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  • How do I explain this to potential employers?

    - by ReferencelessBob
    Backstory: TL;DR: I've gained a lot of experience working for 5 years at one startup company, but it eventually failed. The company is gone and the owner MIA. When I left sixth-form college I didn't want to start a degree straight away, so when I met this guy who knew a guy who was setting up a publishing company and needed a 'Techie' I thought why not. It was a very small operation, he sent mailings to schools, waited for orders to start arriving, then ordered a short run of the textbooks to be printed, stuck them in an envelope posted them out. I was initially going to help him set up a computerized system for recording orders and payments, printing labels, really basic stuff and I threw it together in Access in a couple of weeks. He also wanted to start taking orders online, so I set up a website and a paypal business account. While I was doing this, I was also helping to do the day-to-day running of things, taking phone orders, posting products, banking cheques, ordering textbooks, designing mailings, filing end of year accounts, hiring extra staff, putting stamps on envelopes. I learned so much about things I didn't even know I needed to learn about. Things were pretty good, when I started we sold about £10,000 worth of textbooks and by my 4th year there we sold £250,000 worth of text books. Things were looking good, but we had a problem. Our best selling product had peaked and sales started to fall sharply, we introduced add on products through the website to boost sales which helped for a while, but we had simply saturated the market. Our plan was to enter the US with our star product and follow the same, slightly modified, plan as before. We setup a 1-866 number and had the calls forwarded to our UK offices. We contracted a fulfillment company, shipped over a few thousand textbooks, had a mailing printed and mailed, then sat by the phones and waited. Needless to say, it didn't work. We tried a few other things, at home and in the US, but nothing helped. We expanded in the good times, moving into bigger offices, taking on staff to do administrative and dispatch work, but now cashflow was becoming a problem and things got tougher. We did the only thing we could and scaled things right back, the offices went, the admin staff went, I stopped taking a wage and started working from home. Nothing helped. The business was wound up about about 2 years ago. In the end it turned out that the owner had built up considerable debt at the start of business and had not paid them off during good years, which left him in a difficult position when cashflow had started to dry up. I haven't been able to contact the owner since I found out. It took me a while to get back on my feet after that, but I'm now at University and doing a Computer Science degree. How do I show the experience I have without having to get into all the gory details of what happened?

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  • New Enhancements for InnoDB Memcached

    - by Calvin Sun
    In MySQL 5.6, we continued our development on InnoDB Memcached and completed a few widely desirable features that make InnoDB Memcached a competitive feature in more scenario. Notablely, they are 1) Support multiple table mapping 2) Added background thread to auto-commit long running transactions 3) Enhancement in binlog performance  Let’s go over each of these features one by one. And in the last section, we will go over a couple of internally performed performance tests. Support multiple table mapping In our earlier release, all InnoDB Memcached operations are mapped to a single InnoDB table. In the real life, user might want to use this InnoDB Memcached features on different tables. Thus being able to support access to different table at run time, and having different mapping for different connections becomes a very desirable feature. And in this GA release, we allow user just be able to do both. We will discuss the key concepts and key steps in using this feature. 1) "mapping name" in the "get" and "set" command In order to allow InnoDB Memcached map to a new table, the user (DBA) would still require to "pre-register" table(s) in InnoDB Memcached “containers” table (there is security consideration for this requirement). If you would like to know about “containers” table, please refer to my earlier blogs in blogs.innodb.com. Once registered, the InnoDB Memcached will then be able to look for such table when they are referred. Each of such registered table will have a unique "registration name" (or mapping_name) corresponding to the “name” field in the “containers” table.. To access these tables, user will include such "registration name" in their get or set commands, in the form of "get @@new_mapping_name.key", prefix "@@" is required for signaling a mapped table change. The key and the "mapping name" are separated by a configurable delimiter, by default, it is ".". So the syntax is: get [@@mapping_name.]key_name set [@@mapping_name.]key_name  or  get @@mapping_name set @@mapping_name Here is an example: Let's set up three tables in the "containers" table: The first is a map to InnoDB table "test/demo_test" table with mapping name "setup_1" INSERT INTO containers VALUES ("setup_1", "test", "demo_test", "c1", "c2", "c3", "c4", "c5", "PRIMARY");  Similarly, we set up table mappings for table "test/new_demo" with name "setup_2" and that to table "mydatabase/my_demo" with name "setup_3": INSERT INTO containers VALUES ("setup_2", "test", "new_demo", "c1", "c2", "c3", "c4", "c5", "secondary_index_x"); INSERT INTO containers VALUES ("setup_3", "my_database", "my_demo", "c1", "c2", "c3", "c4", "c5", "idx"); To switch to table "my_database/my_demo", and get the value corresponding to “key_a”, user will do: get @@setup_3.key_a (this will also output the value that corresponding to key "key_a" or simply get @@setup_3 Once this is done, this connection will switch to "my_database/my_demo" table until another table mapping switch is requested. so it can continue issue regular command like: get key_b  set key_c 0 0 7 These DMLs will all be directed to "my_database/my_demo" table. And this also implies that different connections can have different bindings (to different table). 2) Delimiter: For the delimiter "." that separates the "mapping name" and key value, we also added a configure option in the "config_options" system table with name of "table_map_delimiter": INSERT INTO config_options VALUES("table_map_delimiter", "."); So if user wants to change to a different delimiter, they can change it in the config_option table. 3) Default mapping: Once we have multiple table mapping, there should be always a "default" map setting. For this, we decided if there exists a mapping name of "default", then this will be chosen as default mapping. Otherwise, the first row of the containers table will chosen as default setting. Please note, user tables can be repeated in the "containers" table (for example, user wants to access different columns of the table in different settings), as long as they are using different mapping/configure names in the first column, which is enforced by a unique index. 4) bind command In addition, we also extend the protocol and added a bind command, its usage is fairly straightforward. To switch to "setup_3" mapping above, you simply issue: bind setup_3 This will switch this connection's InnoDB table to "my_database/my_demo" In summary, with this feature, you now can direct access to difference tables with difference session. And even a single connection, you can query into difference tables. Background thread to auto-commit long running transactions This is a feature related to the “batch” concept we discussed in earlier blogs. This “batch” feature allows us batch the read and write operations, and commit them only after certain calls. The “batch” size is controlled by the configure parameter “daemon_memcached_w_batch_size” and “daemon_memcached_r_batch_size”. This could significantly boost performance. However, it also comes with some disadvantages, for example, you will not be able to view “uncommitted” operations from SQL end unless you set transaction isolation level to read_uncommitted, and in addition, this will held certain row locks for extend period of time that might reduce the concurrency. To deal with this, we introduce a background thread that “auto-commits” the transaction if they are idle for certain amount of time (default is 5 seconds). The background thread will wake up every second and loop through every “connections” opened by Memcached, and check for idle transactions. And if such transaction is idle longer than certain limit and not being used, it will commit such transactions. This limit is configurable by change “innodb_api_bk_commit_interval”. Its default value is 5 seconds, and minimum is 1 second, and maximum is 1073741824 seconds. With the help of such background thread, you will not need to worry about long running uncommitted transactions when set daemon_memcached_w_batch_size and daemon_memcached_r_batch_size to a large number. This also reduces the number of locks that could be held due to long running transactions, and thus further increase the concurrency. Enhancement in binlog performance As you might all know, binlog operation is not done by InnoDB storage engine, rather it is handled in the MySQL layer. In order to support binlog operation through InnoDB Memcached, we would have to artificially create some MySQL constructs in order to access binlog handler APIs. In previous lab release, for simplicity consideration, we open and destroy these MySQL constructs (such as THD) for each operations. This required us to set the “batch” size always to 1 when binlog is on, no matter what “daemon_memcached_w_batch_size” and “daemon_memcached_r_batch_size” are configured to. This put a big restriction on our capability to scale, and also there are quite a bit overhead in creating destroying such constructs that bogs the performance down. With this release, we made necessary change that would keep MySQL constructs as long as they are valid for a particular connection. So there will not be repeated and redundant open and close (table) calls. And now even with binlog option is enabled (with innodb_api_enable_binlog,), we still can batch the transactions with daemon_memcached_w_batch_size and daemon_memcached_r_batch_size, thus scale the write/read performance. Although there are still overheads that makes InnoDB Memcached cannot perform as fast as when binlog is turned off. It is much better off comparing to previous release. And we are continuing optimize the solution is this area to improve the performance as much as possible. Performance Study: Amerandra of our System QA team have conducted some performance studies on queries through our InnoDB Memcached connection and plain SQL end. And it shows some interesting results. The test is conducted on a “Linux 2.6.32-300.7.1.el6uek.x86_64 ix86 (64)” machine with 16 GB Memory, Intel Xeon 2.0 GHz CPU X86_64 2 CPUs- 4 Core Each, 2 RAID DISKS (1027 GB,733.9GB). Results are described in following tables: Table 1: Performance comparison on Set operations Connections 5.6.7-RC-Memcached-plugin ( TPS / Qps) with memcached-threads=8*** 5.6.7-RC* X faster Set (QPS) Set** 8 30,000 5,600 5.36 32 59,000 13,000 4.54 128 68,000 8,000 8.50 512 63,000 6.800 9.23 * mysql-5.6.7-rc-linux2.6-x86_64 ** The “set” operation when implemented in InnoDB Memcached involves a couple of DMLs: it first query the table to see whether the “key” exists, if it does not, the new key/value pair will be inserted. If it does exist, the “value” field of matching row (by key) will be updated. So when used in above query, it is a precompiled store procedure, and query will just execute such procedures. *** added “–daemon_memcached_option=-t8” (default is 4 threads) So we can see with this “set” query, InnoDB Memcached can run 4.5 to 9 time faster than MySQL server. Table 2: Performance comparison on Get operations Connections 5.6.7-RC-Memcached-plugin ( TPS / Qps) with memcached-threads=8 5.6.7-RC* X faster Get (QPS) Get 8 42,000 27,000 1.56 32 101,000 55.000 1.83 128 117,000 52,000 2.25 512 109,000 52,000 2.10 With the “get” query (or the select query), memcached performs 1.5 to 2 times faster than normal SQL. Summary: In summary, we added several much-desired features to InnoDB Memcached in this release, allowing user to operate on different tables with this Memcached interface. We also now provide a background commit thread to commit long running idle transactions, thus allow user to configure large batch write/read without worrying about large number of rows held or not being able to see (uncommit) data. We also greatly enhanced the performance when Binlog is enabled. We will continue making efforts in both performance enhancement and functionality areas to make InnoDB Memcached a good demo case for our InnoDB APIs. Jimmy Yang, September 29, 2012

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  • Interview with Geoff Bones, developer on SQL Storage Compress

    - by red(at)work
    How did you come to be working at Red Gate? I've been working at Red Gate for nine months; before that I had been at a multinational engineering company. A number of my colleagues had left to work at Red Gate and spoke very highly of it, but I was happy in my role and thought, 'It can't be that great there, surely? They'll be back!' Then one day I visited to catch up them over lunch in the Red Gate canteen. I was so impressed with what I found there, that, three days later, I'd applied for a role as a developer. And how did you get into software development? My first job out of university was working as a systems programmer on IBM mainframes. This was quite a while ago: there was a lot of assembler and loading programs from tape drives and that kind of stuff. I learned a lot about how computers work, and this stood me in good stead when I moved over the development in the 90s. What's the best thing about working as a developer at Red Gate? Where should I start? One of the great things as a developer at Red Gate is the useful feedback and close contact we have with the people who use our products, either directly at trade shows and other events or through information coming through the product managers. The company's whole ethos is built around assisting the user, and this is in big contrast to my previous development roles. We aim to produce tools that people really want to use, that they enjoy using, and, as a developer, this is a great thing to aim for and a great feeling when we get it right. At Red Gate we also try to cut out the things that distract and stop us doing our jobs. As a developer, this means that I can focus on the code and the product I'm working on, knowing that others are doing a first-class job of making sure that the builds are running smoothly and that I'm getting great feedback from the testers. We keep our process light and effective, as we want to produce great software more than we want to produce great audit trails. Tell us a bit about the products you are currently working on. You mean HyperBac? First let me explain a bit about what HyperBac is. At heart it's a compression and encryption technology, but with a few added features that open up a wealth of really exciting possibilities. Right now we have the HyperBac technology in just three products: SQL HyperBac, SQL Virtual Restore and SQL Storage Compress, but we're only starting to develop what it can do. My personal favourite is SQL Virtual Restore; for example, I love the way you can use it to run independent test databases that are all backed by a single compressed backup. I don't think the market yet realises the kind of things you do once you are using these products. On the other hand, the benefits of SQL Storage Compress are straightforward: run your databases but use only 20% of the disk space. Databases are getting larger and larger, and, as they do, so does your ROI. What's a typical day for you? My days are pretty varied. We have our daily team stand-up meeting and then sometimes I will work alone on a current issue, or I'll be pair programming with one of my colleagues. From time to time we give half a day up to future planning with the team, when we look at the long and short term aims for the product and working out the development priorities. I also get to go to conferences and events, which is unusual for a development role and gives me the chance to meet and talk to our customers directly. Have you noticed anything different about developing tools for DBAs rather than other IT kinds of user? It seems to me that DBAs are quite independent minded; they know exactly what the problem they are facing is, and often have a solution in mind before they begin to look for what's on the market. This means that they're likely to cherry-pick tools from a range of vendors, picking the ones that are the best fit for them and that disrupt their environments the least. When I've met with DBAs, I've often been very impressed at their ability to summarise their set up, the issues, the obstacles they face when implementing a tool and their plans for their environment. It's easier to develop products for this audience as they give such a detailed overview of their needs, and I feel I understand their problems.

