Search Results

Search found 6619 results on 265 pages for 'digital logic'.

Page 235/265 | < Previous Page | 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242  | Next Page >

• TGIF: Engagement Wrap-up

  - by Michael Snow

  We've had a very busy week here at Oracle and as we build up to Oracle OpenWorld starting in less than 10 days - it doesn't look like things will be slowing down. Engagement is definitely in the air this week. Our friend, John Mancini published a great article entitled: "The World of Engagement" on his Digital Landfill blog yesterday and we hosted a great webcast with R "Ray" Wang from Constellation Research yesterday on the "9 C's of Engagement". 12.00 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-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} I wanted to wrap-up the week with some key takeaways from our webcast yesterday with Ray Wang. If you missed the webcast yesterday, fear not - it is now available  On-Demand. We'll leave you this week with lots of questions about how to navigate these churning waters of engagement. Stay tuned to the Oracle WebCenter Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast Series as we fuel this dialogue. 12.00 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";} Company Culture Does company support a culture of putting customer satisfaction ahead of profits? Does culture promote creativity and cross functional employee collaboration? Does culture accept different views of multi-generational workforce? Does culture promote employee training and skills development Does culture support upward mobility and long term retention? Does culture support work-life balance? Does the culture provide rewards for employee for outstanding customer support? Channels What are the current primary channels for customer communications? What do you think will be the primary channels in two years? Is company developing support model for emerging channels? Do all channels consistently deliver the same level of customer support? Do you know the cost per transaction across all channels? Do you engage customers proactively across multiple channels? Do all channels have access to the same customer information? Community Does company extend customer support into virtual communities of interest? Does company facilitate educating users through its virtual communities? Does company mine its customer’s experience into useful data? Does company increase the value for customers through using data to deliver new products and services? Does company support two way interactions with its customers through communities of interest? Does company actively support social CRM, online communities and social media markets? Credibility Does company market its trustworthiness through external certificates such as business licenses, BBB certificates or other validations? Does company promote trust through customer testimonials and case studies on ethical business practices? Does company promote truthful market campaigns Does company make it easy for customers to complain? Does company build its reputation for standing behind its products with guarantees for satisfaction? Does company protect its customer data with high security measures> Content What sources do you use to create customer content? Does company mine social media and blogs for customer content? How does your company sort, store and retain its customer content? How frequently does content get updated? What external sources do you use for customer content? How many responses are typically received from a knowledge management system inquiry? Does your company use customer content to design and develop new product and services? Context Does your company market to customers in clusters or individually? Does your company customize its messages and personalize them to specific needs of each individual customer? Does your company store customer data based on their past behaviors, purchases, sentiment analysis and current activities? Does your company manage customer context according to channels used? For example identify personal use channels versus business channels? What is your frequency of collecting customer activities across various touch points? How is your customer data stored and analyzed? Is contextual data used for future customer outreach? Cadence Which channels does your company measure-web site visits, phone calls, IVR, store visits, face to face, social media? Does company make effective use of cross channel marketing to promote more frequent customer engagement? Does your company rate the patterns relevant for your product or service and monitor usage against this pattern? Does your company measure the frequency of both online and offline channels? Does your company apply metrics to the frequency of customer engagements with product or services revenues? Does your company consolidate data for customer engagement across various channels for a complete view of its customer? Catalyst Does company offer coupon discounts? Does company have a customer loyalty program or a VIP membership program? Does company mine customer data to target specific groups of buyers? Do internal employees serve as ambassadors for customer programs? Does company drive loyalty through social media loyalty programs? Does company build rewards based on using loyalty data? Does company offer an employee incentive program to drive customer loyalty?

  Read the article

• .NET development on a Retina MacBook Pro with Windows 8

  - by Jeff

  I remember sitting in Building 5 at Microsoft with some of my coworkers, when one of them came in with a shiny new 11” MacBook Air. It was nearly two years ago, and we found it pretty odd that the OEM’s building Windows machines sucked at industrial design in a way that defied logic. While Dell and HP were in a race to the bottom building commodity crap, Apple was staying out of the low-end market completely, and focusing on better design. In the process, they managed to build machines people actually wanted, and maintain an insanely high margin in the process. I stopped buying the commodity crap and custom builds in 2006, when Apple went Intel. As a .NET guy, I was still in it for Microsoft’s stack of development tools, which I found awesome, but had back to back crappy laptops from HP and Dell. After that original 15” MacBook Pro, I also had a Mac Pro tower (that I sold after three years for $1,500!), a 27” iMac, and my favorite, a 17” MacBook Pro (the unibody style) with an SSD added from OWC. The 17” was a little much to carry around because it was heavy, but it sure was nice getting as much as eight hours of battery life, and the screen was amazing. When the rumors started about a 15” model with a “retina” screen inspired by the Air, I made up my mind I wanted one, and ordered it the day it came out. I sold my 17”, after three years, for $750 to a friend who is really enjoying it. I got the base model with the upgrade to 16 gigs of RAM. It feels solid for being so thin, and if you’ve used the third generation iPad or the newer iPhone, you’ll be just as thrilled with the screen resolution. I’m typically getting just over six hours of battery life while running a VM, but Parallels 8 allegedly makes some power improvements, so we’ll see what happens. (It was just released today.) The nice thing about VM’s are that you can run more than one at a time. Primarily I run the Windows 8 VM with four cores (the laptop is quad-core, but has 8 logical cores due to hyperthreading or whatever Intel calls it) and 8 gigs of RAM. I also have a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM I spin up when I need to test stuff in a “real” server environment, and I give it two cores and 4 gigs of RAM. The Windows 8 VM spins up in about 8 seconds. Visual Studio 2012 takes a few more seconds, but count part of that as the “ReSharper tax” as it does its startup magic. The real beauty, the thing I looked most forward to, is that beautifully crisp C# text. Consolas has never looked as good as it does at 10pt. as it does on this display. You know how it looks great at 80pt. when conference speakers demo stuff on a projector? Think that sharpness, only tiny. It’s just gorgeous. Beyond that, everything is just so responsive and fast. Builds of large projects happen in seconds, hundreds of unit tests run in seconds… you just don’t spend a lot of time waiting for stuff. It’s kind of painful to go back to my 27” iMac (which would be better if I put an SSD in it before its third birthday). Are there negatives? A few minor issues, yes. As is the case with OS X, not everything scales right. You’ll see some weirdness at times with splash screens and icons and such. Chrome’s text rendering (in Windows) is apparently not aware of how to deal with higher DPI’s, so text is fuzzy (the OS X version is super sharp, however). You’ll also have to do some fiddling with keyboard settings to use the Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts. Overall, it’s as close to a no-compromise development experience as I’ve ever had. I’m not even going to bother with Boot Camp because the VM route already exceeds my expectations. You definitely get what you pay for. If this one also lasts three years and I can turn around and sell it, it’s worth it for something I use every day.

  Read the article

• About Solaris 11 and UltraSPARC II/III/IV/IV+

  - by nospam(at)example.com (Joerg Moellenkamp)

  I know that I will get the usual amount of comments like "Oh, Jörg ? you can't be negative about Oracle" for this article. However as usual I want to explain the logic behind my reasoning. Yes ? I know that there is a lot of UltraSPARC III, IV and IV+ gear out there. But there are some very basic questions: Does your application you are currently running on this gear stops running just because you can't run Solaris 11 on it? What is the need to upgrade a system already in production to Solaris 11? I have the impression, that some people think that the systems get useless in the moment Oracle releases Solaris 11. I know that Sun sold UltraSPARC IV+ systems until 2009. The Sun SF490 introduced 2004 for example, that was a Sun SF480 with UltraSPARC IV and later with UltraSPARC IV+. And yes, Sun made some speedbumps. At that time the systems of the UltraSPARC III to IV+ generations were supported on Solaris 8, on Solaris 9 and on Solaris 10. However from my perspective we sold them to customers, which weren't able to migrate to Solaris 10 because they used applications not supported on Solaris 9 or who just didn't wanted to migrate to Solaris 10. Believe it or not ? I personally know two customers that migrated core systems to Solaris 10 in ? well 2008/9. This was especially true when the M3000 was announced in 2008 when it closed the darned single socket gap. It may be different at you site, however that's what I remember about that time when talking with customers. At first: Just because there is no Solaris 11 for UltraSPARC III, IV and IV+, it doesn't mean that Solaris 10 will go away anytime soon. I just want to point you to "Expect Lifetime Support - Hardware and Operating Systems". It states about Premier Support:Maintenance and software upgrades are included for Oracle operating systems and Oracle VM for a minimum of eight years from the general availability date.GA for Solaris 10 was in 2005. Plus 8 years ? 2013 ? at minimum. Then you can still opt for 3 years of "Extended Support" ? 2016 ? at minimum. 2016 your systems purchased in 2009 are 7 years old. Even on systems purchased at the very end of the lifetime of that system generation. That are the rules as written in the linked document. I said minimum The actual dates are even further in the future: Premier Support for Solaris 10 ends in 2015, Extended support ends 2018. Sustaining support ? indefinite. You will find this in the document "Oracle Lifetime Support Policy: Oracle Hardware and Operating Systems".So I don't understand when some people write, that Oracle is less protective about hardware investments than Sun. And for hardware it's the same as with Sun: Service 5 years after EOL as part of Premier Support. I would like to write about a different perspective as well: I have to be a little cautious here, because this is going in the roadmap area, so I will mention the public sources here: John Fowler told last year that we have to expect at at least 3x the single thread performance of T3 for T4. We have 8 cores in T4, as stated by Rick Hetherington. Let's assume for a moment that a T4 core will have the performance of a UltraSPARC core (just to simplify math and not to disclosing anything about the performance, all existing SPARC cores are considered equal). So given this pieces of information, you could consolidate 8 V215, 4 or 8 V245, 2 full blown V445,2 full blown 490, 2 full blown M3000 on a single T4 SPARC processor. The Fowler roadmap prezo talked about 4-socket systems with T4. So 32 V215, 16 to 8 V245, 8 fullblown V445, 8 full blown V490, 8 full blown M3000 in a system image. I think you get the idea. That said, most of the systems we are talking about have already amortized and perhaps it's just time to invest in new systems to yield other advantages like reduced space consumptions, like reduced power consumption, like some of the neat features sun4v gives you, and yes ? reduced number of processor licenses for Oracle and less money for Oracle HW/SW support. As much as I dislike it myself that my own UltraSPARC III and UltraSPARC II based systems won't run on Solaris 11 (and I have quite a few of them in my personal lab), I really think that the impact on production environments will be much less than most people think now. By the way: The reason for this move is a quite significant new feature. I will tell you that it was this feature, when it's out. I assume, telling just a word more could lead to much more time to blog.

