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  • Ranking hit after WP site migration

    - by Ben
    I migrated my site from its old domain over a month ago. I followed WMT completely, including 301 redirects from every existing URL to the new domain, and then submitting a change of address. Traffic continued as normal, but then a few days after submitting the change of address traffic plummeted to about 20-30% of what it was previously. Most of my traffic come from organic search, and I can see that for the keywords I had targeted before and performed well with and am now ranking much much lower for. In some cases for low competition keywords I've only lost a few places, for higher competition terms I have really suffered. This has started to pick up a bit (one of my keywords I have risen from 195 to 100 in the last week), but it seems to be a very slow process. How seamless is this process normally? I was under the impression that this would not affect my rankings too severely, but it has now been a month since the move and recovery seems to be very slow, if at all. Is it likely that I've missed something? The only change is that I have moved what was the home page to be more of a sub-page, and now in its place is a magazine-style home page. I understand that links to the old site will now be pointing to the latter which means that rankings for some keywords attributed to the old home page will take a hit, but even on other pages that seem to fit in exactly the same page structure as the previous site I have seen a drop in rankings. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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  • Flash video streaming choppy for Chrome, alright for Firefox

    - by Ben
    I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.1, Chrome 21 and Firefox 15. Flash player 11.2 has been installed, and I've just started using Ubuntu... yesterday. And I'm using a Lenovo T61. The problem is that it doesn't matter if it's youtube or vimeo or some other flash player, it streams fine on chrome but every 30 seconds or so, there is a pause in video playback (with audio continuing) before it catches up, skipping quite a few seconds of video. It works perfectly fine in Firefox, and I've tried disabling PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so in Chrome but it doesn't seem to affect the performance. Anyone know how to work around this? It's more a problem of convenience because I don't like the idea of having to switch between Chrome and Firefox just to watch videos.

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  • Is shipping a Clojure desktop app realistic?

    - by Cedric Martin
    I'm currently shipping a desktop Java application. It is a plain old Java 5 Java / Swing app and so far everything worked nicely. Java 5 was targetted because some users were on OS X version / computers that shall never have Java 6 (we may lift this limitation soon and switch to a newer Java and simply abandoning my users stuck with Java 5). I'm quickly getting up to speed with Clojure but I haven't really done lots of Clojure-to-Java and Java-to-Clojure yet and I was wondering if it was realistic to ship a Clojure desktop application instead of a Java application? The application I'm shipping is currently about 12 MB with all the .jar so adding Clojure doesn't seen to be too much of an issue. My plan would be to have Clojure call Java APIs: my application is already divided in several independent jars. If I understand correctly calling Clojure from Java is harder than calling Java code from Clojure which is why I'd basically rewrite all the UI (part of the UI, mixing Swing components and self-made BufferedImages needs to be rewritten anyway due to the rise of retina display), and do all the 'wiring' from Clojure. So that's the problem I'm facing: is it realistic to ship a Clojure desktop app? (it certainly doesn't seem to be very widespread but then shipping plain Java desktop apps ain't that common either and I'm doing it anyway) Technically, what would need to be done? (compared to shipping a Java app)

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  • What happens differently when you add a task Asynchronously on GAE?

    - by Ben Grunfeld
    Google's doc on async tasks assumes knowledge of the difference between regular and asynchronously added tasks. add_async(task, transactional=False, rpc=None) Asynchronously add a Task or a list of Tasks to this Queue. How is adding tasks asynchronously different to adding them regularly. I.e. what is the difference between using add(task, transactional=False) and add_async(task, transactional=False, rpc=None) I've heard that adding tasks regularly blocks certain things. Any explanation of what it blocks and how, and how async tasks don't block would be greatly appreciated.

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  • Allocating Entities within an Entity System

