Search Results

Search found 462 results on 19 pages for 'mad casual'.

Page 17/19 | < Previous Page | 13 14 15 16 17 18 19  | Next Page >

  • Provocative Tweets From the Dachis Social Business Summit

    - by Mike Stiles
    On June 20, all who follow social business and how social is changing how we do business and internal business structures, gathered in London for the Dachis Social Business Summit. In addition to Oracle SVP Product Development, Reggie Bradford, brands and thought leaders posed some thought-provoking ideas and figures. Here are some of the most oft-tweeted points, and our thoughts that they provoked. Tweet: The winners will be those who use data to improve performance.Thought: Everyone is dwelling on ROI. Why isn’t everyone dwelling on the opportunity to make their product or service better (as if that doesn’t have an effect on ROI)? Big data can improve you…let it. Tweet: High performance hinges on integrated teams that interact with each other.Thought: Team members may work well with each other, but does the team as a whole “get” what other teams are doing? That’s the key to an integrated, companywide workforce. (Internal social platforms can facilitate that by the way). Tweet: Performance improvements come from making the invisible visible.Thought: Many of the factors that drive customer behavior and decisions are invisible. Through social, customers are now showing us what we couldn’t see before…if we’re paying attention. Tweet: Games have continuous feedback, which is why they’re so engaging.  Apply that to business operations.Thought: You think your employees have an obligation to be 100% passionate and engaged at all times about making you richer. Think again. Like customers, they must be motivated. Visible insight that they’re advancing on their goals helps. Tweet: Who can add value to the data?  Data will tend to migrate to where it will be most effective.Thought: Not everybody needs all the data. One team will be able to make sense of, use, and add value to data that may be irrelevant to another team. Like a strategized football play, the data has to get sent to the spot on the field where it’s needed most. Tweet: The sale isn’t the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s the start of a new marketing cycle.Thought: Another reason the ROI question is fundamentally flawed. The sale is not the end of the potential return on investment. After-the-sale service and nurturing begins where the sales “victory” ends. Tweet: A dead sale is one that’s not shared.  People must be incentivized to share.Thought: Guess what, customers now know their value to you as marketers on your behalf. They’ll tell people about your product, but you’ve got to answer, “Why should I?” And you’ve got to answer it with something substantial, not lame trinkets. Tweet: Social user motivations are competition, affection, excellence and curiosity.Thought: Your followers will engage IF; they can get something for doing it, love your culture so much they want you to win, are consistently stunned at the perfection and coolness of your products, or have been stimulated enough to want to know more. Tweet: In Europe, 92% surveyed said they couldn’t care less about brands.Thought: Oh well, so much for loving you or being impressed enough with your products & service that they want you to win. We’ve got a long way to go. Tweet: A complaint is a gift.Thought: Our instinct where complaints are concerned is to a) not listen, b) dismiss the one who complains as a kook, c) make excuses, and d) reassure ourselves with internal group-think that they’re wrong and we’re right. It’s the perfect recipe for how to never, ever grow or get better. In a way, this customer cares more than you do. Tweet: 78% of consumers think peer recommendation is the best form of advertising.  Eventually, engagement is going to eat advertising.Thought: Why is peer recommendation best? Trust. If a friend tells me how great a movie was, I believe him. He has credibility with me. He’s seen it, and he could care less if I buy a ticket. He’s telling me it was awesome because he sincerely believes that it was.  That’s gold. Tweet: 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. Thought: This “how mad can we make our customers without losing them” strategy has to end. The customer experience has actual monetary value, money you’re probably leaving on the table. @mikestilesPhoto: stock.xchng

    Read the article

  • YouTube SEO: Video Optimization

    - by Mike Stiles
    SEO optimization is still regarded as one of the primary tools in the digital marketing kit. However and wherever a potential customer is conducting a search, brands want their content to surface in the top results. Makes sense. But without a regular flow of good, relevant content, your SEO opportunities run shallow. We know from several studies video is one of the most engaging forms of content, so why not make sure that in addition to being cool, your videos are helping you win the SEO game? Keywords:-Decide what search phrases make the most sense for your video. Don’t dare use phrases that have nothing to do with the content. You’ll make people mad.-Research those keywords to see how competitive they are. Adjust them so there are still lots of people searching for it, but there are not as many links showing up for it.-Search your potential keywords and phrases to see what comes up. It’s amazing how many people forget to do that. Video Title: -Try to start and/or end with your keyword.-When you search on YouTube, visual action words tend to come up as suggested searches. So try to use action words. Video Description: -Lead with a link to your site (include http://). -Don’t stuff this with your keyword. It leads to bad writing and it won’t work anyway. This is where you convince people to watch, so write for humans. Use some showmanship. -At the end, do a call to action (subscribe, see the whole playlist, visit our social channels, etc.) Video Tags:-Don’t over-tag. 5-10 tags per video is plenty. -If you’re compelled to have more than 10, that means you should probably make more videos specifically targeting all those keywords. Find Linking Pals:-45% of videos are discovered on video sites. But 44% are found through links on blogs and sites.-Write a blog about your video’s content, then link to the video in it. -A good site for finding places to guest blog is myblogguest.com-Once you find good linking partners, they’ll link to your future videos (as long as they’re good and you’re returning the favor). Tap the Power of Similar Videos:-Use Video Reply to associate your video with other topic-related videos. That’s when you make a video responding to or referencing a video made by someone else. Content:-Again, build up a portfolio of videos, not just one that goes after 30 keywords.-Create shorter, sequential videos that pull them deeper into the content and closer to a desired final action.-Organize your video topics separately using Playlists. Playlists show up as a whole in search results like individual videos, so optimize playlists the same as you would for a video. Meta Data:-Too much importance is placed on it. It accounts for only 15% of search success.-YouTube reads Captions or Transcripts to determine what a video is about. If you’re not using them, you’re missing out.-You get the SEO benefit of captions and transcripts whether the viewers has them toggled on or not. Promotion:-This accounts for 25% of search success.-Promote the daylights out of your videos using your social channels and digital assets. Don’t assume it’s going to magically get discovered. -You can pay to promote your video. This could surface it on the YouTube home page, YouTube search results, YouTube related videos, and across the Google content network. Community:-Accounts for 10% of search success.-Make sure your YouTube home page is a fun place to spend time. Carefully pick your featured video, and make sure your Playlists are featured. -Participate in discussions so users will see you’re present. The volume of ratings/comments is as important as the number of views when it comes to where you surface on search. Video Sitemaps:-As with a web site, a video sitemap helps Google quickly index your video.-Google wants to know title, description, play page URL, the URL of the thumbnail image you want, and raw video file location.-Sitemaps are xml files you host or dynamically generate on your site. Once you’ve made your sitemap, sign in and submit it using Google webmaster tools. Just as with the broadcast and cable TV channels, putting a video out there is only step one. You also have to make sure everybody knows it’s there so the largest audience possible can see it. Here’s hoping you get great ratings. @mikestiles

    Read the article

  • htaccess on remote server issues - password prompt not accepting input

    - by pying saucepan
    EDIT: I will contact the university about my problem after labor day weekend, but I thought if someone knew a quick fix that I haven't tried, or if the problem has an obvious fix then I could hope to try my luck here, thanks! TLDR: Sorry its a long post, I thought I should be... thorough. I am having a common issue (found a dead thread through google with no solution to the same problem) with the prompt to enter in a username and password via htaccess rights, but this prompt will keep popping up asking for a username and password when trying to access my home directory on my university's server which has the .htaccess and .htpasswd files. It does not matter if I enter in correct or incorrect credentials, the prompt will keep asking me for input without displaying my home directory. Ever since I have included these ht files I have never once been able to get past the username/password no matter what I have tried, save for removing them from the directory I am trying to access (my top level directory that I own). This kind of served my original goal of making the top level directory inaccessible to casual users, but if I wanted to use this method on other places, I would want it to work as intended. And I also like it when computers do what I wish they would, so any help is appreciated. Some things I have tried: Changing the file/directory access rights: they told me to try these commands if people can't access my files cd ~/public_html find ./ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; find ./ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; enter in the single character name/pw at least twenty times in a row, no cheddar. so I changed directory with cd ~ in hopes that this would be my home directory, since my home directory contains the "public_html" directory, so logic tells me that the ~ tilde symbol is the top level directory that I have ownership of. Then I did those two commands to change the rights on the files inside, I am still having no luck. How I got to this point: I have been following the instructions given to me through my university's website for setting up my little directory. A link on how they describe how to password protect the home directory is given below: "Protect Web Directories" instructions I have everything in order except for one small detail that I feel probably does not matter. I am on windows and so I am using winSCP to remote control my allocated server space. The small detail is that as the instructions indicate (on step 3) that I should use the command htpasswd -c .htpasswd {username} where {username} is my folder that holds my allocated server space. But this command requires further input through the terminal, and unfortunately winSCP does not offer this kind of functionality. So I looked up some basic instructions on using htaccess and it is formatted correctly such that the .htaccess file appears as follows: AuthType Basic AuthName "Verify" AuthUserFile /correctpath/.htpasswd require valid-user and this file is in the root directory for my server space as well as the .htpasswd file which has only this data inside: username:password I know for sure that these two files must be formatted correctly, at least according to their tutorial, because before my path was incorrectly formatted via including some curly { braces } without knowing the correct way to do this at first. And the password prompt that shows up when accessing my directory responded by loading an error page indicating to contact OSU admin or something not important. But now that I have everything like it 'should' be. I know this because when I enter in my credentials "username and password" the prompt pops up for my username and password again and again whether or not I enter in correct information. The only exception is that if I click cancel it will direct me to a page saying that I need to enter in a username and password. Note that I am very inexperienced at server-related buisness, two days ago I couldn't have told you what a website actually consists of. So, if you use some technical jargon I may or may not need to look it up and get back to you before I actually understand what you mean, but I am a quick learner and it probably wont matter.

    Read the article

  • I&rsquo;m sorry RPGs, it&rsquo;s not you, it&rsquo;s me: The birth of my game idea