  Read the article

• How customers view and interact with a company

  The Harvard Business Review article written by Rayport and Jaworski is aptly titled “Best Face Forward” because it sheds light on how customers view and interact with a company. In the past most business interaction between customers was performed in a face to face meeting where one party would present an item for sale and then the other would decide whether to purchase the item. In addition, if there was a problem with a purchased item then they would bring the item back to the person who sold the item for resolution. One of my earliest examples of witnessing this was when I was around 6 or 7 years old and I was allowed to spend the summer in Tennessee with my Grandparents. My Grandfather had just written a book about the local history of his town and was selling them to his friends and local bookstores. I still remember he offered to pay me a small commission for every book I helped him sell because I was carrying the books around for him. Every sale he made was face to face with his customers which allowed him to share his excitement for the book with everyone. In today’s modern world there is less and less human interaction as the use of computers and other technologies allow us to communicate within seconds even though both parties may be across the globe or just next door. That being said, customers view a company through multiple access points called faces that represent the ability to interact without actually seeing a human face. As a software engineer this is a good and a bad thing because direct human interaction and technology based interaction have both good and bad attributes based on the customer. How organizations coordinate business and IT functions, to provide quality service varies based on each individual business and the goals and directives put in place by its management. According to Rayport and Jaworski, the type of interaction used through a particular access point may lend itself to be people-dominate, machine-dominate, or a combination of both. The method by which a company communicates information through an access point is a strategic choice that relates costs and customer outcomes. To simplify this, the choice is based on what can give the customer the best experience interacting with the company when the cost of the interaction is also a factor. I personally see examples of this every day at work. The company website is machine-dominate with people updating and maintaining information, our groups department is people dominate because most of the customer interaction is done at the customers location and is backed up by machine based data sources, and our sales/member service department is a hybrid because employees work in tandem with machines in order for them to assist customers with signing up or any other issue they may have. The positive and negative aspects of human and machine interfaces are a key aspect in deciding which interface to use when allowing customers to access a company or a combination of the two. Rayport and Jaworski also used MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson preliminary catalog of human and machine strengths. He stated that humans outperform machines in judgment, pattern recognition, exception processing, insight, and creativity. I have found this to be true based on the example of how sales and member service reps at my company handle a multitude of questions and various situations with a lot of unknown variables. A machine interface could never effectively be able to handle these scenarios because there are too many variables to consider and would not have the built-in logic to process each customer’s claims and needs. In addition, he also stated that machines outperform humans in collecting, storing, transmitting and routine processing. An example of this would be my employer’s website. Customers can simply go online and purchase a product without even talking to a sales or member services representative. The information is then stored in a database so that the customer can always go back and review there order, and access their selected services. A human, no matter how smart they are would never be able to keep track of hundreds of thousands of customers let alone know what they purchased or how much they paid. In today’s technology driven economy every company must offer their customers multiple methods of accessibly in order to survive. The more of an opportunity a company has to create a positive experience for their customers, in my opinion, they more likely the customer will return to that company again. I have noticed this with my personal shopping habits and experiences. References Rayport, J., & Jaworski, B. (2004). Best Face Forward. Harvard Business Review, 82(12), 47-58. Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.

  Read the article

• Webcast Q&A: Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  Last Thursday we had the second webcast in our WebCenter in Action webcast series, "Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter, where customer Michael Chander from Qualcomm and Vince Casarez & Gourav Goyal from Oracle Partner Keste shared how Oracle WebCenter is powering Qualcomm’s externally facing website and providing a seamless experience for their customers. In case you missed it, here's a recap of the Q&A.   Mike Chandler, Qualcomm Q: Did you run into any issues when integrating all of the different applications together?A: Definitely, our main challenges were in the area of user provisioning and security propagation, all the standard stuff you might expect when hooking up SSO for authentication and authorization. In addition, we spent several iterations getting the UI’s in sync. While everyone was given the same digital material to build too, each team interpreted and implemented it their own way. Initially as a user navigated, if you were looking for it, you could slight variations in color or font or width , stuff like that. So we had to pull all the developers responsible for the UI together and get pixel level agreement on a lot of things so we could ensure seamless transitions across applications. Q: What has been the biggest benefit your end users have seen?A: Wow, there have been several. An SSO enabled environment was huge a win for our users. The portal application that this replaced had not really been invested in by the business. With this project, we had full business participation and backing, and it really showed in some key areas like the shopping experience. For example, while ordering in the previous site, the items did not have any pictures or really usable descriptions. A tremendous amount of work was done to try and make the site more intuitive and user friendly. Site performance has also drastically improved thanks to new hardware, improved database design, and of course the fact that ADF has made great strides in runtime performance. Q: Was there any resistance internally when implementing the solution? If so, how did you overcome that?A: Within a large company, I’m sure there is always going to be competition for large projects, as there was here. Once we got through the technical analysis and settled on the technology choices, it was actually no resistance to implementing the solution. This project was fully driven by the business with the aim of long term growth. I can confidently say that the fact that this project was given the utmost importance by both the business and IT really help put down any resistance that you would typically see while implementing a new solution. Q: Given the performance, what do you estimate to be the top end capacity of the system? A:I think our top end capacity is really only limited by our hardware. I’m comfortable saying we could grow 10x on our current hardware, both in terms of transactions and users. We can easily spin up new JVM instances if needed. We already use less JVM’s than we had planned. In addition, ADF is doing a very good job with his connection pooling and application module pooling, so we see a very good ratio of users connected to the systems vs db connections, without impacting performace. Q: What's the overview or summary of feedback from the users interacting with the site?A: Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from both the business and our customers. They’re very happy with the new SSO environment , the new LAF, and the performance of the site. Of course, it’s not all roses. No matter what, there are always going to be people that don’t like the layout or the color scheme, etc. By and large though, customers are happy and the business is happy. Q: Can you describe the impressions about the site before and after the project within Qualcomm?A: Before the project, the site worked and people were using it, but most people were not happy with it. It was slow and tended to be a bit tempermental, for example a user would perform a transaction and the system would throw and unexpected error. The user could back up and retry the steps and things would work fine, so why didn’t work the first time?. From a UI perspective, we’d hear comments like it looked like it was built by a high school student.  Vince Casarez & Gourav Goyal, Keste Q: Did you run into any obstacles when implementing the solution?A: It's interesting some people call them "obstacles" on this project we just called them "dependencies".  There were both technical and business related dependencies that we had to work out. Mike points out the SSO dependencies and the coordination and synchronization between the teams to have a seamless login experience and a seamless end user experience.  There was also a set of dependencies on the User Acceptance testing to make sure that everyone understood the use cases for how the system would be used.  With a branching into a new market and trying to match a simple user experience as many consumer sites have today, there was always a tendency for the team members to provide their suggestions on how things could be simpler.  But with all the work up front on the user design and getting the business driving this set of experiences, this minimized the downstream suggestions that tend to distract a team.  In this case, all the work up front allowed us to enumerate the "dependencies" and keep the distractions to a minimum. Q: Was there a lot of custom work that needed to be done for this particular solution?A: The focus for this particular solution was really on the custom processes. The interesting thing is that with the data flows and the integration with applications, there are some pre-built integrations, but realistically for the process flow, we had to build those. The framework and tooling we used made things easier so we didn’t have to implement core functionality, like transitioning from screen to screen or from flow to flow. The design feature of Task Flows really helped speed the development and keep the component infrastructure in line with the dynamic processes.  Task flows and other elements like Skins are core to the infrastructure or technology stack of Oracle. This then allowed the team to center the project focus around the business flows and use cases to meet the core requirements and keep the project on time. Q: What do you think were the keys to success for rolling out WebCenter?A:  The 5 main keys to success were: 1) Sponsorship from the whole organization around this project from senior executive agreement, business owners driving functionality, and IT development alignment; 2) Upfront design planning and use case definition to clearly define the project scope and requirements; 3) Focussed development and project management aligned with the top level goals and drivers; 4) User acceptance and usability testing along the way to identify potential issues and direct resolution of the issues;  and 5) Constant prioritization of the issues for development to fix by the business.  It also helps to have great team chemistry and really smart people working on the project. If you missed the webcast, be sure to catch the replay to see a live demonstration of WebCenter in action!  Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter from Oracle WebCenter

  Read the article

• Accelerating 2d object collision with other objects [on hold]

  - by Silent Cave

  Making my very first attempt at game programming with SDL/OpenGL. So I made an object Actor witch can move in all four sides with acceleration. And there are bunch of other rectangles to collide to. the image Movement and collision detection alghorythms work just fine by itself, but when combined to prevent the green rectangle from crossing black rectangles, it gives me a kind of funny resault. Let me show you the code first: from Actor.h class Actor{ public: SDL_Rect * dim; alphaColor * col; float speed; float xlGrav, xrGrav, yuGrav, ydGrav; float acceleration; bool left,right,up,down; Actor(SDL_Rect * dim,alphaColor * col, float speed, float acceleration); bool colides(const SDL_Rect & rect); bool check_for_collisions(const std::vector<SDL_Rect*> & gameObjects ); }; from actor.cpp bool Actor::colides(const SDL_Rect & rect){ if (dim->x + dim->w < rect.x) return false; if (dim->x > rect.x + rect.w) return false; if (dim->y + dim->h < rect.y) return false; if (dim->y > rect.y + rect.h) return false; return true; } movement logic from main.cpp if (actor->left){ if(actor->xlGrav < actor->speed){ actor->xlGrav += actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->xlGrav = actor->speed; actor->dim->x -= actor->xlGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->x += actor->xlGrav; actor->xlGrav = 0; } } if (!actor->left){ if(actor->xlGrav - actor->speed*actor->acceleration > 0){ actor->xlGrav -= actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->xlGrav = 0; actor->dim->x -= actor->xlGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->x += actor->xlGrav; actor->xlGrav = 0; } } if (actor->right){ if(actor->xrGrav < actor->speed){ actor->xrGrav += actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->xrGrav = actor->speed; actor->dim->x += actor->xrGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->x -= actor->xrGrav; actor->xrGrav = 0; } } if (!actor->right){ if(actor->xrGrav - actor->speed*actor->acceleration > 0){ actor->xrGrav -= actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->xrGrav = 0; actor->dim->x += actor->xrGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->x -= actor->xrGrav; actor->xrGrav = 0; } } if (actor->up){ if(actor->yuGrav < actor->speed){ actor->yuGrav += actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->yuGrav = actor->speed; actor->dim->y -= actor->yuGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->y += actor->yuGrav; actor->yuGrav = 0; } } if (!actor->up){ if(actor->yuGrav - actor->speed*actor->acceleration > 0){ actor->yuGrav -= actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->yuGrav = 0; actor->dim->y -= actor->yuGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->y += actor->yuGrav; actor->yuGrav = 0; } } if (actor->down){ if(actor->ydGrav < actor->speed){ actor->ydGrav += actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->ydGrav = actor->speed; actor->dim->y += actor->ydGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->y -= actor->ydGrav; actor->ydGrav = 0; } } if (!actor->down){ if(actor->ydGrav - actor->speed*actor->acceleration > 0){ actor->ydGrav -= actor->speed*actor->acceleration; }else actor->ydGrav = 0; actor->dim->y += actor->ydGrav; if(actor->check_for_collisions(gameObjects)){ actor->dim->y -= actor->ydGrav; actor->ydGrav = 0; } } So, if the green box approaches an obstacle from up or left, everything goes as planned - object stops, and it's acceleration drops to zero. But if it comes from bottom or right, it enters into obstacles inner space and starts strangely dance, I'd rather say move in inverted controls. What do I fail to see?

