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  • Seizing the Moment with Mobility

    - by Kathryn Perry
    A guest post by Hernan Capdevila, Vice President, Oracle Fusion Apps Mobile devices are forcing a paradigm shift in the workplace – they’re changing the way businesses can do business and the type of cultures they can nurture. As our customers talk about their mobile needs, we hear them saying they want instant-on access to enterprise data so workers can be more effective at their jobs anywhere, anytime. They also are interested in being more cost effective from an IT point of view. The mobile revolution – with the idea of BYOD (bring your own device) – has added an interesting dynamic because previously IT was driving the employee device strategy and ecosystem. That's been turned on its head with the consumerization of IT. Now employees are figuring out how to use their personal devices for work purposes and IT has to figure out how to adapt. Blurring the Lines between Work and Personal Life My vision of where businesses will be five years from now is that our work lives and personal lives will be more interwoven together. In turn, enterprises will have to determine how to make employees’ work lives fit more into the fabric of their personal lives. And personal devices like smartphones are going to drive significant business value because they let us accomplish things very incrementally. I can be sitting on a train or in a taxi and be productive. At the end of any meeting, I can capture ideas and tasks or follow up with people in real time. Mobile devices enable this notion of seizing the moment – capitalizing on opportunities that might otherwise have slipped away because we're not connected. For the industry shapers out there, this is game changing. The lean and agile workforce is definitely the future. This notion of the board sitting down with the executive team to lay out strategic objectives for a three- to five-year plan, bringing in HR to determine how they're going to staff the strategic activities, kicking off the execution, and then revisiting the plan in three to five years to create another three- to five-year plan is yesterday's model. Businesses that continue to approach innovating in that way are in the dinosaur age. Today it's about incremental planning and incremental execution, which requires a lot of cohesion and synthesis within the workforce. There needs to be this interweaving notion within the workforce about how ideas cascade down, how people engage, how they stay connected, and how insights are shared. How to Survive and Thrive in Today’s Marketplace The notion of Facebook isn’t new. We lived it pre-Internet days with America Online and Prodigy – Facebook is just the renaissance of these services in a more viral and pervasive way. And given the trajectory of the consumerization of IT with people bringing their personal tooling to work, the enterprise has no option but to adapt. The sooner that businesses realize this from a top-down point of view the sooner that they will be able to really drive significant innovation and adapt to the marketplace. There are a small number of companies right now (I think it's closer to 20% rather than 80%, but the number is expanding) that are able to really innovate in this incremental marketplace. So from a competitive point of view, there's no choice but to be social and stay connected. By far the majority of users on Facebook and LinkedIn are mobile users – people on iPhones, smartphones, Android phones, and tablets. It's not the couch people, right? It's the on-the-go people – those people at the coffee shops. Usually when you're sitting at your desk on a big desktop computer, typically you have better things to do than to be on Facebook. This is a topic I'm extremely passionate about because I think mobile devices are game changing. Mobility delivers significant value to businesses – it also brings dramatic simplification from a functional point of view and transforms our work life experience. Hernan CapdevilaVice President, Oracle Applications Development

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  • Introducing the First Global Web Experience Management Content Management System

    - by kellsey.ruppel
    By Calvin Scharffs, VP of Marketing and Product Development, Lingotek Globalizing online content is more important than ever. The total spending power of online consumers around the world is nearly $50 trillion, a recent Common Sense Advisory report found. Three years ago, enterprises would have to translate content into 37 language to reach 98 percent of Internet users. This year, it takes 48 languages to reach the same amount of users.  For companies seeking to increase global market share, “translate frequently and fast” is the name of the game. Today’s content is dynamic and ever-changing, covering the gamut from social media sites to company forums to press releases. With high-quality translation and localization, enterprises can tailor content to consumers around the world.  Speed and Efficiency in Translation When it comes to the “frequently and fast” part of the equation, enterprises run into problems. Professional service providers provide translated content in files, which company workers then have to manually insert into their CMS. When companies update or edit source documents, they have to hunt down all the translated content and change each document individually.  Lingotek and Oracle have solved the problem by making the Lingotek Collaborative Translation Platform fully integrated and interoperable with Oracle WebCenter Sites Web Experience Management. Lingotek combines best-in-class machine translation solutions, real-time community/crowd translation and professional translation to enable companies to publish globalized content in an efficient and cost-effective manner. WebCenter Sites Web Experience Management simplifies the creation and management of different types of content across multiple channels, including social media.  Globalization Without Interrupting the Workflow The combination of the Lingotek platform with WebCenter Sites ensures that process of authoring, publishing, targeting, optimizing and personalizing global Web content is automated, saving companies the time and effort of manually entering content. Users can seamlessly integrate translation into their WebCenter Sites workflows, optimizing their translation and localization across web, social and mobile channels in multiple languages. The original structure and formatting of all translated content is maintained, saving workers the time and effort involved with inserting the text translation and reformatting.  In addition, Lingotek’s continuous publication model addresses the dynamic nature of content, automatically updating the status of translated documents within the WebCenter Sites Workflow whenever users edit or update source documents. This enables users to sync translations in real time. The translation, localization, updating and publishing of Web Experience Management content happens in a single, uninterrupted workflow.  The net result of Lingotek Inside for Oracle WebCenter Sites Web Experience Management is a system that more than meets the need for frequent and fast global translation. Workflows are accelerated. The globalization of content becomes faster and more streamlined. Enterprises save time, cost and effort in translation project management, and can address the needs of each of their global markets in a timely and cost-effective manner.  About Lingotek Lingotek is an Oracle Gold Partner and is going to be one of the first Oracle Validated Integrator (OVI) partners with WebCenter Sites. Lingotek is also an OVI partner with Oracle WebCenter Content.  Watch a video about how Lingotek Inside for Oracle WebCenter Sites works! Oracle WebCenter will be hosting a webinar, “Hitachi Data Systems Improves Global Web Experiences with Oracle WebCenter," tomorrow, September 13th. To attend the webinar, please register now! For more information about Lingotek for Oracle WebCenter, please visit http://www.lingotek.com/oracle.

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  • Blink-Data vs Instinct?

    - by Samantha.Y. Ma
    In his landmark bestseller Blink, well-known author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell explores how human beings everyday make seemingly instantaneous choices --in the blink of an eye--and how we “think without thinking.”  These situations actually aren’t as simple as they seem, he postulates; and throughout the book, Gladwell seeks answers to questions such as: 1.    What makes some people good at thinking on their feet and making quick spontaneous decisions?2.    Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others consistently seem to stumble into error?3.    Why are some of the best decisions often those that are difficult to explain to others?In Blink, Gladwell introduces us to the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Ultimately, Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who spend the most time deliberating or analyzing information, but those who focus on key factors among an overwhelming number of variables-- i.e., those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing.” In Data vs. Instinct: Perfecting Global Sales Performance, a new report sponsored by Oracle, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) explores the roles data and instinct play in decision-making by sales managers and discusses how sales executives can increase sales performance through more effective  territory planning and incentive/compensation strategies.If you are a sales executive, ask yourself this:  “Do you rely on knowledge (data) when you plan out your sales strategy?  If you rely on data, how do you ensure that your data sources are reliable, up-to-date, and complete?  With the emergence of social media and the proliferation of both structured and unstructured data, how do you know that you are applying your information/data correctly and in-context?  Three key findings in the report are:•    Six out of ten executives say they rely more on data than instinct to drive decisions. •    Nearly one half (48 percent) of incentive compensation plans do not achieve the desired results. •    Senior sales executives rely more on current and historical data than on forecast data. Strikingly similar to what Gladwell concludes in Blink, the report’s authors succinctly sum up their findings: "The best outcome is a combination of timely information, insightful predictions, and support data."Applying this insight is crucial to creating a sound sales plan that drives alignment and results.  In the area of sales performance management, “territory programs and incentive compensation continue to present particularly complex challenges in an increasingly globalized market," say the report’s authors. "It behooves companies to get a better handle on translating that data into actionable and effective plans." To help solve this challenge, CRM Oracle Fusion integrates forecasting, quotas, compensation, and territories into a single system.   For example, Oracle Fusion CRM provides a natural integration between territories, which define the sales targets (e.g., collection of accounts) for the sales force, and quotas, which quantify the sales targets. In fact, territory hierarchy is a core analytic dimension to slice and dice sales results, using sales analytics and alerts to help you identify where problems are occurring. This makes territoriesStart tapping into both data and instinct effectively today with Oracle Fusion CRM.   Here is a short video to provide you with a snapshot of how it can help you optimize your sales performance.  

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  • Address Match Key Algorithm

    - by sestocker
    I have a list of addresses in two separate tables that are slightly off that I need to be able to match. For example, the same address can be entered in multiple ways: 110 Test St 110 Test St. 110 Test Street Although simple, you can imagine the situation in more complex scenerios. I am trying to develop a simple algorithm that will be able to match the above addresses as a key. For example. the key might be "11TEST" - first two of 110, first two of Test and first two of street variant. A full match key would also include first 5 of the zipcode as well so in the above example, the full key might look like "11TEST44680". I am looking for ideas for an effective algorithm or resources I can look at for considerations when developing this. Any ideas can be pseudo code or in your language of choice. We are only concerned with US addresses. In fact, we are only looking at addresses from 250 zip codes from Ohio and Michigan. We also do not have access to any postal software although would be open to ideas for cost effective solutions (it would essentially be a one time use). Please be mindful that this is an initial dump of data from a government source so suggestions of how users can clean it are helpful as I build out the application but I would love to have the best initial I possibly can by being able to match addresses as best as possible.

