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  • It&rsquo;s About You: Tell Microsoft How They&rsquo;re Doing!

    - by juanlarios
    Every fall and spring, a survey goes out to a few hundred thousand IT folk in Canada asking what they think of Microsoft as a company. The information they get from this survey helps them understand what problems and issues you’re facing and how they can do better. The team at Microsoft Canada takes the input they get from this survey very seriously. Now I don’t know who of you will get the survey and who won’t but if you do find an email in your inbox from "Microsoft Feedback” with an email address of “ [email protected] ” and a subject line “Help Microsoft Focus on Customers and Partners” from now until April 13th — it’s not a hoax or phishing email. Please open it and take a few minutes to tell them what you think. This is your chance to get your voice heard: If they’re doing well, feel free to pile on the kudos (they love positive feedback!) and if you see areas they can improve, please point them out so they can make adjustments (they also love constructive criticism!). The Microsoft team would like to thank you for all your feedback in the past — to those of you who have filled out the survey and sent them emails. Thank you to all who engage with them in so many different ways through events, the blogs, online and in person. You are why they do what they do and they feel lucky to work with such a great community! One last thing - even if you don’t get the survey you can always give the team feedback by emailing us directly through the Microsoft Canada IT Pro Feedback email address . They want to make sure they are serving you in the best possible way. Tell them what you want more of. What should they do less of or stop altogether? How can they help? Do you want more cowbell ? Let them know through the survey or the email alias. They love hearing from you!

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  • Making a full-screen animation on Android? Should I use OPENGL?

    - by Roger Travis
    Say I need to make several full-screen animation that would consist of about 500+ frames each, similar to the TalkingTom app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.outfit7.talkingtom2free ). Animation should be playing at a reasonable speed - supposedly not less, then 20fps - and pictures should be of a reasonable quality, not overly compressed. What method do you think should I use? So far I tried: storing each frame as a compressed JPEG before animation starts, loading each frame into a byteArray as the animation plays, decode corresponding byteArray into a bitmap and draw it on a surface view. Problem - speed is too low, usually about 5-10 FPS. I have thought of two other options. turning all animations into one movie file... but I guess there might be problems with starting, pausing and seeking to the exactly right frame... what do you think? another option I thought about was using OPENGL ( while I never worked with it before ), to play animation frame by frame. What do you think, would opengl be able to handle it? Thanks!

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  • Partner Webcast - Extend Your Application Reach to Mobile Devices. The Fusion Way!

    - by Thanos
    Mobile access to enterprise applications is fast becoming a standard part of corporate life. Such applications increase organizational efficiency because mobile devices are more readily at hand than their desktop counterparts. However, the speed with which mobile platforms are evolving creates challenges as enterprises define their mobile strategies. Extending Oracle Enterprise and Fusion Applications to mobile devices comes natural with Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Mobile, which provides all the necessary tools, services, and infrastructure to protect against technology shifts. Oracle ADF Mobile, part of Oracle ADF - the strategic, standards based framework for Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware, is an HTML5 and Java mobile development framework that enables developers to build and extend enterprise applications for iOS and Android from a single code base. Based on a hybrid mobile architecture, ADF Mobile supports access to native device services, enables offline applications and protects enterprise investments from future technology shifts. Oracle ADF Mobile is part of Oracle ADF, the strategic, standards based framework for Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Join us to find out more about Oracle ADF Mobile and how to extend your applications to tablets & mobiles building the next generation mobile applications. Agenda: Enterprise Challenges & Mobile Computing Oracle ADF Mobile Features & Benefits Visual and Declarative Development Develop Once and Deploy Java Technology & Runtime Architecture Mobile Optimized User Experience Device Services Offline Support Authentication & Security Live Demonstration Q&A Delivery Format This FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web. Registrations received less than 24hours prior to start time may not receive confirmation to attend. Duration: 1 hour Register Now! For any questions please contact us at [email protected] Visit our ISV Migration Center blog Or Follow us @oracleimc to learn more on Oracle Technologies, upcoming partner webcasts and events. Existing content available YouTube - SlideShare - Oracle Mix.

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  • Partner Webcast - Is your Application Ready? Prove it with the Oracle Exastack Program

    - by Thanos
    At Oracle we design Engineered Systems that are pre-integrated to reduce the cost and complexity of IT infrastructures while increasing productivity and performance. Oracle innovates and optimizes performance at every IT layer to simplify business operations, drive down costs and accelerate business innovation.As the Engineered System foundation platform, Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic, run all of Oracle Cloud's services across a range of global data centers, delivering extreme performance, massive scalability, and fault tolerance that has no single point of failure.The Oracle Exastack Program enables you as an ISV to leverage Oracle's scalable, integrated infrastructure to test, tune and optimize your applications for high performance. By getting Exastack Ready and Exastack Optimized, your applications get formal recognition from Oracle and additional visibility, while you as an ISV receive additional set of OPN benefits. Don't miss this opportunity to learn more about how you can optimize your applications to run faster and more reliably leveraging Oracle Exastack, but also become more competitive letting everybody know you are ready. Agenda: Oracle Engineered Systems Strategy OPN Exastack Program Benefits & Objectives Value for You Oracle is resourced for your success How to Apply –Demo Next Steps & Useful contacts Delivery FormatThis FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web. Registrations received less than 24hours prior to start time may not receive confirmation to attend. Thursday 06 December 2012, 10.00 CET (GMT+1) Duration: 1 hour Register Now! " height="6"> For any questions please contact us at [email protected] our ISV Migration Center blog Or Follow us @oracleimc to learn more on Oracle Technologies, upcoming partner webcasts and events. Existing content available YouTube - SlideShare - Oracle Mix

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  • Blank New Tab Quick-Fix for Google Chrome

    - by Asian Angel
    If you have other browsers that you use set to “about:blank” for new tabs then you probably feel rather frustrated with Google Chrome’s default New Tab Page. The Blank New Tab extension is the perfect solution to that problem. Before Unless you have a “speed dial/special page” extension installed you are stuck with the default new tab page in Chrome every single time you open a new tab. What if you do not like the default new tab page or “speed dial/special page” setups? After If you are someone who prefers to have a blank page as a new tab then you will love this extension. Once you have it installed you can click to your heart’s content on the “New Tab Button” and see nothing but blank goodness. Sometimes less is more… Note: There are no options to bother with. Conclusion If you prefer a blank page when opening a new tab then the Blank New Tab extension is just what you have been waiting for. Links Download the Blank New Tab extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Subscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickAccess Wolfram Alpha Search in Google ChromeFind Similar Websites in Google ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserView Maps and Get Directions in Google Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Need Help with Your Home Network? Awesome Lyrics Finder for Winamp & Windows Media Player Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images

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  • Improving the performance of a db import process

    - by mmr
    I have a program in Microsoft Access that processes text and also inserts data in MySQL database. This operation takes 30 mins or less to finished. I translated it into VB.NET and it takes 2 hours to finish. The program goes like this: A text file contains individual swipe from a corresponding person, it contains their id, time and date of swipe in the machine, and an indicator if it is a time-in or a time-out. I process this text, segregate the information and insert the time-in and time-out per row. I also check if there are double occurrences in the database. After checking, I simply merge the time-in and time-out of the corresponding person into one row only. This process takes 2 hours to finished in VB.NET considering I have a table to compare which contains 600,000+ rows. Now, I read in the internet that python is best in text processing, i already have a test but i doubt in database operation. What do you think is the best programming language for this kind of problem? How can I speed up the process? My first idea was using python instead of VB.NET, but since people here telling me here on SO that this most probably won't help I am searching for different solutions.

