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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 27, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 27, 2014Popular ReleasesAD4 Application Designer for flow based .NET applications: AD4.AppDesigner.18.11: AD4.Iteration.18.11(Rendering of flow chart) Bugfix: AppWrapperClassContainer MakeWrapperBuildInstances MakeFlowClassCtor Note: Currently not all elements are shown in flow chart area! This version is able to generate the source code of some samples. See: Sample Applications (You find the flow description in the documents folder of each sample). The gluing code of the AD4.AppDesigner was created by the previous version of the AD4.AppDesigner. You find the current app definition in t...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.71.1: More performance improvements. It's faster and consumes less memory.SQL Server Change Data Capture Application: Release 1: This is the initial release of SQLCDCApp. Download the zip file. Unzip and run SQLCDCApp.exe to start.Role Based Views in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Role Based Views in CRM 2011 and 2013 - 1.1.0.0: Issues fixed in this build: 1. Works for CRM 2013 2. Lookup view not getting blockedMathos Parser: 1.0.6.1 + source code: Removed the bug with comma/dot reported and fixed by Diego.Dynamics AX Build Scripts: DynamicsAXCommunity Powershell module (0.3.0): Change log(previous release was 0.2.4) 0.3.0 AxBuild (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn528954.aspx) is supported and used by default. Smarter dealing with versions - e.g. listing configurations for all versions in the same time. $AxVersionPreference shouldn't be normally needed. Additional properties returned by Get-AXConfig. 0.2.5 -StartupCmd and -Wait added to Start-AXClient. Handles console output sent from AX (http://dev.goshoom.net/en/2012/05/console-output-ax/).xFunc: xFunc 2.15.6: Fidex #77QuickMon: Version 3.12: This release is mostly just to improve the UI for the Windows client. There are a few minor fixes as well. 1. Polling frequency presets fixed (slow, normal and fast) 2. Added collector call duration to history 3. History now displays time, state, duration and details in separate columns 4. Added a quick launch drop down list to main Window (only visible when mouse hover over it) 5. Removed the toolbar border. 6. Changed Windows service collector to report error only when all services from al...VK.NET - Vkontakte API for .NET: VkNet 1.0.5: ?????????? ????? ??????.Kartris E-commerce: Kartris v2.6002: Minor release: Double check that Logins_GetList sproc is present, sometimes seems to get missed earlier if upgrading which can give error when viewing logins page Added CSV and TXT export option; this is not Google Products compatible, but can give a good base for creating a file for some other systems such as Amazon Fixed some minor combination and options issues to improve interface back and front Turn bitcoin and some other gateways off by default Minor CSS changes Fixed currenc...SimCityPak: SimCityPak 0.3.1.0: Main New Features: Fixed Importing of Instance Names (get rid of the Dutch translations) Added advanced editor for Decal Dictionaries Added possibility to import .PNG to generate new decals Added advanced editor for Path display entriesTiny Deduplicator: Tiny Deduplicator 1.0.1.0: Increased version number to 1.0.1.0 Moved all options to a separate 'Options' dialog window. Allows the user to specify a selection strategy which will help when dealing with large numbers of duplicate files. Available options are "None," "Keep First," and "Keep Last"C64 Studio: 3.5: Add: BASIC renumber function Add: !PET pseudo op Add: elseif for !if, } else { pseudo op Add: !TRACE pseudo op Add: Watches are saved/restored with a solution Add: Ctrl-A works now in export assembly controls Add: Preliminary graphic import dialog (not fully functional yet) Add: range and block selection in sprite/charset editor (Shift-Click = range, Alt-Click = block) Fix: Expression evaluator could miscalculate when both division and multiplication were in an expression without parenthesisSEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.031.009 Release 1: Added mirroring of ConveyorTubeCurved. Updated Ship cube rotation to rotate ship back to original location (cubes are reoriented but ship appears no different to outsider), and to rotate Grouped items. Repair now fixes the loss of Grouped controls due to changes in Space Engineers 01.030. Added export asteroids. Rejoin ships will merge grouping and conveyor systems (even though broken ships currently only maintain the Grouping on one part of the ship). Installation of this version wi...Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows and WP v2.0: Support for new Universal and Windows Phone 8.1 projects for both Xaml and JavaScript projects. See a detailed list of improvements, breaking changes and a general overview of version 2 ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows Phone 8.1 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applicat...TerraMap (Terraria World Map Viewer): TerraMap 1.0.6: Added support for the new Terraria v1.2.4 update. New items, walls, and tiles Added the ability to select multiple highlighted block types. Added a dynamic, interactive highlight opacity slider, making it easier to find highlighted tiles with dark colors (and fixed blurriness from 1.0.5 alpha). Added ability to find Enchanted Swords (in the stone) and Water Bolt books Fixed Issue 35206: Hightlight/Find doesn't work for Demon Altars Fixed finding Demon Hearts/Shadow Orbs Fixed inst...DotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 with Examples: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 Tested and adapted to the latest version of Highcharts 4.0.1 Added new chart type: Heatmap Added new type PointPlacement which represents enumeration or number for the padding of the X axis. Changed target framework from .NET Framework 4 to .NET Framework 4.5. Closed issues: 974: Add 'overflow' property to PlotOptionsColumnDataLabels class 997: Split container from JS 1006: Series/Categories with numeric names don't render DotNet.Highcharts.Samples Updated s...PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit: PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit v3.1.3: Added CompressLogs option to the config file. Each Install / Uninstall creates a timestamped zip file with all MSI and PSAppDeployToolkit logs contained within Added variable expansion to all paths in the configuration file Added documentation for each of the Toolkit internal variables that can be used Changed Install-MSUpdates to continue if any errors are encountered when installing updates Implement /Force parameter on Update-GroupPolicy (ensure that any logoff message is ignored) ...WordMat: WordMat v. 1.07: A quick fix because scientific notation was broken in v. 1.06 read more at http://wordmat.blogspot.com????: 《????》: 《????》（c???）??“????”???????，???????????????C?????????。???????,???????????????????????. ??????????????????????????????????；????????????????????????????。New Projects2112110016: BÀI T?P OOP2112110072: 2112110072 Bai tap OOPA more efficient algorithm for an NP-complete problem: Algorithm for finding Hamiltonian cycle.Asprise OCR for C#/VB.NET Sample Applications: Embeded with a high performance OCR (optical character recognition) engine, Asprise OCR SDK library for Java, VB.NET, CSharp.NET, VC++, VB6.0, C, C++, Delphi onDisenio1Obli1: Obligatorio desarrollado por Santiago Perez y Germán Otero Universidad ORT, Año 2014DuAnCuoiKy: lap trinh windows form cuoi ky, quan ly sinh vien truong hoc student management systemEnterprise Integration and BPM - A WF Integration and BPM blueprint: A CQRS based EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and BMP (Business Process Management) blueprint using Message Queues and Windows Workflow Foundation.GU.ERP: saLaunchPad2: A remote device timing and control systemNMusicCreator: A simple program for creating music.PPM: ??SharePoint 2013 Latency Health Analyzer Rule: Analyze network latency for all SQL Servers using this custom health analyzer rule.SnapPea: A simple MVC content management system.The Bubble Index: The Bubble Index, a Java (TM) application to measure the level of financial bubbles. Published with GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2).Tools for Manufacturing: t4mfg is a set of programs to be used by small to medium sized companies that manufacture goods to order.Unix Project Template: A simple framework for creating unix projects using C++ and make.

