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  • Is there a design pattern for chained observers?

    - by sharakan
    Several times, I've found myself in a situation where I want to add functionality to an existing Observer-Observable relationship. For example, let's say I have an Observable class called PriceFeed, instances of which are created by a variety of PriceSources. Observers on this are notified whenever the underlying PriceSource updates the PriceFeed with a new price. Now I want to add a feature that allows a (temporary) override to be set on the PriceFeed. The PriceSource should still update prices on the PriceFeed, but for as long as the override is set, whenever a consumer asks PriceFeed for it's current value, it should get the override. The way I did this was to introduce a new OverrideablePriceFeed that is itself both an Observer and an Observable, and that decorates the actual PriceFeed. It's implementation of .getPrice() is straight from Chain of Responsibility, but how about the handling of Observable events? When an override is set or cleared, it should issue it's own event to Observers, as well as forwarding events from the underlying PriceFeed. I think of this as some kind of a chained observer, and was curious if there's a more definitive description of a similar pattern.

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  • Windows Azure BidNow Sample &ndash; definitely worth a look

    - by Eric Nelson
    [Quicklink: download new Windows Azure sample from http://bit.ly/bidnowsample] On Mondays (17th May) in the  6 Weeks of Windows Azure training (Now full) Live Meeting call, Adrian showed BidNow as a sample application built for Windows Azure. I was aware of BidNow but had not found the time to take a look at it nor seems it running before. Adrian convinced me it was worth some a further look. In brief I like it :-) It is more than Hello World, but still easy enough to follow. Bid Now is an online auction site designed to demonstrate how you can build highly scalable consumer applications using Windows Azure. It is built using Visual Studio 2008, Windows Azure and uses Windows Azure Storage. Auctions are processed using Windows Azure Queues and Worker Roles. Authentication is provided via Live Id. Bid Now works with the Express versions of Visual Studio and above. There are extensive setup instructions for local and cloud deployment You can download from http://bit.ly/bidnowsample (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/BidNowSample) and also check out David original blog post. Related Links UK based? Sign up to UK fans of Windows Azure on ning Check out the Microsoft UK Windows Azure Platform page for further links

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  • Good SLA

    - by PointsToShare
    © 2011 Dov Trietsch What is a good SLA? I have frequently pondered about Service Level Agreements (SLA). Yesterday after ordering and while waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the food to arrive, I passed the time reading and re-reading the restaurant menu (again and again..) until I noticed their very interesting SLA.   Because (as promised) we had to wait even longer and the conversation around me was mostly in Russian, I ended doodling some of my thoughts of the menu, on the menu. People are both providers and consumers of services. As a service consumer – maybe the SLA above sucks – though to be honest, had the service been better, I would not have noticed this and you, the reader, would have been spared this rambling monograph. As a provider, I think it’s great! Because I provide services in the form of business software, I extend the idea to the following principles of design: 1: Wygiwyg. You guessed it. What You Get Is What You Get. 2: Ugiwugi.  U Get It When U Get It. How’s this for a developer friendly SLA? I’ll never be off the spec, or late. And BTW, the food was good, so when I finally got what I got, I liked it. That's All Folks!!

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  • Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise – Part 1

    - by Michael Hylton
    By Reggie Bradford, Senior Vice President, Oracle  Today, Mark Hurd, President of Oracle, Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President of Oracle and I discussed the strategic importance of how social media is impacting the enterprise and how it is changing the way customers, prospects employees and investors interact with brands worldwide.  Oracle understands that the consumer is in control and as such, brands must evolve and change to meet growing needs. In addition, according to social media thought leader and Analyst from Altimeter Group, Jeremiah Owyang, companies now average 178 corporate-owned social media accounts. When Oracle added leading social marketing, listening analytics and development tools from Vitrue, Collective Intellect and Involver to its Oracle’s Cloud Services Suite we went beyond providing a single set of tools. We developed an entire framework to include a comprehensive social relationship management suite to help companies move beyond the social enterprise and achieve the social-enabled enterprise.  The fundamental shift from transaction to engagement means that enterprises need not only a social strategy, but should also ensure that the information and data received from social initiatives flow back to marketing, sales, support and service. Doing so enables companies to deliver a proactive and compelling experience and provides analytics to turn engagement into opportunity – and ultimately that opportunity into revenue.  On September 13, 2012, I am delighted to sit down with Jeremiah to further the discussion about how enterprises are addressing social media strategies and managing content.  In addition, we will be taking your questions after the webinar via Twitter (@Oracle, @ReggieBradford, @cfinn, @jowyang). Use #oracle and #socbiz to submit questions and follow the conversation. I look forward to speaking with you and answering your questions online.  For more information about becoming a social-enabled enterprise, visit www.oracle.com/social. And don’t miss the insights of other social business thought leaders at www.oracle.com/goto/socialbusiness.

