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• 7 reasons you had to be at JavaOne Latin America 2012

  - by Bruno.Borges

  Yesterday was 12/12/12, and everybody went crazy on Twitter with cool memes like this one. And maybe you are now wondering why I mentioned 7 (seven) on the blog title. Because I want to play numbers? Yes! Today is 7 days after JavaOne Latin America 2012 is over (... and I had to figure out an excuse for taking so long to blog about it...). So unless you were at JavaOne Latin America this year, here are 7 things you missed: OTN Lounge mini-theatreThere was a mini-theatre holding several lightning talks. We had people from SouJava JUG, GoJava JUG, Globalcode, and several other Java gurus and companies running demos, talks, and even more. For example, @drspockbr talked about the ScrumToys project, that demonstrates the power of JSF. Hands On Lab for JAX-RS and WebSocketsOne of the cool things to do during JavaOne is to come to these Hands On labs and really do something using new technologies with the help of experts. This one in particular, was covered by me, Arun Gupta, and Reza Rahman. The HOL had more people than laptops (and we had 48 laptops!) interested on understanding and learning about the new stuff that is coming within Java EE 7. Things like JAX-RS, Server-sent Events and WebSockets. Hey, if you want to try this HOL by yourself, it is available on Github, so go for it! If you have questions, just let me know! Java Community KeynoteThis keynote presented a lot of cool things like startups using Java in their projects, the Duke Awards, SouJava winning the JCP Outstanding Award, the Java Band, and even more! It was really a space where the Java community could present what they are doing and what they want to do. There's a lot of interest on the Adopt-a-JSR program and the Adopt-OpenJDK. There's also an Adopt-a-JavaEE-JSR program! Take a look if you want to participate and Make the Future Java. Java EE (JMS, JAX-RS) sessions from Reza Rahman, the HeavyMetal guyReza is a well know professional and Java EE enthusiast from the communitty who just joined Oracle this year. His sessions were very well attended, perhaps because of a high interest on the new things coming to Java EE 7 like JMS 2.0 and JAX-RS 2.0. If you want to look at what he did at this JavaOne edition, read his blog post. By the way, if you like Java and heavymetal, you should follow him on Twitter as well! :-) Java EE (WebSockets, HTML5) sessions from Arun Gupta, the GlassFish guyIf you don't know Arun Gupta, no worries. You will have time to know about him while you read his Java EE 6 Pocket Guide. Arun has been evangelizing Java EE for a long time, and is now spreading his word about the new upcoming version Java EE 7. He gave one talk about HTML5 Productivity on the Java EE 7 platform, and another one on building web apps with WebSockets. Pretty neat! Arun blogged about JavaOne Latin America as well. Read it here. Java Embedded and JavaFXIf there are two things that are really trending in the Java World right now besides Java EE 7, certainly they are JavaFX and Java Embedded. There were 14 talks covering Java Embedded, from Java Cards to Raspberry.pi, from Java ME to Java on your TV with Ginga-J. The Internet of Things is becoming true, and Java is the only platform today that can connect it all in an standardized and concise way. JavaFX gained a lot of attention too. There were 8 sessions covering what the platform has to offer in terms of Rich User Experience. The JavaFX Scene Builder is an awesome tool to start playing designing an UI, and coding for JavaFX is like coding Swing with 8 hands, one holding your coffee cup. You can achieve a lot, with your two hands (unless, you really have 8 hands, then you can achieve 4 times more :-). If you want to read more about JavaFX, go to Stephen Chin's blog post. GlassFish and Friends Party, 1st edition at JavaOne Lating AmericaThis is probably the thing that I'm most proud. We brought to Brasil the tradition of holding a happy hour for all GlassFish, Java EE friends. This party started almost 7 years ago in San Francisco, and it was about time to bring it to Brazil! The party happened on Tuesday night, right after JavaOne General Keynote, at the Tribeca Pub. We had about 80 attendees and met a lot of Java EE developers there! People from JUGs, Oracle, Locaweb and Red Hat showed up too, including some execs from Oracle that didn't resist and could not miss a party like this one.Lots of caipirinhas, beer and food to everyone, some cool music... even The Fish walking around the party with Juggy!You can see more photos from the party on an album I shared with the recently created GlassFish Brasil community on Google+ here (but you may be more interested in joining the GlassFish english community). There's also more pictures that Arun took and shared on this link. So now you may want to consider coming to Brazil next year! Java EE 7 is on its way, and Brazil is happily and patiently waiting for it, with a lot of enthusiasm. By the way, GlassFish and Java EE 6 just celebrated a Happy Birthday!

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• Playing HTML5 Video with fall back for IE8/IE7 and earlier versions of other browsers using Silverlight

  - by Harish Ranganathan

  One of the popular HTML5 tags is the video tag.  The ability to play videos without depending on a plugin is something that excites web developers to a great extent and no wonder you end up seeing video demos in all HTML5 conferences. Now, coming to HTML5 Video, the tag itself is simply <video id=”ID” src=”FILENAME.mp4/ogv/webm” > in the simplest form.  This also means that the video needs to be H.256 encoded MP4 format or some of the other formats as mentioned above.  For a detailed specification on this, check this Wikipedia article HTML5 video is supported by all the modern browsers such as IE9 (currently in RC stage), Mozilla Firefox 4 and Chrome latest versions.  Here below is a simple example of a HTML5 video tag and the screen shot of how it looks like in IE9 RC <!DOCTYPE html> <head></head> <body> <h1>This is a sample of an HTML5 Video</h1> <video src="video.mp4" id="myvideo">Your browser doesn’t support this currently</video> </body> </html> You can add attributes to the video tag such as “autoplay” which will automatically start playing the video.  Also, you can specify “poster” to display an initial picture before the video starts playing etc., but I am not going into those for now. This would play well in the modern browsers as mentioned above.  However, if the end users are viewing this page from an earlier version of browsers such as IE8/IE7 or IE6, this video wouldn’t play.  Whatever text that is specified between the video tags, would just show up. Note: for demo purposes, I went to the IE9 developer toolbar and chose IE8 as Browser Mode to exhibit this legacy behaviour.  However, in the interest of serving the larger community of users who visit the site, we would like to have a fall back mechanism for playing videos on older version of browsers. Now, Silverlight is supported in IE6/7 & 8 and other browsers too.  If we can have the same video encoded for Silverlight, we can put the fall-back code, as follows:- <video src="videos/video.mp4" id="myvideo">     <object height="252" type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="448">         <param name="source" value="resources/player.xap">         <param name="initParams" value="deferredLoad=true, duration=0, m=http://localhost/DemoSite/videos/video.mp4, autostart=false, autohide=true, showembed=true, postid=0" />         <param name="background" value="#00FFFFFF" />     </object> </video>   Note, this sample uses a Silverlight XAP file with the same video and uses the object tag to embed it instead of the HTML5 video tag. So, when I now run this sample and switch to IE8 (using the IE9 Developer toolbar’s Browser Mode), I get and when clicking on the “Play” icon, Note, there are multiple ways to play videos in Silverlight and this is one of the ways.  For a complete list of Silverlight samples, visit http://www.silverlight.net/learn/  Also, we can use Flash to play video in the fall-back mechanism as well. Thus, we can create a fall-back mechanism for playing HTML5 videos for the older browsers and hence ensure that the end users get to experience the same. Cheers !!!

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• Pondering New Technology

  - by MOSSLover

  So I have been standing at the end of a fork for a year peering down a corner looking at this way and that way trying to figure out where I fit in.  I was so enthusiastic and excited about Silverlight when it came out.  It was this amazing awesome technology that had this really cool animation and webcam/multimedia piece.  I thought if I put my money on Silverlight it’s going somewhere, then HTML 5 came out and the wind shifted.  I realized times were changing. I have been working with web technologies since I was 15 years old.  Playing with html and javascript and even css back when it first came out.  In tech years 15 years is forever.  Things change so quickly and so often.  So I guess the question is where am I heading?  The answer is mobile technology.  For some reason I was resisting change and I have no idea why.  I guess I really wanted to see more than one player.  I didn’t quite feel that Microsoft was ready with Windows Phone 7.  It was a great start, but it just didn’t feel like they went all the way.  Now with Windows 8 it feels like they are at version 2.0.  It’s like hitting Silverlight 2.0 where they finally added the .Net bits.  The path is paved, but we don’t know where it’s leading.  Then we had 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 to mature the technology into what it is today (man I’m hoping they are going to roll some of the cool bits into other tech if they don’t exist). Anyway, I’m on board, but I’m not buying a Windows Tablet just yet.  I was hoping for a 7 inch screen from Apple around $300 or just above and a 7 inch screen from the MS side around the same price.  What I got was the Apple side, but nothing from Microsoft.  I was pretty disappointed with the $500 market price on the RT version.  I realized Microsoft is close, but not quite where Apple is today.  Yes the devices have Office that they are offering, but the sticker is just too much for a first generation device.  If you guys remember correctly the first generation iPad was quite expensive.  I guess for a 1st generation device $500 is pretty good. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I am shifting my focus entirely away from Silverlight and more towards mobile.  I will be doing a lot of postings on iOS, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8 with SharePoint 2013.  Since I don’t have a tablet and don’t foresee myself buying one just yet it might be mostly on the phones for right now.  I want to do a bunch of testing on various devices on what needs to be done in apps on each device.  I might add a bit on porting code from one to the other.  I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and make things flow a little better for me.  In a way it’s kind of like Star Trek 6 where they talk about the Undiscovered Country.  I’m going to jump forward completely and see where I land. Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2013,Mobile,Windows 8,iOS

