Search Results

Search found 4396 results on 176 pages for 'low poly'.

Page 141/176 | < Previous Page | 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148  | Next Page >

• SQL Authority News – FalafelCON 2014: 2 days with the Best Developers in the World

  - by Pinal Dave

  I love presenting at various forums on various technologies. I am extremely excited that I got invited to speak at Falafel Conference 2014 in San Francisco. I will present two technology sessions on SQL Server. If you are into web development or if you just want to attend a conference with the best of the industry speakers, this may be the right conference for you. What set apart this conference from other conference is technology presented as well as speakers. Usually one has to attend very expensive and high scale event when they have to hear good speakers. At this conference, you will find quite a many industry legends are available to present on the bleeding edge technology. Here are few of the reasons why I believe you should attend this conference: Choose from four tracks covering Web, Mobile development and testing, Sitefinity, and Automated Testing, or attend sessions from all four! Learn from the best developers and testers in the business in an intimate setting. Surround yourself with your peers and the opportunity to network Learn about the latest platforms and technologies including Kendo UI, AngularJS, ASP.NET MVC, WebAPI, and more! Here are the details for the sessions which I am going to present at Falafel Conference. Secrets of SQL Server: Database Worst Practices Abstract: Chances are you have heard, or even uttered, this expression. This demo-oriented session will show many examples where database professionals were dumbfounded by their own mistakes, and could even bring back memories of your own early DBA days. The goal of this session is to expose the small details that can be dangerous to the production environment and SQL Server as a whole, as well as talk about worst practices and how to avoid them. Shedding light on some of these perils and the tricks to avoid them may even save your current job. After attending this session, Developers will only need 60 seconds to improve performance of their database server in their SharePoint implementation. We will have a quiz during the session to keep the conversation alive. Developers will walk out with scripts and knowledge that can be applied to their servers, immediately post the session. Additionally, all attendees of the session will have access to learning material presented in the session. The Unsung Hero Abstract: Slow Running Queries are the most common problem that developers face while working with SQL Server. While it is easy to blame the SQL Server for unsatisfactory performance, however the issue often persists with the way queries have been written, and how Indexes has been set up. The session will focus on the ways of identifying problems that slow down SQL Server, and Indexing tricks to fix them. Developers will walk out with scripts and knowledge that can be applied to their servers, immediately post the session. Register Now! I have learned from the Falafel Team that they are running out of tickets and soon they will close the registration.  For next 10 days the price for the registration is only USD 149. Trust me, you can’t get such a world class training and networking opportunity at such a low price. Click to Register Here! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL

  Read the article

• Games development with a game loop that's abstracted away

  - by Davy8

  Most game development happens with a main game loop. Are there any good articles/blog posts/discussions about games without a game loop? I imagine they'd mostly be web games, but I'd be interested in hearing otherwise. (As a side note, I think it's really interesting that the concept is almost exclusively used in gaming as far as I'm aware, perhaps that may be another question.) Edit: I realize there's probably a redraw loop somewhere. I guess what I really mean is a loop that is hidden to you. Frames are something you as the developer are not concerned with as you're working on a higher level of abstraction. E.g. someLootItem.moveTo(inventory, someAnimatationType) and that will move from the loot box to your inventory using the specified animation type without the game developer having to worry about the implementation details of that animation. Maybe that's how "real" games end up working, but from reading most tutorials they seem to imply a much more granular level of control is used, but that might just be an artifact of being a tutorial. Edit2: I think most people are misunderstanding what I'm trying to ask, likely because I'm having trouble describing exactly what I'm trying to ask. After some more thinking perhaps what I'm referring to is more along the lines of what I believe is referred to as "scripting" where you're working at a very high level and having some game engine take care of the low level details. For example, take custom maps in Starcraft II or Warcraft III. Many of the "maps" have gameplay that deviates enough from the primary game that they could be considered a separate game written on the same engine. What I'm referring to then is along those lines. I may be wrong because I only dabbed in the Warcraft III editor, but as far as I remember no where in the map editor do you control the game loop, and yet you can create many different games out of it. In my mind, these are games in their own right. If you're playing DotA you don't say you're playing Warcraft III, you say you're playing DotA because that's the actual game you're playing. Such a system may impose limitations that don't exist if you're creating a game from scratch, but it greatly reduces development time because much of the "hard" work has already been done for you. Hopefully that clarifies what I'm asking. Another example of what is I mean, is when you write a web app, of course it communicates through sockets and TCP. But does the average web developer doesn't explicitly write code for connecting sockets. They just need to know about receiving a request and sending a response. There are unique scenarios where you do occasionally need to use raw sockets, but it's generally rare in web development. In a similar fashion, it's very possible to write a game without directly using the game loop, even though one is used behind the scenes. Probably not a AAA title, but there must be hundreds of smaller scale games that can and possibly are written this way. Are there any good resources on writing these "simpler" games?

  Read the article

• Is it worth to learn Experimental Languages?

  - by Xander Lamkins

  I'm a young programmer who desires to work in the field someday as a programmer. I know Java, VB.NET and C#. I want to learn a new language (as I programmer, I know that it is valuable to extend what I know - to learn languages that make you think differently). I took a look online to see what languages were common. Everybody knows C and C++ (even those muggles who know so little about computers in general), so I thought, maybe I should push for C. C and C++ are nice but they are old. Things like Haskell and Forth (etc. etc. etc.) are old and have lost their popularity. I'm scared of learning C (or even C++) for this same reason. Java is pretty old as well and is slow because it's run by the JVM and not compiled to native code. I've been a Windows developer for quite a while. I recently started using Java - but only because it was more versatile and spreadable to other places. The problem is that it doesn't look like a very usable language for these reasons: It's most used purpose is for web application and cellphone apps (specifically Android) As far as actual products made with it, the only things that come to mind are Netbeans, Eclipse (hurrah for making and IDE with the language the IDE is for - it's like making a webpage for writing HTML/CSS/Javascript), and Minecraft which happens to be fun but laggy and bipolar as far as computer spec. support. Other than that it's used for servers but heck - I don't only want to make/configure servers. The .NET languages are nice, however: People laugh if I even mention VB.NET or C# in a serious conversation. It isn't cross-platform unless you use MONO (which is still in development and has some improvements to be made). Lacks low level stuff because, like Java with the JVM, it is run/managed by the CLR. My first thought was learning something like C and then using it to springboard into C++ (just to make sure I would have a strong understanding/base), but like I said earlier, it's getting older and older by the minute. What I've Looked Into Fantom looks nice. It's like a nice middleman between my two favorite languages and even lets me publish between the two interchangeably, but, unlike what I want, it compiles to the CLR or JVM (depending on what you publish it to) instead of it being a complete compile. D also looks nice. It seems like a very usable language and from multiple sources it appears to actually be better than C/C++. I would jump right with it, but I'm still unsure of its success because it obviously isn't very mainstream at this point. There are a couple others that looked pretty nice that focused on other things such as Opa with web development and Go by GOOGLE. My Question Is it worth learning these "experimental" languages? I've read other questions that say that if you aren't constantly learning languages and open to all languages that you aren't in the right mindset for programming. I understand this and I still might not quite be getting it, but in truth, if a language isn't going to become mainstream, should I spend my time learning something else? I don't want to learn old (or any going to soon be old) programming languages. I know that many people see this as something important, *but would any of you ever actually consider (assuming you didn't already know) FORTRAN? My goal is to stay current to make sure I'm successful in the future. Disclaimer Yes, I am a young programmer, so I probably made a lot of naive statements in my question. Feel free to correct me on ANYTHING! I have to start learning somewhere so I'm sure a lot of my knowledge is sketchy enough to have caused to incorrect statements or flaws in my thinking. Please leave any feelings you have in the comments.

