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• Contract Work - Lessons Learned

  - by samerpaul

  I thought I would write a post of a different nature today, but still relevant to the tech world. I do a lot of contract jobs myself and really enjoy it. It's nice to keep jumping from project to project, and not having to go to an office or keep regular hours, etc. I really enjoy it. I have learned a lot in the past few years of doing it (both from experience and from help given to me from others, and the internet) so I thought I'd share some of that knowledge/experience today.So here's my own personal "lesson's learned" that hopefully will help you if you find yourself doing contract work:Should I take the job?Ok, so this is the first step. Assuming you were given sufficient information about what they want, then you should really think about what you're capable of doing and whether or not you should take this job. Personally, my rule is, if I know it's possible, I'll say yes, even if I don't yet know how to do it. That's because the internet is such a great help, it would be rare to run into an issue that you can't figure out with some help. So if your clients are asking for something that you don't yet know how to program, but you know you can do it on the platform then go for it. How else are you going to learn?Use this rule with some limitation, however. If you're really lacking the expertise or foundation in something, then unless you have tons of time to complete the project, then I wouldn't say yes. For example, I haven't personally done any 3d/openGL programming yet so I wouldn't say yes to a project that extensively uses it. OK, so I want the job, but how much do I charge?This part can be tricky. There is no set formula really, but I have some tips for pricing that will hopefully give you a better idea on how to confidently ask your price and have them accept. Here are some personal guidelinesHow much time do you have to complete the project? If it's shorter than average, then charge more. You can even make a subtle note about this (or not so subtle if they still don't get it.) If it seems too short of a time (i.e. near impossible to complete), be sure to say that. It looks bad to promise a time that you can't keep--and it makes it less likely for them to return to you for work.Your Hourly rate: How long have you been working in that language? Do you have existing projects to back you up? Or previous contacts that can vouch for your work? Are there very few people with your particular skill set? All of these things will lend themselves to setting an hourly rate. I'd also try out a quick google search of what your line of work is, to see what the industry standard is at that point in time.I wouldn't price too low, because you want to make your time worth it. You also want them to feel like they're paying for quality work (assuming you can deliver it :) ). Finally, think about your client. If it's a small business, then don't price it too high if you want the job. If it's an enterprise (like a Fortune company), then don't be afraid to price higher. They have the budget for it.Fixed price: If they want a fixed price project, then you need to think about how many hours it will take you to complete it and multiply it by the hourly rate you set for yourself. Then, honestly, I would add 10-20% on top of that. Why? Because nothing ever works exactly how you want it to. There are lots of times that something "trivial" is way harder than it should be, or something that "should work" doesn't for hours and it eats away at your hourly rate. I can't count the number of times I encountered a logical bug that took away an entire's day work because debuggers don't help in those cases. By adding that padding in, it's still OK to have those days where you don't get as much done as you want. And another useful tip: Depending on your client, and the scope, you most likely want to set that you both sign off on a specification sheet before doing any work, and that any changes will result in a re-evaulation of the price. This is to help protect you from being handed a huge new addition to the project half-way in, without any extra payment.Scope of project: Finally, is it a huge project? Is it really small/fast? This affects how much your client will be willing to pay. If it sounds big, they will be willing to pay more for it. If it seems really small, then you won't be able to get away with a large asking price (as easily).Ok, I priced it, now what?So now that you have the price, you want to make sure it feels justified to your client. I never set a price before I can really think about everything. For example, if you're still in your introduction phase, and they want a price, don't give one! Just comment that you will send them a proposal sheet with all the features outlined, and a price for everything. You don't want to shout out a low number and then deliver something that is way higher. You also don't want to shock them with a big number before they feel like they are getting a great product.Make up a proposal document in a word editor. Personally, I leave the price till the very end. Why? Because by the time they reach the end, you've already discussed all the great features you plan to implement, and how it's the best product they'll ever use, etc etc...so your price comes off as a steal! If you hit them up front with a price, they will read through the document with a negative bias. Think about those commercials on TV. They always go on about their product, then at the end, ask "What would you pay for something like this? $100? $50? How about $20!!". This is not by accident.Scenario: I finished the job way earlier than expectedYou have two options then. You can either polish the hell out of the application, and even throw in a few bonus features (assuming they are in-line with the customer's needs) or you can sit and wait on it until you near your deadline. Why don't you want to turn it in too early? Because you should treat that extra time as a surplus. If you said it is going to take you 3 weeks, and it took you only 1, you have a surplus of 2 weeks. I personally don't want to let them know that I can do a 3 week project in 1 week. Why not? Because that may not always be the case! I may later have a 3 week project that takes all 3 weeks, but if I set a precedent of delivering super early, then the pressure is on for that longer project. It also makes it harder to quote longer times if you keep delivering too early.Feel free to deliver early, but again, don't do it too early. They may also wonder why they paid you for 3 weeks of work if you're done in 1. They may further wonder if the product sucks, or what is wrong with it, if it's done so early, etc.I would just polish the application. Everyone loves polish in their applications. The smallest details are what make an application go from "functional" to "fantastic". And since you are still delivering on time, then they are still going to be very happy with you.Scenario: It's taking way too long to finish this, and the deadline is nearing/here!So this is not a fun scenario to be in, but it'll happen. Sometimes the scope of the project gets out of hand. The best policy here is OPENNESS/HONESTY. Tell them that the project is taking longer than expected, and give a reasonable time for when you think you'll have it done. I typically explain it in a way that makes it sound like it isn't something that I did wrong, but it's just something about the nature of the project. This really goes for any scenario, to be honest. Just continue to stay open and communicative about your progress. This doesn't mean that you should email them every five minutes (unless they want you to), but it does mean that maybe every few days or once a week, give them an update on where you're at, and what's next. They'll be happy to know they are paying for progress, and it'll make it easier to ask for an extension when something goes wrong, because they know that you've been working on it all along.Final tips and thoughts:In general, contract work is really fun and rewarding. It's nice to learn new things all the time, as mandated by the project ,and to challenge yourself to do things you may not have done before. The key is to build a great relationship with your clients for future work, and for recommendations. I am always very honest with them and I never promise something I can't deliver. Again, under promise, over deliver!I hope this has proved helpful!Cheers,samerpaul