    - by miguel.martin
    I'm quite unsure how I should allocate/resemble my entities within my entity system. I have various options, but most of them seem to have cons associated with them. In all cases entities are resembled by an ID (integer), and possibly has a wrapper class associated with it. This wrapper class has methods to add/remove components to/from the entity. Before I mention the options, here is the basic structure of my entity system: Entity An object that describes an object within the game Component Used to store data for the entity System Contains entities with specific components Used to update entities with specific components World Contains entities and systems for the entity system Can create/destroy entites and have systems added/removed from/to it Here are my options, that I have thought of: Option 1: Do not store the Entity wrapper classes, and just store the next ID/deleted IDs. In other words, entities will be returned by value, like so: Entity entity = world.createEntity(); This is much like entityx, except I see some flaws in this design. Cons There can be duplicate entity wrapper classes (as the copy-ctor has to be implemented, and systems need to contain entities) If an Entity is destroyed, the duplicate entity wrapper classes will not have an updated value Option 2: Store the entity wrapper classes within an object pool. i.e. Entities will be return by pointer/reference, like so: Entity& e = world.createEntity(); Cons If there is duplicate entities, then when an entity is destroyed, the same entity object may be re-used to allocate another entity. Option 3: Use raw IDs, and forget about the wrapper entity classes. The downfall to this, I think, is the syntax that will be required for it. I'm thinking about doing thisas it seems the most simple & easy to implement it. I'm quite unsure about it, because of the syntax. i.e. To add a component with this design, it would look like: Entity e = world.createEntity(); world.addComponent<Position>(e, 0, 3); As apposed to this: Entity e = world.createEntity(); e.addComponent<Position>(0, 3); Cons Syntax Duplicate IDs

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  • Parallelism implies concurrency but not the other way round right?

    - by Cedric Martin
    I often read that parallelism and concurrency are different things. Very often the answerers/commenters go as far as writing that they're two entirely different things. Yet in my view they're related but I'd like some clarification on that. For example if I'm on a multi-core CPU and manage to divide the computation into x smaller computation (say using fork/join) each running in its own thread, I'll have a program that is both doing parallel computation (because supposedly at any point in time several threads are going to run on several cores) and being concurrent right? While if I'm simply using, say, Java and dealing with UI events and repaints on the Event Dispatch Thread plus running the only thread I created myself, I'll have a program that is concurrent (EDT + GC thread + my main thread etc.) but not parallel. I'd like to know if I'm getting this right and if parallelism (on a "single but multi-cores" system) always implies concurrency or not? Also, are multi-threaded programs running on multi-cores CPU but where the different threads are doing totally different computation considered to be using "parallelism"?

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  • Removing hard-coded values and defensive design vs YAGNI

    - by Ben Scott
    First a bit of background. I'm coding a lookup from Age - Rate. There are 7 age brackets so the lookup table is 3 columns (From|To|Rate) with 7 rows. The values rarely change - they are legislated rates (first and third columns) that have stayed the same for 3 years. I figured that the easiest way to store this table without hard-coding it is in the database in a global configuration table, as a single text value containing a CSV (so "65,69,0.05,70,74,0.06" is how the 65-69 and 70-74 tiers would be stored). Relatively easy to parse then use. Then I realised that to implement this I would have to create a new table, a repository to wrap around it, data layer tests for the repo, unit tests around the code that unflattens the CSV into the table, and tests around the lookup itself. The only benefit of all this work is avoiding hard-coding the lookup table. When talking to the users (who currently use the lookup table directly - by looking at a hard copy) the opinion is pretty much that "the rates never change." Obviously that isn't actually correct - the rates were only created three years ago and in the past things that "never change" have had a habit of changing - so for me to defensively program this I definitely shouldn't store the lookup table in the application. Except when I think YAGNI. The feature I am implementing doesn't specify that the rates will change. If the rates do change, they will still change so rarely that maintenance isn't even a consideration, and the feature isn't actually critical enough that anything would be affected if there was a delay between the rate change and the updated application. I've pretty much decided that nothing of value will be lost if I hard-code the lookup, and I'm not too concerned about my approach to this particular feature. My question is, as a professional have I properly justified that decision? Hard-coding values is bad design, but going to the trouble of removing the values from the application seems to violate the YAGNI principle. EDIT To clarify the question, I'm not concerned about the actual implementation. I'm concerned that I can either do a quick, bad thing, and justify it by saying YAGNI, or I can take a more defensive, high-effort approach, that even in the best case ultimately has low benefits. As a professional programmer does my decision to implement a design that I know is flawed simply come down to a cost/benefit analysis?

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  • PHP may be executing as a "privileged" group and user, which could be a serious security vulnerability

    - by Martin
    I ran some security tests on a Ubuntu 12.04 Server, and I've got these warnings : PHP may be executing as a "privileged" group, which could be a serious security vulnerability. PHP may be executing as a "privileged" user, which could be a serious security vulnerability. In /etc/apache2/envvars, I have this: export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data And all files in /var/www are having these user/group: www-data:www-data Am I setting this correctly? What should I do to fix this problem?

