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  • MySQL: Use CASE/ELSE value as join parameter

    - by DRJ
    I'm trying to join the NAME and PHOTO from USERS table to the TRANSACTIONS table based on who is the payer or payee. It keeps telling me can't find the table this -- What am I doing wrong? SELECT name,photo,amount,comment, ( CASE payer_id WHEN 72823 THEN payee_id ELSE payer_id END ) AS this FROM transactions RIGHT JOIN users ON (users.id=this) WHERE payee_id=72823 OR payer_id=72823

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  • What library should I use for financial product pricing?

    - by watkins
    I work in software division of a large bank and we are considering writing our own financial library. However, before we embark in such a project, I want to check that there is no such library on the market. We would need to have the following feature: Pricing of derivative products (options, futures, swaps, etc) Different financial models Hedging / risk management Open source would be great if it's stable. Otherwise, we would purchase the source code. We are looking for C#/.NET.

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  • Common strategies to deal with rounding errors in currency-intensive soft?

    - by Max
    What is your advice on: compensation of accumulated error in bulk math operations on collections of Money objects. How is this implemented in your production code? (things like variable rounding, etc...) theory behind rounding in accountancy. any literature on topic. I currently read Fowler. He mentions Money type, but says nothing on strategies. Older posts on money-rounding (here, and here) do not provide a details and formality I need. Thanks for help.

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  • Need personal advice on how to get out of a company..

