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• virtual host setup: can't access wordpress site without www

  - by two7s_clash

  I would like to access my site both with and without using the www. Currently it only works with. Leaving out the www just goes to a blank page. Also, wp-admin just loads a blank page too. I have set an A record for mysite.com and www.mysite.com, both pointing to my static Bitnami IP. I also have a subdomain mapped to another directory that is working just fine (conference.mysite.com and www.conference.mysite.com). I'm using a Bitnami stack on an AWS EC2 micro instance. Here is my httpd.conf: ServerRoot "/opt/bitnami/apache2" Listen 80 LoadModule authn_file_module modules/mod_authn_file.so blah blah blah.... LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so <IfModule !mpm_netware_module> <IfModule !mpm_winnt_module> User daemon Group daemon </IfModule> </IfModule> ServerAdmin [email protected] ServerName localhost:80 DocumentRoot "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress1/htdocs/" <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Allow from all </Directory> <Directory "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress1/htdocs/"> Options Indexes MultiViews +FollowSymLinks LanguagePriority en AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> <IfModule dir_module> DirectoryIndex index.html index.php </IfModule> <FilesMatch "^\\.ht"> Order allow,deny Deny from all Satisfy All </FilesMatch> ErrorLog "logs/error_log" LogLevel warn <IfModule log_config_module> LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \\"%r\\" %>s %b \\"%{Referer}i\\" \\"%{User-Agent}i\\"" combined LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \\"%r\\" %>s %b" common <IfModule logio_module> LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \\"%r\\" %>s %b \\"%{Referer}i\\" \\"%{User-Agent}i\\" %I %O" combinedio </IfModule> CustomLog "logs/access_log" common </IfModule> <IfModule alias_module> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/opt/bitnami/apache2/cgi-bin/" </IfModule> <Directory "/opt/bitnami/apache2/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options None Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> DefaultType text/plain <IfModule mime_module> TypesConfig conf/mime.types AddType application/x-compress .Z AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz </IfModule> Include conf/extra/httpd-mpm.conf <IfModule ssl_module> SSLRandomSeed startup builtin SSLRandomSeed connect builtin </IfModule> AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .phtml LoadModule wsgi_module modules/mod_wsgi.so WSGIPythonHome /opt/bitnami/python ServerSignature Off ServerTokens Prod AddType application/x-httpd-php .php PHPIniDir "/opt/bitnami/php/etc" Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/phpmyadmin/conf/phpmyadmin.conf" ExtendedStatus On <Location /server-status> SetHandler server-status Order Deny,Allow Deny from all Allow from localhost </Location> Include "/opt/bitnami/apache2/conf/bitnami/httpd.conf" Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/virtualhost.conf" Here is my virtual hosts file: NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin xx DocumentRoot "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress1/htdocs" ServerName mbird.com ServerAlias www.mbird.com ErrorLog "logs/wordpress-error_log" CustomLog "logs/wordpress-access_log" common </VirtualHost> <Directory "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress1/htdocs"> Options Indexes MultiViews +FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ### WordPress conference.mbird.com configuration ### <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin [email protected] DocumentRoot "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs" ServerName conference.mbird.com ServerAlias www.conference.mbird.com ErrorLog "logs/confwordpress-error_log" CustomLog "logs/confwordpress-access_log" common </VirtualHost> <Directory "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs"> Options Indexes MultiViews +FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ###

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• Is Financial Inclusion an Obligation or an Opportunity for Banks?

  - by tushar.chitra

  Why should banks care about financial inclusion? First, the statistics, I think this will set the tone for this blog post. There are close to 2.5 billion people who are excluded from the banking stream and out of this, 2.2 billion people are from the continents of Africa, Latin America and Asia (McKinsey on Society: Global Financial Inclusion). However, this is not just a third-world phenomenon. According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), in the US, post 2008 financial crisis, one family out of five has either opted out of the banking system or has been moved out (American Banker). Moving this huge unbanked population into mainstream banking is both an opportunity and a challenge for banks. An obvious opportunity is the significant untapped customer base that banks can target, so is the positive brand equity a bank can build by fulfilling its social responsibilities. Also, as banks target the cost-conscious unbanked customer, they will be forced to look at ways to offer cost-effective products and services, necessitating technology upgrades and innovations. However, cost is not the only hurdle in increasing the adoption of banking services. The potential users need to be convinced of the benefits of banking and banks will also face stiff competition from unorganized players. Finally, the banks will have to believe in the viability of this business opportunity, and not treat financial inclusion as an obligation. In what ways can banks target the unbanked For financial inclusion to be a success, banks should adopt innovative business models to develop products that address the stated and unstated needs of the unbanked population and also design delivery channels that are cost effective and viable in the long run. Through business correspondents and facilitators In rural and remote areas, one of the major hurdles in increasing banking penetration is connectivity and accessibility to banking services, which makes last mile inclusion a daunting challenge. To address this, banks can avail the services of business correspondents or facilitators. This model allows banks to establish greater connectivity through a trusted and reliable intermediary. In India, for instance, banks can leverage the local Kirana stores (the mom & pop stores) to service rural and remote areas. With a supportive nudge from the central bank, the commercial banks can enlist these shop owners as business correspondents to increase their reach. Since these neighborhood stores are acquainted with the local population, they can help banks manage the KYC norms, besides serving as a conduit for remittance. Banks also have an opportunity over a period of time to cross-sell other financial products such as micro insurance, mutual funds and pension products through these correspondents. To exercise greater operational control over the business correspondents, banks can also adopt a combination of branch and business correspondent models to deliver financial inclusion. Through mobile devices According to a 2012 world bank report on financial inclusion, out of a world population of 7 billion, over 5 billion or 70% have mobile phones and only 2 billion or 30% have a bank account. What this means for banks is that there is scope for them to leverage this phenomenal growth in mobile usage to serve the unbanked population. Banks can use mobile technology to service the basic banking requirements of their customers with no frills accounts, effectively bringing down the cost per transaction. As I had discussed in my earlier post on mobile payments, though non-traditional players have taken the lead in P2P mobile payments, banks still hold an edge in terms of infrastructure and reliability. Through crowd-funding According to the Crowdfunding Industry Report by Massolution, the global crowdfunding industry raised $2.7 billion in 2012, and is projected to grow to $5.1 billion in 2013. With credit policies becoming tighter and banks becoming more circumspect in terms of loan disbursals, crowdfunding has emerged as an alternative channel for lending. Typically, these initiatives target the unbanked population by offering small loans that are unviable for larger banks. Though a significant proportion of crowdfunding initiatives globally are run by non-banking institutions, banks are also venturing into this space. The next step towards inclusive finance Banks by themselves cannot make financial inclusion a success. There is a need for a whole ecosystem that is supportive of this mission. The policy makers, that include the regulators and government bodies, must be in sync, the IT solution providers must put on their thinking caps to come out with innovative products and solutions, communication channels such as internet and mobile need to expand their reach, and the media and the public need to play an active part. The other challenge for financial inclusion is from the banks themselves. While it is true that financial inclusion will unleash a hitherto hugely untapped market, the normal banking model may be found wanting because of issues such as flexibility, convenience and reliability. The business will be viable only when there is a focus on increasing the usage of existing infrastructure and that is possible when the banks can offer the entire range of products and services to the large number of users of essential banking services. Apart from these challenges, banks will also have to quickly master and replicate the business model to extend their reach to the remotest regions in their respective geographies. They will need to ensure that the transactions deliver a viable business benefit to the bank. For tapping cross-sell opportunities, banks will have to quickly roll-out customized and segment-specific products. The bank staff should be brought in sync with the business plan by convincing them of the viability of the business model and the need for a business correspondent delivery model. Banks, in collaboration with the government and NGOs, will have to run an extensive financial literacy program to educate the unbanked about the benefits of banking. Finally, with the growing importance of retail banking and with many unconventional players eyeing the opportunity in payments and other lucrative areas of banking, banks need to understand the importance of micro and small branches. These micro and small branches can help banks increase their presence without a huge cost burden, provide bankers an opportunity to cross sell micro products and offer a window of opportunity for the large non-banked population to transact without any interference from intermediaries. These branches can also help diminish the role of the unorganized financial sector, such as local moneylenders and unregistered credit societies. This will also help banks build a brand awareness and loyalty among the users, which by itself has a cascading effect on the business operations, especially among the rural and un-banked centers. In conclusion, with the increasingly competitive banking sector facing frequent slowdowns and downturns, the unbanked population presents a huge opportunity for banks to enhance their customer base and fulfill their social responsibility.

