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  • Can I use a 302 redirect to serve up static content from an URL with escaped_fragment?

    - by Starfs
    We would like to serve up SEO-friendly Ajax-driven content. We are following this documentation. Has anyone ever tried to write a 302 redirect into the .htaccess file, that takes the ?_escaped_fragment= string and send that to a static page?, for example /snapshot/yourfilename/. How will Google react to this? I've gone through the documentation and it's not very clear. The below quote is from Google's documentation this is what I find. I'm not sure if they are saying that you can redirect the _escaped_fragment_ URL to a different static page, or if this is to redirect the hashtag URL to static content? Thoughts? From Google's site: Question: Can I use redirects to point the crawler at my static content? Redirects are okay to use, as long as they eventually get you to a page that's equivalent to what the user would see on the #! version of the page. This may be more convenient for some webmasters than serving up the content directly. If you choose this approach, please keep the following in mind: Compared to serving the content directly, using redirects will result in extra traffic because the crawler has to follow redirects to get the content. This will result in a somewhat higher number of fetches/second in crawl activity. Note that if you use a permanent (301) redirect, the url shown in our search results will typically be the target of the redirect, whereas if a temporary (302) redirect is used, we'll typically show the #! url in search results. Depending on how your site is set up, showing #! may produce a better user experience, because the user will be taken straight into the AJAX experience from the Google search results page. Clicking on a static page will take them to the static content, and they may experience avoidable extra page load time if the site later wants to switch them to the AJAX experience.

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  • Is my client correct that I cannot take a vacation as a subcontractor? [closed]

    - by Rae Ann
    I have 2 clients who I do ongoing work for as a subcontractor. Both are sporadic and part-time. Company A sent me to a 3 day certification course out of state. The following week I was scheduled for a 3 day vacation. I warned company B three weeks prior to these events. During my training that Company A was paying for, Company B asked me to leave the training to workon something for them that needed immediate attention. I declined. However I made arrangements to work on it in the evening and in the early mornings after they threatened to take the work and all subsequent work for this client to someone else. I lost all networking and fun from that trip... The following week I was in Florida and was again asked to do more work on the project after the feedback from the client. The integrated product personnel would not cooperate/return any of our calls so I did the best I could. I turned in the work, explained the issue and then was gone for 3 hours. When I returned, all my access to the project had been revoked and after a week of my calls and emails I found out they replaced me. I sent an invoice 3 weeks ago and they tell me they owe me nothing because I did not do the whole project and they cannot bill the client for what I did, because they are billing for the second contractor who started over. I was told that they realize I was on vacation but as a subcontractor I lose the ability to just disappear. I was gone 3 hours! Is this normal, correct, legal?? Not only did they ruin my class and my vacation, but now they expect me to not demand payment? They ended our relationship and I was in the middle of another project of theirs too. They told me to immediately cease all work for them. How do I get paid for the work I have yet to invoice this month?

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  • Creating Engaging Online Experiences is Easy and Intuitive for Marketers with Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g

    - by Christie Flanagan
    Last month, we announced the availability of Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g, the latest release of our web experience management solution. This new release is really geared toward enabling marketers and business users to drive customer acquisition and brand loyalty by simplifying the whole process of creating, managing and optimizing engaging online experiences.  To show you just how this works, we’ve created the video below which takes you through the tasks a typical marketer might execute using Oracle WebCenter Sites to manage their online presence -- everything from page editing to page creation, right on through to optimizing the mobile experience and moderating user-generated comments and reviews is covered here. I hope this video has give you a flavor for just how easy and intuitive it is for marketers and other business users to manage engaging and interactive online experiences using Oracle WebCenter Sites.  To see more about the new release, please check out the recording of our launch webcast. On Demand Webcast - Introducing Oracle WebCenter Sites: Transforming the Online Experience Enabling marketers and business users is a key requirement for creating and managing contextually relevant, social, and interactive online experiences. Oracle WebCenter Sites transforms the online experience into one that is simple and intuitive to manage as a content contributor, encourages interaction between site visitors and their social networks, and provides marketers with automated targeting options for optimizing online engagement. View this webcast now to learn more.

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  • 2 year cis degree and in school for computer science what can I do?

    - by chame1eon
    Hi I am 29 and have a recent 2 cis year degree from a community college , an A+ certification , and meager experience with web stuff ( Java , Javascript , php ) while in my 1 year help desk internship. In all the programming classes I was able to blow through the homework easily even while other students were panicking and dropping. I think I have managed to avoid the most atrocious noob/self taught mistakes ( spaghetti code etc) by just doing research before starting something and trying to keep good design in mind. Even so I'd have to make heavy use of references to crawl through even simple projects that would result in fully finished useful applications. I need a job now and I am tired of the slow pace of the classes and would love to get any kind of practical experience I could. The problem is that I am not sure what I should be trying to do. I have a very strong preference for application programming or at least anything light on design and preferably pretty low level. If I can't do that then anything technology related , for example help desk would be better than nothing. I live near Raleigh NC. Am I qualified for anything that could contribute to coding (C++ or Java ) experience or even web development though I don't really like it. Would web development experience help. If not is there anything I could read or do that could help? Is the help desk my only choice? If it is, are there any relatively quick certifications or anything similar that would help while I am waiting? Sorry about the long multi-part question. Thanks for reading.

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  • Why most people change from being a contractor to full time at my companies, but not the other way around?

    - by ????
    I have seen most people changed from being a contractor to being a full time employee, but not the other way around. And that happened in startups that had maybe 20% chance of IPO or being acquired, and another that had maybe a 50% chance. As far as I know, the rate (even for a 3 year experience graphics designer, or a programmer), can be $75 to $80 an hour. While a programmer with 15 years of experience may get $120,000 per year. So, the programmer with 15 years of programming experience earns $10,000 per month. At the same time, the programmer with 3 year of experience or the graphics designer will get $14,000 per month ($80 x 22 days x 8 hours). I know I have to buy my own insurance, but I can't imagine buying those for $4,000 each month... maybe $200, $300 at most. I probably need to pay Social Security (FICA) both way (myself and as self-employed = $210 x 2), but still, each month there will be extra $3,000 of income. So is the above calculation correct? But most often, I do see contractors wanting or becoming full time, but not full time employees becoming a contractor. Does somebody know what the reason is?

