Search Results

Search found 2568 results on 103 pages for 'advantage'.

Page 24/103 | < Previous Page | 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31  | Next Page >

  • Google I/O 2010 - Fireside chat with the Google Wave team

    Google I/O 2010 - Fireside chat with the Google Wave team Google I/O 2010 - Fireside chat with the Google Wave team Fireside Chats, Wave Lars Rasmussen, Douwe Osinga, Jochen Bekmann, Alan Green, Pamela Fox, Dan Peterson, Stephanie Hannon Join the Google Wave team around the campfire to chat about all things Wave: the product, the API platform, and the wave federation protocol. Come to learn about the new Wave API features, get tips on how to build the best extensions, discuss how to take advantage of the open source code available and hear more about what users are doing with the product. This is an excellent opportunity to ask the engineering team questions directly, and learn more about where Wave is heading. For all I/O 2010 sessions, please go to code.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 5 0 ratings Time: 56:17 More in Science & Technology

    Read the article

  • What kinds of low level knowledge matter?

    - by Peter Smith
    I realize that this question is similar to Low level programming - what's in it for me, but the answers didn't really address my question well. Part from just an understanding, how exactly does your low level knowledge translate into faster and better programs? There's the obvious lack of garbage collection, but what else is an advantage? Do you really outperform your optimizing compiler? Do you pack your data structures in as tight as possible and be concerned about alignment? There's extra freedom naturally, but does that really translate into a faster program?

    Read the article

  • POV Christmas Tree Is a Holiday-Themed DIY Electronics Project

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’re looking for an electronics project with a bit of holiday cheer, this clever POV Christmas tree combines LEDs, motors, and a simple vision hack to create a glowing Christmas tree. POV (or Persistence Of Vision) hacks rely on your visual circuit’s lag time. By taking advantage of that lag POV displays can create the illusion of shapes and words where there are none. In the case of this Christmas tree hack a spinning set of LED lights creates the illusion of a Christmas tree when, in reality, there is just a few LEDs suspended in space by wire. It’s not a beginner level project by any means but it is a great way to practice surface mounting electronics and polish up your PCB making skills. Hit up the link below for the full tutorial. POV Christmas Tree [Instructables] HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC? Use Amazon’s Barcode Scanner to Easily Buy Anything from Your Phone How To Migrate Windows 7 to a Solid State Drive

