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

  - by kellsey.ruppel

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

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

  - by Asian Angel

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

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

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

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• The 2010 Life Insurance Conference - Washington, DC

  - by [email protected]

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

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• Mini Theater at OTN Lounge During JavaOne

  - by Tori Wieldt

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

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• Mini Theater at OTN Lounge During JavaOne

  - by Tori Wieldt

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

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

  - by Eric Nelson

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

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

  - by ultan o'broin

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

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• How Microsoft listens

  - by Stacy Vicknair

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

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• Add Bookmarks and Notes to Delicious in IE 8

  - by Asian Angel

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

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• Not Dead, Just Busy

  - by MOSSLover

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

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

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

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• Simple tips to design a Customer Journey Map

  - by Isabel F. Peñuelas

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

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• Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon

  - by T

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

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• on coding style

  - by user12607414

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

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

  - by Paradine

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

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• Refreshing imported MySQL data with MySQL for Excel

  - by Javier Rivera

  Welcome to another blog post from the MySQL for Excel Team. Today we're going to talk about a new feature included since MySQL for Excel 1.3.0, you can install the latest GA or maintenance version using the MySQL Installer or optionally you can download directly any GA or non-GA version from the MySQL Developer Zone.As some users suggested in our forums we should be maintaining the link between tables and Excel not only when editing data through the Edit MySQL Data option, but also when importing data via Import MySQL Data. Before 1.3.0 this process only provided you with an offline copy of the Table's data into Excel and you had no way to refresh that information from the DB later on. Now, with this new feature we'll show you how easy is to work with the latest available information at all times. This feature is transparent to you (it doesn't require additional steps to work as long as the users had the Create an Excel Table for the imported MySQL table data option enabled. To ensure you have this option checked, click over Advanced Options... after the Import Data dialog is displayed). The current blog post assumes you already know how to import data into excel, you could always take a look at our previous post How To - Guide to Importing Data from a MySQL Database to Excel using MySQL for Excel if you need further reference on that topic. After importing Data from a MySQL Table into Excel, you can refresh the data in 3 ways.1. Simply right click over the range of the imported data, to show the pop-up menu: Click over the Refresh button to obtain the latest copy of the data in the table. 2. Click the Refresh button on the Data ribbon: 3. Click the Refresh All button in the Data ribbon (beware this will refresh all Excel tables in the Workbook): Please take a note of a couple of details here, the first one is about the size of the table. If by the time you refresh the table new columns had been added to it, and you originally have imported all columns, the table will grow to the right. The same applies to rows, if the table has new rows and you did not limit the results , the table will grow to to the bottom of the sheet in Excel. The second detail you should take into account is this operation will overwrite any changes done to the cells after the table was originally imported or previously refreshed: Now with this new feature, imported data remains linked to the data source and is available to be updated at all times. It empowers the user to always be able to work with the latest version of the imported MySQL data. We hope you like this this new feature and give it a try! Remember that your feedback is very important for us, so drop us a message with your comments, suggestions for this or other features and follow us at our social media channels: MySQL on Windows (this) Blog: https://blogs.oracle.com/MySqlOnWindows/ MySQL for Excel forum: http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?172 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mysql YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MySQLChannel Thanks!

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• Too Few Women in IT!

  - by Yolande

  Last year, only 1% of attendees at Devoxx were women . This year, Devoxx addressed the issue in a panel entitled "Why We Should Target Women." On the panel were Kim Ross, Régina ten Bruggencate, Trisha Gee, Antonio Goncalves and Claude Falguiére. The moderator was Martijn Verburg. The discussion focused on how to attract women to programming and how to get current women programmers to be more active in the community. The panelists agreed that the IT field should not just attract more women but also men of different ethnic backgrounds. The lack of women in programming is in part a cultural issue that differs from region to region. In developed countries, very few women work as programmers whereas in Brazil and India a lot of women pursue careers in IT.  Women in developed countries perceive the field as isolating and very few young women graduate in computer science.  This perception of isolation was based in reality decades ago, but that is no longer the case today. Main ideas discussed by the panel: - Parents should encourage their daughters to play with Lego and learn programming - More organizations should target girls in high schools and young women in university to expose them to programming.  Duchess organization is planning on being more involved with young girl events and mentoring. - Women tend to be more self-critical about their skills and are intimidated by high skill requirements in job advertisements. Companies should change job advertisements to get more women to interviews. - Panelists don't recommend affirmative action because women feel favored and lose credibility. They want to be judged for their skills. - Panelists recommend acting the same way when dealing with either female or male co-workers and managers - Women need mentors (men or women) to learn to become speakers at conferences and to promote themselves better - Men should be sensitive to the fact that women are alone at work to respond to men teasing. The balance of power at work is different from a social setting. - Men also experience discrimination on the job. It is more difficult for men to take time off when their children are sick, for example. Equal valuing of parental obligations could result in equal pay for women. See also: Trisha Gee Blog - http://mechanitis.blogspot.com/ Duchess Organization - http://www.jduchess.org/