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  • Can the Clojure set and maps syntax be added to other Lisp dialects?

    - by Cedric Martin
    In addition to create list using parentheses, Clojure allows to create vectors using [ ], maps using { } and sets using #{ }. Lisp is always said to be a very extensible language in which you can easily create DSLs etc. But is Lisp so extensible that you can take any Lisp dialect and relatively easily add support for Clojure's vectors, maps and sets (which are all functions in Clojure)? I'm not necessarily asking about cons or similar actually working on these functions: what I'd like to know is if the other could be modified so that the source code would look like Clojure's source code (that is: using matching [ ], { } and #{ } in addition to ( )). Note that if it cannot be done this is not a criticism of Lisp: what I'd like to know is, technically, what should be done or what cannot be done if one were to add such a thing.

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  • Is LightDM is broken? Autologin works

    - by Ben
    I recently upgraded my Mythbuntu box to 11.10. LightDM worked for a while and then I configured autologin on my user account. After some time, I've removed some packages to lean down the system. Now when I log out (from either Unity or Gnome Shell) I lose the X session, LightDM doesn't start back up. If I disable autologin through /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf I get no login screen & no X. As I said, autologin works and gives me a Ubuntu Classic desktop. This is the only reference in dmesg to lightdm; [ 17.351023] type=1400 audit(1329530135.420:19): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" name="/usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-guest-session-wrapper" pid=1097 comm="apparmor_parser" Can anyone help?

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  • How does one set up a MIDI keyboard

    - by Martin Owens -doctormo-
    I would like to set up my keyboard via my midi-sport 2x2, I've plugged everything in and even installed the midisport-firmware package which was not automatically installed for some reason. The goal is to have the computer produce a piano sound when keys of the keyboard are hit. If you can make this work without jack, that would be good too. Step by step instructions, the less complexity the better.

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  • Enabling multitouch on an acer 5742?

    - by Ben
    I am trying to get multitouch to work on my touchpad. I am currently trying to run a script to get it to work. It is set to start on boot, saved as .run and has been made executable. here is the code: #!/bin/bash #enable multitouch sleep 10 xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1 xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1 1 xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure" 32 10 xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Width" 32 8 xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Edge Scrolling" 8 0 0 0 xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Jumpy Cursor Threshold" 32 110 synclient TapButton2=2 exit the commands make multi touch work if I enter them in the terminal, but the script itself does not work. any suggestions?

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  • Do you want to be an ALM Consultant?

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Northwest Cadence is looking for our next great consultant! At Northwest Cadence, we have created a work environment that emphasizes excellence, integrity, and out-of-the-box thinking.  Our customers have high expectations (rightfully so) and we wouldn’t have it any other way!   Northwest Cadence has some of the most exciting customers I have ever worked with and even though I have only been here just over a month I have already: Provided training/consulting for 3 government departments Created and taught courseware for delivering Scrum to teams within a high profile multinational company Started presenting Microsoft's ALM Engagement Program  So if you are interested in helping companies build better software more efficiently, then.. Enquire at [email protected] Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Consultant An ALM Consultant with a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience with Application Lifecycle Management, Visual Studio (including Visual Studio Team System) and software design is needed. Must provide thought leadership on best practices for enterprise architecture, understand the Microsoft technology solution stack, and have a thorough understanding of enterprise application integration. The ALM Practice Lead will play a central role in designing and implementing the overall ALM Practice strategy, including creating, updating, and delivering ALM courseware and consultancy engagements. This person will also provide project support, deliverables, and quality solutions on Visual Studio Team System that exceed client expectations. Engagements will vary and will involve providing expert training, consulting, mentoring, formulating technical strategies and policies and acting as a “trusted advisor” to customers and internal teams. Sound sense of business and technical strategy required. Strong interpersonal skills as well as solid strategic thinking are key. The ideal candidate will be capable of envisioning the solution based on the early client requirements, communicating the vision to both technical and business stakeholders, leading teams through implementation, as well as training, mentoring, and hands-on software development. The ideal candidate will demonstrate successful use of both agile and formal software development methods, enterprise application patterns, and effective leadership on prior projects. Job Requirements Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree (computer science, engineering, or math preferred). Locale / Travel: The Practice Lead position requires estimated 50% travel, most of which will be in the Continental US (a valid national Passport must be maintained).  This is a full time position and will be based in the Kirkland office. Preferred Education: Master’s Degree in Information Technology or Software Engineering; Premium Microsoft Certifications on .NET (MCSD) or MCPD or relevant experience; Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) or relevant experience. Minimum Experience and Skills: 7+ years experience with business information systems integration or custom business application design and development in a professional technology consulting, corporate MIS or software development environment. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Provide training, consulting, and mentoring to organizations on topics that include Visual Studio Team System and ALM. Create content, including labs and demonstrations, to be delivered as training classes by Northwest Cadence employees. Lead development teams through the complete ALM and/or Visual Studio Team System solution. Be able to communicate in detail how a solution will integrate into the larger technical problem space for large, complex enterprises. Define technical solution requirements. Provide guidance to the customer and project team with respect to technical feasibility, complexity, and level of effort required to deliver a custom solution. Ensure that the solution is designed, developed and deployed in accordance with the agreed upon development work plan. Create and deliver weekly status reports of training and/or consulting progress. Engagement Responsibilities: · Provide a strong desire to provide thought leadership related to technology and to help grow the business. · Work effectively and professionally with employees at all levels of a customer’s organization. · Have strong verbal and written communication skills. · Have effective presentation, organizational and planning skills. · Have effective interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team environment. Enquire at [email protected]