    - by George Clingerman
    One of the things I’ve had to give up in order to have some development time at night is gaming. It’s something I refused to admit for years but I’ve just had to face the facts. I’m no longer a gamer. I just don’t have hours and hours of free time to pour into gaming and when I do have hours and hours of free time I want to pour them into game development. That doesn’t mean I don’t game at all! I play games pretty much every day. It just means I’ve moved more into the casual game realm. It’s all I have time for when juggling priorities in my life. That means that games like Gears of War 2 sit shrink wrapped on my shelf and although I popped Dragon Age into my Xbox 360 one time, I barely made it through the opening sequence and haven’t had time to sit down and play again. Instead I’m playing short games like Jamestown, Atom Zombie Smasher, Fortix or if I have time to jump in and play a few rounds maybe some Monday Night Combat or Team Fortress 2. These are games I can instantly get into and play for just a short period of time and then walk away. Breath of Death VII saved my life: Back in the day (way, way back in the day) I used to be a pretty big RPG fan. Not big by a lot of RPG gamers' standards (most of the RPGs RPG fans about I’ve never heard of) but I used to LOVE to play them on the NES, SNES and Genesis and considered that my genre. Final Fantasy, Shining in the Darkness, Bard’s Tale, Faxanadu, Shadowrun, Ultima, Dragon Warrior, Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star, Shining Force and well the list could go on but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. I loved playing RPGs and they were my games of choice. After my first son was born (this was just about 12 years ago), I tried to continue playing RPGs and purchased games like Baldur’s Gate I & II, Neverwinter Nights, Fable, then a few of the Final Fantasy’s then Kingdom Hearts. I kept buying these games and then only playing for about fifteen minutes and never getting back to them. I still loved RPGs but they just no longer fit into my life (I still haven’t accepted that since I still purchased Dragon Age II for some reason and convinced myself I’d find the time). Adding three more sons to the mix (that’s 4 total) didn’t help much to finding more RPG time (except for Breath of Death VII and other XBLIG RPG titles, thanks guys!) All work and no RPG: A few months ago as I was sitting thinking about the lack of RPGs in my life and talking to my wife about why I wish RPGs were different and easier for a dad like me to get into. She seemed like she was listening, so I started listing all the things that made them impossible for me to play. Here’s a short list I came up with. They take 15 billion hours to complete I have a few minutes at a time I can grab to play them if I want to have time to code. At that rate it would take me 9 trillion years to beat just one RPG. There’s such long spans of times between when I can play them I forget what I was even doing so I have to spend most of the playtime I have just figuring that out and then my play time is over. Repeat. I’ll never finish one and since it takes so long to get to the fun part in an RPG, I’m never having fun. RPGs aren’t fun if you don’t have hours to play them at a time. As you can see based on my science and math, RPGs aren’t fun for me any more. From there my brain started toying around with ideas of RPGs that would work for me. They would have to be a short RPG, you know one you could beat in a single play session. A dad sized play session. I started thinking, wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a fifteen minute RPG? That got me laughing and I took that as a good sign that it sounded fun and so I thought about it a little more. I immediately discarded the idea of doing a real RPG. I’m sure a short RPG like that could be done but it wasn’t the vibe that I had in my head. No this was going to be something that just had the core essence of an RPG. In reality what I’d be making would be more of an arcade style game. One with high scores and lots of crazy action on the screen. And that’s when it hit me. It would be a speed run RPG. That’s the basics of the game I’m working on.   The Elevator Pitch: It’s a 2D top down RPG themed arcade game focused on speed. It sounds like an RPG, smells like an RPG but it’s merely emulating an RPG. The game is focused on fun and mayhem in RPG form with players leveling up in seconds instead of hours and rushing to finish quests as quickly as possible because they’ve only got fifteen minutes before EVIL overtakes the world. If the player takes longer than fifteen minutes, it’s game over man. One to four player co-operative play to really see just how fast players can level up and beat the game. Gamers will compete on leaderboards for bragging rights for fastest 1, 2, 3, and 4 player speed runs, lowest leveled characters to beat the game, highest leveled characters to beat the game and so on. Times will be tracked for everything from how long a player sat distributing stats, equipping items, talking to NPCs to running around the level. These stats will be shown at the end of each quest/level so the players can work on improving their speed run for that part of the game next time around. It’s the perfect RPG for those of us who only have fifteen minutes of game time! Where I’m at: I’m still at the prototyping stage attempting to but all the basic framework pieces in place that will at minimum give me one level to rush through. I’ve been working on this prototype for about a month now though so I’m going to have to step it up a bit or I’m not going to get finished in time (remember I’ve only got 85 days left!) Lots of the game code is in place (although pretty sloppy) but I still can’t play through that first quest/level just yet. That’s my goal to finish up by the end of next Sunday (3/25/2012). You can all hold me to that and cheer me on or heckle me throughout the week. Either way that should help me stay a bit more motivated and focused. In my head this feels like it’s going to be a fun game so I’m looking forward to seeing how it actually plays!

    Read the article

  • The Partner Perspective from Oracle OpenWorld 2012 - IDC’s Darren Bibby report

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    Below is IDC’s Darren Bibby report on ‘The Partner Perspective from Oracle OpenWorld 2012’. If you missed the 2012 edition, I trust this will give you the willingness to attend next year one! October 26, 2012 I attended my fourth Oracle OpenWorld earlier in October. I always go in with the lens of, "What's in it for partners this year?" Although it's primarily thought of as a customer event - and yes, the bulk of the almost 50,000 attendees are customers - this year's conference was clearly the largest and most important partner event Oracle has ever run. Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Exchange There were more partner attendees than ever, with Oracle citing somewhere around 5000. But the format for partners this year was different. And it was better. Traditionally, Oracle hosts a one-day only Partner Forum on the Sunday before the customer-focused conference begins. This year, the partner content still began on the Sunday, but the worldwide alliances and channels group created an exclusive track throughout the week, just for partners. It featured content specifically targeted towards partners, and was anchored at a nearby hotel. This was a great move for Oracle. The Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) team has been in a tricky position for years in that they have enough partners that they need a landmark event in the year, but perhaps not enough to justify a separate, worldwide, large, partner-only event. Coinciding a four day event with Oracle OpenWorld, where anybody who's anybody in the Oracle world attends anyway, is a good solution. The channels leadership team can build from this success for an even better conference next year. It's expected that they will follow a similar strategy. Cloud Announcements for Partners As for the content, it was primarily about the Cloud. For customers, for VARs, for ISVs, for everyone. There were five key Cloud related announcements for partners at the event: Cloud Builder Specialization. This is one of the first broader Specializations that isn't focused on one unique product. It is a designation for partners that offer design and implementation services for private cloud solutions. As such, it will surely be something that nearly every partner will consider, and many will pursue. New Specializations for Cloud Services. Unlike the broad, almost "strategy-level" Specialization above, there are a group of new product-based "merit badges" for many of the new Cloud offerings. Think about a Specialization for the Cloud version of HCM, for instance. Each of these particular specializations will also have Rapid Start implementation methodologies that allow a partner to offer a fixed scope and fixed price bid to customers. Based on the learnings from Oracle Consulting, this means a partner might be able to deliver Cloud HCM in six weeks for a fixed price. In the end, this means more consistent experiences for Oracle customers. Cloud Resale Program. For those partners who achieve one of these Cloud Specializations, it will mean they can actually resell the subscription-based Cloud product. This is important because it has been somewhat of a rarity in the emerging Cloud channel for partners to be able to "take the paper", take the revenue, do the billing, be first line of support etc. This is an important step for Oracle and one the partners will be happy to see. Cloud Referral Program. For those partners who are not as engaged with these specific Cloud products that the Specializations revolve around, there is a new referral program that provides an incentive to recommend Oracle Cloud products. This one-two punch of referral and resale programs is similar in many ways to other vendors who allow more committed partners to resell, while more casual partners can collect fees. It's the model that seems to work. The key to allow a company to resell a subscription product - something that is inherently delivered directly between the vendor and customer - is trust. Achieving a specialization is a good bar to have to meet. Platform as a Service for ISVs. Leveraging some of the overall announcements made by CEO Larry Ellison around a cloud version of its famous database, Oracle also outlined a new ability for ISVs to build cloud services on its new PaaS offering. Details were less available for this announcement, though it's an expected and fitting play for ISVs comfortable with Oracle technology who can now more easily build out cloud applications. There wasn't much talk of an app store to go along with this, but surely it's in the works. Specializations And "The Gap" Coming back to Specializations, Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) has 4600 partners worldwide that hold 20,000 Specializations. These are impressive numbers just three years into the new OPN framework. The actual number of Specializations has also grown significantly, up to 111 today and soon around 125 or so with the new Cloud designations. Oracle may need to look at grouping some of these and creating higher level, broader designations that partners could achieve by earning several Specializations in that group. At 125 and growing, this is a lot. On the top of the pyramid, Hitachi Ltd. successfully became the eleventh partner to make it to the highly prestigious Diamond level. Partner programs partially exist in order to recognize capable partners. And it's more than abundantly clear that the Diamond level does this. But I think Oracle has a gap. Specializations show capability in a very specific product area, and all sizes of partners can achieve these. The next level at which to show a level of expertise is the Advanced Specialization. However, this is a massive step up from the regular Specialization. The advanced level requires 50 people to have certification in that particular product area. Most other industry programs have similar higher level statuses, but none are even close to that number. Whereas a customer who sees an Oracle partner with an advanced specialization can be very sure of capability, there is a gap in that there are hundreds or even thousands of 20-50 person solution providers who are top notch in their area of expertise. They will never get to Advanced due to numbers alone. These boutique partners don't really have a way of showing off their talents in the current program. Advanced may not need to be so high to really show that a company has deep expertise. Overall it was a very successful Oracle OpenWorld for Oracle partners of all sizes. There was progress made on making it a bigger and more relevant event. And also on catching up and maybe even leading in some cases with cloud opportunities for partners.

    Read the article

  • Learnings from trying to write better software: Loud errors from the very start

    - by theo.spears
    Microsoft made a very small number of backwards incompatible changes between .NET 1.1 and 2.0, because they wanted to make it as easy and safe as possible to port applications to the new runtime. (Here’s a list.) However, one thing they did change was what happens when a background thread fails with an unhanded exception - in .NET 1.1 nothing happened, the thread terminated, and the application continued oblivious. Try the same trick in .NET 2.0 and the entire application, including all threads, will rudely terminate. There are three reasons for this. Firstly if a background thread has crashed, it may have left the entire application in an inconsistent state, in a way that will affect other threads. It’s better to terminate the entire application than continue and have the application perform actions based on a broken state, for example take customer orders, or write corrupt files to disk.  Secondly, during software development, it is far better for errors to be loud and obtrusive. Even if you have unit tests and integration tests (and you should), a key part of ensuring software works properly is to actually try using it, both through systematic testing and through the casual use all software gets by its developers during use. Subtle errors are easy to miss if you are not actually doing real work using the application, loud errors are obvious. Thirdly, and most importantly, even if catching and swallowing exceptions indiscriminately doesn't cause any problems in your application, the presence of unexpected exceptions shows you do not fully understand the behavior of your code. The currently released version of your application may be absolutely correct. However, because your mental model of the behavior is wrong, any future change you make to the program could and probably will introduce critical errors.  This applies to more than just exceptions causing threads to exit, any unexpected state should make the application blow up in an un-ignorable way. The worst thing you can do is silently swallow errors and continue. And let's be clear, writing to a log file does not count as blowing up in an un-ignorable way.  This is all simple as long as the call stack only contains your code, but when your functions start to be called by third party or .NET framework code, it's surprisingly easy for exceptions to start vanishing. Let's look at two examples.   1. Windows forms drag drop events  Usually if you throw an exception from a winforms event handler it will bring up the "application has crashed" dialog with abort and continue options. This is a good default behavior - the error is big and loud, but it is possible for the user to ignore the error and hopefully save their data, if somehow this bug makes it past testing. However drag and drop are different - throw an exception from one of these and it will just be silently swallowed with no explanation.  By the way, it's not just drag and drop events. Timer events do it too.  You can research how exceptions are treated in different handlers and code appropriately, but the safest and most user friendly approach is to always catch exceptions in your event handlers and show your own error message. I'll talk about one good approach to handling these exceptions at the end of this post.   2. SSMS integration for SQL Tab Magic  A while back wrote an SSMS add-in called SQL Tab Magic (learn more about the process here). It works by listening to certain SSMS events and remembering what documents are opened and closed. I deployed it internally and it was used for a few months by a number of people without problems, so I was reasonably confident in its quality. Before releasing I made a few cleanups, including introducing error reporting. Bam. A few days later I was looking at over 1,000 error reports in my inbox. In turns out I wasn't handling table designers properly. The exceptions were there, but again SSMS was helpfully swallowing them all for me, so I was blissfully unaware. Had I made my errors loud from the start, I would have noticed these issues long before and fixed them.   Handling exceptions  Now you are systematically catching exceptions throughout your application, you need to do something with them. I've tried 3 options: log them, alert the user, and automatically send them home.  There are a few good options for logging in .NET. The most widespread is Apache log4net, which provides a very capable and configurable logging framework. There is also NLog which has a compatible interface, with a greater emphasis on fluent rather than XML configuration.  Alerting the user serves two purposes. Firstly it means they understand their action has failed to they don't just assume it worked (Silent file copy failure is a problem if you then delete the originals) or that they should keep waiting for a background task to complete. Secondly, it means the users can report the bug to your support team, and then you can fix it. This means the message you show the user should contain the information you need as a developer to identify and fix it. And the user will probably just send you a screenshot of the dialog, so it shouldn't be hidden by scroll bars.  This leads us to the third option, automatically sending error reports home. By automatic I mean with minimal effort on the part of the user, rather than doing it silently behind their backs. The advantage of this is you can send back far more detailed and precise information than you can expect a user to include in an email, and by making it easier to report errors, you make it more likely users will do so.  We do this using a great tool called SmartAssembly (full disclosure: this is a product made by Red Gate). It captures complete stack traces including the values of all local variables and then allows the user to send all this information back with a single click. We also capture log files to help understand what lead up to the error. We then use the free SmartAssembly Sync for Jira to dedupe these reports and raise them as bugs in our bug tracking system.  The combined effect of loud errors during development and then automatic error reporting once software is deployed allows us to find and fix more bugs, correct misunderstandings on how our software works, and overall is a key piece in delivering higher quality software. However it is no substitute for having motivated cunning testers in the building - and we're looking to hire more of those too.   If you found this post interesting you should follow me on twitter.  