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  • Java Spotlight Episode 102: Freescale on Embedded Java and Java Embedded @ JavaOne

    - by Roger Brinkley
    An interview with Michael O'Donnell of Freescale on Embedded Java and Embedded Java @ JavaOne. Part of this podcast was recorded live at the JavaOne 2012 Glassfish Party at the Thirsty Bear. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link:  Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 Java Embedded Server 7.0 Events Oct 3-4, Java Embedded @ JavaONE, San Francisco Oct 15-17, JAX London Oct 30-Nov 1, Arm TechCon, Santa Clara Oct 22-23, Freescale Technology Forum - Japan, Tokyo Oct 31, JFall, Netherlands Nov 2-3, JMagreb, Morocco Nov 13-17, Devoxx, Belgium Feature InterviewFreescale is the global leader in embedded processing solutions, advancing the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets. From microprocessors and microcontrollers to sensors, analog ICs and connectivity – our technologies are the foundation to the innovations that make our world greener, safer, healthier and more connected. Michael O'Donnell, is the Director of Software Ecosystem Alliances. The upcoming Freescale Technology Forum - Japan in Tokyo, Japan is an excellent way for developers to learn more about Freescale and Java. What’s Cool Glassfish Party - 6th year Geek Bike Ride

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  • unit/integration testing web service proxy client

    - by cori
    I'm rewriting a PHP client/proxy library that provides an interface to a SOAP-based .Net webservice, and in the process I want to add some unit and integration tests so future modifications are less risky. The work the library I'm working on performs is to marshall the calls to the web service and do a little reorganizing of the responses to present a slightly more -object-oriented interface to the underlying service. Since this library is little else than a thin layer on top of web service calls, my basic assumption is that I'll really be writing integration tests more than unit tests - for example, I don't see any reason to mock away the web service - the work that's performed by the code I'm working on is very light; it's almost passing the response from the service right back to its consumer. Most of the calls are basic CRUD operations: CreateRole(), CreateUser(), DeleteUser(), FindUser(), &ct. I'll be starting from a known database state - the system I'm using for these tests is isolated for testing purposes, so the results will be more or less predictable. My question is this: is it natural to use web service calls to confirm the results of operations within the tests and to reset the state of the application within the scope of each test? Here's an example: One test might be createUserReturnsValidUserId() and might go like this: public function createUserReturnsValidUserId() { // we're assuming a global connection to the service $newUserId = $client->CreateUser("user1"); assertNotNull($newUserId); assertNotNull($client->FindUser($newUserId); $client->deleteUser($newUserId); } So I'm creating a user, making sure I get an ID back and that it represents a user in the system, and then cleaning up after myself (so that later tests don't rely on the success or failure of this test w/r/t the number of users in the system, for example). However this still seems pretty fragile - lots of dependencies and opportunities for tests to fail and effect the results of later tests, which I definitely want to avoid. Am I missing some options of ways to decouple these tests from the system under test, or is this really the best I can do? I think this is a fairly general unit/integration testing question, but if it matters I'm using PHPUnit for the testing framework.

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  • OK - What now? How do we become a Social Business?