    Read the article

  • Benefits of PerformancePoint Services Using SharePoint Server 2010

    - by Wayne
    What is PerformancePoint Services? Most of the time it happens that the metrics that make up your key performance indicators are not simple values from a data source. In SharePoint Server 2007 PerformancePoint Services, you could create two kinds of KPI metrics: Simple single value metrics from any supported data source or Complex multiple value metrics from a single Analysis Services data source using MDX. Now things are even easier with Performance Point Services in SharePoint 2010. Let us check what is it? PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint Server 2010 is a performance management service that you can use to monitor and analyze your business. By providing flexible, easy-to-use tools for building dashboards, scorecards, reports, and key performance indicators (KPIs), PerformancePoint Services can help everyone across an organization make informed business decisions that align with companywide objectives and strategy. Scorecards, dashboards, and KPIs help drive accountability. Integrated analytics help employees move quickly from monitoring information to analyzing it and, when appropriate, sharing it throughout the organization. Prior to the addition of PerformancePoint Services to SharePoint Server, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 functioned as a standalone server. Now PerformancePoint functionality is available as an integrated part of the SharePoint Server Enterprise license, as is the case with Excel Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. The popular features of earlier versions of PerformancePoint Services are preserved along with numerous enhancements and additional functionality. New PerformancePoint Services features PerformancePoint Services now can utilize SharePoint Server scalability, collaboration, backup and recovery, and disaster recovery capabilities. Dashboards and dashboard items are stored and secured within SharePoint lists and libraries, providing you with a single security and repository framework. New features and enhancements of SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services • With PerformancePoint Services, functioning as a service in SharePoint Server, dashboards and dashboard items are stored and secured within SharePoint lists and libraries, providing you with a single security and repository framework. The new architecture also takes advantage of SharePoint Server scalability, collaboration, backup and recovery, and disaster recovery capabilities. You also can include and link PerformancePoint Services Web Parts with other SharePoint Server Web Parts on the same page. The new architecture also streamlines security models that simplify access to report data. • The Decomposition Tree is a new visualization report type available in PerformancePoint Services. You can use it to quickly and visually break down higher-level data values from a multi-dimensional data set to understand the driving forces behind those values. The Decomposition Tree is available in scorecards and analytic reports and ultimately in dashboards. • You can access more detailed business information with improved scorecards. Scorecards have been enhanced to make it easy for you to drill down and quickly access more detailed information. PerformancePoint scorecards also offer more flexible layout options, dynamic hierarchies, and calculated KPI features. Using this enhanced functionality, you can now create custom metrics that use multiple data sources. You can also sort, filter, and view variances between actual and target values to help you identify concerns or risks. • Better Time Intelligence filtering capabilities that you can use to create and use dynamic time filters that are always up to date. Other improved filters improve the ability for dashboard users to quickly focus in on information that is most relevant. • Ability to include and link PerformancePoint Services Web Parts together with other PerformancePoint Services Web parts on the same page. • Easier to author and publish dashboard items by using Dashboard Designer. • SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 support. • Increased support for accessibility compliance in individual reports and scorecards. • The KPI Details report is a new report type that displays contextually relevant information about KPIs, metrics, rows, columns, and cells within a scorecard. The KPI Details report works as a Web part that links to a scorecard or individual KPI to show relevant metadata to the end user in SharePoint Server. This Web part can be added to PerformancePoint dashboards or any SharePoint Server page. • Create analytics reports to better understand underlying business forces behind the results. Analytic reports have been enhanced to support value filtering, new chart types, and server-based conditional formatting. To conclude, PerformancePoint Services, by becoming tightly integrated with SharePoint Server 2010, takes advantage of many enterprise-level SharePoint Server 2010 features. Unfortunately, SharePoint Foundation 2010 doesn’t include this feature. There are still many choices in SharePoint family of products that include SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Server 2007 and associated free SharePoint web parts and templates.

    Read the article

  • GDC 2012: Best practices in developing a web game

    GDC 2012: Best practices in developing a web game (Pre-recorded GDC content) There's a new wave of console/pc/mobile game developers moving to the web looking to take advantage of the massive user base, along side of the powerful social graphs available there. The web as a platform is a very different technology stack than consoles / mobile, and as such, requires different development processes. This talk is targeted towards game developers who are looking to understand more about the development processes for web development including where to host your assets, proper techniques in caching to the persistant file store; dealing with sessions, storing user state, user login, game state storage, social graph integration, localization, audio, rendering, hardware detection and testing / distribution. If you're interested in developing a web game, you need to attend this talk! Speaker: Colt McAnlis From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 5149 131 ratings Time: 01:03:52 More in Science & Technology