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• puppet master REST API returns 403 when running under passenger works when master runs from command line

  - by Anadi Misra

  I am using the standard auth.conf provided in puppet install for the puppet master which is running through passenger under Nginx. However for most of the catalog, files and certitifcate request I get a 403 response. ### Authenticated paths - these apply only when the client ### has a valid certificate and is thus authenticated # allow nodes to retrieve their own catalog path ~ ^/catalog/([^/]+)$ method find allow $1 # allow nodes to retrieve their own node definition path ~ ^/node/([^/]+)$ method find allow $1 # allow all nodes to access the certificates services path ~ ^/certificate_revocation_list/ca method find allow * # allow all nodes to store their reports path /report method save allow * # unconditionally allow access to all file services # which means in practice that fileserver.conf will # still be used path /file allow * ### Unauthenticated ACL, for clients for which the current master doesn't ### have a valid certificate; we allow authenticated users, too, because ### there isn't a great harm in letting that request through. # allow access to the master CA path /certificate/ca auth any method find allow * path /certificate/ auth any method find allow * path /certificate_request auth any method find, save allow * path /facts auth any method find, search allow * # this one is not stricly necessary, but it has the merit # of showing the default policy, which is deny everything else path / auth any Puppet master however does not seems to be following this as I get this error on client [amisr1@blramisr195602 ~]$ sudo puppet agent --no-daemonize --verbose --server bangvmpllda02.XXXXX.com [sudo] password for amisr1: Starting Puppet client version 3.0.1 Warning: Unable to fetch my node definition, but the agent run will continue: Warning: Error 403 on SERVER: Forbidden request: XX.XXX.XX.XX(XX.XXX.XX.XX) access to /certificate_revocation_list/ca [find] at :110 Info: Retrieving plugin Error: /File[/var/lib/puppet/lib]: Failed to generate additional resources using 'eval_generate: Error 403 on SERVER: Forbidden request: XX.XXX.XX.XX(XX.XXX.XX.XX) access to /file_metadata/plugins [search] at :110 Error: /File[/var/lib/puppet/lib]: Could not evaluate: Error 403 on SERVER: Forbidden request: XX.XXX.XX.XX(XX.XXX.XX.XX) access to /file_metadata/plugins [find] at :110 Could not retrieve file metadata for puppet://devops.XXXXX.com/plugins: Error 403 on SERVER: Forbidden request: XX.XXX.XX.XX(XX.XXX.XX.XX) access to /file_metadata/plugins [find] at :110 Error: Could not retrieve catalog from remote server: Error 403 on SERVER: Forbidden request: XX.XXX.XX.XX(XX.XXX.XX.XX) access to /catalog/blramisr195602.XXXXX.com [find] at :110 Using cached catalog Error: Could not retrieve catalog; skipping run Error: Could not send report: Error 403 on SERVER: Forbidden request: XX.XXX.XX.XX(XX.XXX.XX.XX) access to /report/blramisr195602.XXXXX.com [save] at :110 and the server logs show XX.XXX.XX.XX - - [10/Dec/2012:14:46:52 +0530] "GET /production/certificate_revocation_list/ca? HTTP/1.1" 403 102 "-" "Ruby" XX.XXX.XX.XX - - [10/Dec/2012:14:46:52 +0530] "GET /production/file_metadatas/plugins?links=manage&recurse=true&&ignore=---+%0A++-+%22.svn%22%0A++-+CVS%0A++-+%22.git%22&checksum_type=md5 HTTP/1.1" 403 95 "-" "Ruby" XX.XXX.XX.XX - - [10/Dec/2012:14:46:52 +0530] "GET /production/file_metadata/plugins? HTTP/1.1" 403 93 "-" "Ruby" XX.XXX.XX.XX - - [10/Dec/2012:14:46:53 +0530] "POST /production/catalog/blramisr195602.XXXXX.com HTTP/1.1" 403 106 "-" "Ruby" XX.XXX.XX.XX - - [10/Dec/2012:14:46:53 +0530] "PUT /production/report/blramisr195602.XXXXX.com HTTP/1.1" 403 105 "-" "Ruby" thefile server conf file is as follows (and goin by what they say on puppet site, It is better to regulate access in auth.conf for reaching file server and then allow file server to server all) [files] path /apps/puppet/files allow * [private] path /apps/puppet/private/%H allow * [modules] allow * I am using server and client version 3 Nginx has been compiled using the following options nginx version: nginx/1.3.9 built by gcc 4.4.6 20120305 (Red Hat 4.4.6-4) (GCC) TLS SNI support enabled configure arguments: --prefix=/apps/nginx --conf-path=/apps/nginx/nginx.conf --pid-path=/apps/nginx/run/nginx.pid --error-log-path=/apps/nginx/logs/error.log --http-log-path=/apps/nginx/logs/access.log --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --add-module=/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.18/ext/nginx --add-module=/apps/Downloads/nginx/nginx-auth-ldap-master/ and the standard nginx puppet master conf server { ssl on; listen 8140 ssl; server_name _; passenger_enabled on; passenger_set_cgi_param HTTP_X_CLIENT_DN $ssl_client_s_dn; passenger_set_cgi_param HTTP_X_CLIENT_VERIFY $ssl_client_verify; passenger_min_instances 5; access_log logs/puppet_access.log; error_log logs/puppet_error.log; root /apps/nginx/html/rack/public; ssl_certificate /var/lib/puppet/ssl/certs/bangvmpllda02.XXXXXX.com.pem; ssl_certificate_key /var/lib/puppet/ssl/private_keys/bangvmpllda02.XXXXXX.com.pem; ssl_crl /var/lib/puppet/ssl/ca/ca_crl.pem; ssl_client_certificate /var/lib/puppet/ssl/certs/ca.pem; ssl_ciphers SSLv2:-LOW:-EXPORT:RC4+RSA; ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; ssl_verify_client optional; ssl_verify_depth 1; ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:128m; ssl_session_timeout 5m; } Puppet is picking up the correct settings from the files mentioned because config print command points to /etc/puppet [amisr1@bangvmpllDA02 puppet]$ sudo puppet config print | grep conf async_storeconfigs = false authconfig = /etc/puppet/namespaceauth.conf autosign = /etc/puppet/autosign.conf catalog_cache_terminus = store_configs confdir = /etc/puppet config = /etc/puppet/puppet.conf config_file_name = puppet.conf config_version = "" configprint = all configtimeout = 120 dblocation = /var/lib/puppet/state/clientconfigs.sqlite3 deviceconfig = /etc/puppet/device.conf fileserverconfig = /etc/puppet/fileserver.conf genconfig = false hiera_config = /etc/puppet/hiera.yaml localconfig = /var/lib/puppet/state/localconfig name = config rest_authconfig = /etc/puppet/auth.conf storeconfigs = true storeconfigs_backend = puppetdb tagmap = /etc/puppet/tagmail.conf thin_storeconfigs = false I checked the firewall rules on this VM; 80, 443, 8140, 3000 are allowed. Do I still have to tweak any specifics to auth.conf for getting this to work?