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• Warnings When Undo Isn't Possible

  - by ultan o'broin

  Enjoyed this post Never Use a Warning When you Mean Undo by Aza Raskin. It makes sense never to warn users if an undo option is possible. The examples given are from the web space. Here's the conclusion: Warnings cause us to lose our work, to mistrust our computers, and to blame ourselves. A simple but foolproof design methodology solves the problem: "Never use a warning when you mean undo." And when a user is deleting their work, you always mean undo. However, in enterprise apps you may find that an undo option isn't technically possible or desirable. Objects may be shared, part of a flow elsewhere, or undoing something committed to the database (a rollback I guess) may not be feasible if it becomes locked by another process. Plus, what constitutes user ownership of objects isn't always clear to users. The implications of delete (and other) actions need to be clearly communicated out in advance. Really, warnings are important in the enterprise space. Data has a very high value, and users can perform a wide variety of actions that may risk that data, not always within the application itself (at browser level, for example). That said, throwing warnings all over the place when an undo option is possible is annoying. Instead, treat warnings with respect. When there is no undo option possible, use warning messages to communicate potentially dangerous or irrecoverable actions or the downstream consequences of user actions on the process or task flow. Force the user to respond to a warning message by using a modal dialog with clearly labeled action buttons. Here's a couple of examples. A great article that got me thinking. Let's see more like that. Let's not forget there's more types of messages than just error messages. User assistance and user experience professionals need to understand when best to use confirmation, information, and warning types too!

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• Free 48 Page PDF Guide to Mastering Social Networking with Gwibber [Linux]

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you using Gwibber on your Linux system but not making full use of its’ potential? This free 48 page PDF guide will show you how to use and tweak Gwibber for the best performance when it comes to working with your social networks. Photo courtesy of Gwibber Blog. Examples of sections included in the guide are: Installing and getting started with Gwibber Becoming familiar with Gwibber’s UI Broadcasting and interacting on your social networks through Gwibber Filtering the flow of information Customizing the interface And more Here is an excerpt from the section on Filtering the Flow of Information. The step by step instructions combined with helpful, labeled screenshots make this a nice guide to have for anyone wanting to get the most out of Gwibber for their social networking needs. Note: Gwibber works with Twitter, identi.ca, StatusNet, Facebook, FriendFeed, Digg, Flickr, and Qaiku. Download the Master Social Networking with Gwibber PDF Guide [via OMG! Ubuntu!] *Note: In this instance this is a direct download of the PDF Guide itself. Visit the Gwibber Homepage HTG Explains: What Are Character Encodings and How Do They Differ?How To Make Disposable Sleeves for Your In-Ear MonitorsMacs Don’t Make You Creative! So Why Do Artists Really Love Apple?

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• Portal and Content - Components, part 3 – Applied Customization Framework (4 of 7)

  - by Stefan Krantz

  Have you ever been challenged with the situation where your work task asks you to implement functionality in the WebCenter Portal and you browse through the Resource Catalog (Business Dictionary) and find the functionality you need. However when you get started there is small short comings and you ask your self- how can I re-use what is out of the box ca?- I wonder what code I need to use to produce the similar functions and include my new requirements?- Must I write a new taskflow? The answer to above questions are in many times answered with simply you can  do a taskflow customization to out-of-the-box taskflows. In this post I will help you understand how to do such customization. Best described is a 4 step process, see image flow below for illustration: Just to clarify few naming confusions that might occur when go through above process. Customization Role is a function within JDeveloper that will allow you to implement view and flow customizations to existing taskflows WebCenter Portal – Spaces Taskflow Customization Framework this technology scope do not only refer to WebCenter Spaces, this also include WebCenter Portal/Framework A taskflow customization do not overwrite or replace any code, it just creates an additional tip view of the taskflow in the MDS for the current application (WebCenter Portal or WebCenter Spaces) To sum up this simple procedure I also like to help you find your way around the main topic for this post series, this post series is focusing primarily on Content integration with WebCenter Portal, so where can I find content related taskflows in the WebCenter Libraries. The list below mention some useful locations to taskflows and each taskflow page fragments. Library Reference - WebCenter Document Library Service View Content Presenter Path: oracle.webcenter.doclib.view.jsf.taskflows.presenterTaskflow: contentPresenter.xml - The Content Presenter taskflowTaskflow: contentPresenterWizard.xml - The publishing wizard to select content, select template and preview including contributionDocument Manager Path: oracle.webcenter.doclib.view.jsf.taskflows.docManager Taskflow: documentManager.xml - The Document Manager taskflow which includes references to document management feature including browsing, download, uploading and viewing. For more information on Taskflow customizations please see following documentation:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/webcenter.1111/e10148/jpsdg_taskflows.htm#BACIEGJD

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• OOP concept: is it possible to update the class of an instantiated object?

  - by Federico

  I am trying to write a simple program that should allow a user to save and display sets of heterogeneous, but somehow related data. For clarity sake, I will use a representative example of vehicles. The program flow is like this: The program creates a Garage object, which is basically a class that can contain a list of vehicles objects Then the users creates Vehicles objects, these Vehicles each have a property, lets say License Plate Nr. Once created, the Vehicle object get added to a list within the Garage object --Later on--, the user can specify that a given Vehicle object is in fact a Car object or a Truck object (thus giving access to some specific attributes such as Number of seats for the Car, or Cargo weight for the truck) At first sight, this might look like an OOP textbook question involving a base class and inheritance, but the problem is more subtle because at the object creation time (and until the user decides to give more info), the computer doesn't know the exact Vehicle type. Hence my question: how would you proceed to implement this program flow? Is OOP the way to go? Just to give an initial answer, here is what I've came up until now. There is only one Vehicle class and the various properties/values are handled by the main program (not the class) through a dictionary. However, I'm pretty sure that there must be a more elegant solution (I'm developing using VB.net): Public Class Garage Public GarageAdress As String Private _ListGarageVehicles As New List(Of Vehicles) Public Sub AddVehicle(Vehicle As Vehicles) _ListGarageVehicles.Add(Vehicle) End Sub End Class Public Class Vehicles Public LicensePlateNumber As String Public Enum VehicleTypes Generic = 0 Car = 1 Truck = 2 End Enum Public VehicleType As VehicleTypes Public DictVehicleProperties As New Dictionary(Of String, String) End Class NOTE that in the example above the public/private modifiers do not necessarily reflect the original code

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• Finish feature reverted commits from develop

  - by marco-fiset

  I am using git as a version control system, and using git-flow as the branching model. I started a feature branch some weeks ago in order to maintain the system in a clean state while developping that feature. The main development continued on the develop branch, and changes from develop were merged periodically into the feature, to keep it up to date as much as possible. However came the time where the feature was finished, and I used git-flow's finish feature to merge the feature back into develop. The merge was successfully done, but then I found out that some of the commits I made in develop were reverted by the merge commit! Nowhere in develop or in the feature branch were these changes reverted, I can't see any commit that overwrote them. I just can't find anything. The only theory I have for the moment is that git is failing on me, but that would be extremely unlikely. Maybe I did some kind of wrong manipulation that made this situation come true? I can trace back in the history when the commit was made. I can see that the changes from that commit were reverted by the merge commit. Nowhere in the branch I see a commit that reverts those changes. Yet they were reverted. How is this even possible?