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  • Hardening network with sysctl settings made Wi-fi downloading speed extremely slow

    - by Rohit Bansal
    I just followed up following steps to harden network security The /etc/sysctl.conf file contain all the sysctl settings. Prevent source routing of incoming packets and log malformed IP's enter the following in a terminal window: sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf Edit the `/etc/sysctl.conf` file and un-comment or add the following lines : # IP Spoofing protection net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter = 1 net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter = 1 # Ignore ICMP broadcast requests net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts = 1 # Disable source packet routing net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_source_route = 0 net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_source_route = 0 net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_source_route = 0 net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_source_route = 0 # Ignore send redirects net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects = 0 net.ipv4.conf.default.send_redirects = 0 # Block SYN attacks net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1 net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog = 2048 net.ipv4.tcp_synack_retries = 2 net.ipv4.tcp_syn_retries = 5 # Log Martians net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians = 1 net.ipv4.icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses = 1 # Ignore ICMP redirects net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_redirects = 0 net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects = 0 net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_redirects = 0 net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_redirects = 0 # Ignore Directed pings net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all = 1 To reload sysctl with the latest changes, enter: sudo sysctl -p But, after applying the changes I found "Wi-fi" downloading speed and terminal downloading speed extremely slow (less than 1KB/s) however surfing speed through browser was good. But, using direct ethernet cable was giving a good speed. Then, I reverted back the above changes and things fall back in line once again.... Could you please let me know what possibly in above script is affecting such behaviour [and why] ? How could I still maintain hardening of network security without disturbing Wi-fi downloading speed ?

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  • PARTNER WEBCAST (June 4): Enhance Customer experience with Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle with Cisco

    - by Zeynep Koch
    Live Webcast: Enhance Customer experience with Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle with Cisco A webcast for resellers who sell Oracle workloads to customers  Wednesday, June 4, 2014, 8:00 AM PDT /11 AM EDT  Register today Nimble Storage SmartStack™ for Oracle provides pre-validated reference architecture that speed deployments and minimize risk.  IT and Oracle administrators and architects realize the importance of underlying Operating System, Virtualization software, and Storage in maintaining services levels and staying in budget.  In this webinar, you will learn how Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle provides a converged infrastructure for Oracle database online transaction processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP) environments with Oracle Linux and Oracle VM. SmartStack delivers the performance and reliability needed for deploying Oracle on a single symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) server or if you are running Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) on multiple nodes. Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle with Cisco can help you provide: Improved Oracle performance Stress-free data protection and DR of your Oracle database Higher availability and uptime Accelerate Oracle development and improve testing All for dramatically less than what you’re paying now Presenters: Doan Nguyen, Senior Principal Product Marketing Director, Oracle Vanessa Scott , Business Development Manager, Cisco Ibrahim “Ibby” Rahmani, Product and Solutions Marketing, Nimble Storage Join this event to learn from our Nimble Storage and Oracle experts on how to optimize your customers' Oracle environments. Register today to learn more!

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  • PARTNER WEBCAST (June 4): Enhance Customer experience with Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle with Cisco

    - by Zeynep Koch
    Live Webcast: Enhance Customer experience with Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle with Cisco A webcast for resellers who sell Oracle workloads to customers  Wednesday, June 4, 2014, 8:00 AM PDT /11 AM EDT  Register today Nimble Storage SmartStack™ for Oracle provides pre-validated reference architecture that speed deployments and minimize risk.  IT and Oracle administrators and architects realize the importance of underlying Operating System, Virtualization software, and Storage in maintaining services levels and staying in budget.  In this webinar, you will learn how Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle provides a converged infrastructure for Oracle database online transaction processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP) environments with Oracle Linux and Oracle VM. SmartStack delivers the performance and reliability needed for deploying Oracle on a single symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) server or if you are running Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) on multiple nodes. Nimble Storage SmartStack for Oracle with Cisco can help you provide: Improved Oracle performance Stress-free data protection and DR of your Oracle database Higher availability and uptime Accelerate Oracle development and improve testing All for dramatically less than what you’re paying now Presenters: Doan Nguyen, Senior Principal Product Marketing Director, Oracle Vanessa Scott , Business Development Manager, Cisco Ibrahim “Ibby” Rahmani, Product and Solutions Marketing, Nimble Storage Join this event to learn from our Nimble Storage and Oracle experts on how to optimize your customers' Oracle environments. Register today to learn more!

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  • Inheritance versus Composition in a business application

    - by ProfK
    I have a training management and tracking system, with a high level structure as follows: We have a Role1, e.g. Manager, Shift-boss, miner, etc. and a Candidate, training for that Role. The role has a list of courses and their subjects the candidate needs to complete to qualify for the role. Candidate has a TrainingHistory attribute, containing the courses and subjects they have completed, their results, and the date completed. Now I see it as a TrainingHistoryCourse is-a Course, extended to add DateCompleted etc. but something is nagging at me to rather use something like a TrainingHistoryRecord that has-a Course. How can I further analyse this to determine which pattern to use? Then, a Role has a list of RoleTask definitions that the Candidate must be observed practising, and a Candidate has a history of RoleTaskObservation objects recording their performance at these tasks. This is very similar to the course/subject requirement and history pattern for the candidate, except for one less hierarchical level, but, a RoleTaskObservation clearly does not have an is-a relationship with RoleTask, unless I block my nose and rather use ObservedRoleTask. I would prefer to use the same pattern for both subject/course and task/observation structures, but I think that would force me to adopt a composition pattern for TrainingHistoryCourse. What is the wisdom here? Always inherit where possible and validated by a solid is-a association, or always favour composition wherever possible? 1 Client specified this to be called JobTitle, but he isn't writing the app, and a JobTitle is only one attribute of a Role. Authorization roles are handled by the DevExpress framework and its customization hooks, so there would be very little little confusion between a business Role in my domain objects and an authorization role in lower level, framework code.

