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  • Long Running Service Request or COLD CASE?

    - by chris.warticki
    What's going on? Why is it taking so long? Is anyone out there? Resolving Service Requests can seem to take forever. If your Service Request is taking more than a few days, moving into weeks or months, here are few things to consider.  Details here.  Comments welcome. -Chris Warticki twittering @cwarticki Join one of the Twibes - http://twibes.com/OracleSupport or http://twibes.com/MyOracleSupport

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  • Which K-factor should be used in case players have different K-factor values

    - by DmitryN
    I am implementing a ranking system based on the Elo rating and cannot get a point about the K-factor. If two players with different skills and, therefore, different K-factors are playing, which exactly K-factor should be used when changing their ratings? For example, player A has rating 2500 and K-factor 16 (probability ~75%) while player B has rating 2300 and K-factor 24 (probability ~25%). If player A wins, do I need to use 16 as K-factor for both players or 16 for player A and 24 for player B?

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  • Augmented Reality and Translation: Use Case in Enterprise?

    - by ultan o'broin
    Really love this iPhone app from Visual Quest: Word Lens Great to see the concept of augmented reality (a hot topic in UX) and translation coming together. Of course, I've downloaded the app and I'm trying it out already! Mashable say it all about this app in terms of how it seems like Sci-Fi is coming to life. However, the question remains: How could such an app be used in the enterprise applications space? Opinions welcome!

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  • Windows Azure Use Case: New Development

    - by BuckWoody
    This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Description: Computing platforms evolve over time. Originally computers were directed by hardware wiring - that, the “code” was the path of the wiring that directed an electrical signal from one component to another, or in some cases a physical switch controlled the path. From there software was developed, first in a very low machine language, then when compilers were created, computer languages could more closely mimic written statements. These language statements can be compiled into the lower-level machine language still used by computers today. Microprocessors replaced logic circuits, sometimes with fewer instructions (Reduced Instruction Set Computing, RISC) and sometimes with more instructions (Complex Instruction Set Computing, CISC). The reason this history is important is that along each technology advancement, computer code has adapted. Writing software for a RISC architecture is significantly different than developing for a CISC architecture. And moving to a Distributed Architecture like Windows Azure also has specific implementation details that our code must follow. But why make a change? As I’ve described, we need to make the change to our code to follow advances in technology. There’s no point in change for its own sake, but as a new paradigm offers benefits to our users, it’s important for us to leverage those benefits where it makes sense. That’s most often done in new development projects. It’s a far simpler task to take a new project and adapt it to Windows Azure than to try and retrofit older code designed in a previous computing environment. We can still use the same coding languages (.NET, Java, C++) to write code for Windows Azure, but we need to think about the architecture of that code on a new project so that it runs in the most efficient, cost-effective way in a Distributed Architecture. As we receive new requests from the organization for new projects, a distributed architecture paradigm belongs in the decision matrix for the platform target. Implementation: When you are designing new applications for Windows Azure (or any distributed architecture) there are many important details to consider. But at the risk of over-simplification, there are three main concepts to learn and architect within the new code: Stateless Programming - Stateless program is a prime concept within distributed architectures. Rather than each server owning the complete processing cycle, the information from an operation that needs to be retained (the “state”) should be persisted to another location c(like storage) common to all machines involved in the process.  An interesting learning process for Stateless Programming (although not unique to this language type) is to learn Functional Programming. Server-Side Processing - Along with developing using a Stateless Design, the closer you can locate the code processing to the data, the less expensive and faster the code will run. When you control the network layer, this is less important, since you can send vast amounts of data between the server and client, allowing the client to perform processing. In a distributed architecture, you don’t always own the network, so it’s performance is unpredictable. Also, you may not be able to control the platform the user is on (such as a smartphone, PC or tablet), so it’s imperative to deliver only results and graphical elements where possible.  Token-Based Authentication - Also called “Claims-Based Authorization”, this code practice means instead of allowing a user to log on once and then running code in that context, a more granular level of security is used. A “token” or “claim”, often represented as a Certificate, is sent along for a series or even one request. In other words, every call to the code is authenticated against the token, rather than allowing a user free reign within the code call. While this is more work initially, it can bring a greater level of security, and it is far more resilient to disconnections. Resources: See the references of “Nondistributed Deployment” and “Distributed Deployment” at the top of this article for more information with graphics:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx  Stack Overflow has a good thread on functional programming: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/844536/advantages-of-stateless-programming  Another good discussion on Stack Overflow on server-side processing is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3064018/client-side-or-server-side-processing Claims Based Authorization is described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335707.aspx