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• Basics of Website development [closed]

  - by user975234

  I have read this post: What should every programmer know about web development? but I have some more questions... I will be developing a content related website very soon and I am confused about some technology stuff. I am thinking about developing the site using ruby on rails. So when I'll be buying hosting, do I need to ask for something special? Like for example, we need to specify what kind of hosting we need, windows or linux. So for ruby on rails do I need some extra facilities from the hosting provider? Is ruby on rails a good choice for a large content related website? This may be a bit stupid but how do I choose my backend, scripting languages etc? Thing is I am really new to website development. And the flow of making websites is not clear. Any links will be helpful. EDIT: I know this question has been voted as non constructive. But if any one still has some precise knowledge about how the flow of website development goes, please comment your views.. That will be helpful!

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• Mobile App Notifications in the Enterprise Space: UX Considerations

  - by ultan o'broin

  Here is a really super website of UX patterns for Android: Android Patterns. I was particularly interested in the event-driven notification patterns (aka status bar notifications to developers). Android - unlike iOS (i.e., the iPhone) - offers a superior centralized notifications system for users.   (Figure copyright Android Patterns)   Research in the enterprise applications space shows how users on-the-go, prefer this approach, as: Users can manage their notification alerts centrally, across all media, apps and for device activity, and decide the order in which to deal with them, and when. Notifications, unlike messages in a dialog or information message in the UI, do not block a task flow (and we need to keep task completion to under three minutes). See the Anti-Patterns slideshare presentation on this blocking point too. These notifications must never interrupt a task flow by launching an activity from the background. Instead, the user can launch an activity from the notification. What users do need is the ability to filter this centralized approach, and to personalize the experience of which notifications are added, what the reminder is, ability to turn off, and so on. A related point concerning notifications is when used to provide users with a record of actions then you can lighten up on lengthy confirmation messages that pop up (toasts in the Android world) used when transactions or actions are sent for processing or into a workflow. Pretty much all the confirmation needs to say is the action is successful along with key data such as dollar amount, customer name, or whatever. I am a user of Android (Nexus S), BlackBerry (Curve), and iOS devices (iPhone 3GS and 4). In my opinion, the best notifications user experience for the enterprise user is offered by Android. Blackberry is good, but not as polished and way clunkier than Android’s. What you get on the iPhone, out of the box, is useless in the enterprise. Technorati Tags: Android,iPhone,Blackerry,messages,usablility,user assistance,userexperience,Oracle,patterns,notifications,alerts

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• flat files vs. RDBMS database, few read/writes, few changes

  - by Bob Lapique

  I have to handle data from long term (years, decades) climate monitoring stations. The data flow usually starts with raw data (voltages, etc.) plus quality check information (pressure, temperature, flow rate, etc.) generally recorded @ 1Hz. Then, the data are assigned a quality flag (human and/or program), processed (apply calibration curves) and flagged. So, we basically end up with 2 datasets : raw and processed data. New data are typically added once a day (~500Ko/day/instrument). Simultaneous queries are not likely to ever happen. I wanted to go for a RDBMS (we have a MySQL server) and have some experience in database design, but the IT guy keeps telling me that flat files will to the job just as well. I suspect him to try to make his life easier when it comes to backup/upgrade the MySQL. There are not so many links between data, they don't change much, but the quality flags will change. A RDBMS is easier to compare data from different instruments on a "many days" scale, compared to daily text files. Well, what would you advise ? Thanks.

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• What do you do to make sure you take proper/enough breaks, while avoiding unwanted side-effects of break taking?

  - by blueberryfields

  preamble It seems to me that computer programmers are one of a select few groups of people who actually take pleasure from sitting in front of computers for long periods of time. Most people in other professions actively dislike their time at computers, and do their best to avoid it (so, I assume, they don't have problems taking breaks). At least for me, having external cues for taking breaks, and clear instructions on what to do with each break (stretch, go for a walk, close my eyes, look into a distance of preferably a few km and focus on faraway objects, etc...), is a must. So far, I've just been making up the breaks and tools to get them as I go along, based on what looks to be low-specificity information found on the net (generic stuff ala ergonomics advice for office staff). This has led to all sorts of side effects - loss of attention as I get distracted if I walk around, breaks in flow with alarm clocks interrupting my thoughts, and people around me assuming I'm low on work due to the frequency of my walking around compared to everyone else. /preamble tl;dr Taking breaks is important My internal break taking system doesn't work, and ad-hoc ones have unwanted side effects What do you do to make sure you take proper breaks? How do you avoid unwanted side-effects, such as getting distracted or interrupting flow or giving your co-workers the impression you're spending a lot of time goofing off?

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• Upcoming EBS Webcasts for June, July, August 2012

  - by user793553

  See the following upcoming webcasts for June, July and August 2012. Flag Doc ID 740966.1 as a favourite, to keep up to date with latest advisor schedule. Additionally, see Doc ID 740964.1 for access to all archived advisor webcasts Oracle E-Business Suite Oracle E-Business Suite Title Date Summary None at this time.     EBS Agile Title Date Summary None at this time.     EBS Applications Technologies Group (ATG) Title Date Summary EBS – OAM Tuning and Monitoring EMEA July 10, 2012 Abstract EBS – OAM Tuning and Monitoring US July 11, 2012 Abstract Workflow Analyzer Followup EMEA July 24, 2012 Abstract Workflow Analyzer Followup US July 25, 2012 Abstract EBS CRM & Industries Title Date Summary None at this time.     EBS Financials Title Date Summary EBS Fixed Assets: Achieve Success Using Proactive Tools For Fixed Assets Support July 10, 2012 Abstract Overview and Flow of Oracle Project Resource Management July 17, 2012 Abstract Leveraging My Oracle Support To Increase Knowledge July 30, 2012 Abstract EBS HCM (HRMS) Title Date Summary Oracle Time and Labor (OTL) Rollback Functionality Session 1 July 25, 2012 Abstract Oracle Time and Labor (OTL) Rollback Functionality Session 2 July 25, 2012 Abstract EBS Manufacturing Title Date Summary Using Personalization in Oracle eAM June 21, 2012 Abstract OM Guided Resolutions - Finding Known Resolutions Easily July 17, 2012 Abstract Material Move Orders Flow July 25, 2012 Abstract Diagnosing Signal 11 Issues In ASCP Planning August 9, 2012 Abstract Interface Trip Stop - Best Practices and Debugging August 21, 2012 Abstract EBS Procurement Title Date Summary Punchout in iProcurement June 26, 2012 Abstract