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• Software development is (mostly) a trade, and what to do about it

  - by Jeff

  (This is another cross-post from my personal blog. I don’t even remember when I first started to write it, but I feel like my opinion is well enough baked to share.) I've been sitting on this for a long time, particularly as my opinion has changed dramatically over the last few years. That I've encountered more crappy code than maintainable, quality code in my career as a software developer only reinforces what I'm about to say. Software development is just a trade for most, and not a huge academic endeavor. For those of you with computer science degrees readying your pitchforks and collecting your algorithm interview questions, let me explain. This is not an assault on your way of life, and if you've been around, you know I'm right about the quality problem. You also know the HR problem is very real, or we wouldn't be paying top dollar for mediocre developers and importing people from all over the world to fill the jobs we can't fill. I'm going to try and outline what I see as some of the problems, and hopefully offer my views on how to address them. The recruiting problem I think a lot of companies are doing it wrong. Over the years, I've had two kinds of interview experiences. The first, and right, kind of experience involves talking about real life achievements, followed by some variation on white boarding in pseudo-code, drafting some basic system architecture, or even sitting down at a comprooder and pecking out some basic code to tackle a real problem. I can honestly say that I've had a job offer for every interview like this, save for one, because the task was to debug something and they didn't like me asking where to look ("everyone else in the company died in a plane crash"). The other interview experience, the wrong one, involves the classic torture test designed to make the candidate feel stupid and do things they never have, and never will do in their job. First they will question you about obscure academic material you've never seen, or don't care to remember. Then they'll ask you to white board some ridiculous algorithm involving prime numbers or some kind of string manipulation no one would ever do. In fact, if you had to do something like this, you'd Google for a solution instead of waste time on a solved problem. Some will tell you that the academic gauntlet interview is useful to see how people respond to pressure, how they engage in complex logic, etc. That might be true, unless of course you have someone who brushed up on the solutions to the silly puzzles, and they're playing you. But here's the real reason why the second experience is wrong: You're evaluating for things that aren't the job. These might have been useful tactics when you had to hire people to write machine language or C++, but in a world dominated by managed code in C#, or Java, people aren't managing memory or trying to be smarter than the compilers. They're using well known design patterns and techniques to deliver software. More to the point, these puzzle gauntlets don't evaluate things that really matter. They don't get into code design, issues of loose coupling and testability, knowledge of the basics around HTTP, or anything else that relates to building supportable and maintainable software. The first situation, involving real life problems, gives you an immediate idea of how the candidate will work out. One of my favorite experiences as an interviewee was with a guy who literally brought his work from that day and asked me how to deal with his problem. I had to demonstrate how I would design a class, make sure the unit testing coverage was solid, etc. I worked at that company for two years. So stop looking for algorithm puzzle crunchers, because a guy who can crush a Fibonacci sequence might also be a guy who writes a class with 5,000 lines of untestable code. Fashion your interview process on ways to reveal a developer who can write supportable and maintainable code. I would even go so far as to let them use the Google. If they want to cut-and-paste code, pass on them, but if they're looking for context or straight class references, hire them, because they're going to be life-long learners. The contractor problem I doubt anyone has ever worked in a place where contractors weren't used. The use of contractors seems like an obvious way to control costs. You can hire someone for just as long as you need them and then let them go. You can even give them the work that no one else wants to do. In practice, most places I've worked have retained and budgeted for the contractor year-round, meaning that the $90+ per hour they're paying (of which half goes to the person) would have been better spent on a full-time person with a $100k salary and benefits. But it's not even the cost that is an issue. It's the quality of work delivered. The accountability of a contractor is totally transient. They only need to deliver for as long as you keep them around, and chances are they'll never again touch the code. There's no incentive for them to get things right, there's little incentive to understand your system or learn anything. At the risk of making an unfair generalization, craftsmanship doesn't matter to most contractors. The education problem I don't know what they teach in college CS courses. I've believed for most of my adult life that a college degree was an essential part of being successful. Of course I would hold that bias, since I did it, and have the paper to show for it in a box somewhere in the basement. My first clue that maybe this wasn't a fully qualified opinion comes from the fact that I double-majored in journalism and radio/TV, not computer science. Eventually I worked with people who skipped college entirely, many of them at Microsoft. Then I worked with people who had a masters degree who sucked at writing code, next to the high school diploma types that rock it every day. I still think there's a lot to be said for the social development of someone who has the on-campus experience, but for software developers, college might not matter. As I mentioned before, most of us are not writing compilers, and we never will. It's actually surprising to find how many people are self-taught in the art of software development, and that should reveal some interesting truths about how we learn. The first truth is that we learn largely out of necessity. There's something that we want to achieve, so we do what I call just-in-time learning to meet those goals. We acquire knowledge when we need it. So what about the gaps in our knowledge? That's where the most valuable education occurs, via our mentors. They're the people we work next to and the people who write blogs. They are critical to our professional development. They don't need to be an encyclopedia of jargon, but they understand the craft. Even at this stage of my career, I probably can't tell you what SOLID stands for, but you can bet that I practice the principles behind that acronym every day. That comes from experience, augmented by my peers. I'm hell bent on passing that experience to others. Process issues If you're a manager type and don't do much in the way of writing code these days (shame on you for not messing around at least), then your job is to isolate your tradespeople from nonsense, while bringing your business into the realm of modern software development. That doesn't mean you slap up a white board with sticky notes and start calling yourself agile, it means getting all of your stakeholders to understand that frequent delivery of quality software is the best way to deal with change and evolving expectations. It also means that you have to play technical overlord to make sure the education and quality issues are dealt with. That's why I make the crack about sticky notes, because without the right technique being practiced among your code monkeys, you're just a guy with sticky notes. You're asking your business to accept frequent and iterative delivery, now make sure that the folks writing the code can handle the same thing. This means unit testing, the right instrumentation, integration tests, automated builds and deployments... all of the stuff that makes it easy to see when change breaks stuff. The prognosis I strongly believe that education is the most important part of what we do. I'm encouraged by things like The Starter League, and it's the kind of thing I'd love to see more of. I would go as far as to say I'd love to start something like this internally at an existing company. Most of all though, I can't emphasize enough how important it is that we mentor each other and share our knowledge. If you have people on your staff who don't want to learn, fire them. Seriously, get rid of them. A few months working with someone really good, who understands the craftsmanship required to build supportable and maintainable code, will change that person forever and increase their value immeasurably.