    - by Michael Snow
    We hope that those of you that attended yesterday's Webcast with Brian Solis enjoyed Brian's discussion with Christian Finn for our last Webcast of the season for the Oracle Social Business Thought Leaders Series.  For those of you that may have missed the webcast or were stuck at a company holiday party - you'll be glad to hear that the webcast will be available On-Demand starting later today (12/14/12). And any of you who'd like to listen to a quick but informative podcast with Brian - can listen to that here. Some of you may still be left with questions about how to get from point A to point B and even more confused than when you started thinking about this new world of Digital Darwinism. The post below, grabbed from an abundance of great thought leadership prose on Brian's blog may help you frame the path you need to start walking sooner versus later to stay off of the endangered species list.  As you explore your path forward, please keep Oracle in mind - we do offer a wide range of solutions to help your organization 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:"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;} optimize the engagement for your customers, employees and partners. The Path from a Social Brand to a Social Business Brian Solis Originally posted May 2, 2012 I’ve been a long-time supporter of MediaTemple’s (MT)Residence program along with Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, and many others whom I respect. I wanted to share my “7 questions to answer to become a social business” with you here.. Social Media is pervasive and is becoming the new normal in corporate marketing. Brands who get this right are starting to build their own media networks rich with customer connections numbering in the millions. Right now, Coca-Cola has over 34 million fans on Facebook, but they’re hardly alone. Disney follows just behind with 29 million fans, Starbucks boasts 25 million, and Oreo, Red Bull, and Converse play host to over 20 million fans. If we were to look at other networks such as Twitter and Youtube, we would see a recurring theme. People are connecting en masse with the businesses they support and new media represents the ability to cultivate consumer relationships in ways not possible with traditional earned or paid media. Sounds great right? This might sound abrupt, but the truth is that we’re hardly realizing the potential of what lies before us. Everything begins with understanding not just how other brands are marketing themselves in social media, but also seeing what they’re not doing and envisioning what’s possible. We’re already approaching the first of many crossroads that new media will present. Do we take the path of a social brand or that of a social business? What’s the difference? A social brand is just that, a business that is remodeling or retrofitting its existing marketing practices to new media. A social business is something altogether different as it embraces introspection and extrospection to reevaluate internal and external processes, systems, and opportunities to transform into a living, breathing entity that adapts to market conditions and opportunities. It’s a tough decision to make right now especially at a time when all we read about is how much success many businesses are finding without having to answer this very question. With all of the newfound success in social networks, the truth is that we’re only just beginning to learn what’s possible and that’s where you come in. When compared to the investment in time and resources across the board, social media represents only a small part of the mix. But with your help, that’s all about to change. The CMO Survey, an organization that disseminates the opinions of top marketers in order to predict the future of markets, recently published a report that gave credence to the fact that social media is taking off. One of the most profound takeaways from the report was this gem; “The “like button” [in Facebook] packs more customer-acquisition punch than other demand-generating activities.” With insights like this, it’s easy to see why the race to social is becoming heated. The report also highlighted exactly where social fits in the marketing mix today and as you can see, despite all of the hype, it’s not a dominant focus yet. As of August 2011, the percentage of overall marketing budgets dedicated to social media hovered at around 7%. However, in 2012 the investment in social media will climb to 10%. And, in five years, social media is expected to represent almost 18% of the total marketing budget. Think about that for a moment. In 2016, social media will only represent 18%? Queue the sound of a record scratching here. With businesses finding success in social networks, why are businesses failing to realize the true opportunity brought forth by the ability to listen to, connect with, and engage with customers? While there’s value in earning views, driving traffic, and building connections through the 3F’s (friends, fans and followers), success isn’t just defined simply by what really amounts to low-hanging fruit. The truth is that businesses cannot measure what it is they don’t know to value. As a result, innovation in new engagement initiatives is stifled because we’re applying dated or inflexible frameworks to new paradigms. Social media isn’t owned by marketing, but instead the entire organization. This changes everything and makes your role so much more important. It’s up to you to learn how to think outside of the proverbial social media box to see what others don’t, the ability to improve customers experiences through the evolution of a social brand into a social business. Doing so will translate customer insights from what they do and don’t share in social networks into better products, services, and processes. See, customers want something more from their favorite businesses than creative campaigns, viral content, and everyday dialogue in social networks. Customers want to be heard and they want to know that you’re listening. How businesses use social media must remind them that they’re more than just an audience, consumer, or a conduit to “trigger” a desired social effect. Herein lies both the challenge and opportunity of social media. It’s bigger than marketing. It’s also bigger than customer service. It’s about building relationships with customers that improve experiences and more importantly, teaches businesses how to re-imagine products and internal processes to better adapt to potential crises and seize new opportunities. When it comes down to it, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Foursquare, are all channels for listening, learning, and engaging. It’s what you do within each channel that builds a community around your brand. And, at the end of the day, the value of the community you build counts for everything. It’s important to understand that we cannot assume that these networks simply exist for people to lineup for our marketing messages or promotional campaigns. Nor can we assume that they’re reeling in anticipation for simple dialogue. They want value. They want recognition. They want access to exclusive information and offers. They need direction, answers and resolution. What we’re talking about here is the multidimensional makeup of consumers and how a one-sided approach to social media forces the needs for social media to expand beyond traditional marketing to socialize the various departments, lines of business, and functions to engage based on the nature of the situation or opportunity. In the same CMO study, it was revealed that marketers believe that social media has a long way to go toward integrating into the overall company strategy. On a scale of 1-7, with one being “not integrated at all” and seven being “very integrated,” 22% chose “one.” Critical functions such as service, HR, sales, R&D, product marketing and development, IR, CSR, etc. are either not engaged or are operating social media within a silo disconnected from other efforts or possibilities. The problem is that customers don’t view a company by silo, instead they see one company, one brand, and their experience in social media forms an impression that eventually contributes to their view of your brand. The first step here is to understand business priorities and objectives to assess how social media can be additive in achieving these goals. Additionally, surveying the landscape to determine other areas of interest as its specifically related to your business. • Are customers seeking help or direction? • Who are your most valuable customers and what are they sharing? • How can you use social media to acquire and retain customers? - What ideas are circulating and how can you harness user generated activity and content to innovate or adapt to better meet the needs of customers? - How can you broaden a single customer view to recognize the varying needs of customers and how your organization can organize around each circumstance? - What insights exist based on how consumers are interacting with one another? How can this intelligence inform marketing, service, products and other important business initiatives? - How can your business extend their current efforts to deliver better customer experiences and in turn more effectively unit internal collaboration and communication? Customer demands far exceed the capabilities of the marketing department. While creating a social brand is a necessary endeavor, building a social business is an investment in customer relevance now and over time. Beyond relevance, a social business fosters a culture of change that unites employees and customers and sets a foundation for meaningful and beneficial relationships. Innovation, communication, and creativity are the natural byproducts of engagement and transformation. As a social brand, we are competing for the moment. As a social business, we are competing the future in all that we do today.