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  • Triple monitor setup with an ATI Radeon 4200?

    - by Ben Clapp
    I have a relatively new Powerspec computer (i5 quad core processor, about a year or two old) and just grabbed a new relatively inexpensive ($40?) graphics card. It has 1 DVI, one VGA, and one HDMI output. I have two (different type) monitors plugged into the DVI and VGA slots, and they work great. However, I cannot seem to be able to get a third monitor in the HDMI slot to work. I can see the monitor (and monitor info) show up in display settings. However, if I try to switch the monitor to 'on' and click apply, nothing happens. Anyone have the slightest idea what the problem might be? (It's a Radeon graphics card FYI; if I remember right I think it was the Radeon 4200?)

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  • Desktop background won't change until restart

    - by Ben
    I'm new to Ubuntu and indeed Linux systems. I have 11.04 installed on my laptop. Here's the problem. When i select a picture for the desktop background, it says that Desktop Background has been changed but the changes do not apply right away. It is only after I have restarted the system that the changes will appear. This did not happen before. When i first started using this OS a few months ago the changes applied immediately. So what have i done that made this start acting wonky. Thank you for any help.

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  • What's a good 2D animation program for Linux (an alternative for e.g. Flash CS)?

    - by Martin Zeltin
    I don't mean the flash player here, I'm talking about the flash program that i can make animations with. Like Adoble Flash CS (formerly known as Macromedia flash). Is there a program on linux that i can make animations? I want to make a movie like animator vs animation. I used easy gif animator on windows lol it was a bit harder than flash but i'm on linux and I'd like to know what it has to offer. Worse case scenario, what gif animators are there on linux. :) Thanks!

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  • IRM and Consumerization

    - by martin.abrahams
    As the season of rampant consumerism draws to its official close on 12th Night, it seems a fitting time to discuss consumerization - whereby technologies from the consumer market, such as the Android and iPad, are adopted by business organizations. I expect many of you will have received a shiny new mobile gadget for Christmas - and will be expecting to use it for work as well as leisure in 2011. In my case, I'm just getting to grips with my first Android phone. This trend developed so much during 2010 that a number of my customers have officially changed their stance on consumer devices - accepting consumerization as something to embrace rather than resist. Clearly, consumerization has significant implications for information control, as corporate data is distributed to consumer devices whether the organization is aware of it or not. I daresay that some DLP solutions can limit distribution to some extent, but this creates a conflict between accepting consumerization and frustrating it. So what does Oracle IRM have to offer the consumerized enterprise? First and foremost, consumerization does not automatically represent great additional risk - if an enterprise seals its sensitive information. Sealed files are encrypted, and that fundamental protection is not affected by copying files to consumer devices. A device might be lost or stolen, and the user might not think to report the loss of a personally owned device, but the data and the enterprise that owns it are protected. Indeed, the consumerization trend is another strong reason for enterprises to deploy IRM - to protect against this expansion of channels by which data might be accidentally exposed. It also enables encryption requirements to be met even though the enterprise does not own the device and cannot enforce device encryption. Moving on to the usage of sealed content on such devices, some of our customers are using virtual desktop solutions such that, in truth, the sealed content is being opened and used on a PC in the normal way, and the user is simply using their device for display purposes. This has several advantages: The sensitive documents are not actually on the devices, so device loss and theft are even less of a worry The enterprise has another layer of control over how and where content is used, as access to the virtual solution involves another layer of authentication and authorization - defence in depth It is a generic solution that means the enterprise does not need to actively support the ever expanding variety of consumer devices - the enterprise just manages some virtual access to traditional systems using something like Citrix or Remote Desktop services. It is a tried and tested way of accessing sealed documents. People have being using Oracle IRM in conjunction with Citrix and Remote Desktop for several years. For some scenarios, we also have the "IRM wrapper" option that provides a simple app for sealing and unsealing content on a range of operating systems. We are busy working on other ways to support the explosion of consumer devices, but this blog is not a proper forum for talking about them at this time. If you are an Oracle IRM customer, we will be pleased to discuss our plans and your requirements with you directly on request. You can be sure that the blog will cover the new capabilities as soon as possible.