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  • Say What? Podcasting As Part of Your Content Marketing

    - by Mike Stiles
    What do you usually do in your car on the way to work?  Sing along to radio? Stream Pandora or iHeartRadio? Talk on the phone? Sit in total silence? Whatever it is you do, you could be using that time to make yourself an expert in any range of topics…using podcasts. We invite you to follow or subscribe to the daily Oracle Social Spotlight podcast, a quick roundup of the day’s top stories around social marketing and the social networks. After podcasts arrived in 2004, growth was steady but slow. The concept was strong: anyone with a passion for any subject could make a show for anyone who cared to listen. Enter the smartphone, iTunes, new podcasting platforms, and social, and podcasting became easier than ever and made more sense for both podcasters and listeners. Stats show 1 in 5 smartphone owners are podcast consumers and 29% of Americans have listened to a podcast. The potential audience is also larger than ever. “Baked in” podcast apps on over 200 million devices expose users to volumes of audio content with just a tap. 97 million Americans are driving to work every day by themselves. And 38% of Americans listen to audio on a digital device each week, a number that’s projected to double by 2015. Does that mean your brand should be podcasting? That’s part of a larger discussion about your overall content strategy, provided you have one. But if you do and podcasting is a component of it, here are some things to keep in mind: Don’t podcast just to do it. Podcast because you thought of a show customers and prospects will like that they can’t get anywhere else. Sound quality matters. Good microphones are not expensive. Bad sound is annoying, makes your brand feel cheap, and will turn today’s sophisticated ears off. The host matters. Many think they belong on the radio. Few actually do. Your brand’s host should be comfortable & likeable. A top advantage of a podcast is people can bond with a real person. It’s a trust opportunity, so don’t take it lightly. The content matters. “All killer, no filler” means don’t allow babbling just to fill enough time for an episode. Value the listeners’ time, because that time is hard to get. Put time, effort and creativity into it. Sure you’re a business, but you’re competing with content from professional media and showbiz producers. If you can include music, sound effects, and things that amuse the ears, do it. If you start, be consistent. The #1 flaw in podcasting is when listeners can’t count on another episode or don’t know when it’s coming. Don’t skip doing shows just because you can. Get committed. Get your cover art right. Podcasting is about audio, but people shop for podcasts by glancing through graphics. Yours has to be professional, cool, and informative to get listeners interested. Cross-promote your podcast on all your channels. The competition for listeners is fierce, so if you have existing audiences you can leverage to launch your show, use them. Optimize it for mobile. Assume that’s where most listening will take place. If you’re using one of the podcast platform apps, you should be in good shape. Frankly, the percentage of brands that are podcasting is quite low, and that’s okay. Once you move beyond blogging and start connecting with real voices, poor execution can do damage. But more (32%) marketers want to learn how to use podcasting, and more (23%) were increasing their podcasting throughout this year. Bottom line, you want to share your brand’s message and stories wherever your audience might be and in whatever way they prefer to take in content. Many prefer to do that while driving or working out, using the eyes and hands-free medium of audio. @mikestilesPhoto: stock.xchng

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  • CSM DX11 issues

    - by KaiserJohaan
    I got CSM to work in OpenGL, and now Im trying to do the same in directx. I'm using the same math library and all and I'm pretty much using the alghorithm straight off. I am using right-handed, column major matrices from GLM. The light is looking (-1, -1, -1). The problem I have is twofolds; For some reason, the ground floor is causing alot of (false) shadow artifacts, like the vast shadowed area you see. I confirmed this when I disabled the ground for the depth pass, but thats a hack more than anything else The shadows are inverted compared to the shadowmap. If you squint you can see the chairs shadows should be mirrored instead. This is the first cascade shadow map, in range of the alien and the chair: I can't figure out why this is. This is the depth pass: for (uint32_t cascadeIndex = 0; cascadeIndex < NUM_SHADOWMAP_CASCADES; cascadeIndex++) { mShadowmap.BindDepthView(context, cascadeIndex); CameraFrustrum cameraFrustrum = CalculateCameraFrustrum(degreesFOV, aspectRatio, nearDistArr[cascadeIndex], farDistArr[cascadeIndex], cameraViewMatrix); lightVPMatrices[cascadeIndex] = CreateDirLightVPMatrix(cameraFrustrum, lightDir); mVertexTransformPass.RenderMeshes(context, renderQueue, meshes, lightVPMatrices[cascadeIndex]); lightVPMatrices[cascadeIndex] = gBiasMatrix * lightVPMatrices[cascadeIndex]; farDistArr[cascadeIndex] = -farDistArr[cascadeIndex]; } CameraFrustrum CalculateCameraFrustrum(const float fovDegrees, const float aspectRatio, const float minDist, const float maxDist, const Mat4& cameraViewMatrix) { CameraFrustrum ret = { Vec4(1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f), Vec4(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f), Vec4(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f), Vec4(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f), Vec4(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), Vec4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), Vec4(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), Vec4(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), }; const Mat4 perspectiveMatrix = PerspectiveMatrixFov(fovDegrees, aspectRatio, minDist, maxDist); const Mat4 invMVP = glm::inverse(perspectiveMatrix * cameraViewMatrix); for (Vec4& corner : ret) { corner = invMVP * corner; corner /= corner.w; } return ret; } Mat4 CreateDirLightVPMatrix(const CameraFrustrum& cameraFrustrum, const Vec3& lightDir) { Mat4 lightViewMatrix = glm::lookAt(Vec3(0.0f), -glm::normalize(lightDir), Vec3(0.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f)); Vec4 transf = lightViewMatrix * cameraFrustrum[0]; float maxZ = transf.z, minZ = transf.z; float maxX = transf.x, minX = transf.x; float maxY = transf.y, minY = transf.y; for (uint32_t i = 1; i < 8; i++) { transf = lightViewMatrix * cameraFrustrum[i]; if (transf.z > maxZ) maxZ = transf.z; if (transf.z < minZ) minZ = transf.z; if (transf.x > maxX) maxX = transf.x; if (transf.x < minX) minX = transf.x; if (transf.y > maxY) maxY = transf.y; if (transf.y < minY) minY = transf.y; } Mat4 viewMatrix(lightViewMatrix); viewMatrix[3][0] = -(minX + maxX) * 0.5f; viewMatrix[3][1] = -(minY + maxY) * 0.5f; viewMatrix[3][2] = -(minZ + maxZ) * 0.5f; viewMatrix[0][3] = 0.0f; viewMatrix[1][3] = 0.0f; viewMatrix[2][3] = 0.0f; viewMatrix[3][3] = 1.0f; Vec3 halfExtents((maxX - minX) * 0.5, (maxY - minY) * 0.5, (maxZ - minZ) * 0.5); return OrthographicMatrix(-halfExtents.x, halfExtents.x, -halfExtents.y, halfExtents.y, halfExtents.z, -halfExtents.z) * viewMatrix; } And this is the pixel shader used for the lighting stage: #define DEPTH_BIAS 0.0005 #define NUM_CASCADES 4 cbuffer DirectionalLightConstants : register(CBUFFER_REGISTER_PIXEL) { float4x4 gSplitVPMatrices[NUM_CASCADES]; float4x4 gCameraViewMatrix; float4 gSplitDistances; float4 gLightColor; float4 gLightDirection; }; Texture2D gPositionTexture : register(TEXTURE_REGISTER_POSITION); Texture2D gDiffuseTexture : register(TEXTURE_REGISTER_DIFFUSE); Texture2D gNormalTexture : register(TEXTURE_REGISTER_NORMAL); Texture2DArray gShadowmap : register(TEXTURE_REGISTER_DEPTH); SamplerComparisonState gShadowmapSampler : register(SAMPLER_REGISTER_DEPTH); float4 ps_main(float4 position : SV_Position) : SV_Target0 { float4 worldPos = gPositionTexture[uint2(position.xy)]; float4 diffuse = gDiffuseTexture[uint2(position.xy)]; float4 normal = gNormalTexture[uint2(position.xy)]; float4 camPos = mul(gCameraViewMatrix, worldPos); uint index = 3; if (camPos.z > gSplitDistances.x) index = 0; else if (camPos.z > gSplitDistances.y) index = 1; else if (camPos.z > gSplitDistances.z) index = 2; float3 projCoords = (float3)mul(gSplitVPMatrices[index], worldPos); float viewDepth = projCoords.z - DEPTH_BIAS; projCoords.z = float(index); float visibilty = gShadowmap.SampleCmpLevelZero(gShadowmapSampler, projCoords, viewDepth); float angleNormal = clamp(dot(normal, gLightDirection), 0, 1); return visibilty * diffuse * angleNormal * gLightColor; } As you can see I am using depth bias and a bias matrix. Any hints on why this behaves so wierdly?

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  • Ok it has been pointed out to me

    - by Ratman21
    That it seems my blog is more of poor me or pity me or I deserve a job blog.   Hmmm I wont say, I have not wined here as I have used this blog to vent my frustration on the whole out of work thing (lack of money, self worth, family issues and the never end bills coming my way) but, it was also me trying to reach to others in the same boat as well as advertising, hay I am out here, employers.   It was also said, that I don’t have any thing listed here on me, like a cover letter or resume. Well there is but, it was so many months and post ago. Also what I had posted is not current. So here is my most current cover and resume.   Scott L Newman 45219 Dutton Way Callahan, Fl. 32011 To Whom It May Concern: I am really interested in the IT vacancie that you have listed for your company. Maybe I don’t have all the qualifications you want (hold on don’t hit delete yet) yet! But maybe I do, as I have over 20 + years experience in "IT” RIGHT NOW.   Read the rest of my cover and my resume. You will see what my “IT” skills are and it will Show that I can to this work! I can bring to your company along with my, can do attitude, a broad range of skills, including: Certified CompTIA A+, Security+  and Network+ Technician §         2.5 years (NOC) Network experience on large Cisco based Wan – UK to Austria §         20 years experience MIS/DP – Yes I can do IBM mainframes and Tandem  non-stops too §         18 years experience as technical Help Desk support – panicking users, no problem §         18 years experience with PC/Server based system, intranet and internet systems §         10+ years experienced on: Microsoft Office, Windows XP and Data Network Fundamentals (YES I do windows) §         Strong trouble shooting skills for software, hard ware and circuit issues (and I can tell you what kind of horrors I had to face on all of them). §         Very experienced on working with customers on problems – again panicking users, no problem §         Working experience with Remote Access (VPN/SecurID) – I didn’t just study them I worked on/with them §         Skilled in getting info for and creating documentation for Operation procedures (I don’t just wait for them to give it to me I go out and get it. Waiting for info on working applications is, well dumb) Multiple software languages (Hey I have done some programming) And much more experiences in “IT” (Mortgage, stocks and financial information systems experience and have worked “IT” in a hospital) Can multitask, also have ability to adapt to change and learn quickly. (once was put in charge of a system that I had not worked with for over two years. Talk about having to relearn and adapt to changes but, I did it.) I would welcome the opportunity to further discuss this position with you. If you have questions or would like to schedule an interview, please contact me by phone at 904-879-4880 or on my cell 352-356-0945 or by e-mail at [email protected] or leave a message on my web site (http://beingscottnewman.webs.com/). I have enclosed/attached my resume for your review and I look forward to hearing from you.   Thank you for taking a moment to consider my cover letter and resume. I appreciate how busy you are. Sincerely, Scott L. Newman    Scott L. Newman 45219 Dutton Way, Callahan, FL 32011? H (904)879-4880 C (352)356-0945 ? [email protected] Web - http://beingscottnewman.webs.com/                                                       ______                                                                                       OBJECTIVE To obtain a Network Operation or Helpdesk position.     PROFILE Information Technology Professional with 20+ years of experience. Volunteer website creator and back-up sound technician at True Faith Christian Fellowship. CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ Certified.   TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS   §         Technical Support §         Frame Relay §         Microsoft Office Suite §         Inventory Management §         ISDN §         Windows NT/98/XP §         Client/Vendor Relations §         CICS §         Cisco Routers/Switches §         Networking/Administration §         RPG §         Helpdesk §         Website Design/Dev./Management §         Assembler §         Visio §         Programming §         COBOL IV §               EDUCATION ? New HorizonsComputerLearningCenter, Jacksonville, Florida – CompTIA A+, Security+ and Network+ Certified.             Currently working on CCNA Certification ?MottCommunity College, Flint, Michigan – Associates Degree - Data Processing and General Education ? Currently studying Japanese     PROFESSIONAL             TrueFaithChristianFellowshipChurch – Callahan, FL, October 2009 – Present Web site Tech ·        Web site Creator/tech, back up song leader and back up sound technician. Note church web site is (http://ambassadorsforjesuschrist.webs.com/) U.S. Census (temp employee) Feb. 23 to March 8, 2010 ·        Enumerator for NassauCounty   ThomasCreekBaptistChurch – Callahan, FL,     June 2008 – September 2009 Churchsound and video technician      ·        sound and video technician           Fidelity National Information Services ? Jacksonville, FL ? February 01, 2005 to October 28, 2008 Client Server Dev/Analyst I ·        Monitored Multiple Debit Card sites, Check Authorization customers and the Card Auth system (AuthNet) for problems with the sites, connections, servers (on our LAN) and/or applications ·        Night (NOC) Network operator for a large Wide Area Network (WAN) ·        Monitored Multiple Check Authorization customers for problems with circuits, routers and applications ·        Resolved circuit and/or router issues or assist circuit carrier in resolving issue ·        Resolved application problems or assist application support in resolution ·        Liaison between customer and application support ·        Maintained and updated the NetOps Operation procedures Guide ·        Kept the listing of equipment on the raised floor updated ·        Involved in the training of all Night Check and Card server operation operators ·        FNIS acquired Certegy in 2005. Was one of 3 kept on.   Certegy ? St.Pete, FL ? August 31, 2003 to February 1, 2005 Senior NetOps Operator(FNIS acquired Certegy in 2005 all of above jobs/skills were same as listed in FNIS) ·        Converting Documentation to Adobe format ·        Sole trainer of day/night shift System Management Center operators (SMC) ·        Equifax spun off Card/Check Dept. as Certegy. Certegy terminated contract with EDS. One of six in the whole IT dept that was kept on.   EDS  (Certegy Account) ? St.Pete, FL ? July 1, 1999 to August 31, 2003 Senior NetOps Operator ·        Equifax outsourced the NetOps dept. to EDS in 1999. ·        Same job skills as listed above for FNIS.   Equifax ? St.Pete&Tampa, FL ? January 1, 1991 to July 1, 1999 NetOps/Tandem Operator ·        All of the above for FNIS, except for circuit and router issues ·        Operated, monitored and trouble shot Tandem mainframe and servers on LAN ·        Supported in the operation of the Print, Tape and Microfiche rooms ·        Equifax acquired TelaCredit in 1991.   TelaCredit ? Tampa, FL ? June 28, 1989 to January 1, 1991 Tandem Operator ·        Operated and monitored Tandem Non-stop systems for Card and Check Auths ·        Operated multiple high-speed Laser printers and Microfiche printers ·        Mounted, filed and maintained 18 reel-to-reel mainframe tape drives, cartridges tape drives and tape library.

