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• E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1 for Enterprise Manager 12c Now Available

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1.0 is now available for use with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c.  Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1 is an integral part of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12 Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite. This latest plug-in extends EM 12c Cloud Control with E-Business Suite specific system management capabilities and features enhanced change management support. The Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite includes: Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1 combines functionality that was available in the previously-standalone Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Real User Experience Insight Oracle Configuration & Compliance capabilities  Features that were previously available in the standalone management packs are now packaged in the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in, which is certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control:  Functionality previously available for Application Management Pack (AMP) is now classified as “System Management for Oracle E-Business Suite” within the plug-in. Functionality previously available for Application Change Management Pack (ACMP) is now classified as “Change Management for Oracle E-Business Suite” within the plug-in. The Application Configuration Console and the Configuration Change Console are now native components of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. System Management Enhancements General Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Base Platform uptake: All components of the management suite are certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control. Security Privilege Delegation: The Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in now extends Enterprise Manager’s privilege delegation through Sudo and PowerBroker to Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in host targets. Privileges and Roles for Managing Oracle E-Business Suite: This release includes new ready-to-use target and resource privileges to monitor, manage, and perform Change Management functionality. Cloning Named Credentials Uptake in Cloning: The Clone module transactions now let users leverage the Named Credential feature introduced in Enterprise Manager 12c, thereby passing all the benefits of Named Credentials features in Enterprise Manager to the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in users. Smart Clone improvements: In addition to the existing 11i support that was available on previous releases, the new Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in widens the coverage supporting Oracle E-Business Suite releases 12.0.x and 12.1.x. The new and improved Smart Clone UI supports the adding of "pre and post" custom steps to a copy of the ready-to-use cloning deployment procedure. Now a user can pass parameters to the custom steps through the interview screen of the UI as well as pass ready-to-use parameters to the custom steps. Additional configuration enhancements are included for configuring RAC targets databases, such as the ability to customize listener names and the option to configure with Virtual IP or Scan IP. Change Management Enhancements Customization Manager Support for longer file names: Customization Manager now handles file names up to thirty characters in length. Patch Manager Queuing of Patch Manager Runs: This feature allows patch runs to queue up if Patch Manager detects a specific target is in a blackout state. Multi-node system patching: The patch run interview has been enhanced to allow Enterprise Manager Administrator to choose which nodes adpatch will run on. New AD Administration Options: The patch run interview has been extended to include AD Administration Options "Relink Application Programs", "Generate Product Jars Files", "Generate Report Files", and "Generate Form Files". Downloads Fresh install For new customers or existing customers wishing to perform a fresh install Enterprise Manager Store (within Enterprise Manager 12c) Oracle Software Delivery Cloud Upgrades For existing customers wishing to upgrade their AMP 4.0 or AMP 3.1 installations Oracle Technology Network Getting Started with Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-In, Release 12.1.0.1 (Note 1434392.1) Prerequisites Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12cOne or more of the following Oracle E-Business Suite Releases Release 11.5.10 CU2 with 11i.ATG_PF.H.RUP6 or higher Release 12.0.4 with R12.ATG_PF.A.delta.6 Release 12.1 with R12.ATG_PF.B.delta.3 Platforms and OS Release certification information is available from My Oracle Support via the Certification page. Search for "Oracle Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and release 12.1.0.1.0." Related Articles Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0 Released for OEM 11g (11.1.0.1)

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• Merge sort versus quick sort performance

  - by Giorgio

  I have implemented merge sort and quick sort using C (GCC 4.4.3 on Ubuntu 10.04 running on a 4 GB RAM laptop with an Intel DUO CPU at 2GHz) and I wanted to compare the performance of the two algorithms. The prototypes of the sorting functions are: void merge_sort(const char **lines, int start, int end); void quick_sort(const char **lines, int start, int end); i.e. both take an array of pointers to strings and sort the elements with index i : start <= i <= end. I have produced some files containing random strings with length on average 4.5 characters. The test files range from 100 lines to 10000000 lines. I was a bit surprised by the results because, even though I know that merge sort has complexity O(n log(n)) while quick sort is O(n^2), I have often read that on average quick sort should be as fast as merge sort. However, my results are the following. Up to 10000 strings, both algorithms perform equally well. For 10000 strings, both require about 0.007 seconds. For 100000 strings, merge sort is slightly faster with 0.095 s against 0.121 s. For 1000000 strings merge sort takes 1.287 s against 5.233 s of quick sort. For 5000000 strings merge sort takes 7.582 s against 118.240 s of quick sort. For 10000000 strings merge sort takes 16.305 s against 1202.918 s of quick sort. So my question is: are my results as expected, meaning that quick sort is comparable in speed to merge sort for small inputs but, as the size of the input data grows, the fact that its complexity is quadratic will become evident? Here is a sketch of what I did. In the merge sort implementation, the partitioning consists in calling merge sort recursively, i.e. merge_sort(lines, start, (start + end) / 2); merge_sort(lines, 1 + (start + end) / 2, end); Merging of the two sorted sub-array is performed by reading the data from the array lines and writing it to a global temporary array of pointers (this global array is allocate only once). After each merge the pointers are copied back to the original array. So the strings are stored once but I need twice as much memory for the pointers. For quick sort, the partition function chooses the last element of the array to sort as the pivot and scans the previous elements in one loop. After it has produced a partition of the type start ... {elements <= pivot} ... pivotIndex ... {elements > pivot} ... end it calls itself recursively: quick_sort(lines, start, pivotIndex - 1); quick_sort(lines, pivotIndex + 1, end); Note that this quick sort implementation sorts the array in-place and does not require additional memory, therefore it is more memory efficient than the merge sort implementation. So my question is: is there a better way to implement quick sort that is worthwhile trying out? If I improve the quick sort implementation and perform more tests on different data sets (computing the average of the running times on different data sets) can I expect a better performance of quick sort wrt merge sort? EDIT Thank you for your answers. My implementation is in-place and is based on the pseudo-code I have found on wikipedia in Section In-place version: function partition(array, 'left', 'right', 'pivotIndex') where I choose the last element in the range to be sorted as a pivot, i.e. pivotIndex := right. I have checked the code over and over again and it seems correct to me. In order to rule out the case that I am using the wrong implementation I have uploaded the source code on github (in case you would like to take a look at it). Your answers seem to suggest that I am using the wrong test data. I will look into it and try out different test data sets. I will report as soon as I have some results.

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• Remove Ubuntu or XP from the Windows 7 Boot Menu

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  If you’ve ever used a dual-boot system and then removed one of the operating systems, it can still show up in Windows 7’s boot menu. We’ll show you how to get rid of old entries and speed up the boot process. To edit the boot menu, we will use a program called bcdedit that’s included with Windows 7. There are some third-party graphical applications that will edit the menu, but we prefer to use built-in applications when we can. First, we need to open a command prompt with Administrator privileges. Open the start menu and type cmd into the search box. Right click on the cmd program that shows up, and select Run as administrator. Alternatively, if you’ve disabled the search box, you can find the command prompt in All Programs > Accessories. In the command prompt, type in bcdedit and press enter. A list of the boot menu entries will appear. Find the entry that you would like to delete – in our case, this is the last one, with the description of “Ubuntu”. What we need is the long sequence of characters marked as the identifier. Rather than type it out, we will copy it to be pasted later. Right-click somewhere in the command prompt window and select Mark. By clicking the left mouse button and dragging over the appropriate text, select the identifier for the entry you want to delete, including the left and right curly braces on either end. Press the Enter button. This will copy the text to the clipboard. In the command prompt, type in: bcdedit /delete and then right-click somewhere in the command prompt window and select Paste. Press Enter to input the now completed command. The boot menu entry will now be deleted. Type in bcdedit again to confirm that the offending entry is now gone from the list. If you reboot your machine now, you will notice that the boot menu does not even come up, because there is only one entry in the list (unless you had more than two entries to begin with). You’ve shaved a few seconds off of the boot process! Not to mention the added effort of pressing the enter button. There’s a lot more that you can do with bcdedit, like change the description of boot menu entries, create new entries, and much more. For a list of what you can do with bcdedit, type the following into the Command Window. bcdedit /help While there are third-party GUI solutions for accomplishing the same thing, using this method will save you time by not having to go through the extra steps of installing an extra program. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reinstall Ubuntu Grub Bootloader After Windows Wipes it OutClean Up Ubuntu Grub Boot Menu After UpgradesHow To Switch to Console Mode for Ubuntu VMware GuestSet Windows as Default OS when Dual Booting UbuntuChange the GRUB Menu Timeout on Ubuntu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010 Daily Motivator (Firefox) FetchMp3 Can Download Videos & Convert Them to Mp3

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• MySQL is running VERY slow on CentOS 6x (not 5x)