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• I have finally traded my Blackberry in for a Droid!

  - by Bob Porter

  Over the years I have used a number of different types of phones. Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Nokia, and now Android. Until the Blackberry, which was my last phone (and I still have one issued from my office) I had never found a phone that “just worked” especially with email and messaging. The Blackberry did, and does, excel at those functions. My last personal phone was a Storm 1 which was Blackberry’s first touch screen phone. The Storm 2 was an improved version that fixed some screen press detection issues from the first model and it added Wifi. Over the last few years I have watched others acquire and fall in love with their ‘Droid’s including a number of iPhone users which surprised me. Our office has until recently only supported Blackberry phones, adding iPhones within the last year or so. When I spoke with our internal telecom folks they confirmed they were evaluating Android phones, but felt they still were not secure enough out of the box for corporate use and SOX compliance. That being said, as a personal phone, the Droid Rocks! I am impressed with its speed, the number of apps available, and the overall design. It is not as “flashy” as an iPhone but it does everything that I care about and more. The model I bought is the Motorola Droid 2 Global from Verizon. It is currently running Android 2.2 for it’s OS, 2.3 is just around the corner. It has 8 gigs of internal flash memory and can handle up to a 32 gig SDCard. (I currently have 2 8 gig cards, one for backups, and have ordered a 16 gig card!) Being a geek at heart, I “rooted” the phone which means gained superuser access to the OS on the phone. And opens a number of doors for further modifications down the road. Also being a geek meant I have already setup a development environment and built and deployed the obligatory “Hello Droid” application. I will be writing of my development experiences with this new platform here often, to start off I thought I would share my current application list to give you an idea what I am using. Zedge: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.zedge.android XDA: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkxda.activity WRAL.com: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mylocaltv.wral Wireless Tether: http://market.android.com/details?id=android.tether Winamp: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.nullsoft.winamp Win7 Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.toggles.win7 Wifi Analyzer: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer WeatherBug: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.aws.android Weather Widget Forecast Addon: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.weather.forecastaddon Weather & Toggle Widgets: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather2 Vlingo: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.vlingo.client VirtualTENHO-G: http://market.android.com/details?id=jp.bustercurry.virtualtenho_g Twitter: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.twitter.android TweetDeck: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.thedeck.android.app Tricorder: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.hermit.tricorder Titanium Backup PRO: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackupPro Titanium Backup: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup Terminal Emulator: http://market.android.com/details?id=jackpal.androidterm Talking Tom Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.outfit7.talkingtom Stock Blue: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adw.theme.stockblue ST: Red Alert Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.oldplanets.redalertwallpaper ST: Red Alert: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.oldplanets.redalertwallpaperplus Solitaire: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.kmagic.solitaire Skype: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.skype.raider Silent Time Lite: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.QuiteHypnotic.SilentTime ShopSavvy: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.biggu.shopsavvy Shopper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.shopper Shiny clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.clock.shiny ShareMyApps: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mattlary.shareMyApps Sense Glass ADW Theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dtanquary.senseglassadwtheme ROM Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.rommanager Roboform Bookmarklet Installer: http://market.android.com/details?id=roboformBookmarkletInstaller.android.com RealCalc: http://market.android.com/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalc Package Buddy: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.psyrus.packagebuddy Overstock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.overstock OMGPOP Toggle: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.toggle.omgpop OI File Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.openintents.filemanager nook: http://market.android.com/details?id=bn.ereader MyAtlas-Google Maps Navigation ext: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adaptdroid.navbookfree3 MSN Droid: http://market.android.com/details?id=msn.droid.im Matrix Live Wallpaper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.jarodyv.livewallpaper.matrix LogMeIn: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.logmein.ignitionpro.android Liveshare: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cooliris.app.liveshare Kobo: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.kobobooks.android Instant Heart Rate: http://market.android.com/details?id=si.modula.android.instantheartrate IMDb: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.imdb.mobile Home Plus Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.skin.weather.homeplus Handcent SMS: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.handcent.nextsms H7C Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.clock.skin.h7c GTasks: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.dayup.gtask GPS Status: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2 Google Voice: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.googlevoice Google Sky Map: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.stardroid Google Reader: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.reader GoMarks: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androappsdev.gomarks Goggles: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.unveil Glossy Black Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.skin.glossyblack Fox News: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.foxnews.android Foursquare: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.joelapenna.foursquared FBReader: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.geometerplus.zlibrary.ui.android Fandango: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.fandango Facebook: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.facebook.katana Extensive Notes Pro: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.flufflydelusions.app.extensive_notes_donate Expense Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.expensemanager Espresso UI (LightShow w/ Slide): http://market.android.com/details?id=com.jaguirre.slide.lightshow Engadget: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.aol.mobile.engadget Earth: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.earth Drudge: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.iavian.dreport Dropbox: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dropbox.android DroidForums: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkdrodiforums.activity DroidArmor ADW: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.addesigns.droidarmorADW Droid Weather Icons: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.skins.white Droid 2 Bootstrapper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.droid2.bootstrap doubleTwist: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.doubleTwist.androidPlayer Documents To Go: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dataviz.docstogo Digital Clock Widget: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.maize.digitalClock Desk Home: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cowbellsoftware.deskdock Default Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.clock.skins.defaultclock Daily Expense Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.techahead.ExpenseManager ConnectBot: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.connectbot Colorized Weather Icons: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.colorized Chrome to Phone: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.chrometophone CardStar: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cardstar.android Books: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.books Black Ipad Toggle: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.toggle.widget.skin.blackipad Black Glass ADW Theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dtanquary.blackglassadwtheme Bing: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.microsoft.mobileexperiences.bing BeyondPod Unlock Key: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.beyondpod.unlockkey BeyondPod: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.beyondpod BeejiveIM: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.beejive.im Beautiful Widgets Animations Addon: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.bw.forecast Beautiful Widgets: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulwidgets Beautiful Live Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifullive BBC News: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.jimblackler.newswidget Barnacle Wifi Tether: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.szym.barnacle Barcode Scanner: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.zxing.client.android ASTRO SMB Module: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.smb ASTRO Pro: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.pro ASTRO Bluetooth Module: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.network.bluetooth ASTRO: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro AppBrain App Market: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.apps App Drawer Icon Pack: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adwtheme.appdrawericonpack androidVNC: http://market.android.com/details?id=android.androidVNC AndroidGuys: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.handmark.mpp.AndroidGuys Android System Info: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.electricsheep.asi AndFTP: http://market.android.com/details?id=lysesoft.andftp ADWTheme Red: http://market.android.com/details?id=adw.theme.red ADWLauncher EX: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adwfreak.launcher ADW.Theme.One: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adw.theme.one ADW.Faded theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.xrcore.adwtheme.faded ADW Gingerbread: http://market.android.com/details?id=me.robertburns.android.adwtheme.gingerbread Advanced Task Killer Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.rechild.advancedtaskkiller Adobe Reader: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.reader Adobe Flash Player 10.1: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.flashplayer Adobe AIR: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.air 3G Auto OnOff: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.yuantuo --- Generated by ShareMyApps http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mattlary.shareMyApps Sent from my Droid