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  • Organization &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 5

    - by MarkPearl
    Learning Outcomes Describe the operation of a memory cell Explain the difference between DRAM and SRAM Discuss the different types of ROM Explain the concepts of a hard failure and a soft error respectively Describe SDRAM organization Semiconductor Main Memory The two traditional forms of RAM used in computers are DRAM and SRAM DRAM (Dynamic RAM) Divided into two technologies… Dynamic Static Dynamic RAM is made with cells that store data as charge on capacitors. The presence or absence of charge in a capacitor is interpreted as a binary 1 or 0. Because capacitors have natural tendency to discharge, dynamic RAM requires periodic charge refreshing to maintain data storage. The term dynamic refers to the tendency of the stored charge to leak away, even with power continuously applied. Although the DRAM cell is used to store a single bit (0 or 1), it is essentially an analogue device. The capacitor can store any charge value within a range, a threshold value determines whether the charge is interpreted as a 1 or 0. SRAM (Static RAM) SRAM is a digital device that uses the same logic elements used in the processor. In SRAM, binary values are stored using traditional flip flop logic configurations. SRAM will hold its data as along as power is supplied to it. Unlike DRAM, no refresh is required to retain data. SRAM vs. DRAM DRAM is simpler and smaller than SRAM. Thus it is more dense and less expensive than SRAM. The cost of the refreshing circuitry for DRAM needs to be considered, but if the machine requires a large amount of memory, DRAM turns out to be cheaper than SRAM. SRAMS are somewhat faster than DRAM, thus SRAM is generally used for cache memory and DRAM is used for main memory. Types of ROM Read Only Memory (ROM) contains a permanent pattern of data that cannot be changed. ROM is non volatile meaning no power source is required to maintain the bit values in memory. While it is possible to read a ROM, it is not possible to write new data into it. An important application of ROM is microprogramming, other applications include library subroutines for frequently wanted functions, System programs, Function tables. A ROM is created like any other integrated circuit chip, with the data actually wired into the chip as part of the fabrication process. To reduce costs of fabrication, we have PROMS. PROMS are… Written only once Non-volatile Written after fabrication Another variation of ROM is the read-mostly memory, which is useful for applications in which read operations are far more frequent than write operations, but for which non volatile storage is required. There are three common forms of read-mostly memory, namely… EPROM EEPROM Flash memory Error Correction Semiconductor memory is subject to errors, which can be classed into two categories… Hard failure – Permanent physical defect so that the memory cell or cells cannot reliably store data Soft failure – Random error that alters the contents of one or more memory cells without damaging the memory (common cause includes power supply issues, etc.) Most modern main memory systems include logic for both detecting and correcting errors. Error detection works as follows… When data is to be read into memory, a calculation is performed on the data to produce a code Both the code and the data are stored When the previously stored word is read out, the code is used to detect and possibly correct errors The error checking provides one of 3 possible results… No errors are detected – the fetched data bits are sent out An error is detected, and it is possible to correct the error. The data bits plus error correction bits are fed into a corrector, which produces a corrected set of bits to be sent out An error is detected, but it is not possible to correct it. This condition is reported Hamming Code See wiki for detailed explanation. We will probably need to know how to do a hemming code – refer to the textbook (pg. 188 – 189) Advanced DRAM organization One of the most critical system bottlenecks when using high-performance processors is the interface to main memory. This interface is the most important pathway in the entire computer system. The basic building block of main memory remains the DRAM chip. In recent years a number of enhancements to the basic DRAM architecture have been explored, and some of these are now on the market including… SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) DDR-DRAM RDRAM SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) SDRAM exchanges data with the processor synchronized to an external clock signal and running at the full speed of the processor/memory bus without imposing wait states. SDRAM employs a burst mode to eliminate the address setup time and row and column line precharge time after the first access In burst mode a series of data bits can be clocked out rapidly after the first bit has been accessed SDRAM has a multiple bank internal architecture that improves opportunities for on chip parallelism SDRAM performs best when it is transferring large blocks of data serially There is now an enhanced version of SDRAM known as double data rate SDRAM or DDR-SDRAM that overcomes the once-per-cycle limitation of SDRAM

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  • Infiniband: a highperformance network fabric - Part I

    - by Karoly Vegh
    Introduction:At the OpenWorld this year I managed to chat with interesting people again - one of them answering Infiniband deepdive questions with ease by coffee turned out to be one of Oracle's IB engineers, Ted Kim, who actually actively participates in the Infiniband Trade Association and integrates Oracle solutions with this highspeed network. This is why I love attending OOW. He granted me an hour of his time to talk about IB. This post is mostly based on that tech interview.Start of the actual post: Traditionally datatransfer between servers and storage elements happens in networks with up to 10 gigabit/seconds or in SANs with up to 8 gbps fiberchannel connections. Happens. Well, data rather trickles through.But nowadays data amounts grow well over the TeraByte order of magnitude, and multisocket/multicore/multithread Servers hunger data that these transfer technologies just can't deliver fast enough, causing all CPUs of this world do one thing at the same speed - waiting for data. And once again, I/O is the bottleneck in computing. FC and Ethernet can't keep up. We have half-TB SSDs, dozens of TB RAM to store data to be modified in, but can't transfer it. Can't backup fast enough, can't replicate fast enough, can't synchronize fast enough, can't load fast enough. The bad news is, everyone is used to this, like back in the '80s everyone was used to start compile jobs and go for a coffee. Or on vacation. The good news is, there's an alternative. Not so-called "bleeding-edge" 8gbps, but (as of now) 56. Not layers of overhead, but low latency. And it is available now. It has been for a while, actually. Welcome to the world of Infiniband. Short history:Infiniband was born as a result of joint efforts of HPAQ, IBM, Intel, Sun and Microsoft. They planned to implement a next-generation I/O fabric, in the 90s. In the 2000s Infiniband (from now on: IB) was quite popular in the high-performance computing field, powering most of the top500 supercomputers. Then in the middle of the decade, Oracle realized its potential and used it as an interconnect backbone for the first Database Machine, the first Exadata. Since then, IB has been booming, Oracle utilizes and supports it in a large set of its HW products, it is the backbone of the famous Engineered Systems: Exadata, SPARC SuperCluster, Exalogic, OVCA and even the new DB backup/recovery box. You can also use it to make servers talk highspeed IP to eachother, or to a ZFS Storage Appliance. Following Oracle's lead, even IBM has jumped the wagon, and leverages IB in its PureFlex systems, their first InfiniBand Machines.IB Structural Overview: If you want to use IB in your servers, the first thing you will need is PCI cards, in IB terms Host Channel Adapters, or HCAs. Just like NICs for Ethernet, or HBAs for FC. In these you plug an IB cable, going to an IB switch providing connection to other IB HCAs. Of course you're going to need drivers for those in your OS. Yes, these are long-available for Solaris and Linux. Now, what protocols can you talk over IB? There's a range of choices. See, IB isn't accepting package loss like Ethernet does, and hence doesn't need to rely on TCP/IP as a workaround for resends. That is, you still can run IP over IB (IPoIB), and that is used in various cases for control functionality, but the datatransfer can run over more efficient protocols - like native IB. About PCI connectivity: IB cards, as you see are fast. They bring low latency, which is just as important as their bandwidth. Current IB cards run at 56 gbit/s. That is slightly more than double of the capacity of a PCI Gen2 slot (of ~25 gbit/s). And IB cards are equipped usually with two ports - that is, altogether you'd need 112 gbit/s PCI slots, to be able to utilize FDR IB cards in an active-active fashion. PCI Gen3 slots provide you with around ~50gbps. This is why the most IB cards are configured in an active-standby way if both ports are used. Once again the PCI slot is the bottleneck. Anyway, the new Oracle servers are equipped with Gen3 PCI slots, an the new IB HCAs support those too. Oracle utilizes the QDR HCAs, running at 40gbp/s brutto, which translates to a 32gbp/s net traffic due to the 10:8 signal-to-data information ratio. Consolidation techniques: Technology never stops to evolve. Mellanox is working on the 100 gbps (EDR) version already, which will be optical, since signal technology doesn't allow EDR to be copper. Also, I hear you say "100gbps? I will never use/need that much". Are you sure? Have you considered consolidation scenarios, where (for example with Oracle Virtual Network) you could consolidate your platform to a high densitiy virtualized solution providing many virtual 10gbps interfaces through that 100gbps? Technology never stops to evolve. I still remember when a 10mbps network was impressively fast. Back in those days, 16MB of RAM was a lot. Now we usually run servers with around 100.000 times more RAM. If network infrastrucure speends could grow as fast as main memory capacities, we'd have a different landscape now :) You can utilize SRIOV as well for consolidation. That is, if you run LDoms (aka Oracle VM Server for SPARC) you do not have to add physical IB cards to all your guest LDoms, and you do not need to run VIO devices through the hypervisor either (avoiding overhead). You can enable SRIOV on those IB cards, which practically virtualizes the PCI bus, and you can dedicate Physical- and Virtual Functions of the virtualized HCAs as native, physical HW devices to your guests. See Raghuram's excellent post explaining SRIOV. SRIOV for IB is supported since LDoms 3.1.  This post is getting lengthier, so I will rename it to Part I, and continue it in a second post. 

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  • Your Next IT Job

    - by BuckWoody
    Some data professionals have worked (and plan to work) in the same place for a long time. In organizations large and small, the turnover rate just isn’t that high. This has not been my experience. About every 3-5 years I’ve changed either roles or companies. That might be due to the IT environment or my personality (or a mix of the two), but the point is that I’ve had many roles and worked for many companies large and small throughout my 27+ years in IT. At one point this might have been a detriment – a prospective employer looks at the resume and says “it seems you’ve moved around quite a bit.” But I haven’t found that to be the case all the time –in fact, in some cases the variety of jobs I’ve held has been an asset because I’ve seen what works (and doesn’t) in other environments, which can save time and money. So if you’re in the first camp – great! Stay where you are, and continue doing the work you love. but if you’re in the second, then this post might be useful. If you are planning on making a change, or perhaps you’ve hit a wall at your current location, you might start looking around for a better paying job – and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all try to make our lives better, and for some that involves more money. Money, however, isn’t always the primary motivator. I’ve gone to another job that doesn’t have as many benefits or has the same salary as the current job I’m working to gain more experience, get a better work/life balance and so on. It’s a mix of factors that only you know about. So I thought I would lay out a few advantages and disadvantages in the shops I’ve worked at. This post isn’t aimed at a single employer, but represents a mix of what I’ve experienced, and of course the opinions here are my own. You will most certainly have a different take – if so, please post a response! I also won’t mention a specific industry – I’ve worked everywhere from medical firms, legal offices, retail, billing centers, manufacturing, government, even to NASA. I’m focusing here mostly on size and composition. And I’m making some very broad generalizations here – I am fully aware that a small company might have great benefits and a large company might allow a lot of role flexibility.  your mileage may vary – and again, post those comments! Small Company To me a “small company” means around 100 people or less – sometimes a lot less. These can be really fun, frustrating places to to work. Advantages: a great deal of flexibility, a wide range of roles (often at the same time), a large degree of responsibility, immediate feedback, close relationships with co-workers, work directly with your customer. Disadvantages: Too much responsibility, little work/life balance, immature political structure, few (if any) benefits. If the business is family-owned, they can easily violate work/life boundaries. Medium Size company In my experience the next size company I would work for involves from a few hundred people to around five thousand. Advantages: Good mobility – fairly easy to get promoted, acceptable benefits, more defined responsibilities, better work/life balance, balanced load for expertise, but still the organizational structure is fairly simple to understand. Disadvantages: Pay is not always highest, rapid changes in structure as the organization grows, transient workforce. You may not be given the opportunity to work with another technology if someone already “owns” it. Politics are painful at this level as people try to learn how to do it. Large Company When you get into the tens of thousands of folks employed around the world, you’re in a large company. Advantages: Lots of room to move around – sometimes you can work (as I have) multiple jobs through the years and yet stay at the same company, building time for benefits, very defined roles, trained managers (yes, I know some of them are still awful – trust me – I DO know that), higher-end benefits, long careers possible, discounts at retailers and other “soft” benefits, prestige. For some, a higher level of politics (done professionally) is a good thing. Disadvantages: You could become another faceless name in the crowd, might not allow a great deal of flexibility,  large organizational changes might take away any control you have of your career. I’ve also seen large layoffs happen, and good people get let go while “dead weight” is retained. For some, a higher level of politics is distasteful. So what are your experiences? Share with the group! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • How to Achieve Real-Time Data Protection and Availabilty....For Real

    - by JoeMeeks
    There is a class of business and mission critical applications where downtime or data loss have substantial negative impact on revenue, customer service, reputation, cost, etc. Because the Oracle Database is used extensively to provide reliable performance and availability for this class of application, it also provides an integrated set of capabilities for real-time data protection and availability. Active Data Guard, depicted in the figure below, is the cornerstone for accomplishing these objectives because it provides the absolute best real-time data protection and availability for the Oracle Database. This is a bold statement, but it is supported by the facts. It isn’t so much that alternative solutions are bad, it’s just that their architectures prevent them from achieving the same levels of data protection, availability, simplicity, and asset utilization provided by Active Data Guard. Let’s explore further. Backups are the most popular method used to protect data and are an essential best practice for every database. Not surprisingly, Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) is one of the most commonly used features of the Oracle Database. But comparing Active Data Guard to backups is like comparing apples to motorcycles. Active Data Guard uses a hot (open read-only), synchronized copy of the production database to provide real-time data protection and HA. In contrast, a restore from backup takes time and often has many moving parts - people, processes, software and systems – that can create a level of uncertainty during an outage that critical applications can’t afford. This is why backups play a secondary role for your most critical databases by complementing real-time solutions that can provide both data protection and availability. Before Data Guard, enterprises used storage remote-mirroring for real-time data protection and availability. Remote-mirroring is a sophisticated storage technology promoted as a generic infrastructure solution that makes a simple promise – whatever is written to a primary volume will also be written to the mirrored volume at a remote site. Keeping this promise is also what causes data loss and downtime when the data written to primary volumes is corrupt – the same corruption is faithfully mirrored to the remote volume making both copies unusable. This happens because remote-mirroring is a generic process. It has no  intrinsic knowledge of Oracle data structures to enable advanced protection, nor can it perform independent Oracle validation BEFORE changes are applied to the remote copy. There is also nothing to prevent human error (e.g. a storage admin accidentally deleting critical files) from also impacting the remote mirrored copy. Remote-mirroring tricks users by creating a false impression that there are two separate copies of the Oracle Database. In truth; while remote-mirroring maintains two copies of the data on different volumes, both are part of a single closely coupled system. Not only will remote-mirroring propagate corruptions and administrative errors, but the changes applied to the mirrored volume are a result of the same Oracle code path that applied the change to the source volume. There is no isolation, either from a storage mirroring perspective or from an Oracle software perspective.  Bottom line, storage remote-mirroring lacks both the smarts and isolation level necessary to provide true data protection. Active Data Guard offers much more than storage remote-mirroring when your objective is protecting your enterprise from downtime and data loss. Like remote-mirroring, an Active Data Guard replica is an exact block for block copy of the primary. Unlike remote-mirroring, an Active Data Guard replica is NOT a tightly coupled copy of the source volumes - it is a completely independent Oracle Database. Active Data Guard’s inherent knowledge of Oracle data block and redo structures enables a separate Oracle Database using a different Oracle code path than the primary to use the full complement of Oracle data validation methods before changes are applied to the synchronized copy. These include: physical check sum, logical intra-block checking, lost write validation, and automatic block repair. The figure below illustrates the stark difference between the knowledge that remote-mirroring can discern from an Oracle data block and what Active Data Guard can discern. An Active Data Guard standby also provides a range of additional services enabled by the fact that it is a running Oracle Database - not just a mirrored copy of data files. An Active Data Guard standby database can be open read-only while it is synchronizing with the primary. This enables read-only workloads to be offloaded from the primary system and run on the active standby - boosting performance by utilizing all assets. An Active Data Guard standby can also be used to implement many types of system and database maintenance in rolling fashion. Maintenance and upgrades are first implemented on the standby while production runs unaffected at the primary. After the primary and standby are synchronized and all changes have been validated, the production workload is quickly switched to the standby. The only downtime is the time required for user connections to transfer from one system to the next. These capabilities further expand the expectations of availability offered by a data protection solution beyond what is possible to do using storage remote-mirroring. So don’t be fooled by appearances.  Storage remote-mirroring and Active Data Guard replication may look similar on the surface - but the devil is in the details. Only Active Data Guard has the smarts, the isolation, and the simplicity, to provide the best data protection and availability for the Oracle Database. Stay tuned for future blog posts that dive into the many differences between storage remote-mirroring and Active Data Guard along the dimensions of data protection, data availability, cost, asset utilization and return on investment. For additional information on Active Data Guard, see: Active Data Guard Technical White Paper Active Data Guard vs Storage Remote-Mirroring Active Data Guard Home Page on the Oracle Technology Network