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• Implementing features in an Entity System

  - by Bane

  After asking two questions on Entity Systems (1, 2), and reading some articles on them, I think that I understand them much better than before. But, I still have some uncertainties, and mainly they are about building a Particle Emitter, an Input system, and a Camera. I obviously still have some problems understanding Entity Systems, and they might apply to a whole other range of objects, but I chose these three because they are very different concepts and should cover a pretty big ground, and help me understand Entity Systems and how to handle problems like these myself, as they come along. I am building an engine in Javascript, and I've implemented most of the core features, which include: input handling, flexible animation system, particle emitter, math classes and functions, scene handling, a camera and a render, and a whole bunch of other things that engines usually support. Then, I read Byte56's answer that got me interested into making the engine into an Entity System one. It would still remain an HTML5 game engine with the basic Scene philosophy, but it should support dynamic creation of entities from components. These are some of the definitions from the previous questions, updated: An Entity is an identifier. It doesn't have any data, it's not an object, it's a simple id that represents an index in the Scene's list of all entities (which I actually plan to implement as a component matrix). A Component is a data holder, but with methods that can operate on that data. The best example is a Vector2D, or a "Position" component. It has data: x and y, but also some methods that make operating on the data a bit easier: add(), normalize(), and so on. A System is something that can operate on a set of entities that meet the certain requirements, usually they (the entities) need to have a specified (by the system itself) set of components to be operated upon. The system is the "logic" part, the "algorithm" part, all the functionality supplied by components is purely for easier data management. The problem that I have now is fitting my old engine concept into this new programming paradigm. Lets start with the simplest one, a Camera. The camera has a position property (Vector2D), a rotation property and some methods for centering it around a point. Each frame, it is fed to a renderer, along with a scene, and all the objects are translated according to it's position. Then the scene is rendered. How could I represent this kind of an object in an Entity System? Would the camera be an entity or simply a component? A combination (see my answer)? Another issues that is bothering me is implementing a Particle Emitter. For what exactly I mean by that, you can check out my video of it: http://youtu.be/BObargIMQsE. The problem I have with this is, again, what should be what. I'm pretty sure that particles themselves shouldn't be entities, as I want to support 10k+ of them, and creating that much entities would be a heavy blow on my performance, I believe. Or maybe not? Depends on the implementation, but anyone with experience: please, do answer. The last bit I wan't to talk about, which is also bugging me the most, is how input should be handled. In my current version of the engine, there is a class called Input. It's a handler that subscribes to browser's events, such as keypresses, and mouse position changes, and also it maintains an internal state. Then, the player class has a react() method, which accepts an input object as an argument. The advantage of this is that the input object could be serialized into JSON and then shared over the network, allowing for smooth multiplayer simulations. But how does this translate into an Entity System?

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• Change the Way Google Search Results Display in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you tired of the default look for search results at Google? If you want a different and customized pleasing look for them, then join us as we look at the GoogleMonkeyR User Script. Note: User Style Scripts & User Scripts can be added to most browsers but we are using Firefox & the Greasemonkey extension for our example here. Before Here is the standard look for search results at Google…not bad but it really does not stand out that well either. Installing the User Script You may be asking yourself what makes this particular user script different from others. Take a look at the list of goodies that you get access to and you will understand: Multiple columns of results Removes “Sponsored Links” Add numbers to the results Auto-load more results Removes web search dialogues Open links in a new tab Favicons GooglePreview Self updating Can be configured from a simple user dialogue To get started click on the Webpage Install Button. Once you click on the Webpage Install Button you will see the following window asking for confirmation to add the user script to Firefox. Click Install to complete the process. GoogleMonkeyR in Action Refreshing the same search page shown above shows a noticeable difference already. The light blue background makes the search results stand out a bit better. This is an improvement from before but you will definitely want to have a look to see just how far you can go… Right click on the Greasemonkey Status Bar Icon, go to User Script Commands, and select GoogleMonkeyR Preferences. Once you have clicked on GoogleMonkeyR Preferences the search page will be shaded out and you will have access to the user script’s preferences. This is where you can really make your search results unique looking! Here are the changes that we started out with… After refreshing our search results things looked even better. A look at the entire page of results with our browser maximized and set for two columns. If you have the Auto load more results Option enabled new results will be added very quickly as you scroll down. Our set of search results after adding Favicons & GooglePreview Images. Conclusion If you have been wanting a more dramatic and pleasing look for the search results at Google then you can not go wrong with the GoogleMonkeyR User Script. Change as little or as much as you want to get that perfect look in your browser. Link Install the GoogleMonkeyR User Script Download the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Firefox Quick Search Use Google’s Beta Search KeysMake Firefox Built-In Search Box Use Google’s Experimental Search KeysMake Firefox Show Google Results for Default Address Bar SearchesCombine Wolfram Alpha & Google Search Results in FirefoxHow To Run 4 Different Google Searches at Once In the Same Tab TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics

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• Recover Lost Form Data in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  Have you ever filled in a text area or form in a webpage and something happens before you can finish it? If you like the idea of recovering that lost data then you will want to have a look at the Lazarus: Form Recovery extension for Firefox. Lazarus: Form Recovery in Action For our first example we chose the comment text box area for one of the articles here at the website. As you can see we were not finished typing in the whole comment yet… Notice the “Lazarus Icon” in the lower right corner. Note: We simulated accidental tab closures for our two examples. After getting our webpage opened up again all of our text was gone. Right clicking within the text area showed two options available…”Recover Text & Recover Form”. Notice that our lost text was listed as a “sub menu”…this could be extremely useful in matching up the appropriate text to the correct webpage if you had multiple tabs open before something happened. Click on the correct text listing to insert it. So easy to finish writing our comment without having to start from zero again. In our second example we chose the sign-up form page for the website. As before we were not finished filling in the form… Getting the webpage opened back up showed the same problem as before…all the entered text was lost. This time we right clicked in the browser window area and there was that wonderful “Recover Form Command” waiting to be used. One click and… All of our lost form data was back and we were able to finish filling in the form. For those who may be interested you can disable Lazarus: Form Recovery on individual websites using the “Context Menu” for the “Status Bar Icon” Options There are three sections in the options and you should take a quick look through them to make any desired modifications in how Lazarus: Form Recovery functions. The first “Options Area” focuses on display/access for the extension. The second “Options Area” allows you to expand the type of data retained, enable removal of data within a given time frame, set up a password, disable search indexing, and enable form data retention while in “Private Browsing Mode”. The third “Options Area” focuses on the Lazarus database itself. Conclusion If you have ever lost text area or form data before then you know how much time could be lost in starting over. Lazarus: Form Recovery helps provide a nice backup solution to get you up and running once again with a minimum of effort. Links Download the Lazarus: Form Recovery extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Download the Lazarus: Form Recovery extension (Extension Homepage) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Resize Any Textbox or Textarea in FirefoxWhy Doesn’t AutoComplete Always Work in Firefox?Pass Variables between Windows Forms Windows without ShowDialog()Using Secure Login in FirefoxAdd Search Forms to the Firefox Search Bar TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for August 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The Top 10 most popular items shared via the OTN ArchBeat Facebook page for the month of August 2012. Now Available: Oracle SQL Developer 3.2 (3.2.09.23) New features include APEX listener, UI enhancements, and 12c database support. The Role of Oracle VM Server for SPARC in a Virtualization Strategy In this article, Matthias Pfutzner discusses hardware, desktop, and operating system virtualization, along with various Oracle virtualization technologies, including Oracle VM Server for SPARC. How to Manually Install Flash Player Plugin to see the Oracle Enterprise Manager Performance Page | Kai Yu So, you're a DBA and you want to check the Performance page in Oracle Enterprise Manager (11g or 12c). So you click the Performance tab and… nothing. Zip. Nada. The Flash plugin is a no-show. Relax! Oracle ACE Director Kai Yu shows you what you need to do to see all the pretty colors instead of that dull grey screen. Relationally Challenged (CX - CRM - EQ/RQ/CRQ) | Chris Warticki Self-proclaimed Oracle Support "spokesmodel" Chris Chris Warticki has some advice for those interested in Customer Relationship Management: "How about we just dumb it down, strip it to the core, keep it simple and LISTEN?! No more focus groups, no more surveys, and no need to gather more data. We have plenty of that. Why not just provide the customer what they are asking for?" Free WebLogic Server Course | Middleware Magic So you want to sharpen your Oracle WebLogic Server skills, but you prefer to skip the whole classroom bit and don't want to be bothered with dealing with an instructor? No problem! Oracle ACE Rene van Wijk, a prolific Middleware Magic blogger, has information on an Oracle WebLogic course you can take on your own time, at your own pace. Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.20 released Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.20 was just released at the community and Oracle download sites, reports the Fat Bloke. This is a maintenance release containing bug fixes and stability improvements. Optimizing OLTP Oracle Database Performance using Dell Express Flash PCIe SSDs | Kai Yu Oracle ACE Director Kai Yu shares resources based on "several extensive performance studies on a single node Oracle 11g R2 database as well as a two node 11gR2 Oracle Real Application clusters (RAC) database running on Dell PowerEdge R720 servers with Dell Express Flash PCIe SSDs on Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.2 platform." Oracle ACE sessions at Oracle OpenWorld With so many great sessions at this year's event, building your Oracle OpenWorld schedule can involve making a lot of tough choices. But you'll find that the sessions led by Oracle ACEs just might be the icing on the cake for your OpenWorld experience. MySQL Update: The Cleveland MySQL Meetup (Independence, OH) Oracle MySQL team member Benjamin Wood, a MySQL engineer and five year veteran of the MySQL organization, will speak at the Cleveland MySQL Meetup event on September 12. The presentation will include a MySQL 5.5 Overview, Oracle's Roadmap for MySQL, including specifics on MySQL 5.6, best practices and how to overcome development and operational MySQL challenges, and the new MySQL commercial extensions. Click the link for time and location information. Parsing XML in Oracle Database | Martijn van der Kamp Martijn van der Kamp's post deals with processing XML in PL/SQL code and processing the data into the database. Thought for the Day "Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen." — Edward V. Berard Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Microsoft TechEd 2010 - Day 2 @ Bangalore