  - by user1032531

  I have two servers: a VPS and a laptop. I recently re-built both of them, and MySQL is running about 20 times slower on the laptop. Both servers used to run CentOS 5.8 and I think MySQL 5.1, and the laptop used to do great so I do not think it is the hardware. For the VPS, my provider installed CentOS 6.4, and then I installed MySQL 5.1.69 using yum with the CentOS repo. For the laptop, I installed CentOS 6.4 basic server and then installed MySQL 5.1.69 using yum with the CentOS repo. my.cnf for both servers are identical, and I have shown below. For both servers, I've also included below the output from SHOW VARIABLES; as well as output from sysbench, file system information, and cpu information. I have tried adding skip-name-resolve, but it didn't help. The matrix below shows the SHOW VARIABLES output from both servers which is different. Again, MySQL was installed the same way, so I do not know why it is different, but it is and I think this might be why the laptop is executing MySQL so slowly. Why is the laptop running MySQL slowly, and how do I fix it? Differences between SHOW VARIABLES on both servers +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ | Variable | Value-VPS | Value-Laptop | +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ | hostname | vps.site1.com | laptop.site2.com | | max_binlog_cache_size | 4294963200 | 18446744073709500000 | | max_seeks_for_key | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | max_write_lock_count | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | myisam_max_sort_file_size | 2146435072 | 9223372036853720000 | | myisam_mmap_size | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | plugin_dir | /usr/lib/mysql/plugin | /usr/lib64/mysql/plugin | | pseudo_thread_id | 7568 | 2 | | system_time_zone | EST | PDT | | thread_stack | 196608 | 262144 | | timestamp | 1372252112 | 1372252046 | | version_compile_machine | i386 | x86_64 | +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ my.cnf for both servers [root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/my.cnf [mysqld] datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock user=mysql # Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks symbolic-links=0 [mysqld_safe] log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid innodb_strict_mode=on sql_mode=TRADITIONAL # sql_mode=STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_DATE,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE character-set-server=utf8 collation-server=utf8_general_ci log=/var/log/mysqld_all.log [root@server1 ~]# VPS SHOW VARIABLES Info Same as Laptop shown below but changes per above matrix (removed to allow me to be under the 30000 characters as required by ServerFault) Laptop SHOW VARIABLES Info auto_increment_increment 1 auto_increment_offset 1 autocommit ON automatic_sp_privileges ON back_log 50 basedir /usr/ big_tables OFF binlog_cache_size 32768 binlog_direct_non_transactional_updates OFF binlog_format STATEMENT bulk_insert_buffer_size 8388608 character_set_client utf8 character_set_connection utf8 character_set_database latin1 character_set_filesystem binary character_set_results utf8 character_set_server latin1 character_set_system utf8 character_sets_dir /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ collation_connection utf8_general_ci collation_database latin1_swedish_ci collation_server latin1_swedish_ci completion_type 0 concurrent_insert 1 connect_timeout 10 datadir /var/lib/mysql/ date_format %Y-%m-%d datetime_format %Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s default_week_format 0 delay_key_write ON delayed_insert_limit 100 delayed_insert_timeout 300 delayed_queue_size 1000 div_precision_increment 4 engine_condition_pushdown ON error_count 0 event_scheduler OFF expire_logs_days 0 flush OFF flush_time 0 foreign_key_checks ON ft_boolean_syntax + -><()~*:""&| ft_max_word_len 84 ft_min_word_len 4 ft_query_expansion_limit 20 ft_stopword_file (built-in) general_log OFF general_log_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.log group_concat_max_len 1024 have_community_features YES have_compress YES have_crypt YES have_csv YES have_dynamic_loading YES have_geometry YES have_innodb YES have_ndbcluster NO have_openssl DISABLED have_partitioning YES have_query_cache YES have_rtree_keys YES have_ssl DISABLED have_symlink DISABLED hostname server1.site2.com identity 0 ignore_builtin_innodb OFF init_connect init_file init_slave innodb_adaptive_hash_index ON innodb_additional_mem_pool_size 1048576 innodb_autoextend_increment 8 innodb_autoinc_lock_mode 1 innodb_buffer_pool_size 8388608 innodb_checksums ON innodb_commit_concurrency 0 innodb_concurrency_tickets 500 innodb_data_file_path ibdata1:10M:autoextend innodb_data_home_dir innodb_doublewrite ON innodb_fast_shutdown 1 innodb_file_io_threads 4 innodb_file_per_table OFF innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit 1 innodb_flush_method innodb_force_recovery 0 innodb_lock_wait_timeout 50 innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog OFF innodb_log_buffer_size 1048576 innodb_log_file_size 5242880 innodb_log_files_in_group 2 innodb_log_group_home_dir ./ innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct 90 innodb_max_purge_lag 0 innodb_mirrored_log_groups 1 innodb_open_files 300 innodb_rollback_on_timeout OFF innodb_stats_method nulls_equal innodb_stats_on_metadata ON innodb_support_xa ON innodb_sync_spin_loops 20 innodb_table_locks ON innodb_thread_concurrency 8 innodb_thread_sleep_delay 10000 innodb_use_legacy_cardinality_algorithm ON insert_id 0 interactive_timeout 28800 join_buffer_size 131072 keep_files_on_create OFF key_buffer_size 8384512 key_cache_age_threshold 300 key_cache_block_size 1024 key_cache_division_limit 100 language /usr/share/mysql/english/ large_files_support ON large_page_size 0 large_pages OFF last_insert_id 0 lc_time_names en_US license GPL local_infile ON locked_in_memory OFF log OFF log_bin OFF log_bin_trust_function_creators OFF log_bin_trust_routine_creators OFF log_error /var/log/mysqld.log log_output FILE log_queries_not_using_indexes OFF log_slave_updates OFF log_slow_queries OFF log_warnings 1 long_query_time 10.000000 low_priority_updates OFF lower_case_file_system OFF lower_case_table_names 0 max_allowed_packet 1048576 max_binlog_cache_size 18446744073709547520 max_binlog_size 1073741824 max_connect_errors 10 max_connections 151 max_delayed_threads 20 max_error_count 64 max_heap_table_size 16777216 max_insert_delayed_threads 20 max_join_size 18446744073709551615 max_length_for_sort_data 1024 max_long_data_size 1048576 max_prepared_stmt_count 16382 max_relay_log_size 0 max_seeks_for_key 18446744073709551615 max_sort_length 1024 max_sp_recursion_depth 0 max_tmp_tables 32 max_user_connections 0 max_write_lock_count 18446744073709551615 min_examined_row_limit 0 multi_range_count 256 myisam_data_pointer_size 6 myisam_max_sort_file_size 9223372036853727232 myisam_mmap_size 18446744073709551615 myisam_recover_options OFF myisam_repair_threads 1 myisam_sort_buffer_size 8388608 myisam_stats_method nulls_unequal myisam_use_mmap OFF net_buffer_length 16384 net_read_timeout 30 net_retry_count 10 net_write_timeout 60 new OFF old OFF old_alter_table OFF old_passwords OFF open_files_limit 1024 optimizer_prune_level 1 optimizer_search_depth 62 optimizer_switch index_merge=on,index_merge_union=on,index_merge_sort_union=on,index_merge_intersection=on pid_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid plugin_dir /usr/lib64/mysql/plugin port 3306 preload_buffer_size 32768 profiling OFF profiling_history_size 15 protocol_version 10 pseudo_thread_id 3 query_alloc_block_size 8192 query_cache_limit 1048576 query_cache_min_res_unit 4096 query_cache_size 0 query_cache_type ON query_cache_wlock_invalidate OFF query_prealloc_size 8192 rand_seed1 rand_seed2 range_alloc_block_size 4096 read_buffer_size 131072 read_only OFF read_rnd_buffer_size 262144 relay_log relay_log_index relay_log_info_file relay-log.info relay_log_purge ON relay_log_space_limit 0 report_host report_password report_port 3306 report_user rpl_recovery_rank 0 secure_auth OFF secure_file_priv server_id 0 skip_external_locking ON skip_name_resolve OFF skip_networking OFF skip_show_database OFF slave_compressed_protocol OFF slave_exec_mode STRICT slave_load_tmpdir /tmp slave_max_allowed_packet 1073741824 slave_net_timeout 3600 slave_skip_errors OFF slave_transaction_retries 10 slow_launch_time 2 slow_query_log OFF slow_query_log_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld-slow.log socket /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock sort_buffer_size 2097144 sql_auto_is_null ON sql_big_selects ON sql_big_tables OFF sql_buffer_result OFF sql_log_bin ON sql_log_off OFF sql_log_update ON sql_low_priority_updates OFF sql_max_join_size 18446744073709551615 sql_mode sql_notes ON sql_quote_show_create ON sql_safe_updates OFF sql_select_limit 18446744073709551615 sql_slave_skip_counter sql_warnings OFF ssl_ca ssl_capath ssl_cert ssl_cipher ssl_key storage_engine MyISAM sync_binlog 0 sync_frm ON system_time_zone PDT table_definition_cache 256 table_lock_wait_timeout 50 table_open_cache 64 table_type MyISAM thread_cache_size 0 thread_handling one-thread-per-connection thread_stack 262144 time_format %H:%i:%s time_zone SYSTEM timed_mutexes OFF timestamp 1372254399 tmp_table_size 16777216 tmpdir /tmp transaction_alloc_block_size 8192 transaction_prealloc_size 4096 tx_isolation REPEATABLE-READ unique_checks ON updatable_views_with_limit YES version 5.1.69 version_comment Source distribution version_compile_machine x86_64 version_compile_os redhat-linux-gnu wait_timeout 28800 warning_count 0 VPS Sysbench Info Deleted to stay under 30000 characters. Laptop Sysbench Info [root@server1 ~]# cat sysbench.txt sysbench 0.4.12: multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark Running the test with following options: Number of threads: 8 Doing OLTP test. Running mixed OLTP test Doing read-only test Using Special distribution (12 iterations, 1 pct of values are returned in 75 pct cases) Using "BEGIN" for starting transactions Using auto_inc on the id column Threads started! Time limit exceeded, exiting... (last message repeated 7 times) Done. OLTP test statistics: queries performed: read: 634718 write: 0 other: 90674 total: 725392 transactions: 45337 (755.56 per sec.) deadlocks: 0 (0.00 per sec.) read/write requests: 634718 (10577.78 per sec.) other operations: 90674 (1511.11 per sec.) Test execution summary: total time: 60.0048s total number of events: 45337 total time taken by event execution: 479.4912 per-request statistics: min: 2.04ms avg: 10.58ms max: 85.56ms approx. 95 percentile: 19.70ms Threads fairness: events (avg/stddev): 5667.1250/42.18 execution time (avg/stddev): 59.9364/0.00 [root@server1 ~]# VPS File Info [root@vps ~]# df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/simfs simfs 20971520 16187440 4784080 78% / none tmpfs 6224432 4 6224428 1% /dev none tmpfs 6224432 0 6224432 0% /dev/shm [root@vps ~]# Laptop File Info [root@server1 ~]# df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/vg_server1-lv_root ext4 72383800 4243964 64462860 7% / tmpfs tmpfs 956352 0 956352 0% /dev/shm /dev/sdb1 ext4 495844 60948 409296 13% /boot [root@server1 ~]# VPS CPU Info Removed to stay under the 30000 character limit required by ServerFault Laptop CPU Info [root@server1 ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz stepping : 13 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority bogomips : 3591.39 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz stepping : 13 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 1 initial apicid : 1 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority bogomips : 3591.39 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: [root@server1 ~]# EDIT New Info requested by shakalandy [root@localhost ~]# cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 2044804 kB MemFree: 761464 kB Buffers: 68868 kB Cached: 369708 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 881080 kB Inactive: 246016 kB Active(anon): 688312 kB Inactive(anon): 4416 kB Active(file): 192768 kB Inactive(file): 241600 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB SwapTotal: 4095992 kB SwapFree: 4095992 kB Dirty: 0 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 688428 kB Mapped: 65156 kB Shmem: 4216 kB Slab: 92428 kB SReclaimable: 31260 kB SUnreclaim: 61168 kB KernelStack: 2392 kB PageTables: 28356 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 5118392 kB Committed_AS: 1530212 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 343604 kB VmallocChunk: 34359372920 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 520192 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB DirectMap4k: 8556 kB DirectMap2M: 2078720 kB [root@localhost ~]# ps aux | grep mysql root 2227 0.0 0.0 108332 1504 ? S 07:36 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid mysql 2319 0.1 24.5 1470068 501360 ? Sl 07:36 0:57 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.err --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid root 3579 0.0 0.1 201840 3028 pts/0 S+ 07:40 0:00 mysql -u root -p root 13887 0.0 0.1 201840 3036 pts/3 S+ 18:08 0:00 mysql -uroot -px xxxxxxxxxx root 14449 0.0 0.0 103248 840 pts/2 S+ 18:16 0:00 grep mysql [root@localhost ~]# ps aux | grep mysql root 2227 0.0 0.0 108332 1504 ? S 07:36 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid mysql 2319 0.1 24.5 1470068 501356 ? Sl 07:36 0:57 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.err --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid root 3579 0.0 0.1 201840 3028 pts/0 S+ 07:40 0:00 mysql -u root -p root 13887 0.0 0.1 201840 3048 pts/3 S+ 18:08 0:00 mysql -uroot -px xxxxxxxxxx root 14470 0.0 0.0 103248 840 pts/2 S+ 18:16 0:00 grep mysql [root@localhost ~]# vmstat 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu----- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 0 0 742172 76376 371064 0 0 6 6 78 202 2 1 97 1 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371060 0 0 0 16 191 467 2 1 93 5 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 148 388 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 159 418 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 145 380 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 166 429 2 1 97 0 0 1 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 148 373 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 149 382 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 168 408 2 0 97 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 165 394 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 159 354 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76388 371060 0 0 0 16 180 447 2 0 91 6 0 0 0 0 742164 76388 371064 0 0 0 0 143 344 2 1 98 0 0 0 1 0 742784 76416 370044 0 0 28 580 360 678 3 1 74 23 0 1 0 0 744768 76496 367772 0 0 40 1036 437 865 3 1 53 43 0 0 1 0 747248 76596 365412 0 0 48 1224 561 923 3 2 53 43 0 0 1 0 749232 76696 363092 0 0 32 1132 512 883 3 2 52 44 0 0 1 0 751340 76772 361020 0 0 32 1008 472 872 2 1 52 45 0 0 1 0 753448 76840 358540 0 0 36 1088 512 860 2 1 51 46 0 0 1 0 755060 76936 357636 0 0 28 1012 481 922 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 755060 77064 357988 0 0 12 896 444 902 2 1 53 45 0 0 1 0 754688 77148 358448 0 0 16 1096 506 1007 1 1 56 42 0 0 2 0 754192 77268 358932 0 0 12 1060 481 957 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 753696 77380 359392 0 0 12 1052 512 1025 2 1 55 42 0 0 1 0 751028 77480 359828 0 0 8 984 423 909 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 750524 77620 360200 0 0 8 788 367 869 1 2 54 44 0 0 1 0 749904 77700 360664 0 0 8 928 439 924 2 2 55 43 0 0 1 0 749408 77796 361084 0 0 12 976 468 967 1 1 56 43 0 0 1 0 748788 77896 361464 0 0 12 992 453 944 1 2 54 43 0 1 1 0 748416 77992 361996 0 0 12 784 392 868 2 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 747920 78092 362336 0 0 4 896 382 874 1 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 745252 78172 362780 0 0 12 1040 444 923 1 1 56 42 0 0 1 0 744764 78288 363220 0 0 8 1024 448 934 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 744144 78408 363668 0 0 8 1000 461 982 2 1 53 44 0 0 1 0 743648 78488 364148 0 0 8 872 443 888 2 1 54 43 0 0 1 0 743152 78548 364468 0 0 16 1020 511 995 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 742656 78632 365024 0 0 12 928 431 913 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 742160 78728 365468 0 0 12 996 470 955 2 2 54 44 0 1 1 0 739492 78840 365896 0 0 8 988 447 939 1 2 52 46 0 0 1 0 738872 78996 366352 0 0 12 972 442 928 1 1 55 44 0 1 1 0 738244 79148 366812 0 0 8 948 549 1126 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 737624 79312 367188 0 0 12 996 456 953 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 736880 79456 367660 0 0 12 960 444 918 1 1 53 46 0 0 1 0 736260 79584 368124 0 0 8 884 414 921 1 1 54 44 0 0 1 0 735648 79716 368488 0 0 12 976 450 955 2 1 56 41 0 0 1 0 733104 79840 368988 0 0 12 932 453 918 1 2 55 43 0 0 1 0 732608 79996 369356 0 0 16 916 444 889 1 2 54 43 0 1 1 0 731476 80128 369800 0 0 16 852 514 978 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 731244 80252 370200 0 0 8 904 398 870 2 1 55 43 0 1 1 0 730624 80384 370612 0 0 12 1032 447 977 1 2 57 41 0 0 1 0 730004 80524 371096 0 0 12 984 469 941 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 729508 80636 371544 0 0 12 928 438 922 2 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 728888 80756 371948 0 0 16 972 439 943 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 726468 80900 372272 0 0 8 960 545 1024 2 1 54 43 0 1 1 0 726344 81024 372272 0 0 8 464 490 1057 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 726096 81148 372276 0 0 4 328 441 1063 2 1 53 45 0 1 1 0 726096 81256 372292 0 0 0 296 387 975 1 1 53 45 0 0 1 0 725848 81380 372284 0 0 4 332 425 1034 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 725848 81496 372300 0 0 4 308 386 992 2 1 54 43 0 0 1 0 725600 81616 372296 0 0 4 328 404 1060 1 1 54 44 0 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu----- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 1 0 725600 81732 372296 0 0 4 328 439 1011 1 1 53 44 0 0 1 0 725476 81848 372308 0 0 0 316 441 1023 2 2 52 46 0 1 1 0 725352 81972 372300 0 0 4 344 451 1021 1 1 55 43 0 2 1 0 725228 82088 372320 0 0 0 328 427 1058 1 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724980 82220 372300 0 0 4 336 419 999 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724980 82328 372320 0 0 4 320 430 1019 1 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724732 82436 372328 0 0 0 388 363 942 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724608 82560 372312 0 0 4 308 419 993 1 2 54 44 0 1 0 0 724360 82684 372320 0 0 0 304 421 1028 2 1 55 42 0 1 0 0 724360 82684 372388 0 0 0 0 158 416 2 1 98 0 0 1 1 0 724236 82720 372360 0 0 0 6464 243 855 3 2 84 12 0 1 0 0 724112 82748 372360 0 0 0 5356 266 895 3 1 84 12 0 2 1 0 724112 82764 372380 0 0 0 3052 221 511 2 2 93 4 0 1 0 0 724112 82796 372372 0 0 0 4548 325 1067 2 2 81 16 0 1 0 0 724112 82816 372368 0 0 0 3240 259 829 3 1 90 6 0 1 0 0 724112 82836 372380 0 0 0 3260 309 822 3 2 88 8 0 1 1 0 724112 82876 372364 0 0 0 4680 326 978 3 1 77 19 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372380 0 0 0 512 207 508 2 1 95 2 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 138 361 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 158 397 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 146 395 2 1 98 0 0 2 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 160 395 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 163 382 1 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 176 422 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 134 351 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 190 429 2 1 97 0 0 0 0 0 724104 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 139 358 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724848 82884 372392 0 0 0 4 211 432 2 1 97 0 0 1 0 0 724980 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 166 370 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724980 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 164 397 2 1 98 0 0 ^C [root@localhost ~]# Database size mysql> SELECT table_schema "Data Base Name", sum( data_length + index_length ) / 1024 / 1024 "Data Base Size in MB", sum( data_free )/ 1024 / 1024 "Free Space in MB" FROM information_schema.TABLES GROUP BY table_schema; +--------------------+----------------------+------------------+ | Data Base Name | Data Base Size in MB | Free Space in MB | +--------------------+----------------------+------------------+ | bidjunction | 4.68750000 | 0.00000000 | | information_schema | 0.00976563 | 0.00000000 | | mysql | 0.63899899 | 0.00105286 | +--------------------+----------------------+------------------+ 3 rows in set (0.01 sec) mysql> Before Query mysql> SHOW SESSION STATUS like '%Tmp%'; +-------------------------+-------+ | Variable_name | Value | +-------------------------+-------+ | Created_tmp_disk_tables | 0 | | Created_tmp_files | 6 | | Created_tmp_tables | 0 | +-------------------------+-------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> After Query mysql> SHOW SESSION STATUS like '%Tmp%'; +-------------------------+-------+ | Variable_name | Value | +-------------------------+-------+ | Created_tmp_disk_tables | 0 | | Created_tmp_files | 6 | | Created_tmp_tables | 2 | +-------------------------+-------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql>

