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• The Oracle Retail Week Awards - most exciting awards yet?

  - by sarah.taylor(at)oracle.com

  Last night's annual Oracle Retail Week Awards saw the UK's top retailers come together to celebrate the very best of our industry over the last year.  The Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane in London was the setting for an exciting ceremony which this year marked several significant milestones in British - and global - retail.  Check out our videos about the event at our Oracle Retail YouTube channel, and see if you were snapped by our photographer on our Oracle Retail Facebook page. There were some extremely hot contests for many of this year's awards - and all very deserving winners.  The entries have demonstrated beyond doubt that retailers have striven to push their standards up yet again in all areas over the past year.  The judging panel includes some of the most prestigious names in the retail industry - to impress the panel enough to win an award is a substantial achievement.  This year the panel included the likes of Andy Clarke - Chief Executive of ASDA Group; Mark Newton Jones - CEO of Shop Direct Group; Richard Pennycook - the finance director at Morrisons; Rob Templeman - Chief Executive of Debenhams; and Stephen Sunnucks - the president of Gap Europe.  These are retail veterans  who have each helped to shape the British High Street over the last decade.  It was great to chat with many of them in the Oracle VIP area last night.  For me, last night's highlight was honouring both Sir Stuart Rose and Sir Terry Leahy for their contributions to the retail industry.  Both have set the standards in retailing over the last twenty years and taken their respective businesses from strength to strength, demonstrating that there is always a need for innovation even in larger businesses, and that a business has to adapt quickly to new technology in order to stay competitive.  Sir Terry Leahy's retirement this year marks the end of an era of global expansion for the Tesco group and a milestone in the progression of British retail.  Sir Terry has helped steer Tesco through nearly 20 years of change, with 14 years as Chief Executive.  During this time he led the drive for international expansion and an aggressive campaign to increase market share.  He has led the way for High Street retailers in adapting to the rise of internet retailing and nurtured a very successful home delivery service.  More recently he has pioneered the notion of cross-channel retailing with the introduction of Tesco apps for the iPhone and Android mobile phones allowing customers to scan barcodes of items to add to a shopping list which they can then either refer to in store or order for delivery.  John Lewis Partnership was a very deserving winner of The Oracle Retailer of the Year award for their overall dedication to excellent retailing practices.  The business was also named the American Express Marketing/Advertising Campaign of the Year award for their memorable 'Never Knowingly Undersold' advert series, which included a very successful viral video and radio campaign with Fyfe Dangerfield's cover of Billy Joel's 'She's Always a Woman' used for the adverts.  Store Design of the Year was another exciting category with Topshop taking the accolade for its flagship Oxford Street store in London, which combines boutique concession-style stalls with high fashion displays and exclusive collections from leading designers.  The store even has its own hairdressers and food hall, making it a truly all-inclusive fashion retail experience and a global landmark for any self-respecting international fashion shopper. Over the next few weeks we'll be exploring some of the winning entries in more detail here on the blog, so keep an eye out for some unique insights into how the winning retailers have made such remarkable achievements. 

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• Evaluating Solutions to Manage Product Compliance? Don’t Wait Much Longer

  - by Evelyn Neumayr

  By Kerrie Foy, Director PLM Product Marketing, Oracle Depending on severity, product compliance issues can cause various problems from run-away budgets to business closures. But effective policies and safeguards can create a strong foundation for innovation, productivity, market penetration and competitive advantage. If you’ve been putting off a systematic approach to product compliance, it is time to reconsider that decision. Why now?  No matter what industry, companies face a litany of worldwide and regional regulations that require proof of product compliance and environmental friendliness for market access.  For example, Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), a regulation that restricts the use of six dangerous materials used in the manufacture of electronic and electrical equipment, was originally adopted by the European Union in 2003 for implementation in 2006 and has evolved over time through various regional versions for North America, China, Japan, Korea, Norway and Turkey. In addition, the RoHS directive allowed for material exemptions used in Medical Devices, but that exemption ends in 2014. Additional regulations worth watching are the Battery Directive, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) directives. Additional regulations are expected from organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration in the US and similar organizations elsewhere. Meeting compliance requirements and also successfully investing in eco-friendly designs can be a major challenge. It may involve transforming business models, go-to-market strategies, supply networks, quality assurance policies and compliance processes.  Without a single source of truth for product data and without proper processes in place, ensuring product compliance burgeons into a crushing task that is cost-prohibitive and overwhelming.  However, the risk to consumer goodwill and satisfaction, revenue, business continuity, and market potential is too great not to solve the compliance challenge. Companies are beginning to adapt and thrive by implementing systematic approaches to product compliance that are more than functional bandages, they are revenue-generating engines. Consider working with Oracle to help you address your compliance needs. Many of the world’s most innovative leaders and pioneers are leveraging Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) portfolio of enterprise applications to manage the product value chain, centralize product data, automate processes, and launch more eco-friendly products to market faster.   Particularly, the Agile Product Governance & Compliance (PG&C) solution provides out-of-the-box functionality to integrate actionable regulatory information into the enterprise product record from the ideation to the disposal/recycling phase.  Agile PG&C is a comprehensive solution that makes product compliance per corporate initiatives and regulations more reliable and efficient. Throughout product lifecycles, use the solution to support full material disclosures, gain rapid visibility into non-compliance issues, efficiently manage declarations with your suppliers, feed compliance data into a corrective action if a product must be changed, and swiftly satisfy audits by showing all due diligence tracked in one solution. Given the compounding regulation and consumer focus on urgent environmental issues, now is the time to act. Implementing an enterprise-wide systematic approach to product compliance is a competitive investment. From the start, Agile PG&C enables companies to confidently design for compliance and sustainability, reduce the cost of compliance, minimize the risk of business interruption, deliver responsible products, and inspire new innovation.  Don’t wait any longer! To find out more about Agile Product Governance & Compliance download the data sheet, contact your sales representative, or call Oracle at 1-800-633-0738.

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• Windows 8 Apps with HTML5 and JavaScript

  - by Stephen.Walther

  Last week, I finished writing Windows 8 Apps with HTML5 and JavaScript – Yikes! That is a long title. This book is all about writing apps for Windows 8 which can be added to the Windows Store. The book focuses on building apps using HTML5 and JavaScript. If you are already comfortable building websites, then building Windows Store apps is not a huge leap.  I explain how you can create productivity apps, like a Task List app, and games, like a simple arcade game. I also explain how you can publish your app to the Windows Store and make money. To celebrate the release of Windows 8, my publisher is offering a huge 40% discount on the book until November 30, 2012. If you want to take advantage of this discount, follow the link below and enter the discount code WINDEV40 during checkout. http://www.informit.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=139036&walther So what’s in the book?  Here’s an overview of each of the chapters: Chapter 1 – Building Windows Store Apps Contains a walkthrough of creating a super simple Windows app for taking pictures from your webcam. Explains how to publish your app to the Windows Store. Chapter 2 – WinJS Fundamentals Provides an overview of the Windows Library for JavaScript which is the Microsoft library for creating Windows Store apps with JavaScript. Chapter 3 – Observables, Bindings, and Templates You learn how to display a list of items using a template. For example, you learn how to create a template which can be used to display a list of products. Chapter 4 – Using WinJS Controls Overview of the core set of JavaScript controls included with the WinJS library. You learn how to use the Tooltip, ToggleSwitch, Rating, DatePicker, TimePicker, and FlipView controls. Chapter 5 – Creating Forms This chapter explains how to take advantage of HTML5 forms to display specialized keyboards and perform form validation. Chapter 6 – Menus and Flyouts You learn how to display popups, menus, and toolbars using the JavaScript controls included with the WinJS library. Chapter 7 – Using the ListView Control This entire chapter is devoted to the ListView control which is the most important control in the WinJS library. You can use the ListView control to display, sort, filter, and edit a list of items. Chapter 8 – Creating Data Sources Learn how to use a ListView control to display data from the file system, a web service, and IndexedDB. Chapter 9 – App Events and States This chapter explains the standard application events which are raised in a Windows Store app such as the activated and checkpoint events. You also learn how to build apps which adapt automatically to different view states such as portrait and landscape. Chapter 10 – Page Fragments and Navigation This chapter discusses two subjects: You learn how to create custom WinJS controls with Page Controls and you learn how to build apps with multiple pages.  Chapter 11 – Using the Live Connect API Learn how to use Windows Live Services to authenticate users, interact with SkyDrive, and retrieve user profile information (such as a user’s birthday or profile picture). Chapter 12 – Graphics and Games This chapter is devoted to building the Brain Eaters app which is a simple arcade game. Navigate a maze and eat all of the food pellets while avoiding the brain-eating zombies to win the game. Learn how to create the game using HTML5 Canvas.   If you want to buy the book, remember to use the magic discount code WINDEV40 and visit the following link: http://www.informit.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=139036&walther