  Read the article

• Why Is Hibernation Still Used?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  With the increased prevalence of fast solid-state hard drives, why do we still have system hibernation? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Moses wants to know why he should use hibernate on a desktop machine: I’ve never quite understood the original purpose of the Hibernation power state in Windows. I understand how it works, what processes take place, and what happens when you boot back up from Hibernate, but I’ve never truly understood why it’s used. With today’s technology, most notably with SSDs, RAM and CPUs becoming faster and faster, a cold boot on a clean/efficient Windows installation can be pretty fast (for some people, mere seconds from pushing the power button). Standby is even faster, sometimes instantaneous. Even SATA drives from 5-6 years ago can accomplish these fast boot times. Hibernation seems pointless to me [on desktop computers] when modern technology is considered, but perhaps there are applications that I’m not considering. What was the original purpose behind hibernation, and why do people still use it? Quite a few people use hibernate, so what is Moses missing in the big picture? The Answer SuperUser contributor Vignesh4304 writes: Normally hibernate mode saves your computer’s memory, this includes for example open documents and running applications, to your hard disk and shuts down the computer, it uses zero power. Once the computer is powered back on, it will resume everything where you left off. You can use this mode if you won’t be using the laptop/desktop for an extended period of time, and you don’t want to close your documents. Simple Usage And Purpose: Save electric power and resuming of documents. In simple terms this comment serves nice e.g (i.e. you will sleep but your memories are still present). Why it’s used: Let me describe one sample scenario. Imagine your battery is low on power in your laptop, and you are working on important projects on your machine. You can switch to hibernate mode – it will result your documents being saved, and when you power on, the actual state of application gets restored. Its main usage is like an emergency shutdown with an auto-resume of your documents. MagicAndre1981 highlights the reason we use hibernate everyday: Because it saves the status of all running programs. I leave all my programs open and can resume working the next day very easily. Doing a real boot would require to start all programs again, load all the same files into those programs, get to the same place that I was at before, and put all my windows in exactly the same place. Hibernating saves a lot of work pulling these things back up again. It’s not unusual to find computers around the office here that have been hibernated day in and day out for months without an actual full system shutdown and restart. It’s enormously convenient to freeze your work space at the exact moment you stopped working and to turn right around and resume there the next morning. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

  Read the article

• How the SPARC T4 Processor Optimizes Throughput Capacity: A Case Study

  - by Ruud

  This white paper demonstrates the architected latency hiding features of Oracle’s UltraSPARC T2+ and SPARC T4 processors That is the first sentence from this technical white paper, but what does it exactly mean? Let's consider a very simple example, the computation of a = b + c. This boils down to the following (pseudo-assembler) instructions that need to be executed: load @b, r1 load @c, r2 add r1,r2,r3 store r3, @a The first two instructions load variables b and c from an address in memory (here symbolized by @b and @c respectively). These values go into registers r1 and r2. The third instruction adds the values in r1 and r2. The result goes into register r3. The fourth instruction stores the contents of r3 into the memory address symbolized by @a. If we're lucky, both b and c are in a nearby cache and the load instructions only take a few processor cycles to execute. That is the good case, but what if b or c, or both, have to come from very far away? Perhaps both of them are in the main memory and then it easily takes hundreds of cycles for the values to arrive in the registers. Meanwhile the processor is doing nothing and simply waits for the data to arrive. Actually, it does something. It burns cycles while waiting. That is a waste of time and energy. Why not use these cycles to execute instructions from another application or thread in case of a parallel program? That is exactly what latency hiding on the SPARC T-Series processors does. It is a hardware feature totally transparent to the user and application. As soon as there is a delay in the execution, the hardware uses these otherwise idle cycles to execute instructions from another process. As a result, the throughput capacity of the system improves because idle cycles are no longer wasted and therefore more jobs can be run per unit of time. This feature has been in the SPARC T-series from the beginning, so why this paper? The difference with previous publications on this topic is in the amount of detail given. How this all works under the hood is fully explained using two example programs. Starting from the assembly language instructions, it is demonstrated in what way these programs execute. To really see what is happening we go down to the processor pipeline level, where the gaps in the execution are, and show in what way these idle cycles are filled by other copies of the same program running simultaneously. Both the SPARC T4 as well as the older UltraSPARC T2+ processor are covered. You may wonder why the UltraSPARC T2+ is included. The focus of this work is on the SPARC T4 processor, but to explain the basic concept of latency hiding at this very low level, we start with the UltraSPARC T2+ processor because it is architecturally a much simpler design. From the single issue, in-order pipelines of this processor we then shift gears and cover how this all works on the much more advanced dual issue, out-of-order architecture of the T4. The analysis and performance experiments have been conducted on both processors. The results depend on the processor, but in all cases the theoretical estimates are confirmed by the experiments. If you're interested to read a lot more about this and find out how things really work under the hood, you can download a copy of the paper here. A paper like this could not have been produced without the help of several other people. I want to thank the co-author of this paper, Jared Smolens, for his very valuable contributions and our highly inspiring discussions. I'm also indebted to Thomas Nau (Ulm University, Germany), Shane Sigler and Mark Woodyard (both at Oracle) for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Karen Perkins (Perkins Technical Writing and Editing) and Rick Ramsey at Oracle were very helpful in providing editorial and publishing assistance.

  Read the article

• DATEFROMPARTS

  - by jamiet

  I recently overheard a remark by Greg Low in which he said something akin to "the most interesting parts of a new SQL Server release are the myriad of small things that are in there that make a developer's life easier" (I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember the actual quote but it was something like that). The new DATEFROMPARTS function is a classic example of that . It simply takes three integer parameters and builds a date out of them (if you have used DateSerial in Reporting Services then you'll understand). Take the following code which generates the first and last day of some given years: SELECT 2008 AS Yr INTO #Years UNION ALL SELECT 2009 UNION ALL SELECT 2010 UNION ALL SELECT 2011 UNION ALL SELECT 2012SELECT [FirstDayOfYear] = CONVERT(DATE,CONVERT(CHAR(8),((y.[Yr] * 10000) + 101))),      [LastDayOfYear] = CONVERT(DATE,CONVERT(CHAR(8),((y.[Yr] * 10000) + 1231)))FROM   #Years y here are the results: That code is pretty gnarly though with those CONVERTs in there and, worse, if the character string is constructed in a certain way then it could fail due to localisation, check this out: SET LANGUAGE french;SELECT dt,Month_Name=DATENAME(mm,dt)FROM   (       SELECT  dt = CONVERT(DATETIME,CONVERT(CHAR(4),y.[Yr]) + N'-01-02')       FROM    #Years y       )d;SET LANGUAGE us_english;SELECT dt,Month_Name=DATENAME(mm,dt)FROM   (       SELECT  dt = CONVERT(DATETIME,CONVERT(CHAR(4),y.[Yr]) + N'-01-02')       FROM    #Years y       )d; Notice how the datetime has been converted differently based on the language setting. When French, the string "2012-01-02" gets interpreted as 1st February whereas when us_english the same string is interpreted as 2nd January. Instead of all this CONVERTing nastiness we have DATEFROMPARTS: SELECT [FirstDayOfYear] = DATEFROMPARTS(y.[Yr],1,1),    [LasttDayOfYear] = DATEFROMPARTS(y.[Yr],12,31)FROM   #Years y How much nicer is that? The bad news of course is that you have to upgrade to SQL Server 2012 or migrate to SQL Azure if you want to use it, as is the way of the world! Don't forget that if you want to try this code out on SQL Azure right this second, for free, you can do so by connecting up to AdventureWorks On Azure. You don't even need to have SSMS handy - a browser that runs Silverlight will do just fine. Simply head to https://mhknbn2kdz.database.windows.net/ and use the following credentials: Database AdventureWorks2012 User sqlfamily Password sqlf@m1ly One caveat, SELECT INTO doesn't work on SQL Azure so you'll have to use this instead: DECLARE @y TABLE ( [Yr] INT);INSERT @y([Yr])SELECT 2008 AS Yr UNION ALL SELECT 2009 UNION ALL SELECT 2010 UNION ALL SELECT 2011 UNION ALL SELECT 2012;SELECT [FirstDayOfYear] = DATEFROMPARTS(y.[Yr],1,1),      [LastDayOfYear] = DATEFROMPARTS(y.[Yr],12,31)FROM @y y;SELECT [FirstDayOfYear] = CONVERT(DATE,CONVERT(CHAR(8),((y.[Yr] * 10000) + 101))),      [LastDayOfYear] = CONVERT(DATE,CONVERT(CHAR(8),((y.[Yr] * 10000) + 1231)))FROM @y y; @Jamiet