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  • wpf datagrid extra column in header on left

    - by sb
    I keep getting this button in the header, I can click on the button to select all rows. This misaligns the data from the header. Any ideas? Thanks in Advance. Datagrid image via link: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/CahvlINknhL5ykIW2zCfIw?feat=directlink <dg:DataGrid.Columns> <dg:DataGridTextColumn Header="Description" Width=".5*" Binding="{Binding Description}"> </dg:DataGridTextColumn> <dg:DataGridTextColumn Header="Type" Width="100" Binding="{Binding Type}"> </dg:DataGridTextColumn> <dg:DataGridTextColumn Header="Amount $" Width="100" Binding="{Binding Amount}"> </dg:DataGridTextColumn> <dg:DataGridTextColumn Header="Effective From Date" Width="100" Binding="{Binding EffectiveFromDate}" IsReadOnly="True"> </dg:DataGridTextColumn> <dg:DataGridTextColumn Header="Effective To Date" Width="100" Binding="{Binding EffectiveToDate}" IsReadOnly="True"> </dg:DataGridTextColumn> <dg:DataGridTextColumn Header="Status" Width="100" Binding="{Binding Status}"> </dg:DataGridTextColumn> </dg:DataGrid.Columns>

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  • Newbie database index question

    - by RenderIn
    I have a table with multiple indexes, several of which duplicate the same columns: Index 1 columns: X, B, C, D Index 2 columns: Y, B, C, D Index 3 columns: Z, B, C, D I'm not very knowledgeable on indexing in practice, so I'm wondering if somebody can explain why X, Y and Z were paired with these same columns. B is an effective date. C is a semi-unique key ID for this table for a specific effective date B. D is a sequence that identifies the priority of this record for the identifier C. Why not just create 6 indexes, one for each X, Y, Z, B, C, D? I want to add an index to another column T, but in some contexts I'll only be querying on T alone while in others I will also be specifying the B, C and D columns... so should I create just one index like above or should I create one for T and one for (T, B, C, D)? I've not had as much luck as expected when googling for comprehensive coverage of indexing. Any resources where I can get a through explanation and lots of examples of B-tree indexing?

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  • How to improve this piece of code

    - by user303518
    Can anyone help me on this. It may be very frustrating for you all. But I want you guys to take a moment to look at the code below and please tell me all the things that are wrong in the below piece of code. You can copy it into your visual studio to analyze this better. You don’t have to make this code compile. My task is to get the following things: Most obvious mistakes with this code All the things that are wrong/bad practices with the code below Modify/Write an optimized version of this code. Keep in mind, the code DOES NOT need to compile. Reduce the number of lines of code You should NEVER try to implement something like below: public List<ValidationErrorDto> ProcessEQuote(string eQuoteXml, long programUniversalID) { // Get Program Info. DataTable programs = GetAllPrograms(); DataRow[] programRows = programs.Select(string.Format("ProgramUniversalID = {0}", programUniversalID)); long programID = (long)programRows[0]["ProgramID"]; string programName = (string)programRows[0]["Description"]; // Get Config file values. string fromEmail = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["eQuotesFromEmail"]; string technicalSupportPhone = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TechnicalSupportPhone"]; string fromEmailDisplayName = string.IsNullOrEmpty(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["eQuotesFromDisplayName"]) ? null : string.Format(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["eQuotesFromDisplayName"], programName); string itEmail = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ITEmail"]) ? ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ITEmail"] : string.Empty; string itName = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ITName"]) ? ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ITName"] : "IT"; try { List<ValidationErrorDto> allValidationErrors = new List<ValidationErrorDto>(); List<ValidationErrorDto> validationErrors = new List<ValidationErrorDto>(); if (validationErrors.Count == 0) { validationErrors.AddRange(ValidateEQuoteXmlAgainstSchema(eQuoteXml)); if (validationErrors.Count == 0) { XmlDocument eQuoteXmlDoc = new XmlDocument(); eQuoteXmlDoc.LoadXml(eQuoteXml); XmlElement rootElement = eQuoteXmlDoc.DocumentElement; XmlNodeList quotesList = rootElement.SelectNodes("Quote"); foreach (XmlNode node in quotesList) { // Each node should be a quote node but to be safe, check if (node.Name == "Quote") { string groupName = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/GroupName").InnerText; string groupCity = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/GroupCity").InnerText; string groupPostalCode = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/GroupZipCode").InnerText; string groupSicCode = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/GroupSIC").InnerText; string generalAgencyLicenseNumber = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/GALicenseNbr").InnerText; string brokerName = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/BrokerName").InnerText; string deliverToEmailAddress = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/ReturnEmailAddress").InnerText; string brokerEmail = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/BrokerEmail").InnerText; string groupEligibleEmployeeCountString = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/GroupNbrEmployees").InnerText; string quoteEffectiveDateString = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/QuoteEffectiveDate").InnerText; string salesRepName = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/SalesRepName").InnerText; string salesRepPhone = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/SalesRepPhone").InnerText; string salesRepEmail = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/SalesRepEmail").InnerText; string brokerLicenseNumber = node.SelectSingleNode("Group/BrokerLicenseNbr").InnerText; DateTime? quoteEffectiveDate = null; int eligibleEmployeeCount = int.Parse(groupEligibleEmployeeCountString); DateTime quoteEffectiveDateOut; if (!DateTime.TryParse(quoteEffectiveDateString, out quoteEffectiveDateOut)) validationErrors.Add(ValidationHelper.CreateValidationError((long)QuoteField.EffectiveDate, "Quote Effective Date", ValidationErrorDto.ValueOutOfRange, false, ValidationHelper.CreateValidationContext(Entity.QuoteDetail, "Quote"))); else quoteEffectiveDate = quoteEffectiveDateOut; Dictionary<string, string> replacementCodeValues = new Dictionary<string, string>(); if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.ResourceManager.GetString("GroupName"))) throw new InvalidOperationException("GroupName key is not configured"); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.GroupName, groupName); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.ProgramName, programName); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.SalesRepName, salesRepName); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.SalesRepPhone, salesRepPhone); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.SalesRepEmail, salesRepEmail); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.TechnicalSupportPhone, technicalSupportPhone); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.EligibleEmployeCount, eligibleEmployeeCount.ToString()); // Retrieve the CityID and StateID long? cityID = null; long? stateID = null; DataSet citiesAndStates = Addresses.GetCitiesAndStatesFromPostalCode(groupPostalCode); DataTable cities = citiesAndStates.Tables[0]; DataTable states = citiesAndStates.Tables[1]; DataRow[] cityRows = cities.Select(string.Format("Name = '{0}'", groupCity)); if (cityRows.Length > 0) { cityID = (long)cityRows[0]["CityID"]; DataRow[] stateRows = states.Select(string.Format("CityID = {0}", cityID)); if (stateRows.Length > 0) stateID = (long)stateRows[0]["StateID"]; } // If the StateID does not exist, then we cannot get the GeneralAgency, so set a validation error and do not contine. // Else, Continue and look for an General Agency. If a GA was found, look for or create a Broker. Then look for or create a Prospect Group // Then using the info, create a quote. if (!stateID.HasValue) validationErrors.Add(ValidationHelper.CreateValidationError((long)ProspectGroupField.State, "Prospect Group State", ValidationErrorDto.RequiredFieldMissing, false, ValidationHelper.CreateValidationContext(Entity.ProspectGroup, "Prospect Group"))); bool brokerValidationError = false; SalesRepDto salesRep = GetSalesRepByEmail(salesRepEmail, ref validationErrors); if (salesRep == null) { string exceptionMessage = "Sales Rep Not found in Opportunity System. Please make sure Sales Rep is present in the system by adding the sales rep in AWP SR Add Screen." + Environment.NewLine; exceptionMessage = exceptionMessage + " Sales Rep Name: " + salesRepName + Environment.NewLine; exceptionMessage = exceptionMessage + " Sales Rep Email: " + salesRepEmail + Environment.NewLine; exceptionMessage = exceptionMessage + " Module : E-Quote Service" + Environment.NewLine; throw new Exception(exceptionMessage); } if (validationErrors.Count == 0) { // Note that StateID and EffectiveDate should be valid at this point. If it weren't there would be validation errors. // Find General Agency long? generalAgencyID; validationErrors.AddRange(GetEQuoteGeneralAgency(generalAgencyLicenseNumber, stateID.Value, out generalAgencyID)); // If GA was found, check for Broker. if (validationErrors.Count == 0 && generalAgencyID.HasValue) { Dictionary<string, string> brokerNameParts = ContactHelper.GetNamePartsFromFullName(brokerName); long? brokerID; validationErrors.AddRange(CreateEQuoteBroker(brokerNameParts["FirstName"], brokerNameParts["LastName"], brokerEmail, brokerLicenseNumber, stateID.Value, generalAgencyID.Value, salesRep, programID, out brokerID)); // If Broker was found but had validation errors if (validationErrors.Count > 0) { DeliverEmailMessage(programID, quoteEffectiveDate.Value, fromEmail, fromEmailDisplayName, itEmail, DocumentType.EQuoteBrokerValidationFailureMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); brokerValidationError = true; } // If Broker was found, check for Prospect Group if (validationErrors.Count == 0 && brokerID.HasValue) { long? prospectGroupID; validationErrors.AddRange(CreateEQuoteProspectGroup(groupName, cityID, stateID, groupPostalCode, groupSicCode, brokerID.Value, out prospectGroupID)); if (validationErrors.Count == 0 && prospectGroupID.HasValue) { if (validationErrors.Count == 0) { long? quoteID; validationErrors.AddRange(CreateEQuote(programID, prospectGroupID.Value, generalAgencyID.Value, quoteEffectiveDate.Value, eligibleEmployeeCount, deliverToEmailAddress, node.SelectNodes("Employees/Employee"), deliverToEmailAddress, out quoteID)); if (validationErrors.Count == 0 && quoteID.HasValue) { QuoteFromServiceDto quoteFromService = GetQuoteByQuoteID(quoteID.Value); // Generate Pre-Message replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.QuoteNumber, string.Format("{0}.{1}", quoteFromService.QuoteNumber, quoteFromService.QuoteVersion)); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name, brokerName); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.LicenseNumbers, brokerLicenseNumber); DeliverEmailMessage(programID, quoteEffectiveDate.Value, fromEmail, fromEmailDisplayName, deliverToEmailAddress, DocumentType.EQuotePreMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); bool quoteGenerated = false; try { quoteGenerated = GenerateAndDeliverInitialQuote(quoteID.Value); } catch (Exception exception) { TraceLogger.LogException(exception, LoggingCategory); if (replacementCodeValues.ContainsKey(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name)) replacementCodeValues[Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name] = itName; else replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name, itName); if (replacementCodeValues.ContainsKey(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors)) replacementCodeValues[Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors] = string.Format("Errors:\r\n:{0}", exception); else replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors, string.Format("Errors:\r\n:{0}", exception)); DeliverEmailMessage(programID, quoteEffectiveDate.Value, fromEmail, fromEmailDisplayName, itEmail, DocumentType.EQuoteSystemFailureMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); } if (!quoteGenerated) { // Generate System Failure Message if (replacementCodeValues.ContainsKey(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name)) replacementCodeValues[Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name] = brokerName; else replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name, brokerName); if (replacementCodeValues.ContainsKey(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors)) replacementCodeValues[Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors] = string.Empty; else replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors, string.Empty); DeliverEmailMessage(programID, quoteEffectiveDate.Value, fromEmail, fromEmailDisplayName, itEmail, DocumentType.EQuoteSystemFailureMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); } } } } } } } //if (validationErrors.Count > 0) // Per spec, if Broker Validation returned an error we already sent an email, don't send another generic one if (validationErrors.Count > 0 && (!brokerValidationError)) { StringBuilder errorString = new StringBuilder(); foreach (ValidationErrorDto validationError in validationErrors) errorString = errorString.AppendLine(string.Format(" - {0}", ValidationHelper.GetValidationErrorReason(validationError, true))); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors, errorString.ToString()); if (replacementCodeValues.ContainsKey(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name)) replacementCodeValues[Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name] = brokerName; else replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name, brokerName); // HACK: If there is no effective date, then use Today's date. Do we care about the effecitve dat on validation message? if (quoteEffectiveDate.HasValue) DeliverEmailMessage(programID, quoteEffectiveDate.Value, fromEmail, fromEmailDisplayName, itEmail, DocumentType.EQuoteValidationFailureMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); else DeliverEmailMessage(programID, DateTime.Now, fromEmail, fromEmailDisplayName, itEmail, DocumentType.EQuoteValidationFailureMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); } allValidationErrors.AddRange(validationErrors); validationErrors.Clear(); } } } else { // Use todays date as the effective date. Dictionary<string, string> replacementCodeValues = new Dictionary<string, string>(); StringBuilder errorString = new StringBuilder(); foreach (ValidationErrorDto validationError in validationErrors) errorString = errorString.AppendLine(string.Format(" - {0}", ValidationHelper.GetValidationErrorReason(validationError, true))); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors, string.Format("The following validation errors occurred: \r\n{0}", errorString)); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.ProgramName, programName); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.GroupName, "Group"); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name, itName); DeliverEmailMessage(programID, DateTime.Now, fromEmail, null, itEmail, DocumentType.EQuoteSystemFailureMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); allValidationErrors.AddRange(validationErrors); validationErrors.Clear(); } } return allValidationErrors; } catch (Exception exception) { TraceLogger.LogException(exception, LoggingCategory); // Use todays date as the effective date. Dictionary<string, string> replacementCodeValues = new Dictionary<string, string>(); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.ProgramName, programName); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.GroupName, "Group"); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Name, itName); replacementCodeValues.Add(Resources.ParameterMessageKeys.Errors, string.Format("Errors:\r\n:{0}", exception)); DeliverEmailMessage(programID, DateTime.Now, fromEmail, null, itEmail, DocumentType.EQuoteSystemFailureMessageEmail, replacementCodeValues); throw new FaultException(exception.ToString()); } }

