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  • Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion

    Communication with your environment is an essential part of everyone's life. And it doesn't matter whether you are actually living in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, within the pulsating heart of a big city, or in my case on a wonderful island in the Indian Ocean. The ability to exchange your thoughts, your experience and your worries with another person helps you to get different points of view and new ideas on how to resolve an issue you might be confronted with. Benefits of community work What happens to be common sense in your daily life, also applies to your work environment. Working in IT, or ICT as it is called in Mauritius, requires a lot of reading and learning. Not only during your lectures at the university but with your colleagues in a project assignment and hopefully with 'unknown' pals in the universe of online communities. At least I can say that I learned quite a lot from other developers code, their responses in various forums, their numerous blog articles, and while attending local user group meetings. When I started to work as a professional software developer (or engineer some may say) years ago I immediately checked the existence of communities on the programming language, the database technology and other vital information on software development in general. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to find. My employer had a subscription of the monthly magazines and newsletters of a national organisation which also run the biggest forum in that area. Getting in touch with other developers and reading their common problems but also solutions was a huge benefit to my growth. Image courtesy of Michael Kappel (CC BY-NC 2.0) Active participation and regular contribution to this community gave me some nice advantages, too. Within three years I was listed as a conference speaker at the annual developer's conference and provided several sessions on different topics during consecutive years. Back in 2004, I took over the responsibility and management of the monthly meetings of a regional user group, and organised it for more than two years. Furthermore, I was invited to the newly-founded community program of Microsoft Germany (Community Leader/Insider Program - CLIP). My website on Active FoxPro Pages was nominated in the second batch of online communities. Due to my community work and providing advice to others, I had the honour to be awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Visual Developer for Visual FoxPro in the years 2006 and 2007. It was a great experience to meet with other like-minded people and I'm really grateful for that. Just in case, more details are listed in my Curriculum Vitae. But this all changed when I moved to Mauritius... Cyber island Mauritius? During the first months in Mauritius I was way too busy to think about community activities at all. First of all, there was the new company that had to be set up, the new staff had to be trained and of course the communication work-flows and so on with the project managers back in Germany had to be sorted out, too. Second, I had to get a grip of my private matters like getting the basics for my new household or exploring the neighbourhood, and last but not least I needed a break from the hectic and intensive work prior to my departure. As soon as the sea literally calmed down, I started to have conversations with my colleagues about communities and user groups. Sadly, it turned out that there were none, or at least no one was aware of any at that time. Oh oh, what did I do? Anyway, having this kind of background and very positive experience with off-line and on-line activities I decided for myself that some day I'm going to found a community in Mauritius for all kind of IT/ICT-related fields. The main focus might be on software development but not on a certain technology or methodology. It was clear to me that it should be an open infrastructure and anyone is welcome to join, to experience, to share and to contribute if they would like to. That was the idea at that time... Ok, fast-forward to recent events. At the end of October 2012 I was invited to an event called Open Days organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands together with other local partners and resellers. There I got in touch with local Technical Evangelist Arnaud Meslier and we had a good conversation on communities during the breaks. Eventually, I left a good impression on him, as we are having chats on Facebook or Skype irregularly. Well, seeing that my personal and professional surroundings have been settled and running smooth, having that great exchange and contact with Microsoft IOI (again), and being really eager to re-animate my intentions from 2007, I recently founded a new community: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community - #MSCC It took me a while to settle down with the name but it was obvious that the community should not be attached to one single technology, like ie. .NET user group, Oracle developers, or Joomla friends (these are fictitious names). There are several other reasons why I came up with 'Craftsmanship' as the core topic of this community. The expression of 'engineering' didn't feel right with the fields covered. Software development in all kind of facets is a craft, and therefore demands a lot of practice but also guidance from more experienced developers. It also includes the process of designing, modelling and drafting the ideas. Has to deal with various types of tests and test methodologies, and of course should be focused on flexible and agile ways of acting. In order to meet and to excel a customer's request for a solution. Next, I was looking for an easy way to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments. Using all kind of social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, etc. I was never really confident about their features of event handling. More by chance I stumbled upon Meetup.com and in combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I am looking forward to advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there will be a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians!

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  • Emtel Knowledge Series - Q2/2014

    From Cyber Island to Smart Mauritius Cyber Island? Smart Mauritius? - What is Emtel talking about? "With the majority of the population living in urban environments today, the concept of "Smart Cities" has become an urgent necessity. "Smart Cities" refer to an urban transformation which, by using latest ICT technologies makes cities more efficient. Many Governments are setting out ambitious plans to build the cities of the future based on massive connectivity, high bandwidth communications, intelligent sensors and analysis of huge volumes of data. Various researches have shown four key enablers for smart city success - Government leadership, suitable technology infrastructure, solid public-private partnerships and engaged citizens. It is around these enabling factors that telecoms companies can play a vital role in assisting governments to deliver on the smart city vision." The Emtel Knowledge Series goes in compliance with Emtel's 25th anniversary celebrations throughout the year and the master of ceremony, Kim Andersen, mentioned that there will be more upcoming events on a quarterly base. As a representative of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) there was absolutely no hesitation to join in again. Following my visit to the first Emtel Knowledge Series workshop back in February this year, it was great to have another opportunity to meet and exchange with technology experts. But quite frankly what is it with those buzz words... As far as I remember and how it was mentioned "Cyber Island" is an old initiative from around 2005/2006 which has been refreshed in 2010. It implies the empowerment of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) as an essential factor of growth by the government here in Mauritius. Actually, the first promotional period of Cyber Island brought me here but that's another story. The venue and its own problems Like last time the event was organised and held at the Conference Hall at Cyber Tower I in Ebene. As I've been working there for some years, I know about the frustrating situation of finding a proper parking. So, does Smart Island include better solutions for the search of parking spaces? Maybe, let's see whether I will be able to answer that question at the end of the article. Anyway, after circling around the tower almost two times, I finally got a decent space to put the car, without risking to get a ticket or damage actually. International speakers and their experience Once again, Emtel did a great job to get international expertise onto the stage to share their experience and vision on this kind of embarkment. Personally, I really appreciated the fact they were speakers of global reach and could provide own-experience knowledge. Johan Gott spoke about the fundamental change that the Swedish government ignited in order to move their society and workers' environment away from heavy industry towards a knowledge-based approach. Additionally, we spoke about the effort and transformation of New York City into a greener and more efficient Smart City. Given modern technology he also advised that any kind of available Big Data should be opened to the general public - this openness would provide a playground for anyone to garner new ideas and most probably solid solutions of which no one else thought about before. Emtel Knowledge Series on moving from Cyber Island to Smart Mauritus Later during the afternoon that exact statement regarding openness to and transparency of government-owned Big Data has been emphasised again by the Danish speaker Kim Andersen and his former colleague Mika Jantunen from Finland. Mika continued to underline the important role of the government to provide a solid foundation for a knowledge-based society and mentioned that Finnish citizens have a constitutional right to broadband connectivity. Next to free higher (tertiary) education Finland already produced a good number of innovations, among them are: First country to grant voting rights to women Free higher education Constitutional right to broadband connectivity Nokia Linux Angry Birds Sauna and others...  General access to internet via broadband and/or mobile connectivity is surely a key factor towards Smart Cities, or better said Smart Mauritius given the area dimensions and size of population. CTO Paul Valette gave the audience a brief overview of the essential role that Emtel will have to move Mauritius forward towards a knowledge-based and innovation-driven environment for its citizen. What I have seen looks really promising and with recently published information that Mauritians have 127% of mobile capacity - meaning more than 1 mobile, smartphone or tablet per person - it will be crucial to have the right infrastructure for these connected devices. How would it be possible to achieve a knowledge-based society? YouTube to the rescue!Seriously, gaining more knowledge will require to have fast access to educational course material as explained by Dr Kaviraj Sukon, General Director of the Open University of Mauritius. According to him a good number of high-profile universities in the world have opened their course libraries to the general public, among them EDX, Coursera and Open University. Nowadays, you're actually able and enabled to learn for and earn a BSc or even MSc certification on your own pace - no need to attend classed on campus. It was really impressive to see the number of available hours - more than enough for a life-long learning experience! {loadposition content_adsense} Networking in the name of MSCC As briefly mentioned above I was about to combine two approaches for this workshop. Of course, getting latest information and updates on Emtel services available, especially for my business here on the west coast of the island, but also to meet and greet new people for the MSCC. And I think it was very positive on both sides. Let me quickly describe some of the key aspects that happened during the day: Met with Arnaud Meslier and Kellie, both Microsoft to swap latest information on IT events. Hereby, I got an invite to Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 Dev Camp. Got in touch with Arvin Lockee, Emtel to check our options to meet with the data team, and seizing the opportunity to have a visiting tour at the Emtel Data Centre. Had a great chat with Avinash Meetoo, Knowledge 7, Kim Andersen and Mika Jantunen about the situation of teaching and learning in general and specifically in the private sector here in Mauritius. Additionally, a number of various other interesting chats... Once again, I'm catching up on a couple of business cards in order to provide more background information about the MSCC, and to create a better awareness of MSCC within the local IT businesses. There is more to come soon!  Resume of the day The number of attendees during this event has been doubled or even tripled this time. The whole organisation has been improved massively and the combination of presentation and summarizing panel discussions was better than during the previous workshop back in February. Overall, once again a well-organised workshop and I'm already looking forward to join the next workshop in Q3. Update End of July we finally managed to visit the Emtel Data Centre in Arsenal. It was an interesting opportunity for some of our MSCC members.

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  • The Sensemaking Spectrum for Business Analytics: Translating from Data to Business Through Analysis

    - by Joe Lamantia
    One of the most compelling outcomes of our strategic research efforts over the past several years is a growing vocabulary that articulates our cumulative understanding of the deep structure of the domains of discovery and business analytics. Modes are one example of the deep structure we’ve found.  After looking at discovery activities across a very wide range of industries, question types, business needs, and problem solving approaches, we've identified distinct and recurring kinds of sensemaking activity, independent of context.  We label these activities Modes: Explore, compare, and comprehend are three of the nine recognizable modes.  Modes describe *how* people go about realizing insights.  (Read more about the programmatic research and formal academic grounding and discussion of the modes here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235971352_A_Taxonomy_of_Enterprise_Search_and_Discovery) By analogy to languages, modes are the 'verbs' of discovery activity.  When applied to the practical questions of product strategy and development, the modes of discovery allow one to identify what kinds of analytical activity a product, platform, or solution needs to support across a spread of usage scenarios, and then make concrete and well-informed decisions about every aspect of the solution, from high-level capabilities, to which specific types of information visualizations better enable these scenarios for the types of data users will analyze. The modes are a powerful generative tool for product making, but if you've spent time with young children, or had a really bad hangover (or both at the same time...), you understand the difficult of communicating using only verbs.  So I'm happy to share that we've found traction on another facet of the deep structure of discovery and business analytics.  Continuing the language analogy, we've identified some of the ‘nouns’ in the language of discovery: specifically, the consistently recurring aspects of a business that people are looking for insight into.  We call these discovery Subjects, since they identify *what* people focus on during discovery efforts, rather than *how* they go about discovery as with the Modes. Defining the collection of Subjects people repeatedly focus on allows us to understand and articulate sense making needs and activity in more specific, consistent, and complete fashion.  In combination with the Modes, we can use Subjects to concretely identify and define scenarios that describe people’s analytical needs and goals.  For example, a scenario such as ‘Explore [a Mode] the attrition rates [a Measure, one type of Subject] of our largest customers [Entities, another type of Subject] clearly captures the nature of the activity — exploration of trends vs. deep analysis of underlying factors — and the central focus — attrition rates for customers above a certain set of size criteria — from which follow many of the specifics needed to address this scenario in terms of data, analytical tools, and methods. We can also use Subjects to translate effectively between the different perspectives that shape discovery efforts, reducing ambiguity and increasing impact on both sides the perspective divide.  For example, from the language of business, which often motivates analytical work by asking questions in business terms, to the perspective of analysis.  The question posed to a Data Scientist or analyst may be something like “Why are sales of our new kinds of potato chips to our largest customers fluctuating unexpectedly this year?” or “Where can innovate, by expanding our product portfolio to meet unmet needs?”.  Analysts translate questions and beliefs like these into one or more empirical discovery efforts that more formally and granularly indicate the plan, methods, tools, and desired outcomes of analysis.  From the perspective of analysis this second question might become, “Which customer needs of type ‘A', identified and measured in terms of ‘B’, that are not directly or indirectly addressed by any of our current products, offer 'X' potential for ‘Y' positive return on the investment ‘Z' required to launch a new offering, in time frame ‘W’?  And how do these compare to each other?”.  Translation also happens from the perspective of analysis to the perspective of data; in terms of availability, quality, completeness, format, volume, etc. By implication, we are proposing that most working organizations — small and large, for profit and non-profit, domestic and international, and in the majority of industries — can be described for analytical purposes using this collection of Subjects.  This is a bold claim, but simplified articulation of complexity is one of the primary goals of sensemaking frameworks such as this one.  (And, yes, this is in fact a framework for making sense of sensemaking as a category of activity - but we’re not considering the recursive aspects of this exercise at the moment.) Compellingly, we can place the collection of subjects on a single continuum — we call it the Sensemaking Spectrum — that simply and coherently illustrates some of the most important relationships between the different types of Subjects, and also illuminates several of the fundamental dynamics shaping business analytics as a domain.  As a corollary, the Sensemaking Spectrum also suggests innovation opportunities for products and services related to business analytics. The first illustration below shows Subjects arrayed along the Sensemaking Spectrum; the second illustration presents examples of each kind of Subject.  Subjects appear in colors ranging from blue to reddish-orange, reflecting their place along the Spectrum, which indicates whether a Subject addresses more the viewpoint of systems and data (Data centric and blue), or people (User centric and orange).  This axis is shown explicitly above the Spectrum.  Annotations suggest how Subjects align with the three significant perspectives of Data, Analysis, and Business that shape business analytics activity.  This rendering makes explicit the translation and bridging function of Analysts as a role, and analysis as an activity. Subjects are best understood as fuzzy categories [http://georgelakoff.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/hedges-a-study-in-meaning-criteria-and-the-logic-of-fuzzy-concepts-journal-of-philosophical-logic-2-lakoff-19731.pdf], rather than tightly defined buckets.  For each Subject, we suggest some of the most common examples: Entities may be physical things such as named products, or locations (a building, or a city); they could be Concepts, such as satisfaction; or they could be Relationships between entities, such as the variety of possible connections that define linkage in social networks.  Likewise, Events may indicate a time and place in the dictionary sense; or they may be Transactions involving named entities; or take the form of Signals, such as ‘some Measure had some value at some time’ - what many enterprises understand as alerts.   The central story of the Spectrum is that though consumers of analytical insights (represented here by the Business perspective) need to work in terms of Subjects that are directly meaningful to their perspective — such as Themes, Plans, and Goals — the working realities of data (condition, structure, availability, completeness, cost) and the changing nature of most discovery efforts make direct engagement with source data in this fashion impossible.  Accordingly, business analytics as a domain is structured around the fundamental assumption that sense making depends on analytical transformation of data.  Analytical activity incrementally synthesizes more complex and larger scope Subjects from data in its starting condition, accumulating insight (and value) by moving through a progression of stages in which increasingly meaningful Subjects are iteratively synthesized from the data, and recombined with other Subjects.  The end goal of  ‘laddering’ successive transformations is to enable sense making from the business perspective, rather than the analytical perspective.Synthesis through laddering is typically accomplished by specialized Analysts using dedicated tools and methods. Beginning with some motivating question such as seeking opportunities to increase the efficiency (a Theme) of fulfillment processes to reach some level of profitability by the end of the year (Plan), Analysts will iteratively wrangle and transform source data Records, Values and Attributes into recognizable Entities, such as Products, that can be combined with Measures or other data into the Events (shipment of orders) that indicate the workings of the business.  More complex Subjects (to the right of the Spectrum) are composed of or make reference to less complex Subjects: a business Process such as Fulfillment will include Activities such as confirming, packing, and then shipping orders.  These Activities occur within or are conducted by organizational units such as teams of staff or partner firms (Networks), composed of Entities which are structured via Relationships, such as supplier and buyer.  The fulfillment process will involve other types of Entities, such as the products or services the business provides.  The success of the fulfillment process overall may be judged according to a sophisticated operating efficiency Model, which includes tiered Measures of business activity and health for the transactions and activities included.  All of this may be interpreted through an understanding of the operational domain of the businesses supply chain (a Domain).   We'll discuss the Spectrum in more depth in succeeding posts.

