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• SQL Azure Security: DoS Part II

  - by Herve Roggero

  Ah!  When you shoot yourself in the foot... a few times... it hurts! That's what I did on Sunday, to learn more about the behavior of the SQL Azure Denial Of Service prevention feature. This article is a short follow up to my last post on this feature. In this post, I will outline some of the lessons learned that were the result of testing the behavior of SQL Azure from two machines. From the standpoint of SQL Azure, they look like one machine since they are behind a NAT. All logins affected The first thing to note is that all the logins are affected. If you lock yourself out to a specific database, none of the logins will work on that database. In fact the database size becomes "--" in the SQL Azure Portal.   Less than 100 sessions I was able to see 50+ sessions being made in SQL Azure (by looking at sys.dm_exec_sessions) before being locked out. The the DoS feature appears to be triggered in part by the number of open sessions. I could not determine if the lockout is triggered by the speed at which connection requests are made however.   Other Databases Unaffected This was interesting... the DoS feature works at the database level. Other databases were available for me to use.   Just Wait Initially I thought that going through SQL Azure and connecting from there would reset the database and allow me to connect again. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case. You will have to wait. And the more you lock yourself out, the more you will have to wait... The first time the database became available again within 30 seconds or so; the second time within 2-3 minutes and the third time... within 2-3 hours...   Successful Logins The DoS feature appears to engage only for valid logins. If you have a login failure, it doesn't seem to count. I ran a test with over 100 login failures without being locked.

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• Is it okay to have people with multiple roles in a Scrum team?

  - by Wayne M

  I'm evaluating some Agile-style methodologies for possible introduction to my team. With Scrum, is it allowable to have the same person perform multiple roles? We have a small team of four developers and a web designer; we don't really have a lead (I fulfill this role), QA testers or business analysts, and all of our development tasks come from the CIO. Automated testing is seen as a total waste of time, and everything focuses on speed and not quality. What will happen is the CIO will come up with a development task (whether a feature or a bug) and give it to a developer (not to the whole team, to an individual, often in private or out of the blue) who is then expected to get it completed. The CIO doesn't gather requirements beyond the initial idea (and this has bitten us before as we'll implement something only to find out that none of the end users can use the feature, because they weren't consulted or even informed about it before we developed it, and in a panic we'll be told to revert the change) but requires say in/approval of everything that we do. First things first, is a Scrum style something to consider to introduce some standards and practices? From reading, Scrum seems to rely on a bit more trust and communication and focuses more on project management than on development, which is something we are completely devoid of as we don't have any semblance of project management at present. Second, if it can work is it unreasonable for someone, let's say myself, to act as both ScrumMaster and a developer? Or for a developer to also be the Product Owner (although chances are this will be the CIO, who isn't a developer)? I realize the Scrum Master and the Product Owner should be different people but at the same time I don't think we have anyone who has the qualities of a Product Owner (chances are it would turn into a "I need all these stories, I don't care how but get it done" type of deal and/or any freeze would be unfrozen on a whim). It seems to me that I might need to pick and choose pieces of Scrum/XP/Lean to compensate for how things are done currently, as it's highly unlikely that the mentality can be changed; for instance Pair Programming would never fly (seen as a waste, you get half the tasks done if you need two people for everything), TDD would be a hard sell, but short cycles would be welcomed.

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• Why would I learn C++11, having known C and C++?

  - by Shahbaz

  I am a programmer in C and C++, although I don't stick to either language and write a mixture of the two. Sometimes having code in classes, possibly with operator overloading, or templates and the oh so great STL is obviously a better way. Sometimes use of a simple C function pointer is much much more readable and clear. So I find beauty and practicality in both languages. I don't want to get into the discussion of "If you mix them and compile with a C++ compiler, it's not a mix anymore, it's all C++" I think we all understand what I mean by mixing them. Also, I don't want to talk about C vs C++, this question is all about C++11. C++11 introduces what I think are significant changes to how C++ works, but it has introduced many special cases that change how different features behave in different circumstances, placing restrictions on multiple inheritance, adding lambda functions, etc. I know that at some point in the future, when you say C++ everyone would assume C++11. Much like when you say C nowadays, you most probably mean C99. That makes me consider learning C++11. After all, if I want to continue writing code in C++, I may at some point need to start using those features simply because my colleagues have. Take C for example. After so many years, there are still many people learning and writing code in C. Why? Because the language is good. What good means is that, it follows many of the rules to create a good programming language. So besides being powerful (which easy or hard, almost all programming languages are), C is regular and has few exceptions, if any. C++11 however, I don't think so. I'm not sure that the changes introduced in C++11 are making the language better. So the question is: Why would I learn C++11? Update: My original question in short was: "I like C++, but the new C++11 doesn't look good because of this and this and this. However, deep down something tells me I need to learn it. So, I asked this question here so that someone would help convince me to learn it." However, the zealous people here can't tolerate pointing out a flaw in their language and were not at all constructive in this manner. After the moderator edited the question, it became more like a "So, how about this new C++11?" which was not at all my question. Therefore, in a day or too I am going to delete this question if no one comes up with an actual convincing argument. P.S. If you are interested in knowing what flaws I was talking about, you can edit my question and see the previous edits.

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• Pathfinding for fleeing

  - by Philipp

  As you know there are plenty of solutions when you wand to find the best path in a 2-dimensional environment which leads from point A to point B. But how do I calculate a path when an object is at point A, and wants to get away from point B, as fast and far as possible? A bit of background information: My game uses a 2d environment which isn't tile-based but has floating point accuracy. The movement is vector-based. The pathfinding is done by partitioning the game world into rectangles which are walkable or non-walkable and building a graph out of their corners. I already have pathfinding between points working by using Dijkstras algorithm. The use-case for the fleeing algorithm is that in certain situations, actors in my game should perceive another actor as a danger and flee from it. The trivial solution would be to just move the actor in a vector in the direction which is opposite from the threat until a "safe" distance was reached or the actor reaches a wall where it then covers in fear. The problem with this approach is that actors will be blocked by small obstacles they could easily get around. As long as moving along the wall wouldn't bring them closer to the threat they could do that, but it would look smarter when they would avoid obstacles in the first place: Another problem I see is with dead ends in the map geometry. In some situations a being must choose between a path which gets it faster away now but ends in a dead end where it would be trapped, or another path which would mean that it wouldn't get that far away from the danger at first (or even a bit closer) but on the other hand would have a much greater long-term reward in that it would eventually get them much further away. So the short-term reward of getting away fast must be somehow valued against the long-term reward of getting away far. There is also another rating problem for situations where an actor should accept to move closer to a minor threat to get away from a much larger threat. But completely ignoring all minor threats would be foolish, too (that's why the actor in this graphic goes out of its way to avoid the minor threat in the upper right area): Are there any standard solutions for this problem?

