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• Showing and hidding a DIV

  - by user1741568

  I'm in the process of building a gallery for my public art pieces. I was wondering if there was an easy way to show and hide a div? I only want the concept text to be seen on the first page of the following link: http://www.gerardtonti.com/PresentTense/PresentTense.html Right now I have the concept in a div called "concept" set to absolute positioning. Is there also a way for the text to conform relative to the size of the window like the background image? I've also tried using an iframe and colorbox instead of a div but had no idea how to make the iframe visible only on the first slide as well. Wether using an iframe or div, I was wondering if it was possible to hide either on the frames that follow the first slide. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Gerry

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• Unicode string handling using Windows API

  - by DeadMG

  I always assumed that Unicode string handling was some dark art. However, I've seen that the Windows API has functions for comparing Unicode strings, for example. Does that mean that it's actually feasible to write a Unicode string class that can perform simple actions like sorting, equality comparison, and extraction from a file? Or are there hidden gotchas in the use of these functions that makes it actually a really bad idea? I'm just looking at libraries like ICU and they seem incredibly over-complicated compared to what a Unicode string class backed by the Windows API could actually look like, which would resemble the Standard string classes quite closely.

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• .NET string contains string[]

  - by Mike

  I'm having a small issue putting together this contains statement any help would be awesome. string betaFilePath = @"C:\resultsalpha.txt"; StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(betaFilePath, FileMode.Open)) using (StreamReader rdr = new StreamReader((fs))) { while (!rdr.EndOfStream) { string betaFileLine = rdr.ReadLine(); { string[] onlythese = {@"apple/",@"aee/",@"www/",@"blk/",@"art/",@"purp/",@"ora/",@"red/",@"brd/",@"biek/",@"biz/"}; if (betaFileLine.Contains(onlythese)) { File.AppendAllText(@"C:\testtestest.txt", betaFileLine); } } } Error: Argument '1': cannot convert from 'string[]' to 'string' - if (betaFileLine.Contains(onlythese))

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• How to Quickly Cut a Clip From a Video File with Avidemux

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Whether you’re cutting out the boring parts of your vacation video or getting a hilarious scene for an animated GIF, Avidemux provides a quick and easy way to cut clips from any video file. It’s overkill to use a full-featured video editing program if you just want to cut a few clips from a video file. Even programs that are designed to be small can have confusing interfaces when dealing with video. We’ve found that a great free program, Avidemux, makes the job of cutting clips extremely simple. Note: While the screenshots in this guide are taken from the Windows version, Avidemux runs on all of the major platforms – Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (GTK). Image by Keith Williamson. Cutting Clips from a Video File Open up Avidemux, and load the video file that you want to work with. If you get a prompt like this one: we recommend clicking Yes to use the safer mode. Find the portion of the video that you’d like to isolate. Get as close as you can to the start of the clip you want to cut. Once you find the start of your clip, look at the “Frame Type” of the current frame. You want it to read I; if it isn’t frame type I, then use the single left and right arrow buttons to go forward or backward one frame until you find an appropriate I frame. Once you’ve found the right starting frame, click the button with the A over a red bar. This will set the start of the clip. Advance to where you want your clip to end. Click on the button with a B when you’ve found the appropriate frame. This frame can be of any type. You can now save the clip, either by going to File –> Save –> Save Video… or by pressing Ctrl+S. Give the file a name, and Avidemux will prepare your clip. And that’s it! You should now have a movie file that contains only the portion of the original file that you want. Download Avidemux free for all platforms Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? Battlestar Galactica – Caprica Map of the 12 Colonies (Wallpaper Also Available) View Enlarged Versions of Thumbnail Images with Thumbnail Zoom for Firefox IntoNow Identifies Any TV Show by Sound Walk Score Calculates a Neighborhood’s Pedestrian Friendliness Factor Fantasy World at Twilight Wallpaper Hack a Wireless Doorbell into a Snail Mail Indicator

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• Using Pandora in Boxee

  - by Mysticgeek

  Boxee is a very cool multimedia app that lets you access and stream your digital media in many different ways. There’s also a lot of extra apps included with it, and today we take a look at the Pandora application in Boxee. Pandora has been a favorite free music streaming service that’s been around for some time now. Though there are new services like Grooveshark and Spotify that are competing, Pandora is still a reliable choice. It’s now included in Boxee, and here we take a look at using it. Create a Pandora Account If you don’t already have a Pandora account, you can easily create one at their website (link below). Pandora in Boxee To start using Pandora from Boxee, launch Boxee and from the main menu select Apps. Now from the My Apps section select Pandora. When the Pandora app menu comes up, select Start. Now you need to log into your Pandora account. After signing in you can starting listening to your stations, viewing artist info, and cover art. All while enjoying some cool visuals in the background. From the controls at the top you can control playback, skip songs, control volume, get information on why a song was picked, and give a song a thumbs up or down. Of course you can also pull up your stations and switch between them and add more. The same features you’ve come to expect from Pandora are available. One thing we noticed missing is not being able to click on the band or artist to get additional information about them –which you can do on the Pandora site and desktop app. But that isn’t a deal breaker by any means, and we’re hoping the feature will be added in the future. Then while you’re checking out other apps, shows, and setting within Boxee, the cool visuals continue and the songs from you stations keep playing. Conclusion Pandora is a great streaming music service and a welcome edition to Boxee. If you’re a fan of Pandora now you can listen to it on your home theater system. If you’re new to Boxee, make sure to check out our article on getting started with Boxee. Create a Pandora Account Download Boxee Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Integrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7Getting Started with BoxeePandora One is a Worthwhile Upgrade for Your Current Pandora AccountCreate Music Video Playlists with TubeRadio.fmSpotify is an Awesome Music Streaming Service 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 Draw Online using Harmony How to Browse Privately in Firefox Kill Processes Quickly with Process Assassin Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar Explore Google Public Data Visually

