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  • .htaccess file on localhost throwing an error when using a Virtual Host config on my Localhost!!

    - by Chris
    I am trying to set-up my localhost development server. I have everything working but when I try to add an .htaccess it throws this error: Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, [no address given] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. I dont know exactly why this is, this is pretty much the exact same setup as the other developers machine, but when using my .htaccess file I get that error. Here is my .htaccess file (NOTE: They are commented because I left my site with this setup. It only lets me view the index page. Without this .htaccess file, I can navigate.): Options -indexes RewriteEngine On ErrorDocument 404 /404 RewriteRule ^battery/([^/]+)$ /browser/product?sku=BATTERY+$1&type=battery RewriteRule ^vehicles/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/product([0-9]+)$ /browser/index.php?make=$1&model=$2&id=$3 [L,NC] RewriteRule ^vehicles/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)$ /browser/product.php?make=$1&model=$2&year=$3&id=$4 [L,NC] RewriteRule ^vehicles/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)$ /browser/index.php?make=$1&model=$2&year=$3 [L,NC] RewriteRule ^vehicles/([^/]+)/([^/]+)$ /browser/index.php?make=$1&model=$2 [L,NC] RewriteRule ^vehicles/([^/]+)$ /browser/index.php?make=$1 [L,NC] RewriteRule ^vehicles/$ /browser/index.php [L,NC] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

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  • Saving associated domain classes in Grails

    - by Cesar
    I'm struggling to get association right on Grails. Let's say I have two domain classes: class Engine { String name int numberOfCylinders = 4 static constraints = { name(blank:false, nullable:false) numberOfCylinders(range:4..8) } } class Car { int year String brand Engine engine = new Engine(name:"Default Engine") static constraints = { engine(nullable:false) brand(blank:false, nullable:false) year(nullable:false) } } The idea is that users can create cars without creating an engine first, and those cars get a default engine. In the CarController I have: def save = { def car = new Car(params) if(!car.hasErrors() && car.save()){ flash.message = "Car saved" redirect(action:index) }else{ render(view:'create', model:[car:car]) } } When trying to save, I get a null value exception on the Car.engine field, so obviously the default engine is not created and saved. I tried to manually create the engine: def save = { def car = new Car(params) car.engine = new Engine(name: "Default Engine") if(!car.hasErrors() && car.save()){ flash.message = "Car saved" redirect(action:index) }else{ render(view:'create', model:[car:car]) } } Didn't work either. Is Grails not able to save associated classes? How could I implement such feature?

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  • Interval arithmetic to correctly deal with end of month - Oracle SQL

    - by user2003974
    I need a function which will do interval arithmetic, dealing "correctly" with the different number of days in a month. For my version of "correctly" - see below! First try select to_date('31-May-2014') + interval '1' months from dual This returns an error, because there is no 31st June. I understand that this behaviour is expected due to the ANSI standard. Second try select add_months(to_date('31-May-2014'),1) from dual This correctly (in my use case) returns 30th June 2014, which is great. BUT select add_months(to_date('28-Feb-2014'),1) from dual returns 31st March 2014, when I want 28th March 2014. Background This has to do with legal deadlines. The deadlines are expressed in law as a number of months (say, 3) from a base date. If the base date is last day of the month and three months later the month is longer, then the deadline does NOT extend to the end of the longer month (as per the add_months function). However, if the base date is last day of the month and three months later the month is shorter, then the deadline expires on the last day of the shorter month. Question Is there a function that does what I need? I have intervals (year to month) stored in a table, so preferably the function would look like: add_interval_correctly(basedate DATE, intervaltoadd INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH)

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  • Comparing date range quarters sql server

    - by CR41G14
    I have a policies in a system PolRef Start End POL123 22/11/2012 23/12/2014 POL212 24/09/2012 23/10/2012 POL214 23/08/2012 29/09/2012 I am asking a user for a reporting date, the user enters 24/10/2012 this becomes @StartDate From this I derive what the quarter is by the month: set @currentMonth = Month(@StartDate) if @currentMonth = 1 or @currentMonth = 2 or @currentMonth = 3 begin set @startmonth = 1 set @endmonth = 3 end if @currentMonth = 4 or @currentMonth = 5 or @currentMonth = 6 begin set @startmonth = 4 set @endmonth = 6 end if @currentMonth = 7 or @currentMonth = 8 or @currentMonth = 9 begin set @startmonth = 7 set @endmonth = 9 end if @currentMonth = 10 or @currentMonth = 11 or @currentMonth = 12 begin set @startmonth = 10 set @endmonth = 12 end I then get a date range: @quarterStartDate = CAST(CAST(YEAR(@StartDate) AS varchar) + '-' + CAST(@startMonth AS varchar) + '-' + '01') AS Date) @quarterEndDate = CAST(CAST(YEAR(@EcdDate) AS varchar) + '-' + CAST(@endMonth AS varchar) + '-' + '31') AS Date) This will give me 01-10-2012 and 31-12-2012. Basically I need a script to only bring back the policies that are in this quarter. The policy doesn't have to span the entire quarter date range, just exist in the quarter date range. The results expected would be PolRef Start End POL123 22/11/2012 23/12/2014 POL212 24/09/2012 23/10/2012 Pol123 appears because it spans over the quarterly date range. Pol212 is there because it expires in that quarter date range. Pol214 does not appear because it neither spans, expires or starts in this quarter. Any help would be greatly appreciated

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  • How to get aggregate days from PHP's DateTime::diff?

    - by razic
    $now = new DateTime('now'); $tomorrow = new DateTime('tomorrow'); $next_year = new DateTime('+1 year'); echo "<pre>"; print_r($now->diff($tomorrow)); print_r($now->diff($next_year)); echo "</pre>"; DateInterval Object ( [y] => 0 [m] => 0 [d] => 0 [h] => 10 [i] => 17 [s] => 14 [invert] => 0 [days] => 6015 ) DateInterval Object ( [y] => 1 [m] => 0 [d] => 0 [h] => 0 [i] => 0 [s] => 0 [invert] => 0 [days] => 6015 ) any ideas why 'days' shows 6015? why won't it show the total number of days? 1 year difference means nothing to me, since months have varying number of days.

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  • Timestamps and Intervals: NUMTOYMINTERVAL SYSTDATE CALCULATION SQL QUERY

    - by MeachamRob
    I am working on a homework problem, I'm close but need some help with a data conversion I think. Or sysdate - start_date calculation The question is: Using the EX schema, write a SELECT statement that retrieves the date_id and start_date from the Date_Sample table (format below), followed by a column named Years_and_Months_Since_Start that uses an interval function to retrieve the number of years and months that have elapsed between the start_date and the sysdate. (Your values will vary based on the date you do this lab.) Display only the records with start dates having the month and day equal to Feb 28 (of any year). DATE_ID START_DATE YEARS_AND_MONTHS_SINCE_START 2 Sunday , February 28, 1999 13-8 4 Monday , February 28, 2005 7-8 5 Tuesday , February 28, 2006 6-8 Our EX schema that refers to this question is simply a Date_Sample Table with two columns: DATE_ID NUMBER NOT Null START_DATE DATE I Have written this code: SELECT date_id, TO_CHAR(start_date, 'Day, MONTH DD, YYYY') AS start_date , NUMTOYMINTERVAL((SYSDATE - start_date), 'YEAR') AS years_and_months_since_start FROM date_sample WHERE TO_CHAR(start_date, 'MM/DD') = '02/28'; But my Years and months since start column is not working properly. It's getting very high numbers for years and months when the date calculated is from 1999-ish. ie, it should be 13-8 and I'm getting 5027-2 so I know it's not correct. I used NUMTOYMINTERVAL, which should be correct, but don't think the sysdate-start_date is working. Data Type for start_date is simply date. I tried ROUND but maybe need some help to get it right. Something is wrong with my calculation and trying to figure out how to get the correct interval there. Not sure if I have provided enough information to everyone but I will let you know if I figure it out before you do. It's a question from Murach's Oracle and SQL/PL book, chapter 17 if anyone else is trying to learn that chapter. Page 559.

