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• Developer Curriculum Vitae - "Experience"

  - by Neil Barnwell

  I've been involved in some interviews at work recently, and having seen a few CVs, I've been thinking of my own. I wonder how I might rate my proficiency at the various technologies I've worked with on some sort of simple scale: Beginner, Intermediate, Expert. I've been doing C# for a few years now, but I'd hesitate to call myself "expert" particularly (partly because surely I haven't been doing it long enough, and partly because I can't bring myself to be so bold as to say I'm expert at anything). I think I probably was expert at VB back when I got into programming, but any VB skills I had will have deteriorated by now. Of course I wouldn't even bother listing things on my CV that I'd consider myself to be "beginner" at, I'd just add them to the "other tech" category, but I'd be interested to hear tips on helping me decide.

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• Tool for search, watch and download youtube videos on Ubuntu

  - by Mike

  I am looking for a tool like MacTubes for Ubuntu. MacTubes is a mac app that can search, watch and download youtube videos. The great advantage of this app is that it searches youtube and shows all videos available there and allows you to select all and download everything fast and easy. MacTubes is so awesome that it also converts the video to MP4 and downloads the HD version of a video when available. I use this on my mac, but my sister uses Linux and I am looking for something like that for her. I have tried Miro, but Miro's search feature is bad as hell. I search for something using MacTubes and it shows me 1600 results. The same search under Miro shows me 40 results. Miro never shows more than one page of results. I prefer it to be an application with a GUI, instead of command line, because my sister's proficiency in Linux is not that good. Any suggestions? Thanks.

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• Simple way to set up port knocking on Linux?

  - by Ace Paus

  There are well known benefits of Port Knocking utilities when utilized in combination with firewall IP table modification. Port Knocking is best used to provide an additional layer of security over other tools such as the OpenSSH server. I would like some help setting it up on a ubuntu server. I looked at some port knocking implementations here: PORTKNOCKING - A system for stealthy authentication across closed ports. IMPLEMENTATIONS http://www.portknocking.org/view/implementations fwknop looked good. I found an Android client here. And fwknop (both client and server) is in the ubuntu repos. Unfortunately, setting it up (on the server) looks difficult. I do not have iptables set up. My proficiency with iptables is limited (but I understand the basics). I'm looking for a series of simple steps to set it up. I only want to open the SSH port in response to a valid knock. Alternatively, I would consider other port knocking implementations, if they are much simpler to set up and the desired Linux and Android clients are available.

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• Our Oracle Recruitment Team is Growing - Multiple Job Opportunities in Bangalore, India

  - by david.talamelli

  DON"T GET STUCK IN THE MATRIXSEE YOUR FUTUREVISIT THE ORACLE The position(s): CORPORATE RECRUITING RESEARCH ANALYST(S) ABOUT ORACLE Oracle's business is information--how to manage it, use it, share it, protect it. For three decades, Oracle, the world's largest enterprise software company, has provided the software and services that allow organizations to get the most up-to-date and accurate information from their business systems. Only Oracle powers the information-driven enterprise by offering a complete, integrated solution for every segment of the process industry. When you run Oracle applications on Oracle technology, you speed implementation, optimize performance, and maximize ROI. Great hiring doesn't happen by accident; it's the culmination of a series of thoughtfully planned and well executed events. At the core of any hiring process is a sourcing strategy. This is where you come in... Do you want to be a part of a world-class recruiting organization that's on the cutting edge of technology? Would you like to experience a rewarding work environment that allows you to further develop your skills, while giving you the opportunity to develop new skills? If you answered yes, you've taken your first step towards a future with Oracle. We are building a Research Team to support our North America Recruitment Team, and we need creative, smart, and ambitious individuals to help us drive our research department forward. Oracle has a track record for employing and developing the very best in the industry. We invest generously in employee development, training and resources. Be a part of the most progressive internal recruiting team in the industry. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com Escape the hum drum job world matrix, visit the Oracle and be a part of a winning team, apply today. POSITION: Corporate Recruiting Research Analyst LOCATION: Bangalore, India RESPONSIBILITIES: •Develop candidate pipeline using Web 2.0 sourcing strategies and advanced Boolean Search techniques to support U.S. Recruiting Team for various job functions and levels. •Engage with assigned recruiters to understand the supported business as well as the recruiting requirements; partner with recruiters to meet expectations and deliver a qualified pipeline of candidates. •Source candidates to include both active and passive job seekers to provide a strong pipeline of qualified candidates for each recruiter; exercise creativity to find candidates using Oracle's advanced sourcing tools/techniques. •Fully evaluate candidate's background against the requirements provided by recruiter, and process leads using ATS (Applicant Tracking System). •Manage your efforts efficiently; maintain the highest levels of client satisfaction as well as strong operations and reporting of research activities. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: •Fluent in English, with excellent written and oral communication skills. •Undergraduate degree required, MBA or Masters preferred. •Proficiency with Boolean Search techniques desired. •Ability to learn new software applications quickly. •Must be able to accommodate some U.S. evening hours. •Strong organization and attention to detail skills. •Prior HR or corporate in-house recruiting experiences a plus. •The fire in the belly to learn new ideas and succeed. •Ability to work in team and individual environments. This is an excellent opportunity to join Oracle in our Bangalore Offices. Interested applicants can send their resume to [email protected] or contact David on +61 3 8616 3364

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• Do We Indeed Have a Future? George Takei on Star Wars.

  - by Bil Simser

  George Takei (rhymes with Okay), probably best known for playing Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek, has always had deep concerns for the present and the future. Whether on Earth or among the stars, he has the welfare of humanity very much at heart. I was digging through my old copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland, a great publication on monster and films that I grew up with, and came across this. This was his reaction to STAR WARS from issue 139 of Famous Monsters of Filmland and was written June 6, 1977. It is reprinted here without permission but I hope since the message is still valid to this day and has never been reprinted anywhere, nobody will mind me sharing it. STAR WARS is the most pre-posterously diverting galactic escape and at the same time the most hideously credible portent of the future yet.While I thrilled to the exploits that reminded me of the heroics of Errol Flynn as Robin Hood, Burt Lancaster as the Crimson Pirate and Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon, I was at the same time aghast at the phantasmagoric violence technology can place at our disposal. STAR WARS raised in my mind the question - do we indeed have a future?It seems to me what George Lucas has done is to masterfully guide us on a journey through space and time and bring us back face to face with today's reality. STAR WARS is more than science fiction, I think it is science fictitious reality.Just yesterday, June 7, 1977, I read that the United States will embark on the production of a neutron bomb - a bomb that will kill people on a gigantic scale but will not destroy buildings. A few days before that, I read that the Pentagon is fearful that the Soviets may have developed a warhead that could neutralize ours that have a capacity for that irrational concept overkill to the nth power. Already, it seems we have the technology to realize the awesome special effects simulations that we saw in the film.The political scene of STAR WARS is that of government by force and power, of revolutions based on some unfathomable grievance, survival through a combination of cunning and luck and success by the harnessing of technology -  a picture not very much at variance from the political headlines that we read today.And most of all, look at the people; both the heroes in the film and the reaction of the audience. First, the heroes; Luke Skywalker is a pretty but easily led youth. Without any real philosophy to guide him, he easily falls under the influence of a mystical old man believed previously to be an eccentric hermit. Recognize a 1960's hippie or a 1970's moonie? Han Solo has a philosophy coupled with courage and skill. His philosophy is money. His proficiency comes for a price - the highest. Solo is a thoroughly avaricious mercenary. And the Princess, a decisive, strong, self-confident and chilly woman. The audience cheered when she wielded a gun. In all three, I missed qualities that could be called humane - love, kindness, yes, I missed sensuality. I also missed a sense of ideals and faith. In this regard the machines seemed more human. They demonstrated real affection for each other and an occasional poutiness. They exhibited a sense of fidelity and constancy. The machines were humanized and the humans conversely seemed mechanical.As a member of the audience, I was swept up by the sheer romantic escapsim of it all. The deering-dos, the rope swing escape across the pit, the ray gun battles and especially the swash buckle with the ray swords. Great fun!But I just hope that we weren't too intoxicated by the escapism to be able to focus on the recognizable. I hope the beauty of the effects didn't narcotize our sensitivity to violence. I hope the people see through the fantastically well done futuristic mirrors to the disquieting reflection of our own society. I hope they enjoy STAR WARS without being "purely entertained".

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• The Value of SOA Specialization - Fujitsu

  - by Jürgen Kress

  Thanks for the nice ink The Value of Specialization In my last post  I talked about Fujitsu's achievement in obtaining SOA and other specializations, but I have heard murmurings from other partners about what just is the value? I think Oracle have to do more to advertise the benefits to customers, we need to see customers asking for specialization for it to really work, but Oracle have made great promises about only recommending those partners who are specialized. For us there was another benefit. Oracle was sponsoring the 3rd Annual SOA Symposium in Berlin and invited us as their first specialized partner to take part. There is a great blog about the symposium on the SOA community blog site. This is real commitment from Oracle and we have other marketing opportunities being worked on with Jürgen. This does generate leads so my message to other Oracle Partners is, you need to do this, it is worthwhile.   Fujitsu - First SOA Specialized Partner Globally Just before Oracle Open World I found out that Fujitsu had achieved the first SOA Specialization globally. I think most partners know what the requirements are for Specialization and that in itself is challenging but the bureaucracy around the actual submission is an exercise in tenacity. I won’t go into that now; I have had my dig at Oracle this month, but enough to say the process could be improved. As a platinum partner we needed 5 specializations and we decided to go for SOA first. The reasoning behind this is that our Oracle Practice is known for being applications centric. We have always had an excellent technical capability but no one ever talked about that, it was just part and parcel of an implementation. However today we have just as many bids that are technology lead as there is applications lead, so it seemed a good plan to work on the areas we were not known for. We appointed a capability lead to be responsible for putting the team through the training and testing and Rosemary (Kell) was excellent, she ensured that everyone was on track and that it wasn’t just getting put into the ‘to do list’. In Fujitsu everyone in the Oracle Practice has an objective to achieve the competency tests in their area, so achieving the 2 pre sales, 2 sales and 1 support was no problem at all. We actually had 22 with the support capability proficiency.  The implementation specialist exams are much harder, more like OCP in the database area. We had help from the Oracle SOA Community; Jürgen Kress who runs this in EMEA is really motivational. At the time we started SOA was a beta exam which means you do not get the results immediately but again we put forward more than we needed. Manjit Chopra, Sukhraj Sahota, Emely Patra, Ian Scorrer and Sunny Sidhu all took the exam and eventually got the results they wanted they had passed. Congratulations. Here is Jurgen expalining why specialization is important. After the tests came the submissions where you need to include deals and experience, this was my bit, and persuading Oracle we really deserved the specialization. Finally we got the news we had been awarded the specialization, and a few days later that we were first globally. I am very proud. However there is no rest for the wicked and we plodded on to make the 5 specializations needed for Platinum and now we are working on the new Diamond status and I think SOA will be one of our 5 ‘super specializations’. This is a global Fujitsu initiative and I work closely with my colleague in Germany Jessika Weiss. It was nice to be able to have a press release about this and a comment from Judson Althoff  head of Oracle Alliances. For more information on SOA Specialization and the SOA Partner Community please feel free to register at www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Website Technorati Tags: SOA,SOA Community,OPN,Oracle,Fujitsu,Debra Lilley,Jürgen Kress,Specialization,SOA Specialization