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  • cannot delete IPv6 default gateway

    - by NulledPointer
    The commands below should be pretty self-explanatory. Please note that the route for which i get failure is obtained by RA and has very less expiry ( e Flag in UDAe). @vm:~$ ip -6 route 2001:4860:4001:800::1002 via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 2001:4860:4001:800::1003 via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 2001:4860:4001:800::1005 via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 2001:4860:4001:803::100e via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 fd00:ffff:ffff:fff1::/64 dev eth1 proto kernel metric 256 expires 2592300sec fe80::/64 dev eth1 proto kernel metric 256 default via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1 default via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto kernel metric 1024 expires 1776sec @vm:~$ @vm:~$ @vm:~$ @vm:~$ sudo route -6 delete default gw fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 @vm:~$ ip -6 route 2001:4860:4001:800::1002 via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 2001:4860:4001:800::1003 via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 2001:4860:4001:800::1005 via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 2001:4860:4001:803::100e via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 fd00:ffff:ffff:fff1::/64 dev eth1 proto kernel metric 256 expires 2592279sec fe80::/64 dev eth1 proto kernel metric 256 default via fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 proto kernel metric 1024 expires 1755sec @vm:~$ @vm:~$ @vm:~$ sudo route -6 delete ::/0 gw fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 dev eth1 SIOCDELRT: No such process @vm:~$ @vm:~$ @vm:~$ route -n6 Kernel IPv6 routing table Destination Next Hop Flag Met Ref Use If 2001:4860:4001:800::1002/128 fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 UG 1024 0 0 eth1 2001:4860:4001:800::1003/128 fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 UG 1024 0 0 eth1 2001:4860:4001:800::1005/128 fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 UG 1024 0 0 eth1 2001:4860:4001:803::100e/128 fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 UG 1024 0 0 eth1 fd00:ffff:ffff:fff1::/64 :: UAe 256 0 0 eth1 fe80::/64 :: U 256 0 0 eth1 ::/0 fe80::20c:29ff:fe87:f9e7 UGDAe 1024 0 0 eth1 ::/0 :: !n -1 1 349 lo ::1/128 :: Un 0 1 3 lo fd00:ffff:ffff:fff1:a00:27ff:fe7f:7245/128 :: Un 0 1 0 lo fd00:ffff:ffff:fff1:fce8:ce07:b9ea:389f/128 :: Un 0 1 0 lo fe80::a00:27ff:fe7f:7245/128 :: Un 0 1 0 lo ff00::/8 :: U 256 0 0 eth1 ::/0 :: !n -1 1 349 lo @vm:~$ UPDATE: Another question is whats the use of link local address as the default route?

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  • Ubuntu 11.10 - How can i stop self-feedback-loop, coming directly from my microphone to speaker?

    - by YumYumYum
    I have microphone audio, which comes instantly to my speaker. I am using default pulseaudio and alsa from the package. I have tried to setup: 1) PA /etc/pulse/default.pa /etc/asound.conf $ ls analog-input-aux.conf analog-input-fm.conf analog-input-mic.conf analog-input-tvtuner.conf analog-output-desktop-speaker.conf analog-output-mono.conf analog-input.conf analog-input-front-mic.conf analog-input-mic.conf.common analog-input-video.conf analog-output-headphones-2.conf analog-output-speaker.conf analog-input.conf.common analog-input-internal-mic.conf analog-input-mic-line.conf analog-output.conf analog-output-headphones.conf iec958-stereo-output.conf analog-input-dock-mic.conf analog-input-linein.conf analog-input-rear-mic.conf analog-output.conf.common analog-output-lfe-on-mono.conf 2) ALSA in lsmod to make sure no loopback modules are loaded etc but none is resolving it. And there are many less information available on this. Has anyone similar problem solution in Ubuntu 11.10? (this problem i have resolved in Ubuntu 11.04 by replacing the default pulseaudio version to latest source from git, but while trying the same in Ubuntu 11.10 does not worked). Any tips please?

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  • Enterprise Architecture IS (should not be) Arbitrary

    - by pat.shepherd
    I took a look at a blog entry today by Jordan Braunstein where he comments on another blog entry titled “Yes, “Enterprise Architecture is Relative BUT it is not Arbitrary.”  The blog makes some good points such as the following: Lock 10 architects in 10 separate rooms; provide them all an identical copy of the same business, technical, process, and system requirements; have them design an architecture under the same rules and perspectives; and I guarantee your result will be 10 different architectures of varying degrees. SOA Today: Enterprise Architecture IS Arbitrary Agreed, …to a degree….but less so if all 10 truly followed one of the widely accepted EA frameworks. My thinking is that EA frameworks all focus on getting the business goals/vision locked down first as the primary drivers for decisions made lower down the architecture stack.  Many people I talk to, know about frameworks such as TOGAF, FEA, etc. but seldom apply the tenants to the architecture at hand.  We all seem to want to get right into the Visio diagrams and boxes and arrows and connecting protocols and implementation details and lions and tigers and bears (Oh, my!) too early. If done properly the Business, Application and Information architectures are nailed down BEFORE any technological direction (SOA or otherwise) is set.  Those 3 layers and Governance (people and processes), IMHO, are layers that should not vary much as they have everything to do with understanding the business -- from which technological conclusions can later be drawn. I really like what he went on to say later in the post about the fact that architecture attempts to remove the amount of variance between the 10 different architect’s work.  That is the real heart of what EA is about; REMOVING THE ARBRITRARITY.

