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• My Doors - Why Standards Matter to Business

  - by Brian Dayton

  "Standards save money." "Standards accelerate projects." "Standards make better solutions."   What do these statements mean to you? You buy technology solutions like Oracle Applications but you're a business person--trying to close the quarter, get performance reviews processed, negotiate a new sourcing contract, etc.   When "standards" come up in presentations and discussions do you: -          Nod your head politely -          Tune out and check your smart phone -          Turn to your IT counterpart and say "Bob's all over this standards thing, right Bob?"   Here's why standards matter. My wife wants new external doors downstairs, ones that would get more light into the rooms. Am I OK with that? "Uhh, sure...it's a little dark in the kitchen."   -          24 hours ago - wife calls to tell me that she's going to the hardware store and may look at doors -          20 hours ago - wife pulls into driveway, informs me that two doors are in the back of her station wagon, ready for me to carry -          19 hours ago - I re-discovered the fact that it's not fun to carry a solid wood door by myself -          5 hours ago - Local handyman, who was at our house anyway, tells me that the doors we bought will likely cost 2-3x the material cost in installation time and labor...the doors are standard but our doorways aren't   We could have done more research. I could be more handy. Sure. But the fact is, my 1951 house wasn't built with me in mind. They built what worked and called it a day.   The same holds true with a lot of business applications. They were designed and architected for one-time use with one use-case in mind. Today's business climate is different. If you're going to use your processes and technology to differentiate your business you should have at least a working knowledge of: -          How standards can benefit your business -          Your IT organization's philosophy around standards -          Your vendor's track-record around standards...and watch for those who pay lip-service to standards but don't follow through   The rallying cry in most IT organizations today is "learn more about the business, drop the acronyms." I'm not advocating that you go out and learn how to code in Java. But I do believe it will help your business and your decision-making process if you meet IT ½...even ¼ of the way there.   Epilogue: The door project has been put on hold and yours truly has to return the doors to the hardware store tomorrow.

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• PASS Summit 2011 &ndash; Part IV

  - by Tara Kizer

  This is the final blog for my PASS Summit 2011 series.  Well okay, a mini-series, I guess. On the last day of the conference, I attended Keith Elmore’ and Boris Baryshnikov’s (both from Microsoft) “Introducing the Microsoft SQL Server Code Named “Denali” Performance Dashboard Reports, Jeremiah Peschka’s (blog|twitter) “Rewrite your T-SQL for Great Good!”, and Kimberly Tripp’s (blog|twitter) “Isolated Disasters in VLDBs”. Keith and Boris talked about the lifecycle of a session, figuring out the running time and the waiting time.  They pointed out the transient nature of the reports.  You could be drilling into it to uncover a problem, but the session may have ended by the time you’ve drilled all of the way down.  Also, the reports are for troubleshooting live problems and not historical ones.  You can use Management Data Warehouse for historical troubleshooting.  The reports provide similar benefits to the Activity Monitor, however Activity Monitor doesn’t provide context sensitive drill through. One thing I learned in Keith’s and Boris’ session was that the buffer cache hit ratio should really never be below 87% due to the read-ahead mechanism in SQL Server.  When a page is read, it will read the entire extent.  So for every page read, you get 7 more read.  If you need any of those 7 extra pages, well they are already in cache.  I had a lot of fun in Jeremiah’s session about refactoring code plus I learned a lot.  His slides were visually presented in a fun way, which just made for a more upbeat presentation.  Jeremiah says that before you start refactoring, you should look at your system.  Investigate missing or too many indexes, out-of-date statistics, and other areas that could be leading to your code running slow.  He talked about code standards.  He suggested using common abbreviations for aliases instead of one-letter aliases.  I’m a big offender of one-letter aliases, but he makes a good point.  He said that join order does not matter to the optimizer, but it does matter to those who have to read your code.  Now let’s get into refactoring! Eliminate useless things – useless/unneeded joins and columns.  If you don’t need it, get rid of it! Instead of using DISTINCT/JOIN, replace with EXISTS Simplify your conditions; use UNION or better yet UNION ALL instead of OR to avoid a scan and use indexes for each union query Branching logic – instead of IF this, IF that, and on and on…use dynamic SQL (sp_executesql, please!) or use a parameterized query in the application Correlated subqueries – YUCK! Replace with a join Eliminate repeated patterns Last, but certainly not least, was Kimberly’s session.  Kimberly is my favorite speaker.  I attended her two-day pre-conference seminar at PASS Summit 2005 as well as a SQL Immersion Event last December.  Did I mention she’s my favorite speaker?  Okay, enough of that. Kimberly’s session was packed with demos.  I had seen some of it in the SQL Immersion Event, but it was very nice to get a refresher on these, especially since I’ve got a VLDB with some growing pains.  One key takeaway from her session is the idea to use a log shipping solution with a load delay, such as 6, 8, or 24 hours behind the primary.  In the case of say an accidentally dropped table in a VLDB, we could retrieve it from the secondary database rather than waiting an eternity for a restore to complete.  Kimberly let us know that in SQL Server 2012 (it finally has a name!), online rebuilds are supported even if there are LOB columns in your table.  This will simplify custom code that intelligently figures out if an online rebuild is possible. There was actually one last time slot for sessions that day, but I had an airplane to catch and my kids to see!

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• Healthcare and Distributed Data Don't Mix

  - by [email protected]

  How many times have you heard the story?  Hard disk goes missing, USB thumb drive goes missing, laptop goes missing...Not a week goes by that we don't hear about our data going missing...  Healthcare data is a big one, but we hear about credit card data, pricing info, corporate intellectual property...  When I have spoken at Security and IT conferences part of my message is "Why do you give your users data to lose in the first place?"  I don't suggest they can't have access to it...in fact I work for the company that provides the premiere data security and desktop solutions that DO provide access.  Access isn't the issue.  'Keeping the data' is the issue.We are all human - we all make mistakes... I fault no one for having their car stolen or that they dropped a USB thumb drive. (well, except the thieves - I can certainly find some fault there)  Where I find fault is in policy (or lack thereof sometimes) that allows users to carry around private, and important, data with them.  Mr. Director of IT - It is your fault, not theirs.  Ms. CSO - Look in the mirror.It isn't like one can't find a network to access the data from.  You are on a network right now.  How many Wireless ones (wifi, mifi, cellular...) are there around you, right now?  Allowing employees to remove data from the confines of (wait for it... ) THE DATA CENTER is just plain indefensible when it isn't required.  The argument that the laptop had a password and the hard disk was encrypted is ridiculous.  An encrypted drive tells thieves that before they sell the stolen unit for $75, they should crack the encryption and ascertain what the REAL value of the laptop is... credit card info, Identity info, pricing lists, banking transactions... a veritable treasure trove of info people give away on an 'encrypted disk'.What started this latest rant on lack of data control was an article in Government Health IT that was forwarded to me by Denny Olson, an Oracle Principal Sales Consultant in Minnesota.  The full article is here, but the point was that a couple laptops went missing in a couple different cases, and.. well... no one knows where the data is, and yes - they were loaded with patient info.  What were you thinking?Obviously you can't steal data form a Sun Ray appliance... since it has no data, nor any storage to keep the data on, and Secure Global Desktop allows access from Macs, Linux and Windows client devices...  but in all cases, there is no keeping the data unless you explicitly allow for it in your policy.   Since you can get at the data securely from any network, why would you want to take personal responsibility for it?  Both Sun Rays and Secure Global Desktop are widely used in Healthcare... but clearly not widely enough.We need to do a better job of getting the message out -  Healthcare (or insert your business type here) and distributed data don't mix. Then add Hot Desking and 'follow me printing' and you have something that Clinicians (and CSOs) love.Thanks for putting up my blood pressure, Denny.

