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• 5 Best Practices - Laying the Foundation for WebCenter Projects

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Today’s guest post comes from Oracle WebCenter expert John Brunswick. John specializes in enterprise portal and content management solutions and actively contributes to the enterprise software business community and has authored a series of articles about optimal business involvement in portal, business process management and SOA development, examining ways of helping organizations move away from monolithic application development. We’re happy to have John join us today! Maximizing success with Oracle WebCenter portal requires a strategic understanding of Oracle WebCenter capabilities.  The following best practices enable the creation of portal solutions with minimal resource overhead, while offering the greatest flexibility for progressive elaboration. They are inherently project agnostic, enabling a strong foundation for future growth and an expedient return on your investment in the platform.  If you are able to embrace even only a few of these practices, you will materially improve your deployment capability with WebCenter. 1. Segment Duties Around 3Cs - Content, Collaboration and Contextual Data "Agility" is one of the most common business benefits touted by modern web platforms.  It sounds good - who doesn't want to be Agile, right?  How exactly IT organizations go about supplying agility to their business counterparts often lacks definition - hamstrung by ambiguity. Ultimately, businesses want to benefit from reduced development time to deliver a solution to a particular constituent, which is augmented by as much self-service as possible to develop and manage the solution directly. All done in the absence of direct IT involvement. With Oracle WebCenter's depth in the areas of content management, pallet of native collaborative services, enterprise mashup capability and delegated administration, it is very possible to execute on this business vision at a technical level. To realize the benefits of the platform depth we can think of Oracle WebCenter's segmentation of duties along the lines of the 3 Cs - Content, Collaboration and Contextual Data.  All three of which can have their foundations developed by IT, then provisioned to the business on a per role basis. Content – Oracle WebCenter benefits from an extremely mature content repository.  Work flow, audit, notification, office integration and conversion capabilities for documents (HTML & PDF) make this a haven for business users to take control of content within external and internal portals, custom applications and web sites.  When deploying WebCenter portal take time to think of areas in which IT can provide the "harness" for content to reside, then allow the business to manage any content items within the site, using the content foundation to ensure compliance with business rules and process.  This frees IT to work on more mission critical challenges and allows the business to respond in short order to emerging market needs. Collaboration – Native collaborative services and WebCenter spaces are a perfect match for business users who are looking to enable document sharing, discussions and social networking.  The ability to deploy the services is granular and on the basis of roles scoped to given areas of the system - much like the first C “content”.  This enables business analysts to design the roles required and IT to provision with peace of mind that users leveraging the collaborative services are only able to do so in explicitly designated areas of a site. Bottom line - business will not need to wait for IT, but cannot go outside of the scope that has been defined based on their roles. Contextual Data – Collaborative capabilities are most powerful when included within the context of business data.  The ability to supply business users with decision shaping data that they can include in various parts of a portal or portals, just as they would with content items, is one of the most powerful aspects of Oracle WebCenter.  Imagine a discussion about new store selection for a retail chain that re-purposes existing information from business intelligence services about various potential locations and or custom backend systems - presenting it directly in the context of the discussion.  If there are some data sources that are preexisting in your enterprise take a look at how they can be made into discrete offerings within the portal, then scoped to given business user roles for inclusion within collaborative activities. 2. Think Generically, Execute Specifically Constructs.  Anyone who has spent much time around me knows that I am obsessed with this word.  Why? Because Constructs offer immense power - more than APIs, Web Services or other technical capability. Constructs offer organizations the ability to leverage a platform's native characteristics to offer substantial business functionality - without writing code.  This concept becomes more powerful with the additional understanding of the concepts from the platform that an organization learns over time.  Let's take a look at an example of where an Oracle WebCenter construct can substantially reduce the time to get a subscription-based site out the door and into the hands of the end consumer. Imagine a site that allows members to subscribe to specific disciplines to access information and application data around that various discipline.  A space is a collection of secured pages within Oracle WebCenter.  Spaces are not only secured, but also default content stored within it to be scoped automatically to that space. Taking this a step further, Oracle WebCenter’s Activity Stream surfaces events, discussions and other activities that are scoped to the given user on the basis of their space affiliations.  In order to have a portal that would allow users to "subscribe" to information around various disciplines - spaces could be used out of the box to achieve this capability and without using any APIs or low level technical work to achieve this. 3. Make Governance Work for You Imagine driving down the street without the painted lines on the road.  The rules of the road are so ingrained in our minds, we often do not think about the process, but seemingly mundane lane markers are critical enablers. Lane markers allow us to travel at speeds that would be impossible if not for the agreed upon direction of flow. Additionally and more importantly, it allows people to act autonomously - going where they please at any given time. The return on the investment for mobility is high enough for people to buy into globally agreed up governance processes. In Oracle WebCenter we can use similar enablers to lane markers.  Our goal should be to enable the flow of information and provide end users with the ability to arrive at business solutions as needed, not on the basis of cumbersome processes that cannot meet the business needs in a timely fashion. How do we do this? Just as with "Segmentation of Duties" Oracle WebCenter technologies offer the opportunity to compartmentalize various business initiatives from each other within the system due to constructs and security that are available to use within the platform. For instance, when a WebCenter space is created, any content added within that space by default will be secured to that particular space and inherits meta data that is associated with a folder created for the space. Oracle WebCenter content uses meta data to support a broad range of rich ECM functionality and can automatically impart retention, workflow and other policies automatically on the basis of what has been defaulted for that space. Depending on your business needs, this paradigm will also extend to sub sections of a space, offering some interesting possibilities to enable automated management around content. An example may be press releases within a particular area of an extranet that require a five year retention period and need to the reviewed by marketing and legal before release.  The underlying content system will transparently take care of this process on the basis of the above rules, enabling peace of mind over unstructured data - which could otherwise become overwhelming. 4. Make Your First Project Your Second Imagine if Michael Phelps was competing in a swimming championship, but told right before his race that he had to use a brand new stroke.  There is no doubt that Michael is an outstanding swimmer, but chances are that he would like to have some time to get acquainted with the new stroke. New technologies should not be treated any differently.  Before jumping into the deep end it helps to take time to get to know the new approach - even though you may have been swimming thousands of times before. To quickly get a handle on Oracle WebCenter capabilities it can be helpful to deploy a sandbox for the team to use to share project documents, discussions and announcements in an effort to help the actual deployment get under way, while increasing everyone’s knowledge of the platform and its functionality that may be helpful down the road. Oracle Technology Network has made a pre-configured virtual machine available for download that can be a great starting point for this exercise. 5. Get to Know the Community If you are reading this blog post you have most certainly faced a software decision or challenge that was solved on the basis of a small piece of missing critical information - which took substantial research to discover.  Chances were also good that somewhere, someone had already come across this information and would have been excited to share it. There is no denying the power of passionate, connected users, sharing key tips around technology.  The Oracle WebCenter brand has a rich heritage that includes industry-leading technology and practitioners.  With the new Oracle WebCenter brand, opportunities to connect with these experts has become easier. Oracle WebCenter Blog Oracle Social Enterprise LinkedIn WebCenter Group Oracle WebCenter Twitter Oracle WebCenter Facebook Oracle User Groups Additionally, there are various Oracle WebCenter related blogs by an excellent grouping of services partners.

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• I see no LOBs!

  - by Paul White

  Is it possible to see LOB (large object) logical reads from STATISTICS IO output on a table with no LOB columns? I was asked this question today by someone who had spent a good fraction of their afternoon trying to work out why this was occurring – even going so far as to re-run DBCC CHECKDB to see if any corruption had taken place.  The table in question wasn’t particularly pretty – it had grown somewhat organically over time, with new columns being added every so often as the need arose.  Nevertheless, it remained a simple structure with no LOB columns – no TEXT or IMAGE, no XML, no MAX types – nothing aside from ordinary INT, MONEY, VARCHAR, and DATETIME types.  To add to the air of mystery, not every query that ran against the table would report LOB logical reads – just sometimes – but when it did, the query often took much longer to execute. Ok, enough of the pre-amble.  I can’t reproduce the exact structure here, but the following script creates a table that will serve to demonstrate the effect: IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.Test', N'U') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.Test GO CREATE TABLE dbo.Test ( row_id NUMERIC IDENTITY NOT NULL,   col01 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col02 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col03 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col04 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col05 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col06 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col07 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col08 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col09 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, col10 NVARCHAR(450) NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.Test row_id] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (row_id) ) ; The next script loads the ten variable-length character columns with one-character strings in the first row, two-character strings in the second row, and so on down to the 450th row: WITH Numbers AS ( -- Generates numbers 1 - 450 inclusive SELECT TOP (450) n = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2, master.sys.columns C3 ORDER BY n ASC ) INSERT dbo.Test WITH (TABLOCKX) SELECT REPLICATE(N'A', N.n), REPLICATE(N'B', N.n), REPLICATE(N'C', N.n), REPLICATE(N'D', N.n), REPLICATE(N'E', N.n), REPLICATE(N'F', N.n), REPLICATE(N'G', N.n), REPLICATE(N'H', N.n), REPLICATE(N'I', N.n), REPLICATE(N'J', N.n) FROM Numbers AS N ORDER BY N.n ASC ; Once those two scripts have run, the table contains 450 rows and 10 columns of data like this: Most of the time, when we query data from this table, we don’t see any LOB logical reads, for example: -- Find the maximum length of the data in -- column 5 for a range of rows SELECT result = MAX(DATALENGTH(T.col05)) FROM dbo.Test AS T WHERE row_id BETWEEN 50 AND 100 ; But with a different query… -- Read all the data in column 1 SELECT result = MAX(DATALENGTH(T.col01)) FROM dbo.Test AS T ; …suddenly we have 49 LOB logical reads, as well as the ‘normal’ logical reads we would expect. The Explanation If we had tried to create this table in SQL Server 2000, we would have received a warning message to say that future INSERT or UPDATE operations on the table might fail if the resulting row exceeded the in-row storage limit of 8060 bytes.  If we needed to store more data than would fit in an 8060 byte row (including internal overhead) we had to use a LOB column – TEXT, NTEXT, or IMAGE.  These special data types store the large data values in a separate structure, with just a small pointer left in the original row. Row Overflow SQL Server 2005 introduced a feature called row overflow, which allows one or more variable-length columns in a row to move to off-row storage if the data in a particular row would otherwise exceed 8060 bytes.  You no longer receive a warning when creating (or altering) a table that might need more than 8060 bytes of in-row storage; if SQL Server finds that it can no longer fit a variable-length column in a particular row, it will silently move one or more of these columns off the row into a separate allocation unit. Only variable-length columns can be moved in this way (for example the (N)VARCHAR, VARBINARY, and SQL_VARIANT types).  Fixed-length columns (like INTEGER and DATETIME for example) never move into ‘row overflow’ storage.  The decision to move a column off-row is done on a row-by-row basis – so data in a particular column might be stored in-row for some table records, and off-row for others. In general, if SQL Server finds that it needs to move a column into row-overflow storage, it moves the largest variable-length column record for that row.  Note that in the case of an UPDATE statement that results in the 8060 byte limit being exceeded, it might not be the column that grew that is moved! Sneaky LOBs Anyway, that’s all very interesting but I don’t want to get too carried away with the intricacies of row-overflow storage internals.  The point is that it is now possible to define a table with non-LOB columns that will silently exceed the old row-size limit and result in ordinary variable-length columns being moved to off-row storage.  Adding new columns to a table, expanding an existing column definition, or simply storing more data in a column than you used to – all these things can result in one or more variable-length columns being moved off the row. Note that row-overflow storage is logically quite different from old-style LOB and new-style MAX data type storage – individual variable-length columns are still limited to 8000 bytes each – you can just have more of them now.  Having said that, the physical mechanisms involved are very similar to full LOB storage – a column moved to row-overflow leaves a 24-byte pointer record in the row, and the ‘separate storage’ I have been talking about is structured very similarly to both old-style LOBs and new-style MAX types.  The disadvantages are also the same: when SQL Server needs a row-overflow column value it needs to follow the in-row pointer a navigate another chain of pages, just like retrieving a traditional LOB. And Finally… In the example script presented above, the rows with row_id values from 402 to 450 inclusive all exceed the total in-row storage limit of 8060 bytes.  A SELECT that references a column in one of those rows that has moved to off-row storage will incur one or more lob logical reads as the storage engine locates the data.  The results on your system might vary slightly depending on your settings, of course; but in my tests only column 1 in rows 402-450 moved off-row.  You might like to play around with the script – updating columns, changing data type lengths, and so on – to see the effect on lob logical reads and which columns get moved when.  You might even see row-overflow columns moving back in-row if they are updated to be smaller (hint: reduce the size of a column entry by at least 1000 bytes if you hope to see this). Be aware that SQL Server will not warn you when it moves ‘ordinary’ variable-length columns into overflow storage, and it can have dramatic effects on performance.  It makes more sense than ever to choose column data types sensibly.  If you make every column a VARCHAR(8000) or NVARCHAR(4000), and someone stores data that results in a row needing more than 8060 bytes, SQL Server might turn some of your column data into pseudo-LOBs – all without saying a word. Finally, some people make a distinction between ordinary LOBs (those that can hold up to 2GB of data) and the LOB-like structures created by row-overflow (where columns are still limited to 8000 bytes) by referring to row-overflow LOBs as SLOBs.  I find that quite appealing, but the ‘S’ stands for ‘small’, which makes expanding the whole acronym a little daft-sounding…small large objects anyone? © Paul White 2011 email: [email protected] twitter: @SQL_Kiwi

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• NUMA-aware placement of communication variables