    - by SOfan
    Hi, I am an SO user since past 6 months and this is the first time I am turning to SO for personal help. I have asked technical questions before with my real ID. I am stuck inside a service based IT company for the past one year and haven't been able to decide if to leave it, when to leave it and how to leave it. I had taken 2 weeks LWP on medical reason roughly at end of 1 year and then soon after reporting, I applied for 2 months more LWP (on medical/personal ground) with the intention of working on my health,take up a hobby class to ward off depression,pessimism, to have some fun in life, and to look for a job which I really would be excited about - that interests me and which matches with my strength. My leave starts from this Monday. So in any case, I had hard set in mind that I will leave the company after I join them back hopefully with some job offer already in hand (after figuring out what I want do). Neither I can stand the past project,past colleagues,company, HR, pathetically low salary. But if I really listen to my heart, I don't want to have to go back to that office after my sabbatical and again have to see those people. I will have to resign it after my sabbatical ends. Then HR people perhaps wont like it, may even accuse me on face or behind back that primary purpose of my leave must have been to hunt for a better job and I lied about medical and person reasons. Also, if they get nasty and force me to serve 2 months notice period. There is no way I see myself after sabbatical resuming in old project or starting new work. It will be a pain. Since they have already approved 2 months leave and stuff, ideally if they want, they should be just able to relieve me right on the next day after I join back. But, I don't know if they want to get nasty, will they mention about my 2 months sabbatical leave in my experience letter or more scary, the term medical/personal reason. I have hard earned my experience here, have worked against my will, mostly it has been painful and slogged like anything, because I realize the importance of work experience in IT industry. I don't have greed to have those 2 months included extra in my experience letter, but I don't want to mess up with my experience letter in a way which makes my next employer ask question, get suspicious, or be wary if I have any medical reason going on. Being an emotional,moody person or somebody who can't be in an environment, once my mind and heart starts hating it. I think it perhaps is best, if I resign on Monday itself telling them (in polite manner) something that look I took sabbatical for some reason but I don't want to resume working in the company after my sabbatical ends. So please accept my resignation. Now tell me what you want to do about my leave request, my notice period and when you are willing to relieve me. What should I write and how? Some background: I am working in an IT company in India.I am overqualified in the company. It is grossly underpaying me. My education qualifications far exceed anyone's in the whole company being a CS undergrad as well as a CS grad. I joined this company after finishing the grad. I had self-doubts about my skills and interest as a programmer. I like doing research oriented work, though didn't have any particular success during grad. My life here has been very hectic. The project containing many many sub-projects has kept me on my toes and I have never really liked the work. I have been playing against my strength. Also the company strict internet usage policy (you can't read gmails, can't browse any non-work related sites not even news). When working for a client, from the machine we can't even check company related emails.For this one has to go to kiosk like 5 machines in a small room etc. Most of the times those machines are not available, so it was not unusual to keep making rounds to these kiosk machines to check company emails, browse company related emails etc.So it was not so easy to keep in touch with company related basic affairs for a not particular careful person. Things like this which are new to me, make me feel restricted. I am an undecisive person with a sense of failure, self-doubt, not meeting up unrealistic expectation. Somewhere at back of mind, I envy my classmates who make a smooth transition from company to company without causing any gap in their resume. I on other hand have gaps in resume. I get tired after working in a place for sometime. problem with colleagues in general. I am not particular great with people, have few friends, not known for a fun nature, rather serious, scholar. I am not a typical conventional female. I think females are usually more disciplined. But I am not so. I reach office late (though after informing manager). I don't want to blame them entirely, because from my past, it is not unusual for me to get undecisive on things. Also I had doubts about my ability as researched and to succeed there. of building a relationship in a group, to have something to talk about, newspaper. I get cut-off from people. peer pressure. I make blunders in coding, lose patience. Consciously or unconsciously I feel contempt for people here, work here, environment here. I have doubts that either I go to a place which does innovation, does research oriented work, product biggies, have great motivated people, have competent people passionate about products they are building. But then I also doubt my ability to survive there. I have identified that an idea job for me would be 4 days a week, a high salary job. When among people in company/team, I can't think much. I need some time at home to read good authentic books written in good style on what work I am doing.So that I am comfortable with my understanding of work. I get into pressure easily under deadline and need 5th day to cool myself off. I took for 2 weeks leave, because each day was hell for me. May be the depression phase of bipolar is on and also partially it could be that being a work centered person, who derives happiness,self-esteem from work, haven't been enjoying work and have been working for the sole person of proving stability, and ability to stick, against all odds, and facing what challenges I see, bonding with people, identifying opportunities to learn in given task etc.have been averaging one day LWP in 1 week or 10 days. or may be because of my nature,ADD,not being able to switch context,out of touch with news, don't have a circle of friends with who I enjoy. less knowledge in general to talk about, just some technical stuff.anyway, so due to emotional reason, some practical reason etc, I wanted to be very sure before leaving. So my leave starts from Monday and I should feel happy about it. I have taken the leave to for a few purposes - to take care of my health by regular yoga/exercise (with project on, I just can't do anything regular), reassess myself to see what I want to try next which work I might like, look for next job, take up a hobby which I like say singing. I am not clear on my career,job aspiration. I have tried my hands on research. During this year appraisal yesterday, I even had some conflict with my last manager. In meeting with me one on one, he would say all nice things about me, but in feedback to new manager, he hasn't given any excellent feedback. It is all only good. I am angry at this old Manager. Also new manager also scolded me as I didn't agree to his appraisal and waited to hear myself from old Manager. He kind of scolded me for wasting his time. Am I being unethical somewhere? I am always very conscious of if I am cheating anywhere. What advice I am seeking? How to resign and what to write in resignation letter

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  • How do you persuade users to abandon their personal folders?

    - by thing2k
    Towards the end of last year we started using Mimecast services, in particular their cloud base e-mail archiving. Since then we’ve been rolling out the Mimecast Services for Outlook (MSO) Add-in. We’ve informed the users that we will be give them training in the next few Months, and we do not require them to use it, but my boss stated that we are getting rid of Personal Folders (pst files), by putting them into Mimecast. Unsurprisingly this did cause something of a backlash. Though really who likes change. I know the IT reasons for getting rid of Personal Folders (inefficient, unreliable, single access, etc), but from an average user’s perspective, unless they have had one fail on them, they see them as simple and only way to archive e-mail when their 200Mb mailbox is full. So what can I say to the users, to get them to understand why Personal Folders are not the best solution?

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  • outlook express 2007: remove personal folders from mail folders.