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• SFML fail to load image as texture

  - by zyeek

  I have come to a problem with the code below ... Using SFML 2.0 #include <SFML/Graphics.hpp> #include <iostream> #include <list> int main() { float speed = 5.0f; // create the window sf::RenderWindow window(sf::VideoMode(sf::VideoMode::getDesktopMode().height - 300, 800), "Bricks"); // Set game window position on the screen window.setPosition( sf::Vector2i(sf::VideoMode::getDesktopMode().width/4 + sf::VideoMode::getDesktopMode().width/16 , 0) ); // Allow library to accept repeatitive key presses (i.e. holding key) window.setKeyRepeatEnabled(true); // Hide mouse cursor //window.setMouseCursorVisible(false); // Limit 30 frames per sec; the minimum for all games window.setFramerateLimit(30); sf::Texture texture; if (!texture.loadFromFile("tile.png", sf::IntRect(0, 0, 125, 32))) { std::cout<<"Could not load image\n"; return -1; } // Empty list of sprites std::list<sf::Sprite> spriteContainer; bool gameFocus = true; // run the program as long as the window is open while (window.isOpen()) { sf::Vector2i mousePos = sf::Mouse::getPosition(window); // check all the window's events that were triggered since the last iteration of the loop sf::Event event; while (window.pollEvent(event)) { float offsetX = 0.0f, offsetY = 0.0f; if(event.type == sf::Event::GainedFocus) gameFocus = !gameFocus; else if(event.type == sf::Event::LostFocus) gameFocus = !gameFocus; if(event.type == sf::Event::KeyPressed) { if (event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::Space) { if(gameFocus) { // Create sprite and add features before putting it into container sf::Sprite sprite(texture); sprite.scale(.9f,.7f); sf::Vector2u textSize = texture.getSize(); sprite.setPosition(sf::Vector2f(mousePos.x-textSize.x/2.0f, mousePos.y - textSize.y/2.0f)); spriteContainer.push_front(sprite); } } if(event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::P) std::cout << spriteContainer.size() << std::endl; if( event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::W ) offsetY -= speed; if( event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::A ) offsetX -= speed; if( event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::S ) offsetY += speed; if( event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::D ) offsetX += speed; } // "close requested" event: we close the window if (event.type == sf::Event::Closed || event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::Escape) window.close(); // Move all sprites synchronously for (std::list<sf::Sprite>::iterator sprite = spriteContainer.begin(); sprite != spriteContainer.end(); ++sprite) sprite->move(offsetX, offsetY); //sprite.move(offsetX,offsetY); } // clear the window with black color window.clear(sf::Color::Black); // draw everything here... // window.draw(...); // Draw all sprites in the container for (std::list<sf::Sprite>::iterator sprite = spriteContainer.begin(); sprite != spriteContainer.end(); ++sprite) window.draw(*sprite); // end the current frame window.display(); } return 0; } A couple weeks ago it worked flawlessly to my expectation, but now that I come back to it and I am having problems importing the image as a texture "tile.png". I don't understand why this is evening happening and the only message I get via the terminal is "Cannot load image ..." then a bunch of random characters. My libraries are for sure working, but now I am not sure why the image is not loading. My image is in the same directory as with my .h and .cpp files. This is an irritating problem that keep coming up for some reason and is always a problem to fix it. I import my libraries via my own directory "locals" which contain many APIs, but I specifically get SFML, and done appropriately as I am able to open a window and many other stuff.