    Read the article

  • Metrics - A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing (or 'Why you're not clever enough to interpret metrics data')

    - by Jason Crease
    At RedGate Software, I work on a .NET obfuscator  called SmartAssembly.  Various features of it use a database to store various things (exception reports, name-mappings, etc.) The user is given the option of using either a SQL-Server database (which requires them to have Microsoft SQL Server), or a Microsoft Access MDB file (which requires nothing). MDB is the default option, but power-users soon switch to using a SQL Server database because it offers better performance and data-sharing. In the fashionable spirit of optimization and metrics, an obvious product-management question is 'Which is the most popular? SQL Server or MDB?' We've collected data about this fact, using our 'Feature-Usage-Reporting' technology (available as part of SmartAssembly) and more recently our 'Application Metrics' technology: Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 28 19.0 8115 8115 MDB 114 77.6 1449 1449 (As a disclaimer, please note than SmartAssembly has far more than 132 users . This data is just a selection of one build) So, it would appear that SQL-Server is used by fewer users, but more often. Great. But here's why these numbers are useless to me: Only the original developers understand the data What does a single 'usage' of 'MDB' mean? Does this happen once per run? Once per option change? On clicking the 'Obfuscate Now' button? When running the command-line version or just from the UI version? Each question could skew the data 10-fold either way, and the answers only known by the developer that instrumented the application in the first place. In other words, only the original developer can interpret the data - product-managers cannot interpret the data unaided. Most of the data is from uninterested users About half of people who download and run a free-trial from the internet quit it almost immediately. Only a small fraction use it sufficiently to make informed choices. Since the MDB option is the default one, we don't know how many of those 114 were people CHOOSING to use the MDB, or how many were JUST HAPPENING to use this MDB default for their 20-second trial. This is a problem we see across all our metrics: Are people are using X because it's the default or are they using X because they want to use X? We need to segment the data further - asking what percentage of each percentage meet our criteria for an 'established user' or 'informed user'. You end up spending hours writing sophisticated and dubious SQL queries to segment the data further. Not fun. You can't find out why they used this feature Metrics can answer the when and what, but not the why. Why did people use feature X? If you're anything like me, you often click on random buttons in unfamiliar applications just to explore the feature-set. If we listened uncritically to metrics at RedGate, we would eliminate the most-important and more-complex features which people actually buy the software for, leaving just big buttons on the main page and the About-Box. "Ah, that's interesting!" rather than "Ah, that's actionable!" People do love data. Did you know you eat 1201 chickens in a lifetime? But just 4 cows? Interesting, but useless. Often metrics give you a nice number: '5.8% of users have 3 or more monitors' . But unless the statistic is both SUPRISING and ACTIONABLE, it's useless. Most metrics are collected, reviewed with lots of cooing. and then forgotten. Unless a piece-of-data could change things, it's useless collecting it. People get obsessed with significance levels The first things that lots of people do with this data is do a t-test to get a significance level ("Hey! We know with 99.64% confidence that people prefer SQL Server to MDBs!") Believe me: other causes of error/misinterpretation in your data are FAR more significant than your t-test could ever comprehend. Confirmation bias prevents objectivity If the data appears to match our instinct, we feel satisfied and move on. If it doesn't, we suspect the data and dig deeper, plummeting down a rabbit-hole of segmentation and filtering until we give-up and move-on. Data is only useful if it can change our preconceptions. Do you trust this dodgy data more than your own understanding, knowledge and intelligence?  I don't. There's always multiple plausible ways to interpret/action any data Let's say we segment the above data, and get this data: Post-trial users (i.e. those using a paid version after the 14-day free-trial is over): Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 13 9.0 1115 1115 MDB 5 4.2 449 449 Trial users: Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 15 10.0 7000 7000 MDB 114 77.6 1000 1000 How do you interpret this data? It's one of: Mostly SQL Server users buy our software. People who can't afford SQL Server tend to be unable to afford or unwilling to buy our software. Therefore, ditch MDB-support. Our MDB support is so poor and buggy that our massive MDB user-base doesn't buy it.  Therefore, spend loads of money improving it, and think about ditching SQL-Server support. People 'graduate' naturally from MDB to SQL Server as they use the software more. Things are fine the way they are. We're marketing the tool wrong. The large number of MDB users represent uninformed downloaders. Tell marketing to aggressively target SQL Server users. To choose an interpretation you need to segment again. And again. And again, and again. Opting-out is correlated with feature-usage Metrics tends to be opt-in. This skews the data even further. Between 5% and 30% of people choose to opt-in to metrics (often called 'customer improvement program' or something like that). Casual trial-users who are uninterested in your product or company are less likely to opt-in. This group is probably also likely to be MDB users. How much does this skew your data by? Who knows? It's not all doom and gloom. There are some things metrics can answer well. Environment facts. How many people have 3 monitors? Have Windows 7? Have .NET 4 installed? Have Japanese Windows? Minor optimizations.  Is the text-box big enough for average user-input? Performance data. How long does our app take to start? How many databases does the average user have on their server? As you can see, questions about who-the-user-is rather than what-the-user-does are easier to answer and action. Conclusion Use SmartAssembly. If not for the metrics (called 'Feature-Usage-Reporting'), then at least for the obfuscation/error-reporting. Data raises more questions than it answers. Questions about environment are the easiest to answer.

    Read the article

  • java 7 upgrade and hibernate annotation processor error

    - by Bill Turner
    I am getting the following warning, which seems to be triggering a subsequent warning and an error. I have been googling like mad, though have not found anything that makes it clear what it is I should do to resolve this. This issue occurs when I execute an Ant build. I am trying to migrate our project to Java 7. I have changed all the source='1.6' and target="1.6" to 1.7. I did find this related article: Forward compatible Java 6 annotation processor and SupportedSourceVersion It seems to indicate that I should build the Hibernate annotation processor jar myself, compiling it with with 1.7. It does not seem I should be required to do so. The latest version of the class in question (in hibernate-validator-annotation-processor-5.0.1.Final.jar) has been compiled with 1.6. Since the code in said class refers to SourceVersion.latestSupported(), and the 1.6 of that returns only RELEASE_6, there does not seem to be a generally available solution. Here is the warning: [javac] warning: Supported source version 'RELEASE_6' from annotation processor 'org.hibernate.validator.ap.ConstraintValidationProcessor' less than -source '1.7' And, here are the subsequent warnings/error. [javac] warning: No processor claimed any of these annotations: javax.persistence.PersistenceContext,javax.persistence.Column,org.codehaus.jackson.annotate.JsonIgnore,javax.persistence.Id,org.springframework.context.annotation.DependsOn,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.datasource.Bucketed,org.codehaus.jackson.map.annotate.JsonDeserialize,javax.persistence.DiscriminatorColumn,com.trgr.cobalt.dataroom.authorization.secure.Secured,org.hibernate.annotations.GenericGenerator,javax.annotation.Resource,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.spring.domain.DomainField,org.codehaus.jackson.annotate.JsonAutoDetect,javax.persistence.DiscriminatorValue,com.trgr.cobalt.dataroom.datasource.config.core.CoreTransactionMandatory,org.springframework.stereotype.Repository,javax.persistence.GeneratedValue,com.trgr.cobalt.dataroom.datasource.config.core.CoreTransactional,org.hibernate.annotations.Cascade,javax.persistence.Table,javax.persistence.Enumerated,org.hibernate.annotations.FilterDef,javax.persistence.OneToOne,com.trgr.cobalt.dataroom.datasource.config.core.CoreEntity,org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.util.enums.EnumConversion,org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.spring.domain.UpdatedFields,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.spring.documentation.SampleValue,org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean,org.codehaus.jackson.annotate.JsonProperty,javax.persistence.Basic,org.codehaus.jackson.map.annotate.JsonSerialize,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.spring.validation.Required,com.trgr.cobalt.dataroom.datasource.config.core.CoreTransactionNever,org.springframework.context.annotation.Profile,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.spring.stereotype.Persistor,javax.persistence.Transient,com.trgr.cobalt.infrastructure.spring.validation.NotNull,javax.validation.constraints.Size,javax.persistence.Entity,javax.persistence.PrimaryKeyJoinColumn,org.hibernate.annotations.BatchSize,org.springframework.stereotype.Service,org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value,javax.persistence.Inheritance [javac] error: warnings found and -Werror specified TIA!

    Read the article

  • How to fix these compiler errors?

    - by Sandra Schlichting
    I have this source code from 2001 that I would like to compile. It gives this: $ make g++ -O99 -Wall -DLINUX -pedantic -c -o audio.o audio.cpp In file included from audio.cpp:7: audio.h:14: error: use of enum ‘mad_flow’ without previous declaration audio.h:15: error: use of enum ‘mad_flow’ without previous declaration audio.h:17: error: use of enum ‘mad_flow’ without previous declaration audio.cpp: In function ‘mad_flow audio::input(void*, mad_stream*)’: audio.cpp:19: error: new declaration ‘mad_flow audio::input(void*, mad_stream*)’ audio.h:14: error: ambiguates old declaration ‘int audio::input(void*, mad_stream*)’ audio.h:11: error: ‘size_t audio::stream::BufferPos’ is private audio.cpp:23: error: within this context audio.h:11: error: ‘size_t audio::stream::BufferSize’ is private audio.cpp:23: error: within this context audio.h:10: error: ‘char* audio::stream::Buffer’ is private audio.cpp:26: error: within this context audio.h:11: error: ‘size_t audio::stream::BufferSize’ is private audio.cpp:26: error: within this context audio.h:11: error: ‘size_t audio::stream::BufferPos’ is private audio.cpp:27: error: within this context audio.h:11: error: ‘size_t audio::stream::BufferSize’ is private audio.cpp:27: error: within this context audio.cpp: In function ‘mad_flow audio::output(void*, const mad_header*, mad_pcm*)’: audio.cpp:49: error: new declaration ‘mad_flow audio::output(void*, const mad_header*, mad_pcm*)’ audio.h:15: error: ambiguates old declaration ‘int audio::output(void*, const mad_header*, mad_pcm*)’ audio.cpp: In function ‘mad_flow audio::error(void*, mad_stream*, mad_frame*)’: audio.cpp:83: error: new declaration ‘mad_flow audio::error(void*, mad_stream*, mad_frame*)’ audio.h:17: error: ambiguates old declaration ‘int audio::error(void*, mad_stream*, mad_frame*)’ audio.cpp: In constructor ‘audio::stream::stream(const char*)’: audio.cpp:119: error: ‘input’ was not declared in this scope audio.cpp:122: error: ‘output’ was not declared in this scope audio.cpp:123: error: ‘error’ was not declared in this scope make: *** [audio.o] Error 1 audio.h contains #include <stdlib.h> #include "mad.h" namespace audio { class stream { private: char* Buffer; size_t BufferSize, BufferPos; struct mad_decoder Decoder; friend enum mad_flow input(void* Data, struct mad_stream* MadStream); friend enum mad_flow output(void* Data, const struct mad_header* Header, struct mad_pcm* PCM); friend enum mad_flow error(void* Data, struct mad_stream* MadStream, struct mad_frame* Frame); public: stream(const char* FileName); ~stream(); void play(); }; } I have tried to just insert enum mad_flow {}; but that just gave a new problem. Can anyone see how to fix this?

    Read the article

  • AutoIt scripts runs without error but I can't see archive?