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  • MYSQL not running on Ubuntu OS - Error 2002.

    - by mgj
    Hi, I am a novice to mysql DB. I am trying to run the MYSQL Server on Ubuntu 10.04. Through Synaptic Package Manager I am have installed the mysql version: mysql-client-5.1 I wonder that how was the database password set for the mysql-client software that I installed through the above way.It would be nice if you could enlighten me on this. When I tried running this database, I encountered the error given below: mohnish@mohnish-laptop:/var/lib$ mysql ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) mohnish@mohnish-laptop:/var/lib$ I referred to a similar question posted by another user. I didn't find a solution through the proposed answers. For instance when I tried the solutions posted for the similar question I got the following: mohnish@mohnish-laptop:/var/lib$ service start mysqld start: unrecognized service mohnish@mohnish-laptop:/var/lib$ ps -u mysql ERROR: User name does not exist. ********* simple selection ********* ********* selection by list ********* -A all processes -C by command name -N negate selection -G by real group ID (supports names) -a all w/ tty except session leaders -U by real user ID (supports names) -d all except session leaders -g by session OR by effective group name -e all processes -p by process ID T all processes on this terminal -s processes in the sessions given a all w/ tty, including other users -t by tty g OBSOLETE -- DO NOT USE -u by effective user ID (supports names) r only running processes U processes for specified users x processes w/o controlling ttys t by tty *********** output format ********** *********** long options *********** -o,o user-defined -f full --Group --User --pid --cols --ppid -j,j job control s signal --group --user --sid --rows --info -O,O preloaded -o v virtual memory --cumulative --format --deselect -l,l long u user-oriented --sort --tty --forest --version -F extra full X registers --heading --no-heading --context ********* misc options ********* -V,V show version L list format codes f ASCII art forest -m,m,-L,-T,H threads S children in sum -y change -l format -M,Z security data c true command name -c scheduling class -w,w wide output n numeric WCHAN,UID -H process hierarchy mohnish@mohnish-laptop:/var/lib$ which mysql /usr/bin/mysql mohnish@mohnish-laptop:/var/lib$ mysql ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) I even tried referring to http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?11,27769,84713#msg-84713 but couldn't find anything useful. Please let me know how I could tackle this error. Thank you very much..

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  • Qt Creator CONFIG (debug, release) switches does NOT work

    - by killdaclick
    Problem: CONFIG(debug,debug|release) and CONFIG(release,deubg|release) are always evaluated wherever debug or release is choosen in Qt Creator 2.8.1 for Linux. My configuration in Qt Creator application (stock - default for new project): Projects->Build Settings->Debug Build Steps: qmake build configuration: Debug Effective qmake call: qmake2 proj.pro -r -spec linux-gnueabi-oe-g++ CONFIG+=debug Projects->Build Settings->Release Build Steps: qmake build configuration: Release Effective qmake call: qmake2 proj.pro -r -spec linux-gnueabi-oe-g++ My configuration in proj.pro: message(Variable CONFIG:) message($$CONFIG) CONFIG(debug,debug|release) { message(Debug build) } CONFIG(release,debug|release) { message(Release build) } Output on console for Debug: Project MESSAGE: Variable CONFIG: Project MESSAGE: lex yacc warn_on debug uic resources warn_on release incremental link_prl no_mocdepend release stl qt_no_framework debug console Project MESSAGE: Debug build Project MESSAGE: Release build Output on console for Release: Project MESSAGE: Variable CONFIG: Project MESSAGE: lex yacc warn_on uic resources warn_on release incremental link_prl no_mocdepend release stl qt_no_framework console Project MESSAGE: Debug build Project MESSAGE: Release build Under Windows 7 I didnt experienced any problem with such .pro configuration and it worked fine. I was desperate and modified .pro file: CONFIG = test message(Variable CONFIG:) message($$CONFIG) CONFIG(debug,debug|release) { message(Debug build) } CONFIG(release,debug|release) { message(Release build) } and I was suprised with the output: Project MESSAGE: Variable CONFIG: Project MESSAGE: test Project MESSAGE: Debug build Project MESSAGE: Release build so even if I completly clean CONFIG variable it still see debug and release configuration. What Im doing wrong?