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• Ubuntu 12.04 - No sound - HELP!

  - by Bruno Tacca

  I'm panicking... my sound stopped working after I tried to set-up my notebook speakers, plus two headphone jacks... My idea was to multichannel the sound to 3 channels, built-in speakers, and sound-card 2 headphone jacks. After a couple efforts I did it with 2 channels, speakers and 1 headphone jack, but the other wasn't working. After more tries and tries, sound stop working. I just want my sound back... crying like a baby on the floor. And, if possible, but not necessary, a simple guide to active the 3 channels. xD I will post the diagnosis according to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProcedure STEP 1 Did it, still no sound. STEP 2 Did it, still no sound. STEP 3 and #STEP 4 (I removed the log cause there is a limit of characters to be posted.) The log can be found here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+question/238653 STEP 5 Rebooted, still no sound. STEP 6 Did it. In the Output Devices tab, nothing is muted. I play a music with the Rhythmbox Music Player, I don't hear anything but in the pavucontrol I can see in the Built-in Audio Analog Stereo a sound bar shaking... but, no sound. STEP 7 In alsamixer, AlsaMixer v1.0.25 Card: HDA Intel PCH Chip: Creative CA0132 information View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture F5: All Item: Headphone [dB gain: 25.00, 25.00] Then, I have 5 columns Headphone, Speaker, PCM, S/PDIF, S/PDIF Default PCM A little weird when I try to mute the Headphone and the Speaker, here what happens: Starting both unmutted, mutting headphone cause speaker being mutted automaticaly. Starting both unmutted, mutting speaker cause headphone being mutted automaticaly. Starting both mutted, possible to unmute both separately. STEP 8 I cannot hear sound on both (headphone and/or speaker). STEP 9 Dual boot... Restarted, windows was with sound at max volume. Restarted again, still no sound at ubuntu. I heard something when ubuntu started, a little noise, then silence again. The sound icon always start mutted, after unmutting, I have no sound. STEP 10 I dont have this command in my ubuntu. STEP 11 Tried at STEP 8, no sound. There are no problem with jumpers or hardware, cause I have sound working on windows. STEP 12 No way to open my alienware and loss the warranty x.X" STEP 13 I think it's loaded, judging my the logs STEP 14 Alienware M17xR4, the hardware is listed in the logs above, at STEP 4. There are two headphone hacks, one with just an headphone printed above, and the other with an headset (with mic) printed, there is a mic jack too, and a spdif (optical) too. STEP 15 I dont want to enable S/PDIF STEP 16 I never used the HDMI output, yet... Thanks in advance. I hope I listed all the information you need.

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• How to develop RPG Damage Formulas?

  - by user127817

  I'm developing a classical 2d RPG (in a similar vein to final fantasy) and I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to do damage formulas/links to resources/examples? I'll explain my current setup. Hopefully I'm not overdoing it with this question, and I apologize if my questions is too large/broad My Characters stats are composed of the following: enum Stat { HP = 0, MP = 1, SP = 2, Strength = 3, Vitality = 4, Magic = 5, Spirit = 6, Skill = 7, Speed = 8, //Speed/Agility are the same thing Agility = 8, Evasion = 9, MgEvasion = 10, Accuracy = 11, Luck = 12, }; Vitality is basically defense to physical attacks and spirit is defense to magic attacks. All stats have fixed maximums (9999 for HP, 999 for MP/SP and 255 for the rest). With abilities, the maximums can be increased (99999 for HP, 9999 for HP/SP, 999 for the rest) with typical values (at level 100) before/after abilities+equipment+etc will be 8000/20,000 for HP, 800/2000 for SP/MP, 180/350 for other stats Late game Enemy HP will typically be in the lower millions (with a super boss having the maximum of ~12 million). I was wondering how do people actually develop proper damage formulas that scale correctly? For instance, based on this data, using the damage formulas for Final Fantasy X as a base looked very promising. A full reference here http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/31381 but as a quick example: Str = 127, 'Attack' command used, enemy Def = 34. 1. Physical Damage Calculation: Step 1 ------------------------------------- [{(Stat^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x DmCon ÷16] Step 2 ---------------------------------------- [{(127^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 3 -------------------------------------- [{(2048383 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 4 --------------------------------------------------- [{(64011) + 32} x 1] Step 5 -------------------------------------------------------- [{(64043 x 1)}] Step 6 ---------------------------------------------------- Base Damage = 64043 Step 7 ----------------------------------------- [{(Def - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------ [{(34 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ------------------------------------------------- [(-246)^2) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 ---------------------------------------------------- [60516 ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [550] + 16 Step 12 ---------------------------------------------------------- DefNum = 566 Step 13 ---------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * DefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [64043 * 566 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------------ [36248338 ÷ 730] Step 16 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 49655 Step 17 ------------ Base Damage 2 * {730 - (Def * 51 - Def^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ---------------------- 49655 * {730 - (34 * 51 - 34^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 ------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 1156 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 105) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 21 ------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1629) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 22 --------------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - 162} ÷ 730 Step 23 ----------------------------------------------------- 49655 * 568 ÷ 730 Step 24 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 38635 I simply modified the dividers to include the attack rating of weapons and the armor rating of armor. Magic Damage is calculated as follows: Mag = 255, Ultima is used, enemy MDef = 1 Step 1 ----------------------------------- [DmCon * ([Stat^2 ÷ 6] + DmCon) ÷ 4] Step 2 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([255^2 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 3 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([65025 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 4 ------------------------------------------------ [70 * (10837 + 70) ÷ 4] Step 5 ----------------------------------------------------- [70 * (10907) ÷ 4] Step 6 ------------------------------------ Base Damage = 190872 [cut to 99999] Step 7 ---------------------------------------- [{(MDef - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------- [{(1 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ---------------------------------------------- [{(-279.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 -------------------------------------------------- [(78064) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [709] + 16 Step 12 --------------------------------------------------------- MDefNum = 725 Step 13 --------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * MDefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [99999 * 725 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 99314 Step 16 ---------- Base Damage 2 * {730 - (MDef * 51 - MDef^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 17 ------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (1 * 51 - 1^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ------------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (51 - 1 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 --------------------------------------- 99314 * {730 - (49) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ----------------------------------------------------- 99314 * 725 ÷ 730 Step 21 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 98633 The problem is that the formulas completely fall apart once stats start going above 255. In particular Defense values over 300 or so start generating really strange behavior. High Strength + Defense stats lead to massive negative values for instance. While I might be able to modify the formulas to work correctly for my use case, it'd probably be easier just to use a completely new formula. How do people actually develop damage formulas? I was considering opening excel and trying to build the formula that way (mapping Attack Stats vs. Defense Stats for instance) but I was wondering if there's an easier way? While I can't convey the full game mechanics of my game here, might someone be able to suggest a good starting place for building a damage formula? Thanks

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• Encode two integers into colour values and compare them in a HLSL shader

  - by Ben Slinger

  I am writing a 2D point and click adventure game in Monogame, and I'd like to be able to create an image mask for every room which defines which parts of the background a character can walk behind, and at which Y value a character needs to be at for the background to be drawn above the character. I haven't done any shader work before but after doing some reading I thought the following solution should work: Create a mask for the room with different walk behind areas painted in a colour that defines the baseline Y value (Walk Behind Mask) Render all objects to a RenderTarget2D (Base Texture) Render all objects to a different RenderTarget2D, but changing every pixel of each object to a colour that defines its Y value (Position Mask) Pass these two textures plus the image mask into the shader, and for each pixel compare the colour of the image mask to the colour of the Position Mask to the Walk Behind Mask - if the Position Mask pixel is larger (thus lower on the screen and closer to the camera) than the Walk Behind Mask, draw the pixel from the Base Texture, otherwise draw a transparent pixel (allowing the background to show through). I've got it mostly working, but I'm having trouble packing and unpacking the Y values into colours and retrieving them correctly in the shader. Here are some code examples of how I'm doing it so far: (When drawing to the Position Mask RenderTarget2D) Color posColor = new Color(((int)Position.Y >> 16) & 255, ((int)Position.Y >> 8) & 255, (int)Position.Y & 255); So as far as I can tell, this should be taking the first 3 bytes of the position integer and encoding them into a 4 byte colour (ignoring the alpha as the 4th byte). This seems to work fine, as when my character is at Y = 600, the resulting Color from this is: {[Color: R=0, G=2, B=88, A=255, PackedValue=4283957760]}. I then have an area in my Walk Behind Mask that I only want the character to be displayed behind if his Y value is lower than 655, so I've painted it with R=0, G=2, B=143, A=255. Now, I think I have the shader OK as well, here's what I have: sampler BaseTexture : register(s0); sampler MaskTexture : register(s1); sampler PositionTexture : register(s2); float4 mask( float2 coords : TEXCOORD0 ) : COLOR0 { float4 color = tex2D(BaseTexture, coords); float4 maskColor = tex2D(MaskTexture, coords); float4 positionColor = tex2D(PositionTexture, coords); float maskCompare = (maskColor.r * pow(2,24)) + (maskColor.g * pow(2,16)) + (maskColor.b * pow(2,8)); float positionCompare = (positionColor.r * pow(2,24)) + (positionColor.g * pow(2,16)) + (positionColor.b * pow(2,8)); return positionCompare < maskCompare ? float4(0,0,0,0) : color; } technique Technique1 { pass NoEffect { PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 mask(); } } This isn't working, however - currently all characters are displayed behind the walk behind area, regardless of their Y value. I tried printing out some debug info by grabbing the pixel from both the Position Mask and the Walk Under Mask under the current mouse position, and it seems like maybe the colours aren't being rendered to the Position Mask correctly? When calculating the colour in that code above I'm getting R=0, G=2, B=88, A=255, but when I mouseover my character I get R=0, G=0, B=30, A=255. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? It seems like maybe I'm losing some information when rendering to the RenderTarget2D, but I'm now knowledgeable enough to figure out what's happening. Also, I should probably ask, is this an efficient way to do this? Will there be a performance impact? Edit: Whoops, turns out there was a bug that I'd introduced myself, I was drawing out the Position Mask with the position Color, left over from some early testing I was doing. So this solution is working perfectly, though I'm still interested in whether this is an efficient solution performance wise.