  Read the article

• A Basic Thread

  - by Joe Mayo

  Most of the programs written are single-threaded, meaning that they run on the main execution thread. For various reasons such as performance, scalability, and/or responsiveness additional threads can be useful. .NET has extensive threading support, from the basic threads introduced in v1.0 to the Task Parallel Library (TPL) introduced in v4.0. To get started with threads, it's helpful to begin with the basics; starting a Thread. Why Do I Care? The scenario I'll use for needing to use a thread is writing to a file.  Sometimes, writing to a file takes a while and you don't want your user interface to lock up until the file write is done. In other words, you want the application to be responsive to the user. How Would I Go About It? The solution is to launch a new thread that performs the file write, allowing the main thread to return to the user right away.  Whenever the file writing thread completes, it will let the user know.  In the meantime, the user is free to interact with the program for other tasks. The following examples demonstrate how to do this. Show Me the Code? The code we'll use to work with threads is in the System.Threading namespace, so you'll need the following using directive at the top of the file: using System.Threading; When you run code on a thread, the code is specified via a method.  Here's the code that will execute on the thread: private static void WriteFile() { Thread.Sleep(1000); Console.WriteLine("File Written."); } The call to Thread.Sleep(1000) delays thread execution. The parameter is specified in milliseconds, and 1000 means that this will cause the program to sleep for approximately 1 second.  This method happens to be static, but that's just part of this example, which you'll see is launched from the static Main method.  A thread could be instance or static.  Notice that the method does not have parameters and does not have a return type. As you know, the way to refer to a method is via a delegate.  There is a delegate named ThreadStart in System.Threading that refers to a method without parameters or return type, shown below: ThreadStart fileWriterHandlerDelegate = new ThreadStart(WriteFile); I'll show you the whole program below, but the ThreadStart instance above goes in the Main method. The thread uses the ThreadStart instance, fileWriterHandlerDelegate, to specify the method to execute on the thread: Thread fileWriter = new Thread(fileWriterHandlerDelegate); As shown above, the argument type for the Thread constructor is the ThreadStart delegate type. The fileWriterHandlerDelegate argument is an instance of the ThreadStart delegate type. This creates an instance of a thread and what code will execute, but the new thread instance, fileWriter, isn't running yet. You have to explicitly start it, like this: fileWriter.Start(); Now, the code in the WriteFile method is executing on a separate thread. Meanwhile, the main thread that started the fileWriter thread continues on it's own.  You have two threads running at the same time. Okay, I'm Starting to Get Glassy Eyed. How Does it All Fit Together? The example below is the whole program, pulling all the previous bits together. It's followed by its output and an explanation. using System; using System.Threading; namespace BasicThread { class Program { static void Main() { ThreadStart fileWriterHandlerDelegate = new ThreadStart(WriteFile); Thread fileWriter = new Thread(fileWriterHandlerDelegate); Console.WriteLine("Starting FileWriter"); fileWriter.Start(); Console.WriteLine("Called FileWriter"); Console.ReadKey(); } private static void WriteFile() { Thread.Sleep(1000); Console.WriteLine("File Written"); } } } And here's the output: Starting FileWriter Called FileWriter File Written So, Why are the Printouts Backwards? The output above corresponds to Console.Writeline statements in the program, with the second and third seemingly reversed. In a single-threaded program, "File Written" would print before "Called FileWriter". However, this is a multi-threaded (2 or more threads) program.  In multi-threading, you can't make any assumptions about when a given thread will run.  In this case, I added the Sleep statement to the WriteFile method to greatly increase the chances that the message from the main thread will print first. Without the Thread.Sleep, you could run this on a system with multiple cores and/or multiple processors and potentially get different results each time. Interesting Tangent but What Should I Get Out of All This? Going back to the main point, launching the WriteFile method on a separate thread made the program more responsive.  The file writing logic ran for a while, but the main thread returned to the user, as demonstrated by the print out of "Called FileWriter".  When the file write finished, it let the user know via another print statement. This was a very efficient use of CPU resources that made for a more pleasant user experience. Joe

  Read the article

• Think before you animate

  - by David Paquette

  Animations are becoming more and more common in our applications.  With technologies like WPF, Silverlight and jQuery, animations are becoming easier for developers to use (and abuse).  When used properly, animation can augment the user experience.  When used improperly, animation can degrade the user experience.  Sometimes, the differences can be very subtle. I have recently made use of animations in a few projects and I very quickly realized how easy it is to abuse animation techniques.  Here are a few things I have learned along the way. 1) Don’t animate for the sake of animating We’ve all seen the PowerPoint slides with annoying slide transitions that animate 20 different ways.  It’s distracting and tacky.  The same holds true for your application.  While animations are fun and becoming easy to implement, resist the urge to use the technology just because you think the technology is amazing.   2) Animations should (and do) have meaning I recently built a simple Windows Phone 7 (WP7) application, Steeped (download it here).  The application has 2 pages.  The first page lists a number of tea types.  When the user taps on one of the tea types, the application navigates to the second page with information about that tea type and some options for the user to choose from.       One of the last things I did before submitting Steeped to the marketplace was add a page transition between the 2 pages.  I choose the Slide / Fade Out transition.  When the user selects a tea type, the main page slides to the left and fades out.  At the same time, the details page slides in from the right and fades in.  I tested it and thought it looked great so I submitted the app.  A few days later, I asked a friend to try the app.  He selected a tea type, and I was a little surprised by how he used the app.  When he wanted to navigate back to the main page, instead of pressing the back button on the phone, he tried to use a swiping gesture.  Of course, the swiping gesture did nothing because I had not implemented that feature.  After thinking about it for a while, I realized that the page transition I had chosen implied a particular behaviour.  As a user, if an action I perform causes an item (in this case the page) to move, then my expectation is that I should be able to move it back.  I have since added logic to handle the swipe gesture and I think the app flows much better now. When using animation, it pays to ask yourself:  What story does this animation tell my users?   3) Watch the replay Some animations might seem great initially but can get annoying over time.  When you use an animation in your application, make sure you try using it over and over again to make sure it doesn’t get annoying.  When I add an animation, I try watch it at least 25 times in a row.  After watching the animation repeatedly, I can make a more informed decision whether or not I should keep the animation.  Often, I end up shortening the length of the animations.   4) Don’t get in the users way An animation should never slow the user down.  When implemented properly, an animation can give a perceived bump in performance.  A good example of this is a the page transitions in most of the built in apps on WP7.  Obviously, these page animations don’t make the phone any faster, but they do provide a more responsive user experience.  Why?  Because most of the animations begin as soon as the user has performed some action.  The destination page might not be fully loaded yet, but the system responded immediately to user action, giving the impression that the system is more responsive.  If the user did not see anything happen until after the destination page was fully loaded, the application would feel clumsy and slow.  Also, it is important to make sure the animation does not degrade the performance (or perceived performance) of the application.   Jut a few things to consider when using animations.  As is the case with many technologies, we often learn how to misuse it before we learn how to use it effectively.

  Read the article

• Breaking 1NF to model subset constraints. Does this sound sane?

  - by Chris Travers

  My first question here. Appologize if it is in the wrong forum but this seems pretty conceptual. I am looking at doing something that goes against conventional wisdom and want to get some feedback as to whether this is totally insane or will result in problems, so critique away! I am on PostgreSQL 9.1 but may be moving to 9.2 for this part of this project. To re-iterate: Does it seem sane to break 1NF in this way? I am not looking for debugging code so much as where people see problems that this might lead. The Problem In double entry accounting, financial transactions are journal entries with an arbitrary number of lines. Each line has either a left value (debit) or a right value (credit) which can be modelled as a single value with negatives as debits and positives as credits or vice versa. The sum of all debits and credits must equal zero (so if we go with a single amount field, sum(amount) must equal zero for each financial journal entry). SQL-based databases, pretty much required for this sort of work, have no way to express this sort of constraint natively and so any approach to enforcing it in the database seems rather complex. The Write Model The journal entries are append only. There is a possibility we will add a delete model but it will be subject to a different set of restrictions and so is not applicable here. If and when we allow deletes, we will probably do them using a simple ON DELETE CASCADE designation on the foreign key, and require that deletes go through a dedicated stored procedure which can enforce the other constraints. So inserts and selects have to be accommodated but updates and deletes do not for this task. My Proposed Solution My proposed solution is to break first normal form and model constraints on arrays of tuples, with a trigger that breaks the rows out into another table. CREATE TABLE journal_line ( entry_id bigserial primary key, account_id int not null references account(id), journal_entry_id bigint not null, -- adding references later amount numeric not null ); I would then add "table methods" to extract debits and credits for reporting purposes: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION debits(journal_line) RETURNS numeric LANGUAGE sql IMMUTABLE AS $$ SELECT CASE WHEN $1.amount < 0 THEN $1.amount * -1 ELSE NULL END; $$; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION credits(journal_line) RETURNS numeric LANGUAGE sql IMMUTABLE AS $$ SELECT CASE WHEN $1.amount > 0 THEN $1.amount ELSE NULL END; $$; Then the journal entry table (simplified for this example): CREATE TABLE journal_entry ( entry_id bigserial primary key, -- no natural keys :-( journal_id int not null references journal(id), date_posted date not null, reference text not null, description text not null, journal_lines journal_line[] not null ); Then a table method and and check constraints: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION running_total(journal_entry) returns numeric language sql immutable as $$ SELECT sum(amount) FROM unnest($1.journal_lines); $$; ALTER TABLE journal_entry ADD CONSTRAINT CHECK (((journal_entry.running_total) = 0)); ALTER TABLE journal_line ADD FOREIGN KEY journal_entry_id REFERENCES journal_entry(entry_id); And finally we'd have a breakout trigger: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION je_breakout() RETURNS TRIGGER LANGUAGE PLPGSQL AS $$ BEGIN IF TG_OP = 'INSERT' THEN INSERT INTO journal_line (journal_entry_id, account_id, amount) SELECT NEW.id, account_id, amount FROM unnest(NEW.journal_lines); RETURN NEW; ELSE RAISE EXCEPTION 'Operation Not Allowed'; END IF; END; $$; And finally CREATE TRIGGER AFTER INSERT OR UPDATE OR DELETE ON journal_entry FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE_PROCEDURE je_breaout(); Of course the example above is simplified. There will be a status table that will track approval status allowing for separation of duties, etc. However the goal here is to prevent unbalanced transactions. Any feedback? Does this sound entirely insane? Standard Solutions? In getting to this point I have to say I have looked at four different current ERP solutions to this problems: Represent every line item as a debit and a credit against different accounts. Use of foreign keys against the line item table to enforce an eventual running total of 0 Use of constraint triggers in PostgreSQL Forcing all validation here solely through the app logic. My concerns are that #1 is pretty limiting and very hard to audit internally. It's not programmer transparent and so it strikes me as being difficult to work with in the future. The second strikes me as being very complex and required a series of contraints and foreign keys against self to make work, and therefore it strikes me as complex, hard to sort out at least in my mind, and thus hard to work with. The fourth could be done as we force all access through stored procedures anyway and this is the most common solution (have the app total things up and throw an error otherwise). However, I think proof that a constraint is followed is superior to test cases, and so the question becomes whether this in fact generates insert anomilies rather than solving them. If this is a solved problem it isn't the case that everyone agrees on the solution....

  Read the article

• BizTalk 2009 - Custom Functoid Wizard

  - by StuartBrierley

  When creating BizTalk maps you may find that there are times when you need perform tasks that the standard functoids do not cover.  At other times you may find yourself reapeating a pattern of standard functoids over and over again, adding visual complexity to an otherwise simple process.  In these cases you may find it preferable to create your own custom functoids.  In the past I have created a number of custom functoids from scratch, but recently I decided to try out the Custom Functoid Wizard for BizTalk 2009. After downloading and installing the wizard you should start Visual Studio and select to create a new BizTalk Server Functoid Project. Following the splash screen you will be presented with the General Properties screen, where you can set the classname, namespace, assembly name and strong name key file. The next screen is the first set of properties for the functoid.  First of all is the fuctoid ID; this must be a value above 6000. You should also then set the name, tooltip and description of the functoid.  The name will appear in the visual studio toolbox and the tooltip on hover over in the toolbox.  The descrition will be shown when you configure the functoid inputs when using it in a map; as such it should provide a decent level of information to allow the functoid to be used. Next you must set the category, exception mesage, icon and implementation language.  The category will affect the positioning of the functoid within the toolbox and also some of the behaviours of the functoid. We must then define the parameters and connections for our new functoid.  Here you can define the names and types of your input parameters along with the minimum and maximum number of input connections.  You will also need to define the types of connections accepted and the output type of the functoid. Finally you can click finish and your custom functoid project will be created. The results of this process can be seen in the solution explorer, where you will see that a project, functoid class file and a resource file have been created for you. If you open the class file you will see that the following code has been created for you: The "base" function sets all the properties that you previsouly detailed in the custom functoid wizard.  public TestFunctoids():base()  {    int functoidID;    // This has to be a number greater than 6000    functoidID = System.Convert.ToInt32(resmgr.GetString("FunctoidId"));    this.ID = functoidID;    // Set Resource strings, bitmaps    SetupResourceAssembly(ResourceName, Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly());    SetName("FunctoidName");                     SetTooltip("FunctoidToolTip");    SetDescription("FunctoidDescription");    SetBitmap("FunctoidBitmap");    // Minimum and maximum parameters that the functoid accepts    this.SetMinParams(2);    this.SetMaxParams(2);    /// Function name that needs to be called when this Functoid is invoked.    /// Put this in GAC.    SetExternalFunctionName(GetType().Assembly.FullName,     "MyCompany.BizTalk.Functoids.TestFuntoids.TestFunctoids", "Execute");    // Category for this functoid.    this.Category = FunctoidCategory.String;    // Input and output Connection type    this.OutputConnectionType = ConnectionType.AllExceptRecord;    AddInputConnectionType(ConnectionType.AllExceptRecord);   } The "Execute" function provides a skeleton function that contains the code to be executed by your new functoid.  The inputs and outputs should match those you defined in the Custom Functoid Wizard.   public System.Int32 Execute(System.Int32 Cool)   {    ResourceManager resmgr = new ResourceManager(ResourceName, Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly());    try    {     // TODO: Implement Functoid Logic    }    catch (Exception e)    {     throw new Exception(resmgr.GetString("FunctoidException"), e);    }   } Opening the resource file you will see some of the various string values that you defined in the Custom Functoid Wizard - Name, Tooltip, Description and Exception. You can also select to look at the image resources.  This will display the embedded icon image for the functoid.  To change this right click the icon and select "Import from File". Once you have completed the skeleton code you can then look at trying out your functoid. To do this you will need to build the project, copy the compiled DLL to C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Developer Tools\Mapper Extensions and then refresh the toolbox in visual studio.