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• MAXDOP in SQL Azure

  - by Herve Roggero

  In my search of better understanding the scalability options of SQL Azure I stumbled on an interesting aspect: Query Hints in SQL Azure. More specifically, the MAXDOP hint. A few years ago I did a lot of analysis on this query hint (see article on SQL Server Central:  http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Configuring/managingmaxdegreeofparallelism/1029/).  Here is a quick synopsis of MAXDOP: It is a query hint you use when issuing a SQL statement that provides you control with how many processors SQL Server will use to execute the query. For complex queries with lots of I/O requirements, more CPUs can mean faster parallel searches. However the impact can be drastic on other running threads/processes. If your query takes all available processors at 100% for 5 minutes... guess what... nothing else works. The bottom line is that more is not always better. The use of MAXDOP is more art than science... and a whole lot of testing; it depends on two things: the underlying hardware architecture and the application design. So there isn't a magic number that will work for everyone... except 1... :) Let me explain. The rules of engagements are different. SQL Azure is about sharing. Yep... you are forced to nice with your neighbors.  To achieve this goal SQL Azure sets the MAXDOP to 1 by default, and ignores the use of the MAXDOP hint altogether. That means that all you queries will use one and only one processor.  It really isn't such a bad thing however. Keep in mind that in some of the largest SQL Server implementations MAXDOP is usually also set to 1. It is a well known configuration setting for large scale implementations. The reason is precisely to prevent rogue statements (like a SELECT * FROM HISTORY) from bringing down your systems (like a report that should have been running on a different in the first place) and to avoid the overhead generated by executing too many parallel queries that could cause internal memory management nightmares to the host Operating System. Is summary, forcing the MAXDOP to 1 in SQL Azure makes sense; it ensures that your database will continue to function normally even if one of the other tenants on the same server is running massive queries that would otherwise bring you down. Last but not least, keep in mind as well that when you test your database code for performance on-premise, make sure to set the DOP to 1 on your SQL Server databases to simulate SQL Azure conditions.

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• Book Review: Inside Windows Communicat?ion Foundation by Justin Smith

  - by Sam Abraham

  In gearing up for a new major project, I have taken it upon myself to research and review various aspects of our Microsoft stack of choice seeking new creative ways for us to leverage in our upcoming state-of-the-art solution projected to position us ahead of the competition. While I am a big supporter of search engines and online articles as a quick and usually reliable source of information, I have opted in my investigative quest to actually “hit the books”.  I have also made it a habit to provide quick reviews for material I go over hoping this can be of help to someone who may be looking for items others may have had success using for reference. I have started a few months ago by investigating better ways to implementing, profiling and troubleshooting SQL Server 2008. My reference of choice was Itzik Ben-Gan et al’s “Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008” series. While it has been a month since my last book review, this by no means meant that I have been sitting idle. It has been pretty challenging to balance research with the continuous flow of projects and deadlines all while balancing that with my family duties which, of course, always comes first. In this post, I will be providing a quick review of my latest reading: Inside Windows Communication Foundation by Justin Smith. This book has been on my reading list for a very long time and I am proud to have finally tackled it. Justin’s book presents a great coverage of WCF internals. His simple, concise and well-worded style has simplified the relatively complex internals of WCF and made it comprehensible. Justin opted to organize the book into three parts: an introduction to WCF, coverage of the Channel Layer and a look at WCF internals at the ServiceModel layer. Part I introduced the concepts and made the case behind WCF while covering a simplified version of WCF’s message patterns, endpoints and contracts. In Part II, Justin provided a thorough coverage of the internals of Messages, Channels and Channel Managers. Part III concluded this nice reading with coverage of Bindings, Contracts, Dispatchers and Clients. While one would not likely need to extend WCF at that low level of the API, an understanding of the inner-workings of WCF is a must to avoid pitfalls mainly caused by misinformation or erroneous assumptions. Problems can quickly arise in high-traffic hosted solutions, but most can be easily avoided with some minimal time investment and education. My next goal is to pay a closer look at WCF from the programmer’s API perspective now that I have acquired a better understanding of its inner working.   Many thanks to the O’Reilly User Group Program and its support of our West Palm Beach Developers’ Group.   Stay tuned for more… All the best, --Sam

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• Oracle Releases New Mainframe Re-Hosting in Oracle Tuxedo 11g

  - by Jason Williamson

  I'm excited to say that we've released our next generation of Re-hosting in 11g. In fact I'm doing some hands-on labs now for our Systems Integrators in Italy in a couple of weeks and targeting Latin America next month. If you are an SI, or Rehosting firm and are looking to become an Oracle Partner or get a better understanding of Tuxedo and how to use the workbench for rehosting...drop me a line. Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS and Batch 11g provides a CICS API emulation and Batch environment that exploits the full range of Oracle Tuxedo's capabilities. Re-hosted applications run in a multi-node, grid environment with centralized production control. Also, enterprise integration of CICS application services benefits from an open and SOA-enabled framework. Key features include: CICS Application Runtime: Can run IBM CICS applications unchanged in an application grid, which enables the distribution of large workloads across multiple processors and nodes. This simplifies CICS administration and can scale to over 100,000 users and over 50,000 transactions per second. 3270 Terminal Server: Protects business users from change through support for tn3270 terminal emulation. Distributed CICS Resource Management: Simplifies deployment and administration by allowing customers to run CICS regions in a distributed configuration. Batch Application Runtime: Provides robust IBM JES-like job management that enables local or remote job submissions. In addition, distributed batch initiators can enable parallelization of jobs and support fail-over, shortening the batch window and helping to meet stringent SLAs. Batch Execution Environment: Helps to run IBM batch unchanged and also supports JCL functionality and all common batch utilities. Oracle Tuxedo Application Rehosting Workbench 11g provides a set of automated migration tools integrated around a central repository. The tools provide high precision which results in very low error rates and the ability to handle large applications. This enables less expensive, low-risk migration projects. Key capabilities include: Workbench Repository and Cataloguer: Ensures integrity of the migrated application assets through full dependency checking. The Cataloguer generates and maintains all relevant meta-data on source and target components. File Migrator: Supports reliable migration of datasets and flat files to an ISAM or Oracle Database 11g. This is done through the automated migration utilities for data unloading, reloading and validation. It also generates logical access functions to shield developers from data repository changes. DB2 Migrator: Similarly, this tool automates the migration of DB2 schema and data to Oracle Database 11g. COBOL Migrator: Supports migration of IBM mainframe COBOL assets (OLTP and Batch) to open systems. Adapts programs for compiler dialects and data access variations. JCL Migrator: Supports migration of IBM JCL jobs to a Tuxedo ART environment, maintaining the flow and characteristics of batch jobs.

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• Is your test method self-validating ?

