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• After upgrade: what's this envelope systray icon, and how do I get rid of it?

  - by David

  I've just upgraded from 13.04 to 13.10 and everything seems to be running fine. I have a couple new icons in my systray, though, and one of them -- the envelope icon -- is a mystery to me: It looks like a chat notifier (clicking it gives "Available", "Away", "Busy", etc., indicators) but I don't use Pidgin (never have), or it could be an email indicator but I don't use Thunderbird (never have). There's nothing else I can see (left- or right-clicking) that identifies it. I'd like to get rid of it, but "Startup applications" only lists the ones I have optionally added, and this is not among them. Any help appreciated!

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• Is there any advantage in using DX10/11 for a 2D game?

  - by David Gouveia

  I'm not entirely familiar with the feature set introduced by DX10/11 class hardware. I'm vaguely familiar with the new stages added to the programmable graphics pipeline, such as the geometry shader, the compute shader, and the new tesselation stages. I don't see how any of these make much of a difference for a 2D game though. Is there any compelling reason to make the switch to DX10/11 (or the OpenGL equivalents) for a 2D game, or would it be wiser to stick with DX9 considering that that a significant share of the market still runs on older technologies (e.g. the February 2012 Steam surveys lists around 17% of users as still using Windows XP)?

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• Is there any way to adjust the width of taskbar items on Gnome desktop?

  - by David Thomas

  Is there any way in which the width of items on the taskbar (or, rather, the lower panel) of the Gnome (2.32.0) desktop (Ubuntu 10.10) can be adjusted to take a more sensible width? While I can see the icons of the applications they represent, they seem a little over-compressed, given the width of the desktop/monitor resolution (1900 x 1080): Click the image, or this link, for a full-sized (1920x169, 169.7KB) graphic.

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• Oracle OpenWorld Call for MDM Papers

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  As the MDM Track owner, I would like to invite everyone to respond to the Oracle OpenWorld (October 2-6, Moscone Center, San Francisco) Call for Papers (https://oracleus.wingateweb.com/portal/cfp/ ). The Call for Papers is open now through Sunday, March 27. This is an outstanding opportunity for organizations familiar with MDM to tell their story to a very large, knowledgeable and intensely interested community. Opportunities for feedback and networking abound.  I would love to see MDM papers on: business drivers; business benefits; quantified ROI stories; business process optimization; implementation styles; implementation lessons learned; using master data as a service; data governance best practices; end-to-end data quality experiences; support for SOA; Chart of Accounts issues fixed; how to leverage reference data; improving EPM and/or BI across the board; operationalizing a data warehouse; support for cloud computing; compliance success stories; architecture, scalability, and mixed workload RAC platform performance examples; industry specific value propositions (Financial Services; Retail, Telecom; Manufacturing, High Tech Manufacturing, Public Sector, Health Care, …); and line of business specific value propositions (CRM, ERP, PLM, SCM, …); etc. In fact, given that MDM positively impacts all areas of operations and analytics, there are no limits to the ideas you may have for an OpenWorld presentation. When you follow the submission process, be sure to use “Master Data Management” for either the Primary or Optional track. Add “Master Data Management” as an Optional track if you are adding MDM content to a presentation on one of the following tracks: Agile; Customer Relationship Management, Oracle E-Business Suite, Product Lifecycle Management, Siebel, Sourcing and Procurement, Supply Chain Management, or one of the 18 available industry tracks. If Cloud Computing is included, please add “Cloud Computing” as a Cross-Stream Track. And don’t forget to make “MDM” a Tag, along with Business Intelligence, Cloud, CRM, Data Integration, Data Migration, Data Warehousing, EPM, or Service-Oriented Architecture whenever your content includes these items. I will personally review each submission. I hope you all keep me very busy over the next few weeks.