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• HCM: North America: Year End Knowledge Content References

  - by CaroleB

  As we all know, the next couple of months will be busy ones for the Payroll and IT department in relation to preparing for Year End,as a means of assisting you to find documented knowledge in reference to North American (NA) Year End, the following reference guide has been put together: General Knowledge: Doc ID 404478.1 Americas (US, CA, MX) HCM High Priority Alert Doc ID 1577601.1 North American Year End 2013 / 2014 Year Begin Patch Information and Useful Links. Monitor this note as it will be updated as new information becomes available NA Year End Processing: Document 255466.1 - End of Year Processing Using Oracle HRMS (US)  Document 260344.1 - End Of Year Processing Using Oracle HRMS (Canada) Document 395622.1 - End Of Year Processing Using Oracle HRMS (Mexican) Patching : Document 216109.1 - Oracle Human Resources (HRMS) Payroll North America Annual Patching Schedule Document 1160507.1 - Oracle E-Business Suite - Consolidated HRMS Mandatory Patch List Document 1144633.1 - US Year End Patch Flow Advisor: E-Business Suite (EBS) Human Capital Management (HCM) for US Legislation patching 2013 YE Phase I Readme's US Document 1584795.1 Release 11i   - 2013 US Payroll Year End Phase 1 Readme Document 1584796.1 Release 12.0 - 2013 US Payroll Year End Phase 1 Readme Document 1584797.1 Release 12.1 - 2013 US Payroll Year End Phase 1 Readme CA Document 1585365.1 2013 Canadian Payroll Year End Phase 1 Readme Release 11i Document 1585366.1 2013 Canadian Payroll Year End Phase 1 Readme Release 12.0 Document 1585367.1 2013 Canadian Payroll Year End Phase 1 Readme Release 12.1 Known Issues / How To: Document 1527958.2 - Information Center: Oracle HRMS (US) (All Application Versions) Look specifically at the US- Year End Tab for information on: Year End Pre-Processor 1099R Federal, State, and Local Magnetic Media W-2 Paper Reports W-2 PDF W-2 Register Additional Resources: Webcast: Document 1455851.1 - Advisor Webcasts for Oracle E-Business Suite- Human Capital Management (HCM) Document 1592483.1 - Webcast: EBS North American Payroll Year End Process Flow November 20, 2013 at 3:30 pm ET, 2:30 pm CT, 1:30 pm MT, 12:30 pm PT Communities: Payroll – EBS HCM - EBS Community E-Business Patching Community

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• Grid Based Lighting in XNA/Monogame

  - by sm81095

  I know that questions like this have been asked many times, but I have not found one exactly like this yes. I have implemented a top-down grid based world in Monogame, and am starting on the lighting system soon. How I want to do lighting is to have a grid that is 4 times wider and higher, basically splitting each world tile into a 4x4 system of "subtiles". I would like to use a flow like system to spread light across the tiles by reducing the light by a small amount each time. This is kind of the effect I was going for: http://i.imgur.com/rv8LCxZ.png The black grid lines are the light grid, and the red lines are the actual tile grid, and the light drop-off is very exaggerated. I plan to render the world by drawing the unlit grid to a separate RenderTarget2D, then rendering the lighting grid to a separate target and overlaying the two. Basically, my questions are: What would be the algorithm for a flow style lighting system like this? Would there be a more efficient way of rendering this? How would I handle the darkening of the light with colors, reducing the RGB values in each grid, or reducing the alpha in each grid, assuming that I render the light map over the grid using blending? Even assuming the former are possible, what BlendState would I use for that?

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• CoffeeScript - inability to support progressive adoption

  - by Renso

  First if, what is CoffeeScript?Web definitionsCoffeeScript is a programming language that compiles statement-by-statement to JavaScript. The language adds syntactic sugar inspired by Ruby and Python to enhance JavaScript's brevity and readability, as well as adding more sophisticated features like array comprehension and pattern matching.The issue with CoffeeScript is that it eliminates any progressive adoption. It is a purist approach, kind of like the Amish, if you're not borne Amish, tough luck. So for folks with thousands of lines of JavaScript code will have a tough time to convert it to CoffeeScript. You can use the js2coffee API to convert the JavaScript file to CoffeeScript but in my experience that had trouble converting the files. It would convert the file to CoffeeScript without any complaints, but then when trying to generate the CoffeeScript file got errors with guess what: INDENTATION!Tried to convince the CoffeeScript community on github but got lots of push-back to progressive adoption with comments like "stupid", "crap", "child's comportment", "it's like Ruby, Python", "legacy code" etc. As a matter of interest one of the first comments were that the code needs to be re-designed before converted to CoffeeScript. Well I rest my case then :-)So far the community on github has been very reluctant to even consider introducing some way to define code-blocks, obviously curly braces is not an option as they use it for json object definitions. They also have no consideration for a progressive adoption where some, if not all, JavaScript syntax will be allowed which means all of us in the real world that have thousands of lines of JavaScript will have a real issue converting it over. Worst, I for one lack the confidence that tools like js2coffee will provide the correct indentation that will determine the flow of control in your code!!! Actually it is hard for me to find enough justification for using spaces or tabs to control the flow of code. It is no wonder that C#, C, C++, Java, all enterprise-scale frameworks still use curly braces. Have never seen an enterprise app built with Ruby or PhP.Let me know what your concerns are with CoffeeScript and how you dealt with large scale JavaScript conversions to CoffeeScript.

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• Tracking form abandonment

  - by Alec Sanger

  I'm looking for a decent way to track form abandonment. Ideally, I would like to see how many people start filling out a form but do not complete it, as well as the last field that was filled out. The website is a fairly large Wordpress site with quite a few forms. Some of these forms are to register for events, some are for donations, some are for information requests. My first attempt at this was adding a generic jquery that bound functions to all forms on the site. When a form element was blurred, I would trigger a Google Analytics event with the name of the form, the name of the field, and whether or not it was filled. I expected to be able to go to the Event Flow section in Google Analytics and see the flow of these form events, however since there are so many forms and other events occurring on the website, Google wouldn't let me break them out very well. The other issue was the Quform doesn't name their fields anything relevant, and it doesn't look like we can name them ourselves. This results in a lot of ugly form names that don't mean anything without cross-referencing the actual form. Does anybody have any suggestions on how I can achieve more usable form abandonment metrics in a scenario like this?