    Read the article

  • Oracle Database 12c Spatial: Vector Performance Acceleration

    - by Okcan Yasin Saygili-Oracle
    Most business information has a location component, such as customer addresses, sales territories and physical assets. Businesses can take advantage of their geographic information by incorporating location analysis and intelligence into their information systems. This allows organizations to make better decisions, respond to customers more effectively, and reduce operational costs – increasing ROI and creating competitive advantage. Oracle Database, the industry’s most advanced database,  includes native location capabilities, fully integrated in the kernel, for fast, scalable, reliable and secure spatial and massive graph applications. It is a foundation for deploying enterprise-wide spatial information systems and locationenabled business applications. Developers can extend existing Oracle-based tools and applications, since they can easily incorporate location information directly in their applications, workflows, and services. Spatial Features The geospatial data features of Oracle Spatial and Graph option support complex geographic information systems (GIS) applications, enterprise applications and location services applications. Oracle Spatial and Graph option extends the spatial query and analysis features included in every edition of Oracle Database with the Oracle Locator feature, and provides a robust foundation for applications that require advanced spatial analysis and processing in the Oracle Database. It supports all major spatial data types and models, addressing challenging business-critical requirements from various industries, including transportation, utilities, energy, public sector, defense and commercial location intelligence. Network Data Model Graph Features The Network Data Model graph explicitly stores and maintains a persistent data model withnetwork connectivity and provides network analysis capability such as shortest path, nearest neighbors, within cost and reachability. It loads partitioned networks into memory on demand, overcomingthe limitations of in-memory analysis. Partitioning massive networks into manageable sub-networkssimplifies the network analysis. RDF Semantic Graph Features RDF Semantic Graph has native support for World Wide Web Consortium standards. It has open, scalable, and secure features for storing RDF/OWL ontologies anddata; native inference with OWL 2, SKOS and user-defined rules; and querying RDF/OWL data withSPARQL 1.1, Java APIs, and SPARQLgraph patterns in SQL. Video: Oracle Spatial and Graph Overview Oracle spatial is embeded on oracle database product. So ,we can use oracle installer (OUI).The Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) is used to install Oracle Database software. OUI is a graphical user interface utility that enables you to view the Oracle software that is installed on your machine, install new Oracle Database software, and delete Oracle software that you no longer need to use. Online Help is available to guide you through the installation process. One of the installation options is to create a database. If you select database creation, OUI automatically starts Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) to guide you through the process of creating and configuring a database. If you do not create a database during installation, you must invoke DBCA after you have installed the software to create a database. You can also use DBCA to create additional databases. For installing Oracle Database 12c you may check the Installing Oracle Database Software and Creating a Database tutorial under the Oracle Database 12c 2-Day DBA Series.You can always check if spatial is available in your database using  "select comp_id, version, status, comp_name from dba_registry where comp_id='SDO';"   One of the most notable improvements with Oracle Spatial and Graph 12c can be seen in performance increases in vector data operations. Enabling the Spatial Vector Acceleration feature (available with the Spatial option) dramatically improves the performance of commonly used vector data operations, such as sdo_distance, sdo_aggr_union, and sdo_inside. With 12c, these operations also run more efficiently in parallel than in prior versions through the use of metadata caching. For organizations that have been facing processing limitations, these enhancements enable developers to make a small set of configuration changes and quickly realize significant performance improvements. Results include improved index performance, enhanced geometry engine performance, optimized secondary filter optimizations for Spatial operators, and improved CPU and memory utilization for many advanced vector functions. Vector performance acceleration is especially beneficial when using Oracle Exadata Database Machine and other large-scale systems. Oracle Spatial and Graph vector performance acceleration builds on general improvements available to all SDO_GEOMETRY operations in these areas: Caching of index metadata, Concurrent update mechanisms, and Optimized spatial predicate selectivity and cost functions. These optimizations enable more efficient use of: CPU, Memory, and Partitioning Resulting in substantial query performance improvements.UsageTo accelerate the performance of spatial operators, it is recommended that you set the SPATIAL_VECTOR_ACCELERATION database system parameter to the value TRUE. (This parameter is authorized for use only by licensed Oracle Spatial users, and its default value is FALSE.) You can set this parameter for the whole system or for a single session. To set the value for the whole system, do either of the following:Enter the following statement from a suitably privileged account:   ALTER SYSTEM SET SPATIAL_VECTOR_ACCELERATION = TRUE;Add the following to the database initialization file (xxxinit.ora):   SPATIAL_VECTOR_ACCELERATION = TRUE;To set the value for the current session, enter the following statement from a suitably privileged account:   ALTER SESSION SET SPATIAL_VECTOR_ACCELERATION = TRUE; Checkout the complete list of new features on Oracle.com @ http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/options/spatialandgraph/overview/index.html Spatial and Graph Data Sheet (PDF) Spatial and Graph White Paper (PDF)

    Read the article

  • Nokia to release Windows 7 mobiles

    - by samsudeen
    The Finnish mobile giant Nokia announced today partnership with Microsoft to release smartphones using  Windows Phone 7 mobile platform. The alliance is expected to give much needed support and advantage for both the companies. The once leader of mobile phone industry, Nokia, has lost  most of its market share to iPhone and  Android  smartphones in the recent past. Microsoft has also re-designed it’s Windows mobile OS last year to regain it’s lost momentum in the Mobile OS market. Below are few of the highlights of the deal Nokia smartphones will be powered by Windows Phone 7 OS Microsoft to develop Mobile office for Nokia phones Nokia mobiles to support Enterprise instant messaging  and optimized conferencing using the Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile Support for network connectivity using Microsoft share point server Integration with Microsoft System Centre This article titled,Nokia to release Windows 7 mobiles, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