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• Handy SQL Server Functions Series (HSSFS) Part 2.0 - Prelude to Parsing Patterns Properly

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  In Part 1 of the series I wrote about 2 lesser-known and somewhat undocumented functions. In this part, I'm going to cover some familiar string functions like Substring(), Parsename(), Patindex(), and Charindex() and delve into their strengths and weaknesses. I'm also splitting this part up into sub-parts to help focus on a particular technique and/or problem with the technique, hence the Part 2.0. Consider this a composite post, or com-post, if you will. (It may just turn out to be a pile of sh_t after all) I'll be using a contrived example, perhaps the most frustratingly useful, or usefully frustrating, function in SQL Server: @@VERSION. Contrived, because there are better ways to get the information (which I'll cover later); frustrating, because of the way Microsoft formatted the value; and useful because it does have 1 or 2 bits of information not found elsewhere. First let's take a look at the output of @@VERSION: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (Intel X86) Apr 2 2010 15:53:02 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 <X86> (Build 2600: Service Pack 3) There are 4 lines, with lines 2-4 indented with a tab character.  In case your browser (or this blog software) doesn't show it correctly, I gave each line a different color.  While this PRINTs nicely, if you SELECT @@VERSION in grid mode it all runs together because it ignores carriage return/line feed (CR/LF) characters.  Not fatal, but annoying. Note that @@VERSION's output will vary depending on edition and version of SQL Server, and also the OS it's installed on.  Despite the differences, the output is laid out the same way and the relevant pieces are in the same order. I'll be using the following view for Parts 2.1 onward, so we have a nice collection of @@VERSION information: create view version(SQLVersion,VersionString) AS ( select 2000, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - 8.00.2055 (Intel X86) Dec 16 2008 19:46:53 Copyright (c) 1988-2003 Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)' union all select 2005, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.4053.00 (Intel X86) May 26 2009 14:24:20 Copyright (c) 1988-2005 Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)' union all select 2008, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (Intel X86) Apr 2 2010 15:53:02 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 <X86> (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)' union all select 2005, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.3080.00 (Intel X86) Sep 6 2009 01:43:32 Copyright (c) 1988-2005 Microsoft Corporation Standard Edition on Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 2)' union all select 2008, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (X64) Apr 2 2010 15:48:46 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7600: ) (Hypervisor)' union all select 2008, 'Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (X64) Apr 2 2010 15:48:46 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Express Edition with Advanced Services (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7600: ) (Hypervisor)' ) Feel free to add your own @@VERSION info if it's not already there. In Part 2.1 I'll focus on extracting the SQL Server version number (10.50.1600.1 in first example) and the Edition (Developer), but will have a solution that works with all versions.  Stay tuned!

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• Dark Sun Dispatch 001

  - by Chris Williams

  If you aren't into tabletop (aka pen & paper) RPGs, you might as well click to the next post now... Still here? Awesome. I've recently started running a new D&D 4.0 Dark Sun campaign. If you don't know anything about Dark Sun, here's a quick intro: The campaign take place on the world of Athas, formerly a lush green world that is now a desert wasteland. Forests are rare in the extreme, as is water and metal. Coins are made of ceramic and weapons are often made of hardened wood, bone or obsidian. The green age of Athas was centuries ago and the current state was brought about through the reckless use of sorcerous magic. (In this world, you can augment spells by drawing on the life force of the world & people around you. This is called defiling. Preserving magic draws upon the casters life force and does not damage the surrounding world, but it isn't as powerful.) Humans are pretty much unchanged, but the traditional fantasy races have changed quite a bit. Elves don't live in the forest, they are shifty and untrustworthy desert traders known for their ability to run long distances through the wastes. Halflings are not short, fat, pleasant little riverside people. Instead they are bloodthirsty feral cannibals that roam the few remaining forests and ride reptilians beasts akin to raptors. Gnomes are extinct, as are orcs. Dwarves are mostly farmers and gladiators, and live out in the sun instead of staying under the mountains. Goliaths are half-giants, not known for their intellect. Muls are a Dwarf & Human crossbreed that displays the best traits of both races (human height and dwarven stoutness.) Thri-Kreen are sentient mantis people that are extremely fast. Most of the same character classes are available, with a few new twists. There are no divine characters (such as Priests, Paladins, etc) because the gods are gone. Nobody alive today can remember a time when they were still around. Instead, some folks worship the elemental forces (although they don't give out spells.) The cities are all ruled by Sorcerer King tyrants (except one city: Tyr) who are hundreds of years old and still practice defiling magic whenever they please. Serving the Sorcerer Kings are the Templars, who are also defilers and psionicists. Crossing them is as bad, in many cases, as crossing the Kings themselves. Between the cities you have small towns and trading outposts, and mostly barren desert with sometimes 4-5 days on foot between towns and the nearest oasis. Being caught out in the desert without adequate supplies and protection from the elements is pretty much a death sentence for even the toughest heroes. When you add in the natural (and unnatural) predators that roam the wastes, often in packs, most people don't last long alone. In this campaign, the adventure begins in the (small) trading fortress of Altaruk, a couple weeks walking distance from the newly freed city of Tyr. A caravan carrying trade goods from Altaruk has not made it to Tyr and the local merchant house has dispatched the heroes to find out what happened and to retrieve the goods (and drivers) if possible. The unlikely heroes consist of a human shaman, a thri-kreen monk, a human wizard, a kenku assassin and a (void aspect) genasi swordmage. Gathering up supplies and a little liquid courage, they set out into the desert and manage to find the northbound tracks of the wagon. Shortly after finding the tracks, they are ambushed by a pack of silt-runners (small lizard people with very large teeth and poisoned pointy spears.) The party makes short work of the creatures, taking a few minor wounds in the process. Proceeding onward without resting, they find the remains of the wagon and manage to sneak up on a pack of Kruthiks picking through the rubble and spilled goods. Unfortunately, they failed to take advantage of the opportunity and had a hard fight ahead of them. The party defeated the kruthiks, but took heavy damage (and almost lost a couple of their own) in the process. Once the kruthiks were dispatched, they followed a set of tracks further north to a ruined tower...

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• T-SQL Tuesday #025 &ndash; CHECK Constraint Tricks

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  Allen White (blog | twitter), marathoner, SQL Server MVP and presenter, and all-around awesome author is hosting this month's T-SQL Tuesday on sharing SQL Server Tips and Tricks.  And for those of you who have attended my Revenge: The SQL presentation, you know that I have 1 or 2 of them.  You'll also know that I don't recommend using anything I talk about in a production system, and will continue that advice here…although you might be sorely tempted.  Suffice it to say I'm not using these examples myself, but I think they're worth sharing anyway. Some of you have seen or read about SQL Server constraints and have applied them to your table designs…unless you're a vendor ;)…and may even use CHECK constraints to limit numeric values, or length of strings, allowable characters and such.  CHECK constraints can, however, do more than that, and can even provide enhanced security and other restrictions. One tip or trick that I didn't cover very well in the presentation is using constraints to do unusual things; specifically, limiting or preventing inserts into tables.  The idea was to use a CHECK constraint in a way that didn't depend on the actual data: -- create a table that cannot accept data CREATE TABLE dbo.JustTryIt(a BIT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, CONSTRAINT chk_no_insert CHECK (GETDATE()=GETDATE()+1)) INSERT dbo.JustTryIt VALUES(1)   I'll let you run that yourself, but I'm sure you'll see that this is a pretty stupid table to have, since the CHECK condition will always be false, and therefore will prevent any data from ever being inserted.  I can't remember why I used this example but it was for some vague and esoteric purpose that applies to about, maybe, zero people.  I come up with a lot of examples like that. However, if you realize that these CHECKs are not limited to column references, and if you explore the SQL Server function list, you could come up with a few that might be useful.  I'll let the names describe what they do instead of explaining them all: CREATE TABLE NoSA(a int not null, CONSTRAINT CHK_No_sa CHECK (SUSER_SNAME()<>'sa')) CREATE TABLE NoSysAdmin(a int not null, CONSTRAINT CHK_No_sysadmin CHECK (IS_SRVROLEMEMBER('sysadmin')=0)) CREATE TABLE NoAdHoc(a int not null, CONSTRAINT CHK_No_AdHoc CHECK (OBJECT_NAME(@@PROCID) IS NOT NULL)) CREATE TABLE NoAdHoc2(a int not null, CONSTRAINT CHK_No_AdHoc2 CHECK (@@NESTLEVEL>0)) CREATE TABLE NoCursors(a int not null, CONSTRAINT CHK_No_Cursors CHECK (@@CURSOR_ROWS=0)) CREATE TABLE ANSI_PADDING_ON(a int not null, CONSTRAINT CHK_ANSI_PADDING_ON CHECK (@@OPTIONS & 16=16)) CREATE TABLE TimeOfDay(a int not null, CONSTRAINT CHK_TimeOfDay CHECK (DATEPART(hour,GETDATE()) BETWEEN 0 AND 1)) GO -- log in as sa or a sysadmin server role member, and try this: INSERT NoSA VALUES(1) INSERT NoSysAdmin VALUES(1) -- note the difference when using sa vs. non-sa -- then try it again with a non-sysadmin login -- see if this works: INSERT NoAdHoc VALUES(1) INSERT NoAdHoc2 VALUES(1) GO -- then try this: CREATE PROCEDURE NotAdHoc @val1 int, @val2 int AS SET NOCOUNT ON; INSERT NoAdHoc VALUES(@val1) INSERT NoAdHoc2 VALUES(@val2) GO EXEC NotAdHoc 2,2 -- which values got inserted? SELECT * FROM NoAdHoc SELECT * FROM NoAdHoc2   -- and this one just makes me happy :) INSERT NoCursors VALUES(1) DECLARE curs CURSOR FOR SELECT 1 OPEN curs INSERT NoCursors VALUES(2) CLOSE curs DEALLOCATE curs INSERT NoCursors VALUES(3) SELECT * FROM NoCursors   I'll leave the ANSI_PADDING_ON and TimeOfDay tables for you to test on your own, I think you get the idea.  (Also take a look at the NoCursors example, notice anything interesting?)  The real eye-opener, for me anyway, is the ability to limit bad coding practices like cursors, ad-hoc SQL, and sa use/abuse by using declarative SQL objects.  I'm sure you can see how and why this would come up when discussing Revenge: The SQL.;) And the best part IMHO is that these work on pretty much any version of SQL Server, without needing Policy Based Management, DDL/login triggers, or similar tools to enforce best practices. All seriousness aside, I highly recommend that you spend some time letting your mind go wild with the possibilities and see how far you can take things.  There are no rules! (Hmmmm, what can I do with rules?) #TSQL2sDay

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• General Availability of Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1.0

