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  • XNA 4 Deferred Rendering deforms the model

    - by Tomáš Bezouška
    I have a problem when rendering a model of my World - when rendered using BasicEffect, it looks just peachy. Problem is when I render it using deferred rendering. See for yourselves: what it looks like: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/690/survival.png/ what it should look like: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/521/survival2.png/ (Please ignora the cars, they shouldn't be there. Nothing changes when they are removed) Im using Deferred renderer from www.catalinzima.com/tutorials/deferred-rendering-in-xna/introduction-2/ except very simplified, without the custom content processor. Here's the code for the GBuffer shader: float4x4 World; float4x4 View; float4x4 Projection; float specularIntensity = 0.001f; float specularPower = 3; texture Texture; sampler diffuseSampler = sampler_state { Texture = (Texture); MAGFILTER = LINEAR; MINFILTER = LINEAR; MIPFILTER = LINEAR; AddressU = Wrap; AddressV = Wrap; }; struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; float2 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; float3 Normal : TEXCOORD1; float2 Depth : TEXCOORD2; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; float4 worldPosition = mul(input.Position, World); float4 viewPosition = mul(worldPosition, View); output.Position = mul(viewPosition, Projection); output.TexCoord = input.TexCoord; //pass the texture coordinates further output.Normal = mul(input.Normal,World); //get normal into world space output.Depth.x = output.Position.z; output.Depth.y = output.Position.w; return output; } struct PixelShaderOutput { half4 Color : COLOR0; half4 Normal : COLOR1; half4 Depth : COLOR2; }; PixelShaderOutput PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) { PixelShaderOutput output; output.Color = tex2D(diffuseSampler, input.TexCoord); //output Color output.Color.a = specularIntensity; //output SpecularIntensity output.Normal.rgb = 0.5f * (normalize(input.Normal) + 1.0f); //transform normal domain output.Normal.a = specularPower; //output SpecularPower output.Depth = input.Depth.x / input.Depth.y; //output Depth return output; } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } And here are the rendering parts in XNA: public void RednerModel(Model model, Matrix world) { Matrix[] boneTransforms = new Matrix[model.Bones.Count]; model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(boneTransforms); Game.GraphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; Game.GraphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; Game.GraphicsDevice.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullCounterClockwise; foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (ModelMeshPart meshPart in mesh.MeshParts) { GBufferEffect.Parameters["View"].SetValue(Camera.Instance.ViewMatrix); GBufferEffect.Parameters["Projection"].SetValue(Camera.Instance.ProjectionMatrix); GBufferEffect.Parameters["World"].SetValue(boneTransforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * world); GBufferEffect.Parameters["Texture"].SetValue(meshPart.Effect.Parameters["Texture"].GetValueTexture2D()); GBufferEffect.Techniques[0].Passes[0].Apply(); RenderMeshpart(mesh, meshPart); } } } private void RenderMeshpart(ModelMesh mesh, ModelMeshPart part) { Game.GraphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(part.VertexBuffer); Game.GraphicsDevice.Indices = part.IndexBuffer; Game.GraphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, part.NumVertices, part.StartIndex, part.PrimitiveCount); } I import the model using the built in content processor for FBX. The FBX is created in 3DS Max. I don't know the exact details of that export, but if you think it might be relevant, I will get them from my collegue who does them. What confuses me though is why the BasicEffect approach works... seems the FBX shouldnt be a problem. Any thoughts? They will be greatly appreciated :)

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  • How to mix textures in DirectX?

    - by tobsen
    I am new to DirectX development and I am wondering if I am taking the wrong route to achieve the following: I would like to mix three textures which contain transparent areas and some solid areas (Red, Blue, Green). The three textures should blend like shown in this example: How can I achieve that in DirectX (preferably in directx9)? A link or example code would be nice. Update: My rendering method looks like this and I still think I am doing it wrong, because the sprite only shows the last texture (nothing is rendered transparent or blended): void D3DTester::render() { d3ddevice->Clear(0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(0,0,0), 1.0f, 0); d3ddevice->BeginScene(); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE, TRUE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); LPD3DXSPRITE sprite=NULL; HRESULT hres = D3DXCreateSprite(d3ddevice, &sprite); if(hres != S_OK) { throw std::exception(); } sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); std::vector<LPDIRECT3DTEXTURE9>::iterator it; for ( it=textures.begin() ; it < textures.end(); it++ ) { sprite->Draw(*it, NULL, NULL, NULL, 0xFFFFFFFF); } sprite->End(); d3ddevice->EndScene(); d3ddevice->Present(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL); } The resulting image looks like this: But I need it to look like this instead: Update2: I figured out that I have to SetRenderState after I use sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); thanks to the hint by Josh Petrie. However, by using this: sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE, TRUE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); std::vector<LPDIRECT3DTEXTURE9>::iterator it; for ( it=textures.begin() ; it < textures.end(); it++ ) { sprite->Draw(*it, NULL, NULL, NULL, 0xFFFFFFFF); } sprite->End(); The sprites colors are becoming transparent towards the background scene e.g.: if I use d3ddevice->Clear(0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(0,100,21), 1.0f, 0); the result looks like: Is there any way to avoid that? I would like the sprites be transparent to each other but to be still solid to the background. Update3: After having sombody explained to me, how to do what @LaurentCouvidou and @JoshPetrie suggested, I have a working solution and therfore accept the answer: d3ddevice->BeginScene(); D3DCOLOR white = D3DCOLOR_RGBA((UINT)255, (UINT)255, (UINT)255, 255); D3DCOLOR black = D3DCOLOR_RGBA((UINT)0, (UINT)0, (UINT)0, 255); sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); sprite->Draw(pTextureRed, NULL, NULL, NULL, black); sprite->Draw(pTextureGreen, NULL, NULL, NULL, black); sprite->Draw(pTextureBlue, NULL, NULL, NULL, black); sprite->End(); sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHATESTENABLE, TRUE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_BLENDOP, D3DBLENDOP_ADD); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); sprite->Draw(pTextureRed, NULL, NULL, NULL, white); sprite->Draw(pTextureGreen, NULL, NULL, NULL, white); sprite->Draw(pTextureBlue, NULL, NULL, NULL, white); sprite->End(); d3ddevice->EndScene(); d3ddevice->Present(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL);

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  • EnOcean -> USB Serial Communication (C++)

    - by regorianer
    I guess it is not the right place to ask here for enocean specific details, but maybe I am doing something wrong by using serial connections and you can help me no matter if there is knowledge about this technology or not. I have a problem to communicate with the RCM152 Module. I have written a C++ program to communicate with the RCM152 by emulating packets of the PTM 200. I teach the RCM152 to listen to the following packets: [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 55 <-- start byte [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 00 <-- head begin [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 07 [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 07 [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 01 <-- head end [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 7a <-- CRC Check [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : f6 <-- packet type [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 20 <-- My action (00 and 10 -> OFF, 20 and 30 -> ON) [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 00 <-- serial.byte 3 [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 24 <-- serial.byte 2 [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 21 <-- serial.byte 1 [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 87 <-- serial.byte 0 [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 30 <-- status [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 03 <-- 03 for send, 01 for receiver [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : ff <-- begin destination [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : ff [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : ff [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : ff <-- end destination [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : ff <-- Transmission quality (sender ff) [06/19/12 04:21:44.546] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 00 [06/19/12 04:21:44.547] INFO: SENDING BYTE : 10 <-- CRC Check A PTM200 Device or a SG-FUS-24-230 Device are sending equivalent packets like: [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 55 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 00 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 07 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 07 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 01 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 7a [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: f6 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 40 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 00 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 24 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 6c [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 2f [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 30 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: 01 [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: ff [06/19/12 04:30:31.106] INFO: Received Byte: ff [06/19/12 04:30:31.108] INFO: Received Byte: ff [06/19/12 04:30:31.108] INFO: Received Byte: ff [06/19/12 04:30:31.108] INFO: Received Byte: 37 [06/19/12 04:30:31.108] INFO: Received Byte: 00 [06/19/12 04:30:31.108] INFO: Received Byte: d1 I can control the device connected to the RCM152 like I want to with my sending packets (thats a good fact and means that the RCM152 has learned my packets and can use them. Also the actions (0x10 - ON, 0x30 - OFF) are working fine), but the problem is, that no matter which serial I choose, the RCM152 reacts to these packets. I only want to have actions if the teached-in serial is send and all other packets with different serials to be ignored. The RCM152 is not reacting to the packets sent by the PTM200 nor by the SG-FUS-24-230 because these are not teached-in. Thats exactly what I want to have with the packets created myself. What am I doing wrong? The libraries I am using are these for C++ http://pvbrowser.de/pvbrowser/sf/manual/rllib/html/ The enocean EEP says: For this purpose of a determined relationship between transmitter and receiver each transmitting device has a unique Sender-ID which is part of each radio telegram. The receiving device detects from the Sender-ID whether the device is known, i.e., was already learned, or unknown. A telegram with unknown Sender-ID is disregarded.