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• Oracle's PeopleSoft Customer Advisory Boards Convene to Discuss Roadmap at Pleasanton Campus

  - by john.webb(at)oracle.com

  Last week we hosted all of the PeopleSoft CABs (Customer Advisory Boards) at our Pleasanton Development Center to review our detailed designs for future Feature Packs, PeopleSoft 9.2, and beyond. Over 150 customers from 79 companies attended representing a variety of industries, geographies, and company sizes. The PeopleSoft team relies heavily on this group to provide key input on our roadmap for applications as well as technology direction. A good product strategy is one part well thought out idea with many handfuls of customer validation, and very often our best ideas originate from these customer discussions. While the individual CABs have frequent interactions with our teams, it's always great to have all of them in one place and in person. Our attendance was up from last year which I attribute to two things: (1) More interest as a result of PeopleSoft 9.1 upgrade; (2) An improving economy allowing for more travel. Maybe we should index the second item meeting-to-meeting and use it as a market indicator - we'll see! We kicked off the day one session with an overview of the PeopleSoft Roadmap and I outlined our strategy around Feature Packs and PeopleSoft 9.2. Given the high adoption rate of PeopleSoft 9.1 (over 4x that of 9.0 given the same time lapse since the release date), there was a lot of interest around the 9.1 Feature Packs as a vehicle for continuous value. We provided examples of our 3 central design themes: Simplicity, Productivity, and lower TCO, including those already delivered via Feature Packs in 2010. A great example of this is the Company Directory feature in PeopleSoft HCM. The configuration capabilities and the new actionable links our CAB advised us on last Spring were made available to all customers late last year. We reviewed many more future Navigation changes that will fundamentally change the way users interact with PeopleSoft. Our old friend, the menu tree, is being relegated from center stage to a bit part, with new concepts like Activity Guides, Train Stops, Related Actions, Work Centers, Collaborative Workspaces, and Secure Enterprise Search bringing users what they need in a contextual, role based manner with fewer clicks. Paco Aubrejuan, our PeopleSoft GM, and Steve Miranda, the SVP for Fusion Applications, then discussed our plans around Oracle's Application Investment Strategy.  This included our continued investment in developing both PeopleSoft and Fusion as well as the co-existence strategy with new Fusion Apps integrating to PeopleSoft Apps. Should you want to view this presentation, a recording is available. Jeff Robbins, our lead PeopleTools Strategist, provided the roadmap for PeopleTools and discussed our continuing plan to deliver annual releases to further evolve the user experience. Numerous examples were highlighted with the Navigation techniques I mentioned previously. Jeff also provided a lot of food for thought around Lifecycle Management topics and how to remain current on releases with a  lower cost of ownership. Dennis Mesler, from Boise, was the guest speaker in this slot, who spoke about the new PeopleSoft Test Framework (PTF). Regression Testing is a key cost component when product updates are applied. This new tool (which is free to all PeopleSoft customers as part of PeopleTools 8.51) provides a meta data driven approach to recording and executing test scripts. Coupled with what our Usage Monitor enables, PTF provides our customers a powerful tool to lower costs and manage product updates more efficiently and at the time of their choosing. Beyond the general session, we broke out into the individual CABs: HCM, Financials, ESA/ALM, SRM, SCM, CRM, and PeopleTools/ Technology. A day and half of very engaging discussions around our plans took place for each product pillar. More about that to follow in future posts.      We capped the first day with a reception sponsored by our partners: InfoSys, SmartERP (represented by Doris Wong), and Grey Sparling  Solutions (represented by Chris Heller and Larry Grey). Great to see these old friends actively engaged in the very busy PeopleSoft ecosystem!   Jeff Robbins previews the roadmap for PeopleTools with the PeopleSoft CAB  

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• Technology vs. Antiquated Methods

  - by AreYouSerious

  So Here I am talking with my Program lead, about technology, and how while my father is the VP of a major company, he still doesn't have a blackberry, or a smart phone. and I think it's funny. Most people would say it's a generational thing. That because he's older, he dosen't accept technology, and that's why. I have trouble swallowing that because this is the same man, who bought a satellite radio for his car, and made sure that the printer for the house was networked so that his and my mom's laptop could print wirelessly from the living room through their wireless network. I think it has to do with more with necessity, and partially with finical responsibility. My father is very financially conciencious. Think about it yourself. you pay for internet at your home. You have internet access at your office. But if you get a smart phone you're going to pay almost the same amount just for that access. A lot of people take it as just another fixed cost... I'm one of those. I don't even think about it, as I check my facebook from the bus, train, or even while sitting in traffic... The convience of having connection everywhere outweigh the financial responsible person screaming at in the back of my mind. However This conversation lead us to another venue of discussion.... what happens when the power dies. if you left your charger at home, or you phone or navi just stops working... are you going to be able to continue on as you did when it was working... let take the navi as an example... if your navi stops working, how many of you know how to use a map, and navigate? can you even find where you are on a map using the cross streets that your stopped at? This is a skill that unfortunatelly is overlooked these days in the child rearing process. Most people don't see the value, while some others can't do it themselves, so how can they teach their offspring? Take another example.... what if your phone gets lost... or stolen, or you drive over it? do you have the numbers in their memorized? are they recorded somewhere? I know that if it weren't for google sync I wouldn't have them backed up... not sufficiently. And what good does that do if you're in timbuckto and your phone dies, think you can get on the internet to look up those numbers? Don't get me wrong. I'm the first to see the value in technology, and am willing to pay the price to not have to wait for prices to come down. I will pay extra to have that newest thing right now. but let me tell you what.... I know that should I ever procreate it will be a requirement for my offspring (children) to learn how to do something manually before I'll let them use technology. Food for thought?? Let everyone else know what you think.... just sayin'

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• St. Louis ALT.NET

  - by Brian Schroer

  I’m a huge fan of the St. Louis .NET User Group and a regular attendee of their meetings, but always wished there was a local group that discussed more advanced .NET topics. (That’s not a criticism of the group - I appreciate that they want to server developers with a broad range of skill levels). That’s why I was thrilled when Nicholas Cloud started a St. Louis ALT.NET group in 2010. Here’s the “about us” statement from the group’s web site: The ALT.NET community is a loosely coupled, highly cohesive group of like-minded individuals who believe that the best developers do not align themselves with platforms and languages, but with principles and ideas. In 2007, David Laribee created the term "ALT.NET" to explain this "alternative" view of the Microsoft development universe--a view that challenged the "Microsoft-only" approach to software development. He distilled his thoughts into four key developer characteristics which form the basis of the ALT.NET philosophy: You're the type of developer who uses what works while keeping an eye out for a better way. You reach outside the mainstream to adopt the best of any community: Open Source, Agile, Java, Ruby, etc. You're not content with the status quo. Things can always be better expressed, more elegant and simple, more mutable, higher quality, etc. You know tools are great, but they only take you so far. It's the principles and knowledge that really matter. The best tools are those that embed the knowledge and encourage the principles (e.g. Resharper.) The St. Louis ALT.NET meetup group is a place where .NET developers can learn, share, and critique approaches to software development on the .NET stack. We cater to the highest common denominator, not the lowest, and want to help all St. Louis .NET developers achieve a superior level of software craftsmanship. I don’t see a lot of ALT.NET talk in blogs these days. The movement was harmed early on by the negative attitudes of some of its early leaders, including jerk moves like the Entity Framework “vote of no confidence”, but I do see occasional mentions of local groups like the St. Louis one. I think ALT.NET has been successful at bringing some of its ideas into the .NET world, including heavily influencing ASP.NET MVC and raising the general level of software craftsmanship for developers working on the Microsoft stack. The ideas and ideals live on, they’re just not branded as “this is ALT.NET!” In the past 18 months, St. Louis ALT.NET meetups have discussed topics like: NHibernate F# and other functional languages AOP CoffeeScript “How Ruby Is Making Me a Stronger C# Developer” Using rake for builds CQRS .NET dynamic programming micro web frameworks – Nancy & Jessica Git ALT.NET doesn’t mean (to me, anyway) “alternatives to .NET”, but “alternatives for .NET”. We look at how things are done in Ruby and other languages/platforms, but always with the idea “What can I learn from this to take back to my “day job” with .NET?”. Meetings are held at 7PM on the fourth Wednesday of each month at the offices of Professional Employment Group. PEG is located at 999 Executive Parkway (Suite 100 – lower level) in Creve Coeur (South of Olive off of Mason Road - Here's a map). Food is not supplied (sorry if you’re a big fan of the Papa John’s Crust-Lovers’ Pizza that’s a staple of user group meetings), but attendees are encouraged to come early and bring/share beer, so that’s cool. Thanks to Nick for organizing, and to Professional Employment Group for lending their offices. Please visit the meetup site for more information.