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• [GEEK SCHOOL] Network Security 4: Windows Firewall: Your System’s Best Defense

  - by Ciprian Rusen

  If you have your computer connected to a network, or directly to your Internet connection, then having a firewall is an absolute necessity. In this lesson we will discuss the Windows Firewall – one of the best security features available in Windows! The Windows Firewall made its debut in Windows XP. Prior to that, Windows system needed to rely on third-party solutions or dedicated hardware to protect them from network-based attacks. Over the years, Microsoft has done a great job with it and it is one of the best firewalls you will ever find for Windows operating systems. Seriously, it is so good that some commercial vendors have decided to piggyback on it! Let’s talk about what you will learn in this lesson. First, you will learn about what the Windows Firewall is, what it does, and how it works. Afterward, you will start to get your hands dirty and edit the list of apps, programs, and features that are allowed to communicate through the Windows Firewall depending on the type of network you are connected to. Moving on from there, you will learn how to add new apps or programs to the list of allowed items and how to remove the apps and programs that you want to block. Last but not least, you will learn how to enable or disable the Windows Firewall, for only one type of networks or for all network connections. By the end of this lesson, you should know enough about the Windows Firewall to use and manage it effectively. What is the Windows Firewall? Windows Firewall is an important security application that’s built into Windows. One of its roles is to block unauthorized access to your computer. The second role is to permit authorized data communications to and from your computer. Windows Firewall does these things with the help of rules and exceptions that are applied both to inbound and outbound traffic. They are applied depending on the type of network you are connected to and the location you have set for it in Windows, when connecting to the network. Based on your choice, the Windows Firewall automatically adjusts the rules and exceptions applied to that network. This makes the Windows Firewall a product that’s silent and easy to use. It bothers you only when it doesn’t have any rules and exceptions for what you are trying to do or what the programs running on your computer are trying to do. If you need a refresher on the concept of network locations, we recommend you to read our How-To Geek School class on Windows Networking. Another benefit of the Windows Firewall is that it is so tightly and nicely integrated into Windows and all its networking features, that some commercial vendors decided to piggyback onto it and use it in their security products. For example, products from companies like Trend Micro or F-Secure no longer provide their proprietary firewall modules but use the Windows Firewall instead. Except for a few wording differences, the Windows Firewall works the same in Windows 7 and Windows 8.x. The only notable difference is that in Windows 8.x you will see the word “app” being used instead of “program”. Where to Find the Windows Firewall By default, the Windows Firewall is turned on and you don’t need to do anything special in order for it work. You will see it displaying some prompts once in a while but they show up so rarely that you might forget that is even working. If you want to access it and configure the way it works, go to the Control Panel, then go to “System and Security” and select “Windows Firewall”. Now you will see the Windows Firewall window where you can get a quick glimpse on whether it is turned on and the type of network you are connected to: private networks or public network. For the network type that you are connected to, you will see additional information like: The state of the Windows Firewall How the Windows Firewall deals with incoming connections The active network When the Windows Firewall will notify you You can easily expand the other section and view the default settings that apply when connecting to networks of that type. If you have installed a third-party security application that also includes a firewall module, chances are that the Windows Firewall has been disabled, in order to avoid performance issues and conflicts between the two security products. If that is the case for your computer or device, you won’t be able to view any information in the Windows Firewall window and you won’t be able to configure the way it works. Instead, you will see a warning that says: “These settings are being managed by vendor application – Application Name”. In the screenshot below you can see an example of how this looks. How to Allow Desktop Applications Through the Windows Firewall Windows Firewall has a very comprehensive set of rules and most Windows programs that you install add their own exceptions to the Windows Firewall so that they receive network and Internet access. This means that you will see prompts from the Windows Firewall on occasion, generally when you install programs that do not add their own exceptions to the Windows Firewall’s list. In a Windows Firewall prompt, you are asked to select the network locations to which you allow access for that program: private networks or public networks. By default, Windows Firewall selects the checkbox that’s appropriate for the network you are currently using. You can decide to allow access for both types of network locations or just to one of them. To apply your setting press “Allow access”. If you want to block network access for that program, press “Cancel” and the program will be set as blocked for both network locations. At this step you should note that only administrators can set exceptions in the Windows Firewall. If you are using a standard account without administrator permissions, the programs that do not comply with the Windows Firewall rules and exceptions are automatically blocked, without any prompts being shown. You should note that in Windows 8.x you will never see any Windows Firewall prompts related to apps from the Windows Store. They are automatically given access to the network and the Internet based on the assumption that you are aware of the permissions they require based on the information displayed by the Windows Store. Windows Firewall rules and exceptions are automatically created for each app that you install from the Windows Store. However, you can easily block access to the network and the Internet for any app, using the instructions in the next section. How to Customize the Rules for Allowed Apps Windows Firewall allows any user with an administrator account to change the list of rules and exceptions applied for apps and desktop programs. In order to do this, first start the Windows Firewall. On the column on the left, click or tap “Allow an app or feature through Windows Firewall” (in Windows 8.x) or “Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall” (in Windows 7). Now you see the list of apps and programs that are allowed to communicate through the Windows Firewall. At this point, the list is grayed out and you can only view which apps, features, and programs have rules that are enabled in the Windows Firewall.

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• AGENT: The World's Smartest Watch