    - by Scott
    #include <File.au3> #include <Zip.au3> ; bad file extensions Local $extData="ade|adp|app|asa|ashx|asp|bas|bat|cdx|cer|chm|class|cmd|com|cpl|crt|csh|der|exe|fxp|gadget|hlp|hta|htr|htw|ida|idc|idq|ins|isp|its|jse|ksh|lnk|mad|maf|mag|mam|maq|mar|mas|mat|mau|mav|maw|mda|mdb|mde|mdt|mdw|mdz|msc|msh|msh1|msh1xml|msh2|msh2xml|mshxml|msi|msp|mst|ops|pcd|pif|prf|prg|printer|pst|reg|rem|scf|scr|sct|shb|shs|shtm|shtml|soap|stm|url|vb|vbe|vbs|ws|wsc|wsf|wsh" Local $extensions = StringSplit($extData, "|") ; What is the root directory? $rootDirectory = InputBox("Root Directory", "Please enter the root directory...") archiveDir($rootDirectory) Func archiveDir($dir) $goDirs = True $goFiles = True ; Get all the files under the current dir $allOfDir = _FileListToArray($dir) Local $countDirs = 0 Local $countFiles = 0 $imax = UBound($allOfDir) For $i = 0 to $imax - 1 If StringInStr(FileGetAttrib($dir & "\" & $allOfDir[$i]),"D") Then $countDirs = $countDirs + 1 ElseIf StringInStr(($allOfDir[$i]),".") Then $countFiles = $countFiles + 1 EndIf Next MsgBox(0, "Value of $countDirs in " & $dir, $countDirs) MsgBox(0, "Value of $countFiles in " & $dir, $countFiles) If ($countDirs > 0) Then Local $allDirs[$countDirs] $goDirs = True Else $goDirs = False EndIf If ($countFiles > 0) Then Local $allFiles[$countFiles] $goFiles = True Else $goFiles = False EndIf $dirCount = 0 $fileCount = 0 For $i = 0 to $imax - 1 If (StringInStr(FileGetAttrib($dir & "\" & $allOfDir[$i]),"D")) And ($goDirs == True) Then $allDirs[$dirCount] = $allOfDir[$i] $dirCount = $dirCount + 1 ElseIf (StringInStr(($allOfDir[$i]),".")) And ($goFiles == True) Then $allFiles[$fileCount] = $allOfDir[$i] $fileCount = $fileCount + 1 EndIf Next ; Zip them if need be in current spot using 'ext_zip.zip' as file name, loop through each file ext. If ($goFiles == True) Then $emax = UBound($extensions) $fmax = UBound($allFiles) For $e = 0 to $emax - 1 For $f = 0 to $fmax - 1 $currentExt = getExt($allFiles[$f]) If ($currentExt == $extensions[$e]) Then $zip = _Zip_Create($dir & "\" & $currentExt & "_zip.zip") _Zip_AddFile($zip, $allFiles[$f]) EndIf Next Next EndIf ; Get all dirs under current DirCopy ; For each dir, recursive call from step 2 If ($goDirs == True) Then $dmax = UBound($allDirs) $rootDirectory = $rootDirectory & "\" For $d = 0 to $dmax - 1 archiveDir($rootDirectory & $allDirs[$d]) Next EndIf EndFunc Func getExt($filename) $pos = StringInStr($filename, ".") $retval = StringTrimLeft($filename, $pos + 1) Return $retval EndFunc This should output the .zip archives in the directories it finds the files that it needs to zip but it doesn't. Is there something I have to do after I create and add files to the archive within the code to put this created archive in the directory?

    Read the article

  • AutoIt scripts runs without error but I can't see archive? - UPDATE

    - by Scott
    #include <File.au3> #include <Zip.au3> #include <Array.au3> ; bad file extensions Local $extData="ade|adp|app|asa|ashx|asp|bas|bat|cdx|cer|chm|class|cmd|com|cpl|crt|csh|der|exe|fxp|gadget|hlp|hta|htr|htw|ida|idc|idq|ins|isp|its|jse|ksh|lnk|mad|maf|mag|mam|maq|mar|mas|mat|mau|mav|maw|mda|mdb|mde|mdt|mdw|mdz|msc|msh|msh1|msh1xml|msh2|msh2xml|mshxml|msi|msp|mst|ops|pcd|pif|prf|prg|printer|pst|reg|rem|scf|scr|sct|shb|shs|shtm|shtml|soap|stm|url|vb|vbe|vbs|ws|wsc|wsf|wsh" Local $extensions = StringSplit($extData, "|") ; What is the root directory? $rootDirectory = InputBox("Root Directory", "Please enter the root directory...") archiveDir($rootDirectory) Func archiveDir($dir) $goDirs = True $goFiles = True ; Get all the files under the current dir $allOfDir = _FileListToArray($dir) $tmax = UBound($allOfDir) For $t = 0 to $tmax - 1 Next Local $countDirs = 0 Local $countFiles = 0 $imax = UBound($allOfDir) For $i = 0 to $imax - 1 If StringInStr(FileGetAttrib($dir & "\" & $allOfDir[$i]),"D") Then $countDirs = $countDirs + 1 ElseIf StringInStr(($allOfDir[$i]),".") Then $countFiles = $countFiles + 1 EndIf Next If ($countDirs > 0) Then Local $allDirs[$countDirs] $goDirs = True Else $goDirs = False EndIf If ($countFiles > 0) Then Local $allFiles[$countFiles] $goFiles = True Else $goFiles = False EndIf $dirCount = 0 $fileCount = 0 For $i = 0 to $imax - 1 If (StringInStr(FileGetAttrib($dir & "\" & $allOfDir[$i]),"D")) And ($goDirs == True) Then $allDirs[$dirCount] = $allOfDir[$i] $dirCount = $dirCount + 1 ElseIf (StringInStr(($allOfDir[$i]),".")) And ($goFiles == True) Then $allFiles[$fileCount] = $allOfDir[$i] $fileCount = $fileCount + 1 EndIf Next ; Zip them if need be in current spot using 'ext_zip.zip' as file name, loop through each file ext. If ($goFiles == True) Then $fmax = UBound($allFiles) For $f = 0 to $fmax - 1 $currentExt = getExt($allFiles[$f]) $position = _ArraySearch($extensions, $currentExt) If @error Then MsgBox(0, "Not Found", "Not Found") Else $zip = _Zip_Create($dir & "\" & $currentExt & "_zip.zip") _Zip_AddFile($zip, $dir & "\" & $allFiles[$f]) EndIf Next EndIf ; Get all dirs under current DirCopy ; For each dir, recursive call from step 2 If ($goDirs == True) Then $dmax = UBound($allDirs) $rootDirectory = $rootDirectory & "\" For $d = 0 to $dmax - 1 archiveDir($rootDirectory & $allDirs[$d]) Next EndIf EndFunc Func getExt($filename) $pos = StringInStr($filename, ".") $retval = StringTrimLeft($filename, $pos - 1) Return $retval EndFunc Updated, fixed a lot of bugs. Still not working. Like I said I have a list of 'bad' file extensions, this script should go through a directory of files (and subdirectories), and zip up (in separate zip files for each bad extension), all files WITH those bad extensions in the directories it finds them. What is wrong???

    Read the article

  • GCC: Simple inheritance test fails

    - by knight666
    I'm building an open source 2D game engine called YoghurtGum. Right now I'm working on the Android port, using the NDK provided by Google. I was going mad because of the errors I was getting in my application, so I made a simple test program: class Base { public: Base() { } virtual ~Base() { } }; // class Base class Vehicle : virtual public Base { public: Vehicle() : Base() { } ~Vehicle() { } }; // class Vehicle class Car : public Vehicle { public: Car() : Base(), Vehicle() { } ~Car() { } }; // class Car int main(int a_Data, char** argv) { Car* stupid = new Car(); return 0; } Seems easy enough, right? Here's how I compile it, which is the same way I compile the rest of my code: /home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/prebuilt/linux-x86/arm-eabi-4.4.0/bin/arm-eabi-g++ -g -std=c99 -Wall -Werror -O2 -w -shared -fshort-enums -I ../../YoghurtGum/src/GLES -I ../../YoghurtGum/src -I /home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/platforms/android-5/arch-arm/usr/include -c src/Inheritance.cpp -o intermediate/Inheritance.o (Line breaks are added for clarity). This compiles fine. But then we get to the linker: /home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/prebuilt/linux-x86/arm-eabi-4.4.0/bin/arm-eabi-gcc -lstdc++ -Wl, --entry=main, -rpath-link=/system/lib, -rpath-link=/home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/platforms/android-5/arch-arm/usr/lib, -dynamic-linker=/system/bin/linker, -L/home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/prebuilt/linux-x86/arm-eabi-4.4.0/lib/gcc/arm-eabi/4.4.0, -L/home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/platforms/android-5/arch-arm/usr/lib, -rpath=../../YoghurtGum/lib/GLES -nostdlib -lm -lc -lGLESv1_CM -z /home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/platforms/android-5/arch-arm/usr/lib/crtbegin_dynamic.o /home/oem/android-ndk-r3/build/platforms/android-5/arch-arm/usr/lib/crtend_android.o intermediate/Inheritance.o ../../YoghurtGum/bin/YoghurtGum.a -o bin/Galaxians.android As you can probably tell, there's a lot of cruft in there that isn't really needed. That's because it doesn't work. It fails with the following errors: intermediate/Inheritance.o:(.rodata._ZTI3Car[typeinfo for Car]+0x0): undefined reference to `vtable for __cxxabiv1::__si_class_type_info' intermediate/Inheritance.o:(.rodata._ZTI7Vehicle[typeinfo for Vehicle]+0x0): undefined reference to `vtable for __cxxabiv1::__vmi_class_type_info' intermediate/Inheritance.o:(.rodata._ZTI4Base[typeinfo for Base]+0x0): undefined reference to `vtable for __cxxabiv1::__class_type_info' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make: *** [bin/Galaxians.android] Fout 1 These are the same errors I get from my actual application. If someone could explain to me where I went wrong in my test or what option or I forgot in my linker, I would be very, extremely grateful. Thanks in advance. UPDATE: When I make my destructors non-inlined, I get new and more exciting link errors: intermediate/Inheritance.o:(.rodata+0x78): undefined reference to `vtable for __cxxabiv1::__si_class_type_info' intermediate/Inheritance.o:(.rodata+0x90): undefined reference to `vtable for __cxxabiv1::__vmi_class_type_info' intermediate/Inheritance.o:(.rodata+0xb0): undefined reference to `vtable for __cxxabiv1::__class_type_info' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make: *** [bin/Galaxians.android] Fout 1

    Read the article

  • a4j:support within a rich:modalPanel

    - by Andy Deighton
    Hi all, I've hit a wall. I know the a4j and rich tags pretty well (I use Seam 2.2.0 and Richfaces 3.3.1). However, I'm trying to do something quite simple, but in a rich:modalPanel. It seems that rich:modalPanels do not allow Ajax events to be fired. Here's a simple breakdown: I have a h:selectOneMenu with some items in it and whose value is attached to a backing bean. Attached to that h:selectOneMenu is a a4j:support tag so that whenever the change event is fired, the backing bean should get updated. Truly simple stuff eh? However, when this h:selectOneMenu is in a rich:modalPanel the onchange event doesn't update the backing bean until the rich:modalPanel closes. I can confirm this because I'm running it in Eclipse debug mode and I have a breakpoint on the setter of the property that's hooked up to the h:selectOneMenu. This is driving me mad! This is vanilla stuff for Ajax, but rich:modalPanels don't seem to allow it. So, the question is: can I do Ajax stuff within a rich:modalPanel? I'm basically trying to use the rich:modalPanel as a form (I've tried a4j:form and h:form to no avail) that reacts to changes to the drop down (e.g. when the user changes the drop down, a certain part of the form should get reRendered). Am I trying to do something that's not possible? Here's a simplified version of the modalPanel: <rich:modalPanel id="quickAddPanel"> <div> <a4j:form id="quickAddPaymentForm" ajaxSubmit="true"> <s:decorate id="paymentTypeDecorator"> <a4j:region> <h:selectOneMenu id="paymentType" required="true" value="#{backingBean.paymentType}" tabindex="1"> <s:selectItems label="#{type.description}" noSelectionLabel="Please select..." value="#{incomingPaymentTypes}" var="type"/> <s:convertEnum/> <a4j:support ajaxSingle="true" event="onchange" eventsQueue="paymentQueue" immediate="true" limitToList="true" reRender="paymentTypeDecorator, paymentDetailsOutputPanel, quickAddPaymentForm"/> </h:selectOneMenu> </a4j:region> </s:decorate> </fieldset> <fieldset class="standard-form"> <div class="form-title">Payment details</div> <a4j:outputPanel id="paymentDetailsOutputPanel"> <h:outputText value="This should change whenever dropdown changes: #{backingBean.paymentType}"/> </a4j:outputPanel> </fieldset> </a4j:form> </div> </rich:modalPanel> Regards, Andy