  - by mehfuzh

  Writing state of art unit tests that can validate your every part of the framework is challenging and interesting at the same time, its like becoming a samurai. One of the key concept in this is to keep our test synced all the time as underlying code changes and thus breaking them to the furthest unit as possible.  This also means, we should avoid  multiple conditions embedded in a single test. Let’s consider the following example of transfer funds. [Fact] public void ShouldAssertTranserFunds() {     var currencyService = Mock.Create<ICurrencyService>();     //// current rate     Mock.Arrange(() => currencyService.GetConversionRate("AUS", "CAD")).Returns(0.88f);       Account to = new Account { Currency = "AUS", Balance = 120 };     Account from = new Account { Currency = "CAD" };       AccountService accService = new AccountService(currencyService);       Assert.Throws<InvalidOperationException>(() => accService.TranferFunds(to, from, 200f));       accService.TranferFunds(to, from, 100f);       Assert.Equal(from.Balance, 88);     Assert.Equal(20, to.Balance); } At first look,  it seems ok but as you look more closely , it is actually doing two tasks in one test. At line# 10 it is trying to validate the exception for invalid fund transfer and finally it is asserting if the currency conversion is successfully made. Here, the name of the test itself is pretty vague. The first rule for writing unit test should always reflect to inner working of the target code, where just by looking at their names it is self explanatory. Having a obscure name for a test method not only increase the chances of cluttering the test code, but it also gives the opportunity to add multiple paths into it and eventually makes things messy as possible. I would rater have two test methods that explicitly describes its intent and are more self-validating. ShouldThrowExceptionForInvalidTransferOperation ShouldAssertTransferForExpectedConversionRate Having, this type of breakdown also helps us pin-point reported bugs easily rather wasting any time on debugging for something more general and can minimize confusion among team members. Finally, we should always make our test F.I.R.S.T ( Fast.Independent.Repeatable.Self-validating.Timely) [ Bob martin – Clean Code]. Only this will be enough to ensure, our test is as simple and clean as possible.   Hope that helps

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• Oracle Systems and Solutions at OpenWorld Tokyo 2012

  - by ferhat

  Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo and JavaOne Tokyo will start next week April 4th. We will cover Oracle systems and Oracle Optimized Solutions in several keynote talks and general sessions. Full schedule can be found here. Come by the DemoGrounds to learn more about mission critical integration and optimization of complete Oracle stack. Our Oracle Optimized Solutions experts will be at hand to discuss 1-1 several of Oracle's systems solutions and technologies. Oracle Optimized Solutions are proven blueprints that eliminate integration guesswork by combing best in class hardware and software components to deliver complete system architectures that are fully tested, and include documented best practices that reduce integration risks and deliver better application performance. And because they are highly flexible by design, Oracle Optimized Solutions can be implemented as an end-to-end solution or easily adapted into existing environments. Oracle Optimized Solutions, Servers,  Storage, and Oracle Solaris  Sessions, Keynotes, and General Session Talks DAY TIME TITLE Notes Session Wednesday  April 4 9:00 - 11:15 Keynote: ENGINEERED FOR INNOVATION - Engineered Systems Mark Hurd,  President, Oracle Takao Endo, President & CEO, Oracle Corporation Japan John Fowler, EVP of Systems, Oracle Ed Screven, Chief Corporate Architect, Oracle English Session K1-01 11:50 - 12:35 Simplifying IT: Transforming the Data Center with Oracle's Engineered Systems Robert Shimp, Group VP, Product Marketing, Oracle English Session S1-01 15:20 - 16:05 Introducing Tiered Storage Solution for low cost Big Data Archiving S1-33 16:30 - 17:15 Simplifying IT - IT System Consolidation that also Accelerates Business Agility S1-42 Thursday  April 5 9:30 - 11:15 Keynote: Extreme Innovation Larry Ellison, Chief Executive Officer, Oracle English Session K2-01 11:50 - 13:20 General Session: Server and Storage Systems Strategy John Fowler, EVP of Systems, Oracle English Session G2-01 16:30 - 17:15 Top 5 Reasons why ZFS Storage appliance is "The cloud storage" by SAKURA Internet Inc L2-04 16:30 - 17:15 The UNIX based Exa* Performance IT Integration Platform - SPARC SuperCluster S2-42 17:40 - 18:25 Full stack solutions of hardware and software with SPARC SuperCluster and Oracle E-Business Suite  to minimize the business cost while maximizing the agility, performance, and availability S2-53 Friday April 6 9:30 - 11:15 Keynote: Oracle Fusion Applications & Cloud Robert Shimp, Group VP, Product Marketing Anthony Lye, Senior VP English Session K3-01 11:50 - 12:35 IT at Oracle: The Art of IT Transformation to Enable Business Growth English Session S3-02 13:00-13:45 ZFS Storagge Appliance: Architecture of high efficient and high performance S3-13 14:10 - 14:55 Why "Niko Niko doga" chose ZFS Storage Appliance to support their growing requirements and storage infrastructure By DWANGO Co, Ltd. S3-21 15:20 - 16:05 Osaka University: Lower TCO and higher flexibility for student study by Virtual Desktop By Osaka University S3-33 Oracle Developer Sessions with Oracle Systems and Oracle Solaris DAY TIME TITLE Notes LOCATION Friday April 6 13:00 - 13:45 Oracle Solaris 11 Developers D3-03 13:00 - 14:30 Oracle Solaris Tuning Contest Hands-On Lab D3-04 14:00 - 14:35 How to build high performance and high security Oracle Database environment with Oracle SPARC/Solaris English Session D3-13 15:00 - 15:45 IT Assets preservation and constructive migration with Oracle Solaris virtualization D3-24 16:00 - 17:30 The best packaging system for cloud environment - Creating an IPS package D3-34 Follow Oracle Infrared at Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn  to catch the latest news, developments, announcements, and inside views from  Oracle Optimized Solutions.