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  • DTracing TCP congestion control

    - by user12820842
    In a previous post, I showed how we can use DTrace to probe TCP receive and send window events. TCP receive and send windows are in effect both about flow-controlling how much data can be received - the receive window reflects how much data the local TCP is prepared to receive, while the send window simply reflects the size of the receive window of the peer TCP. Both then represent flow control as imposed by the receiver. However, consider that without the sender imposing flow control, and a slow link to a peer, TCP will simply fill up it's window with sent segments. Dealing with multiple TCP implementations filling their peer TCP's receive windows in this manner, busy intermediate routers may drop some of these segments, leading to timeout and retransmission, which may again lead to drops. This is termed congestion, and TCP has multiple congestion control strategies. We can see that in this example, we need to have some way of adjusting how much data we send depending on how quickly we receive acknowledgement - if we get ACKs quickly, we can safely send more segments, but if acknowledgements come slowly, we should proceed with more caution. More generally, we need to implement flow control on the send side also. Slow Start and Congestion Avoidance From RFC2581, let's examine the relevant variables: "The congestion window (cwnd) is a sender-side limit on the amount of data the sender can transmit into the network before receiving an acknowledgment (ACK). Another state variable, the slow start threshold (ssthresh), is used to determine whether the slow start or congestion avoidance algorithm is used to control data transmission" Slow start is used to probe the network's ability to handle transmission bursts both when a connection is first created and when retransmission timers fire. The latter case is important, as the fact that we have effectively lost TCP data acts as a motivator for re-probing how much data the network can handle from the sending TCP. The congestion window (cwnd) is initialized to a relatively small value, generally a low multiple of the sending maximum segment size. When slow start kicks in, we will only send that number of bytes before waiting for acknowledgement. When acknowledgements are received, the congestion window is increased in size until cwnd reaches the slow start threshold ssthresh value. For most congestion control algorithms the window increases exponentially under slow start, assuming we receive acknowledgements. We send 1 segment, receive an ACK, increase the cwnd by 1 MSS to 2*MSS, send 2 segments, receive 2 ACKs, increase the cwnd by 2*MSS to 4*MSS, send 4 segments etc. When the congestion window exceeds the slow start threshold, congestion avoidance is used instead of slow start. During congestion avoidance, the congestion window is generally updated by one MSS for each round-trip-time as opposed to each ACK, and so cwnd growth is linear instead of exponential (we may receive multiple ACKs within a single RTT). This continues until congestion is detected. If a retransmit timer fires, congestion is assumed and the ssthresh value is reset. It is reset to a fraction of the number of bytes outstanding (unacknowledged) in the network. At the same time the congestion window is reset to a single max segment size. Thus, we initiate slow start until we start receiving acknowledgements again, at which point we can eventually flip over to congestion avoidance when cwnd ssthresh. Congestion control algorithms differ most in how they handle the other indication of congestion - duplicate ACKs. A duplicate ACK is a strong indication that data has been lost, since they often come from a receiver explicitly asking for a retransmission. In some cases, a duplicate ACK may be generated at the receiver as a result of packets arriving out-of-order, so it is sensible to wait for multiple duplicate ACKs before assuming packet loss rather than out-of-order delivery. This is termed fast retransmit (i.e. retransmit without waiting for the retransmission timer to expire). Note that on Oracle Solaris 11, the congestion control method used can be customized. See here for more details. In general, 3 or more duplicate ACKs indicate packet loss and should trigger fast retransmit . It's best not to revert to slow start in this case, as the fact that the receiver knew it was missing data suggests it has received data with a higher sequence number, so we know traffic is still flowing. Falling back to slow start would be excessive therefore, so fast recovery is used instead. Observing slow start and congestion avoidance The following script counts TCP segments sent when under slow start (cwnd ssthresh). #!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s #pragma D option quiet tcp:::connect-request / start[args[1]-cs_cid] == 0/ { start[args[1]-cs_cid] = 1; } tcp:::send / start[args[1]-cs_cid] == 1 && args[3]-tcps_cwnd tcps_cwnd_ssthresh / { @c["Slow start", args[2]-ip_daddr, args[4]-tcp_dport] = count(); } tcp:::send / start[args[1]-cs_cid] == 1 && args[3]-tcps_cwnd args[3]-tcps_cwnd_ssthresh / { @c["Congestion avoidance", args[2]-ip_daddr, args[4]-tcp_dport] = count(); } As we can see the script only works on connections initiated since it is started (using the start[] associative array with the connection ID as index to set whether it's a new connection (start[cid] = 1). From there we simply differentiate send events where cwnd ssthresh (congestion avoidance). Here's the output taken when I accessed a YouTube video (where rport is 80) and from an FTP session where I put a large file onto a remote system. # dtrace -s tcp_slow_start.d ^C ALGORITHM RADDR RPORT #SEG Slow start 10.153.125.222 20 6 Slow start 138.3.237.7 80 14 Slow start 10.153.125.222 21 18 Congestion avoidance 10.153.125.222 20 1164 We see that in the case of the YouTube video, slow start was exclusively used. Most of the segments we sent in that case were likely ACKs. Compare this case - where 14 segments were sent using slow start - to the FTP case, where only 6 segments were sent before we switched to congestion avoidance for 1164 segments. In the case of the FTP session, the FTP data on port 20 was predominantly sent with congestion avoidance in operation, while the FTP session relied exclusively on slow start. For the default congestion control algorithm - "newreno" - on Solaris 11, slow start will increase the cwnd by 1 MSS for every acknowledgement received, and by 1 MSS for each RTT in congestion avoidance mode. Different pluggable congestion control algorithms operate slightly differently. For example "highspeed" will update the slow start cwnd by the number of bytes ACKed rather than the MSS. And to finish, here's a neat oneliner to visually display the distribution of congestion window values for all TCP connections to a given remote port using a quantization. In this example, only port 80 is in use and we see the majority of cwnd values for that port are in the 4096-8191 range. # dtrace -n 'tcp:::send { @q[args[4]-tcp_dport] = quantize(args[3]-tcps_cwnd); }' dtrace: description 'tcp:::send ' matched 10 probes ^C 80 value ------------- Distribution ------------- count -1 | 0 0 |@@@@@@ 5 1 | 0 2 | 0 4 | 0 8 | 0 16 | 0 32 | 0 64 | 0 128 | 0 256 | 0 512 | 0 1024 | 0 2048 |@@@@@@@@@ 8 4096 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 23 8192 | 0

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  • Cancelling Route Navigation in AngularJS Controllers

    - by dwahlin
    If you’re new to AngularJS check out my AngularJS in 60-ish Minutes video tutorial or download the free eBook. Also check out The AngularJS Magazine for up-to-date information on using AngularJS to build Single Page Applications (SPAs). Routing provides a nice way to associate views with controllers in AngularJS using a minimal amount of code. While a user is normally able to navigate directly to a specific route, there may be times when a user triggers a route change before they’ve finalized an important action such as saving data. In these types of situations you may want to cancel the route navigation and ask the user if they’d like to finish what they were doing so that their data isn’t lost. In this post I’ll talk about a technique that can be used to accomplish this type of routing task.   The $locationChangeStart Event When route navigation occurs in an AngularJS application a few events are raised. One is named $locationChangeStart and the other is named $routeChangeStart (there are other events as well). At the current time (version 1.2) the $routeChangeStart doesn’t provide a way to cancel route navigation, however, the $locationChangeStart event can be used to cancel navigation. If you dig into the AngularJS core script you’ll find the following code that shows how the $locationChangeStart event is raised as the $browser object’s onUrlChange() function is invoked:   $browser.onUrlChange(function (newUrl) { if ($location.absUrl() != newUrl) { if ($rootScope.$broadcast('$locationChangeStart', newUrl, $location.absUrl()).defaultPrevented) { $browser.url($location.absUrl()); return; } $rootScope.$evalAsync(function () { var oldUrl = $location.absUrl(); $location.$$parse(newUrl); afterLocationChange(oldUrl); }); if (!$rootScope.$$phase) $rootScope.$digest(); } }); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The key part of the code is the call to $broadcast. This call broadcasts the $locationChangeStart event to all child scopes so that they can be notified before a location change is made. To handle the $locationChangeStart event you can use the $rootScope.on() function. For this example I’ve added a call to $on() into a function that is called immediately after the controller is invoked:   function init() { //initialize data here.. //Make sure they're warned if they made a change but didn't save it //Call to $on returns a "deregistration" function that can be called to //remove the listener (see routeChange() for an example of using it) onRouteChangeOff = $rootScope.$on('$locationChangeStart', routeChange); } This code listens for the $locationChangeStart event and calls routeChange() when it occurs. The value returned from calling $on is a “deregistration” function that can be called to detach from the event. In this case the deregistration function is named onRouteChangeOff (it’s accessible throughout the controller). You’ll see how the onRouteChangeOff function is used in just a moment.   Cancelling Route Navigation The routeChange() callback triggered by the $locationChangeStart event displays a modal dialog similar to the following to prompt the user:     Here’s the code for routeChange(): function routeChange(event, newUrl) { //Navigate to newUrl if the form isn't dirty if (!$scope.editForm.$dirty) return; var modalOptions = { closeButtonText: 'Cancel', actionButtonText: 'Ignore Changes', headerText: 'Unsaved Changes', bodyText: 'You have unsaved changes. Leave the page?' }; modalService.showModal({}, modalOptions).then(function (result) { if (result === 'ok') { onRouteChangeOff(); //Stop listening for location changes $location.path(newUrl); //Go to page they're interested in } }); //prevent navigation by default since we'll handle it //once the user selects a dialog option event.preventDefault(); return; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Looking at the parameters of routeChange() you can see that it accepts an event object and the new route that the user is trying to navigate to. The event object is used to prevent navigation since we need to prompt the user before leaving the current view. Notice the call to event.preventDefault() at the end of the function. The modal dialog is shown by calling modalService.showModal() (see my previous post for more information about the custom modalService that acts as a wrapper around Angular UI Bootstrap’s $modal service). If the user selects “Ignore Changes” then their changes will be discarded and the application will navigate to the route they intended to go to originally. This is done by first detaching from the $locationChangeStart event by calling onRouteChangeOff() (recall that this is the function returned from the call to $on()) so that we don’t get stuck in a never ending cycle where the dialog continues to display when they click the “Ignore Changes” button. A call is then made to $location.path(newUrl) to handle navigating to the target view. If the user cancels the operation they’ll stay on the current view. Conclusion The key to canceling routes is understanding how to work with the $locationChangeStart event and cancelling it so that route navigation doesn’t occur. I’m hoping that in the future the same type of task can be done using the $routeChangeStart event but for now this code gets the job done. You can see this code in action in the Customer Manager application available on Github (specifically the customerEdit view). Learn more about the application here.