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• Using MVC with a retained mode renderer

  - by David Gouveia

  I am using a retained mode renderer similar to the display lists in Flash. In other words, I have a scene graph data structure called the Stage to which I add the graphical primitives I would like to see rendered, such as images, animations, text. For simplicity I'll refer to them as Sprites. Now I'm implementing an architecture which is becoming very similar to MVC, but I feel that that instead of having to create View classes, that the sprites already behave pretty much like Views (except for not being explicitly connected to the Model). And since the Model is only changed through the Controller, I could simply update the view together with the Model in the controller, as in the example below: Example 1 class Controller { Model model; Sprite view; void TeleportTo(Vector2 position) { model.Position = view.Position = position; } } The alternative, I think, would be to create View classes that wrap the sprites, make the model observable, and make the view react to changes on the model. This seems like a lot of extra work and boilerplate code, and I'm not seeing the benefits if I'm just going to have one view per controller. Example 2 class Controller { Model model; View view; void TeleportTo(Vector2 position) { model.Position = position; } } class View { Model model; Sprite sprite; View() { model.PropertyChanged += UpdateView; } void UpdateView() { sprite.Position = model.Position; } } So, how is MVC or more specifically, the View, usually implemented when using a retained-mode renderer? And is there any reason why I shouldn't stick with example 1?

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• The Iron Bird Approach

  - by David Paquette

  It turns out that designing software is not so different than designing commercial aircraft.  I just finished watching a video that talked about the approach that Bombardier is taking in designing the new C Series aircraft.  I was struck by the similarities to agile approaches to software design.  In the video, Bombardier describes how they are using an Iron Bird to work through a number of design questions in advance of ever having a version of the aircraft that can ever be flown.  The Iron Bird is a life size replica of the plane.  Based on the name, I would assume the plane is built in a very heavy material that could never fly.  Using this replica, Bombardier is able to valid certain assumptions such as the length of each wire in the electric system.  They are also able to confirm that some parts are working properly (like the rudders).  They even go as far as to have a complete replica of the cockpit.  This allows Bombardier to put pilots in the cockpit to run through simulated take-off and landing sequences. The basic tenant of the approach seems to be Validate your design early with working prototypes Get feedback from users early, well in advance of finishing the end product   In software development, we tend to think of ourselves as special.  I often tell people that it is difficult to draw comparisons to building items in the physical world (“Building software is nothing like building a sky scraper”).  After watching this video, I am wondering if designing/building software is actually a lot like designing/building commercial aircraft.   Watch the video here (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/video/video-selling-the-c-series/article4400616/)

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• Isometric algorithm producing tiles in wrong draw order

  - by David

  I've been toying with isometric and I just cant get the tiles to be in the right order. I'm probably missing something obvious and I just can't see it. Even at the risk of looking stupid, here's my code: for (int i = 0; i < Tile.MapSize; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < Tile.MapSize; j++) { spriteBatch.Draw( Tile.TileSetTexture, new Rectangle( (-j * Tile.TileWidth / 2) + (i * Tile.TileWidth / 2), (i * (Tile.TileHeight - 9) / 2) - (-j * (Tile.TileHeight - 9) / 2), Tile.TileWidth, Tile.TileHeight), Tile.GetSourceRectangle(tileID), Color.White, 0.0f, new Vector2(-350, -60), SpriteEffects.None, 1.0f); } } And here's what I end up with: messed up map Yep, bit of an issue. If anyone could help, I'd appreciate it.

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• A Comparison of Store Layouts

  - by David Dorf

  Belus Capital Advisors is an independent stock market research firm that sometimes rolls up its sleeves and walks retail stores.  This month Brian Sozzi walked both Macy's and Sears and snapped pictures along the way.  The results are a good lesson in what to do and what not to do in retail.  The dichotomy between the two brands is stark, and Brian's pictures tell the stories of artistry and neglect.  For example, look at these two pictures: Where do you want to shop for sneakers?  The left picture shows the Finish Line store within Macy's and the right shows empty shelves at Sears.  The pictures really show the importance of assortments, in-stock inventory, and presentation.  Take a look at the two stories, and pay particular attention to the pictures of Sears. 19 Photos that Show the New Magic of Macy’s Sears is Vanishing from our Minds, the Shocking 18 Photos That Show Why