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  • Declarative Architectures in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

    - by BuckWoody
    I deal with computing architectures by first laying out requirements, and then laying in any constraints for it's success. Only then do I bring in computing elements to apply to the system. As an example, a requirement might be "world-side availability" and a constraint might be "with less than 80ms response time and full HA" or something similar. Then I can choose from the best fit of technologies which range from full-up on-premises computing to IaaS, PaaS or SaaS. I also deal in abstraction layers - on-premises systems are fully under your control, in IaaS the hardware is abstracted (but not the OS, scale, runtimes and so on), in PaaS the hardware and the OS is abstracted and you focus on code and data only, and in SaaS everything is abstracted - you merely purchase the function you want (like an e-mail server or some such) and simply use it. When you think about solutions this way, the architecture moves to the primary factor in your decision. It's problem-first architecting, and then laying in whatever technology or vendor best fixes the problem. To that end, most architects design a solution using a graphical tool (I use Visio) and then creating documents that  let the rest of the team (and business) know what is required. It's the template, or recipe, for the solution. This is extremely easy to do for SaaS - you merely point out what the needs are, research the vendor and present the findings (and bill) to the business. IT might not even be involved there. In PaaS it's not much more complicated - you use the same Application Lifecycle Management and design tools you always have for code, such as Visual Studio or some other process and toolset, and you can "stamp out" the application in multiple locations, update it and so on. IaaS is another story. Here you have multiple machines, operating systems, patches, virus scanning, run-times, scale-patterns and tools and much more that you have to deal with, since essentially it's just an in-house system being hosted by someone else. You can certainly automate builds of servers - we do this as technical professionals every day. From Windows to Linux, it's simple enough to create a "build script" that makes a system just like the one we made yesterday. What is more problematic is being able to tie those systems together in a coherent way (as a solution) and then stamp that out repeatedly, especially when you might want to deploy that solution on-premises, or in one cloud vendor or another. Lately I've been working with a company called RightScale that does exactly this. I'll point you to their site for more info, but the general idea is that you document out your intent for a set of servers, and it will deploy them to on-premises clouds, Windows Azure, and other cloud providers all from the same script. In other words, it doesn't contain the images or anything like that - it contains the scripts to build them on-premises or on a cloud vendor like Microsoft. Using a tool like this, you combine the steps of designing a system (all the way down to passwords and accounts if you wish) and then the document drives the distribution and implementation of that intent. As time goes on and more and more companies implement solutions on various providers (perhaps for HA and DR) then this becomes a compelling investigation. The RightScale information is here, if you want to investigate it further. Yes, there are other methods I've found, but most are tied to a single kind of cloud, and I'm not into vendor lock-in. Poppa Bear Level - Hands-on EvaluateRightScale at no cost.  Just bring your Windows Azurecredentials and follow the these tutorials: Sign Up for Windows Azure Add     Windows Azure to a RightScale Account Windows Azure Virtual Machines     3-tier Deployment Momma Bear Level - Just the Right level... ;0)  WindowsAzure Evaluation Guide - if you are new toWindows Azure Virtual Machines and new to RightScale, we recommend that youread the entire evaluation guide to gain a more complete understanding of theWindows Azure + RightScale solution.    WindowsAzure Support Page @ support.rightscale.com - FAQ's, tutorials,etc. for  Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Work in Progress) Baby Bear Level - Marketing WindowsAzure Page @ www.rightscale.com - find overview informationincluding solution briefs and presentation & demonstration videos   Scale     and Automate Applications on Windows Azure  Solution Brief     - how RightScale makes Windows Azure Virtual Machine even better SQL     Server on Windows Azure  Solution Brief   -       Run Highly Available SQL Server on Windows Azure Virtual Machines

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  • Short Season, Long Models - Dealing with Seasonality

    - by Michel Adar
    Accounting for seasonality presents a challenge for the accurate prediction of events. Examples of seasonality include: ·         Boxed cosmetics sets are more popular during Christmas. They sell at other times of the year, but they rise higher than other products during the holiday season. ·         Interest in a promotion rises around the time advertising on TV airs ·         Interest in the Sports section of a newspaper rises when there is a big football match There are several ways of dealing with seasonality in predictions. Time Windows If the length of the model time windows is short enough relative to the seasonality effect, then the models will see only seasonal data, and therefore will be accurate in their predictions. For example, a model with a weekly time window may be quick enough to adapt during the holiday season. In order for time windows to be useful in dealing with seasonality it is necessary that: The time window is significantly shorter than the season changes There is enough volume of data in the short time windows to produce an accurate model An additional issue to consider is that sometimes the season may have an abrupt end, for example the day after Christmas. Input Data If available, it is possible to include the seasonality effect in the input data for the model. For example the customer record may include a list of all the promotions advertised in the area of residence. A model with these inputs will have to learn the effect of the input. It is possible to learn it specific to the promotion – and by the way learn about inter-promotion cross feeding – by leaving the list of ads as it is; or it is possible to learn the general effect by having a flag that indicates if the promotion is being advertised. For inputs to properly represent the effect in the model it is necessary that: The model sees enough events with the input present. For example, by virtue of the model lifetime (or time window) being long enough to see several “seasons” or by having enough volume for the model to learn seasonality quickly. Proportional Frequency If we create a model that ignores seasonality it is possible to use that model to predict how the specific person likelihood differs from average. If we have a divergence from average then we can transfer that divergence proportionally to the observed frequency at the time of the prediction. Definitions: Ft = trailing average frequency of the event at time “t”. The average is done over a suitable period of to achieve a statistical significant estimate. F = average frequency as seen by the model. L = likelihood predicted by the model for a specific person Lt = predicted likelihood proportionally scaled for time “t”. If the model is good at predicting deviation from average, and this holds over the interesting range of seasons, then we can estimate Lt as: Lt = L * (Ft / F) Considering that: L = (L – F) + F Substituting we get: Lt = [(L – F) + F] * (Ft / F) Which simplifies to: (i)                  Lt = (L – F) * (Ft / F)  +  Ft This latest expression can be understood as “The adjusted likelihood at time t is the average likelihood at time t plus the effect from the model, which is calculated as the difference from average time the proportion of frequencies”. The formula above assumes a linear translation of the proportion. It is possible to generalize the formula using a factor which we will call “a” as follows: (ii)                Lt = (L – F) * (Ft / F) * a  +  Ft It is also possible to use a formula that does not scale the difference, like: (iii)               Lt = (L – F) * a  +  Ft While these formulas seem reasonable, they should be taken as hypothesis to be proven with empirical data. A theoretical analysis provides the following insights: The Cumulative Gains Chart (lift) should stay the same, as at any given time the order of the likelihood for different customers is preserved If F is equal to Ft then the formula reverts to “L” If (Ft = 0) then Lt in (i) and (ii) is 0 It is possible for Lt to be above 1. If it is desired to avoid going over 1, for relatively high base frequencies it is possible to use a relative interpretation of the multiplicative factor. For example, if we say that Y is twice as likely as X, then we can interpret this sentence as: If X is 3%, then Y is 6% If X is 11%, then Y is 22% If X is 70%, then Y is 85% - in this case we interpret “twice as likely” as “half as likely to not happen” Applying this reasoning to (i) for example we would get: If (L < F) or (Ft < (1 / ((L/F) + 1)) Then  Lt = L * (Ft / F) Else Lt = 1 – (F / L) + (Ft * F / L)  

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  • Thought Oracle Usability Advisory Board Was Stuffy? Wrong. Justification for Attending OUAB: ROI

    - by ultan o'broin
    Looking for reasons tell your boss why your organization needs to join the Oracle Usability Advisory Board or why you need approval to attend one of its meetings (see the requirements)? Try phrases such as "Continued Return on Investment (ROI)", "Increased Productivity" or "Happy Workers". With OUAB your participation is about realizing and sustaining ROI across the entire applications life-cycle from input to designs to implementation choices and integration, usage and performance and on measuring and improving the onboarding and support experience. If you think this is a boring meeting of middle-aged people sitting around moaning about customizing desktop forms and why the BlackBerry is here to stay, think again! How about this for a rich agenda, all designed to engage the audience in a thought-provoking and feedback-illiciting day of swirling interactions, contextual usage, global delivery, mobility, consumerizationm, gamification and tailoring your implementation to reflect real users doing real work in real environments.  Foldable, rollable ereader devices provide a newspaper-like UK for electronic news. Or a way to wrap silicon chips, perhaps. Explored at the OUAB Europe Meeting (photograph from Terrace Restaurant in TVP. Nom.) At the 7 December 2012 OUAB Europe meeting in Oracle Thames Valley Park, UK, Oracle partners and customers stepped up to the mic and PPT decks with a range of facts and examples to astound any UX conference C-level sceptic. Over the course of the day we covered much ground, but it was all related in a contextual, flexibile, simplication, engagement way aout delivering results for business: that means solving problems. This means being about the user and their tasks and how to make design and technology transforms work into a productive activity that users and bean counters will be excited by. The sessions really gelled for me: 1. Mobile design patterns and the powerful propositions for customers and partners offered by using the design guidance with Oracle ADF Mobile. Customers' and partners' developers existing ADF developers are now productive, efficient ADF Mobile developers applying proven UX guidance using ADF Mobile components and other Oracle Fusion Middleware in the development toolkit. You can find the Mobile UX Design Patterns and Guidance on Building Mobile Apps on OTN. 2. Oracle Voice and Apps. How this medium offers so much potentual in the enterprise and offers a window in Fusion Apps cloud webservices, Oracle RightNow NLP and Nuance technology. Exciting stuff, demoed live on a mobile phone. Stay tuned for more features and modalities and how you can tailor your own apps experience.  3. Oracle RightNow Natural Language Processing (NLP) Virtual Assistant technology (Ella): how contextual intervention and learning from users sessions delivers a great personalized UX for users interacting with Ella, a fifth generation VA to solve problems and seek knowledge. 4. BYOD Keynote: A balanced keynote address contrasting Fujitsu's explaining of the conceprt, challenges, and trends and setting the expectation that BYOD must be embraced in a flexible way,  with the resolute, crafted high security enterprise requirements that nuancing the BYOD concept and proposals with the realities of their world of water tight information and device sharing policies. Fascinating stuff, as well providing anecdotes to make us thing about out own DYOD Deployments. One size does not fit all. 5. Icon Cultural Surveys Results and Insights Arising: Ever wondered about the cultural appropriateness of icons used in software UIs and how these icons assessed for global use? Or considered that social media "Like" icons might be  unacceptable hand gestures in culture or enterprise? Or do the old world icons like Save floppy disk icons still find acceptable? Well the survey results told you. Challenges must be tested, over time, and context of use is critical now, including external factors such as the internet and social media adoption. Indeed the fears about global rejection of the face and hand icons was not borne out, and some of the more anachronistic icons (checkbooks, microphones, real-to-real tape decks, 3.5" floppies for "save") have become accepted metaphors for current actions. More importantly the findings brought into focus the reason for OUAB - engage with and illicit feedback though working groups before we build anything. 6. EReaders and Oracle iBook: What is the uptake and trends of ereaders? And how about a demo of an iBook with enterprise apps content?  Well received by the audience, the session included a live running poll of ereader usage. 7. Gamification Design Jam: Fun, hands on event for teams of Oracle staff, partners and customers, actually building gamified flows, a practice that can be applied right away by customers and partners.  8. UX Direct: A new offering of usability best practices, coming to an external website for you in 2013. FInd a real user, observe their tasks, design and approve, build and measure. Simple stuff to improve apps implications no end. 9. FUSE (an internal term only, basically Fusion Simplified Experience): demo of the new Face of Fusion Applications: inherently mobile, simple to use, social, personalizable and FAST, three great demos from the HCM, CRM and ICT world on how these UX designs can be used in different ways. So, a powerful breadth and depth of UX solutions and opporunities for customers and partners to engage with and explore how they can make their users happy and benefit their business reaping continued ROI from those apps investments. Find out more about the OUAB and how to get involved here ... 

