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  • glGetActiveAttrib on Android NDK

    - by user408952
    In my code-base I need to link the vertex declarations from a mesh to the attributes of a shader. To do this I retrieve all the attribute names after linking the shader. I use the following code (with some added debug info since it's not really working): int shaders[] = { m_ps, m_vs }; if(linkProgram(shaders, 2)) { ASSERT(glIsProgram(m_program) == GL_TRUE, "program is invalid"); int attrCount = 0; GL_CHECKED(glGetProgramiv(m_program, GL_ACTIVE_ATTRIBUTES, &attrCount)); int maxAttrLength = 0; GL_CHECKED(glGetProgramiv(m_program, GL_ACTIVE_ATTRIBUTE_MAX_LENGTH, &maxAttrLength)); LOG_INFO("shader", "got %d attributes for '%s' (%d) (maxlen: %d)", attrCount, name, m_program, maxAttrLength); m_attrs.reserve(attrCount); GLsizei attrLength = -1; GLint attrSize = -1; GLenum attrType = 0; char tmp[256]; for(int i = 0; i < attrCount; i++) { tmp[0] = 0; GL_CHECKED(glGetActiveAttrib(m_program, GLuint(i), sizeof(tmp), &attrLength, &attrSize, &attrType, tmp)); LOG_INFO("shader", "%d: %d %d '%s'", i, attrLength, attrSize, tmp); m_attrs.append(String(tmp, attrLength)); } } GL_CHECKED is a macro that calls the function and calls glGetError() to see if something went wrong. This code works perfectly on Windows 7 using ANGLE and gives this this output: info:shader: got 2 attributes for 'static/simplecolor.glsl' (3) (maxlen: 11) info:shader: 0: 7 1 'a_Color' info:shader: 1: 10 1 'a_Position' But on my Nexus 7 (1st gen) I get the following (the errors are the output from the GL_CHECKED macro): I/testgame:shader(30865): got 2 attributes for 'static/simplecolor.glsl' (3) (maxlen: 11) E/testgame:gl(30865): 'glGetActiveAttrib(m_program, GLuint(i), sizeof(tmp), &attrLength, &attrSize, &attrType, tmp)' failed: INVALID_VALUE [jni/src/../../../../src/Game/Asset/ShaderAsset.cpp:50] I/testgame:shader(30865): 0: -1 -1 '' E/testgame:gl(30865): 'glGetActiveAttrib(m_program, GLuint(i), sizeof(tmp), &attrLength, &attrSize, &attrType, tmp)' failed: INVALID_VALUE [jni/src/../../../../src/Game/Asset/ShaderAsset.cpp:50] I/testgame:shader(30865): 1: -1 -1 '' I.e. the call to glGetActiveAttrib gives me an INVALID_VALUE. The opengl docs says this about the possible errors: GL_INVALID_VALUE is generated if program is not a value generated by OpenGL. This is not the case, I added an ASSERT to make sure glIsProgram(m_program) == GL_TRUE, and it doesn't trigger. GL_INVALID_OPERATION is generated if program is not a program object. Different error. GL_INVALID_VALUE is generated if index is greater than or equal to the number of active attribute variables in program. i is 0 and 1, and the number of active attribute variables are 2, so this isn't the case. GL_INVALID_VALUE is generated if bufSize is less than 0. Well, it's not zero, it's 256. Does anyone have an idea what's causing this? Am I just lucky that it works in ANGLE, or is the nvidia tegra driver wrong?

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  • Cheating on Technical Debt

    - by Tony Davis
    One bad practice guaranteed to cause dismay amongst your colleagues is passing on technical debt without full disclosure. There could only be two reasons for this. Either the developer or DBA didn’t know the difference between good and bad practices, or concealed the debt. Neither reflects well on their professional competence. Technical debt, or code debt, is a convenient term to cover all the compromises between the ideal solution and the actual solution, reflecting the reality of the pressures of commercial coding. The one time you’re guaranteed to hear one developer, or DBA, pass judgment on another is when he or she inherits their project, and is surprised by the amount of technical debt left lying around in the form of inelegant architecture, incomplete tests, confusing interface design, no documentation, and so on. It is often expedient for a Project Manager to ignore the build-up of technical debt, the cut corners, not-quite-finished features and rushed designs that mean progress is satisfyingly rapid in the short term. It’s far less satisfying for the poor person who inherits the code. Nothing sends a colder chill down the spine than the dawning realization that you’ve inherited a system crippled with performance and functional issues that will take months of pain to fix before you can even begin to make progress on any of the planned new features. It’s often hard to justify this ‘debt paying’ time to the project owners and managers. It just looks as if you are making no progress, in marked contrast to your predecessor. There can be many good reasons for allowing technical debt to build up, at least in the short term. Often, rapid prototyping is essential, there is a temporary shortfall in test resources, or the domain knowledge is incomplete. It may be necessary to hit a specific deadline with a prototype, or proof-of-concept, to explore a possible market opportunity, with planned iterations and refactoring to follow later. However, it is a crime for a developer to build up technical debt without making this clear to the project participants. He or she needs to record it explicitly. A design compromise made in to order to hit a deadline, be it an outright hack, or a decision made without time for rigorous investigation and testing, needs to be documented with the same rigor that one tracks a bug. What’s the best way to do this? Ideally, we’d have some kind of objective assessment of the level of technical debt in a software project, although that smacks of Science Fiction even as I write it. I’d be interested of hear of any methods you’ve used, but I’m sure most teams have to rely simply on the integrity of their colleagues and the clear perceptions of the project manager… Cheers, Tony.

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  • It is CX a new concept?

    - by Isabel F. Peñuelas
    The Marketing Industry and the Web Industry are talking about CX since some time. However it is only very recently that the concept has reached some common meaning accepted by the analysts’ and the IT community. The new CX model depends on two previous facts: the expansion of the social media, and the impact of the new advanced features of mobile devices regarding brand-customer interaction. CXsers vs UXers First there is some need of disambiguity between User Experience and Customer Experience. User Experience -UX, is a much well established concept related with the design of user interactions for particular devices. UX people are interested on multiple touch points of digital interfaces while CX people are interested on all kind of interfaces including physical ones. UX is an evolution of Web Usability, while CX is a marketing concept. UX is an instrument of User Experience. CX in fact is all about Connections and Interactions. Connections Dan Draper, the creative director Mad Men, understands very well that to market effectively means to connect with people, and the best way to connect to people is to use the connections people have with other people: understanding Social Media connections and taking the customer pulse of customers on those medias, and are strong facilitators of CX strategies.  Interactions We can very simply define CX as the relationship that a customer establishes with a brand through multiple touch points (interactions, channels) through the entire life cycle of his relationship- direct or indirect with the brand. Interactions can be grouped on Customer Journeys through multiple touch points defined as the path a customer follows to achieve a goal. Processes A customer journey today usually starts at the moment he surfs the Web, then he takes a purchase decision; purchases the product;  request a particular service and finally recommends or do not recommends the product.  Customer Journeys are processes, and to analyze customer journeys there exists today a broad offering of modern Customer Journey tools very similar actually to the use cases or UML activity diagrams for IT systems design. As a summary CX is nothing more and nothing less than applying process analysis methods for better understanding how to create value through customer interactions across the multiple user´s touch points with the brand.