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• Java EE 6 Pocket Guide from O'Reilly - Now Available in Paperback and Kindle Edition

  - by arungupta

  Hot off the press ... Java EE 6 Pocket Guide from 'OReilly Media is now available in Paperback and Kindle Edition. Here are the book details: Release Date: Sep 21, 2012 Language: English Pages: 208 Print ISBN: 978-1-4493-3668-4 | ISBN 10:1-4493-3668-X Ebook ISBN:978-1-4493-3667-7 | ISBN 10:1-4493-3667-1 The book provides a comprehensive summary of the Java EE 6 platform. Main features of different technologies from the platform are explained and accompanied by tons of samples. A chapter is dedicated to Managed Beans, Servlets, Java Persistence API, Enterprise JavaBeans, Contexts and Dependency Injection, JavaServer Faces, SOAP-Based Web Services, RESTful Web Services, Java Message Service, and Bean Validation in that format. Many thanks to Markus Eisele, John Yeary, and Bert Ertman for reviewing and providing valuable comments. This book was not possible without their extensive feedback! This book was mostly written by compiling my blogs, material from 2-day workshops, and several hands-on workshops around the world. The interactions with users of different technologies and whiteboard discussions with different specification leads helped me understand the technology better. Many thanks to them for helping me be a better user! The long international flights during my travel around the world proved extremely useful for authoring the content. No phone, no email, no IM, food served on the table, power outlet = a perfect recipe for authoring ;-) Markus wrote a detailed review of the book. He was one of the manuscript reviewers of the book as well and provided valuable guidance. Some excerpts from his blog: It covers the basics you need to know of Java EE 6 and gives good examples of all relevant parts. ... This is a pocket guide which is comprehensively written. I could follow all examples and it was a good read overall. No complicated constructs and clear writing. ... GO GET IT! It is the only book you probably will need about Java EE 6! It is comprehensive, wonderfully written and covers everything you need in your daily work. It is not a complete reference but provides a great shortcut to the things you need to know. To me it is a good beginners guide and also works as a companion for advanced users. Here is the first tweet feedback ... Jeff West was super prompt to place the first pre-order of my book, pretty much the hour it was announced. Thank you Jeff! @mike_neck posted the very first tweet about the book, thanks for that! The book is now available in Paperback and Kindle Edition from the following websites: O'Reilly Media (Ebook, Print & Ebook, Print) Amazon.com (Kindle Edition and Paperback) Barnes and Noble Overstock (1% off Amazon) Buy.com Booktopia.com Tower Books Angus & Robertson Shopping.com Here is how I can use your help: Help spread the word about the book If you bought a Paperback or downloaded Kindle Edition, then post your review here. If you have not bought, then you can buy it at amazon.com and multiple other websites mentioned above. If you are coming to JavaOne, you'll have an opportunity to get a free copy at O'Reilly's booth on Monday (October 1) from 2-3pm. And you can always buy it from the JavaOne Bookstore. I hope you enjoy reading it and learn something new from it or hone your existing skills. As always, looking forward to your feedback!

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• Retail CEO Interviews

  - by David Dorf

  Businessweek's 2012 Interview Issue has interviews with three retail CEOs that are worth a quick read.  I copied some excerpts below, but please follow the links to the entire interviews. Ron Johnson, CEO JCPenney Take me through your merchandising. One of the things I learned from Steve [Jobs]—Steve said three times in his life he had the chance to be part of the change of an interface. If you change the interface, you can dramatically change the entire experience of the product. For Steve, that was the mouse, the scroll wheel on the iPod, and then the [touch]screen. What we’re trying to do here is change the interface of retail. What we call that is the street, and you’re standing in the middle of it. When you walk into a store today, you’re overwhelmed by merchandise. There is a narrow aisle. Typically, it’s filled with product on tables and you’re overwhelmed with the noise of signs and promotions. Especially in the age of the Internet, the idea of going to a very large store and having so much abundance is actually not very appealing. The first thing you find here is you’re inspired. I have used the mannequins. The street is actually this new navigation path for a retail store. So if you come in here—you’ll notice that these aisles are 14 feet wide. These are wider than Nordstrom’s (JWN). Slide show of JCPenney store. Walter Robb, co-CEO Whole Foods What did you learn from the recent recession about selling groceries?It was a lot of humble pie, because our sales experienced a drop that I have never seen in 32 years of retail. Customers left us in droves. We also learned that there were some very loyal customers who loved Whole Foods (WFM), people who said, “I like what you stand for. I like coming here. I like this experience.” That was very affirming. I think the realization was that we’ve got some customers, and we need to make sure we know who they are. So instead of chasing every customer out there, we started doing customer discussion groups. We were growing for growth’s sake, which is not a good strategy. We were chasing the rainbow. We cut the growth in half overnight and said, “All right, slow down. Let’s make sure we’re doing this better and more thoroughly and more thoughtfully.” This company is a mission-based company. This company started to change the world by bringing healthier food to the world. It’s not about the money, it’s about the impact, and this company is back on track as a result of those experiences. Video of Whole Foods store tour. Kay Krill, CEO Ann Taylor You’ve worked in retail all your life. What drew you to it?I graduated from college, and I did not know what I wanted to do. Macy’s (M) came to campus to interview for their training program, and I thought, “Let me give it a try.” I got the job and fell in love with the industry. The president of Macy’s at the time said, “If you don’t wake up every morning dying to go to work, then retailing is not for you; it has to be in your blood.” It was in my blood. I love the fact that every day is different. You can get to be creative one day, financial the next day, marketing the next. I love going to stores. I love talking to associates. I love talking to clients. There’s not a predictable day.