    Read the article

  • iPad and User Assistance

    - by ultan o'broin
    What possibilities does the iPad over for user assistance in the enterprise space? We will research the possibilities but I can see a number of possibilities already for remote workers who need access to trouble-shooting information on-site, implementers who need reference information and diagrams, business analysts or technical users accessing reports and dashboards for metrics or issues, functional users who need org charts and other data visualizations, and so on. It could also open up more possibilities for collaborative problem solving. User assistance content can take advantage of the device's superb display, graphics capability, connectivity, and long battery life. The possibility of opening up more innovative user assistance solutions (such as comics) is an exciting one for everyone in the UX space. Aligned to this possibility we need to research how users would use the device as they work.

    Read the article

  • Google I/O 2012 - Empower Local Shopping Through Google Shopping

    Google I/O 2012 - Empower Local Shopping Through Google Shopping Thomas Kotzmann, Claudia Ciorascu More and more of consumers research online first before going to a local store to purchase a product and we can expect this trend to continue to rise. How can merchants and retailers take advantage of this trend? Local shopping enables merchants to declare product price and availability per local store. In this session, we will show you how to set up and manage local shopping accounts in the Google Merchant Center and how to use the Content API to upload local products and do live inventory updates. For all I/O 2012 sessions, go to developers.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 100 1 ratings Time: 49:01 More in Science & Technology

    Read the article

  • Windows Azure End to End Examples

    - by BuckWoody
    I’m fascinated by the way people learn. I’m told there are several methods people use to understand new information, from reading to watching, from experiencing to exploring. Personally, I use multiple methods of learning when I encounter a new topic, usually starting with reading a bit about the concepts. I quickly want to put those into practice, however, especially in the technical realm. I immediately look for examples where I can start trying out the concepts. But I often want a “real” example – not just something that represents the concept, but something that is real-world, showing some feature I could actually use. And it’s no different with the Windows Azure platform – I like finding things I can do now, and actually use. So when I started learning Windows Azure, I of course began with the Windows Azure Training Kit – which has lots of examples and labs, presentations and so on. But from there, I wanted more examples I could learn from, and eventually teach others with. I was asked if I would write a few of those up, so here are the ones I use. CodePlex CodePlex is Microsoft’s version of an “Open Source” repository. Anyone can start a project, add code, documentation and more to it and make it available to the world, free of charge, using various licenses as they wish. Microsoft also uses this location for most of the examples we publish, and sample databases for SQL Server. If you search in CodePlex for “Azure”, you’ll come back with a list of projects that folks have posted, including those of us at Microsoft. The source code and documentation are there, so you can learn using actual examples of code that will do what you need. There’s everything from a simple table query to a full project that is sort of a “Corporate Dropbox” that uses Windows Azure Storage. The advantage is that this code is immediately usable. It’s searchable, and you can often find a complete solution to meet your needs. The disadvantage is that the code is pretty specific – it may not cover a huge project like you’re looking for. Also, depending on the author(s), you might not find the documentation level you want. Link: http://azureexamples.codeplex.com/site/search?query=Azure&ac=8    Tailspin Microsoft Patterns and Practices is a group here that does an amazing job at sharing standard ways of doing IT – from operations to coding. If you’re not familiar with this resource, make sure you read up on it. Long before I joined Microsoft I used their work in my daily job – saved a ton of time. It has resources not only for Windows Azure but other Microsoft software as well. The Patterns and Practices group also publishes full books – you can buy these, but many are also online for free. There’s an end-to-end example for Windows Azure using a company called “Tailspin”, and the work covers not only the code but the design of the full solution. If you really want to understand the thought that goes into a Platform-as-a-Service solution, this is an excellent resource. The advantages are that this is a book, it’s complete, and it includes a discussion of design decisions. The disadvantage is that it’s a little over a year old – and in “Cloud” years that’s a lot. So many things have changed, improved, and have been added that you need to treat this as a resource, but not the only one. Still, highly recommended. Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728592.aspx Azure Stock Trader Sometimes you need a mix of a CodePlex-style application, and a little more detail on how it was put together. And it would be great if you could actually play with the completed application, to see how it really functions on the actual platform. That’s the Azure Stock Trader application. There’s a place where you can read about the application, and then it’s been published to Windows Azure – the production platform – and you can use it, explore, and see how it performs. I use this application all the time to demonstrate Windows Azure, or a particular part of Windows Azure. The advantage is that this is an end-to-end application, and online as well. The disadvantage is that it takes a bit of self-learning to work through.  Links: Learn it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684 Use it: https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/

    Read the article

  • What functionality does dynamic typing allow?