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• COLLABORATE 13 Call for Papers

  - by Marc Weintraub

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Attention PeopleSoft customers!  Speak at the largest user-led PeopleSoft conference of the year and attend for free! Interested in submitting a presentation for COLLABORATE 13? October 12 is the deadline to submit your abstract. The COLLABORATE 13- Quest forum is your home for high-level education sessions around PeopleSoft. Presenting doesn’t just mean giving a solo lecture: you can present with a vendor, give a demonstration (internet will be provided), facilitate a hot topic discussion or even offer best practices from an experience your company has been through. Remember, to submit an abstract now, all you need is a short description of your presentation. Think you don't have a story to tell? Think again! Check out the COLLABORATE 13- Quest forum now to better understand what we are looking for. A selection committee of other PeopleSoft users will review all sessions and select the most relevant, customer-focused sessions possible to make COLLABORATE a great learning experience for everyone. Don't forget, one speaker from each session selected will be eligible to receive a complimentary registration to the entire event *some rules apply. Also, don’t forget to include your functional counterpart. The selection committee is looking to increase the amount of functional users attending and want to help them glean the most out of the event. Thank you for your time and please let the selection committee know if you have any questions about submitting a presentation. We look forward to seeing you at COLLABORATE 13 in Denver! Quest's COLLABORATE '13 website - http://www.questdirect.org/collaborate /* 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Addressing threats introduced by the BYOD trend

  - by kyap

  With the growth of the mobile technology segment, enterprises are facing a new type of threats introduced by the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend, where employees use their own devices (laptops, tablets or smartphones) not necessarily secured to access corporate network and information.In the past - actually even right now, enterprises used to provide laptops to their employees for their daily work, with specific operating systems including anti-virus and desktop management tools, in order to make sure that the pools of laptop allocated are spyware or trojan-horse free to access the internal network and sensitive information. But the BYOD reality is breaking this paradigm and open new security breaches for enterprises as most of the username/password based systems, especially the internal web applications, can be accessed by less or none protected device.To address this reality we can adopt 3 approaches:1. Coué's approach: Close your eyes and assume that your employees are mature enough to know what he/she should or should not do.2. Consensus approach: Provide a list of restricted and 'certified' devices to the internal network. 3. Military approach: Access internal systems with certified laptop ONLYIf you choose option 1: Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you find the others entries more useful :)If you choose option 2: The proliferation of new hardware and software updates every quarter makes this approach very costly and difficult to maintain.If you choose option 3: You need to find a way to allow the access into your sensitive application from the corporate authorized machines only, managed by the IT administrators... but how? The challenge with option 3 is to find out how end-users can restrict access to certain sensitive applications only from authorized machines, or from another angle end-users can not access the sensitive applications if they are not using the authorized machine... So what if we find a way to store the applications credential secretly from the end-users, and then automatically submit them when the end-users access the application? With this model, end-users do not know the username/password to access the applications so even if the end-users use their own devices they will not able to login. Also, there's no need to reconfigure existing applications to adapt to the new authenticate scheme given that we are still leverage the same username/password authenticate model at the application level. To adopt this model, you can leverage Oracle Enterprise Single Sign On. In short, Oracle ESSO is a desktop based solution, capable to store credentials of Web and Native based applications. At the application startup and if it is configured as an esso-enabled application - check out my previous post on how to make Skype essso-enabled, Oracle ESSO takes over automatically the sign-in sequence with the store credential on behalf of the end-users. Combined with Oracle ESSO Provisioning Gateway, the credentials can be 'pushed' in advance from an actual provisioning server, like Oracle Identity Manager or Tivoli Identity Manager, so the end-users can login into sensitive application without even knowing the actual username and password, so they can not login with other machines rather than those secured by Oracle ESSO.Below is a graphical illustration of this approach:With this model, not only you can protect the access to sensitive applications only from authorized machine, you can also implement much stronger Password Policies in terms of Password Complexity as well as Password Reset Frequency but end-users will not need to remember the passwords anymore.If you are interested, do not hesitate to check out the Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-on products from OTN !

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• Need help on a problemset in a programming contest

  - by topher

  I've attended a local programming contest on my country. The name of the contest is "ACM-ICPC Indonesia National Contest 2013". The contest has ended on 2013-10-13 15:00:00 (GMT +7) and I am still curious about one of the problems. You can find the original version of the problem here. Brief Problem Explanation: There are a set of "jobs" (tasks) that should be performed on several "servers" (computers). Each job should be executed strictly from start time Si to end time Ei Each server can only perform one task at a time. (The complicated thing goes here) It takes some time for a server to switch from one job to another. If a server finishes job Jx, then to start job Jy it will need an intermission time Tx,y after job Jx completes. This is the time required by the server to clean up job Jx and load job Jy. In other word, job Jy can be run after job Jx if and only if Ex + Tx,y = Sy. The problem is to compute the minimum number of servers needed to do all jobs. Example: For example, let there be 3 jobs S(1) = 3 and E(1) = 6 S(2) = 10 and E(2) = 15 S(3) = 16 and E(3) = 20 T(1,2) = 2, T(1,3) = 5 T(2,1) = 0, T(2,3) = 3 T(3,1) = 0, T(3,2) = 0 In this example, we need 2 servers: Server 1: J(1), J(2) Server 2: J(3) Sample Input: Short explanation: The first 3 is the number of test cases, following by number of jobs (the second 3 means that there are 3 jobs for case 1), then followed by Ei and Si, then the T matrix (sized equal with number of jobs). 3 3 3 6 10 15 16 20 0 2 5 0 0 3 0 0 0 4 8 10 4 7 12 15 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 8 10 4 7 12 15 1 4 0 50 50 50 50 0 50 50 50 50 0 50 50 50 50 0 Sample Output: Case #1: 2 Case #2: 1 Case #3: 4 Personal Comments: The time required can be represented as a graph matrix, so I'm supposing this as a directed acyclic graph problem. Methods I tried so far is brute force and greedy, but got Wrong Answer. (Unfortunately I don't have my code anymore) Could probably solved by dynamic programming too, but I'm not sure. I really have no clear idea on how to solve this problem. So a simple hint or insight will be very helpful to me.