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  • Stuff I learned at Innovate 2011

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

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  • Phone number in meta description bad or good for local rankings NAP

    - by bybe
    Once again I'm at it with increasing people's local rankings and I've learnt so much about local rankings in the past 2 weeks it feels like my brain is gonna pop anyway, question is fairly simple for someone who engages in local rankings and I appreciate the question may be a little guess work but isn't SEO mostly guessing anyway? From what I've read and learned that Google works of a system called nap for local rankings (With many other factors but this question is purely based on NAP). For people who care about local rankings NAP stands for Name of Business / Address of Business / Phone Number for Business. Now what what I've read you don't need the whole NAP to be on one website, a P or just a N can help towards your local rankings. It's believed that NAP rewards more than just P and N for example but knowing Google they might have a diversity checker which is my concern what your get to in a moment. Now of course sites weight differently where your business is posted, it's certainly going to be more credible if your NAP details are on your national phone book than say a blog site, so taking in this consideration too. Pure Guess (Not apart of the question but none the less makes a good read on my belief). Now my guess work would make me believe that the formula would look something like (N)+(A)+(P)x(T) So (N)name would be 1 or 0 to indicate present or not So (A)dress would be 1 or 0 to indicate present or not So (P)hone would be 1 or 0 to indicate present or not So (T)rust would be 1-100 to indicate level of trust So a phone number appearing on youtube might look something like 0+0+1x95= 95 and a NAP appearing on your national phone book might look something like 1+1+1x100= 300 Please note that I'm not saying this is the sole factor and I'm sure its way more complex that this with things like other factors on the page, off the page (Reviews, Links, Clicks) and so on but its still a contributor). The Question My question is fairly simple and I'd imagine hard to impossible to have an actual definite answer to this but maybe someone has seen official wording else where on this, is it bad to include address or phone number in the Meta Description? The reason I ask is that one of my competitors has these elements in the meta descriptions and their local rankings are absolutely superb, the problem I have with this is scrap bot sites like 'Similar Too' 'Seo Rankings' and 1,000's of the other scrap box networks that scrap site and then make urls with your site information are mostly limited to your meta description what this means that your phone number, address and sometimes even your company name if the domain is exact will appear as AP, and even NAP on thousands of websites. So, is it a bad strategy to include phone number and address in meta description, everything I read into would suggest its good of course with the downside of maybe lowering quality of description for click thoughts but top rankings would increase this 10 folds anyhow..

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  • Walmart's Mobile Self-Checkout

    - by David Dorf
    Reuters recently reported that Walmart was testing an iPhone-based self-checkout at a store near its headquarters.  Consumers scan items as they're placed in the physical basket, then the virtual basket is transferred to an existing self-checkout station where payment is tendered.  A very solid solution, but not exactly original. Before we go further, let's look at the possible cost savings for Walmart.  According to the article: Pushing more shoppers to scan their own items and make payments without the help of a cashier could save Wal-Mart millions of dollars, Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley said on March 7. The company spends about $12 million in cashier wages every second at its Walmart U.S. stores. Um, yeah. Using back-of-the-napkin math, I calculated Walmart's cashiers are making $157k per hour.  A more accurate statement would be saving $12M per year for each second saved on the average transaction time.  So if this self-checkout approach saves 2 seconds per transaction on average, Walmart would save $24M per year on labor.  Maybe.  Sometimes that savings will be used to do other tasks in the store, so it may not directly translate to less employees. When I saw this approach demonstrated in Sweden, there were a few differences, which may or may not be in Walmart's plans.  First, the consumers were identified based on their loyalty card.  In order to offset the inevitable shrink, retailers need to save on labor but also increase basket size, typically via in-aisle promotions.  As they scan items, retailers should target promos, and that's easier to do if you know some shopping history.  Last I checked, Walmart had no loyalty program. Second, at the self-checkout station consumers were randomly selected for an audit in which they must re-scan all the items just like you do at a typical self-checkout.  If you were found to be stealing, your ability to use the system can be revoked.  That's a tough one in the US, especially when the system goes wrong, either by mistake or by lying.  At least in my view, the Swedes are bit more trustworthy than the people of Walmart. So while I think the idea of mobile self-checkout has merit, perhaps its not right for Walmart.

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  • GWT: Generate more complete crawl error report

    - by Mike
    I'm a developer in charge of managing Webmasters and related issues (including correcting crawl errors) for dozens (hundreds, maybe?) of active sites and as part of my duties I create a report of every discrepancy, including all pages generating a 404 and all pages that link to those pages. Currently within Webmaster Tools I'm able to download a csv file of all pages with a 404 response, but I'm then having to manually click on every single one of those links and copy the "linked from" field to paste into my spreadsheet. This is extremely tedious and seems unnecessary; I would expect the ability to download all that data at once. I'm ultimately looking for the end result of one csv file that has every url with a 404, but also has every url that links to each one of them. Am I overlooking this functionality somewhere or does anyone have a good solution? Edit 1 (2/11/2013): Example of what the csv output looks like now: URL,Response Code,News Error,Detected,Category http://www.abcdef.com/123.php,404,,11/12/13,Not found http://www.abcdef.com/456.php,404,,11/12/13,Not found Which is great, but let's say 123.php has 5 pages that link to it. Now I have to duplicate that row in my spreadsheet 4 more times, then go into Webmasters, get all the url's that link to the page, and add that data to my spreadsheet. The output I would prefer: URL,Response Code,Linked From,News Error,Detected,Category http://www.abcdef.com/123.php,404,http://www.ghijkl.com/naughtypage1.php,,11/12/13,Not found http://www.abcdef.com/123.php,404,http://www.ghijkl.com/naughtypage2.php,,11/12/13,Not found http://www.abcdef.com/123.php,404,http://www.ghijkl.com/naughtypage3.php,,11/12/13,Not found http://www.abcdef.com/456.php,404,http://www.ghijkl.com/naughtypage1.php,,11/12/13,Not found http://www.abcdef.com/456.php,404,http://www.ghijkl.com/naughtypage2.php,,11/12/13,Not found http://www.abcdef.com/456.php,404,http://www.ghijkl.com/naughtypage3.php,,11/12/13,Not found Note the (hypothetical) addition of a "Linked From" column, as well as the fact there are only 2 unique URL's now (like before) but all of the "Linked To" pages are shown in one report. Edit 2 (2/12/2013): To clarify, my question is less about detecting and correcting 404's, but more about generating a report of what Google has listed as errors. Oftentimes, these errors aren't even valid anymore but I still need documentation to show that Google detected a problem and that problem is now fixed. Many of the "linked from" url's I find are actually outdated, cached resources. For example, I'll frequently see that the linked-from url is the sitemap, which is actually an old sitemap cached by Google that points to an old page. Neither the sitemap or old page exist, but they still appear in my crawl error reports because they are cached resources.