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  • Creation of Objects: Constructors or Static Factory Methods

    - by Rachel
    I am going through Effective Java and some of my things which I consider as standard are not suggested by the book, for instance creation of object, I was under the impression that constructors are the best way of doing it and books says we should make use of static factory methods, I am not able to few some advantages and so disadvantages and so am asking this question, here are the benefits of using it. Advantages: One advantage of static factory methods is that, unlike constructors, they have names. A second advantage of static factory methods is that, unlike constructors, they are not required to create a new object each time they’re invoked. A third advantage of static factory methods is that, unlike constructors, they can return an object of any subtype of their return type. A fourth advantage of static factory methods is that they reduce the verbosity of creating parameterized type instances. I am not able to understand this advantage and would appreciate if someone can explain this point Disadvantages: The main disadvantage of providing only static factory methods is that classes without public or protected constructors cannot be subclassed. A second disadvantage of static factory methods is that they are not readily distinguishable from other static methods.I am not getting this point and so would really appreciate some explanation. Reference: Effective Java, Joshua Bloch, Edition 2, pg: 5-10 Also, How to decide to use whether to go for Constructor or Static Factory Method for Object Creation ?

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  • complex regular expression task

    - by Don Don
    Hi, What regular expressions do I need to extract section title(s) in a text file? So, in the following sample text, I'd like to extract "Communication and Leadership" "1.Self-Knowledge" "2. Humility" "(3) Clear Thinking". Many thanks. Communication and Leadership True leaders understand that, rather than forcing their followers into a preconceived mold, their job is to motivate and organize followers to collectively accomplish goals that are in everyone's interests. The ability to communicate this to co-workers and followers is critical to the effectiveness of leadership. 1.Self-Knowledge Superior leaders are able to devote their skills and energies to leadership of a group because they have worked through personal issues to the point where they know themselves thoroughly. A high level of self-knowledge is a prerequisite to effective communication skills, because the things that you communicate as a leader are coming from within. 2. Humility This subversion of personal preference requires a certain level of humility. Although popular definitions of leaders do not always see them as humble, the most effective leaders actually are. This humility may not be expressed in self-effacement, but in a total commitment to the goals of the organization. Humility requires an understanding of one's own relative unimportance in comparison to larger systems. (3) Clear Thinking Clarity of thinking translates into clarity of communication. A leader whose goals or personal analysis is muddled will tend to deliver unclear or ambiguous directions to followers, leading to confusion and dissatisfaction. A leader with a clear mind who is not ambivalent about her purposes will communicate what needs to be done in a s traightforward and unmistakable manner.

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  • Comparing objects and inheritance

    - by ereOn
    Hi, In my program I have the following class hierarchy: class Base // Base is an abstract class { }; class A : public Base { }; class B : public Base { }; I would like to do the following: foo(const Base& one, const Base& two) { if (one == two) { // Do something } else { // Do something else } } I have issues regarding the operator==() here. Of course comparing an instance A and an instance of B makes no sense but comparing two instances of Base should be possible. (You can't compare a Dog and a Cat however you can compare two Animals) I would like the following results: A == B = false A == A = true or false, depending on the effective value of the two instances B == B = true or false, depending on the effective value of the two instances My question is: is this a good design/idea ? Is this even possible ? What functions should I write/overload ? My apologies if the question is obviously stupid or easy, I have some serious fever right now and my thinking abilities are somewhat limited :/ Thank you.

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  • How can I get a list of modified records from a SQL Server database?

    - by Pixelfish
    I am currently in the process of revamping my company's management system to run a little more lean in terms of network traffic. Right now I'm trying to figure out an effective way to query only the records that have been modified (by any user) since the last time I asked. When the application starts it loads the job information and caches it locally like the following: SELECT * FROM jobs. I am writing out the date/time a record was modified ala UPDATE jobs SET Widgets=@Widgets, LastModified=GetDate() WHERE JobID=@JobID. When any user requests the list of jobs I query all records that have been modified since the last time I requested the list like the following: SELECT * FROM jobs WHERE LastModified>=@LastRequested and store the date/time of the request to pass in as @LastRequest when the user asks again. In theory this will return only the records that have been modified since the last request. The issue I'm running into is when the user's date/time is not quite in sync with the server's date/time and also of server load when querying an un-indexed date/time column. Is there a more effective system then querying date/time information?

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  • Please help me with a Power shell Script which rearranges Paths.

    - by Hamish Grubijan
    Hi, I have both Sybase and MSFT SQL Servers installed. There is a time when Sybase interferes with MS SQL because they have they have some overlapping commands. So, I need two scripts: A) When runs, script A backs up the current path, grabs all paths that contain sybase or SYBASE or SyBASE (you get the point) in them and move them all at the very end of the path, while preserving the order. B) When it runs, script B restores the path from back-up. Both script a and script b should affect the path immediately. So, if a.bat that calls patha.ps1, pathb.ps1 looks like so: @REM Old path here call patha.ps1 @REM At this point the effective path should be different. call pathb.ps1 @REM Effective old path again Please let me know if this does not make sense. I am not sure if call command is the best one to use. I have never used P.S. before. I can try to formulate the same thing in Python (I know S.O. users tend to ask for "What have you tried so far"). Well, at this point I am VERY slow at writing anything in Power Shell language. Please help.

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  • Should Wordpress be used to create a real estate listing site?

    - by John
    I have a real estate agent client who wants a website to list the properties he's selling. Although there are great 3rd party web apps out there that do this, he adamantly demands that I recreate a simple and custom website for him. I can do this quickly with a php framework like Code Igniter that comes with MVC, data access objects and data bind controllers. The database would be straightforward: t_page: generic content pages t_property: for each property on the market, has fields like address, price, #of bed rooms etc.. However, the client has heard many great things about Wordpress, and strongly advises that I build his real estate site with it. I've only used Wordpress to create blogs and relatively straightforward websites. SO I dont know how effective it is as a real estate property content management system or how effective it is for users to search for real estate properties based on attributes such as "# of bedrooms, square footage, is basement finished etc..." So my question is, is it a good idea to build a real estate agent website with Wordpress? Or should I try harder to convince him to build it with web framework like Code Igniter?

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  • 2 basic but interesting questions about .NET

    - by b-gen-jack-o-neill
    Hi, when I first saw C#, I thought this must be some joke. I was starting with programming in C. But in C# you could just drag and drop objects, and just write event code to them. It was so simple. Now, I still like C the most, becouse I am very attracted to the basic low level operations, and C is just next level of assembler, with few basic routines, so I like it very much. Even more becouse I write little apps for microcontrollers. But yeasterday I wrote very simple control program for my microcontroller based LED cube in asm, and I needed some way to simply create animation sequences to the Cube. So, I remembered C#. I have practically NO C# skills, but still I created simple program to make animation sequences in about hour with GUI, just with help of google and help of the embeded function descriptions in C#. So, to get to the point, is there some other reason then top speed, to use any other language than C#? I mean, it is so effective. I know that Java is a bit of similiar, but I expect C# to be more Windows effective since its directly from Microsoft. The second question is, what is the advantage of compiling into CIL, and than run by CLR, than directly compile it into machine code? I know that portability is one, but since C# is mainly for Windows, wouldn´t it be more powerfull to just compile it directly? Thanks.

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  • update entire table with pdo

    - by MephDaddy
    I am working on a simple gaming ladder script. I am having little to no luck trying to find an effective way to reset my ladder information while leaving my table id and name fields intact. I am trying to get create a loop to update my entire table, similar to the way I draw my table. Shown below. ...... //Start displaying ladder with with team with most wins at the top echo "<TABLE border=1 width=500 align=center><TR>"; foreach($db->query('SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY win DESC , name ASC') as $row) { echo "<TR><TD>" . $row['name'] . "</TD><TD>" . $row['win'] . "</TD><TD>"; echo $row['loss'] . "</TD><TD>" . $row['battles'] . "</TD><TD>"; echo $row['score'] . "</TD></TR>"; } ...... I currently have a table with 6 fields(id,name,win,loss,battles,score). I want to reset the values of win,loss,battles, and score back to 0. While leaving id and name alone. Effective reseting my ladder for a new season to begin. The only way I have been able to complete this is to find out how many rows there are and run a for loop. It seems vary inefficient. Was hoping I could get some better insight as to how to go about this.