  - by Rob Chartier

  AGENT: The World's Smartest Watch by Secret Labs + House of Horology Disclaimer: Most if not all of this content has been gleaned from the comments on the Kickstarter project page and comments section. Any discrepancies between this post and any documentation on agentwatches.com, kickstarter.com, etc.., those official sites take precedence. Overview The next generation smartwatch with brand-new technology. World-class developer tools, unparalleled battery life, Qi wireless charging. Kickstarter Page, Comments Funding period : May 21, 2013 - Jun 20, 2013 MSRP : $249 Other Urls http://www.agentwatches.com/ https://www.facebook.com/agentwatches http://twitter.com/agentwatches http://pinterest.com/agentwatches/ http://paper.li/robchartier/1371234640 Developer Story The first official launch of the preview SDK and emulator will happen on 20-Jun-2013.  All development will be done in Visual Studio 2012, using the .NET Micro Framework SDK 2.3.  The SDK will ship with the first round of the expected API for developers along with an emulator. With that said, there is no need to wait for the SDK.  You can download the tooling now and get started with Apps and Faces immediately.  The only thing that you will not be able to work with is the API; but for example, watch faces, you can start building the basic face rendering with the Bitmap graphics drawing in the .NET Micro Framework.   Does it look good? Before we dig into any more of the gory details, here are a few photos of the current available prototype models.   The watch on the tiny QI Charter   If you wander too far away from your phone, your watch will let you know with a vibration and a message, all but one button will dismiss the message.   An app showing the premium weather data!   Nice stitching on the straps, leather and silicon will be available, along with a few lengths to choose from (short, regular, long lengths). On to those gory details…. Hardware Specs Processor 120MHz ARM Cortex-M4 processor (ATSAM4SD32) with secondary AVR co-processor Flash & RAM 2MB of onboard flash and 160KB of RAM 1/4 of the onboard flash will be used by the OS The flash is permanent (non-volatile) storage. Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.0 BD/EDR + LE Bluetooth 4.0 is backwards compatible with Bluetooth 2.1, so classic Bluetooth functions (BD/EDR, SPP/AVRCP/PBAP/etc.) will work fine. Sensors 3D Accelerometer (Motion) ST LSM303DLHC Ambient Light Sensor Hardware power metering Vibration Motor (You can pulse it to create vibration patterns, not sure about the vibration strength - driven with PWM) No piezo/speaker or microphone. Other QI Wireless Charging, no NFC, no wall adapter included Custom LED Backlight No GPS in the watch. It uses the GPS in your phone. AGENT watch apps are deployed and debugged wirelessly from your PC via Bluetooth. RoHS, Pb-free Battery Expected to use a CR2430-sized rechargeable battery – replaceable (Mouser, Amazon) Estimated charging time from empty is 2 hours with provided charger 7 Days typical with Bluetooth on, 30 days with Bluetooth off (watch-face only mode) The battery should last at least 2 years, with 100s of charge cycles. Physical dimensions Roughly 38mm top-to-bottom on the front face 35mm left-to-right on the front face and around 12mm in depth 22mm strap Two ~1/16" hex screws to attach the watch pin The top watchcase material candidates are PVD stainless steel, brushed matte ceramic, and high-quality polycarbonate (TBD). The glass lens is mineral glass, Anti-glare glass lens Strap options Leather and silicon straps will be available Expected to have three sizes Display 1.28" Sharp Memory Display The display stays on 100% of the time. Dimensions: 128x128 pixels Buttons Custom "Pusher" buttons, they will not make noise like a mouse click, and are very durable. The top-left button activates the backlight; bottom-left changes apps; three buttons on the right are up/select/down and can be used for custom purposes by apps. Backup reset procedure is currently activated by holding the home/menu button and the top-right user button for about ten seconds Device Support Android 2.3 or newer iPhone 4S or newer Windows Phone 8 or newer Heart Rate monitors - Bluetooth SPP or Bluetooth LE (GATT) is what you'll want the heart monitor to support. Almost limitless Bluetooth device support! Internationalization & Localization Full UTF8 Support from the ground up. AGENT's user interface is in English. Your content (caller ID, music tracks, notifications) will be in your native language. We have a plan to cover most major character sets, with Latin characters pre-loaded on the watch. Simplified Chinese will be available Feature overview Phone lost alert Caller ID Music Control (possible volume control) Wireless Charging Timer Stopwatch Vibrating Alarm (possibly custom vibrations for caller id) A few default watch faces Airplane mode (by demand or low power) Can be turned off completely Customizable 3rd party watch faces, applications which can be loaded over bluetooth. Sample apps that maybe installed Weather Sample Apps not installed Exercise App Other Possible Skype integration over Bluetooth. They will provide an AGENT app for your smartphone (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone). You'll be able to use it to load apps onto the watch.. You will be able to cancel phone calls. With compatible phones you can also answer, end, etc. They are adopting the standard hands-free profile to provide these features and caller ID.

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• Here’s Two Android Tools That Can Help Cut Down Your Phone Bills

  - by Zainul Franciscus

  Have you been struggling to stay on top of your mobile bills ? With these Android applications, you can send free sms and monitor your mobile usage, so that you’ll never have to go over your monthly mobile allowance. To accomplish this, we will use two Android applications:  HeyWire for sending free local and international sms, and Droid Stats to monitor our monthly phone usage. Both of these applications are available for free from the Android market, so head over to the market, and install them when you are ready.How to Create an Easy Pixel Art Avatar in Photoshop or GIMPInternet Explorer 9 Released: Here’s What You Need To KnowHTG Explains: How Does Email Work?

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• Opera Demos It’s Browser For Tablets

  - by Gopinath

  Opera has released a video teaser that shows off its upcoming Opera browser for tables. When it comes to web browsers for mobile devices, Opera is the best browser. Opera browsers for mobile phones speeds up page loading several times by offloading page rendering process to it’s servers. After conquering major mobile phone browser market, now Opera want to do same for tablets. A new browser is demonstrated running on Android tablets. Check the 25 second embedded video featuring a glimpse at the UI, smooth scrolling  and pinch to zoom features. This article titled,Opera Demos It’s Browser For Tablets, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Django and App Engine

  - by notnoop

  I wanted to check the status of running Django on the Google App Engine currently and what the benefits of running django on GAE over simply using Webapp. Django main killer feature, IMHO, is the reuseable apps and middleware. Unfortunately, most current Django apps use models or model forms (django-tags, django-reviews, django-profiles, Pinax apps). So what are the remaining features or benefits that django has that can still run in Google App Engine (other than what's disabled: the popular django apps, session and authentication middleware, users and admin, models, etc). Also, is there a list of the Django apps that work in App Engine as well?

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• Le W3C publie ses conseils pour la création d'applications Web mobiles et annonce un nouveau standard

  Le W3C publie ses conseils pour la création d'applications Web mobiles et annonce un nouveau standard Le W3C annonce un nouveau standard destiné à faciliter la tâche des développeurs et fournisseurs de contenu qui créent des applications dynamiques via le Web mobile. Les bonnes pratiques pour les applications Web mobiles (MWABP), publiées comme recommandation du W3C, proposent des conseils pratiques d'experts du Web mobile pour faciliter le développement et la mise en oeuvre d'applications Web mobiles sur de nombreuses plates-formes. «Ce document est une mine d'or de conseils : j'ai eu l'occasion de les mettre en application pour m'assurer que l'application mobile «antisèche» du W3...

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• Dynamically switching the theme in Orchard

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  It may sound a little puzzling at first, but in Orchard CMS, more than one theme can be active at any given time. The reason for that is that we have an extensibility point that allows a module (or a theme) to participate in the choice of the theme to use, for each request. The motivation for building the theme engine this way was to enable developers to switch themes based on arbitrary criteria, such as user preferences or the user agent (if you want to serve a mobile theme for phones for example). The choice is made between the active themes, which is why there is a difference between the default theme and the active themes. In order to have a say in the choice of the theme, all you have to do is implement IThemeSelector. That interface is quite simple as it only has one method, GetTheme, that takes the current RequestContext and returns a ThemeSelectorResult or null if the implementation of the interface does not want to participate in the current request (we'll see an example in a moment). ThemeSelectorResult itself is just a ThemeName string property and an integer Priority. We're using a priority so that an arbitrary number of implementations of IThemeSelector can contribute to the choice of a theme. If you look for existing implementations of the interface in Orchard, you'll find four: AdminThemeSelector: selects the TheAdmin theme with a very high priority (100) if the current request is for a page that is part of the admin. Otherwise, null is returned, which enables other implementations to choose the theme. PreviewThemeSelector: selects the preview theme if there is one, with a high priority (90), and null otherwise. This enables administrators to view the site under a different theme while everybody else continues to see the current default theme. SiteThemeSelector: this is the implementation that is doing what you expect most of the time, which is to get the current theme from site settings and set it with a priority of –5. SafeModeThemeSelector: this is the fallback implementation, which should almost never win. It sets the theme as the safe mode theme, which has no style and just uses the default templates for everything. The priority is very low (-100). While this extensibility mechanism is great to have, I wanted to bring that level of choice into the hands of the site administrator rather than just developers. In order to achieve that, I built the Vandelay Theme Picker module. The module provides administration UI to create rules for theme selection. It provides its own extensibility point (the IThemeSelectionRule interface) and one implementation of a rule: UserAgentThemeSelectorRule. This rule gets the current user agent from the context and tries to match it with a regular expression that the administrator can configure in the admin UI. You can for example configure a rule with a regular expression that matches IE6 and serve a different subtheme where the stylesheet has been tweaked for such an antique browser. Another possible configuration is to detect mobile devices from their agent string and serve the mobile theme. All those operations can be done with this module entirely from the admin UI, without writing a line of code. The module also offers the administrator the opportunity to inject a link into the front-end in a specific zone and with a specific position that enables the user to switch to the default theme if he wishes to. This is especially useful for sites that use a mobile theme but still want to allow users to use the full desktop site. While the module is nice and flexible, it may be overkill. On my own personal blog, I have only two active themes: the desktop theme and the mobile theme. I'm fine with going into code to change the criteria on which to switch the theme, so I'm not using my own Theme Picker module. Instead, I made the mobile theme a theme with code (in other words there is a csproj file in the theme). The project includes a single C# file, my MobileThemeSelector for which the code is the following: public class MobileThemeSelector : IThemeSelector { private static readonly Regex _Msie678 = new Regex(@"^Mozilla\/4\.0 \(compatible; MSIE [678]" + @"\.0; Windows NT \d\.\d(.*)\)$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase); private ThemeSelectorResult _requestCache; private bool _requestCached; public ThemeSelectorResult GetTheme(RequestContext context) { if (_requestCached) return _requestCache; _requestCached = true; var userAgent = context.HttpContext.Request.UserAgent; if (userAgent.IndexOf("phone", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) != -1 || _Msie678.IsMatch(userAgent) || userAgent.IndexOf("windows live writer", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) != -1) { _requestCache = new ThemeSelectorResult { Priority = 10, ThemeName = "VuLuMobile" }; } return _requestCache; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The theme selector selects the current theme for Internet Explorer versions 6 to 8, for phones, and for Windows Live Writer (so that the theme that is used when I write posts is as simple as possible). What's interesting here is that it's the theme that selects itself here, based on its own criteria. This should give you a good panorama of what's possible in terms of dynamic theme selection in Orchard. I hope you find some fun uses for it. As usual, I can't wait to see what you're going to come up with…