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  • "Search Friendly" domain names

    - by Ben
    We bought a few search friendly domain names for the CPA site that I manage. Each of the domains we bought has the name of a nearby city and the word cpa in front of, or behind the city name. The plan is to create a landing page for each of these domains with useful information about business filings, ect. specific to that city, as well as directions to our office from that city. The question is how to best utilize these new domains: Should each domain be set to a 301 redirect to mainsite.com/city ? Should each domain be it's own single page mini-site that links to mainsite.com ? What other options are there and what are the pros/cons? Remember the goal is to be more relevant in searches that use a nearby city name in their search for CPA/accounting services.

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  • How to change speed without changing path travelled?

    - by Ben Williams
    I have a ball which is being thrown from one side of a 2D space to the other. The formula I am using for calculating the ball's position at any one point in time is: x = x0 + vx0*t y = y0 + vy0*t - 0.5*g*t*t where g is gravity, t is time, x0 is the initial x position, vx0 is the initial x velocity. What I would like to do is change the speed of this ball, without changing how far it travels. Let's say the ball starts in the lower left corner, moves upwards and rightwards in an arc, and finishes in the lower right corner, and this takes 5s. What I would like to be able to do is change this so it takes 10s or 20s, but the ball still follows the same curve and finishes in the same position. How can I achieve this? All I can think of is manipulating t but I don't think that's a good idea. I'm sure it's something simple, but my maths is pretty shaky.

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  • Has anyone else read "Programming video games for the Evil Genius"

    - by Martin
    I bought this book called "Programming Video Games for the Evil Genius" by Ian Cinnamon. If there is anyone who has read or is familiar with this book I am wondering if they think it is worth reading. I am interested in making video games. I have already taken intro courses in C++, Java and Python and got through okay. I've been going through this book for about a month now(SLOWLY). All I have to do is type the code exactly in the book, BUT a lot of the code is not clearly explained. I do some research online but I usually still have some trouble answering my questions. Then I found stack overflow. It's been a ton of help. Right now I am trying to make a racing game right out of this book and I got to a point where the author left a bunch of errors in his code. One of the members of this website fixed it up for me, but added some stuff that I'm having trouble understanding. I spend more time trying to figure out the authors errors and fix them or get someone to help me fix them than I actually do learning code. I REALLY want to learn how to do this and I am ready and willing to put in the time, but I'm not sure if my time would be better spent learning from a different source. Are there any veterans out there that are familiar with this book and think it's worth it/not worth it? Should I try to move onto another book? Any advice for a fresh start for someone who wants to learn some video game programming?

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  • Will bing bot index pages with invalid SSL certificates?

    - by Martin
    Bingbot and Yahoo slurp do not support SNI(Server Name Indication when using SSL). Ignoring other workarounds (multi domain certificates, non-SSL content etc.), will Bingbot index pages that have an invalid SSL certificate, eg. issued for example.net, but used on example.com? If possible please provide an example from Yahoo or Bing. I have found websites in bing, that use self signed certificates and are indexed correctly, but what about invalid certificates?

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  • Configuring UCM content cache invalidation for a custom portal application

    - by Martin Deh
    Recently, I had blogged about enabling the UCM content cache invalidator for Spaces (found here).  This can also be enabled for a WebCenter Custom Portal application as well.  The much overlooked setting is done through the Content Repository connection definition in the JDeveloper Application Resources section.   Enabling the cache invalidator "sweeper" can be invaluable, where UCM content is being updated from within UCM (console) and not within the portal.