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• top tweets SOA Partner Community – June 2013

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity Oracle SOA Learn how Business Rules are used in Oracle SOA Suite. New free self-study course - Oracle Univ. #soa #oraclesoa http://pub.vitrue.com/ll9B OPITZ CONSULTING ?Wie #BPM und #SOA zusammengehören? Watch 100-Seconds-Video-Lesson by @Rolfbaer - http://ow.ly/luSjK @soacommunity Andrejus Baranovskis ?Customized BPM 11g PS6 Workspace Application http://fb.me/2ukaSBXKs Mark Nelson ?Case Management Samples Released http://wp.me/pgVeO-Lv Mark Nelson Instance Patching Demo for BPM 11.1.1.7 http://wp.me/pgVeO-Lx Simone Geib Antony Reynolds: Target Verification #oraclesoa https://blogs.oracle.com/reynolds/ OPITZ CONSULTING ?"It's all about Integration - Developing with Oracle #Cloud Services" @t_winterberg files: http://ow.ly/ljtEY #cloudworld @soacommunity Arun Pareek ?Functional Testing Business Processes In Oracle BPM Suite 11g http://wp.me/pkPu1-pc via @arrunpareek SOA Proactive Want to get started with Human Workflow? Check out the introductory video on OTN, http://pub.vitrue.com/enIL C2B2 Consulting Free tech workshop,London 6th of Jun Diagnosing Performance & Scalability Problems in Oracle SOASuite http://www.c2b2.co.uk/oracle_fusion_middleware_performance_seminar … @soacommunity Oracle BPM Must have technologies for delivering effective #CX : #BPM #Social #Mobile > #OracleBPM Whitepaper http://pub.vitrue.com/6pF6 OracleBlogs ?Introduction to Web Forms -Basic Tutorial http://ow.ly/2wQLTE OTNArchBeat ?Complete State of SOA podcast now available w/ @soacommunity @hajonormann @gschmutz @t_winterberg #industrialsoa http://pub.vitrue.com/PZFw Ronald Luttikhuizen VENNSTER Blog | Article published - Fault Handling and Prevention - Part 2 | http://blog.vennster.nl/2013/05/article-published-fault-handling-and.html … Mark Nelson ?Getting to know Maven http://wp.me/pgVeO-Lk gschmutz ?Cool! Our 2nd article has just been published: "Fault Handling and Prevention for Services in Oracle Service Bus" http://pub.vitrue.com/jMOy David Shaffer Interesting SOA Development and Delivery post on A-Team Redstack site - http://bit.ly/18oqrAI . Would be great to get others to contribute! Mark Nelson BPM PS6 video showing process lifecycle in more detail (30min) http://wp.me/pgVeO-Ko SOA Proactive ?Webcast: 'Introduction and Troubleshooting of the SOA 11g Database Adapter', May 9th. Register now at http://pub.vitrue.com/8In7 Mark Nelson ?SOA Development and Delivery http://wp.me/pgVeO-Kd Oracle BPM Manoj Das, VP Product Mangement talks about new #OracleBPM release #BPM #processmanagement http://pub.vitrue.com/FV3R OTNArchBeat Podcast: The State of SOA w/ @soacommunity @hajonormann @gschmutz @t_winterberg #industrialsoa http://pub.vitrue.com/OK2M gschmutz New article series on Industrial SOA started on OTN and Service Technology Magazine: http://guidoschmutz.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/first-two-chapters-of-industrial-soa-articles-series-have-been-published-both-on-otn-and-service-technology-magazine/ … #industrialSOA Danilo Schmiedel ?Article series #industrialSOA published on OTN and Service Technology Magazine http://inside-bpm-and-soa.blogspot.de/2013/04/industrial-soa_22.html … @soacommunity @OC_WIRE SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: twitter,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Oracle Unveils Oracle Fusion Tap for the iPad