  Read the article

• RPi and Java Embedded GPIO: Big Data and Java Technology

  - by hinkmond

  Java Embedded and Big Data go hand-in-hand, especially as demonstrated by prototyping on a Raspberry Pi to show how well the Java Embedded platform can perform on a small embedded device which then becomes the proof-of-concept for industrial controllers, medical equipment, networking gear or any type of sensor-connected device generating large amounts of data. The key is a fast and reliable way to access that data using Java technology. In the previous blog posts you've seen the integration of a static electricity sensor and the Raspberry Pi through the GPIO port, then accessing that data through Java Embedded code. It's important to point out how this works and why it works well with Java code. First, the version of Linux (Debian Wheezy/Raspian) that is found on the RPi has a very convenient way to access the GPIO ports through the use of Linux OS managed file handles. This is key in avoiding terrible and complex coding using register manipulation in C code, or having to program in a less elegant and clumsy procedural scripting language such as python. Instead, using Java Embedded, allows a fast way to access those GPIO ports through those same Linux file handles. Java already has a very easy to program way to access file handles with a high degree of performance that matches direct access of those file handles with the Linux OS. Using the Java API java.io.FileWriter lets us open the same file handles that the Linux OS has for accessing the GPIO ports. Then, by first resetting the ports using the unexport and export file handles, we can initialize them for easy use in a Java app. // Open file handles to GPIO port unexport and export controls FileWriter unexportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/unexport"); FileWriter exportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/export"); ... // Reset the port unexportFile.write(gpioChannel); unexportFile.flush(); // Set the port for use exportFile.write(gpioChannel); exportFile.flush(); Then, another set of file handles can be used by the Java app to control the direction of the GPIO port by writing either "in" or "out" to the direction file handle. // Open file handle to input/output direction control of port FileWriter directionFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/gpio" + gpioChannel + "/direction"); // Set port for input directionFile.write("in"); // Or, use "out" for output directionFile.flush(); And, finally, a RandomAccessFile handle can be used with a high degree of performance on par with native C code (only milliseconds to read in data and write out data) with low overhead (unlike python) to manipulate the data going in and out on the GPIO port, while the object-oriented nature of Java programming allows for an easy way to construct complex analytic software around that data access functionality to the external world. RandomAccessFile[] raf = new RandomAccessFile[GpioChannels.length]; ... // Reset file seek pointer to read latest value of GPIO port raf[channum].seek(0); raf[channum].read(inBytes); inLine = new String(inBytes); It's Big Data from sensors and industrial/medical/networking equipment meeting complex analytical software on a small constraint device (like a Linux/ARM RPi) where Java Embedded allows you to shine as an Embedded Device Software Designer. Hinkmond

  Read the article

• More Stuff less Fluff

  - by brendonpage

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/brendonpage/archive/2013/11/08/more-stuff-less-fluff.aspxYAGNI – "You Aren't Going To Need It". This is an acronym commonly used in software development to remind developers to only write what they need. This acronym exists because software developers have gotten into the habit of writing everything they need to solve a problem and then everything they think they're going to possibly need in the future. Since we can't predict the future this results in a large portion of the code that we write never being used. That extra code causes unnecessary complexity, which makes it harder to understand and harder to modify when we inevitably have to write something that we didn't think of. I've known about YAGNI for some time now but I never really got it. The words made sense and the idea was clear but the concept never sank in. I was one of those devs who'd happily write a ton of code in the anticipation of future needs. In my mind this was an essential part of writing high quality code. I didn't realise that in doing so I was actually writing low quality code. If you are anything like me you are probably thinking "Lies and propaganda! High quality code needs to be future proof." I agree! But what makes code future proof? If we could see into the future the answer would be simple, code that allows for or meets all future requirements. Since we can't see the future the best we can do is write code that can easily adapt to future requirements, this means writing flexible code. Flexible code is: Fast to understand. Fast to add to. Fast to modify. To be flexible code has to be simple, this means only making it as complex as it needs to be to meet those 3 criteria. That is high quality code. YAGNI! The art is in deciding where to place the seams (abstractions) that will give you flexibility without making decisions about future functionality. Robert C Martin explains it very nicely, he says a good architecture allows you to defer decisions because if you can defer a decision then you have the flexibility to change it. I've recently had a YAGNI experience which brought this all into perspective. I was working on a new project which had multiple clients that connect to a server hosted in the cloud. I was tasked with adding a feature to the desktop client that would allow users to capture items that would then be saved to the cloud. My immediate thought was "Hey we have multiple clients so I should build a web service for these items, that way we can access them from other clients", so I went to work and this is what I created.  I stood back and gazed upon what I'd created with a warm fuzzy feeling. It was beautiful! Then the time came for the team to use the design I'd created for another feature with a new entity. Let's just say that they didn't get the same warm fuzzy feeling that I did when they looked at the design. After much discussion they eventually got it through to me that I'd bloated the design based on an assumption of future functionality. After much more discussion we cut the design down to the following. This design gives us future flexibility with no extra work, it is as complex as it needs to be. It has been a couple of months since this incident and we still haven't needed to access either of the entities from other clients. Using the simpler design allowed us to do more stuff with less stuff!

  Read the article

• OPN Specialized Latest News (15th November)

  - by swalker

  HELPING YOU TO SPECIALIZE WebCenter Implementation Specialist Exam Preparation Webcasts: WebCenter Content And WebCenter Portal Oracle Partner Network would like to invite you to Refresh Courses for WebCenter Content and WebCenter Portal, to help partners to prepare for the WebCenter Implementation Specialist EXAMS. This is a 3 hours intensive refresher partner-only training session, providing attendees with an overview of WebCenter Content and WebCenter Portal functions and related topics. After the refresher part you will be able to take the relevant Implementation Specialist EXAM depending on your personal focus. NOTE: This is only suitable for experienced WebCenter Content or WebCenter Portal practitioners Who should attend? Partner Consultants who want to become an Oracle WebCenter Content or a WebCenter Portal Certified Implementation Specialist or both, that will help them to differentiate themselves in front of customers and support their Companies to become Specialized. Webcast Details: Click here to read more... Specialized Partners Only! New Service to Promote Your Events The Partner Event Publisher has just been made available to all specialized partners in EMEA.  Partners now have the opportunity to publish their events to the Oracle.com/events site and spread the word on their upcoming live in-person and/or live webcast events. Click here to read more information and watch a short video demo. VADs Get Specialized Effective November 1, 2011 , VADs, with a valid Value Added Distributor Agreement will no longer be required to meet customer reference requirements outlined in the business criteria section in order to become specialized. VADs must continue meet all other business and competency criteria set forth in the applicable Knowledge Zone prior to specialization approval. New Certification Pillar Axiom 600 Storage System Your opportunity to take the Pillar Axiom 600 Storage System Essentials (1Z0-581) Exam is vailable now in beta. Pass the exam so you can become a Pillar Axiom 600 Storage Systems Implementation Specialist! Free vouchers are available for Oracle Partners! If you would like to receive a free Beta exam voucher, please send your request to [email protected] and include your name, business email address, company, and the Exam name Pillar Axiom 600 Storage System Essentials Beta exam. New Certification Available: Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing 2 Essentials (1Z0-562) is a solution designed to help you meet market windows and regulatory deadlines while enjoying a low total cost of ownership and a high return on investment. Take the exam now to become an  Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing 2 Essentials Implementation Specialists. MEASURING YOUR SUCCESS We had 1674 Specialized Partners covering 5364 Specializations. Please note that due to OPN contract renewals at any given point in time there are valid Specialized Partners and Specializations which are temporarily not captured in the total statistics. An incremental 1961 individuals were accredited as Implementation Specialists giving an EMEA cumulative total of 9598 Implementation Specialists 26 ISVs obtained one or more Ready's, for a total of 53 Ready's Don't forget! You can submit your own press releases to Oracle! Every time you achieve specialization we'd like to support you getting the message out! Press guidelines and a submission link can be found on the OPN Portal here.

  Read the article

• Construction Paper, Legos, and Architectural Modeling

  I can remember as a kid playing with construction paper and Legos to explore my imagination. Through my exploration I was able to build airplanes, footballs, guns, and more, out of paper. Additionally I could create entire cities, robots, or anything else I could image out of Legos.  These toys, I now realize were in fact tools that gave me an opportunity to explore my ideas in the physical world through the use of modeling.  My imagination was allowed to run wild as I, unknowingly at the time, made design decisions that directly affected the models I was building from the raw materials.  To prove my point further, I can remember building a paper airplane that seemed to go nowhere when I tried to throw it. So I decided to attach a paper clip to the plane before I decided to throw it the next time to test my concept that by adding more weight to the plane that it would fly better and for longer distances. The paper airplane allowed me to model my design decision through the use of creating an artifact in that I created a paper airplane that was carrying extra weight through the incorporation of the paper clip in to the design. Also, I remember using Legos to build all sorts of creations, and these creations became artifacts of my imagination. As I further and further defined my Lego creations through the process of playing I was able to create elaborate artifacts of my imagination. These artifacts represented design decision I had made in the evolution of my creation through my child like design process. In some form or fashion the artifacts I created as a kid are very similar to the artifacts that I create when I model a software architectural concept or a software design in that the process of making decisions is directly translated in to a tangible model in the form of an architectural model. Architectural models have been defined as artifacts that depict design decisions of a system’s architecture.  The act of creating architectural models is the act of architectural modeling. Furthermore, architectural modeling is the process of creating a physical model based architectural concepts and documenting these design decisions. In the process of creating models, the standard notation used is Architectural modeling notation. This notation is the primary method of capturing the essence of design decisions regarding architecture.  Modeling notations can vary based on the need and intent of a project; typically they range from natural language to a diagram based notation. Currently, Unified Markup Language (UML) is the industry standard in terms of architectural modeling notation  because allows for architectures to be defined through a series of boxes, lines, arrows and other basic symbols that encapsulate design designs in to virtual components, connectors, configurations and interfaces.  Furthermore UML allows for additional break down of models through the use of natural language as to explain each section of the model in plain English. One of the major factors in architectural modeling is to define what is to be modeled. As a basic rule of thumb, I tend to model architecture based on the complexity of systems or sub sub-systems of architecture. Another key factor is the level of detail that is actually needed for a model. For example if I am modeling a system for a CEO to view then the low level details will be omitted. In comparison, if I was modeling a system for another engineer to actually implement I would include as much detailed information as I could to help the engineer implement my design.