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• Executable Resumes

  - by Liam McLennan

  Over the past twelve months I have been thinking a lot about executable specifications. Long considered the holy grail of agile software development, executable specifications means expressing a program’s functionality in a way that is both readable by the customer and computer verifiable in an automatic, repeatable way. With the current generation of BDD and ATDD tools executable specifications seem finally within the reach of a significant percentage of the development community. Lately, and partly as a result of my craftsmanship tour, I have decided that soon I am going to have to get a job (gasp!). As Dave Hoover describes in Apprenticeship Patters, “you … have mentors and kindred spirits that you meet with periodically, [but] when it comes to developing software, you work alone.” The time may have come where the only way for me to feel satisfied and enriched by my work is to seek out a work environment where I can work with people smarter and more knowledgeable than myself. Having been on both sides of the interview desk many times I know how difficult and unreliable the process can be. Therefore, I am proposing the idea of executable resumes. As a journeyman programmer looking for a fruitful work environment I plan to write an application that demonstrates my understanding of the state of the art. Potential employers can download, view and execute my executable resume and judge wether my aesthetic sensibility matches their own. The concept of the executable resume is based upon the following assertion: A line of code answers a thousand interview questions Asking people about their experiences and skills is not a direct way of assessing their value to your organisation. Often it simple assesses their ability to mislead an interviewer. An executable resume demonstrates: The highest quality code that the person is able to produce. That the person is sufficiently motivated to produce something of value in their own time. That the person loves their craft. The idea of publishing a program to demonstrate a developer’s skills comes from Rob Conery, who suggested that each developer should build their own blog engine since it is the public representation of their level of mastery. Rob said: Luke had to build his own lightsaber – geeks should have to build their own blogs. And that should be their resume. In honour of Rob’s inspiration I plan to build a blog engine as my executable resume. While it is true that the world does not need another blog engine it is as good a project as any, it is a well understood domain, and I have not found an existing blog engine that I like. Executable resumes fit well with the software craftsmanship metaphor. It is not difficult to imagine that under the guild system master craftsmen may have accepted journeymen based on the quality of the work they had produced in the past. We now understand that when it comes to the functionality of an application that code is the final arbiter. Why not apply the same rule to hiring?

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• Customer Support Spotlight: Clemson University

  - by cwarticki

  I've begun a Customer Support Spotlight series that highlights our wonderful customers and Oracle loyalists.  A week ago I visited Clemson University.  As I travel to visit and educate our customers, I provide many useful tips/tricks and support best practices (as found on my blog and twitter). Most of all, I always discover an Oracle gem who deserves recognition for their hard work and advocacy. Meet George Manley.  George is a Storage Engineer who has worked in Clemson's Data Center all through college, partially in the Hardware Architecture group and partially in the Storage group. George and the rest of the Storage Team work with most all of the storage technologies that they have here at Clemson. This includes a wide array of different vendors' disk arrays, with the most of them being Oracle/Sun 2540's.  He also works with SAM/QFS, ACSLS, and our SL8500 Tape Libraries (all three Oracle/Sun products). (pictured L to R, Matt Schoger (Oracle), Mark Flores (Oracle) and George Manley) George was kind enough to take us for a data center tour.  It was amazing.  I rarely get to see the inside of data centers, and this one was massive. Clemson Computing and Information Technology’s physical resources include the main data center located in the Information Technology Center at the Innovation Campus and Technology Park. The core of Clemson’s computing infrastructure, the data center has 21,000 sq ft of raised floor and is powered by a 14MW substation. The ITC power capacity is 4.5MW.  The data center is the home of both enterprise and HPC systems, and is staffed by CCIT staff on a 24 hour basis from a state of the art network operations center within the ITC. A smaller business continuance data center is located on the main campus.  The data center serves a wide variety of purposes including HPC (supercomputing) resources which are shared with other Universities throughout the state, the state's medicaid processing system, and nearly all other needs for Clemson University. Yes, that's no typo (14,256 cores and 37TB of memory!!! Thanks for the tour George and thank you very much for your time.  The tour was fantastic. I enjoyed getting to know your team and I look forward to many successes from Clemson using Oracle products. -Chris WartickiGlobal Customer Management

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• Algorithm for spreading labels in a visually appealing and intuitive way

  - by mac

  Short version Is there a design pattern for distributing vehicle labels in a non-overlapping fashion, placing them as close as possible to the vehicle they refer to? If not, is any of the method I suggest viable? How would you implement this yourself? Extended version In the game I'm writing I have a bird-eye vision of my airborne vehicles. I also have next to each of the vehicles a small label with key-data about the vehicle. This is an actual screenshot: Now, since the vehicles could be flying at different altitudes, their icons could overlap. However I would like to never have their labels overlapping (or a label from vehicle 'A' overlap the icon of vehicle 'B'). Currently, I can detect collisions between sprites and I simply push away the offending label in a direction opposite to the otherwise-overlapped sprite. This works in most situations, but when the airspace get crowded, the label can get pushed very far away from its vehicle, even if there was an alternate "smarter" alternative. For example I get: B - label A -----------label C - label where it would be better (= label closer to the vehicle) to get: B - label label - A C - label EDIT: It also has to be considered that beside the overlapping vehicles case, there might be other configurations in which vehicles'labels could overlap (the ASCII-art examples show for example three very close vehicles in which the label of A would overlap the icon of B and C). I have two ideas on how to improve the present situation, but before spending time implementing them, I thought to turn to the community for advice (after all it seems like a "common enough problem" that a design pattern for it could exist). For what it's worth, here's the two ideas I was thinking to: Slot-isation of label space In this scenario I would divide all the screen into "slots" for the labels. Then, each vehicle would always have its label placed in the closest empty one (empty = no other sprites at that location. Spiralling search From the location of the vehicle on the screen, I would try to place the label at increasing angles and then at increasing radiuses, until a non-overlapping location is found. Something down the line of: try 0°, 10px try 10°, 10px try 20°, 10px ... try 350°, 10px try 0°, 20px try 10°, 20px ...