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Oracle Fusion Tap: Productivity Amplified Anywhere, Anytime Oracle today announced the availability of Oracle Fusion Tap, a native iPad application that redefines the level of productivity users can achieve while on-the-go.   Oracle Fusion Tap runs off cloud-based enterprise applications and across Oracle Application Cloud Services, requiring only one simple Apple App Store installation.   Automatically personalized to each user, Oracle Fusion Tap gives users exactly what they need at their fingertips and provides the long-sought, key functionalities to remain productive and to keep business moving, even when away from the desk.   Designed specifically for the iPad and the mobile workforce, Oracle Fusion Tap provides access with or without an Internet connection.   By grouping functional capabilities into three core areas of "connect," "analyze," and "work," users can easily and directly connect with what they need in the app, complete activities, and move on.   As organizations strive for a lean and agile workforce, Oracle Fusion Tap helps users find and make connections with the right people at the right time, obtaining answers to questions quickly and removing roadblocks faster.   Oracle Fusion Tap also provides users with secure access to actionable performance indicators and day-to-day management of their workforce and sales force automation. Supporting Quotes "Both the enterprise and technology providers must recognize the need to innovate and adapt for the increasing mobility of the workforce—not just for sales teams, but across the organization," said Carter Lusher, Research Fellow and Chief Analyst of Enterprise Applications Ecosystem, Ovum. "A mobile application that quickly and powerfully allows employees to make connections, analyze data, and complete activities at any time and wherever they may be located drives new levels of business value and enhances efficiency. Frankly, mobile access is no longer a 'nice to have' but a 'must have.'"   "The mobile workforce is a business reality, and Oracle Fusion Tap is an example of how Oracle delivers mobile and cloud innovations that fundamentally improve productivity and how we work," said Chris Leone, Senior Vice President of Application Development, Oracle. "With Oracle Fusion Tap users will have an all-in-one, easily extensible app that puts mission-critical data and colleague connection at their fingertips." Supporting Resources Oracle Fusion Tap Oracle Fusion Tap on App Store Oracle Fusion Tap YouTube Video Oracle CRM on Social Media @OracleCRM OracleCRM on Facebook OracleCRM on YouTube

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• Go Big or Go Special

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Watching Shark Tank tonight and the first presentation was by Mango Mango Preserves and it highlighted an interesting contrast in business trends today and how to capitalize on opportunities.  <Spoiler Alert> Even though every one of the sharks was raving about the product samples they tried, with two of them going for second and third servings, none of them made a deal to invest in the company.</Spoiler>  In fact, one of the sharks, Kevin O’Leary, kept ripping into the owners with statements to the effect that he thinks they are headed over a financial cliff because he felt their costs were way out of line and would be their downfall if they didn’t take action to radically cut costs. He said that he had previously owned a jams and jellies business and knew the cost ratios that you had to have to make it work.  I don’t doubt he knows exactly what he’s talking about and is 100% accurate…for doing business his way, which I’ll call “Go Big”.  But there’s a whole other way to do business today that would be ideal for these ladies to pursue. As I understand it, based on his level of success in various businesses and the fact that he is even in a position to be investing in other companies, Kevin’s approach is to go mass market (Go Big) and make hundreds of millions of dollars in sales (or something along that scale) while squeezing out every ounce of cost that you can to produce an acceptable margin.  But there is a very different way of making a very successful business these days, which is all about building a passionate and loyal community of customers that are rooting for your success and even actively trying to help you succeed by promoting your product or company (Go Special).  This capitalizes on the power of social media, niche marketing, and The Long Tail.  One of the most prolific writers about capitalizing on this trend is Seth Godin, and I hope that the founders of Mango Mango pick up a couple of his books (probably Purple Cow and Tribes would be good starts) or at least read his blog.  I think the adoration expressed by all of the sharks for the product is the biggest hint that they have a remarkable product and that they are perfect for this type of business approach. Both are completely valid business models, and it may certainly be that the scale at which Kevin O’Leary wants to conduct business where he invests his money is well beyond the long tail, but that doesn’t mean that there is not still a lot of money to be made there.  I wish them the best of luck with their endeavors!