  Read the article

• Using Resources the Right Way

  - by BuckWoody

  It’s an interesting time in computing technology. At one point there was a dearth of information available for solving a given problem, or educating ourselves on broader topics so that we can solve problems in the future. With dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands of web sites and content available (for free, in many cases) from vendors, peers, even colleges and universities, it seems like there is actually too much information. Who has the time to absorb all this information and training? Even if you had the inclination, where to start? In fact, it seems so overwhelming that I often hear people saying that they can’t find the training they need, or that vendor X or Y “doesn’t help their users”. On questioning these folks, however, I often find that they – and sometimes I - haven’t put in the effort to learn what resources we have. That’s where blogs, like this one, can help. If you follow a blog, either by checking it often or perhaps subscribing to the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, you’ll be able to spread out the search or create a mental filter for the information you need. But it’s not enough just read a blog or a web page. The creators need real feedback – what doesn’t work, and what does. Yes, you’re allowed to tell a vendor or writer “This helped me because…” so that you reinforce the positives. To be sure, bring up what doesn’t work as well –  that’s fine. But be specific, and be constructive. You’d be surprised at how much it matters. I know for a fact at Microsoft we listen – there is a real live person that reads your comments. I’m sure this is true of other vendors, and I also know that most blog authors – yours truly most especially – wants to know what you think.   In this blog entry I’d to call your attention to three resources you have at your disposal, and how you can use them to help. I’ll try to bring up things like this from time to time that I find useful, and cover in them in more depth like this. Think of this as a synopsis of a longer set of resources that you can use to filter whether you want to research further, bookmark, or forward on to a circle of friends where you think it might help them.   Data Driven Design Concepts http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156154 I’ll start with a great site that walks you through the process of designing a solution from a data-first perspective. As you know, I believe all computing is merely re-arranging data. If you follow that logic as well, you’ll realize that whenever you create a solution, you should start at the data-end of the application. This resource helps you do that. Even if you don’t use the specific technologies the instructions use, the concepts hold for almost any other technology that deals with data. This should be a definite bookmark for a developer, DBA, or Data Architect. When I mentioned my admiration for this resource here at Microsoft, the team that created it contacted me and asked if I’d share an e-mail address to my readers so that you can comment on it. You’re guaranteed to be heard – you can suggest changes, talk about how useful – or not – it is, and so on. Here’s that address:  [email protected]   End-to-End Example of a complete Hybrid Application – with Live Demo https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx I learn by example. I also like having ready-made, live, functional demos that show the completed solution at work. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how a complex, complete, hybrid application that bridges on-premises systems with cloud-based databases, code, functions and more, this is it. It’s a stock-trading simulator, and you can get everything from the design to the code itself, or you can just play with the application. It’s running on Windows Azure, the actual production servers we use for everything else. Using a Cloud-Based Service https://azureconfigweb.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx Along with that stock-trading application, you have a full demonstration and usable code sample of a web-based service available. If you’re a developer, this is a style of code you need to understand for everything from iPhone development to a full Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment. So check out these resources. I’ll post more from time to time as I run across them. Hopefully they’ll be as useful to you as they are to me. Oh, and if you have a comment on any of the resources, let them know. And if you have any comments about these or any of my entries, feel free to post away. To quote a famous TV Show: “Hello Seattle – I’m listening…”

  Read the article

• Inside BackgroundWorker

  - by João Angelo

  The BackgroundWorker is a reusable component that can be used in different contexts, but sometimes with unexpected results. If you are like me, you have mostly used background workers while doing Windows Forms development due to the flexibility they offer for running a background task. They support cancellation and give events that signal progress updates and task completion. When used in Windows Forms, these events (ProgressChanged and RunWorkerCompleted) get executed back on the UI thread where you can freely access your form controls. However, the logic of the progress changed and worker completed events being invoked in the thread that started the background worker is not something you get directly from the BackgroundWorker, but instead from the fact that you are running in the context of Windows Forms. Take the following example that illustrates the use of a worker in three different scenarios: – Console Application or Windows Service; – Windows Forms; – WPF. using System; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Threading; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Windows.Threading; class Program { static AutoResetEvent Synch = new AutoResetEvent(false); static void Main() { var bw1 = new BackgroundWorker(); var bw2 = new BackgroundWorker(); var bw3 = new BackgroundWorker(); Console.WriteLine("DEFAULT"); var unspecializedThread = new Thread(() => { OutputCaller(1); SynchronizationContext.SetSynchronizationContext( new SynchronizationContext()); bw1.DoWork += (sender, e) => OutputWork(1); bw1.RunWorkerCompleted += (sender, e) => OutputCompleted(1); // Uses default SynchronizationContext bw1.RunWorkerAsync(); }); unspecializedThread.IsBackground = true; unspecializedThread.Start(); Synch.WaitOne(); Console.WriteLine(); Console.WriteLine("WINDOWS FORMS"); var windowsFormsThread = new Thread(() => { OutputCaller(2); SynchronizationContext.SetSynchronizationContext( new WindowsFormsSynchronizationContext()); bw2.DoWork += (sender, e) => OutputWork(2); bw2.RunWorkerCompleted += (sender, e) => OutputCompleted(2); // Uses WindowsFormsSynchronizationContext bw2.RunWorkerAsync(); Application.Run(); }); windowsFormsThread.IsBackground = true; windowsFormsThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); windowsFormsThread.Start(); Synch.WaitOne(); Console.WriteLine(); Console.WriteLine("WPF"); var wpfThread = new Thread(() => { OutputCaller(3); SynchronizationContext.SetSynchronizationContext( new DispatcherSynchronizationContext()); bw3.DoWork += (sender, e) => OutputWork(3); bw3.RunWorkerCompleted += (sender, e) => OutputCompleted(3); // Uses DispatcherSynchronizationContext bw3.RunWorkerAsync(); Dispatcher.Run(); }); wpfThread.IsBackground = true; wpfThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); wpfThread.Start(); Synch.WaitOne(); } static void OutputCaller(int workerId) { Console.WriteLine( "bw{0}.{1} | Thread: {2} | IsThreadPool: {3}", workerId, "RunWorkerAsync".PadRight(18), Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId, Thread.CurrentThread.IsThreadPoolThread); } static void OutputWork(int workerId) { Console.WriteLine( "bw{0}.{1} | Thread: {2} | IsThreadPool: {3}", workerId, "DoWork".PadRight(18), Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId, Thread.CurrentThread.IsThreadPoolThread); } static void OutputCompleted(int workerId) { Console.WriteLine( "bw{0}.{1} | Thread: {2} | IsThreadPool: {3}", workerId, "RunWorkerCompleted".PadRight(18), Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId, Thread.CurrentThread.IsThreadPoolThread); Synch.Set(); } } Output: //DEFAULT //bw1.RunWorkerAsync | Thread: 3 | IsThreadPool: False //bw1.DoWork | Thread: 4 | IsThreadPool: True //bw1.RunWorkerCompleted | Thread: 5 | IsThreadPool: True //WINDOWS FORMS //bw2.RunWorkerAsync | Thread: 6 | IsThreadPool: False //bw2.DoWork | Thread: 5 | IsThreadPool: True //bw2.RunWorkerCompleted | Thread: 6 | IsThreadPool: False //WPF //bw3.RunWorkerAsync | Thread: 7 | IsThreadPool: False //bw3.DoWork | Thread: 5 | IsThreadPool: True //bw3.RunWorkerCompleted | Thread: 7 | IsThreadPool: False As you can see the output between the first and remaining scenarios is somewhat different. While in Windows Forms and WPF the worker completed event runs on the thread that called RunWorkerAsync, in the first scenario the same event runs on any thread available in the thread pool. Another scenario where you can get the first behavior, even when on Windows Forms or WPF, is if you chain the creation of background workers, that is, you create a second worker in the DoWork event handler of an already running worker. Since the DoWork executes in a thread from the pool the second worker will use the default synchronization context and the completed event will not run in the UI thread.

  Read the article

• Introduction to Human Workflow 11g

  - by agiovannetti

  Human Workflow is a component of SOA Suite just like BPEL, Mediator, Business Rules, etc. The Human Workflow component allows you to incorporate human intervention in a business process. You can use Human Workflow to create a business process that requires a manager to approve purchase orders greater than $10,000; or a business process that handles article reviews in which a group of reviewers need to vote/approve an article before it gets published. Human Workflow can handle the task assignment and routing as well as the generation of notifications to the participants. There are three common patterns or usages of Human Workflow: 1) Approval Scenarios: manage documents and other transactional data through approval chains . For example: approve expense report, vacation approval, hiring approval, etc. 2) Reviews by multiple users or groups: group collaboration and review of documents or proposals. For example, processing a sales quote which is subject to review by multiple people. 3) Case Management: workflows around work management or case management. For example, processing a service request. This could be routed to various people who all need to modify the task. It may also incorporate ad hoc routing which is unknown at design time. SOA 11g Human Workflow includes the following features: Assignment and routing of tasks to the correct users or groups. Deadlines, escalations, notifications, and other features required for ensuring the timely performance of a task. Presentation of tasks to end users through a variety of mechanisms, including a Worklist application. Organization, filtering, prioritization and other features required for end users to productively perform their tasks. Reports, reassignments, load balancing and other features required by supervisors and business owners to manage the performance of tasks. Human Workflow Architecture The Human Workflow component is divided into 3 modules: the service interface, the task definition and the client interface module. The Service Interface handles the interaction with BPEL and other components. The Client Interface handles the presentation of task data through clients like the Worklist application, portals and notification channels. The task definition module is in charge of managing the lifecycle of a task. Who should get the task assigned? What should happen next with the task? When must the task be completed? Should the task be escalated?, etc Stages and Participants When you create a Human Task you need to specify how the task is assigned and routed. The first step is to define the stages and participants. A stage is just a logical group. A participant can be a user, a group of users or an application role. The participants indicate the type of assignment and routing that will be performed. Stages can be sequential or in parallel. You can combine them to create any usage you require. See diagram below: Assignment and Routing There are different ways a task can be assigned and routed: Single Approver: task is assigned to a single user, group or role. For example, a vacation request is assigned to a manager. If the manager approves or rejects the request, the employee is notified with the decision. If the task is assigned to a group then once one of managers acts on it, the task is completed. Parallel : task is assigned to a set of people that must work in parallel. This is commonly used for voting. For example, a task gets approved once 50% of the participants approve it. You can also set it up to be a unanimous vote. Serial : participants must work in sequence. The most common scenario for this is management chain escalation. FYI (For Your Information) : task is assigned to participants who can view it, add comments and attachments, but can not modify or complete the task. Task Actions The following is the list of actions that can be performed on a task: Claim : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, then the task must be claimed first to be able to act on it. Escalate : if the participant is not able to complete a task, he/she can escalate it. The task is reassigned to his/her manager (up one level in a hierarchy). Pushback : the task is sent back to the previous assignee. Reassign :if the participant is a manager, he/she can delegate a task to his/her reports. Release : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, it can be released if the user who claimed the task cannot complete the task. Any of the other assignees can claim and complete the task. Request Information and Submit Information : use when the participant needs to supply more information or to request more information from the task creator or any of the previous assignees. Suspend and Resume :if a task is not relevant, it can be suspended. A suspension is indefinite. It does not expire until Resume is used to resume working on the task. Withdraw : if the creator of a task does not want to continue with it, for example, he wants to cancel a vacation request, he can withdraw the task. The business process determines what happens next. Renew : if a task is about to expire, the participant can renew it. The task expiration date is extended one week. Notifications Human Workflow provides a mechanism for sending notifications to participants to alert them of changes on a task. Notifications can be sent via email, telephone voice message, instant messaging (IM) or short message service (SMS). Notifications can be sent when the task status changes to any of the following: Assigned/renewed/delegated/reassigned/escalated Completed Error Expired Request Info Resume Suspended Added/Updated comments and/or attachments Updated Outcome Withdraw Other Actions (e.g. acquiring a task) Here is an example of an email notification: Worklist Application Oracle BPM Worklist application is the default user interface included in SOA Suite. It allows users to access and act on tasks that have been assigned to them. For example, from the Worklist application, a loan agent can review loan applications or a manager can approve employee vacation requests. Through the Worklist Application users can: Perform authorized actions on tasks, acquire and check out shared tasks, define personal to-do tasks and define subtasks. Filter tasks view based on various criteria. Work with standard work queues, such as high priority tasks, tasks due soon and so on. Work queues allow users to create a custom view to group a subset of tasks in the worklist, for example, high priority tasks, tasks due in 24 hours, expense approval tasks and more. Define custom work queues. Gain proxy access to part of another user's tasks. Define custom vacation rules and delegation rules. Enable group owners to define task dispatching rules for shared tasks. Collect a complete workflow history and audit trail. Use digital signatures for tasks. Run reports like Unattended tasks, Tasks productivity, etc. Here is a screenshoot of what the Worklist Application looks like. On the right hand side you can see the tasks that have been assigned to the user and the task's detail. References Introduction to SOA Suite 11g Human Workflow Webcast Note 1452937.2 Human Workflow Information Center Using the Human Workflow Service Component 11.1.1.6 Human Workflow Samples Human Workflow APIs Java Docs