  Read the article

• Social Targeting: This One's Just for You

  - by Mike Stiles

  Think of social targeting in terms of the archery competition we just saw in the Olympics. If someone loaded up 5 arrows and shot them straight up into the air all at once, hoping some would land near the target, the world would have united in laughter. But sadly for hysterical YouTube video viewing, that’s not what happened. The archers sought to maximize every arrow by zeroing in on the spot that would bring them the most points. Marketers have always sought to do the same. But they can only work with the tools that are available. A firm grasp of the desired target does little good if the ad products aren’t there to deliver that target. On the social side, both Facebook and Twitter have taken steps to enhance targeting for marketers. And why not? As the demand to monetize only goes up, they’re quite motivated to leverage and deliver their incredible user bases in ways that make economic sense for advertisers. You could target keywords on Twitter with promoted accounts, and get promoted tweets into search. They would surface for your followers and some users that Twitter thought were like them. Now you can go beyond keywords and target Twitter users based on 350 interests in 25 categories. How does a user wind up in one of these categories? Twitter looks at that user’s tweets, they look at whom they follow, and they run data through some sort of Twitter secret sauce. The result is, you have a much clearer shot at Twitter users who are most likely to welcome and be responsive to your tweets. And beyond the 350 interests, you can also create custom segments that find users who resemble followers of whatever Twitter handle you give it. That means you can now use boring tweets to sell like a madman, right? Not quite. This ad product is still quality-based, meaning if you’re not putting out tweets that lead to interest and thus, engagement, that tweet will earn a low quality score and wind up costing you more under Twitter’s auction system to maintain. That means, as the old knight in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” cautions, “choose wisely” when targeting based on these interests and categories to make sure your interests truly do line up with theirs. On the Facebook side, they’re rolling out ad targeting that uses email addresses, phone numbers, game and app developers’ user ID’s, and eventually addresses for you bigger brands. Why? Because you marketers asked for it. Here you were with this amazing customer list but no way to reach those same customers should they be on Facebook. Now you can find and communicate with customers you gathered outside of social, and use Facebook to do it. Fair to say such users are a sensible target and will be responsive to your message since they’ve already bought something from you. And no you’re not giving your customer info to Facebook. They’ll use something called “hashing” to make sure you don’t see Facebook user data (beyond email, phone number, address, or user ID), and Facebook can’t see your customer data. The end result, social becomes far more workable and more valuable to marketers when it delivers on the promise that made it so exciting in the first place. That promise is the ability to move past casting wide nets to the masses and toward concentrating marketing dollars efficiently on the targets most likely to yield results.

  Read the article

• The Three-Legged Milk Stool - Why Oracle Fusion Incentive Compensation makes the difference!

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  During the London Olympics, we were exposed to dozens of athletes who worked with sports psychologists to maximize their performance. Executives often hire business psychologists to coach their teams to excellence. In the same vein, Fusion Incentive Compensation can be used to get people to change their sales behavior so we can make our numbers. But what about using incentive compensation solutions in a non-sales scenario to drive change? Recently, I was working an opportunity where a company was having a low user adoption rate for Salesforce.com, which was causing problems for them. I suggested they use Fusion Incentive Comp to change the reps' behavior. We tossed around the idea of tracking user adoption by creating a variable bonus for reps based on how well they forecasted revenues in the new system. Another thought was to reward the reps for how often they logged into the system or for the percentage of leads that became opportunities and turned into revenue. A new twist on a great product. Fusion CRM's Sweet Spot I'm excited about the sales performance management (SPM) tools in Fusion CRM. This trio of Incentive Compensation, Territory Management, and Quota Management sets us apart from the competition because Oracle is the only vendor that provides all three of these capabilities on a single tech stack, in a single application, and with a single look and feel. The niche vendors offer standalone territory or incentive compensation solutions, but then the customer has to custom build the other tools and can end up with a Frankenstein-type environment. On average, companies overpay sales commissions by three to eight percent. You calculate that number for a company the size of Oracle for one quarter and it makes a pretty air-tight financial case for using SPM tools to figure accurate commissions. Plus when sales reps get the right compensation, they can be out selling rather than spending precious time figuring out what they didn't get paid or looking for another job. And one more thing ... Oracle knows incentive comp. We have been a Gartner Market Scope leader in this space for the last five years. Our solution gets high marks because of its scalability and because of its interoperability with other technologies. And now that we're leading with Fusion, our incentive compensation offering includes the innovations that the Fusion team built, plus enhancements from the E-Business Suite Incentive Comp team. It's a case of making a good thing even better. (See product video.) The "Wedge" Apps In a number of accounts that I'm working on, there is a non-Oracle CRM system of record. That gives me the perfect opportunity to introduce the benefits of our SPM tools and to get the customer using Fusion. Then the door is wide open for the company to uptake more of Fusion CRM, especially since all the integrations they need are out of the box. I really believe that implementing this wedge of SPM tools is the ticket to taking market share away from other vendors. It allows us to insert ourselves in an environment where no other CRM solution in the market has the extending capabilities of Fusion. Not Just Your Usual Suspects Usually the stakeholders that I talk to for Territory Management are tightly aligned with the sales management team. When I sell the quota planning tool, I'm talking to finance people on the ERP side of the house who are measuring quotas and forecasting revenue. And then Incentive Comp is of most interest to the sales operations people, and generally these people roll up to either HR or the payroll department. I think of our Fusion SPM tools as a three-legged stool straddling an organization's Sales, Finance, and HR departments. So when you're prospecting for opportunities -- yes, people with a CRM perspective will be very interested -- but don't limit yourselves to that constituency. You might find stakeholders in accounting, revenue planning, or HR compensation teams. You just might discover, as I did at United Airlines, that the HR organization is spearheading the CRM project because incentive compensation is what they need ... and they're the ones with the budget. Jason Loh Global Solutions Manager, Fusion CRM Sales Planning Oracle Corporation

  Read the article

• Move on and look elsewhere, or confront the boss?

  - by Meister

  Background: I have my Associates in Applied Science (Comp/Info Tech) with a strong focus in programming, and I'm taking University classes to get my Bachelors. I was recently hired at a local company to be a Software Engineer I on a team of about 8, and I've been told they're looking to hire more. This is my first job, and I was offered what I feel to be an extremely generous starting salary ($30/hr essentially + benefits and yearly bonus). What got me hired was my passion for programming and a strong set of personal projects. Problem: I had no prior experience when I interviewed, so I didn't know exactly what to ask them about the company when I was hired. I've spotted a number of warning signs and annoyances since then, such as: Four developers when I started, with everyone talking about "Ben" or "Ryan" leaving. One engineer hired thirty days before me, one hired two weeks after me. Most of the department has been hiring a large number of people since I started. Extremely limited internet access. I understand the idea from an IT point of view, but not only is Facebook blocked, but so it Youtube, Twitter, and Pandora. I've also figured out that they block all access to non-DNS websites (http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/) and strangely enough Miranda-IM. Low cubicles. Which is fine because I like my immediate coworkers, but they put the developers with the customer service, customer training, and QA department in a huge open room. Noise, noise, noise, and people stop to chitchat all day long. Headphones only go so far. Several emails have been sent out by my boss since I started telling us programmers to not talk about non-work-related-things like Video Games at our cubicles, despite us only spending maybe five minutes every few hours doing so. Further digging tells me that this is because someone keeps complaining that the programmers are "slacking off". People are looking over my shoulder all day. I was in the Freenode webchat to get help with a programming issue, and within minutes I had an email from my boss (to all the developers) telling us that we should NOT be connected to any outside chat servers at work. Version control system from 2005 that we must access with IE and keep the Java 1.4 JRE installed to be able to use. I accidentally updated to Java 6 one day and spent the next two days fighting with my PC to undo this "problem". No source control, no comments on anything, no standards, no code review, no unit testing, no common sense. I literally found a problem in how they handle string resource translations that stems from the simple fact that they don't trim excess white spaces, leading to developers doing: getResource("Date: ") instead of: getResource("Date") + ": ", and I was told to just add the excess white spaces back to the database instead of dealing with the issue directly. Some of these things I'd like to try to understand, but I like having IRC open to talk in a few different rooms during the day and keep in touch with friends/family over IM. They don't break my concentration (not NEARLY as much as the lady from QA stopping by to talk about her son), but because people are looking over my shoulder all day as they walk by they complain when they see something that's not "programmer-looking work". I've been told by my boss and QA that I do good, fast work. I should be judged on my work output and quality, not what I have up on my screen for the five seconds you're walking by So, my question is, even though I'm just barely at my 90 days: How do you decide to move on from a job and looking elsewhere, or when you should start working with your boss to resolve these issues? Is it even possible to get the boss to work with me in many of these things? This is the only place I heard back from even though I sent out several resume's a day for several months, and this place does pay well for putting up with their many flaws, but I'm just starting to get so miserable working here already. Should I just put up with it?