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• How to Quickly Add Multiple IP Addresses to Windows Servers

  - by Sysadmin Geek

  If you have ever added multiple IP addresses to a single Windows server, going through the graphical interface is an incredible pain as each IP must be added manually, each in a new dialog box. Here’s a simple solution. Needless to say, this can be incredibly monotonous and time consuming if you are adding more than a few IP addresses. Thankfully, there is a much easier way which allows you to add an entire subnet (or more) in seconds. Adding an IP Address from the Command Line Windows includes the “netsh” command which allows you to configure just about any aspect of your network connections. If you view the accepted parameters using “netsh /?” you will be presented with a list of commands each which have their own list of commands (and so on). For the purpose of adding IP addresses, we are interested in this string of parameters: netsh interface ipv4 add address Note: For Windows Server 2003/XP and earlier, “ipv4″ should be replaced with just “ip” in the netsh command. If you view the help information, you can see the full list of accepted parameters but for the most part what you will be interested in is something like this: netsh interface ipv4 add address “Local Area Connection” 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0 The above command adds the IP Address 192.168.1.2 (with Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0) to the connection titled “Local Area Network”. Adding Multiple IP Addresses at Once When we accompany a netsh command with the FOR /L loop, we can quickly add multiple IP addresses. The syntax for the FOR /L loop looks like this: FOR /L %variable IN (start,step,end) DO command So we could easily add every IP address from an entire subnet using this command: FOR /L %A IN (0,1,255) DO netsh interface ipv4 add address “Local Area Connection” 192.168.1.%A 255.255.255.0 This command takes about 20 seconds to run, where adding the same number of IP addresses manually would take significantly longer. A Quick Demonstration Here is the initial configuration on our network adapter: ipconfig /all Now run netsh from within a FOR /L loop to add IP’s 192.168.1.10-20 to this adapter: FOR /L %A IN (10,1,20) DO netsh interface ipv4 add address “Local Area Connection” 192.168.1.%A 255.255.255.0 After the above command is run, viewing the IP Configuration of the adapter now shows: Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? How to Use and Master the Notoriously Difficult Pen Tool in Photoshop HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats? How To Use Layer Masks and Vector Masks to Remove Complex Backgrounds in Photoshop Bring Summer Back to Your Desktop with the LandscapeTheme for Chrome and Iron The Prospector – Home Dash Extension Creates a Whole New Browsing Experience in Firefox KinEmote Links Kinect to Windows Why Nobody Reads Web Site Privacy Policies [Infographic] Asian Temple in the Snow Wallpaper 10 Weird Gaming Records from the Guinness Book

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• Speaking at Mix11

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  In April Microsoft will hold the next MIX event. MIX was usually targeted at web designers and developers but has grown over the years to be more a general conference focused on the web and devices. In other words: everything the normal consumer might encounter. It’s not your typical developers conference, although you’ll find many developers there as well. But next to the developers you’ll probably run into designers and user experience specialists as well. This year I am proud to say that I will be one of the people presenting there. Together with all the Surface MVP’s in the world (sounds impressive, but there are only 7 of us) we’ll host a panel discussion on all things Surface, NUI and everything else that matches those subjects. Here’s what the abstract says: The Natural User Interface (NUI) is a hot topic that generates a lot of excitement, but there are only a handful of companies doing real innovation with NUIs and most of the practical experience in the NUI style of design and development is limited to a small number of experts. The Microsoft Surface MVPs are a subset of these experts that have extensive real-world experience with Microsoft Surface and other NUI devices. This session is a panel featuring the Microsoft Surface MVPs and an unfiltered discussion with each other and the audience about the state of the art in NUI design and development. We will share our experiences and ideas, discuss what we think NUI will look like in the near future, and back up our statements with cutting-edge demonstrations prepared by the panelists involving combinations of Microsoft Surface 2.0, Kinect, and Windows Phone 7. We, as Surface MVPs think we are more than just Surface oriented. We like to think we are more NUI MVP’s. But since that’s not a technology with Microsoft you can’t actually become a NUI MVP so Surface is the one that comes the closest. We are currently working on the details of our session but believe me: it will blow you away. Several people we talked to have said this could potentially be the best session of Mix. Quite a challenge, but we’re up for it! Of course I won’t be telling you exactly what we’re going to do in Las Vegas but rest assured that when you visit our session you’ll leave with a lot of new ideas and hopefully be inspired to bring into practice what you’ve seen. Even if the technology we’ll show you isn’t readily available yet. So, if you are in Las Vegas between April 12th and 14th, please join Joshua Blake, Neil Roodyn, Rick Barraza, Bart Roozendaal, Josh Santangelo, Nicolas Calvi and myself for some NUI fun! See you in Vegas! Tags van Technorati: mix11,las vegas,surface,nui,kinecct

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• XNA Notes 001

  - by George Clingerman

  Just a quick recap of things I noticed going on in or around the XNA community this past week. I’m sure there’s a lot I missed (it’s a pretty big community with lots of different parts to it) but these where the things I caught that I thought were pretty cool. The XNA Team Michael Klucher gave a list of books every gamer should read. http://twitter.com/#!/mklucher/status/22313041135673344 Shawn Hargreaves posted Nelxon Studio posting about a cheatsheet for converting 3.1 to 4.0 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/01/04/xna-3-1-to-4-0-cheat-sheet.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter XNA Game Studio won the Frontline award for Programming Tool by GameDev magazine! Congrats to the XNA team! http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm XNA MVPs In January several MVPs were up for re-election, Jim Perry, Andy ‘The ZMan’ Dunn, Glenn Wilson and myself were all re-award a Microsoft MVP award for their contributions to the XNA/DirectX communities. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=XNA%2fDirectX A movement to get Michael McLaughlin an MVP award has started and you can join in too! http://twitter.com/#!/theBigDaddio/status/22744458621620224 http://www.xnadevelopment.com/MVP/MichaelMcLaughlinMVP.txt Don’t forget you can nominate ANYONE for a MVP award, that’s how they work. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpbecoming  XNA Developers James Silva of Ska Studios hit 9,200 sales of ZP2KX and recommends you listen to Infected Mushroom. http://twitter.com/#!/Jamezila/status/22538865357094912 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infected_Mushroom Noogy creator of the upcoming XBLA title Dust an Elysian tail posts some details into his art creation. http://noogy.com/image/statue/statue.html Xbox LIVE Indie Game News Microsoft posts acknowledging there was an issue with the sales data that has been addressed and apologized for not posting about it sooner. http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71347/436154.aspx#436154 Winter Uprising sales still chugging along and being updated by Xalterax (by those developers willing to actually share sales numbers. Thanks for sharing guys, much appreciated!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/70147.aspx Don’t forget about Dream Build Play coming up in February! http://www.dreambuildplay.com/Main/Home.aspx The Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games December Edition comes out on NeoGaf http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=414485 The Greatest XBox LIVE Indie Games of 2010 on DealSpwn – Congrats to DrMistry and MStarGames for his #1 spot with his massive XBLIG Space Pirates From Tomorrow! http://www.dealspwn.com/xbligoty-2010/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Dealspwn+%28Dealspwn%29 XNA Game Development The future of XACT and WP7 has finally been confirmed and we finally know what our options are for looping audio seamlessly on WP7. http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/61826/436639.aspx#436639  Super Mario 3 Design Notes is an interesting read for XBLIG developers, giving some insight to the training that natural occurs for players as they start playing the game. Good things for XBLIG developers to think about. http://www.significant-bits.com/super-mario-bros-3-level-design-lessons

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• How can story and gameplay be artfully merged?