    - by Justin984
    I've been using python for a few days now and I think I understand the difference between dynamic and static typing. What I don't understand is under what circumstances it would be preferred. It is flexible and readable, but at the expense of more runtime checks and additional required unit testing. Aside from non-functional criteria like flexibility and readability, what reasons are there to choose dynamic typing? What can I do with dynamic typing that isn't possible otherwise? What specific code example can you think of that illustrates a concrete advantage of dynamic typing?

    Read the article

  • Loading dynamic content and rewrite URL on Hashchange event with Jquery Mobile

    - by user3611500
    I'm building a mobile version for my website using Jquery Mobile API. The framework provides automate AJAX navigation processing. But as far as i know it require "real" pages for loading purpose. What i want to do is override the automate navigation process of it and process the hashchange on my own. But i can't not rewrite the url using window.hashChange, which is running well on my non-mobile website version : $(function () { $(window).off().hashchange(function () { if (location.hash.length > 1) { PageSelect(); } }); $(window).hashchange(); }); I just only want to take advantage on jquery mobile interfaces, i don't want anything with its automate ajax navigation stuff ! I tried to disable it using ajaxEnabled() but got no luck.

    Read the article

  • Technical Computing Initiative, Jim Gray and a Virtual Framed Letter on my Wall

    Today Microsoft announced their Technical Computing Initiative, a program to help scientists and engineers take advantage of the latest breakthroughs in parallel computing, bandwidth increases, and technologies that will make doing scientific research akin to using spreadsheets (as opposed to writing really complex custom code).  This is actually the culmination of work that the late Jim Gray, formerly a technical fellow at Microsoft, was working on. I didn't really know Jim, and frankly only...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

    Read the article

  • Why not Green Threads?

    - by redjamjar
    Whilst I know questions on this have been covered already (e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5713142/green-threads-vs-non-green-threads), I don't feel like I've got a satisfactory answer. The question is: why don't JVM's support green threads anymore? It says this on the code-style Java FAQ: A green thread refers to a mode of operation for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) in which all code is executed in a single operating system thread. And this over on java.sun.com: The downside is that using green threads means system threads on Linux are not taken advantage of and so the Java virtual machine is not scalable when additional CPUs are added. It seems to me that the JVM could have a pool of system processes equal to the number of cores, and then run green threads on top of that. This could offer some big advantages when you have a very number large of threads which block often (mostly because current JVM's cap the number of threads). Thoughts?

    Read the article

  • What Works in Data Integration?

    - by dain.hansen
    TDWI just recently put out this paper on "What Works in Data Integration". I invite you especially to take a look at the section on "Accelerating your Business with Real-time Data Integration" and the DIRECTV case study. The article discusses some of the technology considerations for BI/DW and how data integration plays a role to deliver timely, accessible, and high-quality data. It goes on to outline the three key requirements for how to deliver high performance, low impact, and reliability and how that can translate to faster results. The DIRECTV webinar is something you definitely want to take a look at, you'll hear how DIRECTV successfully transformed their data warehouse investments into a competitive advantage with Oracle GoldenGate.

    Read the article

  • The Beginner’s Guide to Customizing Your Android Home Screen

    - by Chris Hoffman
    If you’re just getting started with Android, its customizability can seem a bit daunting. We’ll walk you through customizing your Android home-screen, taking advantage of widgets, and getting third-party launchers with more features. The screenshots for this article were taken on Android 4.2. If you’re using an older device, the exact process will look a little different, but you should be able to follow along anyway. Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder? Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows

    Read the article

  • Learning MVC for a JSP Resource and ASP.Net WebForms Resource

    - by Lijo
    Statement from a colleque: - "People with ASP.Net WebForms skills should be able to learn it easily as the fundamental concept is same.” Consider two people –one from JSP background and other from ASP.Net WebForms background. Now both need to learn ASP.Net MVC in RAZOR. Do you think the person from ASP.Net Webforms background has significant advantage over the person from JSP background? My feeling is – it is equally difficult for JSP person and ASP.Net Webforms person to learn MVC with RAZOR. What is your take on it? Any statistics that you can provide for this?