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• 24 Hours of PASS: Whine, Whine, Whine

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  24 Hours of Pass (or 24HOP) is a great program offered by PASS to provide free, online training for anyone who wants to learn more about SQL Server.  They routinely have the best SQL Server presenters available for these sessions, and attract hundreds, perhaps even a thousand attendees from around the world.  This is definitely one of the best things they've started doing in the past few years, and every session I've attended has been excellent. So why am I so grumpy about it? I'm not really, pretty much everything here is a minor annoyance that I can deal with.  However since they're so minor they seem to be things that can be easily corrected and would make the process much better. First off, this is my biggest gripe, the registration page: https://www323.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000181573/Registration.aspx?pageName=lj6378f4fhf5hpdm What grinds my gears about this?  I have to scroll alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way to bottom to actually register for the sessions.  This wouldn't be so bad except all the details of the session, including the presenter, is in a separate list at the top.  Both lists contain info the other does not, and scrolling between them to determine "Should I make time to listen to this?  Who is speaking at this time anyway?" is really unnecessary. My preference would be to keep the top list and add the checkboxes and schedule info in separate columns.  This is a full-width design, so there's plenty of space for this data, which is pretty small anyway.  The other huge benefit is halving the size of the page, which improves performance and lowers bandwidth usage considerably.  And if you know HTML/ASP.Net, and you view the page source, you can find PLENTY of other things that can be reduced even further.  (not just viewstate) One nice thing that PASS does is send iCal reminders to your email address so you can accept them to your calendar.  Again, they leave off the presenter in the appointment details, while still duplicating the meeting title in the body.  Sometimes I make decisions based on speaker rather than content (Natalie Portman is reading the Yellow Pages??? I'M THERE!) and having the speaker in the iCal is helpful. Next minor annoyances are the necessity for providing a company name, and the survey questions.  I know PASS needs to market themselves effectively, and they need information to do that, and since this is a free event it's really not worth complaining about, but why ask the survey question twice? (once at registration, once again when joining the LiveMeeting)  Same thing for the company name.  All of this should be tied to email address, so that's all I should need to enter when joining the LiveMeeting. The last one is also minor, but it irks me in this day and age of multiple browsers and the decline of Internet Explorer as a dominant platform.  The registration page was originally created in Visual Studio 2003, and has a lot of IE-specific crud representative of the browser situation of 2003. (IE5 references? really? and is the aforementioned viewstate big enough?)  This causes some grief with other browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and sometimes IE8 or 9.  And don't get me started on using the page on a Mac or in Safari. My main point is that PASS is an international organization, welcoming everyone from all levels of SQL Server proficiency, and in that spirit I think it would help to accommodate a wider range of browser software, especially since the registration page is extremely simple.  I recognize that this page is not hosted on the PASS website and may be maintained by some division of Microsoft, but to me that's even worse if MS can't update their own pages.  They've deprecated IE6, so they don't need to maintain support on their own websites anymore. OK, I'll shut up now. #sqlpass #24HOP

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• JCP Awards 10 Year Retrospective

  - by Heather VanCura

  As we celebrate 10 years of JCP Program Award recognition in 2012,  take a look back in the Retrospective article covering the history of the JCP awards.  Most recently, the JCP awards were  celebrated at JavaOne Latin America in Brazil, where SouJava was presented the JCP Member of the Year Award for 2012 (won jointly with the London Java Community) for their contributions and launch of the Global Adopt-a-JSR Program. This is also a good time to honor the JCP Award Nominees and Winners who have been designated as Star Spec Leads.  Spec Leads are key to the Java Community Process (JCP) program. Without them, none of the Java Specification Requests (JSRs) would have begun, much less completed and become implemented in shipping products.  Nominations for 2012 Start Spec Leads are now open until 31 December. The Star Spec Lead program recognizes Spec Leads who have repeatedly proven their merit by producing high quality specifications, establishing best practices, and mentoring others. The point of such honor is to endorse the good work that they do, showcase their methods for other Spec Leads to emulate, and motivate other JCP program members and participants to get involved in the JCP program. Ed Burns – A Star Spec Lead for 2009, Ed first got involved with the JCP program when he became co-Spec Lead of JSR 127, JavaServer Faces (JSF), a role he has continued through JSF 1.2 and now JSF 2.0, which is JSR 314. Linda DeMichiel – Linda thus involved in the JCP program from its very early days. She has been the Spec Lead on at least three JSRs and an EC member for another three. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. Gavin King – Nominated as a JCP Outstanding Spec Lead for 2010, for his work with JSR 299. His endorsement said, “He was not only able to work through disputes and objections to the evolving programming model, but he resolved them into solutions that were more technically sound, and which gained support of its pundits.” Mike Milikich –  Nominated for his work on Java Micro Edition (ME) standards, implementations, tools, and Technology Compatibility Kits (TCKs), Mike was a 2009 Star Spec Lead for JSR 271, Mobile Information Device Profile 3. David Nuescheler – Serving as the CTO for Day Software, acquired by Adobe Systems, David has been a key player in the growth of the company’s global content management solution. In 2002, he became Spec Lead for JSR 170, Content Repository for Java Technology API, continuing for the subsequent version, JSR 283. Bill Shannon – A well-respected name in the Java community, Bill came to Oracle from Sun as a Distinguished Engineer and is still performing at full speed as Spec Lead for JSR 342, Java EE 7,  as an alternate EC member, and hands-on problem solver for the Java community as a whole. Jim Van Peursem – Jim holds a PhD in Computer Engineering. He was part of the Motorola team that worked with Sun labs on the Spotless VM that became the KVM. From within Motorola, Jim has been responsible for many aspects of Java technology deployment, from an independent Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) and Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) implementations, to handset development, to working with the industry in defining many related standards. Participation in the JCP Program goes well beyond technical proficiency. The JCP Awards Program is an attempt to say “Thank You” to all of the JCP members, Expert Group Members, Spec Leads, and EC members who give their time to contribute to the evolution of Java technology.

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• Removing Barriers to Create Effective Data Models

  After years of creating and maintaining data models, I have started to notice common barriers that decrease the accuracy and usefulness of models. In my opinion, the main causes of these barriers are the lack of knowledge and communication from within a company. The lack of knowledge in regards to data models or data modeling can take many forms. Company Culture Knowledge Whether documented or undocumented, existing business rules of a company can affect how data is modeled. For example, if a company only allows 1 assigned person per customer to be able to manipulate a customer’s record then then a data model that includes an associated table that joins customers and employee’s would be unneeded because that would allow for the possibility of multiple employees to handle a customer because of the potential for a many to many relationship between Customers and Employees. Technical Knowledge Depending on the data modeler’s proficiency in modeling data they can inadvertently cause issues and/or complications with a design without even noticing. It is important that companies share data modeling responsibilities so that the models are developed from multiple perspectives of a system, company and the original problem.  In addition, the tools that a company selects to create data models can also affect the accuracy of the model if designer are not familiar with the tools or the tools are too complex to use for the designer. Existing System Knowledge In order for a data modeler to model data for an existing system so that new changes can be applied to a system then they need to at least know the basic concepts of a system so that they can work within it. This will promote reusability of data and prevent the chance of duplicating data. Project Knowledge This should be pretty obvious, but it is very hard to create an accurate data model without knowing what data needs to be modeled. I have always found it strange that I have been asked to start modeling data prior to a client formalizing any requirements. Usually when this happens I have to make several iterations to a model, and the client still does not know exactly what they want.  In addition additional issues can arise when certain stakeholders of a project are not consulted prior to the design or after the project is over because it can cause miss understandings and confusion by the end user as well as possibly not solving the original problem for which a project is intended to solve. One common thread between each type of knowledge is that they can all be avoided through the use of good communication. For example, if a modeler is new to a company then they should ask older employees about any business specific rules that may be documented or undocumented that must be applied to projects in general. Furthermore, if a modeler is not really familiar with a specific data modeling software then they need to speak up and ask for help form other employees or their manager. This will not only help the modeler in the project, but also help them in future projects that they do for the company. Additionally, if a project is not clearly defined prior to a data modeler being assigned the modeling project then it is their responsibility to communicate with the other stakeholders to clarify any part of a project that is unclear so that the data model that is created is accurately aligned with a project.

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• Type-conditional controls in Haskell

  - by estanford

  I'm going through the 99 Haskell problems to build my proficiency with the language. On problem 7 ("Flatten a nested list structure"), I found myself wanting to define a conditional behavior based on the type of argument passed to a function. That is, since *Main> :t 1 1 :: (Num t) => t *Main> :t [1,2] [1,2] :: (Num t) => [t] *Main> :t [[1],[2]] [[1],[2]] :: (Num t) => [[t]] (i.e. lists nested at different levels have different data types) it seems like I should be able to write a function that can read the type of the argument, and then behave accordingly. My first attempt was along these lines: listflatten l = do if (:t l) /= ((Num t) => [t]) then listflatten (foldl (++) [] l) else id l But when I try to do that, Haskell returns a parse error. Is Haskell flexible enough to allow this sort of type manipulation, do I need to find another way?

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• Is there really such a thing as "being good at math"?

  - by thezhaba

  Aside from gifted individuals able to perform complex calculations in their head, I'm wondering if proficiency in mathematics, namely calculus and algebra, has really got to do with one's natural inclination towards sciences, if you can put it that way. A number of students in my calculus course pick up material in seemingly no time whereas I, personally, have to spend time thinking about and understanding most concepts. Even then, if a question that requires a bit more 'imagination' comes up I don't always recognize the concepts behind it, as is the case with calculus proofs, for instance. Nevertheless, I refuse to believe that I'm simply not made for it. I do very well in programming and software engineering courses where a lot of students struggle. At first I could not grasp what they found to be so difficult, but eventually I realized that having previous programming experience is a great asset -- once I've seen and made practical use of the programming concepts learning about them in depth in an academic setting became much easier as I have then already seen their use "in the wild". I suppose I'm hoping that something similar happens with mathematics -- perhaps once the practical idea behind a concept (which authors of textbooks sure do a great job of concealing..) is evident, understanding the seemingly dry and symbolic ideas and proofs would be more obvious? I'm really not sure. All I'm sure of is I'd like to get better at calculus, but I don't yet understand why some of us pick it up easily while others have to spend considerable amounts of time on it and still not have complete understanding if an unusual problem is given.

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• How to use Enquire.Js?

  - by big_smile

  Enquire.js is a Javascipt that re-creates CSS media queries for Javascripts. This means you can wrap your Javascripts in Media Queries. (Just like you would wrap CSS in Media Queries). I'm not quite sure how to use it. This tutorial says this: enquire.register("max-width: 960px", function() { // put your code here }); However, when I follow that, my code stops working. Here is an example of some Jquery Tabs without Enquire.JS. It works fine. Here are the same tabs, but with Enquire.JS added. Now it stops working. I've experimented with different variations of the code, but none of them work. What am I doing wrong? I think you might have place the Jquery Tab code in a separate file and then link to that file from within Enquire.Js, but I'm not sure how you would do that. (Although it would be handy to know as I'd imagine it would let you keep your scripts be more reusable). PS. This is not a criticism of Enquire.Js. I know that the problem lies squarely with my lack of proficiency in Javascript! I did spend a couple of hours searching for a solution, but couldn't find anything. Thanks for any help!