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• Access Denied

  - by Tony Davis

  When Microsoft executives wake up in the night screaming, I suspect they are having a nightmare about their own version of Frankenstein's monster. Created with the best of intentions, without thinking too hard of the long-term strategy, and having long outlived its usefulness, the monster still lives on, occasionally wreaking vengeance on the innocent. Its name is Access; a living synthesis of disparate body parts that is resistant to all attempts at a mercy-killing. In 1986, Microsoft had no database products, and needed one for their new OS/2 operating system, the successor to MSDOS. In 1986, they bought exclusive rights to Sybase DataServer, and were also intent on developing a desktop database to capture Ashton-Tate's dominance of that market, with dbase. This project, first called 'Omega' and later 'Cirrus', eventually spawned two products: Visual Basic in 1991 and Access in late 1992. Whereas Visual Basic battled with PowerBuilder for dominance in the client-server market, Access easily won the desktop database battle, with Dbase III and DataEase falling away. Access did an excellent job of abstracting and simplifying the task of building small database applications in a short amount of time, for a small number of departmental users, and often for a transient requirement. There is an excellent front end and forms generator. We not only see it in Access but parts of it also reappear in SSMS. It's good. A business user can pull together useful reports, without relying on extensive technical support. A skilled Access programmer can deliver a fairly sophisticated application, whilst the traditional client-server programmer is still sharpening his pencil. Even for the SQL Server programmer, the forms generator of Access is useful for sketching out application designs. So far, so good, but here's where the problems start; Access ties together two different products and the backend of Access is the bugbear. The limitations of Jet/ACE are well-known and documented. They range from MDB files that are prone to corruption, especially as they grow in size, pathetic security, and "copy and paste" Backups. The biggest problem though, was an infamous lack of scalability. Because Microsoft never realized how long the product would last, they put little energy into improving the beast. Microsoft 'ate their own dog food' by using Access for Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. They choked on it. For years, scalability and performance problems with Exchange Server have been laid at the door of the Jet Blue engine on which it relies. Substantial development work in Exchange 2010 was required, just in order to improve the engine and storage schema so that it more efficiently handled the reading and writing of mails. The alternative of using SQL Server just never panned out. The Jet engine was designed to limit concurrent users to a small number (10-20). When Access applications outgrew this, bitter experience proved that there really is no easy upgrade path from Access to SQL Server, beyond rewriting the whole lot from scratch. The various initiatives to do this never quite bridged the cultural gulf between Access and a true relational database So, what are the obvious alternatives for small, strategic database applications? I know many users who, for simple 'list maintenance' requirements are very happy using Excel databases. Surely, now that PowerPivot has led the way, it is time for Microsoft to offer a new RAD package for database application development; namely an Excel-based front end for SQL Server Express. In that way, we'll have a powerful and familiar front end, to a scalable database, and a clear upgrade path when an app takes off and needs to go enterprise. Cheers, Tony.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for October 28 - November 3, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The Top 10 most popular items shared on the OTN ArchBeat Facebook Page for the week of Oct 28 - Nov 3, 2012. Eventually, 90% of tech budgets will be outside IT departments | ZDNet Another interesting post from ZDNet blogger Joe McKendrick about changing roles in IT. ADF Mobile - Login Functionality | Andrejus Baranovskis "The new ADF Mobile approach with native deployment is cool when you want to access phone functionality (camera, email, sms and etc.), also when you want to build mobile applications with advanced UI," reports Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis. Mobile Development Platform Strategy Chart: ADF Mobile, WebCenter Sites, Portal, Content and Social "Unlike desktop web focused efforts, the world of mobile has undergone change at a feverish pace," says social enterprise expert John Brunswick. His extensive post charts various resources that will help you keep up. ADF Essentials - The Bare Necessities | Floyd Teter The experiment is over… And now Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter shares his impressions after spending some time with Oracle ADF Essentials, the free version of Oracle ADF. A review of Oracle SOA Suite 11g Administrator’s Handbook | RedStack "More so than any other single piece of content that I have seen on the topic, it provides the information that a SOA administrator needs to know in order to successfully configure, manage, monitor, troubleshoot and backup an Oracle SOA environment." So says Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team solution architect Mark Nelson of Oracle SOA Suite 11g Administrator’s Handbook, by Ahmed Aboulnaga and Arun Pareek. Expanding the Oracle Enterprise Repository with functional documentation Capgemini middleware specialist Marc Kuijpers shares information on how Oracle Enterprise Repository can be configured "to contain functional assets, i.e. functional designs, use cases and a logical data model" to aid in SOA governance efforts. Podcast: Are You Future Proof? - Part 2 In Part 2, practicing architects and Oracle ACE Directors Ron Batra (AT&T), Basheer Khan (Innowave Technology), and Ronald van Luttikhuizen discuss re-tooling one’s skill set to reflect changes in enterprise IT, including the knowledge to steer stakeholders around the hype to what’s truly valuable. Easy way to access JPA with REST (JSON / XML) | Edwin Biemond Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond shows you "what is possible with JPA-RS, how easy it is and howto setup your own EclipseLink REST service." Clustering ODI11g for High-Availability Part 1: Introduction and Architecture | Richard Yeardley "JEE agents can be deployed alongside, or instead of, standalone agents," says Rittman Meade's Richard Yeardley. "But there is one key advantage in using JEE agents and WebLogic: when you deploy JEE agents as part of a WebLogic cluster they can be configured together to form a high availability cluster." Learn more in Yeardley's extensive post. 2012 IOUG Virtualization SIG – Online Symposium on Nov 7 and Nov 8 | Kai Yu Oracle ACE Director Kai Yu shares information on this week's IOUG Virtualization SIG online event. Does that make it a virtual virtualization event? Thought for the Day "If McDonalds were run like a software company, one out of every hundred Big Macs would give you food poisoning — and the response would be, 'We’re sorry, here’s a coupon for two more.'" — Mark Minasi Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• How to Get Windows 7 Theme Wallpapers Without Installing Them

  - by Mysticgeek

  Are you using an older version of Windows but like the Windows 7 theme wallpapers? What if you have Windows 7 but you don’t want to install the themes just to get the wallpapers? Here is how to get them without having to install themes. This guest article was written by Ryan Dozier from the Doztech tech blog. Getting the Wallpaper on XP, Vista, or Windows 7 First download and install 7-zip on your machine (link below). After you’ve installed 7-zip, download a Windows 7 theme (link below) and right-click on the theme, select 7-Zip, and Extract to “Theme Name”… A new folder will appear with the theme name on it. When you open it, there will be a folder called DesktopBackground or something similar.   Open the folder to get the wallpapers to view the wallpapers for the theme. You can delete the extra files and just keep the wallpapers!   Getting the Wallpaper on Ubuntu Extracting the wallpaper on Ubuntu can be a little tricky. Just follow these steps and you will be able to do it. First go to the Ubuntu Software Center under the Applications menu. Search for 7zip and click on the arrow to go to the applications menu. Find the Install button and click it. It will take a couple of minutes for 7zip to install. After 7zip installs, close the Ubuntu Software Center and download a Windows 7 theme. Store it somewhere you can access it quickly. Right-click on the theme and select Rename and get rid of the themepack extension and replace it with zip. The file should be “Theme Name.zip” after you rename it. Right-click on the theme and click Extract Here. After  the extracting you will have a new folder with the theme name. Open it and go into the DesktopBackground folder to get the wallpapers. You can delete the extra files and just keep the wallpapers. If you want to get the new Windows 7 Themes Wallpapers, but don’t want to search and install them separately, this is a nice workaround. Links Get 7 zip for Windows  here Get Windows 7 Themes here Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)Desktop Fun: Starship Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Underwater Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Forest Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Fantasy Theme Wallpapers TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics Create Ringtones For Your Android Phone With RingDroid Enhance Your Laptop’s Battery Life With These Tips Easily Search Food Recipes With Recipe Chimp

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• DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! Scotland 2010 - DDDSCOT

  - by Plip

  DDD in Scotland was held on the 8th May 2010 in Glasgow and I was there, not as is uaual at these kind of things as an organiser but actually as a speaker and delegate. The weekend started for me back on Thursday with the arrival of Dave Sussman to my place in Lancashire, after a curry and watching the Electon night TV coverage we retired to our respective beds (yes, I know, I hate to shatter the illusion we both sleep in the same bed wearing matching pijamas is something I've shattered now) ready for the drive up to Glasgow the following afternoon. Before heading up to Glasgow we had to pick up Young Mr Hardy from Wigan then we began the four hour drive back in time... Something that struck me on the journey up is just how beautiful Scotland is. The menacing landscapes bordered with fluffy sheep and whirly-ma-gigs are awe inspiring - well worth driving up if you ever get the chance. Anywho we arrived in Glasgow, got settled intot he hotel and went in search of Speakers for pre conference drinks and food. We discovered a gaggle (I believe that's the collective term) of speakers in the Bar and when we reached critical mass headed off to the Speakers Dinner location. During dinner, SOMEONE set my hair on FIRE. That's all I'm going to say on the matter. Whilst I was enjoying my evening there was something nagging at me, I realised that I should really write my session as I was due to give it the following morning. So after a few more drinks I headed back to the hotel and got some well earned sleep (and washed the fire damage out of my hair). Next day, headed off to the conference which was a lovely stroll through Glasgow City Centre. Non of us got mugged, murdered (or set on fire) arriving safely at the venue, which was a bonus.   I was asked to read out the opening Slides for Barry Carr's session which I did dilligently and with such professionalism that I shocked even myself. At which point I reliased in just over an hour I had to give my presentation, so headed back to the speaker room to finish writing it. Wham, bam and it was all over. Session seemed to go well. I was speaking on Exception Driven Development, which isn't so much a technical solution but rather a mindset around how one should treat exceptions and their code. To be honest, I've not been so nervous giving a session for years - something about this topic worried me, I was concerned I was being too abstract in my thinking or that what I was saying was so obvious that everyone would know it, but it seems to have been well recieved which makes me a happy Speaker. Craig Murphy has some brilliant pictures of DDD Scotland 2010. After my session was done I grabbed some lunch and headed back to the hotel and into town to do some shopping (thus my conspicuous omission from the above photo). Later on we headed out to the geek dinner which again was a rum affair followed by a few drinks and a little boogie woogie. All in all a well run, well attended conference, by the community for the community. I tip my hat to the whole team who put on DDD Scotland!       