    - by ufk
    Hiya. I installed outlook express 2007 and i configured it for my e-mail account. it seems that i cannot remove the personal folders and i cannot configure the gmail Mail file to be as default. (it's translated from hebrew so i hope i got the menu words correct) when i go to tools - manage accounts - data files i see 2 files, one for personal folders and the other for my gmail. the personal folder is the default one and i can't remove it and i can't set my gmail mail file to be the default. how can i resolve the issue? thanks!

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  • Minimalist Wiki like script

    - by arthurprs
    I'm trying to find a simple wiki like script to setup a personal directory, browser favorites simply doesn't do anymore and i have lots of small files on my flash drive Desired features file upload not bloated works on a common webhost (aka php) Thanks in advance

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  • Installing Windows 7

    - by M K Rajyana
    I have purchased Windows 7 Ultimate with two DVDs 32 bit & 64 bit with one key. I wish to try 32 bit first & 64 bit later. Can i use same key for 64 bit software later on same computer?

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  • Can My Personal GMail Query A Remote LDAP Server?

    - by Maarx
    I have a personal GMail account, from which I frequently send e-mail to a great many various users of a specific business. The corporation has been kind enough to provide me with the credentials to access their LDAP server, with which I would like my GMail web client to be able to auto-complete partial addresses or names for which that LDAP server has an entry. Is there any way I can get a personal GMail account (or it's corresponding entire Google account) account to incorporate an LDAP server into it's Contacts?

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  • Survey: How do you manage the source code for your personal projects?

    - by Linchi Shea
    This seems to be the survey season. Andy’s post on source controlling T-SQL code triggered a question that I always wanted to ask. Do you version control the source code for your various personal projects (i.e. not projects of your customer or employer)? Do you use a computer at home for your source control repository, or do you use a hosting service such as ProjectLocker ? If you do it yourself at home, what version control software you use? If you use a hosting service, what’s your experience?...(read more)

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  • What's the location of a personal 'gtkrc' file in Ubuntu 12.04?

    - by Kevin Perez
    Good day everyone! I am currently writting a software that makes easy to change default cursor theme with a few clicks. At this point it works well, but applications like Firefox or Lazarus IDE remain with the DMZ-White cursor, everything else is ok. I noticed that when I change the default cursor using my software, and later change the 'personalized' cursor theme using Ubuntu Tweak, it does the job, and the new theme is now applied everywhere. So, what file is need to modify in order to change 'personal' cursor theme? If my software can do this, that would be great! I found that 'gtkrc' is a file where settings of GTK+ are stored. I searched in my home folder but I can't find yet. Can you help me with this, noble people of Ubuntu? :)

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  • Web stalker has purchased a domain name that uses my personal name, web page is defamatory [closed]

    - by Deborah Morse-Kahn
    We have been unsuccessful in persuading a stalker's website host to release the domain name he purchased which is my own personal name, e.g., PERSONALNAME.com. You will find my name below in the signature area. Look for yourself. On the one page that this domain name leades to is dreadful and defamatory material. No attorney has felt it worth their time to chase this issue down, and we cannot afford to go to a national or international dispute resolution group to bring this issue to WHOIS. Worse, the stalker is amoral and a psychopath: he would just love the attention. We've even consider trying to find someone to illegally hack into the webpage to at least redirect the domain pointers to my own professional website. This issue has continued now for two years and is affecting my professional reputations as potential clients have looked for me online. Is there any remedy? Your help and advice would be greatly welcomed.

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  • How to retrieve certificate from my store personal? [closed]

    - by shariphwar
    I want to use the following code by java program. How to convert the following C# code to java code or how to write just like this code by java programming language? Access certificate by C# X509Store store = null; X509Certificate2Collection _recipients = null; // select the right store //if (lstRecipients.Text=="Personal") store = new X509Store(StoreName.My, StoreLocation.CurrentUser); // else // store = new X509Store(StoreName.AddressBook, StoreLocation.CurrentUser); // open store and show certificate picker store.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly); X509Certificate2Collection tempCollection = X509Certificate2UI.SelectFromCollection(store.Certificates, "Crypter", "Select a Certificate for Encryption", X509SelectionFlag.MultiSelection); store.Close();

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  • Alternatives to Google Sites for a personal web site?