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• What are good examples of perfectly acceptable approaches to development that are NOT test driven development (TDD)?

  - by markbruns

  The TDD cycle is test, code, refactor, (repeat) and then ship. TDD implies development that is driven by testing, specifically that means understanding requirements and then writing tests first before developing or writing code. My natural inclination is a philosophical bias in favor of TDD; I would like to be convinced that there are other approaches that now work well or even better than TDD so I have asked this question. What are examples of perfectly acceptable approaches that NOT test driven development? I can think of plenty approaches that are not TDD but could be a lot more trouble than what they are worth ... it's not moral judgement, it's just that they are cost more than they are worth ... the following are simply examples of things that might be ok as learning exercises, but approaches I'd find to be NOT acceptable in serious production and NOT TDD might include: Inspecting quality into your product -- Focusing efforts on developing a proficiency in testing/QA can be problematic, especially if you don't work on the requirements and development side first ... symptom of this include bug triaging where the developers have so many different bugs to deal with it, it is necessary to employ a form of triage -- each development cycle gets worse and worse, programmers work more and more hours, sleep less and less, struggle to keep going in death march until they are consumed. Superstition ... believing in things that you don't understand -- this would involve borrowing code that you believe has been proven or tested from somewhere, e.g. legacy code, a magic code starter wizard or an open source project, and you go forward hacking up a storm of modifications, sliding FaceBook Connect into your the user interface, inventing some new magic features on the fly (e.g. a mashup using the Twitter API, GoogleMaps API and maybe Zappos API), showing off your cool new "product" to a few people and then writing up a simple "specification" and list of "test cases" and turning that over to Mechanical Turk for testing.

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• My Interview with Microsoft

  - by Victor Hurdugaci

  This post is for those who want to apply or have already applied (but not finished the interview) for a Microsoft Job. The recruitment process is quite similar for everyone and consists of a few steps. Application E-Mail Interview Phone Interview On Site Interview I will tell you my story and how I went through the four phases. 1. Application My blog's title (Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit) means "Nothing Comes Out of Nothing". You can't get a job at Microsoft by not doing anything - this is true for anything else. The first step you need to complete is the application process. For this, many options are available. You can... ... apply online on Microsoft's Careers website as I did ... send your CV to different e-mail addresses (there are some dedicated e-mails for different positions) ... apply through some 3rd party organization (job shop, campus recruitment, job agency, etc) On MS Careers you just have to post your CV and choose the job you want. That's all! No recommendation letter, no cover letter, no nothing. Of course, not every CV passes the selection process. Here are some tips for improving your resume (worked for me): Don't write it just before applying! Write a draft version, wait a few days and then review it. This way you will find a lot of mistakes and stupid things you wrote initially. If you review it immediately after writing, your mind will not be criticism oriented and will just ignore mistakes. Repeat the write-wait-review process as many times as necessary, until you find that the review revealed no mistakes. After you did the final review and the CV is bullet-proof, ask others to review it. They will definitely find inconsistencies and mistakes and this will make you feel stupid. This is good because will open your eyes will make you go into an 'I want to improve' mode. You'll try to correct everything. After you come up with a modified version go again through steps 1 and 2. Repeat this as many times as necessary. [Special thanks to Lucian Sasu, Nadia Comanici, Andrei Ciobanu, Monica Balan and Lavinia Tanase for reviewing my CV!] Make it short and give only relevant facts. Initially, I come up with a 5 pages CV because I wrote every single technology with which I worked. There were a lot irrelevant things, I wrote Windows Workflow Foundation just because I played with it for a few days. I added extensive descriptions for every project, made a personal details section (name, birth date, address, etc) of 1/2 page. Others suggested to cut everything that was not necessary. You don't need to give extensive descriptions, just add a few words. For example, I wrote "VS Image Visualizer - Visual Studio 2008 debug visualizer for images" and added a link to the project's page - you submit formatted andcan embed links. Add something that makes it different. I don't know if this makes a difference, but I added some lines to separate items just like in the picture below. Definitely Microsoft gets thousands of CVs per day. You need something special. Don't lie! Tell exactly what you did and what is the proficiency level of your skills. For example, don't write "Advanced" for UML if you don't know the difference between composition and aggregation. Be realistic and don't under/over estimate yourself. Use the spell chick. Make sure everything is written in correct English and there are no grammar/spelling mistakes. Noddy likes a WC with grammar mi takes. You mght fail just because of that. Once you completed your CV, choose the job that suits best your needs, apply and wait... The waiting is a problem because all these big companies like Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Apple, etc. will contact you only if they find something interesting in your application. If you're not suitable, then no rejection is sent. I applied for an Intern Software Development Engineer position at Microsoft Redmond. I cannot apply for a full time position because I want to finish the master program on time, in the next summer - an internship is just what I need. 2. E-Mail Interview January 20, 2010. Two months since I submitted the CV. I wasn't hoping anymore that MS will contact me, when I got an e-mail titled: "Victor Hurdugaci ES DK" from Holly Peterson saying: Read more >>

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• Hiring New IT Employees versus Promoting Internally for IT Positions

  Recently I was asked my opinion regarding the hiring of IT professionals in regards to the option of hiring new IT employees versus promoting internally for IT positions. After thinking a little more about this question regarding staffing, specifically pertaining to promoting internally verses new employees; I think my answer to this question is that it truly depends on the situation. However, in most cases I would side with promoting internally. The key factors in this decision should be based on a company/department’s current values, culture, attitude, and existing priorities.  For example if a company values retaining all of its hard earned business knowledge then they would tend to promote existing employees internal over hiring a new employee. Moreover, the company will have to pay to train an existing employee to learn a new technology and the learning curve for some technologies can be very steep. Conversely, if a company values new technologies and technical proficiency over business knowledge then a company would tend to hire new employees because they may already have experience with a technology that the company is planning on using. In this scenario, the company would have to take on the additional overhead of allowing a new employee to learn how the business operates prior to them being fully effective. To illustrate my points above let us look at contractor that builds in ground pools for example.  He has the option to hire employees that are very strong but use small shovels to dig, or employees weak in physical strength but use large shovels to dig. Which employee should the contractor use to dig a hole for a new in ground pool? If we compare the possible candidates for this job we will find that they are very similar to hiring someone internally verses a new hire. The first example represents the existing workers that are very strong regarding the understanding how the business operates and the reasons why in a specific manner. However this employee could be potentially weaker than an outsider pertaining to specific technologies and would need some time to build their technical prowess for a new position much like the strong worker upgrading their shovels in order to remove more dirt at once when digging. The other employee is very similar to hiring a new person that may already have the large shovel but will need to increase their strength in order to use the shovel properly and efficiently so that they can move a maximum amount of dirt in a minimal amount of time. This can be compared to new employ learning how a business operates before they can be fully functional and integrated in the company/department. Another key factor in this dilemma pertains to existing employee and their passion for their work, their ability to accept new responsibility when given, and the willingness to take on responsibilities when they see a need in the business. As much as possible should be considered in this decision down to the mood of the team, the quality of existing staff, learning cure for both technology and business, and the potential side effects of the existing staff.  In addition, there are many more consideration based on the current team/department/companies culture and mood. There are several factors that need to be considered when promoting an individual or hiring new blood for a team. They both can provide great benefits as well as create controversy to a group. Personally, staffing especially in the IT world is like building a large scale system in that all of the components and modules must fit together and preform as one cohesive system in the same way a team must come together using their individually acquired skills so that they can work as one team.  If a module is out of place or is nonexistent then the rest of the team will suffer until the all of its issues are addressed and resolved. Benefits of Promoting Internally Internal promotions give employees a reason to constantly upgrade their technology, business, and communication skills if they want to further their career Employees can control their own destiny based on personal desires Employee already knows how the business operates Companies can save money by promoting internally because the initial overhead of allowing new hires to learn how a company operates is very expensive Newly promoted employees can assist in training their replacements while transitioning to their new role within a company. Existing employees already have a proven track record in regards fitting in with the business culture; this is always an unknown with all new hires Benefits of a New Hire New employees can energize and excite existing employees New employees can bring new ideas and advancements in technology New employees can offer a different perspective on existing issues based on their past experience. As you can see the decision to promote an existing employee from within a company verses hiring a new person should be based on several factors that should ultimately place the business in the best possible situation for the immediate and long term future. How would you handle this situation? Would you hire a new employee or promote from within?

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• What Counts For a DBA: Fitness

  - by Louis Davidson

  If you know me, you can probably guess that physical exercise is not really my thing. There was a time in my past when it a larger part of my life, but even then never in the same sort of passionate way as a number of our SQL friends.  For me, I find that mental exercise satisfies what I believe to be the same inner need that drives people to run farther than I like to drive on most Saturday mornings, and it is certainly just as addictive. Mental fitness shares many common traits with physical fitness, especially the need to attain it through repetitive training. I only wish that mental training burned off a bacon cheeseburger in the same manner as does jogging around a dewy park on Saturday morning. In physical training, there are at least two goals, the first of which is to be physically able to do a task. The second is to train the brain to perform the task without thinking too hard about it. No matter how long it has been since you last rode a bike, you will be almost certainly be able to hop on and start riding without thinking about the process of pedaling or balancing. If you’ve never ridden a bike, you could be a physics professor /Olympic athlete and still crash the first few times you try, even though you are as strong as an ox and your knowledge of the physics of bicycle riding makes the concept child’s play. For programming tasks, the process is very similar. As a DBA, you will come to know intuitively how to backup, optimize, and secure database systems. As a data programmer, you will work to instinctively use the clauses of Transact-SQL DML so that, when you need to group data three ways (and not four), you will know to use the GROUP BY clause with GROUPING SETS without resorting to a search engine.  You have the skill. Making it naturally then requires repetition and experience is the primary requirement, not just simply learning about a topic. The hardest part of being really good at something is this difference between knowledge and skill. I have recently taken several informative training classes with Kimball University on data warehousing and ETL. Now I have a lot more knowledge about designing data warehouses than before. I have also done a good bit of data warehouse designing of late and have started to improve to some level of proficiency with the theory. Yet, for all of this head knowledge, it is still a struggle to take what I have learned and apply it to the designs I am working on.  Data warehousing is still a task that is not yet deeply ingrained in my brain muscle memory. On the other hand, relational database design is something that no matter how much or how little I may get to do it, I am comfortable doing it. I have done it as a profession now for well over a decade, I teach classes on it, and I also have done (and continue to do) a lot of mental training beyond the work day. Sometimes the training is just basic education, some reading blogs and attending sessions at PASS events.  My best training comes from spending time working on other people’s design issues in forums (though not nearly as much as I would like to lately). Working through other people’s problems is a great way to exercise your brain on problems with which you’re not immediately familiar. The final bit of exercise I find useful for cultivating mental fitness for a data professional is also probably the nerdiest thing that I will ever suggest you do.  Akin to running in place, the idea is to work through designs in your head. I have designed more than one database system that would revolutionize grocery store operations, sales at my local Target store, the ordering process at Amazon, and ways to improve Disney World operations to get me through a line faster (some of which they are starting to implement without any of my help.) Never are the designs truly fleshed out, but enough to work through structures and processes.  On “paper”, I have designed database systems to catalog things as trivial as my Lego creations, rental car companies and my audio and video collections. Once I get the database designed mentally, sometimes I will create the database, add some data (often using Red-Gate’s Data Generator), and write a few queries to see if a concept was realistic, but I will rarely fully flesh out the database since I have no desire to do any user interface programming anymore.  The mental training allows me to keep in practice for when the time comes to do the work I love the most for real…even if I have been spending most of my work time lately building data warehouses.  If you are really strong of mind and body, perhaps you can mix a mental run with a physical run; though don’t run off of a cliff while contemplating how you might design a database to catalog the trees on a mountain…that would be contradictory to the purpose of both types of exercise.