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  • Transformation of Product Management in Telecommunications for Rapid Launch of Next Generation Products

    - by raul.goycoolea
    @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } The Telecom industry continues to evolve through disruptive products, uncertain markets, shorter product lifecycles and convergence of technologies. Today’s market has moved from network centric to consumer centric and focuses primarily on the customer experience. It has resulted in several product management challenges such as an increased complexity and volume of offerings, creating product variants, accelerating time-to-market, ability to provide multiple product views for varied stakeholders, leveraging OSS intelligence to BSS layer, product co-creation and increasing audit and security concerns for service providers. The document discusses how enterprise product management enabled by PLM-based product catalogue solutions helps to launch next generation products rapidly in the context of the Telecommunication Industry.   1.0.       Introduction   Figure 1: Business Scenario   Modern business demands the launch of complex products in a very short timeframe and effecting changes in the price plan faster without IT intervention. One of the key transformation initiatives companies are focusing on is in the area of product management transformation and operational efficiency improvement. As part of these initiatives, companies are investing in best- in-class COTs-based Product Management solutions developed on industry-wide standards.   The new COTs packages are planned to integrate with existing or new B/OSS systems to provide a strategic end-to-end agile solution for reduced time-to-market and order journey time. In addition, system rationalization is being undertaken to phase out legacy systems and migrate to strategic systems.   2.0.       An Overview of Product Management in Telecom   Product data in telecom is multi- dimensional and difficult to manage. It increased significantly due to the complexity of the product, product offerings on the converged network, increased volume of offerings, bundled offering structures and ever increasing regulatory requirements.   In addition, the shrinking product lifecycle in telecom makes it difficult to manage the dynamic product data. Mergers and acquisitions coupled with organic growth pose major challenges in product portfolio management. It is a roadblock in the journey towards becoming an agile organization.       Figure 2: Complexity in Product Management   Network Technology’ is the new dimension in telecom product management where the same products are realized through different networks i.e., Soiled network to Converged network. Consequently, the product solution is different.     Figure 3: Current Scenario - Pain Points in Product Management   The major business implications arising out of the current scenario are slow time-to-market and an inefficient process that affects innovation.   3.0. Transformation of Next Generation Product Management   Companies must focus on their Product Management Transformation Journey in the areas of:   ·       Management of single truth of product information across the organization/geographies which is currently managed in heterogeneous systems   ·       Management of the Intellectual Property (IP) on the product concept and partnership in the design of discrete components to integrate into the system   ·       Leveraging structured and unstructured product data within the extended enterprise to extract consumer insights and drive innovation   ·       Management of effective operational separation to comply with regulatory bodies   ·       Reuse of existing designs and add relevant features such as value-added services to enable effective product bundling     Figure 4: Next generation needs   PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions efficiently address the above requirements and act as an enabler towards product management transformation and rapid product launch.   4.0. PLM-based Enterprise Product Management     Figure 5: PLM-based Enterprise Product Mastering   Enterprise Product Management (EPM) enables the business to manage complex product attributes of data in complex environments. Product Mastering helps create a 'single view' of the product by creating a business-driven, IT-supported environment where a global 'single truth record' is created, managed and reused.   4.1 The Business Case for Telco PLM-based solutions for Enterprise Product Management   ·       Telco PLM-based Product Mastering solutions provide a centralized authoring environment for product definition and control of all product data and rules   ·       PLM packages are designed to support multiple perspectives of product data (ordering perspective, billing perspective, provisioning perspective)   ·       Maintains relationships/links between different elements of the entire product definition   ·       Telco PLM packages are specialized in next generation lifecycle management requirements of products such as revision and state management, test and release management, role management and impact analysis)   ·       Takes into consideration all aspects of OSS product requirements compared to CRM product catalogue solutions where the product data managed is mostly order oriented and transactional     ·       New breed of Telco PLM packages are designed with 'open' standards such as SID and eTOM. They are interoperable, support integration frameworks such as subscription and notification.   ·       Telco PLM packages have developed good collaboration frameworks to integrate suppliers and partners into the product development value chain   4.2 Various Architectures/Approaches for Product Mastering using Telco PLM systems   4. 2.a Single Central Product Management (Mastering) Approach   Figure 6: Single Central Product Management (Master) Approach       This approach is implemented across verticals such as aerospace and automotive. It focuses on a physically centralized product master to which other sources are dependent on. The product definition data (Product bundles, service bundles, price plans, offers and discounts, product configuration rules and market campaigns) is created and maintained physically in a centralized environment. In addition, the product definition/authoring environment is centralized. The existing legacy product definition data available in CRM product catalogue, billing catalogue and the legacy product catalogue is migrated to the centralized PLM-based Enterprise Product Management solution.   Architectural changes must be made in the existing business landscape of applications to create and revise data because the applications have to refer to the central repository for approvals and validation of product configurations. It is achieved by modifying how the applications write data or how the applications can be adapted to use the rules to be managed and published.   Complete product configuration validation will be done in enterprise / central product catalogue and final configuration will be sent to the B/OSS system through the SOA compliant product distribution architecture. The approach/architecture enables greater control in terms of product data management and product data governance.   4.2.b Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture     Figure 7: Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture   In the federated product mastering approach, the basic unique product definition data (product id, description product hierarchy, basic price plans and simple product design rules) will be centrally created and will be maintained. And, the advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers & discount plans) will be created in respective down stream OSS systems. The advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers and discount plans) will be created in respective downstream OSS systems.   For example, basic product definitions such as attributes, product hierarchy and basic price plans will be created and maintained in Enterprise/Central product reference catalogue and distributed to downstream OSS systems. Respective downstream OSS systems build product bundles, promotions, advanced price plans over the basic product definition and master the advanced product definition. Central reference database accesses the respective other source product master data and assembles a point-in-time consolidated view of the product. The approach is typically adapted in some merger and acquisition scenarios where there is a low probability of a central physical authority managing the data. In addition, the migration effort in this case is minimal and there are no big architectural changes to the organization application landscape. However, this approach will not result in better product data management and data governance.   5.0 Customer Scenario – Before EPC deployment   A leading global telecommunications service provider wanted to launch a quad play and triple play service offering in the shortest possible lead time. The service provider was offering Broadband and VoIP services to customers. The company wanted to reuse a majority of the Broadband services and price plans and bundle them with new wireless and IPTV services for quad play and triple play. The challenges in launching the new service offerings were:       Figure 8: Triple Play Plan   ·       Broadband product data was stored in multiple product catalogues (CRM catalogue, Billing catalogue, spread sheets)   ·       Product managers spent a lot of time performing tasks involving duplication or re-keying of data. Manual effort caused errors, cost and time over-runs.   ·       No effective product and price data governance mechanism. Price change issues arising from the lack of data consistency across systems resulted in leakage of customer value and revenue.   ·       Product data had re-usability issues and was not in a structured format. It resulted in uncontrolled product portfolio creation and product management issues.   ·       Lack of enterprise product model resulted into product distribution challenges and thus delays in product launch.   ·       Designers are constrained by existing legacy product management solutions to model product/service requirements and product configuration rules such as upgrading, downgrading and cross selling.    5.1 Customer Scenario - After EPC deployment     Figure 9: SOA-based end-to-end EPC Solution   The company deployed PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions to launch quad play service after evaluating various product catalogues. The broadband product offering, service and price data were migrated to the new system, and the product and price plan hierarchy for new offerings were created using the entities defined in the Enterprise Product Model. Supplier product catalogue data such as routers and set up boxes were loaded onto the new solution through SOA-based web service. Price plans and configuration rules were built in the new system. The validated final product configurations were extracted from the product catalogue in a SID format and were distributed to the downstream B/OSS systems through exposed SOA-based web services. The transformations required for the B/OSS system were handled using the transformation layer as part of the solution.   6.0 How PLM enabled Product Management Transformation         Figure 10: Product Management Transformation     PLM-based Product Catalogue Solution helped the customer reduce the product launch cycle time by 30% and enable transformation of Product Management for next generation services.   7.0 Conclusion   On the one hand, the telecom industry is undergoing changes due to disruptions, uncertain product markets and increased complexity of products. On the other hand, the ARPU is decreasing year-on-year. Communications Service Providers are embarking on convergence, bundled service offerings, flexibility to cross-sell and up-sell, introduce new value-added services, leverage Web 2.0 concepts and network capabilities. Consequently, large scale IT transformation initiatives to improve their ARPU supporting network and business transformations are a business imperative. Product Management has become a focus area. Companies are investing in best-in- class COTS solutions to reduce time-to-market, ensure rapid service delivery and improve operational efficiency. An efficient PLM-based enterprise product mastering solution plays a key role in achieving zero touch automation and rapid product launch.   References:   1.     Preston G.Smith, Donald G.Reineristsem, Van Nostrand Reinhold “Developing Products in Half the time”.   2.     John G. Innes, "Achieving Successful Product Change", Pitman Publishing.   3.     D T Pham and R M Setchi (16th Jan, 2001) "Authoring environment for documentation development" University of Wales Cardiff, U.K., Proceedings on Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 215, Part B.   4.     Oracle Product Hub for Communications:   http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/master-data-management/product-hub-082059.html  