  - by sathya

  Microsoft TechEd 2010 - Day 2 @ Bangalore Today is the day 2 @ Microsoft TechEd 2010. We had lot of technical sessions as usual there were many tracks going on side by side and I was attending the Web simplified track, Which comprised of the following sessions :   Developing a scalable Media Application using ASP.NET MVC - This was a kind of little advanced stuff. Anyways I couldn't understand much because this was not my piece of cake and I havent worked on this before ASP.Net MVC Unplugged - This was really great because this session covered from the basics of MVC showing what is Model,View and Controller and how it worked and the speaker went into the details of the same. Building RESTful Applications with the Open Data Protocol - There were some concepts explained about this from the basics on how to build RESTful Services and it went on till some advanced configurations of the same. Developing Scalable Web Applications with AppFabric Caching - This session showed about the integration of AppFabric with the .Net Web Applications. Instead of using Inproc Sessions, we can use this AppFabric as a substitute for Caching and outofProc Session Storage without writing code and doing a little bit of configurations which brings in High Scalability, performance to our applications. (But unfortunately there were no demos for this session ) Deep Dive : WCF RIA Services - This session was also an interactive one, in this the speaker presented from the basics of WCF and took a Book Store Application as a sample and explained all details concepts on linking with RIA Services   Apart from these sessions, in between there happened some small events in the breaks like Some discussions about Technology, Innovations Music Jokes Mimicry, etc. And on doing all these things, the developers were given some kool gifts / goodies like USBs, T-Shirts, etc. And today I got a chance to do the following certification : (70-562) Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in .NET 3.5 Web Applications Since I already have an MCTS in .NET 2.0, I wanted to do an MCPD and for doing the same I was required to do an update to my MCTS with the .NET 3.5 framework and I did the same I cleared it and now am an MCTS in .NET 3.5 Web Apps And on doing this I got a T-Shirt and they gave something called Learning $ of worth 30$. And in various stalls for attending each quiz or some game or some referrals we got some Learning $ which we can redeem later based on our Total Learning $. I got 105 $ which i was able to redeem and got a Microsoft Learning BagPack, 1 free Microsoft certification offer, a laptop light and an e-learning content activated. And after all these sessions and small events, we had something called Demo Extravaganza like I mentioned yesterday. This was a great funfilled event with lot of goodies for the attendees. There were some lucky draw which enabled 2 attendees to get Netbooks (Sponsored by Intel) and 1 attendee to get X-box (Sponsored by Citrix). After Choosing the raffle in the lucky draw they kept it on a device called Microsoft Surface which is a kind of big touch screen device and on putting the raffle on that it detected the code of the attendee and said intelligently how many sessions that person has attended and if he has attended more than 5 he got a Netbook and this was coded by a guy called Imran. Apart from they showed demos on : Research by 2 Tamilnadu students from Krishna Arts and Science college, taken 1200 photographs of their college from different angles and put that up in Bing maps using silverlight and linked with Photosynth, which showed a 3d view of their college based on the photos they uploaded Reasearch by Microsoft on Panaramic HD views of the images. One young guy from Microsoft Research showed a demo of this on Srivilliputhur Andal Temple, in Tamil Nadu and its history with a panoramic view of the temple and the near by places with narration of the historical information on the same and with the videos embedded in it with high definition images which we can zoom to a very detailed level. Some Demo on a business app with Silverlight, Business Intelligence (BI) and maps integrated. It showed the sales of a particular product across locations. Some kool demos by 2 geeks who used Robots to show their development talents. 2 Robots fought with each other 2 Robots danced in sync for the A.R. Rehman song Humma Humma... A dream home project by Raman. He is currently using the same in his home too. Robots are controlling his home currently. They showed a video on this. Here are the list of activities that Robot does for him When he reads a book, robot automatically scans that and shows that image of that person in the screen (TV or comp) in front of him. It shows a wikipedia about that person. It says that person is not in linked in. do you want to add him If he sees an IPL Match news in the book and smiles it understands he is interested in that and opens a website related to that and shows the current game and the scorecard. It cooks for him It cleans the room for him whenever he leaves the house when he is doing something if some intruder comes inside his house his computer automatically switches his screen showing the video of the person coming inside. When he wakes up it automatically opens up the system, loads his mails and the news by the side, etc. Some Demos on Microsoft Pivot. This was there in livelabs but it is now available in getpivot.com its a pivoting of the pictorial data based on some categories and filters on the searches that we do. And finally on filling up some feedback forms we got T-Shirts and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit CDs. Whats more on TechEd??? Stay tuned!!! Will update you soon on the other happenings!! PS : I typed a lot of content for more than a hour but I pressed a backspace and it went to the previous page and all my content were lost and I was not able to retrieve the same and I typed everything again.

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• Extract Audio from a Video File with Pazera Free Audio Extractor

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Have you ever wanted to extract some or all of the audio from a video file?  Today we’ll take a look at Pazera Free Audio Extractor. A simple audio converter that specializes in that very task. Download the Pazera Free Audio Extractor. (See download link below) You’ll need to unzip the download folder, but there is no need to install the application. Simply double-click the AudioExtractor.exe file to run the application. To add your video files to the queue to be converted, click on the Add files  button at the top left. You can add multiple files to the queue and convert them all at one time. Browse for your video file, and click Open.   Your video will be added to the Queue for processing.   Under Output directory you can choose to output to a folder of your choice. Outputting to the same folder as the input folder is the default.   Pazera Free Audio Extractor includes pre-configured profiles that will simplify the process of choosing conversion settings. To load a profile, choose one from the Profile drop down list and then click the Load button. You can choose to output to MP3, AAC, AC3, WMA, FLAC, OGG or WAV file format.   You will see the profile update the Audio settings in the panels at the lower left of the application. If you wish, you may also select your own custom settings. Advanced Settings The Advanced settings can be used if you want to extract only a portion of the the audio, such as a clip of dialog or a song from a movie. To extract only a portion of the audio, set the start time by selecting the Start time offset check box, then entering the time in the video clip where the audio begins. To set the end time, begin by selecting the Duration check box. Now, you can either select the Duration radio button and enter the amount of time for which you would like to extract the audio, or you can select the End time offset radio button and enter the time in the video clip where the audio ends. When you are ready to convert, click the CONVERT button on the menu at the top of the screen.   An output box will open and display the conversion progress. When finished, click Close.   Now you are ready to enjoy your audio clip. Pazera Free Audio Extractor is a basic audio tool that is easy enough for everyone to use. It runs on Windows only and supports most common video formats including AVI, FLV, MP4, MPG, MOV, 3GP, and WMV. Download Free Audio Extractor 1.3 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Eufony Free Audio Player – Resource Gentle Audio PlayerConvert .3GP and .3G2 Files to AVI / MPEG for FreeTurn Off Auto-Play of Audio and Video CDs and DVDs in UbuntuHow to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows VistaEasily Change Audio File Formats with XRECODE TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs

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• What Counts For a DBA: Ego