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  • Throttling in OSB

    - by Knut Vatsendvik
    Technorati Tags: soa,integration,osb,throttling,overload protection A common problem with integration is the risk of overloading a particular web service. When the capacity of a web service is reached and it continues to accept connections, it will most likely start to deteriorate. Fortunately there are 2 techniques, with Oracle Service Bus, that you can apply for protecting this from happening. You can either limit the concurrent number of requests for a Business Service (outbound requests) or you can limit the number of threads processing the requests for a Proxy Service (inbound requests). Limiting the Concurrent Number of Requests Limiting the concurrent requests for a Business Service cannot be set at design time so you have to use the built-in Oracle Service Bus Administration Console to do it (/sbconsole). Follow these steps to enable it: In Change Center, click Create to start a new Session Select Project Explorer, and navigate to the Business Service you want to limit Select the Operational Settings tab of the View a Business Service page In this tab, under Throttling, select the Enable check box. By enabling throttling you Specify a value for Maximum Concurrency Specify a positive integer value for Throttling Queue to backlog messages that has exceeded the message concurrency limit Specify the maximum time in milliseconds for Message Expiration a message can spend in Throttling Queue Click Update Click Active in Change Center to active the new settings If you re-publish the service, it will not overwrite the settings. Only if the resource is renamed or moved, it will. Please note that a throttling queue is an in-memory queue. Messages that are placed in this queue are not recoverable when a server fails or when you restart a server. Limiting the Number of Threads A better approach, in my opinion, is to limit the number of threads that can work with request. Follow these steps to do it: Open the WebLogic Server Console (/console) In Change Center, click Create to start a new Session In the left pane expand Environment and select Work Managers In the Global Work Managers page, click New    Click the Work Manager radio button, then click Next Enter a Name for the new Work Manager, and click Next In the Available Targets list, select server instances or clusters on which you will deploy applications that reference the Work Manager Click Finish. The new Work Manager now appears in the Global Work Managers page. Select the new Work Manager Right next to the Maximum Threads Constraint drop-down box, click New   Click the Maximum Threads Constraint radio button, then click Next Enter a Name and a thread Count to be the maximum size to allocate for requests. Click Next  In the Available Targets list, select server instances or clusters on which you will deploy applications that reference the Work Manager Click Finish Click Save Click Active in Change Center to active your changes.  A restart may be necessary.   Puh! Almost there. Start a new session. Go to the Service Bus Console (/sbconsole) and find your consuming Proxy Service. Click the Edit button of the Transport Configuration tab. Click Next Set the Dispatch Policy to the new Work Manager Click Last Click Save Click Active in Change Center to active your changes. 

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  • ASUS EAH5450 Graphics Card (ATI Radeon HD5450 - 1 GB DDR3) on Windows 2003? Anybody got it to work?

    - by JJarava
    Hi all! I've just bought an ASUS EAH5450 Graphics Card (ATI Radeon HD5450, 1 GB DDR3) for my main system, but I haven't been able to make it work under Windows 2003 (my OS in that system). When I plugged the card, I got a couple of "installing drivers" prompt for things such as "ATI High Definition Audio Device" that got themselves sorted out of the Internet, and then a "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter". The CD that came with the card installs something called "ATI Catalyst Install Manager" and .net 2.0, but no drivers. I've downloaded the latest (WinXP 32bits) drivers from ATI, and the experience is the same: I don't get any drivers installed. My Motherboard is an ASUS A8N-SLI with nVidia nForce 4 chipset (for an Athlon 64X2, somewhat old), but my previous card was an ATi Radeon X700, so it's been working with ATI cards before. On POST, during boot I see a "Display Card" Device (Vendor ID 1002-68F9-0300) and a "Multimedia Device" (1002-AA68-0403), and when viewing the properties of the "Standard VGA", they match the device ID. Any hints? I'd really hate having to get rid of the card, and I'm sure it's not that strange what I'm trying to do...

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  • Is your team is a high-performing team?

    As a child I can remember looking out of the car window as my father drove along the Interstate in Florida while seeing prisoners wearing bright orange jump suits and prison guards keeping a watchful eye on them. The prisoners were taking part in a prison road gang. These road gangs were formed to help the state maintain the state highway infrastructure. The prisoner’s primary responsibilities are to pick up trash and debris from the roadway. This is a prime example of a work group or working group used by most prison systems in the United States. Work groups or working groups can be defined as a collection of individuals or entities working together to achieve a specific goal or accomplish a specific set of tasks. Typically these groups are only established for a short period of time and are dissolved once the desired outcome has been achieved. More often than not group members usually feel as though they are expendable to the group and some even dread that they are even in the group. "A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable." (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993) So how do you determine that a team is a high-performing team?  This can be determined by three base line criteria that include: consistently high quality output, the promotion of personal growth and well being of all team members, and most importantly the ability to learn and grow as a unit. Initially, a team can successfully create high-performing output without meeting all three criteria, however this will erode over time because team members will feel detached from the group or that they are not growing then the quality of the output will decline. High performing teams are similar to work groups because they both utilize a collection of individuals or entities to accomplish tasks. What distinguish a high-performing team from a work group are its characteristics. High-performing teams contain five core characteristics. These characteristics are what separate a group from a team. The five characteristics of a high-performing team include: Purpose, Performance Measures, People with Tasks and Relationship Skills, Process, and Preparation and Practice. A high-performing team is much more than a work group, and typically has a life cycle that can vary from team to team. The standard team lifecycle consists of five states and is comparable to a human life cycle. The five states of a high-performing team lifecycle include: Formulating, Storming, Normalizing, Performing, and Adjourning. The Formulating State of a team is first realized when the team members are first defined and roles are assigned to all members. This initial stage is very important because it can set the tone for the team and can ultimately determine its success or failure. In addition, this stage requires the team to have a strong leader because team members are normally unclear about specific roles, specific obstacles and goals that my lay ahead of them.  Finally, this stage is where most team members initially meet one another prior to working as a team unless the team members already know each other. The Storming State normally arrives directly after the formulation of a new team because there are still a lot of unknowns amongst the newly formed assembly. As a general rule most of the parties involved in the team are still getting used to the workload, pace of work, deadlines and the validity of various tasks that need to be performed by the group.  In this state everything is questioned because there are so many unknowns. Items commonly questioned include the credentials of others on the team, the actual validity of a project, and the leadership abilities of the team leader.  This can be exemplified by looking at the interactions between animals when they first meet.  If we look at a scenario where two people are walking directly toward each other with their dogs. The dogs will automatically enter the Storming State because they do not know the other dog. Typically in this situation, they attempt to define which is more dominating via play or fighting depending on how the dogs interact with each other. Once dominance has been defined and accepted by both dogs then they will either want to play or leave depending on how the dogs interacted and other environmental variables. Once the Storming State has been realized then the Normalizing State takes over. This state is entered by a team once all the questions of the Storming State have been answered and the team has been tested by a few tasks or projects.  