Search Results

Search found 12376 results on 496 pages for 'side effects'.

Page 166/496 | < Previous Page | 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173  | Next Page >

• UDK - How to make sure a PhysicalMaterial mask actually works?

  - by tomacmuni

  Hello, I have been reading the documentation for UDK about physical materials and masks. I have my 1bit BMP mask, and the two physical material assets I want to shoot off in the black and white channels. I have applied my material to both a rigid body and to a skeletal mesh and neither apparently uses the mask. If I assign a regular physical material (one that doesn't use a mask) then it will work fine, but this defeats the point because it gives only one hit reaction. In the documentation it states that it is possible to extend a class on which we want to use a physical material based on the KActor class's usage. How to do that? Here is the quote: "The following properties [ie, ImpactEffect - Particle system to spawn at the point of impact + ImpactSound - Sound to play when an impact occurs] allow you to attach sounds and effects to physical collisions. These only work on classes which support them, which at the moment is only KActor. By looking at the implementation in KActor though, you can add this functionality to other classes (or you can subclass KActor)." Essentially, how to make sure a PhysicalMaterial mask actually works? What code could be added to a skeletal mesh class perhaps, to get it going? Any help appreciated.

  Read the article

• Must all AI states be able to react to any event?

  - by Prog

  FSMs implemented with the State design pattern are a common way to design AI agents. I am familiar with the State design pattern and know how to implement it. How is this used in games to design AI agents? Consider a simplified class Monster, representing an AI agent: class Monster { State state; // other fields omitted public void update(){ // called every game-loop cycle state.execute(this); } public void setState(State state){ this.state = state; } // irrelevant stuff omitted } There are several State subclasses implementing execute() differently. So far, classic State pattern. AI agents are subject to environmental effects and other objects communicating with them. For example, an AI agent might tell another AI agent to attack (i.e. agent.attack()). Or a fireball might tell an AI agent to fall down. This means that the agent must have methods such as attack() and fallDown(), or commonly some message receiving mechanism to understand such messages. With an FSM, the current State of the agent should be the one taking care of such method calls - i.e. the agent delegates to the current state upon every event. Is this correct? If correct, how is this done? Are all states obligated by their superclass to implement methods such as attack(), fallDown() etc., so the agent can always delegate to them on almost every event? Or is it done in some other way?

  Read the article

• How to rotate a group of objects around a common center?

  - by user1662292

  I've made a model in 3D Studio Max 9. It consists of a variety of cubes, clyinders etc. In XNA I've imported the model okay and it shows correctly. However, when I apply rotation, each component in the model rotates around it's own centre. I want the model to rotate as a single unit. I've linked the components in 3D Max and they rotate as I want in Max. protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); model = Content.Load<Model>("Models/Alien1"); } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { camera.Update(1f, new Vector3(), graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio); rotation += 0.1f; base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[model.Bones.Count]; model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); Matrix worldMatrix = Matrix.Identity; Matrix rotationYMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationY(rotation); Matrix translateMatrix = Matrix.CreateTranslation(location); worldMatrix = rotationYMatrix * translateMatrix; foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = worldMatrix * transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index]; effect.View = camera.viewMatrix; effect.Projection = camera.projectionMatrix; effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.PreferPerPixelLighting = true; } mesh.Draw(); } base.Draw(gameTime); } More Info: Rotating the object via it's properties works fine so I'm guessing there's something up with the code rather than with the object itself. Translating the object also causes the objects to get moved independently of each other rather than as a single model and each piece becomes spread around the scene. The model is in .X format.

  Read the article

• Service Catalogs for Database as a Service

  - by B R Clouse

  At the end of last month, I had the opportunity to present a speaking session at Oracle OpenWorld: Database as a Service: Creating a Database Cloud Service Catalog.  The session was well-attended which would have surprised me several months ago when I started researching this topic.  At that time, I thought of service catalogs as something trivial which could be explained in a few simple slides.  But while looking at all the different options and approaches available, I came to learn that designing a succinct and effective catalog is not a trivial task, and mistakes can lead to confusion and unintended side effects.  And when the room filled up, my new point of view was confirmed. In case you missed the session, or were able to attend but would like more details, I've posted a white paper that covers the topics from the session, and more.  We start with an overview of the components of a service catalog: And then look at several customer case studies of service catalogs for DBaaS.  Synthesizing those examples, we summarize the main options for defining the service categories and their levels.  We end with a template for defining Bronze | Silver | Gold service tiers for Oracle Database Services. The paper is now available here - watch for updates as we work to expand some sections and incorporate readers' feedback (hint - that includes your feedback). Visit our OTN page for additional Database Cloud collateral.

  Read the article

• How to choose between Tell don't Ask and Command Query Separation?

  - by Dakotah North

  The principle Tell Don't Ask says: you should endeavor to tell objects what you want them to do; do not ask them questions about their state, make a decision, and then tell them what to do. The problem is that, as the caller, you should not be making decisions based on the state of the called object that result in you then changing the state of the object. The logic you are implementing is probably the called object’s responsibility, not yours. For you to make decisions outside the object violates its encapsulation. A simple example of "Tell, don't Ask" is Widget w = ...; if (w.getParent() != null) { Panel parent = w.getParent(); parent.remove(w); } and the tell version is ... Widget w = ...; w.removeFromParent(); But what if I need to know the result from the removeFromParent method? My first reaction was just to change the removeFromParent to return a boolean denoting if the parent was removed or not. But then I came across Command Query Separation Pattern which says NOT to do this. It states that every method should either be a command that performs an action, or a query that returns data to the caller, but not both. In other words, asking a question should not change the answer. More formally, methods should return a value only if they are referentially transparent and hence possess no side effects. Are these two really at odds with each other and how do I choose between the two? Do I go with the Pragmatic Programmer or Bertrand Meyer on this?

  Read the article

• How to populate a private container for unit test?

  - by Sardathrion

  I have a class that defines a private (well, __container to be exact since it is python) container. I am using the information within said container as part of the logic of what the class does and have the ability to add/delete the elements of said container. For unit tests, I need to populate this container with some data. That date depends on the test done and thus putting it all in setUp() would be impractical and bloated -- plus it could add unwanted side effects. Since the data is private, I can only add things via the public interface of the object. This run codes that need not be run during a unit test and in some case is just a copy and paste from another test. Currently, I am mocking the whole container but somehow it does not feel that elegant a solution. Due to Python mocking frame work (mock), this requires the container to be public -- so I can use patch.dict(). I would rather keep that data private. What pattern can one use to still populate the containers without excising the public method so I have data to test with? Is there a way to do this with mock' patch.dict() that I missed?