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• How "commercially savvy" should software developers be? [closed]

  - by mattnz

  I have been watching answers to many questions on this site, and have come to the conclusion that commercial pragmatism does not factor into many software development discussions. As a result, I seriously wonder at the commercial skills within the industry, specifically the ability to deliver projects on time and to a budget. I see no indication from the site that commercially successful project delivery is a serious concern, yet the industry has a reputation for poor performance in this. Rarely, if ever, does the cost of time factor into discussions. I have never seen concepts such as opportunity cost, time to market, competitive advantage or cash flow mentioned, let alone discussed in technical answers to questions. How can you answer virtually any question without understanding the commercial background on which it is asked? Even Open source projects have a need to operate efficiently and deploy their limited resources to providing the most value for effort. Typically small start-ups have cash flow issues that outweigh longevity concerns, yet they are typically still advised to build for a future they probably won’t have if they do. Is it fair to say that these problems are solely the Managers and Project managers to solve, or are we, as developers, also responsible for ensuring successful on time, within budget delivery of projects, even if those budgets do not allow use to achieve engineering excellence?

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• Using Subdomains for Newly Regional Company

  - by Taylord22

  The company I work for is expanding their business to new territories. I've got a lot of stabilization to do in the region/state where we're one of the most well known companies of our kind. Currently, we have 3 distinct product lines which are currently distinguished by 3 separate URLS. This is affecting the user flow of our site, so we'd like to clean it up before launching our products into the various regions. The business has decided to grow into 5 new states (one state consisting of one county only) — none of which will feature all 3 products. Our homebase state is the only one that will have all 3 products this year. My initial thought was to use subdomains to separate out the regions, that way we could use a canonical tag to stabilize the root domain (which would feature home state content, and support content for all regions), and remove us from potential duplicate content penalization. Our product content will be nearly identical across the regions for the first year. I second guessed myself by thinking that it was perhaps better to use a "[product].root/region" URL instead. And I'm currently stuck by wondering if it was not better to build out subdomains for products and regions...using one modifier or the other as a funnel/branding page into the other. For instance, user lands on "region.root.com" and sees exactly what products we offer in that region. Basically, a tailored landing page. Meanwhile the bulk of the product content would actually live under "product.root.com/region/page". My head is spinning. And while searching for similar questions I also bumped into reference of another tag meant to be used in some similar cases to mine. I feel like there's a lot of risks involved in this subdomain strategy, but I also can't help but see the benefits in the user flow.

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• Setup Remote Access in Windows Home Server

  - by Mysticgeek

  One of the many awesome features of Windows Home Server, is the ability to access your server and other computers on your network remotely. Today we show you the steps to enable Remote Access to your home server from anywhere you have an Internet connection. Remote Access in Windows Home Server has a lot of great features like uploading and downloading files from shared folders, accessing files from machines on your network, and controling machines remotely (on supported OS versions). Here we take a look at the basics of setting it up, choosing a domain name, and verifying you can connect remotely. Setup Remote Access in Windows Home Server Open the Windows Home Server Console and click on Settings. Next select Remote Access, it is off by default, just click the button to turn it on. Wait while your router is configured for remote access, when it’s complete click Next. Notice that it will enable UPnP, if you don’t wish to have that enabled, you can manually forward the correct ports. If you have any problems with the router being automatically configured, we’ll be taking a look at a more detailed troubleshooting guide in the future. The router is successfully configured, and we can continue to the next process of configuring our domain name. The Domain Name Setup Wizard will start. Notice you will need a Windows Live ID to set it up –which is typically your hotmail address. If you don’t already have one, you can get one here. Type in your Live ID email address and password and click Next… Agree to the Home Server Privacy Statement and the Live Custom Domains Addendum. If you’re concerned about privacy and want to learn more about the domain addendum, make sure to read about it before agreeing. There is nothing abnormal to point out about either statement, but if this is your first time setting it up, it’s good to review the information.   Now choose a name for the domain. You should select something that is easy to remember and identifies your home server. The name can contain up to 63 characters, numbers, letters, and hyphens…and must begin and end with a letter or number. When you have the name figured out click the Confirm button. Note: You can only register one domain name per Live ID. If the name isn’t already taken, you’ll get a confirmation message indicating it’s god to go. The wizard is complete and you can now access the home server from the URL provided. A few other things to point out after you’ve set it up…under Domain Name click on the Details button… Which pulls up the domain detail information and you can refresh the data to verify everything is working correctly. Or you can click the Configure button and then change or release your current domain name. Under Web site settings, you can change you site page headline to whatever you want it to be. Accessing Home Server Remotely After you’ve gotten everything setup for your home server domain, you can begin to access it when you’re away from home. Simply type in the domain address you created in the previous steps. The start page is rather boring…and to start accessing your data, click the Log On button in the upper right hand corner. Then enter in your home server credentials to gain access to your files, folders, and network computers. You won’t be able to log in with your administrator user account however, to protect security of your network. Once you’re logged in, you’ll be able to access different parts of your home server shares and network computers. Conclusion Now that you have Remote Access setup, you should be able to access and manage your files easily. Being able to access data from your home server remotely is great when you need to get certain files while on the road. The web UI is pretty self explanatory, works best in IE as ActiveX is required, and is smooth and easy to work with. In future articles we’ll be covering a lot more regarding remote access, including more of the available features, troubleshooting connection issues, and enabling access for other users. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips GMedia Blog: Setting Up a Windows Home ServerHow to Remote Desktop to the Actual Server Console on Windows 2003Use Windows Vista Aero through Remote Desktop ConnectionAccess Your MySQL Server Remotely Over SSHShare Ubuntu Home Directories using Samba TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC Live Map of Marine Traffic NoSquint Remembers Site Specific Zoom Levels (Firefox)

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• Restore Your PC from Windows Home Server