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  • 10 Reasons Why Java is the Top Embedded Platform

    - by Roger Brinkley
    With the release of Oracle ME Embedded 3.2 and Oracle Java Embedded Suite, Java is now ready to fully move into the embedded developer space, what many have called the "Internet of Things". Here are 10 reasons why Java is the top embedded platform. 1. Decouples software development from hardware development cycle Development is typically split between both hardware and software in a traditional design flow . This leads to complicated co-design and requires prototype hardware to be built. This parallel and interdependent hardware / software design process typically leads to two or more re-development phases. With Embedded Java, all specific work is carried out in software, with the (processor) hardware implementation fully decoupled. This with eliminate or at least reduces the need for re-spins of software or hardware and the original development efforts can be carried forward directly into product development and validation. 2. Development and testing can be done (mostly) using standard desktop systems through emulation Because the software and hardware are decoupled it now becomes easier to test the software long before it reaches the hardware through hardware emulation. Emulation is the ability of a program in an electronic device to imitate another program or device. In the past Java tools like the Java ME SDK and the SunSPOTs Solarium provided developers with emulation for a complete set of mobile telelphones and SunSpots. This often included network interaction or in the case of SunSPOTs radio communication. What emulation does is speed up the development cycle by refining the software development process without the need of hardware. The software is fixed, redefined, and refactored without the timely expense of hardware testing. With tools like the Java ME 3.2 SDK, Embedded Java applications can be be quickly developed on Windows based platforms. In the end of course developers should do a full set of testing on the hardware as incompatibilities between emulators and hardware will exist, but the amount of time to do this should be significantly reduced. 3. Highly productive language, APIs, runtime, and tools mean quick time to market Charles Nutter probably said it best in twitter blog when he tweeted, "Every time I see a piece of C code I need to port, my heart dies a little. Then I port it to 1/4 as much Java, and feel better." The Java environment is a very complex combination of a Java Virtual Machine, the Java Language, and it's robust APIs. Combine that with the Java ME SDK for small devices or just Netbeans for the larger devices and you have a development environment where development time is reduced significantly meaning the product can be shipped sooner. Of course this is assuming that the engineers don't get slap happy adding new features given the extra time they'll have.  4. Create high-performance, portable, secure, robust, cross-platform applications easily The latest JIT compilers for the Oracle JVM approach the speed of C/C++ code, and in some memory allocation intensive circumstances, exceed it. And specifically for the embedded devices both ME Embedded and SE Embedded have been optimized for the smaller footprints.  In portability Java uses Bytecode to make the language platform independent. This creates a write once run anywhere environment that allows you to develop on one platform and execute on others and avoids a platform vendor lock in. For security, Java achieves protection by confining a Java program to a Java execution environment and not allowing it to access other parts of computer.  In variety of systems the program must execute reliably to be robust. Finally, Oracle Java ME Embedded is a cross-industry and cross-platform product optimized in release version 3.2 for chipsets based on the ARM architectures. Similarly Oracle Java SE Embedded works on a variety of ARM V5, V6, and V7, X86 and Power Architecture Linux. 5. Java isolates your apps from language and platform variations (e.g. C/C++, kernel, libc differences) This has been a key factor in Java from day one. Developers write to Java and don't have to worry about underlying differences in the platform variations. Those platform variations are being managed by the JVM. Gone are the C/C++ problems like memory corruptions, stack overflows, and other such bugs which are extremely difficult to isolate. Of course this doesn't imply that you won't be able to get away from native code completely. There could be some situations where you have to write native code in either assembler or C/C++. But those instances should be limited. 6. Most popular embedded processors supported allowing design flexibility Java SE Embedded is now available on ARM V5, V6, and V7 along with Linux on X86 and Power Architecture platforms. Java ME Embedded is available on system based on ARM architecture SOCs with low memory footprints and a device emulation environment for x86/Windows desktop computers, integrated with the Java ME SDK 3.2. A standard binary of Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 for ARM KEIL development boards based on ARM Cortex M-3/4 (KEIL MCBSTM32F200 using ST Micro SOC STM32F207IG) will soon be available for download from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). 7. Support for key embedded features (low footprint, power mgmt., low latency, etc) All embedded devices by there very nature are constrained in some way. Economics may dictate a device with a less RAM and ROM. The CPU needs can dictate a less powerful device. Power consumption is another major resource in some embedded devices as connecting to consistent power source not always desirable or possible. For others they have to constantly on. Often many of these systems are headless (in the embedded space it's almost always Halloween).  For memory resources ,Java ME Embedded can run in environment as low as 130KB RAM/350KB ROM for a minimal, customized configuration up to 700KB RAM/1500KB ROM for the full, standard configuration. Java SE Embedded is designed for environments starting at 32MB RAM/39MB  ROM. Key functionality of embedded devices such as auto-start and recovery, flexible networking are fully supported. And while Java SE Embedded has been optimized for mid-range to high-end embedded systems, Java ME Embedded is a Java runtime stack optimized for small embedded systems. It provides a robust and flexible application platform with dedicated embedded functionality for always-on, headless (no graphics/UI), and connected devices. 8. Leverage huge Java developer ecosystem (expertise, existing code) There are over 9 million developers in world that work on Java, and while not all of them work on embedded systems, their wealth of expertise in developing applications is immense. In short, getting a java developer to work on a embedded system is pretty easy, you probably have a java developer living in your subdivsion.  Then of course there is the wealth of existing code. The Java Embedded Community on Java.net is central gathering place for embedded Java developers. Conferences like Embedded Java @ JavaOne and the a variety of hardware vendor conferences like Freescale Technlogy Forums offer an excellent opportunity for those interested in embedded systems. 9. Easily create end-to-end solutions integrated with Java back-end services In the "Internet of Things" things aren't on an island doing an single task. For instance and embedded drink dispenser doesn't just dispense a beverage, but could collect money from a credit card and also send information about current sales. Similarly, an embedded house power monitoring system doesn't just manage the power usage in a house, but can also send that data back to the power company. In both cases it isn't about the individual thing, but monitoring a collection of  things. How much power did your block, subdivsion, area of town, town, county, state, nation, world use? How many Dr Peppers were purchased from thing1, thing2, thingN? The point is that all this information can be collected and transferred securely  (and believe me that is key issue that Java fully supports) to back end services for further analysis. And what better back in service exists than a Java back in service. It's interesting to note that on larger embedded platforms that support the Java Embedded Suite some of the analysis might be done on the embedded device itself as JES has a glassfish server and Java Database as part of the installation. The result is an end to end Java solution. 10. Solutions from constrained devices to server-class systems Just take a look at some of the embedded Java systems that have already been developed and you'll see a vast range of solutions. Livescribe pen, Kindle, each and every Blu-Ray player, Cisco's Advanced VOIP phone, KronosInTouch smart time clock, EnergyICT smart metering, EDF's automated meter management, Ricoh Printers, and Stanford's automated car  are just a few of the list of embedded Java implementation that continues to grow. Conclusion Now if your a Java Developer you probably look at some of the 10 reasons and say "duh", but for the embedded developers this is should be an eye opening list. And with the release of ME Embedded 3.2 and the Java Embedded Suite the embedded developers life is now a whole lot easier. For the Java developer your employment opportunities are about to increase. For both it's a great time to start developing Java for the "Internet of Things".