  Read the article

• Avoiding coupling

  - by Seralize

  It is also true that a system may become so coupled, where each class is dependent on other classes that depend on other classes, that it is no longer possible to make a change in one place without having a ripple effect and having to make subsequent changes in many places.[1] This is why using an interface or an abstract class can be valuable in any object-oriented software project. Quote from Wikipedia Starting from scratch I'm starting from scratch with a project that I recently finished because I found the code to be too tightly coupled and hard to refactor, even when using MVC. I will be using MVC on my new project aswell but want to try and avoid the pitfalls this time, hopefully with your help. Project summary My issue is that I really wish to keep the Controller as clean as possible, but it seems like I can't do this. The basic idea of the program is that the user picks wordlists which is sent to the game engine. It will pick random words from the lists until there are none left. Problem at hand My main problem is that the game will have 'modes', and need to check the input in different ways through a method called checkWord(), but exactly where to put this and how to abstract it properly is a challenge to me. I'm new to design patterns, so not sure whether there exist any might fit my problem. My own attempt at abstraction Here is what I've gotten so far after hours of 'refactoring' the design plans, and I know it's long, but it's the best I could do to try and give you an overview (Note: As this is the sketch, anything is subject to change, all help and advice is very welcome. Also note the marked coupling points): Wordlist class Wordlist { // Basic CRUD etc. here! // Other sample methods: public function wordlistCount($user_id) {} // Returns count of how many wordlists a user has public function getAll($user_id) {} // Returns all wordlists of a user } Word class Word { // Basic CRUD etc. here! // Other sample methods: public function wordCount($wordlist_id) {} // Returns count of words in a wordlist public function getAll($wordlist_id) {} // Returns all words from a wordlist public function getWordInfo($word_id) {} // Returns information about a word } Wordpicker class Wordpicker { // The class needs to know which words and wordlists to exclude protected $_used_words = array(); protected $_used_wordlists = array(); // Wordlists to pick words from protected $_wordlists = array(); /* Public Methods */ public function setWordlists($wordlists = array()) {} public function setUsedWords($used_words = array()) {} public function setUsedWordlists($used_wordlists = array()) {} public function getRandomWord() {} // COUPLING POINT! Will most likely need to communicate with both the Wordlist and Word classes /* Protected Methods */ protected function _checkAvailableWordlists() {} // COUPLING POINT! Might need to check if wordlists are deleted etc. protected function _checkAvailableWords() {} // COUPLING POINT! Method needs to get all words in a wordlist from the Word class } Game class Game { protected $_session_id; // The ID of a game session which gets stored in the database along with game details protected $_game_info = array(); // Game instantiation public function __construct($user_id) { if (! $this->_session_id = $this->_gameExists($user_id)) { // New game } else { // Resume game } } // This is the method I tried to make flexible by using abstract classes etc. // Does it even belong in this class at all? public function checkWord($answer, $native_word, $translation) {} // This method checks the answer against the native word / translation word, depending on game mode public function getGameInfo() {} // Returns information about a game session, or creates it if it does not exist public function deleteSession($session_id) {} // Deletes a game session from the database // Methods dealing with game session information protected function _gameExists($user_id) {} protected function _getProgress($session_id) {} protected function _updateProgress($game_info = array()) {} } The Game /* CONTROLLER */ /* "Guess the word" page */ // User input $game_type = $_POST['game_type']; // Chosen with radio buttons etc. $wordlists = $_POST['wordlists']; // Chosen with checkboxes etc. // Starts a new game or resumes one from the database $game = new Game($_SESSION['user_id']); $game_info = $game->getGameInfo(); // Instantiates a new Wordpicker $wordpicker = new Wordpicker(); $wordpicker->setWordlists((isset($game_info['wordlists'])) ? $game_info['wordlists'] : $wordlists); $wordpicker->setUsedWordlists((isset($game_info['used_wordlists'])) ? $game_info['used_wordlists'] : NULL); $wordpicker->setUsedWords((isset($game_info['used_words'])) ? $game_info['used_words'] : NULL); // Fetches an available word if (! $word_id = $wordpicker->getRandomWord()) { // No more words left - game over! $game->deleteSession($game_info['id']); redirect(); } else { // Presents word details to the user $word = new Word(); $word_info = $word->getWordInfo($word_id); } The Bit to Finish /* CONTROLLER */ /* "Check the answer" page */ // ?????????????????? ( http://pastebin.com/cc6MtLTR ) Make sure you toggle the 'Layout Width' to the right for a better view. Thanks in advance. Questions To which extent should objects be loosely coupled? If object A needs info from object B, how is it supposed to get this without losing too much cohesion? As suggested in the comments, models should hold all business logic. However, as objects should be independent, where to glue them together? Should the model contain some sort of "index" or "client" area which connects the dots? Edit: So basically what I should do for a start is to make a new model which I can more easily call with oneliners such as $model->doAction(); // Lots of code in here which uses classes! How about the method for checking words? Should it be it's own object? I'm not sure where I should put it as it's pretty much part of the 'game'. But on another hand, I could just leave out the 'abstraction and OOPness' and make it a method of the 'client model' which will be encapsulated from the controller anyway. Very unsure about this.

  Read the article

• Pirates, Treasure Chests and Architectural Mapping

  Pirate 1: Why do pirates create treasure maps? Pirate 2: I do not know.Pirate 1: So they can find their gold. Yes, that was a bad joke, but it does illustrate a point. Pirates are known for drawing treasure maps to their most prized possession. These documents detail the decisions pirates made in order to hide and find their chests of gold. The map allows them to trace the steps they took originally to hide their treasure so that they may return. As software engineers, programmers, and architects we need to treat software implementations much like our treasure chest. Why is software like a treasure chest? It cost money, time,  and resources to develop (Usually) It can make or save money, time, and resources (Hopefully) If we operate under the assumption that software is like a treasure chest then wouldn’t make sense to document the steps, rationale, concerns, and decisions about how it was designed? Pirates are notorious for documenting where they hide their treasure.  Shouldn’t we as creators of software do the same? By documenting our design decisions and rationale behind them will help others be able to understand and maintain implemented systems. This can only be done if the design decisions are correctly mapped to its corresponding implementation. This allows for architectural decisions to be traced from the conceptual model, architectural design and finally to the implementation. Mapping gives software professional a method to trace the reason why specific areas of code were developed verses other options. Just like the pirates we need to able to trace our steps from the start of a project to its implementation,  so that we will understand why specific choices were chosen. The traceability of a software implementation that actually maps back to its originating design decisions is invaluable for ensuring that architectural drifting and erosion does not take place. The drifting and erosion is prevented by allowing others to understand the rational of why an implementation was created in a specific manor or methodology The process of mapping distinct design concerns/decisions to the location of its implemented is called traceability. In this context traceability is defined as method for connecting distinctive software artifacts. This process allows architectural design models and decisions to be directly connected with its physical implementation. The process of mapping architectural design concerns to a software implementation can be very complex. However, most design decision can be placed in  a few generalized categories. Commonly Mapped Design Decisions Design Rationale Components and Connectors Interfaces Behaviors/Properties Design rational is one of the hardest categories to map directly to an implementation. Typically this rational is mapped or document in code via comments. These comments consist of general design decisions and reasoning because they do not directly refer to a specific part of an application. They typically focus more on the higher level concerns. Components and connectors can directly be mapped to architectural concerns. Typically concerns subdivide an application in to distinct functional areas. These functional areas then can map directly back to their originating concerns.Interfaces can be mapped back to design concerns in one of two ways. Interfaces that pertain to specific function definitions can be directly mapped back to its originating concern(s). However, more complicated interfaces require additional analysis to ensure that the proper mappings are created. Depending on the complexity some Behaviors\Properties can be translated directly into a generic implementation structure that is ready for business logic. In addition, some behaviors can be translated directly in to an actual implementation depending on the complexity and architectural tools used. Mapping design concerns to an implementation is a lot of work to maintain, but is doable. In order to ensure that concerns are mapped correctly and that an implementation correctly reflects its design concerns then one of two standard approaches are usually used. All Changes Come From ArchitectureBy forcing all application changes to come through the architectural model prior to implementation then the existing mappings will be used to locate where in the implementation changes need to occur. Allow Changes From Implementation Or Architecture By allowing changes to come from the implementation and/or the architecture then the other area must be kept in sync. This methodology is more complex compared to the previous approach.  One reason to justify the added complexity for an application is due to the fact that this approach tends to detect and prevent architectural drift and erosion. Additionally, this approach is usually maintained via software because of the complexity. Reference:Taylor, R. N., Medvidovic, N., & Dashofy, E. M. (2009). Software architecture: Foundations, theory, and practice Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons  