    Read the article

  • GDD-BR 2010 [2F] Storage, Bigquery and Prediction APIs

    GDD-BR 2010 [2F] Storage, Bigquery and Prediction APIs Speaker: Patrick Chanezon Track: Cloud Computing Time slot: F [15:30 - 16:15] Room: 2 Level: 101 Google is expanding our storage products by introducing Google Storage for Developers. It offers a RESTful API for storing and accessing data at Google. Developers can take advantage of the performance and reliability of Google's storage infrastructure, as well as the advanced security and sharing capabilities. We will demonstrate key functionality of the product as well as customer use cases. Google relies heavily on data analysis and has developed many tools to understand large datasets. Two of these tools are now available on a limited sign-up basis to developers: (1) BigQuery: interactive analysis of very large data sets and (2) Prediction API: make informed predictions from your data. We will demonstrate their use and give instructions on how to get access. From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 1 0 ratings Time: 39:27 More in Science & Technology

    Read the article

  • Wondering What to Expect from Master Data Management at OpenWorld 2012? Hold On to Your Seats…

    - by Mala Narasimharajan
    The Countdown begins – just 23 days till OpenWorld hits San Francisco. Oracle OpenWorld 2012 for MDM promises to be chock full of interesting sessions, specifically focused on our customers. We’ve made sure that our sessions are balanced between product information, strategy and real world stories and last but certainly not least - lessons learned – straight from our customers. Attendee / Presenters Toolkit Oracle Master Data Management FOCUS ON DOCUMENT – For all MDM sessions at OOW - where and when Oracle Schedule Builder – use search terms such as : MDM, master data, customer hub, product hub and master data management Oracle Music Festival - AMAZING Line up!!  Oracle Customer Appreciation Night –NOT TO BE MISSED!! Oracle OpenWorld LIVE On-Demand Stay on top of all that’s OpenWorld – when it comes to MDM. We’ll be posting not-t- miss sessions and blogs on what our customer lineup will be like at the big show. Look forward to seeing you at OOW – and in case you didn’t get approval to attend- take advantage of our virtual on-demand conference. See you at OpenWorld 2012 ! 

    Read the article

  • Get a Silverlight XAP signing certificate for cheap thanks to GoDaddy

    One of the new features in Silverlight 4 is the ability to sign your XAP applications so that your out-of-browser trusted applications look more friendly (trusted) to your users, they come from a verified publisher, and they can take advantage of the auto-update APIs in Silverlight. If you dont know what Im talking about, heres some resources for some background: XAP Signing in Silverlight 4 HOWTO Video: Sign Silverlight 4 Applications Basically if you are writing a Silverlight 4 trusted...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