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• ERP/CRM Systems. Desktop Based ? Web based?

  - by Parhs

  Hello guys... I have seen 2-3 ERPs in action. I am wondering what is better. Desktop based application or webbased displayed on a browser. My first expirience was with a web based ERP when i was 14 years old.. It was web based and terribly slow... For most simple task you had to do lots of clicks... no keyboard support ..... Pages took ages to load. Last year i worked for migrating to a newer computer some old terminal based cobol application. The computer that worked till today and still has no problem was from 1993. The user interface ofcourse was textbased.. The speed that guys placed orders was amazing! just typing the name of the customer , then 5-10 keys to add a product to order.... Comparing to this ERP the page for placing orders Link (click sales orders) seems terribly slow to add a product... No keyboard shortcut works to save what you added and generally i believe you need 4 times more time to place an order compared to the text interface... Having to use both mouse and keyboard for this task is BAD and sadistic... So how can tek heck these people ever use a system like that ??? So in the long run desktop application seems the only way... Ofcourse browsers support shortcuts but the way to overide the defaults that browsers uses isnt cross compatible... That is a hudge problem. Finnaly, if we MUST/forced use cloud in near future what about keyboard shortcuts?? I feel confused... I have seen converters of desktop applications to browser applications but are SLOW as hell... The question is what about user friendliness?What kind of application would you use?

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• Kids and programming: ScratchKara

  - by Mike Pagel

  Ever now and then I kept wondering how to share with my kids the excitement of creating something with your computer. Of course, today this is a bit more difficult, as they have seen 3D animation games and well-edited websites. I guess that's why they weren't all that hyped when I found my first computer model at our local recycling facilities (an 8-bit Laser VZ-200 with rubber keys). When I finally got it up and running with an old analog TV set they finally asked whether we could play soccer on it. Needless to say that my showing them how it remembers some BASIC commands and lists and executes them did not make any impression. So the question is for real: How do you get today's kids excited about programming? And just recently I looked again for environments that allow even young kids (mine are 7 and 9 years old now) to do something and have fun. Obviously any real, text-oriented programming language wouldn't work well. To cut it short: Something really nice was built by University of Oldenburg: ScratchKara. It is the perfect mixture of Kara, a simulation of a little ladybug and Scratch, an authoring environment from MIT. ScratchKara allows kids to initially simply explore how the bug moves and turns by pressing the action buttons, then move towards sequencing commands through drag & drop, and eventually end up building algorithms with procedures and functions. Even through it is built for kids and beginners, the environment comes with debugging and refactoring, which I found more than amazing. My kids love it and I have to admit I keep thinking about how to solve a bit more advanced problems with this language, which does not allow you to store any state information (other than your call stack). Yes, I am hooked, too... Once the language is understood you can then move to one of the original Kara versions, where you can define the bug's behavior through finite statemachines, Turing tables, Java and other textual languages. And from there, anything is possible.

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• So we've got a code review tool, now what can we use for software documents?

  - by Tini

  We're using Subversion as a full CM for code and also for related project documents. We have JIRA and Fisheye. When we wanted to add a peer review tool, we looked at and tested several candidates. Our weighted requirements included both code and document review, but ultimately, the integration with JIRA slanted the scores in Crucible's favor. Atlassian has slammed the door on ever supporting Word or PDF in Crucible. I've tested several workaround methods to make Crucible work for documents without success. (The Confluence/Crucible plug-in was deprecated by Atlassian, so that option is out, too.) I haven't found a plugin for Crucible that adds this functionality, so short of writing my own plug-in, Crucible for documents is unworkable. Word Track Changes doesn't provide a method for true collaboration and commenting. Adobe PDF Comment and Markup is interesting, but doesn't provide a great way to keep a permanent quality record of the conversation. We can't go cloud-based, our documents must be locally hosted on our own server only. We're only on Sharepoint 2007. Help! Anyone have a suggestion?

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• We'll be at QCon San Francisco!

  - by Carlos Chang

  Oracle Technology Network is a Platinum sponsor at QCon San Francisco. Don’t miss these great developer focused sessions: Shay Shmeltzer - How we simplified Web, Mobile and Cloud development for our own developers? - the Oracle Story Over the past several years, Oracle has beendeveloping a new set of enterprise applications in what is probably one of the largest Java based development project in the world. How do you take 3000 developers and make them productive? How do you insure the delivery of cutting edge UIs for both Mobile and Web channels? How do you enable Cloud based development and deployment? Come and learn how we did it at Oracle, and see how the same technologies and methodologies can apply to your development efforts. Dan Smith - Project Lambda in Java 8 Java SE 8 will include major enhancements to the Java Programming Language and its core libraries.  This suite of new features, known as Project Lambda in the OpenJDK community, includes lambda expressions, default methods, and parallel collections (and much more!).  The result will be a next-generation Java programming experience with more flexibility and better abstractions.   This talk will introduce the new Java features and offer a behind-the-scenes view of how they evolved and why they work the way that they do. Arun Gupta - JSR 356: Building HTML5 WebSocket Applications in Java The family of HTML5 technologies has pushed the pendulum away from rich client technologies and toward ever-more-capable Web clients running on today’s browsers. In particular, WebSocket brings new opportunities for efficient peer-to-peer communication, providing the basis for a new generation of interactive and “live” Web applications. This session examines the efforts under way to support WebSocket in the Java programming model, from its base-level integration in the Java Servlet and Java EE containers to a new, easy-to-use API and toolset that are destined to become part of the standard Java platform. The complete conference schedule is here: http://qconsf.com/sf2012/schedule/wednesday.jsp But wait, there’s more! At the Oracle booth, we’ll also be covering: Oracle ADF Mobile Oracle Developer Cloud Service Oracle ADF Essentials NetBeans Project Easel Hope to see you there! 