    Read the article

  • If Then Statement Condition Being Ignored With Optimisations On

    - by Matma
    I think im going mad but can some show me what im missing, it must be some stupidly simple i just cant see the wood for the trees. BOTH side of this if then else statement are being executed? Ive tried commenting out the true side and moving the condition to a seperate variable with the same result. However if i explicitly set the condition to 1=0 or 1=1 then the if then statement is operating as i would expect. i.e. only executing one side of the equation... The only time ive seen this sort of thing is when the compiler has crashed and is no longer compiling (without visible indication that its not) but ive restarted studio with the same results, ive cleaned the solution, built and rebuilt with no change? please show me the stupid mistake im making using vs2005 if it matters. Dim dset As DataSet = New DataSet If (CboCustomers.SelectedValue IsNot Nothing) AndAlso (CboCustomers.SelectedValue <> "") Then Dim Sql As String = "Select sal.SalesOrderNo As SalesOrder,cus.CustomerName,has.SerialNo, convert(varchar,sal.Dateofpurchase,103) as Date from [dbo].[Customer_Table] as cus " & _ " inner join [dbo].[Hasp_table] as has on has.CustomerID=cus.CustomerTag " & _ " inner join [dbo].[salesorder_table] as sal On sal.Hasp_ID =has.Hasp_ID Where cus.CustomerTag = '" & CboCustomers.SelectedValue.ToString & "'" Dim dap As SqlDataAdapter = New SqlDataAdapter(Sql, FormConnection) dap.Fill(dset, "dbo.Customer_Table") DGCustomer.DataSource = dset.Tables("dbo.Customer_Table") Else Dim erm As String = "wtf" End If EDIT: i have found that this is something to do with the release config settings im using, i guesing its the optimisations bit. does anyone know of any utils/addons for vs that show if a line has been optimised out. delphi, my former language showed blue dots in the left margin to show that it was a compiled line, no dot meaning it wasnt compiled in, is there anything like that for vs? alternatively can someone explain how optimisations would affect this simple if statement causeing it to run both sides? EDIT2: using this thread as possible causes/solutions : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135509/bug-only-occurring-when-compile-optimization-enabled. It does the same with release = optimisations on, x86, x64 and AnyCPU Goes away with optimisations off. Im using V2005 on a x64 win7 machine, if that matters. Thanks

    Read the article

  • UIScrollView Infinite Scrolling

    - by Ben Robinson
    I'm attempting to setup a scrollview with infinite (horizontal) scrolling. Scrolling forward is easy - I have implemented scrollViewDidScroll, and when the contentOffset gets near the end I make the scrollview contentsize bigger and add more data into the space (i'll have to deal with the crippling effect this will have later!) My problem is scrolling back - the plan is to see when I get near the beginning of the scroll view, then when I do make the contentsize bigger, move the existing content along, add the new data to the beginning and then - importantly adjust the contentOffset so the data under the view port stays the same. This works perfectly if I scroll slowly (or enable paging) but if I go fast (not even very fast!) it goes mad! Heres the code: - (void) scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView { float pageNumber = scrollView.contentOffset.x / 320; float pageCount = scrollView.contentSize.width / 320; if (pageNumber > pageCount-4) { //Add 10 new pages to end mainScrollView.contentSize = CGSizeMake(mainScrollView.contentSize.width + 3200, mainScrollView.contentSize.height); //add new data here at (320*pageCount, 0); } //*** the problem is here - I use updatingScrollingContent to make sure its only called once (for accurate testing!) if (pageNumber < 4 && !updatingScrollingContent) { updatingScrollingContent = YES; mainScrollView.contentSize = CGSizeMake(mainScrollView.contentSize.width + 3200, mainScrollView.contentSize.height); mainScrollView.contentOffset = CGPointMake(mainScrollView.contentOffset.x + 3200, 0); for (UIView *view in [mainContainerView subviews]) { view.frame = CGRectMake(view.frame.origin.x+3200, view.frame.origin.y, view.frame.size.width, view.frame.size.height); } //add new data here at (0, 0); } //** MY CHECK! NSLog(@"%f", mainScrollView.contentOffset.x); } As the scrolling happens the log reads: 1286.500000 1285.500000 1284.500000 1283.500000 1282.500000 1281.500000 1280.500000 Then, when pageNumber<4 (we're getting near the beginning): 4479.500000 4479.500000 Great! - but the numbers should continue to go down in the 4,000s but the next log entries read: 1278.000000 1277.000000 1276.500000 1275.500000 etc.... Continiuing from where it left off! Just for the record, if scrolled slowly the log reads: 1294.500000 1290.000000 1284.500000 1280.500000 4476.000000 4476.000000 4473.000000 4470.000000 4467.500000 4464.000000 4460.500000 4457.500000 etc.... Any ideas???? Thanks Ben.

    Read the article

  • Setting default values for inherited property without using accessor in Objective-C?

    - by Ben Stock
    I always see people debating whether or not to use a property's setter in the -init method. I don't know enough about the Objective-C language yet to have an opinion one way or the other. With that said, lately I've been sticking to ivars exclusively. It seems cleaner in a way. I don't know. I digress. Anyway, here's my problem … Say we have a class called Dude with an interface that looks like this: @interface Dude : NSObject { @private NSUInteger _numberOfGirlfriends; } @property (nonatomic, assign) NSUInteger numberOfGirlfriends; @end And an implementation that looks like this: @implementation Dude - (instancetype)init { self = [super init]; if (self) { _numberOfGirlfriends = 0; } } @end Now let's say I want to extend Dude. My subclass will be called Playa. And since a playa should have mad girlfriends, when Playa gets initialized, I don't want him to start with 0; I want him to have 10. Here's Playa.m: @implementation Playa - (instancetype)init { self = [super init]; if (self) { // Attempting to set the ivar directly will result in the compiler saying, // "Instance variable `_numberOfGirlfriends` is private." // _numberOfGirlfriends = 10; <- Can't do this. // Thus, the only way to set it is with the mutator: self.numberOfGirlfriends = 10; // Or: [self setNumberOfGirlfriends:10]; } } @end So what's a Objective-C newcomer to do? Well, I mean, there's only one thing I can do, and that's set the property. Unless there's something I'm missing. Any ideas, suggestions, tips, or tricks? Sidenote: The other thing that bugs me about setting the ivar directly — and what a lot of ivar-proponents say is a "plus" — is that there are no KVC notifications. A lot of times, I want the KVC magic to happen. 50% of my setters end in [self setNeedsDisplay:YES], so without the notification, my UI doesn't update unless I remember to manually add -setNeedsDisplay. That's a bad example, but the point stands. I utilize KVC all over the place, so without notifications, things can act wonky. Anyway, any info is much appreciated. Thanks!

    Read the article

  • Device drivers and Windows

    - by b-gen-jack-o-neill
    Hi, I am trying to complete the picture of how the PC and the OS interacts together. And I am at point, where I am little out of guess when it comes to device drivers. Please, don´t write things like its too complicated, or you don´t need to know when using high programming laguage and winapi functions. I want to know, it´s for study purposes. So, the very basic structure of how OS and PC (by PC I mean of course HW) is how I see it is that all other than direct CPU commands, which can CPU do on itself (arithmetic operation, its registers access and memory access) must pass thru OS. Mainly becouse from ring level 3 you cannot use in and out intructions which are used for acesing other HW. I know that there is MMIO,but it must be set by port comunication first. It was not like this all the time. Even I am bit young to remember MSDOS, I know you could access HW directly, becouse there ws no limitation, no ring mode. So you could to write string to diplay use wheather DOS function, or directly acess video card memory and write it by yourself. But as OS developed, there is no longer this possibility. But it is fine, since OS now handles all the HW comunication, and frankly it more convinient and much more safe (I would say the only option) in multitasking environment. So nowdays you instead of using int instructions to use BIOS mapped function or DOS function you call dll which internally than handles everything you don´t need to know about. I understand this. I also undrstand that device drivers is the piece of code that runs in ring level 0, so it can do all the HW interactions. But what I don´t understand is connection between OS and device driver. Let´s take a example - I want to make a sound card make a sound. So I call windows API to acess sound card, but what happens than? Does windows call device drivers to do so? But if it does call device driver, does it mean, that all device drivers which can be called by winAPI function, must have routines named in some specific way? I mean, when I have new sound card, must its drivers have functions named same as the old one? So Windows can actually call the same function from its perspective? But if Windows have predefined sets of functions requored by device drivers, that it cannot use new drivers that doesent existed before last version of OS came out. Please, help me understand this mess. I am really getting mad. Thanks.

    Read the article

  • C++ stream as a parameter when overloading operator<<

    - by TheOm3ga
    I'm trying to write my own logging class and use it as a stream: logger L; L << "whatever" << std::endl; This is the code I started with: #include <iostream> using namespace std; class logger{ public: template <typename T> friend logger& operator <<(logger& log, const T& value); }; template <typename T> logger& operator <<(logger& log, T const & value) { // Here I'd output the values to a file and stdout, etc. cout << value; return log; } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { logger L; L << "hello" << '\n' ; // This works L << "bye" << "alo" << endl; // This doesn't work return 0; } But I was getting an error when trying to compile, saying that there was no definition for operator<<: pruebaLog.cpp:31: error: no match for ‘operator<<’ in ‘operator<< [with T = char [4]](((logger&)((logger*)operator<< [with T = char [4]](((logger&)(& L)), ((const char (&)[4])"bye")))), ((const char (&)[4])"alo")) << std::endl’ So, I've been trying to overload operator<< to accept this kind of streams, but it's driving me mad. I don't know how to do it. I've been loking at, for instance, the definition of std::endl at the ostream header file and written a function with this header: logger& operator <<(logger& log, const basic_ostream<char,char_traits<char> >& (*s)(basic_ostream<char,char_traits<char> >&)) But no luck. I've tried the same using templates instead of directly using char, and also tried simply using "const ostream& os", and nothing. Another thing that bugs me is that, in the error output, the first argument for operator<< changes, sometimes it's a reference to a pointer, sometimes looks like a double reference...

    Read the article

  • Why does Cacti keep waiting for dead poller processes?

    - by Oliver Salzburg
    sorry for the length I am currently setting up a new Debian (6.0.5) server. I put Cacti (0.8.7g) on it yesterday and have been battling with it ever since. Initial issue The initial issue I was observing, was that my graphs weren't updating. So I checked my cacti.log and found this concerning message: POLLER: Poller[0] Maximum runtime of 298 seconds exceeded. Exiting. That can't be good, right? So I went checking and started poller.php myself (via sudo -u www-data php poller.php --force). It will pump out a lot of message (which all look like what I would expect) and then hang for a minute. After that 1 minute, it will loop the following message: Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. This goes on for 4 more minutes until the process is forcefully ended for running longer than 300s. So far so good I went on for a good hour trying to determine what poller might still be running, until I got to the conclusion that there simply is no running poller. Debugging I checked poller.php to see how that warning is issued and why. On line 368, Cacti will retrieve the number of finished processes from the database and use that value to calculate how many processes are still running. So, let's see that value! I added the following debug code into poller.php: print "Finished: " . $finished_processes . " - Started: " . $started_processes . "\n"; Result This will print the following within seconds of starting poller.php: Finished: 0 - Started: 1 Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. Finished: 1 - Started: 1 So the values are being read and are valid. Until we get to the part where it keeps looping: Finished: - Started: 1 Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. Suddenly, the value is gone. Why? Putting var_dump() in there confirms the issue: NULL Finished: - Started: 1 Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. The return value is NULL. How can that be when querying SELECT COUNT()...? (SELECT COUNT() should always return one result row, shouldn't it?) More debugging So I went into lib\database.php and had a look at that db_fetch_cell(). A bit of testing confirmed, that the result set is actually empty. So I added my own database query code in there to see what that would do: $finished_processes = db_fetch_cell("SELECT count(*) FROM poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'"); print "Finished: " . $finished_processes . " - Started: " . $started_processes . "\n"; $mysqli = new mysqli("localhost","cacti","cacti","cacti"); $result = $mysqli->query("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00';"); $row = $result->fetch_assoc(); var_dump( $row ); This will output Finished: - Started: 1 array(1) { ["COUNT(*)"]=> string(1) "2" } Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. So, the data is there and can be accessed without any problems, just not with the method Cacti is using? Double-check that! I enabled MySQL logging to make sure I'm not imagining things. Sure enough, when the error message is looped, the cacti.log reads as if it was querying like mad: 06/29/2012 08:44:00 PM - CMDPHP: Poller[0] DEVEL: SQL Cell: "SELECT count(*) FROM cacti.poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'" 06/29/2012 08:44:01 PM - CMDPHP: Poller[0] DEVEL: SQL Cell: "SELECT count(*) FROM cacti.poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'" 06/29/2012 08:44:02 PM - CMDPHP: Poller[0] DEVEL: SQL Cell: "SELECT count(*) FROM cacti.poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'" But none of these queries are logged my MySQL. Yet, when I add my own database query code, it shows up just fine. What the heck is going on here?