    Read the article

  • Windows Azure End to End Examples

    - by BuckWoody
    I’m fascinated by the way people learn. I’m told there are several methods people use to understand new information, from reading to watching, from experiencing to exploring. Personally, I use multiple methods of learning when I encounter a new topic, usually starting with reading a bit about the concepts. I quickly want to put those into practice, however, especially in the technical realm. I immediately look for examples where I can start trying out the concepts. But I often want a “real” example – not just something that represents the concept, but something that is real-world, showing some feature I could actually use. And it’s no different with the Windows Azure platform – I like finding things I can do now, and actually use. So when I started learning Windows Azure, I of course began with the Windows Azure Training Kit – which has lots of examples and labs, presentations and so on. But from there, I wanted more examples I could learn from, and eventually teach others with. I was asked if I would write a few of those up, so here are the ones I use. CodePlex CodePlex is Microsoft’s version of an “Open Source” repository. Anyone can start a project, add code, documentation and more to it and make it available to the world, free of charge, using various licenses as they wish. Microsoft also uses this location for most of the examples we publish, and sample databases for SQL Server. If you search in CodePlex for “Azure”, you’ll come back with a list of projects that folks have posted, including those of us at Microsoft. The source code and documentation are there, so you can learn using actual examples of code that will do what you need. There’s everything from a simple table query to a full project that is sort of a “Corporate Dropbox” that uses Windows Azure Storage. The advantage is that this code is immediately usable. It’s searchable, and you can often find a complete solution to meet your needs. The disadvantage is that the code is pretty specific – it may not cover a huge project like you’re looking for. Also, depending on the author(s), you might not find the documentation level you want. Link: http://azureexamples.codeplex.com/site/search?query=Azure&ac=8    Tailspin Microsoft Patterns and Practices is a group here that does an amazing job at sharing standard ways of doing IT – from operations to coding. If you’re not familiar with this resource, make sure you read up on it. Long before I joined Microsoft I used their work in my daily job – saved a ton of time. It has resources not only for Windows Azure but other Microsoft software as well. The Patterns and Practices group also publishes full books – you can buy these, but many are also online for free. There’s an end-to-end example for Windows Azure using a company called “Tailspin”, and the work covers not only the code but the design of the full solution. If you really want to understand the thought that goes into a Platform-as-a-Service solution, this is an excellent resource. The advantages are that this is a book, it’s complete, and it includes a discussion of design decisions. The disadvantage is that it’s a little over a year old – and in “Cloud” years that’s a lot. So many things have changed, improved, and have been added that you need to treat this as a resource, but not the only one. Still, highly recommended. Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728592.aspx Azure Stock Trader Sometimes you need a mix of a CodePlex-style application, and a little more detail on how it was put together. And it would be great if you could actually play with the completed application, to see how it really functions on the actual platform. That’s the Azure Stock Trader application. There’s a place where you can read about the application, and then it’s been published to Windows Azure – the production platform – and you can use it, explore, and see how it performs. I use this application all the time to demonstrate Windows Azure, or a particular part of Windows Azure. The advantage is that this is an end-to-end application, and online as well. The disadvantage is that it takes a bit of self-learning to work through.  Links: Learn it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684 Use it: https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/

    Read the article

  • Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and things I wish were more intuitive