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  • In Case You Weren’t There: Blogwell NYC

    - by Mike Stiles
    0 0 1 1009 5755 Vitrue 47 13 6751 14.0 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:"Times New Roman";} Your roving reporter roved out to another one of Socialmedia.org’s fantastic Blogwell events, this time in NYC. As Central Park and incredible weather beckoned, some of the biggest brand names in the world gathered to talk about how they’re incorporating social into marketing and CRM, as well as extending social across their entire organizations internally. Below we present a collection of the live tweets from many of the key sessions GE @generalelectricJon Lombardo, Leader of Social Media COE How GE builds and extends emotional connections with consumers around health and reaps the benefits of increased brand equity in the process. GE has a social platform around Healthyimagination to create better health for people. If you and a friend are trying to get healthy together, you’ll do better. Health is inherently. Get health challenges via Facebook and share with friends to achieve goals together. They’re creating an emotional connection around the health context. You don’t influence people at large. Your sphere of real influence is around 5-10 people. They find relevant conversations about health on Twitter and engage sounding like a friend, not a brand. Why would people share on behalf of a brand? Because you tapped into an activity and emotion they’re already having. To create better habits in health, GE gave away inexpensive, relevant gifts related to their goals. Create the context, give the relevant gift, get social acknowledgment for giving it. What you get when you get acknowledgment for your engagement and gift is user generated microcontent. GE got 12,000 unique users engaged and 1400 organic posts with the healthy gift campaign. The Dow Chemical Company @DowChemicalAbby Klanecky, Director of Digital & Social Media Learn how Dow Chemical is finding, training, and empowering their scientists to be their storytellers in social media. There are 1m jobs coming open in science. Only 200k are qualified for them. Dow Chemical wanted to use social to attract and talk to scientists. Dow Chemical decided to use real scientists as their storytellers. Scientists are incredibly passionate, the key ingredient of a great storyteller. Step 1 was getting scientists to focus on a few platforms, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn. Dow Chemical social flow is Core Digital Team - #CMs – ambassadors – advocates. The scientists were trained in social etiquette via practice scenarios. It’s not just about sales. It’s about growing influence and the business. Dow Chemical trained about 100 scientists, 55 are active and there’s a waiting list for the next sessions. In person social training produced faster results and better participation. Sometimes you have to tell pieces of the story instead of selling your execs on the whole vision. Social Media Ethics Briefing: Staying Out of TroubleAndy Sernovitz, CEO @SocialMediaOrg How do we get people to share our message for us? We have to have their trust. The difference between being honest and being sleazy is disclosure. Disclosure does not hurt the effectiveness of your marketing. No one will get mad if you tell them up front you’re a paid spokesperson for a company. It’s a legal requirement by the FTC, it’s the law, to disclose if you’re being paid for an endorsement. Require disclosure and truthfulness in all your social media outreach. Don’t lie to people. Monitor the conversation and correct misstatements. Create social media policies and training programs. If you want to stay safe, never pay cash for social media. Money changes everything. As soon as you pay, it’s not social media, it’s advertising. Disclosure, to the feds, means clear, conspicuous, and understandable to the average reader. This phrase will keep you in the clear, “I work for ___ and this is my personal opinion.” Who are you? Were you paid? Are you giving an honest opinion based on a real experience? You as a brand are responsible for what an agency or employee or contactor does in your behalf. SocialMedia.org makes available a Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit. Socialmedia.org/disclosure. The point is to not ethically mess up and taint social media as happened to e-mail. Not only is the FTC cracking down, so is Google and Facebook. Visa @VisaNewsLucas Mast, Senior Business Leader, Global Corporate Social Media Visa built a mobile studio for the Olympics for execs and athletes. They wanted to do postcard style real time coverage of Visa’s Olympics sponsorships, and on a shoestring. Challenges included Olympic rules, difficulty getting interviews, time zone trouble, and resourcing. Another problem was they got bogged down with their own internal approval processes. Despite all the restrictions, they created and published a variety of and fair amount of content. They amassed 1000+ views of videos posted to the Visa Communication YouTube channel. Less corporate content yields more interest from media outlets and bloggers. They did real world video demos of how their products work in the field vs. an exec doing a demo in a studio. Don’t make exec interview videos dull and corporate. Keep answers short, shoot it in an interesting place, do takes until they’re comfortable and natural. Not everything will work. Not everything will get a retweet. But like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play. Promoting content is as important as creating it. McGraw-Hill Companies @McGrawHillCosPatrick Durando, Senior Director of Global New Media McGraw-Hill has 26,000 employees. McGraw-Hill created a social intranet called Buzz. Intranets create operational efficiency, help product dev, facilitate crowdsourcing, and breaks down geo silos. Intranets help with talent development, acquisition, retention. They replaced the corporate directory with their own version of LinkedIn. The company intranet has really cut down on the use of email. Long email threats become organized, permanent social discussions. The intranet is particularly useful in HR for researching and getting answers surrounding benefits and policies. Using a profile on your company intranet can establish and promote your internal professional brand. If you’re going to make an intranet, it has to look great, work great, and employees are going have to want to go there. You can’t order them to like it. 