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• Becoming a professional programmer / software engineer

  - by Matt

  This isn't strictly about programming, more about being a programmer, so I'm sorry if its not the right kind of question to ask on this forum (mod, please delete if it isn't) I'm a computer tech in the US Army, and once I'm out I'll have eight years on the job. I'm about to start a degree through an online school (the only way I can get the army to pay for it while I'm still in), and I'm seriously looking at getting a computer science degree. I'm great with computers. I can take one apart and put it back together with my eyes closed. I'm A+ and Network+ certified and I'm getting a couple other CompTIA certs before I get out. I can work Windows as well as anyone on this planet and I'm not terrible with Linux. A job in computers is something I've always wanted. But, aside from being a computer technician, it seems that every job in the field requires programming ability. I like programming as a hobby. I programmed TI BASIC in high school and I'm teaching myself Python, but that's as far as my experience goes. That sort of brings me to my questions: I've always heard that the first language is the most difficult, and once you learn it well then all the others sort of fall into place for you. Is that true? Like, if I spend the next eight months mastering Python, will I pretty much be able to pick up at least fair proficiency in any other OO language within a month of studying it or whatever? How easy is it to burn out? the biggest thing I'm afraid of is just burning out on programming. I can go all day long if I'm programming strictly for my own personal desire, but I can imagine it being really easy to burn out after a few years of programming to deadlines and certain specifications. Especially if its a big project involving a dozen different designers. From what I told you about myself, would I already be qualified to work as a regular technician (geek squad type or maybe running a computer repair shop). Is Python a good base to learn from? I've heard that it makes you hate other languages because they feel more convoluted when learning, but also that its a great beginner language. If you're a professional programmer, did you have any of the same fears? Would you recommend that I stick to computer repair and Python rather than try to get into corporate programming? (just from what you've read in this thread, anyway) Thanks for taking the time to read all this and answer (if you did)

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• Experiences with learning Chinese

  - by Greg Low

  I've had a few friends asking me about learning Chinese and what I've found works and doesn't work. I was answering a question on a mailing list today and I thought I should post this info where it might be useful to many. The question that was initially asked was whether Rosetta Stone was useful but I've provided much more info on learning the language here. I’ve used Rosetta Stone with Chinese but it’s really hard to know whether to recommend it or not. Rosetta Stone works the same way in all languages. They show you photos and then let you both see and hear the target language and get you to work out what they’re talking about. The thinking is that that’s how children learn. However, at first, I found it very frustrating. I’d be staring at photos trying to work out what they were really trying to get at. Sometimes it’s far from obvious. I could not have survived without Google Translate open at the same time. The other weird thing is that the photos are from a mixture of countries. While that’s good in a way, it also means that they are endlessly showing pictures of something that would never happen in the target language and culture. For any language, constant interaction with a speaker of the target language is needed. Rosetta Stone has a “Studio” option. That’s the best part of the program. In my case, it lets me connect around twice a week to a live online class from Beijing. Classes usually have the teacher plus two to four students. You get some Studio access with the initial packages but need to purchase it for ongoing use. I find it very inexpensive. It seems to work out to about $70 (AUD/USD) for six months. That’s a real bargain. The other downside to Rosetta Stone is that they tend to teach very formal language, but as with other languages, that’s not how the locals speak. It might have been correct at one point but no-one actually says that. As an example, Rosetta Stone teach Gonggòng qìche (pronounced roughly like “gong gong chee chure” for bus. Most of my friends from areas like Taiwan would just say Gongche. Google Translate says Zongxiàn (pronounced somewhat like “dzong sheean”) instead. Mind you, the Rosetta Stone option isn't really as bad as "omnibus"; it's more like saying "public bus". If you say the option they provide, people would understand you. I also listen to ChinesePod in the car. They also have SpanishPod. Each podcast is about five minutes of spoken conversation. It is very good for providing current language. Another resource I use is local Meetup groups. Most cities have these and for a variety of languages. It’s way less structured (just standard conversation) but good for getting interaction. The obvious challenge for Asian languages is reading/writing. The input editors for Chinese that are part of Windows are excellent. Many of my Chinese friends speak fluently but cannot read or write. I was determined to learn to do both. For writing, I’m talking about on a computer, not with a pen. (Mind you, I can barely write English with a pen nowadays). When using Rosetta Stone, you can choose to have the Chinese words displayed in pinyin (Wo xihuan xuéxí zhongguó) or in Chinese characters (???????) or both. This year, I’ve been forcing myself to just use the Chinese characters. I use a pinyin input editor in Windows though, as it’s very fast.  (The character recognition input in the iPad is also amazing). Notice from the example that I provided above that the pronunciation of the pinyin isn’t that obvious to us at first either.  Since changing to only using characters, I find I can now read many more Chinese characters fluently. It’s a major challenge though. I can read about 300 now and yet you need around 2,500 to be able to read a newspaper fairly well. Tones are a major issue for some Asian languages. Mandarin has four tones (plus a neutral tone) and there is a major difference in meaning between two words that are spelled the same in pinyin but with different tones. For example, Ma (3rd tone?) is a horse, Ma (1st tone?) is like “mom”, and ma (neutral tone?) is a question mark and so on. Clearly you don’t want to mix these up. As in English, they also have words that do sound the same but mean different things in different contexts. What’s interesting is that even though we see two words that differ only by tone as very similar, to a native speaker, if you say the right words with the wrong tone, you might as well have said a completely different word. My wife’s dialect of Chinese has eight tones. It’s much worse. The reason I’m so keen to learn to read/write Chinese is that even though the different dialects are pronounced so differently that speakers of one dialect often cannot understand another dialect, the writing is generally the same. The only difference is that many years ago, the Chinese government created a simplified set of characters for some of the most commonly used ones. Older Chinese and most Cantonese speakers often struggle with the simplified characters. This is the simplified form of “three apples”: ????   This is the traditional form of the same words: ????  Note that two of the characters are the same but the middle two are quite different. For most languages, the best thing is to watch current movies in the target language but to watch them with the target language as subtitles, not your native language. You want to know what they actually said, not what it roughly means (which is what the English subtitle would give you). The difficulty with Asian languages like Chinese is that you have the added challenge of understanding the subtitles when they are written in the target language. I wish there were Mandarin Chinese movies with pinyin subtitles. For learning to read characters, I also recommend HanCard on the iPad. It is targeted at the HSK language proficiency levels. (I’m intending to take the first HSK exam as soon as I’m ready). Hope that info helps someone get started.  

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• Is this question too hard for a seasoned C++ architect?

  - by Monomer

  Background Information We're looking to hire a seasoned C++ architect (10+years dev, of which at least 6years must be C++ ) for a high frequency trading platform. Job advert says STL, Boost proficiency is a must with preferences to modern uses of C++. The company I work for is a Fortune 500 IB (aka finance industry), it requires passes in all the standard SHL tests (numeric, vocab, spatial etc) before interviews can commence. Everyone on the team was given the task of coming up with one question to ask the candidates during a written/typed test, please note this is the second test provided to the candidates, the first being Advanced IKM C++ test, done in the offices supervised and without internet access. People passing that do the second test. After roughly 70 candidates, my question has been determined to be statistically the worst performing - aka least number of people attempted it, furthermore even less people were able to give meaningful answers. Please note, the second test is not timed, the candidate can literally take as long as they like (we've had one person take roughly 10.5hrs) My question to SO is this, after SHL and IKM adv c++ tests, backed up with at least 6+ years C++ development experience, is it still ok not to be able to even comment about let alone come up with some loose strategy for solving the following question. The Question There is a class C with methods foo, boo, boo_and_foo and foo_and_boo. Each method takes i,j,k and l clock cycles respectively, where i < j, k < i+j and l < i+j. class C { public: int foo() {...} int boo() {...} int boo_and_foo() {...} int foo_and_boo() {...} }; In code one might write: C c; . . int i = c.foo() + c.boo(); But it would be better to have: int i = c.foo_and_boo(); What changes or techniques could one make to the definition of C, that would allow similar syntax of the original usage, but instead have the compiler generate the latter. Note that foo and boo are not commutative. Possible Solution We were basically looking for an expression templates based approach, and were willing to give marks to anyone who had even hinted or used the phrase or related terminology. We got only two people that used the wording, but weren't able to properly describe how they accomplish the task in detail. We use such techniques all over the place, due to the use of various mathematical operators for matrix and vector based calculations, for example to decide when to use IPP or hand woven implementations at compile time for a particular architecture and many other things. The particular area of software development requires microsecond response times. I believe could/should be able to teach a junior such techniques, but given the assumed caliber of candidates I expected a little more. Is this really a difficult question? Should it be removed? Or are we just not seeing the right candidates?

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• Is Social Media The Vital Skill You Aren’t Tracking?