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• Stuff I learned at Innovate 2011

  - by David Dorf

  After returning from the NRF Innovate 2011 conference, I picked up few nuggets I thought I'd share here.  These thoughts are a bit random, but I hope they're useful nonetheless.Kevin Kelly opened the conference with six verbs that represent the future.  They were Screening, Interacting, Sharing, Accessing, Flowing, and Generating.  It struck me that these are all ways in which we merge the digital and physical worlds.  The internet of things continues to gain momentum.Some buzzwords:  deal economy, subscription commerce, discovery (instead of search), curationThat last one, curation, came up over and over.  Retailers, especially those in fashion, are finding value in helping their customers organize and present their own collections.  Social media has made sharing such collections easy, and mobile lets them take those ideas into the stores.  Mannequins are becoming less relevant.I heard from both HauteLook and Gilt Groupe (flash sale retailers) that a large percentage of their visits come from mobile devices, and most of those are iOS devices.  I find it interesting that even though Android has passed iPhone in units shipped (and will eventually pass iOS as a whole), its still the Apple crowd that leads the way.RadioShack mentioned their Holiday Heroes campaigned was very successful.  They asked their Foursquare users to check-in at a gym, coffee shop, and transportation hub as part of being a hero.  For this feat, customers were awarded a special badge that was worth 20% off at their next store visit. They claim a 3.5x increase in ticket size vs. regular check-in customers, and a 5x increase vs those that don't check-in at all.I also learned of RadioShack's #28 campaign, which is apparently one of the largest Twitter trends ever.  Their partnership with LIVESTRONG has gotten them followers, impressions, and credit for supporting the fight against cancer.The guys at Invodo showed the importance of video to e-commerce.  They gave compelling examples of how video can show customers the value of products better than just words.The highlight of the show was Guy Kawasaki's talk on innovation, which was not only informative but also peppered with humor and personality.  Back in the early days of the internet boom, Guy turned down the CEO position at Yahoo! because the commute was too long.  By his calculation, that was a $2B mistake.There are other good accounts of the conference at the NRF Blog.

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• Virtual Grocery Store

  - by David Dorf

  Because South Korean's are so busy, Tesco decided that its Homeplus grocery chain should offer a virtual alternative in subways.  As you can see in the video below, shoppers passing through a subway station can see a virtual representation of the store and scan items with their mobile phones.  This builds a shopping list which is delivered to their homes later that day. This is a very cool example of leveraging technology to offer a shopping experience that's different from bricks and clicks.

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• ODI 11g – Faster Files

  - by David Allan

  Deep in the trenches of ODI development I raised my head above the parapet to read a few odds and ends and then think why don’t they know this? Such as this article here – in the past customers (see forum) were told to use a staging route which has a big overhead for large files. This KM is an example of the great extensibility capabilities of ODI, its quite simple, just a new KM that; improves the out of the box experience – just build the mapping and the appropriate KM is used improves out of the box performance for file to file data movement. This improvement for out of the box handling for File to File data integration cases (from the 11.1.1.5.2 companion CD and on) dramatically speeds up the file integration handling. In the past I had seem some consultants write perl versions of the file to file integration case, now Oracle ships this KM to fill the gap. You can find the documentation for the IKM here. The KM uses pure java to perform the integration, using java.io classes to read and write the file in a pipe – it uses java threading in order to super-charge the file processing, and can process several source files at once when the datastore's resource name contains a wildcard. This is a big step for regular file processing on the way to super-charging big data files using Hadoop – the KM works with the lightweight agent and regular filesystems. So in my design below transforming a bunch of files, by default the IKM File to File (Java) knowledge module was assigned. I pointed the KM at my JDK (since the KM generates and compiles java), and I also increased the thread count to 2, to take advantage of my 2 processors. For my illustration I transformed (can also filter if desired) and moved about 1.3Gb with 2 threads in 140 seconds (with a single thread it took 220 seconds) - by no means was this on any super computer by the way. The great thing here is that it worked well out of the box from the design to the execution without any funky configuration, plus, and a big plus it was much faster than before, So if you are doing any file to file transformations, check it out!