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  • Calculating week of specified date.

    - by Louis W
    Does PHP calculate weeks as being Sunday - Saturday? For a given date I am trying to determine the beginning and ending date of it's week as well as the beginning date of the next/previous weeks. Everything works fine unless I pass in a Sunday and it thinks the date is in a previous week. $start = $_GET['start']; $year = date('Y', strtotime($start)); $week = date('W', strtotime($start)); $sunday = strtotime($year.'W'.$week.'0'); $next = strtotime('+7 Days', $sunday); $prev = strtotime('-7 Days', $sunday); echo '<p>week: ' . $week . '</p>'; echo '<p>sunday: ' . date('Y-m-d', $sunday) . '</p>'; echo '<p>next:' . date('Y-m-d', $next) . '</p>'; echo '<p>prev: ' . date('Y-m-d', $prev) . '</p>'; Outcome: 2011-01-09 (Sunday) Week: 01 WRONG 2011-01-10 (Monday) Week: 02 RIGHT 2011-01-15 (Saturday) Week: 02 RIGHT

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  • when will come the new C++ standard? C++0x

    - by Oops
    Hi, when will the new C++ standard became official? C++ was standardized in 1998 and the standard is called C++98 the C++ standard was updated in 2003 and is called C++03 so the unofficial name "C++0x" lead us to the wrong conclusion that it will come within the first decade of the 20th century. Have u also mentioned that we all make the year 2000 bug again? Now we have 2010 so if you take the X as the latin sign for 10 it should come out this year. But no, also this would be wrong. The answer: The name of the language was always part of the language itself. As we all know the ++ operator means: one more But we have learned in some situations it would be better to write ++C so the other way around often is better. and what does the characters 0x mean in the C++ language? Right it's the prefix for a hexadecimal number. Now the question is easy to answer, it's meaning is: 0x++C int main(){ std::cout << "When will the new C++ standard come out? " << std::endl; int x0_ = 0x7D0, _0x = x0_, C = 0xC, Y1 = C+++_0x, Y2 = x0_+++C; std::cout << "it will be standardized between the Years: " << Y1 << " and " << Y2 << std::endl; char c; std::cin >> c; return 0; } do you agree? regards Oops

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  • Second user-defined function returns garbage value?

    - by mintyfresh
    I have been teaching myself C programming, and I've come to a difficult point with using variables across functions. When, I compile this program and run it, the function askBirthYear returns the correct value, but sayAgeInYears returns either 0 or a garbage value. I believe it has something to do with how I used the variable birthYear, but I'm stumped on how to fix the issue. Here is the code: #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> int askBirthYear(int); void sayAgeInYears(int); int birthYear; int main(void) { askBirthYear(birthYear); sayAgeInYears(birthYear); return EXIT_SUCCESS; } void askBirthYear(int birthYear) { printf("Hello! In what year were you born?\n"); scanf("%d", &birthYear); printf("Your birth year is %d.\n", birthYear); return birthYear; } void sayAgeInYears(int birthYear) { int age; age = 2012 - birthYear; printf("You are %d years old.\n", age); }

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  • Why is this giving me an infinite loop?

    - by Chase Yuan
    I was going through a code used to calculate investments until it has doubled and I received an infinite loop that I can't seem to solve. Can anyone figure out why this is giving me an infinite loop? I've gone through myself but I can't seem to find the problem. The "period" referred is how many times per year the interest is compounded. double account = 0; //declares the variables to be used double base = 0; double interest = 0; double rate = 0; double result = 0; double times = 0; int years = 0; int j; System.out.println("This is a program that calculates interest."); Scanner kbReader = new Scanner(System.in); //enters in all data System.out.print("Enter account balance: "); account = kbReader.nextDouble(); System.out.print("Enter interest rate (as decimal): "); rate = kbReader.nextDouble(); System.out.println(" " + "Years to double" + " " + "Ending balance"); base = account; result = account; for (j=0; j<3; j++){ System.out.print("Enter period: "); times = kbReader.nextDouble(); while (account < base*2){ interest = account * rate / times; account = interest + base; years++; } account = (((int)(account * 100))/100.0); //results System.out.print(" " + i + " " + account + "\n"); account = result; } The code should ask for three "periods", or three different times the entered data is compounded per year (ex annually, monthly, daily etc.) Thanks a lot!

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  • Recurrent yearly date alert in Python

    - by coulix
    Hello Hackerz, Here is the idea A user can set a day alert for a birthday. (We do not care about the year of birth) He also picks if he wants to be alerted 0, 1, 2, ou 7 days (Delta) before the D day. Users have a timezone setting. I want the server to send the alerts at 8 am on the the D day - deleta +- user timezone Example: 12 jun, with "alert me 3 days before" will give 9 of Jun. My idea was to have a trigger_datetime extra field saved on the 'recurrent event' object. Like this a cron Job running every hour on my server will just check for all events matching irs current time hour, day and month and send to the alert. The problem from a year to the next the trigger_date could change ! If the alert is set on 1st of March, with a one day delay that could be either 28 or 29 of February .. Maybe i should not use the trigger date trick and use some other kind of scheme. All plans are welcome.

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  • SQL SERVER – Mirroring Configured Without Domain – The server network address TCP://SQLServerName:50

    - by pinaldave
    Regular readers of my blog will be aware of my friend who called me few days ago with very a funny SQL Problem SQL SERVER – SSMS Query Command(s) completed successfully without ANY Results. This time, it did not take long before he called me up with another interesting problem, although the issue he was facing this time was not that interesting and also very specific to him, however, he insisted me to share with all of you. Let us understand his situation at first. My friend is preparing for DBA exam Exam 70-450: PRO: Designing, Optimizing and Maintaining a Database Server Infrastructure using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and for the same, he was trying to set up replication on his local laptop. He had installed two different instances of SQL Server on his computer and every time when he started the mirroring, it failed with common error message. The server network address “TCP://SQLServer:5023? cannot be reached or does not exist. Check the network address name and that the ports for the local and remote endpoints are operational. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 1418) Well, before he contacted me, he searched online and checked my article written on the error in mirroring. However, he tried all the four suggestions, but it did not solve his problem. He called me at a reasonable time of late evening (unlike last time, which was midnight!). I even tried all the seven different suggestions myself, as previously proposed in my article; however, none of them worked. While looking at closely at services, I noticed something very simple. He was running all the instances on ‘Network Services’. In fact, his computer was a stand-alone computer. There was no network at all. Also, there was no domain or any other advance network concepts implemented. I just changed services from ‘Network Services’ to ‘Local System’ as his SQL Server was running on his local system and there were no network services. This prompted to restart the services. As this was not the production server and his development machine, we restarted the services on the laptop (do not restart services on production server without proper planning). After changing the ‘services log on’ account to localsystem, when he attempted to reconfigure the mirroring it worked right away. As usually in production server, proper domains are configured and advance network concepts are implemented I had never faced this type of problem earlier. My friend insisted to post this solution to his situation, wherein there was no domain configured and setting up mirroring was throwing an error. According to him, this is bound to help people, like him, who are preparing for certification using single system. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Certifications, SQL Mirroring

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  • jQuery Globalization Plugin from Microsoft