  - by Louis Davidson

  Leaving aside, for a second, Freud’s psychoanalytical definitions, the term “ego” generally refers to a person’s sense of self, and their self-esteem. In casual usage, however, it usually appears in the adjectival form, “egotistical” (most often followed by “jerk”). You don’t need to be a jerk to be a DBA; humility is important. However, ego is important too. A good DBA needs a certain degree of self-esteem…a belief and pride in what he or she can do better than anyone else can. The ideal DBA needs to be humble enough to admit when they are wrong but egotistical enough to know when they are right, and to stand up for that knowledge and make their voice heard. In most organizations, the DBA team is seriously outnumbered by headstrong developers and clock driven managers, and “great” DBAs will often be outnumbered by…well…the not so great. In order to be heard in this environment, a DBA will not only need to be very skilled, but will also need a healthy dose of ego. As Freud might have put it, the unconscious desire of the DBA (the id) is for iron-fist control over their databases, and code that runs in them. However, the ego moderates this desire, seeking to “satisfy the id in realistic ways that, in the long term, bring benefit rather than grief“. In other words, the ego understands the need to exert a measure of control and self-belief, but also to tolerate and play nicely with developers and other DBAs. The trick, naturally, is learning how to be heard when it is important, but also to make everyone around you welcome that input, even when you have to be bold to make the “I know what I am talking about, and you…well…not so much” decisions. Consider a baseball team, bottom of the ninth inning of the championship game, man on first and down one run. Almost anyone on that team will have the ability to hit a home run, but only one or two will have the iron belief that they can pull it off in this critical, end-game situation. The player you need in this situation is the one who has passionately gone the extra mile preparing for just this moment, is bursting at the seams with self-confidence, and can look the coach in the eye and state, boldly, “Put me in, I am your best bet“. Likewise, on those occasions when high customer demand coincides with copious system errors, and panic is bubbling just beneath the surface, you don’t need the minimally qualified support person, armed with the “reboot and hope” technique (though that sometimes works!). You need the DBA who steps up and says, “Put me in” and has the skill and tenacity to back up those words and to fix the pinpoint and fix the problem, whatever it takes, while keeping customers and managers happy. Of course, the egotistical DBA will happily spend hours telling you how great they are at their job, and how brilliantly they put out a previous fire, and this is no guarantee that they can deliver. However, if an otherwise-humble DBA looks you in the eye and says, “I can do it”, then hear them out. Sometimes, this burst of ego will be exactly what’s required.

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• Uninstall, Disable, or Remove Windows 7 Media Center

  - by Mysticgeek

  Although Windows 7 Media Center has improved a lot over previous versions of Windows, but you might want to disable it for different reasons. Here we take a look at a couple of methods to get rid of it. There are a variety of reasons you might want to disable Windows 7 Media Center. Maybe you own a business and don’t want it to run on the machines. Or perhaps you don’t use it at all and just don’t want it around. Turn Off WMC Using Programs and Features Probably the easiest way to get rid of it on all versions of Windows 7 is to open Control Panel and select Programs and Features. This method is similar to disabling Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7. On the left hand panel click on Turn Windows Features on or off. Scroll down to Media Features and expand the folder. Then Uncheck Windows Media Center… You’ll get a verification message making sure you want to disable it, click Yes. Then the box next to Windows Media Center will be empty…click OK. Wait while WMC is disabled… To complete the process a reboot is required. After getting back from the restart, the WMC icon will be gone and there won’t be any way to launch it. Re-enable WMC If you want to re-enable it, just go back in and recheck it. Again you’ll need to wait while it’s configured, but when it’s done, a restart is not required.   Disable Media Center Using Group Policy Note: This process uses Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows 7. Click on the Start menu and type gpedit.msc into the Search box and hit Enter. Now navigate to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Windows Media Center. Double-click on Do not allow Windows Media Center to run. Then select the radio button next to Enabled, click OK and close out of Group Policy Editor. Now if a user tries to launch WMC they will get the following message. Conclusion If you’re not a fan of Windows Media Center or want to disable it for whatever reason, the process is simple and there are a couple of ways you can do it. WMC is not included in Starter or Home Basic versions of Windows 7. If you’re new to Windows 7 Media Center, you might want to check out our guide on getting started and setting up live TV. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Disable Windows Mobility Center in Windows 7 or VistaMake Outlook Faster by Disabling Unnecessary Add-InsSchedule Updates for Windows Media CenterRemove "Map Network Drive" Menu Item from Windows Vista or XP TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa !

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• Bose USB audio: crackling popping sound, eventually die

  - by Richard Barrett

  I've been trying to troubleshoot this issue for a while now. Any help would be much appreciated. I'm having trouble getting my Bose "Companion 5 multimedia speakers" working with my installation of Ubuntu 12.04 (link to Bose product here: http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/digital_music_systems/computer_speakers/companion_5/index.jsp ). The issue seems to be low level (not just Ubuntu). What happens: When I boot into Ubuntu, I can get Rhythm box to play ok. However, if I try anything else (an .avi file, a webpage, or Clementine player with mp3 files) I get crackling, popping, or choppy sounds. If I move the mouse around, especially if it seems graphic intensive, the problem gets worse (more crackling noises). The more taxing it appears to be, the more likely it is that the sound will just die altogether until I reboot. For some reason the videos at www.bloomberg.com seem especially bad for it (my sound normally goes dead in under 45 seconds and won't work until reboot). Both my desktop running Ubuntu 12.04 and my laptop (running the same) have the same crackling problem. Troubleshooting so far: A friend of mine who knows linux well tried to solve it for me without any luck. He took pulseaudio out of the equation, but still had the problem just using AlSA. Among the many things he tried was adjusting the latency, but that didn't help either. I've also tried things like adjusting the USB device settings in the config file from -2 to -1 so that it will use my USB sound and I also commented out the lines that would stop that. These don't do anything. (That really seems like it's for someone who is getting no sound at all, so it's not surprising this won't work.) My friend's laptop running his Archlinux could play my Bose USB speakers without any problems. I also tried setting my daemon.conf file to use 6 channels (based on this http://lotphelp.com/lotp/configure-ubuntu-51-surround-sound ) but that didn't work either. I recently used a DVD to boot into Ubuntu Studio 12.04 (because it uses a live audio kernel) and this happened: I got perfect sound for a minute or two When I started moving windows around while sound was playing, the sound died again. Perhaps more interesting: There is a headphone out jack on the Bose system. When I use it, the audio is perfect for all applications (even the deadly bloomberg.com videos with .avi playing at the same time and moving around windows). Also, there is an audio-in jack on the Bose system. I can use a male-to-male mini jack to go from my soundcard's output to the Bose input and then all sound works perfectly. -However, it still requires the Bose to be plugged in to USB, otherwise I lose all sound. Any thoughts? Any suggestions for trouble shooting? (Or any suggestions for somewhere else to post to solve this?) Any logs or other files I can provide to help someone help me work this out? Your help is much appreciated! Rick BTW: I sometimes get people posting responses like "My Bose USB system works great with Ubuntu 12.04," without any more details. Is there anything I should ask such people to narrow down my problem? (It's kind of annoying to hear such a response because it doesn't help solve my problem.)

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• In the Groove: PASS Board Year 1, Q3

  - by Denise McInerney

  It's nine months into my first year on the PASS Board and I feel like I've found my rhythm. I've accomplished one of the goals I set out for the year and have made progress on others. Here's a recap of the last few months. Anti-Harassment Policy & Process Completed In April I began work on a Code of Conduct for the PASS Summit. The Board had several good discussions and various PASS members provided feedback. You can read more about that in this blog post. Since the document was focused on issues of harassment we renamed it the "Anti-Harassment Policy " and it was approved by the Board in August. The next step was to refine the guideliness and process for enforcement of the AHP. A subcommittee worked on this and presented an update to the Board at the September meeting. You can read more about that in this post, and you can find the process document here. Global Growth Expanding PASS' reach and making the organization relevant to SQL Server communities around the world has been a focus of the Board's work in 2012. We took the Global Growth initiative out to the community for feedback, and everyone on the Board participated, via Twitter chats, Town Hall meetings, feedback forums and in-person discussions. This community participation helped shape and refine our plans. Implementing the vision for Global Growth goes across all portfolios. The Virtual Chapters are well-positioned to help the organization move forward in this area. One outcome of the Global Growth discussions with the community is the expansion of two of the VCs from country-specific to language-specific. Thanks to the leadership in Brazil & Mexico for taking the lead here. I look forward to continued success for the Portuguese- and Spanish-language Virtual Chapters. Together with the Global Chinese VC PASS is off to a good start in making the VC's truly global. Virtual Chapters The VCs continue to grow and expand. Volunteers recently rebooted the Azure and Virutalization VCs, and a new  Education VC will be launching soon. Every week VCs offer excellent free training on a variety of topics. It's the dedication of the VC leaders and volunteers that make all this possible and I thank them for it. Board meeting The Board had an in-person meeting in September in San Diego, CA.. As usual we covered a number of topics including governance changes to support Global Growth, the upcoming Summit, 2013 events and the (then) upcoming PASS election. Next Up Much of the last couple of months has been focused on preparing for the PASS Summit in Seattle Nov. 6-9. I'll be there all week;  feel free to stop me if you have a question or concern, or just to introduce yourself.  Here are some of the places you can find me: VC Leaders Meeting Tuesday 8:00 am the VC leaders will have a meeting. We'll review some of the year's highlights and talk about plans for the next year Welcome Reception The VCs will be at the Welcome Reception in the new VC Lounge. Come by, learn more about what the VCs have to offer and meet others who share your interests. Exceptional DBA Awards Party I'm looking forward to seeing PASS Women in Tech VC leader Meredith Ryan receive her award at this event sponsored by Red Gate Session Presentation I will be presenting a spotlight session entitled "Stop Bad Data in Its OLTP Tracks" on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. Exhibitor Reception This reception Wednesday evening in the Expo Hall is a great opportunity to learn more about tools and solutions that can help you in your job. Women in Tech Luncheon This year marks the 10th WIT Luncheon at PASS. I'm honored to be on the panel with Stefanie Higgins, Kevin Kline, Kendra Little and Jen Stirrup. This event is on Thursday at 11:30. Community Appreciation Party Thursday evening don't miss this event thanking all of you for everthing you do for PASS and the community. This year we will be at the Experience Music Project and it promises to be a fun party. Board Q & A Friday  9:45-11:15  am the members of the Board will be available to answer your questions. If you have a question for us, or want to hear what other members are thinking about, come by room 401 Friday morning.