  - by Dave

  For classic NUMA-aware programming I'm typically most concerned about simple cold, capacity and compulsory misses and whether we can satisfy the miss by locally connected memory or whether we have to pull the line from its home node over the coherent interconnect -- we'd like to minimize channel contention and conserve interconnect bandwidth. That is, for this style of programming we're quite aware of where memory is homed relative to the threads that will be accessing it. Ideally, a page is collocated on the node with the thread that's expected to most frequently access the page, as simple misses on the page can be satisfied without resorting to transferring the line over the interconnect. The default "first touch" NUMA page placement policy tends to work reasonable well in this regard. When a virtual page is first accessed, the operating system will attempt to provision and map that virtual page to a physical page allocated from the node where the accessing thread is running. It's worth noting that the node-level memory interleaving granularity is usually a multiple of the page size, so we can say that a given page P resides on some node N. That is, the memory underlying a page resides on just one node. But when thinking about accesses to heavily-written communication variables we normally consider what caches the lines underlying such variables might be resident in, and in what states. We want to minimize coherence misses and cache probe activity and interconnect traffic in general. I don't usually give much thought to the location of the home NUMA node underlying such highly shared variables. On a SPARC T5440, for instance, which consists of 4 T2+ processors connected by a central coherence hub, the home node and placement of heavily accessed communication variables has very little impact on performance. The variables are frequently accessed so likely in M-state in some cache, and the location of the home node is of little consequence because a requester can use cache-to-cache transfers to get the line. Or at least that's what I thought. Recently, though, I was exploring a simple shared memory point-to-point communication model where a client writes a request into a request mailbox and then busy-waits on a response variable. It's a simple example of delegation based on message passing. The server polls the request mailbox, and having fetched a new request value, performs some operation and then writes a reply value into the response variable. As noted above, on a T5440 performance is insensitive to the placement of the communication variables -- the request and response mailbox words. But on a Sun/Oracle X4800 I noticed that was not the case and that NUMA placement of the communication variables was actually quite important. For background an X4800 system consists of 8 Intel X7560 Xeons . Each package (socket) has 8 cores with 2 contexts per core, so the system is 8x8x2. Each package is also a NUMA node and has locally attached memory. Every package has 3 point-to-point QPI links for cache coherence, and the system is configured with a twisted ladder "mobius" topology. The cache coherence fabric is glueless -- there's not central arbiter or coherence hub. The maximum distance between any two nodes is just 2 hops over the QPI links. For any given node, 3 other nodes are 1 hop distant and the remaining 4 nodes are 2 hops distant. Using a single request (client) thread and a single response (server) thread, a benchmark harness explored all permutations of NUMA placement for the two threads and the two communication variables, measuring the average round-trip-time and throughput rate between the client and server. In this benchmark the server simply acts as a simple transponder, writing the request value plus 1 back into the reply field, so there's no particular computation phase and we're only measuring communication overheads. In addition to varying the placement of communication variables over pairs of nodes, we also explored variations where both variables were placed on one page (and thus on one node) -- either on the same cache line or different cache lines -- while varying the node where the variables reside along with the placement of the threads. The key observation was that if the client and server threads were on different nodes, then the best placement of variables was to have the request variable (written by the client and read by the server) reside on the same node as the client thread, and to place the response variable (written by the server and read by the client) on the same node as the server. That is, if you have a variable that's to be written by one thread and read by another, it should be homed with the writer thread. For our simple client-server model that means using split request and response communication variables with unidirectional message flow on a given page. This can yield up to twice the throughput of less favorable placement strategies. Our X4800 uses the QPI 1.0 protocol with source-based snooping. Briefly, when node A needs to probe a cache line it fires off snoop requests to all the nodes in the system. Those recipients then forward their response not to the original requester, but to the home node H of the cache line. H waits for and collects the responses, adjudicates and resolves conflicts and ensures memory-model ordering, and then sends a definitive reply back to the original requester A. If some node B needed to transfer the line to A, it will do so by cache-to-cache transfer and let H know about the disposition of the cache line. A needs to wait for the authoritative response from H. So if a thread on node A wants to write a value to be read by a thread on node B, the latency is dependent on the distances between A, B, and H. We observe the best performance when the written-to variable is co-homed with the writer A. That is, we want H and A to be the same node, as the writer doesn't need the home to respond over the QPI link, as the writer and the home reside on the very same node. With architecturally informed placement of communication variables we eliminate at least one QPI hop from the critical path. Newer Intel processors use the QPI 1.1 coherence protocol with home-based snooping. As noted above, under source-snooping a requester broadcasts snoop requests to all nodes. Those nodes send their response to the home node of the location, which provides memory ordering, reconciles conflicts, etc., and then posts a definitive reply to the requester. In home-based snooping the snoop probe goes directly to the home node and are not broadcast. The home node can consult snoop filters -- if present -- and send out requests to retrieve the line if necessary. The 3rd party owner of the line, if any, can respond either to the home or the original requester (or even to both) according to the protocol policies. There are myriad variations that have been implemented, and unfortunately vendor terminology doesn't always agree between vendors or with the academic taxonomy papers. The key is that home-snooping enables the use of a snoop filter to reduce interconnect traffic. And while home-snooping might have a longer critical path (latency) than source-based snooping, it also may require fewer messages and less overall bandwidth. It'll be interesting to reprise these experiments on a platform with home-based snooping. While collecting data I also noticed that there are placement concerns even in the seemingly trivial case when both threads and both variables reside on a single node. Internally, the cores on each X7560 package are connected by an internal ring. (Actually there are multiple contra-rotating rings). And the last-level on-chip cache (LLC) is partitioned in banks or slices, which with each slice being associated with a core on the ring topology. A hardware hash function associates each physical address with a specific home bank. Thus we face distance and topology concerns even for intra-package communications, although the latencies are not nearly the magnitude we see inter-package. I've not seen such communication distance artifacts on the T2+, where the cache banks are connected to the cores via a high-speed crossbar instead of a ring -- communication latencies seem more regular.

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• Master Page: Dynamically Adding Rows in ASP Table on Button Click event

  - by Vincent Maverick Durano

  In my previous post here, I wrote an example that demonstrates how are we going to generate table rows dynamically using ASP Table on click of the Button control. Now based on some comments in my previous example and in the forums they wanted to implement it within Masterpage. Unfortunately the code in my previous example doesn't work in Masterpage for the following main reasons: The Table is dynamically added within the Form tag and so the TextBox control will not be generated correcty in the page. The data will not be retained on each and every postbacks because the SetPreviousData() method is looking for the Table element within the Page and not on the MasterPage. The Request.Form key value should be set correctly since all controls within the master page are prefixed with the naming containter ID to prevent duplicate ids on the final rendered HTML. For example the TextBox control with the ID of TextBoxRow will turn to ID to this ctl00$MainBody$TextBoxRow. In order for the previous example to work within Masterpage then we will have to correct those three main reasons above and this post will guide you how to correct it. Suppose we have this content page declaration below:   <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainHead" Runat="Server"> </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainBody" Runat="Server"> <asp:PlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolder1" runat="server"> <asp:Button ID="BTNAdd" runat="server" Text="Add New Row" OnClick="BTNAdd_Click" /> </asp:PlaceHolder> </asp:Content> As you notice I've added a PlaceHolder control within the MainBody ContentPlaceHolder. This is because we are going to generate the Table in the PlaceHolder instead of generating it within the Form element. Now since issue #1 is already corrected then let's proceed to the code beind part. Here are the full code blocks below:     using System; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; public partial class DynamicControlDemo : System.Web.UI.Page { private int numOfRows = 1; protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { //Generate the Rows on Initial Load if (!Page.IsPostBack) { GenerateTable(numOfRows); } } protected void BTNAdd_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (ViewState["RowsCount"] != null) { numOfRows = Convert.ToInt32(ViewState["RowsCount"].ToString()); GenerateTable(numOfRows); } } private void SetPreviousData(int rowsCount, int colsCount) { Table table = (Table)this.Page.Master.FindControl("MainBody").FindControl("Table1"); // **** if (table != null) { for (int i = 0; i < rowsCount; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < colsCount; j++) { //Extracting the Dynamic Controls from the Table TextBox tb = (TextBox)table.Rows[i].Cells[j].FindControl("TextBoxRow_" + i + "Col_" + j); //Use Request object for getting the previous data of the dynamic textbox tb.Text = Request.Form["ctl00$MainBody$TextBoxRow_" + i + "Col_" + j];//***** } } } } private void GenerateTable(int rowsCount) { //Creat the Table and Add it to the Page Table table = new Table(); table.ID = "Table1"; PlaceHolder1.Controls.Add(table);//****** //The number of Columns to be generated const int colsCount = 3;//You can changed the value of 3 based on you requirements // Now iterate through the table and add your controls for (int i = 0; i < rowsCount; i++) { TableRow row = new TableRow(); for (int j = 0; j < colsCount; j++) { TableCell cell = new TableCell(); TextBox tb = new TextBox(); // Set a unique ID for each TextBox added tb.ID = "TextBoxRow_" + i + "Col_" + j; // Add the control to the TableCell cell.Controls.Add(tb); // Add the TableCell to the TableRow row.Cells.Add(cell); } // And finally, add the TableRow to the Table table.Rows.Add(row); } //Set Previous Data on PostBacks SetPreviousData(rowsCount, colsCount); //Sore the current Rows Count in ViewState rowsCount++; ViewState["RowsCount"] = rowsCount; } }   As you observed the code is pretty much similar to the previous example except for the highlighted lines above. That's it! I hope someone find this post usefu! Technorati Tags: Dynamic Controls,ASP.NET,C#,Master Page

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• For Programmers familiar with ACM API? Drawing Initials [closed]

  - by user71992

  Possible Duplicate: For Programmers familiar with ACM API? Drawing Initials I came across an exercise (in the book "The Art and Science of Java" by Eric Roberts) that requires using only GArc and GLine classes to create a lettering library which draws your initials on the canvas. This should be made independent of the GLabel class. I'd like to know the correct approach to use in solving this problem. I'm not sure what I have so far is good enough (I'm thinking it's too long). The questions requires that I use a good Top-Down approach. Here's my code so far: //Passes letters to GLetter objects and draws them on the canvas package artScienceJavaExercises.chapter8; import acm.program.*; //import acm.graphics.*; public class DrawInitials extends GraphicsProgram{ public void init(){ resize(400,400); } public void run(){ //String let = readLine("Letter?: "); letter = new GLetter("l"); add(letter, (getWidth()-letter.getWidth()*2)/2, (getHeight()-letter.getHeight())/2); add(new GLetter("o"), (letter.getX()+letter.getWidth()), letter.getY()); } private GLetter letter; } //GLetter Class package artScienceJavaExercises.chapter8; import acm.graphics.*; import java.awt.*; public class GLetter extends GCompound{ private static final int ONE_THIRD = 30; private static final int ROW_2_HEIGHT = 40; private GArc[] arc = new GArc[4]; private GLine[] line = new GLine[24]; public GLetter(String s){ line[0] = new GLine(0,0, ONE_THIRD, 0); line[1] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD,0, ONE_THIRD*2, 0); line[2] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*2,0, ONE_THIRD*3, 0); line[3] = new GLine(0,0, 0,ONE_THIRD); line[4] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD,0, ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD); line[5] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*2,0, ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD); line[6] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*3,0, ONE_THIRD*3, ONE_THIRD); line[7] = new GLine(0,ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD); line[8] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD,ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD); line[9] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*2,ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*3, ONE_THIRD); line[10] = new GLine(0,ONE_THIRD, 0, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[11] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[12] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*2,ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[13] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*3,ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*3, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[14] = new GLine(0, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[15] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[16] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD*3, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[17] = new GLine(0, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT, 0, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[18] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[19] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[20] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*3, ONE_THIRD+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD*3, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[21] = new GLine(0,ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[22] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD*2, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT); line[23] = new GLine(ONE_THIRD*2,ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT, ONE_THIRD*3, ONE_THIRD*2+ROW_2_HEIGHT); for(int i = 0; i<line.length; i++){ add(line[i]); line[i].setColor(Color.BLACK); line[i].setVisible(false); } arc[0] = new GArc(getWidth(), getHeight(), 106.699, 49.341); arc[1] = new GArc(getWidth(), getHeight(), 23.96, 49.341); arc[2] = new GArc(getWidth(), getHeight(), -23.96, -49.341); arc[3] = new GArc(0,0,getWidth(), getHeight(), -106.699, -49.341); for(int i = 0; i<arc.length; i++){ add(arc[i],0,0); arc[i].setColor(Color.BLACK); arc[i].setVisible(false); } paintLetter(s); } private void paintLetter(String s){ if (s.equalsIgnoreCase("l")){ turnOn(line[3]); turnOn(line[10]); turnOn(line[17]); turnOn(line[21]); turnOn(line[22]); turnOn(line[23]); } else if(s.equalsIgnoreCase("o")){ for(int i = 0; i<4; ++i){ turnOn(arc[i]); } turnOn(line[1]); turnOn(line[10]); turnOn(line[13]); turnOn(line[22]); } } private void turnOn(GObject g){ g.setVisible(true); } } I created a class (GLetter.java) with arrays for GArc and GLine objects. They are positioned in certain ways thereby turning certain Glines and/or GArcs on or off (changing visiblity) would create a pattern for a letter. This Gletter uses the if/else statements to determine which pattern to create - this makes me feel my code is too long. There is another class (DrawInitials.java) that simulates a GraphicsProgram and allows the user to pass certain letters as arguments to the GLetter object. I've used 'L' and 'O' as examples. However, I posted this because I'm not sure I'm using the right approach. That's why I need your help. I feel MY CODE IS TOO LONG! The code above is not the complete project...it only draws letters 'L' and 'O' for now.

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• Unlocking Productivity

  - by Michael Snow

  Unlocking Productivity in Life Sciences with Consolidated Content Management by Joe Golemba, Vice President, Product Management, Oracle WebCenter As life sciences organizations look to become more operationally efficient, the ability to effectively leverage information is a competitive advantage. Whether data mining at the drug discovery phase or prepping the sales team before a product launch, content management can play a key role in developing, organizing, and disseminating vital information. The goal of content management is relatively straightforward: put the information that people need where they can find it. A number of issues can complicate this; information sits in many different systems, each of those systems has its own security, and the information in those systems exists in many different formats. Identifying and extracting pertinent information from mountains of farflung data is no simple job, but the alternative—wasted effort or even regulatory compliance issues—is worse. An integrated information architecture can enable health sciences organizations to make better decisions, accelerate clinical operations, and be more competitive. Unstructured data matters Often when we think of drug development data, we think of structured data that fits neatly into one or more research databases. But structured data is often directly supported by unstructured data such as experimental protocols, reaction conditions, lot numbers, run times, analyses, and research notes. As life sciences companies seek integrated views of data, they are typically finding diverse islands of data that seemingly have no relationship to other data in the organization. Information like sales reports or call center reports can be locked into siloed systems, and unavailable to the discovery process. Additionally, in the increasingly networked clinical environment, Web pages, instant messages, videos, scientific imaging, sales and marketing data, collaborative workspaces, and predictive modeling data are likely to be present within an organization, and each source potentially possesses information that can help to better inform specific efforts. Historically, content management solutions that had 21CFR Part 11 capabilities—electronic records and signatures—were focused mainly on content-enabling manufacturing-related processes. Today, life sciences companies have many standalone repositories, requiring different skills, service level agreements, and vendor support costs to manage them. With the amount of content doubling every three to six months, companies have recognized the need to manage unstructured content from the beginning, in order to increase employee productivity and operational efficiency. Using scalable and secure enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, organizations can better manage their unstructured content. These solutions can also be integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or research systems, making content available immediately, in the context of the application and within the flow of the employee’s typical business activity. Administrative safeguards—such as content de-duplication—can also be applied within ECM systems, so documents are never recreated, eliminating redundant efforts, ensuring one source of truth, and maintaining content standards in the organization. Putting it in context Consolidating structured and unstructured information in a single system can greatly simplify access to relevant information when it is needed through contextual search. Using contextual filters, results can include therapeutic area, position in the value chain, semantic commonalities, technology-specific factors, specific researchers involved, or potential business impact. The use of taxonomies is essential to organizing information and enabling contextual searches. Taxonomy solutions are composed of a hierarchical tree that defines the relationship between different life science terms. When overlaid with additional indexing related to research and/or business processes, it becomes possible to effectively narrow down the amount of data that is returned during searches, as well as prioritize results based on specific criteria and/or prior search history. Thus, search results are more accurate and relevant to an employee’s day-to-day work. For example, a search for the word "tissue" by a lab researcher would return significantly different results than a search for the same word performed by someone in procurement. Of course, diverse data repositories, combined with the immense amounts of data present in an organization, necessitate that the data elements be regularly indexed and cached beforehand to enable reasonable search response times. In its simplest form, indexing of a single, consolidated data warehouse can be expected to be a relatively straightforward effort. However, organizations require the ability to index multiple data repositories, enabling a single search to reference multiple data sources and provide an integrated results listing. Security and compliance Beyond yielding efficiencies and supporting new insight, an enterprise search environment can support important security considerations as well as compliance initiatives. For example, the systems enable organizations to retain the relevance and the security of the indexed systems, so users can only see the results to which they are granted access. This is especially important as life sciences companies are working in an increasingly networked environment and need to provide secure, role-based access to information across multiple partners. Although not officially required by the 21 CFR Part 11 regulation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administraiton has begun to extend the type of content considered when performing relevant audits and discoveries. Having an ECM infrastructure that provides centralized management of all content enterprise-wide—with the ability to consistently apply records and retention policies along with the appropriate controls, validations, audit trails, and electronic signatures—is becoming increasingly critical for life sciences companies. Making the move Creating an enterprise-wide ECM environment requires moving large amounts of content into a single enterprise repository, a daunting and risk-laden initiative. The first key is to focus on data taxonomy, allowing content to be mapped across systems. The second is to take advantage new tools which can dramatically speed and reduce the cost of the data migration process through automation. Additional content need not be frozen while it is migrated, enabling productivity throughout the process. The ability to effectively leverage information into success has been gaining importance in the life sciences industry for years. The rapid adoption of enterprise content management, both in operational processes as well as in scientific management, are clear indicators that the companies are looking to use all available data to be better informed, improve decision making, minimize risk, and increase time to market, to maintain profitability and be more competitive. As more and more varieties and sources of information are brought under the strategic management umbrella, the ability to divine knowledge from the vast pool of information is increasingly difficult. Simple search engines and basic content management are increasingly unable to effectively extract the right information from the mountains of data available. By bringing these tools into context and integrating them with business processes and applications, we can effectively focus on the right decisions that make our organizations more profitable. More Information Oracle will be exhibiting at DIA 2012 in Philadelphia on June 25-27. Stop by our booth 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:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} (#2825) to learn more about the advantages of a centralized ECM strategy and see the Oracle WebCenter Content solution, our 21 CFR Part 11 compliant content management platform.