  Read the article

• Dell Inspiron7520 and ubntu 12.04 issues

  - by user91358

  I have a DELL Inspiron 7520 in the highest configuration: 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3612QM processor (6M Cache, up to 3.1 GHz) 15.6" Full High Definition (1080p) LED Display 8GB3 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz 1TB 5400RPM SATA HDD + 32GB mSATA SSD w/Intel Smart Response Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD) AMD Radeon™ HD 7730M 2GB 6.09 lbs and I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 few days ago and I'm facing some issues: 1) sometimes the whole ntb freezes and I have to hold power button for 5 secs to shut it down. I think it is something with VGA and connected external monitor. I have read somewhere that it is already a reported bug, but what I am not sure about that it is doing sporadically. Sometimes it freezes right after I log in, sometime I ran few hours and then it freezes. I am using those proprietary drivers but I wasn't been able to install those with updates. 2) the next issue is the fan is quite noisy even when the ntb is almost Idle. (max 10% CPU usage). Can you recommend me some software which could do this power management to lower the noise? I have tried CPU frequency scaling indicator, but it seems that it has not any effects. 3) and issue no. 3: when I want to log out, restart or shutdown using the menu in upper right corner the upper and left trays disappear, but programs are still running and they won't close to complete log out or shutting down the OS. When I use the CLI command, it works fine. Thanks for any help you can provide.

  Read the article

• Change spacing of icons in Indicator Applet Complete, preferably by editing a config file?

  - by PeaTearGriffin

  Changing icon spacing within Application Indicator Complete. If at all possible, I'd like to space them with about 1-3px between each one. https://launchpad.net/indicator-applet [Website] I'm using 12.04, and in GNOME Classic (No Effects). I'm working from a netbook (1024x600), and am trying to fit everything into one panel for the sake of screen conservation. Ironically, my netbook is often without reliable net access, and so a way to simply edit a config file or the like would be ideal, as opposed to downloading patches, modified packages, etc., but anything would be helpful. Even pointing me in the direction of how to start rebuilding the indicator to meet my needs (if need-be) would be welcome. Does anyone know of a method that would serve my purpose? EDIT: I've downloaded v0.4.93 from the site mentioned above, and took a look inside the archive. Couldn't find anything clearly alluding to object placement/size and such. Maybe just a pointer on where to find those params would do? EDIT 2: Some more info on my WM/DE: I'm pretty sure GNOME classic is gtk2 not gtk3, and equally sure my windows manager is metacity, as opposed to compiz. "equally sure" meaning i could be horribly wrong, but when I edit the metacity css file for my theme (which ive switched to "Adawaita"), it takes effect after logout/login. My inability to modify the spacing persists. Im gonna see if i can contact someone involved in its dev to get their input, will post results here if fruitful.

  Read the article

• Hard drive clicking noise on Acer AO722

  - by Blank

  I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 on an Acer Aspire One 722. Whenever I'm on battery power I get a clicking sound from my hard drive every 5 seconds or so (this does not happen when the laptop is plugged in). I'm dual booting with Windows 7 and I don't get the clicking sound in Windows. The clicking sound stops when I run the command:sudo hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda Also, according to:sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda my hard drive is healthy. Is this clicking sound something I can just ignore? Or is it a serious problem and will it eventually damage my computer? If so, how would I fix it? I have tried adding hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda to my /etc/rc.local file, but I still run into the clicking problem if my computer boots while plugged in and is then unplugged. Also, I'm finding this fix to be unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Is this a good solution and is there a better way of doing this? Also, would running my laptop with a -B value of 254 have any negative effects? (I read somewhere about a lower level protecting the hard drive from bumps)

  Read the article

• Replacement for Picasa [closed]

  - by January

  Possible Duplicate: What is the best alternative to Picasa? I use Picasa not because it is a great photo manager -- it's not, the manager is "sort of OK" for my taste. However, it combines a passable photo manager with a good "quick and dirty" image editor. It has the basic functions like cropping, resizing, contrast and color adjustment, and the one great feature -- "I'm feeling lucky" button, that works in 90% of the cases. Also, from time to time, I use one or two of the effects (like saturation or sharpening). GIMP is great and I use it on a regular basis, but in most cases I just want to go quickly through the photographs of my kids birthday and make them more presentable without much fuss. I'm looking for a native, open source replacement, something that would not miss the editing capabilities of Picasa and would allow me to quickly go through a collection of photographs and make basic edits. A function similar to "I'm feeling lucky" (automatic adjustment of contrast, color and brightness) would be most welcome. EDIT: Yes, I have already tried a number of alternatives, if it is necessary I can produce a detailed list here, along with the problems I found. I'm posting that question because I hope to see a new name.

  Read the article

• Hue, saturation, brightness, contrast effect in hlsl

  - by Vibhore Tanwer

  I am new to pixel shader, and I am trying to write a simple brightness, contrast, hue, saturation effect. I have written a shader for it but I doubt that my shader is not providing me correct result, Brightness, contrast, saturation is working fine, problem is with hue. if I apply hue between -1 to 1, it seems to be working fine, but to make things more sharp, I need to apply hue value between -180 and 180, like we can apply hue in Paint.NET. Here is my code. // Amount to shift the Hue, range 0 to 6 float Hue; float Brightness; float Contrast; float Saturation; float Alpha; sampler Samp : register(S0); // Converts the rgb value to hsv, where H's range is -1 to 5 float3 rgb_to_hsv(float3 RGB) { float r = RGB.x; float g = RGB.y; float b = RGB.z; float minChannel = min(r, min(g, b)); float maxChannel = max(r, max(g, b)); float h = 0; float s = 0; float v = maxChannel; float delta = maxChannel - minChannel; if (delta != 0) { s = delta / v; if (r == v) h = (g - b) / delta; else if (g == v) h = 2 + (b - r) / delta; else if (b == v) h = 4 + (r - g) / delta; } return float3(h, s, v); } float3 hsv_to_rgb(float3 HSV) { float3 RGB = HSV.z; float h = HSV.x; float s = HSV.y; float v = HSV.z; float i = floor(h); float f = h - i; float p = (1.0 - s); float q = (1.0 - s * f); float t = (1.0 - s * (1 - f)); if (i == 0) { RGB = float3(1, t, p); } else if (i == 1) { RGB = float3(q, 1, p); } else if (i == 2) { RGB = float3(p, 1, t); } else if (i == 3) { RGB = float3(p, q, 1); } else if (i == 4) { RGB = float3(t, p, 1); } else /* i == -1 */ { RGB = float3(1, p, q); } RGB *= v; return RGB; } float4 mainPS(float2 uv : TEXCOORD) : COLOR { float4 col = tex2D(Samp, uv); float3 hsv = rgb_to_hsv(col.xyz); hsv.x += Hue; // Put the hue back to the -1 to 5 range //if (hsv.x > 5) { hsv.x -= 6.0; } hsv = hsv_to_rgb(hsv); float4 newColor = float4(hsv,col.w); float4 colorWithBrightnessAndContrast = newColor; colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb /= colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.a; colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb = colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb + Brightness; colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb = ((colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb - 0.5f) * max(Contrast + 1.0, 0)) + 0.5f; colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb *= colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.a; float greyscale = dot(colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb, float3(0.3, 0.59, 0.11)); colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb = lerp(greyscale, colorWithBrightnessAndContrast.rgb, col.a * (Saturation + 1.0)); return colorWithBrightnessAndContrast; } technique TransformTexture { pass p0 { PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 mainPS(); } } Please If anyone can help me learning what am I doing wrong or any suggestions? Any help will be of great value. EDIT: Images of the effect at hue 180: On the left hand side, the effect I got with @teodron answer. On the right hand side, The effect Paint.NET gives and I'm trying to reproduce.