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Mark Bennett - Originally featured in Talent Management Excellence The ever-increasing presence of the workforce on social media presents opportunities as well as risks for organizations. While on the one hand, we read about social media embarrassments happening to organizations, on the other we see that social media activities by workers and candidates can enhance a company’s brand and provide insight into what individuals are, or can become, influencers in the social media sphere. HR can play a key role in helping organizations make the most value out of the activities and presence of workers and candidates, while at the same time also helping to manage the risks that come with the permanence and viral nature of social media. What is Missing from Understanding Our Workforce? “If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three-times more productive.”  Lew Platt, Former Chairman, President, CEO, Hewlett-Packard  What Lew Platt recognized was that organizations only have a partial understanding of what their workforce is capable of. This lack of understanding impacts the company in several negative ways: 1. A particular skill that the company needs to access in one part of the organization might exist somewhere else, but there is no record that the skill exists, so the need is unfulfilled. 2. As market conditions change rapidly, the company needs to know strategic options, but some options are missed entirely because the company doesn’t know that sufficient capability already exists to enable those options. 3. Employees may miss out on opportunities to demonstrate how their hidden skills could create new value to the company. Why don’t companies have that more complete picture of their workforce capabilities – that is, not know what they know? One very good explanation is that companies put most of their efforts into rating their workforce according to the jobs and roles they are filling today. This is the essence of two important talent management processes: recruiting and performance appraisals.  In recruiting, a set of requirements is put together for a job, either explicitly or indirectly through a job description. During the recruiting process, much of the attention is paid towards whether the candidate has the qualifications, the skills, the experience and the cultural fit to be successful in the role. This makes a lot of sense.  In the performance appraisal process, an employee is measured on how well they performed the functions of their role and in an effort to help the employee do even better next time, they are also measured on proficiency in the competencies that are deemed to be key in doing that job. Again, the logic is impeccable.  But in both these cases, two adages come to mind: 1. What gets measured is what gets managed. 2. You only see what you are looking for. In other words, the fact that the current roles the workforce are performing are the basis for measuring which capabilities the workforce has, makes them the only capabilities to be measured. What was initially meant to be a positive, i.e. identify what is needed to perform well and measure it, in order that it can be managed, comes with the unintended negative consequence of overshadowing the other capabilities the workforce has. This also comes with an employee engagement price, for the measurements and management of workforce capabilities is to typically focus on where the workforce comes up short. Again, it makes sense to do this, since improving a capability that appears to result in improved performance benefits, both the individual through improved performance ratings and the company through improved productivity. But this is based on the assumption that the capabilities identified and their required proficiencies are the only attributes of the individual that matter. Anything else the individual brings that results in high performance, while resulting in a desired performance outcome, often goes unrecognized or underappreciated at best. As social media begins to occupy a more important part in current and future roles in organizations, businesses must incorporate social media savvy and innovation into job descriptions and expectations. These new measures could provide insight into how well someone can use social media tools to influence communities and decision makers; keep abreast of trends in fast-moving industries; present a positive brand image for the organization around thought leadership, customer focus, social responsibility; and coordinate and collaborate with partners. These measures should demonstrate the “social capital” the individual has invested in and developed over time. Without this dimension, “short cut” methods may generate a narrow set of positive metrics that do not have real, long-lasting benefits to the organization. How Workforce Reputation Management Helps HR Harness Social Media With hundreds of petabytes of social media data flowing across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, businesses are tapping technology solutions to effectively leverage social for HR. Workforce reputation management technology helps organizations discover, mobilize and retain talent by providing insight into the social reputation and influence of the workforce while also helping organizations monitor employee social media policy compliance and mitigate social media risk.  There are three major ways that workforce reputation management technology can play a strategic role to support HR: 1. Improve Awareness and Decisions on Talent Many organizations measure the skills and competencies that they know they need today, but are unaware of what other skills and competencies their workforce has that could be essential tomorrow. How about whether your workforce has the reputation and influence to make their skills and competencies more effective? Many organizations don’t have insight into the social media “reach” their workforce has, which is becoming more critical to business performance. These features help organizations, managers, and employees improve many talent processes and decision making, including the following: Hiring and Assignments. People and teams with higher reputations are considered more valuable and effective workers. Someone with high reputation who refers a candidate also can have high credibility as a source for hires.   Training and Development. Reputation trend analysis can impact program decisions regarding training offerings by showing how reputation and influence across the workforce changes in concert with training. Worker reputation impacts development plans and goal choices by helping the individual see which development efforts result in improved reputation and influence.   Finding Hidden Talent. Managers can discover hidden talent and skills amongst employees based on a combination of social profile information and social media reputation. Employees can improve their personal brand and accelerate their career development.  2. Talent Search and Discovery The right technology helps organizations find information on people that might otherwise be hidden. By leveraging access to candidate and worker social profiles as well as their social relationships, workforce reputation management provides companies with a more complete picture of what their knowledge, skills, and attributes are and what they can in turn access. This more complete information helps to find the right talent both outside the organization as well as the right, perhaps previously hidden talent, within the organization to fill roles and staff projects, particularly those roles and projects that are required in reaction to fast-changing opportunities and circumstances. 3. Reputation Brings Credibility Workforce reputation management technology provides a clearer picture of how candidates and workers are viewed by their peers and communities across a wide range of social reputation and influence metrics. This information is less subject to individual bias and can impact critical decision-making. Knowing the individual’s reputation and influence enables the organization to predict how well their capabilities and behaviors will have a positive effect on desired business outcomes. Many roles that have the highest impact on overall business performance are dependent on the individual’s influence and reputation. In addition, reputation and influence measures offer a very tangible source of feedback for workers, providing them with insight that helps them develop themselves and their careers and see the effectiveness of those efforts by tracking changes over time in their reputation and influence. The following are some examples of the different reputation and influence measures of the workforce that Workforce Reputation Management could gather and analyze: Generosity – How often the user reposts other’s posts. Influence – How often the user’s material is reposted by others.  Engagement – The ratio of recent posts with references (e.g. links to other posts) to the total number of posts.  Activity – How frequently the user posts. (e.g. number per day)  Impact – The size of the users’ social networks, which indicates their ability to reach unique followers, friends, or users.   Clout – The number of references and citations of the user’s material in others’ posts.  The Vital Ingredient of Workforce Reputation Management: Employee Participation “Nothing about me, without me.” Valerie Billingham, “Through the Patient’s Eyes”, Salzburg Seminar Session 356, 1998 Since data resides primarily in social media, a question arises: what manner is used to collect that data? While much of social media activity is publicly accessible (as many who wished otherwise have learned to their chagrin), the social norms of social media have developed to put some restrictions on what is acceptable behavior and by whom. Disregarding these norms risks a repercussion firestorm. One of the more recognized norms is that while individuals can follow and engage with other individual’s public social activity (e.g. Twitter updates) fairly freely, the more an organization does this unprompted and without getting permission from the individual beforehand, the more likely the organization risks a totally opposite outcome from the one desired. Instead, the organization must look for permission from the individual, which can be met with resistance. That resistance comes from not knowing how the information will be used, how it will be shared with others, and not receiving enough benefit in return for granting permission. As the quote above about patient concerns and rights succinctly states, no one likes not feeling in control of the information about themselves, or the uncertainty about where it will be used. This is well understood in consumer social media (i.e. permission-based marketing) and is applicable to workforce reputation management. However, asking permission leaves open the very real possibility that no one, or so few, will grant permission, resulting in a small set of data with little usefulness for the company. Connecting Individual Motivation to Organization Needs So what is it that makes an individual decide to grant an organization access to the data it wants? It is when the individual’s own motivations are in alignment with the organization’s objectives. In the case of workforce reputation management, when the individual is motivated by a desire for increased visibility and career growth opportunities to advertise their skills and level of influence and reputation, they are aligned with the organizations’ objectives; to fill resource needs or strategically build better awareness of what skills are present in the workforce, as well as levels of influence and reputation. Individuals can see the benefit of granting access permission to the company through multiple means. One is through simple social awareness; they begin to discover that peers who are getting more career opportunities are those who are signed up for workforce reputation management. Another is where companies take the message directly to the individual; we think you would benefit from signing up with our workforce reputation management solution. Another, more strategic approach is to make reputation management part of a larger Career Development effort by the company; providing a wide set of tools to help the workforce find ways to plan and take action to achieve their career aspirations in the organization. An effective mechanism, that facilitates connecting the visibility and career growth motivations of the workforce with the larger context of the organization’s business objectives, is to use game mechanics to help individuals transform their career goals into concrete, actionable steps, such as signing up for reputation management. This works in favor of companies looking to use workforce reputation because the workforce is more apt to see how it fits into achieving their overall career goals, as well as seeing how other participation brings additional benefits.  Once an individual has signed up with reputation management, not only have they made themselves more visible within the organization and increased their career growth opportunities, they have also enabled a tool that they can use to better understand how their actions and behaviors impact their influence and reputation. Since they will be able to see their reputation and influence measurements change over time, they will gain better insight into how reputation and influence impacts their effectiveness in a role, as well as how their behaviors and skill levels in turn affect their influence and reputation. This insight can trigger much more directed, and effective, efforts by the individual to improve their ability to perform at a higher level and become more productive. The increased sense of autonomy the individual experiences, in linking the insight they gain to the actions and behavior changes they make, greatly enhances their engagement with their role as well as their career prospects within the company. Workforce reputation management takes the wide range of disparate data about the workforce being produced across various social media platforms and transforms it into accessible, relevant, and actionable information that helps the organization achieve its desired business objectives. Social media holds untapped insights about your talent, brand and business, and workforce reputation management can help unlock them. Imagine - if you could find the hidden secrets of your businesses, how much more productive and efficient would your organization be? Mark Bennett is a Director of Product Strategy at Oracle. Mark focuses on setting the strategic vision and direction for tools that help organizations understand, shape, and leverage the capabilities of their workforce to achieve business objectives, as well as help individuals work effectively to achieve their goals and navigate their own growth. His combination of a deep technical background in software design and development, coupled with a broad knowledge of business challenges and thinking in today’s globalized, rapidly changing, technology accelerated economy, has enabled him to identify and incorporate key innovations that are central to Oracle Fusion’s unique value proposition. Mark has over the course of his career been in charge of the design, development, and strategy of Talent Management products and the design and development of cutting edge software that is better equipped to handle the increasingly complex demands of users while also remaining easy to use. Follow him @mpbennett