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  • Windows8, JavaScript and HTML5 - A good thing?

    - by Albers
    Most of us have seen the Windows 8 news regarding support for native HTML5/JavaScript applications. The press has pushed this as a potential threat to the .NET developer community because JavaScript and HTML5 were called "our new developer platform". The press release refers to "Web-connected and Web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC.".Microsoft has also been hush on details related to these comments. Before we buy the hype and start worrying about a world where we drop our Visual Studio licenses and buy DreamWeaver - let's think about how Windows 8 HTML/JavaScript applications would be implemented. The HTML5 spec offers support for offline applications, but this won't offer the OS-integrated experience the press release refers to. MS has to be planning a way to extend access beyond the traditional JavaScript feature set. Microsoft has a similar option today: HTML Applications or HTAs. They come close to required features, but HTAs need ActiveX or Java integration to provide the promised OS-level access. I'm guessing that Microsoft's future OS strategy isn't built on developers cranking out ActiveX controls or Java applets. So where is Microsoft headed? One possibility is that MS builds a new JavaScript framework from the ground up outside their current APIs. Another idea would be for Microsoft to add support for JavaScript as a first class .NET language using the Dynamic Language Runtime. A solution based on the DLR could be integrated into an HTA-like model to provide the promised access, along with the full range of features in .NET Framework. Security comes included in the Framework. And the work necessary to support this integration would tie in nicely with the effort MS has recently made providing better JavaScript and HTML5 support in Visual Studio 2010. As a bonus, a full-fledged JavaScript DLR implementation would allow single language web solutions across client and server (think node.js) and would appeal to developers who are familiar with JavaScript but have less experience with the Microsoft tech stack. We will all get a better picture after the Build conference in September. But in the mean time we know that Microsoft has a reputation for providing strong developer support. We might want to reserve our harshest judgement and consider that the press release could hint at new opportunities for .NET development.

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  • Cloud service and IM protocol advice, for a backend to group chat mobile app

    - by Jonathan
    Overview I’m going to develop an app on Android and iOS. It will allow users to set up group ‘chat rooms’ and talk on chat rooms set up by other users. The service needs to be highly scalable, such that it could accommodate a massive increase in users overnight (we can only dream). Chat requirements The chat protocol used should be flexible: it should allow me to determine who can view/post on ‘chat rooms’ based on certain other factors, as determined by the first poster/creator of the particular ‘chat room’. It should also allow for users to simply install the app and begin using the service, after only providing a simple nickname (which could be changed later). Chat protocol plans Having looked around I think the XMPP protocol is the best candidate. In particular the Multi-user chat extension looks like what I’ll need. Would this be most suited to my requirements, or do you know another potential solution? Cloud service I have been deciding between Amazon Web Services, Google App Engine and Windows Azure. I’m coming to the conclusion that Azure will be best, as it is easier to manage than AWS (ease of scalability will be a key factor in the design), I think it may be less restricted than GAE, plus Azure will soon have toolkits to allow easy interfacing with both Android and iOS phones. Is this the decision you would have made, or would you recommend/look into other cloud services? General project philosophy I have only recently started looking into this project’s feasibility, and am no expert on any of its aspects. So wherever possible I will leave the actual implementations to experts, i.e. choosing a higher-level cloud service, using a well-documented plugin of a, proven reliable, group chat protocol etc. My background I have some programming knowledge from a computer science degree. Main languages I’ve used have been Java and Python, but I don’t want this to affect design decisions for the project. The most appropriate languages for the task should be used, i.e. I don’t mind learning a lot of new skills (my current programming levels are relatively basic anyway). Thank you Thanks for reading, and any advice you have about any aspect would be greatly appreciated :-)

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  • What is the difference between development and R&D?

    - by MainMa
    I was asked by a colleague to explain clearly the difference between ordinary development and research and development (R&D) and was unable to do it. After reading Wikipedia, I still don't have the precise answer. According to Wikipedia (slightly modified): There are two primary models: In one model, the primary function is to develop new products; in the other model, the primary function is to discover and create new knowledge about scientific and technological topics for the purpose of uncovering and enabling development of valuable new products, processes, and services. The first model is confusing. Does it mean that development (not R&D) consists exclusively in adding new features to a product, solving bugs and doing maintenance? What if something which was previously developed as a new feature becomes a separate product? The second model is less confusing, but still, how to qualify whether something is new knowledge or existent knowledge which is just rediscovered? Later, Wikipedia adds that ordinary development is different from R&D because of its: nearly immediate profit or immediate improvement. It's still not clear enough. How to qualify "nearly immediate profit"? What if a task has an immediate profit but requires heavy research? Or if it is basic but has uncertain profit, like the enforcement of a common style over the codebase? For example, does it belong to development or R&D to: Develop an engine which abstracts the access to the database, simplifying and shortening enormously the code of other applications (existent or ones which will be written in future) which should access to the database? Establish a new service-oriented architecture for the entire organization of company resources, in order to move from a bunch of separate and autonomous applications to a set of well-organized, interconnected web services, like what is used by Amazon? Design a new communication protocol to allow faster replication of data between two data centers of the company? Conceive a new type of software testing while working on a specific product, knowing that this type of testing will improve/simplify the testing process? Prove that Functional programming is more appropriate than OOP for a specific application, based on evidence, logic and previous experience? Enhance the existent application by adding gestures on tactile screens, after doing studies and testing that shows that those gestures improve the productivity of the users by a ratio of at least 1.4 for a precise set of tasks? Find a way to strongly enhance the Power usage effectiveness (PUE) of a data center? Create a Domain-Specific Language (DSL)? In short, how could I determine whether I'm doing R&D while working on something?