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• How to Create and Manage Contact Groups in Outlook 2010

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you find you’re sending emails to the same people all the time during the day, it’s tedious entering in their addresses individually. Today we take a look at creating Contact Groups to make the process a lot easier. Create Contact Groups Open Outlook and click on New Items \ More Items \ Contact Group. This opens the Contract Group window. Give your group a name, click on Add Members, and select the people you want to add from your Outlook Contacts, Address Book, or Create new ones. If you select from your address book you can scroll through and add the contacts you want. If you have a large amount of contacts you might want to search for them or use Advanced Find. If you want to add a new email contact to your group, you’ll just need to enter in their display name and email address then click OK. If you want the new member added to your Contacts list then make sure Add to Contacts is checked. After you have the contacts you want in the group, click Save & Close. Now when you compose a message you should be able to type in the name of the Contact Group you created… If you want to make sure you have everyone included in the group, click on the plus icon to expand the contacts. You will get a dialog box telling you the members of the group will be shown and you cannot collapse it again. Check the box not to see the message again then click OK. Then the members of the group will appear in the To field. Of course you can enter a Contact Group into the CC or Bcc fields as well. Add or Remove Members to a Contact Group After expanding the group you might notice some contacts aren’t included, or there is an old contact you don’t want to be in the group anymore. Click on the To button… Right-click on the Contact Group and select Properties. Now you can go ahead and Add Members… Or highlight a member and remove them…when finished click Save & Close. If you need to send emails to several of the same people, creating Contact Groups is a great way to save time by not entering them individually. If you work in for a large company, creating Contact Groups by department is a must! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Schedule Auto Send & Receive in Microsoft OutlookCreate An Electronic Business Card In Outlook 2007Create an Email Template in Outlook 2003Clear the Auto-Complete Email Address Cache in OutlookGet Maps and Directions to Your Contacts in Outlook 2007 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere)

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• Ubuntu 12.04 / 12.10 Randomly Freezing - nVidia?

  - by Alix Axel

  My Ubuntu install frequently freezes, sometimes showing a black screen (not very common anymore - in my latest installs), some other times the mouse and keyboard just fail to move and respond (not even Ctrl + Alt + F1 works) and some other times I'm able to move the mouse with a huge delay (2-5 seconds) but I'm not able to do/click anything. I have a pretty strong feeling that this problem is related to my graphic card drivers because: after hard reset, I usually get error reports about X.org / jockey it's common for artifacts to appear during loading / shutdown / whenever, for instance: pattern filled with £ during log off ugly-colored squared pattern during boot windows that are partially moved (i.e.: only the top half) Firefox renderings that leave the bottom ~30% of the page black These artifacts appear right before the system freezes. I've installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and after several failed attempts to get my dual monitor setup to work properly I tried installing the new 12.10 version, hoping that this new version would have this problem solved... Unfortunatly, that was not the case, so I reverted to Ubuntu 12.04. I've tried all the drivers in the Additional Drivers application (even the experimental ones), I've also tried the nvidia-current package from the PPA repository ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates as well as the nouveau OSS driver. Nothing (except no driver at all with a 640*480 resolution) at all seems stable. Here is the info of my graphic card: alix@alix-E500:~$ lspci | grep VGA 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G86 [GeForce 8400M G] (rev a1) alix@alix-E500:~$ sudo lshw -C video [sudo] password for alix: *-display description: VGA compatible controller product: G86 [GeForce 8400M G] vendor: NVIDIA Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 version: a1 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0 resources: irq:16 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:fa000000-fbffffff ioport:cc00(size=128) memory:fe0e0000-fe0fffff Right now, I don't even have my 22" monitor connected as I can't even get my laptop display to work properly and without freezes. I've searched, read and tried all that I could (over several fresh reinstalls) to fix the problem, but so far, no solution has proven definitive. I'm sorry I can't precise which symptom maps to each driver but I've been trying to solve this one on my own without logging what I'm doing, perhaps someone here will be able to point me to a certain-fix solution, if not I'll keep updating this question as I go along. Please let me know if any more info is needed to pinpoint the exact problem. Trying out NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 173). The scrolling, minimizing / maximizing windows takes between 2 and 5 seconds to finalize. Context menus also pop up very slowly and the typing seems delayed by ~1 second. No critical issues so far. Firefox rendering of the Save Edits button is consistently messed up (random black lines in the top). Trying out NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version current) [Recommended]. All the delays mentioned above and the buggy rendering of the Save Edits button are gone, but I'm noticing that the whole screen flashes black for a couple of microseconds and while I was writing this test for the first time, the bottom 30% of the screen went black and I couldn't do anything (not even Ctrl + Alt + F1 would work). Had to force a hard reset. Also, the system hanged a little for a couple of seconds with the fade out of the "Restart" menu. Trying out NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (*experimental*beta) (version experimental-304). Same symptoms as before, it crashed once while I was trying to install Chromium and again after a hard reset when I was trying to remove the driver. The bottom of the screen did not went black and I could move my mouse both times. Ctrl + Alt + F1 didn't work. The ugly-colored pattern also showed up during the second boot. Trying out NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (*experimental*beta) (version experimental-307). The system crashed as soon as I clicked something. Had to do a fresh re-install. Trying out Nouveau: Accelerated Open Source driver for nVidia cards. Artifacts still show up during boot but other than that this one seems stable. As soon as I connected my second monitor, the responsiveness dropped a lot, animations and video are somewhat slow. I'm gonna try this solution http://askubuntu.com/a/98871/9018 later on.

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• PHP and Ruby: how to leverage both? and, is it worth it?

  - by dukeofgaming

  As you might have noticed from the title, this is not a "PHP or Ruby", or a "PHP vs. Ruby" question. This is a question on how to leverage PHP + Ruby in the same business. I myself am a PHP developer, I love the language because of its convenience and I specially love the ecosystem of resources that surround it: Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, Symfony2, Doctrine2, etc. However, the language itself can be a little disappointing sometimes. OTOH, Ruby looks like a very beautiful language and —from studying it superficially in several aspects— I could say it is leaner than Python as a language per se. However, from what I've seen there is pretty much only RoR making noise, and I don't like RoR so much (mainly because its model layer). As Co-CEO and CTO at my company I'm trying to think outside of the box since I want to start to focus on the human side of technology and see if its sane to use both PHP and Ruby. Here are some random thoughts: Ruby folk seem to be generally better suited programmers than PHP folk (in terms of averages), I know the previous statement is somewhat baloney because very good and well architected PHP can be written, but I'd say the Ruby programmer culture is better than PHP's. The thing about Ruby is that it seems better suited for rapid development, I don't really know if this is only the case for RoR, but I do know that there are certain practices (perhaps not so good) like monkey patching that let business needs be satified quicker. From a marketing point of view (yep, sometimes you need to leverage the marketing BS for the sake of your company) Ruby seems better while PHP carries some stigmas. PHP 5.4 is bringing traits, and that is better/cleaner than mixins. That could really make PHP as lean as Ruby —or more— for certain stuff. Now, concretely, my questions: Would a PHP programmer want to learn Ruby?, I know I do, but conversely, would a Ruby programmer want to learn PHP?. What kinds of projects or situations would be better suited for Ruby that are not suited for PHP?. What is the actual ecosystem of Ruby?, aside from RoR, I have not seen other hyped technologies/frameworks (I've seen RSpec, but I confess being a total noob on what BDD really consists of and its implications). Supposing there are a certain type of projects ideal for Ruby, would there be a moment that its better to move it to PHP?. I know PHP can handle lots of stuff, but I've read that Ruby has its limitations when scaling (or is that RoR?, or is that baloney for both?). Finally and most importantly, would it be sane to maintain projects in two languages?, or is that just stupid. As I said, it looks like Ruby is leaner on the short term and that can make a project happen and succeed, but I'm not so sure about that on the long run. I'm looking for insights mainly from people that know well the strengths and weaknesses of the languages —preferably both of them— and Ruby's ecosystem in real practice, meaning: frameworks and applications like the ones I quoted from PHP's ecosystem. Best regards and thanks for your time.