  Read the article

• 5 reason why you should upgrade to new iPad (3rd generation)

  - by Gopinath

  Apple released the new iPad, 3rd generation, couple of days ago and they will be available in stores from March 16 onwards.  It’s the best tablet available in the market and for first time buyers it’s a no brainer to choose it. What about the iPad owners? Should they upgrade their iPad 2 to the new iPad? This is the question on the lips of most of the iPad owners. In this post we will provide you 5 reasons why you should upgrade your iPad, if more than two reasons are convincing then you should upgrade to the new iPad. Retina display – The best display ever made for mobile device, a game changer The new iPad comes with Retina display with screen resolution of 2048 x 1536, which is twice the resolution of iPad 2. Undoubtedly the iPad 3’s display is the best display ever made for a mobile device and it’s a game changer. With better resolution on iPad 3 eBook reading is going to be a pleasure with clear and crisp text Watching HD movies on iPad is going to be unbelievably good The new Games targeted for Retina display are going to be more realistic and needless to explain the pleasure of playing such games Graphic artists and photo editors get a professional on screen rendering support to create beautiful graphics 2x Faster & 2x Memory – Better Games and powerful Apps The new iPad is more powerful with 2x faster graphics and 2x more memory. Apple claims that the A5x processor of new iPad is 2x faster than iPad 2 and 4x faster than the best graphic chips available from other vendors. The RAM of  new iPad  is upgraded to 1 GB compared from 512 MB of iPad 2. With the fast processor and more memory, Apps and games are going to be blazing fast. 4G Internet – Browse the web at the speeds of 42 MB/sec Half of the iPad owners are frequent commuters who access internet over cellular networks, the new iPad’s 4G LTE is going to be a big boom for their  high data access needs. With the new iPad’s 4G LTE connectivity you can browse the web at 42 MB/sec and it mean you can watch a HD video without buffering issues. iPad 2 comes with 3G network support and it’s browsing speeds are way less than the new iPad. 5MP Camera – HD Movie Recording & gorgeous Photography iPad 2 has a 0.7 mega pixel camera and the new iPad comes with 5 megapixels camera. That is a huge boost for hobbyist  photographers and videographers. With the new iPad you can shoot gorgeous photos and 1080p HD video. The iSight camera of new iPad uses advanced optics with features like auto exposure, auto focus and face detection up to 10 faces. Amazon Pays up to $300 for old iPad 2 16 GB Wifi and more for other models Do you know that you can trade in your iPad 2 16 GB Wifi for upto $300? Amazon has an excellent trade in program for selling your used iPad 2s. Depending on the condition of the iPad 2  Amazon offers $234, $270, $300.00 for 16 GB Wifi versions that in Acceptable, Good and Like New conditions respectively.  The higher models of iPad 2s fetch you more money. With this great deal from Amazon the amount of extra money you need to spend for new iPad is almost half of their price. Visit Amazon Trade In’s website or read Amazon’s brilliant plan to pay you crazy money for your iPad 2 for more details. Related: New IPad Vs. IPad 2–Side By Side Comparison Of Hardware Specification [Infographic]

  Read the article

• How to prepare for a telephone interview: ‘Develop an Interview Cheat Sheet’

  - by Maria Sandu

  At Oracle we often do telephone interviews in different stages of the process with candidates, due to the fact that we hire native speakers into other countries. On this blog we already have an article with tips and tricks for phone interviews that can help you during the telephone interviews. To help you prepare even better for a telephone interview we would like to introduce you the basics of developing a cheat sheet. The benefit of a telephone interview is that you will be sitting at home, at your table or desk, during the interview, and not in front of someone. So use this to your advantage. The Monster website has some useful and interesting tips and tricks for developing a cheat sheet. Carole Martin, who wrote this article, says that a cheat sheet will help you feel more prepared and confident when speaking to managers over the phone. Important to keep in mind is that you shouldn't memorise what's on the sheet or check it off during the interview. Only use your cheat sheet to remind you of key facts. Here are some suggestions to include on it: • Divide a piece of paper in 2 by drawing a line. Write on one side of the paper a list of requirements as mentioned in the job description. On the other side list your qualities to fulfill the requirements of the employer. This will help you in answering questions about why you are the best candidate for the job and how you fit the role. • Do research on the company, the industry sector and the competitors, so you will get a feeling for the company’s business and can ask more in-depth questions. • Be prepared for the most used introduction question: “Tell me a bit about yourself”. Prepare a 60-second personal statement or pitch in which you summarise who you are and what you can offer, so you will be able to sell yourself from on the very beginning. • Write down a minimum of 5 good examples to answer behavioral interview questions ("Tell me about a time when..." or "Give me an example of a time..." ). These questions are used by interviewers to see how you deal with similar situations as you might encounter in the job. Interviewers use this question as past behaviour is scientifically proven to be the best predictor for future behaviour. • List five questions to ask the interviewer about the job, the company and the industry to help you get a good understanding if the role and company really fit your needs and wants. To get some inspiration check this article on inc.com • Find out how much you are worth on the job market and determine your needs based on your living expenses, especially when moving abroad. • Ask for permission from the people you plan to use as a reference. Also make sure you have your CV at hand and an overview of your grades. Feel free to comment on this article and let us know what your experience is with developing a cheat sheet for a telephone interview. Good luck with the preparation of your sheet.