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• Partner Webcast – Oracle Coherence Applications on WebLogic 12c Grid - 21st Nov 2013

  - by Thanos Terentes Printzios

  Oracle Coherence is the industry leading in-memory data grid solution that enables organizations to predictably scale mission-critical applications by providing fast access to frequently used data. As data volumes and customer expectations increase, driven by the “internet of things”, social, mobile, cloud and always-connected devices, so does the need to handle more data in real-time, offload over-burdened shared data services and provide availability guarantees. The latest release of Oracle Coherence 12c comes with great improvements in ease of use, integration and RASP (Reliability, Availability, Scalability, and Performance) areas. In addition it features an innovating approach to build and deploy Coherence Application as an integral part of typical JEE Enterprise Application. Coherence GAR archives and Coherence Managed Servers are now first-class citizens of all JEE applications and Oracle WebLogic domains respectively. That enables even easier development, deployment and management of complex multi-tier enterprise applications powered by data grid rich features. Oracle Coherence 12c makes your solution ready for the future of big data and always-on-line world. This webcast is focused on demonstrating How to create a Coherence Application using Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 12.1.2.1.1 (Kepler release). How to package the application in form of GAR archive inside the EAR deployable application. How to deploy the application to multi-tier WebLogic clusters. How to define and configure the WebLogic domain for the tiered clusters hosting both data grid and client JEE applications.  Finally we will expose the data in grid to external systems using REST services and create a simple web interface to the underlying data using Oracle ADF Faces components. Join us on this technology webcast, to find out more about how Oracle Cloud Application Frameworks brings together the key industry leading technologies of Oracle Coherence and Weblogic 12c, delivering next-generation applications. Agenda: Introduction to Oracle Coherence What's new in 12c release POF annotations Live Events Elastic Data (Flash storage support) Managed Coherence Servers for Oracle WebLogic Coherence Applications (Grid Archive) Live Demonstration Creating and configuring Coherence Servers forming the data tier cluster Creating a simple Coherence Grid Application in Eclipse Adding REST support and creating simple ADF Faces client application Deploying the grid and client applications to separate tiers in WebLogic topology HA capabilities of the data tier Summary - 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 partner.imc-AT-beehiveonline.oracle-DOT-com Stay Connected Oracle Newsletters

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• Character Stats and Power

  - by Stephen Furlani

  I'm making an RPG game system and I'm having a hard time deciding on doing detailed or abstract character statistics. These statistics define the character's natural - not learned - abilities. For example: Mass Effect: 0 (None that I can see) X20 (Xtreme Dungeon Mastery): 1 "STAT" Diablo: 4 "Strength, Magic, Dexterity, Vitality" Pendragon: 5 "SIZ, STR, DEX, CON, APP" Dungeons & Dragons (3.x, 4e): 6 "Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Int, Cha" Fallout 3: 7 "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." RIFTS: 8 "IQ, ME, MA, PS, PP, PE, PB, Spd" Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st ed?): 12-ish "WS, BS, S, T, Ag, Int, WP, Fel, A, Mag, IP, FP" HERO (5th ed): 14 "Str, Dex, Con, Body, Int, Ego, Pre, Com, PD, ED, Spd, Rec, END, STUN" The more stats, the more complex and detailed your character becomes. This comes with a trade-off however, because you usually only have limited resources to describe your character. D&D made this infamous with the whole min/max-ing thing where strong characters were typically not also smart. But also, a character with a high Str typically also has high Con, Defenses, Hit Points/Health. Without high numbers in all those other stats, they might as well not be strong since they wouldn't hold up well in hand-to-hand combat. So things like that force trade-offs within the category of strength. So my original (now rejected) idea was to force players into deciding between offensive and defensive stats: Might / Body Dexterity / Speed Wit / Wisdom Heart Soul But this left some stat's without "opposites" (or opposites that were easily defined). I'm leaning more towards the following: Body (Physical Prowess) Mind (Mental Prowess) Heart (Social Prowess) Soul (Spiritual Prowess) This will define a character with just 4 numbers. Everything else gets based off of these numbers, which means they're pretty important. There won't, however, be ways of describing characters who are fast, but not strong or smart, but absent minded. Instead of defining the character with these numbers, they'll be detailing their character by buying skills and powers like these: Quickness Add a +2 Bonus to Body Rolls when Dodging. for a character that wants to be faster, or the following for a big, tough character Body Building Add a +2 Bonus to Body Rolls when Lifting, Pushing, or Throwing objects. [EDIT - removed subjectiveness] So my actual questions is what are some pitfalls with a small stat list and a large amount of descriptive powers? Is this more difficult to port cross-platform (pen&paper, PC) for example? Are there examples of this being done well/poorly? Thanks,