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• OpenWorld 2013 Presentation Links

  - by Darin Pendergraft

  We have had a lot of requests for OpenWorld 2013 presentations that were delivered by the IDM team this year in San Francisco.  To make things easier, I have uploaded all of the presentations to SlideShare.  Here is a list of available presentations: ID Title CON8808 Enabling Business Growth in the new Economy CON8810 Who Should have Access to What CON8811 Converged Identity Governance for Speeding Up Business and Reducing Cost CON8813 Securing Privileged Accounts with an integrated IDM Solution CON8817 API Management - Enable your Infrastructure for Secure Mobile and Cloud Use CON8819 Context and Risk Aware Access Control Any Device AnyWhere CON8823 Access management for the Internet of Things CON8828 Justifying and Planning a Successful Identity Management Upgrade CON8833 Access at Scale for Hundreds of Millions of Users CON8834 Bring Your Own Identity CON8836 Leveraging the Cloud to Simplify Your Identity Management Implementation CON8837 Leverage Authorization to Monetize Content and Media Subscriptions CON8896 Securely Enabling Mobile Access for Business Transformation CON8902 Developing Secure Mobile Applications CON9024 Next-Generation Optimized Directory - Oracle Unified Directory CON9573 Managing the OIM platform with Oracle Enterprise Manager

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• Microsoft releases Bing iPhone app

  As its officials have been hinting and promising for a while now, Microsoft announced it has developed a version of its Bing search app for the iPhone. The new Bing app is available on the iPhone app store as of tonight (December 15). Microsoft already offers Bing on a number of mobile phones, and has a five-year deal with Verizon to provide Bing on a number of phones available to Verizon Wireless customers. A mobile version of Bing already is available for Windows Mobile, Blackberry, BREW and Sidekick devices on Verizon. In other Bing news, Microsoft has finally hit the 10 percent market share mark with Bing, according to the November U.S. search share data from comScore. Bing’s growth is continuing to come at the expense of Yahoo, not Google. Update: To those wondering why Microsoft would deliver a version of Continue... span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• Working with Lightweight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT) 1.4

  - by janice.heiss(at)oracle.com

  Vikram Goyal's informative and practical article, "Working with Lightweight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT) 1.4," shows developers how to best take advantage of LWUIT 1.4. LWUIT is a user interface library designed to bring uniformity and cross mobile interface functionality to applications developed using Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME). Version 1.4 offers support for XHTML, multi-line text fields, and customization to the virtual keyboard.Goyal notes in the article that, "Perhaps the most important feature of this release is the ability for LWUIT to support XHTML. Specifically, it now supports XHTML MP (Mobile Platform) 1.0, a version of XHTML designed for mobile phones. To be even more specific, it now supports CSS styling for the HTMLComponent within the LWUIT library through Wireless Application Protocol CSS (WCSS)." Read the entire article here. 

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• how to disable usb storage in ubuntu 13.10?

  - by user288289

  I want to block my all my USB mas storage and allow only devices like keyboard and mouse . I'm able to do so by following the KB. But the issue is that when I connect devices like mobile phones & TABS, I'm able to access the mass storage & able to copy & paste. Disable usb mass storage Kindly advise me how could I block these mobile storage devices. Please note that I only want to block mass storage the other features like charging & android apk execution to mobile should work as usually. Please help...

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• Oracle sort Oracle Application Express 4.2, son outil de développement rapide intégré à Oracle Database

  Oracle Application Express, l'outil de développement rapide d'Oracle est désormais disponible en version 4.2. Cet outil, intégré à Oracle Database sans coût supplémentaire, permet de développer des applications Web exploitant les données d'une base Oracle. Cette mise à jour est très centrée vers le mobile et apporte un certain nombre de nouveautés pour le développement d'applications mobiles avec APEX. Notons en particulier :Le rendu des applications qui s'adaptent pour proposer une interface adaptée au terminal mobile utilisé L'utilisation de jQuery Mobile qui permet la compatibilité sur la majorité des terminaux sans modification La possibilité de créer des graphiques en HTML5 pour les terminaux ne disposant pas de Flash L'utilisat...

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• Where Facebook Stands Heading Into 2013