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  • Adventures in Scrum: Lesson 2 - For the record

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    At SSW we have always done Agile. Recently we have started doing Scrum and we have nearly completed our first Sprint ever using Scrum. As you probably guessed from my previous post, it looks like it is going to be a “Failed Sprint”, but the Scrum Team (This includes the ScrumMaster and the Product Owner) has learned a huge amount about working in the Scrum Framework. We have been running with a “Proxy Product Owner” for the last two weeks, but a simple mistake occurred either during the “Product Planning Meeting” or the “Sprint Planning Meeting” that could have prevented this Sprint from failing. We has a heated discussion on the vision of someone not in the room which ended with the assertion that the Product Owner would be quizzed again on their vision. This did not happen and we ran with the “Proxy Product Owner’s vision for two weeks. Product Owner vision: Update Component A of Product A to Silverlight Proxy Product Owner vision: Update Product A to Silverlight Do you see the problem? Worse than that, as we had a lot of junior members of the Scrum Team and we are just feeling our way around how Scrum will work at SSW I missed implementing a fundamental rule. That’s right, it was me. It does not matter that I did not know about this rule, its on the site and I should have read it. Would a police officer let you off if you did not know that a red light meant stop? I think not… But, what is this amazing rule I hear you shout.. Its simple, as per our rule I should have sent the following email: “ Dear Proxy Product Owner, For the record, I disagree that the Product Owner wants us to ‘Update Product A to Silverlight’ as I still think that he wants us to ‘Update Component A of Product A to Silverlight’ and not the entire application. Regards Martin” - ‘For the record’ - Rules to being Software Consultants - Dealing with Clients This email should have been copied to the entire Scrum Team, which would have included the Product Owner, who would have nipped this misunderstanding in the bud and we would have had one less impediment. Technorati Tags: SSW,SSW Rules,SSW Standards,Scrum,Product Owner,ScrumMaster,Sprint,Sprint Planning Meeting,Product Planning Meeting

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  • How should code reviews be Carried Out?

    - by Graviton
    My previous question has to do with how to advance code reviews among the developers. Here I am interested in how a code review session should be carried out, so that both the reviewer and reviewed are feeling comfortable with it. I have done some code reviews before and the experience has been very unpleasant. My previous manager would come to us --on an ad hoc basis-- and tell us to explain our code to him. Since he wasn't very familiar with the code base, whenever he would ask me to explain my code, I'd find myself spending a huge amount of time explaining the most basic structure of my code. As a result, each review would last much too long, and the process would leave both of us exhausted. Once I was done explaining my work, he would continue by raising issues with it. Most of the issues he raised were cosmetic in nature ( e.g, don't use region for this code block, change the variable name from xxx to yyy even though the later makes even less sense, and so on). After trying this process for few rounds, we found the review session didn't derive much benefits for either of us, and we stopped. How would you go about making each code review a natural, enjoyable, thought stimulating, bug-fixing and mutual-learning experience? Also, how frequently you do your code reviews - as soon as the code is checked in? Do you allocate a fixed time every week to do this? What are the guidelines that you follow during your code reviews?

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  • The Red Gate and .NET Reflector Debacle

    - by Rick Strahl
    About a month ago Red Gate – the company who owns the NET Reflector tool most .NET devs use at one point or another – decided to change their business model for Reflector and take the product from free to a fully paid for license model. As a bit of history: .NET Reflector was originally created by Lutz Roeder as a free community tool to inspect .NET assemblies. Using Reflector you can examine the types in an assembly, drill into type signatures and quickly disassemble code to see how a particular method works.  In case you’ve been living under a rock and you’ve never looked at Reflector, here’s what it looks like drilled into an assembly from disk with some disassembled source code showing: Note that you get tons of information about each element in the tree, and almost all related types and members are clickable both in the list and source view so it’s extremely easy to navigate and follow the code flow even in this static assembly only view. For many year’s Lutz kept the the tool up to date and added more features gradually improving an already amazing tool and making it better. Then about two and a half years ago Red Gate bought the tool from Lutz. A lot of ruckus and noise ensued in the community back then about what would happen with the tool and… for the most part very little did. Other than the incessant update notices with prominent Red Gate promo on them life with Reflector went on. The product didn’t die and and it didn’t go commercial or to a charge model. When .NET 4.0 came out it still continued to work mostly because the .NET feature set doesn’t drastically change how types behave.  Then a month back Red Gate started making noise about a new Version Version 7 which would be commercial. No more free version - and a shit storm broke out in the community. Now normally I’m not one to be critical of companies trying to make money from a product, much less for a product that’s as incredibly useful as Reflector. There isn’t day in .NET development that goes by for me where I don’t fire up Reflector. Whether it’s for examining the innards of the .NET Framework, checking out third party code, or verifying some of my own code and resources. Even more so recently I’ve been doing a lot of Interop work with a non-.NET application that needs to access .NET components and Reflector has been immensely valuable to me (and my clients) if figuring out exact type signatures required to calling .NET components in assemblies. In short Reflector is an invaluable tool to me. Ok, so what’s the problem? Why all the fuss? Certainly the $39 Red Gate is trying to charge isn’t going to kill any developer. If there’s any tool in .NET that’s worth $39 it’s Reflector, right? Right, but that’s not the problem here. The problem is how Red Gate went about moving the product to commercial which borders on the downright bizarre. It’s almost as if somebody in management wrote a slogan: “How can we piss off the .NET community in the most painful way we can?” And that it seems Red Gate has a utterly succeeded. People are rabid, and for once I think that this outrage isn’t exactly misplaced. Take a look at the message thread that Red Gate dedicated from a link off the download page. Not only is Version 7 going to be a paid commercial tool, but the older versions of Reflector won’t be available any longer. Not only that but older versions that are already in use also will continually try to update themselves to the new paid version – which when installed will then expire unless registered properly. There have also been reports of Version 6 installs shutting themselves down and failing to work if the update is refused (I haven’t seen that myself so not sure if that’s true). In other words Red Gate is trying to make damn sure they’re getting your money if you attempt to use Reflector. There’s a lot of temptation there. Think about the millions of .NET developers out there and all of them possibly upgrading – that’s a nice chunk of change that Red Gate’s sitting on. Even with all the community backlash these guys are probably making some bank right now just because people need to get life to move on. Red Gate also put up a Feedback link on the download page – which not surprisingly is chock full with hate mail condemning the move. Oddly there’s not a single response to any of those messages by the Red Gate folks except when it concerns license questions for the full version. It puzzles me what that link serves for other yet than another complete example of failure to understand how to handle customer relations. There’s no doubt that that all of this has caused some serious outrage in the community. The sad part though is that this could have been handled so much less arrogantly and without pissing off the entire community and causing so much ill-will. People are pissed off and I have no doubt that this negative publicity will show up in the sales numbers for their other products. I certainly hope so. Stupidity ought to be painful! Why do Companies do boneheaded stuff like this? Red Gate’s original decision to buy Reflector was hotly debated but at that the time most of what would happen was mostly speculation. But I thought it was a smart move for any company that is in need of spreading its marketing message and corporate image as a vendor in the .NET space. Where else do you get to flash your corporate logo to hordes of .NET developers on a regular basis?  Exploiting that marketing with some goodwill of providing a free tool breeds positive feedback that hopefully has a good effect on the company’s visibility and the products it sells. Instead Red Gate seems to have taken exactly the opposite tack of corporate bullying to try to make a quick buck – and in the process ruined any community goodwill that might have come from providing a service community for free while still getting valuable marketing. What’s so puzzling about this boneheaded escapade is that the company doesn’t need to resort to underhanded tactics like what they are trying with Reflector 7. The tools the company makes are very good. I personally use SQL Compare, Sql Data Compare and ANTS Profiler on a regular basis and all of these tools are essential in my toolbox. They certainly work much better than the tools that are in the box with Visual Studio. Chances are that if Reflector 7 added useful features I would have been more than happy to shell out my $39 to upgrade when the time is right. It’s Expensive to give away stuff for Free At the same time, this episode shows some of the big problems that come with ‘free’ tools. A lot of organizations are realizing that giving stuff away for free is actually quite expensive and the pay back is often very intangible if any at all. Those that rely on donations or other voluntary compensation find that they amount contributed is absolutely miniscule as to not matter at all. Yet at the same time I bet most of those clamouring the loudest on that Red Gate Reflector feedback page that Reflector won’t be free anymore probably have NEVER made a donation to any open source project or free tool ever. The expectation of Free these days is just too great – which is a shame I think. There’s a lot to be said for paid software and having somebody to hold to responsible to because you gave them some money. There’s an incentive –> payback –> responsibility model that seems to be missing from free software (not all of it, but a lot of it). While there certainly are plenty of bad apples in paid software as well, money tends to be a good motivator for people to continue working and improving products. Reasons for giving away stuff are many but often it’s a naïve desire to share things when things are simple. At first it might be no problem to volunteer time and effort but as products mature the fun goes out of it, and as the reality of product maintenance kicks in developers want to get something back for the time and effort they’re putting in doing non-glamorous work. It’s then when products die or languish and this is painful for all to watch. For Red Gate however, I think there was always a pretty good payback from the Reflector acquisition in terms of marketing: Visibility and possible positioning of their products although they seemed to have mostly ignored that option. On the other hand they started this off pretty badly even 2 and a half years back when they aquired Reflector from Lutz with the same arrogant attitude that is evident in the latest episode. You really gotta wonder what folks are thinking in management – the sad part is from advance emails that were circulating, they were fully aware of the shit storm they were inciting with this and I suspect they are banking on the sheer numbers of .NET developers to still make them a tidy chunk of change from upgrades… Alternatives are coming For me personally the single license isn’t a problem, but I actually have a tool that I sell (an interop Web Service proxy generation tool) to customers and one of the things I recommend to use with has been Reflector to view assembly information and to find which Interop classes to instantiate from the non-.NET environment. It’s been nice to use Reflector for this with its small footprint and zero-configuration installation. But now with V7 becoming a paid tool that option is not going to be available anymore. Luckily it looks like the .NET community is jumping to it and trying to fill the void. Amidst the Red Gate outrage a new library called ILSpy has sprung up and providing at least some of the core functionality of Reflector with an open source library. It looks promising going forward and I suspect there will be a lot more support and interest to support this project now that Reflector has gone over to the ‘dark side’…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011