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• Essbase Excel Add in - S.o.D.

  - by THE

  #cross { font-size: 72pt; } sadly another long lasting friend is about to be buried in the wet, cold data void that holds past programs (... and AOL CDs). The Essbase Excel Add In is about to be de-continued (see  Doc ID 1466700.1) in January '13. The (already out) version 11.1.2.2.x of the Excel Add In must be considered the last release of this particular program (Unless the guys from Applied OLAP bring out their own version next to the openOffice Add In that they already sport). As expected, SmartView achieved parity in functionality with Release 11.1.2.1.102 and ever since then it was just a question of time when our old buddy would get the shoe. For all users out there like me that have known and worked with the Excel Add In for the last decade(s) this is a loss. SmartView may have functionality parity, and may altogether be the stronger, open technology - capable of Planning forms, connection to HFM etc. .But (from my personal point of view) it will not give the end user the same direct access to his databases, with nothing between him and his Essbase Server. Of course it was to be expected that only one of the two could survive and it was obvious that this would be SmartView, so this does not come as a surprise. Still.A minute for an old friend . . . . . . Thank you, and let us look forward! Unless you had other plans for the upcoming season, why not spend it investigating SmartView for your Essbase interaction needs. We hear that the days between Christmas and new year hold unlimited potential to test out new things. Or take it as a new year resolution: "I will switch to SmartView at the earliest possible moment".

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• Windows Store now open to ALL developers

  - by CSharpZealot

  A little late, but it should be announced here too... Today’s an especially great day to be a developer. We’re very excited to announce the last significant milestone in the rollout of the Windows Store before the general availability of Windows 8 on October 26. The Store is now open for app submissions from all developers – individuals and companies – in our supported markets, and we’ve added 82 more app submission markets! Now, developers from 120 markets can publish Windows Store apps. Ted Dworkin, Partner Program Manager for the Store, authored this post. --Antoine Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstore/archive/2012/09/11/windows-store-now-open-to-all-developers.aspx About two weeks ago the Windows Store was opened and with the upcoming general availability of Windows 8 in October, it seems that it was good timing. In addition to the store being opened, Microsoft also announced that the MSDN, BizSpark and DreamSpark will get a 1-year Windows Store developer account. That's a different tact than what we saw for the Windows Phone 7, where we didn't get that subscription included. We're already seeing new apps showing up faster and faster, so with the addition of 86 more markets we're only going to see more apps than ever available. Since i'm now back on a Windows 8 platform (was out for about a month) I'm going to start blogging more content around the Windows 8 developer experience. Next stop for me...get my hands on a Windows 8 surface device as quickly as possible :) Keep coding!

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• Were the first assemblers written in machine code?

  - by The111

  I am reading the book The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles, which contains projects encompassing the build of a computer from boolean gates all the way to high level applications (in that order). The current project I'm working on is writing an assembler using a high level language of my choice, to translate from Hack assembly code to Hack machine code (Hack is the name of the hardware platform built in the previous chapters). Although the hardware has all been built in a simulator, I have tried to pretend that I am really constructing each level using only the tools available to me at that point in the real process. That said, it got me thinking. Using a high level language to write my assembler is certainly convenient, but for the very first assembler ever written (i.e. in history), wouldn't it need to be written in machine code, since that's all that existed at the time? And a correlated question... how about today? If a brand new CPU architecture comes out, with a brand new instruction set, and a brand new assembly syntax, how would the assembler be constructed? I'm assuming you could still use an existing high level language to generate binaries for the assembler program, since if you know the syntax of both the assembly and machine languages for your new platform, then the task of writing the assembler is really just a text analysis task and is not inherently related to that platform (i.e. needing to be written in that platform's machine language)... which is the very reason I am able to "cheat" while writing my Hack assembler in 2012, and use some preexisting high level language to help me out.

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• Pagination for product listing, what to use? "canonical" or "rel-prev-next" or do nothing?

  - by Jayapal Chandran

  I want to make sure my product listing is 10 products per page which are not in a series (link). They have explained how to use canonical or rel prev for pagination when a long page has been divided into multiple page and the multiple pages becomes a series were as my condition is not that. They are unique listing which are not related to each listing... All the listing links leads to a product profile page. So lets say my site is all about cars and I have a Used Audi page with 1000 Audi's for sale. There are 10 used audi cars on each page so there's 100 pages in the series. If I start to utilise Rel="prev" and rel="next" should I set page 2 onwards as index,follow or noindex,follow? The content on Page 2 all the way to 100 only changes ever so slightly as different cars will be for sale on different pages but from a "Panda" point of view the pages are incredibly similar as they'd hold the same meta data as page 1 in the series along with duplicate reviews & news etc. I want Page 1 in the series as the Main page for Google to send users too and I don't see the point in Google indexing page 2 100. What's everyone's view on this? Lastly with the rel="canonical" tag should page 2 to 100 all point back to page 1 in the series or the individual page itself? E.G: /used-audi/page-3/.