  - by user810030

  We are pleased to announce the General Availability of Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1.0, an integral part of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite. The combination of Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control and the Application Management Suite combines functionality that was available in the standalone Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle’s Real User Experience Insight product and the Configuration & Compliance capabilities to provide the most complete solution for managing Oracle E-Business Suite applications. The features that were available in the standalone management packs are now packaged into the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in, which is now fully certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control. This latest plug-in extends Cloud Control with E-Business Suite specific system management capabilities and features enhanced change management support. This new release offers the following key enhancements: General: Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Base Platform uptake: All components of the management suite are certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control. Security: Privilege Delegation: The Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in now extends Enterprise Manager’s privilege delegation through Sudo and PowerBroker to Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in host targets.  Privileges and Roles for Managing Oracle E-Business Suite: This release includes new ready-to-use target and resource privileges to monitor, manage, and perform Change Management functionality.  Cloning: Named Credentials Uptake in Cloning: The Clone module transactions now let users leverage the Named Credential feature introduced in Enterprise Manager 12c, thereby passing all the benefits of Named Credentials features in Enterprise Manager to the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in users.  Smart Clone improvements: The new and improved Smart Clone UI supports the adding of "pre and post" custom steps to a copy of the ready-to-use cloning deployment procedure. Now a user can pass parameters to the custom steps through the interview screen of the UI as well as pass ready-to-use parameters to the custom steps.  Change Management Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite provides a centralized view to monitor and orchestrate changes (both functional and technical) across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite systems. In this latest release, it provides even more control and flexibility in managing Oracle E-Business Suite changes. Customization Manager: Support for longer file names: Customization Manager now handles file names up to thirty characters in length.  Patch Manager: Queuing of Patch Manager Runs: This feature allows patch runs to queue up if Patch Manager detects a specific target is in a blackout state.  Multi-node system patching: The patch run interview has been enhanced to allow Enterprise Manager Administrator to choose which nodes adpatch will run on.  New AD Administration Options: The patch run interview has been extended to include AD Administration Options "Relink Application Programs", "Generate Product Jars Files", "Generate Report Files", and "Generate Form Files".  Release Technical Details Product documentation for the plug-in is available on My Oracle Support as note 1434392.1.  The Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in can be accessed in one of the following ways:  Fresh install  Enterprise Manager Store  Oracle Software Delivery Cloud Upgrades  Oracle Technology Network Please refer to the Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite Guide for further details.  Related Software Component Oracle Real User Experience Insight 12.1.0.0.1  Product documentation is available on Oracle Technology Network in the "Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 1 (12.1) Documentation" set under the "Associated Document" tab. (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26370_01/index.htm)  Product may be downloaded individually from Oracle Technology Network software download page for Oracle Enterprise Manager under "Additional Enterprise Manager Downloads." (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oem/grid-control/downloads/index.html)  Product may also be downloaded individually from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. Select "Oracle Enterprise Manager" product pack, "Oracle Real User Experience Insight 12c Release 1 Media Pack for x8  Collateral Can be accessed on the Application Management Page on Oracle Technology Network

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• Getting Started with NASM

  - by MarkPearl

  Today I got to play with NASM. This is an assembler and disassembler that can be used to write 16-bit, 32-bit & 64-bit programs. Let me say upfront that the last time I looked at assembly code at any depth was when I was studying Computer Science in Pietermaritzburg – ten years ago – and we never ever got to touch any real assembly code so a lot of what I am looking at today is very new to me. The first thing I did was download NASM compiler. This turned out to be a bit more complicated than I thought. Originally I went to http://www.nasm.us/ and downloaded the nasm-2.09.04.zip file which I thought had all I needed. No luck! It seemed to just have the uncompiled code, and from what I could tell I would need to recompile and build it – possibly in c++? Well, I wasn’t going to waste my time with that, so a bit more searching and I found the Win32 (http://www.nasm.us/pub/nasm/releasebuilds/2.09.04/win32/) folder Nasm.exe which I downloaded. Choosing an IDE So, I have NASM compiler but to compile anything you need to pass a string of special characters in the command prompt. That’s fine if I was going to just do one program once every couple of years, but since I am aiming to do quite a bit more exploration of NASM I began searching for an IDE. There were a few options, even apparently Visual Studio with a bit of tweeking could do the job, but from past experience I wanted to avoid the VS route as it can sometimes get confusing. I eventually settled on TextPad which I had used a few years ago for a similar project and it had been simple enough yet powerful enough to do the job. A bit of searching and I found a syntax file for NASM and everything seemed hunky dory. Configuring TextPad to run the NASM Compiler Next was to get TextPad to run the NASM compiler. TextPad has this external tools option that allows one to configure special commands. To simplify the process I first created a bat file in the NASM directory that allowed me to simply compile asm files. The bat file was called as.bat and had just one line of code… nasm -f bin %1.asm -o %1.com -l %1.lst Once I had created as.bat I just needed to go into TextPad and create a tool. I have made a quick video of that just showing you where the various settings are which is viewable below. The 64Bit Problem So I now have an ‘IDE’ linked to my NASM compiler so everything should be fine right? No! Whenever I tried to compile an asm program it compiles fine, but when I try and run it I get an error – “This version of the file is not compatible with the version Windows you’re running. Check your computer’s system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher." Well.. it turns out there are a few complications with having a 64 bit OS! So after searching google and coming to any real solution that I could find other than perhaps attempting to build the code for nasm, I eventually resorted to running a VM with Windows XP on it and putting NASM there… My first hello world program So I attempt my first hello world program as per an example I found… the code was quite simple and is shown below… bits16 org 0x100 jmp main message: db 'Hello World',0ah,0dh,'$' main: mov dx,message mov ah,09 int 21h int 20h Running the build tool from TextPad and everything compiles fine and I now have a console app with helllo world shown. Conclusion It’s very early days with NASM. I have been spoilt with Visual Studio and high order languages so I assume it will be a painful ride getting into the basics of assembly programming but I am hoping that at the end of it, I will at least have a bit more exposure to a language closer to the metal.

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• SSIS Technique to Remove/Skip Trailer and/or Bad Data Row in a Flat File

  - by Compudicted

  I noticed that the question on how to skip or bypass a trailer record or a badly formatted/empty row in a SSIS package keeps coming back on the MSDN SSIS Forum. I tried to figure out the reason why and after an extensive search inside the forum and outside it on the entire Web (using several search engines) I indeed found that it seems even thought there is a number of posts and articles on the topic none of them are employing the simplest and the most efficient technique. When I say efficient I mean the shortest time to solution for the fellow developers. OK, enough talk. Let’s face the problem: Typically a flat file (e.g. a comma delimited/CSV) needs to be processed (loaded into a database in most cases really). Oftentimes, such an input file is produced by some sort of an out of control, 3-rd party solution and would come in with some garbage characters and/or even malformed/miss-formatted rows. One such example could be this imaginary file: As you can see several rows have no data and there is an occasional garbage character (1, in this example on row #7). Our task is to produce a clean file that will only capture the meaningful data rows. As an aside, our output/target may be a database table, but for the purpose of this exercise we will simply re-format the source. Let’s outline our course of action to start off: Will use SSIS 2005 to create a DFT; The DFT will use a Flat File Source to our input [bad] flat file; We will use a Conditional Split to process the bad input file; and finally Dump the resulting data to a new [clean] file. Well, only four steps, let’s see if it is too much of work. 1: Start the BIDS and add a DFT to the Control Flow designer (I named it Process Dirty File DFT): 2, and 3: I had added the data viewer to just see what I am getting, alas, surprisingly the data issues were not seen it:   What really is the key in the approach it is to properly set the Conditional Split Transformation. Visually it is: and specifically its SSIS Expression LEN([After CS Column 0]) > 1 The point is to employ the right Boolean expression (yes, the Conditional Split accepts only Boolean conditions). For the sake of this post I re-named the Output Name “No Empty Rows”, but by default it will be named Case 1 (remember to drag your first column into the expression area)! You can close your Conditional Split now. The next part will be crucial – consuming the output of our Conditional Split. Last step - #4: Add a Flat File Destination or any other one you need. Click on the Conditional Split and choose the green arrow to drop onto the target. When you do so make sure you choose the No Empty Rows output and NOT the Conditional Split Default Output. Make the necessary mappings. At this point your package must look like: As the last step will run our package to examine the produced output file. F5: and… it looks great!

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• Tweeting about Oracle Applications Usability: Points to Consider

  - by ultan o'broin

  Here are a few pointers to anyone interested in tweeting about Oracle Applications usability or user experience (UX). These are based on my own experiences and practice, and may not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle, of course (touché, see the footer). If you are an Oracle employee and tweet about our offerings, then read up and follow the corporate social media policy. For the record, I tweet under the following account names: @ultan, @localization, @gamifyOracle, and @usableapps. The last two are supposedly Oracle subject-dedicated, but I mix it up on occassion. Fill out your Twitter account profile, and add a profile picture too. Disclose your interest. Don’t leave either the profile or image blank if you want to be taken seriously (or followed by me). Don’t tweet from a locked down Twitter account, as the message cannot be circulated to anyone who doesn't follow you. Open up the account if you really want to get that UX message out. Stay on message. The usable apps website, Misha Vaughan's VoX blog, and the Oracle Applications blog are good sources of UX messages and information, but you can find many other product team, individual, and corporate-wide sources with a little bit of searching. Set up a Google Alert with pertinent related keywords to get a daily digest of new information right in your inbox. Be original about it. Add your own insight and wit to the message, were relevant. Just circulating and RTing stock headlines adds no value to your effort or to the reader, and is somewhat lazy, in my opinion. Leave room for RTing of your tweet. So, don’t max out those 140 characters. Keep it under 130 if you want to be RTed without modification (or at all-I am not a fan of modifying tweets [MT], way too much effort for the medium). Remove articles and punctuation marks and use fragments, abbreviations, and so on at will to keep the tweet short enough, but leave keywords intact, as people search on those. Follow any Fusion UX Advocates who are on Twitter too (you can search for these names), and not just Oracle employees. Don't just follow people you like or think like you, or those who you think like you or are like-minded. Take a look at who is following or being followed by other tweeters and er, follow up. Create and socialize others to use an easily remembered or typed hashtag, or use what’s already popularized (for an event or conference, for example). We used #gamifyOracle for the applications UX gamification design jam, and other popular applications UX ones are #fusionapps and #usableapps (or at least I’m trying to popularize it). But, before you start the messaging, if you want to keep a record of the hashtag traffic, then set it up with an archiving service. Twitter’s own tweet lifespan is short. Don't mix up hashtags (#) with Twitter handles (@) that have the same name. Sending a tweet to @gamifyOracle will just be seen by @gamifyOracle (me) and any followers we have in common. Sending it to #gamifyOracle is seen by anyone following or searching for that hashtag. No dissing the competition. But there is no rule about not following them on Twitter to see the market reactions to Oracle announcements and this can even let you can tailor your own message accordingly. Don’t be boring. Mix it up a bit. Every 10th or so tweet, divert into other areas of interest, personal ones, even. No constant “I just received K+ in this and that” or “I just checked into wherever” on foursquare pouring into the Twittersteam, please. I just don’t care and will probably unfollow such people pretty quickly. And now, your Twitter tips and experiences with this subject? Them go in the comments...