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• Oracle Partner Store (OPS) New Enhancements

  - by Kristin Rose

  Effective June 29th, Oracle Partner Store (OPS) will release the enhancements listed below to improve your overall ordering experience. v Online Transactional Oracle Master Agreement (Online TOMA) The Online TOMA enables end users to execute a transactional end user license agreement with Oracle. The new Online TOMA in OPS will replace the need for you to obtain a signed hard copy of the TOMA from the end user. You will now initiate the Online TOMA via OPS. Navigation: OPS Home > Order Tools > Online TOMA Query > Request Online TOMA> End User Contact, click “Select for TOMA” > Select Language > Submit (an automated email is sent immediately to the requestor and the end user) Ø The Online TOMA can also be initiated from the ‘My OPS’ tab. Under the Online TOMA Query section partners can track Online TOMA request details submitted to end users. The status of the Online TOMA request and the OMA Key generated (once Ts&Cs of the Online TOMA are accepted by an end user) are also displayed in this table. There is also the ability to resend pending Online TOMA requests by clicking ‘Resend’. Navigation: OPS Home > Order Tools > Online TOMA Query For more details on the Transactional OMA, please click here. v Convert Deals to Carts The partner deal registration system within OPS will now allow you to convert approved deals into carts with a simple click of a button. VADs can use Deal to Cart on all of their partners' registrations, regardless of whether they submitted on their partner's behalf, or the partner submitted themselves. Navigation: Login > Deal Registrations > Deal Registration List > Open the approved deal > Click Deal Reg ID number link to open > Click on 'Create Cart' link You can locate your newly created cart in the Saved Carts section of OPS. Links are also available from within an open deal or from the Deal Registration List. Click on the cart number to proceed. v Partner Opportunity Management: Deal Registration on OPS now allows you to see updated information on your opportunities from Oracle’s Fusion CRM opportunity management system.  Key fields such as close date, sales stage, products and status can be viewed by clicking the opportunity ID associated with the deal registration.  This new feature allows you to see regular updates to your opportunities after registrations are approved.  Through ongoing communication with Oracle Channel Managers and Sales Reps, you can ensure that Oracle has the latest information on your active registered deals. v Product Recommendations: When adding products to the Deal Registrations tab, OPS will now show additional products that you can try to include to maximize your sale and rebate. v Advanced Customer Support(ACS) Services Note: This will be available from July 9th. Initiate the purchase of the complete stack (HW/SW/Services) online with one single OPS order. More ACS services now supported online with exception of Start-Up Pack: · New SW installation services for Standard Configurations & stand alone System Software. · New Pre-production & Go-live services for Standard & Engineered Systems · New SW configuration & Platinum Pre-Production & Go-Live services for Engineered Systems · New Travel & Expenses Estimate included · New Partner & VAD volume discount supported v Software as a Service (SaaS) for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs): Oracle SaaS ISVs can now use OPS to submit their monthly usage reports to Oracle within 20 days after the end of every month. Navigation: OPS Home > Cart > Transaction Type: Partner SaaS for ISV’s > Add Eligible Products > Check out v Existing Approvals: In an effort to reduce the processing time of discount approvals, we have added a new section in the Request Approval page for you to communicate pre-existing approvals without having to attach the DAT. Just enter the Approval ID and submit your request. In case of existing software approvals, you will be required to submit the DAT with the Contact Information section filled out. v Additional data for Shipping Box Labels and Packing Slips OPS now has additional fields in the Shipping Notes section for you to add PO details. This will help you easily identify shipments as they arrive. Partners will have an End User PO field, whereas VADs will have VAR and End User PO fields. v Shipping Notes on OPS Hardware delivery Shipping Notes will now have multiple options to better suit your requirements. v Reminders for Royalty Reporting Partners: If you have not submitted your royalty report online, OPS will now send an automated alert to remind you. v Order Tracker Changes: · Order Tracker will now have a deal reg flag (Yes/No). You can now clearly distinguish between orders that have registered opportunities. · All lines of the order will be visible in the order details list. v Changes in Terminology · You will notice textual changes on some of our labels and messages relating to approval requests. “Discount Requests” has been replaced with “Approval Requests” to cater to some of our other offerings. · First Line Support (FLS) transaction type has been renamed to Support Provider Partner (SPP). OPS Support For more details on these enhancements, please request a training here. For assistance on the Oracle Partner Store, please contact the OPS support team in your region. NAMER: [email protected] LAD: [email protected] EMEA : [email protected] APAC: [email protected] Japan: [email protected] You can even call us on our Hotline! Find your local number here.     Thank you, Oracle Partner Store Support Team      

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• 7 Good Reasons to Upgrade E-Business Suite to the cloud

  - by Lisa Schwartz

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} As promised here is blog Part 2: Why Upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite 12 in the cloud? 7 Good Reasons to Upgrade to E-Business Suite 12 in the Cloud: 1)   Take advantage of new and improved features: from global sub-ledger accounting to mobile access for supply chain management to built-in extensions for information search and discovery. If you haven’t checked out the latest features yet, there are over 1000 EBS 12 enhancements. 2) Plan now to address any ongoing Oracle Support considerations and regulatory compliance requirements. EBS Release 11 support is ending soon. Based upon that information alone, you should have an EBS upgrade strategy and planning well underway. 3) Customizations got you worried? Expedite your next Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade – have Oracle identify all customizations, reduce un-needed customizations (EBS 12 has built-in many of your customizations) and during the upgrade keep all necessary customizations to run your business. 4) Migrating EBS to the cloud allows parallel migration and testing. Therefore no extra hardware purchases for the testing and upgrade. Business disruption is minimized. And, by moving to the cloud, this provides for smoother future upgrades that are based on your own timeline. 5) Oracle Experts will upgrade and run your EBS applications for you in the cloud. Free your IT resources to develop new services and work on projects that are critical to business innovation and competitiveness. Your IT resources will not be inundated with upgrade tasks!      6) Reallocate precious IT dollars to other projects, eliminate CapEx costs. 7) Oracle minimizes business risk by having enterprise class cloud services under stringent SLAs designed to run your business applications for you such as: a. Enterprise grade infrastructure b. World-class security and identity management c. Best practices in regulatory compliance: from classified federal gov’t standards, to healthcare HIPPA standards to meeting Financial Services requirements (PCI DSS) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} 7 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Next Step: To help you upgrade and get to the cloud in the shortest period of  time, Oracle has a program called Oracle Upgrade Factory for Oracle E-Business Suite 12. It offers a unique approach, seamlessly bundling Managed Cloud Services and Oracle Consulting Services together for an entire Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade and migration to a managed private  cloud. Read the Oracle Upgrade Factory Solution Brief here. Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Scripting Part 1

  - by rbishop

  Dynamic Scripting is a large topic, so let me get a couple of things out of the way first. If you aren't familiar with JavaScript, I can suggest CodeAcademy's JavaScript series. There are also many other websites and books that cover JavaScript from every possible angle.The second thing we need to deal with is JavaScript as a programming language versus a JavaScript environment running in a web browser. Many books, tutorials, and websites completely blur these two together but they are in fact completely separate. What does this really mean in relation to DRM? Since DRM isn't a web browser, there are no document, window, history, screen, or location objects. There are no events like mousedown or click. Trying to call alert('hello!') in DRM will just cause an error. Those concepts are all related to an HTML document (web page) and are part of the Browser Object Model or Document Object Model. DRM has its own object model that exposes DRM-related objects. In practice, feel free to use those sorts of tutorials or practice within your browser; Many of the concepts are directly translatable to writing scripts in DRM. Just don't try to call document.getElementById in your property definition!I think learning by example tends to work the best, so let's try getting a list of all the unique property values for a given node and its children. var uniqueValues = {}; var childEnumerator = node.GetChildEnumerator(); while(childEnumerator.MoveNext()) { var propValue = childEnumerator.GetCurrent().PropValue("Custom.testpropstr1"); print(propValue); if(propValue != null && propValue != '' && !uniqueValues[propValue]) uniqueValues[propValue] = true; } var result = ''; for(var value in uniqueValues){ result += "Found value " + value + ","; } return result;  Now lets break this down piece by piece. var uniqueValues = {}; This declares a variable and initializes it as a new empty Object. You could also have written var uniqueValues = new Object(); Why use an object here? JavaScript objects can also function as a list of keys and we'll use that later to store each property value as a key on the object. var childEnumerator = node.GetChildEnumerator(); while(childEnumerator.MoveNext()) { This gets an enumerator for the node's children. The enumerator allows us to loop through the children one by one. If we wanted to get a filtered list of children, we would instead use ChildrenWith(). When we reach the end of the child list, the enumerator will return false for MoveNext() and that will stop the loop. var propValue = childEnumerator.GetCurrent().PropValue("Custom.testpropstr1"); print(propValue); if(propValue != null && propValue != '' && !uniqueValues[propValue]) uniqueValues[propValue] = true; } This gets the node the enumerator is currently pointing at, then calls PropValue() on it to get the value of a property. We then make sure the prop value isn't null or the empty string, then we make sure the value doesn't already exist as a key. Assuming it doesn't we add it as a key with a value (true in this case because it makes checking for an existing value faster when the value exists). A quick word on the print() function. When viewing the prop grid, running an export, or performing normal DRM operations it does nothing. If you have a lot of print() calls with complicated arguments it can slow your script down slightly, but otherwise has no effect. But when using the script editor, all the output of print() will be shown in the Warnings area. This gives you an extremely useful debugging tool to see what exactly a script is doing. var result = ''; for(var value in uniqueValues){ result += "Found value " + value + ","; } return result; Now we build a string by looping through all the keys in uniqueValues and adding that value to our string. The last step is to simply return the result. Hopefully this small example demonstrates some of the core Dynamic Scripting concepts. Next time, we can try checking for node references in other hierarchies to see if they are using duplicate property values.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, August 11, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, August 11, 2014Popular ReleasesSpace Engineers Server Manager: SESM V1.15: V1.15 - Updated Quartz library - Correct a bug in the new mod managment - Added a warning if you have backup enabled on a server but no static map configuredAspose for Apache POI: Missing Features of Apache POI SS - v 1.2: Release contain the Missing Features in Apache POI SS SDK in comparison with Aspose.Cells What's New ? Following Examples: Create Pivot Charts Detect Merged Cells Sort Data Printing Workbooks Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are available at Aspose Docs. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.AngularGo (SPA Project Template): AngularGo.VS2013.vsix: First ReleaseTouchmote: Touchmote 1.0 beta 13: Changes Less GPU usage Works together with other Xbox 360 controls Bug fixesPublic Key Infrastructure PowerShell module: PowerShell PKI Module v3.0: Important: I would like to hear more about what you are thinking about the project? I appreciate that you like it (2000 downloads over past 6 months), but may be you have to say something? What do you dislike in the module? Maybe you would love to see some new functionality? Tell, what you think! Installation guide:Use default installation path to install this module for current user only. To install this module for all users — enable "Install for all users" check-box in installation UI ...Modern UI for WPF: Modern UI 1.0.6: The ModernUI assembly including a demo app demonstrating the various features of Modern UI for WPF. BREAKING CHANGE LinkGroup.GroupName renamed to GroupKey NEW FEATURES Improved rendering on high DPI screens, including support for per-monitor DPI awareness available in Windows 8.1 (see also Per-monitor DPI awareness) New ModernProgressRing control with 8 builtin styles New LinkCommands.NavigateLink routed command New Visual Studio project templates 'Modern UI WPF App' and 'Modern UI W...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.74.0: Multiple thread safe improvements including AdjustToContents XLHelper XLColor_Static IntergerExtensions.ToStringLookup Exception now thrown when saving a workbook with no sheets, instead of creating a corrupt workbook Fix for hyperlinks with non-ASCII Characters Added basic workbook protection Fix for error thrown, when a spreadsheet contained comments and images Fix to Trim function Fix Invalid operation Exception thrown when the formula functions MAX, MIN, and AVG referenc...SEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.042.019 Release 1: Added RadioAntenna broadcast name to ship name detail. Added two additional columns for Asteroid material generation for Asteroid Fields. Added Mass and Block number columns to main display. Added Ellipsis to some columns on main display to reduce name confusion. Added correct SE version number in file when saving. Re-added in reattaching Motor when drag/dropping or importing ships (KeenSH have added RotorEntityId back in after removing it months ago). Added option to export and r...jQuery List DragSort: jQuery List DragSort 0.5.2: Fixed scrollContainer removing deprecated use of $.browser so should now work with latest version of jQuery. Added the ability to return false in dragEnd to revert sort order Project changes Added nuget package for dragsort https://www.nuget.org/packages/dragsort Converted repository from SVN to MercurialBraintree Client Library: Braintree 2.32.0: Allow credit card verification options to be passed outside of the nonce for PaymentMethod.create Allow billingaddress parameters and billingaddress_id to be passed outside of the nonce for PaymentMethod.create Add Subscriptions to paypal accounts Add PaymentMethod.update Add failonduplicatepaymentmethod option to PaymentMethod.create Add support for dispute webhooksThe Mario Kart 8 App: V1.0.2.1: First Codeplex release. WINDOWS INSTALLER ONLYAspose Java for Docx4j: Aspose.Words vs Docx4j - v 1.0: Release contain the Code Comparison for Features in Docx4j SDK and Aspose.Words What's New ?Following Examples: Accessing Document Properties Add Bookmarks Convert to Formats Delete Bookmarks Working with Comments Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are available at Aspose Docs. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.File System Security PowerShell Module: NTFSSecurity 2.4.1: Add-Access and Remove-Access now take multiple accoutsYourSqlDba: YourSqlDba 5.2.1.: This version improves alert message that comes a while after you install the script. First it says to get it from YourSqlDba.CodePlex.com If you don't want to update now, just-rerun the script from your installed version. To get actual version running just execute install.PrintVersionInfo. . You can go to source code / history and click on change set 72957 to see changes in the script.Manipulator: Manipulator: manipulatorXNB filetype plugin for Paint.NET: Paint.NET XNB plugin v0.4.0.0: CHANGELOG Reverted old incomplete changes. Updated library for compatibility with Paint .NET 4. Updated project to NET 4.5. Updated version to 0.4.0.0. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Extract the ZIP file to your Paint.NET\FileTypes folder.EdiFabric: Release 4.1: Changed MessageContextWix# (WixSharp) - managed interface for WiX: Release 1.0.0.0: Release 1.0.0.0 Custom UI Custom MSI Dialog Custom CLR Dialog External UIMath.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v3.2.0: Linear Algebra: Vector.Map2 (map2 in F#), storage-optimized Linear Algebra: fix RemoveColumn/Row early index bound check (was not strict enough) Statistics: Entropy ~Jeff Mastry Interpolation: use Array.BinarySearch instead of local implementation ~Candy Chiu Resources: fix a corrupted exception message string Portable Build: support .Net 4.0 as well by using profile 328 instead of 344. .Net 3.5: F# extensions now support .Net 3.5 as well .Net 3.5: NuGet package now contains pro...babelua: 1.6.5.1: V1.6.5.1 - 2014.8.7New feature: Formatting code; Stability improvement: fix a bug that pop up error "System.Net.WebResponse EndGetResponse";New ProjectsDouDou: a little project.Dynamic MVC: Dynamically generate views from your model objects for a data centric MVC application.EasyDb - Simple Data Access: EasyDb is a simple library for data access that allows you to write less code.ExpressToAbroad: just go!!!!!Full Silverlight Web Video/Voice Conferencing: The Goal of this project is to provide complete Open Source (Voice/Video Chatting Client/Server) Modules Using SilverlightGaia: Gaia is an app for Windows plataform, Gaia is like Siri and Google Now or Betty but Gaia use only text commands.pxctest: pxctestSTACS: Career Management System for MIT by Team "STACS"StrongWorld: StrongWorld.WebSuiteXevas Tools: Xevas is a professional coders group of 'Nimbuzz'. We make all tools for worldwide users of nimbuzz at free of cost.????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ????????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ?????????