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  • Database – Beginning with Cloud Database As A Service

    - by Pinal Dave
    I love my weekend projects. Everybody does different activities in their weekend – like traveling, reading or just nothing. Every weekend I try to do something creative and different in the database world. The goal is I learn something new and if I enjoy my learning experience I share with the world. This weekend, I decided to explore Cloud Database As A Service – Morpheus. In my career I have managed many databases in the cloud and I have good experience in managing them. I should highlight that today’s applications use multiple databases from SQL for transactions and analytics, NoSQL for documents, In-Memory for caching to Indexing for search.  Provisioning and deploying these databases often require extensive expertise and time.  Often these databases are also not deployed on the same infrastructure and can create unnecessary latency between the application layer and the databases.  Not to mention the different quality of service based on the infrastructure and the service provider where they are deployed. Moreover, there are additional problems that I have experienced with traditional database setup when hosted in the cloud: Database provisioning & orchestration Slow speed due to hardware issues Poor Monitoring Tools High network latency Now if you have a great software and expert network engineer, you can continuously work on above problems and overcome them. However, not every organization have the luxury to have top notch experts in the field. Now above issues are related to infrastructure, but there are a few more problems which are related to software/application as well. Here are the top three things which can be problems if you do not have application expert: Replication and Clustering Simple provisioning of the hard drive space Automatic Sharding Well, Morpheus looks like a product build by experts who have faced similar situation in the past. The product pretty much addresses all the pain points of developers and database administrators. What is different about Morpheus is that it offers a variety of databases from MySQL, MongoDB, ElasticSearch to Reddis as a service.  Thus users can pick and chose any combination of these databases.  All of them can be provisioned in a matter of minutes with a simple and intuitive point and click user interface.  The Morpheus cloud is built on Solid State Drives (SSD) and is designed for high-speed database transactions.  In addition it offers a direct link to Amazon Web Services to minimize latency between the application layer and the databases. Here are the few steps on how one can get started with Morpheus. Follow along with me.  First go to http://www.gomorpheus.com and register for a new and free account. Step 1: Signup It is very simple to signup for Morpheus. Step 2: Select your database   I use MySQL for my daily routine, so I have selected MySQL. Upon clicking on the big red button to add Instance, it prompted a dialogue of creating a new instance.   Step 3: Create User Now we just have to create a user in our portal which we will use to connect to a database hosted at Morpheus. Click on your database instance and it will bring you to User Screen. Over here you will notice once again a big red button to create a new user. I created a user with my first name.   Step 4: Configure your MySQL client I used MySQL workbench and connected to MySQL instance, which I had created with an IP address and user.   That’s it! You are connecting to MySQL instance. Now you can create your objects just like you would create on your local box. You will have all the features of the Morpheus when you are working with your database. Dashboard While working with Morpheus, I was most impressed with its dashboard. In future blog posts, I will write more about this feature.  Also with Morpheus you use the same process for provisioning and connecting with other databases: MongoDB, ElasticSearch and Reddis. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: MySQL, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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  • how do i fix this: the networking and wireless are enabled. but list of networks under wireless networks not available

    - by Ayesha Ahmad
    i started working with ubuntu 11.10 last year. i upgraded to 12.04 a week back. since then i have had all sorts of problems with network connection. first had to install the new driver. the hardware switch somehow got disabled then the above problem arrived. even tho the options are all enabled, the OS is not able to detect scan available network connections. also i have to bring to notice that once in a while it does get connected, can not explain how it happens. I want to fix this problem once and for all. please help. ifconfig: eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr f0:4d:a2:51:b3:c8 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) Interrupt:44 eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 1c:65:9d:67:d5:e1 inet6 addr: fe80::1e65:9dff:fe67:d5e1/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:170 TX packets:0 errors:27 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) Interrupt:17 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:344 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:344 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:20336 (20.3 KB) TX bytes:20336 (20.3 KB) lshw -c network *-network description: Wireless interface product: BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: eth1 version: 01 serial: 1c:65:9d:67:d5:e1 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=5.100.82.38 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 resources: irq:17 memory:f0500000-f0503fff *-network description: Ethernet interface product: AR8152 v1.1 Fast Ethernet vendor: Atheros Communications Inc. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: c1 serial: f0:4d:a2:51:b3:c8 capacity: 100Mbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=atl1c driverversion=1.0.1.0-NAPI firmware=N/A latency=0 multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:44 memory:f0400000-f043ffff ioport:2000(size=128) iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. eth1 IEEE 802.11 Access Point: Not-Associated Link Quality:5 Signal level:0 Noise level:196 Rx invalid nwid:0 invalid crypt:0 invalid misc:0 eth0 no wireless extensions. lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 18) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 18) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 06) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 06) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 06) 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev 06) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a6) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 06) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 06) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 06) 00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 06) 03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01) 04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8152 v1.1 Fast Ethernet (rev c1) ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 05) ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 05) ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 05) ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 05) ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 05) ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 05) I hope this information is of some help.

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  • Is SugarCRM really adequate for custom development (or adequate at all)? [closed]

    - by dukeofgaming
    Have you used SugarCRM for custom development successfully?, if so, have you done it programmatically or through the Module Builder? Were you successful? If not, why? I used SugarCRM for a project about two years ago, I ran into errors from the very installation, having to hack the actual installation file to deploy the software in the server and other erros that I can't recall now. Two years after, I'm picking it up for a project once again. I'm feeling like I should have developed the whole thing from scratch myself. Some examples: I couldn't install it in the server (again). I had to install it locally, then copy the files and database over to the server and manually edit the config file. Constantly getting deployment errors from the module builder. One reason is SugarCRM keeps creating a record in the upgrade_history table for a file that does not exist, I keep deleting such record and it keeps coming back corrupt. I get other deployment errors, but have not figured them out. then I have to rollback all files and database to try again. I deleted a custom module with relationships, the relationships stayed in the other modules and cannot be deleted anymore, PHP warnings all over the place. Quick create for custom modules does not appear, hack needed. Its whole cache directory is a joke, permanent data/files are stored there. The module builder interface disappears required fields. Edit the wrong thing, module builder won't deploy again, then pray Quick Repair and/or Rebuild Relationships do the trick. My impression of SugarCRM now is that, regardless of its pretty exterior and apparent functionality, it is a very low quality piece of software. This even scared me more: http://amplicate.com/hate/sugarcrm; a quote: I wis this info had been available when I tried to implement it 2 years ago... I searched high and low and the only info I found was positive. Yes, it's a piece of crap. The community edition was full of bugs... nothing worked. Essentially I got fired for implementing it. I'm glad though, because now I work for myself, am much happier and make more money... so, I should really thank SugarCRM for sucking so much I guess! I figured that perhaps some of you have had similar experiences, and have either sticked with SugarCRM or moved on to another solution. I'm very interested in knowing what your resolutions were -or your current situations are- to make up my own mind, since the project I'm working on is long term and I'm feeling SugarCRM will be more an obstacle than an aid. After further failed attempts to continue using this software I continued to stumble upon dead-ends when using the module editor, I could only recover from this errors by using version control. We are now moving on to a custom implementation using Symfony; perhaps if we were using it with its out-of-the-box modules we would have sticked with it.

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  • St. Louis ALT.NET

    - by Brian Schroer
    I’m a huge fan of the St. Louis .NET User Group and a regular attendee of their meetings, but always wished there was a local group that discussed more advanced .NET topics. (That’s not a criticism of the group - I appreciate that they want to server developers with a broad range of skill levels). That’s why I was thrilled when Nicholas Cloud started a St. Louis ALT.NET group in 2010. Here’s the “about us” statement from the group’s web site: The ALT.NET community is a loosely coupled, highly cohesive group of like-minded individuals who believe that the best developers do not align themselves with platforms and languages, but with principles and ideas. In 2007, David Laribee created the term "ALT.NET" to explain this "alternative" view of the Microsoft development universe--a view that challenged the "Microsoft-only" approach to software development. He distilled his thoughts into four key developer characteristics which form the basis of the ALT.NET philosophy: You're the type of developer who uses what works while keeping an eye out for a better way. You reach outside the mainstream to adopt the best of any community: Open Source, Agile, Java, Ruby, etc. You're not content with the status quo. Things can always be better expressed, more elegant and simple, more mutable, higher quality, etc. You know tools are great, but they only take you so far. It's the principles and knowledge that really matter. The best tools are those that embed the knowledge and encourage the principles (e.g. Resharper.) The St. Louis ALT.NET meetup group is a place where .NET developers can learn, share, and critique approaches to software development on the .NET stack. We cater to the highest common denominator, not the lowest, and want to help all St. Louis .NET developers achieve a superior level of software craftsmanship. I don’t see a lot of ALT.NET talk in blogs these days. The movement was harmed early on by the negative attitudes of some of its early leaders, including jerk moves like the Entity Framework “vote of no confidence”, but I do see occasional mentions of local groups like the St. Louis one. I think ALT.NET has been successful at bringing some of its ideas into the .NET world, including heavily influencing ASP.NET MVC and raising the general level of software craftsmanship for developers working on the Microsoft stack. The ideas and ideals live on, they’re just not branded as “this is ALT.NET!” In the past 18 months, St. Louis ALT.NET meetups have discussed topics like: NHibernate F# and other functional languages AOP CoffeeScript “How Ruby Is Making Me a Stronger C# Developer” Using rake for builds CQRS .NET dynamic programming micro web frameworks – Nancy & Jessica Git ALT.NET doesn’t mean (to me, anyway) “alternatives to .NET”, but “alternatives for .NET”. We look at how things are done in Ruby and other languages/platforms, but always with the idea “What can I learn from this to take back to my “day job” with .NET?”. Meetings are held at 7PM on the fourth Wednesday of each month at the offices of Professional Employment Group. PEG is located at 999 Executive Parkway (Suite 100 – lower level) in Creve Coeur (South of Olive off of Mason Road - Here's a map). Food is not supplied (sorry if you’re a big fan of the Papa John’s Crust-Lovers’ Pizza that’s a staple of user group meetings), but attendees are encouraged to come early and bring/share beer, so that’s cool. Thanks to Nick for organizing, and to Professional Employment Group for lending their offices. Please visit the meetup site for more information.