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  • How to achieve a loosely coupled REST API but with a defined and well understood contract?

    - by BestPractices
    I am new to REST and am struggling to understand how one would properly design a REST system to both allow for loose coupling but at the same time allow a consumer of a REST API to understand the API. If, in my client code, I issue a GET request for a resource and get back XML, how do I know what to do with that xml? e.g. if it contains <fname>John</fname><lname>Smith</lname> how do I know that these refer to the concept of "first name", "last name"? Is it up to the person writing the REST API to define in documentation some place what each of the XML fields mean? What if producer of the API wants to change the implementation to be <firstname> instead of <fname>? How do they do this and notify their consumers that this change occurred? Or do the consumers just encounter the error and then look at the payload and figure out on their own that it changed? I've read in REST in Practice that using a WADL tool to create a client implementation based on the WADL (and hide the fact that you're doing a distributed call) is an "anti-pattern". But I was planning to do this-- at least then I would have a statically typed API call that, if it changed, I would know at compile time and not at run time. Why is this a bad thing to generate client code based on a WADL? And how do I know what to do with the links that returned in the response of a POST to a REST API? What defines this contract and gives true meaning to what each link will do? Please help! I dont understand how to go from statically-typed or even SOAP/RPC to REST!

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  • Relationship between Repository and Unit of Work

    - by NullOrEmpty
    I am going to implement a repository, and I would like to use the UOW pattern since the consumer of the repository could do several operations, and I want to commit them at once. After read several articles about the matter, I still don't get how to relate this two elements, depending on the article it is being done in a way u other. Sometimes the UOW is something internal to the repository: public class Repository { UnitOfWork _uow; public Repository() { _uow = IoC.Get<UnitOfWork>(); } public void Save(Entity e) { _uow.Track(e); } public void SubmittChanges() { SaveInStorage(_uow.GetChanges()); } } And sometimes it is external: public class Repository { public void Save(Entity e, UnitOfWork uow) { uow.Track(e); } public void SubmittChanges(UnitOfWork uow) { SaveInStorage(uow.GetChanges()); } } Other times, is the UOW whom references the Repository public class UnitOfWork { Repository _repository; public UnitOfWork(Repository repository) { _repository = repository; } public void Save(Entity e) { this.Track(e); } public void SubmittChanges() { _repository.Save(this.GetChanges()); } } How are these two elements related? UOW tracks the elements that needs be changed, and repository contains the logic to persist those changes, but... who call who? Does the last make more sense? Also, who manages the connection? If several operations have to be done in the repository, I think using the same connection and even transaction is more sound, so maybe put the connection object inside the UOW and this one inside the repository makes sense as well. Cheers

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  • Revolutionizing Digital Commerce

    - by bwalstra
    The confluence of the Internet, the pace of change in technology, and the demands of the value-conscious consumer are accelerating the evolution of the global digital marketplace at an unprecedented rate. Success in the new digital economy has become inextricably linked with the agility to launch innovative products, services, and new business models efficiently with minimal risk. A major obstacle to agility, and by extension to success in digital commerce, is the fact that by and large information technology (IT) infrastructure is tightly coupled with particular business models. Enterprises, through well intentioned but misconstrued costsaving belief, continue to customize existing infrastructure and create now silos to support new business models. In reality, this approach results in rigid, inflexible business processes and exposes the enterprise to unnecessary risks, higher opportunity costs, and lower profit margins. Oracle, a leading supplier of business solutions to the enterprise, is enabling the business strategies necessary to succeed in the digital economy by offering a modern, open, modular, and functionally comprehensive revenue management solution that decouples IT infrastructure from business models. Enterprises using the Oracle solution are able to focus on core competencies and innovate unimpeded, assuring that business and IT systems will seamlessly adapt to changing conditions of the digital economy. Revolutionizing Digital Commerce:  An Oracle Revenue Management Solution