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• prism and multiple screens

  - by Avi

  OK - I am studying Prism a little because of a "free weekend" offer on Pluralsight. As this is proving too complex for me, I went to the Prism book and looked at the forward, and this is what it said: What comes after “Hello, World?” WPF and Silverlight developers are blessed with an abundance of excellent books... There’s no lack of tutorials on Model-View-ViewModel ... But they stop short of the guidance you need to deliver a non-trivial application in full. Your first screen goes well. You add a second screen and a third. Because you started your solution with the built-in “Navigation Application Template,” adding new screens feels like hanging shirts on a closet rod. You are on a roll. Until the harsh reality of real application requirements sets in. As it happens, your application has 30 screens not three. There’s no room on that closet rod for 30 screens. Some screens are modal pop-ups; you don’t navigate to a pop-up. Screens become interdependent such that user activity in one screen triggers changes that propagate throughout the UI. Some screens are optional; others are visible only to authorized users. Some screens are permanent, while other screens can be opened and closed at will. You discover that navigating back to a previously displayed screen creates a new instance. That’s not what you expected and, to your horror, the prior instance is gone along with the user’s unsaved changes. Now the issue is, I don't relate to this description. I've never been a UI programmer, but same as everyone else I'm using Windows apps such as MS-Office, and web sites such as Amazon, Facebook and StackExchange. And I look at these and I don't see many "so many screens" issues! Indeed, the only applications having many windows I can think of is Visual Studio. Maybe also Visio, a little. But take Word - You have a ribbon and a main window. Or take Facebook: You have those lists on the left (Favorites, Lists, Groups etc.), the status middle, the adds and then the Contacts sidebar. But it's only one page. Of course, I understand that in enterprise scenarios there are dashboad applications where multiple segments of the screen are updated from multiple non-related services. This I dig. But other scenarios? So - What am I missing? What is the "multiple screens" monster Pirsm is supposed to be the silver bullet solution for? Shoud I invest in studying Prism in addition to learning WPF or ASP.NET MVC?

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• External hard drive issue

  - by Blind Fish

  I am running Ubuntu 12.04 and I have a 500GB external hard drive, formatted in ext4, which I have used for about a year to store batches of data that I am sifting through. About once a week I move a chunk of data from the external drive to my internal drive for processing. As I do that I delete the data from the external drive and empty the trash, thereby clearing up space on the external and also preventing myself from grabbing stuff that I've already sorted through. The vast majority of this is text files, but there are a few .jpegs and .mp4s thrown in, if that matters. Anyway, this has been working without a hitch for nearly a year. So today I plug in the drive and I have an odd issue. I was able to move folders from the external over to my internal drive with no problem, but when I tried to delete those files I was unable to do so. I kept getting the "unable to send file to trash, do you wish to delete permanently?" message. I clicked yes / delete all, but no files were actually deleted. It just sat there. Even worse, while the system was trying in vain to delete those files I was unable to move more files over. In short, I was stuck. I canceled the operation, unmounted and remounted the drive, and then I had an even bigger problem. I have a spreadsheet of all the different folders on there ( exactly 818 ) and yet when I opened the drive in Nautilus, it was only finding 512 folders. So I had 306 missing folders, but my free space was unchanged. Immediately I think that the drive may be corrupted. I went into Disk Utility and ran the check disk option. It said that the drive was NOT clean, but offered no remedy or option to repair. I went back into the drive in Nautilus and once again attempted to delete the files I had already moved. Same issue. I clicked on Details and it said that it was unable to create a trashing file I/O error. I've looked, and it's not a permissions issue. The drive and all folders that are in it all belong to me, and they are all read / write. I've started running badblocks on the drive, but it looks like that is going to take several hours to complete. Any ideas?

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• Travelling at Magenic

  - by Chris G. Williams

  I occasionally get asked if we travel "a lot" at Magenic. Sometimes the question comes from job candidates. Other times it's clients, recruiters or friends. To give a simple yes or no answer would be a disservice to the person asking the question. So here is my standard answer:It depends.(That was the short version.  Here's the long version...)We do have some guys that are more "national" in focus, and they can travel a fair amount. They also receive a little extra in compensation for doing so. It's a balancing act, and not necessarily a one-size-fits-all situation. Not everyone is well suited to constant travel. Some folks enjoy it and some folks hate it.With our local guys, our general policy is to TRY and keep them close to home whenever possible, but sometimes the needs of the client will dictate otherwise. (As Spock would say... the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.)In most cases though, we really do try to avoid sending our guys on extended travel gigs (i.e. every week for 6 months) when a simple kickoff trip and occasional visit will do. This depends on the nature of the gig, of course. Some types of work lend themselves to this model better than others. Additionally, this can and does vary by office. If one office is having trouble staffing a gig (not enough available bodies) and another office has a few too many folks on the bench, well... you can connect the dots. But again, we try to keep that to a minimum.Lastly, we all have our own thresholds for what we consider "a lot" of travel. There are two parts to this threshold:Half of it is whatever you're accustomed to already. The other half is being honest with yourself about how much you [like/hate] dealing with airports, car rentals, taxis, hotels, disruptions to your workout schedule, time away from friends/family, etc.Knowing a bit about yourself will definitely help you decide how much travel is too much for you.