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• How to Get Windows 7 Theme Wallpapers Without Installing Them

  - by Mysticgeek

  Are you using an older version of Windows but like the Windows 7 theme wallpapers? What if you have Windows 7 but you don’t want to install the themes just to get the wallpapers? Here is how to get them without having to install themes. This guest article was written by Ryan Dozier from the Doztech tech blog. Getting the Wallpaper on XP, Vista, or Windows 7 First download and install 7-zip on your machine (link below). After you’ve installed 7-zip, download a Windows 7 theme (link below) and right-click on the theme, select 7-Zip, and Extract to “Theme Name”… A new folder will appear with the theme name on it. When you open it, there will be a folder called DesktopBackground or something similar.   Open the folder to get the wallpapers to view the wallpapers for the theme. You can delete the extra files and just keep the wallpapers!   Getting the Wallpaper on Ubuntu Extracting the wallpaper on Ubuntu can be a little tricky. Just follow these steps and you will be able to do it. First go to the Ubuntu Software Center under the Applications menu. Search for 7zip and click on the arrow to go to the applications menu. Find the Install button and click it. It will take a couple of minutes for 7zip to install. After 7zip installs, close the Ubuntu Software Center and download a Windows 7 theme. Store it somewhere you can access it quickly. Right-click on the theme and select Rename and get rid of the themepack extension and replace it with zip. The file should be “Theme Name.zip” after you rename it. Right-click on the theme and click Extract Here. After  the extracting you will have a new folder with the theme name. Open it and go into the DesktopBackground folder to get the wallpapers. You can delete the extra files and just keep the wallpapers. If you want to get the new Windows 7 Themes Wallpapers, but don’t want to search and install them separately, this is a nice workaround. Links Get 7 zip for Windows  here Get Windows 7 Themes here Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)Desktop Fun: Starship Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Underwater Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Forest Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Fantasy Theme Wallpapers TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics Create Ringtones For Your Android Phone With RingDroid Enhance Your Laptop’s Battery Life With These Tips Easily Search Food Recipes With Recipe Chimp

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• Slick2D, Nifty GUI listeners problem

  - by Patokun

  I'm trying to get Nifty GUI to work with Slick2D. So far everything is going great, except that I can't seem to figure out how to properly interact with the GUI. I'm trying the example in the nifty manual http://sourceforge.n....0.pdf/download but it doesn't seem to entirely work. The Element controller is being called for bind(...), init(...) and onStartScreen() as it should, as I can see their println output, but the next() method isn't being called when I click on the GUI element that I assigned the controller to, nor the screen controller as no output from println is shown. What's weird is, that the player is moving, so the mouse input is working. It's supposed to be called when I click the mouse button on it from the in the XML. Here is my code: My Element controller: public class ElementController implements Controller { private Element element; @Override public void bind(Nifty nifty, Screen screen, Element element, Properties parameter, Attributes controlDefinitionAttributes) { this.element = element; System.out.println("bind() called for element: " + element); } @Override public void init(Properties parameter, Attributes controlDefinitionAttributes) { System.out.println("init() called for element: " + element); } @Override public void onStartScreen() { System.out.println("onStartScreen() alled for element: " + element); } @Override public void onFocus(boolean getFocus) { System.out.println("onFocus() called for element: " + element + ", with: " + getFocus); } @Override public boolean inputEvent(NiftyInputEvent inputEvent) { return false; } public void next() { System.out.println("next() clicked for element: " + element); } } MyScreenController: class MyScreenController implements ScreenController { public void bind(Nifty nifty, Screen screen) {} public void onEndScreen() {} public void onStartScreen() {} public void next() { System.out.println("next() called from MyScreenController"); } } And my XML file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <nifty xmlns="http://nifty-gui.sourceforge.net/nifty-1.3.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"xsi:schemaLocation="http://niftygui.sourceforge.net/nifty-1.3.xsd http://nifty-gui.sourceforge.net/nifty-1.3.xsd"> <screen id="start" controller="predaN00b.theThing.V0004.MyScreenController"> <layer childLayout="center" controller="predaN00b.theThing.V0004.ElementController"> <panel width="100px" height="100px" childLayout="vertical" backgroundColor="#ff0f"> <text font="aurulent-sans-16.fnt" color="#ffff" text="Hello World!"> <interact onClick="next()" /> </text> </panel> </layer> </screen> </nifty> My main class, in case it's needed: public class MainGameState extends BasicGame { public Nifty nifty; public MainGame() { super("Test"); } public void init(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game) throws SlickException { nifty = new Nifty(new SlickRenderDevice(container), new NullSoundDevice(), new PlainSlickInputSystem(), new AccurateTimeProvider()); nifty.addXml("/xml/MainState.xml"); nifty.gotoScreen("start"); } public void update(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game, int delta) throws SlickException { nifty.update(); } public void render(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game, Graphics graphics) throws SlickException { nifty.render(false); } public static void main(String[] args) throws SlickException { AppGameContainer app = new AppGameContainer(new MainGame()); app.setAlwaysRender(true); app.setDisplayMode( 1260 , 720, false); //window size app.start(); } }

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• Tweaking Remote Control (In-Kernel LIRC)

  - by Geoff

  I've recently rebuilt my MythTV box using Mythbuntu 12.04, to take advantage of newer hardware (Ivy Bridge). On my previous build I used lirc to manage the remote, i.e. the mapping of key codes - keypresses - application keys; it was quite a journey to learn it all, and I ended up fairly comfortable with how it all worked. What I have: I have a cheap Chinavasion remote and USB dongle, which I've found several articles on; these largely revolve around working with XBMC (interesting, but I don't think directly applicable) and also around getting a Harmony remote to work (it's a Chinavasion CVSB-983 - very useful, since I needed this to get my Harmony 900 working). Mythbuntu 12.04 64-bit MythTV 0.25 (likely irrelevant) How it is right now When I plug this in, it 'just works'. Which is great, except that Ubuntu uses it natively, and prevents some of the button presses from getting through to Myth. For example, I can send a button from the remote that equates to Ctrl-Alt-A (which I assume Ubuntu isn't interested in), and then trap that in Mythfrontend, but the remote's Play button is caught by Ubuntu (which displays a large circle with a line though it, as there's no media player loaded). I understand that this is because lirc is merged into the kernel now, and I like that. What I've done so far: Found the device using lsusb: $ lsusb Bus 001 Device 004: ID 073a:2230 Chaplet Systems, Inc. infrared dongle for remote Found the event device number: $ cat /proc/bus/input/devices I: Bus=0003 Vendor=073a Product=2230 Version=0110 N: Name="HID 073a:2230" P: Phys=usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.2/input0 S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2/1-1.2:1.0/input/input5 U: Uniq= H: Handlers=sysrq kbd mouse1 event5 js0 B: PROP=0 B: EV=10001f B: KEY=4c37fff072ff32d bf54445600000000 ffffffffff 30c100b17c007 ffa67bfad951dfff febeffdfffefffff fffffffffffffffe B: REL=343 B: ABS=100030000 B: MSC=10 Tested the input with evtest (I pressed Play): $ sudo evtest /dev/input/event5 Input driver version is 1.0.1 Input device ID: bus 0x3 vendor 0x73a product 0x2230 version 0x110 Input device name: "HID 073a:2230" Supported events: Event type 0 (EV_SYN) Event type 1 (EV_KEY) Event code 1 (KEY_ESC) Event code 2 (KEY_1) Event code 3 (KEY_2) Event code 4 (KEY_3) Event code 5 (KEY_4) Event code 6 (KEY_5) Event code 7 (KEY_6) <------------snipped lots of 'Event code' lines------------> Testing ... (interrupt to exit) Event: time 1336435683.230656, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1336435683.246648, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c00cd Event: time 1336435683.246652, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 164 (KEY_PLAYPAUSE), value 0 Event: time 1336435683.246655, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Tested showkey, again for the Play key: $ sudo showkey -s kb mode was RAW [ if you are trying this under X, it might not work since the X server is also reading /dev/console ] press any key (program terminates 10s after last keypress)... 0xe0 0x22 0xe0 0xa2 What I want: I'd like a way to scan the incoming button presses, if the above method isn't correct. I'd like to either remap each button press to something that Ubuntu/Unity will ignore, or even better pass the keypress directly to Myth (I suspect this later is only possible with lirc, but I could be wrong). I would really like to do this with the in-kernel drivers, i.e. without explicitly loading lirc; if that's the way the world is going, I'd rather find a way to map the current behaviour to what I want, rather than forcing the 'old' arrangement of loading lirc outside the kernel. Learning something new is also worthwhile! My guess: I'm assuming that this will require using setkeycodes, but have had trouble finding enough information to configure this. Any help greatly appreciated!