  - by Mysticgeek

  If your computer crashes or you get a virus infection that makes it unrecoverable, doing a clean install can be a hassle, let alone getting your data back. If you’re backing up your computers to Windows Home Server, you can completely restore them to the last successful backup. Note: For this process to work you need to verify the PC you want to restore is connected to your network via Ethernet. If you have it connected wirelessly it won’t work. Restore a PC from Windows Home Server On the computer you want to restore, pop in the Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore disc and boot from it. If you don’t have one already made, you can easily make one following these instructions. We have also included the link to the restore disc below. Boot from the CD then select if your machine has 512MB or RAM or more. The disc will initialize… Then choose your language and keyboard settings. Hopefully if everything goes correctly, your network card will be detected and you can continue. However, if it doesn’t like in our example, click on the Show Details button. In the Detect Hardware screen click on the Install Drivers button. Now you will need to have a USB flash drive with the correct drivers on it. It has to be a flash drive or a floppy (if you happen to still have one of those) because you can’t take out the Restore CD. If you want to make sure you have the correct drivers on the USB flash drive, open the Windows Home Server Console on another computer on your network. In the Computers and Backup section right-click on the computer you want to restore and select View Backups. Select the backup you want to restore from and click the Open button in the Restore or view Files section. Now drag the entire contents of the folder named Windows Home Server Drivers for Restore to the USB flash drive. Back to the machine you’re trying to restore, insert the USB flash drive with the correct drivers and click the Scan button. Wait a few moments while the drivers are found then click Ok then Continue.   The Restore Computer Wizard starts up… Enter in your home server password and click Next. Select the computer you want to restore. If it isn’t selected by default you can pull it up from the dropdown list under Another Computer. Make certain you’re selecting the correct machine. Now select the backup you want to restore. In this example we only have one but chances are you’ll have several. If you have several backups to choose from, you might want to check out the details for them. Now you can select the disk from backup and and restore it to the destination volume. You might need to initialize a disk, change a drive letter, or other disk management tasks, if so, then click on Run Disk Manger. For example we want to change the destination drive letter to (C:).   After you’ve made all the changes to the destination disk you can continue with the restore process. If everything looks correct, confirm the restore configuration. If you need to make any changes at this point, you can still go back and make them. Now Windows Home Server will restore your drive. The amount of time it takes will vary depend on the amount of data you have to restore, network connection speed, and hardware. You are notified when the restore successfully completes. Click Finish and the PC will reboot and be restored and should be working correctly. All the updates, programs, and files will be back that were saved to the last successful backup. Anything you might have installed after that backup will be gone. If you have your computers set to backup every night, then hopefully it won’t be a big issue.   Conclusion Backing up the computers on your network to Windows Home Server is a valuable tool in your backup strategy. Sometimes you may only need to restore a couple files and we’ve covered how to restore them from backups on WHS and that works really well. If the unthinkable happens and you need to restore the entire computer, WHS makes that easy too.  Download Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore CD Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Restore Files from Backups on Windows Home ServerCreate A Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore DiscGMedia Blog: Setting Up a Windows Home ServerShare Ubuntu Home Directories using SambaInstalling Windows Home Server TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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• ICC Cricket World Cup 2011- Free Online Live Streaming, Mobile Apps, TV and Radio Guide

  - by Kavitha

  The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 will be hosted jointly by Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. This 10th edition of World Cup is held between 19 February-2 April 2011. The World Cup drive will be starting in Dhaka on 19 February with the inaugural match between India and Bangladesh. The 43 days long ICC World Cup Cricket 2011 event will host 49 matches, day matches starting as early as 9.30am IST and day-night matches starting at 2.30pm IST. Here is our guide to follow 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup live on your computers, televisions,mobiles and radios Free Live Streaming On The Web (Official & Unofficial) http://espnstar.com will live stream all the matches of World Cup 2011 and they will be available in HD quality as they are the official broadcasters of World Cup 2011 cricket event. This is the first time ever a world cup cricket event is streamed online officially. If you are not able to access the official live streaming of Cricket World Cup due to regional restrictions, point your browser to any of the following unofficial live streams on the web. NOTE: MAKE SURE THAT YOUR ANTIVIRUS and ANTIMALWARE software are up and running before opening any of these sites. crictime.com - this site offers 6 live streaming servers that offer World Cup 2011 Cricket matches streams. Don’t mind the ads that are displayed left,right and center and just enjoy the cricket. Web pages dedicated for the world cup streaming are already live and you can bookmark them for your reference. cricfire.com/live-cricket: cricfire   gathers cricket live streams available around the web and provides them for easy access. Also they provide links for watching highlights and other post match analysis shows. Other sites that provide live streaming videos extracover.net webcric.com Searching for Unofficial Streams On Live Video Streaming Sites One of the best ways to find the unofficial streams is look for live streaming feeds on popular video streaming websites. We can be assured that these sites does not spread malware and spammy ads as they are well established. Here are the queries that you can use to search the popular sites FreedoCast  http://freedocast.com/search.aspx?go=cricket%20world%20cup Justin.tv      http://www.justin.tv/search?q=cricket+world+cup Ustream.tv  http://www.ustream.tv/discovery/live/all?q=cricket%20world%20cup TV Channels That Telecast Cricket World Cup Live Even though web is the place where we spend most of our time for entertainment, TVs are still popular for watching sports events. Mostly 90% of us are going to follow this cricket world cup matches on television sets. Here is the list of TV channels that paid whooping amounts of money for broadcasting rights and going to telecast live cricket Afghanistan – Ariana Television Network: Lemar TV Australia – Nine Network, Fox Sports Bangladesh – Bangladesh Television Canada – Asian Television Network China – ESPN Star Sports Europe (Except UK & Ireland) – Eurosport2 Fiji – Fiji TV India – ESPN Star Sports, Star Cricket, DD National (mostly India matches alone) Ireland – Zee Cafe Jamaica – Television Jamaica Middle East – Arab Radio and Television Network Nepal – ESPN Star Sports New Zealand – Sky Sport Pacific Islands – Sky Pacific Pakistan – GEO Super, Pakistan Television Corporation Pan-Africa – South African Broadcasting Corporation Singapore – Star Cricket South Africa – Supersport, Sabc3 Sport Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation United Kingdom – Sky Sports HD USA – Willow Cricket, DirecTV, Dish Network West Indies – Caribbean Media Corporation Radio Stations That Provide Live Commentary Don’t we listen to radio? Yes we still listen to radios, especially when we are on the go. Radios are part of our mobiles as well as music players like iPods. Here are the stations that you can tune into for catching live cricket commentary Australia – ABC Local Radio Bangladesh – Bangladesh Betar Canada , Central America – EchoStar India – All India Radio Pakistan, United Arab Emirates – Hum FM Sri Lanka – FM Derana United Kingdom, Ireland – BBC Radio West Indies – Caribbean Media Corporation Watch World Cup Cricket On Your Mobile This section is for Indian users. 3G rollout is happening at very high pace in all part of the India and most of the metros and towns are able to access 3G services. With 3G on your mobile you will be able to watch live ICC world cricket on your Reliance Mobiles and you can read more about it here. Top 10 Cricket Websites Check out our earlier post on top 10 cricket web sites for information. This article titled,ICC Cricket World Cup 2011- Free Online Live Streaming, Mobile Apps, TV and Radio Guide, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• SQL Server service accounts and SPNs