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• Bukkit inventory saving: crashing somewhere

  - by HcgRandon

  I'm working on a command for a bukkit plugin that lets you transfer worlds. In the section about saving the player's inventory, I'm getting a runtime error. My question is: Why is the error happening, and how can I prevent it? The plugin code public void savePlayerInv(Player p, World w){ File playerInvConfigFile = new File(plugin.getDataFolder() + File.separator + "players" + File.separator + p.getName(), "inventory.yml"); FileConfiguration pInv = YamlConfiguration.loadConfiguration(playerInvConfigFile); PlayerInventory inv = p.getInventory(); int i = 0; for (ItemStack stack : inv.getContents()) { //increment integer i++; String startInventory = w.getName() + ".inv." + Integer.toString(i); //save inv pInv.set(startInventory + ".amount", stack.getAmount()); pInv.set(startInventory + ".durability", Short.toString(stack.getDurability())); pInv.set(startInventory + ".type", stack.getTypeId()); //pInv.set(startInventory + ".enchantment", stack.getEnchantments()); //TODO add enchant saveing } i = 0; for (ItemStack armor : inv.getArmorContents()){ i++; String startArmor = w.getName() + ".armor." + Integer.toString(i); //save armor pInv.set(startArmor + ".amount", armor.getAmount()); pInv.set(startArmor + ".durability", armor.getDurability()); pInv.set(startArmor + ".type", armor.getTypeId()); //pInv.set(startArmor + ".enchantment", armor.getEnchantments()); } //save exp if (p.getExp() != 0) { pInv.set(w.getName() + ".exp", p.getExp()); } } The offending line The stack trace complains about line 130, which is this line. pInv.set(startInventory + ".amount", stack.getAmount()); The stack trace 2012-03-21 13:23:25 [SEVERE] null org.bukkit.command.CommandException: Unhandled exception executing command 'wtp' in plugin Needs v1.0 at org.bukkit.command.PluginCommand.execute(PluginCommand.java:42) at org.bukkit.command.SimpleCommandMap.dispatch(SimpleCommandMap.java:166) at org.bukkit.craftbukkit.CraftServer.dispatchCommand(CraftServer.java:461) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.handleCommand(NetServerHandler.java:818) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.chat(NetServerHandler.java:778) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.a(NetServerHandler.java:761) at net.minecraft.server.Packet3Chat.handle(Packet3Chat.java:33) at net.minecraft.server.NetworkManager.b(NetworkManager.java:229) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.a(NetServerHandler.java:112) at net.minecraft.server.NetworkListenThread.a(NetworkListenThread.java:78) at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.w(MinecraftServer.java:554) at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.run(MinecraftServer.java:452) at net.minecraft.server.ThreadServerApplication.run(SourceFile:490) Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at com.devoverflow.improved.needs.commands.CommandWorldtp.savePlayerInv(CommandWorldtp.java:130) at com.devoverflow.improved.needs.commands.CommandWorldtp.onCommand(CommandWorldtp.java:60) at org.bukkit.command.PluginCommand.execute(PluginCommand.java:40) ... 12 more

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• F# Project Euler Problem 1

  - by MarkPearl

  Every now and then I give project Euler a quick browse. Since I have been playing with F# I have found it a great way to learn the basics of the language. Today I thought I would give problem 1 an attempt… Problem 1 If we list all the natural numbers below 10 that are multiples of 3 or 5, we get 3, 5, 6 and 9. The sum of these multiples is 23. Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000. My F# Solution I broke this problem into two functions… 1) be able to generate a collection of numbers that are multiples of a number but but are smaller than another number. let GenerateMultiplesOfXbelowY X Y = X |> Seq.unfold (fun i -> if (i<Y) then Some(i, i+X) else None) I then needed something that generated collections for multiples of 3 & 5 and then removed any duplicates. Once this was done I would need to sum these all together to get a result. I found the Seq object to be extremely useful to achieve this… let Multiples = Seq.append (GenerateMultiplesOfXbelowY 3 1000) (GenerateMultiplesOfXbelowY 5 1000) |> Seq.distinct |> Seq.fold(fun acc a -> acc + a) 0 |> Console.WriteLine |> Console.ReadLine My complete solution was … open System let GenerateMultiplesOfXbelowY X Y = X |> Seq.unfold (fun i -> if (i<Y) then Some(i, i+X) else None) let Multiples = Seq.append (GenerateMultiplesOfXbelowY 3 1000) (GenerateMultiplesOfXbelowY 5 1000) |> Seq.distinct |> Seq.fold(fun acc a -> acc + a) 0 |> Console.WriteLine |> Console.ReadLine   Which seemed to generate the correct result in a relatively short period of time although I am sure I will get some comments from the experts who know of some intrinsic method to achieve all of this in one method call.

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• Why can't the IT industry deliver large, faultless projects quickly as in other industries?

  - by MainMa

  After watching National Geographic's MegaStructures series, I was surprised how fast large projects are completed. Once the preliminary work (design, specifications, etc.) is done on paper, the realization itself of huge projects take just a few years or sometimes a few months. For example, Airbus A380 "formally launched on Dec. 19, 2000", and "in the Early March, 2005", the aircraft was already tested. The same goes for huge oil tankers, skyscrapers, etc. Comparing this to the delays in software industry, I can't help wondering why most IT projects are so slow, or more precisely, why they cannot be as fast and faultless, at the same scale, given enough people? Projects such as the Airbus A380 present both: Major unforeseen risks: while this is not the first aircraft built, it still pushes the limits if the technology and things which worked well for smaller airliners may not work for the larger one due to physical constraints; in the same way, new technologies are used which were not used yet, because for example they were not available in 1969 when Boeing 747 was done. Risks related to human resources and management in general: people quitting in the middle of the project, inability to reach a person because she's on vacation, ordinary human errors, etc. With those risks, people still achieve projects like those large airliners in a very short period of time, and despite the delivery delays, those projects are still hugely successful and of a high quality. When it comes to software development, the projects are hardly as large and complicated as an airliner (both technically and in terms of management), and have slightly less unforeseen risks from the real world. Still, most IT projects are slow and late, and adding more developers to the project is not a solution (going from a team of ten developer to two thousand will sometimes allow to deliver the project faster, sometimes not, and sometimes will only harm the project and increase the risk of not finishing it at all). Those which are still delivered may often contain a lot of bugs, requiring consecutive service packs and regular updates (imagine "installing updates" on every Airbus A380 twice per week to patch the bugs in the original product and prevent the aircraft from crashing). How can such differences be explained? Is it due exclusively to the fact that software development industry is too young to be able to manage thousands of people on a single project in order to deliver large scale, nearly faultless products very fast?