  Read the article

• Call for Papers for both Devoxx UK and France now open!

  - by Yolande

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} The two conferences are taking place the last week of March 2013 with London on March 26th and 27 and Paris on March 28th and 29th. Oracle fully supports "Devoxx UK" and "Devoxx France" as a European Platinum Partner. Submit proposals and participate in both conferences since they are a two-hour train ride away from one another. The Devoxx conferences are designed “for developers by developers.” The conference committees are looking for speakers who are passionate developers unafraid to share their knowledge of Java, mobile, web and beyond. The sessions are about frameworks, tools and development with in-depth conference sessions, short practical quickies, and bird-of-a-feather discussions. Those different formats allow speakers to choose the best way to present their topics and can be mentioned during the submission process Devoxx has proven its success under Stephan Janssen, organizer of Devoxx in Belgium for the past 11 years. Devoxx has been the biggest Java conference in Europe for many years. To organize those local conferences, Stephan has enrolled the top community leaders in the UK and France. Ben Evans and Martijn Verberg are the leaders of London Java User Group (JUG) and are also known internationally for starting the Adopt-a-JSR program. Antonio Goncalves is the leader of the Paris JUG. He organized last year’s Devoxx France, which was a big success with twice the size first expected. The organizers made sure to add the local character to the conferences. "The community energy has to feel right," said Ben Evans and for that he picked an "old Victoria hall" for the venue. Those leaders are part of very dynamic Java communities in France and in the UK. France has 22 JUGs; the Paris JUG alone has 2,000 members. The UK has over 50,000 developers working in London and its surroundings; a lot of them are Java developers working in the financial industry. The conference fee is kept as low as possible to encourage those developers to attend. Devoxx promises to be crowded and sold out in advance. Make sure to submit your talks to both Devoxx UK and France before January 31st, 2013. 

  Read the article

• Teminal non-responsive on load, can't enter anything until CTRL+C

  - by Silver Light

  Hello! I have an issue with terminal in Ubuntu 10.04. When I launch it, it hangs, like this: I cannot do anything until I press CTRL+C: I cannot remember when this started. What can be wrong? Looks like teminal is loading or processing something each time it loads. How can I diagnose and solve this problem? EDIT: Here are the conents of ~/.bashrc: # ~/.bashrc: executed by bash(1) for non-login shells. # see /usr/share/doc/bash/examples/startup-files (in the package bash-doc) # for examples # If not running interactively, don't do anything [ -z "$PS1" ] && return # don't put duplicate lines in the history. See bash(1) for more options # ... or force ignoredups and ignorespace HISTCONTROL=ignoredups:ignorespace # append to the history file, don't overwrite it shopt -s histappend # for setting history length see HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE in bash(1) HISTSIZE=1000 HISTFILESIZE=2000 # check the window size after each command and, if necessary, # update the values of LINES and COLUMNS. shopt -s checkwinsize # make less more friendly for non-text input files, see lesspipe(1) [ -x /usr/bin/lesspipe ] && eval "$(SHELL=/bin/sh lesspipe)" # set variable identifying the chroot you work in (used in the prompt below) if [ -z "$debian_chroot" ] && [ -r /etc/debian_chroot ]; then debian_chroot=$(cat /etc/debian_chroot) fi # set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color) case "$TERM" in xterm-color) color_prompt=yes;; esac # uncomment for a colored prompt, if the terminal has the capability; turned # off by default to not distract the user: the focus in a terminal window # should be on the output of commands, not on the prompt #force_color_prompt=yes if [ -n "$force_color_prompt" ]; then if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then # We have color support; assume it's compliant with Ecma-48 # (ISO/IEC-6429). (Lack of such support is extremely rare, and such # a case would tend to support setf rather than setaf.) color_prompt=yes else color_prompt= fi fi if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ ' else PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ ' fi unset color_prompt force_color_prompt # If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir case "$TERM" in xterm*|rxvt*) PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1" ;; *) ;; esac # enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases if [ -x /usr/bin/dircolors ]; then test -r ~/.dircolors && eval "$(dircolors -b ~/.dircolors)" || eval "$(dircolors -b)" alias ls='ls --color=auto' #alias dir='dir --color=auto' #alias vdir='vdir --color=auto' alias grep='grep --color=auto' alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto' alias egrep='egrep --color=auto' fi # some more ls aliases alias ll='ls -alF' alias la='ls -A' alias l='ls -CF' # Add an "alert" alias for long running commands. Use like so: # sleep 10; alert alias alert='notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$(history|tail -n1|sed -e '\''s/^\s*[0-9]\+\s*//;s/[;&|]\s*alert$//'\'')"' # Alias definitions. # You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like # ~/.bash_aliases, instead of adding them here directly. # See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package. if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then . ~/.bash_aliases fi # enable programmable completion features (you don't need to enable # this, if it's already enabled in /etc/bash.bashrc and /etc/profile # sources /etc/bash.bashrc). if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ] && ! shopt -oq posix; then . /etc/bash_completion fi # Source .profile if [ -f ~/.profile ]; then . ~/.profile fi Setting -x at the beginning showed me that it tries to repeat this without stopping: +++++++++++++++++++ '[' 'complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' '!=' 'complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' ']' +++++++++++++++++++ line='complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' +++++++++++++++++++ line='complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' +++++++++++++++++++ line=' acroread gpdf xpdf' +++++++++++++++++++ list=("${list[@]}" $line) +++++++++++++++++++ read line

  Read the article

• SR Activity Summaries Via Direct Email? You Bet!

  - by PCat

  Courtesy of Ken Walker. I’m a “bottom line” kind of guy.  My friends and co-workers will tell you that I’m a “Direct Communicator” when it comes to work or my social life.  For example, if I were to come up with a fantastic new recipe for a low-fat pan fried chicken, I’d Tweet, email, or find a way to blast the recipe directly to you so that you could enjoy it immediately.  My friends would see the subject, “Awesome New Fried Chicken” and they’d click and see the recipe there before them.Others are “Indirect Communicators.”  My friend Joel is like this.  He would post the recipe in his blog, and then Tweet or email a link back to his blog with a subject, “Fried Chicken.”  Then Joel would sit back and expect his friends to read the email, AND click the link to his blog, and then read the recipe.  As a fan of the “Direct” method, I wish there was a way for me to “Opt-in” for immediate updates from Joel so I could see the recipe without having to click over to his blog to search for it.The same is true for MOS.  If you’ve ever opened a Service Request through My Oracle Support (MOS), you know that most of the communication between you and the Oracle Support Engineer with respect to the issue in the SR, is done via email.  Which type of email would you rather receive in your email account? Example1:Your SR has been updated.  Click HERE to see the update. Or Example2:Your SR has been updated.  Here is the update:  “Hi John, Oracle Development has completed the patch we’ve been waiting for!  Here’s a direct “LINK” to the patch that should resolve your issue.  Please download and install the patch via the instructions (included with the link) and let me know if it does, in fact, resolve your issue!”Example2 is available to you!  All you need to do is to “Opt-In” for the direct email updates.  The default is for the indirect update as seen in Example1.  To turn on “Service Request Details in Email” simply follow these instructions (aided by the screenshot below):1.    Log into MOS, and click on your name in the upper right corner.  Select “My Account.”2.    Make sure “My Account” is highlighted in bold on the left.3.    Turn ON, “Service Request Details in Email” That’s it!  You will now receive the SR Updates, directly in your email account without having to log into MOS, click the SR, scroll down to the updates, etc.  That’s better than Fried Chicken!  (Well; almost better....).

  Read the article

• How much is a subscriber worth?