    - by ScottGu
    Last month I blogged about how Microsoft is starting to make code contributions to jQuery, and about some of the first code contributions we were working on: jQuery Templates and Data Linking support. Today, we released a prototype of a new jQuery Globalization Plugin that enables you to add globalization support to your JavaScript applications. This plugin includes globalization information for over 350 cultures ranging from Scottish Gaelic, Frisian, Hungarian, Japanese, to Canadian English.  We will be releasing this plugin to the community as open-source. You can download our prototype for the jQuery Globalization plugin from our Github repository: http://github.com/nje/jquery-glob You can also download a set of samples that demonstrate some simple use-cases with it here. Understanding Globalization The jQuery Globalization plugin enables you to easily parse and format numbers, currencies, and dates for different cultures in JavaScript. For example, you can use the Globalization plugin to display the proper currency symbol for a culture: You also can use the Globalization plugin to format dates so that the day and month appear in the right order and the day and month names are correctly translated: Notice above how the Arabic year is displayed as 1431. This is because the year has been converted to use the Arabic calendar. Some cultural differences, such as different currency or different month names, are obvious. Other cultural differences are surprising and subtle. For example, in some cultures, the grouping of numbers is done unevenly. In the "te-IN" culture (Telugu in India), groups have 3 digits and then 2 digits. The number 1000000 (one million) is written as "10,00,000". Some cultures do not group numbers at all. All of these subtle cultural differences are handled by the jQuery Globalization plugin automatically. Getting dates right can be especially tricky. Different cultures have different calendars such as the Gregorian and UmAlQura calendars. A single culture can even have multiple calendars. For example, the Japanese culture uses both the Gregorian calendar and a Japanese calendar that has eras named after Japanese emperors. The Globalization Plugin includes methods for converting dates between all of these different calendars. Using Language Tags The jQuery Globalization plugin uses the language tags defined in the RFC 4646 and RFC 5646 standards to identity cultures (see http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5646). A language tag is composed out of one or more subtags separated by hyphens. For example: Language Tag Language Name (in English) en-AU English (Australia) en-BZ English (Belize) en-CA English (Canada) Id Indonesian zh-CHS Chinese (Simplified) Legacy Zu isiZulu Notice that a single language, such as English, can have several language tags. Speakers of English in Canada format numbers, currencies, and dates using different conventions than speakers of English in Australia or the United States. You can find the language tag for a particular culture by using the Language Subtag Lookup tool located here:  http://rishida.net/utils/subtags/ The jQuery Globalization plugin download includes a folder named globinfo that contains the information for each of the 350 cultures. Actually, this folder contains more than 700 files because the folder includes both minified and un-minified versions of each file. For example, the globinfo folder includes JavaScript files named jQuery.glob.en-AU.js for English Australia, jQuery.glob.id.js for Indonesia, and jQuery.glob.zh-CHS for Chinese (Simplified) Legacy. Example: Setting a Particular Culture Imagine that you have been asked to create a German website and want to format all of the dates, currencies, and numbers using German formatting conventions correctly in JavaScript on the client. The HTML for the page might look like this: Notice the span tags above. They mark the areas of the page that we want to format with the Globalization plugin. We want to format the product price, the date the product is available, and the units of the product in stock. To use the jQuery Globalization plugin, we’ll add three JavaScript files to the page: the jQuery library, the jQuery Globalization plugin, and the culture information for a particular language: In this case, I’ve statically added the jQuery.glob.de-DE.js JavaScript file that contains the culture information for German. The language tag “de-DE” is used for German as spoken in Germany. Now that I have all of the necessary scripts, I can use the Globalization plugin to format the product price, date available, and units in stock values using the following client-side JavaScript: The jQuery Globalization plugin extends the jQuery library with new methods - including new methods named preferCulture() and format(). The preferCulture() method enables you to set the default culture used by the jQuery Globalization plugin methods. Notice that the preferCulture() method accepts a language tag. The method will find the closest culture that matches the language tag. The $.format() method is used to actually format the currencies, dates, and numbers. The second parameter passed to the $.format() method is a format specifier. For example, passing “c” causes the value to be formatted as a currency. The ReadMe file at github details the meaning of all of the various format specifiers: http://github.com/nje/jquery-glob When we open the page in a browser, everything is formatted correctly according to German language conventions. A euro symbol is used for the currency symbol. The date is formatted using German day and month names. Finally, a period instead of a comma is used a number separator: You can see a running example of the above approach with the 3_GermanSite.htm file in this samples download. Example: Enabling a User to Dynamically Select a Culture In the previous example we explicitly said that we wanted to globalize in German (by referencing the jQuery.glob.de-DE.js file). Let’s now look at the first of a few examples that demonstrate how to dynamically set the globalization culture to use. Imagine that you want to display a dropdown list of all of the 350 cultures in a page. When someone selects a culture from the dropdown list, you want all of the dates in the page to be formatted using the selected culture. Here’s the HTML for the page: Notice that all of the dates are contained in a <span> tag with a data-date attribute (data-* attributes are a new feature of HTML 5 that conveniently also still work with older browsers). We’ll format the date represented by the data-date attribute when a user selects a culture from the dropdown list. In order to display dates for any possible culture, we’ll include the jQuery.glob.all.js file like this: The jQuery Globalization plugin includes a JavaScript file named jQuery.glob.all.js. This file contains globalization information for all of the more than 350 cultures supported by the Globalization plugin.  At 367KB minified, this file is not small. Because of the size of this file, unless you really need to use all of these cultures at the same time, we recommend that you add the individual JavaScript files for particular cultures that you intend to support instead of the combined jQuery.glob.all.js to a page. In the next sample I’ll show how to dynamically load just the language files you need. Next, we’ll populate the dropdown list with all of the available cultures. We can use the $.cultures property to get all of the loaded cultures: Finally, we’ll write jQuery code that grabs every span element with a data-date attribute and format the date: The jQuery Globalization plugin’s parseDate() method is used to convert a string representation of a date into a JavaScript date. The plugin’s format() method is used to format the date. The “D” format specifier causes the date to be formatted using the long date format. And now the content will be globalized correctly regardless of which of the 350 languages a user visiting the page selects.  You can see a running example of the above approach with the 4_SelectCulture.htm file in this samples download. Example: Loading Globalization Files Dynamically As mentioned in the previous section, you should avoid adding the jQuery.glob.all.js file to a page whenever possible because the file is so large. A better alternative is to load the globalization information that you need dynamically. For example, imagine that you have created a dropdown list that displays a list of languages: The following jQuery code executes whenever a user selects a new language from the dropdown list. The code checks whether the globalization file associated with the selected language has already been loaded. If the globalization file has not been loaded then the globalization file is loaded dynamically by taking advantage of the jQuery $.getScript() method. The globalizePage() method is called after the requested globalization file has been loaded, and contains the client-side code to perform the globalization. The advantage of this approach is that it enables you to avoid loading the entire jQuery.glob.all.js file. Instead you only need to load the files that you need and you don’t need to load the files more than once. The 5_Dynamic.htm file in this samples download demonstrates how to implement this approach. Example: Setting the User Preferred Language Automatically Many websites detect a user’s preferred language from their browser settings and automatically use it when globalizing content. A user can set a preferred language for their browser. Then, whenever the user requests a page, this language preference is included in the request in the Accept-Language header. When using Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can set your preferred language by following these steps: Select the menu option Tools, Internet Options. Select the General tab. Click the Languages button in the Appearance section. Click the Add button to add a new language to the list of languages. Move your preferred language to the top of the list. Notice that you can list multiple languages in the Language Preference dialog. All of these languages are sent in the order that you listed them in the Accept-Language header: Accept-Language: fr-FR,id-ID;q=0.7,en-US;q=0.3 Strangely, you cannot retrieve the value of the Accept-Language header from client JavaScript. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox support a bevy of language related properties exposed by the window.navigator object, such as windows.navigator.browserLanguage and window.navigator.language, but these properties represent either the language set for the operating system or the language edition of the browser. These properties don’t enable you to retrieve the language that the user set as his or her preferred language. The only reliable way to get a user’s preferred language (the value of the Accept-Language header) is to write server code. For example, the following ASP.NET page takes advantage of the server Request.UserLanguages property to assign the user’s preferred language to a client JavaScript variable named acceptLanguage (which then allows you to access the value using client-side JavaScript): In order for this code to work, the culture information associated with the value of acceptLanguage must be included in the page. For example, if someone’s preferred culture is fr-FR (French in France) then you need to include either the jQuery.glob.fr-FR.js or the jQuery.glob.all.js JavaScript file in the page or the culture information won’t be available.  The “6_AcceptLanguages.aspx” sample in this samples download demonstrates how to implement this approach. If the culture information for the user’s preferred language is not included in the page then the $.preferCulture() method will fall back to using the neutral culture (for example, using jQuery.glob.fr.js instead of jQuery.glob.fr-FR.js). If the neutral culture information is not available then the $.preferCulture() method falls back to the default culture (English). Example: Using the Globalization Plugin with the jQuery UI DatePicker One of the goals of the Globalization plugin is to make it easier to build jQuery widgets that can be used with different cultures. We wanted to make sure that the jQuery Globalization plugin could work with existing jQuery UI plugins such as the DatePicker plugin. To that end, we created a patched version of the DatePicker plugin that can take advantage of the Globalization plugin when rendering a calendar. For example, the following figure illustrates what happens when you add the jQuery Globalization and the patched jQuery UI DatePicker plugin to a page and select Indonesian as the preferred culture: Notice that the headers for the days of the week are displayed using Indonesian day name abbreviations. Furthermore, the month names are displayed in Indonesian. You can download the patched version of the jQuery UI DatePicker from our github website. Or you can use the version included in this samples download and used by the 7_DatePicker.htm sample file. Summary I’m excited about our continuing participation in the jQuery community. This Globalization plugin is the third jQuery plugin that we’ve released. We’ve really appreciated all of the great feedback and design suggestions on the jQuery templating and data-linking prototypes that we released earlier this year.  We also want to thank the jQuery and jQuery UI teams for working with us to create these plugins. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. You can follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • Is your team is a high-performing team?