Typically, participants in the team are filled with energy, and comradery, and a strong alliance with team goals and objectives.  A high school football team is a perfect example of the Normalizing State when they start their season.  The player positions have been assigned, the depth chart has been filled and everyone is focused on winning each game. All of the players encourage and expect each other to perform at the best of their abilities and are united by competition from other teams. The Performing State is achieved by a team when its history, working habits, and culture solidify the team as one working unit. In this state team members can anticipate specific behaviors, attitudes, reactions, and challenges are seen as opportunities and not problems. Additionally, each team member knows their role in the team’s success, and the roles of others. This is the most productive state of a group and is where all the time invested working together really pays off. If you look at an Olympic figure skating team skate you can easily see how the time spent working together benefits their performance. They skate as one unit even though it is comprised of two skaters. Each skater has their routine completely memorized as well as their partners. This allows them to anticipate each other’s moves on the ice makes their skating look effortless. The final state of a team is the Adjourning State. This state is where accomplishments by the team and each individual team member are recognized. Additionally, this state also allows for reflection of the interactions between team members, work accomplished and challenges that were faced. Finally, the team celebrates the challenges they have faced and overcome as a unit. Currently in the workplace teams are divided into two different types: Co-located and Distributed Teams. Co-located teams defined as the traditional group of people working together in an office, according to Andy Singleton of Assembla. This traditional type of a team has dominated business in the past due to inadequate technology, which forced workers to primarily interact with one another via face to face meetings.  Team meetings are primarily lead by the person with the highest status in the company. Having personally, participated in meetings of this type, usually a select few of the team members dominate the flow of communication which reduces the input of others in group discussions. Since discussions are dominated by a select few individuals the discussions and group discussion are skewed in favor of the individuals who communicate the most in meetings. In addition, Team members might not give their full opinions on a topic of discussion in part not to offend or create controversy amongst the team and can alter decision made in meetings towards those of the opinions of the dominating team members. Distributed teams are by definition spread across an area or subdivided into separate sections. That is exactly what distributed teams when compared to a more traditional team. It is common place for distributed teams to have team members across town, in the next state, across the country and even with the advances in technology over the last 20 year across the world. These teams allow for more diversity compared to the other type of teams because they allow for more flexibility regarding location. A team could consist of a 30 year old male Italian project manager from New York, a 50 year old female Hispanic from California and a collection of programmers from India because technology allows them to communicate as if they were standing next to one another.  In addition, distributed team members consult with more team members prior to making decisions compared to traditional teams, and take longer to come to decisions due to the changes in time zones and cultural events. However, team members feel more empowered to speak out when they do not agree with the team and to notify others of potential issues regarding the work that the team is doing. Virtual teams which are a subset of the distributed team type is changing organizational strategies due to the fact that a team can now in essence be working 24 hrs a day because of utilizing employees in various time zones and locations.  A primary example of this is with customer services departments, a company can have multiple call centers spread across multiple time zones allowing them to appear to be open 24 hours a day while all a employees work from 9AM to 5 PM every day. Virtual teams also allow human resources departments to go after the best talent for the company regardless of where the potential employee works because they will be a part of a virtual team all that is need is the proper technology to be setup to allow everyone to communicate. In addition to allowing employees to work from home, the company can save space and resources by not having to provide a desk for every team member. In fact, those team members that randomly come into the office can actually share one desk amongst multiple people. This is definitely a cost cutting plus given the current state of the economy. One thing that can turn a team into a high-performing team is leadership. High-performing team leaders need to focus on investing in ongoing personal development, provide team members with direction, structure, and resources needed to accomplish their work, make the right interventions at the right time, and help the team manage boundaries between the team and various external parties involved in the teams work. A team leader needs to invest in ongoing personal development in order to effectively manage their team. People have said that attitude is everything; this is very true about leaders and leadership. A team takes on the attitudes and behaviors of its leaders. This can potentially harm the team and the team’s output. Leaders must concentrate on self-awareness, and understanding their team’s group dynamics to fully understand how to lead them. In addition, always learning new leadership techniques from other effective leaders is also very beneficial. Providing team members with direction, structure, and resources that they need to accomplish their work collectively sounds easy, but it is not.  Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate with their team on how their work helps the company reach for its organizational vision. Conversely, the leader needs to allow his team to work autonomously within specific guidelines to turn the company’s vision into a reality.  This being said the team must be appropriately staffed according to the size of the team’s tasks and their complexity. These tasks should be clear, and be meaningful to the company’s objectives and allow for feedback to be exchanged with the leader and the team member and the leader and upper management. Now if the team is properly staffed, and has a clear and full understanding of what is to be done; the company also must supply the workers with the proper tools to achieve the tasks that they are asked to do. No one should be asked to dig a hole without being given a shovel.  Finally, leaders must reward their team members for accomplishments that they achieve. Awards could range from just a simple congratulatory email, a party to close the completion of a large project, or other monetary rewards. Managing boundaries is very important for team leaders because it can alter attitudes of team members and can add undue stress to the team which will force them to loose focus on the tasks at hand for the group. Team leaders should promote communication between team members so that burdens are shared amongst the team and solutions can be derived from hearing the opinions of multiple sources. This also reinforces team camaraderie and working as a unit. Team leaders must manage the type and timing of interventions as to not create an even bigger mess within the team. Poorly timed interventions can really deflate team members and make them question themselves. This could really increase further and undue interventions by the team leader. Typically, the best time for interventions is when the team is just starting to form so that all unproductive behaviors are removed from the team and that it can retain focus on its agenda. If an intervention is effectively executed the team will feel energized about the work that they are doing, promote communication and interaction amongst the group and improve moral overall. High-performing teams are very import to organizations because they consistently produce high quality output and develop a collective purpose for their work. This drive to succeed allows team members to utilize specific talents allowing for growth in these areas.  In addition, these team members usually take on a sense of ownership with their projects and feel that the other team members are irreplaceable. References: http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/3127/Three-ways-to-organize-your-team-co-located-outsourced-or-global.aspx Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-performance Organization. Boston: Harvard Business School.