  - by NauticalMile

  Let me give some context. Three of my friends and I have a pretty good game idea cooking. It's based off of a prototype I made that's evolving into a cool game mechanic. The mechanic itself is a toy that's fun on its own, but we haven't designed any puzzles around it yet. We have a design document going, and we are answering a lot of questions about what's in the game. It's become clear early on that everyone (including myself) likes the characters and the story a lot. Considering what our favorite games are, this is unsurprising. A story driven game makes sense to me. I like the emphasis that Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year-Door, Portal 2, and Tomb Raider place on story, and I imagine our game will have a similar feel (lots of dialogue, plot twists, lovable characters). However, one team member raised this point in the design doc: I am feeling like [fleshing out the story] is our biggest hurdle right now for making more design decisions - like more specific decisions about levels etc. Is this true? I am uncertain about working on the story extensively before gameplay, and my uneasiness was reinforced when I read this question about story vs. gameplay. What I want to say is: "Let's continue to work on the story, but also start brainstorming and prototyping abstract puzzles and combat sequences, and we'll creatively match them together later." Is this a reasonable approach? If so, how much of the development of these elements should be done independently? Should I try and create a whole bunch of puzzles while my other teammates focus on story and aesthetics? Then when we have a lot of story and game 'chunks' we can match them with eachother to build something meaningful. Or should we focus on iterating individual levels as distinct units where puzzles, story, etc... are designed together? Or maybe we need to put our excitement about the story on hold and just focus on gameplay. Is there another approach to design that we can take? Am I missing something crucial? I have discussed story and gameplay because they seem the most likely to be at odds with each other, but we also have to consider user interface, music, art direction, etc... Can we design these independently as well?

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• Desktop Fun: Runic Style Fonts

  - by Asian Angel

  Most of the time regular fonts are just what you need for documents, invitations, or adding text to images. But what if you are in the mood for something unusual or unique to add that perfect touch? If you like older runic style writing, then enjoy finding some new favorites for your collection with our Runic Style Fonts collection. Temple photo by ShinyShiny. Note: To manage the fonts on your Windows 7, Vista, & XP systems see our article here. The Runic Style Fonts Sable Download Worn Manuscript Download JSL Ancient Download Antropos Download Cave Gyrl Download The Roman Runes Alliance Download Ancient Geek Download Troll Download Runish Quill MK *includes two font types Download DS RUNEnglish 2 Download Runes Written *includes two font types Download Wolves And Ravens Download Art Greco Download Dalek Download Glagolitic AOE Download Linear B Download Cartouche Download Greywolf Glyphs *includes 62 individual characters Note: This group represents A – Z in all capital letters. Note: This group represents A – Z in all lower case letters. Note: This group represents the numbers 0 – 9. Download Africain *includes 62 individual characters Note: This group represents A – Z in all capital letters. Note: This group represents A – Z in all lower case letters. Note: This group represents the numbers 0 – 9. Download Cave Writings *includes 52 individual characters Note: This group represents A – Z in all capital letters. Note: This group represents A – Z in all lower case letters. Download For more great ways to customize your computer be certain to look through our Desktop Fun section. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Five Sleek Audi R8 Car Themes for Chrome and Iron MS Notepad Replacement Metapad Returns with a New Beta Version Spybot Search and Destroy Now Available as a Portable App (PortableApps.com) ShapeShifter: What Are Dreams? [Video] This Computer Runs on Geek Power Wallpaper Bones, Clocks, and Counters; A Look at the First 35,000 Years of Computing

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-08-28

  - by Bob Rhubart

  You may be tempted by IaaS, but you should PaaS on that or your database cloud journey will be a short one "The better option [to IaaS] is to rationalize the deployment stack so that VMs are needed only for exceptional cases," says B. R. Clouse. "By settling on a standard operating system and patch level, you create an infrastructure that potentially all of your databases can share. Now, the building block will be database instances or possibly schemas within databases. These components are the platforms on which you will deploy workloads, hence this is known as Platform as a Service (PaaS)." 'Shadow IT' can be the cloud's best friend | David Linthicum "I do not advocate that IT give up control and allow business units to adopt any old technology they want," says Infoworld cloud computing blogger David Linthicum. "However, IT needs to face reality: For the past three decades or so, corporate IT has been slow on the uptake around the use of productive new technologies." Do you agree? 9 ways cloud will impact IT employment | ZDNet ZDNet blogger Joe McKendrick condenses information from a recent report on how cloud computing will impact IT jobs. Number one on the list: New categories of jobs arising from cloud computing, which include "private cloud developers and administrators, departmental liaisons, integration specialists, cloud architects, and compliance specialists." Yeah, that's right, cloud architects. For more on cloud architects, including what you need to up your game to thrive in the cloud, check out "The Role of the Cloud Architect" on the OTN ArchBeat Podcast. Decisions, Decisions: The art, science, and politics of technology selection "When the time comes for a solution architect to make the final decision about the technologies, standards, and other elements that are to be incorporated into a particular project, what factors weigh most heavily on that decision? It comes as no surprise that among the architects I contacted, business needs top the list." Managing Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Anand Akela's byline is on this post, but "Dr. Jürgen Fleischer, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Engineering" appears at the end of the post, so it's anybody's guess as to who wrote this thing. But the content includes a complete listing of the Exalogic 2.0.1 Tea Break Snippets series written by a member of the Exalogic team who goes by the name "The Old Toxophilist." So maybe the best thing to do here is ignore the names and focus on the very useful conent. Boost your infrastructure with Coherence into the Cloud | Nino Guarnacci Nino Guarnacci describes a use case that involved managing a variety of data caches that process complex queries and parallel computational operations, in order to maintain the caches in a consistent state on different server instances. Thought for the Day "No one hates software more than software developers." — Jeff Atwood Source: SoftwareQuotes