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• Python Coding standards vs. productivity

  - by Shroatmeister

  I work for a large humanitarian organisation, on a project building software that could help save lives in emergencies by speeding up the distribution of food. Many NGOs desperately need our software and we are weeks behind schedule. One thing that worries me in this project is what I think is an excessive focus on coding standards. We write in python/django and use a version of PEP0008, with various modifications e.g. line lengths can go up to 160 chars and all lines should go that long if possible, no blank lines between imports, line wrapping rules that apply only to certain kinds of classes, lots of templates that we must use, even if they aren't the best way to solve a problem etc. etc. One core dev spent a week rewriting a major part of the system to meet the then new coding standards, throwing away several suites of tests in the process, as the rewrite meant they were 'invalid'. We spent two weeks rewriting all the functionality that was lost, and fixing bugs. He is the lead dev and his word carries weight, so he has convinced the project manager that these standards are necessary. The junior devs do as they are told. I sense that the project manager has a strong feeling of cognitive dissonance about all this but nevertheless agrees with it vehemently as he feels unsure what else to do. Today I got in serious trouble because I had forgotten to put some spaces after commas in a keyword argument. I was literally shouted at by two other devs and the project manager during a Skype call. Personally I think coding standards are important but also think that we are wasting a lot of time obsessing with them, and when I verbalized this it provoked rage. I'm seen as a troublemaker in the team, a team that is looking for scapegoats for its failings. Since the introduction of the coding standards, the team's productivity has measurably plummeted, however this only reinforces the obsession, i.e. the lead dev simply blames our non-adherence to standards for the lack of progress. He believes that we can't read each other's code if we don't adhere to the conventions. This is starting to turn sticky. Now I am trying to modify various scripts, autopep8, pep8ify and PythonTidy to try to match the conventions. We also run pep8 against source code but there are so many implicit amendments to our standard that it's hard to track them all. The lead dev simple picks faults that the pep8 script doesn't pick up and shouts at us in the next stand-up meeting. Every week there are new additions to the coding standards that force us to rewrite existing, working, tested code. Thank heavens we still have tests, (I reverted some commits and fixed a bunch of the ones he removed). All the while there is increasing pressure to meet the deadline. I believe a fundamental issue is that the lead dev and another core dev refuse to trust other developers to do their job. But how to deal with that? We can't do our job because we are too busy rewriting everything. I've never encountered this dynamic in a software engineering team. Am I wrong to question their adherence to coding standards? Has anyone else experienced a similar situation and how have they dealt with it successfully? (I'm not looking for a discussion just actual solutions people have found)

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• Duke's Choice Award Ceremony

  - by Tori Wieldt

  The 2012 Duke's Choice Awards winners and their creative, Java-based technologies and Java community contributions were honored after the Sunday night JavaOne keynotes. Sharat Chander, Group Director for Java Technology Outreach, presented the awards. "Having the community participate directly in both submission and selection truly shows how we are driving exposure of the innovation happening in the Java community," he said. Apache Software Foundation Hadoop Project The Apache Software Foundation’s Hadoop project, written in Java, provides a framework for distributed processing of big data sets across clusters of computers, ranging from a few servers to thousands of machines. This harnessing of large data pools allows organizations to better understand and improve their business. AgroSense Project Improving farming methods to feed a hungry world is the goal of AgroSense, an open source farm information management system built in Java and the NetBeans platform. AgroSense enables farmers, agribusinesses, suppliers and others to develop modular applications that will easily exchange information through a common underlying NetBeans framework. JDuchess Rather than focus on a specific geographic area like most Java User Groups (JUGs), JDuchess fosters the participation of women in the Java community worldwide. The group has more than 500 members in 60 countries, and provides a platform through which women can connect with each other and get involved in all aspects of the Java community. Jelastic, Inc. Moving existing Java applications to the cloud can be a daunting task, but startup Jelastic, Inc. offers the first all-Java platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that enables existing Java applications to be deployed in the cloud without code changes or lock-in. Liquid Robotics Robotics – Liquid Robotics is an ocean data services provider whose Wave Glider technology collects information from the world’s oceans for application in government, science and commercial applications. The organization features the “father of Java” James Gosling as its chief software architect. London Java Community The second user group receiving a Duke’s Choice Award this year, the London Java Community (LJC) and its users have been active in the OpenJDK, the Java Community Process (JCP) and other efforts within the global Java community. NATO The first-ever Community Choice Award goes to the MASE Integrated Console Environment (MICE) in use at NATO. Built in Java on the NetBeans platform, MICE provides a high-performance visualization environment for conducting air defense and battle-space operations. Parleys.com E-learning specialist Parleys.com, based in Brussels, Belgium, uses Java technologies to bring online classes and full IT conferences to desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. Parleys.com has hosted more than 1,700 conferences—including Devoxx and JavaOne—for more than 800,000 unique visitors. Student Nokia Developer Group This year’s student winner, Ram Kashyap, is the founder and president of the Nokia Student Network, and was profiled in the “The New Java Developers” feature in the March/April 2012 issue of Java Magazine. Since then, Ram has maintained a hectic pace, graduating from the People’s Education Society Institute of Technology in Bangalore, India, while working on a Java mobile startup and training students on Java ME. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is on the front lines of crises around the world, from civil wars to natural disasters. To help facilitate its mission of humanitarian relief, the UNHCR has developed a light-client Java application on the NetBeans platform. The Level One registration tool enables the UNHCR to collect information on the number of refugees and their water, food, housing, health, and other needs in the field, and combines that with geocoding information from various sources. This enables the UNHCR to deliver the appropriate kind and amount of assistance where it is needed. You can read more about the winners in the current issue of Java Magazine.

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• #iPad at One Week: A Great Device Made with a Heavy Hand

  - by andrewbrust

  I have now had my iPad for a little over a week. In that time, Apple introduced the world to its iPhone OS 4 (and the SDK agreement’s draconian new section 3.3.1), HP introduced is Slate, and Microsoft got ready to launch Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0. And through it all I have used my iPad. I've used it for email, calendar, controlling my Sonos, and writing an essay. I've used it for getting on TripIt and Twitter, and surfing the Web. I've used it for online banking, and online ordering and delivery of food. And the verdict? Honestly? I think it's a great device and I thoroughly enjoy using it. The screen is bright and vibrant. I am surprisingly fast and accurate when I type on it. The touch screen's responsiveness is nearly flawless. The software, including a number of third party applications, include pleasing animations and use of color that make it fun to get work done. And speaking of work, the Exchange integration is, dare I say it, robust. Not as full-featured as on a PC or Windows Mobile device, but still offering core functionality and, so far at least, without bugs. The UI is intuitive, not just to me, but also to my 5 1/2 year old, and also to my nearly-3-year-old son. They picked it up and, with just just a few pointers from me, they almost immediately knew what to do, whether they were looking at photos (and swiping/flicking along as they did so), using a drawing program, playing a game, or watching YouTube videos. The younger of the two of them even tried to get up on a chair and grab the thing today. He dropped it, from about 4 feet off the ground. And it's still fine. (Meanwhile, I'll be keeping it on a higher shelf.) I cannot fully describe yet what makes this form factor and this product so appealing. Maybe it's that it's an always-on device. Maybe it's just being able to hold such a nice, relatively large display so close. Maybe it's the design sensibility, that seems to pervade throughout the app ecosystem. Or maybe it's that one's fingers, and not pens or mice, are the software's preferred input device. Whatever the attraction, it's strong. And no matter how much I tend to root for Microsoft and against Apple, Cupertino has, in my mind, scored big, Can Microsoft compete? Yes, but not with the Windows 7 standard UI (nor with individual OEMs’ own UIs on top). I hope Microsoft builds a variant of the Windows Phone 7 specifically for tablet devices. And I hope they make it clear that all developers, and programming languages, are welcome to the platform. Once that’s established, the OEMs have to build great hardware with fast, responsive touch screens, under Microsoft's watchful eye. That may be the hardest part of getting this right. No matter what, Microsoft's got a fight on its hands. I don't know if it can count on winning that fight, either. But Silverlight and Live Tiles could certainly help. And so can treating developers like adults.  Apple seems intent on treating their devs like kids, and then giving the kids a curfew.  For that, dev-friendly Microsoft may one day give thanks.

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• Dissing Architects, or "What's wrong with the coffee?"