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  • Ubuntu 12.04.3 Graphics Issues: Broken Pipes, Reinstalled Xorg and Bumblebee

    - by user190488
    It seems I have a problem, and am only making it worse by following what I find online. I have a new Asus N550JV-D71 (not sure about the part after the dash, though I definitely know it includes 71). I decided to downgrade Windows 8 to 7, then dual boot Ubuntu 12.04 with it (there were issues with Windows 8, and I had a Windows 7 disk handy). It did work and, after installing Bumblebee in tty (because it wouldn't boot when it was first installed), it worked marvelously for a little less than a week. However, I restarted it last night and got the Could not write bytes: Broken pipes error. (I see it's a very common error, but I've looked at the majority of the suggested Similar Questions already.) I followed what I could find online, followed those instructions (making sure to not install any sort of graphics drivers other than what Bumblebee provides), and it just seems to go further and further downhill. I'm afraid I didn't write the exact steps to get to this point (it was late by the time I gave up the night before), but it involved reinstalling lightdm, xorg (and xserver?), and Bumblebee. I then changed the Bumblebee.conf file so that Device=nvidia. I'm pretty new to Linux in general (I've used it since 10.04, but I hadn't had issues up until this computer, so it let me stay a newbie), so I'm not exactly sure what log files to look at to find the errors to look up. However, I did look at lshw and noticed that displays was marked as unassigned. Also, if I try to start lightdm using the command line, it always stops at Stopping Mount network filesystems. I should note that there isn't an xorg.conf file, and no .Xauthority. I would really, really prefer not to reinstall 12.04 if possible. I managed to get grub to display only a short time ago, and I can't boot to the dvd drive unless I go into the BIOS settings and manually change the boot order (that was an issue from the beginning, before the Ubuntu install), and getting into those settings often means rebooting several times due to the fact that the window to get to it is extremely small. I have most of what I need backed up, however, in case it does get to that point. If I really have to, I can just use the latest Ubuntu version instead of the LTS, but the reason I chose 12.04 in the first place is because I need something stable-ish, and Windows isn't suitable to what I need to do. I should note that the reason I restarted last night in the first place was that it wasn't charging the battery, and the wifi kept on going out. Hardware: Nvidia GeForce GT 750M Intel HD graphics 4600

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  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-08-29

    - by Bob Rhubart
    ORCLville: OOW 2012 - Crystal BallOracle ACE Director Floyd Teter cooks up some tongue-in-cheek predictions for news and announcements that might come out of Oracle OpenWorld 2012. What's your prediction? Oracle Optimized Solutions at Oracle OpenWorld 2012 | Oracle Hardware Hardware matters, too! The people behind the Oracle Hardware blog have put together a list of Oracle Openworld 2012 sessions focused Oracle Optimized Solutions, "designed, pre-tested, tuned and fully documented architectures for optimal performance and availability." Just plug the session ID numbers into Schedule Builder and you're good to go. AIX Checklist for stable OBIEE deployment | Dick Dunbar "OBIEE is a complicated system with many moving parts and connection points," according to Oracle Business Inteligence escalation engineer Dick Dunbar. "The purpose of this article is to provide a checklist to discuss OBIEE deployment with your systems administrators." Demo for OPN: Coherence Management with EM Cloud Control 12c Oracle Partner Network members can check out a new Coherence Management demo that showcases some of the key capabilities of Management Pack for Oracle Coherence and JVM Diagnostics. "The demo flow showcases the key enhancements made in Enterprise Manager 12c release which includes new customizable performance summary, cache data management and configuration management," according to the WebLogic Partner Community EMEA blog. The Pragmatic Architect: To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before | Frank Buschmann "Many architects have technical knowledge that's both impressive and sound, which is indeed an inevitable basis for design success," says Frank Buschmann. "Yet, a lot of software projects fail or suffer due to severe challenges in their architecture. The key to mastery is how architects approach design, what they value, and where they focus their attention and work." As retail dies, whom will be the winners? | Peter Evans-Greenwood "The problem for many retailers is that how consumers shop has changed but the the retailers haven't adapted, " says Peter Evans-Greenwood. "Their sole virtue was to be the last step in a supply chain delivering somebody else's products to the consumer. However, being the last step in the supply chain is no longer a virtue when consumers skip across channels and can reach around the globe, no longer dependant on or limited to what they can find locally." Thought for the Day "Brains require stimulation. If you're locked into a pattern of work, work, and more work, your brain soon habituates - the same way that it lets you stop hearing a clock ticking. So, if you want to be more effective at work, you must, paradoxically, be less single-minded in your devotion to work. Anything you do—anything—that stimulates new segments of your brain will make you a more effective programmer or analyst. I promise, with a money-back guarantee." — Gerald M. Weinberg Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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  • Function Folding in #PowerQuery

    - by Darren Gosbell
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/darrengosbell/archive/2014/05/16/function-folding-in-powerquery.aspxLooking at a typical Power Query query you will noticed that it's made up of a number of small steps. As an example take a look at the query I did in my previous post about joining a fact table to a slowly changing dimension. It was roughly built up of the following steps: Get all records from the fact table Get all records from the dimension table do an outer join between these two tables on the business key (resulting in an increase in the row count as there are multiple records in the dimension table for each business key) Filter out the excess rows introduced in step 3 remove extra columns that are not required in the final result set. If Power Query was to execute a query like this literally, following the same steps in the same order it would not be overly efficient. Particularly if your two source tables were quite large. However Power Query has a feature called function folding where it can take a number of these small steps and push them down to the data source. The degree of function folding that can be performed depends on the data source, As you might expect, relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle and Teradata support folding, but so do some of the other sources like OData, Exchange and Active Directory. To explore how this works I took the data from my previous post and loaded it into a SQL database. Then I converted my Power Query expression to source it's data from that database. Below is the resulting Power Query which I edited by hand so that the whole thing can be shown in a single expression: let     SqlSource = Sql.Database("localhost", "PowerQueryTest"),     BU = SqlSource{[Schema="dbo",Item="BU"]}[Data],     Fact = SqlSource{[Schema="dbo",Item="fact"]}[Data],     Source = Table.NestedJoin(Fact,{"BU_Code"},BU,{"BU_Code"},"NewColumn"),     LeftJoin = Table.ExpandTableColumn(Source, "NewColumn"                                   , {"BU_Key", "StartDate", "EndDate"}                                   , {"BU_Key", "StartDate", "EndDate"}),     BetweenFilter = Table.SelectRows(LeftJoin, each (([Date] >= [StartDate]) and ([Date] <= [EndDate])) ),     RemovedColumns = Table.RemoveColumns(BetweenFilter,{"StartDate", "EndDate"}) in     RemovedColumns If the above query was run step by step in a literal fashion you would expect it to run two queries against the SQL database doing "SELECT * …" from both tables. However a profiler trace shows just the following single SQL query: select [_].[BU_Code],     [_].[Date],     [_].[Amount],     [_].[BU_Key] from (     select [$Outer].[BU_Code],         [$Outer].[Date],         [$Outer].[Amount],         [$Inner].[BU_Key],         [$Inner].[StartDate],         [$Inner].[EndDate]     from [dbo].[fact] as [$Outer]     left outer join     (         select [_].[BU_Key] as [BU_Key],             [_].[BU_Code] as [BU_Code2],             [_].[BU_Name] as [BU_Name],             [_].[StartDate] as [StartDate],             [_].[EndDate] as [EndDate]         from [dbo].[BU] as [_]     ) as [$Inner] on ([$Outer].[BU_Code] = [$Inner].[BU_Code2] or [$Outer].[BU_Code] is null and [$Inner].[BU_Code2] is null) ) as [_] where [_].[Date] >= [_].[StartDate] and [_].[Date] <= [_].[EndDate] The resulting query is a little strange, you can probably tell that it was generated programmatically. But if you look closely you'll notice that every single part of the Power Query formula has been pushed down to SQL Server. Power Query itself ends up just constructing the query and passing the results back to Excel, it does not do any of the data transformation steps itself. So now you can feel a bit more comfortable showing Power Query to your less technical Colleagues knowing that the tool will do it's best fold all the  small steps in Power Query down the most efficient query that it can against the source systems.