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  • Another Marketing Conference, part two – the afternoon

    - by Roger Hart
    In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 – Brand ambassadors: Getting universal buy in across the organisation, Vanessa Northam Slides are here This was the strongest enforcement of the idea that brand and campaign values need to be delivered throughout the organization if they’re going to work. Vanessa runs internal communications at e-on, and shared her experience of using internal comms to align an organization and thereby get the most out of a campaign. She views the purpose of internal comms as: “…to help leaders, to communicate the purpose and future of an organization, and support change.” This (and culture) primes front line staff, which creates customer experience and spreads brand. You ensure a whole organization knows what’s going on with both internal and external comms. If everybody is aligned and informed, if everybody can clearly articulate your brand and campaign goals, then you can turn everybody into an advocate. Alignment is a powerful tool for delivering a consistent experience and message. The pathological counter example is the one in which a marketing message goes out, which creates inbound customer contacts that front line contact staff haven’t been briefed to handle. The NatWest campaign was again mentioned in this context. The good example was e-on’s cheaper tariff campaign. Building a groundswell of internal excitement, and even running an internal launch meant everyone could contribute to a good customer experience. They found that meter readers were excited – not a group they’d considered as obvious in providing customer experience. But they were a group that has a lot of face-to-face contact with customers, and often were asked questions they may not have been briefed to answer. Being able to communicate a simple new message made it easier for them, and also let them become a sales and marketing asset to the organization. 7 – Goodbye Internet, Hello Outernet: the rise and rise of augmented reality, Matt Mills I wasn’t going to write this up, because it was essentially a sales demo for Aurasma. But the technology does merit some discussion. Basically, it replaces QR codes with visual recognition, and provides a simple-looking back end for attaching content. It’s quite sexy. But here’s my beef with it: QR codes had a clear visual language – when you saw one you knew what it was and what to do with it. They were clunky, but they had the “getting started” problem solved out of the box once you knew what you were looking at. However, they fail because QR code reading isn’t native to the platform. You needed an app, which meant you needed to know to download one. Consequentially, you can’t use QR codes with and ubiquity, or depend on them. This means marketers, content providers, etc, never pushed them, and they remained and awkward oddity, a minority sport. Aurasma half solves problem two, and re-introduces problem one, making it potentially half as useful as a QR code. It’s free, and you can apparently build it into your own apps. Add to that the likelihood of it becoming native to the platform if it takes off, and it may have legs. I guess we’ll see. 8 – We all need to code, Helen Mayor Great title – good point. If there was anybody in the room who didn’t at least know basic HTML, and if Helen’s presentation inspired them to learn, that’s fantastic. However, this was a half hour sales pitch for a basic coding training course. Beyond advocating coding skills it contained no useful content. Marketers may also like to consider some of these resources if they’re looking to learn code: Code Academy – free interactive tutorials Treehouse – learn web design, web dev, or app dev WebPlatform.org – tutorials and documentation for web tech  11 – Understanding our inner creativity, Margaret Boden This session was the most theoretical and probably least actionable of the day. It also held my attention utterly. Margaret spoke fluently, fascinatingly, without slides, on the subject of types of creativity and how they work. It was splendid. Yes, it raised a wry smile whenever she spoke of “the content of advertisements” and gave an example from 1970s TV ads, but even without the attempt to meet the conference’s theme this would have been thoroughly engaging. There are, Margaret suggested, three types of creativity: Combinatorial creativity The most common form, and consisting of synthesising ideas from existing and familiar concepts and tropes. Exploratory creativity Less common, this involves exploring the limits and quirks of a particular constraint or style. Transformational creativity This is uncommon, and arises from finding a way to do something that the existing rules would hold to be impossible. In essence, this involves breaking one of the constraints that exploratory creativity is composed from. Combinatorial creativity, she suggested, is particularly important for attaching favourable ideas to existing things. As such is it probably worth developing for marketing. Exploratory creativity may then come into play in something like developing and optimising an idea or campaign that now has momentum. Transformational creativity exists at the edges of this exploration. She suggested that products may often be transformational, but that marketing seemed unlikely to in her experience. This made me wonder about Listerine. Crucially, transformational creativity is characterised by there being some element of continuity with the strictures of previous thinking. Once it has happened, there may be  move from a revolutionary instance into an explored style. Again, from a marketing perspective, this seems to chime well with the thinking in Youngme Moon’s book: Different Talking about the birth of Modernism is visual art, Margaret pointed out that transformational creativity has historically risked a backlash, demanding what is essentially an education of the market. This is best accomplished by referring back to the continuities with the past in order to make the new familiar. Thoughts The afternoon is harder to sum up than the morning. It felt less concrete, and was troubled by a short run of poor presentations in the middle. Mainly, I found myself wrestling with the internal comms issue. It’s one of those things that seems astonishingly obvious in hindsight, but any campaign – particularly any large one – is doomed if the people involved can’t believe in it. We’ve run things here that haven’t gone so well, of course we have; who hasn’t? I’m not going to air any laundry, but people not being informed (much less aligned) feels like a common factor. It’s tough though. Managing and anticipating information needs across an organization of any size can’t be easy. Even the simple things like ensuring sales and support departments know what’s in a product release, and what messages go with it are easy to botch. The thing I like about framing this as a brand and campaign advocacy problem is that it makes it likely to get addressed. Better is always sexier than less-worse. Any technical communicator who’s ever felt crowded out by a content strategist or marketing copywriter  knows this – increasing revenue gets a seat at the table far more readily than reducing support costs, even if the financial impact is identical. So that’s it from AMC. The big thought-provokers were social buying behaviour and eliciting behaviour change, and the value of internal communications in ensuring successful campaigns and continuity of customer experience. I’ll be chewing over that for a while, and I’d definitely return next year.      

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  • Building Great-Looking, Usable Apps: A two-day workshop applying Oracle’s best UX practices in ADF

    - by mvaughan
    By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User ExperienceI have been with Oracle for more than 12 years. It is a company that has granted me extraordinary creative freedom to help deliver compelling experiences for customers.I am beyond proud to talk about one of the experiences we just took for a test drive. Recently, we delivered a first-of-its-kind, three-team collaboration, train-the-trainer event in Reading, U.K., on building great-looking, usable apps based on Oracle Fusion Applications -- using the ADF tool kit. A new kind of workshopKevin Li, Platform Product Director, asked the Oracle Applications User Experience VP, Jeremy Ashley, if the team had anything to help partners and customers build applications that looked like Fusion. He was receiving this request from European partners and customers.Some quick conversations ensued, and the idea for the workshop was born: We would conduct an experiment.  We would work with feedback from the key Platform Technology Solutions (PTS) trainers under Andre Pavanello, Director, Platform Technology Solutions, in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. We would partner with the ADF team lead by Grant Ronald, Director of Product Management, title> and leverage the Applications UX expertise in Ashley’s team.The goal: Create a pilot workshop that in two days would explain to an ADF developer how to leverage the next-generation user experience best-practices developed for Fusion Apps. Why? Customers who need integrations with Oracle Fusion Applications, who are looking for custom applications that need to co-exist with Fusion, or who quite simply want a next-generation design for a custom app, need their solutions to reflect the next-generation research and design.Building an event for an ADF developerThe biggest hurdle was figuring out where to start.  How far into user experience country do you take an ADF developer? How far into ADF do you need to go if you are a UX professional?After some time in the UX kitchen, the workshop recipe looked like this: Mix equal parts: Fusion user experience design principles and functional design patterns The art and science behind UX How to wireframe designs that you can build in Fusion How to translate those designs into an ADF application Ultan O’Broin, Director of Global User Experience, explaining the trouble ticket wireframe design exerciseLynn Munsinger, Senior Group Product Manager, explaining the follow-on trouble ticket ADF coding exercise For spice, add:•    Debra Lilley, Fujitsu and ACE director, showcasing some of the latest ADF design work in the new face of Fusion Applications •    Partner show-and-tell of example apps they have built with FMW and ADF that are dynamic, beautiful, and interactive.Debra Lilley, Oracle ACE Director and Fujitsu Fusion Champion on the new face of Fusion built with ADF and Fusion extensibility with composers as a window into “the possible”?The taste testThis first go-round of the workshop was aimed squarely at ADF developers and partners.  We were privileged to have participation and feedback from:•    Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger S. A., Denmark•    John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, UK•    Josef Huber, Primus Delphi Group, Munich•    Thaddaus Weindl, Primus Delphi, Group , Munich•    Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Balaji Kamepalli, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Mexico•    Yannick Ongena, infoMENTUM, UK•    Jakub Ciszek, infoMENTUM, UK•    Mauro Flores, infoMENTUM, UK•    Matteo Formica, infoMENTUM, UKRichard Bingham, Oracle, Mauro Flores and Matteo Formica, infoMENTUMWhy is this so exciting?  Oracle has invested heavily in the research and development of the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. This investment has been and continues to be applied across the product lines. Now, we finally get to teach customers and partners how to take advantage of this investment for custom solutions.This event was a pilot to test-drive the content, as well as a train-the-trainer event that our EMEA colleagues will be using with partners who want to build with Fusion Apps design patterns.What did attendees think?"I liked most the science stuff, like eye-tracking, design patterns and best-practice (color, contrast),” Josef Huber said. “It was a very good introduction to UI design, and most developers and project managers are very bad in that.  So this course would be good for all developers and even project managers." Team Anonymous: John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, Flavius Sana, Oracle, Josef Huber, infoMENTUM, Mireille Duroussaud, Oracle. Winners of the wireframing design exercise.  Sten Vesterli, of Scott/Tiger, said he attended to learn techniques he could use in his own projects. He wants to ensure that his applications better meet the needs of his users, and he said sessions during the workshop on user interface design and wireframing were most useful to him.  “Go to this event to learn the art and science of good user interfaces from people who really know how to do it,” he said.Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger, Angelo Santagata, Oracle Plinio Arbizu said the workshop fulfilled his goals, thanks to the recommendations given in how to design user interfaces to facilitate the adoption of applications among the final users. “The workshop combined these recommendations with an exercise that improved the technical comprehension, permitting the usage of JDeveloper to set forth our solutions,” he said. He added: “The first session that I really enjoyed was the five Fusion design principles. It was incredible to discover how these simple principles were included in an inherit manner in Fusion Applications, and I had been using many of them applying only ADF components.  Another topic that I enjoyed a lot was the eight recommendations about the visual design of UIs. The issues that were raised in that lesson are unknown to the developers and of great value to achieve an attractive presentation layer to the end users.  Participate in this workshop, and include these usability features in your projects and in this manner not only to facilitate and improve the user productivity, but also to distinguish you as a professional who takes advantage fully of the functionalities offered by Oracle technology. Praveen Pillalamarri came to the workshop to learn about the difficulties faced in UI and UX development, and how this can be resolved with the help of ADF.  He also appreciated the opportunity to talk with other individuals who came to the workshop. Pillalmarri said, “The way we looked at things in terms of work and projects were sharpened.  UI and UX design knowledge shared by you was quite interesting, especially the minute things which we ignored in the UI or UX design.” Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, & Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS TechnologiesReady to spread the wordIn EMEA, Oracle customers and partners have access to three world-class trainers via Platform Technology Solutions: Mireille Duroussaud, Flavius Sana, and Angelo Santagata. Contact Andre Pavanello if you like to experience this workshop firsthand, or you have customers or partners who would benefit from the training.We are looking to bring the event to the U.S. in spring 2013. If you have interest in this kind of a workshop, leave a comment below. For those who want to follow the action, join the ADF Enterprise Methodology Group run by Oracle’s Chris Muir. Ask questions and continue with the conversation in this forum, or check blogs.oracle.com/usableapps for topics emerging from the workshop.