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• New grad; To overcome complete lack of experience, should I ditch a creative pet project in lieu of one that would demonstrate more applicable skills?

  - by Hart Simha

  I am currently working on a project on github that I think would be a good demonstration of my initiative, creativity and enthusiasm. It is an educational game I am developing in pygame that enables the user to learn to improve their development productivity by using vim, specifically with python, though learning to code faster with vim should be transferable to any language. I think this is something that might have a mass appeal and benefit to a lot of people in a measurable way. -However- I am graduating from college in a month (my degree is computer science with a minor in English), with no experience that is relevant to helping me get any kind of job in the field, and a gpa that doesn't tout my merits. I could pursue a career in game development, but it's not necessarily what I'm most interested in, and see myself applying to startups around the country. To the places I am looking at applying, showing that I have experience with pygame is going to be largely irrelevant, except in demonstration of my ability to code, period. A lot of skills that ARE more marketable, such a data modeling, GIS, mobile application, development, javascript, .net framework, and various web development technologies, are not going to be showcased by this project (on the upside, employers do like to see familiarity with git and python). I'm wondering if I should sink all my free time in the next couple of months into this project, since I'm motivated and interested in it, and if the value of being able to demonstrate ambition and 'good ideas' (for lack of a better term, and in my own opinion) will compensate for the absence of demonstrating more sought-after skills. I am probably at a point where I should either commit fully to this project now, or put it on the backburner in favor of something else, and I am leaning towards continuing with what I am already working on, because I think it's a great idea, and something achievable to me with enough dedication over the next couple months. But the most important thing to me is being able to get a job out of college, which I am exceedingly concerned about as the professional landscape which I am navigating for the first time is a lot more intimidating than I could have anticipated, with almost every job (even short-term contract positions) requiring years of experience which I lack. So in brief, the common denominator to answering the question "How can I overcome experience requirements for a job" seems to be "Show off your own project." I want to know WHICH project I should work on to best increase my chances of getting a job out of college, keeping in mind that I have no experience. I believe this question is applicable to any new grad that lacks demonstrable experience.

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• Cone of Uncertainty in classic and agile projects

  - by DigiMortal

  David Starr from Scrum.org made interesting session in TechEd Europe 2012 - Implementing Scrum Using Team Foundation Server 2012. One of interesting things for me was how Cone of Uncertainty looks like in agile projects (or how agile methodologies distort the cone we know from waterfall projects). This posting illustrates two cones – one for waterfall and one for agile world. Cone of Uncertainty Cone of Uncertainty was introduced to software development community by Steve McConnell and it visualizes how accurate are our estimates over project timeline. Here is the Cone of Uncertainty when we deal with waterfall and Big Design Up-Front (BDUF). Cone of Uncertainty. Taken from MSDN Library page Estimating. The closer we are to project end the more accurate are our estimates. When project ends we know exactly how much every task took time. As we can see then cone is wide when we usually have to give our estimates – it happens somewhere between Initial Project Concept and Requirements Complete. Don’t ask me why Initial Project Concept is the stage where some companies give their best estimates – they just do it every time and doesn’t learn a thing later. This cone is inevitable for software development and agile methodologies that try to make software world better are also able to change the cone. Cone of Uncertainty in agile projects Agile methodologies usually try to avoid BDUF, waterfalls and other things that make all our mistakes highly expensive. Of course, we are not the only ones who make mistakes – don’t also forget our dear customers. Agile methodologies take development as creational work and focus on making it better. One main trick is to focus on small and short iterations. What it means? We are estimating functionalities that are easier for us to understand and implement. Therefore our estimates are more accurate. As we move from few big iterations to many small iterations we also distort and slice Cone of Uncertainty. This is how cone looks when agile methodologies are used. Cone of Uncertainty in agile projects. We have more cones to live with but they are way smaller. I don’t have any numbers to put here because I found any but still this “chart” should give you the point: more smaller iterations cause more but way smaller cones of uncertainty. We can handle these small uncertainties because steps we take to complete small tasks are more predictable and doesn’t grow very often above our heads. One more note. Consider that both of charts given in this posting describe exactly the same phase of same project – just uncertainties are different.

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• What's about Java?

  - by Silviu Turuga

  What is Java? In very short words, Java is a programming language that let you make an application that can be run on different operating systems, no matter we are talking about Windows, Mac OS, Linux or even embedded devices, such as RaspberryPi. When you compile a Java program, instead of getting a binary output as you get on other programming languages, you'll get a Java intermediate code, called Java bytecode. This is interpreted at run time, by a virtual machine that is specifically for the hardware and operating system you are using. What Java do i need? There are 5 major versions of Java: Java SE(Standard Edition) - this is what I'll use on most of my tutorials. Most of the examples will run on Java 6, but for others you'll need Java 7. Java EE (Enterprise Edition) - used for enterprise development Java ME (Micro Edition) - for running Java on mobile and different embedded devices such as PDAs, TV set-top boxes, printers, etc. Java Embedded - for some embedded devices such as Raspberry Pi, where the resources are limited JavaFX - to develop rich content User Interfaces. This is also something that will use a lot. More detailed information can be found on Oracle's website If you just want to run java applications you'll need the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed. If you want to program and create new applications, then you'll need the JDK (Java Development Kit).  How to check if Java is already installed? From command line, if you are on Windows, or from Terminal on Mac enter the following: java -version You should get something like this, if you have java installed on your system: java version "1.6.0_37" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_37-b06-434-11M3909) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.12-b01-434, mixed mode) Note: your current Java version might be different from mine. More information https://www.java.com/en/download/faq/whatis_java.xml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) Next steps Install Java SDK Chose an IDE. I recommend NetBeans as it is very easy to use and also let you quickly create the GUI of your application Alternatives are Eclipse, Komodo Edit (for Mac), etc. There are plenty of solutions both free or paid. Resources on web Oracle Tutorials - lot of tutorials and useful resources JavaRanch - forum about java

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• Taking a Chomp out of a (Social Network) Product Hype