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• Determining explosion radius damage - Circle to Rectangle 2D

  - by Paul Renton

  One of the Cocos2D games I am working on has circular explosion effects. These explosion effects need to deal a percentage of their set maximum damage to all game characters (represented by rectangular bounding boxes as the objects in question are tanks) within the explosion radius. So this boils down to circle to rectangle collision and how far away the circle's radius is from the closest rectangle edge. I took a stab at figuring this out last night, but I believe there may be a better way. In particular, I don't know the best way to determine what percentage of damage to apply based on the distance calculated. Note : All tank objects have an anchor point of (0,0) so position is according to bottom left corner of bounding box. Explosion point is the center point of the circular explosion. TankObject * tank = (TankObject*) gameSprite; float distanceFromExplosionCenter; // IMPORTANT :: All GameCharacter have an assumed (0,0) anchor if (explosionPoint.x < tank.position.x) { // Explosion to WEST of tank if (explosionPoint.y <= tank.position.y) { //Explosion SOUTHWEST distanceFromExplosionCenter = ccpDistance(explosionPoint, tank.position); } else if (explosionPoint.y >= (tank.position.y + tank.contentSize.height)) { // Explosion NORTHWEST distanceFromExplosionCenter = ccpDistance(explosionPoint, ccp(tank.position.x, tank.position.y + tank.contentSize.height)); } else { // Exp center's y is between bottom and top corner of rect distanceFromExplosionCenter = tank.position.x - explosionPoint.x; } // end if } else if (explosionPoint.x > (tank.position.x + tank.contentSize.width)) { // Explosion to EAST of tank if (explosionPoint.y <= tank.position.y) { //Explosion SOUTHEAST distanceFromExplosionCenter = ccpDistance(explosionPoint, ccp(tank.position.x + tank.contentSize.width, tank.position.y)); } else if (explosionPoint.y >= (tank.position.y + tank.contentSize.height)) { // Explosion NORTHEAST distanceFromExplosionCenter = ccpDistance(explosionPoint, ccp(tank.position.x + tank.contentSize.width, tank.position.y + tank.contentSize.height)); } else { // Exp center's y is between bottom and top corner of rect distanceFromExplosionCenter = explosionPoint.x - (tank.position.x + tank.contentSize.width); } // end if } else { // Tank is either north or south and is inbetween left and right corner of rect if (explosionPoint.y < tank.position.y) { // Explosion is South distanceFromExplosionCenter = tank.position.y - explosionPoint.y; } else { // Explosion is North distanceFromExplosionCenter = explosionPoint.y - (tank.position.y + tank.contentSize.height); } // end if } // end outer if if (distanceFromExplosionCenter < explosionRadius) { /* Collision :: Smaller distance larger the damage */ int damageToApply; if (self.directHit) { damageToApply = self.explosionMaxDamage + self.directHitBonusDamage; [tank takeDamageAndAdjustHealthBar:damageToApply]; CCLOG(@"Explsoion-> DIRECT HIT with total damage %d", damageToApply); } else { // TODO adjust this... turning out negative for some reason... damageToApply = (1 - (distanceFromExplosionCenter/explosionRadius) * explosionMaxDamage); [tank takeDamageAndAdjustHealthBar:damageToApply]; CCLOG(@"Explosion-> Non direct hit collision with tank"); CCLOG(@"Damage to apply is %d", damageToApply); } // end if } else { CCLOG(@"Explosion-> Explosion distance is larger than explosion radius"); } // end if } // end if Questions: 1) Can this circle to rect collision algorithm be done better? Do I have too many checks? 2) How to calculate the percentage based damage? My current method generates negative numbers occasionally and I don't understand why (Maybe I need more sleep!). But, in my if statement, I ask if distance < explosion radius. When control goes through, distance/radius must be < 1 right? So 1 - that intermediate calculation should not be negative. Appreciate any help/advice!

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• SSIS Debugging Tip: Using Data Viewers

  - by Jim Giercyk

  When you have an SSIS package error, it is often very helpful to see the data records that are causing the problem.  After all, if your input has 50,000 records and 1 of them has corrupt data, it can be a chore.  Your execution results will tell you which column contains the bad data, but not which record…..enter the Data Viewer. In this scenario I have created a truncation error.  The input length of [lastname] is 50, but the output table has a length of 15.  When it runs, at least one of the records causes the package to fail.     Now what?  We can tell from our execution results that there is a problem with [lastname], but we have no idea WHICH record?     Let’s identify the row that is actually causing the problem.  First, we grab the oft’ forgotten Row Count shape from our toolbar and connect it to the error output from our input query.  Remember that in order to intercept errors with the error output, you must redirect them.     The Row Count shape requires 1 integer variable.  For our purposes, we will not reference the variable, but it is still required in order for the package to run.  Typically we would use the variable to hold the number of rows in the table and refer back to it later in our process.  We are simply using the Row Count as a “Dead End” for errors.  I called my variable RowCounter.  To create a variable, with no shapes selected, right-click on the background and choose Variable.     Once we have setup the Row Count shape, we can right-click on the red line (error output) from the query, and select Data Viewers.  In the popup, we click the add button and we will see this:     There are other fancier options we can play with, but for now we just want to view the output in a grid.  WE select Grid, then click OK on all of the popup windows to shut them down.  We should now see a grid with a pair of glasses on the error output line.     So, we are ready to catch the error output in a grid and see that is causing the problem!  This time when we run the package, it does not fail because we directed the error to the Row Count.  We also get a popup window showing the error record in a grid.  If there were multiple errors we would see them all.     Indeed, the [lastname] column is longer than 15 characters.  Notice the last column in the grid, [Error Code – Description].  We knew this was a truncation error before we added the grid, but if you have worked with SSIS for any length of time, you know that some errors are much more obscure.  The description column can be very useful under those circumstances! Data viewers can be used any time we want to see the data that is actually in the pipeline;  they stop the package temporarily until we shut them.  Also remember that the Row Count shape can be used as a “Dead End”.  It is useful during development when we want to see the output from a dataflow, but don’t want to update a table or file with the data.  Data viewers are an invaluable tool for both development and debugging.  Just remember to REMOVE THEM before putting your package into production

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• Why We Do What We Do. (Part 3 of 5 Part Series on JDE 5G Postponed)

  - by Kem Butller-Oracle

  By Lyle Ekdahl - Oracle JD Edwards Sr. VP General Manager  In the closing of part two of this 5 part blog series, I stated that in the next installment I would explore the expected results of the digital overdrive era and the impact it will have on our economy. While I have full intentions of writing on that topic, I am inspired today to write about something that is top of mind. It’s top of mind because it has come up several times recently conversations with my Oracle’s JD Edwards team members, with customers and our partners, plus I feel passionately about why I do what I do…. It is not what we do but why we do that thing that we do Do you know what you do? For the most part, I bet you could tell me what you do even if your work has changed over the years.  My real question is, “Do you get excited about what you do, and are you fulfilled? Does your work deliver a sense of purpose, a cause to work for, and something to believe in?”  Alright, I guess that was not a single question. So let me just ask, “Why?” Why are you here, right now? Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you go to work? Of course, I can’t answer those questions for you but I can share with you my POV.   For starters, there are several things that drive me. As many of you know by now, I have a somewhat competitive nature but it is not solely the thrill of winning that actually fuels me. Now don’t get me wrong, I do like winning occasionally. However winning is only a potential result of competing and is clearly not guaranteed. So why compete? Why compete in business, and particularly why in this Enterprise Software business?  Here’s why! I am fascinated by creative and building processes. It is about making or producing things, causing something to come into existence. With the right skill, imagination and determination, whether it’s art or invention; the result can deliver value and inspire. In both avocation and vocation I always gravitate towards the create/build processes.  I believe one of the skills necessary for the create/build process is not just the aptitude but also, and especially, the desire and attitude that drives one to gain a deeper understanding. The more I learn about our customers, the more I seek to understand what makes the successful and what difficult issues cause them to struggle. I like to look for the complex, non-commodity process problems where streamlined design and modern technology can provide an easy and simple solution. It is especially gratifying to see our customers use our software to increase their own ability to deliver value to the market. What an incredible network effect! I know many of you share this customer obsession as well as the create/build addiction focused on simple and elegant design. This is what I believe is at the root of our common culture.  Are JD Edwards customers on a whole different than other ERP solutions’ customers? I would argue that for the most part, yes, they are. They selected our software, and our software is different. Why? Because I believe that the create/build process will generally result in solutions that reflect who built it and their culture. And a culture of people focused on why they create/build will attract different customers than one that is based on what is built or how the solution is delivered. In the past I have referred to this idea as character of the customer, and it transcends industry, size and run rate. Now some would argue that JD Edwards has some customers who are characters. But that is for a different post. As I have told you before, the JD Edwards culture is unique, and its resulting economy is valuable and deserving of our best efforts. 

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• Parsing T-SQL – The easy way

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  Every once in a while, I hit an issue that would require me to interrogate/parse some T-SQL code.  Normally, I would shy away from this and attempt to solve the problem in some other way.  I have written parsers before in the the past using LEX and YACC, and as much fun and awesomeness that path is,  I couldnt justify the time it would take. However, this week I have been faced with just such an issue and at the back of my mind I can remember reading through the SQLServer 2012 feature pack and seeing something called “Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Transact-SQL Language Service “.  This is described there as : “The SQL Server Transact-SQL Language Service is a component based on the .NET Framework which provides parsing validation and IntelliSense services for Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2008. “ Sounds just what I was after.  Documentation is very scant on this so dont take what follows as best practice or best use, just a practice and a use. Knowing what I was sort of looking for something, I found the relevant assembly in the gac which is the simply named ,’Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser’. Even knowing that you wont find much in terms of documentation if you do a web-search, but you will find the MSDN documentation that list the members and methods etc… The “scanner”  class sounded the most appropriate for my needs as that is described as “Scans Transact-SQL searching for individual units of code or tokens.”. After a bit of poking, around the code i ended up with was something like [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser") | Out-Null $ParseOptions = New-Object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.ParseOptions $ParseOptions.BatchSeparator = 'GO' $Parser = new-object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Scanner($ParseOptions) $Sql = "Create Procedure MyProc as Select top(10) * from dbo.Table" $Parser.SetSource($Sql,0) $Token=[Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens]::TOKEN_SET $Start =0 $End = 0 $State =0 $IsEndOfBatch = $false $IsMatched = $false $IsExecAutoParamHelp = $false while(($Token = $Parser.GetNext([ref]$State ,[ref]$Start, [ref]$End, [ref]$IsMatched, [ref]$IsExecAutoParamHelp ))-ne [Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens]::EOF) { try{ ($TokenPrs =[Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens]$Token) | Out-Null $TokenPrs $Sql.Substring($Start,($end-$Start)+1) }catch{ $TokenPrs = $null } } As you can see , the $Sql variable holds the sql to be parsed , that is pushed into the $Parser object using SetSource,  and then we will use GetNext until the EOF token is returned.  GetNext will also return the Start and End character positions within the source string of the parsed text. This script’s output is : TOKEN_CREATE Create TOKEN_PROCEDURE Procedure TOKEN_ID MyProc TOKEN_AS as TOKEN_SELECT Select TOKEN_TOP top TOKEN_INTEGER 10 TOKEN_FROM from TOKEN_ID dbo TOKEN_TABLE Table note that the ‘(‘, ‘)’  and ‘*’ characters have returned a token type that is not present in the Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens Enum that has caused an error which has been caught in the catch block.  Fun, Fun ,Fun , Simple T-SQL Parsing.  Hope this helps someone in the same position,  let me know how you get on.