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  • Using Transaction Logging to Recover Post-Archived Essbase data

    - by Keith Rosenthal
    Data recovery is typically performed by restoring data from an archive.  Data added or removed since the last archive took place can also be recovered by enabling transaction logging in Essbase.  Transaction logging works by writing transactions to a log store.  The information in the log store can then be recovered by replaying the log store entries in sequence since the last archive took place.  The following information is recorded within a transaction log entry: Sequence ID Username Start Time End Time Request Type A request type can be one of the following categories: Calculations, including the default calculation as well as both server and client side calculations Data loads, including data imports as well as data loaded using a load rule Data clears as well as outline resets Locking and sending data from SmartView and the Spreadsheet Add-In.  Changes from Planning web forms are also tracked since a lock and send operation occurs during this process. You can use the Display Transactions command in the EAS console or the query database MAXL command to view the transaction log entries. Enabling Transaction Logging Transaction logging can be enabled at the Essbase server, application or database level by adding the TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION essbase.cfg setting.  The following is the TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION syntax: TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION [appname [dbname]] LOGLOCATION NATIVE ENABLE | DISABLE Note that you can have multiple TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION entries in the essbase.cfg file.  For example: TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION Hyperion/trlog NATIVE ENABLE TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION Sample Hyperion/trlog NATIVE DISABLE The first statement will enable transaction logging for all Essbase applications, and the second statement will disable transaction logging for the Sample application.  As a result, transaction logging will be enabled for all applications except the Sample application. A location on a physical disk other than the disk where ARBORPATH or the disk files reside is recommended to optimize overall Essbase performance. Configuring Transaction Log Replay Although transaction log entries are stored based on the LOGLOCATION parameter of the TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION essbase.cfg setting, copies of data load and rules files are stored in the ARBORPATH/app/appname/dbname/Replay directory to optimize the performance of replaying logged transactions.  The default is to archive client data loads, but this configuration setting can be used to archive server data loads (including SQL server data loads) or both client and server data loads. To change the type of data to be archived, add the TRANSACTIONLOGDATALOADARCHIVE configuration setting to the essbase.cfg file.  Note that you can have multiple TRANSACTIONLOGDATALOADARCHIVE entries in the essbase.cfg file to adjust settings for individual applications and databases. Replaying the Transaction Log and Transaction Log Security Considerations To replay the transactions, use either the Replay Transactions command in the EAS console or the alter database MAXL command using the replay transactions grammar.  Transactions can be replayed either after a specified log time or using a range of transaction sequence IDs. The default when replaying transactions is to use the security settings of the user who originally performed the transaction.  However, if that user no longer exists or that user's username was changed, the replay operation will fail. Instead of using the default security setting, add the REPLAYSECURITYOPTION essbase.cfg setting to use the security settings of the administrator who performs the replay operation.  REPLAYSECURITYOPTION 2 will explicitly use the security settings of the administrator performing the replay operation.  REPLAYSECURITYOPTION 3 will use the administrator security settings if the original user’s security settings cannot be used. Removing Transaction Logs and Archived Replay Data Load and Rules Files Transaction logs and archived replay data load and rules files are not automatically removed and are only removed manually.  Since these files can consume a considerable amount of space, the files should be removed on a periodic basis. The transaction logs should be removed one database at a time instead of all databases simultaneously.  The data load and rules files associated with the replayed transactions should be removed in chronological order from earliest to latest.  In addition, do not remove any data load and rules files with a timestamp later than the timestamp of the most recent archive file. Partitioned Database Considerations For partitioned databases, partition commands such as synchronization commands cannot be replayed.  When recovering data, the partition changes must be replayed manually and logged transactions must be replayed in the correct chronological order. If the partitioned database includes any @XREF commands in the calc script, the logged transactions must be selectively replayed in the correct chronological order between the source and target databases. References For additional information, please see the Oracle EPM System Backup and Recovery Guide.  For EPM 11.1.2.2, the link is http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/epm_backup_recovery_1112200.pdf

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, January 09, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, January 09, 2011Popular ReleasesEnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.10 BETA: 2.2.10 BETAThis release supports WoW patch 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Removed the part...TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 7: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 7 ChangesFixes the regression issue in OAuth from Preview 6 Preview 6 ChangesMaintenance release with user reported fixes Preview 5 ChangesMaintenance release with user reported fixes Third Party Library VersionsHammock v1.0.6: http://hammock.codeplex.com Json.NET 3.5 Release 8: http://json.codeplex.comExtended WPF Toolkit: Extended WPF Toolkit - 1.3.0: What's in the 1.3.0 Release?BusyIndicator ButtonSpinner ChildWindow ColorPicker - Updated (Breaking Changes) DateTimeUpDown - New Control Magnifier - New Control MaskedTextBox - New Control MessageBox NumericUpDown RichTextBox RichTextBoxFormatBar - Updated .NET 3.5 binaries and SourcePlease note: The Extended WPF Toolkit 3.5 is dependent on .NET Framework 3.5 and the WPFToolkit. You must install .NET Framework 3.5 and the WPFToolkit in order to use any features in the To...sNPCedit: sNPCedit v0.9d: added elementclient coordinate catcher to catch coordinates select a target (ingame) i.e. your char, npc or monster than click the button and coordinates+direction will be transfered to the selected row in the table corrected labels from Rot to Direction (because it is a vector)AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.2: Implemented the Auto Updater Fix: Your settings will no longer be cleared with new releases of AutoLoL The mastery Editor and Browser now have their own tabs instead of nested tabs The Browser tab will only show the masteries matching ALL filters instead of just one Added a 'Browse' button in the Mastery Editor tab to open the Masteries Directory The Browser tab now shows a message when there are no mastery files in the Masteries Directory Fix: Fixed the Save As dialog again, for ...Ionics Isapi Rewrite Filter: 2.1 latest stable: V2.1 is stable, and is in maintenance mode. This is v2.1.1.25. It is a bug-fix release. There are no new features. 28629 29172 28722 27626 28074 29164 27659 27900 many documentation updates and fixes proper x64 build environment. This release includes x64 binaries in zip form, but no x64 MSI file. You'll have to manually install x64 servers, following the instructions in the documentation.StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.1.14980.000: A considerable amount of work has gone into this release: Huge focus on performance around the violation scanning subsystem: - caching added to reduce IO operations around reading and merging of settings files - caching added to reduce creation of expensive objects Users should notice condsiderable perf boost and a decrease in memory usage. Bug Fixes: - StyleCop's new ObjectBasedEnvironment object does not resolve the StyleCop installation path, thus it does not return the correct path ...VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.4.1: New release with bug fixes and updates for performance.SSH.NET Library: 2011.1.6: Fixes CommandTimeout default value is fixed to infinite. Port Forwarding feature improvements Memory leaks fixes New Features Add ErrorOccurred event to handle errors that occurred on different thread New and improve SFTP features SftpFile now has more attributes and some operations Most standard operations now available Allow specify encoding for command execution KeyboardInteractiveConnectionInfo class added for "keyboard-interactive" authentication. Add ability to specify bo....NET Extensions - Extension Methods Library for C# and VB.NET: Release 2011.03: Added lot's of new extensions and new projects for MVC and Entity Framework. object.FindTypeByRecursion Int32.InRange String.RemoveAllSpecialCharacters String.IsEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.IsNotEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.IfEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.ToUpperFirstLetter String.GetBytes String.ToTitleCase String.ToPlural DateTime.GetDaysInYear DateTime.GetPeriodOfDay IEnumberable.RemoveAll IEnumberable.Distinct ICollection.RemoveAll IList.Join IList.Match IList.Cast Array.IsNullOrEmpty Array.W...EFMVC - ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First: EFMVC 0.5- ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First: Demo web app ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code FirstVidCoder: 0.8.0: Added x64 version. Made the audio output preview more detailed and accurate. If the chosen encoder or mixdown is incompatible with the source, the fallback that will be used is displayed. Added "Auto" to the audio mixdown choices. Reworked non-anamorphic size calculation to work better with non-standard pixel aspect ratios and cropping. Reworked Custom anamorphic to be more intuitive and allow display width to be set automatically (Thanks, Statick). Allowing higher bitrates for 6-ch....NET Voice Recorder: Auto-Tune Release: This is the source code and binaries to accompany the article on the Coding 4 Fun website. It is the Auto Tuner release of the .NET Voice Recorder application.BloodSim: BloodSim - 1.3.2.0: - Simulation Log is now automatically disabled and hidden when running 10 or more iterations - Hit and Expertise are now entered by Rating, and include option for a Racial Expertise bonus - Added option for boss to use a periodic magic ability (Dragon Breath) - Added option for boss to periodically Enrage, gaining a Damage/Attack Speed buffAllNewsManager.NET: AllNewsManager.NET 1.2.1: AllNewsManager.NET 1.2.1 It is a minor update from version 1.2xUnit.net - Unit Testing for .NET: xUnit.net 1.7 Beta: xUnit.net release 1.7 betaBuild #1533 Important notes for Resharper users: Resharper support has been moved to the xUnit.net Contrib project. Important note for TestDriven.net users: If you are having issues running xUnit.net tests in TestDriven.net, especially on 64-bit Windows, we strongly recommend you upgrade to TD.NET version 3.0 or later. This release adds the following new features: Added support for ASP.NET MVC 3 Added Assert.Equal(double expected, double actual, int precision)...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.0 Release 1: New feature - Added Windows Phone 7 project New feature - Added dynamic support to LINQ to JSON New feature - Added dynamic support to serializer New feature - Added INotifyCollectionChanged to JContainer in .NET 4 build New feature - Added ReadAsDateTimeOffset to JsonReader New feature - Added ReadAsDecimal to JsonReader New feature - Added covariance to IJEnumerable type parameter New feature - Added XmlSerializer style Specified property support New feature - Added ...ASP .NET MVC CMS (Content Management System): Atomic CMS 2.1.2: Atomic CMS 2.1.2 release notes Atomic CMS installation guide N2 CMS: 2.1: N2 is a lightweight CMS framework for ASP.NET. It helps you build great web sites that anyone can update. Major Changes Support for auto-implemented properties ({get;set;}, based on contribution by And Poulsen) All-round improvements and bugfixes File manager improvements (multiple file upload, resize images to fit) New image gallery Infinite scroll paging on news Content templates First time with N2? Try the demo site Download one of the template packs (above) and open the proj...Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 0.1.11.10: IMPORTANT CHANGESThis release changes the way some WURFL capabilities and attributes are exposed to .NET developers. If you cast MobileCapabilities to return some values then please read the Release Note before implementing this release. The following code snippet can be used to access any WURFL capability. For instance, if the device is a tablet: string capability = Request.Browser["is_tablet"]; SummaryNew attributes have been added to the redirect section: originalUrlAsQueryString If se...New Projects[OOBL] Projekt: Projekt iz kolegija Objektno Oblikovanje na Fakultetu Elektrotehnike i Racunarstva u Zagrebu.Aikido Glossary Reader: The Aikido Glossary Reader application makes it easier for Aikido students to search for Japanese terms used in martial arts training.AsyncFunc: AsyncFunc makes it easy to implement Event-based Asynchronous Pattern in .NET.BeijingAgricultureScience: ???????????BizTalk 5010 999 Generation: Create 5010 999 acknowledgement from the default 997 Generated by BizTalk ServerCheck if Knowledge Base fix is installed script: A handy script that checks if a knowledge base fix is installed or not.Coproject - rich project management: Coproject is a sample Silverlight application built on WCF RIA Services and Caliburn.Micro framework. It should demonstrate typical scenarios in business applications.DeskNote: DeskNote, makes taking and displaying a notes a lot easier. Have your notes on your desktop, write your notes in a text file and it will be automatically displayed on the desktop. DriveBackup: Are you tired of losing data? And do you sometimes forget to backup your data? Then this program is right for you, one-time setup with each new removable disk and after that Drive Backup instantly backs up your data in the background, without you pushing a button.ELSEngine XNA Game OS Engine: XNA Game Operating System Engine, designed to handle and make easy to use Interface, Interface assets, game screens, menus, controls, and more. Designed to be adaptable to XBOX or Windows, and to ANY style game.FermaProject: Team Ferma ProjectHalfNetworkNET: HalfNetworkNET makes it easier for <target user group> to <activity>. You'll no longer have to <activity>. It's developed in C++/CLILFS Record: LFS Record is a camera animation and video recording tool for Live for Speed users. It doesn't replace programs like Fraps 100%, but in most cases you'll find LFS Record allows a lot more freedom and control. It's developed in C# using WPF .net 4.MPC HC Web remote: A Web interface for Media Player Classic Home Cinema. Designed especialy for smart phones. Tested on Nokia 5800, but in theory it works on all smart phones with wifi & a browser.MSMS2CMP: Very simple application to swap particular strings (MSMS and CMPD number) in .mgf files (results from Mascot search engine used to identify proteins by mass spectrometry data). This might be a kind of example of using Regex and Text File I/OMy Now Playing to Twitter: A Simple WinForm Program that can get what user is playing in Winamp and send a status to Twitter. It's wrote in VB.Net but some source code is port of MiniTwitter(http://minitwitter.codeplex.com)and uses tagLib-sharp library(https://github.com/mono/taglib-sharp)RPM Header for .NET: RPM Header for .NET allows a developer to access the headers of RPM Package Manager files. It's developed in C#.SilverMenu: SilverMenu brings some of the menu functionality of Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 to the XNA world.Smartgrid Smartmeter GRYD: The GRYD smartgrid and Smartmeter project shows features and capabilities like Demand Response, Smart Home Appliance Load Curtailments, DMS integration with SCADA etc. GRYD, Gryd.org is to teach you the technology, this is only for personal use and not commercial use.WakeMeQt: WakeMeQt is a smart alarm for the Nokia n810 (and probably n800) internet tablets. Using a Nintendo Wii remote as the sensor it monitors your movements during sleep and chooses the optimal time to wake you. It's developed in C++ using the Qt framework.WPF SplitButton & MenuButton: This WPF SplitButton and MenuButton implementation aims to be more robust and visual attractive than the other WPF split buttons available on CodePlex and elsewhere. The code is based on David Anson's implementation made available on his blog.Y2XMas: Merry Chirstmas - Happy New Year 2011 software