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• How to Apply a Business Card Template to a Contact and Customize it in Outlook 2013

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you want to add a business card template to an existing contact in Outlook, you can do so without having to enter all of the information again. We will also show you how to customize the layout and format of the text on the card. Microsoft provides a couple of business card templates you can use. We will use their Blue Sky template as an example. To open the archive file for the template you downloaded, double-click on the .cab file. NOTE: You can also use a tool like 7-Zip to open the archive. A new Extract tab becomes available under Compressed Folder Tools and the files in the archive are listed. Select the .vcf file in the list of files. This automatically activates the Extract tab. Click Extract To and select a location or select Choose location if the desired location is not on the drop-down menu. Select a folder in which you want to save the .vcf file on the Copy Items dialog box and click Copy. NOTE: Use the Make New Folder button to create a new folder for the location, if desired. Double-click on the .vcf file that you copied out of the .cab archive file. By default, .vcf files are associated with Outlook so, when you double-click on a .vcf file, it automatically opens in a Contact window in Outlook. Change the Full Name to match the existing contact to which you want to apply this template. Delete the other contact info from the template. If you want to add any additional information not in the existing contact, enter it. Click Save & Close to save the contact with the new template. The Duplicate Contact Detected dialog box displays. To update the existing contact, select the Update information of selected Contact option. Click Update. NOTE: If you want to create a new contact from this template, select the Add new contact option. With the Contacts folder open (the People link on the Navigation Bar), click Business Card in the Current View section of the Home tab. You may notice that not all the fields from your contact display on the business card you just updated. Double-click on the contact to update the contact and the business card. On the Contact window, right-click on the image of the business card and select Edit Business Card from the popup menu. The Edit Business Card dialog box displays. You can change the design of the card, including changing he background color or image. The Fields box allows you to specify which fields display on the business card and in what order. Notice, in our example, that Company is listed below the Full Name, but no text displays on the business card below the name. That’s because we did not enter any information for Company in the Contact. We have information in Job Title. So, we select Company and click Remove to remove that field. Now, we want to add Job Title. First, select the field below which you want to add the new field. We select Full Name to add the Job Title below that. Then, we click Add and select Organization | Job Title from the popup menu to insert the Job Title. To make the Job Title white like the name, we select Job Title in the list of Fields and click the Font Color button in the Edit section. On the Color dialog box, select the color you want to use for the text in the selected field. Click OK. You can also make text bold, italic, or underlined. We chose to make the Job Title bold and the Full Name bold and italic. We also need to remove the Business Phone because this contact only has a mobile phone number. So, we add a Mobile Phone from the Phone submenu. Then, we need to remove enough blank lines so the Mobile Phone is visible on the card. We also added a website and email address and removed more blank lines so they are visible. You can also move text to the right side of the card or make it centered on the card. We also changed the color of the bottom three lines to blue. Click OK to accept your changes and close the dialog box. Your new business card design displays on the Contact window. Click Save & Close to save the changes you made to the business card for this contact and close the Contact window. The final design of the business card displays in the Business Card view on the People screen. If you have a signature that contains the business card for the contact you just updated, you will also need to update the signature by removing the business card and adding it again using the Business Card button in the Signature editor. You can also add the updated Business Card to a signature without the image or without the vCard (.vcf) file.     

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• PASS: The Budget Process

  - by Bill Graziano

  Every fiscal year PASS creates a detailed budget.  This helps us set priorities and communicate to our members what we’re going to do in the upcoming year.  You can review the current budget on the PASS Governance page.  That page currently requires you to login but I’m talking with HQ to see if there are any legal issues with opening that up. The Accounting Team The PASS accounting team is two people.  The Executive Vice-President of Finance (“EVP”) and the PASS Accounting Manager.  Sandy Cherry is the accounting manager and works at PASS HQ.  Sandy has been with PASS since we switched management companies in 2007.  Throughout this document when I talk about any actual work related to the budget that’s all Sandy :)  She’s the glue that gets us through this process.  Last year we went through 32 iterations of the budget before the Board approved so it’s a pretty busy time for her us – well, mostly her. Fiscal Year The PASS fiscal year runs from July 1st through June 30th the following year.  Right now we’re in fiscal year 2011.  Our 2010 Summit actually occurred in FY2011.  We switched to this schedule from a calendar year in 2006.  Our goal was to have the Summit occur early in our fiscal year.  That gives us the rest of the year to handle any significant financial impact from the Summit.  If registrations are down we can reduce spending.  If registrations are up we can decide how much to increase our reserves and how much to spend.  Keep in mind that the Summit is budgeted to generate 82% of our revenue this year.  How it performs has a significant impact on our financials.  The other benefit of this fiscal year is that it matches the Microsoft fiscal year.  We sign an annual sponsorship agreement with Microsoft and it’s very helpful that our fiscal years match. This year our budget process will probably start in earnest in March or April.  I’d like to be done in early June so we can publish before July 1st.  I was late publishing it this year and I’m trying not to repeat that. Our Budget Our actual budget is an Excel spreadsheet with 36 sheets.  We remove some of those when we publish it since they include salary information.  The budget is broken up into various portfolios or departments.  We have 20 portfolios.  They include chapters, marketing, virtual chapters, marketing, etc.  Ideally each portfolio is assigned to a Board member.  Each portfolio also typically has a staff person assigned to it.  Portfolios that aren’t assigned to a Board member are monitored by HQ and the ExecVP-Finance (me).  These are typically smaller portfolios such as deferred membership or Summit futures.  (More on those in a later post.)  All portfolios are reviewed by all Board members during the budget approval process, when interim financials are released internally and at year-end. The Process Our first step is to budget revenues.  The Board determines a target attendee number.  We have formulas based on historical performance that convert that to an overall attendee revenue number.  Other revenue projections (such as vendor sponsorships) come from different parts of the organization.  I hope to have another post with more details on how we project revenues. The next step is to budget expenses.  Board members fill out a sample spreadsheet with their budget for the year.  They can add line items and notes describing what the amounts are for.  Each Board portfolio typically has from 10 to 30 line items.  Any new initiatives they want to pursue needs to be budgeted.  The Summit operations budget is managed by HQ.  It includes the cost for food, electrical, internet, etc.  Most of these come from our estimate of attendees and our contract with the convention center.  During this process the Board can ask for more or less to be spent on various line items.  For example, if we weren’t happy with the Internet at the last Summit we can ask them to look into different options and/or increasing the budget.  HQ will also make adjustments to these numbers based on what they see at the events and the feedback we receive on the surveys. After we have all the initial estimates we start reviewing the entire budget.  It is sent out to the Board and we can see what each portfolio requested and what the overall profit and loss number is.  We usually start with too much in expenses and need to cut.  In years past the Board started haggling over these numbers as a group.  This past year they decided I should take a first cut and present them with a reasonable budget and a list of what I changed.  That worked well and I think we’ll continue to do that in the future. We go through a number of iterations on the budget.  If I remember correctly, we went through 32 iterations before we passed the budget.  At each iteration various revenue and expense numbers can change.  Keep in mind that the PASS budget has 200+ line items spread over 20 portfolios.  Many of these depend on other numbers.  For example, if we decide increase the projected attendees that cascades through our budget.  At each iteration we list what changed and the impact.  Ideally these discussions will take place at a face-to-face Board meeting.  Many of them also take place over the phone.  Board members explain any increase they are asking for while performing due diligence on other budget requests.  Eventually a budget emerges and is passed. Publishing After the budget is passed we create a version without the formulas and salaries for posting on the web site.  Sandy also creates some charts to help our members understand the budget.  The EVP writes a nice little letter describing some of the changes from last year’s budget.  You can see my letter and our budget on the PASS Governance page. And then, eight months later, we start all over again.

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• Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives Part 2 - Jumpstarting your IAM program with R2

  - by Tanu Sood

  Identity and access management (IAM) isn’t a new concept. Over the past decade, companies have begun to address identity management through a variety of solutions that have primarily focused on provisioning. . The new age workforce is converging at a rapid pace with ever increasing demand to use diverse portfolio of applications and systems to interact and interface with their peers in the industry and customers alike. Oracle has taken a significant leap with their release of Identity and Access Management 11gR2 towards enabling this global workforce to conduct their business in a secure, efficient and effective manner. As companies deal with IAM business drivers, it becomes immediately apparent that holistic, rather than piecemeal, approaches better address their needs. When planning an enterprise-wide IAM solution, the first step is to create a common framework that serves as the foundation on which to build the cost, compliance and business process efficiencies. As a leading industry practice, IAM should be established on a foundation of accurate data for identity management, making this data available in a uniform manner to downstream applications and processes. Mature organizations are looking beyond IAM’s basic benefits to harness more advanced capabilities in user lifecycle management. For any organization looking to embark on an IAM initiative, consider the following use cases in managing and administering user access. Expanding the Enterprise Provisioning Footprint Almost all organizations have some helpdesk resources tied up in handling access requests from users, a distraction from their core job of handling problem tickets. This dependency has mushroomed from the traditional acceptance of provisioning solutions integrating and addressing only a portion of applications in the heterogeneous landscape Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) 11gR2 solves this problem by offering integration with third party ticketing systems as “disconnected applications”. It allows for the existing business processes to be seamlessly integrated into the system and tracked throughout its lifecycle. With minimal effort and analysis, an organization can begin integrating OIM with groups or applications that are involved with manually intensive access provisioning and de-provisioning activities. This aspect of OIM allows organizations to on-board applications and associated business processes quickly using out of box templates and frameworks. This is especially important for organizations looking to fold in users and resources from mergers and acquisitions. Simplifying Access Requests Organizations looking to implement access request solutions often find it challenging to get their users to accept and adopt the new processes.. So, how do we improve the user experience, make it intuitive and personalized and yet simplify the user access process? With R2, OIM helps organizations alleviate the challenge by placing the most used functionality front and centre in the new user request interface. Roles, application accounts, and entitlements can all be found in the same interface as catalog items, giving business users a single location to go to whenever they need to initiate, approve or track a request. Furthermore, if a particular item is not relevant to a user’s job function or area inside the organization, it can be hidden so as to not overwhelm or confuse the user with superfluous options. The ability to customize the user interface to suit your needs helps in exercising the business rules effectively and avoiding access proliferation within the organization. Saving Time with Templates A typical use case that is most beneficial to business users is flexibility to place, edit, and withdraw requests based on changing circumstances and business needs. With OIM R2, multiple catalog items can now be added and removed from the shopping cart, an ecommerce paradigm that many users are already familiar with. This feature can be especially useful when setting up a large number of new employees or granting existing department or group access to a newly integrated application. Additionally, users can create their own shopping cart templates in order to complete subsequent requests more quickly. This feature saves the user from having to search for and select items all over again if a request is similar to a previous one. Advanced Delegated Administration A key feature of any provisioning solution should be to empower each business unit in managing their own access requests. By bringing administration closer to the user, you improve user productivity, enable efficiency and alleviate the administration overhead. To do so requires a federated services model so that the business units capable of shouldering the onus of user life cycle management of their business users can be enabled to do so. OIM 11gR2 offers advanced administrative options for creating, managing and controlling business logic and workflows through easy to use administrative interface and tools that can be exposed to delegated business administrators. For example, these business administrators can establish or modify how certain requests and operations should be handled within their business unit based on a number of attributes ranging from the type of request or the risk level of the individual items requested. Closed-Loop Remediation Security continues to be a major concern for most organizations. Identity management solutions bolster security by ensuring only the right users have the right access to the right resources. To prevent unauthorized access and where it already exists, the ability to detect and remediate it, are key requirements of an enterprise-grade proven solution. But the challenge with most solutions today is that some of this information still exists in silos. And when changes are made to systems directly, not all information is captured. With R2, oracle is offering a comprehensive Identity Governance solution that our customer organizations are leveraging for closed loop remediation that allows for an automated way for administrators to revoke unauthorized access. The change is automatically captured and the action noted for continued management. Conclusion While implementing provisioning solutions, it is important to keep the near term and the long term goals in mind. The provisioning solution should always be a part of a larger security and identity management program but with the ability to seamlessly integrate not only with the company’s infrastructure but also have the ability to leverage the information, business models compiled and used by the other identity management solutions. This allows organizations to reduce the cost of ownership, close security gaps and leverage the existing infrastructure. And having done so a multiple clients’ sites, this is the approach we recommend. In our next post, we will take a journey through our experiences of advising clients looking to upgrade to R2 from a previous version or migrating from a different solution. Meet the Writers:   Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL). Jenny (Xiao) Zhang is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  She has consulted across multiple industries including financial services, entertainment and retail. Jenny has three years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which she has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past one and a half years.