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• Has anyone got the Mist engine to work on gtk3? [closed]

  - by David

  Possible Duplicate: What GTK+ 3 engines are available? I've just upgraded my xubuntu installation to Precise and run into gtk3 theme problems - my theme based on the Mist engine doesn't work for gtk3 apps. There's a package gtk3-engines in the GNOME PPA that includes Mist, has anyone got this to work? It has a themes/Mist/gtk3.0 folder with a gtkrc file but it doesn't seem to work for me. Even if someone just has an idea where I could find more help on this I'd be grateful (is there even any documentation on making themes in gtk3?)

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• Restoring MSDB

  - by David-Betteridge

  We recently performed a disaster recovery exercise which included the restoration of the MSDB database onto our DR server.  I did a quick google to see if there were any special considerations and found the following MS article.  Considerations for Restoring the model and msdb Databases (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190749(v=sql.105).aspx).   It said both the original and replacement servers must be on the same version,  I double-checked and in my case they are both SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 (10.50.2500).. So I went ahead and stopped SQL Server agent, restored the database and restarted the agent.  Checked the jobs and they were all there, everything looked great, and was until the server was rebooted a few days later.Then the syspolicy_purge_history job started failing on the 3rd step with the error message “Unable to start execution of step 3 (reason: The PowerShell subsystem failed to load [see the SQLAGENT.OUT file for details]; The job has been suspended). The step failed.”   A bit more googling pointed me to the msdb.dbo.syssubsystems table SELECT * FROM msdb.dbo.syssubsystems WHERE start_entry_point ='PowerShellStart'   And in particular the value for the subsystem_dll. It still had the path to the SQLPOWERSHELLSS.DLL but on the old server. The DR instance has a different name to the live instance and so the paths are different.   This was quickly fixed with the following SQL Use msdb; GO sp_configure 'allow updates', 1 ; RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE ; GO UPDATE msdb.dbo.syssubsystems SET subsystem_dll='C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.DR\MSSQL\binn\SQLPOWERSHELLSS.DLL' WHERE start_entry_point ='PowerShellStart'; GO sp_configure 'allow updates', 0; RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE ; GO Stopped and started SQL Server agent and now the job completes.   I then wondered if anything else might be broken, SELECT subsystem_dll FROM msdb.dbo.syssubsystems Shows a further 10 wrong paths – fortunately for parts of SQL (replication, SSIS etc) we aren’t using! Lessons Learnt 1.       DR exercises are a good thing! 2.       Keep the Live and DR environments as similar as possible.    

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• How can I make a browser trust my SSL certificate when I request resources from an external server?

  - by William David Edwards

  I have installed an SSL certificate on one of my domains and it works perfectly, but on some pages I include a Google Font, which causes my certificate icon to change in: instead of: The reason, according to Google Chrome (translated with Google Translate): Your connection to xxxxxx is encrypted with 128-bit encryption. This page includes other resources which are not secure. These resources can be viewed by others while in transit and can be modified to fit. So how can I make the browser 'trust' my SSL certificate, even though I request an external resource from Google Fonts? And also, does it matter that I use links like these: <link rel='stylesheet' id='et-shortcodes-css-css' href='https://xxxxxx/wp-content/themes/Divi/epanel/shortcodes/css/shortcodes.css?ver=3.0' type='text/css' media='all' /> instead of <link rel='stylesheet' id='et-shortcodes-css-css' href='wp-content/themes/Divi/epanel/shortcodes/css/shortcodes.css?ver=3.0' type='text/css' media='all' /> Thanks!