  - by Mike Stiles

  In our last blog, we looked at how Twitter is positioned heading into 2013. Now it’s time to take a similar look at Facebook. 2012, for a time at least, seemed to be the era of Facebook-bashing. Between a far-from-smooth IPO, subsequent stock price declines, and anxiety over privacy, the top social network became a target for comedians, politicians, business journalists, and of course those who were prone to Facebook-bash even in the best of times. But amidst the “this is the end of Facebook” headlines, the company kept experimenting, kept testing, kept innovating, and pressing forward, committed as always to the user experience, while concurrently addressing monetization with greater urgency. Facebook enters 2013 with over 1 billion users around the world. Usage grew 41% in Brazil, Russia, Japan, South Korea and India in 2012. In the Middle East and North Africa, an average 21 new signups happen per minute. Engagement and time spent on the site would impress the harshest of critics. Facebook, while not bulletproof, has become such an integrated daily force in users’ lives, it’s getting hard to imagine any future mass rejection. You want to see a company recognizing weaknesses and shoring them up. Mobile was a weakness in 2012 as Facebook was one of many caught by surprise at the speed of user migration to mobile. But new mobile interfaces, better mobile ads, speed upgrades, standalone Messenger and Pages mobile apps, and the big dollar acquisition of Instagram, were a few indicators Facebook won’t play catch-up any more than it has to. As a user, the cool thing about Facebook is, it knows you. The uncool thing about Facebook is, it knows you. The company’s walking a delicate line between the public’s competing desires for customized experiences and privacy. While the company’s working to make privacy options clearer and easier, Facebook’s Paul Adams says data aggregation can move from acting on what a user is engaging with at the moment to a more holistic view of what they’re likely to want at any given time. To help learn about you, there’s Open Graph. Embedded through diverse partnerships, the idea is to surface what you’re doing and what you care about, and help you discover things via your friends’ activities. Facebook’s Director of Engineering, Mike Vernal, says building mobile social apps connected to Facebook in such ways is the next wave of big innovation. Expect to see that fostered in 2013. The Facebook site experience is always evolving. Some users like that about Facebook, others can’t wait to complain about it…on Facebook. The Facebook focal point, the News Feed, is not sacred and is seeing plenty of experimentation with the insertion of modules. From upcoming concerts, events, suggested Pages you might like, to aggregated “most shared” content from social reader apps, plenty could start popping up between those pictures of what your friends had for lunch.  As for which friends’ lunches you see, that’s a function of the mythic EdgeRank…which is also tinkered with. When Facebook changed it in September, Page admins saw reach go down and the high anxiety set in quickly. Engagement, however, held steady. The adjustment was about relevancy over reach. (And oh yeah, reach was something that could be charged for). Facebook wants users to see what they’re most likely to like, based on past usage and interactions. Adding to the “cream must rise to the top” philosophy, they’re now even trying out ordering post comments based on the engagement the comments get. Boy, it’s getting competitive out there for a social engager. Facebook has to make $$$. To do that, they must offer attractive vehicles to marketers. There are a myriad of ad units. But a key Facebook marketing concept is the Sponsored Story. It’s key because it encourages content that’s good, relevant, and performs well organically. If it is, marketing dollars can amplify it and extend its reach. Brands can expect the rollout of a search product and an ad network. That’s a big deal. It takes, as Open Graph does, the power of Facebook’s user data and carries it beyond the Facebook environment into the digital world at large. No one could target like Facebook can, and some analysts think it could double their roughly $5 billion revenue stream. As every potential revenue nook and cranny is explored, there are the users themselves. In addition to Gifts, Facebook thinks users might pay a few bucks to promote their own posts so more of their friends will see them. There’s also word classifieds could be purchased in News Feeds, though they won’t be called classifieds. And that’s where Facebook stands; a wildly popular destination, a part of our culture, with ever increasing functionalities, the biggest of big data, revenue strategies that appeal to marketers without souring the user experience, new challenges as a now public company, ongoing privacy concerns, and innovations that carry Facebook far beyond its own borders. Anyone care to write a “this is the end of Facebook” headline? @mikestilesPhoto via stock.schng

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• Microsoft Forcing Dev/Partners Hands on Win 8 Through Certification

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I remember 2.5 years ago when Microsoft dropped a bomb on the Microsoft Partner community: all Gold competencies would require .NET 4 based premiere certifications (MCPD). Problem was, this gave a window of about 6 months for partners to update their employees’ certifications. At the place I was working, I put together an aggressive plan and we were able to attain the certs needed. Microsoft is always open that the certification requirements will change as the industry changes. .NET 1.0 certifications are useless here in 2012, and rightfully so they’ve been retired for a long time now. But now we’re seeing a new tactic by Microsoft – shifting gears away from certifications that speak to what industry needs and more to the Windows 8 agenda. Consider that currently the premiere development certification is the Microsoft Certified Professional Developer, which comes in three flavours – Web, Windows, and Azure. All require WCF and Data Access exams, as well as one that deals with the associated base technologies (ASP.NET, WinForms/WPF, Azure), and one that ties all three together in a solution-based exam. For Microsoft-based organizations, these skills aren’t just valid but necessary in building Microsoft applications. But the MCPD is being replaced with our old friend Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD). So far, Microsoft has only released two types of MCSD – Web and Windows Store Apps. Windows Store Apps?! In a push to move developers to create WinRT-based applications, desktop development is now considered a second-class citizen in the eyes of Redmond. Also interesting are the language options for the exams: HTML5 and C#. Sorry VB folks, its time to embrace curly braces whether they be JavaScript or C#. Consider too the skills being assessed for the Windows Store Apps: Get your MCSD: Windows Store Apps Using HTML5 Get your MCSD: Windows Store Apps Using C# *Image Source: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/mcsd-windows-store-apps.aspx Nov 21/2012 If you look at the skills being tested in each exam, you’ll find that skills like WCF and Data Access are downplayed compared to things like integrating Charms, facilitating Search, programming for the microphone and camera – all very Windows 8 focussed items. Where this becomes maddening is that Microsoft is still pushing Windows 7 with enterprise clients. According to a ZDNet article, Microsoft wants to see Windows 7 on 70% of enterprise desktops by mid 2013. Assuming they somehow meet that (its a pretty lofty goal), there’s years of traditional desktop-based development that will still be required at some level. For those thinking they’ll just write and stick with the MCPD certification, note that most exams that go towards that certification will be retired at the end of July 2013! (Read the small print). And while details haven’t been finalized, its a safe bet that MCPD certifications eventually won’t count towards Gold-level competencies in the Microsoft Partner program. What this means for Microsoft Partners and Developers is that certification for desktop development is going to be limited to Windows Store Apps unless Microsoft re-introduces a traditional desktop (WPF) based MCSD cert. Web Application Development – It’s Not All Bad There’s big changes on the web side of certification, but I actually see these changes as being for the good! Check out the new exam requirements for MCSD – Web Applications: Get your MCSD: Web Applications certification *Image Source: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-mcsd-web-applications.aspx Nov 21, 2012 We now *start* with HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3! Now I’m sure that these will be slanted towards web development in IE, and I can hear designers everywhere bemoaning the CSS/IE combination. Still, I applaud Microsoft for adopting HTML5 as the go-to web technology and requiring certified developers to prove they have skills in the basics of web dev. The fact that the second exam clearly states “MVC Web Applications” shows that Web Forms is truly legacy and deprecated. That’s not to say there aren’t those out there that are still supporting or (for whatever reason) doing new dev with Web Forms, but this move by Microsoft is telling the community they better get on the MVC bandwagon if they want to stay current. Fantastic! And of course Azure needs to be here as well, and this is where the Microsoft agenda fits in. It’s no secret that there’s been a huge push in getting developers on to Azure. I don’t see this as being a bad thing either, as cloud computing (whether Azure, private, or 3rd party) is a necessary skill for developers to have here in 2012. The cynic in me realizes that the HTML5/JavaScript/CSS push wouldn’t be as prominent though if not for the Windows 8 Store App play, where HTML5 is a first class citizen (and an available language for the MCSD Windows Store App cert). In this case, the desktop developers loss is the web developers gain. Get Ready for Changes In addition to the changes in certifications, the Microsoft Partner competencies are going through changes as well. Web and Software Development are being merged into a single competency, meaning that licenses you would have received from having both as Gold are reduced. Other competencies are either being removed or changed, as are the exam requirements. In the same way that we’re seeing faster release cycles from Microsoft, so too will we see the Microsoft Partner Program and MS Certifications evolve faster than ever before. Many of us got caught in the last wave of changes, but this time we can see the wave coming – and it looks pretty big!

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• Bouygues Telecom Gains a 360-Degree Overview of Customers and Improves Offer Acceptance Rates

  - by user511693

  With more than 10 million mobile customers and 500,000 landline customers, the mission of Bouygues Telecom is to become the premier mobile, landline, television, and internet brand in France, by focusing on customer acquisition, advice, service, and support. Project challenges included: Leverage every customer relationship and increase customer loyalty through personalized offers or promotions on landline or mobile phone contracts Build on marketing campaigns and take advantage of incoming contacts from the company’s call center, Web, and retail stores Improve acceptance rates of communication service offers “Thanks to Oracle’s Siebel CRM solutions and Oracle Real-Time Decisions, we can now meet customer requests faster, personalize offers to improve the services we provide, and gain feedback on responses to offers. This enhances our knowledge of our customers before our next contact with them, whether through the Web site, call center, or our Club retail stores.” – Eric Dobremer, IT Manager - Grand Public CRM Development, Bouygues Telecom Read about results here.