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• Calling a .NET C# class from XSLT

  - by HanSolo

  If you've ever worked with XSLT, you'd know that it's pretty limited when it comes to its programming capabilities. Try writing a for loop in XSLT and you'd know what I mean. XSLT is not designed to be a programming language so you should never put too much programming logic in your XSLT. That code can be a pain to write and maintain and so it should be avoided at all costs. Keep your xslt simple and put any complex logic that your xslt transformation requires in a class. Here is how you can create a helper class and call that from your xslt. For example, this is my helper class:  public class XsltHelper     {         public string GetStringHash(string originalString)         {             return originalString.GetHashCode().ToString();         }     }   And this is my xslt file(notice the namespace declaration that references the helper class): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <xsl:stylesheet  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0" xmlns:ext="http://MyNamespace">     <xsl:output method="text" indent="yes" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>     <xsl:template  match="/">The hash code of "<xsl:value-of select="stringList/string1" />" is "<xsl:value-of select="ext:GetStringHash(stringList/string1)" />".     </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>   Here is how you can include the helper class as part of the transformation: string xml = "<stringList><string1>test</string1></stringList>";             XmlDocument xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();             xmlDocument.LoadXml(xml);               XslCompiledTransform xslCompiledTransform = new XslCompiledTransform();             xslCompiledTransform.Load("XSLTFile1.xslt");               XsltArgumentList xsltArgs = new XsltArgumentList();                        xsltArgs.AddExtensionObject("http://MyNamespace", Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(XsltHelper)));               using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream("TransformResults.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.ReadWrite, FileShare.ReadWrite))             {                 // transform the xml and output to the output file ...                 xslCompiledTransform.Transform(xmlDocument, xsltArgs, fileStream);                            }

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• Tip: Recording Non-Maximized Applications in UPK

  - by Marc Santosusso

  Have you ever wanted to record an application that would not maximize, or an application that would look strange maximized? Or perhaps your Windows Desktop has become cluttered with icons and you don't want to capture the clutter in your recordings. Here's a tip that will help: create a background for your recording. Create a blank HTML file with a black background in your favorite HTML editor. Or download this sample file: UPK_Recording_Background.html (right click to save). If you would prefer a different color background in the sample file, open it in Notepad and change “#000” to a different HTML color. Open UPK_Recording_Background.html in its own web browser window. Press F11 to make the web browser window full screen. This should give you a completely black screen. (This works great in modern versions of the most popular browsers. I successfully used Firefox 15, Chrome 22, and IE 9. Open or switch to the desired application so that it sits on top of the full screen browser window. If the application you are recording is also in a browser, it is important that it be in a separate browser window from the UPK_Recording_Background.html. Record your topic normally. The above steps create a recording background using an HTML file and a web browser. This is just one method, for instance you could do the same thing with an image editor and an image viewer with a full screen view. Now you can record a non-maximized application without a distracting background. I hope you find this to be a helpful tip. Let us know what you think in the comments.

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• Learning Electronics & the Arduino Microcontroller

  - by Chris Williams

  Lately, I've had a growing interest in Electronics & Microcontrollers. I'm a loyal reader of Make Magazine and thoroughly enjoy seeing all the various projects in each issue, even though I rarely try to make any of them. I've been reading and watching videos about the Arduino, which is an open source Microcontroller and software project that the people at Make (and a lot of other folks) are pretty hot about. Even the prebuilt hardware is remarkably inexpensive , although there are kits available to build one from the base components. (Full disclosure: I bought my first soldering iron... EVER... just last week, so I fully acknowledge the likelihood of making some mistakes. That's why I'm not trying to do the "build it yourself" kit just yet. It's also another reason to be happy the hardware is so cheap.) There are a number of different Arduino boards available, but the two that have really piqued my interest are the Arduino UNO and the NETduino. The UNO is a very popular board, with a number of features and is under $35 which means I won't hurl myself off a bridge when I inevitably destroy it. The NETduino is very similar to the Arduino UNO and has the added advantage of being programmable with... you guessed it... C#. I'm actually ordering both boards and some miscellaneous other doodads to go with them.  There are a few good websites for this sort of thing, including www.makershed.com and www.adafruit.com. The price difference is negligible, so in my case, I'm ordering from Maker Shed (the Make Magazine people) because I want to support them. :) I've also picked up a few O'Reilly books on the subject which I am looking forward to reading & reviewing: Make: Electronics, Arduino: A Quick Start Guide and Getting Started With Arduino (all three of which arrived on my doorstep today.) This ties in with my "learn more about robotics" goals as well, since I'll need a good understanding of Electronics if I want to move past Lego Mindstorms eventually.

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• Is there such a thing as "closure" with software work?

  - by Bobby Tables

  I burned out last year (after a decade of fulltime programming jobs) and am on a sabbatical now. With all the self-examination I've started to figure out some of the root causes of my burnout, and one of the major ones is basically this: there was never any real closure in any of the work I've ever done. It was always a case of getting into an open-ended support/maintenance grind and going stale. When I first entered the industry, I had this image of programming work being very project-based. And I expected projects to have a start, beginning, and END. And then you move on and start on something totally new and fresh. Basically I never expected that a lot (most) of software work involves supporting and maintaining the same code base for open-ended long periods of time - years and even decades. That, combined with generally having itchy feet makes me think that burnout is inevitable for me, after 2-3 years, in ANY fulltime software job. All this sounds like I probably should have been a contractor instead of a fulltimer. But when I discuss this with people, a lot of them say that even THEN you can't really escape having to go back and maintain/support the stuff you worked on, over and over (eg. Coming back on support contracts, for example). The nature of software work is simply like that. There is no project closure, unlike in many other engineering fields. So my question is - Is there ANY programming work out there which is based on short to mid term projects/stints and then moving on cleanly? And is there any particular industry domain or specialization where this kind of project work is typical?

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• Today's Links (6/24/2011)

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Fusion Applications - How we look at the near future | Domien Bolmers Bolmers recaps a Logica pow-wow around Fusion Applications. Who invented e-mail? | Nicholas Carr IT apparently does matter to Nicholas Carr as he shares links to Errol Morris's 5-part NYT series about the origins of email. David Sprott's Blog: Service Oriented Cloud (SOC) "Whilst all the really good Cloud environments are Service Oriented," says Sprott, "it’s very much the minority of consumer SaaS that is today." Fast, Faster, JRockit | René van Wijk Oracle ACE René van Wijk tells you "everything you ever wanted to know about the JRockit JVM, well quite a lot anyway." Creating an XML document based on my POJO domain model – how will JAXB help me? | Lucas Jellema "I thought that adding a few JAXB annotations to my existing POJO model would do the trick," says Jellema, "but no such luck." Announcing Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting | Theresa Hickman Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting is designed to help companies track and report greenhouse emissions. Yoga framework for REST-like partial resource access | William Vambenepe Vambenepe says: "A tweet by Stefan Tilkov brought Yoga to my attention, 'a framework for supporting REST-like URI requests with field selectors.'" InfoQ: Pragmatic Software Architecture and the Role of the Architect "Joe Wirtley introduces software architecture and the role of the architect in software development along with techniques, tips and resources to help one get started thinking as an architect."