  - by Bob Rhubart

  In my conversations with people in architect roles, tales of animosity, disrespect, and outright hostility aren't uncommon. And it's clear that in more than a few organizations architects regularly face a tough uphill climb. For architects with the requisite combination of technical, organizational, and people skills, that rough treatment is grossly undeserved. But tales of unqualified people in positions up and down the IT food chain are also easy to come by. So what's the other side of the architect story? Are some architects tarnishing the role and making life miserable for their more qualified colleagues? The various quotes included below were culled from a variety of sources. The criticism is harsh, and the people behind these quotes clearly have issues with architects. Still, whether based on mere opinion or actual experience, the comments shed some light on behaviors that should raise red flags for anyone pursuing a career as an architect. If you're an architect, and you've ever noticed that your coffee tastes like window cleaner, or your car is repeatedly keyed, or no one ever holds the elevator for you, maybe you need to do a little soul searching... Those Who Can, Code; Those Who Can't, Architect | Joe Winchester [May 18, 2007] "At the moment there seems to be an extremely unhealthy obsession in software with the concept of architecture. A colleague of mine, a recent graduate, told me he wished to become a software architect. He was drawn to the glamour of being able to come up with grandiose ideas - sweeping generalized designs, creating presentations to audiences of acronym addicts, writing esoteric academic papers, speaking at conferences attended by headless engineers on company expense accounts hungrily seeking out this year's grail, and creating e-mails with huge cc lists from people whose signature footer is more interesting than the content. I tried to re-orient him into actually doing some coding, to join a team that has a good product and keen users both of whom are pushing requirements forward, to no avail. Somehow the lure of being an architecture astronaut was too strong and I lost him to the dark side." Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You | Joel Spolsky [April 21, 2001] "It's very hard to get them to write code or design programs, because they won't stop thinking about Architecture. They're astronauts because they are above the oxygen level, I don't know how they're breathing. They tend to work for really big companies that can afford to have lots of unproductive people with really advanced degrees that don't contribute to the bottom line. Remember that the architecture people are solving problems that they think they can solve, not problems which are useful to solve." Non Coding Architects Suck | Richard Henderson [May 24, 2010] "If a guy with a badge saying 'system architect' looks blank on low-level issues then he is not an architect, he is a business-analyst who went on a course. He will probably wax lyrical on all things high-level and 'important.' He will produce lovely object hierarchies without a clue to implementation. He will have a moustache and play golf." Architects Play Golf | Sunir Shah [August 15, 2012] "Often arrogant architects are difficult to get a hold of during the implementation phase because they no longer feel the need to stick around. Especially around midnight when most of the poor sob [sic] developers are still banging away. After all, they've already solved the problem--the rest is just an implementation exercise." Engineer vs Architect(Part of a discussion on the IT Architect Network Group on LinkedIn) "[An] architect spends his time producing white papers full of acronyms he does not understand but that impress his boss [while the] engineer keeps his head down and does the actual job." Architects Don't Code | [Author Unknown] "Faulty belief: System Architects don't need to code anymore. They know what they are talking about by virtue of the fact that they are System Architects."

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• Spotlight on an office - Denmark

  - by jessica.ebbelaar(at)oracle.com

  Hi, my name is Michael. I work as an Intern at the Danish office in Ballerup. My job is a part-time position beside my bachelor study in International Business at Copenhagen Business School. I joined Oracle end of February last year, and what a thrilling ride it has been! Last year, when I was offered the position, there was no doubt that I wanted to go for it. Back then, I only had little idea about Oracle as a company and what kind of exciting assignments lay ahead of me. My main role is internal communications, i.e. editor of a monthly employee’s news letter; Newszone. It is an interesting task, since it requires that I am updated on the different activities that take place within the Oracle Denmark office. I try to bring interesting articles, which are relevant and interesting news to my colleagues and it allows me to interact with many different persons at the office and to learn from their experience, which give me great inspiration and ideas for the magazine. Besides being the editor of Newszone, I also make sure that other communication flow freely at the Oracle Denmark office. I do this through our LCD screen channels. I update the internal channel with the latest information and important messages for employees, and on the external channel I circulate marketing videos featuring Oracle products and customer reference stories. In addition to this, I have the responsibility acting as a content manager of the Local Communication Denmark site on MyOracle (UCM). These are more or less my usual work assignments. On top of these I take care of various ad hoc assignments such as updating the GCM database, renew newspaper subscriptions etc. The Oracle Denmark office Being part of the local employees club I also assist with arranging social events outside working hours – e.g. evenings at the theater or cinema or by attending many of the sportsactivities;such as our running club, cycling club, food club and book club. These activities have indeed helped me grow my personal network within Oracle.  The office is packed with engaging, high-paced and motivated people who manage to take time off to spend a day attending Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, one of them being GVD (Global Volunteer Day) with approximately 40 employees attending. This proofs some of the social responsible aspects of Oracle. I was positively surprised on how the office (named O-Zone) is designed. The office is designed into three distinct zones, namely Call zone, Project and Dialogue zone and Quiet zone, having different working environments for different job roles. The other thing which I like is that you do not have your own desk, which means you get to sit next to different people every day, getting new ideas and inspiration as well as getting to know more people in the organization you work in. To sum up: If you are considering pursuing an intern or a career after graduation in Oracle, do it! You will not regret it. It has given me many relevant practical experiences beside my study, and I am sure many great experiences will await you too.   Want to know more about the current vacancies in Denmark? Check http://campus.oracle.com for all of our vacancies.

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• Heading out to Dallas GiveCamp 2011

  - by dotgeek

  The day has finally arrived for twelve local charities here in the Dallas area, when they’ll get some help from various local Developers with their website initiative needs at this years Dallas GiveCamp. I’m really looking forward to helping out at this year event and what I hope will be the start of many more GiveCamps to follow. Similar to Habitat for Humanity, where people gather to help build and improve homes for people in need, GiveCamp brings together programmers and equips them with the virtual tools they need to build and improve their existing websites. Tonight is when things will kickoff for this weekends events and teams will start working on their various projects. The building continues on through the night then and all the way through until Sunday afternoon. The end goal for the teams and charities is to have a completed and working website for each charity to begin using and turn over all the production code and digital assets to them. None of this would be possible with out the great sponsors we have returning once again and their donations of various products to help these charities out with their projects, like Telerik's CMS product Sitefinity 4.0, paired with a year of hosting from Verio to mention just a few of them. Just like the skilled builders who might help train volunteers in the use of a nail gun in building a house. Training is also available here on site for the Developers and these local Charities. Giving them all the skills in how to manage and use these products, from site development and then into actual production is a key to the success of this weekends event.     Tonight's training sessions will kick off with a real treat from Giovanni Gallucci, as he speaks about Social Media for NPOs and then later Gabe Sumner from Telerik will begin a training session on Sitefinity for Developers. These training sessions will continue through out the weekend with .Net Nuke and Mojo Portal sessions also planned as well. If you’re a developer and would like to help out in the future, then check in your area and with your local User Groups to find out if you already have a GiveCamp near you to help out. If you don’t have one available, then consider starting up a local GiveCamp and then you too can help Code it Forward. About GiveCamp GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. This custom software could be a new website for the nonprofit organization, a small data-collection application to keep track of members, or a application for the Red Cross that automatically emails a blood donor three months after they’ve donated blood to remind them that they are now eligible to donate again. The only limitation is that the project should be scoped to be able to be completed in a weekend. During GiveCamp, developers are welcome to go home in the evenings or camp out all weekend long. There are usually food and drink provided at the event. There are sometimes even game systems set up for when you and your need a little break! Overall, it’s a great opportunity for people to work together, developing new friendships, and doing something important for their community. At GiveCamp, there is an expectation of “What Happens at GiveCamp, Stays at GiveCamp”. Therefore, all source code must be turned over to the charities at the end of the weekend (developers cannot ask for payment) and the charities are responsible for maintaining the code moving forward (charities cannot expect the developers to maintain the codebase).

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• It’s official – Red Gate is a great place to work!

  - by red@work

  At a glittering award ceremony last week, we found out that we’re officially the 14th best small company to work for in the whole of the UK! This is no mean feat, considering that about 1,000 companies enter the Sunday Times Top 100 best companies awards each year. Most of these are in the small companies category too. It's the fourth year in a row for us to be in the Top 100 list and we're tickled pink because the results are based on employee opinion. We’re particularly proud to be the best small company in Cambridge (in the whole of East Anglia, in fact) and the best small software development company in the entire UK. So how does it all work? Well, 90% of us took the time to answer over 70 questions on categories such as management, benefits, wellbeing, leadership, giving something back and what we think of Red Gate as a whole. It makes you think about every part of day to day working life and how you feel about it. Do you slightly or strongly agree or disagree that your manager motivates your to do your best every day, or that you have confidence in Red Gate's leaders, or that you’re not spending too much time working? It's great to see that we had one of the best scores in the country for the question "Do you think your company takes advantage of you?" We got particularly high scores for management, wellbeing and for giving something back too. A few of us got dressed up and headed to London for the awards; very excited about where we’d place but slightly nervous about having to get up on stage. There was a last minute hic up with a bow tie but the Managing Editor of the Sunday Times kindly stepped in to offer his assistance just before we had our official photo taken. We were nominated for two Special Recognition Awards. Despite not bringing them home this year, we're very proud to be nominated as there are only three nominations in each category. First we were up for the Training and Development award. Best Companies loved that we get together at lunchtimes to teach each other photography, cookery and French, as well as our book clubs and techie talks. And of course they liked our opportunities to go on training courses and to jet off to international conferences. Our other nomination was for the Wellbeing award. Best Companies loved our free food (and let’s face it, so do we). Porridge or bacon sandwiches for breakfast, a three course hot dinner, and free fruit and cereals all day long. If all that has an affect on the waistline then there are plenty of sporty activities for us all to get involved in, such as yoga, running or squash. Or if that’s not your thing then a relaxing massage helps us all to unwind every few months or so. The awards were hosted by news presenter Kate Silverton. She gave us a special mention during the ceremony for having great customer engagement as well as employee engagement, after we told her about Rodney Landrum (a Friend of Red Gate) tattooing our logo on his arm. We showed off our customised dinner jacket (thanks to Dom from Usability) with a flashing Red Gate logo on the back and she seemed suitability impressed. Back in the office the next day, we popped open the champagne and raised a glass to our success. Neil, our joint CEO, talked about how pleased he was with the award because it's based on the opinions of the people that count – us. You can read more about the Sunday Times awards here. By the way, we're still growing and are still hiring. If you’d like to keep up with our latest vacancies then why not follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/redgatecareers. Right now we're busy hiring in development, test, sales, product management, web development, and project management. Here's a link to our current job opportunities page – we'd love to hear from great people who are looking for a great place to work! After all, we're only great because of the people who work here. Post by: Alice Chapman