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  • BI Applications overview

    - by sv744
    Welcome to Oracle BI applications blog! This blog will talk about various features, general roadmap, description of functionality and implementation steps related to Oracle BI applications. In the first post we start with an overview of the BI apps and will delve deeper into some of the topics below in the upcoming weeks and months. If there are other topics you would like us to talk about, pl feel free to provide feedback on that. The Oracle BI applications are a set of pre-built applications that enable pervasive BI by providing role-based insight for each functional area, including sales, service, marketing, contact center, finance, supplier/supply chain, HR/workforce, and executive management. For example, Sales Analytics includes role-based applications for sales executives, sales management, as well as front-line sales reps, each of whom have different needs. The applications integrate and transform data from a range of enterprise sources—including Siebel, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and others—into actionable intelligence for each business function and user role. This blog  starts with the key benefits and characteristics of Oracle BI applications. In a series of subsequent blogs, each of these points will be explained in detail. Why BI apps? Demonstrate the value of BI to a business user, show reports / dashboards / model that can answer their business questions as part of the sales cycle. Demonstrate technical feasibility of BI project and significantly lower risk and improve success Build Vs Buy benefit Don’t have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Help consolidate disparate systems Data integration in M&A situations Insulate BI consumers from changes in the OLTP Present OLTP data and highlight issues of poor data / missing data – and improve data quality and accuracy Prebuilt Integrations BI apps support prebuilt integrations against leading ERP sources: Fusion Applications, E- Business Suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, SAP Co-developed with inputs from functional experts in BI and Applications teams. Out of the box dimensional model to source model mappings Multi source and Multi Instance support Rich Data Model    BI apps have a very rich dimensionsal data model built over 10 years that incorporates best practises from BI modeling perspective as well as reflect the source system complexities  Thanks for reading a long post, and be on the lookout for future posts.  We will look forward to your valuable feedback on these topics as well as suggestions on what other topics would you like us to cover. I Conformed dimensional model across all business subject areas allows cross functional reporting, e.g. customer / supplier 360 Over 360 fact tables across 7 product areas CRM – 145, SCM – 47, Financials – 28, Procurement – 20, HCM – 27, Projects – 18, Campus Solutions – 21, PLM - 56 Supported by 300 physical dimensions Support for extensive calendars; Gregorian, enterprise and ledger based Conformed data model and metrics for real time vs warehouse based reporting  Multi-tenant enabled Extensive BI related transformations BI apps ETL and data integration support various transformations required for dimensional models and reporting requirements. All these have been distilled into common patterns and abstracted logic which can be readily reused across different modules Slowly Changing Dimension support Hierarchy flattening support Row / Column Hybrid Hierarchy Flattening As Is vs. As Was hierarchy support Currency Conversion :-  Support for 3 corporate, CRM, ledger and transaction currencies UOM conversion Internationalization / Localization Dynamic Data translations Code standardization (Domains) Historical Snapshots Cycle and process lifecycle computations Balance Facts Equalization of GL accounting chartfields/segments Standardized values for categorizing GL accounts Reconciliation between GL and subledgers to track accounted/transferred/posted transactions to GL Materialization of data only available through costly and complex APIs e.g. Fusion Payroll, EBS / Fusion Accruals Complex event Interpretation of source data – E.g. o    What constitutes a transfer o    Deriving supervisors via position hierarchy o    Deriving primary assignment in PSFT o    Categorizing and transposition to measures of Payroll Balances to specific metrics to support side by side comparison of measures of for example Fixed Salary, Variable Salary, Tax, Bonus, Overtime Payments. o    Counting of Events – E.g. converting events to fact counters so that for example the number of hires can easily be added up and compared alongside the total transfers and terminations. Multi pass processing of multiple sources e.g. headcount, salary, promotion, performance to allow side to side comparison. Adding value to data to aid analysis through banding, additional domain classifications and groupings to allow higher level analytical reporting and data discovery Calculation of complex measures examples: o    COGs, DSO, DPO, Inventory turns  etc o    Transfers within a Hierarchy or out of / into a hierarchy relative to view point in hierarchy. Configurability and Extensibility support  BI apps offer support for extensibility for various entities as automated extensibility or part of extension methodology Key Flex fields and Descriptive Flex support  Extensible attribute support (JDE)  Conformed Domains ETL Architecture BI apps offer a modular adapter architecture which allows support of multiple product lines into a single conformed model Multi Source Multi Technology Orchestration – creates load plan taking into account task dependencies and customers deployment to generate a plan based on a customers of multiple complex etl tasks Plan optimization allowing parallel ETL tasks Oracle: Bit map indexes and partition management High availability support    Follow the sun support. TCO BI apps support several utilities / capabilities that help with overall total cost of ownership and ensure a rapid implementation Improved cost of ownership – lower cost to deploy On-going support for new versions of the source application Task based setups flows Data Lineage Functional setup performed in Web UI by Functional person Configuration Test to Production support Security BI apps support both data and object security enabling implementations to quickly configure the application as per the reporting security needs Fine grain object security at report / dashboard and presentation catalog level Data Security integration with source systems  Extensible to support external data security rules Extensive Set of KPIs Over 7000 base and derived metrics across all modules Time series calculations (YoY, % growth etc) Common Currency and UOM reporting Cross subject area KPIs (analyzing HR vs GL data, drill from GL to AP/AR, etc) Prebuilt reports and dashboards 3000+ prebuilt reports supporting a large number of industries Hundreds of role based dashboards Dynamic currency conversion at dashboard level Highly tuned Performance The BI apps have been tuned over the years for both a very performant ETL and dashboard performance. The applications use best practises and advanced database features to enable the best possible performance. Optimized data model for BI and analytic queries Prebuilt aggregates& the ability for customers to create their own aggregates easily on warehouse facts allows for scalable end user performance Incremental extracts and loads Incremental Aggregate build Automatic table index and statistics management Parallel ETL loads Source system deletes handling Low latency extract with Golden Gate Micro ETL support Bitmap Indexes Partitioning support Modularized deployment, start small and add other subject areas seamlessly Source Specfic Staging and Real Time Schema Support for source specific operational reporting schema for EBS, PSFT, Siebel and JDE Application Integrations The BI apps also allow for integration with source systems as well as other applications that provide value add through BI and enable BI consumption during operational decision making Embedded dashboards for Fusion, EBS and Siebel applications Action Link support Marketing Segmentation Sales Predictor Dashboard Territory Management External Integrations The BI apps data integration choices include support for loading extenral data External data enrichment choices : UNSPSC, Item class etc. Extensible Spend Classification Broad Deployment Choices Exalytics support Databases :  Oracle, Exadata, Teradata, DB2, MSSQL ETL tool of choice : ODI (coming), Informatica Extensible and Customizable Extensible architecture and Methodology to add custom and external content Upgradable across releases

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  • Screenshot Tour: Ubuntu Touch 14.04 on a Nexus 7

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will “form the basis of the first commercially available Ubuntu tablets,” according to Canonical. We installed Ubuntu Touch 14.04 on our own hardware to see what those tablets will be like. We don’t recommend installing this yourself, as it’s still not a polished, complete experience. We’re using “Ubuntu Touch” as shorthand here — apparently this project’s new name is “Ubuntu For Devices.” The Welcome Screen Ubuntu’s touch interface is all about edge swipes and hidden interface elements — it has a lot in common with Windows 8, actually. You’ll see the welcome screen when you boot up or unlock a Ubuntu tablet or phone. If you have new emails, text messages, or other information, it will appear on this screen along with the time and date. If you don’t, you’ll just see a message saying “No data sources available.” The Dash Swipe in from the right edge of the welcome screen to access the Dash, or home screen. This is actually very similar to the Dash on Ubuntu’s Unity desktop. This isn’t a surprise — Canonical wants the desktop and touch versions of Ubuntu to use the same code. In the future, the desktop and touch versions of Ubuntu will use the same version of Unity and Unity will adjust its interface depending on what type of device your’e using. Here you’ll find apps you have installed and apps available to install. Tap an installed app to launch it or tap an available app to view more details and install it. Tap the My apps or Available headings to view a complete list of apps you have installed or apps you can install. Tap the Search box at the top of the screen to start searching — this is how you’d search for new apps to install. As you’d expect, a touch keyboard appears when you tap in the Search field or any other text field. The launcher isn’t just for apps. Tap the Apps heading at the top of the screen and you’ll see hidden text appear — Music, Video, and Scopes. This hidden navigation is used throughout Ubuntu’s different apps and can be easy to miss at first. Swipe to the left or right to move between these screens. These screens are also similar to the different panels in Unity on the desktop. The Scopes section allows you to view different search scopes you have installed. These are used to search different sources when you start a search from the Dash. Search from the Music or Videos scopes to search for local media files on your device or media files online. For example, searching in the Music scope will show you music results from Grooveshark by default. Navigating Ubuntu Touch Swipe in from the left edge anywhere on the system to open the launcher, a bar with shortcuts to apps. This launcher is very similar to the launcher on the left of Ubuntu’s Unity desktop — that’s the whole idea, after all. Once you’ve opened an app, you can leave the app by swiping in from the left. The launcher will appear — keep moving your finger towards the right edge of teh screen. This will swipe the current app off the screen, taking you back to the Dash. Once back on the Dash, you’ll see your open apps represented as thumbnails under Recent. Tap a thumbnail here to go back to a running app. To remove an app from here, long-press it and tap the X button that appears. Swipe in from the right edge in any app to quickly switch between recent apps. Swipe in from the right edge and hold your finger down to reveal an application switcher that shows all your recent apps and lets you choose between them. Swipe down from the top of the screen to access the indicator panel. Here you can connect to Wi-Fi networks, view upcoming events, control GPS and Bluetooth hardware, adjust sound settings, see incoming messages, and more. This panel is for quick access to hardware settings and notifications, just like the indicators on Ubuntu’s Unity desktop. The Apps System settings not included in the pull-down panel are available in the System Settings app. To access it, tap My apps on the Dash and tap System Settings, search for the System Settings app, or open the launcher bar and tap the settings icon. The settings here a bit limited compared to other operating systems, but many of the important options are available here. You can add Evernote, Ubuntu One, Twitter, Facebook, and Google accounts from here. A free Ubuntu One account is mandatory for downloading and updating apps. A Google account can be used to sync contacts and calendar events. Some apps on Ubuntu are native apps, while many are web apps. For example, the Twitter, Gmail, Amazon, Facebook, and eBay apps included by default are all web apps that open each service’s mobile website as an app. Other applications, such as the Weather, Calendar, Dialer, Calculator, and Notes apps are native applications. Theoretically, both types of apps will be able to scale to different screen resolutions. Ubuntu Touch and Ubuntu desktop may one day share the same apps, which will adapt to different display sizes and input methods. Like Windows 8 apps, Ubuntu apps hide interface elements by default, providing you with a full-screen view of the content. Swipe up from the bottom of an app’s screen to view its interface elements. For example, swiping up from the bottom of the Web Browser app reveals Back, Forward, and Refresh buttons, along with an address bar and Activity button so you can view current and recent web pages. Swipe up even more from the bottom and you’ll see a button hovering in the middle of the app. Tap the button and you’ll see many more settings. This is an overflow area for application options and functions that can’t fit on the navigation bar. The Terminal app has a few surprising Easter eggs in this panel, including a “Hack into the NSA” option. Tap it and the following text will appear in the terminal: That’s not very nice, now tracing your location . . . . . . . . . . . .Trace failed You got away this time, but don’t try again. We’d expect to see such Easter eggs disappear before Ubuntu Touch actually ships on real devices. Ubuntu Touch has come a long way, but it’s still not something you want to use today. For example, it doesn’t even have a built-in email client — you’ll have to us your email service’s mobile website. Few apps are available, and many of the ones that are are just mobile websites. It’s not a polished operating system intended for normal users yet — it’s more of a preview for developers and device manufacturers. If you really want to try it yourself, you can install it on a Wi-Fi Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 10, or Nexus 4 device. Follow Ubuntu’s installation instructions here.

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  • how to use 3D map Actionscript class in mxml file for display map.