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-09-18

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Eye on Architecture This week the Oracle Technology Network Solution Architect Homepage features an Oracle Reference Architecture for Software Engineering, a new podcast focusing on why IT governance is important whether you like it or not, and information on the next free OTN Architect Day event. Enabling WebLogic Administrator Group Inside Custom ADF Application | Andrejus Baranovskis A short but informative technical post from Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovkis. Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Hands-on Lab: Leading Your Everyday Application Integration Projects with Enterprise SOA Yet another session to squeeze into your already-jammed Oracle OpenWorld schedule. This hands-on lab focuses on how "Oracle Enterprise Repository, Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) Foundation Pack, and Oracle SOA Suite work together to help you drive your enterprisewide integration projects." Mass Metadata Updates with Folders | Kyle Hatlestad "With the release of WebCenter Content PS5, a new folder architecture called 'Framework Folders' was introduced," explains Fusion Middleware A-Team blogger Kyle Hatlestad. "This is meant to replace the folder architecture of 'Folders_g'. While the concepts of a folder structure and access to those folders through Desktop Integration Suite remain the same, the underlying architecture of the component has been completely rewritten." Creating your first OAM 11g R2 domain | Chris Johnson Prolific Fusion Middleware A-Team Blogger Chris Johnson reads the Oracle Identity and Access Management Installation Guide so you don't have to (though you probably should). Thought for the Day "Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice." — Christopher Alexander Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• The year ahead, 2011.

  - by andrewstopford

  When I look back at last years look at 2010 my blogging rate has not changed much (I suspect this is largely down to using Twitter a lot) but my interests this year have developed a lot further. My view on 2010 would be that Microsoft would commit more to OSS, while I wanted to see more hires from that audience and more projects on Outercurve foundation instead there has been support for JQuery and Gems (aka NuGet). I would love to see more from Microsoft on the OSS front in 2011, Outercurve could become like the Apache foundation with enough support. Staying on the Microsoft front I predict that 2011 will bring the following. C# 5.0 will go RTM (still no MOP though) The next release of VS will go alpha or early beta MS MVC 4.0 (I think by Mix time) and maybe this release will get a command line. I also suspect that Microsoft will want to target the tablet market with WP7 in 2011 (Mix 2011 maybe...). I also predict the following Java will fork with Apache\Google. Oracle will then take them to court and the whole thing will boil right through 2011 (Java have had enough court cases, come on guys). Java and the JVM will sadly not move forward at all in 2011. Android will cause Apple a serious headache, both the smartphone and tablet market will see figures cut from Apple share. By the end of 2011 the current 70% apple market share will be 40-50%. As the features, performance and price of Android devices gets ever better Apple will be left out in the open. Lastly after 7 years I intend to move this blog away from weblogs. In 2011 I will be exploring Java, Ruby\Rails and Android and such subjects don't make sense to talk about it here. See you in 2011.

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• What are the most commonly used and basic Apache htaccess redirects?

  - by bybe

  This question is here so we can offer users who are looking for information on how to make one or more common or basic redirects in Apache using the htaccess file. All future questions pertaining to finding information that is that is covered by the question should be closed as a duplication of this question. As per this Meta question. Whats the point in this question? The idea while not perfect is catch the most commonly asked questions regarding redirects using the htaccess on the Apache platform either on some type of lamp or a live server. The type of answers should be generally those that you could imagine are used by 100,000’s of sites world-wide and are constantly asked here at Pro Webmasters repeatedly over and over in various forms. A few examples of the type of answers we are looking for: How can I redirect non-www to www? How can I redirect a sub domain to the main domain? How can I redirect a sub folder from domain to a root or a subdomain? How can I redirect an old URL to a new URL? A few examples of the types of answers that we are not looking for: Answers that do not involve a redirect. Any answers relating to NGinx, IIS or any other non-Apache platform. Answers that involve custom and complex string or query removals. Resources for Advanced to Complex Mod_Rewrite Rules: Everything you ever wanted to know about mod rewrite rules but were afraid to ask Please note: that this question is still in construction and may need some refining either by myself or a real moderator of Pro Webmasters, if you have any concerns or questions please use the meta page I made a few days back here.

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• Should a stack trace be in the error message presented to the user?

  - by Vilx-

  I've got a bit of an argument at my workplace and I'm trying to figure out who is right, and what is the right thing to do. Context: an intranet web application that our customers use for accounting and other ERP stuff. I'm of the opinion that an error message presented to the user (when things crash) should include as much information as possible, including the stack trace. Of course, it has to start with a nice "An Error has occurred, please submit the below information to the developers" in large, friendly letters. My reasoning is that a screenshot of the crashed application will often be the only easily available source of information. Sure, you can try to get a hold of the client's systems administrator(s), attempt to explain where your log files are, etc, but that will probably be slow and painful (talking to the client representatives mostly is). Also, having an immediate and full information is extremely useful in development, where you don't have to go hunting through the log files to find what you need on every exception. (But that could be solved with a configuration switch.) Unfortunately there has been some kind of "Security audit" (no idea how they did that without the sources... but whatever), and they complained about the full exception messages citing them as a security threat. Naturally, the clients (at least one that I know of) has taken this at face value and now demands that the messages be cleaned. I fail to see how a potential attacker could use a stack trace to figure anything out he couldn't have figured out before. Are there any examples, any documented proof of anyone ever doing that? I think that we should fight this foolish idea, but perhaps I'm the fool here, so... Who's right?

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• How can you Add Value to your Mobile Apps?