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  • Personalized Pricing

    - by David Dorf
    In past postings I've spent a fair amount of time talking about targeted promotions.  Using a complete view of the customer that includes purchase history, location history, and psychographics gleaned from social media, we can select the offer with the greatest chance of redemption.  This is done to influence shopping behavior, which might be introducing the consumer to a new product line, increasing their basket size, increasing frequency of purchases, etc. Safeway seems to be taking a slightly different approach with their personalized pricing.  In additional to offering electronic coupons and club card offers, they are also providing a personalized price for certain items based on purchase history.  So when Sally want to shop at Safeway, she first checks the "Just for U" website for three types of deals.  She starts by selecting manufacturer coupons to load into her loyalty card, then she checks the Club Card for offers like "buy one get one free." The third step is the interesting one.  Safeway will set a particular lower price for Sally good for 90 days on items she buys often.  Clearly this isn't enforcing a new behavior but rather instilling loyalty.  I would love to know exactly how they are determining the personalized price.  Of course bargain hunters can still stack the three offers so they can, for example, get their $4.99 Oatmeal for $0.72. I like this particular question and answer from their website's FAQ: My offers are not that great. Can I tell you what offers I need? That's a good idea. That functionality is not currently available, but we appreciate your input and are constantly improving our just for U program. Stay tuned for exciting enhancements! I suppose if Safeway is tracking all the purchases, they can easily determine whether the customer if profitable.  As long as the customer stays profitable, why not let them determine a few offers themselves?  Food for thought.

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  • Updating an ADF Web Service Data Control When Service Structure or Location Change

    - by Shay Shmeltzer
    The web service data control in Oracle ADF gives you a simplified approach to consuming services in ADF applications, and now with ADF Mobile the usage of this service seems to be growing. A frequent question we get is what happens if the service that I'm consuming changes - how do I update my data control? Well, first we should mention that if you do a good design of your application before you actually code - then things like Web service method signature shouldn't change. The signature is the contract between the publisher and the consumer, and contracts shouldn't be broken. But in reality things do change during development stages, so here is how you can update both method signatures and service location with the Web service data control: After watching this video you might be tempted to not copy the WSDLs to your project - which lets you use the right click update on a data control. However there is a reason why the copy is on by default, it reduces network traffic when you are actually running your application since ADF doesn't need to go to the server to find out the service structure. So for runtime performance, you probably should keep the WSDL local.  I encourage you to further look into both the connections.xml file where your service location is saved, and the datacontrols.dcx file where its definition is kept to get an even deeper understanding of how ADF works underneath the declarative layers.

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  • IASA South East Florida Chapter &ndash; November 2012 Meeting

    - by Rainer Habermann
    After a short introduction by Rainer Habermann and announcements for the chapter and promoting the upcoming IASA IFC Certification Class in January 2013 at Citrix, the audience was exited to welcome Jesus Rodriquez for the main presentation about “Mobilizing the Enterprise”.       Jesus is a co-founder and CEO of both Tellago Studios and Tellago, two fast growing start-ups with a unique vision around software technology. Jesus spends his days working on the technology and strategic vision of both companies. Under his leadership, Tellago and Tellago Studios have been recognized as an innovator in the areas of enterprise software and solutions achieving important awards like the Inc500, American Business Awards’ American and International Business Awards. A software scientist by background, Jesus is an internationally recognized speaker and author with contributions that include hundreds of articles and sessions at industry conferences. Jesus serves as an advisor to several software companies such as Microsoft and Oracle, and is the only person who holds both the Microsoft MVP and Oracle ACE awards. Jesus introduced the architecture of the Enterprise Mobile Backend as a service, integrating enterprise mobile applications with corporate line of business systems and providing robust backend capabilities represent some of the major challenges in today’s enterprise mobility solutions. The mobile consumer space has seen the emergence of backend as a service technologies as one of the main mechanisms for enabling backend capabilities in mobile applications. This session introduced the concept of mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) as the fundamental enabler of the next generation enterprise mobile applications. The session further explored the fundamental components and services of a mBaaS platform that makes it an ideal option for enabling backend capabilities in enterprise mobile applications. Using real world examples. Jesus demonstrated how mBaaS represents an agile and extremely simple model to integrate mobile applications with corporate systems. Thank you very much to Jesus Rodriquez for an outstanding presentation, Peak 10 Data Centers for hosting our meeting, and to TEK Systems for Snacks. Pictures taken by Ted Harwood.   Rainer Habermann President IASA SE Florida Chapter