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• Where to store front-end data for "object calculator"

  - by Justin Grahn

  I recently have completed a language library that acts as a giant filter for food items, and flows a bit like this :Products -> Recipes -> MenuItems -> Meals and finally, upon submission, creates an Order. I have also completed a database structure that stores all the pertinent information to each class, and seems to fit my needs. The issue I'm having is linking the two. I imagined all of the information being local to each instance of the product, where there exists one backend user who edits and manipulates data, and multiple front end users who select their Meal(s) to create an Order. Ideally, all of the front end users would have all of this information stored locally within the library, and would update the library on startup from a database. How should I go about storing the data so that I can load it into the library every time the user opens the application? Do I package a database onboard and just load and populate every time? The only method I can currently conceive of doing this, even if I only have 500 possible Product objects, would require me to foreach the list for every Product that I need to match to a Recipe and so on and so forth every time I relaunch the program, which seems like a lot of wasteful loading. Here is a general flow of my architecture: Products: public class Product : IPortionable { public Product(string n, uint pNumber = 0) { name = n; productNumber = pNumber; } public string name { get; set; } public uint productNumber { get; set; } } Recipes: public Recipe(string n, decimal yieldAmt, Volume.Unit unit) { name = n; yield = new Volume(yieldAmt, unit); yield.ConvertUnit(); } /// <summary> /// Creates a new ingredient object /// </summary> /// <param name="n">Name</param> /// <param name="yieldAmt">Recipe Yield</param> /// <param name="unit">Unit of Yield</param> public Recipe(string n, decimal yieldAmt, Weight.Unit unit) { name = n; yield = new Weight(yieldAmt, unit); } public Recipe(Recipe r) { name = r.name; yield = r.yield; ingredients = r.ingredients; } public string name { get; set; } public IMeasure yield; public Dictionary<IPortionable, IMeasure> ingredients = new Dictionary<IPortionable,IMeasure>(); MenuItems: public abstract class MenuItem : IScalable { public static string title = null; public string name { get; set; } public decimal maxPortionSize { get; set; } public decimal minPortionSize { get; set; } public Dictionary<IPortionable, IMeasure> ingredients = new Dictionary<IPortionable, IMeasure>(); and Meal: public class Meal { public Meal(int guests) { guestCount = guests; } public int guestCount { get; private set; } //TODO: Make a new MainCourse class that holds pasta and Entree public Dictionary<string, int> counts = new Dictionary<string, int>(){ {MainCourse.title, 0}, {Side.title , 0}, {Appetizer.title, 0} }; public List<MenuItem> items = new List<MenuItem>(); The Database just stores and links each of these basic names and amounts together usings ID's (RecipeID, ProductID and MenuItemID)

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• PASS summit 2013. We do not remember days. We remember moments.

  - by Maria Zakourdaev

    "Business or pleasure?" barked the security officer in the Charlotte International Airport. "I’m not sure, sir," I whimpered, immediately losing all courage. "I'm here for the database technologies summit called PASS”. "Sounds boring. Definitely a business trip." Boring?! He couldn’t have been more wrong. If he only knew about the countless meetings throughout the year where I waved my hands at my great boss and explained again and again how fantastic this summit is and how much I learned last year. One by one, the drops of water began eating away at the stone. He finally approved of my trip just to stop me from torturing him. Time moves as slow as a turtle when you are waiting for something. Time runs as fast as a cheetah when you are there. PASS has come...and passed. It’s been an amazing week. Enormous sqlenergy has filled the city, filled the convention center and the surrounding pubs and restaurants. There were awesome speakers, great content, and the chance to meet most inspiring database professionals from all over the world. Some sessions were unforgettable. Imagine a fully packed room with more than 500 people in awed silence, catching each and every one of Paul Randall's words. His tremendous energy and deep knowledge were truly thrilling. No words can describe Rob Farley's unique presentation style, captivating and engaging the audience. When the precious session minutes were over, I could tell that the many random puzzle pieces of information that his listeners knew had been suddenly combined into a clear, cohesive picture. I was amazed as always by Paul White's great sense of humor and his phenomenal ability to explain complicated concepts in a simple way. The keynote by the brilliant Dr. DeWitt from Microsoft in front of the full summit audience of 5000 deeply listening people was genuinely breathtaking. The entire conference throughout offered excellent speakers who inspired me to absorb the knowledge and use it when I got home. To my great surprise, I found that there are other people in this world who like replication as much I do. During the Birds of a Feather Luncheon, SQL Server MVP Ted Krueger was writing a script for replicating the food to other tables. I learned many things at PASS, and not all of them were about SQL. After three summits, this time I finally got the knack of networking. I actually went up and spoke to people, and believe me, that was not easy for an introvert. But this is what the summit is all about. Sqlpeople. They are the ones who make it such an exciting experience. I will be looking forward to the next year. Till then I have my notes and new ideas. How long was the summit? Thousands of unforgettable moments.

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• PASS Summit 2013 Review

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  As a long-standing member of PASS who lives in the greater Seattle area and has attended about nine of these Summits, let me start out by saying how GREAT it was to go to Charlotte, North Carolina this year.  Many of the new folks that I met at the Summit this year, upon hearing that I was from Seattle, commented that I must have been disappointed to have to travel to the Summit this year after 5 years in a row in Seattle.  Well, nothing could be further from the truth.  I cheered loudly when I first heard that the 2013 Summit would be outside Seattle.  I have many fond memories of trips to Orlando, Florida and Grapevine, Texas for past Summits (missed out on Denver, unfortunately).  And there is a funny dynamic that takes place when the conference is local.  If you do as I have done the last several years and saved my company money by not getting a hotel, but rather just commuting from home, then both family and coworkers tend to act like you’re just on a normal schedule.  For example, I have a young family, and my wife and kids really wanted to still see me come home “after work”, but there are a whole lot of after-hours activities, social events, and great food to be enjoyed at the Summit each year.  Even more so if you really capitalize on the opportunities to meet face-to-face with people you either met at previous summits or have spoken to or heard of, from Twitter, blogs, and forums.  Then there is also the lovely commuting in Seattle traffic from neighboring cities rather than the convenience of just walking across the street from your hotel.  So I’m just saying, there are really nice aspects of having the conference 2500 miles away. Beyond that, the training was fantastic as usual.  The SQL Server community has many outstanding presenters and experts with deep knowledge of the tools who are extremely willing to share all of that with anyone who wants to listen.  The opening video with PASS President Bill Graziano in a NASCAR race turned dream sequence was very well done, and the keynotes, as usual, were great.  This year I was particularly impressed with how well attended were the Professional Development sessions.  Not too many years ago, those were very sparsely attended, but this year, the two that I attended were standing-room only, and these were not tiny rooms.  I would say this is a testament to both the maturity of the attendees realizing how important these topics are to career success, as well as to the ever-increasing skills of the presenters and the program committee for selecting speakers and topics that resonated with people.  If, as is usually the case, you were not able to get to every session that you wanted to because there were just too darn many good ones, I encourage you to get the recordings. Overall, it was a great time as these events always are.  It was wonderful to see old friends and make new ones, and the people of Charlotte did an awesome job hosting the event and letting their hospitality shine (extra kudos to SQLSentry for all they did with the shuttle, maps, and other event sponsorships).  We’re back in Seattle next year (it is a release year, after all) but I would say that with the success of this year’s event, I strongly encourage the Board and PASS HQ to firmly reestablish the location rotation schedule.  I’ll even go so far as to suggest standardizing on an alternating Seattle – Charlotte schedule, or something like that. If you missed the Summit this year, start saving now, and register early, so you can join us!

