTranslatef(sImage[i].nImageX,sImage[i].nImageY,sImage[i].nImageDepth); //rotate image around the 3 axes glRotatef(sImage[i].fImageAngleX,1,0,0); glRotatef(sImage[i].fImageAngleY,0,1,0); glRotatef(sImage[i].fImageAngleZ,0,0,1); //scale the image glScalef(1,1,1); //center the image glTranslatef((sImage[i].nImageWidth/2),(sImage[i].nImageHeight/2),0); //draw the box that will encase the loaded image glBegin(GL_QUADS); //change the color of the loaded image; glColor4f(1,1,1,1); //top left corner of image glNormal3f(0.0,0,0.0); glTexCoord2f (1.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(0,0,sImage[i].nImageDepth); //top right corner of image glNormal3f(1.0,0,0.0); glTexCoord2f (1.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(0,sImage[i].nImageHeight,sImage[i].nImageDepth); //bottom right corner of image glNormal3f(-1.0,0,0.0); glTexCoord2f (0.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(sImage[i].nImageWidth,sImage[i].nImageHeight,sImage[i].nImageDepth); //bottom left corner of image glNormal3f(-1.0,0,0.0); glTexCoord2f(0.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(sImage[i].nImageWidth,0,sImage[i].nImageDepth); glEnd(); } } when I debug there is no errors at all, but yet the images don't show up on the screen, I have positioned the camera at (0,0,-1) and that is where the images should show up. the clipping plane is set 1 to 1000. There is probably some random problem with the code, but I just can't catch it.

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• What is Atomicity?

  - by James Jeffery

  I'm really struggling to find a concrete, easy to grasp, explanation of Atomicity. My understanding thus far is that to ensure an operation is atomic you wrap the critical code in a locker. But that's about as much as I actually understand. Definitions such as the one below make no sense to me at all. An operation during which a processor can simultaneously read a location and write it in the same bus operation. This prevents any other processor or I/O device from writing or reading memory until the operation is complete. Atomic implies indivisibility and irreducibility, so an atomic operation must be performed entirely or not performed at all. What does the last sentence mean? Is the term indivisibility relating to mathematics or something else? Sometimes the jargon with these topics confuse more than they teach.

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• User Produtivity Kit - Powerful Packages (Part 1)

  - by [email protected]

  User Productivity Kit provides the ability to create a variety of content types including robust topics on system process and web pages with formatted text and graphics. There are times when you want to enhance content with media types not naively created by User Productivity Kit, media types such as video, custom animations, forms, and more. One method of doing this is to maintain these media files on a web server - separate from the User Productivity Kit player content and link to the files using absolute URLs such as http://myserver/overview.html. While this will get you going, you won't benefit from the content management capabilities of the UPK Developer. Features such as check-in / check-out, history, document properties, folder permissions and more are not available to this external content. Further, if you ever need to move that content to a server with a different name or domain, you'd need to update all your links. UPK version 3.1 introduced a new document type - the package. A package is a group of folders and files that you manage in the Developer library as a single document. These package documents work in the same manner as any other document in the library and you can use all of the collaborative content development features you see with other document types. Packages can be used for anything from single Word documents, PDF files, and graphics to more intricate sets of inter-related files commonly seen with HTML files and their graphics, style sheets, and JavaScript files. The structure of the files and folders within a package will always be preserved so this means that any relative links between files in the package will work. For example, an HTML file containing an image tag with a relative link to a graphic elsewhere in the same package will continue to function properly both when viewed in the Developer and when published to outputs such as the UPK Player. Once you start to use packages, you'll soon discover that there is a lot of existing content that can be re-purposed by placing it into UPK packages. Packages are easily created by selecting File...New...Package. Files can be added in a number of ways including the "Add Files" button, copy & paste from Windows Explorer, and drag & drop. To use one of the files in the package, just create a link to the file in the package you want to target. This is supported throughout the Developer in places such as section & topic concepts, frame links and hyperlinks in web pages. A little more challenging is determining how to structure packages in your library. As I mentioned earlier, a package can contain anything from a single file to dozens of files and folders. So what should you do? You could create a package for each file. You could create one package for all your files. But which one is right? Well, there's not a right and wrong answer to this question. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. The right decision will be influenced by the package files themselves, the structure of the content in the library, the size and working style of the development team, how content is shared between different outlines and more. The first consideration can be assessed the quickest. If the content to be placed in the package is composed of multiple files and those files reference each other, they should be in the same package. There are loads of examples of this type of content. HTML files with graphics and style sheets, HTML files with embedded Flash movies, and Word documents saved as HTML are all examples where the content is composed of multiple files and the files reference each other in some way. Content like this should always be placed in a singe package such that these relative links between the files are preserved and play properly in the UPK Player. In upcoming posts, I'll explain additional considerations.