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  • Microsoft Tag Tagged Me

    - by Brian Schroer
    I got EXTREMELY lucky last week and won an HP Mini 311 notebook from a Microsoft Tag Twitter contest. I did my required tweet to enter last Tuesday, and one hour later received notification that I had won the weekly drawing. Apparently you can tweet up to 500 times (I pity the followers of those who do that), so it was really lucky that I won, and I sympathize with those who had been really trying. If you would like to try your luck, there are seven weekly prizes left, and you can find out about the contest here: http://tag.microsoft.com/ttcontest.aspx For a free PC, I thought it was the least I could do to find out what Microsoft Tag is. I was vaguely aware of those pastel-y triangle-y square things that look like someone put one of Don Johnson’s Miami Vice outfits through a shredder, and knew that the company I work for (one of the world’s largest consumer products companies) was looking into putting them on our products, packaging and advertising, but didn’t know much more about the technology. I thought they were just an improvement over bar codes, and would be used in retail store scanners, but I was mistaken. These tags are meant to be scanned by consumers using their mobile phones, to get instant access to information, websites, reviews, etc. Scanning a tag can open a web page, import a contact card, or dial a phone number, play a video… Tag reader software can be installed on Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry, Android, J2ME, and other phones (and I suspect that it will be available for Windows Phone 7 also :). There are built-in tracking, metrics and analysis tools, to help companies using Tag make decisions about their marketing expenditures. (And they don’t have to look Miami Vice-y – They can be customized to reflect the personality of the person or a brand.) Looks like interesting stuff. You can find out more at http://tag.microsoft.com.

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  • Today's Links (6/24/2011)

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Fusion Applications - How we look at the near future | Domien Bolmers Bolmers recaps a Logica pow-wow around Fusion Applications. Who invented e-mail? | Nicholas Carr IT apparently does matter to Nicholas Carr as he shares links to Errol Morris's 5-part NYT series about the origins of email. David Sprott's Blog: Service Oriented Cloud (SOC) "Whilst all the really good Cloud environments are Service Oriented," says Sprott, "it’s very much the minority of consumer SaaS that is today." Fast, Faster, JRockit | René van Wijk Oracle ACE René van Wijk tells you "everything you ever wanted to know about the JRockit JVM, well quite a lot anyway." Creating an XML document based on my POJO domain model – how will JAXB help me? | Lucas Jellema "I thought that adding a few JAXB annotations to my existing POJO model would do the trick," says Jellema, "but no such luck." Announcing Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting | Theresa Hickman Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting is designed to help companies track and report greenhouse emissions. Yoga framework for REST-like partial resource access | William Vambenepe Vambenepe says: "A tweet by Stefan Tilkov brought Yoga to my attention, 'a framework for supporting REST-like URI requests with field selectors.'" InfoQ: Pragmatic Software Architecture and the Role of the Architect "Joe Wirtley introduces software architecture and the role of the architect in software development along with techniques, tips and resources to help one get started thinking as an architect."

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  • How-to get the binding for a tab in the Dynamic Tab Shell Template

    - by Frank Nimphius
    The Dynamic Tab Shell template does expose a method on the Tab.java class that allows you to get access to the ADF binding container for a tab. At least in theory this works, because in practice this call always returns a null value (a bug is filed for this). To work around the problem, you can use code similar to the following to get the ADF binding for a specific tab DCBindingContainer currentBinding = (DCBindingContainer) BindingContext.getCurrent().getCurrentBindingsEntry(); DCBindingContainer templateBinding = (DCBindingContainer)currentBinding.get("ptb1"); DCBindingContainer tabBinding= (DCBindingContainer)templateBinding.get("r"+0);  In the code line above, the tabBinding variable will hold the binding reference to the first tab in the dynamic tab shell template. Note that the tab doesn't need to be visible for this (which has to do with how the template works).  "ptb1" is the template reference name in the PageDef file (Executable section) of the template consumer view. Check this string in your page before using this code. If it differs, change it also in the code above. "r0" is the binding reference of the first tab in the template. Te last tab is referenced by "r14".  

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  • Social Retailing

    - by David Dorf
    For retailers the move to mobile has been obvious.  More and more consumers are interacting with retailers, both online and in the store, using their mobile devices.  Retailers are quick to invest in both consumer facing mobile apps as well as ones to equip employees.  But when I talk to retailers about social, the value isn't as clear-cut.  Intuitively, retailers know that better relationships with customers will result in higher sales, but the trip to get there has many paths. The interesting thing about social media is that it has the potential to permeate all parts of the business.  Obviously it works well for marketing, but it also has a place with recruiting, knowledge management, trend analysis, and employee collaboration.  Information gathered from social media can enhance existing processes like assortment planning, product development, space planning, promotion planning, and replenishment.  Letting the customer influence each of these areas helps align the experience. One of the things holding retailers back is the lack of consistent and integrated tools to manage social media and make sense of the huge amounts of data.  To that end Oracle has been aggressively acquiring in the space, as depicted in the infographic below.  Soon, social will get the same level of investment as mobile. The Social CRM Arms Race: A Timeline - An infographic by the team at Pardot Marketing Automation