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• Smooth Sailing or Rough Waters: Navigating Policy Administration Modernization

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Life insurance and annuity carriers continue to recognize the need to modernize their aging policy administration systems, but may be hesitant to move forward because of the inherent risk involved. To help carriers better prepare for what lies ahead LOMA's Resource Magazine asked Karen Furtado, partner of Strategy Meets Action, to help them chart a course in Navigating Policy Administration Selection, the cover story of this month’s issue. The industry analyst and research firm recently asked insurance carriers to name the business drivers for replacing legacy policy administration systems. The top five cited, according to Furtado, centered on: Supporting growth in current lines Improving competitive position Containing and reducing costs Supporting growth in new lines Supporting agent demands and interaction It’s no surprise that fueling growth, both now and in the future, continues to be a key driver for modernization. Why? Inflexible, hard-coded, legacy systems require customization by IT every time a change is required. This in turn impedes a carrier’s ability to be agile, constraining their ability to quickly adapt to changing regulatory requirements and evolving market demands. It also stymies their ability to quickly bring to market new products or rapidly configure changes to existing ones, and also can inhibit how carriers service customers and distribution channels. In the article, Furtado advised carriers to ensure that the policy administration system they are considering is current and modern, with an adaptable user interface and flexible service-oriented architecture. She said carriers to should ask themselves, “How much do you need flexibility and agility now and in the future? Does it support the business processes and rules that are needed for you to be able to create that adaptable environment?” Furtado went on to advise that carriers “Connect your strategy to your business and technical capabilities before you make investment choices…You want to enable your organization to transform for the future, not just automate the past.” Unlocking High Performance with Policy Administration Transformation also was the topic of a recent LOMA webcast moderated by Ron Clark, editor of LOMA's Resource Magazine. The web cast, which featured speakers from Oracle Insurance and Capgemini, focused on how insurers can competitively drive high performance by: Replacing a legacy policy administration system with a modern, flexible platform Optimizing IT and operations costs, creating consistent processes and eliminating resource redundancies Selecting the right partner with the best blend of technology, operational, and consulting capabilities to achieve market leadership Understanding the value of outsourcing closed block operations Learn more by clicking here to access this free, one-hour recorded webcast. Helen Pitts, is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• TechEd Israel 2010 may only accept speakers from sponsors

  - by RoyOsherove

  A month or so ago, Microsoft Israel started sending out emails to its partners and registered event users to “Save the date!” – Micraoft Teched Israel is coming, and it’s going to be this november! “Great news” I thought to myself. I’d been to a couple of the MS teched events, as a speaker and as an attendee, and it was lovely and professionally done. Israel is an amazing place for technology and development and TechEd hosted some big names in the world of MS software. A couple of weeks ago, I was shocked to hear from a couple of people that Microsoft Israel plans to only accept non-MS teched speakers, only from sponsors of the event. That means that according to the amount that you have paid, you get to insert one or more of your own selected speakers as part of teched. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to gather more evidence of this, and have gotten some input from within MS about this information. It looks like that is indeed the case, though no MS rep. was prepared to answer any email I had publicly. If they approach me now I’d be happy to print their response. What does this mean? If this is true, it means that Microsoft Israel is making a grave mistake – They are diluting the quality of the speakers for pure money factors. That means, that as a teched attendee, who paid good money, you might be sitting down to watch nothing more that a bunch of infomercials, or sub-standard speakers – since speakers are no longer selected on quality or interest in their topic. They are turning the conference from a learning event to a commercial driven event They are closing off the stage to the community of speakers who may not be associated with any organization  willing to be a sponsor They are losing speakers (such as myself) who will not want to be part of such an event. (yes – even if my company ends up sponsoring the event, I will not take part in it, Sorry Eli!) They are saying “F&$K you” to the community of MVPs who should be the people to be approached first about technical talks (my guess is many MVPs wouldn’t want to talk at an event driven that way anyway ) I do hope this ends up not being true, but it looks like it is. MS Israel had already done such a thing with the Developer Days event previouly held in Israel – only sponsors were allowed to insert speakers into the event. If this turns out to be true I would urge the MS community in Israel to NOT TAKE PART AT THIS EVENT in any form (attendee, speaker, sponsor or otherwise). by taking part, you will be telling MS Israel it’s OK to piss all over the community that they are quietly suffocating anyway. The MVP case MS Israel has managed to screw the MVP program as well. MS MVPs (I’m one) have had a tough time here in Israel the past couple of years. ever since yosi taguri left the blue badge ranks, there was not real community leader left. Whoever runs things right now has their eyes and minds set elsewhere, with the software MVP community far from mind and heart. No special MVP events (except a couple of small ones this year). No real MVP leadership happens here, with the MVP MEA lead (Ruari) being on a remote line, is not really what’s needed. “MVP? What’s that?” I’m sure many MS Israel employees would say. Exactly my point. Last word I’ve been disappointed by the MS machine for a while now, but their slowness to realize what real community means in the past couple of years really turns me off. Maybe it’s time to move on. Maybe I shouldn’t be chasing people at MS Israel begging for a room to host the Agile Israel user group. Maybe it’s time to say a big bye bye and start looking at a life a bit more disconnected.

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• T-SQL Tuesday - the swag

  - by Rob Farley

  This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Kendal van Dyke (@SQLDBA), and is on the topic of swag. He asks about the best SQL Server swag that we’ve ever received from a conference. I can’t say I ever focus on getting the swag at conferences, as I see some people doing. I know there are plenty of people that get around all the sponsors as soon as they’ve arrived, collecting whatever goodies they can, sometimes as token gifts for those at home, sometimes as giveaways for the user groups they attend. I remember a few years ago at my first PASS Summit, the SQLCAT team gave me a large pile of leftover SQL Server swag to give away to my user group – piles of branded things to stop your phone sliding off your car dashboard, and other things. The user group members thought it was great, and over the course of a few months, happily cleared me out of it all. I tend to consider swag to be something that you haven’t earned except by being at a conference, and there was no winning associated with it, it was simply a giveaway item at a sponsor booth. That means I don’t include the HP Mini laptop that was given away at TechEd Australia a few years ago to every attendee, or the SQL Server bag and Camelbak bottle that I was given as a thank-you for writing a guest blog post (which I use as my regular laptop bag and water bottle for work). I don’t even include the copy of Midtown Madness that I got as a door prize at my vey first TechEd event in 1999 (that was a really good game, and even meant that when I went to Chicago last year, I felt a strange familiarity about the place). I don’t want to include shirts in the mix either. I was given a nice SQL Server shirt about five years ago TechEd Australia. It’s a business shirt (buttons, cuffs, pocket on the chest), black with the SQL Server logo on it. It was such a nice shirt that I commented about it to the Product Marketing Manager for Australia (Christine, at the time), who unexpectedly arranged for me to get another one. That was certainly an improvement on the tent I was given at one of the MVP conference I attended. So when I consider these ‘rules’, two pieces of swag come to mind, and I think both were at PASS Summits (although I can’t be sure). One was a hand-warmer from HP, one of the “crystallisation-type” ones, which proved extremely popular when I got home, until one day when it didn’t survive being recharged – not overly SQL related, but still it was good swag. The other was an umbrella, from expressor, which was from the PASS Summit in 2010, my first PASS Summit. I remember it well – Blythe Morrow (now Gietz) (@blythemorrow) was working the booth, having stopped working for PASS some time before, but she’d been on my list of people to meet, as I’d had plenty of contact with her while she’d worked at PASS, my being a chapter leader and general volunteer. There had been an expressor dinner on one of the first evenings, which I’d been asked to be at, which is when I’d met lots of SQL people in person for the first time, including Ted Krueger (@onpnt), Jessica Moss (@jessicamoss) and Blythe. Anyway, at some point the next day I swung by their booth to say hello and thank them for the dinner, and Blythe says “Oh, we have the best swag – here!” and handed me an umbrella. And she was right. It’s excellent. @rob_farley

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• How to store a shmup level?

  - by pek

  I am developing a 2D shmup (i.e. Aero Fighters) and I was wondering what are the various ways to store a level. Assuming that enemies are defined in their own xml file, how would you define when an enemy spawns in the level? Would it be based on time? Updates? Distance? Currently I do this based on "level time" (the amount of time the level is running - pausing doesn't update the time). Here is an example (the serialization was done by XNA): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <XnaContent xmlns:level="pekalicious.xanor.XanorContentShared.content.level"> <Asset Type="level:Level"> <Enemies> <Enemy> <EnemyType>data/enemies/smallenemy</EnemyType> <SpawnTime>PT0S</SpawnTime> <NumberOfSpawns>60</NumberOfSpawns> <SpawnOffset>PT0.2S</SpawnOffset> </Enemy> <Enemy> <EnemyType>data/enemies/secondenemy</EnemyType> <SpawnTime>PT0S</SpawnTime> <NumberOfSpawns>10</NumberOfSpawns> <SpawnOffset>PT0.5S</SpawnOffset> </Enemy> <Enemy> <EnemyType>data/enemies/secondenemy</EnemyType> <SpawnTime>PT20S</SpawnTime> <NumberOfSpawns>10</NumberOfSpawns> <SpawnOffset>PT0.5S</SpawnOffset> </Enemy> <Enemy> <EnemyType>data/enemies/boss1</EnemyType> <SpawnTime>PT30S</SpawnTime> <NumberOfSpawns>1</NumberOfSpawns> <SpawnOffset>PT0S</SpawnOffset> </Enemy> </Enemies> </Asset> </XnaContent> Each Enemy element is basically a wave of specific enemy types. The type is defined in EnemyType while SpawnTime is the "level time" this wave should appear. NumberOfSpawns and SpawnOffset is the number of enemies that will show up and the time it takes between each spawn respectively. This could be a good idea or there could be better ones out there. I'm not sure. I would like to see some opinions and ideas. I have two problems with this: spawning an enemy correctly and creating a level editor. The level editor thing is an entirely different problem (which I will probably post in the future :P). As for spawning correctly, the problem lies in the fact that I have a variable update time and so I need to make sure I don't miss an enemy spawn because the spawn offset is too small, or because the update took a little more time. I kinda fixed it for the most part, but it seems to me that the problem is with how I store the level. So, any ideas? Comments? Thank you in advance.