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  • Community Conversation

    - by ultan o'broin
    Applications User Experience members (Erika Webb, Laurie Pattison, and I) attended the User Assistance Europe Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. We were impressed with the thought leadership and practical application of ideas in Anne Gentle's keynote address "Social Web Strategies for Documentation". After the conference, we spoke with Anne to explore the ideas further. Applications User Experience Senior Director Laurie Pattison (left) with Anne Gentle at the User Assistance Europe Conference In Anne's book called Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation, she explains how user assistance is undergoing a seismic shift. The direction is away from the old print manuals and online help concept towards a web-based, user community-driven solution using social media tools. User experience professionals now have a vast range of such tools to start and nurture this "conversation": blogs, wikis, forums, social networking sites, microblogging systems, image and video sharing sites, virtual worlds, podcasts, instant messaging, mashups, and so on. That user communities are a rich source of user assistance is not a surprise, but the extent of available assistance is. For example, we know from the Consortium for Service Innovation that there has been an 'explosion' of user-generated content on the web. User-initiated community conversations provide as much as 30 times the number of official help desk solutions for consortium members! The growing reliance on user community solutions is clearly a user experience issue. Anne says that user assistance as conversation "means getting closer to users and helping them perform well. User-centered design has been touted as one of the most important ideas developed in the last 20 years of workplace writing. Now writers can take the idea of user-centered design a step further by starting conversations with users and enabling user assistance in interactions." Some of Anne's favorite examples of this paradigm shift from the world of traditional documentation to community conversation include: * Writer Bob Bringhurst's blog about Adobe InDesign and InCopy products and Adobe's community help * The Microsoft Development Network Community Center * ·The former Sun (now Oracle) OpenDS wiki, NetBeans Ruby and other community approaches to engage diverse audiences using screencasts, wikis, and blogs. * Cisco's customer support wiki, EMC's community, as well as Symantec and Intuit's approaches * The efforts of Ubuntu, Mozilla, and the FLOSS community generally Adobe Writer Bob Bringhurst's Blog Oracle is not without a user community conversation too. Besides the community discussions and blogs around documentation offerings, we have the My Oracle Support Community forums, Oracle Technology Network (OTN) communities, wiki, blogs, and so on. We have the great work done by our user groups and customer councils. Employees like David Haimes are reaching out, and enthusiastic non-employee gurus like Chet Justice (OracleNerd), Floyd Teter and Eddie Awad provide great "how-to" information too. But what does this paradigm shift mean for existing technical writers as users turn away from the traditional printable PDF manual deliverables? We asked Anne after the conference. The writer role becomes one of conversation initiator or enabler. The role evolves, along with the process, as the users define their concept of user assistance and terms of engagement with the product instead of having it pre-determined. It is largely a case now of "inventing the job while you're doing it, instead of being hired for it" Anne said. There is less emphasis on formal titles. Anne mentions that her own title "Content Stacker" at OpenStack; others use titles such as "Content Curator" or "Community Lead". However, the role remains one essentially about communications, "but of a new type--interacting with users, moderating, curating content, instead of sitting down to write a manual from start to finish." Clearly then, this role is open to more than professional technical writers. Product managers who write blogs, developers who moderate forums, support professionals who update wikis, rock star programmers with a penchant for YouTube are ideal. Anyone with the product knowledge, empathy for the user, and flair for relationships on the social web can join in. Some even perform these roles already but do not realize it. Anne feels the technical communicator space will move from hiring new community conversation professionals (who are already active in the space through blogging, tweets, wikis, and so on) to retraining some existing writers over time. Our own research reveals that the established proponents of community user assistance even set employee performance objectives for internal content curators about the amount of community content delivered by people outside the organization! To take advantage of the conversations on the web as user assistance, enterprises must first establish where on the spectrum their community lies. "What is the line between community willingness to contribute and the enterprise objectives?" Anne asked. "The relationship with users must be managed and also measured." Anne believes that the process can start with a "just do it" approach. Begin by reaching out to existing user groups, individual bloggers and tweeters, forum posters, early adopter program participants, conference attendees, customer advisory board members, and so on. Use analytical tools to measure the level of conversation about your products and services to show a return on investment (ROI), winning management support. Anne emphasized that success with the community model is dependent on lowering the technical and motivational barriers so that users can readily contribute to the conversation. Simple tools must be provided, and guidelines, if any, must be straightforward but not mandatory. The conversational approach is one where traditional style and branding guides do not necessarily apply. Tools and infrastructure help users to create content easily, to search and find the information online, read it, rate it, translate it, and participate further in the content's evolution. Recognizing contributors by using ratings on forums, giving out Twitter kudos, conference invitations, visits to headquarters, free products, preview releases, and so on, also encourages the adoption of the conversation model. The move to conversation as user assistance is not free, but there is a business ROI. The conversational model means that customer service is enhanced, as user experience moves from a functional to a valued, emotional level. Studies show a positive correlation between loyalty and financial performance (Consortium for Service Innovation, 2010), and as customer experience and loyalty become key differentiators, user experience professionals cannot explore the model's possibilities. The digital universe (measured at 1.2 million petabytes in 2010) is doubling every 12 to 18 months, and 70 percent of that universe consists of user-generated content (IDC, 2010). Conversation as user assistance cannot be ignored but must be embraced. It is a time to manage for abundance, not scarcity. Besides, the conversation approach certainly sounds more interesting, rewarding, and fun than the traditional model! I would like to thank Anne for her time and thoughts, and recommend that all user assistance professionals read her book. You can follow Anne on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/annegentle. Oracle's Acrolinx IQ deployment was used to author this article.

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  • It was a figure of speech!