  - by simonsabin

  Service Principal Names (SPNs) are a must for kerberos authentication which is a must when using sharepoint, reporting services and sql server where you access one server that then needs to access another resource, this is called the double hop. The reason this is a complex problem is that the second hop has to be done with impersonation/delegation. For this to work there needs to be a way for the security system to make sure that the service in the middle is allowed to impersonate you, after all you are not giving the service your password. To do this you need to be using kerberos. The following is my simple interpretation of how kerberos works. I find the Kerberos documentation rediculously complex so the following might be sligthly wrong but I think its close enough. Keberos works on a ticketing system, the prinicipal is that you get a security token from AD and then you can pass that to the service in the middle which can then use that token to impersonate you. For that to work AD has to be able to identify who is allowed to use the token, in this case the service account.But how do you as a client know what service account the service in the middle is configured with. The answer is SPNs. The SPN is the mapping between your logical connection to the service account. One type of SPN is for the DNS name for the server and the port. i.e. MySQL.mydomain.com and 1433. You can see how this maps to SQL Server on that server, but how does it map to the account. Well it can be done in two ways, either you can have a mapping defined in AD or AD can use a default mapping (this is something I didn't know about). To map the SPN in AD then you have to add the SPN to the user account, this is documented in the first link below either directly or using a tool called SetSPN. You might say that is complex, well it is and thats why SQL Server tries to do it for you, at start up it tries to connect to AD and set the SPN on the account it is running as, clearly that can only happen IF SQL is running as a domain account AND importantly it has permission to do so. By default a normal domain user account doesn't have the correct permission, and is why so many people have this problem. If the account is a domain admin then it will have permission, but non of us run SQL using domain admin accounts do we. You might also note that the SPN contains the port number (this isn't a requirement now in sql 2008 but I won't go into that), so if you set it manually and you are using dynamic ports (the default for a named instance) what do you do, well every time the port changes you need to change the SPN allocated to the account. Thats why its advised to let SQL Server register the SPN itself. You may also have thought, well what happens if I change my service account, won't that lead to two accounts with the same SPN. Possibly. Having two accounts with the same SPN is definitely a problem. Why? Well because if there are two accounts Kerberos can't identify the exact account that the service is running as, it could be either account, and so your security falls back to NTLM. SETSPN is useful for finding duplicate SPNs Reading this you will probably be thinking Oh my goodness this is really difficult. It is however I've found today in investigating something else that there is an easy option. Use Network Service as your service account. Network Service is a special account and is tied to the computer. It appears that Network Service has the update rights to AD to set an SPN mapping for the computer account. This then allows the SPN mapping to work. I believe this also works for the local system account. To get all the SPNs in your AD run the following, it could be a large file, so you might want to restrict it to a specific OU, or CN ldifde -d "DC=<domain>" -l servicePrincipalName -F spn.txt You will read in the links below that you need SQL to register the SPN this is done how to use Kerberos authenticaiton in SQL Server - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319723 Using Kerberos with SQL Server - http://blogs.msdn.com/sql_protocols/archive/2005/10/12/479871.aspx Understanding Kerberos and NTLM authentication in SQL Server Connections - http://blogs.msdn.com/sql_protocols/archive/2006/12/02/understanding-kerberos-and-ntlm-authentication-in-sql-server-connections.aspx Summary The only reason I personally know to use a domain account is when you can't get kerberos to work and you want to do BULK INSERT or other network service that requires access to a a remote server. In this case you have to resort to using SQL authentication and the SQL Server uses its service account to access the remote service, and thus you need a domain account. You migth need this if using some forms of replication. I've always found Kerberos awkward to setup and so fallen back to this domain account approach. So in summary to get Kerberos to work try using the network service or local system accounts. For a great post from the Adam Saxton of the SQL Server support team go to http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2010/03/09/what-spn-do-i-use-and-how-does-it-get-there.aspx 

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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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• Connection Pooling is Busted

  - by MightyZot

  A few weeks ago we started getting complaints about performance in an application that has performed very well for many years.  The application is a n-tier application that uses ADODB with the SQLOLEDB provider to talk to a SQL Server database.  Our object model is written in such a way that each public method validates security before performing requested actions, so there is a significant number of queries executed to get information about file cabinets, retrieve images, create workflows, etc.  (PaperWise is a document management and workflow system.)  A common factor for these customers is that they have remote offices connected via MPLS networks. Naturally, the first thing we looked at was the query performance in SQL Profiler.  All of the queries were executing within expected timeframes, most of them were so fast that the duration in SQL Profiler was zero.  After getting nowhere with SQL Profiler, the situation was escalated to me.  I decided to take a peek with Process Monitor.  Procmon revealed some “gaps” in the TCP/IP traffic.  There were notable delays between send and receive pairs.  The send and receive pairs themselves were quite snappy, but quite often there was a notable delay between a receive and the next send.  You might expect some delay because, presumably, the application is doing some thinking in-between the pairs.  But, comparing the procmon data at the remote locations with the procmon data for workstations on the local network showed that the remote workstations were significantly delayed.  Procmon also showed a high number of disconnects. Wireshark traces showed that connections to the database were taking between 75ms and 150ms.  Not only that, but connections to a file share containing images were taking 2 seconds!  So, I asked about a trust.  Sure enough there was a trust between two domains and the file share was on the second domain.  Joining a remote workstation to the domain hosting the share containing images alleviated the time delay in accessing the file share.  Removing the trust had no affect on the connections to the database. Microsoft Network Monitor includes filters that parse TDS packets.  TDS is the protocol that SQL Server uses to communicate.  There is a certificate exchange and some SSL that occurs during authentication.  All of this was evident in the network traffic.  After staring at the network traffic for a while, and examining packets, I decided to call it a night.  On the way home that night, something about the traffic kept nagging at me.  Then it dawned on me…at the beginning of the dance of packets between the client and the server all was well.  Connection pooling was working and I could see multiple queries getting executed on the same connection and ethereal port.  After a particular query, connecting to two different servers, I noticed that ADODB and SQLOLEDB started making repeated connections to the database on different ethereal ports.  SQL Server would execute a single query and respond on a port, then open a new port and execute the next query.  Connection pooling appeared to be broken. The next morning I wrote a test to confirm my hypothesis.  Turns out that the sequence causing the connection nastiness goes something like this: Make a connection to the database. Open a result set that returns enough records to require multiple roundtrips to the server. For each result, query for some other data in the database (this will open a new implicit connection.) Close the inner result set and repeat for every item in the original result set. Close the original connection. Provided that the first result set returns enough data to require multiple roundtrips to the server, ADODB and SQLOLEDB will start making new connections to the database for each query executed in the loop.  Originally, I thought this might be due to Microsoft’s denial of service (ddos) attack protection.  After turning those features off to no avail, I eventually thought to switch my queries to client-side cursors instead of server-side cursors.  Server-side cursors are the default, by the way.  Voila!  After switching to client-side cursors, the disconnects were gone and the above sequence yielded two connections as expected. While the real problem is the amount of time it takes to make connections over these MPLS networks (100ms on average), switching to client-side cursors made the problem go away.  Believe it or not, this is actually documented by Microsoft, and rather difficult to find.  (At least it was while we were trying to troubleshoot the problem!)  So, if you’re noticing performance issues on slower networks, or networks with slower switching, take a look at the traffic in a tool like Microsoft Network Monitor.  If you notice a high number of disconnects, and you’re using fire-hose or server-side cursors, then try switching to client-side cursors and you may see the problem go away. Most likely, Microsoft believes this to be appropriate behavior, because ADODB can’t guarantee that all of the data has been retrieved when you execute the inner queries.  I’m not convinced, though, because the problem remains even after replacing all of the implicit connections with explicit connections and closing those connections in-between each of the inner queries.  In that case, there doesn’t seem to be a reason why ADODB can’t use a single connection from the connection pool to make the additional queries, bringing the total number of connections to two.  Instead ADO appears to make an assumption about the state of the connection. I’ve reported the behavior to Microsoft and am awaiting to hear from the appropriate team, so that I can demonstrate the problem.  Maybe they can explain to us why this is appropriate behavior.  :)