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  • Travelocity Delivers Superior Customer Experience and Reduces Operating Costs with Oracle RightNow

    - by Tony Berk
    Turning the spotlight to our newest member of the CRM and Customer Experience (CX) family, RightNow, we highlight one of many customer success stories.  Travelocity is a leading provider of consumer-direct travel services for the leisure and business traveler. It markets and distributes travel-related products and services directly to individuals through Travelocity and its various brand websites and contact centers, and websites owned by its supplier and distribution partners. Before RightNow, Travelocity was running one system for its agent desktop and a separate email solution. Toggling between systems was inefficient and cumbersome. The RightNow contact center solution enables Travelocity to react at a moment’s notice and get customers the information they need before, during, and after their trip while maximizing agent productivity and driving revenue. Superior customer experience is one key reason why Travelocity continues to be a leader in the industry. The RightNow contact center solution supports Travelocity across its global brands with multi-channel support to provide superior care however customers communicate with the company—via phone, email, web, chat or mobile. Click here to learn more about Travelocity's use of Oracle RightNow and review other RightNow success stories.

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  • Would a typical corporate firewall block a Java applet having the following behaviour

    - by auser
    I'm thinking of developing a proxy-like program to forward ports on a remote PC to a local PC (for example SSH). Assume that both local and remote PCs are running behind typical firewalls (i.e. consumer broadband router firewall, Windows firewall or corporate firewalls). The program will be a Java program which the user will run on both the remote and local PC. The remote client will periodically poll a central server to determine whether there are pending client connections. A session could be initiated as follows: The local client contacts the central server and request the current connection details for a specific remote client. The central server responds with the remote server's last received IP address and port. The next time the remote server polls the central server, the client's IP address and port are returned. The remote server initiates a connection to the local client using the IP address and port returned by the central server and listens for a response on a random port. The remote server will pass the value of the port it's listening on to central server. Goto 1, if client fails to connect to server. Would this work or will a typical firewall block the interactions.

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  • Docker vs ESXi for Startup Projects - Deploying Code for Dev Testing

    - by JasonG
    Why hello there little programmer dude! I have a question for you and all of your experience and knowledge. I have an ESXi whitebox that I built which is an 8 dude that sits in the corner. I made a mistake recently and took the key that had ESXi, formatted it and used it for something else. No big deal because the last project I worked on had stalled out. I'm about to pick up another project and now I need to spin up a whole bunch of stuff for CI, qa + db, ticket tracker, wikis etc etc. I've been hearing a lot about Docker recently and as this is just a consumer grade machine, I'm wondering if it may make more sense for me to use Docker on OpenOS and then put everything there - bamboo or hudson, jira, confluence, postgress for the tools to use, then a qa env. I can't really seem to find any documents that directly compare traditional VM infrastructure vs docker solutions and I'm wondering if it is fair to compare. Is there any reason why CoreOS w/ containers would be a strictly worse solution? Or do you have any insight into why I may want to stick with ESXi? I've looked on multiple occasions and can't find a good reason not to. I'm not going to run a production env on the server so I don't need to have HA if updating security or OS for example where esxi would allow me to restart one vm at a time. I can just shut the thing down and bring it back up if I need a reboot no problem. So what's up with this container stuff? Is it a fair replacement for ESXi? I'm guessing the atlassian products would run much better and my ram would go a lot farther using docker. Probably the CPU would run much cooler too and my expensive HDD space would be better utilized.

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  • A few tips on deploying Secure Enterprise Search with PeopleSoft

    - by Matthew Haavisto
    Oracle's Secure Enterprise Search is part of PeopleSoft now.  It is provided as part of the Peopltools platform as an appliance, and is used with applications starting with release 9.2.  Secure Enterprise Search is a rich and powerful search product that can enhance search and navigation in PeopleSoft applications.  It also provides useful features like facets and filtering that are common in consumer search engines.Several questions have arisen about the deployment of SES and how to administer it and insure optimum performance.  People have also asked about what versions are supported on various platforms.  To address the most common of these questions, we are posting this list of tips.Platform SupportSES 11.1.2.2 does not support some of the platforms supported by PeopleTools, such as Windows 2012 and AIX 7.1. However, PeopleSoft and SES can use different operating system platforms when SES is deployed on a separate machine.SES 11.2.2.2 will have the required platform support for PT 8.53 in the future. We are planning to certify PT 8.53 once the testing is complete in 8.54 development and all platform support is released for 11.2.2.2.ArchitectureWe recommend running SES on a separate machine (from your apps) for two reasons:1.    SES bundles specific WebLogic, Java, and Oracle DB versions and might need different OS patches at a minimum than PeopleSoft. By having SES run on a different machine, these pre-requisites can be managed better through their lifecycle independenly for PeopleSoft and SES.2.    SES is resource intensive - it runs it's own WebLogic and Oracle database. By having SES run on its own machine, sufficient resources can be allocated to SES and free the PeopleSoft servers from impacts of SES load patterns.We will be providing a comprehensive red paper covering PeopleSoft/SES administration in the near future, but until that is published, we'll post tips on this blog.