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• SOLVED: IIS7, validateIntegratedModeConfiguration and inheritInChildApplications clash

  This article covers an edge case you might have encountered when using the inheritInChildApplications attribute with a web site hosted on IIS7 and provides two possible solutions to your problem. Scenario You are trying to set up a sub application in your website and you wrap the <location path="." inheritInChildApplications="false"> element around your <system.webServer> element to break dependencies between apps. Despite having followed the correct instructions...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.

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• Which is more valuable in product development: an action-oriented or visionary bent?

  - by Marc

  As a software development professional in a fairly conservative large-firm, I always had a much more action-oriented bent, as my job was fairly stable and all that mattered was doing as I was told and completing tasks that were germane to the career of a benevolent dictator (i.e., my boss' boss). Now that I'm no longer working for "the Man", I find it just as important to use the left side of my brain and wrap my head around this whole "vision thing". Which do you think is more important for software product development in a small, yet feisty start-up: Knowing the path or walking (or running) it?

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• What exactly is "Web API" in ASP.Net MVC4?

  - by James P. Wright

  I know what a Web API is. I've written API's in multiple languages (including in MVC3). I'm also well practiced in ASP.Net. I just discovered that MVC4 has "Web API" and without going through the video examples I can't find a good explanation of what exactly it IS. From my past experience, Microsoft technologies (especially ASP.Net) have a tendency to take a simple concept and wrap it in a bunch of useless overhead that is meant to make everything "easier". Can someone please explain to me what Web API in MVC4 is exactly? Why do I need it? Why can't I just write my own API?

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• How to create a 3D world with 2D sprites similar to Ragnorak online?

  - by Romoku

  As far as I know Ragnorak Online is a 3D game world with 2D sprites overlayed. I would like to use this style in a game I am making in Unity, so I would like the player to be able to select little square tiles on the terrain. There are a couple routes I could take such as using a bunch of cubic polygons and linking them together or using one big map. The former approach doesn't seem to make any sense if the world is not flat as polygons wouldn't be reused often. The goal is to break down a 3D polygon into tiles which is heard to wrap my head around. I believe using something like an interval tree or array would be appropriate to store the rectangle grid, but how would I display a rectangle around the selection the player has his mouse over on the polygon terrain itself? Here is a screenshot. Here is a gameplay video. Here is the camera usage.

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• You Probably Already Have a “Private Cloud”

  - by BuckWoody

  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of the word “Cloud”. It’s too marketing-oriented, gimmicky and non-specific. A better definition (in many cases) is “Distributed Computing”. That means that some or all of the computing functions are handled somewhere other than under your specific control. But there is a current use of the word “Cloud” that does not necessarily mean that the computing is done somewhere else. In fact, it’s a vector of Cloud Computing that can better be termed “Utility Computing”. This has to do with the provisioning of a computing resource. That means the setup, configuration, management, balancing and so on that is needed so that a user – which might actually be a developer – can do some computing work. To that person, the resource is just “there” and works like they expect, like the phone system or any other utility. The interesting thing is, you can do this yourself. In fact, you probably already have been, or are now. It’s got a cool new trendy term – “Private Cloud”, but the fact is, if you have your setup automated, the HA and DR handled, balancing and performance tuning done, and a process wrapped around it all, you can call yourself a “Cloud Provider”. A good example here is your E-Mail system. your users – pretty much your whole company – just logs into e-mail and expects it to work. To them, you are the “Cloud” provider. On your side, the more you automate and provision the system, the more you act like a Cloud Provider. Another example is a database server. In this case, the “end user” is usually the development team, or perhaps your SharePoint group and so on. The data professionals configure, monitor, tune and balance the system all the time. The more this is automated, the more you’re acting like a Cloud Provider. Lots of companies help you do this in your own data centers, from VMWare to IBM and many others. Microsoft's offering in this is based around System Center – they have a “cloud in a box” provisioning system that’s actually pretty slick. The most difficult part of operating a Private Cloud is probably the scale factor. In the case of Windows and SQL Azure, we handle this in multiple ways – and we're happy to share how we do it. It’s not magic, and the algorithms for balancing (like the one we started with called Paxos) are well known. The key is the knowledge, infrastructure and people. Sure, you can do this yourself, and in many cases such as top-secret or private systems, you probably should. But there are times where you should evaluate using Azure or other vendors, or even multiple vendors to spread your risk. All of this should be based on client need, not on what you know how to do already. So congrats on your new role as a “Cloud Provider”. If you have an E-mail system or a database platform, you can just put that right on your resume.

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• Can static and dynamically typed languages be seen as different tools for different types of jobs?

  - by Erik Reppen

  Yes, similar questions have been asked but always with the aim of finding out 'which one is better.' I'm asking because I came up as a dev primarily in JavaScript and don't really have any extensive experience writing in statically typed languages. In spite of this I definitely see value in learning C for handling demanding operations at lower levels of code (which I assume has a lot to do with static vs dynamic at the compiler level), but what I'm trying to wrap my head around is whether there are specific project contexts (maybe certain types of dynamic data-intensive operations?) involving things other than performance where it makes a lot more sense to go with Java or C# vs. something like Python.

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