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  • My Take on Hadoop World 2011

    - by Jean-Pierre Dijcks
    I’m sure some of you have read pieces about Hadoop World and I did see some headlines which were somewhat, shall we say, interesting? I thought the keynote by Larry Feinsmith of JP Morgan Chase & Co was one of the highlights of the conference for me. The reason was very simple, he addressed some real use cases outside of internet and ad platforms. The following are my notes, since the keynote was recorded I presume you can go and look at Hadoopworld.com at some point… On the use cases that were mentioned: ETL – how can I do complex data transformation at scale Doing Basel III liquidity analysis Private banking – transaction filtering to feed [relational] data marts Common Data Platform – a place to keep data that is (or will be) valuable some day, to someone, somewhere 360 Degree view of customers – become pro-active and look at events across lines of business. For example make sure the mortgage folks know about direct deposits being stopped into an account and ensure the bank is pro-active to service the customer Treasury and Security – Global Payment Hub [I think this is really consolidation of data to cross reference activity across business and geographies] Data Mining Bypass data engineering [I interpret this as running a lot of a large data set rather than on samples] Fraud prevention – work on event triggers, say a number of failed log-ins to the website. When they occur grab web logs, firewall logs and rules and start to figure out who is trying to log in. Is this me, who forget his password, or is it someone in some other country trying to guess passwords Trade quality analysis – do a batch analysis or all trades done and run them through an analysis or comparison pipeline One of the key requests – if you can say it like that – was for vendors and entrepreneurs to make sure that new tools work with existing tools. JPMC has a large footprint of BI Tools and Big Data reporting and tools should work with those tools, rather than be separate. Security and Entitlement – how to protect data within a large cluster from unwanted snooping was another topic that came up. I thought his Elephant ears graph was interesting (couldn’t actually read the points on it, but the concept certainly made some sense) and it was interesting – when asked to show hands – how the audience did not (!) think that RDBMS and Hadoop technology would overlap completely within a few years. Another interesting session was the session from Disney discussing how Disney is building a DaaS (Data as a Service) platform and how Hadoop processing capabilities are mixed with Database technologies. I thought this one of the best sessions I have seen in a long time. It discussed real use case, where problems existed, how they were solved and how Disney planned some of it. The planning focused on three things/phases: Determine the Strategy – Design a platform and evangelize this within the organization Focus on the people – Hire key people, grow and train the staff (and do not overload what you have with new things on top of their day-to-day job), leverage a partner with experience Work on Execution of the strategy – Implement the platform Hadoop next to the other technologies and work toward the DaaS platform This kind of fitted with some of the Linked-In comments, best summarized in “Think Platform – Think Hadoop”. In other words [my interpretation], step back and engineer a platform (like DaaS in the Disney example), then layer the rest of the solutions on top of this platform. One general observation, I got the impression that we have knowledge gaps left and right. On the one hand are people looking for more information and details on the Hadoop tools and languages. On the other I got the impression that the capabilities of today’s relational databases are underestimated. Mostly in terms of data volumes and parallel processing capabilities or things like commodity hardware scale-out models. All in all I liked this conference, it was great to chat with a wide range of people on Oracle big data, on big data, on use cases and all sorts of other stuff. Just hope they get a set of bigger rooms next time… and yes, I hope I’m going to be back next year!

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  • Speeding up procedural texture generation

    - by FalconNL
    Recently I've begun working on a game that takes place in a procedurally generated solar system. After a bit of a learning curve (having neither worked with Scala, OpenGL 2 ES or Libgdx before), I have a basic tech demo going where you spin around a single procedurally textured planet: The problem I'm running into is the performance of the texture generation. A quick overview of what I'm doing: a planet is a cube that has been deformed to a sphere. To each side, a n x n (e.g. 256 x 256) texture is applied, which are bundled in one 8n x n texture that is sent to the fragment shader. The last two spaces are not used, they're only there to make sure the width is a power of 2. The texture is currently generated on the CPU, using the updated 2012 version of the simplex noise algorithm linked to in the paper 'Simplex noise demystified'. The scene I'm using to test the algorithm contains two spheres: the planet and the background. Both use a greyscale texture consisting of six octaves of 3D simplex noise, so for example if we choose 128x128 as the texture size there are 128 x 128 x 6 x 2 x 6 = about 1.2 million calls to the noise function. The closest you will get to the planet is about what's shown in the screenshot and since the game's target resolution is 1280x720 that means I'd prefer to use 512x512 textures. Combine that with the fact the actual textures will of course be more complicated than basic noise (There will be a day and night texture, blended in the fragment shader based on sunlight, and a specular mask. I need noise for continents, terrain color variation, clouds, city lights, etc.) and we're looking at something like 512 x 512 x 6 x 3 x 15 = 70 million noise calls for the planet alone. In the final game, there will be activities when traveling between planets, so a wait of 5 or 10 seconds, possibly 20, would be acceptable since I can calculate the texture in the background while traveling, though obviously the faster the better. Getting back to our test scene, performance on my PC isn't too terrible, though still too slow considering the final result is going to be about 60 times worse: 128x128 : 0.1s 256x256 : 0.4s 512x512 : 1.7s This is after I moved all performance-critical code to Java, since trying to do so in Scala was a lot worse. Running this on my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S3), however, produces a more problematic result: 128x128 : 2s 256x256 : 7s 512x512 : 29s Already far too long, and that's not even factoring in the fact that it'll be minutes instead of seconds in the final version. Clearly something needs to be done. Personally, I see a few potential avenues, though I'm not particularly keen on any of them yet: Don't precalculate the textures, but let the fragment shader calculate everything. Probably not feasible, because at one point I had the background as a fullscreen quad with a pixel shader and I got about 1 fps on my phone. Use the GPU to render the texture once, store it and use the stored texture from then on. Upside: might be faster than doing it on the CPU since the GPU is supposed to be faster at floating point calculations. Downside: effects that cannot (easily) be expressed as functions of simplex noise (e.g. gas planet vortices, moon craters, etc.) are a lot more difficult to code in GLSL than in Scala/Java. Calculate a large amount of noise textures and ship them with the application. I'd like to avoid this if at all possible. Lower the resolution. Buys me a 4x performance gain, which isn't really enough plus I lose a lot of quality. Find a faster noise algorithm. If anyone has one I'm all ears, but simplex is already supposed to be faster than perlin. Adopt a pixel art style, allowing for lower resolution textures and fewer noise octaves. While I originally envisioned the game in this style, I've come to prefer the realistic approach. I'm doing something wrong and the performance should already be one or two orders of magnitude better. If this is the case, please let me know. If anyone has any suggestions, tips, workarounds, or other comments regarding this problem I'd love to hear them.