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• ACORD LOMA 2010: Building Insurance Companies in the Clouds

  - by [email protected]

  Chuck Johnston, vice president of global strategy and alliances for Oracle Insurance, participated in a featured speaking session at ACORD LOMA 2010. He provides an update on his discussions with insurers at the show and after his presentation. Every year I always make a point of walking the show floor at the ACORD LOMA technology conference to visit with colleagues and competitors, and try to get a feel for which way the industry will move over the next 12 months. Insurers are looking for substance in cloud (computing), trying to mix business with pleasure (monetizing social networks), and expect differentiation through commodity (Software as a Service). The disconnect at this show is that most vendors are still struggling with creating a clear path from Facebook to customer intimacy, SaaS to core cost savings and clouds to ubiquitous presence. Vendors need to find new ways to help insurers find the real value in these potentially disruptive technologies by understanding the changes coming to the insurance business and how these new technologies impact the new insurance business. Oracle's approach to understanding the evolving insurance industry comes from a discussion with our customers in our Insurance CIO Council, where one of our customers suggested we buy an insurance company to really understand our customers. We have decided to do the next best thing and build our own model of an insurance company, Alamere Insurance, that uses the latest technologies to transform its own business. Alamere will never issue an actual policy, but it does give us a framework to consider the impacts of changes in the insurance landscape and how Oracle technology meets the challenge or needs to evolve to help our customers be successful. In preparing for my talk at the conference using Alamere as my organizing theme, I found myself reading actuarial memoranda on CSO table changes and articles on underwriting theory that really made me think about my customer's problems first and foremost, and then how Oracle technology can provide answers. As much as I prefer techno-thrillers and sci-fi novels to actuarial papers for plane reading, I got very excited about the idea of putting myself back in the customer shoes I haven't worn in a decade, and really looking at how Oracle can power the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise. Talking to customers and industry people after the session, the idea of Alamere seemed to excite people and I got a lot of suggestions as to what lines of business we should model and where we should focus first on technology uptake. One customer said to a colleague that Oracle's attempt to "share their pain" was unique among vendors. More about Alamere, and the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise next time. Chuck Johnston is vice president of global strategy and alliances for Oracle Insurance.

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Ferrous Resources do Brasil S.A.

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryFerrous Resources do Brasil S.A. (Ferrous) is a startup company whose core business is the exploration, prospection, exploitation, and commercialization of iron ore. They wanted to create an effective, secure and scalable document management system to support the company’s new iron ore exploration operations in Brazil. Ferrous worked with the Oracle Partner 2D Tecnologia to implement a centralized document management system using  Oracle WebCenter Content. The single repository hold almost 220,000 files with an expected to growth to 8 million files in the next two years.  The solution has reduced  financial audit reporting from two weeks to only four days. Company OverviewFounded in 2007, Ferrous Resources do Brasil S.A. (Ferrous) is a startup company whose core business is the exploration, prospection, exploitation, and commercialization of iron ore. Ferrous intends to become one of the five largest iron ore mining companies in the world within the next few years.  Business ChallengesFerrous wanted to create an effective, secure and scalable document management system to support the company’s new iron ore exploration operations in Brazil. Solution DeployedFerrous worked with the Oracle Partner 2D Tecnologia to implement a centralized document management system using  Oracle WebCenter Content. They consolidated all company documents into a single repository to hold almost 220,000 files, including iron-ore project layout and pictures for a repository that is expected to grow to 8 million files in the next two years. Business Results Gained access to reports on individual files of pictures, project layouts, text files, spreadsheets, and slides–enabling the company to find out who opened and altered each  file and when, as well as to access previous versions Enabled investors and board of directors abroad to access all company documents via a Web portal, something that was previously achieved only through e-mails or CD file transfers Enabled the company to consolidate all files, which were mostly disseminated in pen drives and desktops, so that they are now available to more than 500 system users, including investors, lawyers, partners, and 320 in-company users Reduced time to search specific documents, saving several days in financial audit reporting, an activity that previously took two weeks and now requires only four days  “With Oracle WebCenter Content, we managed to organize, control, and protect the company’s files since the beginning of operations and, as a consequence, can offer rapid and transparent access to all company documents.” Frederico Samartini, Business Performance Manager, Ferrous Resources do Brasil S.A. Additional Information Ferrous Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content

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