  - by Tom Lewin

  This year at Red Gate, we’ve started providing a way to back up SQL Azure databases and Azure storage. We decided to sell this as a service, instead of a product, which means customers only pay for what they use. Unfortunately for us, it makes figuring out revenue much trickier. With a product like SQL Compare, a customer pays for it, and it’s theirs for good. Sure, we offer support and upgrades, but, fundamentally, the sale is a simple, upfront transaction: we’ve made this product, you need this product, we swap product for money and everyone is happy. With software as a service, it isn’t that easy. The money and product don’t change hands up front. Instead, we provide a service in exchange for a recurring fee. We know someone buying SQL Compare will pay us $X, but we don’t know how long service customers will stay with us, or how much they will spend. How do we find this out? We use lifetime value analysis. What is lifetime value? Lifetime value, or LTV, is how much a customer is worth to the business. For Entrepreneurs has a brilliant write up that we followed to conduct our analysis. Basically, it all boils down to this equation: LTV = ARPU x ALC To make it a bit less of an alphabet-soup and a bit more understandable, we can write it out in full: The lifetime value of a customer equals the average revenue per customer per month, times the average time a customer spends with the service Simple, right? A customer is worth the average spend times the average stay. If customers pay on average $50/month, and stay on average for ten months, then a new customer will, on average, bring in $500 over the time they are a customer! Average spend is easy to work out; it’s revenue divided by customers. The problem comes when we realise that we don’t know exactly how long a customer will stay with us. How can we figure out the average lifetime of a customer, if we only have six months’ worth of data? The answer lies in the fact that: Average Lifetime of a Customer = 1 / Churn Rate The churn rate is the percentage of customers that cancel in a month. If half of your customers cancel each month, then your average customer lifetime is two months. The problem we faced was that we didn’t have enough data to make an estimate of one month’s cancellations reliable (because barely anybody cancels)! To deal with this data problem, we can take data from the last three months instead. This means we have more data to play with. We can still use the equation above, we just need to multiply the final result by three (as we worked out how many three month periods customers stay for, and we want our answer to be in months). Now these estimates are likely to be fairly unreliable; when there’s not a lot of data it pays to be cautious with inference. That said, the numbers we have look fairly consistent, and it’s super easy to revise our estimates when new data comes in. At the very least, these numbers give us a vague idea of whether a subscription business is viable. As far as Cloud Services goes, the business looks very viable indeed, and the low cancellation rates are much more than just data points in LTV equations; they show that the product is working out great for our customers, which is exactly what we’re looking for!

  Read the article

• E-Business Suite : Role of CHUNK_SIZE in Oracle Payroll

  - by Giri Mandalika

  Different batch processes in Oracle Payroll flow have the ability to spawn multiple child processes (or threads) to complete the work in hand. The number of child processes to fork is controlled by the THREADS parameter in APPS.PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS view. THREADS parameter The default value for THREADS parameter is 1, which is fine for a single-processor system but not optimal for the modern multi-core multi-processor systems. Setting the THREADS parameter to a value equal to or less than the total number of [virtual] processors available on the system may improve the performance of payroll processing. However on the down side, since multiple child processes operate against the same set of payroll tables in HR schema, database may experience undesired consequences such as buffer busy waits and index contention, which results in giving up some of the gains achieved by using multiple child processes/threads to process the work. Couple of other action parameters, CHUNK_SIZE and CHUNK_SHUFFLE, help alleviate the database contention. eg., Set a value for THREADS parameter as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = DESIRED_VALUE WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'THREADS'; COMMIT; (I am not aware of any maximum value for THREADS parameter) CHUNK_SIZE parameter The size of each commit unit for the batch process is controlled by the CHUNK_SIZE action parameter. In other words, chunking is the act of splitting the assignment actions into commit groups of desired size represented by the CHUNK_SIZE parameter. The default value is 20, and each thread processes one chunk at a time -- which means each child process inserts or processes 20 assignment actions at any time. When multiple threads are configured, each thread picks up a chunk to process, completes the assignment actions and then picks up another chunk. This is repeated until all the chunks are exhausted. It is possible to use different chunk sizes in different batch processes. During the initial phase of processing, CHUNK_SIZE number of assignment actions are inserted into relevant table(s). When multiple child processes are inserting data at the same time into the same set of tables, as explained earlier, database may experience contention. The default value of 20 is mostly optimal in such a case. Experiment with different values for the initial phase by +/-10 for CHUNK_SIZE parameter and observe the performance impact. A larger value may make sense during the main processing phase. Again experimentation is the key in finding the suitable value for your environment. Start with a large value such as 2000 for the chunk size, then increment or decrement the size by 500 at a time until an optimal value is found. eg., Set a value for CHUNK_SIZE parameter as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = DESIRED_VALUE WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'CHUNK_SIZE'; COMMIT; CHUNK_SIZE action parameter accepts a value that is as low as 1 or as high as 16000. CHUNK SHUFFLE parameter By default, chunks of assignment actions are processed sequentially by all threads - which may not be a good thing especially given that all child processes/threads performing similar actions against the same set of tables almost at the same time. By saying not a good thing, I mean to say that the default behavior leads to contention in the database (in data blocks, for example). It is possible to relieve some of that database contention by randomizing the processing order of chunks of assignment actions. This behavior is controlled by the CHUNK SHUFFLE action parameter. Chunk processing is not randomized unless explicitly configured. eg., Set chunk shuffling as shown below. CONNECT APPS/APPS_PASSWORD UPDATE PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS SET PARAMETER_VALUE = 'Y' WHERE PARAMETER_NAME = 'CHUNK SHUFFLE'; COMMIT; Finally I recommend checking the following document out for additional details and additional pay action tunable parameters that may speed up the processing of Oracle Payroll.     My Oracle Support Doc ID: 226987.1 Oracle 11i & R12 Human Resources (HRMS) & Benefits (BEN) Tuning & System Health Checks Also experiment with different combinations of parameters and values until the right set of action parameters and values are found for your deployment.

  Read the article

• Customer owes me half my payment. Should I take ownership of his AWS account for charging? How?

  - by Cawas

  Background They paid me my first half (back in April 15th) before even we could get into an agreement. Very nice of him! Then I've finished the 2 weeks job of setting up the servers, using his AWS credentials he had just bought. I waited for another 2 weeks for everything settling up, and it was all running fine. He did what he needed with his sftp account, everyone were happy. Now, it has been almost 2 months since I've finished the job and I still didn't get the 2nd half. I must assume, it's not much money (about U$400, converted), but it would help me pay the bills at least. Heck, the Amazon bills they are paying are little less than that (for now). Measures I'm wondering how I can go to charge him now. First thought, of course, would be taking everything down and say "pay now, or be doomed". If that's not good enough, then I lost it. I have no contracts and I doubt I could get a law suit in this country for such a low value based only on emails. And I don't really want to get too agressive here - there might be a business chance in the future and I don't want to ruin it. Second though would be just changing the password. But then he probably could gain access again by some recovery means. That's where my question may mainly relay. How can I do it and not leaving any room for recovery from his side? I even got the first AWS "your account was created" mail from himself, showing me I could begin my job, back then. Lastly, do you have any other idea on what I can and what I should do in this case? Responding to Answers Please, consider reading the current answers and comments. This is not a very simple case. I've considered many, many options (including all lawful ones) before considering this ones I've listed here, and I am willing to take the loss and all that. That's not the point. The point is being practical here. I will call him again and talk about it. I will do terrorism on getting lawyers and getting contract. I am ready to go all forth while I have time and energy for it. But, in practice, there is this extra thing I can do to assure myself of the work I've done. I can basically take it back and delete everything! I'd only take his password because I can find no other way to do it within Amazon. Maybe, contacting Amazon and explaining the situation? I don't know. Give me ideas on this technical side! And thank everyone for the attention and helping me clarifying the issue so far! :)