    Read the article

  • Launching mysql server: same permissions for root and for user

    - by toinbis
    Hi folks, have been directed here from stackoverflow here, am reposting the question and adding my.cnf at the end of a post. so far in my 10+ years experience with linux, all the permission problems I've ever encountered, have been successfully solved with chmod -R 777 /path/where/the/problem/has/occured (every lie has a grain of truth in it :) This time the trick doesn't work, so I'm turning to you for help. I'm compiling mysql server from scratch with zc.buildout (www . buildout . org). I do launch it by executing /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe, this works. The thing is that i'll be launching this from within supervisor (supervisord . org) script, and when used on the deployment server, it'll need it to be launched with root permissions(so that nginx server, launched with the same script, would have access to 80 port). The problem is that sudo /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe, fails, generating the error, posted bellow, in mysql error log (apache and nginx works as expected). http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/216045 suggests, that "there are two errors: A missing table and a file system that mysqld doesn't have access to". Mysqldatadir and all the mysql server binary files has 777 permissions, talbe mysql.plugin does exist and has 777 permissions (why Can't open the mysql.plugin table?), "sudo touch mysql_datadir/tmp/file" does create file (why Can't create/write to file /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/tmp/ib4e9Huz?). chgrp -R mysql mysql_datadir and adding "root, toinbis, mysql" users to mysql group ( cat /etc/group | grep mysql outputs mysql:x:124:root,toinbis,mysql) has no effect - when i launch it as a casual user, it starts, when as a root - it fails. Does mysql server, even started as root, tries to operate as other, let's say, 'mysql' user? but even in that case, adding mysql user to mysql group and making all the mysql_datadirs files belong to mysql group should make things work smoothly. I do know that it might be a better idea to simply to launch one the nginx as root and mysql - as just a user, but this error irritated me enough so to devote enough energy so not to only "make things work", but to also make things work exactly as i wanted it initially, so to have a proof of concept that it's possible. and this is the generated error: 091213 20:02:55 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Table 'plugin' is read only 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it. /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Can't create/write to file '/home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/tmp/ib4e9Huz' (Errcode: 13) 091213 20:02:55 InnoDB: Error: unable to create temporary file; errno: 13 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' init function returned error. 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed. 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: Permission denied 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on socket: /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock ? 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Aborting 091213 20:02:55 [Note] /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Shutdown complete 091213 20:02:55 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.pid ended My my.cnf (the basedir and datadir(including tempdir) have chmod -R 777 permissions) : [client] socket = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock port = 8002 [mysqld_safe] socket = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock nice = 0 [mysqld] # # * Basic Settings # socket = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock port = 8002 pid-file = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.pid basedir = /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql datadir = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir tmpdir = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/tmp skip-external-locking bind-address = 127.0.0.1 log-error =/home/toinbis/.../runtime/logs/mysql_errorlog # # * Fine Tuning # key_buffer = 16M max_allowed_packet = 32M thread_stack = 128K thread_cache_size = 8 myisam-recover = BACKUP #max_connections = 100 #table_cache = 64 #thread_concurrency = 10 # # * Query Cache Configuration # query_cache_limit = 1M query_cache_size = 16M # # * Logging and Replication # # Both location gets rotated by the cronjob. # Be aware that this log type is a performance killer. #log = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/logs/mysql_logs/mysql.log # # Error logging goes to syslog. This is a Debian improvement :) # # Here you can see queries with especially long duration #log_slow_queries = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/logs/mysql_logs/mysql-slow.log #long_query_time = 2 #log-queries-not-using-indexes # # The following can be used as easy to replay backup logs or for replication. #server-id = 1 #log_bin = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/mysql-bin.log #binlog_format = ROW #read_only = 0 #expire_logs_days = 10 #max_binlog_size = 100M #sync_binlog = 1 #binlog_do_db = include_database_name #binlog_ignore_db = include_database_name # # * InnoDB # innodb_data_file_path = ibdata1:10M:autoextend innodb_buffer_pool_size=64M innodb_log_file_size=16M innodb_log_buffer_size=8M innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=1 innodb_file_per_table innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog=1 [mysqldump] quick quote-names max_allowed_packet = 32M [mysql] #no-auto-rehash # faster start of mysql but no tab completion [isamchk] key_buffer = 16M Any ideas much appreciated! regards, to P.S. sorry for messy hyperlinks, it's my first post and anti-spam feature of SF doesn't allow to post them properly :)

    Read the article

  • The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like)

    - by The Geek
    Welcome to the very first How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide, where we’ve put together a list of our absolute favorites to help you weed through all of the junk out there to pick the perfect gift for anybody. Though really, it’s just a list of the geeky stuff we want. We’ve got a whole range of items on the list, from cheaper gifts that most anybody can afford, to the really expensive stuff that we’re pretty sure nobody is giving us. Stocking Stuffers Here’s a couple of ideas for items that won’t break the bank. LED Keychain Micro-Light   Magcraft 1/8-Inch Rare Earth Cube Magnets Best little LED keychain light around. If they don’t need the penknife of the above item this is the perfect gift. I give them out by the handfuls and nobody ever says anything but good things about them. I’ve got ones that are years old and still running on the same battery.  Price: $8   Geeks cannot resist magnets. Jason bought this pack for his fridge because he was sick of big clunky magnets… these things are amazing. One tiny magnet, smaller than an Altoid mint, can practically hold a clipboard right to the fridge. Amazing. I spend more time playing with them on the counter than I do actually hanging stuff.  Price: $10 Lots of Geeky Mugs   Astronomy Powerful Green Laser Pointer There’s loads of fun, geeky mugs you can find on Amazon or anywhere else—and they are great choices for the geek who loves their coffee. You can get the Caffeine mug pictured here, or go with an Atari one, Canon Lens, or the Aperture mug based on Portal. Your choice. Price: $7   No, it’s not a light saber, but it’s nearly bright enough to be one—you can illuminate low flying clouds at night or just blind some aliens on your day off. All that for an extremely low price. Loads of fun. Price: $15       Geeky TV Shows and Books Sometimes you just want to relax and enjoy a some TV or a good book. Here’s a few choices. The IT Crowd Fourth Season   Doctor Who, Complete Fifth Series Ridiculous, funny show about nerds in the IT department, loved by almost all the geeks here at HTG. Justin even makes this required watching for new hires in his office so they’ll get his jokes. You can pre-order the fourth season, or pick up seasons one, two, or three for even cheaper. Price: $13   It doesn’t get any more nerdy than Eric’s pick, the fifth all-new series of Doctor Who, where the Daleks are hatching a new master plan from the heart of war-torn London. There’s also alien vampires, humanoid reptiles, and a lot more. Price: $52 Battlestar Galactica Complete Series   MAKE: Electronics: Learning Through Discovery Watch the epic fight to save the human race by finding the fabled planet Earth while being hunted by the robotic Cylons. You can grab the entire series on DVD or Blu-ray, or get the seasons individually. This isn’t your average sci-fi TV show. Price: $150 for Blu-ray.   Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun, hands-on way? The Make:Electronics book helps you build the circuits and learn how it all works—as if you had any more time between all that registry hacking and loading software on your new PC. Price: $21       Geeky Gadgets for the Gadget-Loving Geek Here’s a few of the items on our gadget list, though lets be honest: geeks are going to love almost any gadget, especially shiny new ones. Klipsch Image S4i Premium Noise-Isolating Headset with 3-Button Apple Control   GP2X Caanoo MAME/Console Emulator If you’re a real music geek looking for some serious quality in the headset for your iPhone or iPod, this is the pair that Alex recommends. They aren’t terribly cheap, but you can get the less expensive S3 earphones instead if you prefer. Price: $50-100   Eric says: “As an owner of an older version, I can say the GP2X is one of my favorite gadgets ever. Touted a “Retro Emulation Juggernaut,” GP2X runs Linux and may be the only open source software console available. Sounds too good to be true, but isn’t.” Price: $150 Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p   Western Digital WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player If you do a lot of streaming over Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon’s Video on Demand, Pandora, and others, the Roku box is a great choice to get your content on your TV without paying a lot of money.  It’s also got Wireless-N built in, and it supports full 1080P HD. Price: $99   If you’ve got a home media collection sitting on a hard drive or a network server, the Western Digital box is probably the cheapest way to get that content on your TV, and it even supports Netflix streaming too. It’ll play loads of formats in full HD quality. Price: $99 Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 Color Mobile Scanner   Doxie, the amazing scanner for documents Trevor said: “This wonderful little scanner has become absolutely essential to me. My desk used to just be a gigantic pile of papers that I didn’t need at the moment, but couldn’t throw away ‘just in case.’ Now, every few weeks, I’ll run that paper pile through this and then happily shred the originals!” Price: $300   If you don’t scan quite as often and are looking for a budget scanner you can throw into your bag, or toss into a drawer in your desk, the Doxie scanner is a great alternative that I’ve been using for a while. It’s half the price, and while it’s not as full-featured as the Fujitsu, it might be a better choice for the very casual user. Price: $150       (Expensive) Gadgets Almost Anybody Will Love If you’re not sure that one of the more geeky presents is gonna work, here’s some gadgets that just about anybody is going to love, especially if they don’t have one already. Of course, some of these are a bit on the expensive side—but it’s a wish list, right? Amazon Kindle       The Kindle weighs less than a paperback book, the screen is amazing and easy on the eyes, and get ready for the kicker: the battery lasts at least a month. We aren’t kidding, either—it really lasts that long. If you don’t feel like spending money for books, you can use it to read PDFs, and if you want to get really geeky, you can hack it for custom screensavers. Price: $139 iPod Touch or iPad       You can’t go wrong with either of these presents—the iPod Touch can do almost everything the iPhone can do, including games, apps, and music, and it has the same Retina display as the iPhone, HD video recording, and a front-facing camera so you can use FaceTime. Price: $229+, depending on model. The iPad is a great tablet for playing games, browsing the web, or just using on your coffee table for guests. It’s well worth buying one—but if you’re buying for yourself, keep in mind that the iPad 2 is probably coming out in 3 months. Price: $500+ MacBook Air  The MacBook Air comes in 11” or 13” versions, and it’s an amazing little machine. It’s lightweight, the battery lasts nearly forever, and it resumes from sleep almost instantly. Since it uses an SSD drive instead of a hard drive, you’re barely going to notice any speed problems for general use. So if you’ve got a lot of money to blow, this is a killer gift. Price: $999 and up. Stuck with No Idea for a Present? Gift Cards! Yeah, you’re not going to win any “thoughtful present” awards with these, but you might just give somebody what they really want—the new Angry Birds HD for their iPad, Cut the Rope, or anything else they want. ITunes Gift Card   Amazon.com Gift Card Somebody in your circle getting a new iPod, iPhone, or iPad? You can get them an iTunes gift card, which they can use to buy music, games or apps. Yep, this way you can gift them a copy of Angry Birds if they don’t already have it. Or even Cut the Rope.   No clue what to get somebody on your list? Amazon gift cards let them buy pretty much anything they want, from organic weirdberries to big screen TVs. Yeah, it’s not as thoughtful as getting them a nice present, but look at the bright side: maybe they’ll get you an Amazon gift card and it’ll balance out. That’s the highlights from our lists—got anything else to add? Share your geeky gift ideas in the comments. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography Happy Snow Bears Theme for Chrome and Iron [Holiday] Download Full Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun Game for Free Scorched Cometary Planet Wallpaper Quick Fix: Add the RSS Button Back to the Firefox Awesome Bar Dropbox Desktop Client 1.0.0 RC for Windows, Linux, and Mac Released Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper

    Read the article

  • Cutting edge technology, a lone Movember ranger and a 5-a-side football club ...meet the team at Oracle’s Belfast Offices.