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  • Pain Comes Instantly

    - by user701213
    When I look back at recent blog entries – many of which are not all that current (more on where my available writing time is going later) – I am struck by how many of them focus on public policy or legislative issues instead of, say, the latest nefarious cyberattack or exploit (or everyone’s favorite new pastime: coining terms for the Coming Cyberpocalypse: “digital Pearl Harbor” is so 1941). Speaking of which, I personally hope evil hackers from Malefactoria will someday hack into my bathroom scale – which in a future time will be connected to the Internet because, gosh, wouldn’t it be great to have absolutely everything in your life Internet-enabled? – and recalibrate it so I’m 10 pounds thinner. The horror. In part, my focus on public policy is due to an admitted limitation of my skill set. I enjoy reading technical articles about exploits and cybersecurity trends, but writing a blog entry on those topics would take more research than I have time for and, quite honestly, doesn’t play to my strengths. The first rule of writing is “write what you know.” The bigger contributing factor to my recent paucity of blog entries is that more and more of my waking hours are spent engaging in “thrust and parry” activity involving emerging regulations of some sort or other. I’ve opined in earlier blogs about what constitutes good and reasonable public policy so nobody can accuse me of being reflexively anti-regulation. That said, you have so many cycles in the day, and most of us would rather spend it slaying actual dragons than participating in focus groups on whether dragons are really a problem, whether lassoing them (with organic, sustainable and recyclable lassos) is preferable to slaying them – after all, dragons are people, too - and whether we need lasso compliance auditors to make sure lassos are being used correctly and humanely. (A point that seems to evade many rule makers: slaying dragons actually accomplishes something, whereas talking about “approved dragon slaying procedures and requirements” wastes the time of those who are competent to dispatch actual dragons and who were doing so very well without the input of “dragon-slaying theorists.”) Unfortunately for so many of us who would just get on with doing our day jobs, cybersecurity is rapidly devolving into the “focus groups on dragon dispatching” realm, which actual dragons slayers have little choice but to participate in. The general trend in cybersecurity is that powers-that-be – which encompasses groups other than just legislators – are often increasingly concerned and therefore feel they need to Do Something About Cybersecurity. Many seem to believe that if only we had the right amount of regulation and oversight, there would be no data breaches: a breach simply must mean Someone Is At Fault and Needs Supervision. (Leaving aside the fact that we have lots of home invasions despite a) guard dogs b) liberal carry permits c) alarm systems d) etc.) Also note that many well-managed and security-aware organizations, like the US Department of Defense, still get hacked. More specifically, many powers-that-be feel they must direct industry in a multiplicity of ways, up to and including how we actually build and deploy information technology systems. The more prescriptive the requirement, the more regulators or overseers a) can be seen to be doing something b) feel as if they are doing something regardless of whether they are actually doing something useful or cost effective. Note: an unfortunate concomitant of Doing Something is that often the cure is worse than the ailment. That is, doing what overseers want creates unfortunate byproducts that they either didn’t foresee or worse, don’t care about. After all, the logic goes, we Did Something. Prescriptive practice in the IT industry is problematic for a number of reasons. For a start, prescriptive guidance is really only appropriate if: • It is cost effective• It is “current” (meaning, the guidance doesn’t require the use of the technical equivalent of buggy whips long after horse-drawn transportation has become passé)*• It is practical (that is, pragmatic, proven and effective in the real world, not theoretical and unproven)• It solves the right problem With the above in mind, heading up the list of “you must be joking” regulations are recent disturbing developments in the Payment Card Industry (PCI) world. I’d like to give PCI kahunas the benefit of the doubt about their intentions, except that efforts by Oracle among others to make them aware of “unfortunate side effects of your requirements” – which is as tactful I can be for reasons that I believe will become obvious below - have gone, to-date, unanswered and more importantly, unchanged. A little background on PCI before I get too wound up. In 2008, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) introduced the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS). That standard requires vendors of payment applications to ensure that their products implement specific requirements and undergo security assessment procedures. In order to have an application listed as a Validated Payment Application (VPA) and available for use by merchants, software vendors are required to execute the PCI Payment Application Vendor Release Agreement (VRA). (Are you still with me through all the acronyms?) Beginning in August 2010, the VRA imposed new obligations on vendors that are extraordinary and extraordinarily bad, short-sighted and unworkable. Specifically, PCI requires vendors to disclose (dare we say “tell all?”) to PCI any known security vulnerabilities and associated security breaches involving VPAs. ASAP. Think about the impact of that. PCI is asking a vendor to disclose to them: • Specific details of security vulnerabilities • Including exploit information or technical details of the vulnerability • Whether or not there is any mitigation available (as in a patch) PCI, in turn, has the right to blab about any and all of the above – specifically, to distribute all the gory details of what is disclosed - to the PCI SSC, qualified security assessors (QSAs), and any affiliate or agent or adviser of those entities, who are in turn permitted to share it with their respective affiliates, agents, employees, contractors, merchants, processors, service providers and other business partners. This assorted crew can’t be more than, oh, hundreds of thousands of entities. Does anybody believe that several hundred thousand people can keep a secret? Or that several hundred thousand people are all equally trustworthy? Or that not one of the people getting all that information would blab vulnerability details to a bad guy, even by accident? Or be a bad guy who uses the information to break into systems? (Wait, was that the Easter Bunny that just hopped by? Bringing world peace, no doubt.) Sarcasm aside, common sense tells us that telling lots of people a secret is guaranteed to “unsecret” the secret. Notably, being provided details of a vulnerability (without a patch) is of little or no use to companies running the affected application. Few users have the technological sophistication to create a workaround, and even if they do, most workarounds break some other functionality in the application or surrounding environment. Also, given the differences among corporate implementations of any application, it is highly unlikely that a single workaround is going to work for all corporate users. So until a patch is developed by the vendor, users remain at risk of exploit: even more so if the details of vulnerability have been widely shared. Sharing that information widely before a patch is available therefore does not help users, and instead helps only those wanting to exploit known security bugs. There’s a shocker for you. Furthermore, we already know that insider information about security vulnerabilities inevitably leaks, which is why most vendors closely hold such information and limit dissemination until a patch is available (and frequently limit dissemination of technical details even with the release of a patch). That’s the industry norm, not that PCI seems to realize or acknowledge that. Why would anybody release a bunch of highly technical exploit information to a cast of thousands, whose only “vetting” is that they are members of a PCI consortium? Oracle has had personal experience with this problem, which is one reason why information on security vulnerabilities at Oracle is “need to know” (we use our own row level access control to limit access to security bugs in our bug database, and thus less than 1% of development has access to this information), and we don’t provide some customers with more information than others or with vulnerability information and/or patches earlier than others. Failure to remember “insider information always leaks” creates problems in the general case, and has created problems for us specifically. A number of years ago, one of the UK intelligence agencies had information about a non-public security vulnerability in an Oracle product that they circulated among other UK and Commonwealth defense and intelligence entities. Nobody, it should be pointed out, bothered to report the problem to Oracle, even though only Oracle could produce a patch. The vulnerability was finally reported to Oracle by (drum roll) a US-based commercial company, to whom the information had leaked. (Note: every time I tell this story, the MI-whatever agency that created the problem gets a bit shirty with us. I know they meant well and have improved their vulnerability handling/sharing processes but, dudes, next time you find an Oracle vulnerability, try reporting it to us first before blabbing to lots of people who can’t actually fix the problem. Thank you!) Getting back to PCI: clearly, these new disclosure obligations increase the risk of exploitation of a vulnerability in a VPA and thus, of misappropriation of payment card data and customer information that a VPA processes, stores or transmits. It stands to reason that VRA’s current requirement for the widespread distribution of security vulnerability exploit details -- at any time, but particularly before a vendor can issue a patch or a workaround -- is very poor public policy. It effectively publicizes information of great value to potential attackers while not providing compensating benefits - actually, any benefits - to payment card merchants or consumers. In fact, it magnifies the risk to payment card merchants and consumers. The risk is most prominent in the time before a patch has been released, since customers often have little option but to continue using an application or system despite the risks. However, the risk is not limited to the time before a patch is issued: customers often need days, or weeks, to apply patches to systems, based upon the complexity of the issue and dependence on surrounding programs. Rather than decreasing the available window of exploit, this requirement increases the available window of exploit, both as to time available to exploit a vulnerability and the ease with which it can be exploited. Also, why would hackers focus on finding new vulnerabilities to exploit if they can get “EZHack” handed to them in such a manner: a) a vulnerability b) in a payment application c) with exploit code: the “Hacking Trifecta!“ It’s fair to say that this is probably the exact opposite of what PCI – or any of us – would want. Established industry practice concerning vulnerability handling avoids the risks created by the VRA’s vulnerability disclosure requirements. Specifically, the norm is not to release information about a security bug until the associated patch (or a pretty darn good workaround) has been issued. Once a patch is available, the notice to the user community is a high-level communication discussing the product at issue, the level of risk associated with the vulnerability, and how to apply the patch. The notices do not include either the specific customers affected by the vulnerability or forensic reports with maps of the exploit (both of which are required by the current VRA). In this way, customers have the tools they need to prioritize patching and to help prevent an attack, and the information released does not increase the risk of exploit. Furthermore, many vendors already use industry standards for vulnerability description: Common Vulnerability Enumeration (CVE) and Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). CVE helps ensure that customers know which particular issues a patch addresses and CVSS helps customers determine how severe a vulnerability is on a relative scale. Industry already provides the tools customers need to know what the patch contains and how bad the problem is that the patch remediates. So, what’s a poor vendor to do? Oracle is reaching out to other vendors subject to PCI and attempting to enlist then in a broad effort to engage PCI in rethinking (that is, eradicating) these requirements. I would therefore urge all who care about this issue, but especially those in the vendor community whose applications are subject to PCI and who may not have know they were being asked to tell-all to PCI and put their customers at risk, to do one of the following: • Contact PCI with your concerns• Contact Oracle (we are looking for vendors to sign our statement of concern)• And make sure you tell your customers that you have to rat them out to PCI if there is a breach involving the payment application I like to be charitable and say “PCI meant well” but in as important a public policy issue as what you disclose about vulnerabilities, to whom and when, meaning well isn’t enough. We need to do well. PCI, as regards this particular issue, has not done well, and has compounded the error by thus far being nonresponsive to those of us who have labored mightily to try to explain why they might want to rethink telling the entire planet about security problems with no solutions. By Way of Explanation… Non-related to PCI whatsoever, and the explanation for why I have not been blogging a lot recently, I have been working on Other Writing Venues with my sister Diane (who has also worked in the tech sector, inflicting upgrades on unsuspecting and largely ungrateful end users). I am pleased to note that we have recently (self-)published the first in the Miss Information Technology Murder Mystery series, Outsourcing Murder. The genre might best be described as “chick lit meets geek scene.” Our sisterly nom de plume is Maddi Davidson and (shameless plug follows): you can order the paper version of the book on Amazon, or the Kindle or Nook versions on www.amazon.com or www.bn.com, respectively. From our book jacket: Emma Jones, a 20-something IT consultant, is working on an outsourcing project at Tahiti Tacos, a restaurant chain offering Polynexican cuisine: refried poi, anyone? Emma despises her boss Padmanabh, a brilliant but arrogant partner in GD Consulting. When Emma discovers His-Royal-Padness’s body (verdict: death by cricket bat), she becomes a suspect.With her overprotective family and her best friend Stacey providing endless support and advice, Emma stumbles her way through an investigation of Padmanabh’s murder, bolstered by fusion food feeding frenzies, endless cups of frou-frou coffee and serious surfing sessions. While Stacey knows a PI who owes her a favor, landlady Magda urges Emma to tart up her underwear drawer before the next cute cop with a search warrant arrives. Emma’s mother offers to fix her up with a PhD student at Berkeley and showers her with self-defense gizmos while her old lover Keoni beckons from Hawai’i. And everyone, even Shaun the barista, knows a good lawyer. Book 2, Denial of Service, is coming out this summer. * Given the rate of change in technology, today’s “thou shalts” are easily next year’s “buggy whip guidance.”