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• How to force user to use subdomain?

  - by David Stockinger

  I am hosting a webshop with OpenCart and its current URL is e.g. http://mydomain.com/shop/ I have created two subdomains ( http://pg.mydomain.com/ and http://shop.mydomain.com/ ) and both subdomains are already working as they should. However, can I restrict direct access to mydomain.com/shop/ while leaving all the files (index.php, etc.) there? Since both subdomains are pointing to http://mydomain.com/shop/, I thought this would restrict all access. So in the end, I would like my two shops to be accessable through http://pg.mydomain.com/ and http://shop.mydomain.com/, but not http://mydomain.com/shop/ while leaving all the files in http://mydomain.com/shop/.

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• Software cost estimation

  - by David Conde

  I've seen on my work place (a University) most students making the software estimation cost of their final diploma work using COCOMO. My guessing is that this way of estimating costs is somewhat old (COCOMO dates of 1981), hence my question: How do you estimate costs in your software? I've seen things like : Cost = ( HoursOfWork + EstimatedIddle ) * HourlyRate That's not what I want, I'm looking for a properly (scientifically) defined cost model EDIT I've found some related questions on SO: What are some of the software cost estimation methods and models? How do you estimate the cost of developing software requirements?

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• What do you use to bundle / encrypt data?

  - by David McGraw

  More and more games are going the data driven route which means that there needs to be a layer of security around easy manipulation. I've seen it where games completely bundle up their assets (audio, art, data) and I'm wondering how they are managing that? Are there applications / libraries that will bundle and assist you with managing the assets within? If not is there any good resources that you would point to for packing / unpacking / encryption? This specific question revolves around C++, but I would be open to hear how this is managed in C#/XNA as well. Just to be clear -- I'm not out to engineer a solution to prevent hacking. At the fundamental level we're all manipulating 0's and 1's. But, we do want to keep the 99% of people that play the game from simply modifying XML files that are used to build the game world. I've seen plenty of games bundle all of their resources together. I'm simply curious about the methods they're using.

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• Can I migrate a clone of Google Code repository into Github?

  - by David Conde

  I want to create a clone of a Google Code repository, which I cannot download due to Country restrictions and I want to migrate that clone into Github, which I can use without any problem. The thing is I have a Github account and I can browse through GoogleCode but I cannot take my TortoiseHg and clone a repo just like that because I'm from Cuba and I get a lovely Google page saying that I cannot go into Google code. I'm guessing you know how I manage to browse :) I would like to import a mercurial repository into my Github repo, my questions: Is it possible? How can I do it?

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• ODI 11g - Faster Files

  - by David Allan

  Deep in the trenches of ODI development I raised my head above the parapet to read a few odds and ends and then think why don’t they know this? Such as this article here – in the past customers (see forum) were told to use a staging route which has a big overhead for large files. This KM is an example of the great extensibility capabilities of ODI, its quite simple, just a new KM that; improves the out of the box experience – just build the mapping and the appropriate KM is used improves out of the box performance for file to file data movement. This improvement for out of the box handling for File to File data integration cases (from the 11.1.1.5.2 companion CD and on) dramatically speeds up the file integration handling. In the past I had seem some consultants write perl versions of the file to file integration case, now Oracle ships this KM to fill the gap. You can find the documentation for the IKM here. The KM uses pure java to perform the integration, using java.io classes to read and write the file in a pipe – it uses java threading in order to super-charge the file processing, and can process several source files at once when the datastore's resource name contains a wildcard. This is a big step for regular file processing on the way to super-charging big data files using Hadoop – the KM works with the lightweight agent and regular filesystems. So in my design below transforming a bunch of files, by default the IKM File to File (Java) knowledge module was assigned. I pointed the KM at my JDK (since the KM generates and compiles java), and I also increased the thread count to 2, to take advantage of my 2 processors. For my illustration I transformed (can also filter if desired) and moved about 1.3Gb with 2 threads in 140 seconds (with a single thread it took 220 seconds) - by no means was this on any super computer by the way. The great thing here is that it worked well out of the box from the design to the execution without any funky configuration, plus, and a big plus it was much faster than before, So if you are doing any file to file transformations, check it out!