    As a child I can remember looking out of the car window as my father drove along the Interstate in Florida while seeing prisoners wearing bright orange jump suits and prison guards keeping a watchful eye on them. The prisoners were taking part in a prison road gang. These road gangs were formed to help the state maintain the state highway infrastructure. The prisoner’s primary responsibilities are to pick up trash and debris from the roadway. This is a prime example of a work group or working group used by most prison systems in the United States. Work groups or working groups can be defined as a collection of individuals or entities working together to achieve a specific goal or accomplish a specific set of tasks. Typically these groups are only established for a short period of time and are dissolved once the desired outcome has been achieved. More often than not group members usually feel as though they are expendable to the group and some even dread that they are even in the group. "A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable." (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993) So how do you determine that a team is a high-performing team?  This can be determined by three base line criteria that include: consistently high quality output, the promotion of personal growth and well being of all team members, and most importantly the ability to learn and grow as a unit. Initially, a team can successfully create high-performing output without meeting all three criteria, however this will erode over time because team members will feel detached from the group or that they are not growing then the quality of the output will decline. High performing teams are similar to work groups because they both utilize a collection of individuals or entities to accomplish tasks. What distinguish a high-performing team from a work group are its characteristics. High-performing teams contain five core characteristics. These characteristics are what separate a group from a team. The five characteristics of a high-performing team include: Purpose, Performance Measures, People with Tasks and Relationship Skills, Process, and Preparation and Practice. A high-performing team is much more than a work group, and typically has a life cycle that can vary from team to team. The standard team lifecycle consists of five states and is comparable to a human life cycle. The five states of a high-performing team lifecycle include: Formulating, Storming, Normalizing, Performing, and Adjourning. The Formulating State of a team is first realized when the team members are first defined and roles are assigned to all members. This initial stage is very important because it can set the tone for the team and can ultimately determine its success or failure. In addition, this stage requires the team to have a strong leader because team members are normally unclear about specific roles, specific obstacles and goals that my lay ahead of them.  Finally, this stage is where most team members initially meet one another prior to working as a team unless the team members already know each other. The Storming State normally arrives directly after the formulation of a new team because there are still a lot of unknowns amongst the newly formed assembly. As a general rule most of the parties involved in the team are still getting used to the workload, pace of work, deadlines and the validity of various tasks that need to be performed by the group.  In this state everything is questioned because there are so many unknowns. Items commonly questioned include the credentials of others on the team, the actual validity of a project, and the leadership abilities of the team leader.  This can be exemplified by looking at the interactions between animals when they first meet.  If we look at a scenario where two people are walking directly toward each other with their dogs. The dogs will automatically enter the Storming State because they do not know the other dog. Typically in this situation, they attempt to define which is more dominating via play or fighting depending on how the dogs interact with each other. Once dominance has been defined and accepted by both dogs then they will either want to play or leave depending on how the dogs interacted and other environmental variables. Once the Storming State has been realized then the Normalizing State takes over. This state is entered by a team once all the questions of the Storming State have been answered and the team has been tested by a few tasks or projects.  Typically, participants in the team are filled with energy, and comradery, and a strong alliance with team goals and objectives.  A high school football team is a perfect example of the Normalizing State when they start their season.  The player positions have been assigned, the depth chart has been filled and everyone is focused on winning each game. All of the players encourage and expect each other to perform at the best of their abilities and are united by competition from other teams. The Performing State is achieved by a team when its history, working habits, and culture solidify the team as one working unit. In this state team members can anticipate specific behaviors, attitudes, reactions, and challenges are seen as opportunities and not problems. Additionally, each team member knows their role in the team’s success, and the roles of others. This is the most productive state of a group and is where all the time invested working together really pays off. If you look at an Olympic figure skating team skate you can easily see how the time spent working together benefits their performance. They skate as one unit even though it is comprised of two skaters. Each skater has their routine completely memorized as well as their partners. This allows them to anticipate each other’s moves on the ice makes their skating look effortless. The final state of a team is the Adjourning State. This state is where accomplishments by the team and each individual team member are recognized. Additionally, this state also allows for reflection of the interactions between team members, work accomplished and challenges that were faced. Finally, the team celebrates the challenges they have faced and overcome as a unit. Currently in the workplace teams are divided into two different types: Co-located and Distributed Teams. Co-located teams defined as the traditional group of people working together in an office, according to Andy Singleton of Assembla. This traditional type of a team has dominated business in the past due to inadequate technology, which forced workers to primarily interact with one another via face to face meetings.  Team meetings are primarily lead by the person with the highest status in the company. Having personally, participated in meetings of this type, usually a select few of the team members dominate the flow of communication which reduces the input of others in group discussions. Since discussions are dominated by a select few individuals the discussions and group discussion are skewed in favor of the individuals who communicate the most in meetings. In addition, Team members might not give their full opinions on a topic of discussion in part not to offend or create controversy amongst the team and can alter decision made in meetings towards those of the opinions of the dominating team members. Distributed teams are by definition spread across an area or subdivided into separate sections. That is exactly what distributed teams when compared to a more traditional team. It is common place for distributed teams to have team members across town, in the next state, across the country and even with the advances in technology over the last 20 year across the world. These teams allow for more diversity compared to the other type of teams because they allow for more flexibility regarding location. A team could consist of a 30 year old male Italian project manager from New York, a 50 year old female Hispanic from California and a collection of programmers from India because technology allows them to communicate as if they were standing next to one another.  In addition, distributed team members consult with more team members prior to making decisions compared to traditional teams, and take longer to come to decisions due to the changes in time zones and cultural events. However, team members feel more empowered to speak out when they do not agree with the team and to notify others of potential issues regarding the work that the team is doing. Virtual teams which are a subset of the distributed team type is changing organizational strategies due to the fact that a team can now in essence be working 24 hrs a day because of utilizing employees in various time zones and locations.  A primary example of this is with customer services departments, a company can have multiple call centers spread across multiple time zones allowing them to appear to be open 24 hours a day while all a employees work from 9AM to 5 PM every day. Virtual teams also allow human resources departments to go after the best talent for the company regardless of where the potential employee works because they will be a part of a virtual team all that is need is the proper technology to be setup to allow everyone to communicate. In addition to allowing employees to work from home, the company can save space and resources by not having to provide a desk for every team member. In fact, those team members that randomly come into the office can actually share one desk amongst multiple people. This is definitely a cost cutting plus given the current state of the economy. One thing that can turn a team into a high-performing team is leadership. High-performing team leaders need to focus on investing in ongoing personal development, provide team members with direction, structure, and resources needed to accomplish their work, make the right interventions at the right time, and help the team manage boundaries between the team and various external parties involved in the teams work. A team leader needs to invest in ongoing personal development in order to effectively manage their team. People have said that attitude is everything; this is very true about leaders and leadership. A team takes on the attitudes and behaviors of its leaders. This can potentially harm the team and the team’s output. Leaders must concentrate on self-awareness, and understanding their team’s group dynamics to fully understand how to lead them. In addition, always learning new leadership techniques from other effective leaders is also very beneficial. Providing team members with direction, structure, and resources that they need to accomplish their work collectively sounds easy, but it is not.  Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate with their team on how their work helps the company reach for its organizational vision. Conversely, the leader needs to allow his team to work autonomously within specific guidelines to turn the company’s vision into a reality.  This being said the team must be appropriately staffed according to the size of the team’s tasks and their complexity. These tasks should be clear, and be meaningful to the company’s objectives and allow for feedback to be exchanged with the leader and the team member and the leader and upper management. Now if the team is properly staffed, and has a clear and full understanding of what is to be done; the company also must supply the workers with the proper tools to achieve the tasks that they are asked to do. No one should be asked to dig a hole without being given a shovel.  Finally, leaders must reward their team members for accomplishments that they achieve. Awards could range from just a simple congratulatory email, a party to close the completion of a large project, or other monetary rewards. Managing boundaries is very important for team leaders because it can alter attitudes of team members and can add undue stress to the team which will force them to loose focus on the tasks at hand for the group. Team leaders should promote communication between team members so that burdens are shared amongst the team and solutions can be derived from hearing the opinions of multiple sources. This also reinforces team camaraderie and working as a unit. Team leaders must manage the type and timing of interventions as to not create an even bigger mess within the team. Poorly timed interventions can really deflate team members and make them question themselves. This could really increase further and undue interventions by the team leader. Typically, the best time for interventions is when the team is just starting to form so that all unproductive behaviors are removed from the team and that it can retain focus on its agenda. If an intervention is effectively executed the team will feel energized about the work that they are doing, promote communication and interaction amongst the group and improve moral overall. High-performing teams are very import to organizations because they consistently produce high quality output and develop a collective purpose for their work. This drive to succeed allows team members to utilize specific talents allowing for growth in these areas.  In addition, these team members usually take on a sense of ownership with their projects and feel that the other team members are irreplaceable. References: http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/3127/Three-ways-to-organize-your-team-co-located-outsourced-or-global.aspx Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-performance Organization. Boston: Harvard Business School.