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• The Best Data Integration for Exadata Comes from Oracle

  - by maria costanzo

  Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate offer unique and optimized data integration solutions for Oracle Exadata. For example, customers that choose to feed their data warehouse or reporting database with near real-time throughout the day, can do so without decreasing  performance or availability of source and target systems. And if you ask why real-time, the short answer is: in today’s fast-paced, always-on world, business decisions need to use more relevant, timely data to be able to act fast and seize opportunities. A longer response to "why real-time" question can be found in a related blog post. If we look at the solution architecture, as shown on the diagram below,  Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate are both uniquely designed to take full advantage of the power of the database and to eliminate unnecessary middle-tier components. Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) is the best bulk data loading solution for Exadata. ODI is the only ETL platform that can leverage the full power of Exadata, integrate directly on the Exadata machine without any additional hardware, and by far provides the simplest setup and fastest overall performance on an Exadata system. We regularly see customers achieving a 5-10 times boost when they move their ETL to ODI on Exadata. For  some companies the performance gain is even much higher. For example a large insurance company did a proof of concept comparing ODI vs a traditional ETL tool (one of the market leaders) on Exadata. The same process that was taking 5hrs and 11 minutes to complete using the competing ETL product took 7 minutes and 20 seconds with ODI. Oracle Data Integrator was 42 times faster than the conventional ETL when running on Exadata.This shows that Oracle's own data integration offering helps you to gain the most out of your Exadata investment with a truly optimized solution. GoldenGate is the best solution for streaming data from heterogeneous sources into Exadata in real time. Oracle GoldenGate can also be used together with Data Integrator for hybrid use cases that also demand non-invasive capture, high-speed real time replication. Oracle GoldenGate enables real-time data feeds from heterogeneous sources non-invasively, and delivers to the staging area on the target Exadata system. ODI runs directly on Exadata to use the database engine power to perform in-database transformations. Enterprise Data Quality is integrated with Oracle Data integrator and enables ODI to load trusted data into the data warehouse tables. Only Oracle can offer all these technical benefits wrapped into a single intelligence data warehouse solution that runs on Exadata. Compared to traditional ETL with add-on CDC this solution offers: §  Non-invasive data capture from heterogeneous sources and avoids any performance impact on source §  No mid-tier; set based transformations use database power §  Mini-batches throughout the day –or- bulk processing nightly which means maximum availability for the DW §  Integrated solution with Enterprise Data Quality enables leveraging trusted data in the data warehouse In addition to Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Morrison Supermarkets, United Kingdom’s fourth-largest food retailer, has seen the power of this solution for their new BI platform and shared their story with us. Morrisons needed to analyze data across a large number of manufacturing, warehousing, retail, and financial applications with the goal to achieve single view into operations for improved customer service. The retailer deployed Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator to bring new data into Oracle Exadata in near real-time and replicate the data into reporting structures within the data warehouse—extending visibility into operations. Using Oracle's data integration offering for Exadata, Morrisons produced financial reports in seconds, rather than minutes, and improved staff productivity and agility. You can read more about Morrison’s success story here and hear from Starwood here. From an Irem Radzik article.

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• It happens only at Devoxx ...

  - by arungupta

  After attending several Java conferences world wide, this was my very first time at Devoxx. Here are some items I found that happens only at Devoxx ... Pioneers of theater-style seating - This not only provides comfortable seating for each attendee but the screens are very clearly visible to everybody in the room. Intellectual level of attendees is very high - Read more explanation on the Java EE 6 lab blog. In short, a lab, 1/3 of the content delivered at Devoxx 2011, could not be completed at other developer days in more than 1/3 the time. Snack box for lunches - Even though this suits well to the healthy lifestyle of multiple-snacks-during-a-day style but leaves attendees hungry sooner in the day. The longer breaks before the next snack in the evening does not help at all. Fortunately, Azure cupcakes and Android ice creams turned out to be handy. I finally carried my own apple :-) Wrist band instead of lanyard - The good part about this is that once tied to your hand then you are less likely to forget in your room. But OTOH you are a pretty much a branded conference attendee all through out the city. It was cost effective as it costed 20c as opposed to 1 euro for the lanyard. Live streaming from theater #8 (the biggest room) on parleys.com All talks recorded and released on parleys.com over next year. This allows attendees to not to miss any session and watch replay at their own leisure. Stephan promised to start sharing the sessions by mid December this year. No need to pre-register for a session - This is true for most of the conferences but bigger rooms (+ overflow room for key sessions) provide sufficient space for all those who want to attend the session. And of course all sessions are available on parleys.com anyway! Community votes on whiteboard - Devoxx attendees gets a chance to vote on topics ranging from their favorite non-Java language, operating system, or love from Oracle. Captured pictures at the end of Day 2 are shown below. Movie on the last but one night - This year it was The Adventures of Tintin and was lots of fun. Fries with mayo - This is a typical Belgian thing. Guys going in ladies room to avoid the long queues ... wow! Tweet wall everywhere and I mean literally everywhere, in rooms, hallways, front desk, and other places. The tweet picking algorithm was not very clear as I never saw my tweet appear on the wall ;-) You can also watch it at wall.devoxx.com. Cozy speaker dinner with great food and wine List of parallel and upcoming sessions displayed on the screen - This makes the information more explicit with the attendees. REST API with multiple mobile clients - This API is also used by some other conferences as well. And there always is iphone.devoxx.com. Steering committee members were recognized multiple times. The committee members were clearly identifiable wearing red hoodies. The wireless SSID was intuitive "Devoxx" but hidden to avoid some crap from Microsoft Windows. All of 9000 addresses were used up most of the times with each attendee having multiple devices. A 1 GB fibre optic cable was stretched to Metropolis to support the required network bandwidth. Stephan is already planning to upgrade the equipment and have a better infrastructure next year. Free water, soda, juice in a cooler Kinect connected to TV screens so that attendees can use their hands to browse through the list of sesssions. #devoxxblog, #devoxxwomen, #devoxxfrance, #devoxxgreat, #devoxxsuggestions And Devoxx attendees are called Devoxxians ... how cool is that ? :-) What other things do you think happen only at Devoxx ? And now the pictures from the community whiteboard: And a more complete album (including bigger pics of community votes) is available below:

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• Squibbly: LibreOffice Integration Framework for the Java Desktop

  - by Geertjan

  Squibbly is a new framework for Java desktop applications that need to integrate with LibreOffice, or more generally, need office features as part of a Java desktop solution that could include, for example, JavaFX components. Here's what it looks like, right now, on Ubuntu 13.04: Why is the framework called Squibbly? Because I needed a unique-ish name, because "squibble" sounds a bit like "scribble" (which is what one does with text documents, etc), and because of the many absurd definitions in the Urban Dictionary for the apparently real word "squibble", e.g., "A name for someone who is squibblish in nature." And, another e.g., "A squibble is a small squabble. A squabble is a little skirmish." But the real reason is the first definition (and definitely not the fourth definition): "Taking a small portion of another persons something, such as a small hit off of a pipe, a bite of food, a sip of a drink, or drag of a cigarette." In other words, I took (or "squibbled") a small portion of LibreOffice, i.e., OfficeBean, and integrated it into a NetBeans Platform application. Now anyone can add new features to it, to do anything they need, such as create a legislative software system as Propylon has done with their own solution on the NetBeans Platform: For me, the starting point was Chuk Munn Lee's similar solution from some years ago. However, he uses reflection a lot in that solution, because he didn't want to bundle the related JARs with the application. I understand that benefit but I find it even more beneficial to not need to require the user to specify the location of the LibreOffice location, since all the necessary JARs and native libraries (currently 32-bit Linux only, by the way) are bundled with the application. Plus, hundreds of lines of reflection code, as in Chuk's solution, is not fun to work with at all. Switching between applications is done like this: It's a work in progress, a proof of concept only. Just the result of a few hours of work to get the basic integration to work. Several problems remain, some of them potentially unsolvable, starting with these, but others will be added here as I identify them: Window management problems. I'd like to let the user have multiple LibreOffice applications and documents open at the same time, each in a new TopComponent. However, I haven't figured out how to do that. Right now, each application is opened into the same TopComponent, replacing the currently open application. I don't know the OfficeBean API well enough, e.g., should a single OfficeBean be shared among multiple TopComponents or should each of them have their own instance of it? Focus problems. When putting the application behind other applications and then switching back to the application, typing text becomes impossible. When closing a TopComponent and reopening it, the content is lost completely. Somehow the loss of focus, and then the return of focus, disables something. No idea how to fix that. The project is checked into this location, which isn't public yet, so you can't access it yet. Once it's publicly available, it would be great to get some code contributions and tweaks, etc. https://java.net/projects/squibbly Here's the source structure, showing especially how the OfficeBean JARs and native libraries (currently for Linux 32-bit only) fit in: Ultimately, would be cool to integrate or share code with http://joeffice.com!

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