    - by Oleg2718281828
    I'd like to find a hosting solution for my personal, fairly low-traffic, web site. I think Google Sites would suit me perfectly, but I've heard horror stories about Google's algorithms shutting down all your accounts on a whim, with no right of appeal, so I'm naturally worried, because I don't want to lose my Gmail. Edit I'm talking about cases like this one: I tried contacting somebody at Google support ("Surely they should have a support department, right?" Nope, wrong!) (The victim managed to regain access to his Gmail account when his case went "viral", but he never got an explanation as to why he had been locked out in the first place) Are there good, preferably free, alternatives to Google Sites and what are their PROs and CONs? One requirement is that I should be able to point the DNS (foobar.com) to it.

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  • What's your hobby website; do you maintain it for your users or yourself?

    - by Glennular
    What is your hobby website? Do you care if it has high traffic or is it more for personal satisfaction? When deciding on the features to implement are you taking in to consideration the needs of general user-base or features you really want to build? What balance do you use to keep yourself satisfied as well as your users? When do you feel your site is able to release to the world? Do you release it initially and hope for anticipatory beta group? or wait till you have a solid built set of features?

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  • GAE images.resize with fixed proportional crop

    - by user288541
    I need to resize and crop to exactly 60x80px from various size and aspect ratio. Just before i put into Datastore. Anyone already got this issue resolved. Currently i already succed to just transform it to exact height (80px) with various width which nott look so good when i try to display it on a list. e.g jcaroussel. My db.put code is like bellow: if users.get_current_user(): personal.personal_id = int(self.request.get('personal_id')) personal.name = self.request.get('name') personal.latitude = self.request.get('latitude') personal.info = self.request.get('info') photo = images.resize(self.request.get('img'), 0, 80) personal.photo = db.Blob(photo) personal.lc_id = int(self.request.get('lc_id')) personal.put() self.redirect('/admin/personal') else: self.response.out.write('I\'m sorry, you don\'t have permission to add this LP Personal Data.') I just want to do similar result when we upload our avatar on google talk/google chat. Anyone solved this? Thx

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  • Data recovery; nearly 1 tb of movies on a WD 3.5 tb personal cloud drive disappears with scanty traces

    - by Effector Dhanushanth
    I have a great collection of movies that I had stored in a logical mesh of folder on my 3.5 tb WD personal cloud drive. I woke up 1 morning and found that everything was fine with my data on this drive, except for my movie collection: There were two great folders, one "2sort" nd the other "segregated". out of all the segregated sub folders, only letter C D and 2 or 3 others remain. and the 2 sort folder, which has umpteen subfolders, amounting to more than 0.5 tb. is.. it's just gone!! this is a great downfall.. now this is a personal cloud drive and has no usb port etc. unfortunately to hardwire and recover files.. now I'm sure there are softwares out there that can help me recover my beloved movies from such an interestingly "hard-to-reach" (should I say?) device? what may that software be compadre, my happiness lies within your answer.. thank you.. remember, recovery software or (WD) personal cloud. :) these ovies were All, "hand-picked", over the course of ten years.. I just never catalogued my collection.. if I could just get the "list" of my lost collection, that'd be enough.. recovering em would be a bonus.. but they out to be damaged if I were to somehow recover you know? still, I'm certain they're all intact.. I guess the file index just got corrupted.. There surely is a veil of some sort that need to be thrown or pushed aside to reveal my movies.. what software can do/does that? thanks immensely!