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  • Part 9: EBS Customizations, how to track

    - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com
    In the previous blogs we were concentrating on the preparation tasks. We have defined standards, we know about the tools and techniques we will start with. Additionally, we have defined the modification strategy, and how to handle such topics best. Now we are ready to take the requirements! Such requirements coming over in spreadsheets, word files (like GAP documents), or in any other format. As we have to assign some attributes, we start numbering all that and assign a short name to each of these requirements (=CEMLI reference). We may also have already a Functional person assigned, and we might involve someone from the tech team to estimate, and we like to assign a status such as 'planned', 'estimated' etc. All these data are usually kept in spreadsheets, but I would put them into a database (yes, I am from Oracle :). If you don't have any good looking and centralized application already, please give a try with Oracle APEX. It should be up and running in a day and the imported sheets are than manageable concurrently!  For one of my clients I have created this CEMLI-DB; in between enriched with a lot of additional functionality, but initially it was just a simple centralized CEMLI tracking application. Why I am pointing out again the centralized method to manage such data? Well, your data quality will dramatically increase, if you let your project members see (also review and update) "your" data.  APEX allows you to filter, sort, print, and also export. And if you can spend some time to define proper value lists, everyone will gain from. APEX allows you to work in 'agile' mode, means you can improve your application step by step. Let's say you like to reference a document, or even upload the same, you can do that. Or, you need to classify the CEMLIs by release, just add this release field, same for business area or CEMLI type. One CEMLI record may then look like this: Prepare one or two (online) reports, to be ready to present your "workload" to the project management. Use such extracts also when you work offline (to prioritize etc.). But as soon as you are again connected, feed the data back into the central application. Note: I have combined this application with an additional issue tracker.  Here the most important element is the CEMLI reference, which acts as link to any other application (if you are not using APEX also as issue tracker :).  Please spend a minute to define such a reference (see blog Part 8: How to name Customizations).   Summary: Building the bridge from Gap analyse to the development has to be done in a controlled way. Usually the information is provided differently, but it is suggested to collect all requirements centrally. Oracle APEX is a great solution to enter and maintain such information in a structured, but flexible way. APEX helped me a lot to work with distributed development teams during the complete development cycle.

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  • Is this simple XOR encrypted communication absolutely secure?

    - by user3123061
    Say Alice have 4GB USB flash memory and Peter also have 4GB USB flash memory. They once meet and save on both of memories two files named alice_to_peter.key (2GB) and peter_to_alice.key (2GB) which is randomly generated bits. Then they never meet again and communicate electronicaly. Alice also maintains variable called alice_pointer and Peter maintains variable called peter_pointer which is both initially set to zero. Then when Alice needs to send message to Peter they do: encrypted_message_to_peter[n] = message_to_peter[n] XOR alice_to_peter.key[alice_pointer + n] Where n i n-th byte of message. Then alice_pointer is attached at begining of the encrypted message and (alice_pointer + encrypted message) is sent to Peter and then alice_pointer is incremented by length of message (and for maximum security can be used part of key erased) Peter receives encrypted_message, reads alice_pointer stored at beginning of message and do this: message_to_peter[n] = encrypted_message_to_peter[n] XOR alice_to_peter.key[alice_pointer + n] And for maximum security after reading of message also erases used part of key. - EDIT: In fact this step with this simple algorithm (without integrity check and authentication) decreases security, see Paulo Ebermann post below. When Peter needs to send message to Alice they do analogical steps with peter_to_alice.key and with peter_pointer. With this trivial schema they can send for next 50 years each day 2GB / (50 * 365) = cca 115kB of encrypted data in both directions. If they need more data to send, they simple use larger memory for keys for example with today 2TB harddiscs (1TB keys) is possible to exchange next 50years 60MB/day ! (thats practicaly lots of data for example with using compression its more than hour of high quality voice communication) It Seems to me there is no way for attacker to read encrypted message without keys even if they have infinitely fast computer. because even with infinitely fast computer with brute force they get ever possible message that can fit to length of message, but this is astronomical amount of messages and attacker dont know which of them is actual message. I am right? Is this communication schema really absolutely secure? And if its secure, has this communication method its own name? (I mean XOR encryption is well-known, but whats name of this concrete practical application with use large memories at both communication sides for keys? I am humbly expecting that this application has been invented someone before me :-) ) Note: If its absolutely secure then its amazing because with today low cost large memories it is practicaly much cheeper way of secure communication than expensive quantum cryptography and with equivalent security! EDIT: I think it will be more and more practical in future with lower a lower cost of memories. It can solve secure communication forever. Today you have no certainty if someone succesfuly atack to existing ciphers one year later and make its often expensive implementations unsecure. In many cases before comunication exist step where communicating sides meets personaly, thats time to generate large keys. I think its perfect for military communication for example for communication with submarines which can have installed harddrive with large keys and military central can have harddrive for each submarine they have. It can be also practical in everyday life for example for control your bank account because when you create your account you meet with bank etc.

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  • Implementing features in an Entity System

    - by Bane
    After asking two questions on Entity Systems (1, 2), and reading some articles on them, I think that I understand them much better than before. But, I still have some uncertainties, and mainly they are about building a Particle Emitter, an Input system, and a Camera. I obviously still have some problems understanding Entity Systems, and they might apply to a whole other range of objects, but I chose these three because they are very different concepts and should cover a pretty big ground, and help me understand Entity Systems and how to handle problems like these myself, as they come along. I am building an engine in Javascript, and I've implemented most of the core features, which include: input handling, flexible animation system, particle emitter, math classes and functions, scene handling, a camera and a render, and a whole bunch of other things that engines usually support. Then, I read Byte56's answer that got me interested into making the engine into an Entity System one. It would still remain an HTML5 game engine with the basic Scene philosophy, but it should support dynamic creation of entities from components. These are some of the definitions from the previous questions, updated: An Entity is an identifier. It doesn't have any data, it's not an object, it's a simple id that represents an index in the Scene's list of all entities (which I actually plan to implement as a component matrix). A Component is a data holder, but with methods that can operate on that data. The best example is a Vector2D, or a "Position" component. It has data: x and y, but also some methods that make operating on the data a bit easier: add(), normalize(), and so on. A System is something that can operate on a set of entities that meet the certain requirements, usually they (the entities) need to have a specified (by the system itself) set of components to be operated upon. The system is the "logic" part, the "algorithm" part, all the functionality supplied by components is purely for easier data management. The problem that I have now is fitting my old engine concept into this new programming paradigm. Lets start with the simplest one, a Camera. The camera has a position property (Vector2D), a rotation property and some methods for centering it around a point. Each frame, it is fed to a renderer, along with a scene, and all the objects are translated according to it's position. Then the scene is rendered. How could I represent this kind of an object in an Entity System? Would the camera be an entity or simply a component? A combination (see my answer)? Another issues that is bothering me is implementing a Particle Emitter. For what exactly I mean by that, you can check out my video of it: http://youtu.be/BObargIMQsE. The problem I have with this is, again, what should be what. I'm pretty sure that particles themselves shouldn't be entities, as I want to support 10k+ of them, and creating that much entities would be a heavy blow on my performance, I believe. Or maybe not? Depends on the implementation, but anyone with experience: please, do answer. The last bit I wan't to talk about, which is also bugging me the most, is how input should be handled. In my current version of the engine, there is a class called Input. It's a handler that subscribes to browser's events, such as keypresses, and mouse position changes, and also it maintains an internal state. Then, the player class has a react() method, which accepts an input object as an argument. The advantage of this is that the input object could be serialized into JSON and then shared over the network, allowing for smooth multiplayer simulations. But how does this translate into an Entity System?

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  • Convert .3GP and .3G2 Files to AVI / MPEG for Free

    - by DigitalGeekery
    3GP and .3G2 are common video capture formats used on many mobile phones, but they may not be supported by your favorite media player. Today we’ll show you a quick and easy way to convert those files to AVI or MPG format with the free Windows application, Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter. Download the Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter. You’ll have to unzip the download folder, but there is no need to install the application. Just double-click the 3gptoavi.exe file to run the application. To add your 3GP or 3G2 files to the queue to be converted, click on the Add files  button at the top left. Browse for your file, and click Open.   Your video will be added to the Queue. You can add multiple files to the queue and convert them all at one time.   Most users will find it preferable to use one of the pre-configured profiles for their conversion settings. To load a profile, choose one from the Profile drop down list and then click the Load button. You will see the profile update the settings in the panels at the bottom of the application. We tested Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter with 3GP files recorded on a Motorola Droid, and found the AVI H.264 Very High Q. profile to return the best results for AVI output, and the MPG – DVD NTSC: MPEG-2 the best results for MPG output. Other profiles produced smaller file sizes, but at a cost of reduced quality video output.   More advanced users may tweak video and audio settings to their liking in the lower panels. Click on the AVI button under Output file format / Video settings to adjust settings AVI… Or the MPG button to adjust the settings for MPG output. By default, the converted file will be output to the same location as the input directory. You can change it by clicking the text box input radio button and browsing for a different folder. When you’ve chosen your settings, click Convert to begin the conversion process.   A conversion output box will open and display the progress. When finished, click Close. Now you’re ready to enjoy your video in your favorite media player. Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter isn’t the most robust media conversion tool, but it does what it is intended to do. It handles the task of 3GP to AVI / MPG conversion very well. It’s easy enough for the beginner to manage without much trouble, but also has enough options to please more experienced users. Download Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Convert Video Files to MP3 with VLCEasily Change Audio File Formats with XRECODEConvert PDF Files to Word Documents and Other FormatsConvert Video and Remove Commercials in Windows 7 Media Center with MCEBuddy 1.1Compress Large Video Files with DivX / Xvid and AutoGK 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 DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Install, Remove and HIDE Fonts in Windows 7 Need Help with Your Home Network? Awesome Lyrics Finder for Winamp & Windows Media Player Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad

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  • HTML5 Boilerplate template for ASP.NET with Visual Studio 2010

    - by Harish Ranganathan
    This is the 5th post in the series of HTML5 for ASP.NET Developers  Support for HTML5 in Visual Studio 2010 has been quite good with Visual Studio Service Pack 1 However, HTML5 Boilerplate template has been one of the most popular HTML5 templates out in the internet.  Now, there is one for your favorite ASP.NET Webforms as well as ASP.NET MVC 3 Projects (even for ASP.NET MVC 2).  And its available in the most optimal place, i.e. NuGet. Lets see it in action.  Let us fire up Visual Studio 2010 and create a “File – New Project – ASP.NET Web Application” and leave the default name to create the project.  The default project template creates Site.Master, Default.aspx and the Account (membership) files. When you run the project without any changes, it shows up the default Master Page with the Home and About placeholder pages. Also, just to check the rendering on devices, lets try running the same page in Windows Phone 7 Emulator.  You can download the SDK from here Clearly, it looks bad on the emulator and if we were to publish the application as is, its going to be the same experience when users browse this app. Close the browser and then switch to Visual Studio.   Right click on the project and select “Manage NuGet Packages” The NuGet Package Manager dialog opens up.  Search for HTML5 Boilerplate.  The options for MVC & Web Forms show up.  Click on Install corresponding to the “Add HTML5 Boilerplate to Web Forms” options. It installs the template in a few seconds.   Once installed, you will be able to see a lot of additional Script files and also the all important HTML5Boilerplate.Master file.  This would be the replacement for the default Site.Master.  We need to change the Content Pages (Default.aspx & other pages) to point to this Master Page.  Example <%@ <% Master Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Html5Boilerplate.Master.cs" Inherits="WebApplication14.SiteMaster" %> would be the setting in the Default.aspx Page. You can do a Find & Replace for Site.Master to HTML5Boilerplate.Master for the whole solution so that it is changed in all the locations. With this, we have our Webforms application ready with HTML5 capabilities.  Needless to say, we need to wire up HTML5 mark up level code, canvas, etc., further to use the actual HTML5 features, but even without that, the page is now HTML5’ed.   One of the advantages of HTML5 (here HTML5 is collectively referred for CSS3, Javascript enhancements etc.,)  is the ability to render the pages better on mobile and hand held devices. So, now when we run the page from Visual Studio, the following is what we get.  Notice the site.icon automatically added.  The page otherwise looks similar to what it was earlier. Now, when we also check this page on the Windows Phone Emulator, here below is what, we get. As you can see, we definitely get a better experience now.  Of course, this is not the only HTML5 feature that we can use.  We need to wire up additional code for using Canvas, SVG and other HTML5 features.  But, definitely, this is a good starting point. You can also install the HTML5boilerplate Template for your ASP.NET MVC 3 and ASP.NET MVC 2 from the NuGet packages and get them ready for HTML5. Cheers !!!

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  • Oracle Cloud Hiring Event at Oracle in Redwood on November 9th

    - by user769227
    Wow, 24 hours to go until Cloud Hire 2012 at Oracle! Friday is going to be a great day for many looking to make a life and career changing move. In case you haven’t heard, Oracle is hosting Cloud Hire 2012 this Friday, November 9, at the Oracle Conference Center on our World Wide Headquarters campus in Redwood Shores. This is a one-of-a-kind event to be sure and we are still registering online! We are aggressively expanding our Cloud Development and Product Management organizations to meet to ever-growing demand for Oracle Cloud. And, from this event alone, we are hoping to hire 25+ Developers, Inbound and Outbound Product Managers, Technical Leaders and QA Engineers across several Oracle Cloud groups, including: · Data and Insight Services: Big Data as a Service/Business Directory · Cloud Infrastructure · Application Marketplace · Cloud Portal · Product Management and Marketing: Outbound/Inbound · Testing/Quality Assurance · Cloud Social Platform: Analytics, Media, Big Data, Text Analytics, High Performance Search, · Cloud Social Platform - Social Relationship Management: Mobile Development/Social Network Integrations Why attend this event? Just Google Larry Ellison’s 2012 OpenWorld keynote address and you will learn why! Oracle Cloud is growing every day and we are scaling, adding new products and revolutionizing and improving all areas of the Oracle Cloud. There is no company that can come close to the comprehensive product lineup, services, capabilities and global reach and delivery of Oracle’s Cloud. This why it is a great time to work for Oracle: where consistent, stable financial growth rules and high impact technological advances are occurring every day. If you are serious about managing an upward, expansive path in your career, while staying on the leading edge and making big career impacts, you should join Oracle. Whether you want to design and develop or manage Social, Infrastructure or Applications in the Cloud, you can do it all at Oracle. Whether you’re a Technical Leader, Developer, Architect or Product Manager/Strategist, we are hiring now! Come check us out on Friday, November 9 in-person and see why Oracle Cloud is the place to take your career! RSVP here: and Learn more about the hiring teams in attendance here. Here are just some of the big things happening on Friday, November 9: · 830-3pm: Registration/Refreshments, Oracle Conference Center, 350 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA (free parking) · 9am – 3pm: Ongoing Hiring Team Discussions and Product Demos include: Social Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Monitoring, Insight / View, KPI Bundles, Business Directory, Virtualization, Messaging, Provisioning, Cloud Portal · 10:30am – Speaker: Gopalan Arun, Vice President, Oracle Cloud Development Bio: Arun has been with Oracle for 18 years+. He is a testament to the stability and career growth that you can achieve working for Oracle. Arun began as a Developer and ascended through several product organizations into key leadership roles. Over his 18 years at Oracle, he has built and shipped many Database and Middleware products. Arun is one of the founding members of the Oracle Cloud and currently leads the development of many of the core infrastructure and developer-facing services of the Oracle Cloud. Topic: Oracle Cloud for the Developer · 1pm – Speaker: Naresh Revanuru, Lead Architect, Oracle Cloud Bio: Naresh is currently leading Java, Storage and Compute services for Oracle Cloud. Naresh also helps drive decisions for broad based Cloud topics that affect multiple services. http://www.linkedin.com/in/nareshrevanuru Topic: Oracle Cloud Architectural Overview and Challenges to Solve · 1pm-3pm: Ongoing Hiring Team Discussions and Product Demos

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  • WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Texas Industries, Inc.

    - by me
    Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter  Solution SummaryTexas Industries, Inc. (TXI) is a leading supplier of cement, aggregate, and consumer product building materials for residential, commercial, and public works projects. TXI is based in Dallas and employs around 2,000 employees. The customer had the challenge of decentralized and manual processes for entering 180,000 vendor invoices annually.  Invoice entry was a time- and resource-intensive process that entailed significant personnel requirements. TXI implemented a centralized solution leveraging Oracle WebCenter Imaging, a smart routing solution that enables users to capture invoices electronically with Oracle WebCenter Capture and Oracle WebCenter Forms Recognition to send  the invoices through to Oracle Financials for approvals and processing.  TXI significantly lowered resource needs for payable processing,  increase productivity by 80% and reduce invoice processing cycle times by 84%—from 20 to 30 days to just 3 to 5 days, on average. Company OverviewTexas Industries, Inc. (TXI) is a leading supplier of cement, aggregate, and consumer product building materials for residential, commercial, and public works projects. With operating subsidiaries in six states, TXI is the largest producer of cement in Texas and a major producer in California. TXI is a major supplier of stone, sand, gravel, and expanded shale and clay products, and one of the largest producers of bagged cement and concrete  products in the Southwest. Business ChallengesTXI had the challenge of decentralized and manual processes for entering 180,000 vendor invoices annually.  Invoice entry was a time- and resource-intensive process that entailed significant personnel requirements. Their business objectives were: Increase the efficiency of core business processes, such as invoice processing, to support the organization’s desire to maintain its role as the Southwest’s leader in delivering high-quality, low-cost products to the construction industry Meet the audit and regulatory requirements for achieving Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance Streamline entry of 180,000 invoices annually to accelerate processing, reduce errors, cut invoice storage and routing costs, and increase visibility into payables liabilities Solution DeployedTXI replaced a resource-intensive, paper-based, decentralized process for invoice entry with a centralized solution leveraging Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g. They worked with the Oracle Partner Keste LLC to develop a smart routing solution that enables users to capture invoices electronically with Oracle WebCenter Capture and then uses Oracle WebCenter Forms Recognition and the Oracle WebCenter Imaging workflow to send the invoices through to Oracle Financials for approvals and processing. Business Results Significantly lowered resource needs for payable processing through centralization and improved efficiency  Enabled the company to process invoices faster and pay bills earlier, allowing it to take advantage of additional vendor discounts Tracked to increase productivity by 80% and reduce invoice processing cycle times by 84%—from 20 to 30 days to just 3 to 5 days, on average Achieved a 25% reduction in paper invoice storage costs now that invoices are captured digitally, and enabled a 50% reduction in shipping costs, as the company no longer has to send paper invoices between headquarters and production facilities for approvals “Entering and manually processing more than 180,000 vendor invoices annually was time and labor intensive. With Oracle Imaging and Process Management, we have automated and centralized invoice entry and processing at our corporate office, improving productivity by 80% and reducing invoice processing cycle times by 84%—a very important efficiency gain.” Terry Marshall, Vice President of Information Services, Texas Industries, Inc. Additional Information TXI Customer Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Content Oracle WebCenter Capture Oracle WebCenter Forms Recognition