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  • A Case for Oracle Fusion Middleware by Lucas Jellema

    - by JuergenKress
    An in-depth look at the interaction of people, processes, and technologies in the transition to a service-oriented architecture. Author's Note This article presents a profile of a fictitious organization, NOPERU. The story of NOPERU as told in this article is actually a collage of the events at some dozen organizations that I have been involved with over the past few years. None of these organizations sport all the characteristics of NOPERU - but all of them have gone through or are going through a similar transition as described here and all aspects of this article were taken from real life at one or usually many of these organizations. Background NOPERU (National Organization for Permits for Emissions and Resource Usage) is a public organization that continues to transform in terms of its business, organization and technology. Changing business requirements; new interaction channels; and increasing demands for more flexibility, faster throughput and lower costs drive these transformations, while technological evolution and new architecture patterns enable the change. NOPERU chose Oracle Fusion Middleware as the technology platform to implement the new architecture and required applications. This article takes a close look at NOPERU's journey from its origins in the early 1990s as a largely paper-based entity with regional databases and client-server Oracle Forms applications. Its upcoming business objectives are introduced: what is required of the organization and what the higher goals behind these requirements are. The architecture roadmap is described at a high level as well as drilled down to a service oriented design. Based on the architecture roadmap and the business requirements and NOPERU went through a technology selection to determine the technology stack with which the future would be realized in terms of IT. The article discusses that selection and details the projects subsequently planned (and executed to date). The new architecture and technology as well as the introduction of an Agile development method have had substantial consequences for the IT organization, the processes and individual staff members. The approach NOPERU has adopted with regard to the people and the organization is portrayed. Finally, the article discusses many conclusions that NOPERU has drawn that may benefit itself and other organizations. Introducing NOPERU NOPERU is a national organization charged with issuing permits for excessive emissions (i.e., carbon dioxide) and disproportionate usage of such resources as energy or water. Anyone-whether a commercial enterprise, government agency or private person--who emits or consumes more than what is considered "fair usage" requires such a permit. When someone builds an outdoor heated swimming pool, for example, or open-air terrace heating, such a permit needs to be obtained. When a company installs new, energy-intensive equipment, such as water boilers or deep freezers, it too needs to get a NOPERU permit. Government-sponsored projects at every level that involve consumption of large quantities of fresh water or production of high volumes of emissions must turn to NOPERU for a permit. Without the required license, any interested party can get a court to immediately put a stop to the disputed activity. Read the full article here. 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: Lucas Jellema,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • DIY Internet Radio Maintains Controls and Interface of Vintage Case