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  • Is anyone doing "real" TDD with Visual-C++, and if yes, how do they do it?

    - by Martin
    Test Driven Development implies writing the test before the code and following a certain cycle: Write Test Check Test (run) Write Production Code Check Test (run) Clean up Production Code Check test (run) As far as I'm concerned, this is only possible if your development solution allows you to very quickly switch between the production and test code, and to execute the test for a certain production code part extremely quickly. Now, while there exist lots of Unit Testing Frameworks for C++ (I'm using Bost.Test atm.) it does seem that there doesn't really exist any decent (for native C++) Visual Studio (Plugin) solution that makes the TDD cycle bearable regardless of framework used. "Bearable" means that it's a one-click action to run a test for a certain cpp file without having to manually set up a separate testing project etc. "Bearable" also means that a simple test starts (linking!) and runs very quickly. So, what tools (plugins) and techniques are out there that make the TDD cycle possible for native C++ development with Visual Studio? Note: I'm fine with free or "commercial" tools. Please: No framework recommendations. (Unless the framework has a dedicated Visual Studio plugin and you want to recommend the plugin.) Edit Note: The answers so far have provided links on how to integrate a Unit Testing framework into Visual Studio. The resources more or less describe how to get the UT framework to compile and get your first Tests running. This is not what this question is about. I'm of the opinion that to really work productively, having the Unit Tests in a manually maintained(!), separate vcproj from your production classes will add so much overhead that TDD "isn't possible". As far as I am aware, you do not add extra "projects" to a Java or C# thing to enable Unit Tests and TDD, and for a good reason. This should be possible with C++ given the right tools, but it seems (this question is about) that there are very little tools for TDD/C++/VS. Googling around, I've found one tool, VisualAssert, that seems to aim in the right direction. However, afaiks, it doesn't seem to be in widespread use (compared to CppUnit, Boost.Test etc.). Edit: I would like to add a comment to the context for this question. I think it does a good summary of outlining (part of) the problem: (comment by Billy ONeal) Visual Studio does not use "build scripts" that are reasonably editable by the user. One project produces one binary. Moreover, Java has the property that Java never builds a complete binary -- the binary you build is just a ZIP of the class files. Therefore it's possible to compile separately then JAR together manually (using e.g. 7z). C++ and C# both actually link their binaries, so generally speaking you can't write a script like that. The closest you can get is to compile everything separately and then do two linkings (one for production, one for testing).

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  • Check if an object is facing another based on angles

    - by Isaiah
    I already have something that calculates the bearing angle to get one object to face another. You give it the positions and it returns the angle to get one to face the other. Now I need to figure out how tell if on object is facing toward another object within a specified field and I can't find any information about how to do this. The objects are obj1 and obj2. Their angles are at obj1.angle and obj2.angle. Their vectors are at obj1.pos and obj2.pos. It's in the format [x,y]. The angle to have one face directly at another is found with direction(obj1.pos,obj2.pos). I want to set the function up like this: isfacing(obj1,obj2,area){...} and return true/false depending if it's in the specified field area to the angle to directly see it. I've got a base like this: var isfacing = function (obj1,obj2,area){ var toface = direction(obj1.pos,obj2.pos); if(toface+area >= obj1.angle && ob1.angle >= toface-area){ return true; } return false; } But my problem is that the angles are in 360 degrees, never above 360 and never below 0. How can I account for that in this? If the first object's angle is say at 0 and say I subtract a field area of 20 or so. It'll check if it's less than -20! If I fix the -20 it becomes 340 but x < 340 isn't what I want, I'd have to x 340 in that case. Is there someone out there with more sleep than I that can help a new dev pulling an all-nighter just to get enemies to know if they're attacking in the right direction? I hope I'm making this harder than it seems. I'd just make them always face the main char if the producer didn't want attacks from behind to work while blocking. In which case I'll need the function above anyways. I've tried to give as much info as I can think would help. Also this is in 2d.

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  • Dealing with coworkers when developing, need advice [closed]