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• ODEE Green Field (Windows) Part 3 - SOA Suite

  - by AndyL-Oracle

   So you're still here, are you? I'm sure you're probably overjoyed at the prospect of continuing with our green field installation of ODEE. In my previous post, I covered the installation of WebLogic - you probably noticed, like I did, that it's a pretty quick install. I'm pretty certain this had everything to do with how quickly the next post made it to the internet! So let's dig in. Make sure you've followed the steps from the initial post to obtain the necessary software and prerequisites! Unpack the RCU (Repository Creation Utility). This ZIP file contains a directory (rcuHome) that should be extracted into your ORACLE_HOME. Run the RCU – execute rcuHome/bin/rcu.bat. Click Next. Select Create and click Next. Enter the database connection details and click Next – any failure to connection will show in the Messages box. Click Ok Expand and select the SOA Infrastructure item. This will automatically select additional required components. You can change the prefix used, but DEV is recommended. If you are creating a sandbox that includes additional components like WebCenter Content and UMS, you may select those schemas as well but they are not required for a basic ODEE installation. Click Next. Click OK. Specify the password for the schema(s). Then click Next. Click Next. Click OK. Click OK. Click Create. Click Close. Unpack the SOA Suite installation files into a single directory e.g. SOA. Run the installer – navigate and execute SOA/Disk1/setup.exe. If you receive a JDK error, switch to a command line to start the installer. To start the installer via command line, do Start?Run?cmd and cd into the SOA\Disk1 directory. Run setup.exe –jreLoc < pathtoJRE >. Ensure you do not use a path with spaces – use the ~1 notation as necessary (your directory must not exceed 8 characters so “Program Files” becomes “Progra~1” and “Program Files (x86)” becomes “Progra~2” in this notation). Click Next. Select Skip and click Next. Resolve any issues shown and click Next. Verify your oracle home locations. Defaults are recommended. Click Next. Select your application server. If you’ve already installed WebLogic, this should be automatically selected for you. Click Next. Click Install. Allow the installation to progress… Click Next. Click Finish. You can save the installation details if you want. That should keep you satisfied for the moment. Get ready, because the next posts are going to be meaty! 

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• Call For Papers Tips and Tricks

  - by speakjava

  This year's JavaOne session review has just been completed and by now everyone who submitted papers should know whether they were successful or not.  I had the pleasure again this year of leading the review of the 'JavaFX and Rich User Experiences' track.  I thought it would be useful to write up a few comments to help people in future when submitting session proposals, not just for JavaOne, but for any of the many developer conferences that run around the world throughout the year.  This also draws on conversations I recently had with various Java User Group leaders at the Oracle User Group summit in Riga.  Many of these leaders run some of the biggest and most successful Java conferences in Europe. Try to think of a title which will sound interesting.  For example, "Experiences of performance tuning embedded Java for an ARM architecture based single board computer" probably isn't going to get as much attention as "Do you like coffee with your dessert? Java on the Raspberry Pi".  When thinking of the subject and title for your talk try to steer clear of sessions that might be too generic (and so get lost in a group of similar sessions).  Introductory talks are great when the audience is new to a subject, but beware of providing sessions that are too basic when the technology has been around for a while and there are lots of tutorials already available on the web. JavaOne, like many other conferences has a number of fields that need to be filled in when submitting a paper.  Many of these are selected from pull-down lists (like which track the session is applicable to).  Check these lists carefully.  A number of sessions we had needed to be shuffled between tracks when it was thought that the one selected was not appropriate.  We didn't count this against any sessions, but it's always a good idea to try and get the right one from the start, just in case. JavaOne, again like many other conferences, has two fields that describe the session being submitted: abstract and summary.  These are the most critical to a successful submission.  The two fields have different names and that is significant; a frequent mistake people make is to write an abstract for a session and then duplicate it for the summary.  The abstract (at least in the case of JavaOne) is what gets printed in the show guide and is typically what will be used by attendees when deciding what sessions to attend.  This is where you need to sell your session, not just to the reviewers, but also the people who you want in your audience.  Submitting a one line abstract (unless it's a really good one line) is not usually enough to decide whether this is worth investing an hour of conference time.  The abstract typically has a limit of a few hundred characters.  Try to use as many of them as possible to get as much information about your session across.  The summary should be different from the abstract (and don't leave it blank as some people do).  This field is where you can give the reviewers more detail about things like the structure of the talk, possible demonstrations and so on.  As a reviewer I look to this section to help me decide whether the hard-sell of the title and abstract will actually be reflected in the final content.  Try to make this comprehensive, but don't make it excessively long.  When you have to review possibly hundreds of sessions a certain level of conciseness can make life easier for reviewers and help the cause of your session. If you've not made many submissions for talks in the past, or if this is your first, try to give reviewers places to find background on you as a presenter.  Having an active blog and Twitter handle can also help reviewers if they're not sure what your level of expertise is.  Many call-for-papers have places for you to include this type of information.  It's always good to have new and original presenters and presentations for conferences.  Hopefully these tips will help you be successful when you answer the next call-for-papers.

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• With a little effort you can &ldquo;SEMI&rdquo;-protect your C# assemblies with obfuscation.

  - by mbcrump

  This method will not protect your assemblies from a experienced hacker. Everyday we see new keygens, cracks, serials being released that contain ways around copy protection from small companies. This is a simple process that will make a lot of hackers quit because so many others use nothing. If you were a thief would you pick the house that has security signs and an alarm or one that has nothing? To so begin: Obfuscation is the concealment of meaning in communication, making it confusing and harder to interpret. Lets begin by looking at the cartoon below:     You are probably familiar with the term and probably ignored this like most programmers ignore user security. Today, I’m going to show you reflection and a way to obfuscate it. Please understand that I am aware of ways around this, but I believe some security is better than no security.  In this sample program below, the code appears exactly as it does in Visual Studio. When the program runs, you get either a true or false in a console window. Sample Program. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq;   namespace ObfuscateMe {     class Program     {                static void Main(string[] args)         {               Console.WriteLine(IsProcessOpen("notepad")); //Returns a True or False depending if you have notepad running.             Console.ReadLine();         }             public static bool IsProcessOpen(string name)         {             return Process.GetProcesses().Any(clsProcess => clsProcess.ProcessName.Contains(name));         }     } }   Pretend, that this is a commercial application. The hacker will only have the executable and maybe a few config files, etc. After reviewing the executable, he can determine if it was produced in .NET by examing the file in ILDASM or Redgate’s Reflector. We are going to examine the file using RedGate’s Reflector. Upon launch, we simply drag/drop the exe over to the application. We have the following for the Main method:   and for the IsProcessOpen method:     Without any other knowledge as to how this works, the hacker could export the exe and get vs project build or copy this code in and our application would run. Using Reflector output. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq;   namespace ObfuscateMe {     class Program     {                static void Main(string[] args)         {               Console.WriteLine(IsProcessOpen("notepad"));             Console.ReadLine();         }             public static bool IsProcessOpen(string name)         {             return Process.GetProcesses().Any<Process>(delegate(Process clsProcess)             {                 return clsProcess.ProcessName.Contains(name);             });         }       } } The code is not identical, but returns the same value. At this point, with a little bit of effort you could prevent the hacker from reverse engineering your code so quickly by using Eazfuscator.NET. Eazfuscator.NET is just one of many programs built for this. Visual Studio ships with a community version of Dotfoscutor. So download and load Eazfuscator.NET and drag/drop your exectuable/project into the window. It will work for a few minutes depending if you have a quad-core or not. After it finishes, open the executable in RedGate Reflector and you will get the following: Main After Obfuscation IsProcessOpen Method after obfuscation: As you can see with the jumbled characters, it is not as easy as the first example. I am aware of methods around this, but it takes more effort and unless the hacker is up for the challenge, they will just pick another program. This is also helpful if you are a consultant and make clients pay a yearly license fee. This would prevent the average software developer from jumping into your security routine after you have left. I hope this article helped someone. If you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments below.

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• How can I have multiple layers in my map array?

  - by Manl400

  How do I load Levels in my game, as in Layer 1 would be Objects, Layer 2 would be Characters and so on. I only need 3 layers, and they will all be put on top of each other. i.e having a flower with a transparent background to be put on grass or dirt on the layer below.I would like to Read From the same file too. How would i go about doing this? Any help would be appreciated. I load the map from a level file which are just numbers corresponding to a tile in the tilesheet. Here is the level file [Layer1] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [Layer2] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [Layer3] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 And here is the code that interprets it void LoadMap(const char *filename, std::vector< std::vector <int> > &map) { std::ifstream openfile(filename); if(openfile.is_open()) { std::string line, value; int space; while(!openfile.eof()) { std::getline(openfile, line); if(line.find("[TileSet]") != std::string::npos) { state = TileSet; continue; } else if (line.find("[Layer1]") != std::string::npos) { state = Map; continue; } switch(state) { case TileSet: if(line.length() > 0) tileSet = al_load_bitmap(line.c_str()); break; case Map: std::stringstream str(line); std::vector<int> tempVector; while(!str.eof()) { std::getline(str, value, ' '); if(value.length() > 0) tempVector.push_back(atoi(value.c_str())); } map.push_back(tempVector); break; } } } else { } } and this is how it draws the map. Also the tile sheet is 1280 by 1280 and the tilesizeX and tilesizeY is 64 void DrawMap(std::vector <std::vector <int> > map) { int mapRowCount = map.size(); for(int i, j = 0; i < mapRowCount; i ++) { int mapColCount = map[i].size(); for (int j = 0; j < mapColCount; ++j) { int tilesetIndex = map[i][j]; int tilesetRow = floor(tilesetIndex / TILESET_COLCOUNT); int tilesetCol = tilesetIndex % TILESET_COLCOUNT; al_draw_bitmap_region(tileSet, tilesetCol * TileSizeX, tilesetRow * TileSizeY, TileSizeX, TileSizeY, j * TileSizeX, i * TileSizeX, NULL); } } } EDIT: http://i.imgur.com/Ygu0zRE.jpg

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