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  • EPM 11.1.2.2 Architecture: Financial Performance Management Applications

    - by Marc Schumacher
     Financial Management can be accessed either by a browser based client or by SmartView. Starting from release 11.1.2.2, the Financial Management Windows client does not longer access the Financial Management Consolidation server. All tasks that require an on line connection (e.g. load and extract tasks) can only be done using the web interface. Any client connection initiated by a browser or SmartView is send to the Oracle HTTP server (OHS) first. Based on the path given (e.g. hfmadf, hfmofficeprovider) in the URL, OHS makes a decision to forward this request either to the new Financial Management web application based on the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) or to the .NET based application serving SmartView retrievals running on Internet Information Server (IIS). Any requests send to the ADF web interface that need to be processed by the Financial Management application server are send to the IIS using HTTP protocol and will be forwarded further using DCOM to the Financial Management application server. SmartView requests, which are processes by IIS in first row, are forwarded to the Financial Management application server using DCOM as well. The Financial Management Application Server uses OLE DB database connections via native database clients to talk to the Financial Management database schema. Communication between the Financial Management DME Listener, which handles requests from EPMA, and the Financial Management application server is based on DCOM.  Unlike most other components Essbase Analytics Link (EAL) does not have an end user interface. The only user interface is a plug-in for the Essbase Administration Services console, which is used for administration purposes only. End users interact with a Transparent or Replicated Partition that is created in Essbase and populated with data by EAL. The Analytics Link Server deployed on WebLogic communicates through HTTP protocol with the Analytics Link Financial Management Connector that is deployed in IIS on the Financial Management web server. Analytics Link Server interacts with the Data Synchronisation server using the EAL API. The Data Synchronization server acts as a target of a Transparent or Replicated Partition in Essbase and uses a native database client to connect to the Financial Management database. Analytics Link Server uses JDBC to connect to relational repository databases and Essbase JAPI to connect to Essbase.  As most Oracle EPM System products, browser based clients and SmartView can be used to access Planning. The Java based Planning web application is deployed on WebLogic, which is configured behind an Oracle HTTP Server (OHS). Communication between Planning and the Planning RMI Registry Service is done using Java Remote Message Invocation (RMI). Planning uses JDBC to access relational repository databases and talks to Essbase using the CAPI. Be aware of the fact that beside the Planning System database a dedicated database schema is needed for each application that is set up within Planning.  As Planning, Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) has a pretty simple architecture. Beside the browser based clients and SmartView, a web service consumer can be used as a client too. All clients access the Java based web application deployed on WebLogic through Oracle HHTP Server (OHS). Communication between Profitability and Cost Management and EPMA Web Server is done using HTTP protocol. JDBC is used to access the relational repository databases as well as data sources. Essbase JAPI is utilized to talk to Essbase.  For Strategic Finance, two clients exist, SmartView and a Windows client. While SmartView communicates through the web layer to the Strategic Finance Server, Strategic Finance Windows client makes a direct connection to the Strategic Finance Server using RPC calls. Connections from Strategic Finance Web as well as from Strategic Finance Web Services to the Strategic Finance Server are made using RPC calls too. The Strategic Finance Server uses its own file based data store. JDBC is used to connect to the EPM System Registry from web and application layer.  Disclosure Management has three kinds of clients. While the browser based client and SmartView interact with the Disclosure Management web application directly through Oracle HTTP Server (OHS), Taxonomy Designer does not connect to the Disclosure Management server. Communication to relational repository databases is done via JDBC, to connect to Essbase the Essbase JAPI is utilized.

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  • How to set up a personal Apple developer account now with an eye on transferring app ownership to a company later?

    - by Rinzwind
    I have two Mac applications that I wrote for my own personal use, but I'm considering polishing them up and giving selling them on the Mac App Store a try. It seemed very premature to consider what would happen if either app would become successful enough to make it possible to set up a business around it, or to sell it to another developer. That is, until I read that Apple doesn't make it easy to transfer app ownership. I'm not sure how to best register with the Apple Developer program now to avoid any possible hassle in this respect later. From what I understand, one can really only transfer ownership of a developer account. I'm not sure about the relationship between an Apple ID and an Apple developer account. Does this mean I should at least not use the Apple ID I'm already using for iTunes, but create a second one to use for registering as an Apple Developer? Is there any disadvantage to using separate Apple IDs like this on the same Mac (one ID for Xcode development, the other ID for iTunes/iCloud/App Store/...)? Should one go as far as having a separate Apple ID & Apple developer account per app one develops? Or is there some other solution to take into account the possibility of transferring app ownership?