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• PASS: Bylaw Change 2013

  - by Bill Graziano

  PASS launched a Global Growth Initiative in the Summer of 2011 with the appointment of three international Board advisors.  Since then we’ve thought and talked extensively about how we make PASS more relevant to our members outside the US and Canada.  We’ve collected much of that discussion in our Global Growth site.  You can find vision documents, plans, governance proposals, feedback sites, and transcripts of Twitter chats and town hall meetings.  We also address these plans at the Board Q&A during the 2012 Summit. One of the biggest changes coming out of this process is around how we elect Board members.  And that requires a change to the bylaws.  We published the proposed bylaw changes as a red-lined document so you can clearly see the changes.  Our goal in these bylaw changes was to address the changes required by the global growth initiatives, conduct a legal review of the document and address other minor issues in the document.  There are numerous small wording changes throughout the document.  For example, we replaced every reference of “The Corporation” with the word “PASS” so it now reads “PASS is organized…”. Board Composition The biggest change in these bylaw changes is how the Board is composed and elected.  This discussion starts in section VI.2.  This section now says that some elected directors will come from geographic regions.  I think this is the best way to make sure we give all of our members a voice in the leadership of the organization.  The key parts of this section are: The remaining Directors (i.e. the non-Officer Directors and non-Vendor Appointed Directors) shall be elected by the voting membership (“Elected Directors”). Elected Directors shall include representatives of defined PASS regions (“Regions”) as set forth below (“Regional Directors”) and at minimum one (1) additional Director-at-Large whose selection is not limited by region. Regional Directors shall include, but are not limited to, two (2) seats for the Region covering Canada and the United States of America. Additional Regions for the purpose of electing additional Regional Directors and additional Director-at-Large seats for the purpose of expanding the Board shall be defined by a majority vote of the current Board of Directors and must be established prior to the public call for nominations in the general election. Previously defined Regions and seats approved by the Board of Directors shall remain in effect and can only be modified by a 2/3 majority vote by the then current Board of Directors. Currently PASS has six At-Large Directors elected by the members.  These changes allow for a Regional Director position that is elected by the members but must come from a particular region.  It also stipulates that there must always be at least one Director-at-Large who can come from any region. We also understand that PASS is currently a very US-centric organization.  Our Summit is held in America, roughly half our chapters are in the US and Canada and most of the Board members over the last ten years have come from America.  We wanted to reflect that by making sure that our US and Canadian volunteers would continue to play a significant role by ensuring that two Regional seats are reserved specifically for Canada and the US. Other than that, the bylaws don’t create any specific regional seats.  These rules allow us to create Regional Director seats but don’t require it.  We haven’t fully discussed what the criteria will be in order for a region to have a seat designated for it or how many regions there will be.  In our discussions we’ve broadly discussed regions for United States and Canada Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Australia, New Zealand and Asia (also known as Asia Pacific or APAC) Mexico, South America, and Central America (LATAM) As you can see, our thinking is that there will be a few large regions.  I’ve also considered a non-North America region that we can gradually split into the regions above as our membership grows in those areas.  The regions will be defined by a policy document that will be published prior to the elections. I’m hoping that over the next year we can begin to publish more of what we do as Board-approved policy documents. While the bylaws only require a single non-region specific At-large Director, I would expect we would always have two.  That way we can have one in each election.  I think it’s important that we always have one seat open that anyone who is eligible to run for the Board can contest.  The Board is required to have any regions defined prior to the start of the election process. Board Elections – Regional Seats We spent a lot of time discussing how the elections would work for these Regional Director seats.  Ultimately we decided that the simplest solution is that every PASS member should vote for every open seat.  Section VIII.3 reads: Candidates who are eligible (i.e. eligible to serve in such capacity subject to the criteria set forth herein or adopted by the Board of Directors) shall be designated to fill open Board seats in the following order of priority on the basis of total votes received: (i) full term Regional Director seats, (ii) full term Director-at-Large seats, (iii) not full term (vacated) Regional Director seats, (iv) not full term (vacated) Director-at-Large seats. For the purposes of clarity, because of eligibility requirements, it is contemplated that the candidates designated to the open Board seats may not receive more votes than certain other candidates who are not selected to the Board. We debated whether to have multiple ballots or one single ballot.  Multiple ballot elections get complicated quickly.  Let’s say we have a ballot for US/Canada and one for Region 2.  After that we’d need a mechanism to merge those two together and come up with the winner of the at-large seat or have another election for the at-large position.  We think the best way to do this is a single ballot and putting the highest vote getters into the most restrictive seats.  Let’s look at an example: There are seats open for Region 1, Region 2 and at-large.  The election results are as follows: Candidate A (eligible for Region 1) – 550 votes Candidate B (eligible for Region 1) – 525 votes Candidate C (eligible for Region 1) – 475 votes Candidate D (eligible for Region 2) – 125 votes Candidate E (eligible for Region 2) – 75 votes In this case, Candidate A is the winner for Region 1 and is assigned that seat.  Candidate D is the winner for Region 2 and is assigned that seat.  The at-large seat is filled by the high remaining vote getter which is Candidate B. The key point to understand is that we may have a situation where a person with a lower vote total is elected to a regional seat and a person with a higher vote total is excluded.  This will be true whether we had multiple ballots or a single ballot.  Board Elections – Vacant Seats The other change to the election process is for vacant Board seats.  The actual changes are sprinkled throughout the document. Previously we didn’t have a mechanism that allowed for an election of a Board seat that we knew would be vacant in the future.  The most common case is when a Board members moves to an Officer role in the middle of their term.  One of the key changes is to allow the number of votes members have to match the number of open seats.  This allows each voter to express their preference on all open seats.  This only applies when we know about the opening prior to the call for nominations.  This all means that if there’s a seat will be open at the start of the next Board term, and we know about it prior to the call for nominations, we can include that seat in the elections.  Ultimately, the aim is to have PASS members decide who sits on the Board in as many situations as possible. We discussed the option of changing the bylaws to just take next highest vote-getter in all other cases.  I think that’s wrong for the following reasons: All voters aren’t able to express an opinion on all candidates.  If there are five people running for three seats, you can only vote for three.  You have no way to express your preference between #4 and #5. Different candidates may have different information about the number of seats available.  A person may learn that a Board member plans to resign at the end of the year prior to that information being made public. They may understand that the top four vote getters will end up on the Board while the rest of the members believe there are only three openings.  This may affect someone’s decision to run.  I don’t think this creates a transparent, fair election. Board members may use their knowledge of the election results to decide whether to remain on the Board or not.  Admittedly this one is unlikely but I don’t want to create a situation where this accusation can be leveled. I think the majority of vacancies in the future will be handled through elections.  The bylaw section quoted above also indicates that partial term vacancies will be filled after the full term seats are filled. Removing Directors Section VI.7 on removing directors has always had a clause that allowed members to remove an elected director.  We also had a clause that allowed appointed directors to be removed.  We added a clause that allows the Board to remove for cause any director with a 2/3 majority vote.  The updated text reads: Any Director may be removed for cause by a 2/3 majority vote of the Board of Directors whenever in its judgment the best interests of PASS would be served thereby. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the authority of any Director to act as in an official capacity as a Director or Officer of PASS may be suspended by the Board of Directors for cause. Cause for suspension or removal of a Director shall include but not be limited to failure to meet any Board-approved performance expectations or the presence of a reason for suspension or dismissal as listed in Addendum B of these Bylaws. The first paragraph is updated and the second and third are unchanged (except cleaning up language).  If you scroll down and look at Addendum B of these bylaws you find the following: Cause for suspension or dismissal of a member of the Board of Directors may include: Inability to attend Board meetings on a regular basis. Inability or unwillingness to act in a capacity designated by the Board of Directors. Failure to fulfill the responsibilities of the office. Inability to represent the Region elected to represent Failure to act in a manner consistent with PASS's Bylaws and/or policies. Misrepresentation of responsibility and/or authority. Misrepresentation of PASS. Unresolved conflict of interests with Board responsibilities. Breach of confidentiality. The bold line about your inability to represent your region is what we added to the bylaws in this revision.  We also added a clause to section VII.3 allowing the Board to remove an officer.  That clause is much less restrictive.  It doesn’t require cause and only requires a simple majority. The Board of Directors may remove any Officer whenever in their judgment the best interests of PASS shall be served by such removal. Other There are numerous other small changes throughout the document. Proxy voting.  The laws around how members and Board members proxy votes are specific in Illinois law.  PASS is an Illinois corporation and is subject to Illinois laws.  We changed section IV.5 to come into compliance with those laws.  Specifically this says you can only vote through a proxy if you have a written proxy through your authorized attorney.  English language proficiency.  As we increase our global footprint we come across more members that aren’t native English speakers.  The business of PASS is conducted in English and it’s important that our Board members speak English.  If we get big enough to afford translators, we may be able to relax this but right now we need English language skills for effective Board members. Committees.  The language around committees in section IX is old and dated.  Our lawyers advised us to clean it up.  This section specifically applies to any committees that the Board may form outside of portfolios.  We removed the term limits, quorum and vacancies clause.  We don’t currently have any committees that this would apply to.  The Nominating Committee is covered elsewhere in the bylaws. Electronic Votes.  The change allows the Board to vote via email but the results must be unanimous.  This is to conform with Illinois state law. Immediate Past President.  There was no mechanism to fill the IPP role if an outgoing President chose not to participate.  We changed section VII.8 to allow the Board to invite any previous President to fill the role by majority vote. Nominations Committee.  We’ve opened the language to allow for the transparent election of the Nominations Committee as outlined by the 2011 Election Review Committee. Revocation of Charters. The language surrounding the revocation of charters for local groups was flagged by the lawyers. We have allowed for the local user group to make all necessary payment before considering returning of items to PASS if required. Bylaw notification. We’ve spent countless meetings working on these bylaws with the intent to not open them again any time in the near future. Should the bylaws be opened again, we have included a clause ensuring that the PASS membership is involved. I’m proud that the Board has remained committed to transparency and accountability to members. This clause will require that same level of commitment in the future even when all the current Board members have rolled off. I think that covers everything.  I’d encourage you to look through the red-line document and see the changes.  It’s helpful to look at the language that’s being removed and the language that’s being added.  I’m happy to answer any questions here or you can email them to [email protected].

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• SOA PARTNER COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER JULY 2012