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  • Selling Federal Enterprise Architecture (EA)

    - by TedMcLaughlan
    Selling Federal Enterprise Architecture A taxonomy of subject areas, from which to develop a prioritized marketing and communications plan to evangelize EA activities within and among US Federal Government organizations and constituents. Any and all feedback is appreciated, particularly in developing and extending this discussion as a tool for use – more information and details are also available. "Selling" the discipline of Enterprise Architecture (EA) in the Federal Government (particularly in non-DoD agencies) is difficult, notwithstanding the general availability and use of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) for some time now, and the relatively mature use of the reference models in the OMB Capital Planning and Investment (CPIC) cycles. EA in the Federal Government also tends to be a very esoteric and hard to decipher conversation – early apologies to those who agree to continue reading this somewhat lengthy article. Alignment to the FEAF and OMB compliance mandates is long underway across the Federal Departments and Agencies (and visible via tools like PortfolioStat and ITDashboard.gov – but there is still a gap between the top-down compliance directives and enablement programs, and the bottom-up awareness and effective use of EA for either IT investment management or actual mission effectiveness. "EA isn't getting deep enough penetration into programs, components, sub-agencies, etc.", verified a panelist at the most recent EA Government Conference in DC. Newer guidance from OMB may be especially difficult to handle, where bottom-up input can't be accurately aligned, analyzed and reported via standardized EA discipline at the Agency level – for example in addressing the new (for FY13) Exhibit 53D "Agency IT Reductions and Reinvestments" and the information required for "Cloud Computing Alternatives Evaluation" (supporting the new Exhibit 53C, "Agency Cloud Computing Portfolio"). Therefore, EA must be "sold" directly to the communities that matter, from a coordinated, proactive messaging perspective that takes BOTH the Program-level value drivers AND the broader Agency mission and IT maturity context into consideration. Selling EA means persuading others to take additional time and possibly assign additional resources, for a mix of direct and indirect benefits – many of which aren't likely to be realized in the short-term. This means there's probably little current, allocated budget to work with; ergo the challenge of trying to sell an "unfunded mandate". Also, the concept of "Enterprise" in large Departments like Homeland Security tends to cross all kinds of organizational boundaries – as Richard Spires recently indicated by commenting that "...organizational boundaries still trump functional similarities. Most people understand what we're trying to do internally, and at a high level they get it. The problem, of course, is when you get down to them and their system and the fact that you're going to be touching them...there's always that fear factor," Spires said. It is quite clear to the Federal IT Investment community that for EA to meet its objective, understandable, relevant value must be measured and reported using a repeatable method – as described by GAO's recent report "Enterprise Architecture Value Needs To Be Measured and Reported". What's not clear is the method or guidance to sell this value. In fact, the current GAO "Framework for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 2.0)", a.k.a. the "EAMMF", does not include words like "sell", "persuade", "market", etc., except in reference ("within Core Element 19: Organization business owner and CXO representatives are actively engaged in architecture development") to a brief section in the CIO Council's 2001 "Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture", entitled "3.3.1. Develop an EA Marketing Strategy and Communications Plan." Furthermore, Core Element 19 of the EAMMF is advised to be applied in "Stage 3: Developing Initial EA Versions". This kind of EA sales campaign truly should start much earlier in the maturity progress, i.e. in Stages 0 or 1. So, what are the understandable, relevant benefits (or value) to sell, that can find an agreeable, participatory audience, and can pave the way towards success of a longer-term, funded set of EA mechanisms that can be methodically measured and reported? Pragmatic benefits from a useful EA that can help overcome the fear of change? And how should they be sold? Following is a brief taxonomy (it's a taxonomy, to help organize SME support) of benefit-related subjects that might make the most sense, in creating the messages and organizing an initial "engagement plan" for evangelizing EA "from within". An EA "Sales Taxonomy" of sorts. We're not boiling the ocean here; the subjects that are included are ones that currently appear to be urgently relevant to the current Federal IT Investment landscape. Note that successful dialogue in these topics is directly usable as input or guidance for actually developing early-stage, "Fit-for-Purpose" (a DoDAF term) Enterprise Architecture artifacts, as prescribed by common methods found in most EA methodologies, including FEAF, TOGAF, DoDAF and our own Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework (OEAF). The taxonomy below is organized by (1) Target Community, (2) Benefit or Value, and (3) EA Program Facet - as in: "Let's talk to (1: Community Member) about how and why (3: EA Facet) the EA program can help with (2: Benefit/Value)". Once the initial discussion targets and subjects are approved (that can be measured and reported), a "marketing and communications plan" can be created. A working example follows the Taxonomy. Enterprise Architecture Sales Taxonomy Draft, Summary Version 1. Community 1.1. Budgeted Programs or Portfolios Communities of Purpose (CoPR) 1.1.1. Program/System Owners (Senior Execs) Creating or Executing Acquisition Plans 1.1.2. Program/System Owners Facing Strategic Change 1.1.2.1. Mandated 1.1.2.2. Expected/Anticipated 1.1.3. Program Managers - Creating Employee Performance Plans 1.1.4. CO/COTRs – Creating Contractor Performance Plans, or evaluating Value Engineering Change Proposals (VECP) 1.2. Governance & Communications Communities of Practice (CoP) 1.2.1. Policy Owners 1.2.1.1. OCFO 1.2.1.1.1. Budget/Procurement Office 1.2.1.1.2. Strategic Planning 1.2.1.2. OCIO 1.2.1.2.1. IT Management 1.2.1.2.2. IT Operations 1.2.1.2.3. Information Assurance (Cyber Security) 1.2.1.2.4. IT Innovation 1.2.1.3. Information-Sharing/ Process Collaboration (i.e. policies and procedures regarding Partners, Agreements) 1.2.2. Governing IT Council/SME Peers (i.e. an "Architects Council") 1.2.2.1. Enterprise Architects (assumes others exist; also assumes EA participants aren't buried solely within the CIO shop) 1.2.2.2. Domain, Enclave, Segment Architects – i.e. the right affinity group for a "shared services" EA structure (per the EAMMF), which may be classified as Federated, Segmented, Service-Oriented, or Extended 1.2.2.3. External Oversight/Constraints 1.2.2.3.1. GAO/OIG & Legal 1.2.2.3.2. Industry Standards 1.2.2.3.3. Official public notification, response 1.2.3. Mission Constituents Participant & Analyst Community of Interest (CoI) 1.2.3.1. Mission Operators/Users 1.2.3.2. Public Constituents 1.2.3.3. Industry Advisory Groups, Stakeholders 1.2.3.4. Media 2. Benefit/Value (Note the actual benefits may not be discretely attributable to EA alone; EA is a very collaborative, cross-cutting discipline.) 2.1. Program Costs – EA enables sound decisions regarding... 2.1.1. Cost Avoidance – a TCO theme 2.1.2. Sequencing – alignment of capability delivery 2.1.3. Budget Instability – a Federal reality 2.2. Investment Capital – EA illuminates new investment resources via... 2.2.1. Value Engineering – contractor-driven cost savings on existing budgets, direct or collateral 2.2.2. Reuse – reuse of investments between programs can result in savings, chargeback models; avoiding duplication 2.2.3. License Refactoring – IT license & support models may not reflect actual or intended usage 2.3. Contextual Knowledge – EA enables informed decisions by revealing... 2.3.1. Common Operating Picture (COP) – i.e. cross-program impacts and synergy, relative to context 2.3.2. Expertise & Skill – who truly should be involved in architectural decisions, both business and IT 2.3.3. Influence – the impact of politics and relationships can be examined 2.3.4. Disruptive Technologies – new technologies may reduce costs or mitigate risk in unanticipated ways 2.3.5. What-If Scenarios – can become much more refined, current, verifiable; basis for Target Architectures 2.4. Mission Performance – EA enables beneficial decision results regarding... 2.4.1. IT Performance and Optimization – towards 100% effective, available resource utilization 2.4.2. IT Stability – towards 100%, real-time uptime 2.4.3. Agility – responding to rapid changes in mission 2.4.4. Outcomes –measures of mission success, KPIs – vs. only "Outputs" 2.4.5. Constraints – appropriate response to constraints 2.4.6. Personnel Performance – better line-of-sight through performance plans to mission outcome 2.5. Mission Risk Mitigation – EA mitigates decision risks in terms of... 2.5.1. Compliance – all the right boxes are checked 2.5.2. Dependencies –cross-agency, segment, government 2.5.3. Transparency – risks, impact and resource utilization are illuminated quickly, comprehensively 2.5.4. Threats and Vulnerabilities – current, realistic awareness and profiles 2.5.5. Consequences – realization of risk can be mapped as a series of consequences, from earlier decisions or new decisions required for current issues 2.5.5.1. Unanticipated – illuminating signals of future or non-symmetric risk; helping to "future-proof" 2.5.5.2. Anticipated – discovering the level of impact that matters 3. EA Program Facet (What parts of the EA can and should be communicated, using business or mission terms?) 3.1. Architecture Models – the visual tools to be created and used 3.1.1. Operating Architecture – the Business Operating Model/Architecture elements of the EA truly drive all other elements, plus expose communication channels 3.1.2. Use Of – how can the EA models be used, and how are they populated, from a reasonable, pragmatic yet compliant perspective? What are the core/minimal models required? What's the relationship of these models, with existing system models? 3.1.3. Scope – what level of granularity within the models, and what level of abstraction across the models, is likely to be most effective and useful? 3.2. Traceability – the maturity, status, completeness of the tools 3.2.1. Status – what in fact is the degree of maturity across the integrated EA model and other relevant governance models, and who may already be benefiting from it? 3.2.2. Visibility – how does the EA visibly and effectively prove IT investment performance goals are being reached, with positive mission outcome? 3.3. Governance – what's the interaction, participation method; how are the tools used? 3.3.1. Contributions – how is the EA program informed, accept submissions, collect data? Who are the experts? 3.3.2. Review – how is the EA validated, against what criteria?  Taxonomy Usage Example:   1. To speak with: a. ...a particular set of System Owners Facing Strategic Change, via mandate (like the "Cloud First" mandate); about... b. ...how the EA program's visible and easily accessible Infrastructure Reference Model (i.e. "IRM" or "TRM"), if updated more completely with current system data, can... c. ...help shed light on ways to mitigate risks and avoid future costs associated with NOT leveraging potentially-available shared services across the enterprise... 2. ....the following Marketing & Communications (Sales) Plan can be constructed: a. Create an easy-to-read "Consequence Model" that illustrates how adoption of a cloud capability (like elastic operational storage) can enable rapid and durable compliance with the mandate – using EA traceability. Traceability might be from the IRM to the ARM (that identifies reusable services invoking the elastic storage), and then to the PRM with performance measures (such as % utilization of purchased storage allocation) included in the OMB Exhibits; and b. Schedule a meeting with the Program Owners, timed during their Acquisition Strategy meetings in response to the mandate, to use the "Consequence Model" for advising them to organize a rapid and relevant RFI solicitation for this cloud capability (regarding alternatives for sourcing elastic operational storage); and c. Schedule a series of short "Discovery" meetings with the system architecture leads (as agreed by the Program Owners), to further populate/validate the "As-Is" models and frame the "To Be" models (via scenarios), to better inform the RFI, obtain the best feedback from the vendor community, and provide potential value for and avoid impact to all other programs and systems. --end example -- Note that communications with the intended audience should take a page out of the standard "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO) playbook, using keywords and phrases relating to "value" and "outcome" vs. "compliance" and "output". Searches in email boxes, internal and external search engines for phrases like "cost avoidance strategies", "mission performance metrics" and "innovation funding" should yield messages and content from the EA team. This targeted, informed, practical sales approach should result in additional buy-in and participation, additional EA information contribution and model validation, development of more SMEs and quick "proof points" (with real-life testing) to bolster the case for EA. The proof point here is a successful, timely procurement that satisfies not only the external mandate and external oversight review, but also meets internal EA compliance/conformance goals and therefore is more transparently useful across the community. In short, if sold effectively, the EA will perform and be recognized. EA won’t therefore be used only for compliance, but also (according to a validated, stated purpose) to directly influence decisions and outcomes. The opinions, views and analysis expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.