    - by user10729410
    Normal 0 false false false EN-IE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; 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;} Normal 0 false false false EN-IE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; 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;} By Olivia O’Connell To see what’s in store at Oracle’s next Open Day which comes to Belfast this week, I visited the offices with some colleagues to meet the team and get a feel for what‘s in store on November 29th. After being warmly greeted by Frances and Francesca, who make sure Front of House and Facilities run smoothly, we embarked on a quick tour of the 2 floors Oracle occupies, led by VP Bo, it was time to seek out some willing volunteers to be interviewed/photographed - what a shy bunch! A bit of coaxing from the social media team was needed here! In a male-dominated environment, the few women on the team caught my eye immediately. I got chatting to Susan, a business analyst and Bronagh, a tech writer. It becomes clear during our chat that the male/female divide is not an issue – “everyone here just gets on with the job,” says Suzanne, “We’re all around the same age and have similar priorities and luckily everyone is really friendly so there are no problems. ” A graduate of Queen’s University in Belfast majoring in maths & computer science, Susan works closely with product management and the development teams to ensure that the final project delivered to clients meets and exceeds their expectations. Bronagh, who joined us following working for a tech company in Montreal and gaining her post-grad degree at University of Ulster agrees that the work is challenging but “the environment is so relaxed and friendly”. Normal 0 false false false EN-IE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; 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;} Software developer David is taking the Movember challenge for the first time to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health. Like other colleagues in the office, he is a University of Ulster graduate and works on Reference applications and Merchandising Tools which enable customers to establish e-shops using Oracle technologies. The social activities are headed up by Gordon, a software engineer on the commerce team who joined the team 4 years ago after graduating from the University of Strathclyde at Glasgow with a degree in Computer Science. Everyone is unanimous that the best things about working at Oracle’s Belfast offices are the casual friendly environment and the opportunity to be at the cutting edge of technology. We’re looking forward to our next trip to Belfast for some cool demos and meet candidates. And as for the camera-shyness? Look who came out to have their picture taken at the end of the day! Normal 0 false false false EN-IE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; 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;} The Oracle offices in Belfast are located on the 6th floor, Victoria House, Gloucester Street, Belfast BT1 4LS, UK View Larger Map Normal 0 false false false EN-IE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; 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;} Open day takes place on Thursday, 29th November 4pm – 8pm. Visit the 5 Demo Stations to find out more about each teams' activities and projects to date. See live demos including "Engaging the Customer", "Managing Your Store", "Helping the Customer", "Shopping on-line" and "The Commerce Experience" processes. The "Working @Oracle" stand will give you the chance to connect with our recruitment team and get information about the Recruitment process and making your career path in Oracle. Register here.

    Read the article

  • TOTD #166: Using NoSQL database in your Java EE 6 Applications on GlassFish - MongoDB for now!

    - by arungupta
    The Java EE 6 platform includes Java Persistence API to work with RDBMS. The JPA specification defines a comprehensive API that includes, but not restricted to, how a database table can be mapped to a POJO and vice versa, provides mechanisms how a PersistenceContext can be injected in a @Stateless bean and then be used for performing different operations on the database table and write typesafe queries. There are several well known advantages of RDBMS but the NoSQL movement has gained traction over past couple of years. The NoSQL databases are not intended to be a replacement for the mainstream RDBMS. As Philosophy of NoSQL explains, NoSQL database was designed for casual use where all the features typically provided by an RDBMS are not required. The name "NoSQL" is more of a category of databases that is more known for what it is not rather than what it is. The basic principles of NoSQL database are: No need to have a pre-defined schema and that makes them a schema-less database. Addition of new properties to existing objects is easy and does not require ALTER TABLE. The unstructured data gives flexibility to change the format of data any time without downtime or reduced service levels. Also there are no joins happening on the server because there is no structure and thus no relation between them. Scalability and performance is more important than the entire set of functionality typically provided by an RDBMS. This set of databases provide eventual consistency and/or transactions restricted to single items but more focus on CRUD. Not be restricted to SQL to access the information stored in the backing database. Designed to scale-out (horizontal) instead of scale-up (vertical). This is important knowing that databases, and everything else as well, is moving into the cloud. RBDMS can scale-out using sharding but requires complex management and not for the faint of heart. Unlike RBDMS which require a separate caching tier, most of the NoSQL databases comes with integrated caching. Designed for less management and simpler data models lead to lower administration as well. There are primarily three types of NoSQL databases: Key-Value stores (e.g. Cassandra and Riak) Document databases (MongoDB or CouchDB) Graph databases (Neo4J) You may think NoSQL is panacea but as I mentioned above they are not meant to replace the mainstream databases and here is why: RDBMS have been around for many years, very stable, and functionally rich. This is something CIOs and CTOs can bet their money on without much worry. There is a reason 98% of Fortune 100 companies run Oracle :-) NoSQL is cutting edge, brings excitement to developers, but enterprises are cautious about them. Commercial databases like Oracle are well supported by the backing enterprises in terms of providing support resources on a global scale. There is a full ecosystem built around these commercial databases providing training, performance tuning, architecture guidance, and everything else. NoSQL is fairly new and typically backed by a single company not able to meet the scale of these big enterprises. NoSQL databases are good for CRUDing operations but business intelligence is extremely important for enterprises to stay competitive. RDBMS provide extensive tooling to generate this data but that was not the original intention of NoSQL databases and is lacking in that area. Generating any meaningful information other than CRUDing require extensive programming. Not suited for complex transactions such as banking systems or other highly transactional applications requiring 2-phase commit. SQL cannot be used with NoSQL databases and writing simple queries can be involving. Enough talking, lets take a look at some code. This blog has published multiple blogs on how to access a RDBMS using JPA in a Java EE 6 application. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will show you can use MongoDB (a document-oriented database) with a typical 3-tier Java EE 6 application. Lets get started! The complete source code of this project can be downloaded here. Download MongoDB for your platform from here (1.8.2 as of this writing) and start the server as: arun@ArunUbuntu:~/tools/mongodb-linux-x86_64-1.8.2/bin$./mongod./mongod --help for help and startup optionsSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=11210port=27017 dbpath=/data/db/ 64-bit Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] db version v1.8.2, pdfile version4.5Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] git version:433bbaa14aaba6860da15bd4de8edf600f56501bSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] build sys info: Linuxbs-linux64.10gen.cc 2.6.21.7-2.ec2.v1.2.fc8xen #1 SMP Fri Nov 2017:48:28 EST 2009 x86_64 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_41Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [websvr] web admin interface listening on port 28017 The default directory for the database is /data/db and needs to be created as: sudo mkdir -p /data/db/sudo chown `id -u` /data/db You can specify a different directory using "--dbpath" option. Refer to Quickstart for your specific platform. Using NetBeans, create a Java EE 6 project and make sure to enable CDI and add JavaServer Faces framework. Download MongoDB Java Driver (2.6.3 of this writing) and add it to the project library by selecting "Properties", "LIbraries", "Add Library...", creating a new library by specifying the location of the JAR file, and adding the library to the created project. Edit the generated "index.xhtml" such that it looks like: <h1>Add a new movie</h1><h:form> Name: <h:inputText value="#{movie.name}" size="20"/><br/> Year: <h:inputText value="#{movie.year}" size="6"/><br/> Language: <h:inputText value="#{movie.language}" size="20"/><br/> <h:commandButton actionListener="#{movieSessionBean.createMovie}" action="show" title="Add" value="submit"/></h:form> This page has a simple HTML form with three text boxes and a submit button. The text boxes take name, year, and language of a movie and the submit button invokes the "createMovie" method of "movieSessionBean" and then render "show.xhtml". Create "show.xhtml" ("New" -> "Other..." -> "Other" -> "XHTML File") such that it looks like: <head> <title><h1>List of movies</h1></title> </head> <body> <h:form> <h:dataTable value="#{movieSessionBean.movies}" var="m" > <h:column><f:facet name="header">Name</f:facet>#{m.name}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Year</f:facet>#{m.year}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Language</f:facet>#{m.language}</h:column> </h:dataTable> </h:form> This page shows the name, year, and language of all movies stored in the database so far. The list of movies is returned by "movieSessionBean.movies" property. Now create the "Movie" class such that it looks like: import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import javax.enterprise.inject.Model;import javax.validation.constraints.Size;/** * @author arun */@Modelpublic class Movie { @Size(min=1, max=20) private String name; @Size(min=1, max=20) private String language; private int year; // getters and setters for "name", "year", "language" public BasicDBObject toDBObject() { BasicDBObject doc = new BasicDBObject(); doc.put("name", name); doc.put("year", year); doc.put("language", language); return doc; } public static Movie fromDBObject(DBObject doc) { Movie m = new Movie(); m.name = (String)doc.get("name"); m.year = (int)doc.get("year"); m.language = (String)doc.get("language"); return m; } @Override public String toString() { return name + ", " + year + ", " + language; }} Other than the usual boilerplate code, the key methods here are "toDBObject" and "fromDBObject". These methods provide a conversion from "Movie" -> "DBObject" and vice versa. The "DBObject" is a MongoDB class that comes as part of the mongo-2.6.3.jar file and which we added to our project earlier.  The complete javadoc for 2.6.3 can be seen here. Notice, this class also uses Bean Validation constraints and will be honored by the JSF layer. Finally, create "MovieSessionBean" stateless EJB with all the business logic such that it looks like: package org.glassfish.samples;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DB;import com.mongodb.DBCollection;import com.mongodb.DBCursor;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import com.mongodb.Mongo;import java.net.UnknownHostException;import java.util.ArrayList;import java.util.List;import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;import javax.ejb.Stateless;import javax.inject.Inject;import javax.inject.Named;/** * @author arun */@Stateless@Namedpublic class MovieSessionBean { @Inject Movie movie; DBCollection movieColl; @PostConstruct private void initDB() throws UnknownHostException { Mongo m = new Mongo(); DB db = m.getDB("movieDB"); movieColl = db.getCollection("movies"); if (movieColl == null) { movieColl = db.createCollection("movies", null); } } public void createMovie() { BasicDBObject doc = movie.toDBObject(); movieColl.insert(doc); } public List<Movie> getMovies() { List<Movie> movies = new ArrayList(); DBCursor cur = movieColl.find(); System.out.println("getMovies: Found " + cur.size() + " movie(s)"); for (DBObject dbo : cur.toArray()) { movies.add(Movie.fromDBObject(dbo)); } return movies; }} The database is initialized in @PostConstruct. Instead of a working with a database table, NoSQL databases work with a schema-less document. The "Movie" class is the document in our case and stored in the collection "movies". The collection allows us to perform query functions on all movies. The "getMovies" method invokes "find" method on the collection which is equivalent to the SQL query "select * from movies" and then returns a List<Movie>. Also notice that there is no "persistence.xml" in the project. Right-click and run the project to see the output as: Enter some values in the text box and click on enter to see the result as: If you reached here then you've successfully used MongoDB in your Java EE 6 application, congratulations! Some food for thought and further play ... SQL to MongoDB mapping shows mapping between traditional SQL -> Mongo query language. Tutorial shows fun things you can do with MongoDB. Try the interactive online shell  The cookbook provides common ways of using MongoDB In terms of this project, here are some tasks that can be tried: Encapsulate database management in a JPA persistence provider. Is it even worth it because the capabilities are going to be very different ? MongoDB uses "BSonObject" class for JSON representation, add @XmlRootElement on a POJO and how a compatible JSON representation can be generated. This will make the fromXXX and toXXX methods redundant.

    Read the article

  • TOTD #166: Using NoSQL database in your Java EE 6 Applications on GlassFish - MongoDB for now!