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  • Focus on Oracle Data Profiling and Data Quality 11g - 24/Fev/11

    - by Claudia Costa
    Thursday 24th February, 11am GMTOracle offers an integrated suite Data Quality software architected to discover and correct today's data quality problems and establish a platform prepared for tomorrow's yet unknown data challenges.Oracle Data Profiling provides data investigation, discovery, and profiling in support of quality, migration, integration, stewardship, and governance initiatives. It includes a broad range of features that expand upon basic profiling, including automated monitoring, business-rule validation, and trend analysis.Oracle Data Quality for Data Integrator provides cleansing, standardization, matching, address validation, location enrichment, and linking functions for global customer data and operational business data.It ensures that data adheres to established standards that are adaptable to fit each organization's specific needs. Both single - and double - byte data are processed in local languages to provide a unique and centralized view of customers, products and services.  During this in-person briefing, Data Integration Solution Specialists will be providing a technical overview and a walkthrough.Agenda Oracle Data Integration Strategy overview A focus on Oracle Data Profiling and Oracle Data Quality for Data Integrator: Oracle Data Profiling Oracle Data Quality for Data Integrator Live demo Q&A  This FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web and Conference Call. Registrations received less than 24hours prior to start time may not receive confirmation to attend.To register click here.For any questions please contact [email protected]

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  • Forget Black Friday: Today is Update Your Parents’ Browser Day

    - by The Geek
    Hopefully you aren’t reading this after a long night of sitting in the cold, fighting with other people to acquire a device that will be out of date in a month. Instead of shopping, it’s time to give the gift of less sucktacular browsers. Over at The Atlantic, they proposed that today be Update Your Parents’ Browser Day, and at How-To Geek, we couldn’t agree more, especially since many of you are probably over at your relatives right now, recovering from eating too much of their food. It’s time to upgrade your parents’ browser, and while you’re at it, make sure that they have anti-virus installed too. Want to be really awesome? Setup CCleaner to run on a schedule, and if they are using Windows XP, setup an automated defrag job. Might be a good time to setup CrossLoop or TeamViewer or some type of remote desktop application so you can easily gain control at a future date when you get that inevitable phone call. How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast!