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• The actual difference between styesheet in the header and a seperate file

  - by David Knight

  Am wondering if someone can give me an opinion on this. I have always been taught to have all of the CSS in a separate file that is referenced from the head of the page. Reading this article http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1792 the author is talking about making the Guardian website responsive. One of the things he notes they did to make the site faster and more resilient is to add the CSS inline into the header, thus reducing HTTP requests. Now this got me thinking about the right/best/fastest way of using the CSS If you have one main CSS file, its going to be called and read by the site on every page, no mater how big it is. So with that in mind, Im actually starting to think its better to just inline the whole style sheet and remove one HTTP roundtrip. I know for the purposes of neatness and being able to edit the file a seperate file is better. But which would you recommend and which do you think is faster? Thanks!

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• Designing Videogame Character Parodies [duplicate]

  - by David Dimalanta

  This question already has an answer here: Is it legal to add a cameo appearance of a known video game character in my game? 2 answers Was it okay to make a playable character when making a videogame despite its resemblance? For example, I'm making a 3rd-person action-platform genre and I have to make a character design resembling like Megaman but not exactly the same as him since there is little alternate in color, details, and facial features.

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• Precise Touch Screen Dragging Issue: Trouble Aligning with the Finger due to Different Screen Resolution

  - by David Dimalanta

  Please, I need your help. I'm trying to make a game that will drag-n-drop a sprite/image while my finger follows precisely with the image without being offset. When I'm trying on a 900x1280 (in X [900] and Y [1280]) screen resolution of the Google Nexus 7 tablet, it follows precisely. However, if I try testing on a phone smaller than 900x1280, my finger and the image won't aligned properly and correctly except it still dragging. This is the code I used for making a sprite dragging with my finger under touchDragged(): x = ((screenX + Gdx.input.getX())/2) - (fruit.width/2); y = ((camera_2.viewportHeight * multiplier) - ((screenY + Gdx.input.getY())/2) - (fruit.width/2)); This code above will make the finger and the image/sprite stays together in place while dragging but only works on 900x1280. You'll be wondering there's camera_2.viewportHeight in my code. Here are for two reasons: to prevent inverted drag (e.g. when you swipe with your finger downwards, the sprite moves upward instead) and baseline for reading coordinate...I think. Now when I'm adding another orthographic camera named camera_1 and changing its setting, I recently used it for adjusting the falling object by meter per pixel. Also, it seems effective independently for smartphones that has smaller resolution and this is what I used here: show() camera_1 = new OrthographicCamera(); camera_1.viewportHeight = 280; // --> I set it to a smaller view port height so that the object would fall faster, decreasing the chance of drag force. camera_1.viewportWidth = 196; // --> Make it proportion to the original screen view size as possible. camera_1.position.set(camera_1.viewportWidth * 0.5f, camera_1.viewportHeight * 0.5f, 0f); camera_1.update(); touchDragged() x = ((screenX + (camera_1.viewportWidth/Gdx.input.getX()))/2) - (fruit.width/2); y = ((camera_1.viewportHeight * multiplier) - ((screenY + (camera_1.viewportHeight/Gdx.input.getY()))/2) - (fruit.width/2)); But the result instead of just following the image/sprite closely to my finger, it still has a space/gap between the sprite/image and the finger. It is possibly dependent on coordinates based on the screen resolution. I'm trying to drag the blueberry sprite with my finger. My expectation did not met since I want my finger and the sprite/image (blueberry) to stay close together while dragging until I release it. Here's what it looks like: I got to figure it out how to make independent on all screen sizes by just following the image/sprite closely to my finger while dragging even on most different screen sizes instead.