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-09-05

  - by Bob Rhubart

  OTN Architect Day - Boston - Sept 12: What to Expect If you've never attended an OTN Architect Day, here's a little preview. You start with a continental breakfast. Then you have keynotes by an Oracle expert, and a member of the Oracle ACE community. After that come the break-out sessions, so you have your choice of two sessions in each time slot. So you'll get in two breakouts before lunch. Then you eat. After that there's a panel Q&A during which the audience tosses questions at the assembled session speakers. Then it's on to another set of break-out sessions, followed by a short break. Then the audience breaks into small groups for round table discussions. After that there's a drawing for some cool prizes, followed by the cocktail reception. All that costs you absolutely zero. Register now. Starting and Stopping Fusion Applications the Right Way | Ronaldo Viscuso While the fastartstop tool that ships with Oracle Fusion Applications does most of the work to start/stop/bounce the Fusion Apps environment, it does not do it all. Oracle Fusion Applications A-Team blogger Ronaldo Viscuso's post "aims to explain all tasks involved in starting and stopping a Fusion Apps environment completely." Dodeca Customer Feedback - The Rosewood Company | Tim Tow Oracle ACE Director Tim Tow shares anecdotal comments from one of his clients, a company that is deploying Dodeca to replace an aging VBA/Essbase application. Configuring UCM cache to check for external Content Server changes | Martin Deh Oracle WebCenter and ADF A-Team blogger Martin Deh shares the background information and the solution to a recently encountered customer scenario. Proxy As Upgrade to 11g Does Not Like NQSession.User | Art of Business Intelligence "In Oracle BI 10g the application was a lot more tolerant of bad design and cavalier usage of variables," observes Oracle ACE Christian Screen. "We noticed an issue recently during an upgrade where the Proxy As configuration in Oracle BI 10g used the NQSession.User variable to identify the user logged into Presentation Servers acting as Proxy." Oracle WebLogic Server 11g: Interactive Quick Reference | Dirk Nachbar Oracle ACE Dirk Nachbar shares a quick post with information on a new interactive reference guide to Oracle WebLogic Server. "The Quick Reference shows you an architecural overview of the Oracle WebLogic Server processes, tools, configuration files, log files and so on including a short description of each section and the corresponding link to the Oracle WebLogic Server Documentation," says Nachbar. Thought for the Day "In fast moving markets, adaptation is significantly more important than optimization." — Larry Constantine Source: Quotes for Software Engineers

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• Enterprise Service Bus (ESB): Important architectural piece to a SOA or is it just vendor hype?

  Is an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) an important architectural piece to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), or is it just vendor hype in order to sell a particular product such as SOA-in-a-box? According to IBM.com, an ESB is a flexible connectivity infrastructure for integrating applications and services; it offers a flexible and manageable approach to service-oriented architecture implementation. With this being said, it is my personal belief that ESBs are an important architectural piece to any SOA. Additionally, generic design patterns have been created around the integration of web services in to ESB regardless of any vendor. ESB design patterns, according to Philip Hartman, can be classified in to the following categories: Interaction Patterns: Enable service interaction points to send and/or receive messages from the bus Mediation Patterns: Enable the altering of message exchanges Deployment Patterns: Support solution deployment into a federated infrastructure Examples of Interaction Patterns: One-Way Message Synchronous Interaction Asynchronous Interaction Asynchronous Interaction with Timeout Asynchronous Interaction with a Notification Timer One Request, Multiple Responses One Request, One of Two Possible Responses One Request, a Mandatory Response, and an Optional Response Partial Processing Multiple Application Interactions Benefits of the Mediation Pattern: Mediator promotes loose coupling by keeping objects from referring to each other explicitly, and it lets you vary their interaction independently Design an intermediary to decouple many peers Promote the many-to-many relationships between interacting peers to “full object status” Examples of Interaction Patterns: Global ESB: Services share a single namespace and all service providers are visible to every service requester across an entire network Directly Connected ESB: Global service registry that enables independent ESB installations to be visible Brokered ESB: Bridges services that are reluctant to expose requesters or providers to ESBs in other domains Federated ESB: Service consumers and providers connect to the master or to a dependent ESB to access services throughout the network References: Mediator Design Pattern. (2011). Retrieved 2011, from SourceMaking.com: http://sourcemaking.com/design_patterns/mediator Hartman, P. (2006, 24 1). ESB Patterns that "Click". Retrieved 2011, from The Art and Science of Being an IT Architect: http://artsciita.blogspot.com/2006/01/esb-patterns-that-click.html IBM. (2011). WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance Version 2.0. Retrieved 2011, from IBM.com: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wdpxc/v2r0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.websphere.help.glossary.doc%2Ftopics%2Fglossary.html Oracle. (2005). 12 Interaction Patterns. Retrieved 2011, from Oracle® BPEL Process Manager Developer's Guide: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B31017_01/integrate.1013/b28981/interact.htm#BABHHEHD

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• Advice for how to handle company pride

  - by user17971

  We have this "amazing" little product using the latest development methodologies, components with all the bells and whistles. I took over this product maybe 6 months ago and struggled with it from day one. Even though it is supposedly is state of the art because of all its amazing structure, using dependency injections, inversion of control from the unity framework, hibernation and is domain driven in a .net mvvm xaml application to make it streamlined and modular. I knew from the moment I saw the monolith that it was going to be an uphill struggle for me. A lot of little code-bits scattered all around in neatly organized paradigms. Debugging is difficult, tracing the code is difficult, making new code is difficult, although some modifications is surprisinly easy but it doesn't out weight the problems I have with the code by a long shot. When I took over the project I was told that the new management console was ready for delivery and all I had to do was compile it and drop it. This was the beginning of a uphill struggle, our customer didn't agree at all that this was the functionality they had asked for so I had to do modifications to the program to their specifications. Since the project pretty much has been overdue since I took over it it has always been important that we didn't add or change much to the original system. I could modify the existing bits. fast forward until today where I finally completed all their comments and issues with the program but now I think that the users has opened their eyes (even though they saw this program many times) that they will be going backwards with this new system, that it will be much worse than the tool they got today (for a long time due to the fact that I'm the only resource on the project, project manager, tester, developer, integration specialist etc) My problem is that I lost faith in this system quite early due to the nature of the program. Although I made many changes and improvements to the system I wholeheartedly sympathize with the poor users who are going to start using this system. Its not nearly doing all the things it should do. I had this conversation internally with my boss where I told him what I thought about it, that if I were the customer I wouldn't have spent money developing it. So what do I do now? The system in ready, on a staging system and nobody likes it, its too slow and boring and does maybe do 50% of what they need it to do. Despite how much energy and working around the clock I've done to this project: I won't mind scrapping the system but we've spent much money (well my salaries) developing it and my company wants us to be proud of everything we do and advocate it. How will I tackle the contractor when he asks for advice? Surely I can tell him, this is what we agreed upon based on your use case scenarios, and be done with it? How will I inform my boss about this progress? He knows what I feel about it but I always get the feeling he let my criticism pass him by as just hot air, gone tomorrow,.