  Read the article

• Space invaders clone not moving properly

  - by ThePlan

  I'm trying to make a basic space invaders clone in allegro 5, I've got my game set up, basic events and such, here is the code: #include <allegro5/allegro.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_image.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_primitives.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_font.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_ttf.h> #include "Entity.h" // GLOBALS ========================================== const int width = 500; const int height = 500; const int imgsize = 3; bool key[5] = {false, false, false, false, false}; bool running = true; bool draw = true; // FUNCTIONS ======================================== void initSpaceship(Spaceship &ship); void moveSpaceshipRight(Spaceship &ship); void moveSpaceshipLeft(Spaceship &ship); void initInvader(Invader &invader); void moveInvaderRight(Invader &invader); void moveInvaderLeft(Invader &invader); void initBullet(Bullet &bullet); void fireBullet(); void doCollision(); void updateInvaders(); void drawText(); enum key_t { UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, SPACE }; enum source_t { INVADER, DEFENDER }; int main(void) { if(!al_init()) { return -1; } Spaceship ship; Invader invader; Bullet bullet; al_init_image_addon(); al_install_keyboard(); al_init_font_addon(); al_init_ttf_addon(); ALLEGRO_DISPLAY *display = al_create_display(width, height); ALLEGRO_EVENT_QUEUE *event_queue = al_create_event_queue(); ALLEGRO_TIMER *timer = al_create_timer(1.0 / 60); ALLEGRO_BITMAP *images[imgsize]; ALLEGRO_FONT *font1 = al_load_font("arial.ttf", 20, 0); al_register_event_source(event_queue, al_get_keyboard_event_source()); al_register_event_source(event_queue, al_get_display_event_source(display)); al_register_event_source(event_queue, al_get_timer_event_source(timer)); images[0] = al_load_bitmap("defender.bmp"); images[1] = al_load_bitmap("invader.bmp"); images[2] = al_load_bitmap("explosion.bmp"); al_convert_mask_to_alpha(images[0], al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); al_convert_mask_to_alpha(images[1], al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); al_convert_mask_to_alpha(images[2], al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); initSpaceship(ship); initBullet(bullet); initInvader(invader); al_start_timer(timer); while(running) { ALLEGRO_EVENT ev; al_wait_for_event(event_queue, &ev); if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_TIMER) { draw = true; if(key[RIGHT] == true) moveSpaceshipRight(ship); if(key[LEFT] == true) moveSpaceshipLeft(ship); } else if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_DISPLAY_CLOSE) running = false; else if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_KEY_DOWN) { switch(ev.keyboard.keycode) { case ALLEGRO_KEY_ESCAPE: running = false; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_LEFT: key[LEFT] = true; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_RIGHT: key[RIGHT] = true; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_SPACE: key[SPACE] = true; break; } } else if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_KEY_UP) { switch(ev.keyboard.keycode) { case ALLEGRO_KEY_LEFT: key[LEFT] = false; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_RIGHT: key[RIGHT] = false; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_SPACE: key[SPACE] = false; break; } } if(draw && al_is_event_queue_empty(event_queue)) { draw = false; al_draw_bitmap(images[0], ship.pos_x, ship.pos_y, 0); al_flip_display(); al_clear_to_color(al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); } } al_destroy_font(font1); al_destroy_event_queue(event_queue); al_destroy_timer(timer); for(int i = 0; i < imgsize; i++) al_destroy_bitmap(images[i]); al_destroy_display(display); } // FUNCTION LOGIC ====================================== void initSpaceship(Spaceship &ship) { ship.lives = 3; ship.speed = 2; ship.pos_x = width / 2; ship.pos_y = height - 20; } void initInvader(Invader &invader) { invader.health = 100; invader.count = 40; invader.speed = 0.5; invader.pos_x = 300; invader.pos_y = 300; } void initBullet(Bullet &bullet) { bullet.speed = 10; } void moveSpaceshipRight(Spaceship &ship) { ship.pos_x += ship.speed; if(ship.pos_x >= width) ship.pos_x = width-30; } void moveSpaceshipLeft(Spaceship &ship) { ship.pos_x -= ship.speed; if(ship.pos_x <= 0) ship.pos_x = 0+30; } However it's not behaving the way I want it to behave, in fact the behavior for the ship movement is un-normal. Basically I specified that the ship only moves when the right/left key is down, however the ship is moving constantly to the direction of the key pressed, it never stops although it should only move while my key is down. Even more weird behavior, when I press the opposite key the ship completely stops no matter what else I press. What's wrong with the code? Why does the ship move constantly even after I specified it only moves when a key is down?

  Read the article

• Implementing a Custom Coherence PartitionAssignmentStrategy

  - by jpurdy

  A recent A-Team engagement required the development of a custom PartitionAssignmentStrategy (PAS). By way of background, a PAS is an implementation of a Java interface that controls how a Coherence partitioned cache service assigns partitions (primary and backup copies) across the available set of storage-enabled members. While seemingly straightforward, this is actually a very difficult problem to solve. Traditionally, Coherence used a distributed algorithm spread across the cache servers (and as of Coherence 3.7, this is still the default implementation). With the introduction of the PAS interface, the model of operation was changed so that the logic would run solely in the cache service senior member. Obviously, this makes the development of a custom PAS vastly less complex, and in practice does not introduce a significant single point of failure/bottleneck. Note that Coherence ships with a default PAS implementation but it is not used by default. Further, custom PAS implementations are uncommon (this engagement was the first custom implementation that we know of). The particular implementation mentioned above also faced challenges related to managing multiple backup copies but that won't be discussed here. There were a few challenges that arose during design and implementation: Naive algorithms had an unreasonable upper bound of computational cost. There was significant complexity associated with configurations where the member count varied significantly between physical machines. Most of the complexity of a PAS is related to rebalancing, not initial assignment (which is usually fairly simple). A custom PAS may need to solve several problems simultaneously, such as: Ensuring that each member has a similar number of primary and backup partitions (e.g. each member has the same number of primary and backup partitions) Ensuring that each member carries similar responsibility (e.g. the most heavily loaded member has no more than one partition more than the least loaded). Ensuring that each partition is on the same member as a corresponding local resource (e.g. for applications that use partitioning across message queues, to ensure that each partition is collocated with its corresponding message queue). Ensuring that a given member holds no more than a given number of partitions (e.g. no member has more than 10 partitions) Ensuring that backups are placed far enough away from the primaries (e.g. on a different physical machine or a different blade enclosure) Achieving the above goals while ensuring that partition movement is minimized. These objectives can be even more complicated when the topology of the cluster is irregular. For example, if multiple cluster members may exist on each physical machine, then clearly the possibility exists that at certain points (e.g. following a member failure), the number of members on each machine may vary, in certain cases significantly so. Consider the case where there are three physical machines, with 3, 3 and 9 members each (respectively). This introduces complexity since the backups for the 9 members on the the largest machine must be spread across the other 6 members (to ensure placement on different physical machines), preventing an even distribution. For any given problem like this, there are usually reasonable compromises available, but the key point is that objectives may conflict under extreme (but not at all unlikely) circumstances. The most obvious general purpose partition assignment algorithm (possibly the only general purpose one) is to define a scoring function for a given mapping of partitions to members, and then apply that function to each possible permutation, selecting the most optimal permutation. This would result in N! (factorial) evaluations of the scoring function. This is clearly impractical for all but the smallest values of N (e.g. a partition count in the single digits). It's difficult to prove that more efficient general purpose algorithms don't exist, but the key take away from this is that algorithms will tend to either have exorbitant worst case performance or may fail to find optimal solutions (or both) -- it is very important to be able to show that worst case performance is acceptable. This quickly leads to the conclusion that the problem must be further constrained, perhaps by limiting functionality or by using domain-specific optimizations. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to design these more focused algorithms. In the specific case mentioned, we constrained the solution space to very small clusters (in terms of machine count) with small partition counts and supported exactly two backup copies, and accepted the fact that partition movement could potentially be significant (preferring to solve that issue through brute force). We then used the out-of-the-box PAS implementation as a fallback, delegating to it for configurations that were not supported by our algorithm. Our experience was that the PAS interface is quite usable, but there are intrinsic challenges to designing PAS implementations that should be very carefully evaluated before committing to that approach.

  Read the article

• Data Source Security Part 1

  - by Steve Felts

  I’ve written a couple of articles on how to store data source security credentials using the Oracle wallet.  I plan to write a few articles on the various types of security available to WebLogic Server (WLS) data sources.  There are more options than you might think! There have been several enhancements in this area in WLS 10.3.6.  There are a couple of more enhancements planned for release WLS 12.1.2 that I will include here for completeness.  This isn’t intended as a teaser.  If you call your Oracle support person, you can get them now as minor patches to WLS 10.3.6.   The current security documentation is scattered in a few places, has a few incorrect statements, and is missing a few topics.  It also seems that the knowledge of how to apply some of these features isn’t written down.  The goal of these articles is to talk about WLS data source security in a unified way and to introduce some approaches to using the available features.  Introduction to WebLogic Data Source Security Options By default, you define a single database user and password for a data source.  You can store it in the data source descriptor or make use of the Oracle wallet.  This is a very simple and efficient approach to security.  All of the connections in the connection pool are owned by this user and there is no special processing when a connection is given out.  That is, it’s a homogeneous connection pool and any request can get any connection from a security perspective (there are other aspects like affinity).  Regardless of the end user of the application, all connections in the pool use the same security credentials to access the DBMS.   No additional information is needed when you get a connection because it’s all available from the data source descriptor (or wallet). java.sql.Connection conn =  mydatasource.getConnection(); Note: You can enter the password as a name-value pair in the Properties field (this not permitted for production environments) or you can enter it in the Password field of the data source descriptor. The value in the Password field overrides any password value defined in the Properties passed to the JDBC Driver when creating physical database connections. It is recommended that you use the Password attribute in place of the password property in the properties string because the Password value is encrypted in the configuration file (stored as the password-encrypted attribute in the jdbc-driver-params tag in the module file) and is hidden in the administration console.  The Properties and Password fields are located on the administration console Data Source creation wizard or Data Source Configuration tab. The JDBC API can also be used to programmatically specify a database user name and password as in the following.  java.sql.Connection conn = mydatasource.getConnection(“user”, “password”); According to the JDBC specification, it’s supposed to take a database user and associated password but different vendors implement this differently.  WLS, by default, treats this as an application server user and password.  The pair is authenticated to see if it’s a valid user and that user is used for WLS security permission checks.  By default, the user is then mapped to a database user and password using the data source credential mapper, so this API sort of follows the specification but database credentials are one-step removed from the application code.  More details and the rationale are described later. While the default approach is simple, it does mean that only one database user is doing all of the work.  You can’t figure out who actually did the update and you can’t restrict SQL operations by who is running the operation, at least at the database level.   Any type of per-user logic will need to be in the application code instead of having the database do it.  There are various WLS data source features that can be configured to provide some per-user information about the operations to the database. WebLogic Data Source Security Options This table describes the features available for WebLogic data sources to configure database security credentials and a brief description.  It also captures information about the compatibility of these features with one another. Feature Description Can be used with Can’t be used with User authentication (default) Default getConnection(user, password) behavior – validate the input and use the user/password in the descriptor. Set client identifier Proxy Session, Identity pooling, Use database credentials Use database credentials Instead of using the credential mapper, use the supplied user and password directly. Set client identifier, Proxy session, Identity pooling User authentication, Multi Data Source Set Client Identifier Set a client identifier property associated with the connection (Oracle and DB2 only). Everything Proxy Session Set a light-weight proxy user associated with the connection (Oracle-only). Set client identifier, Use database credentials Identity pooling, User authentication Identity pooling Heterogeneous pool of connections owned by specified users. Set client identifier, Use database credentials Proxy session, User authentication, Labeling, Multi-datasource, Active GridLink Note that all of these features are available with both XA and non-XA drivers. Currently, the Proxy Session and Use Database Credentials options are on the Oracle tab of the Data Source Configuration tab of the administration console (even though the Use Database Credentials feature is not just for Oracle databases – oops).  The rest of the features are on the Identity tab of the Data Source Configuration tab in the administration console (plan on seeing them all in one place in the future). The subsequent articles will describe these features in more detail.  Keep referring back to this table to see the big picture.