  Read the article

• DevConnections Slides and Samples Posted

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’ve posted the slides and samples to my DevConnections Sessions for anyone interested. I had a lot of fun with my sessions this time around mainly because the sessions picked were a little off the beaten track (well, the handlers/modules and e-commerce sessions anyway). For those of you that attended I hope you found the sessions useful. For the rest of you – you can check out the slides and samples if you like. Here’s what was covered: Introduction to jQuery with ASP.NET This session covered mostly the client side of jQuery demonstrated on a small sample page with a variety of incrementally built up examples of selection and page manipulation. This session also introduces some of the basics of AJAX communication talking to ASP.NET. When I do this session it never turns out exactly the same way and this time around the examples were on the more basic side and purely done with hands on demonstrations rather than walk throughs of more complex examples. Alas this session always feels like it needs another half an hour to get through the full sortiment of functionality. The slides and samples cover a wider variety of topics and there are many examples that demonstrate more advanced operations like interacting with WCF REST services, using client templating and building rich client only windowed interfaces. Download Low Level ASP.NET: Handlers and Modules This session was a look at the ASP.NET pipeline and it discusses some of the ASP.NET base architecture and key components from HttpRuntime on up through the various modules and handlers that make up the ASP.NET/IIS pipeline. This session is fun as there are a number of cool examples that demonstrate the power and flexibility of ASP.NET, but some of the examples were external and interfacing with other technologies so they’re not actually included in the downloadable samples. However, there are still a few cool ones in there – there’s an image resizing handler, an image overlay module that stamps images with Sample if loaded from a certain folder, an OpenID authentication module (which failed during the demo due to the crappy internet connection at DevConnections this year :-}), Response filtering using a generic filter stream component, a generic error handler and a few others. The slides cover a lot of the ASP.NET pipeline flow and various HttpRuntime components. Download Electronic Payment Processing in ASP.NET Applications This session covered the business end and integration of electronic credit card processing and PayPal. A good part of this session deals with what’s involved in payment processing, getting signed up and who you have to deal with for your merchant account. We then took a look at integration of credit card processing via some generic components provided with the session that allow processing using a unified class interface with specific implementations for several of the most common gateway providers including Authorize.NET, PayFlowPro, LinkPoint, BluePay etc. We also briefly looked at PayPal Classic implementation which provides a quick and cheap if not quite as professional mechanism for taking payments online. The samples provide the Credit Card processing wrappers for the various gateway providers as well as a PayPal helper class to generate the PayPal redirect urls as well as helper code for dealing with IPN callbacks. Download Hope some of you will find the material useful. Enjoy.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

  Read the article

• WIF, ADFS 2 and WCF&ndash;Part 4: Service Client (using Service Metadata)

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  See parts 1, 2 and 3 first. In this part we will finally build a client for our federated service. There are basically two ways to accomplish this. You can use the WCF built-in tooling to generate client and configuration via the service metadata (aka ‘Add Service Reference’). This requires no WIF on the client side. Another approach would be to use WIF’s WSTrustChannelFactory to manually talk to the ADFS 2 WS-Trust endpoints. This option gives you more flexibility, but is slightly more code to write. You also need WIF on the client which implies that you need to run on a WIF supported operating system – this rules out e.g. Windows XP clients. We’ll start with the metadata way. You simply create a new client project (e.g. a console app) – call ‘Add Service Reference’ and point the dialog to your service endpoint. What will happen then is, that VS will contact your service and read its metadata. Inside there is also a link to the metadata endpoint of ADFS 2. This one will be contacted next to find out which WS-Trust endpoints are available. The end result will be a client side proxy and a configuration file. Let’s first write some code to call the service and then have a closer look at the config file. var proxy = new ServiceClient(); proxy.GetClaims().ForEach(c =>     Console.WriteLine("{0}\n {1}\n  {2} ({3})\n",         c.ClaimType,         c.Value,         c.Issuer,         c.OriginalIssuer)); That’s all. The magic is happening in the configuration file. When you in inspect app.config, you can see the following general configuration hierarchy: <client /> element with service endpoint information federation binding and configuration containing ADFS 2 endpoint 1 (with binding and configuration) ADFS 2 endpoint n (with binding and configuration) (where ADFS 2 endpoint 1…n are the endpoints I talked about in part 1) You will see a number of <issuer /> elements in the binding configuration where simply the first endpoint from the ADFS 2 metadata becomes the default endpoint and all other endpoints and their configuration are commented out. You now need to find the endpoint you want to use (based on trust version, credential type and security mode) and replace that with the default endpoint. That’s it. When you call the WCF proxy, it will inspect configuration, then first contact the selected ADFS 2 endpoint to request a token. This token will then be used to authenticate against the service. In the next post I will show you the more manual approach using the WIF APIs.

  Read the article

• RegexClean Transformation

  Use the power of regular expressions to cleanse your data right there inside the Data Flow. This transformation includes a full user interface for simple configuration, as well as advanced features such as error output configuration. Two regular expressions are used, a match expression and a replace expression. The transformation is designed around the named capture groups or match groups, and even supports multiple expressions. This allows for rich and complex expressions to be built, all through an easy to reuse transformation where a bespoke Script Component was previously the only alternative. Some simple properties are available for each column selected – Behaviour The two behaviour modes offer similar functionality but with a difference. Replace, replaces tokens with the input, and Emit overwrites the whole string. Cascade Cascade allows you to define multiple expressions, each on a new line. The match expression will be processed into one operation per line, which are then processed in order at run-time. Multiple replace expressions can also be specified, again each on a new line. If there is no corresponding replace expression for a match expression line, then the last replace expression will be used instead. It is common to have multiple match expressions, but only a single replace expression. Match Expression The expression used to define the named capture groups. This is where you can analyse the data, and tag or name elements within it as found by the match expression. Replace Expression The replace determines the final output. It will reference the named groups from the match expression and assembles them into the final output. If you want to use regular expressions to validate data then try the Regular Expression Transformation. Quick Start Guide Select a column. A new output column is created for each selected column; there is no option for in-place replacement of column values. One input column can be used to populate multiple output columns, just select the column again in the lower grid, using the Input Columns drop-down selector. Amend the output column name and size as required. They default to the same as the input column selected. Amend the behaviour as required, the default is Replace. Amend the cascade option as required, the default is true. Finally enter your match and replace regular expressions Quick Sample #1 Parse an email address and extract the user and domain portions. Format as a web address passing the user portion as a URL parameter. This uses two match groups, user and host, which correspond to the text before the @ and after it respectively. Behaviour is Emit, and cascade of false, we only have a single match expression. Match Expression ^(?<user>[^@]+)@(?<host>.+)$ Replace Expression - http://www.${host}?user=${user} Results Sample Input Sample Output [email protected] http://www.adventure-works.com?user=zheng0 The component is provided as an MSI file, however to complete the installation, you will have to add the transformation to the Visual Studio toolbox manually. Right-click the toolbox, and select Choose Items.... Select the SSIS Data Flow Items tab, and then check the RegexClean Transformation from the list. Downloads The RegexClean Transformation is available for both SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. Please choose the version to match your SQL Server version, or you can install both versions and use them side by side if you have both SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 installed. RegexClean Transformation for SQL Server 2005 RegexClean Transformation for SQL Server 2008 Version History SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.105 - Public Release (28 Jan 2008) SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.105 - Public Release (28 Jan 2008) Screenshot