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• Industry perspectives on managing content

  - by aahluwalia

  Earlier this week I was noodling over a topic for my first blog post. My intention for this blog is to bring a practitioner's perspective on ECM to the community; to share and collaborate on best practices and approaches that address today's business problems. Reviewing my past 14 years of experience with web technologies, I wondered what topic would serve as a good "conversation starter". During this time, I received a call from a friend who was seeking insights on how content management applies to specific industries. She approached me because she vaguely remembered that I had worked in the Health Insurance industry in the recent past. She wanted me to tell her about the specific business needs of this industry. She was in for quite a surprise as she found out that I had spent the better part of a decade managing content within the Health Insurance industry and I discovered a great topic for my first blog post! I offer some insights from Health Insurance and invite my fellow practitioners to share their insights from other industries. What does content management mean to these industries? What can solution providers be aware of when offering solutions to these industries? The United States health care system relies heavily on private health insurance, which is the primary source of coverage for approximately 58% Americans. In the late 19th century, "accident insurance" began to be available, which operated much like modern disability insurance. In the late 20th century, traditional disability insurance evolved into modern health insurance programs. The first thing a solution provider must be aware of about the Health Insurance industry is that it tends to be transaction intensive. They are the ones who manage and administer our health plans and process our claims when we visit our health care providers. It helps to keep in mind that they are in the business of delivering health insurance and not technology. You may find the mindset conservative in comparison to the IT industry, however, the Health Insurance industry has benefited and will continue to benefit from the efficiency that technology brings to traditionally paper-driven processes. We are all aware of the impact that Healthcare reform bill has had a significant impact on the Health Insurance industry. They are under a great deal of pressure to explore ways to reduce their administrative costs and increase operational efficiency. Overall, administrative costs of health insurance include the insurer's cost to administer the health plan, the costs borne by employers, health-care providers, governments and individual consumers. Inefficiencies plague health insurance, owing largely to the absence of standardized processes across the industry. To achieve this, industry leaders have come together to establish standards and invest in initiatives to help their healthcare provider partners transition to the next generation of healthcare technology. The move to online services and paperless explanation of benefits are some manifestations of technological advancements in health insurance. Several companies have adopted Toyota's LEAN methodology or Six Sigma principles to improve quality, reduce waste and excessive costs, thereby increasing the value of their plan offerings. A growing number of health insurance companies have transformed their business systems in the past decade alone and adopted some form of content management to reduce the costs involved in administering health plans. The key strategy has been to convert paper documents and forms into electronic formats, automate the content development process and securely distribute content to various audiences via diverse marketing channels, including web and mobile. Enterprise content management solutions can enable document capture of claim forms, manage digital assets, integrate with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, build Business Process Management (BPM) processes, define retention and disposition instructions to comply with state and federal regulations and allow eBusiness and Marketing departments to develop and deliver web content to multiple websites, mobile devices and portals. Content can be shared securely within and outside the organization using Information Rights Management.  At the end of the day, solution providers who can translate strategic goals into solutions that maximize process automation, increase ease of use and minimize IT overhead are likely to be successful in today's health insurance environment.

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• Linux router: ping doesn't route back

  - by El Barto

  I have a Debian box which I'm trying to set up as a router and an Ubuntu box which I'm using as a client. My problem is that when the Ubuntu client tries to ping a server on the Internet, all the packets are lost (though, as you can see below, they seem to go to the server and back without problem). I'm doing this in the Ubuntu Box: # ping -I eth1 my.remote-server.com PING my.remote-server.com (X.X.X.X) from 10.1.1.12 eth1: 56(84) bytes of data. ^C --- my.remote-server.com ping statistics --- 13 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 12094ms (I changed the name and IP of the remote server for privacy). From the Debian Router I see this: # tcpdump -i eth1 -qtln icmp tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode listening on eth1, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 305, seq 7, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 305, seq 8, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 305, seq 8, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 305, seq 9, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 305, seq 9, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 305, seq 10, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 305, seq 10, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 305, seq 11, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 305, seq 11, length 64 ^C 9 packets captured 9 packets received by filter 0 packets dropped by kernel # tcpdump -i eth2 -qtln icmp tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode listening on eth2, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes IP 192.168.1.10 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 213, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 192.168.1.10: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 213, length 64 IP 192.168.1.10 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 214, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 192.168.1.10: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 214, length 64 IP 192.168.1.10 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 215, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 192.168.1.10: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 215, length 64 IP 192.168.1.10 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 216, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 192.168.1.10: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 216, length 64 IP 192.168.1.10 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 217, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 192.168.1.10: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 217, length 64 ^C 10 packets captured 10 packets received by filter 0 packets dropped by kernel And at the remote server I see this: # tcpdump -i eth0 -qtln icmp tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 96 bytes IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 1, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 1, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 2, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 2, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 3, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 3, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 4, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 4, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 5, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 5, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 6, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 6, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 7, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 7, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 8, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 8, length 64 IP Y.Y.Y.Y > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 360, seq 9, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > Y.Y.Y.Y: ICMP echo reply, id 360, seq 9, length 64 18 packets captured 228 packets received by filter 92 packets dropped by kernel Here "X.X.X.X" is my remote server's IP and "Y.Y.Y.Y" is my local network's public IP. So, what I understand is that the ping packets are coming out of the Ubuntu box (10.1.1.12), to the router (10.1.1.1), from there to the next router (192.168.1.1) and reaching the remote server (X.X.X.X). Then they come back all the way to the Debian router, but they never reach the Ubuntu box back. What am I missing? Here's the Debian router setup: # ifconfig eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 94:0c:6d:82:0d:98 inet addr:10.1.1.1 Bcast:10.1.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::960c:6dff:fe82:d98/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:105761 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:48944 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:40298768 (38.4 MiB) TX bytes:44831595 (42.7 MiB) Interrupt:19 Base address:0x6000 eth2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 6c:f0:49:a4:47:38 inet addr:192.168.1.10 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::6ef0:49ff:fea4:4738/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:38335992 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:37097705 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:4260680226 (3.9 GiB) TX bytes:3759806551 (3.5 GiB) Interrupt:27 eth3 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 94:0c:6d:82:c8:72 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) Interrupt:20 Base address:0x2000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:3408 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:3408 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:358445 (350.0 KiB) TX bytes:358445 (350.0 KiB) tun0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00 inet addr:10.8.0.1 P-t-P:10.8.0.2 Mask:255.255.255.255 UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:2767779 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1569477 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 RX bytes:3609469393 (3.3 GiB) TX bytes:96113978 (91.6 MiB) # route -n Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 10.8.0.2 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 tun0 127.0.0.1 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 lo 10.8.0.0 10.8.0.2 255.255.255.0 UG 0 0 0 tun0 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 1 0 0 eth2 10.1.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth2 # arp -n # Note: Here I have changed all the different MACs except the ones corresponding to the Ubuntu box (on 10.1.1.12 and 192.168.1.12) Address HWtype HWaddress Flags Mask Iface 192.168.1.118 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.72 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.94 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.102 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 10.1.1.12 ether 00:1e:67:15:2b:f0 C eth1 192.168.1.86 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.2 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.61 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.64 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.116 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.91 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.52 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.93 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.87 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.92 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.100 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.40 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.53 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.1 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.83 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.89 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.12 ether 00:1e:67:15:2b:f1 C eth2 192.168.1.77 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.66 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.90 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.65 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.41 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.78 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 192.168.1.123 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth2 # iptables -L -n Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination # iptables -L -n -t nat Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination MASQUERADE all -- 10.1.1.0/24 !10.1.1.0/24 MASQUERADE all -- !10.1.1.0/24 10.1.1.0/24 Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination And here's the Ubuntu box: # ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:67:15:2b:f1 inet addr:192.168.1.12 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::21e:67ff:fe15:2bf1/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:28785139 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:19050735 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:32068182803 (32.0 GB) TX bytes:6061333280 (6.0 GB) Interrupt:16 Memory:b1a00000-b1a20000 eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:67:15:2b:f0 inet addr:10.1.1.12 Bcast:10.1.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::21e:67ff:fe15:2bf0/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:285086 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:12719 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:30817249 (30.8 MB) TX bytes:2153228 (2.1 MB) Interrupt:16 Memory:b1900000-b1920000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:86048 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:86048 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:11426538 (11.4 MB) TX bytes:11426538 (11.4 MB) # route -n Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0 0.0.0.0 10.1.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 100 0 0 eth1 10.1.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1 10.8.0.0 192.168.1.10 255.255.255.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 1000 0 0 eth0 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 1 0 0 eth0 # arp -n # Note: Here I have changed all the different MACs except the ones corresponding to the Debian box (on 10.1.1.1 and 192.168.1.10) Address HWtype HWaddress Flags Mask Iface 192.168.1.70 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.90 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.97 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.103 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.13 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.120 (incomplete) eth0 192.168.1.111 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.118 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.51 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.102 (incomplete) eth0 192.168.1.64 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.52 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.74 (incomplete) eth0 192.168.1.94 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.121 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.72 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.87 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.91 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.71 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.78 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.83 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.88 (incomplete) eth0 192.168.1.82 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.98 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.100 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.93 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.73 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.11 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.85 (incomplete) eth0 192.168.1.112 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.89 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.65 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.81 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 10.1.1.1 ether 94:0c:6d:82:0d:98 C eth1 192.168.1.53 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.116 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.61 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.10 ether 6c:f0:49:a4:47:38 C eth0 192.168.1.86 (incomplete) eth0 192.168.1.119 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.66 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.1 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 192.168.1.1 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth1 192.168.1.92 ether NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN C eth0 # iptables -L -n Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination # iptables -L -n -t nat Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Edit: Following Patrick's suggestion, I did a tcpdump con the Ubuntu box and I see this: # tcpdump -i eth1 -qtln icmp tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode listening on eth1, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 21967, seq 1, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 21967, seq 1, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 21967, seq 2, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 21967, seq 2, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 21967, seq 3, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 21967, seq 3, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 21967, seq 4, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 21967, seq 4, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 21967, seq 5, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 21967, seq 5, length 64 IP 10.1.1.12 > X.X.X.X: ICMP echo request, id 21967, seq 6, length 64 IP X.X.X.X > 10.1.1.12: ICMP echo reply, id 21967, seq 6, length 64 ^C 12 packets captured 12 packets received by filter 0 packets dropped by kernel So the question is: if all packets seem to be coming and going, why does ping report 100% packet loss?