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  • Is there a language between C and C++?

    - by Robert Martin
    I really like the simple and transparent nature of C: when I write C code I feel unencumbered by "leaky abstractions" and can almost always make a shrewd guess as to the assembly I'm producing. I also like the simple, familiar syntax for C. However, C doesn't have these simple, helpful doodads that C++ offers like classes, simplified non-cstring handling, etc. I know that it's all possible to implement in C using jump tables and the like, but that's a bit wordy at times, and not very type-safe for various reasons. I'm not a fan of the over-emphasis on objects in C++, though, and I'm gun shy of the 'new' operator and the like. C++ seems to have just a few too many hiccups to, for instance, be used as a system programming language. Does there exist a language that sits between C and C++ on the scale of widgets and doodads? Disclaimer: I mean this as purely a factual question. I do not intend to anger you because I don't share your view that C{,++} is good enough to do whatever I'm planning.

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  • IRM Item Codes &ndash; what are they for?

    - by martin.abrahams
    A number of colleagues have been asking about IRM item codes recently – what are they for, when are they useful, how can you control them to meet some customer requirements? This is quite a big topic, but this article provides a few answers. An item code is part of the metadata of every sealed document – unless you define a custom metadata model. The item code is defined when a file is sealed, and usually defaults to a timestamp/filename combination. This time/name combo tends to make item codes unique for each new document, but actually item codes are not necessarily unique, as will become clear shortly. In most scenarios, item codes are not relevant to the evaluation of a user’s rights - the context name is the critical piece of metadata, as a user typically has a role that grants access to an entire classification of information regardless of item code. This is key to the simplicity and manageability of the Oracle IRM solution. Item codes are occasionally exposed to users in the UI, but most users probably never notice and never care. Nevertheless, here is one example of where you can see an item code – when you hover the mouse pointer over a sealed file. As you see, the item code for this freshly created file combines a timestamp with the file name. But what are item codes for? The first benefit of item codes is that they enable you to manage exceptions to the policy defined for a context. Thus, I might have access to all oracle – internal files - except for 2011_03_11 13:33:29 Board Minutes.sdocx. This simple mechanism enables Oracle IRM to provide file-by-file control where appropriate, whilst offering the scalability and manageability of classification-based control for the majority of users and content. You really don’t want to be managing each file individually, but never say never. Item codes can also be used for the opposite effect – to include a file in a user’s rights when their role would ordinarily deny access. So, you can assign a role that allows access only to specified item codes. For example, my role might say that I have access to precisely one file – the one shown above. So how are item codes set? In the vast majority of scenarios, item codes are set automatically as part of the sealing process. The sealing API uses the timestamp and filename as shown, and the user need not even realise that this has happened. This automatically creates item codes that are for all practical purposes unique - and that are also intelligible to users who might want to refer to them when viewing or assigning rights in the management UI. It is also possible for suitably authorised users and applications to set the item code manually or programmatically if required. Setting the item code manually using the IRM Desktop The manual process is a simple extension of the sealing task. An authorised user can select the Advanced… sealing option, and will see a dialog that offers the option to specify the item code. To see this option, the user’s role needs the Set Item Code right – you don’t want most users to give any thought at all to item codes, so by default the option is hidden. Setting the item code programmatically A more common scenario is that an application controls the item code programmatically. For example, a document management system that seals documents as part of a workflow might set the item code to match the document’s unique identifier in its repository. This offers the option to tie IRM rights evaluation directly to the security model defined in the document management system. Again, the sealing application needs to be authorised to Set Item Code. The Payslip Scenario To give a concrete example of how item codes might be used in a real world scenario, consider a Human Resources workflow such as a payslips. The goal might be to allow the HR team to have access to all payslips, but each employee to have access only to their own payslips. To enable this, you might have an IRM classification called Payslips. The HR team have a role in the normal way that allows access to all payslips. However, each employee would have an Item Reader role that only allows them to access files that have a particular item code – and that item code might match the employee’s payroll number. So, employee number 123123123 would have access to items with that code. This shows why item codes are not necessarily unique – you can deliberately set the same code on many files for ease of administration. The employees might have the right to unseal or print their payslip, so the solution acts as a secure delivery mechanism that allows payslips to be distributed via corporate email without any fear that they might be accessed by IT administrators, or forwarded accidentally to anyone other than the intended recipient. All that remains is to ensure that as each user’s payslip is sealed, it is assigned the correct item code – something that is easily managed by a simple IRM sealing application. Each month, an employee’s payslip is sealed with the same item code, so you do not need to keep amending the list of items that the user has access to – they have access to all documents that carry their employee code.