  Read the article

• Things to install on a new machine – revisited

  - by RoyOsherove

  as I prepare to get a new dev machine at work, I write the things I am going to install on it, before writing the first line of code on that machine: Control Freak Tools: Everything Search Engine – a free and amazingly fast search engine for files all over your machine. (just file names, not inside files). This is so fast I use it almost as a replacement for my start menu, but it’s also great for finding those files that get hidden and tucked away in dark places on my system. Ever had a situation where you needed to see exactly how many copies of X.dll were hiding on your machine and where? this tool is perfect for that. Google Chrome. It’s just fast. very fast. and Firefox has become the IE of alternative browsers in terms of speed and memory. Don’t even get me started on IE. TweetDeck – get a complete view of what’s up on twitter Total Commander – my still favorite file manager, over five years now. KatMouse – will scroll any window your hovering on, even if it’s not an active window, when you use scroll the wheel on it. PowerIso or Daemon Tools – for loading up ISO images of discs LogMeIn Ignition – quick access to your LogMeIn computers for online Backup: JungleDisk or BackBlaze KeePass – save important passwords MS Security Essentials – free anti virus that’s quoest and doesn’t make a mess of your system. for home: uTorrent – a torrent client that can read rss feeds (like the ones from ezrss.it ) Camtasia Studio and SnagIt – for recording and capturing the screen, and then adding cool effects on top. Foxit PDF Reader – much faster that adove reader. Toddler Keys (for home) – for when your baby wants to play with your keyboard. Live Writer – for writing blog posts for Lenovo ThinkPads – Lenovo System Update – if you have a “custom” system instead of the one that came built in, this will keep all your lenovo drivers up to date. FileZilla – for FTP stuff All the utils from sysinternals, (or try the live-links) especially: AutoRuns for deciding what’s really going to load at startup, procmon to see what’s really going on with processes in your system   Developer stuff: Reflector. Pure magic. Time saver. See source code of any compiled assembly. Resharper. Great for productivity and navigation across your source code FinalBuilder – a commercial build automation tool. Love it. much better than any xml based time hog out there. TeamCity – a great visual and friendly server to manage continuous integration. powerful features. Test Lint – a free addin for vs 2010 I helped create, that checks your unit tests for possible problems and hints you about it. TestDriven.NET – a great test runner for vs 2008 and 2010 with some powerful features. VisualSVN – a commercial tool if you use subversion. very reliable addin for vs 2008 and 2010 Beyond Compare – a powerful file and directory comparison tool. I love the fact that you can right click in windows exporer on any file and select “select left side to compare”, then right click on another file and select “compare with left side”. Great usability thought! PostSharp 2.0 – for addind system wide concepts into your code (tracing, exception management). Goes great hand in hand with.. SmartInspect – a powerful framework and viewer for tracing for your application. lots of hidden features. Crypto Obfuscator – a relatively new obfuscation tool for .NET that seems to do the job very well. Crypto Licensing – from the same company –finally a licensing solution that seems to really fit what I needed. And it works. Fiddler 2 – great for debugging and tracing http traffic to and from your app. Debugging Tools for Windows and DebugDiag  - great for debugging scenarios. still wanting more? I think this should keep you busy for a while.   Regulator and Regulazy – for testing and generating regular expressions Notepad 2 – for quick editing and viewing with syntax highlighting

  Read the article

• From the Tips Box: Pre-installation Prep Work Makes Service Pack Upgrades Smoother

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Last month Microsoft rolled out Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and, like many SP releases, quite a few people are hanging back to see what happens. If you want to update but still error on the side of caution, reader Ron Troy  offers a step-by-step guide. Ron’s cautious approach does an excellent job minimizing the number of issues that could crop up in a Service Pack upgrade by doing a thorough job updating your driver sets and clearing out old junk before you roll out the update. Read on to see how he does it: Just wanted to pass on a suggestion for people worried about installing Service Packs.  I came up with a ‘method’ a couple years back that seems to work well. Run Windows / Microsoft Update to get all updates EXCEPT the Service Pack. Use Secunia PSI to find any other updates you need. Use CCleaner or the Windows disk cleanup tools to get rid of all the old garbage out there.  Make sure that you include old system updates. Obviously, back up anything you really care about.  An image backup can be real nice to have if things go wrong. Download the correct SP version from Microsoft.com; do not use Windows / Microsoft Update to get it.  Make sure you have the 64 bit version if that’s what you have installed on your PC. Make sure that EVERYTHING that affects the OS is up to date.  That includes all sorts of drivers, starting with video and audio.  And if you have an Intel chipset, use the Intel Driver Utility to update those drivers.  It’s very quick and easy.  For the video and audio drivers, some can be updated by Intel, some by utilities on the vendor web sites, and some you just have to figure out yourself.  But don’t be lazy here; old drivers and Windows Service Packs are a poor mix. If you have 3rd party software, check to see if they have any updates for you.  They might not say that they are for the Service Pack but you cut your risk of things not working if you do this. Shut off the Antivirus software (especially if 3rd party). Reboot, hitting F8 to get the SafeMode menu.  Choose SafeMode with Networking. Log into the Administrator account to ensure that you have the right to install the SP. Run the SP.  It won’t be very fancy this way.  Maybe 45 minutes later it will reboot and then finish configuring itself, finally letting you log in. Total installation time on most of my PC’s was about 1 hour but that followed hours of preparation on each. On a separate note, I recently got on the Nvidia web site and their utility told me I had a new driver available for my GeForce 8600M GS.  This laptop had come with Vista, now has Win 7 SP1.  I had a big surprise from this driver update; the Windows Experience Score on the graphics side went way up.  Kudo’s to Nvidia for doing a driver update that actually helps day to day usage.  And unlike ATI’s updates (which I need for my AGP based system), this update was fairly quick and very easy.  Also, Nvidia drivers have never, as I can recall, given me BSOD’s, many of which I’ve gotten from ATI (TDR errors).How to Enable Google Chrome’s Secret Gold IconHTG Explains: What’s the Difference Between the Windows 7 HomeGroups and XP-style Networking?Internet Explorer 9 Released: Here’s What You Need To Know