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• 5 Ways to Determine Mobile Location

  - by David Dorf

  In my previous post, I mentioned the importance of determining the location of a consumer using their mobile phone.  Retailers can track anonymous mobile phones to determine traffic patterns both inside and outside their stores.  And with consumers' permission, retailers can send location-aware offers to mobile phones; for example, a coupon for cereal as you walk down that aisle.  When paying with Square, your location is matched with the transaction.  So there are lots of reasons for retailers to want to know the location of their customers.  But how is it done? I thought I'd dive a little deeper on that topic and consider the approaches to determining location. 1. Tower Triangulation By comparing the relative signal strength from multiple antenna towers, a general location of a phone can be roughly determined to an accuracy of 200-1000 meters.  The more towers involved, the more accurate the location. 2. GPS Using Global Positioning Satellites is more accurate than using cell towers, but it takes longer to find the satellites, it uses more battery, and it won't well indoors.  For geo-fencing applications, like those provided by Placecast and Digby, cell towers are often used to determine if the consumer is nearing a "fence" then switches to GPS to determine the actual crossing of the fence. 3. WiFi Triangulation WiFi triangulation is usually more accurate than using towers just because there are so many more WiFi access points (i.e. radios in routers) around. The position of each WiFi AP needs to be recorded in a database and used in the calculations, which is what Skyhook has been doing since 2008.  Another advantage to this method is that works well indoors, although it usually requires additional WiFi beacons to get the accuracy down to 5-10 meters.  Companies like ZuluTime, Aisle411, and PointInside have been perfecting this approach for retailers like Meijer, Walgreens, and HomeDepot. Keep in mind that a mobile phone doesn't have to connect to the WiFi network in order for it to be located.  The WiFi radio in the phone only needs to be on.  Even when not connected, WiFi radios talk to each other to prepare for a possible connection. 4. Hybrid Approaches Naturally the most accurate approach is to combine the approaches described above.  The more available data points, the greater the accuracy.  Companies like ShopKick like to add in acoustic triangulation using the phone's microphone, and NearBuy can use video analytics to increase accuracy. 5. Magnetic Fields The latest approach, and this one is really new, takes a page from the animal kingdom.  As you've probably learned from guys like Marlin Perkins, some animals use the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate.  By recording magnetic variations within a store, then matching those readings with ones from a consumer's phone, location can be accurately determined.  At least that's the approach IndoorAtlas is taking, and the science seems to bear out.  It works well indoors, and doesn't require retailers to purchase any additional hardware.  Keep an eye on this one.

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• Guessing Excel Data Types

  - by AjarnMark

  Note to Self HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Excel: TypeGuessRows = 0 means scan everything. Note to Others About 10 years ago I stumbled across this bit of information just when I needed it and it saved my project.  Then for some reason, a few years later when it would have been nice, but not critical, for some reason I could not find it again anywhere.  Well, now I have stumbled across it again, and to preserve my future self from nightmares and sudden baldness due to pulling my hair out, I have decided to blog it in the hopes that I can find it again this way. Here’s the story…  When you query data from an Excel spreadsheet, such as with old-fashioned DTS packages in SQL 2000 (my first reference) or simply with an OLEDB Data Adapter from ASP.NET (recent task) and if you are using the Microsoft Jet 4.0 driver (newer ones may deal with this differently) then you can get funny results where the query reports back that a cell value is null even when you know it contains data. What happens is that Excel doesn’t really have data types.  While you can format information in cells to appear like certain data types (e.g. Date, Time, Decimal, Text, etc.) that is not really defining the cell as being of a certain type like we think of when working with databases.  But, presumably, to make things more convenient for the user (programmer) when you issue a query against Excel, the query processor tries to guess what type of data is contained in each column and returns it in an appropriate manner.  This is all well and good IF your data is consistent in every row and matches what the processor guessed.  And, for efficiency’s sake, when the query processor is trying to figure out each column’s data type, it does so by analyzing only the first 8 rows of data (default setting). Now here’s the problem, suppose that your spreadsheet contains information about clothing, and one of the columns is Size.  Now suppose that in the first 8 rows, all of your sizes look like 32, 34, 18, 10, and so on, using numbers, but then, somewhere after the 8th row, you have some rows with sizes like S, M, L, XL.  What happens is that by examining only the first 8 rows, the query processor inferred that the column contained numerical data, and then when it hits the non-numerical data in later rows, it comes back blank.  Major bummer, and a real pain to track down if you don’t know that Excel is doing this, because you study the spreadsheet and say, “the data is RIGHT THERE!  WHY doesn’t the query see it?!?!”  And the hair-pulling begins. So, what’s a developer to do?  One option is to go to the registry setting noted above and change the DWORD value of TypeGuessRows from the default of 8 to 0 (zero).  Setting this value to zero will force Jet to scan every row in the spreadsheet before making its determination as to what type of data the column contains.  And that means that in the example above, it would have treated the column as a string rather than as numeric, and presto! your query now returns all of the values that you know are in there. Of course, there is a caveat… if you are querying large spreadsheets, making Jet scan every row can be quite a performance hit.  You could enter a different number (more than 8) that you believe is a better sampling of rows to make the guess, but you still have the possibility that every row scanned looks alike, but that later rows are different, and that you might get blanks when there really is data there.  That’s the type of gamble, I really don’t like to take with my data. Anyone with a better approach, or with experience with more recent drivers that have a better way of handling data types, please chime in!