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  • How Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server enable Compliance

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    One of the things that makes Team Foundation Server (TFS) the most powerful Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) platform is the traceability it provides to those that use it. This traceability is crucial to enable many companies to adhere to many of the Compliance regulations to which they are bound (e.g. CFR 21 Part 11 or Sarbanes–Oxley.)   From something as simple as relating Tasks to Check-in’s or being able to see the top 10 files in your codebase that are causing the most Bugs, to identifying which Bugs and Requirements are in which Release. All that information is available and more in TFS. Although all of this tradability is available within TFS you do need to understand that it is not for free. Well… I say that, but if you are using TFS properly you will have this information with no additional work except for firing up the reporting. Using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server you can relate every line of code changes all the way up to requirements and back down through Test Cases to the Test Results. Figure: The only thing missing is Build In order to build the relationship model below we need to examine how each of the relationships get there. Each member of your team from programmer to tester and Business Analyst to Business have their roll to play to knit this together. Figure: The relationships required to make this work can get a little confusing If Build is added to this to relate Work Items to Builds and with knowledge of which builds are in which environments you can easily identify what is contained within a Release. Figure: How are things progressing Along with the ability to produce the progress and trend reports the tractability that is built into TFS can be used to fulfil most audit requirements out of the box, and augmented to fulfil the rest. In order to understand the relationships, lets look at each of the important Artifacts and how they are associated with each other… Requirements – The root of all knowledge Requirements are the thing that the business cares about delivering. These could be derived as User Stories or Business Requirements Documents (BRD’s) but they should be what the Business asks for. Requirements can be related to many of the Artifacts in TFS, so lets look at the model: Figure: If the centre of the world was a requirement We can track which releases Requirements were scheduled in, but this can change over time as more details come to light. Figure: Who edited the Requirement and when There is also the ability to query Work Items based on the History of changed that were made to it. This is particularly important with Requirements. It might not be enough to say what Requirements were completed in a given but also to know which Requirements were ever assigned to a particular release. Figure: Some magic required, but result still achieved As an augmentation to this it is also possible to run a query that shows results from the past, just as if we had a time machine. You can take any Query in the system and add a “Asof” clause at the end to query historical data in the operational store for TFS. select <fields> from WorkItems [where <condition>] [order by <fields>] [asof <date>] Figure: Work Item Query Language (WIQL) format In order to achieve this you do need to save the query as a *.wiql file to your local computer and edit it in notepad, but one imported into TFS you run it any time you want. Figure: Saving Queries locally can be useful All of these Audit features are available throughout the Work Item Tracking (WIT) system within TFS. Tasks – Where the real work gets done Tasks are the work horse of the development team, but they only as useful as Excel if you do not relate them properly to other Artifacts. Figure: The Task Work Item Type has its own relationships Requirements should be broken down into Tasks that the development team work from to build what is required by the business. This may be done by a small dedicated group or by everyone that will be working on the software team but however it happens all of the Tasks create should be a Child of a Requirement Work Item Type. Figure: Tasks are related to the Requirement Tasks should be used to track the day-to-day activities of the team working to complete the software and as such they should be kept simple and short lest developers think they are more trouble than they are worth. Figure: Task Work Item Type has a narrower purpose Although the Task Work Item Type describes the work that will be done the actual development work involves making changes to files that are under Source Control. These changes are bundled together in a single atomic unit called a Changeset which is committed to TFS in a single operation. During this operation developers can associate Work Item with the Changeset. Figure: Tasks are associated with Changesets   Changesets – Who wrote this crap Changesets themselves are just an inventory of the changes that were made to a number of files to complete a Task. Figure: Changesets are linked by Tasks and Builds   Figure: Changesets tell us what happened to the files in Version Control Although comments can be changed after the fact, the inventory and Work Item associations are permanent which allows us to Audit all the way down to the individual change level. Figure: On Check-in you can resolve a Task which automatically associates it Because of this we can view the history on any file within the system and see how many changes have been made and what Changesets they belong to. Figure: Changes are tracked at the File level What would be even more powerful would be if we could view these changes super imposed over the top of the lines of code. Some people call this a blame tool because it is commonly used to find out which of the developers introduced a bug, but it can also be used as another method of Auditing changes to the system. Figure: Annotate shows the