  Read the article

• How can I change mouse keymapping

  - by zuberuber

  I have Razer DeathAdder(left handed edition) and A4Tech wireless mouse. My problem is I don't know how to change wireless mouse keymapping(swaping left/right click). Can somebody guide me how to do such thing? List of my devices: ? Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)] ? ? Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:4004 id=8 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? Razer Razer DeathAdder id=11 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? A4TECH USB Device id=12 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? A4TECH USB Device id=13 [slave pointer (2)] ? Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)] ? Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Logitech USB Keyboard id=9 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Logitech USB Keyboard id=10 [slave keyboard (3)] This is my Razer xinput: Device 'Razer Razer DeathAdder': Device Enabled (121): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (123): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 Device Accel Profile (246): 0 Device Accel Constant Deceleration (247): 5.000000 Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (248): 1.000000 Device Accel Velocity Scaling (249): 10.000000 Device Product ID (240): 5426, 22 Device Node (241): "/dev/input/event4" Evdev Axis Inversion (250): 0, 0 Evdev Axes Swap (252): 0 Axis Labels (253): "Rel X" (131), "Rel Y" (132), "Rel Vert Wheel" (274) Button Labels (254): "Button Left" (124), "Button Middle" (125), "Button Right" (126), "Button Wheel Up" (127), "Button Wheel Down" (128), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (129), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (130), "Button Side" (269), "Button Extra" (270), "Button Forward" (271), "Button Back" (272), "Button Task" (273), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243) Evdev Middle Button Emulation (255): 0 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (256): 50 Evdev Third Button Emulation (257): 0 Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (258): 1000 Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (259): 3 Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (260): 20 Evdev Wheel Emulation (261): 0 Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (262): 0, 0, 4, 5 Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (263): 10 Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (264): 200 Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (265): 4 Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (266): 0 And this is my wireless mouse xinput: Device 'A4TECH USB Device': Device Enabled (121): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (123): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 Device Accel Profile (246): 0 Device Accel Constant Deceleration (247): 1.000000 Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (248): 1.000000 Device Accel Velocity Scaling (249): 10.000000 Device Product ID (240): 2522, 1359 Device Node (241): "/dev/input/event16" Evdev Axis Inversion (250): 0, 0 Evdev Axes Swap (252): 0 Axis Labels (253): "Rel X" (131), "Rel Y" (132), "Rel Horiz Wheel" (245), "Rel Vert Wheel" (274) Button Labels (254): "Button Left" (124), "Button Middle" (125), "Button Right" (126), "Button Wheel Up" (127), "Button Wheel Down" (128), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (129), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (130), "Button Side" (269), "Button Extra" (270), "Button Forward" (271), "Button Back" (272), "Button Task" (273), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243) Evdev Middle Button Emulation (255): 0 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (256): 50 Evdev Third Button Emulation (257): 0 Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (258): 1000 Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (259): 3 Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (260): 20 Evdev Wheel Emulation (261): 0 Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (262): 0, 0, 4, 5 Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (263): 10 Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (264): 200 Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (265): 4 Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (266): 0

  Read the article

• How to Crop Pictures in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2010

  - by DigitalGeekery

  When you add pictures to your Office documents you might need to crop them to remove unwanted areas, or isolate a specific part. Today we’ll take a look at how to crop images in Office 2010. Note: We will show you examples in Word, but you can crop images in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. To insert a picture into your Office document, click the Picture button on the Insert tab. The Picture Tools format ribbon should now be active. If not, click on the image. New in Office 2010 is the ability to see the area of the photo that you are keeping in addition to what will be cropped out. On the Format tab, click Crop. Click and drag inward any of the four corners to crop from any one side. Notice you can still see the area to be cropped out is show in translucent gray. Press and hold the CTRL key while you drag a corner cropping handle inward to crop equally on all four sides. To crop equally on right and left or the top and bottom, press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the center cropping handle on either side inward. You can further adjust the cropping area by clicking and dragging the picture behind the cropping area. To accept the current dimensions and crop the photo, press escape or click anywhere outside the cropping area. You can manually crop the image to exact dimensions. This can be done by right clicking on the image and entering the dimensions in the Width and Height boxes, or in the Size group on the Format tab.   Crop to a Shape Select your photo and click Crop from the Size group on the Format tab. Select Crop to Shape and choose any of the available shapes. You photo will be cropped into that shape. Using Fit and Fill If you wish to crop a photo but fill the shape, select Fill. When you choose this option, some edges of the picture might not display but the original picture aspect ratio is maintained. If you wish to have all of the picture fit within a shape, choose Fit. The original picture aspect ratio will be maintained.   Conclusion Users moving from previous versions of Microsoft Office are sure to appreciate the improved cropping abilities in Office 2010, especially the ability to see what will and won’t be kept when you crop a photo. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Import Microsoft Access Data Into ExcelEmbed an Excel Worksheet Into PowerPoint or Word 2007Add Artistic Effects to Your Pictures in Office 2010Embed True Type Fonts in Word and PowerPoint 2007 DocumentsChange The Default Color Scheme In Office 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 TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate

  Read the article

• Add the Vista Style Sidebar Back to Windows 7

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you are moving from Vista to Windows 7, you might miss the Sidebar which was introduced in Vista. Today we take a look at a couple options for getting a Sidebar back in Windows 7. Copy Files from Vista Note: In this example we are using 32-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7. Make sure you are logged in with Administrator credentials. If you have a Vista machine running, we can copy the Windows Sidebar files over to the Windows 7 machine. On the Vista machine navigate to C:\Program Files and copy the Windows Sidebar folder and all of its contents over to a flash drive or network location. On the Windows 7 machine go to C:\Program Files and rename the Windows Sidebar folder to something like Windows Sidebar_old. Now copy the Vista Windows Sidebar folder into C:\Program Files… Now you will have both folders…Windows Sidebar and Windows Sidebar_old in your C:\Program Files folder. Right-click on the desktop and select Gadgets. There you are…the Original Vista Sidebar is back and will act as it did in Vista. Move Sidebar Gadgets Another work around if you don’t have a copy of Vista, you can simply move the Desktop Gadgets you want over to the right side of the screen and they will stay there…no dock needed. Type gadgets into the Search box in the Windows Start Menu and click on Desktop Gadgets. Then drag the included Gadgets you want over to the right side of the screen. Or click on the link to Get more gadgets online to find more. Once you have them where you want, each time you reboot they will still be in the same location. This holds true no matter where you place them on your desktop as well. Install Desktop Sidebar If you want an enhanced sidebar that includes a lot of different features, and don’t have a copy of Vista, you might want to check out Desktop Sidebar Beta (link below). This is a freeware application that works with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. After installation you can access it from the Start Menu… Here is how it will look after you launch it… It includes several pre-installed panels including a clock, Media Player, Search Bar, Slideshow, Messenger, Outlook inbox, Tasks, Quick Launch, Performance…and a lot more. It is highly customizable and allows you to change skins, add various levels of transparency, and a lot more. One caveat with going with Desktop Sidebar is we didn’t find a way to add Windows Gadgets to it (though there might be a plugin for it that we’re not aware of). But there are so many options, you may not mind. However, you can still use the desktop gadgets as you normally would in Windows 7. Believe it or not, some people actually prefer the Vista style Sidebar and would like it back in Windows 7. With these options you can get the Vista Sidebar back if you have a copy of Vista, place the Gadgets on the desktop, or go the freeware route. Download Desktop Sidebar (freeware) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable Windows Sidebar in VistaHow To Repair Your Crashed or Hanging Vista SidebarApplying Themes To Your Windows Vista SidebarDisable Sidebar / Desktop Gadgets on Windows 7Put AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) In your Windows Sidebar 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 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox)

  Read the article

• Bancassurers Seek IT Solutions to Support Distribution Model

  - by [email protected]

  Oracle Insurance's director of marketing for EMEA, John Sinclair, attended the third annual Bancassurance Forum in Vienna last month. He reports that the outlook for bancassurance in EMEA remains positive, despite changing market conditions that have led a number of bancassurers to re-examine their business models. Vienna is at the crossroads between mature Western European markets, where bancassurance is now an established best practice, and more recently tapped Eastern European markets that offer the greatest growth potential. Attendance at the Bancassurance Forum was good, with 87 bancassurance attendees, most in very senior positions in the industry. The conference provided the chance for a lively discussion among bancassurers looking to keep abreast of the latest trends in one of Europe's most successful distribution models for insurance. Even under normal business conditions, there is a great demand for best practice sharing within the industry as there is no standard formula for success.  Each company has to chart its own course and choose the strategies for sales, products development and the structure of ownership that make sense for their business, and as soon as they get it right bancassurers need to adapt the mix to keep up with ever changing regulations, completion and economic conditions.  To optimize the overall relationship between banking and insurance for mutual benefit, a balance needs to be struck between potentially conflicting interests. The banking side of the house is looking for greater wallet share from its customers and the ability to increase profitability by bundling insurance products with higher margins - especially in light of the recent economic crisis, where margins for traditional banking products are low and completion high. The insurance side of the house seeks access to new customers through a complementary distribution channel that is efficient and cost effective. To make the relationship work, it is important that both sides of the same house forge strategic and long term relationships - irrespective of whether the underlying business model is supported by a distribution agreement, cross-ownership or other forms of capital structure. However, this third annual conference was not held under normal business conditions. The conference took place in challenging, yet interesting times. ING's forced spinoff of its insurance operations under pressure by the EU Commission and the troubling losses suffered by Allianz as a result of the Dresdner bank sale were fresh in everyone's mind. One year after markets crashed, there is now enough hindsight to better understand the implications for bancassurance and best practices that are emerging to deal with them. The loan-driven business that has been crucial to bancassurance up till now evaporated during the crisis, leaving bancassurers grappling with how to change their overall strategy from a loan-driven to a more diversified model.  Attendees came to the conference to learn what strategies were working - not only to cope with the market shift, but to take advantage of it as markets pick up. Over the course of 14 customer case studies and numerous analyst presentations, topical issues ranging from getting the business model right to the impact on capital structuring of Solvency II were debated openly. Many speakers alluded to the need to specifically design insurance products with the banking distribution channel in mind, which brings with it specific requirements such as a high degree of standardization to achieve efficiency and reduce training costs. Moreover, products must be engineered to suit end consumers who consider banks a one-stop shop. The importance of IT to the successful implementation of bancassurance strategies was a theme that surfaced regularly throughout the conference.  The cross-selling opportunity - that will ultimately determine the success or failure of any bancassurance model - can only be fully realized through a flexible IT architecture that enables banking and insurance processes to be integrated and presented to front-line staff through a common interface. However, the reality is that most bancassurers have legacy IT systems, which constrain the businesses' ability to implement new strategies to maintaining competitiveness in turbulent times. My colleague Glenn Lottering, who chaired the conference, believes that the primary opportunities for bancassurers to extract value from their IT infrastructure investments lie in distribution management, risk management with the advent of Solvency II, and achieving operational excellence. "Oracle is ideally suited to meet the needs of bancassurance," Glenn noted, "supplying market-leading software for both banking and insurance. Oracle provides adaptive systems that let customers easily integrate hybrid business processes from both worlds while leveraging existing IT infrastructure." Overall, the consensus at the conference was that the outlook for bancassurance in EMEA remains positive, despite changing market conditions that have led a number of bancassurers to re-examine their business models. John Sinclair is marketing director for Oracle Insurance in EMEA. He has more than 20 years of experience in insurance and financial services.    

  Read the article

• Know Your Audience, And/Or Your Customer

  - by steve.diamond

  Yesterday I gave an internal presentation to about 20 Oracle employees on "messaging," not messaging technology, but embarking on the process of building messages. One of the elements I covered was the importance of really knowing and understanding your audience. As a humorous reference I included two side-by-side photos of Oakland A's fans and Oakland Raiders fans. The Oakland A's fans looked like happy-go-lucky drunk types. The Oakland Raiders fans looked like angry extras from a low budget horror flick. I then asked my presentation attendees what these two groups had in common. Here's what I heard. --They're human (at least I THINK they're human). --They're from Oakland. --They're sports fans. After that, it was anyone's guess. A few days earlier we were putting the finishing touches on a sales presentation for one of our product lines. We had included an upfront "lead in" addressing how the economy is improving, yet that doesn't mean sales executives will have any more resources to add to their teams, invest in technology, etc. This "lead in" included miscellaneous news article headlines and statistics validating the slowly improving economy. When we subjected this presentation to internal review two days ago, this upfront section in particular was scrutinized. "Is the economy really getting better? I (exclamation point) don't think it's really getting better. Haven't you seen the headlines coming out of Greece and Europe?" Then the question TO ME became, "Who will actually be in the audience that sees and hears this presentation? Will s/he be someone like me? Or will s/he be someone like the critic who didn't like our lead-in?" We took the safe route and removed that lead in. After all, why start a "pitch" with a component that is arguably subjective? What if many of our audience members are individuals at organizations still facing a strong headwind? For reasons I won't go into here, it was the right decision to make. The moral of the story: Make sure you really know your audience. Harness the wisdom of the information your organization's CRM systems collect to get that fully informed "customer view." Conduct formal research. Conduct INFORMAL research. Ask lots of questions. Study industries and scenarios that have nothing to do with yours to see "how they do it." Stop strangers in coffee shops and on the street...seriously. Last week I caught up with an old friend from high school who recently retired from a 25 year career with the USMC. He said, "I can learn something from every single person I come into contact with." What a great way of approaching the world. Then, think about and write down what YOU like and dislike as a customer. But also remember that when it comes to your company's products, you are most likely NOT the customer, so don't go overboard in superimposing your own world view. Approaching the study of customers this way adds rhyme, reason and CONTEXT to lengthy blog posts like this one. Know your audience.