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  • Templated Razor Delegates – Phil Haack

    - by nmarun
    This post is largely based off of Phil Haack’s article titled Templated Razor Delegates. I strongly recommend reading this article first. Here’s a sample code for the same, so you can have a look at. I also have a custom type being rendered as a table. 1: // my custom type 2: public class Device 3: { 4: public int Id { get; set; } 5: public string Name { get; set; } 6: public DateTime MfgDate { get; set; } 7: } Now I can write an extension method just for this type. 1: public static class RazorExtensions 2: { 3: public static HelperResult List(this IList<Models.Device> devices, Func<Models.Device, HelperResult> template) 4: { 5: return new HelperResult(writer => 6: { 7: foreach (var device in devices) 8: { 9: template(device).WriteTo(writer); 10: } 11: }); 12: } 13: // ... 14: } Modified my view to make it a strongly typed one and included html to render my custom type collection in a table. 1: @using TemplatedRazorDelegates 2: @model System.Collections.Generic.IList<TemplatedRazorDelegates.Models.Device> 3:  4: @{ 5: ViewBag.Title = "Home Page"; 6: } 7:  8: <h2>@ViewBag.Message</h2> 9:  10: @{ 11: var items = new[] { "one", "two", "three" }; 12: IList<int> ints = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3 }; 13: } 14:  15: <ul> 16: @items.List(@<li>@item</li>) 17: </ul> 18: <ul> 19: @ints.List(@<li>@item</li>) 20: </ul> 21:  22: <table> 23: <tr><th>Id</th><th>Name</th><th>Mfg Date</th></tr> 24: @Model.List(@<tr><td>@item.Id</td><td>@item.Name</td><td>@item.MfgDate.ToShortDateString()</td></tr>) 25: </table> We get intellisense as well! Just added some items in the action method of the controller: 1: public ActionResult Index() 2: { 3: ViewBag.Message = "Welcome to ASP.NET MVC!"; 4: IList<Device> devices = new List<Device> 5: { 6: new Device {Id = 1, Name = "abc", MfgDate = new DateTime(2001, 10, 19)}, 7: new Device {Id = 2, Name = "def", MfgDate = new DateTime(2011, 1, 1)}, 8: new Device {Id = 3, Name = "ghi", MfgDate = new DateTime(2003, 3, 15)}, 9: new Device {Id = 4, Name = "jkl", MfgDate = new DateTime(2007, 6, 6)} 10: }; 11: return View(devices); 12: } Running this I get the output as: Absolutely brilliant! Thanks to both Phil Haack and to David Fowler for bringing this out to us. Download the code for this from here. Verdict: RazorViewEngine.Points += 1;

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  • Industry perspectives on managing content

    - by aahluwalia
    Earlier this week I was noodling over a topic for my first blog post. My intention for this blog is to bring a practitioner's perspective on ECM to the community; to share and collaborate on best practices and approaches that address today's business problems. Reviewing my past 14 years of experience with web technologies, I wondered what topic would serve as a good "conversation starter". During this time, I received a call from a friend who was seeking insights on how content management applies to specific industries. She approached me because she vaguely remembered that I had worked in the Health Insurance industry in the recent past. She wanted me to tell her about the specific business needs of this industry. She was in for quite a surprise as she found out that I had spent the better part of a decade managing content within the Health Insurance industry and I discovered a great topic for my first blog post! I offer some insights from Health Insurance and invite my fellow practitioners to share their insights from other industries. What does content management mean to these industries? What can solution providers be aware of when offering solutions to these industries? The United States health care system relies heavily on private health insurance, which is the primary source of coverage for approximately 58% Americans. In the late 19th century, "accident insurance" began to be available, which operated much like modern disability insurance. In the late 20th century, traditional disability insurance evolved into modern health insurance programs. The first thing a solution provider must be aware of about the Health Insurance industry is that it tends to be transaction intensive. They are the ones who manage and administer our health plans and process our claims when we visit our health care providers. It helps to keep in mind that they are in the business of delivering health insurance and not technology. You may find the mindset conservative in comparison to the IT industry, however, the Health Insurance industry has benefited and will continue to benefit from the efficiency that technology brings to traditionally paper-driven processes. We are all aware of the impact that Healthcare reform bill has had a significant impact on the Health Insurance industry. They are under a great deal of pressure to explore ways to reduce their administrative costs and increase operational efficiency. Overall, administrative costs of health insurance include the insurer's cost to administer the health plan, the costs borne by employers, health-care providers, governments and individual consumers. Inefficiencies plague health insurance, owing largely to the absence of standardized processes across the industry. To achieve this, industry leaders have come together to establish standards and invest in initiatives to help their healthcare provider partners transition to the next generation of healthcare technology. The move to online services and paperless explanation of benefits are some manifestations of technological advancements in health insurance. Several companies have adopted Toyota's LEAN methodology or Six Sigma principles to improve quality, reduce waste and excessive costs, thereby increasing the value of their plan offerings. A growing number of health insurance companies have transformed their business systems in the past decade alone and adopted some form of content management to reduce the costs involved in administering health plans. The key strategy has been to convert paper documents and forms into electronic formats, automate the content development process and securely distribute content to various audiences via diverse marketing channels, including web and mobile. Enterprise content management solutions can enable document capture of claim forms, manage digital assets, integrate with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, build Business Process Management (BPM) processes, define retention and disposition instructions to comply with state and federal regulations and allow eBusiness and Marketing departments to develop and deliver web content to multiple websites, mobile devices and portals. Content can be shared securely within and outside the organization using Information Rights Management.  At the end of the day, solution providers who can translate strategic goals into solutions that maximize process automation, increase ease of use and minimize IT overhead are likely to be successful in today's health insurance environment.

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  • Reduce ERP Consolidation Risks with Oracle Master Data Management

    - by Dain C. Hansen
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Reducing the Risk of ERP Consolidation starts first and foremost with your Data.This is nothing new; companies with multiple misaligned ERP systems are often putting inordinate risk on their business. It can translate to too much inventory, long lead times, and shipping issues from poorly organized and specified goods. And don’t forget the finance side! When goods are shipped and promises are kept/not kept there’s the issue of accounts. No single chart of counts translates to no accountability. So – I’ve decided. I need to consolidate! Well, you can’t consolidate ERP applications [for that matter any of your applications] without first considering your data. This means looking at how your data is being integrated by these ERP systems, how it is being synchronized, what information is being shared, or not being shared. Most importantly, making sure that the data is mastered. What is the best way to do this? In the recent webcast: Reduce ERP consolidation Risks with Oracle Master Data Management we outlined 3 key guidelines: #1: Consolidate your Product Data#2: Consolidate your Customer, Supplier (Party Data) #3: Consolidate your Financial Data Together these help customers achieve reduced risk, better customer intimacy, reducing inventory levels, elimination of product variations, and finally a single master chart of accounts. In the case of Oracle's customer Zebra Technologies, they were able to consolidate over 140 applications by mastering their data. Ultimately this gave them 60% cost savings for the year on IT spend. Oracle’s Solution for ERP Consolidation: Master Data Management Oracle's enterprise master data management (MDM) can play a big role in ERP consolidation. It includes a set of products that consolidates and maintains complete, accurate, and authoritative master data across the enterprise and distributes this master information to all operational and analytical applications as a shared service. It’s optimized to work with any application source (not just Oracle’s) and can integrate using technology from Oracle Fusion Middleware (i.e. GoldenGate for data synchronization and real-time replication or ODI with its E-LT optimized bulk data and transformation capability). In addition especially for ERP consolidation use cases it’s important to leverage the AIA and SOA capabilities as part of Fusion Middleware to connect these multiple applications together and relay the data into the correct hub. Oracle’s MDM strategy is a unique offering in the industry, one that has common elements across the top and bottom in Middleware, BI/DW, Engineered systems combined with Enterprise Data Quality to enable comprehensive Data Governance at all levels. In addition, Oracle MDM provides the best-in-class capabilities to master all variations of data, including customer, supplier, product, financial data. But ultimately at the center of Oracle MDM is your data, making it more trusted, making it secure and accessible as part of a role-based approach, and getting it to make sense to you in any situation, whether it’s a specific ERP process like we talked about or something that is custom to your organization. To learn more about these techniques in ERP consolidation watch our webcast or goto our Oracle MDM website at www.oracle.com/goto/mdm

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  • MVC Portable Areas &ndash; Deploying Static Files