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  • XSL apply templates not working...could be XPath error

    - by AdRock
    I have converted mny stylesheet to use apply templates instead of call templates and it worked fine for my other styesheet, which was more complicated, but this one doesn't seem to work even thought it is a much simpler template. All that it outputs is the sex node and the userlevel node. I think it has to do with my Xpath. All i want is to output the < user information, nothing else <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0"> <xsl:template name="hoo" match="/"> <html> <head> <title>Registered Members</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="user.css" /> </head> <body> <h1>Registered Members</h1> <xsl:for-each select="folktask/member/user"> <div class="userdiv"> <xsl:apply-templates/> </div> </xsl:for-each> </body> </html> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="folktask/member/user"> <xsl:apply-templates select="@id"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/name"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/address1"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/city"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/county"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/postcode"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/telephone"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/mobile"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal/email"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="personal"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="account/username"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="account"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="@id"> <div class="heading bold"><h2>USER ID: <xsl:value-of select="." /></h2></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/name"> <div class="small bold">NAME:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/address1"> <div class="small bold">ADDRESS:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/city"> <div class="small bold">CITY:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/county"> <div class="small bold">COUNTY:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/postcode"> <div class="small bold">POSTCODE:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/telephone"> <div class="small bold">TELEPHONE:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/mobile"> <div class="small bold">MOBILE:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /> </div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal/email"> <div class="small bold">EMAIL:</div> <div class="large"> <xsl:element name="a"> <xsl:attribute name="href"> <xsl:text>mailto:</xsl:text> <xsl:value-of select="." /> </xsl:attribute> <xsl:value-of select="." /> </xsl:element> </div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="personal"> <div class="small bold">SEX:</div> <div class="colored bold"> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="sex='Male'"> <div class="sex male"><xsl:value-of select="sex/."/></div> </xsl:when> <xsl:otherwise> <div class="sex female"><xsl:value-of select="sex/."/></div> </xsl:otherwise> </xsl:choose> </div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="account/username"> <div class="small bold">USERNAME:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="account"> <div class="small bold">ACCOUNT TYPE:</div> <div class="colored "> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="userlevel='1'"> <div class="nml bold">Normal User</div> </xsl:when> <xsl:when test="userlevel='2'"> <div class="vol bold">Volunteer</div> </xsl:when> <xsl:when test="userlevel='3'"> <div class="org bold">Organiser</div> </xsl:when> <xsl:otherwise> <div class="name adm bold">Administrator</div> </xsl:otherwise> </xsl:choose> </div> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> and some of my xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="users.xsl"?> <folktask xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xs:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="folktask.xsd"> <member> <user id="1"> <personal> <name>Abbie Hunt</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>108 Access Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Wells</city> <county>Somerset</county> <postcode>BA5 8GH</postcode> <telephone>01528927616</telephone> <mobile>07085252492</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>AdRock</username> <password>269eb625e2f0cf6fae9a29434c12a89f</password> <userlevel>4</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="1"> <roles></roles> <region>South West</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="2"> <personal> <name>Aidan Harris</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>103 Aiken Street</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Chichester</city> <county>Sussex</county> <postcode>PO19 4DS</postcode> <telephone>01905149894</telephone> <mobile>07784467941</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>AmbientExpert</username> <password>8e64214160e9dd14ae2a6d9f700004a6</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="2"> <roles>Van Driver,gas Fitter</roles> <region>South Central</region> </volunteer> </member> </folktask>

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  • Why is the word PERSONAL still relevant in the term PC? [closed]

    - by Bill
    I have spent half an hour trying to change an icon on my Win-7-64 machine (Why Can't I Change the Icon). One reasonable suggestion (reasonable in terms of having a solution, not reasonable in terms of having to jump through these hoops for such a basic requirement) was to delete the old icon from the %userprofile% \ Local Settings..., however when I click on this folder in Windows Explorer I am told the folder is not accessible - Access Denied. Well! It's my PERSONAL computer isn't it? Isn't that what PC stands for? It's MY computer - why can't I get access to that folder? It's about time we started calling these machines MCs (Microsoft Computer), or WCs (Windows Computer) - because they sure as hell aint PERSONAL damn computers!!!!