lines the Annotate functionality allows us to visualise the relationship between the individual lines of code and the Changesets. In addition to this you can create a Label and apply it to a version of your version control. The problem with Label’s is that they can be changed after they have been created with no tractability. This makes them practically useless for any sort of compliance audit. So what do you use? Branches – And why we need them Branches are a really powerful tool for development and release management, but they are most important for audits. Figure: One way to Audit releases The R1.0 branch can be created from the Label that the Build creates on the R1 line when a Release build was created. It can be created as soon as the Build has been signed of for release. However it is still possible that someone changed the Label between this time and its creation. Another better method can be to explicitly link the Build output to the Build. Builds – Lets tie some more of this together Builds are the glue that helps us enable the next level of tractability by tying everything together. Figure: The dashed pieces are not out of the box but can be enabled When the Build is called and starts it looks at what it has been asked to build and determines what code it is going to get and build. Figure: The folder identifies what changes are included in the build The Build sets a Label on the Source with the same name as the Build, but the Build itself also includes the latest Changeset ID that it will be building. At the end of the Build the Build Agent identifies the new Changesets it is building by looking at the Check-ins that have occurred since the last Build. Figure: What changes have been made since the last successful Build It will then use that information to identify the Work Items that are associated with all of the Changesets Changesets are associated with Build and change the “Integrated In” field of those Work Items . Figure: Find all of the Work Items to associate with The “Integrated In” field of all of the Work Items identified by the Build Agent as being integrated into the completed Build are updated to reflect the Build number that successfully integrated that change. Figure: Now we know which Work Items were completed in a build Now that we can link a single line of code changed all the way back through the Task that initiated the action to the Requirement that started the whole thing and back down to the Build that contains the finished Requirement. But how do we know wither that Requirement has been fully tested or even meets the original Requirements? Test Cases – How we know we are done The only way we can know wither a Requirement has been completed to the required specification is to Test that Requirement. In TFS there is a Work Item type called a Test Case Test Cases enable two scenarios. The first scenario is the ability to track and validate Acceptance Criteria in the form of a Test Case. If you agree with the Business a set of goals that must be met for a Requirement to be accepted by them it makes it both difficult for them to reject a Requirement when it passes all of the tests, but also provides a level of tractability and validation for audit that a feature has been built and tested to order. Figure: You can have many Acceptance Criteria for a single Requirement It is crucial for this to work that someone from the Business has to sign-off on the Test Case moving from the  “Design” to “Ready” states. The Second is the ability to associate an MS Test test with the Test Case thereby tracking the automated test. This is useful in the circumstance when you want to Track a test and the test results of a Unit Test designed to test the existence of and then re-existence of a a Bug. Figure: Associating a Test Case with an automated Test Although it is possible it may not make sense to track the execution of every Unit Test in your system, there are many Integration and Regression tests that may be automated that it would make sense to track in this way. Bug – Lets not have regressions In order to know wither a Bug in the application has been fixed and to make sure that it does not reoccur it needs to be tracked. Figure: Bugs are the centre of their own world If the fix to a Bug is big enough to require that it is broken down into Tasks then it is probably a Requirement. You can associate a check-in with a Bug and have it tracked against a Build. You would also have one or more Test Cases to prove the fix for the Bug. Figure: Bugs have many associations This allows you to track Bugs / Defects in your system effectively and report on them. Change Request – I am not a feature In the CMMI Process template Change Requests can also be easily tracked through the system. In some cases it can be very important to track Change Requests separately as an Auditor may want to know what was changed and who authorised it. Again and similar to Bugs, if the Change Request is big enough that it would require to be broken down into Tasks it is in reality a new feature and should be tracked as a Requirement. Figure: Make sure your Change Requests only Affect Requirements and not rewrite them Conclusion Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server together provide an exceptional Application Lifecycle Management platform that can help your team comply with even the harshest of Compliance requirements while still enabling them to be Agile. Most Audits are heavy on required documentation but most of that information is captured for you as long a you do it right. You don’t even need every team member to understand it all as each of the Artifacts are relevant to a different type of team member. Business Analysts manage Requirements and Change Requests Programmers manage Tasks and check-in against Change Requests and Bugs Testers manage Bugs and Test Cases Build Masters manage Builds Although there is some crossover there are still rolls or “hats” that are worn. Do you thing this is all achievable? Have I missed anything that you think should be there?

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