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• Master-slave vs. peer-to-peer archictecture: benefits and problems

  - by Ashok_Ora

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Almost two decades ago, I was a member of a database development team that introduced adaptive locking. Locking, the most popular concurrency control technique in database systems, is pessimistic. Locking ensures that two or more conflicting operations on the same data item don’t “trample” on each other’s toes, resulting in data corruption. In a nutshell, here’s the issue we were trying to address. In everyday life, traffic lights serve the same purpose. They ensure that traffic flows smoothly and when everyone follows the rules, there are no accidents at intersections. As I mentioned earlier, the problem with typical locking protocols is that they are pessimistic. Regardless of whether there is another conflicting operation in the system or not, you have to hold a lock! Acquiring and releasing locks can be quite expensive, depending on how many objects the transaction touches. Every transaction has to pay this penalty. To use the earlier traffic light analogy, if you have ever waited at a red light in the middle of nowhere with no one on the road, wondering why you need to wait when there’s clearly no danger of a collision, you know what I mean. The adaptive locking scheme that we invented was able to minimize the number of locks that a transaction held, by detecting whether there were one or more transactions that needed conflicting eyou could get by without holding any lock at all. In many “well-behaved” workloads, there are few conflicts, so this optimization is a huge win. If, on the other hand, there are many concurrent, conflicting requests, the algorithm gracefully degrades to the “normal” behavior with minimal cost. We were able to reduce the number of lock requests per TPC-B transaction from 178 requests down to 2! Wow! This is a dramatic improvement in concurrency as well as transaction latency. The lesson from this exercise was that if you can identify the common scenario and optimize for that case so that only the uncommon scenarios are more expensive, you can make dramatic improvements in performance without sacrificing correctness. So how does this relate to the architecture and design of some of the modern NoSQL systems? NoSQL systems can be broadly classified as master-slave sharded, or peer-to-peer sharded systems. NoSQL systems with a peer-to-peer architecture have an interesting way of handling changes. Whenever an item is changed, the client (or an intermediary) propagates the changes synchronously or asynchronously to multiple copies (for availability) of the data. Since the change can be propagated asynchronously, during some interval in time, it will be the case that some copies have received the update, and others haven’t. What happens if someone tries to read the item during this interval? The client in a peer-to-peer system will fetch the same item from multiple copies and compare them to each other. If they’re all the same, then every copy that was queried has the same (and up-to-date) value of the data item, so all’s good. If not, then the system provides a mechanism to reconcile the discrepancy and to update stale copies. So what’s the problem with this? There are two major issues: First, IT’S HORRIBLY PESSIMISTIC because, in the common case, it is unlikely that the same data item will be updated and read from different locations at around the same time! For every read operation, you have to read from multiple copies. That’s a pretty expensive, especially if the data are stored in multiple geographically separate locations and network latencies are high. Second, if the copies are not all the same, the application has to reconcile the differences and propagate the correct value to the out-dated copies. This means that the application program has to handle discrepancies in the different versions of the data item and resolve the issue (which can further add to cost and operation latency). Resolving discrepancies is only one part of the problem. What if the same data item was updated independently on two different nodes (copies)? In that case, due to the asynchronous nature of change propagation, you might land up with different versions of the data item in different copies. In this case, the application program also has to resolve conflicts and then propagate the correct value to the copies that are out-dated or have incorrect versions. This can get really complicated. My hunch is that there are many peer-to-peer-based applications that don’t handle this correctly, and worse, don’t even know it. Imagine have 100s of millions of records in your database – how can you tell whether a particular data item is incorrect or out of date? And what price are you willing to pay for ensuring that the data can be trusted? Multiple network messages per read request? Discrepancy and conflict resolution logic in the application, and potentially, additional messages? All this overhead, when all you were trying to do was to read a data item. Wouldn’t it be simpler to avoid this problem in the first place? Master-slave architectures like the Oracle NoSQL Database handles this very elegantly. A change to a data item is always sent to the master copy. Consequently, the master copy always has the most current and authoritative version of the data item. The master is also responsible for propagating the change to the other copies (for availability and read scalability). Client drivers are aware of master copies and replicas, and client drivers are also aware of the “currency” of a replica. In other words, each NoSQL Database client knows how stale a replica is. This vastly simplifies the job of the application developer. If the application needs the most current version of the data item, the client driver will automatically route the request to the master copy. If the application is willing to tolerate some staleness of data (e.g. a version that is no more than 1 second out of date), the client can easily determine which replica (or set of replicas) can satisfy the request, and route the request to the most efficient copy. This results in a dramatic simplification in application logic and also minimizes network requests (the driver will only send the request to exactl the right replica, not many). So, back to my original point. A well designed and well architected system minimizes or eliminates unnecessary overhead and avoids pessimistic algorithms wherever possible in order to deliver a highly efficient and high performance system. If you’ve every programmed an Oracle NoSQL Database application, you’ll know the difference! /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

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• &lt;%: %&gt;, HtmlEncode, IHtmlString and MvcHtmlString

  - by Shaun

  One of my colleague and friend, Robin is playing and struggling with the ASP.NET MVC 2 on a project these days while I’m struggling with a annoying client. Since it’s his first time to use ASP.NET MVC he was meetings with a lot of problem and I was very happy to share my experience to him. Yesterday he asked me when he attempted to insert a <br /> element into his page he found that the page was rendered like this which is bad. He found his <br /> was shown as a part of the string rather than creating a new line. After checked a bit in his code I found that it’s because he utilized a new ASP.NET markup supported in .NET 4.0 – “<%: %>”. If you have been using ASP.NET MVC 1 or in .NET 3.5 world it would be very common that using <%= %> to show something on the page from the backend code. But when you do it you must ensure that the string that are going to be displayed should be Html-safe, which means all the Html markups must be encoded. Otherwise this might cause an XSS (cross-site scripting) problem. So that you’d better use the code like this below to display anything on the page. In .NET 4.0 Microsoft introduced a new markup to solve this problem which is <%: %>. It will encode the content automatically so that you will no need to check and verify your code manually for the XSS issue mentioned below. But this also means that it will encode all things, include the Html element you want to be rendered. So I changed his code like this and it worked well. After helped him solved this problem and finished a spreadsheet for my boring project I considered a bit more on the <%: %>. Since it will encode all thing why it renders correctly when we use “<%: Html.TextBox(“name”) %>” to show a text box? As you know the Html.TextBox will render a “<input name="name" id="name" type="text"/>” element on the page. If <%: %> will encode everything it should not display a text box. So I dig into the source code of the MVC and found some comments in the class MvcHtmlString. 1: // In ASP.NET 4, a new syntax <%: %> is being introduced in WebForms pages, where <%: expression %> is equivalent to 2: // <%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(expression) %>. The intent of this is to reduce common causes of XSS vulnerabilities 3: // in WebForms pages (WebForms views in the case of MVC). This involves the addition of an interface 4: // System.Web.IHtmlString and a static method overload System.Web.HttpUtility::HtmlEncode(object). The interface 5: // definition is roughly: 6: // public interface IHtmlString { 7: // string ToHtmlString(); 8: // } 9: // And the HtmlEncode(object) logic is roughly: 10: // - If the input argument is an IHtmlString, return argument.ToHtmlString(), 11: // - Otherwise, return HtmlEncode(Convert.ToString(argument)). 12: // 13: // Unfortunately this has the effect that calling <%: Html.SomeHelper() %> in an MVC application running on .NET 4 14: // will end up encoding output that is already HTML-safe. As a result, we're changing out HTML helpers to return 15: // MvcHtmlString where appropriate. <%= Html.SomeHelper() %> will continue to work in both .NET 3.5 and .NET 4, but 16: // changing the return types to MvcHtmlString has the added benefit that <%: Html.SomeHelper() %> will also work 17: // properly in .NET 4 rather than resulting in a double-encoded output. MVC developers in .NET 4 will then be able 18: // to use the <%: %> syntax almost everywhere instead of having to remember where to use <%= %> and where to use 19: // <%: %>. This should help developers craft more secure web applications by default. 20: // 21: // To create an MvcHtmlString, use the static Create() method instead of calling the protected constructor. The comment said the encoding rule of the <%: %> would be: If the type of the content is IHtmlString it will NOT encode since the IHtmlString indicates that it’s Html-safe. Otherwise it will use HtmlEncode to encode the content. If we check the return type of the Html.TextBox method we will find that it’s MvcHtmlString, which was implemented the IHtmlString interface dynamically. That is the reason why the “<input name="name" id="name" type="text"/>” was not encoded by <%: %>. So if we want to tell ASP.NET MVC, or I should say the ASP.NET runtime that the content is Html-safe and no need, or should not be encoded we can convert the content into IHtmlString. So another resolution would be like this. Also we can create an extension method as well for better developing experience. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: using System.Linq; 4: using System.Web; 5: using System.Web.Mvc; 6:  7: namespace ShaunXu.Blogs.IHtmlStringIssue 8: { 9: public static class Helpers 10: { 11: public static MvcHtmlString IsHtmlSafe(this string content) 12: { 13: return MvcHtmlString.Create(content); 14: } 15: } 16: } Then the view would be like this. And the page rendered correctly.         Summary In this post I explained a bit about the new markup in .NET 4.0 – <%: %> and its usage. I also explained a bit about how to control the page content, whether it should be encoded or not. We can see the ASP.NET MVC gives us more points to control the web pages.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• Delivering the Integrated Portal Experience!

  - by Michael Snow

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Guest post by Richard Maldonado, Principal Product Manager, Oracle WebCenter Portal Organizations are still struggling to standardize on a user interaction platform which can meet the needs of all their target audiences.  This has not only resulted in inefficient and inconsistent experiences for their users, but it also creates inefficiencies (productivity and costs) for the departments that manage the applications and information systems.  Portals have historically been the unifying platform that provide IT with a common interface which can securely surface the most relevant interactions for a given user and/or group of users.  However, organizations have found that the technologies available have either not provided the flexibility necessary to address all of their use cases, or they rely too much on IT resources to manage, maintain, and evolve.  Empowering  the Business Groups The core issue that IT departments face with delivering portal experiences is having enough resources to respond and address the influx of requirements which come in from the business.  Commonly, when a business group wants a new portal site established for their group, they will submit a request to the IT dept, the IT dept then assigns a resource to an administrator and/or developer to build.  Unfortunately, this approach is not scalable, it can be a time consuming activity which requires significant interaction between the business owner and the IT resource.  A modern user interaction platforms should empower the business groups by providing them tools which they can use to build and manage the portal experiences without the need for IT's involvement.  And because business groups rarely have technical resources (developers) on staff, the tools must be easy enough that virtually any business user could use.  In addition, the tool must be powerful enough to allow them to build the experience that they need, things such as creating a whole new portal, add/manage page and page hierarchy, manage user/group access, add/modify components within the page, etc.  This balance between ease-of-use and flexibility is key to the successful adoption of tools which will ultimately reduce the burden on IT, respond to the needs of the business, and deliver high-value experiences for the users.  Ready or Not, Here They Come: Smartphones and Tablets Recently, several studies have highlighted that smartphone and tablet-style devices have overtaken PC's in both sales and usage.  This shift is further driving organizations to revaluate how they're delivering data, information, and applications to their users.  Users are expecting to get the same level of access and interaction, but in a ways which are optimized for the capabilities of the device that they are using.  Expect More With the ever growing number of new IT projects and flat/shrinking budgets, organizations are looking for comprehensive solutions which can deliver integrated web experiences that are tailored for the users and optimized for mobile devices.  Piecing together a number of point solutions is no longer an option.  A modern portal technology should not only address the traditional needs of integrating and surfacing back-end applications/information, but it should enable the business through easy-to-use tools and accelerate the delivery of mobile optimized experiences.   v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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";} 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} WebCenter in Action Series: Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter Featuring Qualcomm & Keste 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:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} 12.00 Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast- mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}

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• General Policies and Procedures for Maintaining the Value of Data Assets

  Here is a general list for policies and procedures regarding maintaining the value of data assets. Data Backup Policies and Procedures Backups are very important when dealing with data because there is always the chance of losing data due to faulty hardware or a user activity. So the need for a strategic backup system should be mandatory for all companies. This being said, in the real world some companies that I have worked for do not really have a good data backup plan. Typically when companies tend to take this kind of approach in data backups usually the data is not really recoverable.  Unfortunately when companies do not regularly test their backup plans they get a false sense of security because they think that they are covered. However, I can tell you from personal and professional experience that a backup plan/system is never fully implemented until it is regularly tested prior to the time when it actually needs to be used. Disaster Recovery Plan Expanding on Backup Policies and Procedures, a company needs to also have a disaster recovery plan in order to protect its data in case of a catastrophic disaster.  Disaster recovery plans typically encompass how to restore all of a company’s data and infrastructure back to a restored operational status.  Most Disaster recovery plans also include time estimates on how long each step of the disaster recovery plan should take to be executed.  It is important to note that disaster recovery plans are never fully implemented until they have been tested just like backup plans. Disaster recovery plans should be tested regularly so that the business can be confident in not losing any or minimal data due to a catastrophic disaster. Firewall Policies and Content Filters One way companies can protect their data is by using a firewall to separate their internal network from the outside. Firewalls allow for enabling or disabling network access as data passes through it by applying various defined restrictions. Furthermore firewalls can also be used to prevent access from the internal network to the outside by these same factors. Common Firewall Restrictions Destination/Sender IP Address Destination/Sender Host Names Domain Names Network Ports Companies can also desire to restrict what their network user’s view on the internet through things like content filters. Content filters allow a company to track what webpages a person has accessed and can also restrict user’s access based on established rules set up in the content filter. This device and/or software can block access to domains or specific URLs based on a few factors. Common Content Filter Criteria Known malicious sites Specific Page Content Page Content Theme  Anti-Virus/Mal-ware Polices Fortunately, most companies utilize antivirus programs on all computers and servers for good reason, virus have been known to do the following: Corrupt/Invalidate Data, Destroy Data, and Steal Data. Anti-Virus applications are a great way to prevent any malicious application from being able to gain access to a company’s data.  However, anti-virus programs must be constantly updated because new viruses are always being created, and the anti-virus vendors need to distribute updates to their applications so that they can catch and remove them. Data Validation Policies and Procedures Data validation is very important to ensure that only accurate information is stored. The existence of invalid data can cause major problems when businesses attempt to use data for knowledge based decisions and for performance reporting. Data Scrubbing Policies and Procedures Data scrubbing is valuable to companies in one of two ways. The first can be used to clean data prior to being analyzed for report generation. The second is that it allows companies to remove things like personally Identifiable information from its data prior to transmit it between multiple environments or if the information is sent to an external location. An example of this can be seen with medical records in regards to HIPPA laws that prohibit the storage of specific personal and medical information. Additionally, I have professionally run in to a scenario where the Canadian government does not allow any Canadian’s personal information to be stored on a server not located in Canada. Encryption Practices The use of encryption is very valuable when a company needs to any personal information. This allows users with the appropriated access levels to view or confirm the existence or accuracy of data within a system by either decrypting the information or encrypting a piece of data and comparing it to the stored version.  Additionally, if for some unforeseen reason the data got in to the wrong hands then they would have to first decrypt the data before they could even be able to read it. Encryption just adds and additional layer of protection around data itself. Standard Normalization Practices The use of standard data normalization practices is very important when dealing with data because it can prevent allot of potential issues by eliminating the potential for unnecessary data duplication. Issues caused by data duplication include excess use of data storage, increased chance for invalidated data, and over use of data processing. Network and Database Security/Access Policies Every company has some form of network/data access policy even if they have none. These policies help secure data from being seen by inappropriate users along with preventing the data from being updated or deleted by users. In addition, without a good security policy there is a large potential for data to be corrupted by unassuming users or even stolen. Data Storage Policies Data storage polices are very important depending on how they are implemented especially when a company is trying to utilize them in conjunction with other policies like Data Backups. I have worked at companies where all network user folders are constantly backed up, and if a user wanted to ensure the existence of a piece of data in the form of a file then they had to store that file in their network folder. Conversely, I have also worked in places where when a user logs on or off of the network there entire user profile is backed up. Training Policies One of the biggest ways to prevent data loss and ensure that data will remain a company asset is through training. The practice of properly train employees on how to work with in systems that access data is crucial when trying to ensure a company’s data will remain an asset. Users need to be trained on how to manipulate a company’s data in order to perform their tasks to reduce the chances of invalidating data.