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• HTG Explains: Are You Using IPv6 Yet? Should You Even Care?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  IPv6 is extremely important for the long-term health of the Internet. But is your Internet service provider providing IPv6 connectivity yet? Does your home network support it? Should you even care if you’re using IPv6 yet? Switching from IPv4 to IPv6 will give the Internet a much larger pool of IP addresses. It should also allow every device to have its own public IP address, rather than be hidden behind a NAT router. IPv6 is Important Long-Term IPv6 is very important for the long-term health of the Internet. There are only about 3.7 billion public IPv4 addresses. This may sound like a lot, but it isn’t even one IP address for each person on the planet. Considering people have more and more Internet-connected devices — everything from light bulbs to thermostats are starting to become network-connected — the lack of IP addresses is already proving to be a serious problem. This may not affect those of us in well-off developed countries just yet, but developing countries are already running out of IPv4 addresses. So, if you work at an Internet service provider, manage Internet-connected servers, or develop software or hardware — yes, you should care about IPv6! You should be deploying it and ensuring your software and hardware works properly with it. It’s important to prepare for the future before the current IPv4 situation becomes completely unworkable. But, if you’re just typical user or even a typical geek with a home Internet connection and a home network, should you really care about your home network just yet? Probably not. What You Need to Use IPv6 To use IPv6, you’ll need three things: An IPv6-Compatible Operating System: Your operating system’s software must be capable of using IPv6. All modern desktop operating systems should be compatible — Windows Vista and newer versions of Windows, as well as modern versions of Mac OS X and Linux. Windows XP doesn’t have IPv6 support installed by default, but you shouldn’t be using Windows XP anymore, anyway. A Router With IPv6 Support: Many — maybe even most — consumer routers in the wild don’t support IPv6. Check your router’s specifications details to see if it supports IPv6 if you’re curious. If you’re going to buy a new router, you’ll probably want to get one with IPv6 support to future-proof yourself. If you don’t have an IPv6-enabled router yet, you don’t need to buy a new one just to get it. An ISP With IPv6 Enabled:  Your Internet service provider must also have IPv6 set up on their end. Even if you have modern software and hardware on your end, your ISP has to provide an IPv6 connection for you to use it. IPv6 is rolling out steadily, but slowly — there’s a good chance your ISP hasn’t enabled it for you yet. How to Tell If You’re Using IPv6 The easiest way to tell if you have IPv6 connectivity is to visit a website like testmyipv6.com. This website allows you to connect to it in different ways — click the links near the top to see if you can connect to the website via different types of connections. If you can’t connect via IPv6, it’s either because your operating system is too old (unlikely), your router doesn’t support IPv6 (very possible), or because your ISP hasn’t enabled it for you yet (very likely). Now What? If you can connect to the test website above via IPv6, congratulations! Everything is working as it should. Your ISP is doing a good job of rolling out IPv6 rather than dragging its feet. There’s a good chance you won’t have IPv6 working properly, however. So what should you do about this — should you head to Amazon and buy a new IPv6-enabled router or switch to an ISP that offers IPv6? Should you use a “tunnel broker,” as the test site recommends, to tunnel into IPv6 via your IPv4 connection? Well, probably not. Typical users shouldn’t have to worry about this yet. Connecting to the Internet via IPv6 shouldn’t be perceptibly faster, for example. It’s important for operating system vendors, hardware companies, and Internet service providers to prepare for the future and get IPv6 working, but you don’t need to worry about this on your home network. IPv6 is all about future-proofing. You shouldn’t be racing to implement this at home yet or worrying about it too much — but, when you need to buy a new router, try to buy one that supports IPv6. Image Credit: Adobe of Chaos on Flickr, hisperati on Flickr, Vox Efx on Flickr     

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• Data management in unexpected places

  - by Ashok_Ora

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Data management in unexpected places When you think of network switches, routers, firewall appliances, etc., it may not be obvious that at the heart of these kinds of solutions is an engine that can manage huge amounts of data at very high throughput with low latencies and high availability. Consider a network router that is processing tens (or hundreds) of thousands of network packets per second. So what really happens inside a router? Packets are streaming in at the rate of tens of thousands per second. Each packet has multiple attributes, for example, a destination, associated SLAs etc. For each packet, the router has to determine the address of the next “hop” to the destination; it has to determine how to prioritize this packet. If it’s a high priority packet, then it has to be sent on its way before lower priority packets. As a consequence of prioritizing high priority packets, lower priority data packets may need to be temporarily stored (held back), but addressed fairly. If there are security or privacy requirements associated with the data packet, those have to be enforced. You probably need to keep track of statistics related to the packets processed (someone’s sure to ask). You have to do all this (and more) while preserving high availability i.e. if one of the processors in the router goes down, you have to have a way to continue processing without interruption (the customer won’t be happy with a “choppy” VoIP conversation, right?). And all this has to be achieved without ANY intervention from a human operator – the router is most likely to be in a remote location – it must JUST CONTINUE TO WORK CORRECTLY, even when bad things happen. How is this implemented? As soon as a packet arrives, it is interpreted by the receiving software. The software decodes the packet headers in order to determine the destination, kind of packet (e.g. voice vs. data), SLAs associated with the “owner” of the packet etc. It looks up the internal database of “rules” of how to process this packet and handles the packet accordingly. The software might choose to hold on to the packet safely for some period of time, if it’s a low priority packet. Ah – this sounds very much like a database problem. For each packet, you have to minimally · Look up the most efficient next “hop” towards the destination. The “most efficient” next hop can change, depending on latency, availability etc. · Look up the SLA and determine the priority of this packet (e.g. voice calls get priority over data ftp) · Look up security information associated with this data packet. It may be necessary to retrieve the context for this network packet since a network packet is a small “slice” of a session. The context for the “header” packet needs to be stored in the router, in order to make this work. · If the priority of the packet is low, then “store” the packet temporarily in the router until it is time to forward the packet to the next hop. · Update various statistics about the packet. In most cases, you have to do all this in the context of a single transaction. For example, you want to look up the forwarding address and perform the “send” in a single transaction so that the forwarding address doesn’t change while you’re sending the packet. So, how do you do all this? Berkeley DB is a proven, reliable, high performance, highly available embeddable database, designed for exactly these kinds of usage scenarios. Berkeley DB is a robust, reliable, proven solution that is currently being used in these scenarios. First and foremost, Berkeley DB (or BDB for short) is very very fast. It can process tens or hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. It can be used as a pure in-memory database, or as a disk-persistent database. BDB provides high availability – if one board in the router fails, the system can automatically failover to another board – no manual intervention required. BDB is self-administering – there’s no need for manual intervention in order to maintain a BDB application. No need to send a technician to a remote site in the middle of nowhere on a freezing winter day to perform maintenance operations. BDB is used in over 200 million deployments worldwide for the past two decades for mission-critical applications such as the one described here. You have a choice of spending valuable resources to implement similar functionality, or, you could simply embed BDB in your application and off you go! I know what I’d do – choose BDB, so I can focus on my business problem. What will you do? /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

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