    - by nemade-vipin
    hello friends, I have created the application in which I have to use 3D map Action Script class in mxml file to display a map in form. that is in tab navigator last tab. My ActionScript 3D map class is(FlyingDirections):- package src.SBTSCoreObject { import src.SBTSCoreObject.JSONDecoder; import com.google.maps.InfoWindowOptions; import com.google.maps.LatLng; import com.google.maps.LatLngBounds; import com.google.maps.Map3D; import com.google.maps.MapEvent; import com.google.maps.MapOptions; import com.google.maps.MapType; import com.google.maps.MapUtil; import com.google.maps.View; import com.google.maps.controls.NavigationControl; import com.google.maps.geom.Attitude; import com.google.maps.interfaces.IPolyline; import com.google.maps.overlays.Marker; import com.google.maps.overlays.MarkerOptions; import com.google.maps.services.Directions; import com.google.maps.services.DirectionsEvent; import com.google.maps.services.Route; import flash.display.Bitmap; import flash.display.DisplayObject; import flash.display.DisplayObjectContainer; import flash.display.Loader; import flash.display.LoaderInfo; import flash.display.Sprite; import flash.events.Event; import flash.events.IOErrorEvent; import flash.events.MouseEvent; import flash.events.TimerEvent; import flash.filters.DropShadowFilter; import flash.geom.Point; import flash.net.URLLoader; import flash.net.URLRequest; import flash.net.navigateToURL; import flash.text.TextField; import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize; import flash.text.TextFormat; import flash.utils.Timer; import flash.utils.getTimer; public class FlyingDirections extends Map3D { /** * Panoramio home page. */ private static const PANORAMIO_HOME:String = "http://www.panoramio.com/"; /** * The icon for the car. */ [Embed("assets/car-icon-24px.png")] private static const Car:Class; /** * The Panoramio icon. */ [Embed("assets/iw_panoramio.png")] private static const PanoramioIcon:Class; /** * We animate a zoom in to the start the route before the car starts * to move. This constant sets the time in seconds over which this * zoom occurs. */ private static const LEAD_IN_DURATION:Number = 3; /** * Duration of the trip in seconds. */ private static const TRIP_DURATION:Number = 40; /** * Constants that define the geometry of the Panoramio image markers. */ private static const BORDER_T:Number = 3; private static const BORDER_L:Number = 10; private static const BORDER_R:Number = 10; private static const BORDER_B:Number = 3; private static const GAP_T:Number = 2; private static const GAP_B:Number = 1; private static const IMAGE_SCALE:Number = 1; /** * Trajectory that the camera follows over time. Each element is an object * containing properties used to generate parameter values for flyTo(..). * fraction = 0 corresponds to the start of the trip; fraction = 1 * correspondsto the end of the trip. */ private var FLY_TRAJECTORY:Array = [ { fraction: 0, zoom: 6, attitude: new Attitude(0, 0, 0) }, { fraction: 0.2, zoom: 8.5, attitude: new Attitude(30, 30, 0) }, { fraction: 0.5, zoom: 9, attitude: new Attitude(30, 40, 0) }, { fraction: 1, zoom: 8, attitude: new Attitude(50, 50, 0) }, { fraction: 1.1, zoom: 8, attitude: new Attitude(130, 50, 0) }, { fraction: 1.2, zoom: 8, attitude: new Attitude(220, 50, 0) }, ]; /** * Number of panaramio photos for which we load data. We&apos;ll select a * subset of these approximately evenly spaced along the route. */ private static const NUM_GEOTAGGED_PHOTOS:int = 50; /** * Number of panaramio photos that we actually show. */ private static const NUM_SHOWN_PHOTOS:int = 7; /** * Scaling between real trip time and animation time. */ private static const SCALE_TIME:Number = 0.001; /** * getTimer() value at the instant that we start the trip. If this is 0 then * we have not yet started the car moving. */ private var startTimer:int = 0; /** * The current route. */ private var route:Route; /** * The polyline for the route. */ private var polyline:IPolyline; /** * The car marker. */ private var marker:Marker; /** * The cumulative duration in seconds over each step in the route. * cumulativeStepDuration[0] is 0; cumulativeStepDuration[1] adds the * duration of step 0; cumulativeStepDuration[2] adds the duration * of step 1; etc. */ private var cumulativeStepDuration:/*Number*/Array = []; /** * The cumulative distance in metres over each vertex in the route polyline. * cumulativeVertexDistance[0] is 0; cumulativeVertexDistance[1] adds the * distance to vertex 1; cumulativeVertexDistance[2] adds the distance to * vertex 2; etc. */ private var cumulativeVertexDistance:Array; /** * Array of photos loaded from Panoramio. This array has the same format as * the &apos;photos&apos; property within the JSON returned by the Panoramio API * (see http://www.panoramio.com/api/), with additional properties added to * individual photo elements to hold the loader structures that fetch * the actual images. */ private var photos:Array = []; /** * Array of polyline vertices, where each element is in world coordinates. * Several computations can be faster if we can use world coordinates * instead of LatLng coordinates. */ private var worldPoly:/*Point*/Array; /** * Whether the start button has been pressed. */ private var startButtonPressed:Boolean = false; /** * Saved event from onDirectionsSuccess call. */ private var directionsSuccessEvent:DirectionsEvent = null; /** * Start button. */ private var startButton:Sprite; /** * Alpha value used for the Panoramio image markers. */ private var markerAlpha:Number = 0; /** * Index of the current driving direction step. Used to update the * info window content each time we progress to a new step. */ private var currentStepIndex:int = -1; /** * The fly directions map constructor. * * @constructor */ public function FlyingDirections() { key="ABQIAAAA7QUChpcnvnmXxsjC7s1fCxQGj0PqsCtxKvarsoS-iqLdqZSKfxTd7Xf-2rEc_PC9o8IsJde80Wnj4g"; super(); addEventListener(MapEvent.MAP_PREINITIALIZE, onMapPreinitialize); addEventListener(MapEvent.MAP_READY, onMapReady); } /** * Handles map preintialize. Initializes the map center and zoom level. * * @param event The map event. */ private function onMapPreinitialize(event:MapEvent):void { setInitOptions(new MapOptions({ center: new LatLng(-26.1, 135.1), zoom: 4, viewMode: View.VIEWMODE_PERSPECTIVE, mapType:MapType.PHYSICAL_MAP_TYPE })); } /** * Handles map ready and looks up directions. * * @param event The map event. */ private function onMapReady(event:MapEvent):void { enableScrollWheelZoom(); enableContinuousZoom(); addControl(new NavigationControl()); // The driving animation will be updated on every frame. addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, enterFrame); addStartButton(); // We start the directions loading now, so that we&apos;re ready to go when // the user hits the start button. var directions:Directions = new Directions(); directions.addEventListener( DirectionsEvent.DIRECTIONS_SUCCESS, onDirectionsSuccess); directions.addEventListener( DirectionsEvent.DIRECTIONS_FAILURE, onDirectionsFailure); directions.load("48 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont, NSW to Byron Bay, NSW"); } /** * Adds a big blue start button. */ private function addStartButton():void { startButton = new Sprite(); startButton.buttonMode = true; startButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onStartClick); startButton.graphics.beginFill(0x1871ce); startButton.graphics.drawRoundRect(0, 0, 150, 100, 10, 10); startButton.graphics.endFill(); var startField:TextField = new TextField(); startField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT; startField.defaultTextFormat = new TextFormat("_sans", 20, 0xffffff, true); startField.text = "Start!"; startButton.addChild(startField); startField.x = 0.5 * (startButton.width - startField.width); startField.y = 0.5 * (startButton.height - startField.height); startButton.filters = [ new DropShadowFilter() ]; var container:DisplayObjectContainer = getDisplayObject() as DisplayObjectContainer; container.addChild(startButton); startButton.x = 0.5 * (container.width - startButton.width); startButton.y = 0.5 * (container.height - startButton.height); var panoField:TextField = new TextField(); panoField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT; panoField.defaultTextFormat = new TextFormat("_sans", 11, 0x000000, true); panoField.text = "Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners."; container.addChild(panoField); panoField.x = container.width - panoField.width - 5; panoField.y = 5; } /** * Handles directions success. Starts flying the route if everything * is ready. * * @param event The directions event. */ private function onDirectionsSuccess(event:DirectionsEvent):void { directionsSuccessEvent = event; flyRouteIfReady(); } /** * Handles click on the start button. Starts flying the route if everything * is ready. */ private function onStartClick(event:MouseEvent):void { startButton.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onStartClick); var container:DisplayObjectContainer = getDisplayObject() as DisplayObjectContainer; container.removeChild(startButton); startButtonPressed = true; flyRouteIfReady(); } /** * If we have loaded the directions and the start button has been pressed * start flying the directions route. */ private function flyRouteIfReady():void { if (!directionsSuccessEvent || !startButtonPressed) { return; } var directions:Directions = directionsSuccessEvent.directions; // Extract the route. route = directions.getRoute(0); // Draws the polyline showing the route. polyline = directions.createPolyline(); addOverlay(directions.createPolyline()); // Creates a car marker that is moved along the route. var car:DisplayObject = new Car(); marker = new Marker(route.startGeocode.point, new MarkerOptions({ icon: car, iconOffset: new Point(-car.width / 2, -car.height) })); addOverlay(marker); transformPolyToWorld(); createCumulativeArrays(); // Load Panoramio data for the region covered by the route. loadPanoramioData(directions.bounds); var duration:Number = route.duration; // Start a timer that will trigger the car moving after the lead in time. var leadInTimer:Timer = new Timer(LEAD_IN_DURATION * 1000, 1); leadInTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onLeadInDone); leadInTimer.start(); var flyTime:Number = -LEAD_IN_DURATION; // Set up the camera flight trajectory. for each (var flyStep:Object in FLY_TRAJECTORY) { var time:Number = flyStep.fraction * duration; var center:LatLng = latLngAt(time); var scaledTime:Number = time * SCALE_TIME; var zoom:Number = flyStep.zoom; var attitude:Attitude = flyStep.attitude; var elapsed:Number = scaledTime - flyTime; flyTime = scaledTime; flyTo(center, zoom, attitude, elapsed); } } /** * Loads Panoramio data for the route bounds. We load data about more photos * than we need, then select a subset lying along the route. * @param bounds Bounds within which to fetch images. */ private function loadPanoramioData(bounds:LatLngBounds):void { var params:Object = { order: "popularity", set: "full", from: "0", to: NUM_GEOTAGGED_PHOTOS.toString(10), size: "small", minx: bounds.getWest(), miny: bounds.getSouth(), maxx: bounds.getEast(), maxy: bounds.getNorth() }; var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest( "http://www.panoramio.com/map/get_panoramas.php?" + paramsToString(params)); loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onPanoramioDataLoaded); loader.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onPanoramioDataFailed); loader.load(request); } /** * Transforms the route polyline to world coordinates. */ private function transformPolyToWorld():void { var numVertices:int = polyline.getVertexCount(); worldPoly = new Array(numVertices); for (var i:int = 0; i < numVertices; ++i) { var vertex:LatLng = polyline.getVertex(i); worldPoly[i] = fromLatLngToPoint(vertex, 0); } } /** * Returns the time at which the route approaches closest to the * given point. * @param world Point in world coordinates. * @return Route time at which the closest approach occurs. */ private function getTimeOfClosestApproach(world:Point):Number { var minDistSqr:Number = Number.MAX_VALUE; var numVertices:int = worldPoly.length; var x:Number = world.x; var y:Number = world.y; var minVertex:int = 0; for (var i:int = 0; i < numVertices; ++i) { var dx:Number = worldPoly[i].x - x; var dy:Number = worldPoly[i].y - y; var distSqr:Number = dx * dx + dy * dy; if (distSqr < minDistSqr) { minDistSqr = distSqr; minVertex = i; } } return cumulativeVertexDistance[minVertex]; } /** * Returns the array index of the first element that compares greater than * the given value. * @param ordered Ordered array of elements. * @param value Value to use for comparison. * @return Array index of the first element that compares greater than * the given value. */ private function upperBound(ordered:Array, value:Number, first:int=0, last:int=-1):int { if (last < 0) { last = ordered.length; } var count:int = last - first; var index:int; while (count > 0) { var step:int = count >> 1; index = first + step; if (value >= ordered[index]) { first = index + 1; count -= step - 1; } else { count = step; } } return first; } /** * Selects up to a given number of photos approximately evenly spaced along * the route. * @param ordered Array of photos, each of which is an object with * a property &apos;closestTime&apos;. * @param number Number of photos to select. */ private function selectEvenlySpacedPhotos(ordered:Array, number:int):Array { var start:Number = cumulativeVertexDistance[0]; var end:Number = cumulativeVertexDistance[cumulativeVertexDistance.length - 2]; var closestTimes:Array = []; for each (var photo:Object in ordered) { closestTimes.push(photo.closestTime); } var selectedPhotos:Array = []; for (var i:int = 0; i < number; ++i) { var idealTime:Number = start + ((end - start) * (i + 0.5) / number); var index:int = upperBound(closestTimes, idealTime); if (index < 1) { index = 0; } else if (index >= ordered.length) { index = ordered.length - 1; } else { var errorToPrev:Number = Math.abs(idealTime - closestTimes[index - 1]); var errorToNext:Number = Math.abs(idealTime - closestTimes[index]); if (errorToPrev < errorToNext) { --index; } } selectedPhotos.push(ordered[index]); } return selectedPhotos; } /** * Handles completion of loading the Panoramio index data. Selects from the * returned photo indices a subset of those that lie along the route and * initiates load of each of these. * @param event Load completion event. */ private function onPanoramioDataLoaded(event:Event):void { var loader:URLLoader = event.target as URLLoader; var decoder:JSONDecoder = new JSONDecoder(loader.data as String); var allPhotos:Array = decoder.getValue().photos; for each (var photo:Object in allPhotos) { var latLng:LatLng = new LatLng(photo.latitude, photo.longitude); photo.closestTime = getTimeOfClosestApproach(fromLatLngToPoint(latLng, 0)); } allPhotos.sortOn("closestTime", Array.NUMERIC); photos = selectEvenlySpacedPhotos(allPhotos, NUM_SHOWN_PHOTOS); for each (photo in photos) { var photoLoader:Loader = new Loader(); // The images aren&apos;t on panoramio.com: we can&apos;t acquire pixel access // using "new LoaderContext(true)". photoLoader.load( new URLRequest(photo.photo_file_url)); photo.loader = photoLoader; // Save the loader info: we use this to find the original element when // the load completes. photo.loaderInfo = photoLoader.contentLoaderInfo; photoLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener( Event.COMPLETE, onPhotoLoaded); } } /** * Creates a MouseEvent listener function that will navigate to the given * URL in a new window. * @param url URL to which to navigate. */ private function createOnClickUrlOpener(url:String):Function { return function(event:MouseEvent):void { navigateToURL(new URLRequest(url)); }; } /** * Handles completion of loading an individual Panoramio image. * Adds a custom marker that displays the image. Initially this is made * invisible so that it can be faded in as needed. * @param event Load completion event. */ private function onPhotoLoaded(event:Event):void { var loaderInfo:LoaderInfo = event.target as LoaderInfo; // We need to find which photo element this image corresponds to. for each (var photo:Object in photos) { if (loaderInfo == photo.loaderInfo) { var imageMarker:Sprite = createImageMarker(photo.loader, photo.owner_name, photo.owner_url); var options:MarkerOptions = new MarkerOptions({ icon: imageMarker, hasShadow: true, iconAlignment: MarkerOptions.ALIGN_BOTTOM | MarkerOptions.ALIGN_LEFT }); var latLng:LatLng = new LatLng(photo.latitude, photo.longitude); var marker:Marker = new Marker(latLng, options); photo.marker = marker; addOverlay(marker); // A hack: we add the actual image after the overlay has been added, // which creates the shadow, so that the shadow is valid even if we // don&apos;t have security privileges to generate the shadow from the // image. marker.foreground.visible = false; marker.shadow.alpha = 0; var imageHolder:Sprite = new Sprite(); imageHolder.addChild(photo.loader); imageHolder.buttonMode = true; imageHolder.addEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, createOnClickUrlOpener(photo.photo_url)); imageMarker.addChild(imageHolder); return; } } trace("An image was loaded which could not be found in the photo array."); } /** * Creates a custom marker showing an image. */ private function createImageMarker(child:DisplayObject, ownerName:String, ownerUrl:String):Sprite { var content:Sprite = new Sprite(); var panoramioIcon:Bitmap = new PanoramioIcon(); var iconHolder:Sprite = new Sprite(); iconHolder.addChild(panoramioIcon); iconHolder.buttonMode = true; iconHolder.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onPanoramioIconClick); panoramioIcon.x = BORDER_L; panoramioIcon.y = BORDER_T; content.addChild(iconHolder); // NOTE: we add the image as a child only after we&apos;ve added the marker // to the map. Currently the API requires this if it&apos;s to generate the // shadow for unprivileged content. // Shrink the image, so that it doesn&apos;t obcure too much screen space. // Ideally, we&apos;d subsample, but we don&apos;t have pixel level access. child.scaleX = IMAGE_SCALE; child.scaleY = IMAGE_SCALE; var imageW:Number = child.width; var imageH:Number = child.height; child.x = BORDER_L + 30; child.y = BORDER_T + iconHolder.height + GAP_T; var authorField:TextField = new TextField(); authorField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT; authorField.defaultTextFormat = new TextFormat("_sans", 12); authorField.text = "author:"; content.addChild(authorField); authorField.x = BORDER_L; authorField.y = BORDER_T + iconHolder.height + GAP_T + imageH + GAP_B; var ownerField:TextField = new TextField(); ownerField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT; var textFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat("_sans", 14, 0x0e5f9a); ownerField.defaultTextFormat = textFormat; ownerField.htmlText = "<a href=\"" + ownerUrl + "\" target=\"_blank\">" + ownerName + "</a>"; content.addChild(ownerField); ownerField.x = BORDER_L + authorField.width; ownerField.y = BORDER_T + iconHolder.height + GAP_T + imageH + GAP_B; var totalW:Number = BORDER_L + Math.max(imageW, ownerField.width + authorField.width) + BORDER_R; var totalH:Number = BORDER_T + iconHolder.height + GAP_T + imageH + GAP_B + ownerField.height + BORDER_B; content.graphics.beginFill(0xffffff); content.graphics.drawRoundRect(0, 0, totalW, totalH, 10, 10); content.graphics.endFill(); var marker:Sprite = new Sprite(); marker.addChild(content); content.x = 30; content.y = 0; marker.graphics.lineStyle(); marker.graphics.beginFill(0xff0000); marker.graphics.drawCircle(0, totalH + 30, 3); marker.graphics.endFill(); marker.graphics.lineStyle(2, 0xffffff); marker.graphics.moveTo(30 + 10, totalH - 10); marker.graphics.lineTo(0, totalH + 30); return marker; } /** * Handles click on the Panoramio icon. */ private function onPanoramioIconClick(event:MouseEvent):void { navigateToURL(new URLRequest(PANORAMIO_HOME)); } /** * Handles failure of a Panoramio image load. */ private function onPanoramioDataFailed(event:IOErrorEvent):void { trace("Load of image failed: " + event); } /** * Returns a string containing cgi query parameters. * @param Associative array mapping query parameter key to value. * @return String containing cgi query parameters. */ private static function paramsToString(params:Object):String { var result:String = ""; var separator:String = ""; for (var key:String in params) { result += separator + encodeURIComponent(key) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(params[key]); separator = "&"; } return result; } /** * Called once the lead-in flight is done. Starts the car driving along * the route and starts a timer to begin fade in of the Panoramio * images in 1.5 seconds. */ private function onLeadInDone(event:Event):void { // Set startTimer non-zero so that the car starts to move. startTimer = getTimer(); // Start a timer that will fade in the Panoramio images. var fadeInTimer:Timer = new Timer(1500, 1); fadeInTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onFadeInTimer); fadeInTimer.start(); } /** * Handles the fade in timer&apos;s TIMER event. Sets markerAlpha above zero * which causes the frame enter handler to fade in the markers. */ private function onFadeInTimer(event:Event):void { markerAlpha = 0.01; } /** * The end time of the flight. */ private function get endTime():Number { if (!cumulativeStepDuration || cumulativeStepDuration.length == 0) { return startTimer; } return startTimer + cumulativeStepDuration[cumulativeStepDuration.length - 1]; } /** * Creates the cumulative arrays, cumulativeStepDuration and * cumulativeVertexDistance. */ private function createCumulativeArrays():void { cumulativeStepDuration = new Array(route.numSteps + 1); cumulativeVertexDistance = new Array(polyline.getVertexCount() + 1); var polylineTotal:Number = 0; var total:Number = 0; var numVertices:int = polyline.getVertexCount(); for (var stepIndex:int = 0; stepIndex < route.numSteps; ++stepIndex) { cumulativeStepDuration[stepIndex] = total; total += route.getStep(stepIndex).duration; var startVertex:int = stepIndex >= 0 ? route.getStep(stepIndex).polylineIndex : 0; var endVertex:int = stepIndex < (route.numSteps - 1) ? route.getStep(stepIndex + 1).polylineIndex : numVertices; var duration:Number = route.getStep(stepIndex).duration; var stepVertices:int = endVertex - startVertex; var latLng:LatLng = polyline.getVertex(startVertex); for (var vertex:int = startVertex; vertex < endVertex; ++vertex) { cumulativeVertexDistance[vertex] = polylineTotal; if (vertex < numVertices - 1) { var nextLatLng:LatLng = polyline.getVertex(vertex + 1); polylineTotal += nextLatLng.distanceFrom(latLng); } latLng = nextLatLng; } } cumulativeStepDuration[stepIndex] = total; } /** * Opens the info window above the car icon that details the given * step of the driving directions. * @param stepIndex Index of the current step. */ private function openInfoForStep(stepIndex:int):void { // Sets the content of the info window. var content:String; if (stepIndex >= route.numSteps) { content = "<b>" + route.endGeocode.address + "</b>" + "<br /><br />" + route.summaryHtml; } else { content = "<b>" + stepIndex + ".</b> " + route.getStep(stepIndex).descriptionHtml; } marker.openInfoWindow(new InfoWindowOptions({ contentHTML: content })); } /** * Displays the driving directions step appropriate for the given time. * Opens the info window showing the step instructions each time we * progress to a new step. * @param time Time for which to display the step. */ private function displayStepAt(time:Number):void { var stepIndex:int = upperBound(cumulativeStepDuration, time) - 1; var minStepIndex:int = 0; var maxStepIndex:int = route.numSteps - 1; if (stepIndex >= 0 && stepIndex <= maxStepIndex && currentStepIndex != stepIndex) { openInfoForStep(stepIndex); currentStepIndex = stepIndex; } } /** * Returns the LatLng at which the car should be positioned at the given * time. * @param time Time for which LatLng should be found. * @return LatLng. */ private function latLngAt(time:Number):LatLng { var stepIndex:int = upperBound(cumulativeStepDuration, time) - 1; var minStepIndex:int = 0; var maxStepIndex:int = route.numSteps - 1; if (stepIndex < minStepIndex) { return route.startGeocode.point; } else if (stepIndex > maxStepIndex) { return route.endGeocode.point; } var stepStart:Number = cumulativeStepDuration[stepIndex]; var stepEnd:Number = cumulativeStepDuration[stepIndex + 1]; var stepFraction:Number = (time - stepStart) / (stepEnd - stepStart); var startVertex:int = route.getStep(stepIndex).polylineIndex; var endVertex:int = (stepIndex + 1) < route.numSteps ? route.getStep(stepIndex + 1).polylineIndex : polyline.getVertexCount(); var stepVertices:int = endVertex - startVertex; var stepLeng