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, December 11, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, December 11, 2012Popular ReleasesDirectX Tool Kit: December 11, 2012: December 11, 2012 Ex versions of DDSTextureLoader and WICTextureLoader Removed use of ATL's CComPtr in favor of WRL's ComPtr for all platforms to support VS Express editions Updated VS 2010 project for official 'property sheet' integration for Windows 8.0 SDK Minor fix to CommonStates for Feature Level 9.1 Tweaked AlphaTestEffect.cpp to work around ARM NEON compiler codegen bug Added dxguid.lib as a default library for Debug builds to resolve GUID link issuesCleverBobCat: CleverBobCat 1.1.3: Fixed: - Cart code now works in vab, wheels retract correctly and no more anchors visible - No more exceptions on VAB Added: - ResourceTransfer beam now has a wide array of configurable options for beam material, size and colors - Added an optional offset to resource transfer, if specificed the "beam" will start from part center + the specified offsetSharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8.2: This release just contains some fixes that have been done since the last release. Plus, this is strong named as well. I apologize for the lack of updates but my free time is less these days.re-linq: 1.13.178.0: This is build 1.13.178.0 of re-linq. Find the complete release notes for the build here: Release NotesMedia Companion: MediaCompanion3.511b release: Two more bug fixes: - General Preferences were not getting restored - Fanart and poster image files were being locked, preventing changes to themVodigi Open Source Interactive Digital Signage: Vodigi Release 5.5: The following enhancements and fixes are included in Vodigi 5.5. Vodigi Administrator - Manage Music Files - Add Music Files to Image Slide Shows - Manage System Messages - Display System Messages to Users During Login - Ported to Visual Studio 2012 and MVC 4 - Added New Vodigi Administrator User Guide Vodigi Player - Improved Login/Schedule Startup Procedure - Startup Using Last Known Schedule when Disconnected on Startup - Improved Check for Schedule Changes - Now Every 15 Minutes - Pla...Secretary Tool: Secretary Tool v1.1.0: I'm still considering this version a beta version because, while it seems to work well for me, I haven't received any feedback and I certainly don't want anyone relying solely on this tool for calculations and such until its correct functioning is verified by someone. This version includes several bug fixes, including a rather major one with Emergency Contact Information not saving. Also, reporting is completed. There may be some tweaking to the reporting engine, but it is good enough to rel...VidCoder: 1.4.10 Beta: Added progress percent to the title bar/task bar icon. Added MPLS information to Blu-ray titles. Fixed the following display issues in Windows 8: Uncentered text in textbox controls Disabled controls not having gray text making them hard to identify as disabled Drop-down menus having hard-to distinguish white on light-blue text Added more logging to proxy disconnect issues and increased timeout on initial call to help prevent timeouts. Fixed encoding window showing the built-in pre...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.400: Version 2.5.0.400 (Release): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete Update the documentation. InfoMan: Write the documentation. Other Downloads Downloads OverviewHome Access Plus+: v8.5: v8.5.1211.1240 Fixed: changed to using the thumbnailPhoto attribute instead of jpegPhoto v8.5.1208.1500 This is a point release, for the other parts of HAP+ see the v8.3 release. Fixed: #me#me issue with the Edit Profile Link Updated: 8.5.1208 release Updated: Documentation with hidden booking system feature Added: Room Drop Down to the Booking System (no control panel interface), can be Resource Specific Fixed: Recursive AD Group Membership Lookup Fixed: User.IsInRole with recursive lookup...Http Explorer: httpExplorer-1.1: httpExplorer now has the ability to connect to http server via web proxies. The proxy may be explicitly specified by hostname or IP address. Or it may be specified via the Internet Options settings of Windows. You may also specify credentials to pass to the proxy if the proxy requires them. These credentials may be NTLM or basic authentication (clear text username and password).Bee OPOA Platform: Bee OPOA Demo V1.0.001: Initial version.Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.78: Fix for issue #18924 - using -pretty option left in ///#DEBUG blocks. Fix for issue #18980 - bad += optimization caused bug in resulting code. Optimization has been removed pending further review.Dynamics Crm 2011 Solution Manager: Crm Solution Manager 1.0: First Version.Lava JS: Lava JS 1.0: Sourcemp3player-xslt-plugin: mp3player module 1.0: This is a mp3 player module that you can install on your umbraco project. It can display the list of the media and you can click the button to play or stop.STeaL : stealed functionarities from STL: STeaL 0.4.1(prelerease): + fill / fill-nMi-DevEnv: Development 0.5: Ran a new test scenario where I created a DC, then created a web server, blew it away, then re-created the web server. The purpose of the test was to see how the installers would handle information existing in AD, like the OU for CRM. This revealed yet another silly issue in retrieving details of existing OU's, where I had the syntax wrong. I should read exception details more closely :) Apologies also, I've just now started labelling the solution according to these "snapshots". Sorry for...Yahoo! UI Library: YUI Compressor for .Net: Version 2.2.0.0 - Epee: New : Web Optimization package! Cleaned up the nuget packages BugFix: minifying lots of files will now be faster because of a recent regression in some code. (We were instantiating something far too many times).DtPad - .NET Framework text editor: DtPad 2.9.0.40: http://dtpad.diariotraduttore.com/files/images/flag-eng.png English + A new built-in editor for the management of CSV files, including the edit of cells, deleting and adding new rows, replacement of delimiter character and much more (issue #1137) + The limit of rows allowed before the decommissioning of their side panel has been raised (new default: 1.000) (issue #1155, only partially solved) + Pressing CTRL+TAB now DtPad opens a screen that shows the list of opened tabs (issue #1143) + Note...New ProjectsAmazon S3 Upload with Uploadify: ASP.MVC upload file from client browser direct to Amazon S3Ameoto DEV: Bin for all of our software sources :DAutonomic Computing Library: This framework will simplify the development of Autonomic Computing Systems. BIUUITest: BIUUITestBotvaBot: This project should help tothe Botva.Ru gamers to automize their game proces. It is a set of libraries for simple sending of the HTTP requests with list of the main requests to the botva.ru web-site. Also project contains the clients forsimple using this request umulators.Cartellino: Scopo del progetto è la realizzazione di un software in grado di rilevare i dati dai rilevatori 3Tec (www.3tec.it) e stampare i cartellini presenza dei dipendenticmsforbeginner: in this project explain how to edit, create multiple webpages to a single website with less knowledge on html ,.net languagesContact Us Module: This is an Umbraco based module for feedback. You can upload the contact us module in the dashboard and then display those module anywhere in your site.CrmXpress Security Roles Helper For Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: CrmXpress Security Roles Helper is a tool/utility. It lets you compare the Security Roles for their differences at the privilege level with their scopes.DarkSky Helpdesk: DarkSky Helpdesk is an Orchard module that turns your Orchard application into a Helpdesk system.DataEntity: A Framework that help us to make persistences and materializations from any SQLServer DataBase Tables to Entity classes. Better performance with native ADO.NET.Edisfera DNN Training Task Module: This is a training project to familiarize with codeplex and dnn module creation.eyoung events description language: Eyoung is a event driven language. It can be used in many fields, such as intrusion action definition.FastBuild: Fast build VS2010 C++ project with the options OpenCV, QT, Boost and OpenGL.Find Changeset By Comment: This extension is used to find changesets that contain a specific phrase in a comment.Gatepass System: This application under development is my first application on codeplex. It is meant primarily as a learning tool while developing a Gatepass System. This GateHandle Template Library (HTL): Handle Template Library (HTL) is a C++ library for developing Windows applications and services. It provides a set of classes for files, threads, events, and more.iDoklad API: iDoklad API Demo je Open Source projekt spolecnosti Cígler Software. Ukázková aplikace demonstruje napojení na fakturacní službu iDokladIronBefunge: IronBefunge is an interpretor (written in .NET) for Befunge programs.Iterator Tasks: Iterator Tasks is a iterator-based coroutine class library.Javacc-Compile-N14: Javacc - compile - N14 is a students' compiler project and we use javacc to compiler XYZ-2 languageMessenger Game - Starter Kit: Kom godt i gang med at lave spil til Messenger med dette komplette Starter Kit. Indeholder et komplet netværksspil lavet med Messenger Activity API og Silverlight.MOBZcript: MOBZcript is a simple batch file editor for cmd scripts. It saves and runs your scripts as if you started them from a command line.NET.Library: The NET.Library will be available in different versions to run on the .Net 2, 3 and 4 frameworks and consists of various .Net programming utilities. proxificator: Proxificator is component for getting the appropriate proxyRetailManagement: abcStudentManage: testWebQQ Interface: A library that enable programmers to access QQ much easier via codeZytonic Screenshot: Upload Images From your Computer Harddrive or Screen With Ease!

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  • Custom Configuration Section Handlers

    Most .NET developers who need to store something in configuration tend to use appSettings for this purpose, in my experience.  More recently, the framework itself has helped things by adding the <connectionStrings /> section so at least these are in their own section and not adding to the appSettings clutter that pollutes most apps.  I recommend avoiding appSettings for several reasons.  In addition to those listed there, I would add that strong typing and validation are additional reasons to go the custom configuration section route. For my ASP.NET Tips and Tricks talk, I use the following example, which is a simple DemoSettings class that includes two fields.  The first is an integer representing how many attendees there are present for the talk, and the second is the title of the talk.  The setup in web.config is as follows: <configSections> <section name="DemoSettings" type="ASPNETTipsAndTricks.Code.DemoSettings" /> </configSections>   <DemoSettings sessionAttendees="100" title="ASP.NET Tips and Tricks DevConnections Spring 2010" /> Referencing the values in code is strongly typed and straightforward.  Here I have a page that exposes two properties which internally get their values from the configuration section handler: public partial class CustomConfig1 : System.Web.UI.Page { public string SessionTitle { get { return DemoSettings.Settings.Title; } } public int SessionAttendees { get { return DemoSettings.Settings.SessionAttendees; } } } Note that the settings are only read from the config file once after that they are cached so there is no need to be concerned about excessive file access. Now weve seen how to set it up on the config file and how to refer to the settings in code.  All that remains is to see the file itself: public class DemoSettings : ConfigurationSection { private static DemoSettings settings = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("DemoSettings") as DemoSettings; public static DemoSettings Settings{ get { return settings;} }   [ConfigurationProperty("sessionAttendees" , DefaultValue = 200 , IsRequired = false)] [IntegerValidator(MinValue = 1 , MaxValue = 10000)] public int SessionAttendees { get { return (int)this["sessionAttendees"]; } set { this["sessionAttendees"] = value; } }   [ConfigurationProperty("title" , IsRequired = true)] [StringValidator(InvalidCharacters = "~!@#$%^&*()[]{}/;\"|\\")] public string Title { get { return (string)this["title"]; } set { this["title"] = value; }   } } The class is pretty straightforward, but there are some important components to note.  First, it must inherit from System.Configuration.ConfigurationSection.  Next, as a convention I like to have a static settings member that is responsible for pulling out the section when the class is first referenced, and further to expose this collection via a static readonly property, Settings.  Note that the types of both of these are the type of my class, DemoSettings. The properties of the class, SessionAttendees and Title, should map to the attributes of the config element in the XML file.  The [ConfigurationProperty] attribute allows you to map the attribute name to the property name (thus using both XML standard naming conventions and C# naming conventions).  In addition, you can specify a default value to use if nothing is specified in the config file, and whether or not the setting must be provided (IsRequired).  If it is required, then it doesnt make sense to include a default value. Beyond defaults and required, you can specify more advanced validation rules for the configuration values using additional C# attributes, such as [IntegerValidator] and [StringValidator].  Using these, you can declaratively specify that your configuration values be in a given range, or omit certain forbidden characters, for instance.  Of course you can write your own custom validation attributes, and there are others specified in System.Configuration. Individual sections can also be loaded from separate files, using syntax like this: <DemoSettings configSource="demosettings.config" /> Summary Using a custom configuration section handler is not hard.  If your application or component requires configuration, I recommend creating a custom configuration handler dedicated to your app or component.  Doing so will reduce the clutter in appSettings, will provide you with strong typing and validation, and will make it much easier for other developers or system administrators to locate and understand the various configuration values that are necessary for a given application. 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.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 16, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 16, 2012Popular ReleasesMagelia WebStore Open-source Ecommerce software: Magelia WebStore 2.1: Scheduler Import & Export feature UTC datetime and timezone support .net 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012 migration client magelia global refactoring nugget package https://nuget.org/packages/Magelia.Webstore.Client/2.1.254.1 burst optimisation burst time improvment (multithreading, index, ...) current burst is still active when a new burst is generating bugfixes version 2.1.254.1DevLib: 70038 binary dlls: 70038 binary dllsP1 Port monitoring with Netduino Plus: V0.2 Beta Netduino Plus P1 Port Monitoring: This is the stable beta release of the Netduino Plus P1 port monitoring. Please read the requirements on the Documentation page.JayData - The cross-platform HTML5 data-management library for JavaScript: JayData 1.2.2: JayData is a unified data access library for JavaScript to CRUD + Query data from different sources like OData, MongoDB, WebSQL, SqLite, HTML5 localStorage, Facebook or YQL. The library can be integrated with Knockout.js or Sencha Touch 2 and can be used on Node.js as well. See it in action in this 6 minutes video Sencha Touch 2 example app using JayData: Netflix browser. What's new in JayData 1.2.2 For detailed release notes check the release notes. Revitalized IndexedDB providerNow you c...VFPX: FoxcodePlus: FoxcodePlus - Visual Studio like extensions to Visual FoxPro IntelliSense.Droid Explorer: Droid Explorer 0.8.8.8 Beta: fixed the icon for packages on the desktop fixed the install dialog closing right when it starts removed the link to "set up the sdk for me" as this is no longer supported. fixed bug where the device selection dialog would show, even if there was only one device connected. fixed toolbar from having "gap" between other toolbar removed main menu items that do not have any menus Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine (0.3.0): Iveely Search Engine?????????????,0.3.0????????,????????:??????。 ????????????"????“????????,????????????。??0.3.0???????????0.3.0????????,????。 ?????,????????????????,??????300????,?????????300?????????????????,?????????????????。????,??????????,???????,???????。???????IveelySE.Resource,???????????,???????????????????????,???????????。 ????????Iveely.config,??????IveelySE.Run.Task.exe,?????????http://127.0.0.1:8088/query=yourkeyword,??????。 ????,??? ??http://www.cnblogs.com/liufanping...Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 1.0: Prva verzija ovog projekta, još je uvijek oznacena kao BETA - ovo znaci da su naša testiranja prošla uspješno :) No, kako mi ne proizvodimo neki software za blagajne, tako sve ovo nije niti isprobano u "realnim" uvjetima - svaka je sugestija, primjedba ili prijava bug-a je dobrodošla. Za sve ovo koristite, molimo, Discussions ili Issue Tracker. U ovom trenutku runtime binary je raspoloživ kao Any CPU za .NET verzije 2.0. Javite ukoliko trebaju i verzije buildane za 32-bit/64-bit kao i za .N...Squiggle - A free open source LAN Messenger: Squiggle 3.2 (Development): NOTE: This is development release and not recommended for production use. This release is mainly for enabling extensibility and interoperability with other platforms. Support for plugins Support for extensions Communication layer and protocol is platform independent (ZeroMQ, ProtocolBuffers) Bug fixes New /invite command Edit the sent message Disable update check NOTE: This is development release and not recommended for production use.AcDown????? - AcDown Downloader Framework: AcDown????? v4.2: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????,????,?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????,??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown??????????????????,????????????????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??,????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ???? 32??64? ???Linux ????(1)????????Windows XP???,????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86),?????"?????????"??? (2)???????????Linux???,????????Mono?? ??2...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.8: See Change Log for details of the new features and bugfixes included in this release, and methods that are now deprecated. Note changes to the PDF Writer: tcPDF is no longer bundled with PHPExcel, but should be installed separately if you wish to use that 3rd-Party library with PHPExcel. Alternatively, you can choose to use mPDF or DomPDF as PDF Rendering libraries instead: PHPExcel now provides a configurable wrapper allowing you a choice of PDF renderer. See the documentation, or the PDF s...DirectX Tool Kit: October 12, 2012: October 12, 2012 Added PrimitiveBatch for drawing user primitives Debug object names for all D3D resources (for PIX and debug layer leak reporting)Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.70: Fixed issue described in discussion #399087: variable references within case values weren't getting resolved.GoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 6.1: Some important bug fixes and couple of new features were added. There are no major changes to the sample website. Source code could be downloaded from the Source Code section selecting branch release-6.1. Thus just builds of GoogleMap Control are issued here in this release. Update 14.Oct.2012 - Client side access fixed NuGet Package GoogleMap Control 6.1 NuGet Package FeaturesBounds property to provide ability to create a map by center and bounds as well; Setting in markup <artem:Goog...mojoPortal: 2.3.9.3: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2393-released Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0, but we recommend you to use .NET 4, we will probably drop support for .NET 3.5 once .NET 4.5 is available The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code and are not intended for use in Visual Studio. To download the source code see getting the lates...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.4: Fixed a bug where the server ip was not logged properly in the stats file.Captcha MVC: Captcha Mvc 2.1.2: v 2.1.2: Fixed problem with serialization. Made all classes from a namespace Jetbrains.Annotaions as the internal. Added autocomplete attribute and autocorrect attribute for captcha input element. Minor changes. Updated: I'm added an example for this question. v 2.1.1: Fixed problem with serialization. Minor changes. v 2.1: Added support for storing captcha in the session or cookie. See the updated example. Updated example. Minor changes. v 2.0.1: Added support for a partial ...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue where the module printing function was only visible to administrators Fixed issue where pane level skinning was being assigned to a default container for any content pane Fixed issue when using password aging and FB / Google authentication Fixed issue that was causing the DateEditControl to not load the assigned value Fixed issue that stopped additional profile properties to be displayed in the member directory after modifying the template Fixed er...Database View-plug-ins Programming Helper: Database View-plug-ins 1.3: V1.3 added feature: Metadata Deployment. The download package consists of deployment SQL scripts. Run every scripts of all subdirectories in order (sort by name). "VPI" is the default schema name in the manifest, it can be changed to other name according to your enterprise database policy. Current release is for Oracle version (SQL Server version will be released later).Advanced DataGridView with Excel-like auto filter: 1.0.0.0: ?????? ??????New ProjectsAerTHe: Simple, test project about EntityFramework, NUnit, etc.BalanceManagerApp: BalanceManagerAppC++ Debugger Visualizers for VS2012: C++ Debugger Visualizers for Boost, wxWidgets, TinyXML, TinyXML2ClipReader: A Text-To-Speach reader that reads from the clipboard. Reads any text you copy to the clipboard. Similar idea to ReadPlease. Coursework 2.0 UGC Site: University of Hertfordshire coursework project to develop a Web 2.0-style UGC website. DavesinitialcourseworkcalculatorinVS: Basic calculator for assignment 1DL_Assignment 1: This project forms Task 1 of Assignment 1 for 7COM0207. The requirement is that a user can enter 2 numbers and the sum of the numbes is displayed. Document Storage: This project is intended to act as a learning exercise for the participants. gillsassignment1: This is task 1 for assignment 1 which adds 2 numbers and displays the result.gillstestproject: This is my first little test.Iconator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: This application ease the customization of custom entities icons in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.Infopath 2010 Web Signature Capture: A simple method of adding signature capture to InfoPath Browser enabled forms. KennyWorld: Kenny's blog based on BLogEngine.netMirus - Advanced Open Source Operating System: Mirus is a new, advanced, open source operating system written in C# using the Cosmos toolkit aiming for POSIX compatibility, ease of use, and innovation.Morgado Finance: Test of Finance ManagementMPF for Projects - Visual Studio 2012: A community project containing the source code and tests of a library for creating project system plug-ins for Visual Studio 2012 using C#.OpenWeb: OpenWeb project by Deigo Stefanon [*/*P1 Port monitoring with Netduino Plus: This program reads the Dutch electricity meter P1 port messages and publishes the information to Cosm and ThingSpeak for monitoring.Powerless View: Proof of concept application for hosting the Power View Silverlight application outside of a SharePoint and Reporting Services environment.RAM Drive: A Windows Service that copies an existing Virtual Hard Disk in memory, then mounts it as a disk giving the ability to use your RAM as a super-fast drive.Roderick Vella's Interactive Learning: Web Scripting and Content CreationSaveDouban: ?????????????????,????.NetFramework3.5?????ScriptEase for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Utility to synchronize your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 JavaScripts with your files on your local hard-drive.T.REST: T.REST - a framework for testing REST ressourcesVisual Leak Detector Performance Test: Tests for Visual Leak Detector for Visual C++ 2008/2010/2012 [url:http://vld.codeplex.com/]???????: ????????????????。?????????????。 ??url??,??????