    - by Yippie-Kai-Yay
    I developed our current project architecture and started developing it on my own (reaching something like, revision 40). We're developing a simple subway routing framework and my design seemed to be done extremely well - several main models, corresponding views, main logic and data structures were modeled "as they should be" and fully separated from rendering, algorithmic part was also implemented apart from the main models and had a minor number of intersection points. I would call that design scalable, customizable, easy-to-implement, interacting mostly based on the "black box interaction" and, well, very nice. Now, what was done: I started some implementations of the corresponding interfaces, ported some convenient libraries and wrote implementation stubs for some application parts. I had the document describing coding style and examples of that coding style usage (my own written code). I forced the usage of more or less modern C++ development techniques, including no-delete code (wrapped via smart pointers) and etc. I documented the purpose of concrete interface implementations and how they should be used. Unit tests (mostly, integration tests, because there wasn't a lot of "actual" code) and a set of mocks for all the core abstractions. I was absent for 12 days. What do we have now (the project was developed by 4 other members of the team): 3 different coding styles all over the project (I guess, two of them agreed to use the same style :), same applies to the naming of our abstractions (e.g CommonPathData.h, SubwaySchemeStructures.h), which are basically headers declaring some data structures. Absolute lack of documentation for the recently implemented parts. What I could recently call a single-purpose-abstraction now handles at least 2 different types of events, has tight coupling with other parts and so on. Half of the used interfaces now contain member variables (sic!). Raw pointer usage almost everywhere. Unit tests disabled, because "(Rev.57) They are unnecessary for this project". ... (that's probably not everything). Commit history shows that my design was interpreted as an overkill and people started combining it with personal bicycles and reimplemented wheels and then had problems integrating code chunks. Now - the project still does only a small amount of what it has to do, we have severe integration problems, I assume some memory leaks. Is there anything possible to do in this case? I do realize that all my efforts didn't have any benefit, but the deadline is pretty soon and we have to do something. Did someone have a similar situation? Basically I thought that a good (well, I did everything that I could) start for the project would probably lead to something nice, however, I understand that I'm wrong. Any advice would be appreciated, sorry for my bad english.

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  • What should filenames and URLs of images contain for SEO benefit?

    - by Baumr
    We know that good site architecture usually looks like this: example-company.com/ example-company.com/about/ example-company.com/contact/ example-company.com/products/ example-company.com/products/category/ example-company.com/products/category/productname/ Now, when it comes to Google Image search, it is clear that the img alt tag, filename/URL, and surrounding text (captions, headings, paragraphs) have an effect on ranking. I want to ask about the filename of the images that we should use (e.g. product-photo.jpg). ...but first about the URL: Often web developers stick all images in a single folder in the root: example-company.com/img/ — and I have stopped doing that. (I don't want to get into it, but basically, it seems more semantic for images which make up part of the content at each sub-directory) However, when all images appear in a folder, I feel that their filename needs to reflect what they are a bit more than usual, for example: example-company.com/img/example-company-productname-category.jpg It's a longer filename than just product.png, but as long as it's relevant, I see no problem with regards to SEO (unless you're keyword stuffing), and it could even help rank for keywords: "example company" "productname" "category" So no questions there. But what about when we have places images in the site architecture we outlined at the beginning? In other words, what if image URL paths look like this: example-company.com/products/category/productname/productname.jpg My question is, should the URL be kept short like above and only have the "productname" (and some descriptive keywords) as part of it's filename? Or, should it also include the "example-company" and "category"? Like so: example-company.com/products/category/productname/example-company-category-productname.jpg That seems much longer, and redundant when we look at the URL, but here are a few considerations. Images are often downloaded onto computers, and, to the average user, they lose their original URL and thus — it isn't clear where they came from. Also, some social networks, forums, and other platforms leave the filename intact when uploaded. (Many others rewrite it, for example, Pinterest and Facebook.) Another consideration, will this really help (even if ever so slightly) rank in Google Image Search, or at least inform Google that the product is something specific to the "example-company"? For example, what if this product can only be bought at this store and is the flagship product? In addition to an abundance of internal links to this product page, would having the "example company" name and "category" help it appear in "example company" searches? In other words, is less more?

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  • How is programming affected by spatial aptitude?

    - by natli
    The longer I work on a project, the less clear it becomes. It's like I cannot seperate various classes/objects anymore in my head. Everything starts mixing up, and it's extremely hard to take it all apart again. I start putting functions in classes where they really don't belong, and make silly mistakes such as writing code that I later find was 100% obsolete; things are no longer clearly mappable in my head. It isn't until I take a step back for several hours (or days somtimes!) that I can actually see what's going on again, and be productive. I usually try to fight through this, I am so passionate about coding that I wouldn't for the life of me know what else I could be doing. This is when stuff can get really weird, I get so up in my head that I sort of lose touch with reality (to some extent) in that various actions, such as pouring a glass of water, no longer happen on a concious level. It happens on auto pilot, during which pretty much all of my concious concentration (is that even a thing?) is devoted to borderline pointless problem solving (trying to seperate elements of code). It feels like a losing battle. So I took an IQ test a while ago (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale I believe it was) and it turned out my Spatial Aptitude was quite low. I still got a decent score, just above average, so I won't have to poke things with a stick for a living, but I am a little worried that this is such a handicap when writing/engineering computer programs that I won't ever be able to do it seriously or professionally. I am very much interested in what other people think of this.. could a low spatial aptitude be the cause of the above described problems? Maybe I should be looking more along the lines of ADD or something similar, because I did get diagnosed with ADD at the age of 17 (5 years ago) but the medicine I received didn't seem to affect me that much so I never took it all that serious. Sorry if I got a little off topic there, I know this is not a mental help board, the question should be clear; How is programming affected by spatial aptitude? As far as I know people are born with low/med/high spatial aptitude, so I think it's interesting to find out if the more fortunate are better programmers by birth right.

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  • The Buzz at the JavaOne Bookstore

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    I found my way to the JavaOne bookstore, a hub of activity. Who says brick and mortar bookstores are dead? I asked what was hot and got two answers: Hadoop in Practice by Alex Holmes was doing well. And Scala for the Impatient by noted Java Champion Cay Horstmann also seemed to be a fast seller. Hadoop in PracticeHadoop is a framework that organizes large clusters of computers around a problem. It is touted as especially effective for large amounts of data, and is use such companies as  Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, eBay and LinkedIn. Hadoop in Practice collects nearly 100 Hadoop examples and presents them in a problem/solution format with step by step explanations of solutions and designs. It’s very much a participatory book intended to make developers more at home with Hadoop.The author, Alex Holmes, is a senior software engineer with more than 15 years of experience developing large-scale distributed Java systems. For the last four years, he has gained expertise in Hadoop solving Big Data problems across a number of projects. He has presented at JavaOne and Jazoon and is currently a technical lead at VeriSign.At this year’s JavaOne, he is presenting a session with VeriSign colleague, Karthik Shyamsunder called “Java: A Perfect Platform for Data Science” where they will explain how the Java platform has emerged as a perfect platform for practicing data science, and also talk about such technologies as Hadoop, Hive, Pig, HBase, Cassandra, and Mahout. Scala for the ImpatientSan Jose State University computer science professor and Java Champion Cay Horstmann is the principal author of the highly regarded Core Java. Scala for the Impatient is a basic, practical introduction to Scala for experienced programmers. Horstmann has a presentation summarizing the themes of his book on at his website. On the final page he offers an enticing summary of his conclusions:* Widespread dissatisfaction with Java + XML + IDEs               --Don't make me eat Elephant again * A separate language for every problem domain is not efficient               --It takes time to master the idioms* ”JavaScript Everywhere” isn't going to scale* Trend is towards languages with more expressive power, less boilerplate* Will Scala be the “one ring to rule them”?* Maybe              --If it succeeds in industry             --If student-friendly subsets and tools are created The popularity of both books echoed comments by IBM Distinguished Engineer Jason McGee who closed his part of the Sunday JavaOne keynote by pointing out that the use of Java in complex applications is increasingly being augmented by a host of other languages with strong communities around them – JavaScript, JRuby, Scala, Python and so forth. Java developers increasingly must know the strengths and weaknesses of such languages going forward.