  Read the article

• Using XA Transactions in Coherence-based Applications

  - by jpurdy

  While the costs of XA transactions are well known (e.g. increased data contention, higher latency, significant disk I/O for logging, availability challenges, etc.), in many cases they are the most attractive option for coordinating logical transactions across multiple resources. There are a few common approaches when integrating Coherence into applications via the use of an application server's transaction manager: Use of Coherence as a read-only cache, applying transactions to the underlying database (or any system of record) instead of the cache. Use of TransactionMap interface via the included resource adapter. Use of the new ACID transaction framework, introduced in Coherence 3.6.   Each of these may have significant drawbacks for certain workloads. Using Coherence as a read-only cache is the simplest option. In this approach, the application is responsible for managing both the database and the cache (either within the business logic or via application server hooks). This approach also tends to provide limited benefit for many workloads, particularly those workloads that either have queries (given the complexity of maintaining a fully cached data set in Coherence) or are not read-heavy (where the cost of managing the cache may outweigh the benefits of reading from it). All updates are made synchronously to the database, leaving it as both a source of latency as well as a potential bottleneck. This approach also prevents addressing "hot data" problems (when certain objects are updated by many concurrent transactions) since most database servers offer no facilities for explicitly controlling concurrent updates. Finally, this option tends to be a better fit for key-based access (rather than filter-based access such as queries) since this makes it easier to aggressively invalidate cache entries without worrying about when they will be reloaded. The advantage of this approach is that it allows strong data consistency as long as optimistic concurrency control is used to ensure that database updates are applied correctly regardless of whether the cache contains stale (or even dirty) data. Another benefit of this approach is that it avoids the limitations of Coherence's write-through caching implementation. TransactionMap is generally used when Coherence acts as system of record. TransactionMap is not generally compatible with write-through caching, so it will usually be either used to manage a standalone cache or when the cache is backed by a database via write-behind caching. TransactionMap has some restrictions that may limit its utility, the most significant being: The lock-based concurrency model is relatively inefficient and may introduce significant latency and contention. As an example, in a typical configuration, a transaction that updates 20 cache entries will require roughly 40ms just for lock management (assuming all locks are granted immediately, and excluding validation and writing which will require a similar amount of time). This may be partially mitigated by denormalizing (e.g. combining a parent object and its set of child objects into a single cache entry), at the cost of increasing false contention (e.g. transactions will conflict even when updating different child objects). If the client (application server JVM) fails during the commit phase, locks will be released immediately, and the transaction may be partially committed. In practice, this is usually not as bad as it may sound since the commit phase is usually very short (all locks having been previously acquired). Note that this vulnerability does not exist when a single NamedCache is used and all updates are confined to a single partition (generally implying the use of partition affinity). The unconventional TransactionMap API is cumbersome but manageable. Only a few methods are transactional, primarily get(), put() and remove(). The ACID transactions framework (accessed via the Connection class) provides atomicity guarantees by implementing the NamedCache interface, maintaining its own cache data and transaction logs inside a set of private partitioned caches. This feature may be used as either a local transactional resource or as logging XA resource. However, a lack of database integration precludes the use of this functionality for most applications. A side effect of this is that this feature has not seen significant adoption, meaning that any use of this is subject to the usual headaches associated with being an early adopter (greater chance of bugs and greater risk of hitting an unoptimized code path). As a result, for the moment, we generally recommend against using this feature. In summary, it is possible to use Coherence in XA-oriented applications, and several customers are doing this successfully, but it is not a core usage model for the product, so care should be taken before committing to this path. For most applications, the most robust solution is normally to use Coherence as a read-only cache of the underlying data resources, even if this prevents taking advantage of certain product features.

  Read the article

• Part 4 of 4 : Tips/Tricks for Silverlight Developers.

  - by mbcrump

  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 I wanted to create a series of blog post that gets right to the point and is aimed specifically at Silverlight Developers. The most important things I want this series to answer is : What is it?  Why do I care? How do I do it? I hope that you enjoy this series. Let’s get started: Tip/Trick #16) What is it? Find out version information about Silverlight and which WebKit it is using by going to http://issilverlightinstalled.com/scriptverify/. Why do I care? I’ve had those users that its just easier to give them a site and say copy/paste the line that says User Agent in order to troubleshoot a Silverlight problem. I’ve also been debugging my own Silverlight applications and needed an easy way to determine if the plugin is disabled or not. How do I do it: Simply navigate to http://issilverlightinstalled.com/scriptverify/ and hit the Verify button. An example screenshot is located below: Results from Chrome 7 Results from Internet Explorer 8 (With Silverlight Disabled) Tip/Trick #17) What is it? Use Lambdas whenever you can. Why do I care?  It is my personal opinion that code is easier to read using Lambdas after you get past the syntax. How do I do it: For example: You may write code like the following: void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { //Check and see if we have a newer .XAP file on the server Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateAsync(); Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted += new CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompletedEventHandler(Current_CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted); } void Current_CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted(object sender, CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompletedEventArgs e) { if (e.UpdateAvailable) { MessageBox.Show( "An update has been installed. To see the updates please exit and restart the application"); } } To me this style forces me to look for the other Method to see what the code is actually doing. The style located below is much easier to read in my opinion and does the exact same thing. void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { //Check and see if we have a newer .XAP file on the server Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateAsync(); Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted += (s, e) => { if (e.UpdateAvailable) { MessageBox.Show( "An update has been installed. To see the updates please exit and restart the application"); } }; } Tip/Trick #18) What is it? Prevent development Web Service references from breaking when Visual Studio auto generates a new port number. Why do I care?  We have all been there, we are developing a Silverlight Application and all of a sudden our development web services break. We check and find out that the local port number that Visual Studio assigned has changed and now we need up to update all of our service references. We need a way to stop this. How do I do it: This can actually be prevented with just a few mouse click. Right click on your web solution and goto properties. Click the tab that says, Web. You just need to click the radio button and specify a port number. Now you won’t be bothered with that anymore. Tip/Trick #19) What is it? You can disable the Close Button a ChildWindow. Why do I care?  I wouldn’t blog about it if I hadn’t seen it. Devs trying to override keystrokes to prevent users from closing a Child Window. How do I do it: A property exist on the ChildWindow called “HasCloseButton”, you simply change that to false and your close button is gone. You can delete the “Cancel” button and add some logic to the OK button if you want the user to respond before proceeding. Tip/Trick #20) What is it? Cleanup your XAML. Why do I care?  By removing unneeded namespaces, not naming all of your controls and getting rid of designer markup you can improve code quality and readability. How do I do it: (This is a 3 in one tip) Remove unused Designer markup: 1) Have you ever wondered what the following code snippet does? xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="640" d:DesignHeight="480" This code is telling the designer to do something special with this page in “Design mode” Specifically the width and the height of the page. When its running in the browser it will not use this information and it is actually ignored by the XAML parser. In other words, if you don’t need it then delete it. 2) If you are not using a namespace then remove it. In the code sample below, I am using Resharper which will tell me the ones that I’m not using by the grayed out line below. If you don’t have resharper you can look in your XAML and manually remove the unneeded namespaces. 3) Don’t name an control unless you actually need to refer to it in procedural code. If you name a control you will take a slight performance hit that is totally unnecessary if its not being called. <TextBlock Height="23" Text="TextBlock" />   That is the end of the series. I hope that you enjoyed it and please check out Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 if your hungry for more.  Subscribe to my feed CodeProject

  Read the article

• Getting Started with ADF Mobile Sample Apps

  - by Denis T

  Getting Started with ADF Mobile Sample Apps   Installation Steps Install JDeveloper 11.1.2.3.0 from Oracle Technology Network After installing JDeveloper, go to Help menu and select "Check For Updates" and find the ADF Mobile extension and install this. It will require you restart JDeveloper For iOS development, be on a Mac and have Xcode installed. (Currently only Xcode 4.4 is officially supported. Xcode 4.5 support is coming soon) For Android development, have the Android SDK installed. In the JDeveloper Tools menu, select "Preferences". In the Preferences dialog, select ADF Mobile. You can expand it to select configure your Platform preferences for things like the location of Xcode and the Android SDK. In your /jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.adf.mobile/Samples folder you will find a PublicSamples.zip. Unzip this into the Samples folder so you have all the projects ready to go. Open each of the sample application's .JWS file to open the corresponding workspace. Then from the "Application" menu, select "Deploy" and then select the deployment profile for the platform you wish to deploy to. Try deploying to the simulator/emulator on each platform first because it won't require signing. Note: If you wish to deploy to the Android emulator, it must be running before you start the deployment.   Sample Application Details   Recommended Order of Use Application Name Description 1 HelloWorld The "hello world" application for ADF Mobile, which demonstrates the basic structure of the framework. This basic application has a single application feature that is implemented with a local HTML file. Use this application to ascertain that the development environment is set up correctly to compile and deploy an application. See also Section 4.2.2, "What Happens When You Create an ADF Mobile Application." 2 CompGallery This application is meant to be a runtime application and not necessarily to review the code, though that is available. It serves as an introduction to the ADF Mobile AMX UI components by demonstrating all of these components. Using this application, you can change the attributes of these components at runtime and see the effects of those changes in real time without recompiling and redeploying the application after each change. See generally Chapter 8, "Creating ADF Mobile AMX User Interface." 3 LayoutDemo This application demonstrates the user interface layout and shows how to create the various list and button styles that are commonly used in mobile applications. It also demonstrates how to create the action sheet style of a popup component and how to use various chart and gauge components. See Section 8.3, "Creating and Using UI Components" and Section 8.5, "Providing Data Visualization." Note: This application must be opened from the Samples directory or the Default springboard option must be cleared in the Applications page of the adfmf-application.xml overview editor, then selected again. 4 JavaDemo This application demonstrates how to bind the user interface to Java beans. It also demonstrates how to invoke EL bindings from the Java layer using the supplied utility classes. See also Section 8.10, "Using Event Listeners" and Section 9.2, "Understanding EL Support." 5 Navigation This application demonstrates the various navigation techniques in ADF Mobile, including bounded task flows and routers. It also demonstrates the various page transitions. See also Section 7.2, "Creating Task Flows." Note: This application must be opened from the Samples directory or the Default springboard option must be cleared in the Applications page of the adfmf-application.xml overview editor, then selected again. 6 LifecycleEvents This application implements lifecycle event handlers on the ADF Mobile application itself and its embedded application features. This application shows you where to insert code to enable the applications to perform their own logic at certain points in the lifecycle. See also Section 5.6, "About Lifecycle Event Listeners." Note: iOS, the LifecycleEvents sample application logs data to the Console application, located at Applications-Utilities-Console application. 7 DeviceDemo This application shows you how to use the DeviceFeatures data control to expose such device features as geolocation, e-mail, SMS, and contacts, as well as how to query the device for its properties. See also Section 9.5, "Using the DeviceFeatures Data Control." Note: You must also run this application on an actual device because SMS and some of the device properties do not function on an iOS simulator or Android emulator. 8 GestureDemo This application demonstrates how gestures can be implemented and used in ADF Mobile applications. See also Section 8.4, "Enabling Gestures." 9 StockTracker This application demonstrates how data change events use Java to enable data changes to be reflected in the user interface. It also has a variety of layout use cases, gestures and basic mobile patterns. See also Section 9.7, "Data Change Events."

  Read the article

• Three ways to upload/post/convert iMovie to YouTube

  - by user44251

  For Mac users, iMovie is probably a convenient tool for making, editing their own home movies so as to upload to YouTube for sharing with more people. However, uploading iMovie files to YouTube can't be always a smooth run, I did notice many people complaining about it. This article is delivered for guiding those who are haunted by the nightmare by providing three common ways to upload iMovie files to YouTube. YouTube and iMovie YouTube is the most popular video sharing website for users to upload, share and view videos. It empowers anyone with an Internet connection the ability to upload video clips and share them with friends, family and the world. Users are invited to leave comments, pick favourites, send messages to each other and watch videos sorted into subjects and channels. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including WMV (Windows Media Video), 3GP (Cell Phones), AVI (Windows), MOV (Mac), MP4 (iPod/PSP), FLV (Adobe Flash), MKV (H.264). These include video codecs such as MP4, MPEG and WMV. iMovie is a common video editing software application comes with every Mac for users to edit their own home movies. It imports video footage to the Mac using either the Firewire interface on most MiniDV format digital video cameras, the USB port, or by importing the files from a hard drive where users can edit the video clips, add titles, and add music. Since 1999, eight versions of iMovie have been released by Apple, each with its own functions and characteristic, and each of them deal with videos in a way more or less different. But the most common formats handled with iMovie if specialty discarded as far as to my research are MOV, DV, HDV, MPEG-4. Three ways for successful upload iMovie files to YouTube Solution one and solution two suitable for those who are 100 certainty with their iMovie files which are fully compatible with YouTube. For smooth uploading, you are required to get a YouTube account first. Solution 1: Directly upload iMovie to YouTube Step 1: Launch iMovie, select the project you want to upload in YouTube. Step 2: Go to the file menu, click Share, select Export Movie Step 3: Specify the output file name and directory and then type the video type and video size. Solution 2: Post iMovie to YouTube straightly Step 1: Launch iMovie, choose the project you want to post in YouTube Step 2: From the Share menu, choose YouTube Step 3: In the pop-up YouTube windows, specify the name of your YouTube account, the password, choose the Category and fill in the description and tags of the project. Tick Make this movie more private on the bottom of the window, if possible, to limit those who can view the project. Click Next, and then click Publish. iMovie will automatically export and upload the movie to YouTube. Step 4: Click Tell a Friend to email friends and your family about your film. You are also allowed to copy the URL from Tell a Friend window and paste it into an email you created in your favourite email application if you like. Anyone you send to email to will be able to follow the URL directly to your movie. Note: Videos uploaded to YouTube are limited to ten minutes in length and a file size of 2GB. Solution 3: Upload to iMovie after conversion If neither of the above mentioned method works, there is still a third way to turn to. Sometimes, your iMovie files may not be recognized by YouTube due to the versions of iMovie (settings and functions may varies among versions), video itself (video format difference because of file extension, resolution, video size and length), compatibility (videos that are completely incompatible with YouTube). In this circumstance, the best and reliable method is to convert your iMovie files to YouTube accepted files, iMovie to YouTube converter will be inevitably the ideal choice. iMovie to YouTube converter is an elaborately designed tool for convert iMovie files to YouTube workable WMV, 3GP, AVI, MOV, MP4, FLV, MKV for smooth uploading with hard-to-believe conversion speed and second to none output quality. It can also convert between almost all popular popular file formats like AVI, WMV, MPG, MOV, VOB, DV, MP4, FLV, 3GP, RM, ASF, SWF, MP3, AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, WAV, WMA etc so as to put on various portable devices, import to video editing software or play on vast amount video players. iMovie to YouTube converter can also served as an excellent video editing tool to meet your specific program requirements. For example, you can cut your video files to a certain length, or split your video files to smaller ones and select the proper resolution suitable for demands of YouTube by Clip or Settings separately. Crop allows you to cut off unwanted black edges from your videos. Besides, you can also have a good command of the whole process or snapshot your favourite pictures from the preview window. More can be expected if you have a try.