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  • Links to my “Best of 2010” Posts

    - by ScottGu
    I hope everyone is having a Happy New Years! 2010 has been a busy blogging year for me (this is the 100th blog post I’ve done in 2010).  Several people this week suggested I put together a summary post listing/organizing my favorite posts from the year.  Below is a quick listing of some of my favorite posts organized by topic area: VS 2010 and .NET 4 Below is a series of posts I wrote (some in late 2009) about the VS 2010 and .NET 4 (including ASP.NET 4 and WPF 4) release we shipped in April: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Released Clean Web.Config Files Starter Project Templates Multi-targeting Multiple Monitor Support New Code Focused Web Profile Option HTML / ASP.NET / JavaScript Code Snippets Auto-Start ASP.NET Applications URL Routing with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Searching and Navigating Code in VS 2010 VS 2010 Code Intellisense Improvements WPF 4 Add Reference Dialog Improvements SEO Improvements with ASP.NET 4 Output Cache Extensibility with ASP.NET 4 Built-in Charting Controls for ASP.NET and Windows Forms Cleaner HTML Markup with ASP.NET 4 - Client IDs Optional Parameters and Named Arguments in C# 4 - and a cool scenarios with ASP.NET MVC 2 Automatic Properties, Collection Initializers and Implicit Line Continuation Support with VB 2010 New <%: %> Syntax for HTML Encoding Output using ASP.NET 4 JavaScript Intellisense Improvements with VS 2010 VS 2010 Debugger Improvements (DataTips, BreakPoints, Import/Export) Box Selection and Multi-line Editing Support with VS 2010 VS 2010 Extension Manager (and the cool new PowerCommands Extension) Pinning Projects and Solutions VS 2010 Web Deployment Debugging Tips/Tricks with Visual Studio Search and Navigation Tips/Tricks with Visual Studio Visual Studio Below are some additional Visual Studio posts I’ve done (not in the first series above) that I thought were nice: Download and Share Visual Studio Color Schemes Visual Studio 2010 Keyboard Shortcuts VS 2010 Productivity Power Tools Fun Visual Studio 2010 Wallpapers Silverlight We shipped Silverlight 4 in April, and announced Silverlight 5 the beginning of December: Silverlight 4 Released Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 and WCF RIA Services Released Silverlight 4 Training Kit Silverlight PivotViewer Now Available Silverlight Questions Announcing Silverlight 5 Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 We shipped Windows Phone 7 this fall and shipped free Visual Studio development tools with great Silverlight and XNA support in September: Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools Released Building a Windows Phone 7 Twitter Application using Silverlight ASP.NET MVC We shipped ASP.NET MVC 2 in March, and started previewing ASP.NET MVC 3 this summer.  ASP.NET MVC 3 will RTM in less than 2 weeks from today: ASP.NET MVC 2: Strongly Typed Html Helpers ASP.NET MVC 2: Model Validation Introducing ASP.NET MVC 3 (Preview 1) Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Beta and NuGet (nee NuPack) Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Candidate 1  Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Candidate 2 Introducing Razor – A New View Engine for ASP.NET ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: New @model keyword in Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Server-Side Comments with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Razor’s @: and <text> syntax ASP.NET MVC 3: Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts and Sections with Razor IIS and Web Server Stack The IIS and Web Stack teams have made a bunch of great improvements to the core web server this year: Fix Common SEO Problems using the URL Rewrite Extension Introducing the Microsoft Web Farm Framework Automating Deployment with Microsoft Web Deploy Introducing IIS Express SQL CE 4 (New Embedded Database Support with ASP.NET) Introducing Web Matrix EF Code First EF Code First is a really nice new data option that enables a very clean code-oriented data workflow: Announcing Entity Framework Code-First CTP5 Release Class-Level Model Validation with EF Code First and ASP.NET MVC 3 Code-First Development with Entity Framework 4 EF 4 Code First: Custom Database Schema Mapping Using EF Code First with an Existing Database jQuery and AJAX Contributions My team began making some significant source code contributions to the jQuery project this year: jQuery Templates, Data Link and Globalization Accepted as Official jQuery Plugins jQuery Templates and Data Linking (and Microsoft contributing to jQuery) jQuery Globalization Plugin from Microsoft Patches and Hot Fixes Some useful fixes you can download prior to VS 2010 SP1: Patch for Cut/Copy “Insufficient Memory” issue with VS 2010 Patch for VS 2010 Find and Replace Dialog Growing Patch for VS 2010 Scrolling Context Menu Videos of My Talks Some recordings of technical talks I’ve done this year: ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET MVC, and Silverlight 4 Talks I did in Europe VS 2010 and ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Talk in Arizona Other About Technical Debates (and ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC debates in particular) ASP.NET Security Fix Now on Windows Update Upcoming Web Camps I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who follows my blog – I really appreciate you reading it (the comments you post help encourage me to write it).  See you in the New Year! Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines

    - by Eric Z Goodnight
    Want to send some Geek Love to that special someone? Why not do it with these elementary school throwback valentines, and win their heart this upcoming Valentine’s day—the geek way! Read on to see the simple method to make your own custom Valentines, as well as download a set of eleven ready-made ones any geek guy or gal should be delighted get. It’s amore! How to Make Custom Valentines A size we’ve used for all of our Valentines is a 3” x 4” at 150 dpi. This is fairly low resolution for print, but makes a great graphic to email. With your new image open, Navigate to Edit > Fill and fill your background layer with a rich, red color (or whatever appeals to you.) By setting “Use” to “Foreground color as shown above, you’ll paint whatever foreground color you have in your color picker. Press to select the text tool. Set a few text objects, using whatever fonts appeal to you. Pixel fonts, like this one, are freely downloadable, and we’ve already shared a great list of Valentines fonts. Copy an image from the internet if you’re confident your sweetie won’t mind a bit of fair use of copyrighted imagery. If they do mind, find yourself some great Creative Commons images. to do a free transform on your image, sizing it to whatever dimensions work best for your design. Right click your newly added image layer in your panel and Choose “Blending Effects” to pick a Layer Style. “Stroke” with this setting adds a black line around your image. Also turning on “Outer Glow” with this setting puts a dark black shadow around the top and bottom (and sides, although they are hidden). Add some more text. Double entendre is recommended. Click and hold down on the “Rectangle Tool” to get the “Custom Shape Tool.” The custom shape tool has useful vector shapes built into it. Find the “Shape” dropdown in the menu to find the heart image. Click and drag to create a vector heart shape in your image. Your layers panel is where you can change the color, if it happens to use the wrong one at first. Click the color swatch in your panel, highlighted in blue above. will transform your vector heart. You can also use it to rotate, if you like. Add some details, like this Power or Standby symbol, which can be found in symbol fonts, taken from images online, or drawn by hand. Your Valentine is now ready to be saved as a JPG or PNG and sent to the object of your affection! Keep reading to see a list of 11 downloadable How-To Geek Valentines, including this one and the three from the header image. Download The HTG Set of Valentines Download the HTG Geek Valentines (ZIP) Download the HTG Geek Valentines (ZIP) When he’s not wooing ladies with Valentines cards, you can email the author at [email protected] with your Photoshop and Graphics questions. Your questions may be featured in a future How-To Geek article! Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines How to Integrate Dropbox with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers on iPad RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin How to Kid Proof Your Computer’s Power and Reset Buttons Microsoft’s Windows Media Player Extension Adds H.264 Support Back to Google Chrome Android Notifier Pushes Android Notices to Your Desktop Dead Space 2 Theme for Chrome and Iron Carl Sagan and Halo Reach Mashup – We Humans are Capable of Greatness [Video] Battle the Necromorphs Once Again on Your Desktop with the Dead Space 2 Theme for Windows 7

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  • NDepend tool – Why every developer working with Visual Studio.NET must try it!