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  • Make Your Clock Creates a Custom Clock for your Android Homescreen

    - by ETC
    If you’d like to create a custom clock face your Android homescreen Make Your Clock makes it easy to create a clock face with customized colors, font, display style, and more. You can create a clock that looks like a digital watch face, an old fashioned flip clock, a combination of digital output and date, and other variations. You can also adjust the size of the clock to anywhere between 1×1 to 4×2. Currently the app is limited to displaying the time and date, future releases are slated to include weather and lunar phases in addition to the time. Check out the video below to see the app in action: Make Your Clock [AppBrain via Yahoo!] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The Legend of Zelda – 1980s High School Style [Video] Suspended Sentence is a Free Cross-Platform Point and Click Game Build a Batman-Style Hidden Bust Switch Make Your Clock Creates a Custom Clock for your Android Homescreen Download the Anime Angels Theme for Windows 7 CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate

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  • ASP.NET 4.0- CompressionEnabled Property in session state 4.0

    - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
    Hello Guys, This blog has been quite for few days. Because i was busy with some personal and professional work both and that’s why i am not able to work on writing blog posts which i have discovered in last few days. Here is one features of asp.net 4.0 that I am going to explain. As a web developer we all know about session. Without the use of session any database driven web application is incomplete. As we all know unlike windows form web forms are state less so when user interacts with web application we need to maintain state amongst web pages and we are using session for maintaining state between web pages for each users. ASP.NET is also provide same kind of session state functionalities. ASP.Net Session state identify request coming for same user and same browser for specific session time out interval and its preserves values in session for that specific time intervals and that’s help us in maintaining state amongst web pages for a specific user. ASP.NET Session state allows us to store session in three way 1. IncProc 2. Session State Service 3. SQL Server. In SQL Server mode it will store session in SQL Server tables instead of storing it in Server Memory. ASP.NET 4.0 provides a new property called Compression Enabled that means when we store values in serialized form in SQL Server with GZip Compression and that results in better performance. For that you need to store property in web.config like following. <sessionState allowCustomSqlDatabase="true" sqlConnectionString="data source=Server;Initial Catalog=aspnetsessionstatedb" compressionEnabled="true" /> That’s it now with the use of this property you can have better performance when you are storing large amount of data in session.But still you need to decide that why you want to stored large amount of data in session because its against best practices. Technorati Tags: Session,ASP.NET 4.0

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  • Coders For Charities

    - by Robz / Fervent Coder
    Last weekend I had the opportunity to give back to the community doing what I love. As geeks we don’t usually have this opportunity. The event is called Coders 4 Charities (C4C) and it’s a grueling weekend of coding for nearly 30 hours over the weekend. When you finish you get to present to the charity and all of the other groups what you have completed. From the site: Coders For Charities is a 3-day charity event that pairs charities and local software developers. Charities often do not have the funds to implement a new website or intranet or database solution. Software developers often do not volunteer for charities because their skills do not apply. This event is the perfect marriage of these two needs; software developers volunteering their time to help charities better serve their community though the latest technology! The actual event was lined with multiple charities and about 50 developers, designers, business analysts, etc, each working with a different charity to come up with a solution that they could implement in less than 3 days. C4C provided a place and food for us so that we wouldn’t have to leave much during the time we had to implement our solution. They also provided games like Rock Band so we could get away and clear our minds for a few moments if necessary. I don’t think we made it down there to play, but the food and drinks were a huge help for us. The charity we we picked was Harvest Home. They had a need for an online intranet site where they could track membership and gardening. Over the next few days we worked on a site we could give them. Below is a screen shot with private data marked out. It was an awesome and humbling experience to be able to give back to a charity and I’m happy I was a part of it. I would definitely do it again. How often do we get to use our abilities to volunteer our time to a charity?

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  • Announcing the MOS WCI "Community"

    - by brian.harrison
    The WCI Technical Support team are please to announce the launch of the long awaited WCI Support Community on My Oracle Support (MOS) "Community". Users can navigate to this "first stop" for WebCenter Interaction information by logging on to following this link: WCI Community (Note that this requires a valid login credential to the My Oracle Support tool). In this community you'll find a product related discussion forum moderated by Oracle WebCenter Interaction support engineers, recommended tips and tricks, links to knowledge base articles and best practices for setting up and administering up your environment. We hope you'll take a minute to have a look through the community. If you have a question about WebCenter Interaction, a comment or a suggestion regarding the content, please feel free to post it to the forum and someone will respond to your request. Think of the forum here as another method to communicate directly with the WCI Technical Support team for questions and answers to simple WCI support topics. The forum is moderated by WCI Technical Support engineers directly and we hope it will help you avoid the need to log support incidents for less complex support related questions. We encourage all of our customers, both internal and external, to participate in the forums discussions, sharing information, knowledge, best practices and in the effort to help us build a vital and vibrant "home base" for WCI users on the My Oracle Support tool. Thank you for visiting! The WebCenter Interaction Support Community Moderator Team

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  • Workflow: Operate Zones

    - by Owen Allen
    The Operate Zones workflow is another of the workflow documents that we introduced recently. It follows naturally after the Deploy Oracle Solaris 11 Zones workflow that I talked about last week, so I thought I'd talk about it next. This workflow is less linear than the zone deployment workflow. It's built around this image: The left side shows you the prerequisites for zone operation: you have to deploy libraries and deploy either Oracle Solaris 10 or 11 zones - whichever type you want to manage using this workflow. Once you have the zones deployed, you can begin to operate them. If you want to associate resources with the global zone, the workflow directs you to the Exploring Your Server Pools how-to, which talks about adding global zones to server pools and associating libraries and network resources with them. Otherwise, it directs you to a set of how-tos about zone management: Managing the Configuration of a Zone, which explains how to add storage, edit zone attributes, and connect zones to networks; Lifecycle Management of Zones, which explains how to halt, shut down, boot, reboot, or delete a zone; and Migrating Zones, which explains how to move a zone to a new global zone in the same server pool. Finally, it directs you to the Update Oracle Solaris workflow when you want to update your zones, and to the Monitor and Manage Incidents workflow to learn more about monitoring your assets.

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  • Microsoft&rsquo;s new technical computing initiative