  Read the article

• Xen kernel can't see 2 disks of 6 of 1TB, does it have a limitation?

  - by PartySoft

  Linux gentoo-xen 2.6.18-xen-r12 #3 SMP Tue Oct 5 09:28:53 PDT 2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5506 @ 2.13GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux I have 6 disks of 1 TB and i can't see all of them only 4, can anyone give me an ideea what can i do ? Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 886G 4.4G 836G 1% / /dev/sda3 886G 4.4G 836G 1% / rc-svcdir 1.0M 44K 980K 5% /lib64/rc/init.d shm 7.9G 0 7.9G 0% /dev/shm /dev/sdb1 917G 200M 871G 1% /home2 /dev/sdc1 917G 200M 871G 1% /home3 /dev/sdd1 917G 200M 871G 1% /home4 The hardware is Dual xeon E5506 processors on a supermicro X8DTL mobo 4.346585] ata3.00: ATA-8, max UDMA/133, 1953525168 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) [ 4.346588] ata3.00: ata3: dev 0 multi count 16 [ 4.352861] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133 [ 4.352867] scsi3 : ata_piix [ 4.352875] PM: Adding info for No Bus:host3 [ 4.510584] ata4.00: ATA-8, max UDMA/133, 1953525168 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) [ 4.510587] ata4.00: ata4: dev 0 multi count 16 [ 4.516848] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133 [ 4.516861] PM: Adding info for No Bus:target2:0:0 [ 4.516905] Vendor: ATA Model: SAMSUNG HD103SJ Rev: 1AJ1 [ 4.516910] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 [ 4.516920] PM: Adding info for scsi:2:0:0:0 [ 4.517452] SCSI device sde: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.517460] sde: Write Protect is off [ 4.517461] sde: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.517478] SCSI device sde: drive cache: write back [ 4.517514] SCSI device sde: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.517521] sde: Write Protect is off [ 4.517522] sde: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.517532] SCSI device sde: drive cache: write back [ 4.517534] sde: sde1 [ 4.524551] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sde [ 4.524855] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0 [ 4.524874] PM: Adding info for No Bus:target3:0:0 [ 4.524928] Vendor: ATA Model: SAMSUNG HD103SJ Rev: 1AJ1 [ 4.524933] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 [ 4.524946] PM: Adding info for scsi:3:0:0:0 [ 4.525216] SCSI device sdf: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.525227] sdf: Write Protect is off [ 4.525228] sdf: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.525242] SCSI device sdf: drive cache: write back [ 4.525280] SCSI device sdf: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.525286] sdf: Write Protect is off [ 4.525289] sdf: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.525301] SCSI device sdf: drive cache: write back [ 4.525302] sdf: sdf1 [ 4.532691] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdf [ 4.533010] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0 [ 4.977669] scsi: <fdomain> Detection failed (no card) [ 5.030479] GDT-HA: Storage RAID Controller Driver. Version: 3.05 [ 5.030635] GDT-HA: Found 0 PCI Storage RAID Controllers [ 5.372350] Fusion MPT base driver 3.04.01 [ 5.372358] Copyright (c) 1999-2005 LSI Logic Corporation [ 5.579176] Fusion MPT SPI Host driver 3.04.01 [ 5.881777] ieee1394: Initialized config rom entry `ip1394' [ 6.166745] ieee1394: sbp2: Driver forced to serialize I/O (serialize_io=1) [ 6.166748] ieee1394: sbp2: Try serialize_io=0 for better performance [ 6.428866] md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27 [ 6.428872] md: bitmap version 4.39 [ 6.431518] md: raid0 personality registered for level 0 [ 6.495979] md: raid1 personality registered for level 1 [ 6.570270] raid5: automatically using best checksumming function: generic_sse [ 6.575523] generic_sse: 6608.000 MB/sec [ 6.575526] raid5: using function: generic_sse (6608.000 MB/sec) [ 6.596226] raid6: int64x1 1835 MB/s [ 6.613231] raid6: int64x2 1773 MB/s [ 6.630256] raid6: int64x4 1675 MB/s [ 6.647296] raid6: int64x8 1027 MB/s [ 6.664267] raid6: sse2x1 3578 MB/s [ 6.681268] raid6: sse2x2 4207 MB/s [ 6.698280] raid6: sse2x4 4625 MB/s [ 6.698281] raid6: using algorithm sse2x4 (4625 MB/s) [ 6.698285] md: raid6 personality registered for level 6 [ 6.698286] md: raid5 personality registered for level 5 [ 6.698288] md: raid4 personality registered for level 4 [ 6.781090] md: raid10 personality registered for level 10 [ 7.007043] Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.1.9-k4 [ 7.007046] Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation. [ 9.229465] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds [ 9.229476] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

  Read the article

• Three ways to upload/post/convert iMovie to YouTube [closed]

  - by alexyu2010

  For Mac users, iMovie is probably a convenient tool for making, editing their own home movies so as to upload to YouTube for sharing with more people. However, uploading iMovie files to YouTube can't be always a smooth run, I did notice many people complaining about it. This article is delivered for guiding those who are haunted by the nightmare by providing three common ways to upload iMovie files to YouTube. YouTube and iMovie YouTube is the most popular video sharing website for users to upload, share and view videos. It empowers anyone with an Internet connection the ability to upload video clips and share them with friends, family and the world. Users are invited to leave comments, pick favourites, send messages to each other and watch videos sorted into subjects and channels. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including WMV (Windows Media Video), 3GP (Cell Phones), AVI (Windows), MOV (Mac), MP4 (iPod/PSP), FLV (Adobe Flash), MKV (H.264). These include video codecs such as MP4, MPEG and WMV. iMovie is a common video editing software application comes with every Mac for users to edit their own home movies. It imports video footage to the Mac using either the Firewire interface on most MiniDV format digital video cameras, the USB port, or by importing the files from a hard drive where users can edit the video clips, add titles, and add music. Since 1999, eight versions of iMovie have been released by Apple, each with its own functions and characteristic, and each of them deal with videos in a way more or less different. But the most common formats handled with iMovie if specialty discarded as far as to my research are MOV, DV, HDV, MPEG-4. Three ways for successful upload iMovie files to YouTube Solution one and solution two suitable for those who are 100 certainty with their iMovie files which are fully compatible with YouTube. For smooth uploading, you are required to get a YouTube account first. Solution 1: Directly upload iMovie to YouTube Step 1: Launch iMovie, select the project you want to upload in YouTube. Step 2: Go to the file menu, click Share, select Export Movie Step 3: Specify the output file name and directory and then type the video type and video size. Solution 2: Post iMovie to YouTube straightly Step 1: Launch iMovie, choose the project you want to post in YouTube Step 2: From the Share menu, choose YouTube Step 3: In the pop-up YouTube windows, specify the name of your YouTube account, the password, choose the Category and fill in the description and tags of the project. Tick Make this movie more private on the bottom of the window, if possible, to limit those who can view the project. Click Next, and then click Publish. iMovie will automatically export and upload the movie to YouTube. Step 4: Click Tell a Friend to email friends and your family about your film. You are also allowed to copy the URL from Tell a Friend window and paste it into an email you created in your favourite email application if you like. Anyone you send to email to will be able to follow the URL directly to your movie. Note: Videos uploaded to YouTube are limited to ten minutes in length and a file size of 2GB. Solution 3: Upload to iMovie after conversion If neither of the above mentioned method works, there is still a third way to turn to. Sometimes, your iMovie files may not be recognized by YouTube due to the versions of iMovie (settings and functions may varies among versions), video itself (video format difference because of file extension, resolution, video size and length), compatibility (videos that are completely incompatible with YouTube). In this circumstance, the best and reliable method is to convert your iMovie files to YouTube accepted files, iMovie to YouTube converter will be inevitably the ideal choice. iMovie to YouTube converter is an elaborately designed tool for convert iMovie files to YouTube workable WMV, 3GP, AVI, MOV, MP4, FLV, MKV for smooth uploading with hard-to-believe conversion speed and second to none output quality. It can also convert between almost all popular popular file formats like AVI, WMV, MPG, MOV, VOB, DV, MP4, FLV, 3GP, RM, ASF, SWF, MP3, AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, WAV, WMA etc so as to put on various portable devices, import to video editing software or play on vast amount video players. iMovie to YouTube converter can also served as an excellent video editing tool to meet your specific program requirements. For example, you can cut your video files to a certain length, or split your video files to smaller ones and select the proper resolution suitable for demands of YouTube by Clip or Settings separately. Crop allows you to cut off unwanted black edges from your videos. Besides, you can also have a good command of the whole process or snapshot your favourite pictures from the preview window. More can be expected if you have a try.

  Read the article

• Why are my USB 2.0 devices hanging Windows XP?

  - by BenAlabaster

  Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a DFI CM33-TL/G ATX (identified using SiSoft Sandra) motherboard hosting an Intel Celeron 1.3GHz CPU, 768Mb PC133 SDRAM, a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board based on the NEC uPD720102 chipset containing 3 external and 1 internal USB sockets. It's also hosting a 1.44Mb floppy drive on FDD0, a new 80Gb Western Digital hard drive running as master on IDE0 and a Panasonic DVD+/-RW running as master on IDE1. All this is sitting in a slimline case running off a Macron Power MPT-135 135W Flex power supply. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS 05/24/2002-601T-686B-6A6LID4AC-00. Could this be updated? If so, from where? I've raked through the manufacturer's website but can't find any hint of downloads for either drivers or BIOS updates. The hard disk is freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional/Service Pack 3 and is up to date with all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 hangs the whole machine as soon as it starts up, requiring a hard boot to recover). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen hooked up to the on board VGA and COM1 sockets with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem: If I hook any devices to the USB 2.0 sockets, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. If I have any devices attached to the USB 2.0 sockets when I boot up, it hangs before Windows gets to the login prompt and I have to hard boot it to recover. Workarounds found: I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 sockets and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions: I've seen suggestions that this could be a power problem - that the PSU just doesn't have the wattage to drive these ports. While I'm doubtful this is the problem [after all the motherboard has the same standard connector regardless of the PSU wattage], I tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in what I'm sure is a futile attempt to reduce the power consumption... I also modified the ACPI and power management settings. It didn't have any noticeable affect, although it didn't do any harm either. Could the wattage of the PSU really cause this problem? If it can, is there anything I need to be aware of when replacing it or do I just need to make sure it's got a higher wattage than the current one? My interpretation was that the wattage only affected the number of drives you could hook up to the power connectors, is that right? I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself, and Windows says the card is installed and working correctly... right up until I connect a device to it. The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference - does anyone have any experience that would suggest this might work? Other thoughts/questions: Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question: Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242  | Next Page >