    - by Ratman21
    Yesterday I posted the following as attention getter / advertisement (as well as my feelings). In the groups, (I am in) on the social networking site, LinkedIn and boy did I get responses.    I am fighting mad about (a figure of speech, really) not having a job! Look just because I am over 55 and have gray hair. It does not mean, my brain is dead or I can no longer trouble shoot a router or circuit or LAN issue. Or that I can do “IT” work at all. And I could prove this if; some one would give me at job. Come on try me for 90 days at min. wage. I know you will end up keeping me (hope fully at normal pay) around. Is any one hearing me…come on take up the challenge!     This was the responses I got.   I hear you. We just need to retrain and get our skills up to speed is all. That is what I am doing. I have not given up. Just got to stay on top of the game. Experience is on our side if we have the credentials and we are reasonable about our salaries this should not be an issue.   Already on it, going back to school and have got three certifications (CompTIA A+, Security+ and Network+. I am now studying for my CISCO CCNA certification. As to my salary, I am willing to work at very reasonable rate.   You need to re-brand yourself like a product, market and sell yourself. You need to smarten up, look and feel a million dollars, re-energize yourself, regain your confidents. Either start your own business, or re-write your CV so it stands out from the rest, get the template off the internet. Contact every recruitment agent in your town, state, country and overseas, and on the web. Apply to every job you think you could do, you may not get it but you will make a contact for your network, which may lead to a job at the end of the tunnel. Get in touch with everyone you know from past jobs. Do charity work. I maintain the IT Network, stage electrical and the Telecom equipment in my church,   Again already on it. I have email the world is seems with my resume and cover letters. So far, I have rewritten or had it rewrote, my resume and cover letters; over seven times so far. Re-energize? I never lost my energy level or my self-confidents in my work (now if could get some HR personal to see the same). I also volunteer at my church, I created and maintain the church web sit.   I share your frustration. Sucks being over 50 and looking for work. Please don't sell yourself short at min wage because the employer will think that’s your worth. Keep trying!!   I never stop trying and min wage is only for 90 days. If some one takes up the challenge. Some post asked if I am keeping up technology.   Do you keep up with the latest technology and can speak the language fluidly?   Yep to that and as to speaking it also a yep! I am a geek you know. I heard from others over the 50 year mark and younger too.   I'm with you! I keep getting told that I don't have enough experience because I just recently completed a Masters level course in Microsoft SQL Server, which gave me a project-intensive equivalent of between 2 and 3 years of experience. On top of that training, I have 19 years as an applications programmer and database administrator. I can normalize rings around experienced DBAs and churn out effective code with the best of them. But my 19 years is worthless as far as most recruiters and HR people are concerned because it is not the specific experience for which they're looking. HR AND RECRUITERS TAKE NOTE: Experience, whatever the language, translates across platforms and technology! By the way, I'm also over 55 and still have "got it"!   I never lost it and I also can work rings round younger techs.   I'm 52 and female and seem to be having the same issues. I have over 10 years experience in tech support (with a BS in CIS) and can't get hired either.   Ow, I only have an AS in computer science along with my certifications.   Keep the faith, I have been unemployed since August of 2008. I agree with you...I am willing to return to the beginning of my retail career and work myself back through the ranks, if someone will look past the grey and realize the knowledge I would bring to the table.   I also would like some one to look past the gray.   Interesting approach, volunteering to work for minimum wage for 90 days. I'm in the same situation as you, being 55 & balding w/white hair, so I know where you're coming from. I've been out of work now for a year. I'm in Michigan, where the unemployment rate is estimated to be 15% (the worst in the nation) & even though I've got 30+ years of IT experience ranging from mainframe to PC desktop support, it's difficult to even get a face-to-face interview. I had one prospective employer tell me flat out that I "didn't have the energy required for this position". Mostly I never get any feedback. All I can say is good luck & try to remain optimistic.   He said WHAT! Yes remaining optimistic is key. Along with faith in God. Then there was this (for lack of better word) jerk.   Give it up already. You were too old to work in high tech 10 years ago. Scratch that, 20 years ago! Try selling hot dogs in front of Fry's Electronics. At least you would get a chance to eat lunch with your previous colleagues....   You know funny thing on this person is that I checked out his profile. He is older than I am.

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  • A new clients come into my web agency. How to configure email and social accounts to work better? [on hold]

    - by Marco Panichi
    I created websites for many years but still have not found the right way to organize all the email and social accounts of every clients. I mean, every web agency follows dozens of customers. Each client needs at least Google Analytics, AdWords, a Facebook page, a Twitter profile, a Youtube channel, probably a listing on Google Places and maybe a Mail Chimp (or similar) account. The web agency, in my opinion, must own these accounts, use them to deliver results to the customer and -of course- make them available to the customer for two reasons: - The customer must be able to see how things are going - The client must have the ability to change web agency without suffering The web agency, however, has many problems in having all of these accounts. For example, I like the idea of having a Gmail account for each client and from that account use all the products of Google. But is not possible to create more than many Gmail account from the same ip address and with the same phone number. The web agency could invite the customer to create his own accounts but: - This is not necessary a value for the customer (indeed...) - The web agency would manage them, however, from the same ip address, incurring in problems - If phone verification occurs, the web agency has to disturb the customer for verification Have you the same problem? How to solve it?

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  • Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives - Looking at R2 for Customer Organizations

    - by Tanu Sood
    Welcome to the first of our partner blog series. November Mondays are all about PricewaterhouseCoopers' perespective on Identity and R2. In this series, we have identity management experts from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) share their perspective on (and experiences with) the recent identity management release, Oracle Identity Management R2. The purpose of the series is to discuss real world identity use cases that helped shape the innovations in the recent R2 release and the implementation strategies that customers are employing today with expertise from PwC. Part 1: Looking at R2 for Customer Organizations In this inaugural post, we will discuss some of the new features of the R2 release of Oracle Identity Manager that some of our customer organizations are implementing today and the business rationale for those. Oracle's R2 Security portfolio represents a solid step forward for a platform that is already market-leading.  Prior to R2, Oracle was an industry titan in security with reliable products, expansive compatibility, and a large customer base.  Oracle has taken their identity platform to the next level in their latest version, R2.  The new features include a customizable UI, a request catalog, flexible security, and enhancements for its connectors, and more. Oracle customers will be impressed by the new Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) business-friendly UI.  Without question, Oracle has invested significant time in responding to customer feedback about making access requests and related activities easier for non-IT users.  The flexibility to add information to screens, hide fields that are not important to a particular customer, and adjust web themes to suit a company's preference make Oracle's Identity Manager stand out among its peers.  Customers can also expect to carry UI configurations forward with minimal migration effort to future versions of OIM.  Oracle's flexible UI will benefit many organizations looking for a customized feel with out-of-the-box configurations. Organizations looking to extend their services to end users will benefit significantly from new usability features like OIM’s ‘Catalog.’  Customers familiar with Oracle Identity Analytics' 'Glossary' feature will be able to relate to the concept.  It will enable Roles, Entitlements, Accounts, and Resources to be requested through the out-of-the-box UI.  This is an industry-changing feature as customers can make the process to request access easier than ever.  For additional ease of use, Oracle has introduced a shopping cart style request interface that further simplifies the experience for end users.  Common requests can be setup as profiles to save time.  All of this is combined with the approval workflow engine introduced in R1 that provides the flexibility customers need to meet their compliance requirements. Enhanced security was also on the list of features Oracle wanted to deliver to its customers.  The new end-user UI provides additional granular access controls.  Common Help Desk use cases can be implemented with ease by updating the application profiles.  Access can be rolled out so that administrators can only manage a certain department or organization.  Further, OIM can be more easily configured to select which fields can be read-only vs. updated.  Finally, this security model can be used to limit search results for roles and entitlements intended for a particular department.  Every customer has a different need for access and OIM now matches this need with a flexible security model. One of the important considerations when selecting an Identity Management platform is compatibility.  The number of supported platform connectors and how well it can integrate with non-supported platforms is a key consideration for selecting an identity suite.  Oracle has a long list of supported connectors.  When a customer has a requirement for a platform not on that list, Oracle has a solution too.  Oracle is introducing a simplified architecture called Identity Connector Framework (ICF), which holds the potential to simplify custom connectors.  Finally, Oracle has introduced a simplified process to profile new disconnected applications from the web browser.  This is a useful feature that enables administrators to profile applications quickly as well as empowering the application owner to fulfill requests from their web browser.  Support will still be available for connectors based on previous versions in R2. Oracle Identity Manager's new R2 version has delivered many new features customers have been asking for.  Oracle has matured their platform with R2, making it a truly distinctive platform among its peers. In our next post, expect a deep dive into use cases for a customer considering R2 as their new Enterprise identity solution. In the meantime, we look forward to hearing from you about the specific challenges you are facing and your experience in solving those. Meet the Writers Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL). Jenny (Xiao) Zhang is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  She has consulted across multiple industries including financial services, entertainment and retail. Jenny has three years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which she has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past one and a half years. Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory  Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving.