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Updating an old radio for modern inputs/streaming audio isn’t a new trick but this DIY mod stands out by maintaining the original controls and interface style. Rather than replace the needle-style selector window with a modern text-readout or cover-flow style interface, modder Florian Amrhein opted to replace the old rectangular station selector with an LCD screen that emulates the same red-needle layout. Using the same knob that previously moved the needle on the analog interface, you can slide the digital selector back and forth to select Internet radio stations. Watch the video above to see it in action and hit up the link below for the build guide. 1930s Internet Radio [via Hack A Day] HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus? How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder?

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  • case-specific mod rewrite on Wordpress subdomain multisite

    - by Steve
    I have split a Wordpress blog into multiple category-specific blogs using subdomains, as the topics in the original blog were too broad to be lumped together effectively. Posts were exported from the parent www blog and imported into the subject-specific subdomain blogs. I believe .htaccess provides mod rewrite for all subdomains (including the original www) in a single .htaccess file. I use .htaccess to perform 301 redirect on post categories to the relevant post on the subdomain's blog. eg: RedirectMatch 301 ^/auto/(.*)$ http://auto.example.com/$1 The problem I have is that the category has been retained in the permalink structure in the subdomain blog, so that www.example.com/auto/mercedes is now auto.example.com/auto/mercedes. The 1st URL is redirect to the 2nd, but unfortunately, the 2nd URL is redirected to auto.example.com/mercedes using the same rewrite rule, which is not found, as the permalink on the subdomain's blog retains the parent category of auto. The solution would be to adjust the permalink structure in the subdomain's WP settings, so that the top level category does not duplicate the subdomain. My question would be: how do I then strip a section of the original (www) blog's post URL from the subdomain's URL when redirecting? eg: How do I redirect www.example.com/auto/mercedes to auto.example.com/mercedes? I'm assuming this would be a regular expression trick, which I am not great at. Update: I might have to use: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !auto.example.com$ in the default Wordpress if loop in .htaccess, and seperate my custom subdomain redirections into a second if loop section.

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  • Why does the MaxReceiveMessageSize in WCF matter in case of Streaming

    The default value of MaxReceiveMessageSize in WCF is 65,536.  When you choose streaming as TransferMode, WCF runtime will create 8192 as buffer size. So what happened now is that WCF channel stack will read the first 8192 bytes, and decode the first couple of bytes as the size of the entire envelope. Then we will do a size check, and send back fault if the actual size exceeds the limit.   According to MSDN documentation, the MaxReceiveMessageSize is something that prevents a DOS attack,...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Choice the project pattern, advice for this case

    - by Lucas Rodrigues Sena
    I have a project in MVC4 entity framework, and have to adapt it to possible updates on the dlls and system do not stop work. I'm using portable Areas, but have difficulty creating 5 modules and about 5 functionality for each modules with fully functioning independently as a dll and database. 1- Reflection DLLs, the system works "on the fly". (I cant do it on mvc4 at moment). 2- Portables Areas (I need to do one area for each modules*functionality 5*5 Areas). Confuse way and I'm afraid if this is ridiculous. 3- Implement WFC on MVC4, compatible? 4- Other better way?