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• Slicing the EDG

  - by Antony Reynolds

  Different SOA Domain Configurations In this blog entry I would like to introduce three different configurations for a SOA environment.  I have omitted load balancers and OTD/OHS as they introduce a whole new round of discussion.  For each possible deployment architecture I have identified some of the advantages. Super Domain This is a single EDG style domain for everything needed for SOA/OSB.   It extends the standard EDG slightly but otherwise assumes a single “super” domain. This is basically the SOA EDG.  I have broken out JMS servers and Coherence servers to improve scalability and reduce dependencies. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if rest of domain is unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Single Administration Point (1 Admin Server) Closely follows EDG with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Drawbacks Patching is an all or nothing affair. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Multiple Domains This extends the EDG into multiple domains, allowing separate management and update of these domains.  I see this type of configuration quite often with customers, although some don't have OWSM, others don't have separate Coherence etc. SOA & BAM are kept in the same domain as little benefit is obtained by separating them. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Shared Service Environment This model extends the previous multiple domain arrangement to provide a true shared service environment.This extends the previous model by allowing multiple additional SOA domains and/or other domains to take advantage of the shared services.  Only one non-shared domain is shown, but there could be multiple, allowing groups of applications to share patching independent of other application groups. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Shared SOA Domain hosts Human Workflow Tasks BAM Common "utility" composites Single OSB domain provides "Enterprise Service Bus" All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM) Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Supports large numbers of deployed composites in multiple domains. Single URL for Human Workflow end users. Single URL for BAM end users. Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Human Workflow needs to be specially configured to point to shared services domain. Summary The alternatives in this blog allow for patching to have different impacts, depending on the model chosen.  Each organization must decide the tradeoffs for itself.  One extreme is to go for the shared services model and have one domain per SOA application.  This requires a lot of administration of the multiple domains.  The other extreme is to have a single super domain.  This makes the entire enterprise susceptible to an outage at the same time due to patching or other domain level changes.  Hopefully this blog will help your organization choose the right model for you.

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• Calculated Fields - Idiosyncracies

  - by PointsToShare

  © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Calculated Fields and some of their Idiosyncrasies Did you try to write a calculate field formula directly into the screen? Good Luck – You’ll need it! Calculated Fields are a sophisticated OOB feature of SharePoint, so you could think that they are best left to the end users – at least to the power users. But they reach their limits before the “Professionals “do, and the tough ones come back to us anyway. Back to business; the simpler the formula, the easier it is. Still, use your favorite editor to write it, then cut it and paste it to the ridiculously small window. What about complex formulae? Write them in steps! Here is a case in point and an idiosyncrasy or two. Our welders need to be certified and recertified every two years. Some of them are certifiable…., but I digress. To be certified you need to pass an eye exam, and two more tests – test A and test B. for each of those you have an expiry date. When renewed, each expiry date is advanced by two years from the date of renewal. My users wanted a visual clue so that when the supervisor looks at the list, she’ll have a KPI symbol telling her if anything expired (Red), is going to expire within the next 90 days (Yellow) or is not to be worried about (green). Not all the dates are filled and any blank date implies a complete lack of certification in the particular requirement. Obviously, I needed to figure the minimal of these 3 dates – a simple enough formula: =MIN([Date_EyeExam], {Date_TestA], [Date_TestB]). Aha! Here is idiosyncrasy #1. When one of the dates is a null, MIN(Date1, Date2) returns the non null date. Null is construed as “Far, far away”. The funny thing is that when you compare it to Today, the null is the lesser one. So a null it is less than today, but not when MIN is calculated. Now, to me the fact that the welder does not have an exam date, is synonymous with his exam being prehistoric, or at least past due. So here is what I did: Solution: Let’s set a blank date to 1/1/1800. How will we do that? Use the IF. IF([Field] rel relValue, TrueValue, FalseValue). rel is any relationship operator <, >, <=, >=, =, <>. If the field is related to the relValue as prescribed, the “IF” returns the TrueValue, otherwise it returns the FalseValue. Thus: =IF([SomeDate]="",1/1/1800,[SomeDate]) will return 1/1/1800 if the date is blank and the date itself if not. So, using this formula, if the welder missed an exam, the returned exam date will be far in the past. It would be nice if we could take such a formula and make it into a reusable function. Alas, here is a calculated field serious shortcoming: You cannot write subs and functions!! Aha, but we can use interim calculated fields! So let’s create 3 calculated fields as follows: 1: c_DateTestA as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_TestA]="",1/1/1800,[Date_TestA]) 2: c_DateTestB as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_TestB]="",1/1/1800,[Date_TestB]) 3: c_DateEyeExam as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_EyeExam]="",1/1/1800,[Date_EyeExam]) And now use these to get c_MinDate. This is again a calculated field of type date with the formula: MIN(c_DateTestA, cDateTestB, c_DateEyeExam) Note that I missed the square parentheses. In “properly named fields – where there are no embedded spaces, we don’t need the square parentheses. I actually strongly recommend using underscores in place of spaces in all the field names in your lists. Among other things, it makes using CAML much simpler. Now, we still need to apply the KPI to this minimal date. I am going to use the available KPI graphics that come with SharePoint and are always available in your 12 hive. "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif" is the Red KPI "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif" is the Yellow KPI "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif" is the Green KPI And here is the nested IF formula that will do the trick: =IF(c_MinDate<=Today,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif", IF(cMinDate<Today+90,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif","/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif")) Nice! BUT when I tested, it did not work! This is Idiosyncrasy #2: A calculated field based on a calculated field based on a calculated field does not work. You have to stop at two levels! Back to the drawing board: We have to reduce by one level. How? We’ll eliminate the c_DateX items in the formula and replace them with the proper IF formulae. Notice that this needs to be done with precision. You are much better off in doing it in your favorite line editor, than inside the cramped space that SharePoint gives you. So here is the result: MIN(IF([Date_TestA]="",1/1/1800,[ Date_TestA]), IF([Date_TestB]="",1/1/1800,[ Date_TestB]), 1/1/1800), IF([Date_EyeExam]="",1/1/1800,[Date_EyeExam])) Note that I bolded the parentheses and painted them red. They have to match for this formula to work. Now we can leave the KPI formula as is and test again. This time with SUCCESS! Conclusion: build the inner functions first, and then embed them inside the outer formulae. Do this as long as necessary. Use your favorite line editor. Limit yourself to 2 levels. That’s all folks! Almost! As soon as I finished doing all of the above, my users added yet another level of complexity. They added another test, a test that must be passed, but never expires and asked for yet another KPI, this time in Black to denote that any test is not just past due, but altogether missing. I just finished this. Let’s hope it ends here! And OH, the formula  =IF(c_MinDate<=Today,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif",IF(cMinDate<Today+90,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif","/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif")) Deals with “Today” and this is a subject deserving a discussion of its own!  That’s all folks?! (and this time I mean it)

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• Let your Signature Experience drive IT-decision making

  - by Tania Le Voi

  Today’s CIO job description:  ‘’Align IT infrastructure and solutions with business goals and objectives ; AND while doing so reduce costs; BUT ALSO, be innovative, ensure the architectures are adaptable and agile as we need to act today on the changes that we may request tomorrow.”   Sound like an unachievable request? The fact is, reality dictates that CIO’s are put under this type of pressure to deliver more with less. In a past career phase I spent a few years as an IT Relationship Manager for a large Insurance company. This is a role that we see all too infrequently in many of our customers, and it’s a shame.  The purpose of this role was to build a bridge, a relationship between IT and the business. Key to achieving that goal was to ensure the same language was being spoken and more importantly that objectives were commonly understood - hence service and projects were delivered to time, to budget and actually solved the business problems. In reality IT and the business are already married, but the relationship is most often defined as ‘supplier’ of IT rather than a ‘trusted partner’. To deliver business value they need to understand how to work together effectively to attain this next level of partnership. The Business cannot compete if they do not get a new product to market ahead of the competition, or for example act in a timely manner to address a new industry problem such as a legislative change. An even better example is when the Application or Service fails and the Business takes a hit by bad publicity, being trending topics on social media and losing direct revenue from online channels. For this reason alone Business and IT need the alignment of their priorities and deliverables now more than ever! Take a look at Forrester’s recent study that found ‘many IT respondents considering themselves to be trusted partners of the business but their efforts are impaired by the inadequacy of tools and organizations’.  IT Meet the Business; Business Meet IT So what is going on? We talk about aligning the business with IT but the reality is it’s difficult to do. Like any relationship each side has different goals and needs and language can be a barrier; business vs. technology jargon! What if we could translate the needs of both sides into actionable information, backed by data both sides understand, presented in a meaningful way?  Well now we can with the Business-Driven Application Management capabilities in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12cR2! Enterprise Manager’s Business-Driven Application Management capabilities provide the information that IT needs to understand the impact of its decisions on business criteria.  No longer does IT need to be focused solely on speeds and feeds, performance and throughput – now IT can understand IT’s impact on business KPIs like inventory turns, order-to-cash cycle, pipeline-to-forecast, and similar.  Similarly, now the line of business can understand which IT services are most critical for the KPIs they care about. There are a good deal of resources on Oracle Technology Network that describe the functionality of these products, so I won’t’ rehash them here.  What I want to talk about is what you do with these products. What’s next after we meet? Where do you start? Step 1:  Identify the Signature Experience. This is THE business process (or set of processes) that is core to the business, the one that drives the economic engine, the process that a customer recognises the company brand for, reputation, the customer experience, the process that a CEO would state as his number one priority. The crème de la crème of your business! Once you have nailed this it gets easy as Enterprise Manager 12c makes it easy. Step 2:  Map the Signature Experience to underlying IT.  Taking the signature experience, map out the touch points of the components that play a part in ensuring this business transaction is successful end to end, think of it like mapping out a critical path; the applications, middleware, databases and hardware. Use the wealth of Enterprise Manager features such as Systems, Services, Business Application Targets and Business Transaction Management (BTM) to assist you. Adding Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) into the mix will make the end to end customer satisfaction story transparent. Work with the business and define meaningful key performance indicators (KPI’s) and thresholds to enable you to report and action upon. Step 3:  Observe the data over time.  You now have meaningful insight into every step enabling your signature experience and you understand the implication of that experience on your underlying IT.  Watch if for a few months, see what happens and reconvene with your business stakeholders and set clear and measurable targets which can re-define service levels.  Step 4:  Change the information about which you and the business communicate.  It’s amazing what happens when you and the business speak the same language.  You’ll be able to make more informed business and IT decisions. From here IT can identify where/how budget is spent whether on the level of support, performance, capacity, HA, DR, certification etc. IT SLA’s no longer need be focused on metrics such as %availability but structured around business process requirements. The power of this way of thinking doesn’t end here. IT staff get to see and understand how their own role contributes to the business making them accountable for the business service. Take a step further and appraise your staff on the business competencies that are linked to the service availability. For the business, the language barrier is removed by producing targeted reports on the signature experience core to the business and therefore key to the CEO. Chargeback or show back becomes easier to justify as the ‘cost of day per outage’ can be more easily calculated; the business will be able to translate the cost to the business to the cost/value of the underlying IT that supports it. Used this way, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is a key enabler to a harmonious relationship between the end customer the business and IT to deliver ultimate service and satisfaction. Just engage with the business upfront, make the signature experience visible and let Enterprise Manager 12c do the rest. In the next blog entry we will cover some of the Enterprise Manager features mentioned to enable you to implement this new way of working.  

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• How to get distinct values from the List&lt;T&gt; with LINQ

  - by Vincent Maverick Durano

  Recently I was working with data from a generic List<T> and one of my objectives is to get the distinct values that is found in the List. Consider that we have this simple class that holds the following properties: public class Product { public string Make { get; set; } public string Model { get; set; } }   Now in the page code behind we will create a list of product by doing the following: private List<Product> GetProducts() { List<Product> products = new List<Product>(); Product p = new Product(); p.Make = "Samsung"; p.Model = "Galaxy S 1"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Samsung"; p.Model = "Galaxy S 2"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Samsung"; p.Model = "Galaxy Note"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Apple"; p.Model = "iPhone 4"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Apple"; p.Model = "iPhone 4s"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "HTC"; p.Model = "Sensation"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "HTC"; p.Model = "Desire"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Nokia"; p.Model = "Some Model"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Nokia"; p.Model = "Some Model"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Sony Ericsson"; p.Model = "800i"; products.Add(p); p = new Product(); p.Make = "Sony Ericsson"; p.Model = "800i"; products.Add(p); return products; }   And then let’s bind the products to the GridView. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!IsPostBack) { Gridview1.DataSource = GetProducts(); Gridview1.DataBind(); } }   Running the code will display something like this in the page: Now what I want is to get the distinct row values from the list. So what I did is to use the LINQ Distinct operator and unfortunately it doesn't work. In order for it work is you must use the overload method of the Distinct operator for you to get the desired results. So I’ve added this IEqualityComparer<T> class to compare values: class ProductComparer : IEqualityComparer<Product> { public bool Equals(Product x, Product y) { if (Object.ReferenceEquals(x, y)) return true; if (Object.ReferenceEquals(x, null) || Object.ReferenceEquals(y, null)) return false; return x.Make == y.Make && x.Model == y.Model; } public int GetHashCode(Product product) { if (Object.ReferenceEquals(product, null)) return 0; int hashProductName = product.Make == null ? 0 : product.Make.GetHashCode(); int hashProductCode = product.Model.GetHashCode(); return hashProductName ^ hashProductCode; } }   After that you can then bind the GridView like this: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!IsPostBack) { Gridview1.DataSource = GetProducts().Distinct(new ProductComparer()); Gridview1.DataBind(); } }   Running the page will give you the desired output below: As you notice, it now eliminates the duplicate rows in the GridView. Now what if we only want to get the distinct values for a certain field. For example I want to get the distinct “Make” values such as Samsung, Apple, HTC, Nokia and Sony Ericsson and populate them to a DropDownList control for filtering purposes. I was hoping the the Distinct operator has an overload that can compare values based on the property value like (GetProducts().Distinct(o => o.PropertyToCompare). But unfortunately it doesn’t provide that overload so what I did as a workaround is to use the GroupBy,Select and First LINQ query operators to achieve what I want. Here’s the code to get the distinct values of a certain field. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!IsPostBack) { DropDownList1.DataSource = GetProducts().GroupBy(o => o.Make).Select(o => o.First()); DropDownList1.DataTextField = "Make"; DropDownList1.DataValueField = "Model"; DropDownList1.DataBind(); } } Running the code will display the following output below:   That’s it! I hope someone find this post useful!