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  • Agile Executives

    - by Robert May
    Over the years, I have experienced many different styles of software development. In the early days, most of the development was Waterfall development. In the last few years, I’ve become an advocate of Scrum. As I talked about last month, many people have misconceptions about what Scrum really is. The reason why we do Scrum at Veracity is because of the difference it makes in the life of the team doing Scrum. Software is for people, and happy motivated people will build better software. However, not all executives understand Scrum and how to get the information from development teams that use Scrum. I think that these executives need a support system for managing Agile teams. Historical Software Management When Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line, I doubt he realized the impact he’d have on Management through the ages. Historically, management was about managing the process of building things. The people were just cogs in that process. Like all cogs, they were replaceable. Unfortunately, most of the software industry followed this same style of management. Many of today’s senior managers learned how to manage companies before software was a significant influence on how the company did business. Software development is a very creative process, but too many managers have treated it like an assembly line. Idea’s go in, working software comes out, and we just have to figure out how to make sure that the ideas going in are perfect, then the software will be perfect. Lean Manufacturing In the manufacturing industry, Lean manufacturing has revolutionized Henry Ford’s assembly line. Derived from the Toyota process, Lean places emphasis on always providing value for the customer. Anything the customer wouldn’t be willing to pay for is wasteful. Agile is based on similar principles. We’re building software for people, and anything that isn’t useful to them doesn’t add value. Waterfall development would have teams build reams and reams of documentation about how the software should work. Agile development dispenses with this work because excessive documentation doesn’t add value. Instead, teams focus on building documentation only when it truly adds value to the customer. Many other Agile principals are similar. Playing Catch-up Just like in the manufacturing industry, many managers in the software industry have yet to understand the value of the principles of Lean and Agile. They think they can wrap the uncertainties of software development up in a nice little package and then just execute, usually followed by failure. They spend a great deal of time and money trying to exactly predict the future. That expenditure of time and money doesn’t add value to the customer. Managers that understand that Agile know that there is a better way. They will instead focus on the priorities of the near term in detail, and leave the future to take care of itself. They have very detailed two week plans with less detailed quarterly plans. These plans are guided by a general corporate strategy that doesn’t focus on the exact implementation details. These managers also think in smaller features rather than large functionality. This adds a great deal of value to customers, since the features that matter most are the ones that the team focuses on in the near term and then are able to deliver to the customers that are paying for them. Agile managers also realize that stale software is very costly. They know that keeping the technology in their software current is much less expensive and risky than large rewrites that occur infrequently and schedule time in each release for refactoring of the existing software. Agile Executives Even though Agile is a better way, I’ve still seen failures using the Agile process. While some of these failures can be attributed to the team, most of them are caused by managers, not the team. Managers fail to understand what Agile is, how it works, and how to get the information that they need to make good business decisions. I think this is a shame. I’m very pleased that Veracity understands this problem and is trying to do something about it. Veracity is a key sponsor of Agile Executives. In fact, Galen is this year’s acting president for Agile Executives. The purpose of Agile Executives is to help managers better manage Agile teams and see better success. Agile Executives is trying to build a community of executives that range from managers interested in Agile to managers that have successfully adopted Agile. Together, these managers can form a community of support and ideas that will help make Agile teams more successful. Helping Your Team You can help too! Talk with your manager and get them involved in Agile Executives. Help Veracity build the community. If your manager understands Agile better, he’ll understand how to help his teams, which will result in software that adds more value for customers. If you have any questions about how you can be involved, please let me know. Technorati Tags: Agile,Agile Executives

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  • What to "CRM" in San Francisco? CRM Highlights for OpenWorld '12

    - by Tony Berk
    There is plenty to SEE for CRM during OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 30 - October 4! As I mentioned in my earlier post about some of the keynote sessions, Is There a Cloud Over OpenWorld?, I'm going try to highlight some key sessions to help you find the best sessions for you. Interested to find out where Oracle CRM products are headed, then find your "roadmap" session. Here are some of the sessions in the CRM Track that you might want to consider attending for products you currently own or might consider for the future. I think you'll agree, there is quite a bit of investment going on across Oracle CRM. Please use OpenWorld Schedule Builder or check the OpenWorld Content Catalog for all of the session details and any time or location changes. Tip: Pre-enrolled session registrants via Schedule Builder are allowed into the session rooms before anyone else, so Schedule Builder will guarantee you a seat. Many of the sessions below will likely be at capacity. General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM - 4:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap (CON9764) - Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service combines Web, social, and contact center experiences for a unified, cross-channel service solution in the cloud, enabling organizations to increase sales and adoption, build trust, strengthen relationships, and reduce costs and effort. Come to this session to hear from Oracle experts about where the product is going and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Siebel CRM Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (CON9700) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. The world’s most complete CRM solution, Oracle’s Siebel CRM helps organizations differentiate their businesses. Come to this session to learn about the Siebel product roadmap and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value for its customers on this platform. Additionally, the session covers how Siebel customers can leverage many Oracle assets such as Oracle WebCenter Sites; InQuira, RightNow, and ATG/Endeca applications, and Oracle Policy Automation in conjunction with their current Siebel investments. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM. Social is changing the customer experience! Come find out how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle’s social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Oracle CRM On Demand Strategy and Roadmap (CON9727) - Oct 1, 10:45AM - 11:45AM. Oracle CRM On Demand is a powerful cloud-based customer relationship management solution. Come to this session to learn directly from Oracle experts about future product plans and hear how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Knowledge Management Roadmap and Strategy (CON9776) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Learn how to harness the knowledge created as a natural byproduct of day-to-day interactions to lower costs and improve customer experience by delivering the right answer at the right time across channels. This session includes an overview of Oracle’s product roadmap and vision for knowledge management for both the Oracle RightNow and Oracle Knowledge (formerly InQuira) product families. Oracle Policy Automation Roadmap: Supercharging the Customer Experience (CON9655) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Oracle Policy Automation delivers rapid customer value by streamlining the capture, analysis, and deployment of policies across every facet of the customer experience. This session discusses recent Oracle Policy Automation enhancements for policy analytics; the latest Oracle Policy Automation Connector for Siebel; and planned new capabilities, including availability with the Oracle RightNow product line. There is much more, so stay tuned for more highlights or check out the Content Catalog and search for your areas of interest. Which session are you most interested in? Make your suggestions! But no voting for Pearl Jam or Kings of Leon. Those are after hours! 

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  • Educause Top-Ten IT Issues - the most change in a decade or more

    - by user739873
    The Education IT Issue Panel has released the 2012 top-ten issues facing higher education IT leadership, and instead of the customary reshuffling of the same deck, the issues reflect much of the tumult and dynamism facing higher education generally.  I find it interesting (and encouraging) that at the top of this year's list is "Updating IT Professionals' Skills and Roles to Accommodate Emerging Technologies and Changing IT Management and Service Delivery Models."  This reflects, in my view, the realization that higher education IT must change in order to fully realize the potential for transforming the institution, and therefore it's people must learn new skills, understand and accept new ways of solving problems, and not be tied down by past practices or institutional inertia. What follows in the remaining 9 top issues all speak, in some form or fashion, to the need for dramatic change, but not just in the areas of "funding IT" (code for cost containment or reduction), but rather the need to increase effectiveness and efficiency of the institution through the use of technology—leveraging the wave of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to the institution's advantage, rather than viewing it as a threat and a problem to be contained. Although it's #10 of 10, IT Governance (and establishment and implementation of the governance model throughout the institution) is key to effectively acting upon many of the preceding issues in this year's list.  In the majority of cases, technology exists to meet the needs and requirements to effectively address many of the challenges outlined in top-ten issues list. Which brings me to my next point. Although I try not to sound too much like an Oracle commercial in these (all too infrequent) blog posts, I can't help but point out how much confluence there is between several of the top issues this year and what my colleagues and I have been evangelizing for some time. Starting from the bottom of the list up: 1) I'm gratified that research and the IT challenges it presents has made the cut.  Big Data (or Large Data as it's phased in the report) is rapidly going to overwhelm much of what exists today even at our most prepared and well-equipped research universities.  Combine large data with the significantly more stringent requirements around data preservation, archiving, sharing, curation, etc. coming from granting agencies like NSF, and you have the brewing storm that could result in a lot of "one-off" solutions to a problem that could very well be addressed collectively and "at scale."   2) Transformative effects of IT – while I see more and more examples of this, there is still much more that can be achieved. My experience tells me that culture (as the report indicates or at least poses the question) gets in the way more than technology not being up to task.  We spend too much time on "context" and not "core," and get lost in the weeds on the journey to truly transforming the institution with technology. 3) Analytics as a key element in improving various institutional outcomes.  In our work around Student Success, we see predictive "academic" analytics as essential to getting in front of the Student Success issue, regardless of how an institution or collections of institutions defines success.  Analytics must be part of the fabric of the key academic enterprise applications, not a bolt-on.  We will spend a significant amount of time on this topic during our semi-annual Education Industry Strategy Council meeting in Washington, D.C. later this month. 4) Cloud strategy for the broad range of applications in the academic enterprise.  Some of the recent work by Casey Green at the Campus Computing Survey would seem to indicate that there is movement in this area but mostly in what has been termed "below the campus" application areas such as collaboration tools, recruiting, and alumni relations.  It's time to get serious about sourcing elements of mature applications like student information systems, HR, Finance, etc. leveraging a model other than traditional on-campus custom. I've only selected a few areas of the list to highlight, but the unifying theme here (and this is where I run the risk of sounding like an Oracle commercial) is that these lofty goals cry out for partners that can bring economies of scale to bear on the problems married with a deep understanding of the nuances unique to higher education.  In a recent piece in Educause Review on Student Information Systems, the author points out that "best of breed is back". Unfortunately I am compelled to point out that best of breed is a large part of the reason we have made as little progress as we have as an industry in advancing some of the causes outlined above.  Don't confuse "integrated" and "full stack" for vendor lock-in.  The best-of-breed market forces that Ron points to ensure that solutions have to be "integratable" or they don't survive in the marketplace. However, by leveraging the efficiencies afforded by adopting solutions that are pre-integrated (and possibly metered out as a service) allows us to shed unnecessary costs – as difficult as these decisions are to make and to drive throughout the organization. Cole

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  • Silverlight Relay Commands