    - by hajan
    In the past two months, I have had a chance to test the capabilities and features of the amazing NDepend tool designed to help you make your .NET code better, more beautiful and achieve high code quality. In other words, this tool will definitely help you harmonize your code. I mean, you’ve probably heard about Chaos Theory. Experienced developers and architects are already advocates of the programming chaos that happens when working with complex project architecture, the matrix of relationships between objects which simply even if you are the one who have written all that code, you know how hard is to visualize everything what does the code do. When the application get more and more complex, you will start missing a lot of details in your code… NDepend will help you visualize all the details on a clever way that will help you make smart moves to make your code better. The NDepend tool supports many features, such as: Code Query Language – which will help you write custom rules and query your own code! Imagine, you want to find all your methods which have more than 100 lines of code :)! That’s something simple! However, I will dig much deeper in one of my next blogs which I’m going to dedicate to the NDepend’s CQL (Code Query Language) Architecture Visualization – You are an architect and want to visualize your application’s architecture? I’m thinking how many architects will be really surprised from their architectures since NDepend shows your whole architecture showing each piece of it. NDepend will show you how your code is structured. It shows the architecture in graphs, but if you have very complex architecture, you can see it in Dependency Matrix which is more suited to display large architecture Code Metrics – Using NDepend’s panel, you can see the code base according to Code Metrics. You can do some additional filtering, like selecting the top code elements ordered by their current code metric value. You can use the CQL language for this purpose too. Smart Search – NDepend has great searching ability, which is again based on the CQL (Code Query Language). However, you have some options to search using dropdown lists and text boxes and it will generate the appropriate CQL code on fly. Moreover, you can modify the CQL code if you want it to fit some more advanced searching tasks. Compare Builds and Code Difference – NDepend will also help you compare previous versions of your code with the current one at one of the most clever ways I’ve seen till now. Create Custom Rules – using CQL you can create custom rules and let NDepend warn you on each build if you break a rule Reporting – NDepend can automatically generate reports with detailed stats, graph representation, dependency matrixes and some additional advanced reporting features that will simply explain you everything related to your application’s code, architecture and what you’ve done. And that’s not all. As I’ve seen, there are many other features that NDepend supports. I will dig more in the upcoming days and will blog more about it. The team who built the NDepend have also created good documentation, which you can find on the NDepend website. On their website, you can also find some good videos that will help you get started quite fast. It’s easy to install and what is very important it is fully integrated with Visual Studio. To get you started, you can watch the following Getting Started Online Demo and Tutorial with explanations and screenshots. If you are interested to know more about how to use the features of this tool, either visit their website or wait for my next blogs where I will show some real examples of using the tool and how it helps make your code better. And the last thing for this blog, I would like to copy one sentence from the NDepend’s home page which says: ‘Hence the software design becomes concrete, code reviews are effective, large refactoring are easy and evolution is mastered.’ Website: www.ndepend.com Getting Started: http://www.ndepend.com/GettingStarted.aspx Features: http://www.ndepend.com/Features.aspx Download: http://www.ndepend.com/NDependDownload.aspx Hope you like it! Please do let me know your feedback by providing comments to my blog post. Kind Regards, Hajan

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  • Automatic Properties, Collection Initializers, and Implicit Line Continuation support with VB 2010

    - by ScottGu
    [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] This is the eighteenth in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the upcoming VS 2010 and .NET 4 release. A few days ago I blogged about two new language features coming with C# 4.0: optional parameters and named arguments.  Today I’m going to post about a few of my favorite new features being added to VB with VS 2010: Auto-Implemented Properties, Collection Initializers, and Implicit Line Continuation support. Auto-Implemented Properties Prior to VB 2010, implementing properties within a class using VB required you to explicitly declare the property as well as implement a backing field variable to store its value.  For example, the code below demonstrates how to implement a “Person” class using VB 2008 that exposes two public properties - “Name” and “Age”:   While explicitly declaring properties like above provides maximum flexibility, I’ve always found writing this type of boiler-plate get/set code tedious when you are simply storing/retrieving the value from a field.  You can use VS code snippets to help automate the generation of it – but it still generates a lot of code that feels redundant.  C# 2008 introduced a cool new feature called automatic properties that helps cut down the code quite a bit for the common case where properties are simply backed by a field.  VB 2010 also now supports this same feature.  Using the auto-implemented properties feature of VB 2010 we can now implement our Person class using just the code below: When you declare an auto-implemented property, the VB compiler automatically creates a private field to store the property value as well as generates the associated Get/Set methods for you.  As you can see above – the code is much more concise and easier to read. The syntax supports optionally initializing the properties with default values as well if you want to: You can learn more about VB 2010’s automatic property support from this MSDN page. Collection Initializers VB 2010 also now supports using collection initializers to easily create a collection and populate it with an initial set of values.  You identify a collection initializer by declaring a collection variable and then use the From keyword followed by braces { } that contain the list of initial values to add to the collection.  Below is a code example where I am using the new collection initializer feature to populate a “Friends” list of Person objects with two people, and then bind it to a GridView control to display on a page: You can learn more about VB 2010’s collection initializer support from this MSDN page. Implicit Line Continuation Support Traditionally, when a statement in VB has been split up across multiple lines, you had to use a line-continuation underscore character (_) to indicate that the statement wasn’t complete.  For example, with VB 2008 the below LINQ query needs to append a “_” at the end of each line to indicate that the query is not complete yet: The VB 2010 compiler and code editor now adds support for what is called “implicit line continuation support” – which means that it is smarter about auto-detecting line continuation scenarios, and as a result no longer needs you to explicitly indicate that the statement continues in many, many scenarios.  This means that with VB 2010 we can now write the above code with no “_” at all: The implicit line continuation feature also works well when editing XML Literals within VB (which is pretty cool). You can learn more about VB 2010’s Implicit Line Continuation support and many of the scenarios it supports from this MSDN page (scroll down to the “Implicit Line Continuation” section to find details). Summary The above three VB language features are but a few of the new language and code editor features coming with VB 2010.  Visit this site to learn more about some of the other VB language features coming with the release.  Also subscribe to the VB team’s blog to learn more and stay up-to-date with the posts they the team regularly publishes. Hope this helps, Scott

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  • Optional Parameters and Named Arguments in C# 4 (and a cool scenario w/ ASP.NET MVC 2)

    - by ScottGu
    [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] This is the seventeenth in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the upcoming VS 2010 and .NET 4 release. Today’s post covers two new language feature being added to C# 4.0 – optional parameters and named arguments – as well as a cool way you can take advantage of optional parameters (both in VB and C#) with ASP.NET MVC 2. Optional Parameters in C# 4.0 C# 4.0 now supports using optional parameters with methods, constructors, and indexers (note: VB has supported optional parameters for awhile). Parameters are optional when a default value is specified as part of a declaration.  For example, the method below takes two parameters – a “category” string parameter, and a “pageIndex” integer parameter.  The “pageIndex” parameter has a default value of 0, and as such is an optional parameter: When calling the above method we can explicitly pass two parameters to it: Or we can omit passing the second optional parameter – in which case the default value of 0 will be passed:   Note that VS 2010’s Intellisense indicates when a parameter is optional, as well as what its default value is when statement completion is displayed: Named Arguments and Optional Parameters in C# 4.0 C# 4.0 also now supports the concept of “named arguments”.  This allows you to explicitly name an argument you are passing to a method – instead of just identifying it by argument position.  For example, I could write the code below to explicitly identify the second argument passed to the GetProductsByCategory method by name (making its usage a little more explicit): Named arguments come in very useful when a method supports multiple optional parameters, and you want to specify which arguments you are passing.  For example, below we have a method DoSomething that takes two optional parameters: We could use named arguments to call the above method in any of the below ways: Because both parameters are optional, in cases where only one (or zero) parameters is specified then the default value for any non-specified arguments is passed. ASP.NET MVC 2 and Optional Parameters One nice usage scenario where we can now take advantage of the optional parameter support of VB and C# is with ASP.NET MVC 2’s input binding support to Action methods on Controller classes. For example, consider a scenario where we want to map URLs like “Products/Browse/Beverages” or “Products/Browse/Deserts” to a controller action method.  We could do this by writing a URL routing rule that maps the URLs to a method like so: We could then optionally use a “page” querystring value to indicate whether or not the results displayed by the Browse method should be paged – and if so which page of the results should be displayed.  For example: /Products/Browse/Beverages?page=2. With ASP.NET MVC 1 you would typically handle this scenario by adding a “page” parameter to the action method and make it a nullable int (which means it will be null if the “page” querystring value is not present).  You could then write code like below to convert the nullable int to an int – and assign it a default value if it was not present in the querystring: With ASP.NET MVC 2 you can now take advantage of the optional parameter support in VB and C# to express this behavior more concisely and clearly.  Simply declare the action method parameter as an optional parameter with a default value: C# VB If the “page” value is present in the querystring (e.g. /Products/Browse/Beverages?page=22) then it will be passed to the action method as an integer.  If the “page” value is not in the querystring (e.g. /Products/Browse/Beverages) then the default value of 0 will be passed to the action method.  This makes the code a little more concise and readable. Summary There are a bunch of great new language features coming to both C# and VB with VS 2010.  The above two features (optional parameters and named parameters) are but two of them.  I’ll blog about more in the weeks and months ahead. If you are looking for a good book that summarizes all the language features in C# (including C# 4.0), as well provides a nice summary of the core .NET class libraries, you might also want to check out the newly released C# 4.0 in a Nutshell book from O’Reilly: It does a very nice job of packing a lot of content in an easy to search and find samples format. Hope this helps, Scott

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  • Call Webservices&hellip;Maybe!?

    - by MOSSLover
    So I have been doing preliminary work for my iOS talk for a while, but did not get into the meat of the project until recently.  One day I envision my talk uploading pictures from a camera on an iPhone or iPad into SharePoint and telling people how I did it.  As you know with my Silverlight talk and any new technology, building new talks with new technologies always ends up with some pain points that you must jump over just to grab data.  So step 1 always starts out with how do we even access a webservice using the new technology. I started out watching every single SPC video available on oAuth and Rest Webservices in SharePoint 2013.  I also sent an email to Eric Shupps about some REST and 2013 examples.  The videos further confused me, because all the videos were on SharePoint hosted apps (provider and autohosted).  I did not want to create a SharePoint hosted app, but instead a mobile app outside of the SharePoint context altogether.  Nick Swan sent me his code and it was great for a starting point on how the JSON calls would look like on iOS, but I was still missing a piece.  Nick does a great job on showing how to use the REST/JSON calls in a non-MS tech, however his presentation uses the SharePoint context and can grab the SPAppToken.  At this point I had to ask the question how do you grab the SAML token outside of SharePoint 2013 in iOS using Objective-C?  After reading all the MSDN documentation, some documentation on Restkit and Objective-C/oAuth calls, and some SharePoint 2013 blog post my head was swimming.  I was dreaming about REST and iOS in SharePoint 2013.  SAML tokens were taunting me.  I was nowhere near understanding 2013. I started talking to my friend, Pedro Jimenez, who is also playing with Objective-C and went to SPC.  He found me a couple good MSDN posts with REST/JSON calls that basically showed the accessToken was all I needed (at this point I was still thinking iOS needed to be a provider hosted app which is wrong).  So then again I had to ask the SAML token question…How do you get a SAML token outside of SharePoint without the TokenHelper class? So then I started talking to people and thinking why do I need to completely avoid TokenHelper…The solution in concept is basically create a webservice in Azure wrapped into a Provider Hosted App in SharePoint.  Wictor Wilen created a helper webservice in the following blog post: http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/How-to-do-active-authentication-to-Office-365-and-SharePoint-Online.aspx. So now I have to basically stand up the webservice, the SharePoint app wrapper, and then use Restkit to call the first webservice to grab the token and then the second webservice to pass in the token and grab some SharePoint data.  What this means is that you can no longer just pass credentials into SharePoint webservices and get data back.  You have to pass in a SAML token with every single webservice call to SharePoint.  The theory is that this token is associated with the permissions the app can handle (read, write, whatever).  It seems like a ton of pain and a lot of work, but this is step 1 in my crusade to pull some piece of data into iOS from SharePoint and show people how to do it themselves.  In the upcoming months hopefully I can get halfway to my end goal. Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2013,REST,oAuth,Objective-C,iOS

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  • Ann Arbor Day of .NET 2010 Recap