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• Visual Studio 2010 Best Practices

  - by Etienne Tremblay

  I’d like to thank Packt for providing me with a review version of Visual Studio 2010 Best Practices eBook. In fairness I also know the author Peter having seen him speak at DevTeach on many occasions.  I started by looking at the table of content to see what this book was about, knowing that “best practices” is a real misnomer I wanted to see what they were.  I really like the fact that he starts the book by really saying they are not really best practices but actually recommend practices.  As a Team Foundation Server user I found that chapter 2 was more for the open source crowd and I really skimmed it.  The portion on Branching was well documented, although I’m not a fan of the testing branch myself, but the rest was right on. The section on merge remote changes (bring the outside to you) paradigm is really important and was touched on. Chapter 3 has good solid practices on low level constructs like generics and exceptions. Chapter 4 dives into architectural practices like decoupling, distributed architecture and data based architecture.  DTOs and ORMs are touched on briefly as is NoSQL. Chapter 5 is about deployment and is really a great primer on all the “packaging” technologies like Visual Studio Setup and Deployment (depreciated in 2012), Click Once and WIX the major player outside of commercial solutions.  This is a nice section on how to move from VSSD to WIX this is going to be important in the coming years due to the fact that VS 2012 doesn’t support VSSD. In chapter 6 we dive into automated testing practices, including test coverage, mocking, TDD, SpecDD and Continuous Testing.  Peter covers all those concepts really nicely albeit succinctly. Being a book on recommended practices I find this is really good. I really enjoyed chapter 7 that gave me a lot of great tips to enhance my Visual Studio “experience”.  Tips on organizing projects where good.  Also even though I knew about configurations I like that he put that in there so you can move all your settings to another machine, a lot of people don’t know about that. Quick find and Resharper are also briefly covered.  He touches on macros (depreciated in 2012).  Finally he touches on Continuous Integration a very important concept in today’s ALM landscape. Chapter 8 is all about Parallelization, threads, Async, division of labor, reactive extensions.  All those concepts are touched on and again generalized approaches to those modern problems are giving.       Chapter 9 goes into distributed apps, the most used and accepted practice in the industry for .NET projects the chapter tackles concepts like Scalability, Messaging and Cloud (the flavor of the month of distributed apps, although I think this will stick ;-)).  He also looks a protocols TCP/UDP and how to debug distributed apps.  He touches on logging and health monitoring. Chapter 10 tackles recommended practices for web services starting with implementing WCF services, which goes into all sort of goodness like how to host in IIS or self-host.  How to manual test WCF services, also a section on authentication and authorization.  ASP.NET Web services are also touched on in that chapter All in all a good read, nice tips and accepted practices.  I like the conciseness of the subjects and Peter touches on a lot of things in this book and uses a lot of the current technologies flavors to explain the concepts.   Cheers, ET

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• SQL analytical mash-ups deliver real-time WOW! for big data

  - by KLaker

  One of the overlooked capabilities of SQL as an analysis engine, because we all just take it for granted, is that you can mix and match analytical features to create some amazing mash-ups. As we move into the exciting world of big data these mash-ups can really deliver those "wow, I never knew that" moments. While Java is an incredibly flexible and powerful framework for managing big data there are some significant challenges in using Java and MapReduce to drive your analysis to create these "wow" discoveries. One of these "wow" moments was demonstrated at this year's OpenWorld during Andy Mendelsohn's general keynote session.  Here is the scenario - we are looking for fraudulent activities in our big data stream and in this case we identifying potentially fraudulent activities by looking for specific patterns. We using geospatial tagging of each transaction so we can create a real-time fraud-map for our business users. Where we start to move towards a "wow" moment is to extend this basic use of spatial and pattern matching, as shown in the above dashboard screen, to incorporate spatial analytics within the SQL pattern matching clause. This will allow us to compute the distance between transactions. Apologies for the quality of this screenshot….hopefully below you see where we have extended our SQL pattern matching clause to use location of each transaction and to calculate the distance between each transaction: This allows us to compare the time of the last transaction with the time of the current transaction and see if the distance between the two points is possible given the time frame. Obviously if I buy something in Florida from my favourite bike store (may be a new carbon saddle for my Trek) and then 5 minutes later the system sees my credit card details being used in Arizona there is high probability that this transaction in Arizona is actually fraudulent (I am fast on my Trek but not that fast!) and we can flag this up in real-time on our dashboard: In this post I have used the term "real-time" a couple of times and this is an important point and one of the key reasons why SQL really is the only language to use if you want to analyse  big data. One of the most important questions that comes up in every big data project is: how do we do analysis? Many enlightened customers are now realising that using Java-MapReduce to deliver analysis does not result in "wow" moments. These "wow" moments only come with SQL because it is offers a much richer environment, it is simpler to use and it is faster - which makes it possible to deliver real-time "Wow!". Below is a slide from Andy's session showing the results of a comparison of Java-MapReduce vs. SQL pattern matching to deliver our "wow" moment during our live demo.  You can watch our analytical mash-up "Wow" demo that compares the power of 12c SQL pattern matching + spatial analytics vs. Java-MapReduce  here: You can get more information about SQL Pattern Matching on our SQL Analytics home page on OTN, see here http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/bi-datawarehousing/sql-analytics-index-1984365.html.  You can get more information about our spatial analytics here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database-options/spatialandgraph/overview/index.html If you would like to watch the full Database 12c OOW presentation see here: http://medianetwork.oracle.com/video/player/2686974264001

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• Top 5 Mobile Apps To Keep Track Of Cricket Scores [ICC World Cup]

  - by Gopinath

  The ICC World Cup 2011 has started with a bang today and the first match between India vs Bangladesh was a cracker. India trashed Bangladesh with a huge margin, thanks to Sehwag for scoring an entertaining 175 runs in 140 runs. At the moment it’s very clear that whole India is gripped with cricket fever and so the rest of fans across the globe. Couple of days ago we blogged about how to watch live streaming of ICC cricket world cup online for free as well as top 10 websites to keep track live scores on your computers. What about tracking live cricket scores on mobiles phones? Here is our guide to top mobile apps available for Symbian(Nokia), Android, iOS and Windows mobiles. By the way, we are covering free apps alone in this post. Why to waste money when free apps are available? SnapTu – Symbian Mobile App SnapTu is a multi feature application that lets you to track live cricket scores, read latest news and check stats published on cric info. SnapTu has tie up with Cric Info and accessing all of CricInfo website on your mobile is very easy. Along with live scores, SnapTu also lets you access your Facebook, Twitter and Picassa on your mobile. This is my favourite application to track cricket on Symbian mobiles. Download SnapTu for your mobiles here Yahoo! Cricket – Symbian & iOS App Yahoo! Cricket Scores is another dedicated application to catch up with live scores and news on your Nokia mobiles and iPhones. This application is developed by Yahoo!, the web giant as well as the official partner of ICC. Features of the app at a glance Cricket: Get a summary page with latest scores, upcoming matches and details of the recent matches News: View sections devoted to the latest news, interviews and photos Statistics: Find the latest team and player stats Download Yahoo! Cricket For Symbian Phones   Download Yahoo! Cricket For iOS ESPN CricInfo – Android and iOS App Is there any site that is better than CricInfo to catch up with latest cricket news and live scores? I say No. ESPN CricInfo is the best website available on the web to get up to the minute  cricket information with in-depth analysis from cricket experts. The live commentary provided by CricInfo site is equally enjoyable as watching live cricket on TV. CricInfo guys have their official applications for Android mobiles and iOS devices and you accessing ball by ball updates on these application is joy. Download ESPN Crick Info App: Android Version, iPhone Version NDTV Cricket – Android, iOS and Blackberry App NDTV Cricket App is developed by NDTV, the most popular English TV news channel in India. This application provides live coverage of international and domestic cricket (Test, ODI & T20) along with latest News, Photos, Videos and Stats. This application is available for iOS devices(iPhones, iPads, iPod Touch), Android mobiles and Blackberry devices. Download NDTV Cricket for iOS here & here    Download NDTV Apps For Rest of OSs ECB Cricket – Symbian, iOS & Android App If you are an UK citizen then  this may be the right application to download for getting live cricket score updates as well as latest news about England Cricket Board. ECB Cricket is an official application of England Cricket Board Download ECB Cricket : Android Version, iPhone Version, Symbian Version Are there any better apps that we missed to feature in this list? This article titled,Top 5 Mobile Apps To Keep Track Of Cricket Scores [ICC World Cup], was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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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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• JCP Awards 10 Year Retrospective