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• Clouds Everywhere But not a Drop of Rain – Part 3

  - by sxkumar

  I was sharing with you how a broad-based transformation such as cloud will increase agility and efficiency of an organization if process re-engineering is part of the plan.  I have also stressed on the key enterprise requirements such as “broad and deep solutions, “running your mission critical applications” and “automated and integrated set of capabilities”. Let me walk you through some key cloud attributes such as “elasticity” and “self-service” and what they mean for an enterprise class cloud. I will also talk about how we at Oracle have taken a very enterprise centric view to developing cloud solutions and how our products have been specifically engineered to address enterprise cloud needs. Cloud Elasticity and Enterprise Applications Requirements Easy and quick scalability for a short-period of time is the signature of cloud based solutions. It is this elasticity that allows you to dynamically redistribute your resources according to business priorities, helps increase your overall resource utilization, and reduces operational costs by allowing you to get the most out of your existing investment. Most public clouds are offering a instant provisioning mechanism of compute power (CPU, RAM, Disk), customer pay for the instance-hours(and bandwidth) they use, adding computing resources at peak times and removing them when they are no longer needed. This type of “just-in-time” serving of compute resources is well known for mid-tiers “state less” servers such as web application servers and web servers that just need another machine to start and run on it but what does it really mean for an enterprise application and its underlying data? Most enterprise applications are not as quite as “state less” and justifiably so. As such, how do you take advantage of cloud elasticity and make it relevant for your enterprise apps? This is where Cloud meets Grid Computing. At Oracle, we have invested enormous amount of time, energy and resources in creating enterprise grid solutions. All our technology products offer built-in elasticity via clustering and dynamic scaling. With products like Real Application Clusters (RAC), Automatic Storage Management, WebLogic Clustering, and Coherence In-Memory Grid, we allow all your enterprise applications to benefit from Cloud elasticity –both vertically and horizontally - without requiring any application changes. A number of technology vendors take a rather simplistic route of starting up additional or removing unneeded VM as the "Cloud Scale-Out" solution. While this may work for stateless mid-tier servers where load balancers can handle the addition and remove of instances transparently but following a similar approach for the database tier - often called as "database sharding" - requires significant application modification and typically does not work with off the shelf packaged applications. Technologies like Oracle Database Real Application Clusters, Automatic Storage Management, etc. on the other hand bring the benefits of incremental scalability and on-demand elasticity to ANY application by providing a simplified abstraction layers where the application does not need deal with data spread over multiple database instances. Rather they just talk to a single database and the database software takes care of aggregating resources across multiple hardware components. It is the technologies like these that truly make a cloud solution relevant for enterprises.  For customers who are looking for a next generation hardware consolidation platform, our engineered systems (e.g. Exadata, Exalogic) not only provide incredible amount of performance and capacity, they also reduce the data center complexity and simplify operations. Assemble, Deploy and Manage Enterprise Applications for Cloud Products like Oracle Virtual assembly builder (OVAB) resolve the complex problem of bringing the cloud speed to complex multi-tier applications. With assemblies, you can not only provision all components of a multi-tier application and wire them together by push of a button, other aspects of application lifecycle, such as real-time application testing, scale-up/scale-down, performance and availability monitoring, etc., are also automated using Oracle Enterprise Manager.  An essential criteria for an enterprise cloud to succeed is the ability to ensure business service levels especially when business users have either full visibility on the usage cost with a “show back” or a “charge back”. With Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, we have created the most comprehensive cloud management solution in the industry that is capable of managing business service levels “applications-to-disk” in a enterprise private cloud – all from a single console. It is the only cloud management platform in the industry that allows you to deliver infrastructure, platform and application cloud services out of the box. Moreover, it offers integrated and complete lifecycle management of the cloud - including planning and set up, service delivery, operations management, metering and chargeback, etc .  Sounds unbelievable? Well, just watch this space for more details on how Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is the nerve center of Oracle Cloud! Our cloud solution portfolio is also the broadest and most deep in the industry  - covering public, private, hybrid, Infrastructure, platform and applications clouds. It is no coincidence therefore that the Oracle Cloud today offers the most comprehensive set of public cloud services in the industry.  And to a large part, this has been made possible thanks to our years on investment in creating cloud enabling technologies.  Summary  But the intent of this blog post isn't to dwell on how great our solutions are (these are just some examples to illustrate how we at Oracle have approached this problem space). Rather it is to help you ask the right questions before you embark on your cloud journey.  So to summarize, here are the key takeaways.       It is critical that you are clear on why you are building the cloud. Successful organizations keep business benefits as the first and foremost cloud objective. On the other hand, those who approach this purely as a technology project are more likely to fail. Think about where you want to be in 3-5 years before you get started. Your long terms objectives should determine what your first step ought to be. As obvious as it may seem, more people than not make the first move without knowing where they are headed.  Don’t make the mistake of equating cloud to virtualization and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Spinning a VM on-demand will give some short term relief to your IT staff but is unlikely to solve your larger business problems. As such, even if IaaS is your first step towards a more comprehensive cloud, plan the roadmap around those higher level services before you begin. And ask your vendors on how they are going to be your partners in this journey. Capabilities like self-service access and chargeback/showback are absolutely critical if you really expect your cloud to be transformational. Your business won't see the full benefits of the cloud until it empowers them with same kind of control and transparency that they are used to while using a public cloud service.  Evaluate the benefits of integration, as opposed to blindly following the best-of-breed strategy. Integration is a huge challenge and more so in a cloud environment. There are enormous costs associated with stitching a solution out of disparate components and even more in maintaining it. Hope you found these ideas helpful. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences.

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• c++ optimize array of ints

  - by a432511

  I have a 2D lookup table of int16_t. int16_t my_array[37][73] = {{**DATA HERE**}} I have a mixture of values that range from just above the range of int8_t to just below the range of int8_t and some of the values repeat themselves. I am trying to reduce the size of this lookup table. What I have done so far is split each int16_t value into two int8_t values to visualize the wasted bytes. int8_t part_1 = original_value >> 4; int8_t part_2 = original_value & 0x0000FFFF; // If the upper 4 bits of the original_value were empty if(part_1 == 0) wasted_bytes_count++; I can easily remove the zero value int8_t that are wasting a byte of space and I can also remove the duplicate values, but my question is how do I do remove those values while retaining the ability to lookup based on the two indices? I contemplated translating this into a 1D array and adding a number following each duplicated value that would represent the number of duplicates that were removed, but I am struggling with how I would then identify what is a lookup value and what is a duplicate count. Also, it is further complicated by stripping out the zero int8_t values that were wasted bytes. EDIT: This array is stored in ROM already. RAM is even more limited than ROM so it is already stored in ROM. EDIT: I am going to post a bounty for this question as soon as I can. I need a complete answer of how to store the information AND retrieve it. It does not need to be a 2D array as long as I can get the same values. EDIT: Adding the actual array below: {150,145,140,135,130,125,120,115,110,105,100,95,90,85,80,75,70,65,60,55,50,45,40,35,30,25,20,15,10,5,0,-4,-9,-14,-19,-24,-29,-34,-39,-44,-49,-54,-59,-64,-69,-74,-79,-84,-89,-94,-99,104,109,114,119,124,129,134,139,144,149,154,159,164,169,174,179,175,170,165,160,155,150}, \ {143,137,131,126,120,115,110,105,100,95,90,85,80,75,71,66,62,57,53,48,44,39,35,31,27,22,18,14,9,5,1,-3,-7,-11,-16,-20,-25,-29,-34,-38,-43,-47,-52,-57,-61,-66,-71,-76,-81,-86,-91,-96,101,107,112,117,123,128,134,140,146,151,157,163,169,175,178,172,166,160,154,148,143}, \ {130,124,118,112,107,101,96,92,87,82,78,74,70,65,61,57,54,50,46,42,38,34,31,27,23,19,16,12,8,4,1,-2,-6,-10,-14,-18,-22,-26,-30,-34,-38,-43,-47,-51,-56,-61,-65,-70,-75,-79,-84,-89,-94,100,105,111,116,122,128,135,141,148,155,162,170,177,174,166,159,151,144,137,130}, \ {111,104,99,94,89,85,81,77,73,70,66,63,60,56,53,50,46,43,40,36,33,30,26,23,20,16,13,10,6,3,0,-3,-6,-9,-13,-16,-20,-24,-28,-32,-36,-40,-44,-48,-52,-57,-61,-65,-70,-74,-79,-84,-88,-93,-98,103,109,115,121,128,135,143,152,162,172,176,165,154,144,134,125,118,111}, \ {85,81,77,74,71,68,65,63,60,58,56,53,51,49,46,43,41,38,35,32,29,26,23,19,16,13,10,7,4,1,-1,-3,-6,-9,-13,-16,-19,-23,-26,-30,-34,-38,-42,-46,-50,-54,-58,-62,-66,-70,-74,-78,-83,-87,-91,-95,100,105,110,117,124,133,144,159,178,160,141,125,112,103,96,90,85}, \ {62,60,58,57,55,54,52,51,50,48,47,46,44,42,41,39,36,34,31,28,25,22,19,16,13,10,7,4,2,0,-3,-5,-8,-10,-13,-16,-19,-22,-26,-29,-33,-37,-41,-45,-49,-53,-56,-60,-64,-67,-70,-74,-77,-80,-83,-86,-89,-91,-94,-97,101,105,111,130,109,84,77,74,71,68,66,64,62}, \ {46,46,45,44,44,43,42,42,41,41,40,39,38,37,36,35,33,31,28,26,23,20,16,13,10,7,4,1,-1,-3,-5,-7,-9,-12,-14,-16,-19,-22,-26,-29,-33,-36,-40,-44,-48,-51,-55,-58,-61,-64,-66,-68,-71,-72,-74,-74,-75,-74,-72,-68,-61,-48,-25,2,22,33,40,43,45,46,47,46,46}, \ {36,36,36,36,36,35,35,35,35,34,34,34,34,33,32,31,30,28,26,23,20,17,14,10,6,3,0,-2,-4,-7,-9,-10,-12,-14,-15,-17,-20,-23,-26,-29,-32,-36,-40,-43,-47,-50,-53,-56,-58,-60,-62,-63,-64,-64,-63,-62,-59,-55,-49,-41,-30,-17,-4,6,15,22,27,31,33,34,35,36,36}, \ {30,30,30,30,30,30,30,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,28,27,26,24,21,18,15,11,7,3,0,-3,-6,-9,-11,-12,-14,-15,-16,-17,-19,-21,-23,-26,-29,-32,-35,-39,-42,-45,-48,-51,-53,-55,-56,-57,-57,-56,-55,-53,-49,-44,-38,-31,-23,-14,-6,0,7,13,17,21,24,26,27,29,29,30}, \ {25,25,26,26,26,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,26,25,25,24,23,21,19,16,12,8,4,0,-3,-7,-10,-13,-15,-16,-17,-18,-19,-20,-21,-22,-23,-25,-28,-31,-34,-37,-40,-43,-46,-48,-49,-50,-51,-51,-50,-48,-45,-42,-37,-32,-26,-19,-13,-7,-1,3,7,11,14,17,19,21,23,24,25,25}, \ {21,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,21,20,18,16,13,9,5,1,-3,-7,-11,-14,-17,-18,-20,-21,-21,-22,-22,-22,-23,-23,-25,-27,-29,-32,-35,-37,-40,-42,-44,-45,-45,-45,-44,-42,-40,-36,-32,-27,-22,-17,-12,-7,-3,0,3,7,9,12,14,16,18,19,20,21,21}, \ {18,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,18,17,16,14,10,7,2,-1,-6,-10,-14,-17,-19,-21,-22,-23,-24,-24,-24,-24,-23,-23,-23,-24,-26,-28,-30,-33,-35,-37,-38,-39,-39,-38,-36,-34,-31,-28,-24,-19,-15,-10,-6,-3,0,1,4,6,8,10,12,14,15,16,17,18,18}, \ {16,16,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,16,16,16,16,16,16,15,13,11,8,4,0,-4,-9,-13,-16,-19,-21,-23,-24,-25,-25,-25,-25,-24,-23,-21,-20,-20,-21,-22,-24,-26,-28,-30,-31,-32,-31,-30,-29,-27,-24,-21,-17,-13,-9,-6,-3,-1,0,2,4,5,7,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,16}, \ {14,14,14,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,14,14,14,14,14,14,13,12,11,9,5,2,-2,-6,-11,-15,-18,-21,-23,-24,-25,-25,-25,-25,-24,-22,-21,-18,-16,-15,-15,-15,-17,-19,-21,-22,-24,-24,-24,-23,-22,-20,-18,-15,-12,-9,-5,-3,-1,0,1,2,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,14}, \ {12,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,12,12,12,12,11,10,9,6,3,0,-4,-8,-12,-16,-19,-21,-23,-24,-24,-24,-24,-23,-22,-20,-17,-15,-12,-10,-9,-9,-10,-12,-13,-15,-17,-17,-18,-17,-16,-15,-13,-11,-8,-5,-3,-1,0,1,1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,12,12}, \ {11,11,11,11,11,12,12,12,12,12,11,11,11,11,11,10,10,9,7,5,2,-1,-5,-9,-13,-17,-20,-22,-23,-23,-23,-23,-22,-20,-18,-16,-14,-11,-9,-6,-5,-4,-5,-6,-8,-9,-11,-12,-12,-12,-12,-11,-9,-8,-6,-3,-1,0,0,1,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,11,11}, \ {10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,9,9,9,7,6,3,0,-3,-6,-10,-14,-17,-20,-21,-22,-22,-22,-21,-19,-17,-15,-13,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,-2,-2,-2,-4,-5,-7,-8,-8,-9,-8,-8,-7,-5,-4,-2,0,0,1,1,1,2,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10,10}, \ {9,9,9,9,9,9,9,10,10,9,9,9,9,9,9,8,8,6,5,2,0,-4,-7,-11,-15,-17,-19,-21,-21,-21,-20,-18,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,-1,0,0,0,-1,-2,-4,-5,-5,-6,-6,-5,-5,-4,-3,-1,0,0,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,5,6,7,8,8,9,9,9}, \ {9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,8,8,8,8,7,5,4,1,-1,-5,-8,-12,-15,-17,-19,-20,-20,-19,-18,-16,-14,-11,-9,-7,-5,-4,-2,-1,0,0,1,1,0,0,-2,-3,-3,-4,-4,-4,-3,-3,-2,-1,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,8,9,9}, \ {9,9,9,8,8,8,9,9,9,9,9,8,8,8,8,7,6,5,3,0,-2,-5,-9,-12,-15,-17,-18,-19,-19,-18,-16,-14,-12,-9,-7,-5,-4,-2,-1,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,-1,-2,-2,-3,-3,-2,-2,-1,-1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,8,9}, \ {8,8,8,8,8,8,9,9,9,9,9,9,8,8,8,7,6,4,2,0,-3,-6,-9,-12,-15,-17,-18,-18,-17,-16,-14,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,-1,0,0,1,2,2,2,2,1,0,0,-1,-1,-1,-2,-2,-1,-1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,8}, \ {8,8,8,8,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,8,8,7,5,3,1,-1,-4,-7,-10,-13,-15,-16,-17,-17,-16,-15,-13,-11,-9,-6,-5,-3,-2,0,0,0,1,2,2,2,2,1,1,0,0,0,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,0,0,0,0,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,0,0,1,3,4,5,7,7,8}, \ {8,8,9,9,9,9,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,9,8,7,5,3,0,-2,-5,-8,-11,-13,-15,-16,-16,-16,-15,-13,-12,-10,-8,-6,-4,-2,-1,0,0,1,2,2,3,3,2,2,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,-1,-1,-2,-2,-2,-2,-2,-1,0,0,1,3,4,6,7,8}, \ {7,8,9,9,9,10,10,11,11,11,11,11,10,10,9,7,5,3,0,-2,-6,-9,-11,-13,-15,-16,-16,-15,-14,-13,-11,-9,-7,-5,-3,-2,0,0,1,1,2,3,3,3,3,2,2,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,-1,-1,-2,-3,-3,-4,-4,-4,-3,-2,-1,0,1,3,5,6,7}, \ {6,8,9,9,10,11,11,12,12,12,12,12,11,11,9,7,5,2,0,-3,-7,-10,-12,-14,-15,-16,-15,-15,-13,-12,-10,-8,-7,-5,-3,-1,0,0,1,2,2,3,3,4,3,3,3,2,2,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,-1,-2,-3,-4,-4,-5,-5,-5,-5,-4,-2,-1,0,2,3,5,6}, \ {6,7,8,10,11,12,12,13,13,14,14,13,13,11,10,8,5,2,0,-4,-8,-11,-13,-15,-16,-16,-16,-15,-13,-12,-10,-8,-6,-5,-3,-1,0,0,1,2,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,3,3,3,2,2,1,1,0,0,-1,-2,-3,-5,-6,-7,-7,-7,-6,-5,-4,-3,-1,0,2,4,6}, \ {5,7,8,10,11,12,13,14,15,15,15,14,14,12,11,8,5,2,-1,-5,-9,-12,-14,-16,-17,-17,-16,-15,-14,-12,-11,-9,-7,-5,-3,-1,0,0,1,2,3,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,4,4,3,3,2,1,0,-1,-2,-4,-6,-7,-8,-8,-8,-8,-7,-6,-4,-2,0,1,3,5}, \ {4,6,8,10,12,13,14,15,16,16,16,16,15,13,11,9,5,2,-2,-6,-10,-13,-16,-17,-18,-18,-17,-16,-15,-13,-11,-9,-7,-5,-4,-2,0,0,1,3,3,4,5,6,6,7,7,7,7,7,6,5,4,3,2,0,-1,-3,-5,-7,-8,-9,-10,-10,-10,-9,-7,-5,-4,-1,0,2,4}, \ {4,6,8,10,12,14,15,16,17,18,18,17,16,15,12,9,5,1,-3,-8,-12,-15,-18,-19,-20,-20,-19,-18,-16,-15,-13,-11,-8,-6,-4,-2,-1,0,1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,9,9,9,9,9,8,7,5,3,1,-1,-3,-6,-8,-10,-11,-12,-12,-11,-10,-9,-7,-5,-2,0,1,4}, \ {4,6,8,11,13,15,16,18,19,19,19,19,18,16,13,10,5,0,-5,-10,-15,-18,-21,-22,-23,-22,-22,-20,-18,-17,-14,-12,-10,-8,-5,-3,-1,0,1,3,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,12,13,12,12,11,9,7,5,2,0,-3,-6,-9,-11,-12,-13,-13,-12,-11,-10,-8,-6,-3,-1,1,4}, \ {3,6,9,11,14,16,17,19,20,21,21,21,19,17,14,10,4,-1,-8,-14,-19,-22,-25,-26,-26,-26,-25,-23,-21,-19,-17,-14,-12,-9,-7,-4,-2,0,1,3,5,7,9,11,13,14,15,16,16,16,16,15,13,10,7,4,0,-3,-7,-10,-12,-14,-15,-14,-14,-12,-11,-9,-6,-4,-1,1,3}, \ {4,6,9,12,14,17,19,21,22,23,23,23,21,19,15,9,2,-5,-13,-20,-25,-28,-30,-31,-31,-30,-29,-27,-25,-22,-20,-17,-14,-11,-9,-6,-3,0,1,4,6,9,11,13,15,17,19,20,21,21,21,20,18,15,11,6,2,-2,-7,-11,-13,-15,-16,-16,-15,-13,-11,-9,-7,-4,-1,1,4}, \ {4,7,10,13,15,18,20,22,24,25,25,25,23,20,15,7,-2,-12,-22,-29,-34,-37,-38,-38,-37,-36,-34,-31,-29,-26,-23,-20,-17,-13,-10,-7,-4,-1,2,5,8,11,13,16,18,21,23,24,26,26,26,26,24,21,17,12,5,0,-6,-10,-14,-16,-16,-16,-15,-14,-12,-10,-7,-4,-1,1,4}, \ {4,7,10,13,16,19,22,24,26,27,27,26,24,19,11,-1,-15,-28,-37,-43,-46,-47,-47,-45,-44,-41,-39,-36,-32,-29,-26,-22,-19,-15,-11,-8,-4,-1,2,5,9,12,15,19,22,24,27,29,31,33,33,33,32,30,26,21,14,6,0,-6,-11,-14,-15,-16,-15,-14,-12,-9,-7,-4,-1,1,4}, \ {6,9,12,15,18,21,23,25,27,28,27,24,17,4,-14,-34,-49,-56,-60,-60,-60,-58,-56,-53,-50,-47,-43,-40,-36,-32,-28,-25,-21,-17,-13,-9,-5,-1,2,6,10,14,17,21,24,28,31,34,37,39,41,42,43,43,41,38,33,25,17,8,0,-4,-8,-10,-10,-10,-8,-7,-4,-2,0,3,6}, \ {22,24,26,28,30,32,33,31,23,-18,-81,-96,-99,-98,-95,-93,-89,-86,-82,-78,-74,-70,-66,-62,-57,-53,-49,-44,-40,-36,-32,-27,-23,-19,-14,-10,-6,-1,2,6,10,15,19,23,27,31,35,38,42,45,49,52,55,57,60,61,63,63,62,61,57,53,47,40,33,28,23,21,19,19,19,20,22}, \ {168,173,178,176,171,166,161,156,151,146,141,136,131,126,121,116,111,106,101,-96,-91,-86,-81,-76,-71,-66,-61,-56,-51,-46,-41,-36,-31,-26,-21,-16,-11,-6,-1,3,8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58,63,68,73,78,83,88,93,98,103,108,113,118,123,128,133,138,143,148,153,158,163,168}, \ Thanks for your time.