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• Drawing transparent glyphs on the HTML canvas

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  The HTML canvas has a set of methods, createImageData and putImageData, that look like they will enable you to draw transparent shapes pixel by pixel. The data structures that you manipulate with these methods are pseudo-arrays of pixels, with four bytes per pixel. One byte for red, one for green, one for blue and one for alpha. This alpha byte makes one believe that you are going to be able to manage transparency, but that’s a lie. Here is a little script that attempts to overlay a simple generated pattern on top of a uniform background: var wrong = document.getElementById("wrong").getContext("2d"); wrong.fillStyle = "#ffd42a"; wrong.fillRect(0, 0, 64, 64); var overlay = wrong.createImageData(32, 32), data = overlay.data; fill(data); wrong.putImageData(overlay, 16, 16); .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; } where the fill method is setting the pixels in the lower-left half of the overlay to opaque red, and the rest to transparent black. And here’s how it renders: As you can see, the transparency byte was completely ignored. Or was it? in fact, what happens is more subtle. What happens is that the pixels from the image data, including their alpha byte, replaced the existing pixels of the canvas. So the alpha byte is not lost, it’s just that it wasn’t used by putImageData to combine the new pixels with the existing ones. This is in fact a clue to how to write a putImageData that works: we can first dump that image data into an intermediary canvas, and then compose that temporary canvas onto our main canvas. The method that we can use for this composition is drawImage, which works not only with image objects, but also with canvas objects. var right = document.getElementById("right").getContext("2d"); right.fillStyle = "#ffd42a"; right.fillRect(0, 0, 64, 64); var overlay = wrong.createImageData(32, 32), data = overlay.data; fill(data); var overlayCanvas = document.createElement("canvas"); overlayCanvas.width = overlayCanvas.height = 32; overlayCanvas.getContext("2d").putImageData(overlay, 0, 0); right.drawImage(overlayCanvas, 16, 16); And there is is, a version of putImageData that works like it should always have:

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• Exclusive Webcast Series Explains How Project Success Drives Business Success

  - by Melissa Centurio Lopes

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} In the wake of the global financial crisis, organizations throughout the world are redoubling their efforts to enhance financial discipline, achieve operational excellence, and mitigate risk. How can they address all these areas with one comprehensive strategy? With enterprise project portfolio management solutions that provide greater transparency and visibility across all projects and portfolios, says Guy Barlow, Oracle director of industry strategy. In the following interview and in an exclusive, three-part webcast series, Barlow examines today’s new management realities and explains how organizations can succeed in this environment. Q: Financial discipline has always been important, what’s different today? A: A number of organizations are showing that by fiscally aligning projects with the business goals of their organizations, they can shave off hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in inefficiency and waste. For example, one Oracle customer, the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, reduced its unbudgeted costs from US$24.4 million to US$3.5 million, for an 88 percent improvement. Q: How do organizations achieve results like this? A: First, they need to have the vision to see project management as part of a broad and critical element in their overall enterprise strategy. That means using a single solution, such as Oracle‘s Primavera, to manage multiple projects across multiple functions within a company. So someone in corporate mergers and acquisitions as well as a capital projects team can standardize on the same technology. By doing so they all gain greater efficiency in planning and execution—because the technology can be configured for their specific roles and needs—and the IT organization really benefits from lower maintenance. Second, enterprises must give executive leaders—CFOs, COOs, and CEOs—visibility across the entire business to easily see what projects are on track and which ones are falling behind. In fact, once executives see the power of enterprise project portfolio management, uptake is very quick across the organization. Read the full interview here.

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• User interfirance, themes, Broken, Unreadable parts

  - by Adames

  Arther going on a customizing spree my the desktop themes on unity got messed up I had installed Ubuntu tweak and unsettings so I removed them but the default themes and custom ones are still messed up I ran unity --reset and this is what I get: WARNING: Unity currently default profile, so switching to metacity while resetting the values unity-panel-service: no process found Checking if settings need to be migrated ...no Checking if internal files need to be migrated ...no Backend : gconf Integration : true Profile : unity Adding plugins Initializing core options...done compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x1200004 compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x38000af compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x32000ad Initializing composite options...done Initializing opengl options...done Initializing decor options...done Initializing vpswitch options...done Initializing snap options...done Initializing mousepoll options...done Initializing resize options...done Initializing place options...done Initializing move options...done Initializing wall options...done Initializing grid options...done Initializing session options...done Initializing gnomecompat options...done Initializing animation options...done Initializing fade options...done Initializing unitymtgrabhandles options...done Initializing workarounds options...done Initializing scale options...done compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture Initializing expo options...done Initializing ezoom options...done (compiz:4749): GConf-CRITICAL **: gconf_client_add_dir: assertion `gconf_valid_key (dirname, NULL)' failed Initializing unityshell options...done compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0xc0009e! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0xc000a1! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0xc000a1! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0xc000a4! compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this. WARN 2012-07-02 19:51:42 unity.libindicator <unknown>:0 Desktop file '/usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop' is using a deprecated format for its actions that will be dropped soon. WARN 2012-07-02 19:51:42 unity.libindicator <unknown>:0 Desktop file '/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop' is using a deprecated format for its actions that will be dropped soon. WARN 2012-07-02 19:51:42 unity.libindicator <unknown>:0 Desktop file '/usr/share/applications/libreoffice-writer.desktop' is using a deprecated format for its actions that will be dropped soon. WARN 2012-07-02 19:51:42 unity.libindicator <unknown>:0 Desktop file '/usr/share/applications/libreoffice-calc.desktop' is using a deprecated format for its actions that will be dropped soon. WARN 2012-07-02 19:51:42 unity.libindicator <unknown>:0 Desktop file '/usr/share/applications/libreoffice-impress.desktop' is using a deprecated format for its actions that will be dropped soon. Initializing addhelper options...done Initializing animationaddon options...done Initializing annotate options...done Initializing bench options...done Initializing blur options...done Initializing clone options...done Initializing colorfilter options...done Initializing commands options...done Initializing crashhandler options...done Initializing cube options...done Initializing cubeaddon options...done Initializing extrawm options...done Initializing fadedesktop options...done Initializing firepaint options...done Initializing group options...done Initializing imgjpeg options...done Initializing kdecompat options...done Initializing loginout options...done Initializing mag options...done Initializing maximumize options...done Initializing mblur options...done Initializing neg options...done Initializing notification options...done Initializing obs options...done Initializing opacify options...done Initializing put options...done Initializing reflex options...done Initializing resizeinfo options...done Initializing ring options...done Initializing rotate options...done Initializing scaleaddon options...done Initializing scalefilter options...done Initializing screenshot options...done Initializing shelf options...done Initializing shift options...done Initializing showdesktop options...done Initializing showmouse options...done Initializing splash options...done Initializing staticswitcher options...done Initializing switcher options...done Initializing td options...done Initializing thumbnail options...done Initializing trailfocus options...done Initializing wallpaper options...done Initializing water options...done Initializing widget options...done Initializing winrules options...done Initializing wobbly options...done ERROR 2012-07-02 19:51:43 unity.glib-gobject <unknown>:0 g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed Setting Update "main_menu_key" Setting Update "run_key" Setting Update "autoraise" Setting Update "autoraise_delay" Any Ideas? this is very inconvenient some of the text like in additional drivers are unreadable because they come out White

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• Performing an upgrade from TFS 2008 to TFS 2010