    - by PSteele
    Had a great time at the Ann Arbor Day of .NET on Saturday.  Lots of great speakers and topics.  And chance to meet up with friends you usually only communicate with via email/twitter. My Presentation I presented "Getting up to speed with C# 3.5 — Just in time for 4.0!".  There's still a lot of devs that are either stuck in .NET 2.0 or just now moving to .NET 3.5.  This presentation gave highlights of a lot of the key features of 3.5.  I had great questions from the audience.  Afterwards, I talked with a few people who are just now getting in to 3.5 and they told me they had a lot of "A HA!" moments when something I said finally clicked and made sense from a code sample they had seen on the web.  Thanks to all who attended! A few people have asked me for the slides and demo.  The slides were nothing more than a table of contents.  90% of the presentation was spent inside Visual Studio demo'ing new techniques.  However, I have included it in the ZIP file with the sample solution.  You can download it here. Dennis Burton on MongoDB I caught Dennis Burton's presentation on MongoDB.  I was really interested in this one as I've missed the last few times Dennis had given it to local user groups.  It was very informative and I want to spend some time learning more about MongoDB.  I'm still an old-school relational guy, but I'm willing to investigate alternatives. Brian Genisio on Prism Since I'm not a Silverlight/WPF guy (yet), I wasn't sure this would interest me.  But I talked with Brian for a couple of minutes before the presentation and he convinced me to catch it.  And I'm glad he did.  Prism looks like a very nice framework for "composable UI's" in Silverlight and WPF.  I like the whole "dependency injection" feel to it.  Nice job Brian! GiveCamp Planning I spent some time Saturday working on things for the upcoming GiveCamp (which is why I only caught a few sessions).  Ann Arbor's Day of .NET and GiveCamp have both been held at Washtenaw Community College so I took some time (along with fellow GiveCamp planners Mike Eaton and John Hopkins) to check out the new location for Ann Arbor GiveCamp this year! In the past, WCC has let us use the Business Education (BE) building for our GiveCamp's.  But this year, they're moving us over to the Morris Lawrence (ML) building.  Let me tell you – this is a step UP!  In the BE building, we were spread across two floors and spread out into classrooms.  Plus, our opening and closing ceremonies were held in the Liberal Arts (LA) building – a bit of a walk from the BE building. In the ML building, we're together for the whole weekend.  We've got a large open area (which can be sectioned off if needed) for everyone to work in:   Right next to that, we have a large area where we can set up tables and eat.  And it helps that we have a wonderful view while eating (yes, that's a lake out there with a fountain): The ML building also has showers (which we'll have access to!) and it's own auditorium for our opening and closing ceremonies. All in all, this year's GiveCamp will be great! Stay tuned to the Ann Arbor GiveCamp website.  We'll be looking for volunteers (devs, designers, PM's, etc…) soon! Technorati Tags: .NET,Day of .NET,GiveCamp,MongoDB,Prism

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  • Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

    - by Michelle Kimihira
    By Maria Forney Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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  • Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

    - by Maria Forney
    Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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  • Pie Charts Just Don't Work When Comparing Data - Number 10 of Top 10 Reasons to Never Ever Use a Pie

    - by Tony Wolfram
    When comparing data, which is what a pie chart is for, people have a hard time judging the angles and areas of the multiple pie slices in order to calculate how much bigger one slice is than the others. Pie Charts Don't Work A slice of pie is good for serving up a portion of desert. It's not good for making a judgement about how big the slice is, what percentage of 100 it is, or how it compares to other slices. People have trouble comparing angles and areas to each other. Controlled studies show that people will overestimate the percentage that a pie slice area represents. This is because we have trouble calculating the area based on the space between the two angles that define the slice. This picture shows how a pie chart is useless in determing the largest value when you have to compare pie slices.   You can't compare angles and slice areas to each other. Human perception and cognition is poor when viewing angles and areas and trying to make a mental comparison. Pie charts overload the working memory, forcing the person to make complicated calculations, and at the same time make a decision based on those comparisons. What's the point of showing a pie chart when you want to compare data, except to say, "well, the slices are almost the same, but I'm not really sure which one is bigger, or by how much, or what order they are from largest to smallest. But the colors sure are pretty. Plus, I like round things. Oh,was I suppose to make some important business decision? Sorry." Bad Choices and Bad Decisions Interaction Designers, Graphic Artists, Report Builders, Software Developers, and Executives have all made the decision to use pie charts in their reports, software applications, and dashboards. It was a bad decision. It was a poor choice. There are always better options and choices, yet the designer still made the decision to use a pie chart. I'll expore why people make such poor choices in my upcoming blog entires. (Hint: It has more to do with emotions than with analytical thinking.) I've outlined my opinions and arguments about the evils of using pie charts in "Countdown of Top 10 Reasons to Never Ever Use a Pie Chart." Each of my next 10 blog entries will support these arguments with illustrations, examples, and references to studies. But my goal is not to continuously and endlessly rage against the evils of using pie charts. This blog is not about pie charts. This blog is about understanding why designers choose to use a pie chart. Why, when give better alternatives, and acknowledging the shortcomings of pie charts, do designers over and over again still freely choose to place a pie chart in a report? As an extra treat and parting shot, check out the nice pie chart that Wikipedia uses to illustrate the United States population by state.   Remember, somebody chose to use this pie chart, with all its glorious colors, and post it on Wikipedia for all the world to see. My next blog will give you a better alternative for displaying comparable data - the sorted bar chart.

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  • Value of SOA Specialization interview with Thomas Schaller IPT - part III

    - by Jürgen Kress
    Recognized by Oracle, Preferred by Customers. We had the great opportunity to interview Thomas Schaller – Partner from our SOA Specialized Partner IPT Innovation Process Technology from Switzerland Why did IPT decide to become SOA Specialized? " SOA Specialization is a great branding for IPT. We are the SOA Specialists in the Swiss market, as we focus all our services around SOA. With 65 Swiss consultants focused on SOA Security & SOA Testing & BPM – Business Process Management & BSM – Business Service Modeling the partnership with Oracle as the technology leader in SOA is key, therefore it was important to us to become the first SOA Specialized company in Switzerland. As a result IPT is mentioned by Gartner as one of eight European SOA Consulting Firms and included in „Guide to SOA Consulting and System Integration Service Providers“ Can you describe the marketing activities with Oracle? Once a year we organize the largest SOA Conference in Switzerland “SOA, BPM & Integration Forum 2011“ Oracle is much more than a sponsor for the conference. Jointly we invite our customer base to attend this key event. The sales teams address jointly their most important prospects and customers. Oracle supports us with key speakers who present future directions of the Oracle SOA portfolio like Clemens Utschig-Utschig who presented details about the Complex Event Processing (CEP) solution in 2009 and James Allerton-Austin who presented details about the social BPM solution (BPM) in 2010. Additional our key customers presented their Oracle SOA success stories. How did you team with Oracle around the sales activities? "Sales alignment is key for the successful partnership. When we achieved! SOA Specialization we celebrated jointly with the Oracle and IPT middleware sales team. At the Aperol may interesting discussions resulted in joint opportunities and business. A key section of our joint business planning are marketing and sales activities. Together we define campaign topics and target customers. Matthias Breitschmid our superb Oracle partner manager ensures that the defined sales teams align and start the joint business. Regular we review our joint business plan with the joint management teams and Jürgen Kress our EMEA Oracle Sponsor. It is great to see that both companies profit from each other and we receive leads from Oracle!” Did you get Oracle support to train your consultants in the Oracle SOA Suite? “Enablement is key for us to deliver successful SOA projects. Together with Ralph Bellinghausen from the Oracle Enablement team we defined an Oracle trainings plan for our consultants. The monthly SOA Partner Community newsletter is a great resource to get the latest product updates, webcasts and trainings. As a SOA Specialized partner we get also invited to the SOA Blackbelt trainings, this trainings are hosted by Oracle product management where we get not only first hand information we get also direct access to the developers who can support us in critical project phases. Driven by the customer success we have increased our Oracle SOA practice by more than 200% in the last years!” Why did the customer decide for the IPT SOA offering? “SOA Specialization becomes a brand for customers, it proofs that we have the certified SOA skills and that IPT has delivered successful Oracle SOA projects. Jointly with Oracle and all the support we get from marketing, sales, enablement, support and product management we can ensure our customers to deliver their SOA project successful!” What are the next steps for IPT? “SOA Specialization is a super beneficial for IPT. We are looking forward to our upcoming SOA, BPM & Integration Forum 2011 and prepare to become BPM Specialized. part I Torsten Winterberg, Opitz Consulting & part II Debra Lilley, Fujitsu 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

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  • Time to stop using &ldquo;Execute Package Task&rdquo;&ndash; a way to execute package in SSIS catalog taking advantage of the new project deployment model ,and the logging and reporting feature

    - by Kevin Shyr
    I set out to find a way to dynamically call package in SSIS 2012.  The following are 2 excellent blogs I found; I used them heavily.  The code below has some addition to parameter types and message types, but was made essentially derived entirely from the blogs. http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2011/07/16/ssis-logging-in-denali.aspx http://www.ssistalk.com/2012/07/24/quick-tip-run-ssis-2012-packages-synchronously-and-other-execution-options/   The code: Every package will be called by a PackageController package.  The packageController is initialized with some information on which package to run and what information to pass in.   The following is the stored procedure called from the “Execute SQL Task”.  Here is the highlight of the stored procedure It takes in packageName, project name, and folder name (folder in SSIS project deployment to SSIS catalog) The stored procedure sets the package variables of the upcoming package execution Execute package in SSIS Catalog Get the status of the execution.  Also, if exists, get the error message’s message_id and store them in the management database. Return value to “Execute SQL Task” to manage failure properly CREATE PROCEDURE [AUDIT].[LaunchPackageExecutionInSSISCatalog]        @PackageName NVARCHAR(255)        , @ProjectFolder NVARCHAR(255)        , @ProjectName NVARCHAR(255)        , @AuditKey INT        , @DisableNotification BIT        , @PackageExecutionLogID INT AS BEGIN TRY        DECLARE @execution_id BIGINT = 0;        -- Create a package execution        EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[create_execution]                     @package_name=@PackageName,                     @execution_id=@execution_id OUTPUT,                     @folder_name=@ProjectFolder,                     @project_name=@ProjectName,                     @use32bitruntime=False;          UPDATE [AUDIT].[PackageInstanceExecutionLog] WITH(ROWLOCK)        SET [SSISCatalogExecutionID] = @execution_id        WHERE [PackageInstanceExecutionLogID] = @PackageExecutionLogID          -- this is to set the execution synchronized so that I can check the result in the end        EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=50,                     @parameter_name=N'SYNCHRONIZED',                     @parameter_value=1; -- true          /********************************************************         ********************************************************              Section: setting parameters                     Source table:  SSISDB.internal.object_parameters              object_type list:                     20: project level variables                     30: package level variables                     50: execution parameter         ********************************************************         ********************************************************/        EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=30,                     @parameter_name=N'FromParent_AuditKey',                     @parameter_value=@AuditKey; -- true          EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=30,                     @parameter_name=N'FromParent_DisableNotification',                     @parameter_value=@DisableNotification; -- true          EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=30,                     @parameter_name=N'FromParent_PackageInstanceExecutionID',                     @parameter_value=@PackageExecutionLogID; -- true        /********************************************************         ********************************************************              Section: setting variables END         ********************************************************         ********************************************************/            /* This section is carried over from example code           I don't see a reason to change them yet        */        -- Set our package parameters        EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=50,                     @parameter_name=N'DUMP_ON_EVENT',                     @parameter_value=1; -- true          EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=50,                     @parameter_name=N'DUMP_EVENT_CODE',                     @parameter_value=N'0x80040E4D;0x80004005';          EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=50,                     @parameter_name=N'LOGGING_LEVEL',                     @parameter_value= 1; -- Basic          EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value]                     @execution_id,                      @object_type=50,                     @parameter_name=N'DUMP_ON_ERROR',                     @parameter_value=1; -- true                              /********************************************************         ********************************************************              Section: EXECUTING         ********************************************************         ********************************************************/        EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[start_execution]                     @execution_id;        /********************************************************         ********************************************************              Section: EXECUTING END         ********************************************************         ********************************************************/            /********************************************************         ********************************************************              Section: checking execution result                     Source table:  [SSISDB].[catalog].[executions]              status:                     1: created                     2: running                     3: cancelled                     4: failed                     5: pending                     6: ended unexpectedly                     7: succeeded                     8: stopping                     9: completed         ********************************************************         ********************************************************/        if EXISTS(SELECT TOP 1 1                            FROM [SSISDB].[catalog].[executions] WITH(NOLOCK)                            WHERE [execution_id] = @execution_id                                  AND [status] NOT IN (2, 7, 9)) BEGIN                /********************************************************               ********************************************************                     Section: logging error messages                            Source table:  [SSISDB].[internal].[operation_messages]                     message type:                            10:  OnPreValidate                             20:  OnPostValidate                             30:  OnPreExecute                             40:  OnPostExecute                             60:  OnProgress                             70:  OnInformation                             90:  Diagnostic                             110:  OnWarning                            120:  OnError                            130:  Failure                            140:  DiagnosticEx                             200:  Custom events                             400:  OnPipeline                     message source type:                            10:  Messages logged by the entry APIs (e.g. T-SQL, CLR Stored procedures)                             20:  Messages logged by the external process used to run package (ISServerExec)                             30:  Messages logged by the package-level objects                             40:  Messages logged by tasks in the control flow                             50:  Messages logged by containers (For, ForEach, Sequence) in the control flow                             60:  Messages logged by the Data Flow Task                                    ********************************************************               ********************************************************/                INSERT INTO AUDIT.PackageInstanceExecutionOperationErrorLink                     SELECT @PackageExecutionLogID                                  ,[operation_message_id]                            FROM [SSISDB].[internal].[operation_messages] WITH(NOLOCK)                            WHERE operation_id = @execution_id                                  AND message_type IN (120, 130)                           EXEC [AUDIT].[FailPackageInstanceExecution] @PackageExecutionLogID, 'SSISDB Internal operation_messages found'                GOTO ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag                /********************************************************               ********************************************************                     Section: checking messages END               ********************************************************               ********************************************************/                /* This part is not really working, so now using rowcount to pass status              --DECLARE @PackageErrorMessage NVARCHAR(4000)              --SET @PackageErrorMessage = @PackageName + 'failed with executionID: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), @execution_id)                --RAISERROR (@PackageErrorMessage -- Message text.              --     , 18 -- Severity,              --     , 1 -- State,              --     , N'check table AUDIT.PackageInstanceExecutionErrorMessages' -- First argument.              --     );              */        END        ELSE BEGIN              GOTO ReturnFalseAsErrorFlagToSignalSuccess        END        /********************************************************         ********************************************************              Section: checking execution result END         ********************************************************         ********************************************************/ END TRY BEGIN CATCH        DECLARE @SSISCatalogCallError NVARCHAR(MAX)        SELECT @SSISCatalogCallError = ERROR_MESSAGE()          EXEC [AUDIT].[FailPackageInstanceExecution] @PackageExecutionLogID, @SSISCatalogCallError          GOTO ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag END CATCH;     /********************************************************  ********************************************************    Section: end result  ********************************************************  ********************************************************/ ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag:        SELECT CONVERT(BIT, 1) AS PackageExecutionErrorExists ReturnFalseAsErrorFlagToSignalSuccess:        SELECT CONVERT(BIT, 0) AS PackageExecutionErrorExists   GO