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  • Retrieving only the first record or record at a certain index in LINQ

    - by vik20000in
    While working with data it’s not always required that we fetch all the records. Many a times we only need to fetch the first record, or some records in some index, in the record set. With LINQ we can get the desired record very easily with the help of the provided element operators. Simple get the first record. If you want only the first record in record set we can use the first method [Note that this can also be done easily done with the help of the take method by providing the value as one].     List<Product> products = GetProductList();      Product product12 = (         from prod in products         where prod.ProductID == 12         select prod)         .First();   We can also very easily put some condition on which first record to be fetched.     string[] strings = { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine" };     string startsWithO = strings.First(s => s[0] == 'o');  In the above example the result would be “one” because that is the first record starting with “o”.  Also the fact that there will be chances that there are no value returned in the result set. When we know such possibilities we can use the FirstorDefault() method to return the first record or incase there are no records get the default value.        int[] numbers = {};     int firstNumOrDefault = numbers.FirstOrDefault();  In case we do not want the first record but the second or the third or any other later record then we can use the ElementAt() method. In the ElementAt() method we need to pass the index number for which we want the record and we will receive the result for that element.      int[] numbers = { 5, 4, 1, 3, 9, 8, 6, 7, 2, 0 };      int fourthLowNum = (         from num in numbers         where num > 5         select num )         .ElementAt(1); Vikram

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  • On Turning 30&hellip;

    - by MOSSLover
    I know I am not a wise old sage like some people in the community.  I just turned 30 however I feel like all my years looking back have changed me.  My collective experiences and thoughts have given me a different perspective on life recently.  Seven months ago my head was in a gutter and since then a lot of things have happened.  I was always the weird kid in the corner reading Star Trek books.  When I was in elementary school I thought that kids would throw me birthday parties out of pity because I was the poor kid who everyone hated.  I am no longer that person.  I realized that during the worst possible period between my 29th and 30th year when I hit rock bottom.  You all know the insane story as I’ve told it two billion times over.  Honestly it was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life time, because many things would not have happened.  My friends came through for me at every given moment people from all over were checking up on me all over the world.  I fell and I landed on a bunch of people it was awesome.  I landed on family and friends who I thought I was never close enough to talk about these things.  They helped me realize I had a ton of unfulfilled dreams.  I got to move to New York City one of the greatest cities in the universe.  I got to do whatever I wanted without judgment from anyone.  I got to meet some great people at a few meetup groups in the past few months.  I got to meet an awesome person that I have been dating for 3 months.  I am trying to run for the 8 billionth time and keep up with it.  I got to go to Europe and next week for the first time New Orleans.  I got renewed for MVP for 2012.  I am grateful for all the people and things in my life.  I understand that sometimes when things seem bad you can always seek friends and family.  They will always help me.  I have to learn to lean on people sometimes just how they occasionally lean on me.  That is the biggest thing I have learned from the decade of 20 to 30.  I hope that 30 to 40 will be the best decade.  I hope that I can continue to grow.  I will catch you all later. Technorati Tags: Turning 30,Wisdom

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  • .NET development on a “Retina” MacBook Pro

    - by Jeff
    The rumor that Apple would release a super high resolution version of its 15” laptop has been around for quite awhile, and one I watched closely. After more than three years with a 17” MacBook Pro, and all of the screen real estate it offered, I was ready to replace it with something much lighter. It was a fantastic machine, still doing 6 or 7 hours after 460 charge cycles, but I wanted lighter and faster. With the SSD I put in it, I was able to sell it for $750. The appeal of higher resolution goes way back, when I would plug into a projector and scale up. Consolas, as it turns out, is a nice looking font for code when it’s bigger. While I have mostly indifference for iOS, I have to admit that a higher dot pitch on the iPhone and iPad is pretty to look at. So I ordered the new 15” “Retina” model as soon as the Apple Store went live with it, and got it seven days later. I’ve been primarily using Parallels as my VM of choice from OS X for about five years. They recently put out an update for compatibility with the display, though I’m not entirely sure what that means. I figured there would have to be some messing around to get the VM to look right. The combination that seems to work best is this: Set the display in OS X to “more room,” which is roughly the equivalent of the 1920x1200 that my 17” did. It’s not as stunning as the text at the default 1440x900 equivalent (in OS X), but it’s still quite readable. Parallels still doesn’t entirely know what to do with the high resolution, though what it should do is somehow treat it as native. That flaw aside, I set the Windows 7 scaling to 125%, and it generally looks pretty good. It’s not really taking advantage of the display for sharpness, but hopefully that’s something that Parallels will figure out. Screen tweaking aside, I got the base model with 16 gigs of RAM, so I give the VM 8. I can boot a Windows 7 VM in 9 seconds. Nine seconds! The Windows Experience Index scores are all 7 and above, except for graphics, which are both at 6. Again, that’s in a VM. It’s hard to believe there’s something so fast in a little slim package like that. Hopefully this one gets me at least three years, like the last one.