  - by Enrique Lima

  I recently had to go through the process of migrating a TFS 2008 SP1 to a TFS 2010 environment. I will go into the details of the tasks that I went through, but first I want to explain why I define it as a migration and not an upgrade. When this environment was setup, based on support and limitations for TFS 2008, we used a 32 bit platform for the TFS Application Tier and Build Servers.  The Data Tier, since we were installing SP1 for TFS 2008, was done as a 64 bit installation.  We knew at that point that TFS 2010 was in the picture so that served as further motivation to make that a 64bit install of SQL Server.  The SQL Server at that point was a single instance (Default) installation too.  We had a pretty good strategy in place for backups of the databases supporting the environment (and this made the migration so much smoother), so we were pretty familiar with the databases and the purpose they serve. I am sure many of you that have gone through a TFS 2008 installation have encountered challenges and trials.  And likely even more so if you, like me, needed to configure your deployment for SSL.  So, frankly I was a little concerned about the process of migrating.  They say practice makes perfect, and this environment I worked on is in some way my brain child, so I was not ready nor willing for this to be a failure or something that would impact my client’s work. Prior to going through the migration process, we did the install of the environment.  The Data Tier was the same, with a new Named instance in place to host the 2010 install.  The Application Tier was in place too, and we did the DefaultCollection configuration to test and validate all components were in place as they should. Anyway, on to the tasks for the migration (thanks to Martin Hinselwood for his very thorough documentation): Close access to TFS 2008, you want to make sure all code is checked in and ready to go.  We stated a difference of 8 hours between code lock and the start of migration to give time for any unexpected delay.  How do we close access?  Stop IIS. Backup your databases.  Which ones? TfsActivityLogging TfsBuild TfsIntegration TfsVersionControl TfsWorkItemTracking TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachments Restore the databases to the new Named Instance (make sure you keep the same names) Now comes the fun part! The actual import/migration of the databases.  A couple of things happen here. The TfsIntegration database will be scanned, the other databases will be checked to validate they exist.  Those databases will go through a process of data being extracted and transferred to the TfsVersionControl database to then be renamed to Tfs_<Collection>. You will be using a tool called tfsconfig and the option import. This tool is located in the TFS 2010 installation path (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Tools),  the command to use is as follows:    tfsconfig import /sqlinstance:<instance> /collectionName:<name> /confirmed Where <instance> is going to be the SQL Server instance where you restored the databases to.  <name> is the name you will give the collection. And to explain /confirmed, well this means you have done a backup of the databases, why?  well remember you are going to merge the databases you restored when you execute the tfsconfig import command. The process will go through about 200 tasks, once it completes go to Team Foundation Server Administration Console and validate your imported databases and contents. We’ll keep this manageable, so the next post is about how to complete that implementation with the SSL configuration.

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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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• With 2 superposed cameras at different depths and switching their culling masks between layers to implement object-selective antialising:

  - by user36845

  We superposed two cameras, one of which uses AA as post-processing effect (AA filtering is cancelled). The camera with the AA effect has depth 0 and the camera with no effect has depth 1 as can be seen in the 5th and 6th Picture. The objects seen on the left are in layer 1 and the ones on the right are in layer 2. We then wrote a script that switches the culling masks of the cameras between the two layers at the push of buttons 1 and 2 respectively, and accomplishes object-selective antialiasing as seen in the first the three pictures. (The way two cameras separately switch culling masks between layers is illustrated in pictures 7,8 & 9.) HOWEVER, after making the environment 3D (see pictures 1-4), by parenting the 2 cameras under First-Person Controller, we started moving around in the environment and stumbled upon a big issue: When we look at the objects from such an angle as in the 4th Picture and we want to apply antialiasing to the first object (object on the left) which stands closer to our cameras now, the culling mask of 1st camera which is at depth 0, has to be switched to that object’s layer while the second object has to be in the culling mask of the 2nd camera at depth 1. And since the two image outputs of two superposed cameras are laid on top of one another; we obtain the erroneous/unrealistic result of the object farther in the back appearing closer to the camera than the front object (see 4th Picture). We already tried switching depths of cameras so that the 1st camera –with AA- now has depth 1 and the second has depth 0; BUT the camera with the AA effect Works in such a way that it applies the AA effect to its full view. So; the camera with the AA effect always has to remain at the lowest depth and the layer of the object to be antialiased has to be then assigned to the culling mask of the AA camera; otherwise all objects in the AA camera’s view (the two cubes in our case) become antialised, which we don’t want. So; how can we resolve this? The pictures are below and in the comments since each post can have 2 pics: Pic 1. No button is pushed: Both objects seem aliased. Pic 2. Button 1 is pushed: Left (1st) object is antialiased. 2nd object remains aliased. Pic 3. Button 2 is pushed: Right (2nd) object is antialiased. 1st object remains aliased. Pic 4. The problematic result in 3D, when using two superposed cameras with different depths Pic 5. Camera 1’s properties can be seen: using AA post-processing and its depth is 0 Pic 6. Camera 2’s properties can be seen: NOT using AA post-processing and its depth is 1 Pic 7. When no button is pushed, both objects are in the culling mask of Camera 2 and are aliased Pic 8. When pushed 1, camera 1 (bottom) shows the 1st object and camera 2 (top) shows the 2nd Pic 9. When pushed 2, camera 1 (bottom) shows the 2nd object and camera 2 (top) shows the 1st

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• Kill all the project files!

  - by jamiet

  Like many folks I’m a keen podcast listener and yesterday my commute was filled by listening to Scott Hunter being interviewed on .Net Rocks about the next version of ASP.Net. One thing Scott said really struck a chord with me. I don’t remember the full quote but he was talking about how the ASP.Net project file (i.e. the .csproj file) is going away. The rationale being that the main purpose of that file is to list all the other files in the project, and that’s something that the file system is pretty good at. In Scott’s own words (that someone helpfully put in the comments): A file that lists files is really redundant when the OS already does this Romeliz Valenciano correctly pointed out on Twitter that there will still be a project.json file however no longer will there be a need to keep a list of files in a project file. I suspect project.json will simply contain a list of exclusions where necessary rather than the current approach where the project file is a list of inclusions. On the face of it this seems like a pretty good idea. I’ve long been a fan of convention over configuration and this is a great example of that. Instead of listing all the files in a separate file, just treat all the files in the directory as being part of the project. Ostensibly the approach is if its in the directory, its part of the project. Simple. Now I’m not an ASP.net developer, far from it, but it did occur to me that the same approach could be applied to the two Visual Studio project types that I am most familiar with, SSIS & SSDT. Like many people I’ve long been irritated by SSIS projects that display a faux file system inside Solution Explorer. As you can see in the screenshot below the project has Miscellaneous and Connection Managers folders but no such folders exist on the file system: This may seem like a minor thing but it means useful Solution Explorer features like Show All Files and Open Folder in Windows Explorer don’t work and quite frankly it makes me feel like a second class citizen in the Microsoft ecosystem. I’m a developer, treat me like one. Don’t try and hide the detail of how a project works under the covers, show it to me. I’m a big boy, I can handle it! Would it not be preferable to simply treat all the .dtsx files in a directory as being part of a project? I think it would, that’s pretty much all the .dtproj file does anyway (that, and present things in a non-alphabetic order – something else that wildly irritates me), so why not just get rid of the .dtproj file? In the case of SSDT the .sqlproj actually does a whole lot more than simply list files because it also states the BuildAction of each file (Build, NotInBuild, Post-Deployment, etc…) but I see no reason why the convention over configuration approach can’t help us there either. Want to know which is the Post-deployment script? Well, its the one called Post-DeploymentScript.sql! Simple! So that’s my new crusade. Let’s kill all the project files (well, the .dtproj & .sqlproj ones anyway). Are you with me? @Jamiet

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• ResourceSerializable: an alternate to ORM and ActiveRecord

  - by Levi Morrison

  A few opinionated reasons I don't like the traditional ORM and ActiveRecord patterns: They work only with a database. Sometimes I'm dealing with objects from an API and other objects from a database. All the implementations I have seen don't allow for that. Feel free to clue me in if I'm wrong on this. They are brittle. Changes in the database will likely break your implemenation. Some implementations can help reduce this, but a few of the ones I've seen don't. Their very design is influenced by the database. If I want to switch to using an API, I'll have to redesign the object to get it to work (likely). It seems to violate the single-responsibility pattern. They know what they are and how they act, but they also know how they are created, destroyed and saved? Seems a bit much. What about an approach that is somewhat more familiar in PHP: implementing an interface? In php 5.4, we'll have the JsonSerializable interface that defines the data to be json_encoded, so users will become accustomed to this type of thing. What if there was a ResourceSerializable interface? This is still an ORM by name, but certainly not by tradition. interface ResourceSerializable { /** * Returns the id that identifies the resource. */ function resourceId(); /** * Returns the 'type' of the resource. */ function resourceType(); /** * Returns the data to be serialized. */ function resourceSerialize(); } Things might be poorly named, I'll take suggestions. Notes: ResourceId will work for API's and databases. As long as your primary key in the database is the same as the resource ID in the API, there is no conflict. All of the API's I've worked with have a unique ID for the resource, so I don't see any issues there. ResourceType is the group or type associated with the resource. You can use this to map the resource to an API call or a database table. If the ResourceType was person, it could map to /api/1/person/{resourceId} and the table persons (or people, if it's smart enough). resourceSerialize() returns the data to be stored. Keys would identify API parameters and database table columns. This also seems easier to test than ActiveRecord / Orm implemenations. I haven't done much automated testing on traditional ActiveRecord/ORM implemenations, so this is merely a guess. But it seems that I being able to create objects independently of the library helps me. I don't have to use load() to get an existing resource, I can simply create one and set all the right properties. This is not so easy in the ActiveRecord / Orm implemenations I've dealt with. Downsides: You need another object to serialize it. This also means you have more code in general as you have to use more objects. You have to map resource types to API calls and database tables. This is even more work, but some ORMs and ActiveRecord implementations require you to map objects to table names anyway. Are there other downsides that you see? Does this seem feasible to you? How would you improve it? Note: I almost asked this on StackOverflow because it might be too vague for their standards, but I'm still not really familiar with programmers.stackexchange.com, so please help me improve my question if it doesn't shape up to standards here.