  - by Heather VanCura

  As we celebrate 10 years of JCP Program Award recognition in 2012,  take a look back in the Retrospective article covering the history of the JCP awards.  Most recently, the JCP awards were  celebrated at JavaOne Latin America in Brazil, where SouJava was presented the JCP Member of the Year Award for 2012 (won jointly with the London Java Community) for their contributions and launch of the Global Adopt-a-JSR Program. This is also a good time to honor the JCP Award Nominees and Winners who have been designated as Star Spec Leads.  Spec Leads are key to the Java Community Process (JCP) program. Without them, none of the Java Specification Requests (JSRs) would have begun, much less completed and become implemented in shipping products.  Nominations for 2012 Start Spec Leads are now open until 31 December. The Star Spec Lead program recognizes Spec Leads who have repeatedly proven their merit by producing high quality specifications, establishing best practices, and mentoring others. The point of such honor is to endorse the good work that they do, showcase their methods for other Spec Leads to emulate, and motivate other JCP program members and participants to get involved in the JCP program. Ed Burns – A Star Spec Lead for 2009, Ed first got involved with the JCP program when he became co-Spec Lead of JSR 127, JavaServer Faces (JSF), a role he has continued through JSF 1.2 and now JSF 2.0, which is JSR 314. Linda DeMichiel – Linda thus involved in the JCP program from its very early days. She has been the Spec Lead on at least three JSRs and an EC member for another three. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. Gavin King – Nominated as a JCP Outstanding Spec Lead for 2010, for his work with JSR 299. His endorsement said, “He was not only able to work through disputes and objections to the evolving programming model, but he resolved them into solutions that were more technically sound, and which gained support of its pundits.” Mike Milikich –  Nominated for his work on Java Micro Edition (ME) standards, implementations, tools, and Technology Compatibility Kits (TCKs), Mike was a 2009 Star Spec Lead for JSR 271, Mobile Information Device Profile 3. David Nuescheler – Serving as the CTO for Day Software, acquired by Adobe Systems, David has been a key player in the growth of the company’s global content management solution. In 2002, he became Spec Lead for JSR 170, Content Repository for Java Technology API, continuing for the subsequent version, JSR 283. Bill Shannon – A well-respected name in the Java community, Bill came to Oracle from Sun as a Distinguished Engineer and is still performing at full speed as Spec Lead for JSR 342, Java EE 7,  as an alternate EC member, and hands-on problem solver for the Java community as a whole. Jim Van Peursem – Jim holds a PhD in Computer Engineering. He was part of the Motorola team that worked with Sun labs on the Spotless VM that became the KVM. From within Motorola, Jim has been responsible for many aspects of Java technology deployment, from an independent Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) and Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) implementations, to handset development, to working with the industry in defining many related standards. Participation in the JCP Program goes well beyond technical proficiency. The JCP Awards Program is an attempt to say “Thank You” to all of the JCP members, Expert Group Members, Spec Leads, and EC members who give their time to contribute to the evolution of Java technology.

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• What is the best Broadphase Interface for moving spheres?

  - by Molmasepic

  As of now I am working on optimizing the performance of the physics and collision, and as of now I am having some slowdowns on my other computers from my main. I have well over 3000 btSphereShape Rigidbodies and 2/3 of them do not move at all, but I am noticing(by the profile below) that collision is taking a bit of time to maneuver. Each sample counts as 0.01 seconds. % cumulative self self total time seconds seconds calls ms/call ms/call name 10.09 0.65 0.65 SphereTriangleDetector::collide(btVector3 const&, btVector3&, btVector3&, float&, float&, float) 7.61 1.14 0.49 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::processCollision(btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btDispatcherInfo const&, btManifoldResult*) 5.59 1.50 0.36 btConvexTriangleCallback::processTriangle(btVector3*, int, int) 5.43 1.85 0.35 btQuantizedBvh::reportAabbOverlappingNodex(btNodeOverlapCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const 4.97 2.17 0.32 btBvhTriangleMeshShape::processAllTriangles(btTriangleCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const::MyNodeOverlapCallback::processNode(int, int) 4.19 2.44 0.27 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowGeneric(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 4.04 2.70 0.26 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowLowerLimit(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 3.73 2.94 0.24 Ogre::OctreeSceneManager::walkOctree(Ogre::OctreeCamera*, Ogre::RenderQueue*, Ogre::Octree*, Ogre::VisibleObjectsBoundsInfo*, bool, bool) 3.42 3.16 0.22 btTriangleShape::getVertex(int, btVector3&) const 2.48 3.32 0.16 Ogre::Frustum::isVisible(Ogre::AxisAlignedBox const&, Ogre::FrustumPlane*) const 2.33 3.47 0.15 1246357 0.00 0.00 Gorilla::Layer::setVisible(bool) 2.33 3.62 0.15 SphereTriangleDetector::getClosestPoints(btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::ClosestPointInput const&, btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::Result&, btIDebugDraw*, bool) 1.86 3.74 0.12 btCollisionDispatcher::findAlgorithm(btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btPersistentManifold*) 1.86 3.86 0.12 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::setupContactConstraint(btSolverConstraint&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btManifoldPoint&, btContactSolverInfo const&, btVector3&, float&, float&, btVector3&, btVector3&) 1.71 3.97 0.11 btTriangleShape::getEdge(int, btVector3&, btVector3&) const 1.55 4.07 0.10 _Unwind_SjLj_Register 1.55 4.17 0.10 _Unwind_SjLj_Unregister 1.55 4.27 0.10 Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::updateBufferResources(char const*, Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::BufferResources*) 1.40 4.36 0.09 btManifoldResult::addContactPoint(btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&, float) 1.40 4.45 0.09 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::setupFrictionConstraint(btSolverConstraint&, btVector3 const&, btRigidBody*, btRigidBody*, btManifoldPoint&, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, float, float, float) 1.24 4.53 0.08 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::convertContact(btPersistentManifold*, btContactSolverInfo const&) 1.09 4.60 0.07 408760 0.00 0.00 Living::MapHide() 1.09 4.67 0.07 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::~btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm() 1.09 4.74 0.07 inflate_fast EDIT: Updated to show current Profile. I have only listed the functions using over 1% time from the many functions that are being used. Another thing is that each monster has a certain area that they stay in and are only active when a player is in said area. I was wondering if maybe there is a way to deactivate the non-active monsters from bullet(reactivating once in the area again) or maybe theres a different broadphase interface that I should use. The current BPI is btDbvtBroadphase. EDIT: Here is the Profile on the other computer(the top one is my main) Each sample counts as 0.01 seconds. % cumulative self self total time seconds seconds calls ms/call ms/call name 12.18 1.19 1.19 SphereTriangleDetector::collide(btVector3 const&, btVector3&, btVector3&, float&, float&, float) 6.76 1.85 0.66 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::processCollision(btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btDispatcherInfo const&, btManifoldResult*) 5.83 2.42 0.57 btQuantizedBvh::reportAabbOverlappingNodex(btNodeOverlapCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const 5.12 2.92 0.50 btConvexTriangleCallback::processTriangle(btVector3*, int, int) 4.61 3.37 0.45 btTriangleShape::getVertex(int, btVector3&) const 4.09 3.77 0.40 _Unwind_SjLj_Register 3.48 4.11 0.34 btBvhTriangleMeshShape::processAllTriangles(btTriangleCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const::MyNodeOverlapCallback::processNode(int, int) 2.46 4.35 0.24 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowLowerLimit(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 2.15 4.56 0.21 _Unwind_SjLj_Unregister 2.15 4.77 0.21 SphereTriangleDetector::getClosestPoints(btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::ClosestPointInput const&, btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::Result&, btIDebugDraw*, bool) 1.84 4.95 0.18 btTriangleShape::getEdge(int, btVector3&, btVector3&) const 1.64 5.11 0.16 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowGeneric(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 1.54 5.26 0.15 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::setupContactConstraint(btSolverConstraint&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btManifoldPoint&, btContactSolverInfo const&, btVector3&, float&, float&, btVector3&, btVector3&) 1.43 5.40 0.14 Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::updateBufferResources(char const*, Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::BufferResources*) 1.33 5.53 0.13 btManifoldResult::addContactPoint(btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&, float) 1.13 5.64 0.11 btRigidBody::predictIntegratedTransform(float, btTransform&) 1.13 5.75 0.11 btTriangleIndexVertexArray::getLockedReadOnlyVertexIndexBase(unsigned char const**, int&, PHY_ScalarType&, int&, unsigned char const**, int&, int&, PHY_ScalarType&, int) const 1.02 5.85 0.10 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::CreateFunc::CreateCollisionAlgorithm(btCollisionAlgorithmConstructionInfo&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*) 1.02 5.95 0.10 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm(btPersistentManifold*, btCollisionAlgorithmConstructionInfo const&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, bool) Edited same as other Profile.