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• Projects to learn web development

  - by David McDavidson

  I'm trying to get a job as a web developer, but the great majority of jobs offers requires previous experience and a portfolio to prove you've got the required skills. Unfortunately I don't have any real experience or anything to show. The best way to learn is to try and tackle real world problems, so I'd like to know what would be some nice projects to learn stuff and that will look good in a portfolio?

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• How exactly does XNA's SpriteBatch work?

  - by David Gouveia

  To be more precise, if I needed to recreate this functionality from scratch in another API (e.g. in OpenGL) what would it need to be capable of doing? I do have a general idea of some of the steps, such as how it prepares an orthographic projection matrix and creates a quad for each draw call. I'm not too familiar, however, with the batching process itself. Are all quads stored in the same vertex buffer? Does it need an index buffer? How are different textures handled? If possible I'd be grateful if you could guide me through the process from when SpriteBatch.Begin() is called until SpriteBatch.End(), at least when using the default Deferred mode.

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• Think before you animate

  - by David Paquette

  Animations are becoming more and more common in our applications.  With technologies like WPF, Silverlight and jQuery, animations are becoming easier for developers to use (and abuse).  When used properly, animation can augment the user experience.  When used improperly, animation can degrade the user experience.  Sometimes, the differences can be very subtle. I have recently made use of animations in a few projects and I very quickly realized how easy it is to abuse animation techniques.  Here are a few things I have learned along the way. 1) Don’t animate for the sake of animating We’ve all seen the PowerPoint slides with annoying slide transitions that animate 20 different ways.  It’s distracting and tacky.  The same holds true for your application.  While animations are fun and becoming easy to implement, resist the urge to use the technology just because you think the technology is amazing.   2) Animations should (and do) have meaning I recently built a simple Windows Phone 7 (WP7) application, Steeped (download it here).  The application has 2 pages.  The first page lists a number of tea types.  When the user taps on one of the tea types, the application navigates to the second page with information about that tea type and some options for the user to choose from.       One of the last things I did before submitting Steeped to the marketplace was add a page transition between the 2 pages.  I choose the Slide / Fade Out transition.  When the user selects a tea type, the main page slides to the left and fades out.  At the same time, the details page slides in from the right and fades in.  I tested it and thought it looked great so I submitted the app.  A few days later, I asked a friend to try the app.  He selected a tea type, and I was a little surprised by how he used the app.  When he wanted to navigate back to the main page, instead of pressing the back button on the phone, he tried to use a swiping gesture.  Of course, the swiping gesture did nothing because I had not implemented that feature.  After thinking about it for a while, I realized that the page transition I had chosen implied a particular behaviour.  As a user, if an action I perform causes an item (in this case the page) to move, then my expectation is that I should be able to move it back.  I have since added logic to handle the swipe gesture and I think the app flows much better now. When using animation, it pays to ask yourself:  What story does this animation tell my users?   3) Watch the replay Some animations might seem great initially but can get annoying over time.  When you use an animation in your application, make sure you try using it over and over again to make sure it doesn’t get annoying.  When I add an animation, I try watch it at least 25 times in a row.  After watching the animation repeatedly, I can make a more informed decision whether or not I should keep the animation.  Often, I end up shortening the length of the animations.   4) Don’t get in the users way An animation should never slow the user down.  When implemented properly, an animation can give a perceived bump in performance.  A good example of this is a the page transitions in most of the built in apps on WP7.  Obviously, these page animations don’t make the phone any faster, but they do provide a more responsive user experience.  Why?  Because most of the animations begin as soon as the user has performed some action.  The destination page might not be fully loaded yet, but the system responded immediately to user action, giving the impression that the system is more responsive.  If the user did not see anything happen until after the destination page was fully loaded, the application would feel clumsy and slow.  Also, it is important to make sure the animation does not degrade the performance (or perceived performance) of the application.   Jut a few things to consider when using animations.  As is the case with many technologies, we often learn how to misuse it before we learn how to use it effectively.

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