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  • NHibernate Session Load vs Get when using Table per Hierarchy. Always use ISession.Get&lt;T&gt; for TPH to work.

    - by Rohit Gupta
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/rgupta/archive/2014/06/01/nhibernate-session-load-vs-get-when-using-table-per-hierarchy.aspxNHibernate ISession has two methods on it : Load and Get. Load allows the entity to be loaded lazily, meaning the actual call to the database is made only when properties on the entity being loaded is first accessed. Additionally, if the entity has already been loaded into NHibernate Cache, then the entity is loaded directly from the cache instead of querying the underlying database. ISession.Get<T> instead makes the call to the database, every time it is invoked. With this background, it is obvious that we would prefer ISession.Load<T> over ISession.Get<T> most of the times for performance reasons to avoid making the expensive call to the database. let us consider the impact of using ISession.Load<T> when we are using the Table per Hierarchy implementation of NHibernate. Thus we have base class/ table Animal, there is a derived class named Snake with the Discriminator column being Type which in this case is “Snake”. If we load This Snake entity using the Repository for Animal, we would have a entity loaded, as shown below: public T GetByKey(object key, bool lazy = false) { if (lazy) return CurrentSession.Load<T>(key); return CurrentSession.Get<T>(key); } var tRepo = new NHibernateReadWriteRepository<TPHAnimal>(); var animal = tRepo.GetByKey(new Guid("602DAB56-D1BD-4ECC-B4BB-1C14BF87F47B"), true); var snake = animal as Snake; snake is null As you can see that the animal entity retrieved from the database cannot be cast to Snake even though the entity is actually a snake. The reason being ISession.Load prevents the entity to be cast to Snake and will throw the following exception: System.InvalidCastException :  Message=Unable to cast object of type 'TPHAnimalProxy' to type 'NHibernateChecker.Model.Snake'. Thus we can see that if we lazy load the entity using ISession.Load<TPHAnimal> then we get a TPHAnimalProxy and not a snake. =============================================================== However if do not lazy load the same cast works perfectly fine, this is since we are loading the entity from database and the entity being loaded is not a proxy. Thus the following code does not throw any exceptions, infact the snake variable is not null: var tRepo = new NHibernateReadWriteRepository<TPHAnimal>(); var animal = tRepo.GetByKey(new Guid("602DAB56-D1BD-4ECC-B4BB-1C14BF87F47B"), false); var snake = animal as Snake; if (snake == null) { var snake22 = (Snake) animal; }

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  • What is better for the overall performance and feel of the game: one setInterval performing all the work, or many of them doing individual tasks?

    - by Bane
    This question is, I suppose, not limited to Javascript, but it is the language I use to create my game, so I'll use it as an example. For now, I have structured my HTML5 game like this: var fps = 60; var game = new Game(); setInterval(game.update, 1000/fps); And game.update looks like this: this.update = function() { this.parseInput(); this.logic(); this.physics(); this.draw(); } This seems a bit inefficient, maybe I don't need to do all of those things at once. An obvious alternative would be to have more intervals performing individual tasks, but is it worth it? var fps = 60; var game = new Game(); setInterval(game.draw, 1000/fps); setInterval(game.physics, 1000/a); //where "a" is some constant, performing the same function as "fps" ... With which approach should I go and why? Is there a better alternative? Also, in case the second approach is the best, how frequently should I perform the tasks?

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  • MySQL - How do I inner join sorting the joined data

    - by Gary
    I'm trying to write a report which will join a person, their work, and their hourly wage at the time of work. I cannot seem to figure out the best way to join the person's cost when the date is less than the date of the work. Let's say a person cost $30 per hour at the start of the year then got a $10 raise o Feb 5 and another on Mar 1. 01/01/2010 $30.00 (per hour) 02/05/2010 $40.00 03/01/2010 $45.00 The person put in hours several days which span the rasies. 01/05/2010 10 hours (should be at $30/hr) 01/27/2010 5 hours (again at $30) 02/10/2010 10 hours (at $40/hr) 03/03/2010 5 hours (at $45/hr) I'm trying to write one SQL statement which will pull the hours, the cost per hour, and the hours*cost. The cost is the hourly rate last entered into the system so the cost date is less than the work date, ordered by cost date limit 1. SELECT person.id, person.name, work.hours, person_costs.value, work.hours * person_costs.value AS value FROM person INNER JOIN work ON (person.id = work.person_id) INNER JOIN person_costs ON (person.id = person_costs.person_id AND person_costs.date < work.date) WHERE person.id = 1234 ORDER BY work.date ASC The problem I'm having, the person_costs isn't ordered by date in descending order. It's pulling out "any" value (naturally sorted by record position) which matches the condition. How do I select the first person_cost value which is older than the work date? Thanks!

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  • question about mergesort

    - by davit-datuashvili
    i have write code on mergesort here is code public class mergesort{ public static int a[]; public static void merges(int work[],int low,int high){ if (low==high) return ; else{ int mid=(low+high)/2; merges(work,low,mid); merges(work,mid+1,high); merge(work,low,mid+1,high); } } public static void main(String[]args){ int a[]=new int[]{64,21,33,70,12,85,44,99,36,108}; merges(a,0,a.length-1); for (int i=0;i<a.length;i++){ System.out.println(a[i]); } } public static void merge(int work[],int low,int high,int upper){ int j=0; int l=low; int mid=high-1; int n=upper-l+1; while(low<=mid && high<=upper) if ( a[low]<a[high]) work[j++]=a[low++]; else work[j++]=a[high++]; while(low<=mid) work[j++]=a[low++]; while(high<=upper) work[j++]=a[high++]; for (j=0;j<n;j++) a[l+j]=work[j]; } } but it does nort work after compile this code here is mistake java.lang.NullPointerException at mergesort.merge(mergesort.java:45) at mergesort.merges(mergesort.java:12) at mergesort.merges(mergesort.java:10) at mergesort.merges(mergesort.java:10) at mergesort.merges(mergesort.java:10) at mergesort.main(mergesort.java:27)