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  • A New Home for E-Business Suite Customer Adoption Information

    - by linda.fishman.hoyle
    Phew! I made it! A new home with my name. Let's talk about E-Business Suite. So much is going on and more and more customers are upgrading and implementing the latest release. I think I will highlight in this blog entry the most recent press release we issued 2 weeks ago about our Applications Unlimited success but in the release, we name several customers who are live on E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and then have a fabulous quote from a customer who is doing great things with our product.   Here is a link to the press release To make it easy for you, I am pulling out just the E-Business Suite information Oracle E-Business Suite: Oracle® E-Business Suite Release 12.1 provides organizations of all sizes, across all industries and regions, with a global business foundation that helps them reduce costs and increase productivity through a portfolio of rapid value solutions, integrated business processes and industry-focused solutions. The latest version of the Oracle E-Business Suite was designed to help organizations make better decisions and be more competitive by providing a global or holistic view of their operations. Abu Dhabi Media Company, Agilysis, C3 Business Solutions, Chicago Public Schools, Datacard Group, Guidance Software, Leviton Manufacturing, McDonald's, MINOR International, Usana Health Sciences, Zamil Plastic Industries Ltd. and Zebra Technologies are just a few of the organizations that have deployed the latest release of the Oracle E-Business Suite to help them make better decisions and be more competitive, while lowering costs and increasing performance. Customer Speaks "Leviton Manufacturing makes a very diverse line of products including electrical devices and data center products that we sell globally. We upgraded to the latest version of the Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 to support our service business with change management, purchasing, accounts payable, and our internal IT help desk," said Bob MacTaggart, CIO of Leviton Manufacturing. "We consolidated seven Web sites that we used to host individually onto iStore. In addition, we run a site, using the Oracle E-Business Suite configurator, pricing and quoting for our sales agents to do configuration work. This site can now generate a complete sales proposal using Oracle functionality; we actually generate CAD drawings - the actual drawings themselves - based on configuration results. It used to take six to eight weeks to generate these drawings and now it's all done online in an hour to two hours by our sales agents themselves, totally self-service. It does everything they need. From our point of view that is a major business success. Not only is it a very cool, innovative application, but it also puts us about two years ahead of our competition."

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  • Understanding the value of Customer Experience & Loyalty for the Telecommunications Industry

    - by raul.goycoolea
    Worried by economic woes and market forces, especially in mature markets, communications service providers (CSPs) increasingly focus on improving customer experience. In fact, it seems difficult to find a major message by a C-level executive in the developed world that does not include something on "meeting and exceeding customers' needs". Frequently in customer satisfaction studies by prominent firms, CSPs fall short of the leadership demonstrated by other industries that take customer-centric approaches to their bottom-line strategies. Consider the following:Despite the continued impact of global economic crisis, in July 2010, Apple Computer posted record revenue and net quarterly profit. Those who attribute the results primarily to the iPhone 4 launch should note that Apple also shipped around 30% more Macintosh computers than the same period the previous year. Even sales of the iPod line increased by 8% in a highly commoditized, shrinking media player market. Finally, Apple began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of more than 3 million units. What does Apple have that the others lack? Well, some great products (and services) to be sure, but it also excels at customer service and support, marketing, and distribution, and has one of the strongest brands globally. Its products are useful, simple to use, easy to acquire and augment, high quality, and considered very cool. They also evoke such an emotional response from many of Apple's customers, which they turn up their noses at competitive products.In other words, Apple appears to have mastered virtually every aspect of customer experience and the resultant loyalty of its customer base - even in difficult financial times. Through that unwavering customer focus, Apple continues to drive its revenues and profits to new heights. Other customer loyalty leaders like Wal-Mart, Google, Toyota and Honda are also doing well by focusing on customer experience as an essential driver of profitability. Service providers should note this performance and ask themselves how they might leverage the same principles to increase their own profitability. After all, that is what customer experience and loyalty are all about: profitability.To successfully manage all the critical touch points of customer experience, CSPs must shun the one-size-fits-all approach. They can no longer afford to view customer service fundamentally as an act of altruism - which mentality dates back to the industry's civil service days, when CSPs were typically government organizations that were critical to economic development and public safety.As regulators and public officials have pushed, and continue to push, service providers to new heights of reliability - using incentives and punishments - most CSPs already have some of the fundamental building blocks of customer service in place. Yet despite that history and experience, service providers still lag other industries in providing what is seen as good customer service.As we observed in the TMF's 2009 Insights Research report, Customer Experience Management: Driving Loyalty & Profitability there has been resurgence in interest by CSPs. More and more of them have stated ambitions to catch up other industries, and they are realizing that good customer service is a powerful strategy for increasing business performance and profitability, not an act of good will.CSPs are recognizing the connection between customer experience and profitability, as demonstrated in many studies. For example, according to research by Bain & Company, a 5 percent improvement in customer retention rates can yield as much as a 75 percent increase in profits for companies across a range of industries.After decades of customer experience strategy formulation, Bain partner and business author, Frederick Reichheld, considers "would you recommend us to a friend?" as the ultimate question for a customer. How many times have you or your friends recommended an iPod, iPhone or a Mac? What do your children recommend to their peers? Their peers to them?There are certain steps service providers have to take to create more personalized relationships with their customers, as well as reduce churn and increase profitability, all while becoming leaner and more agile. First, they have to define customer experience, we define it as the result of the sum of observations, perceptions, thoughts and feelings arising from interactions and relationships between customers and their service provider(s). Virtually every customer touch point - whether directly or indirectly linked to service providers and their partners - contributes to customer perception, satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately profitability. Gaining leadership in customer experience and satisfaction will not be a simple task, as it is affected by virtually every customer-facing aspect of the service provider, and in turn impacts the service provider deeply - especially on the all-important bottom line. The scope of issues affecting customer experience is complex and dynamic.With new services, devices and applications extending the basis of customer experience to domains beyond the direct control of the service provider, it is likely to increase in complexity and dynamism.Customer loyalty = increased profitsAs stated earlier, customer experience programs are not fundamentally altruistic exercises, but a strategic means of improving competitiveness and profitability in the short and long term. Loyalty is essential to deriving long term profits from customers.Some of the earliest loyalty programs date back to the 1930s, when packaged goods companies offered embedded coupons for rewards to buyers, and eventually retail chains began offering reward programs to frequent shoppers. These programs continued for decades but were leapfrogged in the 1980s by more aggressive programs from the airlines.This movement was led by American Airlines, which launched the first full-scale loyalty marketing program of the modern era with the AAdvantage frequent flyer scheme. It was the first to reward frequent fliers with notional air miles that could be accumulated and later redeemed for free travel. Figure 1: Opportunities example of Customer loyalty driven profitOther airlines and travel providers were quick to grasp the incredible value of providing customers with an incentive to use their company exclusively. Within a few years, dozens of travel industry companies launched similar initiatives and now loyalty programs are achieving near-ubiquity in many service industries, especially those in which it is difficult to differentiate offerings by product attributes.The belief is that increased profitability will result from customer retention efforts because:•    The cost of acquisition occurs only at the beginning of a relationship: the longer the relationship, the lower the amortized cost;•    Account maintenance costs decline as a percentage of total costs, or as a percentage of revenue, over the lifetime of the relationship;•    Long term customers tend to be less inclined to switch and less price sensitive which can result in stable unit sales volume and increases in dollar-sales volume;•    Long term customers may initiate word-of-mouth promotions and referrals, which cost the company nothing and arguably are the most effective form of advertising;•    Long-term customers are more likely to buy ancillary products and higher margin supplemental products;•    Long term customers tend to be satisfied with their relationship with the company and are less likely to switch to competitors, making market entry or competitors gaining market share difficult;•    Regular customers tend to be less expensive to service, as they are familiar with the processes involved, require less 'education', and are consistent in their order placement;•    Increased customer retention and loyalty makes the employees' jobs easier and more satisfying. In turn, happy employees feed back into higher customer satisfaction in a virtuous circle. Figure 2: The virtuous circle of customer loyaltyFigure 2 represents a high-level example of a virtuous cycle driven by customer satisfaction and loyalty, depicting how superiority in product and service offerings, as well as strong customer support by competent employees, lead to higher sales and ultimately profitability. As stated above, this is not a new concept, but succeeding with it is difficult. It has eluded many a company driven to achieve profitability goals. Of course, for this circle to be virtuous, the customer relationship(s) must be profitable.Trying to maintain the loyalty of unprofitable customers is not a viable business strategy. It is, therefore, important that marketers can assess the profitability of each customer (or customer segment), and either improve or terminate relationships that are not profitable. This means each customer's 'relationship costs' must be understood and compared to their 'relationship revenue'. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the most commonly used metric here, as it is generally accepted as a representation of exactly how much each customer is worth in monetary terms, and therefore a determinant of exactly how much a service provider should be willing to spend to acquire or retain that customer.CLV models make several simplifying assumptions and often involve the following inputs:•    Churn rate represents the percentage of customers who end their relationship with a company in a given period;•    Retention rate is calculated by subtracting the churn rate percentage from 100;•    Period/horizon equates to the units of time into which a customer relationship can be divided for analysis. A year is the most commonly used period for this purpose. Customer lifetime value is a multi-period calculation, often projecting three to seven years into the future. In practice, analysis beyond this point is viewed as too speculative to be reliable. The model horizon is the number of periods used in the calculation;•    Periodic revenue is the amount of revenue collected from a customer in a given period (though this is often extended across multiple periods into the future to understand lifetime value), such as usage revenue, revenues anticipated from cross and upselling, and often some weighting for referrals by a loyal customer to others; •    Retention cost describes the amount of money the service provider must spend, in a given period, to retain an existing customer. Again, this is often forecast across multiple periods. Retention costs include customer support, billing, promotional incentives and so on;•    Discount rate means the cost of capital used to discount future revenue from a customer. Discounting is an advanced method used in more sophisticated CLV calculations;•    Profit margin is the projected profit as a percentage of revenue for the period. This may be reflected as a percentage of gross or net profit. Again, this is generally projected across the model horizon to understand lifetime value.A strong focus on managing these inputs can help service providers realize stronger customer relationships and profits, but there are some obstacles to overcome in achieving accurate calculations of CLV, such as the complexity of allocating costs across the customer base. There are many costs that serve all customers which must be properly allocated across the base, and often a simple proportional allocation across the whole base or a segment may not accurately reflect the true cost of serving that customer;  This is made worse by the fragmentation of customer information, which is likely to be across a variety of product or operations groups, and may be difficult to aggregate due to different representations.In addition, there is the complexity of account relationships and structures to take into consideration. Complex account structures may not be understood or properly represented. For example, a profitable customer may have a separate account for a second home or another family member, which may appear to be unprofitable. If the service provider cannot relate the two accounts, CLV is not properly represented and any resultant cancellation of the apparently unprofitable account may result in the customer churning from the profitable one.In summary, if service providers are to realize strong customer relationships and their attendant profits, there must be a very strong focus on data management. This needs to be coupled with analytics that help business managers and those who work in customer-facing functions offer highly personalized solutions to customers, while maintaining profitability for the service provider. It's clear that acquiring new customers is expensive. Advertising costs, campaign management expenses, promotional service pricing and discounting, and equipment subsidies make a serious dent in a new customer's profitability. That is especially true given the rising subsidies for Smartphone users, which service providers hope will result in greater profits from profits from data services profitability in future.  The situation is made worse by falling prices and greater competition in mature markets.Customer acquisition through industry consolidation isn't cheap either. A North American service provider spent about $2,000 per subscriber in its acquisition of a smaller company earlier this year. While this has allowed it to leapfrog to become the largest mobile service provider in the country, it required a total investment of more than $28 billion (including assumption of the acquiree's debt).While many operating cost synergies clearly made this deal more attractive to the acquiring company, this is certainly an expensive way to acquire customers: the cost per subscriber in this case is not out of line with the prices others have paid for acquisitions.While growth by acquisition certainly increases overall revenues, it often creates tremendous challenges for profitability. Organic growth through increased customer loyalty and retention is a more effective driver of profit, as well as a stronger predictor of future profitability. Service providers, especially those in mature markets, are increasingly recognizing this and taking steps toward a creating a more personalized, flexible and satisfying experience for their customers.In summary, the clearest path to profitability for companies in virtually all industries is through customer retention and maximization of lifetime value. Service providers would do well to recognize this and focus attention on profitable customer relationships.