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• How can I make a universal construction more efficient?

  - by VF1

  A "universal construction" is a wrapper class for a sequential object that enables it to be linearized (a strong consistency condition for concurrent objects). For instance, here's an adapted wait-free construction, in Java, from [1], which presumes the existence of a wait-free queue that satisfies the interface WFQ (which only requires one-time consensus between threads) and assumes a Sequential interface: public interface WFQ<T> // "FIFO" iteration { int enqueue(T t); // returns the sequence number of t Iterable<T> iterateUntil(int max); // iterates until sequence max } public interface Sequential { // Apply an invocation (method + arguments) // and get a response (return value + state) Response apply(Invocation i); } public interface Factory<T> { T generate(); } // generate new default object public interface Universal extends Sequential {} public class SlowUniversal implements Universal { Factory<? extends Sequential> generator; WFQ<Invocation> wfq = new WFQ<Invocation>(); Universal(Factory<? extends Sequential> g) { generator = g; } public Response apply(Invocation i) { int max = wfq.enqueue(i); Sequential s = generator.generate(); for(Invocation invoc : wfq.iterateUntil(max)) s.apply(invoc); return s.apply(i); } } This implementation isn't very satisfying, however, since it presumes determinism of a Sequential and is really slow. I attempted to add memory recycling: public interface WFQD<T> extends WFQ<T> { T dequeue(int n); } // dequeues only when n is the tail, else assists other threads public interface CopyableSequential extends Sequential { CopyableSequential copy(); } public class RecyclingUniversal implements Universal { WFQD<CopyableSequential> wfqd = new WFQD<CopyableSequential>(); Universal(CopyableSequential init) { wfqd.enqueue(init); } public Response apply(Invocation i) { int max = wfqd.enqueue(i); CopyableSequential cs = null; int ctr = max; for(CopyableSequential csq : wfq.iterateUntil(max)) if(--max == 0) cs = csq.copy(); wfqd.dequeue(max); return cs.apply(i); } } Here are my specific questions regarding the extension: Does my implementation create a linearizable multi-threaded version of a CopyableSequential? Is it possible extend memory recycling without extending the interface (perhaps my new methods trivialize the problem)? My implementation only reduces memory when a thread returns, so can this be strengthened? [1] provided an implementation for WFQ<T>, not WFQD<T> - one does exist, though, correct? [1] Herlihy and Shavit, The Art of Multiprocessor Programming.

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• Quickly Copy Movie Files to Individually Named Folders

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Some HTPC media manager applications require movie files to be in stored in separate folders to properly store information such as cover art images and other metadata. Here we look at copying movie files to individual folders. If you already have a large movie collection stored in a single folder, we’ll show you how to quickly move those files into their own individually named folders. File2Folder FIle2folder is a handy portable app that automatically creates and moves movie files into a folder of the same filename. There is no installation needed. Simply download and run the .exe file (link below). Enter the current movie directory, or browse for the folder. File2folder now supports both local and network shares. When you are ready to create the folders and move the files, click Move! You’ll see the move progress displayed in the window. When the process is finished, you’ll have all your movie file in individual folders.   Change your mind? Just click the Undo! button…   …and the move and folder creation process will be undone. If you would like to have the folder monitored for new files, click the Start button. File2folder will process any new files it discovers every 180 seconds. To turn it off, click Stop. This simple little program is a huge timesaver for those looking to organize movie collections for their HTPC. We should also note that this will work with any files, not just videos. Download file2folder Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Hack: Turn Off Debug Mode in VMWare Workstation 6 BetaAdd Images and Metadata to Windows 7 Media Center Movie LibraryAdd Folders to the Movie Library in Windows 7 Media CenterAutomatically Mount and View ISO files in Windows 7 Media CenterMove the Public Folder in Windows Vista 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 HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician

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• Changing Your Design for Testability

  Sometimes I come across a way of putting something that it is pithy good, not Hallmark trite, but an impactful and concise way of clarifying a previously obscure concept. A recent one of these happy occurrences was when I was reading the excellent Art of Unit Testing by Roy Osherove. After going through the basics of why youd want to test code and how to do it, Roy confronts a frequent objection to having unit tests, that it ends up changing how you design your components: When we write unit tests for our code, we are adding another end user (the test) to the object model. That end user is just as important as the original one, but it has different goals when using the model.  The test has specific requirements from the object model that seem to defy the basic logic behind a couple of object-oriented principles, mainly encapsulation. [emphasis added by me] When I read this, something clicked for me. I used to find it persuasive that because unit tests caused you to change your design they were more disruptive than they were worth. The counter argument I heard is that the disruption was OK, because testable design was just obviously better. That argument was not convincing as it seemed like delusional arrogance to suggest that any one of type of design was just inherently better for the particular applications I was building. What was missing was that I was not thinking of unit tests as an additional and equal end user to my design. If I accepted that proposition, than it was indeed obvious that a testable design was better because now all users of my component would be satisfied. Have I accepted that proposition? Id phrase it slightly different. I find more and more that having unit tests helps me write better, less buggy code before it gets to production or QA. As I write more unit tests, it gets easier to see how to create testable components, so I dont feel like its taking me as much extra time up front. I pick and choose components that seem most likely to benefit from automated tests and it is working out nicely. If you already implement Test Driven Development, this whole post was probably a waste of your time <g> If you hate the idea of unit tests, well, probably not a great value prop for you either. However, if you are somewhere in between, at least take a minute and check out a sample chapter from Roys book at: http://www.manning.com/osherove/.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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