    - by Randy Walker
    I made a mental note from earlier in the year.  Microsoft literally buys computers by the truckload.  From what I understand, it’s a typical practice amongst large software vendors.  You plug a few wires in, you test it, and you instantly have mega tera tera flops (don’t hold me to that number).  Microsoft has been trying to plug away at their cloud services (named Azure).  Which, for the layman, means Microsoft runs your software on their computers, and as demand increases you can allocate more computing power on the fly. With this in mind, it doesn’t surprise me that I was recently sent an executive email concerning Microsoft’s new technical computing initiative.  I find it to be a great marketing idea with actual substance behind their real work.  From the programmer academic perspective, in college we dreamed about this type of processing power.  This has decades of computer science theory behind it. A copy of the email received.  (note that I almost deleted this email, thinking it was spam due to it’s length) We don't often think about how complex life really is. Take the relatively simple task of commuting to and from work: it is, in fact, a complicated interplay of variables such as weather, train delays, accidents, traffic patterns, road construction, etc. You can however, take steps to shorten your commute - using a good, predictive understanding of a few of these variables. In fact, you probably are already taking these inputs and instinctively building a predictive model that you act on daily to get to your destination more quickly. Now, when we apply the same method to very complex tasks, this modeling approach becomes much more challenging. Recent world events clearly demonstrated our inability to process vast amounts of information and variables that would have helped to more accurately predict the behavior of global financial markets or the occurrence and impact of a volcano eruption in Iceland. To make sense of issues like these, researchers, engineers and analysts create computer models of the almost infinite number of possible interactions in complex systems. But, they need increasingly more sophisticated computer models to better understand how the world behaves and to make fact-based predictions about the future. And, to do this, it requires a tremendous amount of computing power to process and examine the massive data deluge from cameras, digital sensors and precision instruments of all kinds. This is the key to creating more accurate and realistic models that expose the hidden meaning of data, which gives us the kind of insight we need to solve a myriad of challenges. We have made great strides in our ability to build these kinds of computer models, and yet they are still too difficult, expensive and time consuming to manage. Today, even the most complicated data-rich simulations cannot fully capture all of the intricacies and dependencies of the systems they are trying to model. That is why, across the scientific and engineering world, it is so hard to say with any certainty when or where the next volcano will erupt and what flight patterns it might affect, or to more accurately predict something like a global flu pandemic. So far, we just cannot collect, correlate and compute enough data to create an accurate forecast of the real world. But this is about to change. Innovations in technology are transforming our ability to measure, monitor and model how the world behaves. The implication for scientific research is profound, and it will transform the way we tackle global challenges like health care and climate change. It will also have a huge impact on engineering and business, delivering breakthroughs that could lead to the creation of new products, new businesses and even new industries. Because you are a subscriber to executive e-mails from Microsoft, I want you to be the first to know about a new effort focused specifically on empowering millions of the world's smartest problem solvers. Today, I am happy to introduce Microsoft's Technical Computing initiative. Our goal is to unleash the power of pervasive, accurate, real-time modeling to help people and organizations achieve their objectives and realize their potential. We are bringing together some of the brightest minds in the technical computing community across industry, academia and science at www.modelingtheworld.com to discuss trends, challenges and shared opportunities. New advances provide the foundation for tools and applications that will make technical computing more affordable and accessible where mathematical and computational principles are applied to solve practical problems. One day soon, complicated tasks like building a sophisticated computer model that would typically take a team of advanced software programmers months to build and days to run, will be accomplished in a single afternoon by a scientist, engineer or analyst working at the PC on their desktop. And as technology continues to advance, these models will become more complete and accurate in the way they represent the world. This will speed our ability to test new ideas, improve processes and advance our understanding of systems. Our technical computing initiative reflects the best of Microsoft's heritage. Ever since Bill Gates articulated the then far-fetched vision of "a computer on every desktop" in the early 1980's, Microsoft has been at the forefront of expanding the power and reach of computing to benefit the world. As someone who worked closely with Bill for many years at Microsoft, I am happy to share with you that the passion behind that vision is fully alive at Microsoft and is carried out in the creation of our new Technical Computing group. Enabling more people to make better predictions We have seen the impact of making greater computing power more available firsthand through our investments in high performance computing (HPC) over the past five years. Scientists, engineers and analysts in organizations of all sizes and sectors are finding that using distributed computational power creates societal impact, fuels scientific breakthroughs and delivers competitive advantages. For example, we have seen remarkable results from some of our current customers: Malaria strikes 300,000 to 500,000 people around the world each year. To help in the effort to eradicate malaria worldwide, scientists at Intellectual Ventures use software that simulates how the disease spreads and would respond to prevention and control methods, such as vaccines and the use of bed nets. Technical computing allows researchers to model more detailed parameters for more accurate results and receive those results in less than an hour, rather than waiting a full day. Aerospace engineering firm, a.i. solutions, Inc., needed a more powerful computing platform to keep up with the increasingly complex computational needs of its customers: NASA, the Department of Defense and other government agencies planning space flights. To meet that need, it adopted technical computing. Now, a.i. solutions can produce detailed predictions and analysis of the flight dynamics of a given spacecraft, from optimal launch times and orbit determination to attitude control and navigation, up to eight times faster. This enables them to avoid mistakes in any areas that can cause a space mission to fail and potentially result in the loss of life and millions of dollars. Western & Southern Financial Group faced the challenge of running ever larger and more complex actuarial models as its number of policyholders and products grew and regulatory requirements changed. The company chose an actuarial solution that runs on technical computing technology. The solution is easy for the company's IT staff to manage and adjust to meet business needs. The new solution helps the company reduce modeling time by up to 99 percent - letting the team fine-tune its models for more accurate product pricing and financial projections. Our Technical Computing direction Collaborating closely with partners across industry and academia, we must now extend the reach of technical computing even further to help predictive modelers and data explorers make faster, more accurate predictions. As we build the Technical Computing initiative, we will invest in three core areas: Technical computing to the cloud: Microsoft will play a leading role in bringing technical computing power to scientists, engineers and analysts through the cloud. Existing high- performance computing users will benefit from the ability to augment their on-premises systems with cloud resources that enable 'just-in-time' processing. This platform will help ensure processing resources are available whenever they are needed-reliably, consistently and quickly. Simplify parallel development: Today, computers are shipping with more processing power than ever, including multiple cores, but most modern software only uses a small amount of the available processing power. Parallel programs are extremely difficult to write, test and trouble shoot. However, a consistent model for parallel programming can help more developers unlock the tremendous power in today's modern computers and enable a new generation of technical computing. We are delivering new tools to automate and simplify writing software through parallel processing from the desktop... to the cluster... to the cloud. Develop powerful new technical computing tools and applications: We know scientists, engineers and analysts are pushing common tools (i.e., spreadsheets and databases) to the limits with complex, data-intensive models. They need easy access to more computing power and simplified tools to increase the speed of their work. We are building a platform to do this. Our development efforts will yield new, easy-to-use tools and applications that automate data acquisition, modeling, simulation, visualization, workflow and collaboration. This will allow them to spend more time on their work and less time wrestling with complicated technology. Thinking bigger There is so much left to be discovered and so many questions yet to be answered in the fascinating world around us. We believe the technical computing community will show us that we have not seen anything yet. Imagine just some of the breakthroughs this community could make possible: Better predictions to help improve the understanding of pandemics, contagion and global health trends. Climate change models that predict environmental, economic and human impact, accessible in real-time during key discussions and debates. More accurate prediction of natural disasters and their impact to develop more effective emergency response plans. With an ambitious charter in hand, this new team is ready to build on our progress to-date and execute Microsoft's technical computing vision over the months and years ahead. We will steadily invest in the right technologies, tools and talent, and work to bring together the technical computing community. I invite you to visit www.modelingtheworld.com today. We welcome your ideas and feedback. I look forward to making this journey with you and others who want to answer the world's biggest questions, discover solutions to problems that seem impossible and uncover a host of new opportunities to change the world we live in for the better. Bob

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