    - by arungupta
    The Java EE 6 platform includes Java Persistence API to work with RDBMS. The JPA specification defines a comprehensive API that includes, but not restricted to, how a database table can be mapped to a POJO and vice versa, provides mechanisms how a PersistenceContext can be injected in a @Stateless bean and then be used for performing different operations on the database table and write typesafe queries. There are several well known advantages of RDBMS but the NoSQL movement has gained traction over past couple of years. The NoSQL databases are not intended to be a replacement for the mainstream RDBMS. As Philosophy of NoSQL explains, NoSQL database was designed for casual use where all the features typically provided by an RDBMS are not required. The name "NoSQL" is more of a category of databases that is more known for what it is not rather than what it is. The basic principles of NoSQL database are: No need to have a pre-defined schema and that makes them a schema-less database. Addition of new properties to existing objects is easy and does not require ALTER TABLE. The unstructured data gives flexibility to change the format of data any time without downtime or reduced service levels. Also there are no joins happening on the server because there is no structure and thus no relation between them. Scalability and performance is more important than the entire set of functionality typically provided by an RDBMS. This set of databases provide eventual consistency and/or transactions restricted to single items but more focus on CRUD. Not be restricted to SQL to access the information stored in the backing database. Designed to scale-out (horizontal) instead of scale-up (vertical). This is important knowing that databases, and everything else as well, is moving into the cloud. RBDMS can scale-out using sharding but requires complex management and not for the faint of heart. Unlike RBDMS which require a separate caching tier, most of the NoSQL databases comes with integrated caching. Designed for less management and simpler data models lead to lower administration as well. There are primarily three types of NoSQL databases: Key-Value stores (e.g. Cassandra and Riak) Document databases (MongoDB or CouchDB) Graph databases (Neo4J) You may think NoSQL is panacea but as I mentioned above they are not meant to replace the mainstream databases and here is why: RDBMS have been around for many years, very stable, and functionally rich. This is something CIOs and CTOs can bet their money on without much worry. There is a reason 98% of Fortune 100 companies run Oracle :-) NoSQL is cutting edge, brings excitement to developers, but enterprises are cautious about them. Commercial databases like Oracle are well supported by the backing enterprises in terms of providing support resources on a global scale. There is a full ecosystem built around these commercial databases providing training, performance tuning, architecture guidance, and everything else. NoSQL is fairly new and typically backed by a single company not able to meet the scale of these big enterprises. NoSQL databases are good for CRUDing operations but business intelligence is extremely important for enterprises to stay competitive. RDBMS provide extensive tooling to generate this data but that was not the original intention of NoSQL databases and is lacking in that area. Generating any meaningful information other than CRUDing require extensive programming. Not suited for complex transactions such as banking systems or other highly transactional applications requiring 2-phase commit. SQL cannot be used with NoSQL databases and writing simple queries can be involving. Enough talking, lets take a look at some code. This blog has published multiple blogs on how to access a RDBMS using JPA in a Java EE 6 application. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will show you can use MongoDB (a document-oriented database) with a typical 3-tier Java EE 6 application. Lets get started! The complete source code of this project can be downloaded here. Download MongoDB for your platform from here (1.8.2 as of this writing) and start the server as: arun@ArunUbuntu:~/tools/mongodb-linux-x86_64-1.8.2/bin$./mongod./mongod --help for help and startup optionsSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=11210port=27017 dbpath=/data/db/ 64-bit Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] db version v1.8.2, pdfile version4.5Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] git version:433bbaa14aaba6860da15bd4de8edf600f56501bSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] build sys info: Linuxbs-linux64.10gen.cc 2.6.21.7-2.ec2.v1.2.fc8xen #1 SMP Fri Nov 2017:48:28 EST 2009 x86_64 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_41Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [websvr] web admin interface listening on port 28017 The default directory for the database is /data/db and needs to be created as: sudo mkdir -p /data/db/sudo chown `id -u` /data/db You can specify a different directory using "--dbpath" option. Refer to Quickstart for your specific platform. Using NetBeans, create a Java EE 6 project and make sure to enable CDI and add JavaServer Faces framework. Download MongoDB Java Driver (2.6.3 of this writing) and add it to the project library by selecting "Properties", "LIbraries", "Add Library...", creating a new library by specifying the location of the JAR file, and adding the library to the created project. Edit the generated "index.xhtml" such that it looks like: <h1>Add a new movie</h1><h:form> Name: <h:inputText value="#{movie.name}" size="20"/><br/> Year: <h:inputText value="#{movie.year}" size="6"/><br/> Language: <h:inputText value="#{movie.language}" size="20"/><br/> <h:commandButton actionListener="#{movieSessionBean.createMovie}" action="show" title="Add" value="submit"/></h:form> This page has a simple HTML form with three text boxes and a submit button. The text boxes take name, year, and language of a movie and the submit button invokes the "createMovie" method of "movieSessionBean" and then render "show.xhtml". Create "show.xhtml" ("New" -> "Other..." -> "Other" -> "XHTML File") such that it looks like: <head> <title><h1>List of movies</h1></title> </head> <body> <h:form> <h:dataTable value="#{movieSessionBean.movies}" var="m" > <h:column><f:facet name="header">Name</f:facet>#{m.name}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Year</f:facet>#{m.year}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Language</f:facet>#{m.language}</h:column> </h:dataTable> </h:form> This page shows the name, year, and language of all movies stored in the database so far. The list of movies is returned by "movieSessionBean.movies" property. Now create the "Movie" class such that it looks like: import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import javax.enterprise.inject.Model;import javax.validation.constraints.Size;/** * @author arun */@Modelpublic class Movie { @Size(min=1, max=20) private String name; @Size(min=1, max=20) private String language; private int year; // getters and setters for "name", "year", "language" public BasicDBObject toDBObject() { BasicDBObject doc = new BasicDBObject(); doc.put("name", name); doc.put("year", year); doc.put("language", language); return doc; } public static Movie fromDBObject(DBObject doc) { Movie m = new Movie(); m.name = (String)doc.get("name"); m.year = (int)doc.get("year"); m.language = (String)doc.get("language"); return m; } @Override public String toString() { return name + ", " + year + ", " + language; }} Other than the usual boilerplate code, the key methods here are "toDBObject" and "fromDBObject". These methods provide a conversion from "Movie" -> "DBObject" and vice versa. The "DBObject" is a MongoDB class that comes as part of the mongo-2.6.3.jar file and which we added to our project earlier.  The complete javadoc for 2.6.3 can be seen here. Notice, this class also uses Bean Validation constraints and will be honored by the JSF layer. Finally, create "MovieSessionBean" stateless EJB with all the business logic such that it looks like: package org.glassfish.samples;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DB;import com.mongodb.DBCollection;import com.mongodb.DBCursor;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import com.mongodb.Mongo;import java.net.UnknownHostException;import java.util.ArrayList;import java.util.List;import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;import javax.ejb.Stateless;import javax.inject.Inject;import javax.inject.Named;/** * @author arun */@Stateless@Namedpublic class MovieSessionBean { @Inject Movie movie; DBCollection movieColl; @PostConstruct private void initDB() throws UnknownHostException { Mongo m = new Mongo(); DB db = m.getDB("movieDB"); movieColl = db.getCollection("movies"); if (movieColl == null) { movieColl = db.createCollection("movies", null); } } public void createMovie() { BasicDBObject doc = movie.toDBObject(); movieColl.insert(doc); } public List<Movie> getMovies() { List<Movie> movies = new ArrayList(); DBCursor cur = movieColl.find(); System.out.println("getMovies: Found " + cur.size() + " movie(s)"); for (DBObject dbo : cur.toArray()) { movies.add(Movie.fromDBObject(dbo)); } return movies; }} The database is initialized in @PostConstruct. Instead of a working with a database table, NoSQL databases work with a schema-less document. The "Movie" class is the document in our case and stored in the collection "movies". The collection allows us to perform query functions on all movies. The "getMovies" method invokes "find" method on the collection which is equivalent to the SQL query "select * from movies" and then returns a List<Movie>. Also notice that there is no "persistence.xml" in the project. Right-click and run the project to see the output as: Enter some values in the text box and click on enter to see the result as: If you reached here then you've successfully used MongoDB in your Java EE 6 application, congratulations! Some food for thought and further play ... SQL to MongoDB mapping shows mapping between traditional SQL -> Mongo query language. Tutorial shows fun things you can do with MongoDB. Try the interactive online shell  The cookbook provides common ways of using MongoDB In terms of this project, here are some tasks that can be tried: Encapsulate database management in a JPA persistence provider. Is it even worth it because the capabilities are going to be very different ? MongoDB uses "BSonObject" class for JSON representation, add @XmlRootElement on a POJO and how a compatible JSON representation can be generated. This will make the fromXXX and toXXX methods redundant.

    Read the article

  • Creating a multi-column rollover image gallery with HTML 5

    - by nikolaosk
    I know it has been a while since I blogged about HTML 5. I have two posts in this blog about HTML 5. You can find them here and here.I am creating a small content website (only text,images and a contact form) for a friend of mine.He wanted to create a rollover gallery.The whole concept is that we have some small thumbnails on a page, the user hovers over them and they appear enlarged on a designated container/placeholder on a page. I am trying not to use Javascript scripts when I am using effects on a web page and this is what I will be doing in this post.  Well some people will say that HTML 5 is not supported in all browsers. That is true but most of the modern browsers support most of its recommendations. For people who still use IE6 some hacks must be devised.Well to be totally honest I cannot understand why anyone at this day and time is using IE 6.0.That really is beyond me.Well, the point of having a web browser is to be able to ENJOY the great experience that the WE? offers today.  Two very nice sites that show you what features and specifications are implemented by various browsers and their versions are http://caniuse.com/ and http://html5test.com/. At this times Chrome seems to support most of HTML 5 specifications.Another excellent way to find out if the browser supports HTML 5 and CSS 3 features is to use the Javascript lightweight library Modernizr.In this hands-on example I will be using Expression Web 4.0.This application is not a free application. You can use any HTML editor you like.You can use Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. You can download it here. In order to be absolutely clear this is not (and could not be ) a detailed tutorial on HTML 5. There are other great resources for that.Navigate to the excellent interactive tutorials of W3School.Another excellent resource is HTML 5 Doctor.For the people who are not convinced yet that they should invest time and resources on becoming experts on HTML 5 I should point out that HTML 5 websites will be ranked higher than others. Search engines will be able to locate better the content of our site and its relevance/importance since it is using semantic tags. Let's move now to the actual hands-on example. In this case (since I am mad Liverpool supporter) I will create a rollover image gallery of Liverpool F.C legends. I create a folder in my desktop. I name it Liverpool Gallery.Then I create two subfolders in it, large-images (I place the large images in there) and thumbs (I place the small images in there).Then I create an empty .html file called LiverpoolLegends.html and an empty .css file called style.css.Please have a look at the HTML Markup that I typed in my fancy editor package below<!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><title>Liverpool Legends Gallery</title><meta charset="utf-8"><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"></head><body><header><h1>A page dedicated to Liverpool Legends</h1><h2>Do hover over the images with the mouse to see the full picture</h2></header><ul id="column1"><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/john-barnes.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/john-barnes-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/ian-rush.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/ian-rush-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/graeme-souness.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/graeme-souness-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li></ul><ul id="column2"><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/steven-gerrard.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/steven-gerrard-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/kenny-dalglish.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/kenny-dalglish-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/robbie-fowler.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/robbie-fowler-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li></ul><ul id="column3"><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/alan-hansen.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/alan-hansen-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/michael-owen.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/michael-owen-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li></ul></body></html> It is very easy to follow the markup. Please have a look at the new doctype and the new semantic tag <header>. I have 3 columns and I place my images in there.There is a class called "large".I will use this class in my CSS code to hide the large image when the mouse is not on (hover) an image Make sure you validate your HTML 5 page in the validator found hereHave a look at the CSS code below that makes it all happen.img { border:none;}#column1 { position: absolute; top: 30; left: 100; }li { margin: 15px; list-style-type:none;}#column1 a img.large {  position: absolute; top: 0; left:700px; visibility: hidden;}#column1 a:hover { background: white;}#column1 a:hover img.large { visibility:visible;}#column2 { position: absolute; top: 30; left: 195px; }li { margin: 5px; list-style-type:none;}#column2 a img.large { position: absolute; top: 0; left:510px; margin-left:0; visibility: hidden;}#column2 a:hover { background: white;}#column2 a:hover img.large { visibility:visible;}#column3 { position: absolute; top: 30; left: 400px; width:108px;}li { margin: 5px; list-style-type:none;}#column3 a img.large { width: 260px; height:260px; position: absolute; top: 0; left:315px; margin-left:0; visibility: hidden;}#column3 a:hover { background: white;}#column3 a:hover img.large { visibility:visible;}?n the first line of the CSS code I set the images to have no border.Then I place the first column in the page and then remove the bullets from the list elements.Then I use the large CSS class to create a position for the large image and hide it.Finally when the hover event takes place I make the image visible.I repeat the process for the next two columns. I have tested the page with IE 10 and the latest versions of Opera,Chrome and Firefox.Feel free to style your HTML 5 gallery any way you want through the magic of CSS.I did not bother adding background colors and borders because that was beyond the scope of this post. Hope it helps!!!!

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 13 14 15 16 17 18 19  | Next Page >