    - by George Evjen
    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin: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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} I am fairly new at Silverlight development and I usually have an issue that needs research every day. Which I enjoy, since I like the idea of going into a day knowing that I am  going to learn something new. The issue that I am currently working on centers around relay commands. I have a pretty good handle on Relay Commands and how we use them within our applications. <Button Command="{Binding ButtonCommand}" CommandParameter="NewRecruit" Content="New Recruit" /> Here in our xaml we have a button. The button has a Command and a CommandParameter. The command binds to the ButtonCommand that we have in our ViewModel RelayCommand _buttonCommand;         /// <summary>         /// Gets the button command.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The button command.</value>         public RelayCommand ButtonCommand         {             get             {                 if (_buttonCommand == null)                 {                     _buttonCommand = new RelayCommand(                         x => x != null && x.ToString().Length > 0 && CheckCommandAvailable(x.ToString()),                         x => ExecuteCommand(x.ToString()));                 }                 return _buttonCommand;             }         }   In our relay command we then do some checks with a lambda expression. We check if the command  parameter is null, is the length greater than 0 and we have a CheckCommandAvailable method that will tell  us if the button is even enabled. After we check on these three items we then pass the command parameter to an action method. This is all pretty straight forward, the issue that we solved a few days ago centered around having a control that needed to use a Relay Command and this control was a nested control and was using a different DataContext. The example below illustrates how we handled this scenario. In our xaml usercontrol we had to set a name to this control. <Controls3:RadTileViewItem x:Class="RecruitStatusTileView"     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"     xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"     xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"      xmlns:Controls1="clr-namespace:Telerik.Windows.Controls;assembly=Telerik.Windows.Controls"      xmlns:Controls2="clr-namespace:Telerik.Windows.Controls;assembly=Telerik.Windows.Controls.Input"      xmlns:Controls3="clr-namespace:Telerik.Windows.Controls;assembly=Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation"      mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignHeight="400" d:DesignWidth="800" Header="{Binding Title,Mode=TwoWay}" MinimizedHeight="100"                             x:Name="StatusView"> Here we are using a telerik RadTileViewItem. We set the name of this control to “StatusView”. In our button control we set our command parameters and commands different than the example above. <HyperlinkButton Content="{Binding BigBoardButtonText, Mode=TwoWay}" CommandParameter="{Binding 'Position.PositionName'}" Command="{Binding ElementName=StatusView, Path=DataContext.BigBoardCommand, Mode=TwoWay}" /> This hyperlink button lives in a ListBox control and this listbox has an ItemSource of PositionSelectors. The Command Parameter is binding to the Position.Position property of that PositionSelectors object. This again is pretty straight forward again. What gets a bit tricky is the Command property in the hyperlink. It is binding to the element name we created in the user control (StatusView) Because this hyperlink is in a listbox and is in the item template it doesn’t have a direct handle on the DataContext that the RadTileViewItem has so we have to make sure it does. We do that by binding to the element name of status view then set the path to DataContext.BigBoardCommand. BigBoardCommand is the name of the RelayCommand in the view model. private RelayCommand _bigBoardCommand = null;         /// <summary>         /// Gets the big board command.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The big board command.</value>         public RelayCommand BigBoardCommand         {             get             {                 if (_bigBoardCommand == null)                 {                     _bigBoardCommand = new RelayCommand(x => true, x => AddToBigBoard(x.ToString()));                 }                 return _bigBoardCommand;             }         } From there we check for true again and then call the action and pass in the parameter that we had as the command parameter. What we are working on now is a bit trickier than this second example. In the above example we are only creating this TileViewItem with this name “StatusView” once. In another part of our application we are generating multiple TileViewItems, so we cannot set the name in the control as we cant have multiple controls with the same name. When we run the application we get an error that reads that the value is out of expected range. My searching has led me to think we cannot have multiple controls with the same name. This is today’s problem and Ill post the solution to this once it is found.

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  • ublas::bounded_vector<> being resized?

    - by n2liquid
    Now, seriously... I'll refrain from using bad words here because we're talking about the Boost fellows. It MUST be my mistake to see things this way, but I can't understand why, so I'll ask it here; maybe someone can enlighten me in this matter. Here it goes: uBLAS has this nice class template called bounded_vector<> that's used to create fixed-size vectors (or so I thought). From the Effective uBLAS wiki (http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?Effective_UBLAS): The default uBLAS vector and matrix types are of variable size. Many linear algebra problems involve vectors with fixed size. 2 and 3 elements are common in geometry! Fixed size storage (akin to C arrays) can be implemented efficiently as it does not involve the overheads (heap management) associated with dynamic storage. uBLAS implements fixed sizes by changing the underling storage of a vector/matrix to a "bounded_array" from the default "unbounded_array". Alright, this bounded_vector<> thing is used to free you from specifying the underlying storage of the vector to a bounded_array<> of the specified size. Here I ask you: doesn't it look like this bounded vector thing has fixed size to you? Well, it doesn't have. At first I felt betrayed by the wiki, but then I reconsidered the meaning of "bounded" and I think I can let it pass. But in case you, like me (I'm still uncertain), is still wondering if this makes sense, what I found out is that the bounded_vector<> actually can be resized, it may only not be greater than the size specified as template parameter. So, first off, do you think they've had a good reason not to make a real fixed<< size vector or matrix type? Do you think it's okay to "sell" this bounded -- as opposed to fixed-size -- vector to the users of my library as a "fixed-size" vector replacement, even named "Vector3" or "Vector2", like the Effective uBLAS wiki did? Do you think I should somehow implement a vector with fixed size for this purpose? If so, how? (Sorry, but I'm really new to uBLAS; just tried it today) I am developing a 3D game. Should uBLAS be used for the calculations involved in this ("hey, geometry!", per Effective uBLAS wiki)? What replacement would you suggest, if not? -- edit And just in case, yes, I've read this warning: It should be noted that this only changes the storage uBLAS uses for the vector3. uBLAS will still use all the same algorithm (which assume a variable size) to manipulate the vector3. In practice this seems to have no negative impact on speed. The above runs just as quickly as a hand crafted vector3 which does not use uBLAS. The only negative impact is that the vector3 always store a "size" member which in this case is redundant [or isn't it? I mean......]. I see it uses the same algorithm, assuming a variable size, but if an operation were to actually change its size, shouldn't it be stopped (assertion)? ublas::bounded_vector<float,3> v3; ublas::bounded_vector<float,2> v2; v3 = v2; std::cout << v3.size() << '\n'; // prints 2 Oh, come on, isn't this just plain betrayal?

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  • creating a pre-menu level select screen

    - by Ephiras
    Hi I am working on creating a tower Defence java applet game and have come to a road block about implementing a title screen that i can select the level and difficulty of the rest of the game. my title screen class is called Menu. from this menu class i need to pass in many different variables into my Main class. i have used different classes before and know how to run them and such. but if both classes extend applet and each has its individual graphics method how can i run things from Main even though it was created in Menu. what i essentially want to do is run the Menu class withits action listeners and graphics until a Difficulty button has been selected, run the main class (which 100% works without having to have the Menu class) and pretty much terminate Menu so that i cannot go back to it, do not see its buttons or graphics menus. can i run one applet annd when i choose a button close that one and launch the other one? IF you would like to download the full project you can find it here, i had to comment out all the code that wasn't working my Menu class import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.applet.*; public class Menu extends Applet implements ActionListener{ Button bEasy,bMed,bHard; Main m; public void init(){ bEasy= new Button("Easy"); bEasy.setBounds(140,200,100,50); add(bEasy); bMed = new Button("Medium");bMed.setBounds(280,200,100,50); add(bMed); bHard= new Button("Hard");bHard.setBounds(420,200,100,50); add(bHard); setLayout(null); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){ Main m = new Main(20,10,3000,mapMed);//break; switch (e.getSource()){ case bEasy: Main m = new Main(6000,20,"levels/levelEasy.png");break;//enimies tower money world case bMed: Main m = new Main(4000,15,"levels/levelMed.png");break; case bHard: Main m = new Main(2000,10,"levels/levelEasy.png");break; default: break; } } public void paint(){ //m.draw(g) } } and here is my main class initialising code. import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.applet.*; import java.io.IOException; public class Main extends Applet implements Runnable, MouseListener, MouseMotionListener, ActionListener{ Button startButton, UpgRange, UpgDamage; //set up the buttons Color roadCol,startCol,finCol,selGrass,selRoad; //set up the colors Enemy e[][]; Tower t[]; Image towerpic,backpic,roadpic,levelPic; private Image i; private Graphics doubleG; //here is the world 0=grass 1=road 2=start 3=end int world[][],eStartX,eStartY; boolean drawMouse,gameEnd; static boolean start=false; static int gridLength=15; static int round=0; int Mx,My,timer=1500; static int sqrSize=31; int towers=0,towerSelected=-10; static int castleHealth=2000; String levelPath; //choose the level Easy Med or Hard int maxEnemy[] = {5,7,12,20,30,15,50,30,40,60};//number of enimies per round int maxTowers=15;//maximum number of towers allowed static int money =2000,damPrice=600,ranPrice=350,towerPrice=700; //money = the intial ammount of money you start of with //damPrice is the price to increase the damage of a tower //ranPrice is the price to increase the range of a tower public void main(int cH,int mT,int mo,int dP,int rP,int tP,String path,int[] mE)//constructor 1 castleHealth=cH; maxTowers=mT; money=mo; damPrice=dP; ranPrice=rP; towerPrice=tP; String levelPath=path; maxEnemy = mE; buildLevel(); } public void main(int cH,int mT,String path)//basic constructor castleHealth=cH; maxTowers=mT; String levelPath=path; maxEnemy = mE; buildLevel(); } public void init(){ setSize(sqrSize*15+200,sqrSize*15);//set the size of the screen roadCol = new Color(255,216,0);//set the colors for the different objects startCol = new Color(0,38,255); finCol = new Color(255,0,0); selRoad = new Color(242,204,155);//selColor is the color of something when your mouse hovers over it selGrass = new Color(0,190,0); roadpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/road.jpg"); towerpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/tower.png"); backpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/grass.jpg"); levelPic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/level.jpg"); e= new Enemy[maxEnemy.length][];//activates all of the enimies for (int r=0;r<e.length;r++) e[r] = new Enemy[maxEnemy[r]]; t= new Tower[maxTowers]; for (int i=0;i<t.length;i++) t[i]= new Tower();//activates all the towers for (int i=0;i<e.length; i++)//sets all of the enimies starting co ordinates for (int j=0;j<e[i].length;j++) e[i][j] = new Enemy(eStartX,eStartY,world); initButtons();//initialise all the buttons addMouseMotionListener(this); addMouseListener(this); }

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  • Mark Hurd on the Customer Revolution: Oracle's Top 10 Insights

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    Reprint of an article from Forbes Businesses that fail to focus on customer experience will hear a giant sucking sound from their vanishing profitability. Because in today’s dynamic global marketplace, consumers now hold the power in the buyer-seller equation, and sellers need to revamp their strategy for this new world order. The ability to relentlessly deliver connected, personalized and rewarding customer experiences is rapidly becoming one of the primary sources of competitive advantage in today’s dynamic global marketplace. And the inability or unwillingness to realize that the customer is a company’s most important asset will lead, inevitably, to decline and failure. Welcome to the lifecycle of customer experience, in which consumers explore, engage, shop, buy, ask, compare, complain, socialize, exchange, and more across multiple channels with the unconditional expectation that each of those interactions will be completed in an efficient and personalized manner however, wherever, and whenever the customer wants. While many niche companies are offering point solutions within that sprawling and complex spectrum of needs and requirements, businesses looking to deliver superb customer experiences are still left having to do multiple product evaluations, multiple contract negotiations, multiple test projects, multiple deployments, and–perhaps most annoying of all–multiple and never-ending integration projects to string together all those niche products from all those niche vendors. With its new suite of customer-experience solutions, Oracle believes it can help companies unravel these challenges and move at the speed of their customers, anticipating their needs and desires and creating enduring and profitable relationships. Those solutions span the full range of marketing, selling, commerce, service, listening/insights, and social and collaboration tools for employees. When Oracle launched its suite of Customer Experience solutions at a recent event in New York City, president Mark Hurd analyzed the customer experience revolution taking place and presented Oracle’s strategy for empowering companies to capitalize on this important market shift. From Hurd’s presentation and related materials, I’ve extracted a list of Hurd’s Top 10 Insights into the Customer Revolution. 1. Please Don’t Feed the Competitor’s Pipeline!After enduring a poor experience, 89% of consumers say they would immediately take their business to your competitor. (Except where noted, the source for these findings is the 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report including a survey commissioned by RightNow (acquired by Oracle in March 2012) and conducted by Harris Interactive.) 2. The Addressable Market Is Massive. Only 1% of consumers say their expectations were always met by their actual experiences. 3. They’re Willing to Pay More! In return for a great experience, 86% of consumers say they’ll pay up to 25% more. 4. The Social Media Microphone Is Always Live. After suffering through a poor experience, more than 25% of consumers said they posted a negative comment on Twitter or Facebook or other social media sites. Conversely, of those consumers who got a response after complaining, 22% posted positive comments about the company. 5.  The New Deal Is Never Done: Embrace the Entire Customer Lifecycle. An appropriately active and engaged relationship, says Hurd, extends across every step of the entire processs: need, research, select, purchase, receive, use, maintain, and recommend. 6. The 360-Degree Commitment. Customers want to do business with companies that actively and openly demonstrate the desire to establish strong and seamless connections across employees, the company, and the customer, says research firm Temkin Group in its report called “The CX Competencies.” 7. Understand the Emotional Drivers Behind Brand Love. What makes consumers fall in love with a brand? Among the top factors are friendly employees and customer reps (73%), easy access to information and support (55%), and personalized experiences, such as when companies know precisely what products or services customers have purchased in the past and what issues those customers have raised (36%). 8.  The Importance of Immediate Action. You’ve got one week to respond–and then the opportunity’s lost. If your company needs more than a week to answer a prospect’s question or request, most of those prospects will terminate the relationship. 9.  Want More Revenue, Less Churn, and More Referrals? Then improve the overall customer experience: Forrester’s research says that approach put an extra $900 million in the pockets of wireless service providers, $800 million for hotels, and $400 million for airlines. 10. The Formula for CX Success.  Hurd says it includes three elegantly interlaced factors: Connected Engagement, to personalize the experience; Actionable Insight, to maximize the engagement; and Optimized Execution, to deliver on the promise of value. RECOMMENDED READING: The Top 10 Strategic CIO Issues For 2013 Wal-Mart, Amazon, eBay: Who’s the Speed King of Retail? Career Suicide and the CIO: 4 Deadly New Threats Memo to Marc Benioff: Social Is a Tool, Not an App

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