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  • Tough Decisions

    - by Johnm
    There was once a thriving business that employed two Database Administrators, Sam and Jim. Both DBAs were certified, educated and highly talented in their skill sets. During lunch breaks these two DBAs were often found together discussing best practices, troubleshooting techniques and the latest release notes for the upcoming version of SQL Server. They genuinely loved what they did. The maintenance of the first database was the responsibility of Sam. He was the architect of this server's setup and he was very meticulous in its configuration. He regularly monitored the health of the database, validated backup files and regularly adhered to the best practices that were advocated by well respected professionals. He was very proud of the fact that there was never a database that he managed that lost data or performed poorly. The maintenance of the second database was the responsibility of Jim. He too was the architect of this server's setup. At the time that he built this server, his understanding of the finer details of configuration were not as clear as they are today. The server was build on a shoestring budget and with very little time for testing and implementation. Jim often monitored the health of the database; but in more of a reactionary mode due to user complaints of slowness or failed transactions. Deadlocks abounded and the backup files were never validated. One day, the announcement was made that revealed that the business had hit financially hard times. Budgets were being cut, limitation on spending was implemented and the reduction in full-time staff was required. Since having two DBAs was regarded a luxury by many, this meant that either Sam or Jim were about to find themselves out of a job. Sam and Jim's boss, Frank, was faced with a very tough decision. Sam's performance was flawless. His techniques and practices were perfection. The databases he managed were reliable and efficient. His solutions are "by the book". When given a task it is certain that, while it may take a little longer, it will be done right the first time. Jim's techniques and practices were not perfect; but effective and responsive. He made mistakes regularly; but he shows that he learns from them and they often result in innovative solutions. When given a task it is certain that, while the results may require some tweaking, it will be done on time and under budget. You are Frank's best friend. He approaches you and presents this scenario. He must layoff one of his valued DBAs the very next morning. Frank asks you: "All else being equal, who would you let go? and Why?" Another pertinent question is raised: "Regardless of good times or bad, if you had to choose, which DBA would you want on your team when tough challenges arise?" Your response is. (This is where you enter a comment below)

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  • asynchrony is viral

    - by Daniel Moth
    It is becoming hard to write code today without introducing some form of asynchrony and, if you are using .NET (e.g. for Windows Phone 8 or Windows Store apps), that means sooner or later you have to await something and mark your method as async. My most recent examples included introducing speech recognition in my Translator By Moth phone app where I had to await mySpeechRecognizerUI.RecognizeWithUIAsync() and when moving that code base to a Windows Store project just to show a MessageBox I had to await myMessageDialog.ShowAsync(). Any time you need to invoke an asynchronous method in your code, you have a choice to make: kick off the operation but don’t wait for it to complete (otherwise known as fire-and-forget), synchronously wait for it to complete (which will entail blocking, which can be bad, especially on a UI thread), or asynchronously wait for it to complete before continuing on with the rest of the method’s work. In most cases, you want the latter, and the await keyword makes that trivial to implement.  When you use the magical await keyword in front of an API call, then you typically have to make additional changes to your code: This await usage is within a method of course, and now you have to annotate that method with async. Furthermore, you have to change the return type of the method you just annotated so it returns a Task (if it previously returned void), or Task<myOldReturnType> (if it previously returned myOldReturnType). Note that if it returns void, in some cases you could cheat and stop there. Furthermore, any method that called this method you just annotated with async will now also be invoking an asynchronous operation, so you have to make that change in the body of the caller method to introduce the await keyword before the call to the method. …you guessed it, you now have to change this caller method to be annotated with async and have its return types tweaked... …and it goes on virally… At some point you reach the root of your user code, e.g. a GUI event handler, and whoever calls that void method can already deal with the fact that you marked it as async and the viral introduction of the keywords stops there… This is all wonderful progress and a very powerful mechanism, and I just wish someone had written a refactoring tool to take care of this… anyone? I mentioned earlier that you have a choice when invoking an asynchronous operation. If the first time you encounter this you wish to localize the impact of all these changes and essentially try to turn the asynchronous behavior into synchronous by blocking - don't! For reasons why you don't want to do that, read Toub's excellent blog post (and check out the rest of his blog with gems on async programming starting with the Async FAQ). Just embrace the pattern knowing that when you use one instance of an await, you'll propagate the change all the way to the root user code method, e.g. typically an event handler. Related aside: I just finished re-writing my MessageBox wrapper class for Phone projects, including making it work in Windows Store projects, and it does expect you to use it with an await :-). I'll share that in an upcoming post for those of you that have the same need… Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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  • The New Social Developer Community: a Q&A

    - by Mike Stiles
    In our last blog, we introduced the opportunities that lie ahead for social developers as social applications reach across every aspect and function of the enterprise. Leading the upcoming JavaOne Social Developer Program October 2 at the San Francisco Hilton is Roland Smart, VP of Social Marketing at Oracle. I got to ask Roland a few of the questions an existing or budding social developer might want to know as social extends beyond interacting with friends and marketing and into the enterprise. Why is it smart for developers to specialize as social developers? What opportunities lie in the immediate future that’s making this a critical, in-demand position? Social has changed the way we interact with brands and with each other across the web. As we acclimate to a new social paradigm we also look to extend its benefits into new areas of our lives. The workplace is a logical next step, and we're starting to see social interactions more and more in this context. But unlocking the value of social interactions requires technical expertise and knowledge of developing social apps that tap into the social graph. Developers focused on integrating social experiences into enterprise applications must be familiar with popular social APIs and must understand how to build enterprise social graphs of their own. These developers are part of an emerging community of social developers and are key to socially enabling the enterprise. Facebook rebranded their Preferred Developer Consultant Group (PDC) and the Preferred Marketing Developers (PMD) to underscore the fact developers are required inside marketing organizations to unlock the full potential of their platform. While this trend is starting on the marketing side with marketing developers, this is just an extension of the social developer concept that will ultimately drive social across the enterprise. What are some of the various ways social will be making its way into every area of enterprise organizations? How will it be utilized and what kinds of applications are going to be needed to facilitate and maximize these changes? Check out Oracle’s vision for the social-enabled enterprise. It’s a high-level overview of how social will impact across the enterprise. For example: HR can leverage social in recruiting and retentionSales can leverage social as a prospecting toolMarketing can use social to gain market insightCustomer support can use social to leverage community support to improve customer satisfaction while reducing service costOperations can leverage social improve systems That’s only the beginning. Once sleeves get rolled up and social developers and innovators get to work, still more social functions will no doubt emerge. What makes Java one of, if not the most viable platform on which to build these new enterprise social applications? Java is certainly one of the best platforms on which to build social experiences because there’s such a large existing community of Java developers. This means you can affordably recruit talent, and it's possible to effectively solicit advice from the community through various means, including our new Social Developer Community. Beyond that, there are already some great proof points Java is the best platform for creating social experiences at scale. Consider LinkedIn and Twitter. Tell us more about the benefits of collaboration and more about what the Oracle Social Developer Community is. What opportunities does that offer up and what are some of the ways developers can actively participate in and benefit from that community? Much has been written about the overall benefits of collaborating with other developers. Those include an opportunity to introduce yourself to the community of social developers, foster a reputation, establish an expertise, contribute to the advancement of the space, get feedback, experiment with the latest concepts, and gain inspiration. In short, collaboration is a tool that must be applied properly within a framework to get the most value out of it. The OSDC is a place where social developers can congregate to discuss the opportunities/challenges of building social integrations into their applications. What “needs” will this community have? We don't know yet. But we wanted to create a forum where we can engage and understand what social developers are thinking about, excited about, struggling with, etc. The OSDL can then step in if we can help remove barriers and add value in a serious and committed way so Oracle can help drive practice development.

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  • Silverlight Cream for February 10, 2011 -- #1045

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Mark Monster, Jaime Rodriguez, Mark Hopkins, WindowsPhoneGeek, David Anson, Jesse Liberty, Jeremy Likness, Martin Krüger(-2-), Beth Massi, Joost van Schaik, Laurent Bugnion, and Arik Poznanski. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Parsing the Visual Tree with LINQ" Jeremy Likness WP7: "Silverlight-ready PNG encoder implementation shows one way to use .NET IEnumerables effectively" David Anson Lightswitch: "How to Send Automated Appointments from a LightSwitch Application" Beth Massi Shoutouts: Be sure to visit SilverlightShow... check out their top hits last week: SilverlightShow for Jan 31- Feb 06, 2011 Jaime Rodriguez has a post up that all the WP7 folks will be interested in: FAQ about copy paste functionality in upcoming release From SilverlightCream.com: Make use of WCF FaultContracts in Silverlight clients Mark Monster takes a shot at answering “The remote server returned an error: NotFound” while connecting to a WCF Service problem we all see. Communication between HTML in WebBrowser and Silverlight app Jaime Rodriguez responds to questions he received about communication between HTML and SIlverlight with this post about the bi-directional communication between the control and HTML. WP7 - Real Apps, Real Code Mark Hopkins has a post up about some WP7 starter kits that you can get all the source for and actually download the app from the Marketplace first to see if it interests you! WP7 AboutPrompt in depth WindowsPhoneGeek has this cool post up about the AboutPrompt from the Coding4Fun toolkit in detail... great diagrams showing where all the elements are and code examples with images. Silverlight-ready PNG encoder implementation shows one way to use .NET IEnumerables effectively David Anson describes why he took it upon himself to write his own png encoder for Silverlight... and we all thank him for doing so and providing us with the code! Navigation 101–Cancelling Navigation Jesse Liberty's latest WP7 From Scratch episode is up (number 32), and he's talking about Navigation and how to cancel it if you need to. Parsing the Visual Tree with LINQ Jeremy Likness demonstrates using LINQ to rat out information in the visual tree of your XAML. To Quote Jeremy: "you can easily check for intersections between elements and find any type of element no matter how deep within the tree it is". SpriteAnimationBehavior Martin Krüger has a couple more fun things in the Expression Gallery that I haven't discussed. First up is a behavior that animates up to 999 images and lets you control the FramesPerSecond... great demo on the ExpressionGallery to play with. Second alternative: Storyboard should not start before the Silverlight application is loaded Martin Krüger's latest is a way to programmatically wait for the Loaded event so that you know you can let your animations fly. How to Send Automated Appointments from a LightSwitch Application Beth Massi's latest Lightswitch post follows up her Outlook automation one with sending appointments using the standard iCalendar format... all the code included of course. The case for the Bindable Application Bar for Windows Phone 7 Joost van Schaik posts about a bindable Application Bar for your WP7 apps... grab the code and don't leave home without it :) MVVM Light V4 preview (BL0014) release notes Laurent Bugnion posted an update to MVVMLight to Codeplex a couple days ago. This is an early preview of what he plans on having in version 4, so check out the post for what's new and fun. Search Digg on Windows Phone 7 Arik Poznanski followed up his RSS post from last week with this one on searching Digg on WP7... and he's discussing and providing a utility class for doing it. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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  • Test and Report Add-on Compatibility in Firefox

    - by Asian Angel
    Now that the new version of Firefox is out you probably have a favorite extension or two that has not updated yet. You can get that extension working again, test it, and report back to Mozilla on how well it does with the Add-on Compatibility Reporter extension. Before For our example we chose a great extension that unfortunately has not been updated yet. As you can see here Firefox is refusing to let the extension install. After As soon as you install Add-on Compatibility Reporter you will be presented with an information page on how the extension works and what you can do with it. You should definitely take a moment to read this as it is very helpful. After trying our non-compatible extension again we were able to proceed with the install process. Notice at the bottom that “compatibility checking” has been overridden. Success! As soon as we restarted our browser it was easy to see the “non-compatible icon” in the “Add-ons Manager Window”…but the extension did install though (terrific!). Clicking on the extension’s entry will reveal a new button in the lower right corner. Using the “Compatibility Drop-Down Menu” you can report if the extension is working as well as before or if it is actually having problems. The extension that we used for our example had no problems whatsoever so good news there. Whichever option you choose you will be presented with a small “Report Window” with information about the extension, your browser’s version number, and your operating system. Click “Submit Report” to send it on its’ way. You will see a confirmation message letting you know that your report was successfully submitted. While the extension itself has not been altered in any form at least you have it working again and have helped verify whether it still works well or not. Notice the “notation” present now in place of the “Compatibility Button” that lets you know that you have already taken care of that particular extension. Looking great… Conclusion If you have a favorite extension that you miss using in the newest release of Firefox then this is definitely an extension to add to your browser. Not only will your extension start working again but you can let Mozilla know how well it is working and (hopefully) help get the extension updated. Links Download the Add-on Compatibility Reporter extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate Available, Here’s How to Fix Your Incompatible ExtensionsUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMysticgeek Blog: Generate A System Health Report In VistaCheck Extension Compatibility for Upcoming Firefox ReleasesMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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