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  • mount_afp on linux, user rights

    - by Antonio Sesto
    I need to mount a remote filesystem on a linux box using the afp protocol. The linux box runs an old Debian 4. I downloaded the source code of mount_afp, compiled it and installed it with all the required packages. Then created /etc/fuse with the following command: mknod /dev/fuse c 10 229 (according to the instructions here) I can mount the remote filesystem as root by executing: mount_afp afp://USER:PASSWD@REMOTE_SERVER/FOLDER /mnt/MOUNTPOINT/ but the same command fails when run as normal user (of the local machine). After reading here and there, I created a group fuse, and added my normal user U to the group fuse: [prompt] groups U U fuse Then modified the group of /dev/fuse, that now has the following rights: 0 crwxrwx--- 1 root fuse 10, 229 Feb 8 15:33 /dev/fuse However, if the user U tries to mount the remote filesystem by using the same command as above, U gets the following error: Incorrect permissions on /dev/fuse, mode of device is 20770, uid/gid is 0/1007. But your effective uid/gid is 1004/1004 But the user U with uid 1004 has also gid 1007 (group fuse). I might think the problem is related to real/effective/etc. ID, but I do not know how to proceed and could not find any clear instructions. Could you please help me? There is also another problem. If I mount /mnt/MOUNTPOINT as root and run ls -l /mnt, I get: drwxrwxrwx 15 root root 466 Feb 8 16:34 MONTPOINT If I run ls -l /mnt as normal user U I get: ? ?????????? ? ? ? ? ? MOUNTPOINT in fact when I try to cd /mnt/MOUNTPOINT I get: $-> cd /mnt/MOUNTPOINT -sh: cd: /mnt/MOUNTPOINT: Not a directory Then I unmount /mnt/MOUNTPOINT as root and run again ls -l /mnt as normal user U I get: 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 6 Feb 8 15:32 MOUNTPOINT/ After reading Frank's answer, I killed every shell/process running with privileges of user U. Still U cannot mount the remote filesystem, but the error message has changed. Now it is: "Login error: Authentication failed". The problem is not related to remote login/password since the same command works perfectly when run as root of the local machine. Since I cannot get mount_afp to work with normal users, I decided to follow mgorven's suggestion. So I run the commands: mount_afp -o allow_other afp://USER:PASSWD@REMOTE_SERVER/FOLDER /mnt/MOUNTPOINT/ and mount_afp -o user=U afp://USER:PASSWD@REMOTE_SERVER/FOLDER /mnt/MOUNTPOINT/ The mount succeeds but user U cannot access the mount point. If U executes ls -l in /mnt U@LOCAL_HOST [/mnt] $-> ls -l ls: cannot access MOUNT_POINT: Permission denied total 0 ? ?????????? ? ? ? ? ? MOUNT_POINT Is it so hard to have this utility working?

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  • Linux installation analysis

    - by blunders
    "Ending company IT Admin relationship" has a good checklist for taking over an existing IT system, but I'm wondering as it relates to Linux: What is the most effective way to assess the scope of existing custom configurations, installs, scripts, etc done? Is there any software that will check if the kernel, system files, etc mirror the default files for the version installed? At this point I don't know what distro of Linux the server (though using Netcraft I do know the server appears to be Linux) -- so it's possible without knowing that information that this would be a hard question to answer.

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  • Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Exchange 2010

    - by Chris Marisic
    Is there going to be a release of SBS 2008 that includes Exchange 2010? I want to take this into consideration as I might purchase SBS for the premium edition to get Sql Server at a much more cost effective rate but it feels like I would be getting shorted if I purchase SBS 2008 and receive Exchange 2007 since it is now outdated to 2010.

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  • Free-as-in-beer binary file format inspector

    - by fbrereto
    I am looking for a utility that gives me the ability to specify a binary file format and then interpret a file of bytes according to that format. (Something along the lines of the 010 Editor, but infinitely more cost-effective). Something that runs on Mac OS X would be preferred, but I'm interested to see what all is out there in general (while more of a hassle I'd be willing to run a tool on Windows if it were superior.) What's your preference?

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