    - by Steve Michelotti
    This is the second post in a series related to build and deployment considerations as I’ve been exploring MVC Portable Areas: #1 – Using Web Application Project to build portable areas #2 – Conventions for deploying portable area static files #3 – Portable area static files as embedded resources As I’ve been digging more into portable areas, one of the things I’ve liked best is the deployment story which enables my *.aspx, *.ascx pages to be compiled into the assembly as embedded resources rather than having to maintain all those files separately. In traditional web forms, that was always the thing to prevented developers from utilizing *.ascx user controls across projects (see this post for using portable areas in web forms).  However, though the aspx pages are embedded, the supporting static files (e.g., images, css, javascript) are *not*. Most of the demos available online today tend to brush over this issue and focus solely on the aspx side of things. But to create truly robust portable areas, it’s important to have a good story for these supporting files as well.  I’ve been working with two different approaches so far (of course I’d really like to hear if other people are using alternatives). Scenario For the approaches below, the scenario really isn’t that important. It could be something as trivial as this partial view: 1: <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> 2: <img src="<%: Url.Content("~/images/arrow.gif") %>" /> Hello World! The point is that there needs to be careful consideration for *any* scenario that links to an external file such as an image, *.css, *.js, etc. In the example shown above, it uses the Url.Content() method to convert to a relative path. But this method won’t necessary work depending on how you deploy your portable area. One approach to address this issue is to build your portable area project with MSDeploy/WebDeploy so that it is packaged properly before incorporating into the host application. All of the *.cs files are removed and the project is ready for xcopy deployment – however, I do *not* need the “Views” folder since all of the mark up has been compiled into the assembly as embedded resources. Now in the host application we create a folder called “Modules” and deploy any portable areas as sub-folders under that: At this point we can add a simple assembly reference to the Widget1.dll sitting in the Modules\Widget1\bin folder. I can now render the portable image in my view like any other portable area. However, the problem with that is that the view results in this:   It couldn’t find arrow.gif because it looked for /images/arrow.gif and it was *actually* located at /images/Modules/Widget1/images/arrow.gif. One solution is to make the physical location of the portable configurable from the perspective of the host like this: 1: <appSettings> 2: <add key="Widget1" value="Modules\Widget1"/> 3: </appSettings> Using the <appSettings> section is a little cheesy but it could be better formalized into its own section. In fact, if were you willing to rely on conventions (e.g., “Modules\{areaName}”) then then config could be eliminated completely. With this config in place, we could create our own Html helper method called Url.AreaContent() that “wraps” the OOTB Url.Content() method while simply pre-pending the area location path: 1: public static string AreaContent(this UrlHelper urlHelper, string contentPath) 2: { 3: var areaName = (string)urlHelper.RequestContext.RouteData.DataTokens["area"]; 4: var areaPath = (string)ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[areaName]; 5:   6: return urlHelper.Content("~/" + areaPath + "/" + contentPath); With these two items in place, we just change our Url.Content() call to Url.AreaContent() like this: 1: <img src="<%: Url.AreaContent("/images/arrow.gif") %>" /> Hello World! and the arrow.gif now renders correctly:     Since we’re just using our own Url.AreaContent() rather than the built-in Url.Content(), this solution works for images, *.css, *.js, or any externally referenced files.  Additionally, any images referenced inside a css file will work provided it’s a relative reference and not an absolute reference. An alternative to this approach is to build the static file into the assembly as embedded resources themselves. I’ll explore this in another post (linked at the top).

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  • C++ problem with assimp 3D model loader

    - by Brendan Webster
    In my game I have model loading functions for Assimp model loading library. I can load the model and render it, but the model displays incorrectly. The models load in as if they were using a seperate projection matrix. I have looked over my code over and over again, but I probably keep on missing the obvious reason why this is happening. Here is an image of my game: It's simply a 6 sided cube, but it's off big time! Here are my code snippets for rendering the cube to the screen: void C_MediaLoader::display(void) { float tmp; glTranslatef(0,0,0); // rotate it around the y axis glRotatef(angle,0.f,0.f,1.f); glColor4f(1,1,1,1); // scale the whole asset to fit into our view frustum tmp = scene_max.x-scene_min.x; tmp = aisgl_max(scene_max.y - scene_min.y,tmp); tmp = aisgl_max(scene_max.z - scene_min.z,tmp); tmp = (1.f / tmp); glScalef(tmp/5, tmp/5, tmp/5); // center the model //glTranslatef( -scene_center.x, -scene_center.y, -scene_center.z ); // if the display list has not been made yet, create a new one and // fill it with scene contents if(scene_list == 0) { scene_list = glGenLists(1); glNewList(scene_list, GL_COMPILE); // now begin at the root node of the imported data and traverse // the scenegraph by multiplying subsequent local transforms // together on GL's matrix stack. recursive_render(scene, scene->mRootNode); glEndList(); } glCallList(scene_list); } void C_MediaLoader::recursive_render (const struct aiScene *sc, const struct aiNode* nd) { unsigned int i; unsigned int n = 0, t; struct aiMatrix4x4 m = nd->mTransformation; // update transform aiTransposeMatrix4(&m); glPushMatrix(); glMultMatrixf((float*)&m); // draw all meshes assigned to this node for (; n < nd->mNumMeshes; ++n) { const struct aiMesh* mesh = scene->mMeshes[nd->mMeshes[n]]; apply_material(sc->mMaterials[mesh->mMaterialIndex]); if(mesh->mNormals == NULL) { glDisable(GL_LIGHTING); } else { glEnable(GL_LIGHTING); } for (t = 0; t < mesh->mNumFaces; ++t) { const struct aiFace* face = &mesh->mFaces[t]; GLenum face_mode; switch(face->mNumIndices) { case 1: face_mode = GL_POINTS; break; case 2: face_mode = GL_LINES; break; case 3: face_mode = GL_TRIANGLES; break; default: face_mode = GL_POLYGON; break; } glBegin(face_mode); for(i = 0; i < face->mNumIndices; i++) { int index = face->mIndices[i]; if(mesh->mColors[0] != NULL) glColor4fv((GLfloat*)&mesh->mColors[0][index]); if(mesh->mNormals != NULL) glNormal3fv(&mesh->mNormals[index].x); glVertex3fv(&mesh->mVertices[index].x); } glEnd(); } } // draw all children for (n = 0; n < nd->mNumChildren; ++n) { recursive_render(sc, nd->mChildren[n]); } glPopMatrix(); } Sorry there is so much code to look through, but I really cannot find the problem, and I would love to have help.

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  • How to raycast select a scaled OBB?

    - by user3254944
    I have the OBB picking code to select an OBB with code inspired from Real time Rendering 3 and opengl-tutorial.org. I can successfully select objects that have been moved or rotated. However, I cant correctly select an object that has been scaled. The bounding box scales right, but the I can only select the object in a thin strip on its center. How do I fix the checkForHits() function to allow it to read the scaling that I passed to it in the raycast matrix? void GLWidget::selectObjRaycast() { glm::vec2 mouse = (glm::vec2(mousePos.x(), mousePos.y()) / glm::vec2(this->width(), this->height())) * 2.0f - 1.0f; mouse.y *= -1; glm::mat4 toWorld = glm::inverse(ProjectionM * ViewM); glm::vec4 from = toWorld * glm::vec4(mouse, -1.0f, 1.0f); glm::vec4 to = toWorld * glm::vec4(mouse, 1.0f, 1.0f); from /= from.w; to /= to.w; fromAABB = glm::vec3(from); toAABB = glm::normalize(glm::vec3(to - from)); checkForHits(); } void GLWidget::checkForHits() { for (int i = 0; i < myWin.myEtc->allObj.size(); ++i) //check for hits on each obj's bb { bool miss = 0; float tMin = 0.0f; float tMax = 100000.0f; glm::vec3 bbPos(myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->raycastM[3].x, myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->raycastM[3].y, myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->raycastM[3].z); glm::vec3 delta = bbPos - fromAABB; for (int j = 0; j < 3; ++j) { glm::vec3 axis(myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->raycastM[j].x, myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->raycastM[j].y, myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->raycastM[j].z); float e = glm::dot(axis, delta); float f = glm::dot(toAABB, axis); if (fabs(f) > 0.001f) { float t1 = (e + myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->bbMin[j]) / f; float t2 = (e + myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->bbMax[j]) / f; if (t1 > t2) { float w = t1; t1 = t2; t2 = w; } if (t2 < tMax) tMax = t2; if (t1 > tMin) tMin = t1; if (tMax < tMin) miss = 1; } else { if (-e + myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->bbMin[j] > 0.0f || -e + myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->bbMax[j] < 0.0f) miss = 1; } } if (miss == 0) { intersection_distance = tMin; myWin.myEtc->sel.push_back(myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]); myWin.myEtc->allObj[i]->highlight = myWin.myGLHelp->highlight; break; } } } void Object::render(glm::mat4 PV) { scaleM = glm::scale(glm::mat4(), s->val_3); r_quat = glm::quat(glm::radians(r->val_3)); rotationM = glm::toMat4(r_quat); translationM = glm::translate(glm::mat4(), t->val_3); transLocal1M = glm::translate(glm::mat4(), -rsPivot->val_3); transLocal2M = glm::translate(glm::mat4(), rsPivot->val_3); raycastM = translationM * transLocal2M * rotationM * scaleM * transLocal1M; // MVP = PV * translationM * transLocal2M * rotationM * scaleM * transLocal1M; }