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  • Make ‘Associate’ the default checkin action

    When you associate a work item to a checkin, the work item will be resolved by default. Some teams have work items that are bigger then one checkin (although this is not recommended) and don’t want to resolve the work items during a checkin. The only ways to modify the behaviour are: - Remove the default checkin action from the work item type. Downside is that it is not possible in the UI to choose resolve if you actually want to resolve the work item. - Change the Resolve action to associate.   In Visual Studio 2010 you can modify this behaviour by changing a registry setting. Change value the following key to “False”. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\TeamFoundation\SourceControl\Behavior @ResolveAsDefaultCheckinAction

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  • what are the problems in game development that requires scientific research? [on hold]

    - by Anmar
    I been into Game Development for approximately 2 years for now mostly prototype development and testing ideas. Im in a point of my carrier where I am in a need to publish a research paper I would love to start doing research about game development however my lack of experience in actual game development in a commercial set of environment brings me into Game development in stackexchange My question is for the experience game developers out there What are the problems related to software engineering that you have faced or your team faced while developing games? Example Problems ? The lack of a strong technique for Fun detection in a game in an early stage of development A strong tailored Software Development Life Cycle for game development Agile methodology as a game development methodology Narrowing the goals gap between team members (Editors, Story Designers, Programmers, 3D artists, 2D Artists) - Community Suggestions Indie game marketing requirements for success by Yakyb Any problems you could define it I would be more than happy to take it into consideration for future research. My experience and work mostly involve process related basically SDLC (Waterfall, Spiral, Agile, RUP .Etc) Thank you for any input.

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  • Social Business Forum Milano: Day 2

    - by me
    @YourService. The business world has flipped and small business can capitalize  by Frank Eliason (twitter: @FrankEliason ) Technology and social media tools have made it easier than ever for companies to communicate with consumers. They can listen and join in on conversations, solve problems, get instant feedback about their products and services, and more. So why, then, are most companies not doing this? Instead, it seems as if customer service is at an all time low, and that the few companies who are choosing to focus on their customers are experiencing a great competitive advantage. At Your Service explains the importance of refocusing your business on your customers and your employees, and just how to do it. Explains how to create a culture of empowered employees who understand the value of a great customer experience Advises on the need to communicate that experience to their customers and potential customers Frank Eliason, recognized by BusinessWeek as the 'most famous customer service manager in the US, possibly in the world,' has built a reputation for helping large businesses improve the way they connect with customers and enhance their relationships Quotes from the Audience: Bertrand Duperrin ?@bduperrin social service is not about shutting up the loudest cutsomers ! #sbf12 @frankeliason Paolo Pelloni ?@paolopelloniGautam Ghosh ?@GautamGhosh RT @cecildijoux: #sbf12 @frankeliason you need to change things and fix the approach it's not about social media it's about driving change  Peter H. Reiser ?@peterreiser #sbf12 Company Experience = Product Experience + Customer Interactions + Employee Experience @yourservice Engage or lose! Socialize, mobilize, conversify: engage your employees to improve business performance Christian Finn (twitter: @cfinn) First Christian was presenting the flying monkey   Then he outlined the four principals to fix the Intranet: 1. Socalize the Intranet 2. Get Thee to a Single Repository 3. Mobilize the Intranet 4. Conversationalize Your Processes Quotes from the Audience: Oscar Berg ?@oscarberg Engaged employees think their work bring out the best of their ideas @cfinn #sbf12 http://pic.twitter.com/68eddp48 John Stepper ?@johnstepper I like @cfinn's "conversify your processes" A nice related concept to "narrating your work", part of working out loud. http://johnstepper.com/2012/05/26/working-out-loud-your-personal-content-strategy/ Oscar Berg ?@oscarberg Organizations are talent markets - socializing your intranet makes this market function better @cfinn #sbf12 For profit, productivity, and personal benefit: creating a collaborative culture at Deutsche Bank John Stepper (twitter:@johnstepper) Driving adoption of collaboration + social media platforms at Deutsche Bank. John shared some great best practices on how to deploy an enterprise wide  community model  in a large company. He started with the most important question What is the commercial value of adding social ? Then he talked about the success of Community of Practices deployment and outlined some key use cases including the relevant measures to proof the ROI of the investment. Examples:  Community of practice -> measure: systematic collection of value stories  Self-service website  -> measure: based on representative models Optimizing asset inventory - > measure: Actual counts  This use case was particular interesting.  It is a crowd sourced spending/saving of infrastructure model.  User can cancel IT services they don't need (as example Software xx).  5% of the saving goes to social responsibility projects. The John outlined some  best practices on how to address the WIIFM (What's In It For Me) question of the individual users:  - change from hierarchy to graph -  working out loud = observable work + narrating  your work  - add social skills to career objectives - example: building a purposeful social network course/training as part of the job development curriculum And last but not least John gave some important tips on how to get senior management buy-in by establishing management sponsored division level collaboration boards which defines clear uses cases and measures. This divisional use cases are then implemented using a common social platform.  Thanks John - I learned a lot from your presentation!   Quotes from the Audience: Ana Silva ?@AnaDataGirl #sbf12 what's in it for individuals at Deutsche Bank? Shapping their reputations in a big org says @johnstepper #e20Ana Silva ?@AnaDataGirl Any reason why not? MT @magatorlibero #sbf12 is Deutsche B. experience on applying social inside company applicable to Italian people? Oscar Berg ?@oscarberg Your career is not a ladder, it is a network that opens up opportunities - @johnstepper #sbf12 Oscar Berg ?@oscarberg @johnstepper: Institutionalizing collaboration is next - collaboration woven into the fabric of daily work #sbf12 Ana Silva ?@AnaDataGirl #sbf12 @johnstepper talking about how Deutsche Bank is using #socbiz to build purposeful CoP & save money

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  • Google I/O 2010 - Creating positive user experiences

    Google I/O 2010 - Creating positive user experiences Google I/O 2010 - Beyond design: Creating positive user experiences Tech Talks John Zeratsky, Matt Shobe Good user experience isn't just about good design. Learn how to create a positive user experience by being fast, open, engaged, surprising, polite, and, well... being yourself. Chock full of examples from the web and beyond, this talk is a practical introduction for developers who are passionate about user experience but may not have a background in design. For all I/O 2010 sessions, please go to code.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 185 6 ratings Time: 52:11 More in Science & Technology

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  • Introduction to WebCenter Personalization Server

    - by cindy.mcmullen(at)oracle.com
    IntroductionThe next release of Oracle WebCenter will include a new product:  the Personalization Server, developed by team members of Boulder Labs.  This team is comprised largely of the previous WebLogic Portal group, with several members having nearly 10 years' experience in personalization technologies.Customization is not PersonalizationCustomization is more of a static application behavior, such as retrieving and applying user preferences.  Personalization, on the other hand, delivers dynamic content based on run-time knowledge of the user.  It uses technology to accommodate the differences between individuals, producing the "a-ha!" experience.    WebCenter Personalization Server (WCPS) is able to integrate with and leverage many systems (property service, content management, user profile information, a recommendation service) to bring together a uniquely personalized user experience.Stay TunedUpcoming posts will discuss WCPS architecture, the Property Service, and the configuration and invocation of the OOTB "providers" such as CMIS, Activity Graph, and People Connections.    

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