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• App Stores&ndash;In All Things, Its Quality Over Quantity

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Everybody has an opinion about Windows 8. People love it, people hate it, people are meh about it, people are apparently buying it from Microsoft stores in NYC as if it was water before a natural disaster…if there’s one thing that Microsoft product launches do well, its the ability to bring out strong emotional responses. Over at eweek.com, Don Reisinger wrote about 5 good and bad things about Windows 8. Yes, another opinion piece on WIndows 8. I figured since this one had good and bad it might be worthwhile to read. I then came across #10 on his list, and figured “What the hell…might as well post a bit of a rant on Windows 8 myself!” Here’s #10: 10. Bad: Too few apps Unfortunately, Microsoft wasn’t able to get too many developers to start producing applications for its Windows 8 Store. Microsoft hasn’t yet released official numbers, but some have said that the marketplace has less than 8,000 programs. Considering Apple’s App Store has 100 times that, it’s about time Microsoft starts leaning on developers to get more programs into its store. Believe me, Microsoft *has* been leaning on developers to get apps into the store. I’ve been asked at least 5 or 6 times from 5 or 6 different friends at Microsoft about whether I was going to write a Windows 8 app. I think Microsoft felt they had to try and address the number of apps available in their marketplace, since some people (like Don) would draw comparisons to the number of apps in the Apple marketplace. I feel for Microsoft in this, since the number of apps in a marketplace are an empty stat. Quality of Quantity I have an iPad that my family (wife, 10yo daughter, 3yo daughter) use. We all have our own apps installed on it. In addition, my wife has an iPhone 4S that she also installs apps on. As someone who gets asked by his kids often whether they can buy/download an app, the vast majority of the vast catalogue of iOS marketplace apps are crap! Do you realize how many “free” games are out there, only to really be not-free because you have to purchase in-game content to make the game actually playable? And how about searching – with such a vast array of apps and such high numbers of craptastic ones, trying to find something is incredibly difficult and can be frustrating. I would rather see that Microsoft has 8000 high quality apps in their store at launch, instead of 800000 that were mostly junk. Too Few Apps?! And seriously, 8000 is not a small number. How many iOS apps have I actually bought between the iPad and iPhone? I’ll be generous and say 30…heck, let’s round it up to 40. It’s not like I have 10,000 apps installed on my iPad, nor will that ever happen! So if people have, at the *launch* of a new platform ecosystem, EIGHT THOUSAND apps to choose from, I don’t see that as a fail at all! It should be noted that most of the most common apps (Netflix, Skype, etc.) are available for Windows 8 at launch – I guess I’ll have to wait a few weeks for My Pony Ranch and all its clones to start showing up; pity. Let’s Check Back in a Year So look, let’s check back in a year’s time and see what the app store looks like. My hope is that Microsoft doesn’t continue to push quantity over quality. Even knowing the optics that # of apps in the store carries and the pressure to catch Apple and Android marketplaces, I hope Microsoft avoids the scenario where there’s a good percentage of apps in the Windows Store that are utter rubbish and finding the gems will be cumbersome. But if that happens, we can thank guys like Dan who raised the false issue of app count at the launch for it.

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• Thoughts on ODTUG Kscope12

  - by thatjeffsmith

  The rodeo rocked! This wasn’t my first rodeo, and it wasn’t my first Kscope, but it was probably my favorite one. What is Kscope? It’s the annual conference for the Oracle Development Tools User Group. 1,000+ attendees from 20+ countries with an average Jeff Klout score of 65. I just made that metric and score up, but this conference attracts the best and brightest in the Oracle database space. I’m not just talking about the speakers either. The attendees are all top notch. They actively participate in sessions, make an effort to get to know their fellow conference mates, and often turn into volunteers and speakers. Developers that enjoy unit testing, understand the importance of modeling your data, and are eager to understand the Oracle CBO – these are traits that describe the ‘average’ ODTUG developer. 2012′s event was held in San Antonio. Yes, it was very hot. But this might have been the nicest Marriott property I’ve ever visited, and I’ve stayed at some nice ones in Hawaii and St. Thomas. They had free WiFi everywhere – the rooms, the Conference Center, the lobby, bars, everywhere. And it worked. The after hours events were very fun. I embarrassed myself several times, but that’s OK. The rodeo was an awesome event and the Thirsty Games experience was something I hope does not make it onto YouTube or Facebook — talking to you Chet Justice. I finally got to meet and spend some time with some folks I’ve always wanted to get to know better, @timothyjgorman, @alexgorbachev, @lj_dobson, @dschleis, @kentGraziano, @chriscmuir, @GaloBalda, @patch72, and many, many more! I even made some new friends thanks to the Mentor program and @carol_finn. 2013′s event will be in New Orleans. If you haven’t joined ODTUG or haven’t made it to Kscope, go ahead and mark your calendars. I had 3 presentations this year. Sunday’s was not a good performance, and I want to apologize to anyone who was there and was hoping for more. My Tips and Debugging sessions on Monday and Tuesday were more to my liking, and I enjoyed them as a presenter. I hope you enjoyed them as an attendee. I understand that my slidedecks were corrupted on the ODTUG site, and I’m working with the coordinator now to get those fixed ASAP. Apparently the 2 most well-received Tips was the /*CSV*/ formatting hint and recalling your previous SQL history via the keyboard. I’ll be doing a follow-up webinar with ODTUG in a few weeks for those members that weren’t able to see my Tips and Debugger sessions in San Antonio. I’ll be sure to post details on that here when I have the details. My next scheduled conference is Oracle Open World, and I may have a couple of shows after that to round out 2012.

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• SharePoint Saturday DC

  - by Mark Rackley

  Wow… did you see this thing? 927 attendees? An exhibition hall full of vendors? 94 speakers? 100 sessions?? Insane is a word that comes to mind… SharePoint Saturday DC was definitely epic as far as SharePoint Saturdays go. I got to catch up with a lot of friends and make some new ones.  Met a couple of fans of the blog (hello ladies…;))  Did you know that people actually read this thing? I guess that means I need to stop putting so much garbage on here and more content. I’ll get right on that as soon as I find out how to add 6 hours to each day. Anyway, once again I did my “Wrapping Your Head Around the SharePoint Beast” session.  I tweaked it even more from Huntsville and presented to a packed room with some people sitting on the floor and standing in the aisles. It was a great crowd, very interactive and they seemed interested at least. Thank you guys so much for attending and please feel free to tell me of any suggestions you have to make the presentation better.  This is one of the presentations that will probably never die. Everyone beginning SharePoint development needs a good introduction and starting point. My goal is to make this THE session to see on the subject. So, a little interesting data about my class. Half of the room was brand new to SharePoint and only one person was using 2010. That tells me that this session still has legs and that 2007 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  I know my organization will be using 2007 for at least a couple more years. Oh yeah… the slide deck?  Here it is: SharePoint Saturday DC Slide Deck So, SharePoint Saturday was truly tremendous and if you weren’t there you missed out. @meetdux, @usher, and the rest of their crew did a spectacular job. You guys rock and are a huge asset to the community. Thanks for allowing me to speak. What’s up next for me?  I’m so glad you asked…. SHAREPOINT SATURDAY OZARKS IS JUNE 12TH! Although SharePoint Saturday Ozarks on June 12 in Harrison Arkansas will be a much more intimate event than DC, it promises to be a most memorable event. We’ve got over 30 speakers and sessions, some cool stuff to give away, and we’re going floating down the Buffalo River on the 13th. Let’s see you do THAT in DC.  :) Anyway, I hope to see you there and I would truly appreciate any help you can do to help publicize the event. We just got internet here in the hills and most people here are still looking for the “any” key….

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