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  • Orchestrating the Virtual Enterprise, Part II

    - by Kathryn Perry
    A guest post by Jon Chorley, Oracle's CSO & Vice President, SCM Product Strategy Almost everyone has ordered from Amazon.com at one time or another. Our orders are as likely to be fulfilled by third parties as they are by Amazon itself. To deliver the order promptly and efficiently, Amazon has to send it to the right fulfillment location and know the availability in that location. It needs to be able to track status of the fulfillment and deal with exceptions. As a virtual enterprise, Amazon's operations, using thousands of trading partners, requires a very different approach to fulfillment than the traditional 'take an order and ship it from your own warehouse' model. Amazon had no choice but to develop a complex, expensive and custom solution to tackle this problem as there used to be no product solution available. Now, other companies who want to follow similar models have a better off-the-shelf choice -- Oracle Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO).  Consider how another of our customers is using our distributed orchestration solution. This major airplane manufacturer has a highly complex business and interacts regularly with the U.S. Government and major airlines. It sits in the middle of an intricate supply chain and needed to improve visibility across its many different entities. Oracle Fusion DOO gives the company an orchestration mechanism so it could improve quality, speed, flexibility, and consistency without requiring an organ transplant of these highly complex legacy systems. Many retailers face the challenge of dealing with brick and mortar, Web, and reseller channels. They all need to be knitted together into a virtual enterprise experience that is consistent for their customers. When a large U.K. grocer with a strong brick and mortar retail operation added an online business, they turned to Oracle Fusion DOO to bring these entities together. Disturbing the Peace with Acquisitions Quite often a company's ERP system is disrupted when it acquires a new company. An acquisition can inject a new set of processes and systems -- or even introduce an entirely new business like Sun's hardware did at Oracle. This challenge has been a driver for some of our DOO customers. A large power management company is using Oracle Fusion DOO to provide the flexibility to rapidly integrate additional products and services into its central fulfillment operation. The Flip Side of Fulfillment Meanwhile, we haven't ignored similar challenges on the supply side of the equation. Specifically, how to manage complex supply in a flexible way when there are multiple trading parties involved? How to manage the supply to suppliers? How to manage critical components that need to merge in a tier two or tier three supply chain? By investing in supply orchestration solutions for the virtual enterprise, we plan to give users better visibility into their network of suppliers to help them drive down costs. We also think this technology and full orchestration process can be applied to the financial side of organizations. An example is transactions that flow through complex internal structures to minimize tax exposure. We can help companies manage those transactions effectively by thinking about the internal organization as a virtual enterprise and bringing the same solution set to this internal challenge.  The Clear Front Runner No other company is investing in solving the virtual enterprise supply chain issues like Oracle is. Oracle is in a unique position to become the gold standard in this market space. We have the infrastructure of Oracle technology. We already have an Oracle Fusion DOO application which embraces the best of what's required in this area. And we're absolutely committed to extending our Fusion solution to other use cases and delivering even more business value. Jon ChorleyChief Sustainability Officer & Vice President, SCM Product StrategyOracle Corporation

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  • IPgallery banks on Solaris SPARC

    - by Frederic Pariente
    IPgallery is a global supplier of converged legacy and Next Generation Networks (NGN) products and solutions, including: core network components and cloud-based Value Added Services (VAS) for voice, video and data sessions. IPgallery enables network operators and service providers to offer advanced converged voice, chat, video/content services and rich unified social communications in a combined legacy (fixed/mobile), Over-the-Top (OTT) and Social Community (SC) environments for home and business customers. Technically speaking, this offer is a scalable and robust telco solution enabling operators to offer new services while controlling operating expenses (OPEX). In its solutions, IPgallery leverages the following Oracle components: Oracle Solaris, Netra T4 and SPARC T4 in order to provide a competitive and scalable solution without the price tag often associated with high-end systems. Oracle Solaris Binary Application Guarantee A unique feature of Oracle Solaris is the guaranteed binary compatibility between releases of the Solaris OS. That means, if a binary application runs on Solaris 2.6 or later, it will run on the latest release of Oracle Solaris.  IPgallery developed their application on Solaris 9 and Solaris 10 then runs it on Solaris 11, without any code modification or rebuild. The Solaris Binary Application Guarantee helps IPgallery protect their long-term investment in the development, training and maintenance of their applications. Oracle Solaris Image Packaging System (IPS) IPS is a new repository-based package management system that comes with Oracle Solaris 11. It provides a framework for complete software life-cycle management such as installation, upgrade and removal of software packages. IPgallery leverages this new packaging system in order to speed up and simplify software installation for the R&D and production environments. Notably, they use IPS to deliver Solaris Studio 12.3 packages as part of the rapid installation process of R&D environments, and during the production software deployment phase, they ensure software package integrity using the built-in verification feature. Solaris IPS thus improves IPgallery's time-to-market with a faster, more reliable software installation and deployment in production environments. Extreme Network Performance IPgallery saw a huge improvement in application performance both in CPU and I/O, when running on SPARC T4 architecture in compared to UltraSPARC T2 servers.  The same application (with the same activation environment) running on T2 consumes 40%-50% CPU, while it consumes only 10% of the CPU on T4. The testing environment comprised of: Softswitch (Call management), TappS (Telecom Application Server) and Billing Server running on same machine and initiating various services in capacity of 1000 CAPS (Call Attempts Per Second). In addition, tests showed a huge improvement in the performance of the TCP/IP stack, which reduces network layer processing and in the end Call Attempts latency. Finally, there is a huge improvement within the file system and disk I/O operations; they ran all tests with maximum logging capability and it didn't influence any benchmark values. "Due to the huge improvements in performance and capacity using the T4-1 architecture, IPgallery has engineered the solution with less hardware.  This means instead of deploying the solution on six T2-based machines, we will deploy on 2 redundant machines while utilizing Oracle Solaris Zones and Oracle VM for higher availability and virtualization" Shimon Lichter, VP R&D, IPgallery In conclusion, using the unique combination of Oracle Solaris and SPARC technologies, IPgallery is able to offer solutions with much lower TCO, while providing a higher level of service capacity, scalability and resiliency. This low-OPEX solution enables the operator, the end-customer, to deliver a high quality service while maintaining high profitability.

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  • Inside Red Gate - Experimenting In Public

    - by Simon Cooper
    Over the next few weeks, we'll be performing experiments on SmartAssembly to confirm or refute various hypotheses we have about how people use the product, what is stopping them from using it to its full extent, and what we can change to make it more useful and easier to use. Some of these experiments can be done within the team, some within Red Gate, and some need to be done on external users. External testing Some external testing can be done by standard usability tests and surveys, however, there are some hypotheses that can only be tested by building a version of SmartAssembly with some things in the UI or implementation changed. We'll then be able to look at how the experimental build is used compared to the 'mainline' build, which forms our baseline or control group, and use this data to confirm or refute the relevant hypotheses. However, there are several issues we need to consider before running experiments using separate builds: Ideally, the user wouldn't know they're running an experimental SmartAssembly. We don't want users to use the experimental build like it's an experimental build, we want them to use it like it's the real mainline build. Only then will we get valid, useful, and informative data concerning our hypotheses. There's no point running the experiments if we can't find out what happens after the download. To confirm or refute some of our hypotheses, we need to find out how the tool is used once it is installed. Fortunately, we've applied feature usage reporting to the SmartAssembly codebase itself to provide us with that information. Of course, this then makes the experimental data conditional on the user agreeing to send that data back to us in the first place. Unfortunately, even though this does limit the amount of useful data we'll be getting back, and possibly skew the data, there's not much we can do about this; we don't collect feature usage data without the user's consent. Looks like we'll simply have to live with this. What if the user tries to buy the experiment? This is something that isn't really covered by the Lean Startup book; how do you support users who give you money for an experiment? If the experiment is a new feature, and the user buys a license for SmartAssembly based on that feature, then what do we do if we later decide to pivot & scrap that feature? We've either got to spend time and money bringing that feature up to production quality and into the mainline anyway, or we've got disgruntled customers. Either way is bad. Again, there's not really any good solution to this. Similarly, what if we've removed some features for an experiment and a potential new user downloads the experimental build? (As I said above, there's no indication the build is an experimental build, as we want to see what users really do with it). The crucial feature they need is missing, causing a bad trial experience, a lost potential customer, and a lost chance to help the customer with their problem. Again, this is something not really covered by the Lean Startup book, and something that doesn't have a good solution. So, some tricky issues there, not all of them with nice easy answers. Turns out the practicalities of running Lean Startup experiments are more complicated than they first seem!

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