    - by pjohnson
    I've started using Windows Workflow Foundation, and so far ran into a few things that aren't incredibly obvious. Microsoft did a good job of providing a ton of samples, which is handy because you need them to get anywhere with WF. The docs are thin, so I've been bouncing between samples and downloadable labs to figure out how to implement various activities in a workflow. Code separation or not? You can create a workflow and activity in Visual Studio with or without code separation, i.e. just a .cs "Component" style object with a Designer.cs file, or a .xoml XML markup file with code behind (beside?) it. Absence any obvious advantage to one or the other, I used code separation for workflows and any complex custom activities, and without code separation for custom activities that just inherit from the Activity class and thus don't have anything special in the designer. So far, so good. Workflow Activity Library project type - What's the point of this separate project type? So far I don't see much advantage to keeping your custom activities in a separate project. I prefer to have as few projects as needed (and no fewer). The Designer's Toolbox window seems to find your custom activities just fine no matter where they are, and the debugging experience doesn't seem to be any different. Designer Properties - This is about the designer, and not specific to WF, but nevertheless something that's hindered me a lot more in WF than in Windows Forms or elsewhere. The Properties window does a good job of showing you property values when you hover the mouse over the values. But they don't do the same to find out what a control's type is. So maybe if I named all my activities "x1" and "x2" instead of helpful self-documenting names like "listenForStatusUpdate", then I could easily see enough of the type to determine what it is, but any names longer than those and all I get of the type is "System.Workflow.Act" or "System.Workflow.Compone". Even hitting the dropdown doesn't expand any wider, like the debugger quick watch "smart tag" popups do when you scroll through members. The only way I've found around this in VS 2008 is to widen the Properties dialog, losing precious designer real estate, then shrink it back down when you're done to see what you were doing. Really? WF Designer - This is about the designer, and I believe is specific to WF. I should be able to edit the XML in a .xoml file, or drag and drop using the designer. With WPF (at least in VS 2010 Ultimate), these are side by side, and changes to one instantly update the other. With WF, I have to right-click on the .xoml file, choose Open With, and pick XML Editor to edit the text. It looks like this is one way where WF didn't get the same attention WPF got during .NET Fx 3.0 development. Service - In the WF world, this is simply a class that talks to the workflow about things outside the workflow, not to be confused with how the term "service" is used in every other context I've seen in the Windows and .NET world, i.e. an executable that waits for events or requests from a client and services them (Windows service, web service, WCF service, etc.). ListenActivity - Such a great concept, yet so unintuitive. It seems you need at least two branches (EventDrivenActivity instances), one for your positive condition and one for a timeout. The positive condition has a HandleExternalEventActivity, and the timeout has a DelayActivity followed by however you want to handle the delay, e.g. a ThrowActivity. The timeout is simple enough; wiring up the HandleExternalEventActivity is where things get fun. You need to create a service (see above), and an interface for that service (this seems more complex than should be necessary--why not have activities just wire to a service directly?). And you need to create a custom EventArgs class that inherits from ExternalDataEventArgs--you can't create an ExternalDataEventArgs event handler directly, even if you don't need to add any more information to the event args, despite ExternalDataEventArgs not being marked as an abstract class, nor a compiler error nor warning nor any other indication that you're doing something wrong, until you run it and find that it always times out and get to check every place mentioned here to see why. Your interface and service need an event that consumes your custom EventArgs class, and a method to fire that event. You need to call that method from somewhere. Then you get to hope that you did everything just right, or that you can step through code in the debugger before your Delay timeout expires. Yes, it's as much fun as it sounds. TransactionScopeActivity - I had the bright idea of putting one in as a placeholder, then filling in the database updates later. That caused this error: The workflow hosting environment does not have a persistence service as required by an operation on the workflow instance "[GUID]". ...which is about as helpful as "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" and even more fun to debug. Google led me to this Microsoft Forums hit, and from there I figured out it didn't like that the activity had no children. Again, a Validator on TransactionScopeActivity would have pointed this out to me at design time, rather than handing me a nearly useless error at runtime. Easily enough, I disabled the activity and that fixed it. I still see huge potential in my work where WF could make things easier and more flexible, but there are some seriously rough edges at the moment. Maybe I'm just spoiled by how much easier and more intuitive development elsewhere in the .NET Framework is.

    Read the article

  • Is SOA really dead?

    - by Ahsan Alam
    I have come across many articles/blogs where authors have strongly hailed the death of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). I could almost hear the laughter pouring out of their writings. Being a big supporter of SOA, I have found myself wondering – have I been following the wrong path all along? Do I need to change the way I think? Then I started to look around. Many newer technologies and concepts have evolved in the past few years. People are starting to take advantage of cloud computing, SAAS (Software as a Service), multitudes of on-demand platforms and many more. Now, I started thinking – is SOA really dead? In order to effectively utilize these newer concepts, I believe we need SOA more than ever because it gives us loose-coupling. People often forget that the key principal behind SOA is loose-coupling. We cannot achieve SOA just by throwing services (WCF, Web Service); we need loosely coupled systems.

    Read the article

  • Different callbacks for error or error as first argument?

    - by Florian Margaine
    We (and the JS SO chat room) had a talk with @rlemon some days ago about his Little-XHR library about error handling. Basically, we wanted to decide which error handling pattern should be used: xhr.get({ // Some parameters, and then success: function(data) {}, failure: function(data) {} }) Or: xhr.get({ // Some parameters, and then callback: function(err, data) {} }) One is more jQuery-like, while the other is more Node-like. Some say that the first pattern makes you think more about handling error. I think the opposite, since you may forget the other callback function, while the argument is always there on the second pattern. Any opinion/advantage/drawback about both these patterns?

    Read the article

  • What is the meaning of the sentence "we wanted it to be compiled so it’s not burning CPU doing the wrong stuff."

    - by user2434
    I was reading this article. It has the following paragraph. And did Scala turn out to be fast? Well, what’s your definition of fast? About as fast as Java. It doesn’t have to be as fast as C or Assembly. Python is not significantly faster than Ruby. We wanted to do more with fewer machines, taking better advantage of concurrency; we wanted it to be compiled so it’s not burning CPU doing the wrong stuff. I am looking for the meaning of the last sentence. How will interpreted language make the CPU do "wrong" stuff ?

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31  | Next Page >