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• Different Not Automatically Implies Better

  - by Alois Kraus

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/akraus1/archive/2013/11/05/154556.aspxRecently I was digging deeper why some WCF hosted workflow application did consume quite a lot of memory although it did basically only load a xaml workflow. The first tool of choice is Process Explorer or even better Process Hacker (has more options and the best feature copy&paste does work). The three most important numbers of a process with regards to memory are Working Set, Private Working Set and Private Bytes. Working set is the currently consumed physical memory (parts can be shared between processes e.g. loaded dlls which are read only) Private Working Set is the physical memory needed by this process which is not shareable Private Bytes is the number of non shareable which is only visible in the current process (e.g. all new, malloc, VirtualAlloc calls do create private bytes) When you have a bigger workflow it can consume under 64 bit easily 500MB for a 1-2 MB xaml file. This does not look very scalable. Under 64 bit the issue is excessive private bytes consumption and not the managed heap. The picture is quite different for 32 bit which looks a bit strange but it seems that the hosted VB compiler is a lot less memory hungry under 32 bit. I did try to repro the issue with a medium sized xaml file (400KB) which does contain 1000 variables and 1000 if which can be represented by C# code like this: string Var1; string Var2; ... string Var1000; if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(Var1) ) { Console.WriteLine(“Var1”); } if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(Var2) ) { Console.WriteLine(“Var2”); } ....   Since WF is based on VB.NET expressions you are bound to the hosted VB.NET compiler which does result in (x64) 140 MB of private bytes which is ca. 140 KB for each if clause which is quite a lot if you think about the actually present functionality. But there is hope. .NET 4.5 does allow now C# expressions for WF which is a major step forward for all C# lovers. I did create some simple patcher to “cross compile” my xaml to C# expressions. Lets look at the result: C# Expressions VB Expressions x86 x86 On my home machine I have only 32 bit which gives you quite exactly half of the memory consumption under 64 bit. C# expressions are 10 times more memory hungry than VB.NET expressions! I wanted to do more with less memory but instead it did consume a magnitude more memory. That is surprising to say the least. The workflow does initialize in about the same time under x64 and x86 where the VB code does it in 2s whereas the C# version needs 18s. Also nearly ten times slower. That is a too high price to pay for any bigger sized xaml workflow to convert from VB.NET to C# expressions. If I do reduce the number of expressions to 500 then it does need 400MB which is about half of the memory. It seems that the cost per if does rise linear with the number of total expressions in a xaml workflow.  Expression Language Cost per IF Startup Time C# 1000 Ifs x64 1,5 MB 18s C# 500 Ifs x64 750 KB 9s VB 1000 Ifs x64 140 KB 2s VB 500 Ifs x64 70 KB 1s Now we can directly compare two MS implementations. It is clear that the VB.NET compiler uses the same underlying structure but it has much higher offset compared to the highly inefficient C# expression compiler. I have filed a connect bug here with a harsher wording about recent advances in memory consumption. The funniest thing is that one MS employee did give an Azure AppFabric demo around early 2011 which was so slow that he needed to investigate with xperf. He was after startup time and the call stacks with regards to VB.NET expression compilation were remarkably similar. In fact I only found this post by googling for parts of my call stacks. … “C# expressions will be coming soon to WF, and that will have different performance characteristics than VB” … What did he know Jan 2011 what I did no know until today? ;-). He knew that C# expression will come but that they will not be automatically have better footprint. It is about time to fix that. In its current state C# expressions are not usable for bigger workflows. That also explains the headline for today. You can cheat startup time by prestarting workflows so that the demo looks nice and snappy but it does hurt scalability a lot since you do need much more memory than necessary. I did find the stacks by enabling virtual allocation tracking within XPerf which is still the best tool out there. But first you need to look at your process to check where the memory is hiding: For the C# Expression compiler you do not need xperf. You can directly dump the managed heap and check with a profiler of your choice. But if the allocations are happening on the Private Data ( VirtualAlloc ) you can find it with xperf. There is a nice video on channel 9 explaining VirtualAlloc tracking it in greater detail. If your data allocations are on the Heap it does mean that the C/C++ runtime did create a heap for you where all malloc, new calls do allocate from it. You can enable heap tracing with xperf and full call stack support as well which is doable via xperf like it is shown also on channel 9. Or you can use WPRUI directly: To make “Heap Usage” it work you need to set for your executable the tracing flags (before you start it). For example devenv.exe HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\devenv.exe DWORD TracingFlags 1 Do not forget to disable it after you did complete profiling the process or it will impact the startup time quite a lot. You can with xperf attach directly to a running process and collect heap allocation information from a gone wild process. Very handy if you need to find out what a process was doing which has arrived in a funny state. “VirtualAlloc usage” does work without explicitly enabling stuff for a specific process and is always on machine wide. I had issues on my Windows 7 machines with the call stack collection and the latest Windows 8.1 Performance Toolkit. I was told that WPA from Windows 8.0 should work fine but I do not want to downgrade.

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• Content in Context: The right medicine for your business applications

  - by Lance Shaw

  For many of you, your companies have already invested in a number of applications that are critical to the way your business is run. HR, Payroll, Legal, Accounts Payable, and while they might need an upgrade in some cases, they are all there and handling the lifeblood of your business. But are they really running as efficiently as they could be? For many companies, the answer is no. The problem has to do with the important information caught up within documents and paper. It’s everywhere except where it truly needs to be – readily available right within the context of the application itself. When the right information cannot be easily found, business processes suffer significantly. The importance of this recently struck me when I recently went to meet my new doctor and get a routine physical. Walking into the office lobby, I couldn't help but notice rows and rows of manila folders in racks from floor to ceiling, filled with documents and sensitive, personal information about various patients like myself.  As I looked at all that paper and all that history, two things immediately popped into my head.  “How do they find anything?” and then the even more alarming, “So much for information security!” It sure looked to me like all those documents could be accessed by anyone with a key to the building. Now the truth is that the offices of many general practitioners look like this all over the United States and the world.  But it had me thinking, is the same thing going on in just about any company around the world, involving a wide variety of important business processes? Probably so. Think about all the various processes going on in your company right now. Invoice payments are being processed through Accounts Payable, contracts are being reviewed by Procurement, and Human Resources is reviewing job candidate submissions and doing background checks. All of these processes and many more like them rely on access to forms and documents, whether they are paper or digital. Now consider that it is estimated that employee’s spend nearly 9 hours a week searching for information and not finding it. That is a lot of very well paid employees, spending more than one day per week not doing their regular job while they search for or re-create what already exists. Back in the doctor’s office, I saw this trend exemplified as well. First, I had to fill out a new patient form, even though my previous doctor had transferred my records over months previously. After filling out the form, I was later introduced to my new doctor who then interviewed me and asked me the exact same questions that I had answered on the form. I understand that there is value in the interview process and it was great to meet my new doctor, but this simple process could have been so much more efficient if the information already on file could have been brought directly together with the new patient information I had provided. Instead of having a highly paid medical professional re-enter the same information into the records database, the form I filled out could have been immediately scanned into the system, associated with my previous information, discrepancies identified, and the entire process streamlined significantly. We won’t solve the health records management issues that exist in the United States in this blog post, but this example illustrates how the automation of information capture and classification can eliminate a lot of repetitive and costly human entry and re-creation, even in a simple process like new patient on-boarding. In a similar fashion, by taking a fresh look at the various processes in place today in your organization, you can likely spot points along the way where automating the capture and access to the right information could be significantly improved. As you evaluate how content-process flows through your organization, take a look at how departments and regions share information between the applications they are using. Business applications are often implemented on an individual department basis to solve specific problems but a holistic approach to overall information management is not taken at the same time. The end result over the years is disparate applications with separate information repositories and in many cases these contain duplicate information, or worse, slightly different versions of the same information. This is where Oracle WebCenter Content comes into the story. More and more companies are realizing that they can significantly improve their existing application processes by automating the capture of paper, forms and other content. This makes the right information immediately accessible in the context of the business process and making the same information accessible across departmental systems which has helped many organizations realize significant cost savings. Here on the Oracle WebCenter team, one of our primary goals is to help customers find new ways to be more effective, more cost-efficient and manage information as effectively as possible. We have a series of three webcasts occurring over the next few weeks that are focused on the integration of enterprise content management within the context of business applications. We hope you will join us for one or all three and that you will find them informative. Click here to learn more about these sessions and to register for them. There are many aspects of information management to consider as you look at integrating content management within your business applications. We've barely scratched the surface here but look for upcoming blog posts where we will discuss more specifics on the value of delivering documents, forms and images directly within applications like Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards Enterprise One, Siebel CRM and many others. What do you think?  Are your important business processes as healthy as they can be?  Do you have any insights to share on the value of delivering content directly within critical business processes? Please post a comment and let us know the value you have realized, the lessons learned and what specific areas you are interested in.

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