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  Andrew Kershaw, Senior Director Oracle Social Network Product Development, speaks about Oracle Social Network One of our competitors is being very aggressive with its own developed Social Network add-on, but there should be no doubt in the minds that the Oracle social capabilities available with Fusion CRM stack up well against it. Within the Oracle Cloud, we have announced a product called Oracle Social Network. That technology is pre-integrated into Fusion Applications, enabling your customer to build a collaborative and social enterprise (without all the noise!). Oracle Social Network is designed together with our Fusion Applications. It is very conveniently pre-integrated with CRM, HCM, Financials, Projects, Supply Chain, and the Fusion family. But what's even better is that the individual teams can take a considered approach to what they are trying to achieve within the collaboration process and the outcome they are trying to enable. Then they can utilize the network and collaboration tools to support that result. And there's more! The Fusion teams can design social interactions that bridge across and outside their individual product lines because we have more than just a product line and they know they have the social network to connect them. I know we have a superior product, but it is our ability to understand and execute across the enterprise that will enable us to deliver a much more robust and capable platform in the short term than our competitor can. We have built a product specifically designed for enterprise social collaboration which is not the same for the competition. We have delivered a much more effective solution - one in which individuals can easily collaborate to get results, while being confident that they know who has access to their information. Our platform has been pre-built to cross the company boundaries and enable our customers to collaborate, not just with their customers, but with their partners and suppliers as well. So Fusion addresses the combination of the enterprise application suite with enterprise collaboration and social networking. Oracle Social Network already has a feature function advantage over our competitor's tool providing a real added value to the employees. Plus Oracle has the ability to execute in a broad enterprise and cross-enterprise way that our competitors cannot. We have the power of a tool that provides the core social fabric across all of the applications, as well as supporting enterprise collaboration. That allows us to provide intelligent business insight, connections, and recommendations that our competitor simply can't. From our competitors, customers get integration for Sales; they get integration for Service, but then they have to integrate every other enterprise asset that they have by themselves. With Oracle, we are doing the integration. Fusion Applications will be pre-integrated, and over time, all of the applications in the business suite, including our Applications Unlimited and specialist industry applications, will connect to the Oracle Social Network. I'm confident these capabilities make Oracle Social Network the only collaboration platform on which to deliver the social enterprise.

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• Separate Action from Assertion in Unit Tests

  - by DigitalMoss

  Setup Many years ago I took to a style of unit testing that I have come to like a lot. In short, it uses a base class to separate out the Arrangement, Action and Assertion of the test into separate method calls. You do this by defining method calls in [Setup]/[TestInitialize] that will be called before each test run. [Setup] public void Setup() { before_each(); //arrangement because(); //action } This base class usually includes the [TearDown] call as well for when you are using this setup for Integration tests. [TearDown] public void Cleanup() { after_each(); } This often breaks out into a structure where the test classes inherit from a series of Given classes that put together the setup (i.e. GivenFoo : GivenBar : WhenDoingBazz) with the Assertions being one line tests with a descriptive name of what they are covering [Test] public void ThenBuzzSouldBeTrue() { Assert.IsTrue(result.Buzz); } The Problem There are very few tests that wrap around a single action so you end up with lots of classes so recently I have taken to defining the action in a series of methods within the test class itself: [Test] public void ThenBuzzSouldBeTrue() { because_an_action_was_taken(); Assert.IsTrue(result.Buzz); } private void because_an_action_was_taken() { //perform action here } This results in several "action" methods within the test class but allows grouping of similar tests (i.e. class == WhenTestingDifferentWaysToSetBuzz) The Question Does someone else have a better way of separating out the three 'A's of testing? Readability of tests is important to me so I would prefer that, when a test fails, that the very naming structure of the tests communicate what has failed. If someone can read the Inheritance structure of the tests and have a good idea why the test might be failing then I feel it adds a lot of value to the tests (i.e. GivenClient : GivenUser : WhenModifyingUserPermissions : ThenReadAccessShouldBeTrue). I am aware of Acceptance Testing but this is more on a Unit (or series of units) level with boundary layers mocked. EDIT : My question is asking if there is an event or other method for executing a block of code before individual tests (something that could be applied to specific sets of tests without it being applied to all tests within a class like [Setup] currently does. Barring the existence of this event, which I am fairly certain doesn't exist, is there another method for accomplishing the same thing? Using [Setup] for every case presents a problem either way you go. Something like [Action("Category")] (a setup method that applied to specific tests within the class) would be nice but I can't find any way of doing this.

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• Is my work on a developer test being taken advantage of?

  - by CodeWarrior

  I am looking for a job and have applied to a number of positions. One of them responded, I had a pretty lengthy phone interview (perhaps an hour +) and they then set me up with a developer test. I was told that this test is estimated to take between 6 and 8 hours and that, provided it met with their approval, I could be paid for my work on it. That gave me some pause, but I endeavored. The developer test took place on a VM accessed via RDP. The task was to implement a search page in a web project that requests data from the server, displays it on the screen in a table, has a pretty complicated search filtering scheme (there are about 15 statuses and when sending the search to the server you can search by these statuses) in addition to the string/field search. They want some SVG icons to change color on certain data values, they want some data to be represented differently than how it is in the database, etc. Loooong story short, this took one heck of a lot longer than 6-8 hours. Much of it was due to the very poor VM that I was running on (Visual Studio 2013 took 10 minutes to load, and another 15 minutes to open the 3 GB ginormous solution). After completing, I was told to commit my changes to source control... Hmm, OK. I get an email back that they thought that the SVGs could have their color changed differently, they found a bug in this edge-case, there was an occasional problem with this other thing that I never experienced, etc. So I am 13-14 hours into this thing now, and I have to do bug fixes. I do them, and they come back with some more. This is all apparently going into a production application. I noticed some anomalies in the code that was already in there where it looked like other people had coded all of one functionality and not anything else that I could find. Am I just being used for cheap labor? Even if they pay me the promised 50 dollars and hour for 6 hours, I have committed like 18 hours to this thing now. If I bug fix all of the stuff they keep coming up with, I will have worked at least 16 hours for free. I have taken a number of developer tests. I have never taken one where I worked on code that was destined for production. I have never taken one where I implemented a feature that was in the pipeline for development (it was planned for, and I implemented it through the course of the test). And I have never taken one that took 4 rounds and a total of 20+ hours. I get the impression that they are using their developer test to field some of the functionality, that they don't have time for in their normal team, on the cheap. Also, I wouldn't mind a 'devtest' tag.