  - by Carlos Chang

  Author: Craig Mikus, Sr. Director, Enterprise Mobile Solutions Seems like every customer is either building or planning to build mobile apps, especially customer facing apps. Why? Inevitably, all companies want to improve the customer experience through more quality interactions that drive customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, new revenue streams, and even improve the way they service their customers. What better way than mobile apps? Right? But how can customers add more value to these mobile apps to drive more business benefit? Look closely, the answer just might be right in front of you. Still need another clue? What’s the first 4 letters of mobile – mo-bi? Or pronounced differently, More BI. That’s right – add more business intelligence to your overall mobile strategy. In today’s customer centric world where customer interactions and personalization are critical, it’s important to leverage a BI strategy that complements and feeds into your mobile strategy. For example, I was recently talking to a customer that was implementing a data warehouse project focused customer analytics. Their goal was to understand who are their best customers and why, develop customer profiles, identify customer trends & patterns, identify cross sell opportunities, and much more. The company then wanted to feed this information to marketing for targeted campaigns and programs. As we continued to talk, I asked my contact if they had plans to feed this information into their customer facing mobile apps to personalize the apps, target their interactions, and hopefully drive customer loyalty and new revenue streams? Two minutes later, my contact was calling his mobile development teams. So my advice to everyone, as you establish your enterprise mobile strategy and goals, remember that “mo-BI” is a critical component to add value to your mobile apps! So make sure you have “mo BI” in your mobile strategy. As I come to think of it, did you ever notice that Big Data also starts with BI?

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• recent unreliable wireless connection on 10.04 and 10.10

  - by gabkdlly

  Recently, my internet connection over wireless has become unreliable, on both a Dell laptop running Ubuntu 10.04 as well as my Desktop running Ubuntu 10.10 . The problem does not seem to occur on a laptop running Windows Vista. The problem does not seem to occur on my Openmoko Freerunner ( running Android 1.5 ), though I hardly ever use this device to connect over WLAN, so the problem may have just slipped by. This problem does not seem to appear when I boot into Ubuntu 9.10 from a live CD ( more precisely, I was able to ping fu-berlin.de for an hour without any packet loss ). Under Ubuntu 10.10, I am experiencing about 33% packet loss. On my main Ubuntu Desktop, I have tried the following wireless devices: a Longshine PCI card ( an old device with an RTL8180L chip ) a D-Link DWL-510 PCI card ( this device threw warnings in dmesg ) a USB device from MSI ( US54EX ). Usually my wireless network shows up in the network manager with a normal signal strength, even when the connection speed is slow ( which happens often ) or the connection gets reset ( asking me to click connect to re-authenticate my wireless connection ). I have observed this problem with a Netgear KWGR614 Router ( with the manufacturers firmware ), as well as with a TP-LINK TL-WR741ND router running OpenWrt. Taking a look at my routers logs, I find many instances of the following line: Tuesday,04 Jan 2011 03:53:01 [TCP SYN Flood][Deny access policy matched, dropping packet] I know that the Netgear router is susceptible to denial of service attacks, as I have previously been able to disrupt its operation by putting an nmap scan into a while loop. I use WEP on the Netgear router and WPA on the TP-LINK to encrypt the wireless connections. Is it possible that someone is jamming my signal ?

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• PanelGridLayout - A Layout Revolution

  - by Duncan Mills

  With the most recent 11.1.2 patchset (11.1.2.3) there has been a lot of excitement around ADF Essentials (and rightly so), however, in all the fuss I didn't want an even more significant change to get missed - yes you read that correctly, a more significant change! I'm talking about the new panelGridLayout component, I can confidently say that this one of the most revolutionary components that we've introduced in 11g, even though it sounds rather boring. To be totally accurate, panelGrid was introduced in 11.1.2.2 but without any presence in the component palette or other design time support, so it was largely missed unless you read the release notes. However in this latest patchset it's finally front and center. Its time to explore - we (really) need to talk about layout.  Let's face it,with ADF Faces rich client, layout is a rather arcane pursuit, once you are a layout master, all bow before you, but it's more of an art than a science, and it is often, in fact, way too difficult to achieve what should (apparently) be a pretty simple. Here's a great example, it's a homework assignment I set for folks I'm teaching this stuff to:  The requirements for this layout are: The header is 80px high, the footer is 30px. These are both fixed.  The first section of the header containing the logo is 180px wide The logo is centered within the top left hand corner of the header  The title text is start aligned in the center zone of the header and will wrap if the browser window is narrowed. It should be aligned in the center of the vertical space  The about link is anchored to the right hand side of the browser with a 20px gap and again is center aligned vertically. It will move as the browser window is reduced in width. The footer has a right aligned copyright statement, again middle aligned within a 30px high footer region and with a 20px buffer to the right hand edge. It will move as the browser window is reduced in width. All remaining space is given to a central zone, which, in this case contains a panelSplitter. Expect that at some point in time you'll need a separate messages line in the center of the footer.  In the homework assigment I set I also stipulate that no inlineStyles can be used to control alignment or margins and no use of other taglibs (e.g. JSF HTML or Trinidad HTML). So, if we take this purist approach, that basic page layout (in my stock solution) requires 3 panelStretchLayouts, 5 panelGroupLayouts and 4 spacers - not including the spacer I use for the logo and the contents of the central zone splitter - phew! The point is that even a seemingly simple layout needs a bit of thinking about, particulatly when you consider strechting and browser re-size behavior. In fact, this little sample actually teaches you much of what you need to know to become vaguely competant at layouts in the framework. The underlying result of "the way things are" is that most of us reach for panelStretchLayout before even finishing the first sip of coffee as we embark on a new page design. In fact most pages you will see in any moderately complex ADF page will basically be nested panelStretchLayouts and panelGroupLayouts, sometimes many, many levels deep. So this is a problem, we've known this for some time and now we have a good solution. (I should point out that the oft-used Trinidad trh tags are not a particularly good solution as you're tie-ing yourself to an HTML table based layout in that case with a host of attendent issues in resize and bi-di behavior, but I digress.) So, tadaaa, I give to you panelGridLayout. PanelGrid, as the name suggests takes a grid like (dare I say slightly gridbag-like) approach to layout, dividing your layout into rows and colums with margins, sizing, stretch behaviour, colspans and rowspans all rolled in, all without the use of inlineStyle. As such, it provides for a much more powerful and consise way of defining a layout such as the one above that is actually simpler and much more logical to design. The basic building blocks are the panelGridLayout itself, gridRow and gridCell. Your content sits inside the cells inside the rows, all helpfully allowing both streching, valign and halign definitions without the need to nest further panelGroupLayouts. So much simpler!  If I break down the homework example above my nested comglomorate of 12 containers and spacers can be condensed down into a single panelGrid with 3 rows and 5 cell definitions (39 lines of source reduced to 24 in the case of the sample). What's more, the actual runtime representation in the browser DOM is much, much simpler, and clean, with basically one DIV per cell (Note that just because the panelGridLayout semantics looks like an HTML table does not mean that it's rendered that way!) . Another hidden benefit is the runtime cost. Because we can use a single layout to achieve much more complex geometries the client side layout code inside the browser is having to work a lot less. This will be a real benefit if your application needs to run on lower powered clients such as netbooks or tablets. So, it's time, if you're on 11.1.2.2 or above, to smile warmly at your panelStretchLayouts, wrap the blanket around it's knees and wheel it off to the Sunset Retirement Home for a well deserved rest. There's a new kid on the block and it wants to be your friend. 