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  • O the Agony - Merging Scrum and Waterfall

    - by John K. Hines
    If there's nothing else to know about Scrum (and Agile in general), it's this: You can't force a team to adopt Agile methods.  In all cases, the team must want to change. Well, sure, you could force a team.  But it's going to be a horrible, painful process with a huge learning curve made even steeper by the lack of training and motivation on behalf of the team.  On a completely unrelated note, I've spent the past three months working on a team that was formed by merging three separate teams.  One of these teams has been adopting and using Agile practices like Scrum since 2007, the other was in continuous bug fix mode, releasing on average one new piece of software per year using semi-Waterfall methods.  In particular, one senior developer on the Waterfall team didn't see anything in Agile but overhead. Fast forward through three months of tension, passive resistance, process pushback, and you have seven people who want to change and one who explicitly doesn't.  It took two things to make Scrum happen: The team manager took a class called "Agile Software Development using Scrum". The team lead explained the point of Agile was to reduce the workload of the senior developer, with another senior developer and the manager present. It's incredible to me how a single person can strongly influence the direction of an entire team.  Let alone if Scrum comes down as some managerial decree onto a functioning team who have no idea what it is.  Pity the fool. On the bright side, I am now an expert at drawing Visio process flows.  And I have some gentle advice for any first-level managers: If you preside over a team process change, it's beneficial to start the discussion on how the team will work as early as possible.  You should have a vision for this and guide the discussion, even if decisions are weeks away.  Don't always root for the underdog.  It's been my experience that managers who see themselves as compassionate and caring spend a great deal of time understanding and advocating for the one person on the team who feels left out.  Remember that by focusing on this one person you risk alienating the rest of the team, allow tension to build, and delay the resolution of the problem. My way would have been to decree Scrum, force all of my processes on everyone else, and use the past three months ironing out the kinks.  Which takes us all the way back to point number one. Technorati tags: Scrum Scrum Process Scrum and Waterfall

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  • Culture Shmulture?

    - by steve.diamond
    I've been thinking about "Customer Experience Management" lately. Here at Oracle, we arguably have the most complete suite of applications for managing the customer experience across and in the context of multiple channels -- from marketing to loyalty to contact center to self-service to analytics offerings, and more. And stay tuned, because in coming months let's just say we'll have even more to talk about on this front. But that said............ Last weekend my wife and I stayed at one of the premiere hotel chains on the planet. I won't name them, but we all know the short list. It could have been the St. Regis or the Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons or Hyatt Park or....This stay, at this particular hotel, was simply outstanding. Within a chain known for providing "above and beyond" levels of service, this particular hotel, under this particular manager, exceeded expectations on so many fronts. For example, at the Spa we mentioned to the two attendants that my wife is seven months pregnant and that we had previously had a lot of trouble conceiving. We then went to our room. Ten minutes later we heard a knock at the door and received a plate of chocolate covered strawberries with a heartfelt note and an inspiring quote, signed by the two spa attendees. The following day we arranged to have a bellhop drive us to the beach. Although they had a pre-arranged beach shuttle service with time limits, etc., he greeted us by saying, "I'm yours for the day until 4 p.m. Whatever you want to do is fine by me, as long as it's legal!" The morning that we left we arranged to have a taxi drive us to the airport--a nearly 40 mile drive. What showed up was a private coach complete with navy blue suited driver dude. And we were charged the taxi fare price. And there were many other awesome exchanges I won't mention here, although I did email the GM of this hotel two nights ago and expressed our effusive praise and gratitude. I'd submit that this hotel chain would have a definitive advantage using even more Oracle software to manage and optimize its customer interactions (yes, they are a customer). But WITHOUT the culture--that management team--and that instillation of aligned values across all employees of exemplifying 'the golden rule,' I wonder how much technology really matters in providing a distinctively positive and memorable customer experience. Lest you think I'm alone in these pontifications, have you read Paul Greenberg's blog lately? Have you seen one of his most recent posts? Now this SPECIFIC post is NOT about customer service per se. But it is about people. So yes, please think long and hard about the technology you seek to deploy. But never forget who will be interacting with your systems, and your customers.