  - by mseika

  SOA PARTNER COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER JULY 2012 Dear SOA partner community member To provide our community members the best of our knowledge, we want your feedback on our SOA Partner community. Thus we are organizing SOA Partner Community Survey 2012. We request you to participate in the survey and give your valuable feedback on various areas of marketing, sales and education. To continue our successful BPM Suite, Oracle is launching together with you Process Accelerators initiative. It’s your opportunity to co-develop and market predefined processes. Oracle Fusion Applications Design Patterns are a great tool to develop your SOA or BPM solution or process accelerators. To promote your SOA & BPM Specialization we continue to offer several benefits. This month we would like to highlight our Specialization Plaques - make sure you request one for your office! Our Fusion Middleware Summer Camps are booked out, if could not get a seat you can attend the SOA & BPM track @ Virtual Developer Day: Oracle Fusion Development Oracle demo systems offer´s two new demos: Business Driven Development based on BPM Suite & SOA Lifecycle Management. Jürgen KressOracle SOA & BPM Partner Adoption EMEA NEW CONTENT Community SurveyProcess Accelerators KitPlaques SOA & BPM SpecializedSOA & BPM at Virtual Developer Day News from our Partners & CommunityOverview of SOA Diagnostics in 11.1.1.6 Business driven development(BDD) demo now available! SOA Lifecycle Management Oracle Fusion applications design patterns Updated material by Oracle Connect and Network SOA Blogs SOA on Facebook SOA on LinkedIn SOA on Twitter Mix SOA Forum COMMUNITY SURVEY Like every year we would like to get your feedback in our SOA Partner Community Survey 2012. Make sure that You attend to further develop our community and support our planning! It is key for us to get your feedback to prepare for the next fiscal year. Back to top PROCESS ACCELERATORS KIT Oracle is very interested to co-develop and market with you, our partners, pre-defined processes for BPM Suite.I am very happy to announce a new program called “Oracle BPM Partner Solution Catalog”. This program will provide a one-stop shop for our customers looking for Oracle BPM partner solutions available in the market today.The Oracle BPM Solution Catalog will be hosted on our very popular Oracle Technology Network (OTN). To give you an idea of the scale of customer visibility, OTN today receives over 1Million hits per day from our business and developer community. We would like to invite you to list your Oracle BPM 11g solutions available today.In order to participate in this program, you need to do the following: Fill in the attached slide templates - #3 and #4 for each Oracle BPM 11g solution you would like to list on OTN.Please add links to whitepapers , videos, references to the specific solution in the template slide. We recommend that you create a landing page on your website for these linked artifacts and just point to the same from within the PowerPoint template. This will give you the flexibility to update the information as frequently as needed. If you have the particular solution in production or a reference available, please list them as well. Send the PowerPoint template slides (1 set of slides for each Oracle BPM solution) to [email protected]. In addition to having the opportunity to list your solutions on OTN for Oracle customers, you will have the chance to advertise your new wins/implementations/solutions in an Oracle Sponsored PM Webinar held every quarter. This program is targeted to go live by the end of summer 2012. At this point, we are targeting a soft launch in July end 2012 so send on your BPM solutions information as soon as possible. We would love to have your solution(s) listed in the “Oracle BPM Partner Solution Catalog” at the time of the launch. This will be a live repository so you can keep adding more solutions as they become available. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us [email protected], Product Strategy Director, Oracle BPM , Phone +1 650.506.5486.Thank you and look forward to hearing from you. Oracle BPM team Process Accelerators Overview.pdf ProcessAcceleratorsDataSheet.pdf Demos draUPK.zip & trmUPK.zip BPM Solution repository slides.ppt Additional BPM material BPM Process Development Lifecycle Document that describes recommended approach to collaborative process modeling across business and IT tools ADF 11g PS5 Application with Customized BPM Worklist Task Flow (MDS Seeded Customization) by Andrejus Baranovskis BPMN process editor problems in 11.1.1.6 by Mark Nelson BPM – Disable DBMS job to refresh B2B Materialized View by Mark Nelson For the complete kit please visit the BPM folder at our SOA Community Workspace (SOA Community membership required). For the complete presentation please visit our SOA Community Workspace (SOA Community membership required). Information is Oracle and Partner confidential! Back to top PLAQUES SOA & BPM SPECIALIZED We continue to offer you a nice SOA & BPM Specialization plaque with your logo to proof your success. If you are a SOA or BPM Specialized partner and would like to request the plaque please send Brigitte an e-mail with the following information: Partner Name Partner logo (preferred eps file) Partner Status gold or platinum Your shipping address Your Specialization: SOA or BPM We recommend to mount the plaque at your office reception in addition you can use the SOA Specialization logos at your website download Logo: Gold & Platinum or the BPM logos Gold & Platinum Back to top SOA & BPM AT VIRTUAL DEVELOPER DAY Register now for this FREE hands-on online workshop Get up to date and learn everything you wanted to know about Oracle ADF & Fusion Development plus live Q&A chats with Oracle technical staffOracle Application Development Framework (ADF) is the standards based, strategic framework for Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle ADF’s integration with the Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle WebCenter and Oracle BI creates a complete productive development platform for your custom applications.Join us at this FREE virtual event and learn the latest in Fusion Development including: Is Oracle ADF development faster and simpler than Forms, Apex or .Net? Mobile Application Development with ADF Mobile Oracle ADF development with Eclipse Oracle WebCenter Portal and ADF Development Application Lifecycle Management with ADF Building Process Centric Applications with ADF and BPM Oracle Business Intelligence and ADF Integration Live Q&A chats with Oracle technical staff Developer lead, manager or architect - this event has something for everyone. Don’t miss this opportunity.Tuesday, July 10, 2012. 9:00 a.m. PT -1:00 p.m. PT 11:00 a.m. CT - 3:00 p.m. CT 12:00 p.m. ET - 4:00 p.m. ET 1:00 p.m. BRT - 5:00 p.m. BRT Register online now! for this FREE event. Agenda: 09:00 am Opening 09:30 am Keynote: Oracle Fusion Development Track1Introduction to Fusion Development Track2What's New in Fusion Development Track3Fusion Development in the Enterprise 10:00 am Is Oracle ADF Development Faster and Simpler than Oracle Forms, APEX or .Net? Mobile Application Development with ADF Mobile Oracle WebCenter Portal and ADF Development 11:00 am Rich Web UI made simple - an ADF Faces Overview Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse - ADF Development Building Process Centric Applications with ADF and BPM 12:00 noon Next Generation Controller for JSF Application Lifecycle Management for ADF Oracle Business Intelligence and ADF Integration *Hands On Lab – WebCenter and ADF Lab w/ JDeveloper - Lab materials will be provided ahead of the event to give you ample time to work through the lab and increase the productivity of the live chat sessions the day of the event. Sessions abstractsRegister online now! for this FREE event Read more on Community Events and post your comment here. Back to top NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS AND COMMUNITY Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity JDeveloper & ADF?Troubleshooting BPMN process editor problems in 11.1.1.6http://dlvr.it/1p0FfS SOA Community?SOA & BPM @ Virtual Developer Day: Oracle Fusion Development - July 10th 2012https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/soa-bpm-virtual-developer-day- oracle-fusion-developmentjuly-10th-2012/#soacommunity #soa #bom #education orclateamsoa ?A-Team Blog #ateam: BAM design pointers - In working recently with a large Oracle customer on SOA and BAM, I discove.http://ow.ly/1kYqES SOA CommunitySOA Community Newsletter June 2012http://wp.me/p10C8u-qw SOA CommunityBPMN process editor problems in 11.1.1.6 by Mark Nelsonhttp://redstack.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/ bpmn-process-editor-problems-in-11-1-1-6 #soacommunity #bpm OTNArchBeat ?SOA Learning Library: free short, topic-focused training on Oracle SOA & BPM products | @SOACommunity http://pub.vitrue.com/NE1G Andrejus Baranovskis ?ADF 11g PS5 Application with Customized BPM Worklist Task Flow (MDS Seeded Customization)http://fb.me/1coX4r1X1 SOA CommunitySOA Learning Library provides a comprehensive curriculum for the SOA and BPM product suites https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/soa-learning-library #soacommunity #soa #bpm OTNArchBeat ?A Universal JMX Client for Weblogic - Part 1: Monitoring BPEL Thread Pools in SOA 11g | Stefan Koserhttp://pub.vitrue.com/mQVZ OTNArchBeat ?BPM - Disable DBMS job to refresh B2B Materialized View | Mark Nelson http://pub.vitrue.com/3PR0Oracle SOA ?Learn how Choice Hotels Implements Innovative Google Maps Solution with #OracleSOA http://bit.ly/MTwIJ3 SOA Communitytop Tweets SOA Partner Community - June 2012 Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/top-tweets-soa-partner-community-june-2012 Torsten Winterberg#OPITZ is pushing Oracle commitment to the next level: New Specializations done: ADF, BPM, WLS, Exadatahttp://bit.ly/KX1WVS ServiceTechSymposium ?Only 8 more days left until Super Early Bird Registration Discount expires! http://www.servicetechsymposium.com OracleBlogsSOA Management in 3 minutes - Video explainerhttp://ow.ly/1kN5pn SOA Community ?SOA, Cloud & Service Technology Symposium 2012 London - Enter Promo Code: Djmxz370https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/soa-cloud-service-technology-symposium-2012-london #soasymposium #soacommunity #soa Heidi BuelowGreat course! w David Read RT @soacommunity: product management ADF for BPM training 5 seats left https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/fusion-middleware-summer-campsadvanced-partner-trainings/ #bpm #soacommunity SOA Community ?product management ADF for BPM training 5 seats lefthttps://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/fusion-middleware-summer-campsadvanced-partner-trainings/ #bpm #soacommunity OTNArchBeat ?Oacle Fusion Applications Design Patterns Now Available For Developers | Ultan O'Broinhttp://pub.vitrue.com/UEiF OTNArchBeat ?SOA, Cloud & Service Technology Symposium 2012London - Special Oracle Discounthttp://pub.vitrue.com/8E0J SOA CommunityBecome a facebook fan of soacommunity http://www.facebook.com/soacommunity #soacommunity SOA Community ?SOA Suite HealthCare Integration Architecture https://blogs.oracle.com/SOAForHealthcare/entry/soa_suite_healthcare_integration_architecture #soacommunity #soa Andrejus Baranovskis ?Running Pre-built Virtual Machine for SOA Suite and BPM Suite 11g PS5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6http://fb.me/vB8nO0Vg OracleBlogsPrinciples of Service-Oriented Architecture by Douwe P. van den Bos http://ow.ly/1kIcOP OTNArchBeatOracle Public Cloud Architecture | @TylerJewell http://ow.ly/bHAcL The SOA Network ?Business Process Management, Service-Oriented Architecture, and Web 2.0: Business Transformation or.http://bit.ly/LBgREL #ITNews #SOA OracleBlogs ?Oracle SOA Foundation Practitioner Certificationhttp://ow.ly/1kGYYg Frank Nimphius ?Learn Advanced ADF. ORACLE Fusion Middleware Summer Camps in Lisbon - July 9th - 13thhttp://bit.ly/KGCl3i SOA CommunityTransform Your Application Integration with Best Practices from Oracle Customershttps://blogs.oracle.com/SOA/entry/transform_your_application_integration_with #soacommunity #soa #bpm Simone GeibWhat you always wanted to know about #oraclesoa diagnostics: Shawn Bailey, Overview of SOA Diagnostics in 11.1.1.6,http://ow.ly/bxK0M Oracle SOA ?Save the date: Jun 21 10AM, SOA & BPM Customer Insight Series. Hear how Choice Hotels went from legacy to #oraclesoa http://bit.ly/LsNDGl OTNArchBeat ?New VirtualBox images for Oracle SOA Suite & Oracle BPM Suite 11.1.1.6.0http://ow.ly/bwDAl OracleBlogs ?Process development lifecycle in Oracle BPM 11g http://ow.ly/1ktesY Daniel AmadeiNew post: Oracle BPEL 11g Message Delivery & Recovery.http://amadei.com.br/blog/index.php /oracle-bpel-11g-message-delivery SOA Community ?Sending out the June edition of the #soacommunity newsletter - read it or become a member http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa!#soa #bpm Arun Pareek ?For the past six months Ahmed Aboulnaga and me have been working on Oracle SOA Suite 11g Administrator's Handbook.http://lnkd.in/CAvpUQ SOA CommunitySun shine all day no clouds - solar eclipse is over... #sunshine #cloud http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Swarm-Computing Michel SchildmeijerWatch my blog Oracle Service Bus 11g: listing projects and services with WLST - part 1 http://lnkd.in/B7f3GQ @TITAN_GS @wlscommunity OTNArchBeatBook Review: Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) Foundation Pack 11gR1: Essentials | Rajesh Rahejahttp://ow.ly/bn2cc OTNArchBeat ?Driving from Business Architecture to Business Process Services | @vghariharan http://ow.ly/bn5UB OTNArchBeat ?SOA Analysis within the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) 2.0 - Part II | Dawit Lessanu http://ow.ly/bn6sX Simone Geib ?Contact me directly for ideas how to improvehttp://bit.ly/advancedsoasuite and additional posts, presentations, white papers, ... #soasuite Simone Geib ?