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  • Case study: LOREX Technology Increases Website Traffic 90% with Oracle ATG

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    LOREX Technology Increases Website Traffic 90% by Enhancing the Online Customer Experience with a Flexible E-Commerce Platform LOREX Technology Inc. provides businesses and consumers with advanced video surveillance security products under the LOREX and Digimerge brands. LOREX, which caters to midsize business and consumer markets, is available in thousands of retail locations across North America. The Digimerge division sells its products through security system distributors in North America. Both brands concentrate on the sale of wired, wireless, and IP security surveillance and monitoring equipment, including cameras, digital video recorders, and all-in-one systems. LOREX conducted an extensive search for the right e-commerce platform to address its immediate need for a more intuitive shopping cart interface that could grow along with the company. After reviewing other solutions, including open source, LOREX chose Oracle ATG Web Commerce because it addressed every stage of the buying process and crossed all customer touch points, including the Web, contact center, mobile devices, social media, and its B2B partners’ physical stores. LOREX also found that Oracle ATG Web Commerce’s functionality was more robust than competing options, and it offered an attractive total cost of ownership. “Oracle ATG Web Commerce provided an optimal foundation to support rapid, scalable, long-term business growth while allowing full control of the platform,” said Sufi Khan Sulaiman, director, E-Commerce and Digital, LOREX. Read full story here  

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  • How to get feedback from the community on large chunks of code?

    - by MainMa
    Code Review.SE is great when you need feedback on a precise, short piece of code. But where to get similar feedback about the code itself when: you have thousands of LOC, don't have colleagues in your workplace ready or willing to review the code¹, don't have thousands of dollars to spend for a professional review by a third party developer?² Places like CodePlex are a good idea to get your project known³, but from what I've seen, the feedback you get on known projects are consumer feedback, i.e. concerns the bugs and feature requests, not the quality of the source code itself. What are the social way to get the community involved in the code review of the codebase of a certain size for an open source project which doesn't have the scale of Firefox or similar products? ¹ Which is the case for most personal and open source projects, or projects done in companies where the practice of regular and complete code review is nonexistent. ² Which is, again, the case for most personal and open source projects. ³ Even if too many projects published on CodePlex never get known, either because nobody cares or because they are presented not very well.

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  • How can I get started using TDD to code some simple functionality?

    - by Gabriel
    I basically have the gist of TDD. I'm sold that it's useful and I've got a reasonable command of the MSTEST framework. However, to date I have not been able to graduate to using it as a primary development method. Mostly, I use it as a surrogate for writing console apps as test drivers (my traditional approach). The most useful thing about it for me is the way it absorbs the role of regression testing. I have not yet built anything yet that specifically isolates various testable behaviors, which is another big part of the picture I know. So this question is to ask for pointers on what the first test(s) I might write for the following development task: I want to produce code that encapsulates task execution in the fashion of producer/consumer. I stopped and decided to write this question after I wrote this code (wondering if I could actually use TDD for real this time) Code: interface ITask { Guid TaskId { get; } bool IsComplete { get; } bool IsFailed { get; } bool IsRunning { get; } } interface ITaskContainer { Guid AddTask(ICommand action); } interface ICommand { string CommandName { get; } Dictionary<string, object> Parameters { get; } void Execute(); }

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  • What payment gateways do real customers really use when given the choice?

    - by ??????
    I would like to give customers the option of paying however they can whether that be through a proper gateway (e.g. SagePay) or through something else such as PayPal, Amazon Checkout or Google Checkout. Personally I have not bought anything through the Amazon Checkout except for on Amazon.co.uk and my PayPal buys have been limited. As for Google Checkout I have no idea what that is or how it works from a consumer perspective. I understand that people buying from smaller sites are happier to pay by PayPal as they have an account already and trust PayPal. As for Amazon Payments and Google Checkout, do people actually use them if given the choice? There are a lot of people on Kindles these days, happy to buy stuff via Amazon on their Kindle. Would Amazon Payments make sense to this growing crowd? With too many payment gateways on offer it might be confusing at the checkout. Does anyone know if this is a problem for genuine customers? I also have not seen many 'pay by Amazon Payments' icons on websites (you see PayPal all the time). Does advertising the fact that you can pay by Amazon Payments increase sales, e.g. to Kindle owners that have a nebulous book-buying account that 'their other half doesn't know about'?

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