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• Another big year for the ADF EMG at OOW12

  - by Chris Muir

  Oracle Open World 2012 has only just started, but in one way it's just finished!  All the ADF EMG's OOW content is over for another year! The unique highlight this year for me was the first ever ADF EMG social night held on Saturday, where I finally had the chance to meet so many ADF community members who I've known over the internet, but never met in person.  What?  You didn't get an invite?  Oh well, better luck next year ;-) Seriously our budget was limited, so in the happy-dictatorship sort of way I had to limit RSVPs to just 40 people.  Hopefully next year we can do something bigger and better for the wider community. Following directly on from the Saturday social night the ADF EMG ran a full day of sessions at the user group Sunday.  I wont go over the content again, but to say thank you very much to all our presenters and helpers, including Gert Poel, Pitier Gillis, Aino Andriessen, Simon Haslam, Ken Mizuta, Lucas Jellema and the FMW roadshow team, Ronald van Luttikhuizen, Guido Schmutz, Luc Bors, Aino Andriessen and Lonneke Dikmans. Also special thanks must go to Doug Cockroft and Bambi Price for their time and effort in organizing the ADF EMG room behind the scenes via the APOUC. To be blunt Doug and Bambi really do deserve serious thanks because they had to wear a lot of Oracle politics behind the scenes to get the rooms organized (oh, and deal with me fretting too! ;-). Finally thanks to all the members and OOW delegates for turning up and supporting the group on the day.  In the end the ADF EMG exists for you, and I hope you found it worthwhile. Onto 2013 (oh, and the rest of OOW12 ;-) 

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• What is a good toy example to teach version control?

  - by janos

  I am looking for practical examples to use when teaching version control. Breaking down the material to basic concepts and providing examples is an obvious way to teach version control, but this can be very boring, unless the examples are really practical or interesting. One idea I have is customizing a wordpress theme. I use wordpress a lot and no theme is ever perfect, so I typically just put the theme directory in version control using any dvcs and start recording changes. The problem with this example is that not many people in the audience may be familiar with wordpress, let alone have shell access to a wordpress site to try out the commands. Preparing a mock site and giving access to everyone is also not an option for me. I need a "toy example" that can be interesting to a broad audience of software developers, and something they can try on their own computers. The tutorial will use a dvcs, but the practical example I'm looking for is only to teach the basic features of version control, ignoring the distributed features for the moment. (Now that I think of it, instead of a mock site, a customized live cd might do the trick...) Any better ideas?

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• What is the right way to Windows 7/Ubuntu 10.10 Dual-Triple Boot Partitioning for Laptop OEM?

  - by Denja

  Hi Linux Community, I find my self struggling with the ever slow and buggy windoze OS once again. It's Time to change with the Ubuntu 10.10 64bit as a really faster Operating System. My Hard Disk laptop as a RECOVERY and HP_TOOLS partition they are both Primary. I Have the System Recovery DVD for Windows 64bit should anything happen. Here's the layout I used with windows before: * (C:) Windows 7 system partition NTFS - 284,89GB (Primary,Boot,Pagefile,Dump) * HP_TOOLS system partition FAT32 - 99MB (Primary) * (D:) RECOVERY partition NTFS - 12,90GB (Primary) * SYSTEM partition NTFS 199MB (Primary) Here's the layout I want to make based on your answers * (C:) Windows 7 system partition NTFS - 60GB (Primary) (sda1) * (D:) Windows DATA partition (user files) NTFS - 120GB(Primary)(sda2);wanna share with Linux * Linux root Ext4 - 100GB (Primary)(sda3) (Ubuntu 10.10 64bit) * Linux swap swap- RAM size, 3GB (sda4) * Linux root Ext3- 15,9GB (Extended)(sda5) (OpenSuse or Puppy) Here is my New Ubuntu 10.10 64bit layout in use now: * SYSTEM partition NTFS 199MB (Primary) (sda1) **Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.(?)** * (C:) Windows 7 system partition NTFS - 90GB (Primary) (sda2) * (D:) Windows 7 RECOVERY partition NTFS - 12,90GB (Primary) (sda3) * Linux system partition EXTENDED - 195GB (Logical) * Linux root Ext4- 10GB (Extended) (sda5) * Linux home Ext3- 185GB (Extended) (sda6) I didn't know if I could wipe all previous partitions when i installed Ubuntu because of the RECOVERY partition so I just made the space for my extended partition by deleting the HP_TOOLS (Fat32). By doing this I managed to make and successfully install Ubuntu 64 but I couldn't actually make the partition for the swap or a third Linux OS. Question 1: What is the right way to Windows 7/Ubuntu 10.10 Dual-Triple Boot Partitioning for Laptop OEM?? Thank you in advance for your advises and suggestions and Happy New Year to All!!

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