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• Enterprise with eyes on NoSQL

  - by thegreeneman

  Since joining Oracle a few months back, I have had the fortune of being able to interact with a number of large enterprise organizations and discuss their current state of adoption for NoSQL database technology.   It is worth noting that a large percentage of these organizations do have some NoSQL use and have been steadily increasing their understanding of its applicability for certain data management workloads.   Thru those discussions I’ve learned that it seems one of the biggest issues confronting enterprise adoption of NoSQL databases is the lack of standards for access, administration and monitoring.    This was not so much of an issue with the early adopters of NoSQL technology because they employed a highly DevOps centric approach to application deployment leaving a select few highly qualified developers with the task of managing the production of the system that they designed and implemented. However, as NoSQL technology moves out of the startup and into the hands of larger corporate entities, developers with a broad skill set that are capable of both development and I.T. type production management are in short supply and quickly get moved on to do new projects, often moving to different roles within the company.  This difference in the way smaller more agile startups operate as compared to more established companies is revealing a gap in the NoSQL technology segment that needs to get addressed.    This is one of places that a company such as Oracle has a leg up in the NoSQL Database front.  A combination of having gone thru a past database maturization process,  combined with a vast set of corporate relationships that have grown hand in hand to solve these types of issues, Oracle is in a great place to lead the way in closing the requirements gap for NoSQL technology.  Oracle's understanding of the needs specific to mature organizations have already made their way into the Oracle’s NoSQL Database offering with features such as:  One click cluster deployment with visual topology planning,  standards based monitoring protocols such as SNMP, support for data access for reporting via standard SQL  and integration with emerging standards for data access such as MapReduce.  Given the exciting developments we’re driving in the Oracle NoSQL Database group, I will have a lot more to say about this topic as we move into the second half of the year.

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• Bukkit saving inventory

  - by HcgRandon

  Alright i will make this quick... I am working on a command in my plugin to allow you to transfer worlds and i am trying to save inventory but i am getting a problem here is the code: public void savePlayerInv(Player p, World w){ File playerInvConfigFile = new File(plugin.getDataFolder() + File.separator + "players" + File.separator + p.getName(), "inventory.yml"); FileConfiguration pInv = YamlConfiguration.loadConfiguration(playerInvConfigFile); PlayerInventory inv = p.getInventory(); int i = 0; for (ItemStack stack : inv.getContents()) { //increment integer i++; String startInventory = w.getName() + ".inv." + Integer.toString(i); //save inv pInv.set(startInventory + ".amount", stack.getAmount()); pInv.set(startInventory + ".durability", Short.toString(stack.getDurability())); pInv.set(startInventory + ".type", stack.getTypeId()); //pInv.set(startInventory + ".enchantment", stack.getEnchantments()); //TODO add enchant saveing } i = 0; for (ItemStack armor : inv.getArmorContents()){ i++; String startArmor = w.getName() + ".armor." + Integer.toString(i); //save armor pInv.set(startArmor + ".amount", armor.getAmount()); pInv.set(startArmor + ".durability", armor.getDurability()); pInv.set(startArmor + ".type", armor.getTypeId()); //pInv.set(startArmor + ".enchantment", armor.getEnchantments()); } //save exp if (p.getExp() != 0) { pInv.set(w.getName() + ".exp", p.getExp()); } } Now here is the stack trace i recive it is commplaing about line 130 which is this line pInv.set(startInventory + ".amount", stack.getAmount()); okay now trace 2012-03-21 13:23:25 [SEVERE] null org.bukkit.command.CommandException: Unhandled exception executing command 'wtp' in plugin Needs v1.0 at org.bukkit.command.PluginCommand.execute(PluginCommand.java:42) at org.bukkit.command.SimpleCommandMap.dispatch(SimpleCommandMap.java:166) at org.bukkit.craftbukkit.CraftServer.dispatchCommand(CraftServer.java:461) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.handleCommand(NetServerHandler.java:818) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.chat(NetServerHandler.java:778) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.a(NetServerHandler.java:761) at net.minecraft.server.Packet3Chat.handle(Packet3Chat.java:33) at net.minecraft.server.NetworkManager.b(NetworkManager.java:229) at net.minecraft.server.NetServerHandler.a(NetServerHandler.java:112) at net.minecraft.server.NetworkListenThread.a(NetworkListenThread.java:78) at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.w(MinecraftServer.java:554) at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.run(MinecraftServer.java:452) at net.minecraft.server.ThreadServerApplication.run(SourceFile:490) Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at com.devoverflow.improved.needs.commands.CommandWorldtp.savePlayerInv(CommandWorldtp.java:130) at com.devoverflow.improved.needs.commands.CommandWorldtp.onCommand(CommandWorldtp.java:60) at org.bukkit.command.PluginCommand.execute(PluginCommand.java:40) ... 12 more

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• Is is possible to get a patch included in the current release? If so, how?

  - by Oli

  So a while back I reported a bug in Compiz's Place Window plugin. It's a fairly major regression for people affected by it: mainly those using Gnome-Fallback, judging by the reports. A patch surfaced a short time later. I created a PPA for testing and everybody involved so far is reporting the issues are fixed. It even fixes another bug. I've done testing with a standard Unity desktop and can say (for my testing) no adverse effects were visible. I want to get this pushed to Ubuntu right now for two main reasons: I'm selfish. I don't want to need to update my PPA every time a new version of Compiz is pushed to 12.04. I don't want Ubuntu users seeing their windows flying around because of a silly little bug. I want this patch pushed to Ubuntu's version of Compiz as soon as possible, so we can mark these bugs fixed and move on with our lives. Whose leg do I have to hump to get this pulled into Ubuntu right now? I don't maintain this project and it's an upstream thing but it's fairly integral to Ubuntu. I could go to Compiz but I imagine that if they accept the patch, it'll be months (at least a release) before it's anywhere near Ubuntu. And when I do find the right person, how can I make the process as slick as possible for them? I want them to see my request, go "Yup, that all looks great, done" and that be it. I don't want seventeen rounds of emails addressing aspects of the patch. More importantly, I don't want to waste their time either. And what do I have to provide them? My packaging skills are... lamentable. This was my first attempt at patching a package for redistribution so I've probably made every single packaging error known to man. Will they be happy with the original patch (so they can apply it themselves) or should I repackage things so the diff/changelog is a little cleaner (it took me a few goes and the versioning is all over the place). Note: This question is about Compiz but I'd prefer if answers could address other styles of package too so we have an authoritative and comprehensive thread of how to get things fixed.