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  • The First Annual Crappy Code Games

    - by Testas
    SQLBits announced some super-exciting news! A tie-up with our platinum sponsor, Fusion-io. Together we'll be running a series of events called "The Crappy Code Games" where SQL Server developers will compete to write the worst-performing code and win some very cool prizes including:   •        Gold: A hands-on, high performance flying day for two at Ultimate High plus Fusion-io flight jackets•        Silver: One day racing experience at Palmer Sports where you will drive seven different high performance cars•        Bronze: Pure Tech Racing 10 person package at PTR’s F1 racing facility includes FI tees, food and drinks. …plus iPods, Windows Mobile phones, X-box 360s, t-shirts and much more. There will be two qualifying events in Manchester on March 17th and London on March 31st, and the third qualifier as well as the grand finale will be held in the evening of Thursday April 7th at SQLBits. And if that isn’t cool enough, Fusion-io's Chief Scientist Steve Wozniak (yes, that Steve Wozniak, tech industry legend and co-founder of Apple) will be on hand in Brighton to hand out the prizes! If you'd like to take part you'll need to register, and since places are limited we recommend you do so right away. For more details and to register, go to http://www.crappycodegames.com/ The Games: In conjunction with SQL Bits, dbA-thletes (that’s you) will compete  head-to-head in one of three separate qualifying events to be held in Manchester, London and Brighton.  Four separate SQL  rounds make up the evening’s Games, and will challenge you to write code that pushes the boundaries of SQL performance.  The four events are: ?  The High Jump: Generate the highest I/O per second ?  The 100 m dash: Cumulative highest number of I/O’s in 60 seconds ?  The SSIS-athon: Load one billion row fact table in the shortest time ?  The Marathon: Generate the highest MB per second in 60 seconds

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  • Game timings and formats

    - by topright
    There are more or less standardized TV-show/movie formats and recommended timings: 1. By the early 1960s, television companies commonly presented half-hour long "comedy" series, or one hour long "dramas." Half-hour series were mostly restricted to situation comedy or family comedy, and were usually aired with either a live or artificial laugh track. One hour dramas included genre series such as police and detective series, westerns, science fiction, and, later, serialized prime time soap operas. Programs today still overwhelmingly conform to these half-hour and one hour guidelines. Source 2. In the United States, most medical dramas are one hour long. Source 3. Traditionally serials were broadcast as fifteen minute installments each weekday in daytime slots. In 1956 As the World Turns debuted as the first half-hour soap opera. All soap operas broadcast half-hour episodes by the end of the 1960s. With increased popularity in the 1970s most soap operas expanded to an hour (Another World even expanded to ninety minutes for a short time). More than half of the serials had expanded to one hour episodes by 1980. As of 2010, six of the seven US serials air one hour episodes each weekday. Source Interesting. Are there any standards of timing in game development? Well, 5-20 minutes casual games, of course. There is even a "5-minutes-game" site. And 1-hour-gamer site. Are there 1-week, 1-year, 1-eternity game formats? Chess and Go - deep games that you can study all your life; but they are played in hour or several days (pro games). Addictive long-term online role-playing games (without win-condition) are played in monthes and, possibly, years. Replayability is an important factor to consider. It's good when game design document contains a line: "A game is designed for solving in X hours". How can it be measured before there is any prototype or demo? When you know your game format, you know your audience (and vice versa). It is practical question. Are there psychological researches about dynamic of gaming interest and involvement? And is there a correlation between game format and game genre?

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  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-04-11

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Oracle Technology Network Developer Day: MySQL - New York www.oracle.com Wednesday, May 02, 2012 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM Grand Hyatt New York 109 East 42nd Street, Grand Central Terminal New York, NY 10017 OTN Architect Day - Reston, VA - May 16 www.oracle.com The live one-day event in Reston, VA brings together architects from a broad range of disciplines and domains to share insights and expertise in the use of Oracle technologies to meet the challenges today’s solution architects regularly face. Registration is free, but seating is limited. InfoQ: Seven Secrets Every Architect Should Know www.infoq.com Frank Buschmann’s secrets: User Tasks-based Design, Be Minimalist, Ensure Visibility of Domain Concepts, Use Uncertainty as a Driver, Design Between Things, Check Assumptions, Eat Your Own Dog Food. Roadmaps for the IT shop’s evolution | Andy Mulholland www.capgemini.com Andy Mulholland discusses "the challenge of new technology and the disruptive change it brings, together with the needs to understand and plan, or even try to gain control of end-users implementations." Drive Online Engagement with Intuitive Portals and Websites | Kellsey Ruppel blogs.oracle.com "The web presence must be able to scale to support the delivery of personalized and targeted content to thousands of site visitors without sacrificing performance," says WebCenter blogger Kellsey Ruppel. "And integration between systems becomes more important as well, as organizations strive to obtain one view of the customer culled from WCM data, CRM data and more." New Exadata Customer Cases | Javier Puerta blogs.oracle.com Javier Puerta shares links to four new customer use cases featuring details on the solutions implemented at each of these sizable companies. Invoicing: It's time to catch up! | Jesper Mol www.nl.capgemini.com Capgemini's Jesper Mol diagrams an e-invoicing solution that includes Oracle Service Bus. Using SAP Adapter with OSB 11g (PS3) | Shub Lahiri blogs.oracle.com Shub Lahiri shares a brief overview outlining the steps required to build such a simple project with Oracle Service Bus 11g and SAP Adapter for the PS3 release. Northeast Ohio Oracle Users Group 2 Day Seminar - May 14-15 - Cleveland, OH www.neooug.org More than 20 sessions over 4 tracks, featuring 18 speakers, including Oracle ACE Director Cary Millsap, Oracle ACE Director Rich Niemiec, and Oracle ACE Stewart Brand. Register before April 15 and save. Thought for the Day "Today, most software exists, not to solve a problem, but to interface with other software." — I. O. Angell

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  • My Reference for Amy Lewis

    - by Denise McInerney
    The 2013 election campaign for the PASS Board of Directors is underway. There are seven qualified candidates running this year. They all offer a wealth of experience volunteering for PASS and the SQL Server community. One of these candidates, Amy Lewis, asked me to write a reference for her to include on her candidate application. I have a lot of experience working with Amy and was pleased to provide this reference: I enthusiastically support Amy Lewis as a candidate for the PASS Board of Directors. I have known and worked with Amy in various PASS' volunteer capacities for years, starting when we were both leaders of SIGs (the precursors to the Virtual Chapters.) In that time I have seen Amy grow as a leader, taking on increasing responsibility and developing her leadership skills in the process. From the Program Committee to the BI Virtual Chapter to her local user group's SQL Saturday Amy has demonstrated a capacity to organize and lead volunteers. A successful leader delivers results, and does so in a way that encourages and empowers the people she is working with; Amy embodies this leadership style. As Director for Virtual Chapters I have most recently worked with Amy in her capacity of DW/BI VC Leader. This VC is one of our largest and most active, and Amy's leadership is a key contribution to that success. I was pleased to see that Amy was also thinking about succession and prepared other volunteers to take over the chapter leadership. Amy has shown an understanding of PASS' strategic goals and has focused her volunteer efforts to help us reach those goals. For the past couple of years we have been trying to expand PASS reach and relevance to SQL communities around the world. The VCs are a key vehicle for this expansion. Amy embraced this idea and organized the VC to engage volunteers in Europe & Australia and provide content that could reach SQL professionals in those regions. A second key strategy for PASS is expanding into the data analytics space. Again Amy rose to the occasion helping to shape the program for our first Business Analytics Conference and leveraging the BI VC to promote the event. By all measures I think Amy is prepared to serve on the Board and contribute in a positive way.

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