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  • Are your personal insecurities screwing up your internal communications?

    - by Lucy Boyes
    I do some internal comms as part of my job. Quite a lot of it involves talking to people about stuff. I’m spending the next couple of weeks talking to lots of people about internal comms itself, because we haven’t done a lot of audience/user feedback gathering, and it turns out that if you talk to people about how they feel and what they think, you get some pretty interesting insights (and an idea of what to do next that isn’t just based on guesswork and generalising from self). Three things keep coming up from talking to people about what we suck at  in terms of internal comms. And, as far as I can tell, they’re all examples where personal insecurity on the part of the person doing the communicating makes the experience much worse for the people on the receiving end. 1. Spending time telling people how you’re going to do something, not what you’re doing and why Imagine you’ve got to give an update to a lot of people who don’t work in your area or department but do have an interest in what you’re doing (either because they want to know because they’re curious or because they need to know because it’s going to affect their work too). You don’t want to look bad at your job. You want to make them think you’ve got it covered – ideally because you do*. And you want to reassure them that there’s lots of exciting work going on in your area to make [insert thing of choice] happen to [insert thing of choice] so that [insert group of people] will be happy. That’s great! You’re doing a good job and you want to tell people about it. This is good comms stuff right here. However, you’re slightly afraid you might secretly be stupid or lazy or incompetent. And you’re exponentially more afraid that the people you’re talking to might think you’re stupid or lazy or incompetent. Or pointless. Or not-adding-value. Or whatever the thing that’s the worst possible thing to be in your company is. So you open by mentioning all the stuff you’re going to do, spending five minutes or so making sure that everyone knows that you’re DOING lots of STUFF. And the you talk for the rest of the time about HOW you’re going to do the stuff, because that way everyone will know that you’ve thought about this really hard and done tons of planning and had lots of great ideas about process and that you’ve got this one down. That’s the stuff you’ve got to say, right? To prove you’re not fundamentally worthless as a human being? Well, maybe. But probably not. See, the people who need to know how you’re going to do the stuff are the people doing the stuff. And those are the people in your area who you’ve (hopefully-please-for-the-love-of-everything-holy) already talked to in depth about how you’re going to do the thing (because else how could they help do it?). They are the only people who need to know the how**. It’s the difference between strategy and tactics. The people outside of your bubble of stuff-doing need to know the strategy – what it is that you’re doing, why, where you’re going with it, etc. The people on the ground with you need the strategy and the tactics, because else they won’t know how to do the stuff. But the outside people don’t really need the tactics at all. Don’t bother with the how unless your audience needs it. They probably don’t. It might make you feel better about yourself, but it’s much more likely that Bob and Jane are thinking about how long this meeting has gone on for already than how personally impressive and definitely-not-an-idiot you are for knowing how you’re going to do some work. Feeling marginally better about yourself (but, let’s face it, still insecure as heck) is not worth the cost, which in this case is the alienation of your audience. 2. Talking for too long about stuff This is kinda the same problem as the previous problem, only much less specific, and I’ve more or less covered why it’s bad already. Basic motivation: to make people think you’re not an idiot. What you do: talk for a very long time about what you’re doing so as to make it sound like you know what you’re doing and lots about it. What your audience wants: the shortest meaningful update. Some of this is a kill your darlings problem – the stuff you’re doing that seems really nifty to you seems really nifty to you, and thus you want to share it with everyone to show that you’re a smart person who thinks up nifty things to do. The downside to this is that it’s mostly only interesting to you – if other people don’t need to know, they likely also don’t care. Think about how you feel when someone is talking a lot to you about a lot of stuff that they’re doing which is at best tangentially interesting and/or relevant. You’re probably not thinking that they’re really smart and clearly know what they’re doing (unless they’re talking a lot and being really engaging about it, which is not the same as talking a lot). You’re probably thinking about something totally unrelated to the thing they’re talking about. Or the fact that you’re bored. You might even – and this is the opposite of what they’re hoping to achieve by talking a lot about stuff – be thinking they’re kind of an idiot. There’s another huge advantage to paring down what you’re trying to say to the barest possible points – it clarifies your thinking. The lightning talk format, as well as other formats which limit the time and/or number of slides you have to say a thing, are really good for doing this. It’s incredibly likely that your audience in this case (the people who need to know some things about your thing but not all the things about your thing) will get everything they need to know from five minutes of you talking about it, especially if trying to condense ALL THE THINGS into a five-minute talk has helped you get clear in your own mind what you’re doing, what you’re trying to say about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. The bonus of this is that by being clear in your thoughts and in what you say, and in not taking up lots of people’s time to tell them stuff they don’t really need to know, you actually come across as much, much smarter than the person who talks for half an hour or more about things that are semi-relevant at best. 3. Waiting until you’ve got every detail sorted before announcing a big change to the people affected by it This is the worst crime on the list. It’s also human nature. Announcing uncertainty – that something important is going to happen (big reorganisation, product getting canned, etc.) but you’re not quite sure what or when or how yet – is scary. There are risks to it. Uncertainty makes people anxious. It might even paralyse them. You can’t run a business while you’re figuring out what to do if you’ve paralysed everyone with fear over what the future might bring. And you’re scared that they might think you’re not the right person to be in charge of [thing] if you don’t even know what you’re doing with it. Best not to say anything until you know exactly what’s going to happen and you can reassure them all, right? Nope. The people who are going to be affected by whatever it is that you don’t quite know all the details of yet aren’t stupid***. You wouldn’t have hired them if they were. They know something’s up because you’ve got your guilty face on and you keep pulling people into meeting rooms and looking vaguely worried. Here’s the deal: it’s a lot less stressful for everyone (including you) if you’re up front from the beginning. We took this approach during a recent company-wide reorganisation and got really positive feedback. People would much, much rather be told that something is going to happen but you’re not entirely sure what it is yet than have you wait until it’s all fixed up and then fait accompli the heck out of them. They will tell you this themselves if you ask them. And here’s why: by waiting until you know exactly what’s going on to communicate, you remove any agency that the people that the thing is going to happen to might otherwise have had. I know you’re scared that they might get scared – and that’s natural and kind of admirable – but it’s also patronising and infantilising. Ask someone whether they’d rather work on a project which has an openly uncertain future from the beginning, or one where everything’s great until it gets shut down with no forewarning, and very few people are going to tell you they’d prefer the latter. Uncertainty is humanising. It’s you admitting that you don’t have all the answers, which is great, because no one does. It allows you to be consultative – you can actually ask other people what they think and how they feel and what they’d like to do and what they think you should do, and they’ll thank you for it and feel listened to and respected as people and colleagues. Which is a really good reason to start talking to them about what’s going on as soon as you know something’s going on yourself. All of the above assumes you actually care about talking to the people who work with you and for you, and that you’d like to do the right thing by them. If that’s not the case, you can cheerfully disregard the advice here, but if it is, you might want to think about the ways above – and the inevitable countless other ways – that making internal communication about you and not about your audience could actually be doing the people you’re trying to communicate with a huge disservice. So take a deep breath and talk. For five minutes or so. About the important things. Not the other things. As soon as you possibly can. And you’ll be fine.   *Of course you do. You’re good at your job. Don’t worry. **This might not always be true, but it is most of the time. Other people who need to know the how will either be people who you’ve already identified as needing-to-know and thus part of the same set as the people in you’re area you’ve already discussed this with, or else they’ll ask you. But don’t bring this stuff up unless someone asks for it, because most of the people in the audience really don’t care and you’re wasting their time. ***I mean, they might be. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re not.

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