  Read the article

• Teminal hands on load, can't enter anything until CTRL+C

  - by Silver Light

  Hello! I have an issue with terminal in Ubuntu 10.04. When I launch it, it hangs, like this: I cannot do anything until I press CTRL+C: I cannot remember when this started. What can be wrong? Looks like teminal is loading or processing something each time it loads. How can I diagnose and solve this problem? EDIT: Here are the conents of ~/.bashrc: # ~/.bashrc: executed by bash(1) for non-login shells. # see /usr/share/doc/bash/examples/startup-files (in the package bash-doc) # for examples # If not running interactively, don't do anything [ -z "$PS1" ] && return # don't put duplicate lines in the history. See bash(1) for more options # ... or force ignoredups and ignorespace HISTCONTROL=ignoredups:ignorespace # append to the history file, don't overwrite it shopt -s histappend # for setting history length see HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE in bash(1) HISTSIZE=1000 HISTFILESIZE=2000 # check the window size after each command and, if necessary, # update the values of LINES and COLUMNS. shopt -s checkwinsize # make less more friendly for non-text input files, see lesspipe(1) [ -x /usr/bin/lesspipe ] && eval "$(SHELL=/bin/sh lesspipe)" # set variable identifying the chroot you work in (used in the prompt below) if [ -z "$debian_chroot" ] && [ -r /etc/debian_chroot ]; then debian_chroot=$(cat /etc/debian_chroot) fi # set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color) case "$TERM" in xterm-color) color_prompt=yes;; esac # uncomment for a colored prompt, if the terminal has the capability; turned # off by default to not distract the user: the focus in a terminal window # should be on the output of commands, not on the prompt #force_color_prompt=yes if [ -n "$force_color_prompt" ]; then if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then # We have color support; assume it's compliant with Ecma-48 # (ISO/IEC-6429). (Lack of such support is extremely rare, and such # a case would tend to support setf rather than setaf.) color_prompt=yes else color_prompt= fi fi if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ ' else PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ ' fi unset color_prompt force_color_prompt # If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir case "$TERM" in xterm*|rxvt*) PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1" ;; *) ;; esac # enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases if [ -x /usr/bin/dircolors ]; then test -r ~/.dircolors && eval "$(dircolors -b ~/.dircolors)" || eval "$(dircolors -b)" alias ls='ls --color=auto' #alias dir='dir --color=auto' #alias vdir='vdir --color=auto' alias grep='grep --color=auto' alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto' alias egrep='egrep --color=auto' fi # some more ls aliases alias ll='ls -alF' alias la='ls -A' alias l='ls -CF' # Add an "alert" alias for long running commands. Use like so: # sleep 10; alert alias alert='notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$(history|tail -n1|sed -e '\''s/^\s*[0-9]\+\s*//;s/[;&|]\s*alert$//'\'')"' # Alias definitions. # You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like # ~/.bash_aliases, instead of adding them here directly. # See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package. if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then . ~/.bash_aliases fi # enable programmable completion features (you don't need to enable # this, if it's already enabled in /etc/bash.bashrc and /etc/profile # sources /etc/bash.bashrc). if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ] && ! shopt -oq posix; then . /etc/bash_completion fi # Source .profile if [ -f ~/.profile ]; then . ~/.profile fi Setting -x at the beginning showed me that it tries to repeat this without stopping: +++++++++++++++++++ '[' 'complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' '!=' 'complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' ']' +++++++++++++++++++ line='complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' +++++++++++++++++++ line='complete -f -X '\''!*.@(pdf|PDF)'\'' acroread gpdf xpdf' +++++++++++++++++++ line=' acroread gpdf xpdf' +++++++++++++++++++ list=("${list[@]}" $line) +++++++++++++++++++ read line

  Read the article

• Oracle at ARM TechCon

  - by Tori Wieldt

  ARM TechCon is a technical conference for hardware and software engineers, Oct. 30-Nov 1 in Santa Clara, California. Days two and three of the conference will be geared towards systems designers and software developers, those interested in building ARM processor-based modules, boards, and systems. It will cover all of the hardware and software, tools, ranging from low-power design, networking and connectivity, open source software, and security. Oracle is a sponsor of ARM TechCon, and will present three Java sessions and a hands-on-lab:  "Do You Like Coffee with Your Dessert? Java and the Raspberry Pi" - The Raspberry Pi, an ARM-powered single board computer running a full Linux distro off an SD card has caused a huge wave of interest among developers. This session looks at how Java can be used on a device such as this. Using Java SE for embedded devices and a port of JavaFX, the presentation includes a variety of demonstrations of what the Raspberry Pi is capable of. The Raspberry Pi also provides GPIO line access, and the session covers how this can be used from Java applications. Prepare to be amazed at what this tiny board can do. (Angela Caicedo, Java Evangelist) "Modernizing the Explosion of Advanced Microcontrollers with Embedded Java" - This session explains why Oracle Java ME Embedded is the right choice for building small, connected, and intelligent embedded solutions, such as industrial control applications, smart sensing, wireless connectivity, e-health, or general machine-to-machine (M2M) functionality---extending your business to new areas, driving efficiency, and reducing cost. The new Oracle Java ME Embedded product brings the benefits of Java technology to microcontroller platforms. It is a full-featured, complete, compliant software runtime with value-add features targeted to the embedded space and has the ability to interface with additional hardware components, remote manageability, and over-the-air software updates. It is accompanied by a feature-rich set of tools free of charge. (Fareed Suliman, Java Product Manager) "Embedded Java in Smart Energy and Healthcare" - This session covers embedded Java products and technologies that enable smart and connect devices in the Smart Energy and Healthcare/Medical industries. (speaker Kevin Lee) "Java SE Embedded Development on ARM Made Easy" - This Hands-on Lab aims to show that developers already familiar with the Java develop/debug/deploy lifecycle can apply those same skills to develop Java applications, using Java SE Embedded, on embedded devices. (speaker Jim Connors) In the Oracle booth #603, you can see the following demos: Industry Solutions with JavaThis exhibit consists of a number of industry solutions and how they can be powered by Java technology deployed on embedded systems.  Examples in consumer devices, home gateways, mobile health, smart energy, industrial control, and tablets all powered by applications running on the Java platform are shown.  Some of the solutions demonstrate the ability of Java to connect intelligent devices at the edge of the network to the datacenter or the cloud as a total end-to-end platform.Java in M2M with QualcommThis station will exhibit a new M2M solutions platform co-developed by Oracle and Qualcomm that enables wireless communications for embedded smart devices powered by Java, and share the types of industry solutions that are possible.  In addition, a new platform for wearable devices based on the ARM Cortex M3 platform is exhibited.Why Java for Embedded?Demonstration platforms will show how traditional development environments, tools, and Java programming skills can be used to create applications for embedded devices.  The advantages that Java provides because of  the runtime's abstraction of software from hardware, modularity and scalability, security, and application portability and manageability are shared with attendees. Drop by and see why Java is an optimal applications platform for embedded systems.

  Read the article

• Multithreading 2D gravity calculations

  - by Postman

  I'm building a space exploration game and I've currently started working on gravity ( In C# with XNA). The gravity still needs tweaking, but before I can do that, I need to address some performance issues with my physics calculations. This is using 100 objects, normally rendering 1000 of them with no physics calculations gets well over 300 FPS (which is my FPS cap), but any more than 10 or so objects brings the game (and the single thread it runs on) to its knees when doing physics calculations. I checked my thread usage and the first thread was killing itself from all the work, so I figured I just needed to do the physics calculation on another thread. However when I try to run the Gravity.cs class's Update method on another thread, even if Gravity's Update method has nothing in it, the game is still down to 2 FPS. Gravity.cs public void Update() { foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Entity> e in entityEngine.Entities) { Vector2 Force = new Vector2(); foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Entity> e2 in entityEngine.Entities) { if (e2.Key != e.Key) { float distance = Vector2.Distance(entityEngine.Entities[e.Key].Position, entityEngine.Entities[e2.Key].Position); if (distance > (entityEngine.Entities[e.Key].Texture.Width / 2 + entityEngine.Entities[e2.Key].Texture.Width / 2)) { double angle = Math.Atan2(entityEngine.Entities[e2.Key].Position.Y - entityEngine.Entities[e.Key].Position.Y, entityEngine.Entities[e2.Key].Position.X - entityEngine.Entities[e.Key].Position.X); float mult = 0.1f * (entityEngine.Entities[e.Key].Mass * entityEngine.Entities[e2.Key].Mass) / distance * distance; Vector2 VecForce = new Vector2((float)Math.Cos(angle), (float)Math.Sin(angle)); VecForce.Normalize(); Force = Vector2.Add(Force, VecForce * mult); } } } entityEngine.Entities[e.Key].Position += Force; } } Yeah, I know. It's a nested foreach loop, but I don't know how else to do the gravity calculation, and this seems to work, it's just so intensive that it needs its own thread. (Even if someone knows a super efficient way to do these calculations, I'd still like to know how I COULD do it on multiple threads instead) EntityEngine.cs (manages an instance of Gravity.cs) public class EntityEngine { public Dictionary<string, Entity> Entities = new Dictionary<string, Entity>(); public Gravity gravity; private Thread T; public EntityEngine() { gravity = new Gravity(this); } public void Update() { foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Entity> e in Entities) { Entities[e.Key].Update(); } T = new Thread(new ThreadStart(gravity.Update)); T.IsBackground = true; T.Start(); } } EntityEngine is created in Game1.cs, and its Update() method is called within Game1.cs. I need my physics calculation in Gravity.cs to run every time the game updates, in a separate thread so that the calculation doesn't slow the game down to horribly low (0-2) FPS. How would I go about making this threading work? (any suggestions for an improved Planetary Gravity system are welcome if anyone has them) I'm also not looking for a lesson in why I shouldn't use threading or the dangers of using it incorrectly, I'm looking for a straight answer on how to do it. I've already spent an hour googling this very question with little results that I understood or were helpful. I don't mean to come off rude, but it always seems hard as a programming noob to get a straight meaningful answer, I usually rather get an answer so complex I'd easily be able to solve my issue if I understood it, or someone saying why I shouldn't do what I want to do and offering no alternatives (that are helpful). Thank you for the help!