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  • The Case of the Invisible Training Resource

    - by GGBlogger
    I’ve been at this programming business longer than I would like to admit. For that reason I am always looking for new training resources as anyone in this business knows all too well. I’ve looked at AppDev (way too expensive for my meager budget), LearnVisualStudio (I have a lifetime subscription), and several others. What appears to be a new version of AppDev called LearnDevNow has some good material and so it goes. So what does all this have to do with the title? I’ve been using Adobe’s Flex Builder 3 and now their latest Flash Builder 4 (a renaming of the Adobe Flex development environment). One of the offered perks on registering was a month’s subscription to Lynda.com. My first reaction was “What the heck is Lynda.com?” but I chose it and signed up. What a surprise I was in for. I’d never heard of them before but discovered one of the most comprehensive training resources I’ve ever seen – and all for $ 34.95 a month in the version that offers Exercise files. They do have a heavy focus on Adobe products but also cover a lot of Microsoft material. What bothered me is that in the time I’ve been in this business I’d never heard of them! ; Thus the allusion to “The Invisible Training Resource.” Not only do they offer beginner and in depth training but the syllabus and the instructors are some of the best I’ve seen in the industry. So I just feel that more folks need to know about this organization. If you need training in the venues they offer I can attest to the fact that they offer some of the best training available in this industry in my humble opinion. You really owe it to yourself to check out Lynda.com.

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  • Should I use title case in URLs?

    - by Amadiere
    We are currently deciding on a consistent naming convention across a site with multiple web applications. Historically, I've been an advocate of the 'lowercase all the letters!' when creating URLs: http://example.com/mysystem/account/view/1551 However, within the last year or two, specifically since I began using ASP.NET MVC & had more dealings with REST based URLs, I've become a fan of capitalizing the first letter of each section/word within the URL as it makes it easier to read (imho). http://example.com/MySystem/Account/View/1551 We're not in a situation where people need to read or be able to understand the URLs, so that's not a driver per se. The main thing we are after is a consistent approach that is rational and makes sense. Are there any standards that declare it good to do one way or another, or issues that we may run into on (at least realistically modern) setups that would choose a preference over another? What is the general consensus for this debate currently?

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  • tail stops displaying in case of a log rotation

    - by Rudy Vissers
    I have to tail the log of a server (servicemix) and the log rotation is enabled. As soon as the rotation happens, tail stops displaying. I did some investigations and it is a bug in Debian : Debian Bug Report. The bug has been around for a long time ago. Does anyone knows if this bug in Ubuntu is to be fixed? I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit. I don't have to mention that this bug is total hell! Every time I have the problem, I have to interrupt the command tail and re-execute the command!

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  • How can I solve this SAT edge case?

    - by ssb
    I have an SAT implementation that basically works, and the fact that it works is what's giving me a few headaches. Basically there are some situations where using the SAT doesn't quite give me my intended result. One of these involves movement across multiple collision objects. Or to put it another way, if I have several collision boxes lined up next to each other such as to create something like a wall or a floor, movement along that surface while constantly applying force into that surface sometimes causes hangups, i.e. the player stops moving. This illustration shows what I mean: The 2 boxes on the bottom represent a floor, and the box on top/in the middle represents what my player is doing. There are several squares lined up as world obstacles to create some kind of wall, and if I move to the left across this surface while holding the down key then the issue arises. It only happens at the exact dividing point between two blocks. It only happens when moving to the left. At any rate I think I know why it happens, but I don't know how to solve it. Basically when I update my player movement I consider which directions are pressed, naturally, so if down is pressed I will add the speed to the Y component, and so on. But due to the way my SAT is implemented, when the penetration into the shape is the same from both sides it just goes with the smallest axis that it finds first, and it checks collisions against objects in the order that they were created because it goes through a foreach loop on the list of collidable objects. So this all adds up to the effect of if I'm moving to the left over a series of boxes while holding down, it will resolve me back to the right out of the first box and then up out of the box to the right of it, and this continues as long as the penetration is the same. The odd part is that this doesn't happen every time, which I am going to attribute to some oddity regarding multiplying velocity by the game time and causing some minor discrepancies between the lengths. Ultimately what this boils down to is that it will keep resolving me to the right and up, but this is technically expected behavior. All the solutions I can think of only address the symptoms of this problem and not the actual cause, such as not using many blocks to create walls or shapes, which is an option I'd like to keep open. I could also change which axis my algorithm defaults to, but that would just cause problems when going up/down along the walls. What can I do to fix this?