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  • As a tooling/automation developer, can I be making better use of OOP?

    - by Tom Pickles
    My time as a developer (~8 yrs) has been spent creating tooling/automation of one sort or another. The tools I develop usually interface with one or more API's. These API's could be win32, WMI, VMWare, a help-desk application, LDAP, you get the picture. The apps I develop could be just to pull back data and store/report. It could be to provision groups of VM's to create live like mock environments, update a trouble ticket etc. I've been developing in .Net and I'm currently reading into design patterns and trying to think about how I can improve my skills to make better use of and increase my understanding of OOP. For example, I've never used an interface of my own making in anger (which is probably not a good thing), because I honestly cannot identify where using one would benefit later on when modifying my code. My classes are usually very specific and I don't create similar classes with similar properties/methods which could use a common interface (like perhaps a car dealership or shop application might). I generally use an n-tier approach to my apps, having a presentation layer, a business logic/manager layer which interfaces with layer(s) that make calls to the API's I'm working with. My business entities are always just method-less container objects, which I populate with data and pass back and forth between my API interfacing layer using static methods to proxy/validate between the front and the back end. My code by nature of my work, has few common components, at least from what I can see. So I'm struggling to see how I can better make use of OOP design and perhaps reusable patterns. Am I right to be concerned that I could be being smarter about how I work, or is what I'm doing now right for my line of work? Or, am I missing something fundamental in OOP? EDIT: Here is some basic code to show how my mgr and api facing layers work. I use static classes as they do not persist any data, only facilitate moving it between layers. public static class MgrClass { public static bool PowerOnVM(string VMName) { // Perform logic to validate or apply biz logic // call APIClass to do the work return APIClass.PowerOnVM(VMName); } } public static class APIClass { public static bool PowerOnVM(string VMName) { // Calls to 3rd party API to power on a virtual machine // returns true or false if was successful for example } }

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  • 3 Reasons You Need To Know Something About Every Technology

    - by Tim Murphy
    I make my living as a consultant and a general technologist.  I credit my success to the fact that I have never been afraid to pick up any product, language or platform needed to get the job done.  While Microsoft technologies I my mainstay, I have done work on mainframe and UNIX platforms and have worked with a wide variety of database engines.  Each one has it’s use and most times it is less expensive to find a way to communicate with an existing system than to replace it. So what are the main benefits of expending the effort to learn a new technology? New ways to solve problems Accelerate development Advise clients and get new business opportunities By new technology I mean ones that you haven’t had experience with before.  They don’t have to be the the one that just came out yesterday.  As they say, those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.  If you can learn something from an older technology it can be just as valuable as the shiny new one.  Either way, when you add another tool to your kit you get a new view on each problem you face.  This makes it easier to create a sound solution. The next thing you can learn from working with different products and techniques is how to more efficiently develop solve problems.  Many times if you are working with a new language you will find that there are specific design patterns that are used with it in normal use.  These can usually be applied with most languages.  You just needed to be exposed to them. The last point is about helping your clients and helping yourself.  If you can get in on technologies early you will have advantage over your competition in the market.  You will also be able to honestly advise you client on why they should or should not go with a new product.  Being able to compare products and their features is always an ability that stake holders appreciate. You don’t need to learn every detail of a product.  Learn enough to function and get an idea of how to use the technology.  Keep eating those technology Wheaties and you will be ready to go the distance in any project. del.icio.us Tags: Technology,technologists,technology generalist,Software Architecture

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  • Multiple country-specific domains or one global domain [closed]

    - by CJM
    Possible Duplicate: How should I structure my urls for both SEO and localization? My company currently has its main (English) site on a .com domain with a .co.uk alias. In addition, we have separate sites for certain other countries - these are also hosted in the UK but are distinct sites with a country-specific domain names (.de, .fr, .se, .es), and the sites have differing amounts of distinct but overlapping content, For example, the .es site is entirely in Spanish and has a page for every section of the UK site but little else. Whereas the .de site has much more content (but still less than the UK site), in German, and geared towards our business focus in that country. The main point is that the content in the additional sites is a subset of the UK, is translated into the local language, and although sometimes is simply only a translated version of UK content, it is usually 'tweaked' for the local market, and in certain areas, contains unique content. The other sites get a fraction of the traffic of the UK site. This is perfectly understandable since the biggest chunk of work comes from the UK, and we've been established here for over 30 years. However, we are wanting to build up our overseas business and part of that is building up our websites to support this. The Question: I posed a suggestion to the business that we might consider consolidating all our websites onto the .com domain but with /en/de/fr/se/etc sections, as plenty of other companies seem to do. The theory was that the non-english sites would benefit from the greater reputation of the parent .com domain, and that all the content would be mutually supporting - my fear is that the child domains on their own are too small to compete on their own compared to competitors who are established in these countries. Speaking to an SEO consultant from my hosting company, he feels that this move would have some benefit (for the reasons mentioned), but they would likely be significantly outweighed by the loss of the benefits of localised domains. Specifically, he said that since the Panda update, and particularly the two sets of changes this year, that we would lose more than we would gain. Having done some Panda research since, I've had my eyes opened on many issues, but curiously I haven't come across much that mentions localised domain names, though I do question whether Google would see it as duplicated content. It's not that I disagree with the consultant, I just want to know more before I make recommendations to my company. What is the prevailing opinion in this case? Would I gain anything from consolidating country-specific content onto one domain? Would Google see this as duplicate content? Would there be an even greater penalty from the loss of country-specific domains? And is there anything else I can do to help support the smaller, country-specific domains?