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• kubuntu: wireless manager can't find any networks

  - by timuçin

  I just installed Kubuntu 12.10 and as I knew my wireless driver would not be recognized, I installed it manually through here. I suppose I shall mention that I also had to do this. The driver worked just fine until I restarted my system. Since then I can't even start over. My wireless card is realtek 8723 The oly lead I have is this piece of log: 11/14/12 07:35:21 AM timucin-W150ER NetworkManager[989] <info> wpa_supplicant started 11/14/12 07:35:21 AM timucin-W150ER NetworkManager[989] <info> (wlan0) supports 4 scan SSIDs 11/14/12 07:35:21 AM timucin-W150ER NetworkManager[989] <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: starting -> ready 11/14/12 07:35:21 AM timucin-W150ER NetworkManager[989] <info> (wlan0): device state change: unavailable -> disconnected (reason 'supplicant-available') [20 30 42] 11/14/12 07:35:21 AM timucin-W150ER NetworkManager[989] <warn> Trying to remove a non-existant call id. 11/14/12 07:35:21 AM timucin-W150ER NetworkManager[989] <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: ready -> inactive 11/14/12 07:35:21 AM timucin-W150ER NetworkManager[989] <info> (wlan0) supports 4 scan SSIDs I feel really bad that I have been trying so many things and even while I am trying them I get a problem at every step. I am really frustrated. You can the time in the logs, I didn't get up early. Just needed to share my feelings. Even the ethernet cable I have use is short for God's sake, I have had to sit at this massively uncomfortable posture for hours. edit: I discovered something interesting. When I boot my windows I see that my wireless manager says "disconnected" now. However when I start ubuntu after windows and modprobe rtl8723e wireless works just fine. Then again, when I restart ubuntu I am back where I have started. So now I have to start windows, restart my machine and do the modprobe thing to see wireless networks.

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• In-Store Tracking Gets a Little Harder

  - by David Dorf

  Remember how Nordstrom was tracking shopper movements within their stores using the unique number, called a MAC, emitted by the WiFi radio in smartphones?  The phones didn't need to connect to the network, only have their WiFi enabled, as most people do by default.  They did this, presumably, to track shoppers' path to purchase and better understand traffic patterns.  Although there were signs explaining this at the entrances, people didn't like the notion of being tracked.  (Nevermind that there are cameras in the ceiling watching them.)  Nordstrom stopped the program. To address this concern the Future of Privacy, a Washington think tank, created Smart Store Privacy, a do-not-track service that allows consumers to register their MAC address in much the same way people register their phone numbers in the national do-not-call list.  A group of companies agreed to respect consumers' wishes and ignore smartphones listed in the database.  The database includes Bluetooth identifiers as well.  Of course you could simply turn your bluetooth and WiFi off when shopping as well. Most know that Apple prefers to use BLE beacons to contact and track smartphones within their stores.  This feature extends the typical online experience to also work in physical stores.  By identifying themselves, shoppers can expect a more tailored shopping experience much like what we've come to expect from Amazon's website, with product recommendations and offers that are (usually) relevant. But the upcoming release of iOS8 is purported to have a new feature that randomizes the WiFi MAC address of smartphones during the "probing" phase.  That is, before connecting to the WiFi network, a random MAC number is used so as to keep the smartphone's real MAC address secret.  Unless you actually connect to the store's WiFi, they won't recognize the MAC address. The details on this are still sketchy, but if the random MAC is consistent for a short period, retailers will still be able to track movements anonymously, but they won't recognize repeat visitors.  That may be sufficient for traffic analytics, but it will stymie target marketing.  In the case of marketing, using iBeacons with opt-in permission from consumers will be the way forward. There is always a battle between utility and privacy, so I expect many more changes in this area.  Incidentally, if you'd like to see where beacons are being used this site tracks them around the world.

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• Is this an effective monetization method for an Android game? [on hold]

  - by Matthew Page

  The short version: I plan to make an Android puzzle game where the user tries to get 3-6 numbers to their predetermined goal numbers. The free version of the app will have three predetermined levels (easy, medium, hard). The full version ($0.99, probably) will have a level generator where there will be unlimited easy, medium, or hard levels, as well as a custom difficulty option where users can set specific vales to the number of numbers to equate to their goal, the number of buttons to use, etc. Users will also have the option to get a one-time "hint" for a fee of $0.49, or unlimited hints for a one-time fee of $2.99. The long version: Mechanics of Game and Victory The application is a number puzzle. When the user begins a new game, depending on the input by the user, between 3 and 6 numbers show up on the top of the screen, and between 3 and 6 buttons show up on the bottom of the screen. The buttons all have two options: to increase every number the same way, or decrease every number the same way. The buttons either use addition / subtraction, multiplication / division, or exponents / roots, all depending on the number displayed on the button. Addition buttons are green, multiplication buttons are blue, and exponential buttons are red. The user wins when all of the numbers displayed on the screen equate to their goal number, displayed below each number. Monetization If the user is playing the full (priced) version of the app, upon the start of the game, the user will be confronted with a dialogue asking for the number of buttons and the number of numbers to equate in the game. Then, based on the user input, a random puzzle will be generated. If the user is playing the free version of the app, the user will be asked to either play an “easy”, “hard”, or “expert” puzzle. A pre-determined puzzle from each category will be used in the game. If the user has played that puzzle before, a dialogue will show saying this to the user and advertising the full version of the app. The full version of the app will also be advertised upon the successful or in successful completion of a puzzle. Upon exiting this advertisement, another full screen advertisement will appear from a third party. Also, the solution to the puzzle should be stored by the program, and if the user pays a small fee, he/she can see a hint to the solution to the program. In the free version of the app, the user may use their first hint for free. Also, the user can use unlimited hints for a slightly larger fee. Is this an effective monetization method?

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