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  • What is a good use case for scala?

    - by Usman Ismail
    In a current project we have setup the build so that we could mix Java and Scala. I would like to use more Scala in our code base to make the code more readable and concise. In the process also learn the language by handing over real features. So I plan to use Scala for some classes to showcase its benefits and convince other devs to look into using Scala too. For a rest based web server or a program in general what kind of code structures lend themselves to Scala's functional programming style.

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  • A Definite Case of Mobile Phone Addiction [Comic]

    - by Asian Angel
    Perhaps it is time to set the phone down and look up toward the sun once again… Note: You can view the full-size version of the comic by visiting the link below. Catch up – Sean McLean (Underwhelmed Comic Blog) [via Neatorama] Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere How To Boot Your Android Phone or Tablet Into Safe Mode HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus?

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  • Sprint Says Business Case for 4G Is Growing

    Sprint says its 4G service is improving apps that ran adequately at 3G speeds while opening up previously unattainable possibilities for businesses and organizations as diverse as a Chicago food bank and the Portland, Oregon Police Bureau.

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  • Business case for decentralized version control systems

    - by Keyo
    I searched and couldn't find any business reasons why git/mercurial/bazzr systems are better than centralized systems (subversion, perforce). If you were trying to sell a DVCS to a non-technical person what arguments would you provide for the DVCS increasing profit. I will shortly be pitching git to my manager, it will take some time converting out subversion repositories and some expense in buying smartgit licences.

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  • A case for not installing your own software

    - by James Gentsch
    This week I watched some of the Oracle Open World presentations (from the comfort of my Oracle office) and happened on some of Larry Ellison’s comments about cloud computing and engineered systems.  Larry said he sees the move to these as analogous to the moves made by the original adopters of electricity.  The argument goes that the first consumers of electricity had to set up their own power plant.  Then, as the market and infrastructure for electricity matured, power consumers moved from using their own personal power plant to purchasing power from another entity that was focused on power production as their primary product. In the end this was a cheaper and more reliable solution. Now, there are lots of compelling reasons to be looking very seriously at cloud computing and engineered systems for enterprise application deployment.  However, speaking as a software developer of enterprise applications, the part of this that I really love (besides Larry’s early electricity adopter analogy) is that as a mode of application deployment it provides me and my customers a consistent environment in which the applications I am providing will be run.  This cuts way down on the environmental surprises that consistently lead to the hated “well, it works here” situation with the support desk. And just to be clear, I think I hate this situation more than my clients, who I think are happy that at least it is working somewhere.  I hate this because when a problem happens, and let’s face it customers are not wasting their time calling in easy problems, we are seriously disabled when we cannot reproduce the issue which is triggered by something unforeseen in the environment where the application is running.  This situation is incredibly frustrating and an all too often occurrence. I look selfishly forward to cloud computing and engineered systems dramatically reducing the occurrence of problems triggered by unforeseen environmental situations in the software I am responsible for.  I think this is an evolutionary game changer that will be a huge benefit to the reliability and consistent performance of the software for my customers, and may make “well, it works here” a well forgotten phase for future software developers. It may even impact the stress squeeze toy industry.  Well, maybe at least for my group.