  Read the article

• FFmpeg Video Hosting for Linux and Windows Server

  - by Aditi

  FFmpeg hosting is a special type of web hosting where the host servers have video transcoding software loaded on them, which allows the automatic conversion of videos from one format to another. FFmpeg is a cross-platform solution for recording, converting, transcoding and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec – the leading audio/video codec library. FFmpeg hosting gets its name from a set of server side programs (modules) called FFmpeg. There are a number of applications or web scripts available, which allow webmasters to create their own video sharing websites. Video hosting typically requires: PHP 4.3 and above (including support of CLI) Mencoder and also Mplayer FFMpeg-PHP MySQL database server LAME MP3 Encoder Libogg + Libvorbis GD Library 2 or higher CGI-BIN There are number of web service providers who provide FFmpeg hosting service. Following is a list of some of the Best FFmpeg hosting providers for both Linux and Windows Server below. Dream Host Dreamhost provides for web based email access, mail filtering, spam filtering, unlimited email ids, vacation autoresponder, python support, full CGI access and many more services. Price: $7.95 View Details Micfo It offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth. Other services include free domain for life and free Website Transfer with many more services. All in all one of the best option to consider. Price: $5 View Details Host Upon HostUpon offers FFMpeg Hosting on all their hosting packages, with readily installed modules to start a Video website or Social Network with Video uploading. These scripts such as Boonex Dolphin / PHPMotion / Social Engine / ABKsoft Scripts / Joomla Video Plugin / Clipshare / ClipBucket / Social Media / Rayzz / Vidi Script work with their ffmpeg. Their FFMPEG hosting plan offers 24/7/365 support with typical response time of 15min or less. Price: $5.95 View Details DownTown Host DownTown Host provides full and exceptional support by live chat and telephone. It has high-power, modern servers and the finest web server technology. It offers free search engine Submission and continuous data backup protection with free email forwarding and site move. There are many more services too. Site5 This ffmpeg service provider offers uptime guarantee, a real time stats on each server and many more attractive services. Price: $4.95 View Details Cirtex Hosting Cirtex Hosting allows to host 7 websites & domains and provides for unlimited storage space and monthly bandwidth. It also offers FTP and email accounts and many more services. Price: $2.49 View Details FLV Hosting FLV hosting supplies RTMP SERVER STREAMING for large size video streaming and server side recording. It is flexible and costs less. They customize to the clients requirements. Price: $9.95 View Details AptHost This hosting service provides for 24x7x365 Premium Support and fully ffmpeg enabled services. Price: $4.95 View Details HostMDS Great Support, Priced Low. It provides for SSH access, CGI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, PHP, MySQL, front page extentions, 24/7 Support, FREE Domain transfer and spam filtering. It offers instant account setup, low latency fast bandwidth & much more! They were formerly known as Vistapages. Price: $4.95 View Details Related posts:Best WordPress Video Themes for a Video Blog Free Web Based Applications 24+ Coda Alternatives for Windows and Linux

  Read the article

• Linq To SQL: Behaviour for table field which is NotNull and having Default value or binding

  - by kaushalparik27

  I found this something interesting while wandering over community which I would like to share. The post is whole about: DBML is not considering the table field's "Default value or Binding" setting which is a NotNull. I mean the field which can not be null but having default value set needs to be set IsDbGenerated = true in DBML file explicitly.Consider this situation: There is a simple tblEmployee table with below structure: The fields are simple. EmployeeID is a Primary Key with Identity Specification = True with Identity Seed = 1 to autogenerate numeric value for this field. EmployeeName and their EmailAddress to store in rest of 2 fields. And the last one is "DateAdded" with DateTime datatype which doesn't allow NULL but having Default Value/Binding with "GetDate()". That means if we don't pass any value to this field then SQL will insert current date in "DateAdded" field.So, I start with a new website, add a DBML file and dropped the said table to generate LINQ To SQL context class. Finally, I write a simple code snippet to insert data into the tblEmployee table; BUT, I am not passing any value to "DateAdded" field. Because I am considering SQL Server's "Default Value or Binding (GetDate())" setting to this field and understand that SQL will insert current date to this field.        using (TestDatabaseDataContext context = new TestDatabaseDataContext())        {            tblEmployee tblEmpObjet = new tblEmployee();            tblEmpObjet.EmployeeName = "KaushaL";            tblEmpObjet.EmployeeEmailAddress = "[email protected]";            context.tblEmployees.InsertOnSubmit(tblEmpObjet);            context.SubmitChanges();        }Here comes the twist when application give me below error:  This is something not expecting! From the error it clearly depicts that LINQ is passing NULL value to "DateAdded" Field while according to my understanding it should respect Sql Server's "Default value or Binding" setting for this field. A bit googling and I found very interesting related to this problem.When we set Primary Key to any field with "Identity Specification" Property set to true; DBML set one important property "IsDbGenerated=true" for this field. BUT, when we set "Default Value or Biding" property for some field; we need to explicitly tell the DBML/LINQ to let it know that this field is having default binding at DB side that needs to be respected if I don't pass any value. So, the solution is: You need to explicitly set "IsDbGenerated=true" for such field to tell the LINQ that the field is having default value or binding at Sql Server side so, please don't worry if i don't pass any value for it.You can select the field and set this property from property window in DBML Designer file or write the property in DBML.Designer.cs file directly. I have attached a working example with required table script with this post here. I hope this would be helpful for someone hunting for the same. Happy Discovery!

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173  | Next Page >