  Read the article

• Bios Memory settings and Virtualization + Ubuntu (Unofficial Answers Welcome) [closed]

  - by TardisGuy

  Attempting to optimize my (Main Windowless) Ubuntu system for my uses I will detail questions below, I understand this might be the wrong place to ask these questions. If so, my apologies and I thank you so much for your patience. Thanks to all the volenteers that have helped me learn ubuntu over the years (Since 5.10) This is a "short" list of questions I have been trying to figure out for some time. If you feel you can answer one but not another, that's already more than I could ask for. I have wrote this up in a format for easy navigation to important points Hopefully to less annoy your eyes. You're welcome :) or i'm sorry i annoy you. :( If you would be so kind, Please format answers as follows: question 1: _ _ _ _ _ or question 1-a: _ _ _ _ _ If you want to simply link me to relevant information, rather than type up something really detailed; that would be more than awesome! Memory Specific Questions Goal: Maximizing memory bandwith to better perform in Virtualization, and Large file compression. (Possible conflict?) Ganged vs Unganged "which is better?"** is relative, i know. But what about ganged vs unganged - With or without Bank/channel interleaving? a: Speculation - If i understand correctly, "channel interleaving has something to do with using both channels to read or write in a kind of "striping" pattern, as opposed to a standard half duplex operation.(probably wrong) but wouldn't ganged channels make this irrelevant? Memory Interleaving(bank). Does it have a down side? Does it require a ratio of clocks? (If I run 4x4gig ddr3) a. If im reading correctly(trying to learn), this is designed to spread operations between latency cycles to work around the higher latency of "normal" operation. b. However it seems to me that it has to be: divisible by fractions of a master clock? So if i run memory at 1333mhz, then the mean between 2 (physical) banks would operate every (roughly) 600Mhz? Warning! Possibly utter nonsense: (1333/2 interleaving to act like 1 memory module per 2 sticks of a total of 4 sticks, meaning 2x channels@4) c. which makes me wonder if there would be left over clock cycles the system would have to... "truncate/balance" or something? But I'm certain theres a feature somewhere i don't understand. Virtualization Questions AMD-V - Option of IOMMU Turned it on, why do i have extra option of "64MB"? If IOMMU is on, but "64MB" is "disabled", Is it on? (have scoured google, I still dont know) a. I think i understand that its supposed to (kind of) "set aside" a part of ram to act as a faster interactive zone for "stuff" (usb, Graphics, and... what?) b. I am using Nvidia graphics on AMD (Used kernel option "iommu=pt iommu=1, pt "passthrough"? No idea what they do, found it on google to solve boot up issue) c. Will this option help me use low latency sound hardware, like my midi keyboard? Can you recommend any additional tweaks? a. sysctl settings? b. swap settings? Grats, youve reached the end. Thanks for Reading.

  Read the article

• PHP-FPM stops responding and dies [migrated]

  - by user12361

  I'm running Drupal 6 with Nginx 1.5.1 and PHP-FPM (PHP 5.3.26) on a 1GB single core VPS with 3GB of swap space on SSD storage. I just switched from shared hosting to this unmanaged VPS because my site was getting too heavy, so I'm still learning the ropes. I have moderately high traffic, I don't really monitor it closely but Google Adsense usually record close to 30K page views/day. I usually have 50 to 80 authenticated users logged in and a few hundred more anonymous users hitting the Boost static HTML cache at any given moment. The problem I'm having is that PHP-FPM frequently stops responding, resulting in Nginx 502 or 504 errors. I swear I have read every page on the internet about this issue, which seems fairly common, and I've tried endless combinations of configurations, and I can't find a good solution. After restarting Nginx and PHP-FPM, the site runs really fast for a while, and then without warning it simply stops responding. I get a white screen while the browser waits on the server, and after about 30 seconds to a minute it throws an Nginx 502 or 504 error. Sometimes it runs well for 2 minutes, sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 5 hours, but it always ends up hanging. When I find the server in this state, there is still plenty of free memory (500MB or more) and no major CPU usage, the control and worker PHP-FPM processes are still present, and the server is still pingable and usable via SSH. A reload of PHP-FPM via the init script revives it again. The hangups don't seem to correspond to the amount of traffic, because I observed this behavior consistently when I was testing this configuration on a development VPS with no traffic at all. I've been constantly tweaking the settings, but I can't definitively eliminate the problem. I set Nginx workers to just 1. In the PHP-FPM config I have tried all three of the process managers. "Dynamic" is definitely the least reliable, consistently hanging up after only a few minutes. "Static" also has been unreliable and unpredictable. The least buggy has been "ondemand", but even that is failing me, sometimes after as much as 12 to 24 hours. But I can't leave the server unattended because PHP-FPM dies and never comes back on its own. I tried adjusting the pm.max_children value from as low as 3 to as high as 50, doesn't make a lot of difference, but I currently have it at 10. Same thing for the spare servers values. I also have set pm.max_requests anywhere from 30 to unlimited, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. According to the logs, the PHP-FPM processes are not exiting with SIGSEGV or SIGBUS, but rather with SIGTERM. I get a lot of lines like: WARNING: [pool www] child 3739, script '/var/www/drupal6/index.php' (request: "GET /index.php") execution timed out (38.739494 sec), terminating and: WARNING: [pool www] child 3738 exited on signal 15 (SIGTERM) after 50.004380 seconds from start I actually found several articles that recommend doing a graceful reload of PHP-FPM via cron every few minutes or hours to circumvent this issue. So that's what I did, "/etc/init.d/php-fpm reload" every 5 minutes. So far, it's keeping the lights on. But it feels like a dreadful hack. Is PHP-FPM really that unreliable? Is there anything else I can do? Thanks a lot!

  Read the article

• How much am I worth hourly as a software/web developer? [closed]

  - by luckysmack

  I may be starting a new job very soon as a developer for both web and desktop software. The primary languages I will be using is ASP.NET with C# with some php for existing projects(I've already had one interview which went very well). The job deals primarily in advertising. But this is my first real job in the market, I have no degrees, but have some college time(~1yr). So I am primarily self taught. They are fully aware of my skill set and lack of degrees or certificates. I applied as an entry level developer. It will be a permanent and full time/hourly position, and not a per contract job. So since it my cherry job, im not really sure what to ask for. even though im self taught im pretty confident in my skills and know what im doing fairly well. I pick up on new concepts very well and find new things fairly easy to learn. Here is a very brief summary of my skills: PHP: ~2years C#/.NET: 2 months Python: Basics only. ~1 month OOP Familiarity: Great (1 year) MVC Familiarity: Great (1 year) PHP Frameworks used: CakePHP(6 months), Yii(3 months), Lithium(3 months) CMS Familiar with: Drupal(1.5 years), Wordpress(only basics) I also have ~2yrs experience in maintaining my own VPS server and the hassles all that entails (linux/debian) Pretty much all the above will be used at this job. Although I will be using C# a vast majority of the time. I only recently started learning it but am moving along fairly rapidly and its all going smooth as butter. So what have I built? I have one proprietary site built in drupal which is used an an order log for products, inventory, and their shipments. It is also able to process payments through paypal merchant services. I have worked on a handful of other small apps used here and there I'm not able to show but which worked fairly well (all in php using frameworks though). The business does fairly well and is far from a a typical corporate type environment. It is much closer to a small development studio. And it is based out of northern California. I don't know how/what more info I can give on them. I also want this to be able to be referenced by other people possibly so I am looking for general tips and ideas to get an answer as well. I had trouble finding a reasonable range on other websites which seemed to be either way to low, or showed what a veteran developer makes. I know this is a fairly subjective question, but it is difficult to get a reasonable answer or guesstimate anywhere else. Even if only a little bit help, its much appreciated. So as for the direct question, based on all this info (did I miss anything?), how much should I ask for hourly? How much am I worth as a software developer?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148  | Next Page >