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  • Purchasing Laptop Case Online

    "Laptops are meant to be carried around but to achieve the ultimate ease of carrying it from one place to another and to protect the computer as well as precious information on it you need a quality ... [Author: Jeremy Mezzi - Computers and Internet - May 29, 2010]

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  • The case against INFORMATION_SCHEMA views

    - by AaronBertrand
    In SQL Server 2000, INFORMATION_SCHEMA was the way I derived all of my metadata information - table names, procedure names, column names and data types, relationships... the list goes on and on. I used the system tables like sysindexes from time to time, but I tried to stay away from them when I could. In SQL Server 2005, this all changed with the introduction of catalog views. For one thing, they're a lot easier to type. sys.tables vs. INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES? Come on; no contest there - even...(read more)

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  • Business Case for investing time developing Stubs and BizUnit Tests

    - by charlie.mott
    I was recently in a position where I had to justify why effort should be spent developing Stubbed Integration Tests for BizTalk solutions. These tests are usually developed using the BizUnit framework. I assumed that most seasoned BizTalk developers would consider this best practice. Even though Microsoft suggest use of BizUnit on MSDN, I've not found a single site listing the justifications for investing time writing stubs and BizUnit tests. Stubs Stubs should be developed to isolate your development team from external dependencies. This is described by Michael Stephenson here. Failing to do this can result in the following problems: In contract-first scenarios, the external system interface will have been defined.  But the interface may not have been setup or even developed yet for the BizTalk developers to work with. By the time you open the target location to see the data BizTalk has sent, it may have been swept away. If you are relying on the UI of the target system to see the data BizTalk has sent, what do you do if it fails to arrive? It may take time for the data to be processed or it may be scheduled to be processed later. Learning how to use the source\target systems and investigations into where things go wrong in these systems will slow down the BizTalk development effort. By the time the data is visible in a UI it may have undergone further transformations. In larger development teams working together, do you all use the same source and target instances. How do you know which data was created by whose tests? How do you know which event log error message are whose?  Another developer may have “cleaned up” your data. It is harder to write BizUnit tests that clean up the data\logs after each test run. What if your B2B partners' source or target system cannot support the sort of testing you want to do. They may not even have a development or test instance that you can work with. Their single test instance may be used by the SIT\UAT teams. There may be licencing costs of setting up an instances of the external system. The stubs I like to use are generic stubs that can accept\return any message type.  Usually I need to create one per protocol. They should be driven by BizUnit steps to: validates the data received; and select a response messages (or error response). Once built, they can be re-used for many integration tests and from project to project. I’m not saying that developers should never test against a real instance.  Every so often, you still need to connect to real developer or test instances of the source and target endpoints\services. The interface developers may ask you to send them some data to see if everything still works.  Or you might want some messages sent to BizTalk to get confidence that everything still works beyond BizTalk. Tests Automated “Stubbed Integration Tests” are usually built using the BizUnit framework. These facilitate testing of the entire integration process from source stub to target stub. It will ensure that all of the BizTalk components are configured together correctly to meet all the requirements. More fine grained unit testing of individual BizTalk components is still encouraged.  But BizUnit provides much the easiest way to test some components types (e.g. Orchestrations). Using BizUnit with the Behaviour Driven Development approach described by Mike Stephenson delivers the following benefits: source: http://biztalkbddsample.codeplex.com – Video 1. Requirements can be easily defined using Given/When/Then Requirements are close to the code so easier to manage as features and scenarios Requirements are defined in domain language The feature files can be used as part of the documentation The documentation is accurate to the build of code and can be published with a release The scenarios are effective to document the scenarios and are not over excessive The scenarios are maintained with the code There’s an abstraction between the intention and implementation of tests making them easier to understand The requirements drive the testing These same tests can also be used to drive load testing as described here. If you don't do this ... If you don't follow the above “Stubbed Integration Tests” approach, the developer will need to manually trigger the tests. This has the following risks: Developers are unlikely to check all the scenarios each time and all the expected conditions each time. After the developer leaves, these manual test steps may be lost. What test scenarios are there?  What test messages did they use for each scenario? There is no mechanism to prove adequate test coverage. A test team may attempt to automate integration test scenarios in a test environment through the triggering of tests from a source system UI. If this is a replacement for BizUnit tests, then this carries the following risks: It moves the tests downstream, so problems will be found later in the process. Testers may not check all the expected conditions within the BizTalk infrastructure such as: event logs, suspended messages, etc. These automated tests may also get in the way of manual tests run on these environments.

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