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• SDL_image & OpenGL Problem

  - by Dylan

  i've been following tutorials online to load textures using SDL and display them on a opengl quad. but ive been getting weird results that no one else on the internet seems to be getting... so when i render the texture in opengl i get something like this. http://www.kiddiescissors.com/after.png when the original .bmp file is this: http://www.kiddiescissors.com/before.bmp ive tried other images too, so its not that this particular image is corrupt. it seems like my rgb channels are all jumbled or something. im pulling my hair out at this point. heres the relevant code from my init() function if ( SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) != 0 ) { return 1; } SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_DOUBLEBUFFER, 1); SDL_GL_SetAttribute( SDL_GL_RED_SIZE, 8 ); SDL_GL_SetAttribute( SDL_GL_GREEN_SIZE, 8 ); SDL_GL_SetAttribute( SDL_GL_BLUE_SIZE, 8 ); SDL_GL_SetAttribute( SDL_GL_ALPHA_SIZE, 8 ); SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_MULTISAMPLEBUFFERS, 1); SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_MULTISAMPLESAMPLES, 4); SDL_SetVideoMode(WINDOW_WIDTH, WINDOW_HEIGHT, 32, SDL_HWSURFACE | SDL_GL_DOUBLEBUFFER | SDL_OPENGL); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); gluPerspective(50, (GLfloat)WINDOW_WIDTH/WINDOW_HEIGHT, 1, 50); glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); glLoadIdentity(); glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); glEnable(GL_MULTISAMPLE); glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); glTexEnvi(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL_MODULATE); glBlendFunc(GL_ONE, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); glEnable(GL_BLEND); heres the code that is called when my main player object (the one with which this sprite is associated) is initialized texture = 0; SDL_Surface* surface = IMG_Load("i.bmp"); glGenTextures(1, &texture); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGB, surface->w, surface->h, 0, GL_RGB, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, surface->pixels); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); SDL_FreeSurface(surface); and then heres the relevant code from my display function glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glLoadIdentity(); glColor4f(1, 1, 1, 1); glPushMatrix(); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture); glTranslatef(getCenter().x, getCenter().y, 0); glRotatef(getAngle()*(180/M_PI), 0, 0, 1); glTranslatef(-getCenter().x, -getCenter().y, 0); glBegin(GL_QUADS); glTexCoord2f(0, 0); glVertex3f(getTopLeft().x, getTopLeft().y, 0); glTexCoord2f(0, 1); glVertex3f(getTopLeft().x, getTopLeft().y + size.y, 0); glTexCoord2f(1, 1); glVertex3f(getTopLeft().x + size.x, getTopLeft().y + size.y, 0); glTexCoord2f(1, 0); glVertex3f(getTopLeft().x + size.x, getTopLeft().y, 0); glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); let me know if i left out anything important... or if you need more info from me. thanks a ton, -Dylan

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• Best depth sorting method for a Top Down 2D game using a 3D physics engine

  - by Alic44

  I've spent many days googling this and still have issues with my game engine I'd like to ask about, which I haven't seen addressed before. I think the problem is that my game is an unusual combination of a completely 2D graphical approach using XNA's SpriteBatch, and a completely 3D engine (the amazing BEPU physics engine) with rotation mostly disabled. In essence, my question is similar to this one (the part about "faux 3D"), but the difference is that in my game, the player as well as every other creature is represented by 3D objects, and they can all jump, pick up other objects, and throw them around. What this means is that sorting by one value, such as a Z position (how far north/south a character is on the screen) won't work, because as soon as a smaller creature jumps on top of a larger creature, or a box, and walks backwards, the moment its z value is less than that other creature, it will appear to be behind the object it is actually standing on. I actually originally solved this problem by splitting every object in the game into physics boxes which MUST have a Y height equal to their Z depth. I then based the depth sorting value on the object's y position (how high it is off the ground) PLUS its z position (how far north or south it is on the screen). The problem with this approach is that it requires all moving objects in the game to be split graphically into chunks which match up with a physical box which has its y dimension equal to its z dimension. Which is stupid. So, I got inspired last night to rewrite with a fresh approach. My new method is a little more complex, but I think a little more sane: every object which needs to be sorted by depth in the game exposes the interface IDepthDrawable and is added to a list owned by the DepthDrawer object. IDepthDrawable contains: public interface IDepthDrawable { Rectangle Bounds { get; } //possibly change this to a class if struct copying of the xna Rectangle type becomes an issue DepthDrawShape DepthShape { get; } void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch); } The Bounds Rectangle of each IDepthDrawable object represents the 2D Axis-Aligned Bounding Box it will take up when drawn to the screen. Anything that doesn't intersect the screen will be culled at this stage and the remaining on-screen IDepthDrawables will be Bounds tested for intersections with each other. This is where I get a little less sure of what I'm doing. Each group of collisions will be added to a list or other collection, and each list will sort itself based on its DepthShape property, which will have access to the object-to-be-drawn's physics information. For starting out, lets assume everything in the game is an axis aligned 3D Box shape. Boxes are pretty easy to sort. Something like: if (depthShape1.Back > depthShape2.Front) //if depthShape1 is in front of depthShape2. //depthShape1 goes on top. else if (depthShape1.Bottom > depthShape2.Top) //if depthShape1 is above depthShape2. //depthShape1 goes on top. //if neither of these are true, depthShape2 must be in front or above. So, by sorting draw order by several different factors from the physics engine, I believe I can get a really correct draw order. My question is, is this a good way of going about this, or is there some tried and true, tested way which is completely different and has somehow completely eluded me on the internets? And, if this does seem like a good way to remake my draw order sorting, what's the right sorting algorithm for reordering the Bounds Rectangle collision lists, and how do you deal with a Bounds Rectangle colliding with two different object which don't collide with eachother. I know these are solved problems, but I've only been programming for a year so any specific input here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading this far, ye who made it -- sorry it was so long!

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• Two Candidates + One Job = Two Different Outcomes

  - by david.talamelli

  Recruiters have always headhunted (sidenote: I do not like this word, in general I think the type of people who use the phrase “headhunting” are the ones who are trying to sound more important than what they likely are). Any serious Recruiter engages in direct recruiting activity, it is part and parcel of the business it is not something unique. With the uptake in Social Media the past 4-5 years, we have seen an increase in the number of Recruiters proactively reaching out to people about job opportunities. We have also seen this activity increase across all levels of hire, from help desk roles to C-Level Executives. While getting approached about a role can be a nice boost to a person’s ego, do not let it give you an inflated sense of entitlement. It is The way that people handle themselves during these calls and subsequent interviews will have a large impact on their potential to land that job. Last week I spoke to two very different candidates, both about the same position and both with very different outcomes. On paper, Candidate #1 looked fantastic; they ticked many of the boxes that we were looking for. The person is working at global IT company and working in a similar role as the one we were hiring for but not in as senior as the role we had. This role would have been the perfect step to getting involved in more complex work for the person. Candidate #2 had less polished IT experience, ticked some of the boxes we were looking for and on paper in comparison to Candidate #1 was not as close a fit as Candidate #1 was. It seemed like I was comparing apples and oranges. After speaking to both candidates it turns out I was comparing apples and oranges except the person better suited for our role was not the one I was expecting it would be. The first candidate on paper looked great – they had the experience we were looking for and appeared to be just right for the role, but after talking to them, they gave me the impression that they thought the world owed them. The impression I was left with was that they did not equate success with hard work, they seemed more interested in “what is in it for me”. Rather than having a proper conversation with me, I was often cut off and asked to hurry it up when explaining our business, what we are doing, etc... . This person seemed more interested in the job title and money than how rather than think about ways to make the role successful. Candidate #2 who had limited experience, made up for any perceived lack of experience and them some with a demonstrated motivation to succeed and do the things needed to make that happen. Candidate #2 made a great first impression, they did not seem afraid of hard work and demonstrated a “team player” attitude. In talking to them they kept me engaged, listened and asked thoughtful questions that made me think this is the type of person who creates their own luck and who would thrive in a place like Oracle. Skills, capabilities, experience and a good resume can certainly get your foot in the door, but the wrong attitude or approach to work can close those opportunities just as easily. On the other hand, hard work, effort and a genuine work ethic may help open those doors that would otherwise closed for you. A resume with all the credentials gets you in the front door but that is just the beginning of the process. It is not how we start the race that is important, it’s how things end that matter most.

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