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• Create personal wireless network on laptop

  - by TechGuru

  I have a WiFi Network, now I have connected my laptop to the WiFi Network. And it is working fine I'm able to access the internet via WiFi. But I want to create other network on my laptop so that I can connect my mobile phone to the my laptop network. Means, my laptop is already connected to WiFi network (xyz). Now I want to create one wireless network on my laptop. So that I can connect my mobile phone to laptop network and access the internet on mobile. But I don't want to lost my `laptop and WiFi connection that is already connected. I tried to create the wireless network on my laptop, but when I created my personal wireless network I lost my wifi-laptop connection. I don't know it is possible or not.

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• Siebel 2012-IP Release is now GA

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  The Siebel development team is pleased to announce the general availability of the highly anticipated 2012 Siebel Innovation Pack on 12/12/2012. The journey began last year as a concept at Open World that invigorated the Siebel customer base and partners across the globe, culminating in this 2012-IP release that delivers much valued usability enhancements on an existing release. Open UI and Siebel Mobile are the key innovations that are released as part of the 2012-IP on both 8.1.1.9 and the 8.2.2.2 releases. These innovations are a giant leap forward in facilitating Siebel usability while supporting multiple browsers and devices. Siebel Mobile released as part of the IP provide connected Mobile solutions that support key Horizontal Sales, Field Service, Life Sciences and Consumer Goods flows. See the Siebel Open UI Dada Sheet here.

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• March 2011 Chicago Information Technology Architects Group Meeting

  - by Tim Murphy

  How did we get to March already?  My how time flies when you are having fun.  We had a spirited discussion on Enterprise Architecture at the February meeting.  Well lets keep the fun rolling.  The hottest technology right now is anything to do with mobile computing.  We had an arm wrestling match to decide who was going to present on Mobile Architecture.  Come see the winner (actually the guy who had time to put the presentation together) on March 15th at the Chicago Information Technology Architects meeting.  You can register at the link below. Register If have a topic you would be interested in presenting at a future event please contact me through this blog. del.icio.us Tags: CITAG,Chicago Information Technology Architects Group,mobile architecture

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• What is Happening vs. What is Interesting

  - by Geertjan

  Devoxx 2011 was yet another confirmation that all development everywhere is either on the web or on mobile phones. Whether you looked at the conference schedule or attended sessions or talked to speakers at any point at all, it was very clear that no development whatsoever is done anymore on the desktop. In fact, that's something Tim Bray himself told me to my face at the speakers dinner. No new developments of any kind are happening on the desktop. Everyone who is currently on the desktop is working overtime to move all of their applications to the web. They're probably also creating a small subset of their application on an Android tablet, with an even smaller subset on their Android phone. Then you scratch that monolithic surface and find some interesting results. Without naming any names, I asked one of these prominent "ah, forget about the desktop" people at the Devoxx speakers dinner (and I have a witness): "Yes, the desktop is dead, but what about air traffic control, stock trading, oil analysis, risk management applications? In fact, what about any back office application that needs to be usable across all operating systems? Here there is no concern whatsoever with 100% accessibility which is, after all, the only thing that the web has over the desktop, (except when there's a network failure, of course, or when you find yourself in the 3/4 of the world where there's bandwidth problems)? There are 1000's of hidden applications out there that have processing requirements, security requirements, and the requirement that they'll be available even when the network is down or even completely unavailable. Isn't that a valid use case and aren't there 1000's of applications that fall into this so-called niche category? Are you not, in fact, confusing consumer applications, which are increasingly web-based and mobile-based, with high-end corporate applications, which typically need to do massive processing, of one kind or another, for which the web and mobile worlds are completely unsuited?" And you will not believe what the reply to the above question was. (Again, I have a witness to this discussion.) But here it is: "Yes. But those applications are not interesting. I do not want to spend any of my time or work in any way on those applications. They are boring." I'm sad to say that the leaders of the software development community, including those in the Java world, either share the above opinion or are led by it. Because they find something that is not new to be boring, they move on to what is interesting and start talking like the supposedly-boring developments don't even exist. (Kind of like a rapper pretending classical music doesn't exist.) Time and time again I find myself giving Java desktop development courses (at companies, i.e., not hobbyists, or students, but companies, i.e., the places where dollars are earned), where developers say to me: "The course you're giving about creating cross-platform, loosely coupled, and highly cohesive applications is really useful to us. Why do we never find information about this topic at conferences? Why can we never attend a session at a conference where the story about pluggable cross-platform Java is told? Why do we get the impression that we are uncool because we're not on the web and because we're not on a mobile phone, while the reason for that is because we're creating $1000,000 simulation software which has nothing to gain from being on the web or on the mobile phone?" And then I say: "Because nobody knows you exist. Because you're not submitting abstracts to conferences about your very interesting use cases. And because conferences tend to focus on what is new, which tends to be web related (especially HTML 5) or mobile related (especially Android). Because you're not taking the responsibility on yourself to tell the real stories about the real applications being developed all the time and every day. Because you yourself think your work is boring, while in fact it is fascinating. Because desktop developers are working from 9 to 5 on the desktop, in secure environments, such as banks and defense, where you can't spend time, nor have the interest in, blogging your latest tip or trick, as opposed to web developers, who tend to spend a lot of time on the web anyway and are therefore much more inclined to create buzz about the kind of work they're doing." So, next time you look at a conference program and wonder why there's no stories about large desktop development projects in the program, here's the short answer: "No one is going to put those items on the program until you start submitting those kinds of sessions. And until you start blogging. Until you start creating the buzz that the web developers have been creating around their work for the past 10 years or so. And, yes, indeed, programmers get the conference they deserve." And what about Tim Bray? Ask yourself, as Google's lead web technology evangelist, how many desktop developers do you think he talks to and, more generally, what his frame of reference is and what, clearly, he considers to be most interesting.

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• Building iPhone Interfaces for Oracle E-Business Suite

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  Over on his blog Juan has been showing you how simple it is to develop a rich Web user interface with ADF accessing Oracle E-Business Suite data and even exposing it on an iPad. In this entry I'm starting from his sample application and I'm showing how easy it is to build an interface that will look great on an iPhone (or other mobile devices) using Oracle ADF Mobile Browser. For those of you who are just using ADF and never tried ADF Mobile Browser - you'll find that the development experience is quite familiar and similar to your normal Web application development. In the latest version of JDeveloper (11.1.2.1) which I'm usingin this demo we have a built-in skin that will give your application the native iOS look and feel. In the demo I achieve this by setting the styleclass of a tr:panelHeader component to af_m_toolbar to get this. For more on this styling read the doc. Check out this quick demo:

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• Seizing The Moment With Mobility

  - by Scott Ewart

  Mobile devices are forcing a paradigm shift in the workplace – they’re changing the way businesses can do business and the type of cultures they can nurture. As our customers talk about their mobile needs, we hear them saying they want instant-on access to enterprise data so workers can be more effective at their jobs anywhere, anytime. They also are interested in being more cost effective from an IT point of view. The mobile revolution – with the idea of BYOD (bring your own device) – has added an interesting dynamic because previously IT was driving the employee device strategy and ecosystem. That's been turned on its head with the consumerization of IT. Now employees are figuring out how to use their personal devices for work purposes and IT has to figure out how to adapt. Read the remainder of this guest post on the Oracle Applications Blog by Oracle Vice President of Fusion Apps, Hernan Capdevila. http://bit.ly/FusionMobile

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