#soasuite advanced OTN page has become too cluttered. Broke it into separate pages to start with. http://bit.ly/advancedsoasuite OracleBlogs ?June Webcast: SOA Gateway Implementation and Troubleshooting (2 sessions) http://ow.ly/1kbRFA ServiceTechSymposium ?New session just posted to calendar: "NoSQL for Data Services, Data Virtualization & Big Data" by Guido Schmutz, Trivadis AG ://ow.ly/bjjOeDebra Lilley ?looks good - real proof people are using the apps ! RT @fteter: Very cool Fusion Applications Help site: http://bit.ly/L3nvOR #FusionApps demed ?rapid proliferation of cloud computing will drive convergence of SOA and cloud paradigms" http://ovum.com/2012/05/18/soa-paves-the-way-for-cloud/ SOA CommunityMiddleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012-HAPPY NEW YEAR! https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/middleware-oracle-excellence-awards-2012happy-new-year/ #soacommunity #opn #opnaward #specialization #oracle SOA CommunityHappy New Year #soacommunity thanks for the business! Time for a drink http://pic.twitter.com/zkK08KWB OTNArchBeat ?Who should ‘own’ the Enterprise Architecture? | Michael Glas http://bit.ly/K0ge0Q SOA Communitytop Tweets SOA Partner Community &ndash; May 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-pP ServiceTechSymposiumNew session just posted to Symposium calendar: "Elastic SOA in the Cloud" by Steve Millidge, C2B2 Consulting http://www.servicetechsymposium.com/agenda2012.php #elastic_soa_in_the_cloud orclateamsoa ?A-Team Blog #ateam: How to Set JVM Parameters in Oracle SOA 11Ghttp://ow.ly/1k2cnl ServiceTechSymposium ?New session just posted to Symposium calendar: "SOA Governance at EDP: A Global Energy Company" by Manuel Rosa, Linkhttp://www.servicetechsymposium.com/agenda2012.php#soa_governance_at_edp SOA Community ?VirtualBox image SOA Suite & BPM Suite 11.1.1.6.0&ndash;Your feedback?http://wp.me/p10C8u-qh Oracle MiddlewareSave the date: Jun 21 10AM, SOA & BPM Customer Insight Series. Hear how Choice Hotels went from legacy to#oraclesoa http://bit.ly/LU1y5N OTNArchBeat ?Goodbye, Silos. Hello SOA. | @stephanieoverbyhttp://pub.vitrue.com/NJJO SOA CommunityBPM Standard Edition - to start your BPM project http://wp.me/p10C8u-qj Please feel free to send us your news! And add your blog to our SOA blog wiki. Back to top OVERVIEW OF SOA DIAGNOSTICS IN 11.1.1.6 What tools are available for diagnosing SOA Suite issues? There are a variety of tools available to help you and Support diagnose SOA Suite issues in 11g but it can be confusing as to which tool is appropriate for a particular situation and what their relationships are. This blog post will introduce the various tools and attempt to clarify what each is for and how they are related. Let's first list the tools we'll be addressing: RDA: Remote Diagnostic Agent DFW: Diagnostic Framework Selective Tracing DMS: Dynamic Monitoring Service ODL: Oracle Diagnostic Logging ADR: Automatic Diagnostics Repository ADRCI: Automatic Diagnostics Repository Command Interpreter WLDF: WebLogic Diagnostic Framework This overview is not mean to be a comprehensive guide on using all of these tools, however, extensive reference materials are included that will provide many more details on their execution. Another point to note is that all of these tools are applicable for Fusion Middleware as a whole but specific products may or may not have implemented features to leverage them. A couple of the tools have a WebLogic Scripting Tool or 'WLST' interface. WLST is a command interface for executing pre-built functions and custom scripts against a domain. A detailed WLST tutorial is beyond the scope of this post but you can find general information here. There are more specific resources in the below sections.In this post when we refer to 'Enterprise Manager' or 'EM' we are referring to Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control. read the full blog post here. Read more on Oracle and post your comment here. Back to top BUSINESS DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT (BDD) DEMO NOW AVAILABLE! For access to the Oracle demo systems please visit OPN and talk to your Partner Expert DSS is pleased to announce the availability of the demo “Business Driven Development“. This innovative demonstration uses a case-study approach to show business users how they can easily streamline their Business Processes - delivering greater efficiency, agility, visibility and collaboration with Oracle BPM and WebCenter. The BDD demonstration uses a case study-based approach to highlight a business problem at a fictional company, Avitek Corporation, and uses Oracle BPM and Oracle WebCenter to solve the business problem. This holistic approach has specifically been used to appeal to a non-technical business analyst user. This demo is NOT focused on product features, but aims to guide users through a complete BPM lifecycle. The scenario is based on improving a simple order process (scenario details are in the demo script). Avitek Corporation is sufferinng from a manual email-driven ordering process. Sales reps don’t know where the customer orders are stuck (no visibility) and finance users are unable to manually approve every order (no automation). There are several areas where this process can be improved with Business Process Management technology. This demo shows how improving following areas will ignificantly help resolve the business problems Avitek Corporation is facing. Areas for improvement include: Utilizing BPM for process management, rather than an unregulated, email-based process. Utilizing automated services, rather than requiring a human to key into a system. For example, Finance checking the customer’s credit rating is something that could be automated. Centralizing business rules that can be integrated into a business process, rather than requiring a human to process them. For example, Finance must determine when orders can be automatically approved. Provide insight and visibility into the process. For example, Sales Rep needs to know the status of their customer’s orders. The BDD Demo uses the following products. Oracle BPM Suite 11g PS4FP Oracle WebCenter 11g PS4FP (for Process Spaces) Oracle Business Activity Monitoring 11g Oracle Database 11g Back to top SOA LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT For access to the Oracle demo systems please visit OPN and talk to your Partner Expert We are pleased to announce the availability of the SOA Management demo that showcases some of the key provisioning and lifecycle management capabilities of SOA Management Pack Enterprise Edition (EE). This demo specifically focuses on some of the lifecycle management solutions for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Service Bus (OSB). Demo Highlights The demo showcases the following capabilities. Provisioning of SOA Composites Provisioning of OSB Projects Provision SOA and OSB artifacts in a future maintenance window Back to top ORACLE FUSION APPLICATIONS DESIGN PATTERNS The Oracle Fusion Applications user experience design patterns are published! These new, reusable usability solutions and best-practices, which will join the Oracle dashboard patterns and guidelines that are already available online, are used by Oracle to artfully bring to life a new standard in the user experience, or UX, of enterprise applications. Now, the Oracle applications development community can benefit from the science behind the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience, too. These Oracle Fusion Applications UX Design Patterns, or blueprints, enable Oracle applications developers and system implementers everywhere to leverage professional usability insight when: tailoring an Oracle Fusion application, creating coexistence solutions that existing users will be delighted with, thus enabling graceful user transitions to Oracle Fusion Applications down the road, or designing exciting, new, highly usable applications in the cloud or on-premise. Based on the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) components, the Oracle Fusion Applications patterns and guidelines are proven with real users and in the Applications UX usability labs, so you can get right to work coding productivity-enhancing designs that provide an advantage for your entire business. What’s the best way to get started? We’ve made that easy, too. The Design Filter Tool (DeFT) selects the best pattern for your user type and task. Simply adapt your selection for your own task flow and content, and you’re on your way to a really great applications user experience. More Oracle applications design patterns and training are coming your way in the future. To provide feedback on the sets that are currently available, let me know in the comments! Read more on Fusionapps and post your comment here. Back to top UPDATED ORACLE MATERIAL Integrated SOA Gateway Documentation - Implementation Guide | Developer’s Guide Webcast Series: Oracle’s SOA and Oracle Business Process Management Solutions (Choice Hotels, Eaton, Farmers Insurance) BAM design pointers By Kavitha Srinivasan Seeking Oracle Fusion Middleware Go Live StoriesOracle Fusion Middleware product management is looking for recent go live stories to share with the Oracle sales team, sales consulting, product management and other internal groups. Customer contact details may remain anonymous. Your successful implementation will be featured in a quarterly report. The chance to present on an internal webcast is also available. Contact Maria Forney ([email protected]) if you have a noteworthy implementation success story. This is a good opportunity for partners interested in showcasing Oracle Fusion Middleware implementations, and gaining more exposure within Oracle. Performance tuning resources. All in one: docs, blogs, WPs, ppts: http://bit.ly/soa_resources Back to top HAVE YOU MISSED OUR LAST SOA PARTNER COMMUNITY WEBCASTS? UPK Webcast Business Driven Application Management & BPM11g & Application Grid & GoldenGate & Fusion Middleware Pricing & OC4J to WebLogic & Next Generation SOA & Fusion Middleware in Utility & Fusion Middleware in Communications & Fusion Middleware in Public Services & Fusion Middleware in Financial Services Please check your local OPN trainings calendar for additional training dates and locations. Back to top SOA PARTNER COMMUNITY CALENDAR On-Demand Trainings Event Name Language Type SOA Virtual Developers Day English Tech In-Class Trainings Date Event name Location / Country Contact person Type 09-13.07.2012 BPM Suite 11g advanced training by David Read Lisbon, Portugal Jürgen Kress Tech 09-13.07.2012 ADF 11g advanced training by Grant Ronald and Frank Nimphius Lisbon, Portugal Jürgen Kress Tech 09-13.07.2012 WebCenter Portal advanced training by Stefan Krantz and Angelo Santagata Lisbon, Portugal Jürgen Kress Tech 10.07.2012 Fusion Middleware Virtual Developer Day Online OTN Tech 10- 12.07.2012 WebLogic 12c training by Cosmin Tudor Lisbon, Portugal Jürgen Kress Tech 16-18.07.2012 SOA Suite 11g advanced training by Niall Commiskey Munich, Germany Jürgen Kress Tech 16-18.07.2012 ADF for BPM Suite 11g advanced training by David Read Munich, Germany Jürgen Kress Tech 16-18.07.2012 WebCenter Sites 11g advanced training by Product Management Munich, Germany Jürgen Kress Tech 17-20.07.2012 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Live Virtual Class Oracle University Tech 23-26.07.2012 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Utrecht, Netherlands Oracle University Tech 29-31.08.2012 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Live Virtual Class Oracle University Tech 02-05.10.2012 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Utrecht, Netherlands Oracle University Tech 15-18.10.2012 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Utrecht, Netherlands Oracle University Tech 28-30.11.2012 Oracle AIA 11g Implementation Bootcamp Live Virtual Class Oracle University Tech 11-14.12.2012 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Live Virtual Class Oracle University Tech 20-22.2.2013 Oracle AIA 11g Implementation Bootcamp Utrecht, Netherlands Oracle University Tech 14-17.1.2013 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Utrecht, Netherlands Oracle University Tech 15-18.3.2013 Oracle BPM 11g Implementation Bootcamp Utrecht, Netherlands Oracle University Tech Please check your local OPN Training Calendar for additional training and locations here. Back to top SOASCHOOL.COM - SOA CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL(SOACP) PROGRAM The SOASchool.com - SOA Certified Professional (SOACP) program is dedicated to excellence in the field of SOA and service-oriented computing. Through a series of seasoned course modules and exams, IT professionals have the opportunity to obtain a number of different certifications to recognize their accomplishment of gaining "project ready" SOA proficiency. This comprehensive and strictly vendor-neutral program was developed in cooperation with best-selling SOA author Thomas Erl and several major SOA organizations and academic institutions. Through the involvement of the SOA Education Committee, course contents and certification requirements are constantly reviewed and revised to stay current with developments in the service-oriented computing industry. The program is currently comprised of 12 course modules and 5 certifications and is expanding to 18 course modules and 8 certifications throughout 2009. For more information, visit www.soaschool.com and www.soacp.com. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Back to top YOUR CONTENT ON THE NEWSLETTER AND ON THE SOA COMMUNITY PORTAL Publishing Your StoriesWe would like to invite our partners to publish information in the newsletter or on our SOA Community portal. Especially we are looking for your real life experience with our SOA technology. Please send your documents to Jürgen Kress. We look forward to getting your suggestions! Back to top SOA DISCUSSION FORUM BECOMES INTERACTIVE AT THE SOA COMMUNITY! Do you want to chat to experts, including partners and Oracle SOA Product Development? Do you want to get the latest information about our SOA solutions and events?Attend our private online SOA Discussion Forum at OTN. Please send your OTN forums user name to Brigitte Felisaz. You must be a registered user to access the SOA Discussion Forum. Back to top INVITE YOUR COLLEAGUES TO JOIN THE SOA COMMUNITY Please feel free to invite your colleagues to join the SOA Community and to participate in the SOA Assessment tests. For registration please login the Oracle PartnerNetwork and go to: www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa For any questions on the above or concerning SOA and Oracle in general please contact the Oracle EMEA Alliances & Channels SOA Team. Best regardsOracle EMEA SOA TeamJürgen Kress Jürgen KressSOA Partner Adoption EMEATel. +49 89 1430 1479E-Mail: [email protected]

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