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  • Using HBase or Cassandra for a token server

    - by crippy
    I've been trying to figure out how to use HBase/Cassandra for a token system we're re-implementing. I can probably squeeze quite a lot more from MySQL, but it just seems it has come to clinging on to the wrong tool for the task just because we know it well. Eventually will hit a wall (like happened to us in other areas). Naturally I started looking into possible NoSQL solutions. The prominent ones (at least in terms of buzz) are HBase and Cassandra. The story is more or less like this: A user can send a gift other users. Each gift has a list of recipients or is public in which case limited by number or expiration date For each gift sent we generate some token that uniquely identifies that gift. For each gift we track the list of potential recipients and their current status relating to that gift (accepted, declinded etc). A user can request to see all his currently pending gifts A can request a list of users he has sent a gift to today (used to limit number of gifts sent) Required the ability to "dump" or "ignore" expired gifts (x day old gifts are considered expired) There are some other requirements but I believe the above covers the essentials. How would I go and model that using HBase or Cassandra? Well, the wall was performance. A few 10s of millions of records per day over 2 tables kept for 2 weeks (wish I could have kept it for more but there was no way). The response times kept getting slower and slower until eventually we had to start cutting down number of days we kept data. Caching helps here but it's not an ideal solution since a big part of the ops are updates. Also, as I hinted in my original post. We use MySQL extensively. We know exactly what it can and can't do both in naive implementations followed by native partitioning and finally by horizontally sharding our dataset on the application level to reside on multiple DB nodes. It can be done, but that's not really what I'm trying to get from this. I asked a very specific question about designing a solution using a NoSQL solution since it's very hard to find examples for designs out there. Brainlag, not trying to come off as rude. I actually appreciate it a lot that you are the only one who even bothered to respond. but I see it over and over again. People ask questions and others assume they have no idea what they're talking about and give an irrelevant answer. Ignore RDBMS please. The question is about nosql.

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  • Who Are the BI Users in Your Neighborhood?

    - by [email protected]
    By Brian Dayton on March 19, 2010 10:52 PM Forrester's Boris Evelson recently wrote a blog titled "Who are the BI Personas?" that I enjoyed for a number of reasons. It's a quick read, easy to grasp and (refreshingly) focuses on the users of technology VS the technology. As Evelson admits, he meant to keep the reference chart at a high-level because there are too many different permutations and additional sub-categories to make such a chart useful. For me, I wouldn't head into the technical permutations but more the contextual use of BI and the issues that users experience. My thoughts brought up more questions than answers such as: Context: - HOW: With the exception of the "Power User" persona--likely some sort of business or operations analyst? - WHEN: Are they using the information to make real-time decisions on the front lines (a customer service manager or shipping/logistics VP) or are they using this information for cumulative analysis and business planning? Or both? - WHERE: What areas of the business are more or less likely to rely on BI across an organization? Human Resources, Operations, Facilities, Finance--- and why are some more prone to use data-driven analysis than others? Issues: - DELAYS & DRAG ON IT?: One of the persona characteristics Evelson calls out is a reliance on IT. Every persona except for the "Power User" has a heavy reliance on IT for support. What business issues or delays does that cause to users? What is the drag on IT resources who could potentially be creating instead of reporting? - HOW MANY CLICKS: If BI is being used within the context of a transaction (sales manager looking for upsell opportunities as an example) is that person getting the information within the context of that action or transaction? Or are they minimizing screens, logging into another application or reporting tool, running queries, etc.? Who are the BI Users in your neighborhood or line of business? Do Evelson's personas resonate--and do the tools that he calls out (he refers to it as "BI Style") resonate with what your personas have or need? Finally, I'm very interested if BI use is viewed as a bolt-on...or an integrated part of your daily enterprise processes?

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  • Using Resources the Right Way

    - by BuckWoody
    It’s an interesting time in computing technology. At one point there was a dearth of information available for solving a given problem, or educating ourselves on broader topics so that we can solve problems in the future. With dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands of web sites and content available (for free, in many cases) from vendors, peers, even colleges and universities, it seems like there is actually too much information. Who has the time to absorb all this information and training? Even if you had the inclination, where to start? In fact, it seems so overwhelming that I often hear people saying that they can’t find the training they need, or that vendor X or Y “doesn’t help their users”. On questioning these folks, however, I often find that they – and sometimes I - haven’t put in the effort to learn what resources we have. That’s where blogs, like this one, can help. If you follow a blog, either by checking it often or perhaps subscribing to the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, you’ll be able to spread out the search or create a mental filter for the information you need. But it’s not enough just read a blog or a web page. The creators need real feedback – what doesn’t work, and what does. Yes, you’re allowed to tell a vendor or writer “This helped me because…” so that you reinforce the positives. To be sure, bring up what doesn’t work as well –  that’s fine. But be specific, and be constructive. You’d be surprised at how much it matters. I know for a fact at Microsoft we listen – there is a real live person that reads your comments. I’m sure this is true of other vendors, and I also know that most blog authors – yours truly most especially – wants to know what you think.   In this blog entry I’d to call your attention to three resources you have at your disposal, and how you can use them to help. I’ll try to bring up things like this from time to time that I find useful, and cover in them in more depth like this. Think of this as a synopsis of a longer set of resources that you can use to filter whether you want to research further, bookmark, or forward on to a circle of friends where you think it might help them.   Data Driven Design Concepts http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156154 I’ll start with a great site that walks you through the process of designing a solution from a data-first perspective. As you know, I believe all computing is merely re-arranging data. If you follow that logic as well, you’ll realize that whenever you create a solution, you should start at the data-end of the application. This resource helps you do that. Even if you don’t use the specific technologies the instructions use, the concepts hold for almost any other technology that deals with data. This should be a definite bookmark for a developer, DBA, or Data Architect. When I mentioned my admiration for this resource here at Microsoft, the team that created it contacted me and asked if I’d share an e-mail address to my readers so that you can comment on it. You’re guaranteed to be heard – you can suggest changes, talk about how useful – or not – it is, and so on. Here’s that address:  [email protected]   End-to-End Example of a complete Hybrid Application – with Live Demo https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx I learn by example. I also like having ready-made, live, functional demos that show the completed solution at work. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how a complex, complete, hybrid application that bridges on-premises systems with cloud-based databases, code, functions and more, this is it. It’s a stock-trading simulator, and you can get everything from the design to the code itself, or you can just play with the application. It’s running on Windows Azure, the actual production servers we use for everything else. Using a Cloud-Based Service https://azureconfigweb.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx Along with that stock-trading application, you have a full demonstration and usable code sample of a web-based service available. If you’re a developer, this is a style of code you need to understand for everything from iPhone development to a full Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment. So check out these resources. I’ll post more from time to time as I run across them. Hopefully they’ll be as useful to you as they are to me. Oh, and if you have a comment on any of the resources, let them know. And if you have any comments about these or any of my entries, feel free to post away. To quote a famous TV Show: “Hello Seattle – I’m listening…”

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